Invites To The End Of Year Show

I have sourced a list of companies and people who I would like to invite to the end of year show

I have chosen these companies in particular because I think they would benefit from meeting new young designers and obviously it would be a good opportunity for the students to network. I have chosen a wide range companies from design to film and all Brighton based this way it's not an inconvenience for them to get to. 

Jump Start is an independent feature film production company. They are based in Brighton they specialise in making low budget independent films with new talent. The company has been around 6 years and their latest feature film has to date won 6 international awards. I think they would be a good company to invite to the show because looking at their website they seem like a friendly, inviting team.

http://www.jumpstartproductions.co.uk

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Fruitmedia is a video production agency founded in 2004 I really like the work they produce. But unlike Jump Start the people who work for fruit media are older this isn't a bad thing i think it shows they're a more experienced team. I Think it would be a good idea to invite them to the end of year show. 

http://fruitmedia.co.uk 

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WildDog Design is another award winning design agency the company to a range of different design work but excel in branding, responsive web design, travel brochures, iPad apps, and social media integration. I thought wilddog design would be a fantastic company to invite to the show as they cover a wide range of digital media that lots of students could be interested in.

http://www.wilddogdesign.co.uk

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Fatsand is a film and video company who have worked with big name companies such as Disney, Sony, Nokia, Microsoft, ELLE, O2 and many more. The company started out as a group of friends filming surfing videos back in 2003 and since have expanded immensely into a successful "cinematic story-telling films" company, I find these people really inspiring and think they're perfect to invite. 

http://www.fatsand.com

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Focus is a yet another award winning digital agency, they're mainly a web based company and they specialise in making custom websites for businesses. Though I'm not internally into web a lot of people on the course are so i thought inviting this company would be great for those. 

http://www.focus-dm.co.uk

Portfolio Website.

I wanted to update my portfolio website because I think its good to keep it fresh and up to date. Below are some screen shots of what my website used to look like. Though i still like this and it does work really well I think it was time for an update. 

Since updating my website I think its improved immensely, I personally think it looks much more professional and would be taken more seriously than my old style. 

this theme allows me to have social media icons and when you hover over them the colour swaps to the branded colour. I also have videos and projects as a redirect link. I am pleased with how this has come out and I will be uploading a lot more of my work onto my portfolio page. I can upload videos and pictures. This theme enables you to be able to click on an image then it will come up bigger with a caption next to it so i get a chance to explain what its about to whoever is looking. 

Career Pathways

When I apply for a job I'm unsure of where I am going to apply for a job, at the end of the day I want to do something with film, for a while I've wanted to edit movie trailers but that's probably quite hard to get into. I will list the skills I am confident that i would be able to do in a work place. 

Photoshop: I have been using photoshop for years now, I am pretty good at editing photographs people often comment on how well i can do this, to which i thought i could apply for some magazine jobs, Some of the pictures you see on the front cover of magazines are dreadful and i personally think i could do a little better. 

Indesign: A software I am also familiar with since before university, in college I actually made a magazine which I created within indesign. 

Illustrator: I had never used this software before university, in school we got taught how to use Adobe Flash though a lot of people slate it I really enjoyed it, but since using illustrator I couldn't imagine going back. I am not an amazing drawer but I can make simple designs and also trace. 

After Effects: I learnt how to use this software in class and it's probably my favourite one. I use AE all the time for my youtube intros and other effects and love continuing to learn different things it can do. 

Final Cut Pro: I have been using final cut pro for a while now and it will always be my favourite film editing software, i think its one of the easiest to use with great effects. I think i would be confident in having a job where i could use this software.

IMovie: though iMovie isn't exactly a professional editing software, it's still great for simple and fast editing, I know the ins and outs of iMovie and could create a really nice piece just using this. 

Premire Pro: I have only recently started using premiere pro but I really enjoy using it, there are lots of cool effects and i like playing around with it, at the moment id say I'm not fully okay with having a job that surrounded this software but i think i could learn in no time. 

