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We did meet every deadline that was set and i think this is a credit to how professionally and efficient we were in meeting the brief.
We did not make any changes to our original proposal and the reason for this is because we did not promise anything we knew we could not do. For instance we said we would green screen the background which we did because we knew it was something Jon was incredibly capable of doing.
i think we met the clients brief to a T and the reason for this is because they wanted an ident at least 30 seconds long, which we have which included at least 15 seconds of animation which we have as well as describing the four overall outcomes to the audience which we had to appeal to in this case boys and girls with SEND who are aged 14-24 years old. I think we did all of the above things.
We were asked to make an ident which featured some sort of stop motion animation, and we did this as we produced a claymation animation. We were also asked to make sure there was at least 15 seconds of on screen graphics which we had as well as on screen graphics which included the four ELO outcomes. Which we had both of.
I would not make any modifications to the information portrayed in the ident or the storyline it was entailing, but i would possibly change the frame rate we shot it in, as we were mixing between 1's and 2's and 3's a large amount of the time and i would like to go back and shoot it in 1's.
I deffinetly think this ident is suitable to be aired on the ELO website, and the reason for this is because it has stuck to the brief they have set which is meeting the clients desires and is a professional thing to do, but i also think it covers all of the information that needed to be covered and will relate to everything that needs to be related to.
I think my creativity is shown within the creation of the character and the directing/capturing of the footage itself. I also think our creation as a team is shown in the facts that we have thought of simple metaphors, which represent the struggles the audience are going through in life.
I think overall our professionalism has been excellent throughout. For instance we have been incredibly efficient throughout and this has been shown by either beating the deadlines set by a significant amount of time, or by making sure we had just completed everything in general and making sure we have not left a stone unturned when it came to the planning etc. I also think we were professional in our punctuality to lessons as we were always on time or early unless we were on work experience etc. which was always authorised and they were not unexpected days off. and when we did have a day off we made sure all of the work was completed before hand or afterwards whilst still sticking to the time frame set.
I also think during the production stage we were incredibly efficient in the way we had planned and utilised this planning in the production of the video.

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In the production phase we were incredibly effective and i was incredibly impressed with the team because of this. We had allowed ourselves a maximum of three days on set filming, because we did not know how long it was going to take to be able to shoot the animation as we had never done anything this serious before other than our practices we have been doing. In actual fact we only needed one day out of the three days to film which in my opinion is incredibly efficient as we cut something that would of originally taken three days to shoot in one day. I think we were also sensible and focussed throughout and this is defiienetly professional standards. I think an area of improvement would have been our overall set design, because in my mind when we were planning building our sets, it was going to be much bigger and much more exciting than it turned out to be. I don't think this was down to a limiting factor i think this is more because of our distinct lack of arts and crafts between the team.
In editing i was responsible for putting the image through istopmotion and making sure the scenes were coming out at the other end, and i was also responsible for the audio making sure it was clear and removing any background noise in audacity before putting it on the ident itself.
I think Jon in particular was incredibly effective when it came to the overall editing of the ident, which includes adding the sound, sound effects and graphics. I think personally i was efficient in putting the images into istopmotion into a video and i was good at clearing background noises off of the voice over. Next time i would deffinetly try and get more involved in the editing process as it is something i would like to do, but Jon is incredibly skilled at editing and i did not want to edit and in turn create a bad ident. I think with some more practice though i could become skilled at it.
To check the quality of the work, we had the camera plugged into a laptop camera controls programs which allowed us to view the images on a retina display screen after taking them which allowed us to check any imperfections etc. which we did for each photo, and this is why i think we worked so professionally.
As a team we were constantly having team meetings and making minutes of the meetings, and this is one of the project management techniques we used rigorously throughout the creation of this ident. I think it was deffinetly worthwhile doing so though as it allowed us to know what it was we were doing on that day and what it is we had already done, or what we had left to do of the previous days work, which made us both efficient and lets us know if we were on schedule or not. We were also in constant contact through phone calls or text messages as this allowed us to check up on each others progress outside of the class room as well as share ideas and bounce them off of one and other. This was also helpful because if we were to get a good idea we would be able to elaborate with one and other whenever we needed too.

