Narrative & Genre
Downton Abbey is a Period Drama set in the 1910's, the first episode set specifically in 1912. The narrative of the show follows different types of people who live in the Grantham Estate, from the servants and staff up to the Lords and Ladies.
The story in the extract we watched followed the news of the Titanic sinking making it's way to Lord Grantham. This meant seeing the different class and status between various characters. In 1912, class was incredibly divided. This is very prominent in the way the characters act around each other. Characters of a higher class tend to look down on the lower classes, speaking in a more derogatory manor however, when speaking amongst the same class they speak in more polite, respectful manor. The accents and dialect of characters are also very distinct between classes, which makes it easy to tell the difference between characters straight away. The lower classes sound like they are less educated than the higher classes due to the words they use.
The narrative of the extract/scene we watched follows characters in order of their class. Introducing the poorer, worse off people first and as more are introduced, going up the ladder in terms of their class. Each character that is introduced is of a higher class each time until we eventually meet the lords and ladies of the manor. The news of the Titanic sinking travels through each of these characters, each of them reacting to the news before they hand it over to another character.
Mise en Scène
Despite the caption at the beginning saying '1912', there are many other details in the show that indicate it is set in that specific time period. Things such as costume and set design is an important part of creating the illusion all that is taking place in the show is during 1912.
The costumes of the characters are very specific to the time period it is set in. Although the clothes worn are very different to what people wear nowadays, it is still very obvious to the audience which characters fall into which class. The lower class workers wear much more basic, plainer clothes compared to the lords and ladies who wear very expensive looking, posh garments. There are also different classes of workers too, the servants who deliver the food and drinks to the lords and ladies wear black suits, much nicer clothing than the staff in the kitchen making the food who wear dull, scruffy looking rag-like clothes.
The set in the show is a large manor with many different rooms. The varied rooms look distinctly different. The kitchens and the bedrooms of the staff are very dull and grey, with very little detail on the walls or on furniture. As we follow staff into the main living areas and rooms of Downton Abbey, the surroundings of the characters change. The rooms where the higher classes stay are much more furnished with more extravagant items and they have much more detailed design in the architecture of the room. A lot of the furniture in the room is made from expensive materials such as leather, silk and even coloured gold in some cases.
Camera & Editing
The use of camera in the extract is another way class is represented. One of the opening shots is one long tracking shot follows different characters through the different rooms. Each time the camera switches between a characters, that next character is of a higher class. It changes character multiple times, throughout the tracking shot as a way of going up in the ranks of the abbey.
The shots and editing used are different between classes. The staff in the kitchen are the first to be shown and their scene is very fast and rapidly paced with fast camera movement and quick cuts. This represents the hectic environment of their work and possibly even their lifestyle. However, the camera and editing for Lord Grantham when he walks down the stairs towards the end of the extract (as he is the last character to be shown) is very slow and calm. There are only 2 shots used when he walks down the stairs, a close up of his feet and a wide shot of the entire staircase. There is only one cut between these for the entire scene. The camera movement is a very slow pan as he walks down the stairs which represents the calm in his life as all the hectic jobs are taken up by the staff.
Sound
The sound and music is also a huge indicator of class in Downton Abbey. The music used is classical and sets the scene of 1912.
The music is very subtle when we first meet the characters of the staff, and it is a slow start. Upon those characters entering the abbey the volume of the music increases and becomes a much bigger sound to show that the abbey is very extravagant and is quite a lot to take in. The music makes the building feel larger than life.
While following the workers in the tracking shot the music stays very fast paced and hectic to show the workers all at different jobs and switching jobs frequently. The music stays this way all the way through the extract until Lord Grantham enters. When he does, the music drastically slows down to a much more peaceful calming sound. Similarly to the camera movement, everything about this scene slows down representing a calming important presence in the scene.
8 June 2017
Unit 15: Developing a Small Business in the Creative Media Industries - Task 3 - Business Idea/Proposal
While Ufilms is currently very successful for us, many of us are leaving for University in September, meaning it could be difficult to continue Ufilms as it currently stands. Instead, we hope to extend Ufilms to different regions, starting Ufilms branches around the country. The specific branch of Ufilms I would hope to start would be Ufilms Manchester, as this is where I would be living for the next 3 years. I would be able to transfer the skills I have gained while being part of Ufilms and use them in another branch as the jobs I would be doing would be very similar to what I've done previously. Ufilms currently offers filming, editing and DVD production services via the college facilities and I would hope to do the same using the university facilities.
