In the week before we began filming The Ufilms Oscars Rundown to upload to our YouTube channel we gathered as a group and started the schedule filming and upload dates.
We all decided on which subject we would each cover, the majority of us getting into pairs. For example, Kane and I decided we would do a video on our predictions for the 2017 Oscar winners. Once everyone had their subject. we also had to think of a follow up subject that would fit our original idea. This was because the filming was set over 2 weeks, pre-Oscars week and post-Oscars week. Kane and I decided that our post-Oscars follow up video would be reactions to the winners and discussion about the night.
Everyone decided on the subjects for their two episode and we began to schedule the order. We first decided on the uploading order and then sorted out which order the episodes would be filmed in. We decided multiple episodes would be filmed on the same day, ready to be uploaded when we needed them. For example, you can see on the scheduling sheet, we decided Chloe & Jordan's video would go out on the YouTube channel on Thursday however it would be filmed at some point on Monday or Tuesday along with another 3 episodes.
Pre-Oscars
Before Kane & I filmed our pre-Oscars video on Thursday, it was important that we did research on this years Academy Awards. As we were doing predictions for the show, I decided to start my research by looking at other predictions and general thoughts on who will win each award. I looked at different articles and tried to look for reports which had less obvious predictions. I also got some facts and info about the Oscars which I could use in the video such as "Only twice since 1981 has the winner of Best Editing not won Best Film"
I also got quotes from some articles to reference in the video such as:
“Hollywood loves nothing more than an industry tale and this glowing, although somewhat surface-level, tale of struggling artists feels perfect for the Oscar. The fact that it's a mostly feel-good movie also gives it the upper hand in a tense political climate. The movie embraces escapism while maintaining a real bittersweetness, and musicals are often Oscar bait—even if La La Land doesn't have the same show-stopping numbers as Chicago or West Side Story. The film also earned a whopping 14 Oscars nominations, which gives us a pretty good indication of its impact.”
- Emily Zemler, ELLE.com
Kane printed off the nominees and noted down any nominees who'd won Baftas and Golden Globes in that category. We used this to familiarise ourselves with the people nominated and it helped us when filming as we could check it along with out notes.
As we planned to use the TV in our episode, so we could have graphics to refer to and help our presentation, I had to design the graphics we would use. This took some time but we were able to do more with our presentation by including this. I gathered the posters for all the films in each category and made a slide show with a slide for each award.
Post-Oscars
For the post-Oscars episode we had a lot less preparation for planning and research. I decided I would stay up for the Oscars so one of us had seen the entire show and had a better view of what happened instead of just catching up on highlights. During the show I took notes and tweeted about the shows events on the Ufilms Twitter account. This meant I had a better insight into the show and more to offer when presenting our episode.
Similarly to the pre-Oscars show, Kane printed out the winners of each award so we could use the sheet as notes during filming.
17/02/17
We began the filming of the Ufilms Oscars Rundown with a group intro. We filmed this on the Thursday before our first official shooting week (beginning on the 20th). This shoot consisted of the entire group being on camera to welcome the audience and prepare them for the episodes in the coming weeks.
Danniella, Kane and I were the main presenters for this piece. Our presentation was to speak about the upcoming Academy Awards and inform the audience that would be uploading videos. We had little preparation for this and had to quickly plan our script beforehand. While we spoke, the rest of the group gathered behind us and once everyone was in the shot, we all looked at a separate, higher camera and announced "The Ufilms Oscars Rundown".
The camera set up was one camera on a track in the centre which pulled back as we walked towards it and then we had a stationary camera held up high on the crane to get a wide shot of everyone on the set. This was used for our big final shot. The lighting we used was natural room lighting with a simple 2 light set up either side of the set to create a more professional look.
20/02/17
Today the first episode of The Ufilms Oscars Rundown was filmed. Rhys & Adam began the week with their old fashioned style episode about the history of the Academy Awards. For this shoot I was a camera operator for one of the cutaway shots/close ups. I also was in charge of the teleprompter which we put on the big screen prompt Adam & Rhys. While I wasn't Director of Photography therefore not in charge of all the cameras I still made an effort to check my shots white balance, gain etc. looked the same as the others and made suggestions on how things could be shot every now and then. However I made sure I wasn't trying to take charge of the shoot and left that to the actual DoP. Rhys and Adam did a great job in the presentation and they were very comedic which was their aim from the beginning. The shoot was fairly quick and easy.