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In the pre production phase of creating the animated ident i think we personally were incredibly effective, not as individuals but as a team and i think we both took part equally throughout the process. This is because we both did everything as a team, any big decisions we made i.e. on who was doing what etc. were made as a team which is why i think we worked so well together. If we had not of done this it would not have been to a professional standard and this is because working professionally in a team revolves around team work and making decisions together. Obvisouly there is someone who has to take charge though and that was me, i was setting realistic deadlines to make sure everything was in on time and that we were doing everything that we were supposed to be doing. This overall was done to professional standards and i believe this is the case because i had seen in the Bear and the Hare ident that there was a team leader who took control in different phases of the production for instance when they were designing the set there was someone in control or in charge of that etc.
Originally we had planned to find someone from the performing arts class to do the voice over for our ident, but this did not materialise and we unfortunately were unable to use them. We did have a contingency plan for this though incase we could not get the actor to sign a commitment form before they decided they did not want to do it anymore. In our contingency plan we had decided to that I would do be doing the voice overs, which is not a professional practice as I am not trained nor do i have any experience in doing things like this, but it was unfortunately the best we could do with the time scale available. What was of professional practice though was writing up contracts for the actor to sign before hand which would legally bind them to perform in the ident. This isn't just done in animation though and is actually done in all forms of media and business.
I believe personally that our pre production material would have been incredibly effective in the production stage of the ident, and the reason for this is because it had both our storyboards and our dope sheets in it both of which would have made us incredibly effective in know what it was we were going to do next. This would have been professional practice as we would have been following everything to the way we had planned it, which is done in the industry all of the time. But unforntuantly we did not have our planning folders or any of the materials that we needed for this. Fortunately we had enough of an idea of what it was we were doing to create the ident without any of this material.
We did not encounter many problems during production, but the ones we did some of which were quite major. The first of these was that our DSLR we were using was not compatible with the image capture software, i stop motion and because of this we had to count each frame out by the use of a tally graph as this allowed us to keep track of how many shots and seconds of footage we had recorded and how much more we needed to record. This in my eyes is professional practice as we had found a solution to the problem that we were facing at the time and used our initiative to make sure we were accurate in our filming. Another problem we faced was not having any of our production folders with us on shoot for some un known reason and this meant we did not have any of our planning materials. This was not a problem though as the story had been drilled into our heads when planning and creating the characters we used in the ident. This meant we could go from memory and still produce a completely similar ident to the one we had planned to create on the storyboards. This in my mind was not the professional thing to do, but on the other hand it would not have been professional to sit there and do nothing. We did also contact about the folders, but were told they were not available to us on the day.

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Today we had a discussion with each other on our proposal we had conducted with the client. We talked about the fact that we had covered every point necessary, to make a successful proposal. We talked about the fact that they only asked us one question, which was what the hardest part of our animation was going to be. Which was creating the sets. We had the proposal meeting as it is something that is done in professional industries and we felt it necessary to do one ourselves as we wanted the client to see our idea. This was done after the concept was thought of in the Nytol ident.
Our team meetings have been incredibly effective in our mind. This is because they have allowed us to successfully plan and scrutinise every little detail. It allowed us to know what it is we have done and what it is we are going to do next, which also made us efficient in our minds. I think we project managed to a similar standard in which a professional industry would, but ours was at a much lesser scale as we had smaller amounts of documentation compared to productions such as the Bear and the Hare animation.
In my mind we have improved massively in our overall general communication within our meetings. The reason for this is because when we first started them, we were in my eyes quite new to the concept and struggled to just take down the key information that we needed. Instead we would take down the entire conversation, some of which would not be necessary to the overall topic. Like "oh did you get what i just said" for instance. We have also managed to improve the speed in which we take our meeting minutes as we are now much more efficueicnt in doing so.
We actually exceeded deadlines that we set in our production schedule. We were planning to finish all of the deadlines for pre production before hand but we were not expecting to complete them by such a margin. We finished two days before the deadline, and this was extremely helpful as it allowed us time to check over everything and possibly improve them.
We have planned everything that we needed for the ident to be a success. We had planned to use wood, drills, paint, clay and wire for our ident. These were the resources that we were going to need for them. We planned to buy all of the things that were not already supplied to us or were not of enough quality or quantity for us to use. In actual fact all we needed to supply ourselves was the wood and the paint and drill. Everything else was supplied by the client which was good as it allowed us to save money on our budget etc. which therefore saves the client money, which is something done constantly in the professional industry to try and cut budget costs. as long as it does not substitute for quality. We have also supplied our own equipment such as cameras, and tripods and computers etc. We are supplying our own as they are pieces of equipment that we are used to using and are familiar with. We also know the capabilities of our cameras and know what quality they can shoot at. In our case very high. The lighting is going to be provided by the college as we do not own any ourselves and can therefore not supply it. We know that we are going to need two different LED light with a white filter and a red filter to change the on screen temperatures.  Sound is going to be done by an actor in performing arts as we can use them to convey emotion in their voice and sound really enthusiastic.

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This is some of the practices that I had conducted whilst preparing for the ident. I did this to test out different effects and techniques to see what would work and what would not work. This is done in the professional industry and therefore I though it would help me with this.

