On this day I did some test shooting with a DLSR camera with my friend (Tezney Epicoco) as I wanted to just practice using a particular shot type I planned to use so I took some still images of Tezney which was all mainly medium close-ups (MCU) but also I used some wide shots as well.
On the Friday we began pre-production work, I started off with mood boards to generate ideas for my finial major project as well as a draft storyboard. During the middle of these days i created a risk assessment and shot list and more, so this meant i am more prepared and organised for when I come to shoot the project.
I also did a draft of ideas in a word document to help decide a final idea to create for my final project.
Today I edited all of my finial piece. I already had a rough edit of the pervious editing I did on the 24/5/17 were I edited my footage from the woods. I had all my footage from Frankie’s party and from Boots ready to edit.
I used the footage I had perviously edited and added in all the clips from my new footage and edited them together and I had everything how I wanted it all; the only task I had left to do was add effects to my piece so I added effects which were transitions on the video as well as cross fades on audio. I used dip blacked to go to the past through my clips and white to go to the future.
On this day I started to edit my final piece so I got together all of the footage I got from the refley woods shoot on the 19/5/17 and started to edit them together. I wanted the music video to go in a certain sequence so I made sure that when my edit went from one clip to the other it would go in time with the music so each cut is based on the music.
I edited for about an hour and a half to get this footage how I wanted it for my final edit.
On this day me and Tezney filmed in the boots store located in King’s Lynn town and I wanted to record me and Tezney printing off the picture of me and Tezney from the refley woods shoot as this is how it will transaction from the two scenes/locations as it will go from James taking the picture of us both and then the picture on my phone and it will slow zoom out and show we are printing of the picture.
So I got shots of me printing of the picture and what I did before hand to print it off e.g selecting the picture and clicking “print & checkout”.
To film this I used DSLR camera.
On this day I filmed at my friend Frankie’s house for his party he was hosting with some friends, so I saw this as a perfect opportunity to film and get some footage for my finial project.
I made sure I got some footage of people dancing and talking and generally just looking happy and having a good time as it needs to fit the song.
I also used a variety of different props such as disco lights, and alcohol.
I made sure I got different shots such as close-ups and mid shots etc.
For my final major project I am doing my piece on getting older but I want to inspire that you can still have fun no matter what your age is. I also have chosen to do this idea because I am leaving college soon so it is kind of relateable for me and other students and anyone who feels they are getting older or even people who are older e.g an adult or Silver surfers (OAP), as I want them to feel like even tough they are older they can still have fun and do things that people who are younger can do, I don’t want people to restrict themselves because of their age. To show this I am creating a music using the song “Youth” by Foxes and I will be using footage of a group of teenagers having fun and doing stuff teenagers do and then having one of the characters appear at the end when they are older and hold a photograph that was taken when they was younger to give the viewer a more emotional impact.
For my music video, it will make my audience feel different emotions depending on who they are and what age they are. For someone who is just leaving college they may feel that they are getting older and it may make them feel sad but hopefully it will make them feel the opposite and make them feel like they can still make time for fun and not restrict themselves. For OAP’s they may feel happy when watching this as it shows that people their age can still have fun so it might inspire them to go and have or it may make them feel a sense of nostalgia as it may remind them of when they was younger.
During my pre-production I had a problem with my risk assessment because I found it hard to film in time with my schedule as I had planned numerous locations but I had to cut it down to three locations due to not being able to fit it in with my schedule so I wish I gave myself more time to fit the other locations in.
When it came to shooting on my first shoot at the woods I wanted to get a shot of me playing the song I’m using for my music video by pressing the play button and walking over to my friends but the shot didn’t quite capture me doing this so I had to rent out another camera again and record this happening in college which I feel would of been better if I would have got this shot in the woods.
After I had filmed most of my footage for my final piece I began to edit I began to use more effects, transitions and audio effects which I hadn’t really done before in previous work. I feel like it has benefited my work in a positive way and I will most likely remember it for future projects.
My first source of research is a book called “Preparing For Takeoff: Pre-production for the Independent Filmmaker” by Arthur Vincie. The book focuses on how to place and write your pre-production so that it is to the best it can be. The guide book tells us how to start off and structure pre work by using bullet points and short statements of instructions. For example here are two: ” 1: To Diagnose and solve problems before they become expensive and/or time consuming. 2: To be able to communicate your vision better”. The reason that I used this source of research is because it assisted me of how to properly structure and detail my pre-production work, as well as make it look more professional. Not only does this help with all pre-production but it also helps me time frame my risk assessment with my shooting. So from reading about all this I applied this to my pre-production work and spoke about my “vision”.