I believe starting a new Ufilms branch in another part of the country is a practical, smart business move instead of just giving up working with the business. I will have the strong reputation that Ufilms has gained over the past year to take with me to Manchester and use to my advantage. While this will be a new business, I will be able to show customers the show reel of films we have created in the past under the same brand name.
There are many varied businesses in and around the Manchester area and there are huge amounts of people who are all potential customers. Opening the business to a new area opens up a huge amount of new opportunities for Ufilms as promo videos are a very important part of businesses with the rise of social media and, as is the situation currently, we have many customers who just want their events filming such as weddings, for example, so having a whole new highly populated area to work in means there are a lot of potential customers.
To reach customers Ufilms Manchester would need to use work from previous Ufilms jobs to show how we work and the products we can make. We would make an updated 'What We Do' video, just like we have on our current Ufilms Facebook page, with all of our latest work featured in it. We would create a Ufilms Manchester Facebook page and post it there. Setting up the page as being in Manchester will allow us to advertise to local people, our target audience for this business. We could make a link with the university to promote the business as it would also promote their Film & TV courses. Other than advertising via social media, the best way to get Ufilms Manchester known will be to share it through word of mouth, telling people about it whenever possible.
As for staffing the business, 4 members of Ufilms,including myself, are attending the same university in Manchester. This means I will not need to start a new branch of Ufilms myself as we can all continue working for the business. Having 4 people who have already worked for Ufilms means that the business already has credibility as we are able to tell customers we have all previously worked on some of the most successful projects produced by Ufilms in the past. We will start the business with 4 team members which will allow us to cover different aspects of it each, making it a smoother process of bringing Ufilms to a new part of the country. As the business grows and we continue to work in Manchester, we will need more staff. A great place to start would be contacting the many people on our course and discussing the possibility of working for Ufilms. We will have a huge amount of people to choose from and working for a small media production business while being a university student is great experience for a media CV and for a show reel and it is also a great way to create an income. This would be very appealing to the majority of film and TV students at university and we would be able to staff the business from there.
I believe starting a new Ufilms branch in another part of the country is a practical, smart business move instead of just giving up working with the business. I will have the strong reputation that Ufilms has gained over the past year to take with me to Manchester and use to my advantage. While this will be a new business, I will be able to show customers the show reel of films we have created in the past under the same brand name.
There are many varied businesses in and around the Manchester area and there are huge amounts of people who are all potential customers. Opening the business to a new area opens up a huge amount of new opportunities for Ufilms as promo videos are a very important part of businesses with the rise of social media and, as is the situation currently, we have many customers who just want their events filming such as weddings, for example, so having a whole new highly populated area to work in means there are a lot of potential customers.
To reach customers Ufilms Manchester would need to use work from previous Ufilms jobs to show how we work and the products we can make. We would make an updated 'What We Do' video, just like we have on our current Ufilms Facebook page, with all of our latest work featured in it. We would create a Ufilms Manchester Facebook page and post it there. Setting up the page as being in Manchester will allow us to advertise to local people, our target audience for this business. We could make a link with the university to promote the business as it would also promote their Film & TV courses. Other than advertising via social media, the best way to get Ufilms Manchester known will be to share it through word of mouth, telling people about it whenever possible.
As for staffing the business, 4 members of Ufilms,including myself, are attending the same university in Manchester. This means I will not need to start a new branch of Ufilms myself as we can all continue working for the business. Having 4 people who have already worked for Ufilms means that the business already has credibility as we are able to tell customers we have all previously worked on some of the most successful projects produced by Ufilms in the past. We will start the business with 4 team members which will allow us to cover different aspects of it each, making it a smoother process of bringing Ufilms to a new part of the country. As the business grows and we continue to work in Manchester, we will need more staff. A great place to start would be contacting the many people on our course and discussing the possibility of working for Ufilms. We will have a huge amount of people to choose from and working for a small media production business while being a university student is great experience for a media CV and for a show reel and it is also a great way to create an income. This would be very appealing to the majority of film and TV students at university and we would be able to staff the business from there.