The next shoot we did on this day was for Matthew & Danniella's Fashion episode. For this shoot I was mostly in charge of camera. I made sure each shot was framed correctly and all the settings were the same for each camera. I kept an eye on things such as making sure the boom mic didn't fall into shot. This was another successful shoot with very few issues. Danniella & Matthew worked incredibly well together and even entertained me when talking about fashion, which is difficult to do.
Finally, we shot Chloe's 'Iconic Oscar Moments' which was another straight forward shoot. This was the first solo presentation and Chloe did a great job of it. I was camera operator once again and was continuing the same responsibilities form previous shoots. There were a lot of takes filmed on this shoot due to getting lines wrong however this was just a case of remembering the lines and not a problem with Chloe presentation. Chloe's 'moments' were cut up into different scenes and were to be filmed separately. This meant there was a lot of stopping and starting which each camera operator needed to make sure they were filming at the right times. Once again, very few issues and another easy shoot to be done.
21/02/17
My first involvement in a shoot on this day was for Taylor & Ben's Music episode. The pair presented well together but this episode relied heavily on using the script which took a lot of getting used to before they got it right. I was, once again, camera operator, this time on the master shot. I followed the same responsibilities as usual, making sure the shot was perfect and keeping my eye out for anything being in shot which shouldn't be i.e. the boom mic. There were very few technical issues on this shoot and it was very easily completed.
Next I was involved in filming Matthew & Danniella's 2nd Fashion episode. This time the pair were presenting which Jess got her Make-Up done by a Make-Up student from the college, Callum. This shoot required an extra camera added to the usual 3 camera set up we'd been using and created a 4 camera set up. I was made camera operator on the newly added camera which covered Callum's close up. The reason for the extra camera is due to Callum's height, he is very tall and one camera wouldn't cover both him and Jess in the same way one camera was covered both Matthew & Danniella. Instead two separate close ups of Jess and Callum were used.
This was the first shoot we used 3 point lighting. Before this we had though we only had 2 working but we were able to get another. Before filming we had to find out a good placement as we had no obvious place to put it. I suggested having it point down from above the black backdrop we were using. I extended to light as far as it would go and had it lean over the backdrop and it worked as perfect back lighting for everyone in the shot while also being completely off camera. I also made sure the light did not actually touch the backdrop and left a large gap as lights heat up quickly and that would have been dangerous.
23/02/17
This was my first day of presenting my own episode of The Ufilms Oscars Rundown alongside my co-host Kane. This was the last episode of the week and the last instalment before the Oscars on the Sunday. Since we had a little extra time compared to a lot of people, I decided to make graphics which we could display on the TV and refer to when speaking on certain subjects. These graphics were to visualise the Award Category we were speaking about had the the Award title and the poster for each film nominated. This definitely added to the episode as it added something more interesting to look at for the audience, especially since the full episode was Kane & I sat across from each other simply talking.
The camera set-up for this shoot was different to other episodes which had been filmed so far. In this shoot Kane & I mostly spoke to each other rather than speak to camera so we had to set up the cameras to film a conversation. This meant we had a camera in the centre which filmed a wide shot (which was also our master shot) and then two cameras either side of the set which got mid shots of both me and Kane.
The lighting on this shoot was a 3 point lighting set up. Unfortunately, we had the three lights set up in the right positions but our back light broke just before our shoot. We had to improvise with the lighting and decided we would keep the fill & key light and instead use one of the rooms normal lights as a sort of back light substitute to help us stand out from the background. This wasn't ideal but it was all we had to work with.
The filming went on for a lot longer than we'd planned. Kane and I had decided to go unscripted to get a more natural presentation, simply using notes to prompt the conversation further. While we did achieve the presentation style we were aiming for, the shoot went on for over an hour with a huge amount of footage that, in the end, needed to be cut. Other than the lighting and timing issues, everything else on the shoot went great and we were able to present an episode we were happy with.
24/02/17
On this day we continued to edit the predictions episode which we planned on uploading on Saturday 25th. Due to the large amount of footage we gathered, the edit took far longer than expected. We edited for 5 hours and were only able to achieve about 3/4 of the final product. We were unable to complete the edit in time and would need to continue the next day, having a last minute editing session before uploading it, hopefully, on the Saturday.