My second source of research is also a book named “Adobe Premier Pro CS3 Classroom In a Book” the book talks about how to use effects such as transitions and how they make your media more advanced. The book states “Some are subtle, and some are in your face. The more you experiment with them, the more likely you are to use them well.” I took note of this quote and did exactly what it said and had some experiments with different effects on Adobe Premier Pro and I eventually found the perfect transition for some clips near the end of my music video were I use Tezney’s hands who plays the girl character at the start of the music video and then I got Tezney to hold the photograph of me and her and then used
My third source is a book called “Corporate Media Production” by Ray DiZazzo the book discusses how to correctly start up a production with everything to do with preparation involved and talked about in the book. The problem I had while filming my piece was that my actors had to step in and be a camera man, I now know from reading the book I needed more crew members so that I could have made my shooting time easier and more relaxed as I would of had more people to help out.
Peer Assessment – Tezney Epicoco
From starring in and watching the final finished product of Jakes music video I feel that the piece is very relatable and heartfelt. The first problem that Jake came across was time scaling his pre-production work with his shoot, at the beginning of the project we were asked to make a schedule so that we could make ourselves more organised and how a finalized timeline that would help us complete our work. Jake’s risk assessments were also completed on time however he felt like he couldn’t balance them out with planning other things further on in his project. Also, he spoke about how he added new locations to his piece, which meant more risk assessments, I would say it’s only due to a little more organisation but that is always easy to improve on. I think that Jake will remember for next time to always stick to his plans and to make thing easy and suitable for himself rather than try and go to big.
Where shooting is concerned, I think it was just due to the fact of not having enough crew members and that is always hard to do when having to get work done quickly. Maybe if crew and cast members swapped around so that everyone could have the same screen time and camera time would’ve worked out just as fine. I think that finding crew members should genuinely be involved with pre-production work as it is very important when shooting with a small group. This is because there always needs to be someone working and doing different kinds of shots with the camera.
Lastly, I admire Jake’s work with the dip to blacks and whites as this not only looks good but it also shows contrasts time. For example, when it moves into the future it dips to white and when we go back into the past it dips to black. I admire this as it is very clever and clear as well as effective. As Jake, has learnt new effects and transitions, I think that this was a very smart trick to have added into his piece.
Overall, I think Jake has done an amazing job with his final major project as I think that he has come a long way from learning new features and skills with the software that we use in class and with theory work. I also think that his piece is something that can speak to and be related to by a wide range of ages. This is because he makes you think you’re just watching a young group of friends go to parties and have a great time together but switches it to be the story of the girl. I feel that it will be a music video that a lot of people will love and enjoy to watch as they can relate and reminisce or look forward to. I think that having a diverse audience is always something to keep in mind and make important and this is exactly what Jake has done.
Back to evaluation
During pre-production I developed new ideas while doing paperwork, during writing my risk assessments i started to think of more areas I could film at and my mood board gave me the feeling of how I wanted my audience to feel when watching my piece.
While filming my piece in the production stage I wanted my characters to represent real life teenagers but also wanted them to have a link back to my Tim Burton essay I wrote as I wrote about how Tim Burton’s characters are always different or misunderstood so i took this idea for my music video and I wanted my characters to seem normal but then when Tezney has her transition to the her when she is older in the future when she is holding the photo of me and her it will surprise the audience as they wouldn’t expect this and Burton was always good at throwing in surprises.
When it came to the post production stage I wanted to base each cut on the rhythm of the music so each beat or the end of a sentence in the lyrics occurred I would cut at that specific point in the clip and use a different clip and wait for a beat or end of a sentence in the lyric in the end and repeat this. There was only a few times some clips was longer than others and didn’t quite fit the beat this was due to a shortage of clips so I just had to use some clips and not cut them. If I could change one thing about piece it would of been spending more time on getting more footage for my piece.
I played around with some effects in my edit and I found an effect perfect for the transitions for Tezney when the video jumps to her in the future so I used the dip to white to jump to the future and dip to black for the past.
– The series of images used for jumps.
I wanted to get a couple of pictures to jump at the sound of the beat in the music video so I put a load together and made them jump and then left the original sized picture afterwards.
A problem I had was trying to get the video to fit the frame so when I exported my video some of the clips cropped out peoples heads but luckily It was only on a couple of clips and they are very short ones too. Next time I work on editing a project I will make sure to make all frames fit the videos correctly.
In the future I would organised my time better as there was a lot more footage I wanted to record but I just didn’t have the time as I was slightly behind on my schedule so I had to improvise with the footage I had but it worked out fine but I just wish I could have added some extra scenes. I have never been good at managing time and I know this is a big weakness in this industry as employers expect everything to be done by the deadline. I would also of liked to of added and played with some more effects nut because I was running on limited time due to being behind on my schedule I just messed around with only a few and luckily found a effect I loved but would of loved to add some more effects in my piece as for one clip I have some flashing disco lights but I wanted to have this in the background near the end of my piece by having the opacity lowered and having the lights flash the background.