7 June 2017
Unit 15: Developing a Small Business in the Creative Media Industries - Task 1B - Project Management
As part of our small business, 'Ufilms', we each had to project manage a production. The production which I managed was a promo video for Page2Stage Parties, a party/entertainment company for children. My management of this production started when I was yet to be in charge of a project and decided I had good ideas to contribute to this one. I began to joint manage the project with Chloe.
There was already ideas for the promo but I felt like they could be improved upon quite a lot. The original idea followed the Page2Stage parties staff getting ready as different characters and going to a children's party. I suggested that the idea shouldn't follow people pretending to be characters, as it isn't the point of the party company, but should fully commit to the characters and create a story of the actual characters making their way to a party. The promo would follow a story of all the different characters the company had to offer going out of the way of their usual lives to go to a child's party. Using the actual characters going on a journey to the party, I felt, adds a special touch to the promo which makes the customer and the children feel like the real characters are coming to the parties. This idea was the one we went ahead with.
Chloe and I began to write a script for the promo soon after we had decided on the final idea. The promo would have no dialogue so the script was just direction of what the characters would be doing in each scene. It was very important to link the characters as much as possible. We decided we could link the characters together by having Elsa & Anna (the two most popular characters at Page2Stage parties) gathering various characters together to bring them to the party. However, to avoid the promo becoming samey and boring, we also decided some characters could get 'party alerts' to inform them of the party happening.
Once the script and shot lists were ready, the next step was to organise the filming. Kelly, in charge of Page2Stage parties, wanted to use her staff as the actors playing the characters, so the characters being advertised were exactly what customers would get at their own party. As many of the staff are students and others employed at other jobs as well as Page2Stage, it was very difficult to organise many of the shoots as many of the Page2Stage staff were not available at the same time as others. The filming began with small, quick shoots whenever we could manage around others schedules, this usually meant filming after a party when people were already dressed in character costumes.
We eventually got round to organising a full shoot of multiple scenes with various characters. This was later than we'd hoped but we tried to get as much footage as possible. While we did manage to get more people and get the main plot of Elsa and Anna gathering characters, we still weren't able to get everyone we'd asked to be there for the shoot. However, we worked with what we had. Chloe was unable to attend the shoot and so I asked Taylor to assist me. We were able to get the majority of the footage we planned which meant we could start editing. The edit came together very well and we were able to start shaping the story of the promo.
After the main shoot, we were back to getting small amounts of footage whenever we could, which wasn't as productive as we'd hoped but we were still making progress on the promo. Since then we have still been making progress on the promo in small amount due to our own busy schedule and our cast's busy schedule. We have been in contact with Kelly on multiple occasions to negotiate our deadline for the promo and to run by new ideas or idea changes we have had to make.
The promo is still being made as I write this but we are getting closer to finishing it. It's taken us a lot longer than we had planned but this has happened due to difficulties in scheduling we haven't been able to do anything about. We have a small list of specific scenes needed to film and should have them complete very soon, along with the final edited promo video for Page2Stage Parties.
There was already ideas for the promo but I felt like they could be improved upon quite a lot. The original idea followed the Page2Stage parties staff getting ready as different characters and going to a children's party. I suggested that the idea shouldn't follow people pretending to be characters, as it isn't the point of the party company, but should fully commit to the characters and create a story of the actual characters making their way to a party. The promo would follow a story of all the different characters the company had to offer going out of the way of their usual lives to go to a child's party. Using the actual characters going on a journey to the party, I felt, adds a special touch to the promo which makes the customer and the children feel like the real characters are coming to the parties. This idea was the one we went ahead with.
Chloe and I began to write a script for the promo soon after we had decided on the final idea. The promo would have no dialogue so the script was just direction of what the characters would be doing in each scene. It was very important to link the characters as much as possible. We decided we could link the characters together by having Elsa & Anna (the two most popular characters at Page2Stage parties) gathering various characters together to bring them to the party. However, to avoid the promo becoming samey and boring, we also decided some characters could get 'party alerts' to inform them of the party happening.