25/02/17
Today Kane & I managed to find a slot where we could complete the edit. Unfortunately we had many issues during this time with editing and were unable to complete the edit in time to upload it the same day. Instead we scheduled the upload for Sunday 26th which still worked as a pre-oscars episode.
WEEK 2: 27/02/17
This week, Kane & I started the week with out follow up video to our predictions, 'Our 2017 Oscars Reactions'. This filming was significantly different to our first shoot. While the camera and lighting situation stayed exactly the same, we were conscious that we needed to take less time filming due to issues with last weeks video. We also had almost no time to prepare and we were very on the spot in our presentation as we were reacting only 4 hours after the Oscars had ended. We had printed off the winners of each award and I had stayed up to watch the entire Academy Awards so I was able to offer a more in depth view on what had happened.
Thankfully, a lot had happened on the night of the Oscars, including a huge mix up on the announcement of the final award, which made a great talking point for Kane and I to have. We managed to cut filming down by a huge chunk of time compare to last weeks shoot, with this shoot taking only half an hour. We also got the entire thing in one take meaning we had a lot less work on the edit and we would be able to upload the video on the same day of filming.
We also came up with a last minute skit to open the episode based on the Best Picture mix up from the Oscars. For this we had Kane announce the wrong co-host and awkward ask me to come on instead afterwards. We thought this was a very funny and somewhat clever joke for anyone who had heard about the mix up.
We had a lot of sound issues on this shoot which was unfortunate as it went successfully in every other aspect. We used the tie mics to get a better, clearer sound quality for both of us however when editing we noticed that throughout the footage Kane's mic spikes and crackles making the sound almost impossible to listen to. Luckily we used a boom mic as back up which we ended up using for the majority of the episode. However, near the end to boom mic begins to make a scratch-like sound which we couldn't use. This meant out only choice was to use the tie mics and cut around the spiking/crackling. Other than the sound issues, the episode was a good quality instalment to the Ufilms Oscars Rundown series.
28/02/17
The first shoot of the second week was Adam & Rhys' episode. In this episode they parodied Wayne's World while talking about the details of the Oscars after parties. This was once again a very funny, comedic piece and they were much more natural than their first episode the week previous.
One huge change we made to our set up was the boom mics. After last weeks sound issues, I discussed possibilities about what could be changed and we had a few different ideas on what could be changed. One that we tried was to use 2 boom mics on either side of the set, both plugged in different channels on a single camera. These boom mics were also attached to mic stands which meant there was no need for a boom operator anymore. The sound was a huge improvement as you could hear both presenters clearly, something we'd struggled with achieving in previous shoots.
The camera set up was similar to their first episode, which was a basic 3 camera set up with a master shot and two close ups.
Next up was Taylor's Music episode, which he decided to follow up on presenting on his own. I was camera operator on the master shot of this. There was a slight issue in white balancing, which I hadn't checked properly, which I usually would have done but instead the shots colour changed slightly half way through which Taylor had to correct in post. Obviously this isn't ideal from a camera operator but this was really the only issue i'd had when operating camera since we began filming the Oscars Rundown.
I also partly directed the shoot as I had to carry in a prop for Taylor in the final scene. Because of this, Jess (the current Director) and I had to swap roles for the final piece of filming. This meant I had to call for cameras to record, call Action and bring the prop on at the right cue. This took only a few takes and the shoot was finished.
01/03/17
This was our last day of filming episodes for The Ufilms Oscars Rundown. We had 2 more episodes to shoot before we had all the episodes ready to upload each day.
We started by filming Chloe's 2nd episode, 'Facts of the 2017 Oscars Winners'. This was a similar set up and filming process as her first episode. Chloe presented on her own, switching between cameras for certain lines. The piece was completely scripted and presented well. Chloe had her script on the table in front of her so it was important to keep it out of shot and not make it obvious she was checking it every now and then. As Chloe was talking to different cameras, the camera operators had to make sure they knew when to record at the correct time and know when Chloe was going to change camera as it was sometimes a reference point for her to know when to cut.