Searching For Jobs

Recently I have been searching and applying for jobs, here are a few that I have applied for: 

I was reading through a blog of a man who used to edited together movie trailers, which is exactly what I've always wanted to do, at the end of his blog he left a link to a website with lots of trailer house companies: http://www.goldentrailer.com/trailerhouse.php though they all seem to be in America that doesn't exactly bother me, i would love to look more into this and see where it could take me. 

Other Jobs:

ASOS

ITV

Self Promoting.

Since studying digital media at university i have become more and more into video and film editing, uploading videos to youtube gives me a chance to stay creative and learn new things along the way. 

For about a year now I have been promoting myself on social media, because I make weekly youtube videos people all over the world watch and then get in contact with me through social networking, telling me how much they like my videos and how I should do more. Since uploading I have gained over 1000 subscribers, which I'm proud of because its very hard to get noticed when you're just starting out.

I think its good to keep up to date with the new social media trends, especially being in the digital industry you need to stay relevant and I think being involved with several communities helps do this. Since promoting myself on twitter I have gone from 800 to over 8000 followers, having a big following on twitter means everything I upload gets noticed by more people. 

I have only recently made a Facebook page because I never felt the need to make one in the past, I didn't quite realise how much a Facebook page would benefit me, under all the posts you upload it says underneath how many people it has reached. Its also a great way of promoting yourself. 

I have the following set up: 

YouTube

Twitter 

Facebook

Instagram

Tumblr

Blogger

Vine

Snapchat. 

Creating My Brand.

For a while now I have been forming my online persona into a brand, making myself into a brand looks professional and helps people find my social media sites quicker. I have made myself a logo and use the same fonts and colours for everything I do. I am happy with what I have come up with and i think it works well for me. Everything i have created will appear on all my websites and social media, this way everything stays linked together. 

I use the same fonts and colours at all times.

Fonts: Billabong, Cubano and Simplicity 

Here is what I have created: 

The Logo: I have created two in different colours because I wanted options, my main colour that i will always use is blue but pink works for other things such as my blog which is the same pink colour. The reason for GXA is because it's my initials Gina Xanthe Allen. 

This is my intro, this goes before any video that I create and upload. 

Professional Practice - The Brief

You are to design and build a portfolio of your work for the End of Year show and in order for you to begin looking for employment. The site must be responsive and MUST BE ONLINE by deadline day so you will have to sort out hosting and uploading as part of this brief. You can use HTML, CSS, etc. or you can use a Wordpress template if you prefer.

Responsive portfolio website

Career Pathways – A short study of the different career pathways within the design industry with a focused emphasis on your chosen specialty – (this will be in the form of blog posts)

Self Promotion - A detailed list of companies that you will promote your Portfolio to and invite to the End of Year Show. Each entry must have a short paragraph justifying why you have chosen them and a link to their website.  

Portfolio Research - A study of the professional portfolios of a series of practitioners that have inspired you personally – this is evidenced in your blog and must contain analysis of visual language, composition and the use of social media.

Evaluation

During this project I have learnt a lot about film making and myself, I will take away more skills than I had before i started and put them to use in the future. When I started out I was really unsure of what storyline I wanted to do, I wanted to do something I was really passionate about this way I wouldn't loose interest as it's such a long project. 

In my spare time I make YouTube videos, I enjoy this a lot and since I've been uploading other people enjoy my videos too. One afternoon my cousin comes up to me and says she too wants to start uploading videos to YouTube, I thought it was great she wanted to do something like that but at the same time, my cousin is 10 years old. I told her to wait until she's older because I don't think it's safe to be online that young. This got me thinking about my project and how I could do a video on the darker side of the Internet, nothing too sinster but just to show awareness that it's not good all the time. 

When it came to story boarding I had a few visions on how I wanted the film to look like, a vlogging style of film was defiantly one of them. The audience I want to attract would be used to a vlogging style because they watch videos like this already but I wanted to show that I could do normal shots too so in the last scene I changed it completely, though this was a lot harder than I first thought (I speak about this in a previous post.) 

There was a few technical difficulties I came across when it came to exporting. My file sizes where much to big and it was causing my laptop to become full very quickly, when I realised this I had to play around with the settings and save it as a lower resolution. I also bought a 4 terabyte external hard drive which then allowed me to move files onto that. Though this was such a pain I figured a way around this and learnt a lot about file sizes. 