Overall I am happy with my final major project and it has been a great experience to learn that I could direct a crew as in my SWOT analysis I said this was a weakness of mine and I feel I have overcome this weakness. I also organised myself to edit, film and produce my piece without many problems apart from the ones I spoke about and the main one being time management but overall I feel more confident in all areas of production, post and pre production.
Bibliography
“Preparing For Takeoff: Pre-production for the Independent Filmmaker” by Arthur Vincie (2013) (page xiii) – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3Ehmyf207k8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=pre+production&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiasY-_zKvUAhWDJ8AKHUNyDa8Q6AEILDAB#v=onepage&q=pre%20production&f=false
“Adobe Premier Pro CS3 Classroom in a book” by Adobe Creative Team (Originally published 2008) (page 137) – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2bxyUEwvzEoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Adobe+Premier+Pro+CS3+Classroom+in+a+book+by+Adobe+Creative+Team&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf9PLhirHUAhUKB8AKHQZeAZAQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=Adobe%20Premier%20Pro%20CS3%20Classroom%20in%20a%20book%20by%20Adobe%20Creative%20Team&f=false
“Corporate Media Production” by Ray DiZazzo (page 18) – https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=nGN613v1Jr0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Corporate+Media+Production%22+by+Ray+DiZazzo&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiu3KGdj7HUAhWsDMAKHXhdCRAQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=Corporate%20Media%20Production%22%20by%20Ray%20DiZazzo&f=false
On this day I shot some footage of me, Tezney, Callum and James in refley woods we used some props such as plastic cups and pretended to drink the alcohol out of them and then I used a empty vodka bottle of mine and filled it with water as vodka is clear so it would still look realistic if I used water and look like there was vodka in the bottle; I also used a wine bottle.
The reason I choose to film in refley woods was because the music video is meant to show the group of teenagers doing teenage things and one thing I remember doing a lot as a teenager was hanging out in the woods and refley woods is one of the main places I used to go and hang out with friends and and have a good time with friends so I wanted to re create this image of me and my friends going here.
I used a panasonic camera to record my footage while filming at the woods. I wanted numerous shot types and the first shot I wanted straight away was a close up of the plastic cups to make my audience aware that the teenagers was drinking.
Evaluative & Reflective Writing
6.1 & 6.20
Due Date 9/6/17
Reflection Models
GIBBS
Reflective model > A trip to the beach
What happened? > We went to the beach in a car and took s picnic (past tense)
Feeling and emotional response? > I was excited and feeling extremely hungry as I hadn’t had breakfast
Subjective | Good or bad? What went well and what didn’t
Make sense of situation | research combine with sources x3 (present tense & use correct vocabulary) > Title, author and date > URLs > Books and Articles > Comparing your experiece with a reference from a book
Conclude generally > facts then specifically
Future > What will I do next time to make it better? What I won’t and will be doing? Detail the reasons (Time scales and actions) Did I have enough time? Will I give myself more time?
Make an imaginative plan of what you will do next time! Your chance to go into real detail > how to improve your future in filming
Evaluation
6.1 Evaluative records (dates)
Highlight problems
Evaluative > changes skills for the better > Changes decisions
Reflective (GIBBS) COMPLETED CYCLE X 5 TIMES
Evaluation Depends upon who is evaluating
Peer evaluation who took part in production > achieves their angle which will be different to yours
Success
Gaining a high grade at the end it
have lots of money
What is your success
Your goals
What you believe success was? This is how you conclude?
Assessing & Evaluating are different but this is what you will have done within this process
My target audiene for my final major project is aimed at the ages between 16-50+ as it is about getting older and still enjoying yourself no matter your age. I am also part of the adudiance as I’m soon to leave college so I do feel like I am getting older but that isn’t going to stop me from having fun and stoping myself from doing what I want cause of my age even when I reach my 50’s I’ll still be the same.
Looking into specific ages of audiences are crucial for this piece, as I will be including character development through age. The particular Age that I want shown in my piece are people my age (between ages 18-25) to people between 50-60 years old. Obviously, the demographic between the two are very different; for exemple, those my age prefer to go out and party, and pretty much be outgoing & active but a lot of older people feel that they can’t do this which is not the case in my opinion you should be allowed to do whatever you want don’t let your age stop you!! That’s what the message behind my piece is.
I will make it very clear in my video that the main characters in the music video are teenagers I will do this by making them be shown that they are at college and in the phones they are using.
My piece is meant to be a inspartional messege to mainly old people and teens who are now leaving education and going into “the real world” and I want to movivate people to make the most out of thier youth and olderly people should still go have a good time and enjoy themselfs before it’s too late.
Jake Inns 