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Today we have collated all of our information from all of the previous weeks. We looked at the information we had recorded and began primarily to look at our mind maps. We looked at the annotations we had done on them and began to put together a developed storyline to the one we had created previously. We looked at the information we had received from them and put this into practicing when developing this storyline. The first and most important thing we wanted to make sure we put into our concept was that it is relatable to the audience. This was very important to us as we both found that this was one of the top things we were told by the audience when interviewing them. Once this had been done and we had created a story outline this was again done using the research. We came up with the idea of a character being lost and followed by the outcomes in life he can't achieve. But once he finds the ELO they disappear and he realises that they can help him.
We have also created storyboards. This was done after the story outline. This allowed us to know exactly what was going to happen within the story before drawing out the visual ideas we had in our headset on paper. This was an effective way of doing it as it allowed us to further develop out story as we went along.
A dope sheet was also created to know exactly how many frames were needed for each scene. This was done again because we knew this would be necessary to create a smooth and effective ident, that would be at a suitable standard to which the ELO and us strive to achieve.
A script was also created as we again knew this is done in the professional industry, and that it is done to make sure we have an effective shoot. We have to be efficient when filming because we have a limited number of days available to film, so we need to make the most of them. To do this we need to be prepared. We also need to know what is going to be said, and when it is going to be said, also by what characters. For us we only have one main character who speaks and because of this our script is not massive. Although it is detailed.
All of these things are done in the professional industry as it common practice for them to be done as it covers everything that is needed for the process of filming.

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Today we have been conducting more research towards creating our ident. Today we conducted some more second hand research looking at successful ident's. We have looked at ident's such as the Discovery Channel UK, Dave TV, BBC and ITV. We wanted to see what all of these ident's had in common as we though this would allow us to be able to make a high quality and composed ident suitable for our target audience. We understood that ou audience is different to a general TV audience, but channels such as the BBC are a PSB broadcaster. This means that they have to appeal to all audiences, including people with learning difficulties. This means that what ever is in their dents are suitable for our audience. ITV are very similar to BBC in the fact that they try to appeal to as large an audience as possible. This means they have very similar styled dents whilst trying to convey their own channel messages.
Dave appeals to the males in our target audience. This is because they target males aged 13 to 35 which covers our entire male target audience.
We have also looked at the research we conducted ourselves. We have found out our audiences likes and dislikes which is very necessary for creating the ident. We know that they like action, comedy and disney programmes and films. They said they like the disney films due to it being fantasy and actions films and shows because they were exciting.
All of this was necessary to do as it allowed us to get a clear understanding of how the audience would perceive the idea we had created of having a relatable character who is lost and then finds his way. We know they would like this though because they like to be able to relate to characters.  This is done in professional industries to make it more appealing to them as it as if they can see their self on screen.

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Diary Log 2 - Constraints and Development.

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Diary Log 2 - Constraints and Development.

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Today we have been developing our dents. For this we have created characters and sets, in the form of sketches. This has allowed us to develop the characters and have something to show our audience when we have gone to perform some first hand research. Both which is done in the professional industry by companies such as the BBC and ITV etc. This is done so that they have an understanding of who their audience actually is.
Due to us having done this, we knew who our audience was and this informed us of the constraints within the development. We had to make sure our ident is not too confusing. We know that it has to be simple and have a clear message. This is because our audience in particular can have severe learning difficulties, much like the people we interviewed. This means the message can not be hidden and that the ELO and preparing of adulthood need to be featured throughout.

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I have contributed to this project in a few different ways. We looked at some of the concepts i had previously developed on my mind map, and changed things we liked and things we did not like. This is similar to many companies in the media industry as they have a large amount of trial and error before they begin creating their concept. An example of this is Nytol who had many different ideas before they chose the final concept they went ahead with.
We also looked at our initial research and made sure we had looked at who our audience is exactly. We also had a look at our client and what it is exactly that they do. This is so we would get a better understanding of the purpose of the ident.
I in particular came up with the idea of having a character feeling lost and then being guided to the Essex Local Offer and Preparing for adulthood website. I wanted to do pixilation but we decided against it and have chosen claymation because we felt it looked more realistic.
We have had a look at some demographics regarding our audience. We looked at what the favourite TV show is for the average age of the audience. We also looked at Young and Rubican to see what group our audience fell into. In our case it was the reformer, as our audience don't want to be limited because of having a disability. They may need some help for this though and we are creating a video to show them where they can get the help to live a normal life. Something our audience is desperate to do.  Companies in the media industry like the BBC like to have a clear understanding of who their audience is, to do this they create social groups of their audience to make sure they know who exactly they are targeting, they also use young and rubicon to know what their audiences personality is to help with selling the product, which is why we have done this. This should allow us to sell our product to the audience.
We have also created some questionnaires we are going to ask people at Grove Cottage to get some first hand information.

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Throughout the process of practicing and experimenting with claymation. I have learnt a lot, i have learnt who to export the files to the right format.
I have also understood how using different amounts of frames per second can effect the speed and movement of the object you are animating.
I also now understand how to use the camera's effectively and have understood that using a rostrum rig can make the animation more difficult as you can start to get a weird styled shadow from the positioning of the camera.
Using a plain background is also much easier as you do not have to enlarge the background as you go in for a close up, but this is something i will be doing as i think it is going to be showing creativity and flair.