Once the script and shot lists were ready, the next step was to organise the filming. Kelly, in charge of Page2Stage parties, wanted to use her staff as the actors playing the characters, so the characters being advertised were exactly what customers would get at their own party. As many of the staff are students and others employed at other jobs as well as Page2Stage, it was very difficult to organise many of the shoots as many of the Page2Stage staff were not available at the same time as others. The filming began with small, quick shoots whenever we could manage around others schedules, this usually meant filming after a party when people were already dressed in character costumes.
We eventually got round to organising a full shoot of multiple scenes with various characters. This was later than we'd hoped but we tried to get as much footage as possible. While we did manage to get more people and get the main plot of Elsa and Anna gathering characters, we still weren't able to get everyone we'd asked to be there for the shoot. However, we worked with what we had. Chloe was unable to attend the shoot and so I asked Taylor to assist me. We were able to get the majority of the footage we planned which meant we could start editing. The edit came together very well and we were able to start shaping the story of the promo.
After the main shoot, we were back to getting small amounts of footage whenever we could, which wasn't as productive as we'd hoped but we were still making progress on the promo. Since then we have still been making progress on the promo in small amount due to our own busy schedule and our cast's busy schedule. We have been in contact with Kelly on multiple occasions to negotiate our deadline for the promo and to run by new ideas or idea changes we have had to make.
The promo is still being made as I write this but we are getting closer to finishing it. It's taken us a lot longer than we had planned but this has happened due to difficulties in scheduling we haven't been able to do anything about. We have a small list of specific scenes needed to film and should have them complete very soon, along with the final edited promo video for Page2Stage Parties.
Unit 15: Developing a Small Business in the Creative Media Industries - Task 1A - Ufilms Report
At the beginning of our first year in college we were required to start a small business as part of the 'enterprise' programme. Our small business was 'SRC Infinity Productions', a small media production company providing filming, editing and DVD production services to customers for a reasonable price. While this was successful and we created products for a few clients, it never took off as a real priority or felt like a serious business.
By the start of our second year of college, SRC Infinity Productions was not as prominent as we'd hoped amongst teachers and other students in the college. We had a team meeting to discuss the successes and failures of our first year as a small business and we decided what changes would be made to make the business even better in our second year. This meeting led to the agreement that we would re brand and use this as a sort of fresh start. We would already have the contacts we had previously made (informing them of the re brand) but we would be able to make the business look and feel more professional.
Our re brand started with brainstorming a new name. We wanted something short, memorable and that represented us as a group and the business itself. This led to the creation of 'Ufilms'. We completely re branded all of our social media with our new name, new logo and created an all round more professional looking social media presence.
While at the beginning of SRC Infinity Productions we had separate departments for filming, editing, DVD production and, occasionally, photography, this began to fall apart as people wanted to try different jobs in the business and there could sometimes be a lack of communication between departments. The hierarchy in Ufilms was fairly quickly decided, despite being only a small group of 11. Ufilms was a business made up of 11 Film & TV students, who would all hopefully take on an equal role, doing an equal amount of work and spreading the work amongst the group.
While we all hoped to work equally, we still needed certain positions to be filled in order to run as a successful unit. It was decided that Danniella would be put as the head of Ufilms, a job she was happy to take. Her job consisted of making sure everything in Ufilms worked smoothly and efficiently. If we were having meetings, they would be led by Danniella, guiding us through the points we needed to discuss. Anytime Ufilms needed to be represented, as leader, Danniella would usually attend such events with other members of the groups.
As we are were business and therefore would have money coming in, we needed a member of the team to act as our accountant. The decision was made that Jess would take on this role. This job involved writing and signing all invoices for clients and keeping track of the money coming in and going out of Ufilms.
Ufilms advertises itself as a reasonably priced media production company for hire. Our customers do pay much less for Ufilms than other production companies as we are college students but we aim to produce professional level products for everyone. Our prices start from £8 an hour as we work out our prices by the people working on a job. We charge £8 per person every hour of work. For example, a 3 hours shoot with 2 people working on it would cost £48, £24 per person.While the average minimum wage for 18 year olds is £5.60 (£4.05 for 16 - 17 year olds) we wanted to treat ourselves not as young workers but like adults working professionally, while still keeping a reasonable price.