Now I am at the end of the project I have come to the conclusion that 1) I am not an actress, its very hard watching the film back because I cringe a lot at how bad my acting is and 2) I have realised that i don't mind editing film (when I'm not acting in it) but i really like playing around in After Effects for intros etc. I also realised that I would much rather film and edit some adventure / traveling videos once I finish university I am thinking of taking a gap and hopefully I'm going to be able to achieve this.

Trailer and Film

Here are videos of both my final pieces. 

A couple of blogposts ago I mentioned that I placed a colour overlay on the whole video but sadly after I tried to export this on After Effects the video kept glitching and the sound was completely off, i thought  about trying again but it began to be more trouble that it was worth so I made the final decision to leave the colour over lay but still include the black lines. 

Though my film doesn't look like a high movie production I'm still happy with how it came out.

Trailer 

Film 

Problems Exporting - Not Enough Space

I had a lot of trouble when it came to exporting things, i think the file size of the videos are so big they're taking up the majority of space on my laptop, i have a feeling its something in the in camera settings that I've done wrong because i don't know what else would cause it. I have been going through my computer for hours deleting / moving files onto an external hard drive and I've managed to save some room.

A big problem which i was having was exporting the whole movie in after effects, i had to do this to get the colour overlay. The first time i tried to do this the file was 50GB - hense why there was so storage space left but after going through the settings i managed to render the movie and save a lot more space though i think the quality may have suffered a little. 

this is a screen shot after deleting and moving files.

Instagram Effects - After Effects.

I was searching online on how to get a cinematic colour overlay for my film because it seemed too raw. I came across this video on vimeo > https://vimeo.com/36622942

The person who created thought it would be a cool idea to bring instagram filters to video. He gave a link to the files and made a tutorial on how to use it. I used this in After Effects and I chose Branan i thought it was the most subtle yet gives a cold feeling to the film. 

Im so pleased i found this plugin because I really like how it looks with the filter - below you can see the difference. 

Black Cinematic Lines.

Coming to the end of editing I thought it would be cool to have some cinematic black lines in my video. It was pretty easy to create this in photoshop then scale it to the right fit within After Effects. I think it makes the film look more professional and wide screen. 

Editing Together Last Scene

When editing the last Scene I did with Aimee I came across a few problems first being that the wind and background noise was so loud! When filming it didn't occur to me that the microphone in my camera would pick up the noises so much. The wind didn't seem that loud when we was outside filming nor the background noise such as cars and birds. Another thing I didn't realise when filming was my script was clearly in shot there is sadly absolutely nothing I can do about this but take it as a learning curve. 

Filming With Aimee

In my film so far has been myself and Jade but for the final scene I thought it would be really cool to replace jade with her twin sister Aimee, Aimee recently cut her hair short and dyed it blonde, I thought it would be cool to add this into the storyline as jade is supposed to be in hiding.

When I imaged this scene I straight away knew it had to be filmed outside. I wanted the last scene to be different from the rest of the film because throughout the whole thing it had been in a vlogging style of filming, so for the last scene i did with amy we shot it normally, though this was a lot harder than i thought it would be because when we was acting we couldn't look at the camera, and we had to make sure that there was different camera angles and make sure everything continuity was okay. 

I enjoyed filming with Aimee and I think the scene will work out well. 

Cinematic Footage (small update)

I wanted to film some artsy, cinematic footage for the film to show more of my skill set, Within editing I have put a slow motion effect on some of it which looks good. I will put this in the beginning at maybe at the end of the film too. I went out on both a rainy and sunny day to get some different types of feeling. What i mean by this is that when its sunny i feel like its showing off a good vibe whereas when its grey and rainy outside you automatically get that feeling of sadness. I think by doing this i have set the scene to how the audience should be feeling. 