Next up was Jess' episode. This shoot was the first time since beginning The Ufilms Oscars Rundown that I wasn't operating camera (other than when I was presenting). It only took me 8 entire shoots to try a different role, impressive. For this shoot I took on the role of Director as I'd been hoping to try it during filming at some point. I was in charge of making sure all the cameras were recording at the correct times, letting Jess know if she needed to change anything she was doing and calling Action and Cut. I think I did a good job in the role and took control of the shoot well. 02/03/17
Today we filmed out last piece, the outro the the Ufilms Oscars Rundown. This was a piece to let the audience know that we were finished but we would also be uploading in the future. This was not as complicated of a shoot as the intro was. This time we used a single camera and positioned everyone so they were all in frame (except for Adam & Rhys, who kindly offered to keep the backdrop extension held up behind us). We took turns delivering lines and, similarly to the intro, ended with us all speaking in sync. This time it was us saying "Stay tuned" as a group.
Week 1:
For mine and Kane's first episode of The Ufilms Oscars Rundown, we plan to host a discussion and predictions show titled 'Our 2017 Oscars Predictions'. In this episode we will discuss the nominees for each award at the Oscars, look at other predictions people have made and make our own predictions for the show.
This episode will need to come in at at least 10 minutes long as Kane & I need to present 5 minutes each.
The set up for this shoot will be a 3 camera set up and a 3 point lighting set up. 1 camera will be centre for the master shot and the other 2 cameras will be either side to get close ups of both me and Kane. The lighting will be a normal 3 point lighting set up with a back light behind us, a fill light to one side of us and a key light on the other. For sound we will need a single boom operator to capture both mine and Kane's voices on an equal level.
We'll also use a TV with graphics on to assist our conversation and add another visual element to our episode.
This will be the final episode of the first week and we will film this episode on Thursday 23rd and hope to have it uploaded the next day on Friday 24th
Week 2:
Our follow up episode in week 2 will be 'Our 2017 Oscars Reactions'. In this episode we plan to discuss what happens at the Oscars and whether our predictions were right.
This episode will need to come in at at least 10 minutes long as Kane & I need to present 5 minutes each.
The set up will once again be a 3 camera set up however we will only have 2 studio lights and will have to use one of the rooms normal lights as a improvised back light.
The sound will be recorded by tie mics which Kane & I will have one of each. This is to improve upon last week's sound quality. We also still had a boom mic and operator as a back up sound source in case anything went wrong.
We will be opening the second week of videos with this episode therefore we'll be filming on the Monday and uploaded that same night.
As I'm going to be presenting a show for the Ufilms Oscars Rundown, it's important that I research presentation styles and use other presenters who I'd like to use as inspiration.
My first choice of inspiration is Alex Zane, host of the Sky Cinema Oscars show. He has hosted the show, which airs before and during the Academy Awards, for a few years now. The content of the show is very similar to the show Kane and I will be hosting together. Kane and I will be discussing the Oscar nominations and making our predictions on who will win each category & the Sky Cinema Oscars show is hosted by Alex Zane who has guests on, such as film critics, who discuss nominees and predictions.
My style of presentation would be somewhat based on Zane as he is quite chatty, a quality I'm hoping to portray, but I would mainly focus on his delivery of facts and knowledge of films, actors, directors etc. He often mentions facts as a side point to what he is actually saying. He clearly does a massive amount of research to know every name and film he needs to at all times. This would be the kind of presentation I hope to achieve as I'm going to have to speak about all the different nominees at this year's Academy Awards and while I will have notes to help me I want to seem natural when delivering information.
Zane's presentation also makes him come off very confident by the way speaks and moves. His accent and tone of voice are very clear in order for any part of the audience to be able to understand him, which is important because the Sky Cinema Oscars show is broadcast throughout the whole country and as a host of a show on that scale you need to be understood by everyone. A confident host is key for any successful show and Zane manages to achieve this by always directing the conversations and asking the questions. His movements are very bold as he is always sitting forward and directing movement towards the guests, such as gesturing his hand towards them when asking questions.
The set for the Sky Cinema Oscars show for this year (not shown in the video below) is the kind of set I would like to use on our Oscars Rundown episode. The set includes a large screen in the middle and behind the host/guests who sit on sofas either side of the screen. The screen is used to reference information such as the nominees and other films they want to speak about. Having a TV screen to reference to adds another level visually to the show. This is something I'd like to include in our set to make it more entertaining for the audience to watch and it allows us to do a little more than just sit and speak to each other about films when we can talk about what we see on the screen.
