FMP Developmental Diary by Joe Kellen Edward Green https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2 en-us 2017-05-10 14:54:30 UTC 2024-04-14 20:01:41 UTC hello@padlet.com 10/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/171029576 Today we had a workshop day where for the first half we learned about the different equipment: steady cam, jib boom mic, dolly and tracker and handheld rig and lighting. Then after lunch we were put into groups of four, made tutorial videos on each of them no uploaded them go Showbie. I think I learnt quite a lot of informative information when it comes to each of these. I already knew how to use iMovie, because I used it before. The biggest problem I had was I didn't have enough storage on my phone, so I sent it to Kitty. I guess I would still like to learn about lighting a bit more, as I'm still not 100% confident when it comes to that. These activities today did help my skills a lot I think, as I haven't used a lot of the equipment that we used today; although I still would have liked to learn more about lighting, but maybe some other time. I think I will use the tracker and dolly more than the others, because I like the shots that it can make, and I think it will be more useful; while equipment like the steadycam for instance I don't think I'll ever use, because it is simply not steady and a tripod would be just as effective.

Today was techniquely the first day for me and my groups FMP, I've had to start late, because the two other people in my group have got to finish their previous tasks work, before they can continue with the FMP. Hopefully they'll both get their previous work finished in time, so that I can actually do the work I've been set to do. At the moment I can't actually do my proposal, because we haven't been able to discuss an idea for the FMP; so I can't continue without knowing what the idea is going to be. It also means I won't be able to continue with Task 2 Research, because I yet dont actually know what kind of things I will be researching.]]> 2017-05-10 14:56:05 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/171029576 11/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/171192612 Today me and Greg began to brainstorm ideas for the FMP. So far we've got eight different ideas/concepts to work with. Unfortunately we are still not sure what we should do for the FMP so hopefully next week, Greg will have finished his website and we can do our pitch, my proposal and I can finally start on Task 2. A drawback could be that we have so many ideas at the moment, and I really want to do one idea which is about a socially awkward kid in college; something that has a message and means something, while Greg and Oliver wants to do a horror movie or a music video. This might lead to conflict within the group, plus they need to finish a past unit; so it isn't an idea situation right now, but we'll all just have to truck on and try and get as much work done as possible. ]]> 2017-05-11 08:51:02 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/171192612 17/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/172338083 Today we learned about editing in Premier Pro with Jack. At the beginning we did a Kahoot game, which I came 5th in. Then he taught us about how to shrink and do funky effects with your shots. I kind of knew what to do with all of these things, so I didn't really learn anything new, but it was nice to be reminded of it all again. Then after lunch we were put into groups of four. I was with Kitty, Charlie and Mark. Our task was to have something to do with someones "first meeting". We all came up with the idea that the main character has different personalities and he has a meeting with all of his personalities. One of the personalities tries to take over his own mind over his normal personality. 

We went down to the dark room to film. We re-arranged the tables so that the scene looked better arranged. I wrote the script and Charlie volunteered to be the actor. We were required to use the steadicam, which we used when one of the characters Craig walked into the room and sat down. We used it for other shots too, but I cut some of them out when it came to editing, because they didn't fit the mood. 

When it did come to editing I had a few problems, as when I removed the memory stick from the computer, it crashed Premier Pro, so I just kept it in the computer, until I finished rendering it. My only criticism with the edit, is it's not very stylistic, in that there's not much editing techniques in there; however with what our group had, I think we did ok. 

Hopefully tomorrow I will finally get a start on the FMP.]]> 2017-05-17 14:13:17 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/172338083 18/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/172558644 Today we finally decided on a concept to use. We all sat down as a group and we looked through each of the 10 ideas that  we had and we finally decided on one. We took three concepts that we each came up with and we are going to have them interconnect with each other. Tomorrow hopefully we will do our pitch, and I started my Task 2. I can fully catch up on all the work that I've missed throughout these past couple weeks, because I was waiting for people in my group to finish their past tasks, so that meant I couldn't continue on Task 1 or 2 because we didn't even know what or idea was. 