Customers were usually required to pay a deposit towards the job we were to do for them, then pay in full afterwards. Our income from customers got to us one of two ways. We could be paid in cash which would go directly to our company money tin, this was the easiest way to be paid as we were receiving the money directly. The other way we were paid was through college. Some jobs we did required the college was paid the money, as we were still students and linked with the college. This money should then be passed down to us to be able to spend it on what the company needed. As for the rest of the group, everyone had an equal responsibility. People would be hired for different jobs depending on who had done the job previous or depending on who would put themselves forward to do a job. Everyone in the team had to manage at least one project, some people managed multiple. Managing a project meant being behind all the organisation and hiring people for the jobs.
Our main marketing has been through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. As we are a young group of film makers who use social media ourselves, this was our best way of marketing Ufilms. We were already experienced in using social media so we transferred our understanding and experience of social media over to a Ufilms account on each platform. We put different people in front of each social media platform. Jess and I were in charge of the Ufilms Twitter account, Danniella and Taylor in charge of the Instagram and Danniella and Matthew in charge of Facebook (however the Facebook page was often updated by other members of the group too).
With social media being the main place most businesses market themselves nowadays, the more popular platforms offer business accounts, which rearrange and change certain aspects to make it easier to run an account for your business as opposed to a personal account.
As our business doesn't directly sell a product, our marketing was different to many other companies. We had to advertise our services as much as possible. Facebook made this easy as there was an option to put a list of services customers could view. Other than this and on other platforms our marketing was more down to us interacting with out customers. Our main focus of social media was to frequently post about projects we were working on, whether it was a paid job or a personal project. This would let the customers know we were very active film makers and we could be trusted to be on a paid job.
Ufilms illustrates the skills required to run a small business. This includes management, technical, financial and creative skills. We, as a business, use this skills in different aspects of running and working for Ufilms.
I've already spoken about how the business demonstrates management and financial skills.
The creative skills we show come in the form of ideas we have to come up with. Obviously, when we are hired for a job, the customer does not usually know the specifics of film making that we, as film students, do understand. This means that if we are given an event to film, like a wedding for example, it is our job to actually make the camera plan and decide on the shots we need to get to make out final product. The other way we have to come up with ideas is when we are hired to make something that isn't a set idea yet, and we are tasked with creating that idea from scratch. This is a skill all of our team have evidence for as we have all, outside of Ufilms, created short films, music videos and adverts from scratch, pitching out original ideas.
When hired for a job, we are also responsible for the footage we get and ensuring it comes out as professional looking as possible. This requires good knowledge of cameras and how to set them to get the best footage in different scenarios. While this isn't as common of a skill as others the business shows we have and not everyone necessarily understand the camera well enough to get the best footage possible, there are still people in the Ufilms team who know the ins and outs of the camera and are able to confidently go to a job knowing they will get great footage. The team also has confidence in members of the team to get the best footage possible without worrying how it will come back.
Ufilms has multiple resources and equipment. We obtained our resources via the college. We decided we could start a small media production company as we already had the cameras, editing software and various other equipment at our disposal. This meant we were able to use these at no cost on jobs we were hired out to do, this instantly made the jobs almost entirely profit, incredibly helpful for the business. The range of equipment the Film & TV course had to offer meant we were able to achieve a more professional look to our films. We are able to use equipment such as the dolly/track, the stabiliser wheel and the crane etc. We decide on the equipment and resources we will need on a job in the planning stage. We would first look at what the customer wants and whether various equipment would be necessary and then next we check if the equipment we wanted to use would work in the location we are in.
Ufilms, like any business, has had successes and failures since it started. We've learnt a lot of lessons about being a business and how a business needs to operate. We have successfully created various projects through Ufilms to the highest standard possible and had great feedback from customers confirming this. We have learnt valuable filming and business skills for the future that we can translate into the Film and TV industry. There have been multiple time when the business has failed on different aspects but these have mostly been trial and error situations.
Our communication with customers could sometimes be improved upon. There have been times when a deadline date for a project or a filming date has been miscommunicated which has led to problems with production. There have been times, due to being college students with college work as a high priority, when communication to a possible customer has been forgotten about or a job has had to be declined.