Another inspiration for me as a presenter would be Graham Norton. While Graham Norton's personality isn't quite what I'd like to replicate, his style of presentation and knowledge of the subject he talks about are very impressive and are great inspiration for my piece. Similarly to Zane, Norton naturally flows through the information he speaks about as if he's always known it. His natural presentation is always appealing to the audience and makes him one of the most popular chat show hosts there is.
One of Norton's main qualities I would like to match in my presentation is the natural sense of humour and comedy he has with his guests or, in my case, with my co-host. Some of the funniest and most lovable parts of The Graham Norton Show are when there is natural, unplanned/unscripted 'banter' between the people on the show. A presenter needs to be likeable and a good sense of humour makes this more likely.
It's very rare that a film like 'La La Land' comes around. With 14 Oscar nominations under it's belt, it's already a huge success. It follows the story of Mia, an aspiring actress, and Sebastian, a dedicated jazz musician. Both struggling to make ends meet while pursuing their dreams in Los Angeles, a city known for destroying hopes and breaking hearts. This musical about everyday life explores what is more important: a once-in-a-lifetime love or the spotlight. The plot is a simple love story between the two characters, nothing that hasn't been seen before but, somehow, it manages to capture the emotions of the audience in a way most other films can't. A lot of this is down to the masterful writing and directing by Damien Chazelle. Chazelle is known for his work as both writer and director on Whiplash', which is one of my personal favourite movies and his work on 'La La Land' is just incredible. His work with the the actors, camera and script is just flawless. He creates characters the we really care about and makes the film visually stunning.
On top of the amazing work by Chazelle, Emma Stone & Ryan Gosling put on some of the best performances they've ever given. Their chemistry makes you completely forget you're watching a film and you believe that you're watching a real couple at all times. The back and forth dialogue in between the two is perfect and genuinely surprising that they aren't having a natural conversation.
The ending to the film is one of the most emotionally engaging sequences I've seen. It gives you everything you'd hoped for, and then takes it away as if to say 'no, you're not allowed a happy ending'. Cruel, but brilliant.
The entire film is a masterpiece and one of a kind. I don't think we will see a film as beloved by both critics and audience as 'La La Land' is for a very long time. It really is a unique film.
This report contains details on my involvement of the River Tees Rediscovered project. We were given a brief by River Tees Rediscovered a company that aims to promote local businesses and projects along the whole of the river tees. The brief we received tasked us with making a short promotional film to showcase local businesses. It read:
“As part of our Marketing and Communications strategy we would like to commission a short film which highlights the range of projects we deliver.
We would like the film to be 2-4 minutes long, include visuals and text, ideally we would want the video to show as many projects as possible and be interesting to watch.”
Content:
Brief Requirements
Individual Duties & Responsibilities
Legal & Ethical Considerations
Post-Production
Negotiation & Feedback
Evaluation
Brief Requirements
The brief requested that the video be able to increase awareness of the RTR project to more demographics and increase people’s interaction with RTR. They wanted the video to encourage discussion of their project and more engagement with with future activities up and down the river tees. The video was required to be a high enough quality and to a professional enough standard to be used at public presentations. The services requested included storyboards, direction, editing, camera crew and credits.
We began working towards this project by gathering together as a group and noting down information, such as contacts and location, and brainstorming ideas on mind maps. This was a good start to our work as it allowed us to simplify and make everything clear to each member of the group and easy to follow.
We discussed how we wanted to the promo to look and work. Different ideas were passed around in the meeting such as how the video could work as a montage of the different subjects/events and It was also discussed whether we were going to use a voice over on the project or whether we would just let the visuals show off what river tees has to offer.
We realised when looking at the brief and trying to plan that there were a lot of areas and projects up and down the river tees that were listed on the brief. It was a concern that we wouldn't be able to cover all of them in the time that we were given due to travelling issues or just not being able to get in touch in the time we had. We had to co operate with the people at River Tees Rediscovered in order to decide which projects were most important to cover in our promo. It was discussed that we would only need to cover so many and only the more local ones which were closest to us.