Numbes Progress

I have finished my numbers for the intro and i really like how it looks, at first i wanted it to zoom into the numbers but after doing this i preferred how it looked without and instead i added a mouse to be circling near the numbers.

in order to create this i had to screen shot youtube then go from there in photoshop, because the video you see playing wasn't originally up on youtube and I had to make it look as if it was. I photoshopped the adverts at the side out and moved everything to the middle. I then went into after effects where I made the mouse move, the numbers rise and added the sound effects, by doing this it makes the video look more realistic.  

Editing Progress

I have been putting all the footage together and so far so good, the sound effects make it look and sound great! I'm pleased with my progress. The only thing I'm worried about is because the majority of it is vlogging style it looks pretty amateur, i knew going into this it would not come out looking like a full feature film but i hope the audience understands why it's not very clean cut. Having said this i made the choice to do a vlog style film and i stick by the reasons and i do think it works. 

At the moment i have only got about 6 minutes worth of film when i said there would be 10 i still have the intro to film and hopefully i can get Jade again to help finish it but if not I'm stuck on what to do because where the film finishes now i could leave it and it would be fine but i want it to be great not just fine. 

Once I have finished with all of it I will then start editing together my trailer, which shouldn't take too long, i think the trailer itself will be about 1 minute long. 

Filming

Myself and Jade Leonard are playing the two characters in my film but using our own names because i didn't see a problem with this and it makes it a little more realistic. For the first scene i had Jade vlog on my phone and have myself on the main camera. I wanted to get two different angles without looking staged and i think i succeeded in this. 

I dont want to post too much of what we filmed because i dont want to spoil or give anything away from the storyline. 

Voice Over (update)

I have done a voice over for the intro to my film, the voice over really sets the scene and tone of the film and I'm pleased with how it looks and sounds. I recorded my voice over the iPhone but i didn't like how it sounded so instead i spoke into my camera microphone, this sounds a lot more professional in comparison to the iPhone.

Script Update

Today I finished writing my script and I'm happy with the outcome, I've never written a script before but I think it works well. I don't know how much we'll stick to it when it comes to filming because we might think of something better to say on the spot also I want it to look real not as if its been read of a script so i think its a good idea to do a little improv now and again. 

I have printed off 3 scripts one for myself, Jade and Amy. 

Amy is Jades twin sister they look alike but Amy has completely different hair to jade and it thought it would be a good idea to have amy act as Jade's character in the last scene because i thought i could include the different hair into the film. 

Testing The Number Counter.

I wanted to have a quick go at creating the numbers, I searched on youtube a tutorial and it only took about 5 minutes to make, so I'm happy with how easy it was and i think it will look good on my video. Though I'm going to have too play around with zooming into the numbers on the actual video but I'm sure ill find away around this. 

Intro To Film Idea

I have this idea for my intro that i want to create. I want it to start off with with a clip from the middle of the film kind of like a preview into whats going to happen but the audience won't know this at the time. After that i want the screen to be a computer monitor with youtube videos playing showing viral videos that most people would have seen this will be relatable for the audience and get the interested in watching more, when this is happening there will be a voice over of someone setting the scene, giving facts about youtube then once that is over the film will properly start with one of the main girls on youtube and you'll see her views rise. 

Here are a few examples to what I'm talking about:

Music / Sound Effects

There won't be much music throughout the film because I want it to seem a real as possible, because it's vlogging style i want the audience to believe what is happening in the film is real life all caught on tape. I have been searching for music for intro, background, outro and sound effects, here is what i have sourced and will use in my film:

INTRO: - skip to 1 minute: 

Background: 

Sound Effects: 

Man Whispering: 

Man Breathing: 

IPhone Text Tone: 

IPhone Ring Tone: 

Video Overlay.

I have been searching online for some free plugins that would benefit my film, I came across this website: motion mile and found exactly what I was looking for. 

http://www.motionmile.com/after-effects-templates/video-camera-rec-overlay/

This is a video overlay that can be used in After Effects, I really like this and i think it could come in useful. Because my film is based around videos i want the audience to be able to differentiate between when someone is recording them and when its normal footage. I think this overlay will improve the quality of my work.