So anyway hopefully next week we can fully start on our FMP, finish Task 1 and 2 and potentially pre-production work. ]]> 2017-05-18 12:33:39 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/172558644 23/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/173484676 Today I started on my pre-production work, as instructed by Delta and Leila in the morning. I think we will get on with Task 1 and 2 later in the week but right now we have to finish Task 3 on time. So I started on my production schedule, although I had to stop as we hadn't written a script yet, so I couldn't go into the detail that I wanted to on it; so I did a pre-production plan, outlining every bit of paperwork that I set myself to do on that day. I stuck to the pre-production plan quite closely; in it I wanted to complete the equipment booking log, risk assessment, production schedule, script and the recce sheet completed that day and I ended up completing the equipment booking log, risk assessment and some of the location recces.

I think tomorrow I'm going to set myself the target of finishing the script, resource log, and finish the shot list and potentially the production schedule, (in the detail that I want it to be in). So hopefully all the pre-production will be done by tomorrow. 

It was very stressful today, but I realised that when I'm stressed it makes me concentrate harder; so the more you know. And I realised that drinking water and keeping hydrated helps calm down my nervous system; I kind of already knew that, but I put it to the test today and I felt a lot better. I think tomorrow I'm going to try and transfer my energy from today into me tomorrow, so that I can get everything done to a good degree. 

I suppose the only problem I faced was the fact that I couldn't finish the proposal, because of the fact that I hadn't written the script yet, but as I said I did the pre-production plan instead, plus I'll get it done by tomorrow. Below is one of the bits of paperwork that I did today, which is the Pre-Production schedule.]]> 2017-05-23 19:45:12 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/173484676 22/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/173487083 Today our group came in to discuss our idea more. Unfortunately we couldn't go in on Friday because Greg wasn't answering his phone and we couldn't do anything without him, so we didn't go. However today was quite productive, we came together and expressed our opinions and options for what we could do. This was really helpful as it gave us oportunities to express ourselves and our feelings, so that we were on the right level. Our full session lasted an hour and a half, in which we discussed the story, characters, the opening, the end etc. This has been the most productive group day we've had at all recently, because we are finally making a bit of progress.]]> 2017-05-23 20:00:04 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/173487083 24/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/173495002 Today I completed the production schedule to the detail that I wanted it to be, plus the contingency plan. At first I wasn't sure if there was a template for the contingency plan, but Jack gave me a template of the contingency plan in another production schedule template. He suggested that I copy and paste the contingency plan into my current production schedule, so that's what I did. I also completed the resource log, where I described the different bits of clothing that my character will wear and I described the props that will be used in my story. Oliver did the minute meeting today, and tomorrow I will do it. In the minute meeting we discussed that between the three of us, the initial filming dates will start from as soon as the 3rd June picking up from the 6th June to 9th and/or 11th. We also discussed how all three of us have basically got the same work to do today, which was the production schedule, script, contingency plan, shot list and also we discussed our team proposal. We decided to do the team proposal tomorrow, by writing our proposals, then copy and pasting all of our proposals into one document, to make a team proposal.

I didn't do my team proposal today, as I was doing my production schedule instead and I didn't finish my script; I think that will be my target for tomorrow.

I actually didn't know what a resource log was until today, because I've never been told to make one, so that's something new that I learned today. I also thought that I broke my memory stick with all of my work on it, as I bent it sideways by accident, but it still works. I've uploaded all of my work onto my OneDrive as well just in case. 

All in all I think I got quite a lot done today.


]]> 2017-05-23 20:56:49 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/173495002 25/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/173898562 Today I finished a lot of the pre-production work leaving only the storyboard and the flat plan left to do. I completely finished my part of the script which took up the majority of the day; more than I expected. I did two location recces, one for my house and another for dashes park, the only two locations that I need permissions from. I sent an email to Harlow Council when I got home asking if we could use Dashes Park, so I should get a response promptly anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem. I led the minute meetings today, where we realised that we only really have a few bits left and we have the same things to do. We also found out that Greg may not be in on a certain week on a certain day, because of personal issues, so that was handy to know and we wont film on that day. 