It was important for the promo to be consistent for it to achieve a professional standard. In order to do this we needed to make sure that the style of filming done by each crew would stay the same. This is more difficult when, as we had, there are different film crews on each shoot. We managed to stay consistent by using more basic shots and framing rather than doing more stylised shots.
Individual Duties & Responsibilities
After we understood the brief and knew everything we needed to we were able to organise who would work on filming each part of the promo. We split up into teams of 3/4 and split the filming of different events and locations between each other. The main group I worked in was with Taylor & Chloe on the Tees Cottage Pumping Station however I also did paper work for others shoots despite not going there for the filming.
I worked on the shot list for the Preston Park Bat Box Building shoot along with Adam and Rhys. A shot list is very important on any shoot, giving guidance and instruction on what is needed to be filmed.
However, with this being a promo video and a real time shoot we had to just make the shot list more of a basic guideline for the filming on that day because, with it being a public event, there was no knowing exactly what would be there to film and it would have to be more improvised. This meant we put down more vague/generic shots.
I also worked on the shot list for the Pumping Station with Chloe. Similarly, we used this as another guideline for the filming. We wouldn't be filming at a public event on that day so we knew we could definitely get the shots we wanted however we were only able to see the exterior of the pumping station before we went on the day. This meant we could cover the exterior in the shot list but the interior filming would be improvised on the day to get as much as we could.
Also amongst the paperwork for the Pumping Station filming was the Daily Production Diary which was filled in on the day of the shoot. This covered everything we had filmed on that day along with a description of the kind of shots we got. The production diary also included notes we gathered. In this case the notes were about the Pumping Station being closed which meant we didn't get many action shots of the machinery working as it would be if it was open to the public.
The shoot itself was successful. Taylor, Chloe & I arrived at the pumping station and met with the volunteers who were going to guide us around the station so we could get every part filmed and covered. I was in charge of the camera for the majority of the shoot which involved finding the best place to set up shots and framing them before filming. We started with the exterior and then we began to go through each room one by one, filming various things in each.
We had to make do with what we had as none of the machines were running meaning shots could easily look flat and boring. We had to make sure the shots were interesting visually and would keep an audience's attention because if not we would not be meeting the requirements of the brief. After a while Taylor took over camera and we worked together to decide on shots and what to film.
Another section of the promo I did paper work for but didn't film was the Tees Barrage shoot. I worked with Taylor on the research for this part of filming. The research was done for reference to the location and to add some background for the crew who were going to film. The research included information about the Barrage, images for reference and a map which would help the crew with directions from the college and to the barrage.
Legal & Ethical Considerations
When making a promotional video like this it’s important to consider both legal and ethical issues that may occur.
For example, it’s very important to make sure that when you are using footage of somebody to have the correct documents. On our day of filming at the Pumping Station we only filmed one person, Brian, who was a volunteer. We got him on camera because we wanted him to talk to us about the machinery and the pumping station and how it works. For us to use the footage of him, it isn't enough to simply ask permission. We needed him to sign a release form which gave all the legal permission to use him in our promo. It wasn’t sure whether we were going to use the footage or not but it’s necessary to get the documents incase the footage is used. The footage of Brian was used in the final product.
We also needed to complete risk assessments for every location we would be visiting when filming. This is important in case anything was to go wrong. If something is covered on the risk assessment then it should be easily avoided and everything should be done in order to avoid the risk.
It was important that any music we found to use in our final piece would be copyright free and we were allowed to use it in our promo. There are many sites you can visit in order to find royalty/copyright free music such as: ‘Incompetech’, ‘Purple Planet’ and even YouTube has its own library of copyright free music in its creator mode. Most free music requires you to give credit to the artist in some way for you to be legally allowed to use it. The copyright music we used was from YouTube’s creator mode and was named ‘Safety Net’. It did not require any credit and was completely free to use.
Post-Production
Once all pre-production and all filming was completed we moved on to the edit of the final product. We once again had to revisit the brief and make sure the product we were putting together still met the requirements we were requested to follow.
To begin with, each member of the class did an individual edit of a single section of the promo. After discussion we decided that each had to last 30 seconds. I worked on a piece showing off the pumping station. However, before i started putting the edit together, I began by labelling my footage via the shot types.