Software I Will Be Using (UPDATE)

The software I will be using to edit on will be

After Effects
Premier Pro and or Final Cut Pro

I already know how to use Final Cut Pro as its always been my go to software for editing but this got me thinking how i have never used Premier Pro before and so i thought this project would give me a good opportunity to learn. I have been on youtube and watched a few tutorials and it seems simple enough with the basics. I will use After Effects to create some special effects and overlays.

Camera Equipment

The Equipment i will be using to create the film with will be:

Canon 60D

Canon EF-S 10-18mm Lens

Lighting Box

Iphone 6 

Recently i went out and bought a lens for this project because the lens i had wasn't able to give the bigger picture i need. I bought the 10-18 lens because its wide angle and the focus is easy to control. Most of the filming will be done using my 60D but i will also be using the iPhone 6 camera for some of the vlogging. I wanted to use a normal camera the one i had was broken so the phone will do perfectly fine. The light box will help get a better cinematic effect and also help out when filming in the dark. 

Script

I am working on the Script at the moment, doing this is hard because i am far from a good writer and I'm not sure what a professional script is supposed to look like but with some help from google i am slowly getting there. Most of the speaking in the film will be improvisation but i want to make a script that outlines what we're supposed to be saying. 

I will post some pictures of the script when its completely finished. 

Storyboarding

I have been working on the storyboarding for my film because once I can see how it all should look I know i'll be able to get right into the making of it. The idea is to keep it as simple as possible. I have chosen to be in the film with one of my friends Jade Leonard,  I have made the decision to be in the film myself as i have struggled to find anyone else who is free.

here are some images of my storyboard.

Planning

Im still in early stages of my project and before i start anything i want to get some idea generation going, what helps me the most is creating a mind map. Below you can see what i have come up with for the film based around the internets dark side. 

Because i have an idea of what i want the film to be about i felt it was best to note it all down so i dont forget any of it though I'm sure there will be some changes when it comes to creating it. 

Target Audience

I was 10 years old when I joined my first social networking site, it was called Piczo, this was a site that allowed you to create your own website it was possible to design it exactly how you wanted, you could also create pages about things you liked or people you was friends with. You could follow your friends pages but there was no real communication on there, back in the day most people used MSN instant messenger for that. I had MSN long before I joined any social networking sites, MSN was the go to source for communication.

Throughout the years social media grew from one platform to the next improving immensely but the previous site would slowly fizzling out for example MSN, Piczo, Bebo, MySpace no one uses these sites anymore because once everyone jumped ship there was no point in logging on when all your friends where chatting elsewhere. Which brings us to the sites we still have an use today Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Instagram, these most recent sites are better known as apps which we use on our phones. It's actually really interesting looking back and seeing how far social networking has come since I was 10.

Youtube is a video sharing website that was founded in 2005 it's thought that the company is worth $40 billion. Though YouTube was founded 10 years ago I personally think 2014 was really the year of the youtuber, these are people who continuously upload videos whether they are vlogs, gaming, beauty or challenges. Having a successful youtube channel is like a modern day version of having your own reality show and if you're lucky enough to become a youtube star the benefits are epic. In 2014 I started a youtube channel and I upload videos every week, i enjoy doing this because i love film and film editing so doing it gives me a chance to be creative and practice using software also i became a youtube partner which means I'm getting money for the advertisements on my videos. But because youtubers appeal to such a wide audience it seems everyone wants to become a youtube star even kids. My 10 year old cousins watch youtubers religiously and because they think its fun and are see how successful these people are becoming they too want to start uploading videos to youtube. I think its great that they're taking an interest in video but i personally think 10 is too young to be uploading videos on the internet.

This is where my idea steamed from, i want to create a short film which warning young people that it can be dangerous to put too much of themselves online. For example a few youtube stars filmed something in front of their house and not long fans where showing up, which is pretty scary because your home is supposed to be somewhere you feel safe. Even though i was 10 when i joined my first social media site i think theres a big difference between having a social page talking to friends and uploading videos of yourself because you never know who's watching.  The target Audience I am going for is 12-18 school / college age.

Pitch and Feedback

When going through the pitches the main thing George wanted to figure out was if the projects we have decided for ourselves will be enough for a 40 credit assignment, with 10% weighting for project pitch/plans/ideas and the other 90% weighting the final outcome. 