What I learnt from writing the script was when I get writers block, I usually just stare blankly at a screen and hope something comes up, but what I realised was (and it sounds obvious now, but,) I stopped before lunch and when I came back, I was full of energy. So if I ever get writers block, I just have to take a break and I'll feel ready to carry on; and this technique applies with all aspects of my work and I will definately apply this to future work. Apart from that, I didn't really run into any major troubles. When I finished the script, the shooting script/shot list was easy going, as I just drew what I had already written and just wrote more detail about the camera shots I will use. Last time I did a shooting script/shot list, I hadn't written a script before hand, so I learnt it's definately helpful to write a script first before a shooting script/shot list, (if a script is necessary.)

Then when I got home I took pictures of the rooms in my home which we will be using, uploaded them onto my computer and put them into the necessary location recces document. One thing I had been forgetting to do, was upload all of my finished work to showbie, so I uploaded all the work I did today and couple bits of paperwork from previous days I hadn't uploaded until then. I think tomorrow I am going to have completely finished all of the pre-production documentsm which as I said before includes the storyboard and flatplan, then finish task 1 and possibly task 2. All in al today was a very productive and useful day.]]> 2017-05-25 20:08:19 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/173898562 30/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/174588055 Today we discussed in the minute meeting about our future plans for the production. Olvier wrote the minute meeting this day. Originally we were going to have overtures at the beginning of all of our stories. I put forward the point that because of our tight runtime of only five minutes, we should probably make them much shorter or just not have them in the film altogether. In the end we decided to drastically shorten them. We also discussed our plans for the pitch we have all nearly finished the PowerPoint. 

I didn't really run into many problems today, I wasn't sure however what to do for Task 1C Proposal. I had a few questions about it, as I wasn't really all that sure if I was doing it right. But I asked around and it seemed like I was doing it right; I'll probably get that done in the next week. Harlow council still haven't come back to me again, so I sent another email to them, to make sure that they see it. Hopefully they will get back to me, otherwise we might not be able to use Dashes Park. The other problem I faced is that I said that we would do the filming today on the production schedule, but unfortunately the others need to finish other work first before we do that, so we can't do that now. But hopefully we will be able to film in the next couple of weeks.]]> 2017-05-31 10:14:53 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/174588055 31/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/174621955 Today I lead the minute meeting and we discussed the different bits of paperwork that we have to do. I said that today I will work on Task 2 and maybe Task 1 if I feel like rotating to do something different. Oliver was the same basically, but also turned out he had some pre-production to do too. Unfortunately Greg still has to work for Units 5 & 6, so that might halt production for a while, plus personal problems at home which could affect the work, but he's having a meeting about that later today to clear things up so that's good. As soon as that problem gets resolved everything should be fine. 

I had a minor problem with the minute meeting documents, for some reason the dates and titles of them were all messed up, so I spent the first 15 minutes trying to fix that. In doing this, I accidentally deleted one of the minute meetings from the Drive, so I asked Greg if he could send me his copy of it. I also finished all of the industry professional documents for Task 2. I couldn't really think of much to write about for the sound operator unfortunately, so I put as much I could for that, but admittedly there wasn't much I could put for that.

I did learn about how the director David Fincher uses visual effects in all of his scenes, which I didn't know before; and I thought I knew all there was to know about him and his films. I of course used that information and him as a director as one of my industry professional. Below is an example of one of my industry professional documents.]]> 2017-05-31 13:49:14 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/174621955 01/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/174784403 Today I finished the Task 1c Proposal and a little bit of Task 2, in which I began deconstructing a video of short film, which involves a similar theme with teenage life and struggles. But before I started working on Task 2, I made a bit of a drastic change in story. I realised that my story, compared to Greg and Oliver's story, has a drastic contrast with one another. So I decided to instead of including the suggesting that the Kevin character kills his bullies, it will only focus on Michael and the fact that he is a failed actor. Also not to mention how it will shorten the run-time by hopefully a couple of minutes, leaving more room for Greg and Oliver's stories to blossom.