Another aspect of the business we have had issues with is the contribution to jobs and work amongst the entire team. Many people have done a lot more work than others but this isn't necessarily because people aren't willing to do the work. This is the case sometimes and this can be an issue as a successful business needs everyone to be hard working, especially with such a small team. Sometimes, this can be because people have taken on more work themselves instead of evenly distributing it to the team. This can be because people don't trust others to do the job right. This is sometimes we've tried to learn from as everyone in the team should be at the level we can trust them to do work.
Our biggest issue with the business, in my opinion, is with money. Not the management, as that is a successful aspect of Ufilms, but the actual income. This is a problem that was no fault of our own but still counts as a failure as a business. To be a successful business you need to have an income and a profit, this has been a huge issue for us as we have struggled to get the money from various jobs due to the money having to come through college on certain jobs. We have struggled to get the money from college not just for jobs but for competitions we have entered too. This has meant our overall income at the end of the year of around £1200, has been much lower and the money we worked out everyone would get has now had to change because of this.
By the start of our second year of college, SRC Infinity Productions was not as prominent as we'd hoped amongst teachers and other students in the college. We had a team meeting to discuss the successes and failures of our first year as a small business and we decided what changes would be made to make the business even better in our second year. This meeting led to the agreement that we would re brand and use this as a sort of fresh start. We would already have the contacts we had previously made (informing them of the re brand) but we would be able to make the business look and feel more professional.
Our re brand started with brainstorming a new name. We wanted something short, memorable and that represented us as a group and the business itself. This led to the creation of 'Ufilms'. We completely re branded all of our social media with our new name, new logo and created an all round more professional looking social media presence.
While at the beginning of SRC Infinity Productions we had separate departments for filming, editing, DVD production and, occasionally, photography, this began to fall apart as people wanted to try different jobs in the business and there could sometimes be a lack of communication between departments. The hierarchy in Ufilms was fairly quickly decided, despite being only a small group of 11. Ufilms was a business made up of 11 Film & TV students, who would all hopefully take on an equal role, doing an equal amount of work and spreading the work amongst the group.
While we all hoped to work equally, we still needed certain positions to be filled in order to run as a successful unit. It was decided that Danniella would be put as the head of Ufilms, a job she was happy to take. Her job consisted of making sure everything in Ufilms worked smoothly and efficiently. If we were having meetings, they would be led by Danniella, guiding us through the points we needed to discuss. Anytime Ufilms needed to be represented, as leader, Danniella would usually attend such events with other members of the groups.
As we are were business and therefore would have money coming in, we needed a member of the team to act as our accountant. The decision was made that Jess would take on this role. This job involved writing and signing all invoices for clients and keeping track of the money coming in and going out of Ufilms.
Ufilms advertises itself as a reasonably priced media production company for hire. Our customers do pay much less for Ufilms than other production companies as we are college students but we aim to produce professional level products for everyone. Our prices start from £8 an hour as we work out our prices by the people working on a job. We charge £8 per person every hour of work. For example, a 3 hours shoot with 2 people working on it would cost £48, £24 per person.While the average minimum wage for 18 year olds is £5.60 (£4.05 for 16 - 17 year olds) we wanted to treat ourselves not as young workers but like adults working professionally, while still keeping a reasonable price.
Customers were usually required to pay a deposit towards the job we were to do for them, then pay in full afterwards. Our income from customers got to us one of two ways. We could be paid in cash which would go directly to our company money tin, this was the easiest way to be paid as we were receiving the money directly. The other way we were paid was through college. Some jobs we did required the college was paid the money, as we were still students and linked with the college. This money should then be passed down to us to be able to spend it on what the company needed. As for the rest of the group, everyone had an equal responsibility. People would be hired for different jobs depending on who had done the job previous or depending on who would put themselves forward to do a job. Everyone in the team had to manage at least one project, some people managed multiple. Managing a project meant being behind all the organisation and hiring people for the jobs.
Our main marketing has been through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. As we are a young group of film makers who use social media ourselves, this was our best way of marketing Ufilms. We were already experienced in using social media so we transferred our understanding and experience of social media over to a Ufilms account on each platform. We put different people in front of each social media platform. Jess and I were in charge of the Ufilms Twitter account, Danniella and Taylor in charge of the Instagram and Danniella and Matthew in charge of Facebook (however the Facebook page was often updated by other members of the group too).