I always get nervous pitching because I never truly believe in myself or my ideas and this project was no different, I was worried that it wouldn't be enough work or the idea wasn't that good but when I pitched the feedback I got wasn't bad at all. 

George mentioned that it was a good idea, how colleges and schools would be interested in and maybe even purchasing this sort of video as it shows awareness too kids and teens. 

The class mentioned how I wouldn't need to do branding posters though it was a nice idea it wasn't exactly needed and they think I have enough work already but if there is time at the end it wouldn't hurt to do it either. 

A few people in class spoke about a film called ______ they think i could get some inspiration from that. 

Below are screen shots from the pitch. 

Vlogging Films

I've decided that because my video is based around youtubers i want the video i create to be self vlogged, I think this style of filming has been proven successful in the past dating way back to 1999 with the blair witch project, when people went to see this film a lot was convinced it actually happened because of the vlogging style (vlogging = video blogging). Other movies that have been in the style of vlogging are Paranormal Activity, Earth To Echo and Project X. I think these style movies are becoming more popular because most people are able to relate to the fact that when something happens most people will grab their phone or camera and start filming it, it feels more real and thats what drawers the viewer in. 

I have been looking into these types of movies in order to get a good concept of how the film i am going to create should look. 

Research On Short Vlogging Films

I thought it would be a good idea to take a look at some videos that have been created by vloggers, I wanted to do this purely for inspiration and to see what I could achieve. 

This guy is a vlogger his name is Ricky Dillion, he made a video about his friends disappearing one by one and in the end theres a plot twist where his friend turns out to be the person who's behind it all. I love the idea of having a plot twist its exactly the direction i want to go when making my film. 

There are a number of things I like about this video especially the way it starts with a little section of text which sets the scene. It makes watching the film feel more believable. This film is half vlogged and half normal shots, i really like the mix between the two and hopefully i can achieve something like this too.

Inspiration (research) #2

When looking for some inspiration I came across this video and it was actually really helpful, though throughout the years I've studied media, media production, multimedia and digital media it was still nice to have a little refresher on what I should be doing. 

• In the video he mentions how the best length for a short film is 10 minutes which I'm really pleased about because thats what I'm trying to achieve.

• He also mentions that it's okay not to follow rules the reason for this is because rules stop the creativity flow which results in poor work. 

• Storyboarding - I think when creating a film storyboarding is a must! even if you don't stick to it 100% it's good to have a guideline of what your original ideas where. 

• Continuity Editing, this is something that annoys me a lot when watching films, one minute the actors hair is up and the next minute their hair is down things like this irritate me because it could have been so easily avoided if more attention was put into it. Having said this mistakes do happen but I will try to avoid this. 

Video Inspiration (research)

This short video has given me a lot of inspiration for cinematic shots. I also like how the camera hovers on them their name appears, I think this could be a good alternative to credits as there's only two people in my film it would seem a little pointless to have credits at the end. 

Research On Script Writing

I thought it would be a good idea to do a quick search on how to write a script considering i've never written one before, the default font seems to be American Typewriter, I also read to keep it brief not write too much especially for short films because you when it comes to filming you may think of something better within improvisation etc. But I had the problem of wanting to write everything down so i didn't forget anything I wanted to say 

Research On Youtube Partners

Research On Youtube

YouTube is a video-sharing website headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.

it was bought by Google for US $1.65 billion. 

Proposal

Proposal: 

I want to create a Short Film, Trailer and Branding Posters for my final project, three years into university and I find myself very much into film, I enjoy directing and film editing the most. I have gone through a range of ideas for a short film but the idea that has stuck the most has been the idea of a darker side of the internet, I want to make people aware that the internet isn’t always safe and people shouldn't share too much of themselves online. With millions of people uploading youtube videos and posting tweets you’re never truly aware who is watching. 

My film will be based around 2 girls who are youtube sensations getting millions of views per video, just as everything seems perfect the girls will start getting unsettling texts from an anonymous person. The girls will go through hell and back trying to figure out to is texting them to which there will be a plot twist at the end. 

The short film promotes friendship and online safety. 