The next step was to import the footage into Premiere Pro and begin putting the piece together. I had to think of a structure for my edit. I decided I would try and use the footage in the order that we filmed it as we took the same route visitors would take on the tour of the pumping station. I decided to use my footage in the same order a visitor would see it.
It was very difficult to fit everything into 30 seconds which meant my edit needed to be fast paced and upbeat to fit in as much as possible. To help with this I gathered some copyright free music which was quite fast paced but at the same time had a calm tone as I didn’t want my edit to make the pumping station look like it was over the top in how exciting it was. I think the music I chose matched the edit very well.
Once my edit was completed I needed to export it. The brief we received gave specific instructions on the format we needed to export to, which was AVI. This format was important and had to be followed because this was the format they needed to upload the video to their website and have it be accessible to use in different places as mentioned earlier. Exporting the video to the correct format was both an essential part of the RTR brief but also the assignment brief for Digital Media Production.
After we had all completed and exported our individual edits, the next task was to put them all together to create a final product for River Tees Rediscovered. Not everyone could work on a final edit so it was left to Kane & Jess to do. They took the classes separate pieces and cut them together, slightly changing some parts to make it a better fit. We decided on which of all the music used was the best to fit the overall project and that was the music used as the backing track to the final product.
Negotiation & Feedback
After we had completed the promo to a standard we were happy with and we felt met all the requirements from the brief we invited the people from River Tees Rediscovered to come and watch the promo and give us any feedback they wanted to give.
After viewing the promo, the RTR contacts began their feedback by telling us how happy they were with the final product. They went on to mention some things they would like to change. This included updating the statistics we used to be more recent and accurate, changing one of the cuts in the editing which one of them felt was jarring and took them completely out of the video and lastly a change of logo due to them undergoing a rebrand which also meant a new logo. Changing the logo also meant we had to change the intro and it was an intro which specifically worked with the old logo.
There was more positive feedback than there was negative and more positive feedback than we had anticipated. They mentioned specifically the upbeat nature of the promo that engaged them as audience members and the consistency in filming amongst the different projects on the river tees and how it made the promo look slick. One of the final comments they made on the piece was that it was of a higher standard than some professional videos they had seen in the past. In the end they were very pleased and with the minor adjustments we needed to make the video would be ready to use.
Evaluation
As a group we managed to all work together, each contributing something of our highest standard in order to make the best promo we could. There were some issues in the process but for the most part it went smoothly. The organisation of the teams and filming dates worked great, especially when contacting the people we needed to speak to to organise the dates. Contact could have sometimes been quicker and more efficient but that was no fault of the group and more a difficulty contacting people with the contact details we were given. Despite this, we were still able to organise everything on time.
I feel like, by the end of the project, I contributed the best of my ability and gave the most I could in order to have impacted the group work in a sufficient way. I used my strengths in making shooting schedules/storyboards and being on camera when filming. I could have maybe done more in the pre-production work as some people did do more and we had hoped to share the work evenly however the work I did do was done to my best efforts and my highest standard.
As well as group work, I think I worked very well as an individual on this project. My individual edit met all the standards of the brief and managed to make the most of very little due to the often bland looking footage since the pumping station was closed. We, unfortunately, couldn’t get the pumping station as a filming location until i was closed. It only opens a few times a year. This meant that all the ideas of machinery moving and exciting active footage wasn’t going to be available to film. Instead, as camera operator, I needed to use my skills to make the empty station look as exciting as we had planned originally. This was both due to my use of editing skills and camera skills during the project.
Our end product, all of the edits put together and slightly tweaked, looked really great. At the beginning of production, we looked at other promotional videos to see what was good and bad and what ideas we could take and what we could improve on. One of the promotional videos we watched was one for our own college. While both the college promo and our RTR promo were promoting a specific organisation, the video and the ideas in it were highly different. This was obviously down to the fact the organisations were very different and needed to be promoted in different ways. However there are similarities. In both promos, there is a specific subject that the promo focuses on. In the college promo the subjects are students and the courses. The promo focuses on how varied the courses are and how students enjoy them. In our promo, our subjects were the different areas which are part of the RTR programme. So, in our promo, we showed off the variation in the areas and in some we had people who were involved and they all enjoyed themselves which we put across in the video.
Overall, the River Tees Rediscovered project was a success, both as a group and individually.