With social media being the main place most businesses market themselves nowadays, the more popular platforms offer business accounts, which rearrange and change certain aspects to make it easier to run an account for your business as opposed to a personal account.
As our business doesn't directly sell a product, our marketing was different to many other companies. We had to advertise our services as much as possible. Facebook made this easy as there was an option to put a list of services customers could view. Other than this and on other platforms our marketing was more down to us interacting with out customers. Our main focus of social media was to frequently post about projects we were working on, whether it was a paid job or a personal project. This would let the customers know we were very active film makers and we could be trusted to be on a paid job.
Ufilms illustrates the skills required to run a small business. This includes management, technical, financial and creative skills. We, as a business, use this skills in different aspects of running and working for Ufilms.
I've already spoken about how the business demonstrates management and financial skills.
The creative skills we show come in the form of ideas we have to come up with. Obviously, when we are hired for a job, the customer does not usually know the specifics of film making that we, as film students, do understand. This means that if we are given an event to film, like a wedding for example, it is our job to actually make the camera plan and decide on the shots we need to get to make out final product. The other way we have to come up with ideas is when we are hired to make something that isn't a set idea yet, and we are tasked with creating that idea from scratch. This is a skill all of our team have evidence for as we have all, outside of Ufilms, created short films, music videos and adverts from scratch, pitching out original ideas.
When hired for a job, we are also responsible for the footage we get and ensuring it comes out as professional looking as possible. This requires good knowledge of cameras and how to set them to get the best footage in different scenarios. While this isn't as common of a skill as others the business shows we have and not everyone necessarily understand the camera well enough to get the best footage possible, there are still people in the Ufilms team who know the ins and outs of the camera and are able to confidently go to a job knowing they will get great footage. The team also has confidence in members of the team to get the best footage possible without worrying how it will come back.
Ufilms has multiple resources and equipment. We obtained our resources via the college. We decided we could start a small media production company as we already had the cameras, editing software and various other equipment at our disposal. This meant we were able to use these at no cost on jobs we were hired out to do, this instantly made the jobs almost entirely profit, incredibly helpful for the business. The range of equipment the Film & TV course had to offer meant we were able to achieve a more professional look to our films. We are able to use equipment such as the dolly/track, the stabiliser wheel and the crane etc. We decide on the equipment and resources we will need on a job in the planning stage. We would first look at what the customer wants and whether various equipment would be necessary and then next we check if the equipment we wanted to use would work in the location we are in.
Ufilms, like any business, has had successes and failures since it started. We've learnt a lot of lessons about being a business and how a business needs to operate. We have successfully created various projects through Ufilms to the highest standard possible and had great feedback from customers confirming this. We have learnt valuable filming and business skills for the future that we can translate into the Film and TV industry. There have been multiple time when the business has failed on different aspects but these have mostly been trial and error situations.
Our communication with customers could sometimes be improved upon. There have been times when a deadline date for a project or a filming date has been miscommunicated which has led to problems with production. There have been times, due to being college students with college work as a high priority, when communication to a possible customer has been forgotten about or a job has had to be declined.
Another aspect of the business we have had issues with is the contribution to jobs and work amongst the entire team. Many people have done a lot more work than others but this isn't necessarily because people aren't willing to do the work. This is the case sometimes and this can be an issue as a successful business needs everyone to be hard working, especially with such a small team. Sometimes, this can be because people have taken on more work themselves instead of evenly distributing it to the team. This can be because people don't trust others to do the job right. This is sometimes we've tried to learn from as everyone in the team should be at the level we can trust them to do work.
Our biggest issue with the business, in my opinion, is with money. Not the management, as that is a successful aspect of Ufilms, but the actual income. This is a problem that was no fault of our own but still counts as a failure as a business. To be a successful business you need to have an income and a profit, this has been a huge issue for us as we have struggled to get the money from various jobs due to the money having to come through college on certain jobs. We have struggled to get the money from college not just for jobs but for competitions we have entered too. This has meant our overall income at the end of the year of around £1200, has been much lower and the money we worked out everyone would get has now had to change because of this.
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