I want to create a trailer to go with the short film because I like making trailers and I think it could be more exciting than the short film if im honest, i will use the same footage from the movie and maybe some extra footage too so it doesn't spoil the movie. 

the short film will be 10 - 15 minutes long.

the trailer will be about 2 - 3 minutes long. 

--- NEW PROJECT --- The Brief

The Brief 

Students are asked to do an independent project totally of their own choice, and formulate a brief, indicating possible avenues they may wish to explore. 

This is registered with the Course Leader and constitutes ‘Part One – Proposal’ form (300+ words). 

‘Part Two – Project Review’ (500 words) is submitted by the students at the end of the module. This review document is self-evaluative in nature and is intended as a tool for you to review the final projects’ intentions and conclusions, alongside all research work and the final project execution. 

Both forms are included in the assessment criteria for this module.

Filming

The other day I booked out the studio so we could do some filming, I bought in my camera and we set it up on the tripod in front of the soft box, it was my first time in the studio and I really like how the soft-box came down from the celling it made it much easier to manoeuvre. 

in the time that we was in the studio we managed to film everything we needed, we got everyone to hold up a piece of paper saying "I am creative because.." then got them to say a reason to why they are creative, we chose to be in the video ourselves because we're on the course and it was easier than finding a load of different people. 

After we was done in the studio myself and dan then went on to edit whilst chloe and glen went to work on the stop motion part of the video. When editing we came across a problem, the camera wasn't in focus for the whole of the video apart from right at the end. None of us noticed when filming it looked perfectly fine in the studio, we was upset about this and came to the conclusion we had to discard what we had done. We then got the camera back out and had to film in front of a white background, it took up a lot more time but it was worth it in the end as it looked HD. 

Quick Update

Today Glen joined our group, which is good because now we have an even number of people which is useful as we have now been able to divided the group up into film / stop motion. Myself and Glen will both bring in our cameras and tripods to class on Thursday, this allows the group to work on both at the same time.

The Plan Of Action 

Me and Dan are both going to be in the studio tomorrow doing the filming, I have sent out emails to a few people asking them to come down and be in the video for us. Whilst we're doing this Chloe and Glen will be in a classroom with good lighting to create the stop motion part of the video. 

UPDATE:

Since Thursday communication with the group has been excellent, we've set up a group chat through imessage, this way we're constantly sending videos / pictures of our progress and asking for each others opinions, it's been extremely helpful and this way when it comes to meeting in class it's not like we're seeing each others work for the first time. 

After effects #3

I have combined both end clips to see what they would look like together and with music, I have sourced and added a subtle instrumental track to see what it would look and sound like. I think the music complements the video really well and the way it ends on the last musical note ends the it perfectly. I have spoken to Chloe and Dan about this and they agreed it looked great, though i still see room for improvement, we havent discussed if there should be colour yet or left black and white. Though i think things like that can wait until nearer the end or when we have decided the branding colours for the logo. Though because I have created this ending it has given me an insight into what what the rest of the video should look like, and how much time we have to work with. 

I'm really excited to get in the studio and film the main part to the video, if we can get timings accruate i think the promo video will be just as we envisioned if not better. 

After Effects #2

This is the very last clip we storyboarded about - this was the part with the time and date of the show so everyone who see's the video knows they can attend. The title font is big and bold so for regular text I wanted it to be completely opposite. I was browsing my fonts and came across Moon Flower Bold  I really like how quirky and fun this font is not too mention it's also readable.

With the font in mind I took to After Effects and started playing around, I first sorted all the text into what order I thought looked best. (its only just accrued to me to add where the show is too)

I then set the opacity for the three rows to come in all at the same time but for "you're invited!" I wanted to do something a little different, firstly the reason for adding you're invited is simply tell whoever was watching the promo video that they can come to the show, I then got the idea that it could be a good idea too add a typewriter effect on it, as this makes it seem like someone is writing out their invite. I then added a keyboard sound effect and I think it worked out really well. I asked the group for feedback and they seem to like it too, Chloe mentioned how the invite makes it seem more personal which I agree with. Though I think it could be improved somehow so when in class with the group we'll come back to it.