Today I learned, and it sounds like a small thing, but how to write a proposal to a good standard, as the template that I used helped out a lot. It gave me a good outline of how many words I should write roughly. I also wasn't sure how to write a bibliography for the proposal, because I didn't do any research for the proposal; but I asked Jenny (one of the helpers) and she pointed out that it said "proposed research sources", which made a lot more sense. So I wrote down a bunch of YouTube links of videos that I might deconstruct for the actual research in Task 2. I also included a link to Survey Monkey, which i will also use for the research. 

Speaking of Survey Monkey, I started a survey on there and I came up with four questions to use for my primary research. Hopefully tomorrow I will come out with more questions, but making questions is hard. Maybe if I am able to come up with more tomorrow, I will use that to help me next time. ]]> 2017-06-01 10:40:23 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/174784403 02/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/174959387 Today I finished a survey that I sent out to my Mum and her work colleagues to fill out for me. I came up with eight questions to use in my survey. They were as follows:

1. Do you think a short film is a good idea to do for a 5-minute video?
2. What kind of genre do you prefer?
3. The theme is about 2016, so with that in mind what kind of events or things that happened in 2016 would you like to see portrayed in a short film?
4. What is your age?
5. What is your age?
6. What is your overall opinion on having 2016 as the theme?
7. Do you think the audio should be recorded via lapel mic and or boom mic to get the best audio possible for a short film?
8. Do you think we should add music or have no music?

Our group have also decided that we will not be doing the pitch today and instead do it next week. We need to wait for Greg to finish his previous tasks before we can actually begin on the pitch, because he isn't allowed to work on the FMP yet without finishing his previous work. Although next week he should have it all done. I also deconstructed a video today, which is a short film about a normal guy who falls in love with a deaf person. I had seen it years before this now, but it had been a while though. Watching it again I realised that it is actually darker than it might seem to someone normal. In my deconstruction I argue that ending makes it more of a tragedy than a happy, positive ending; so that was interesting to find out form myself.

We also learned today that Oliver has just found out that his parents booked a holiday to France, without informing him, which he will be going to next weekend; plus today he has to leave early, because he needs to leave or his Grandads house 2 hours away, again without informing him, for another weekend. So he won’t be able to continue with work both this weekend and the next. 
]]> 2017-06-02 11:22:19 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/174959387 26/05/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/174969557 Today I came in on my study day to finish the pre-production. Today I got quite a lot done, unfortunately Oliver didn't make it in, but we didn't need him personally for anything today. Today I had to do the storyboard and Flat-plan. The storyboard took me to lunch, however I wasn't sure how exactly I would be able to do the flat plan. Greg told me that there was a website I could use to make the flat-plan, but it looked too complicated and too time consuming; so instead I made a flat-plan on an A4 bit of paper, where I included every camera angle and every location that I will use in my short.

Today I learnt what a flat-plan was, I had no idea what it was before this, as I had never needed to make one before this. I also learnt that making a storyboard isn't as bad as I used to think it was, because the template was very helpful, plus I used those storyboard cheats that I found on Showbie. I think if I were going to make another storyboard I will refer back to my storyboard I made here.

Overall today was a successful day and hopefully next week we will be able to do the pitch. ]]> 2017-06-02 12:43:32 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/174969557 06/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/175532435 Today I got the results from my survey and I got a total of eight responses. Today I learned from the responses that I got from my research that in my project I should use a boom mic and not a lapel mic. Not many people were too sure about what the difference was, but some genuinely knew what they difference was and they thought a boom mic would be better. I also learned that the genre that most people like is Comedy, joint second is horror and the other option box, and in last place is Drama. Unfortunately for them we are doing a drama, but oh well, can't please everyone, but it was nice to know what people's general idea of it is. One of the questions that I asked was "The theme is about 2016, so with that in mind what kind of events or things that happened in 2016 would you like to see portrayed in a short film?" Most of the people wanted our group to talk about Brexit and or Donald Trump, which we're just not going to do, because Donald Trump isn't funny nor interesting anymore. It was funny before he was elected, now it's just overused and a dull topic; and Brexit just isn't interesting. Nevertheless it was intersting to see what different people would have liked to see. One person had an interesting idea though, which was he suggested we do something on the celebrity deaths, which I think is an interesting topic and we did have an idea like that, but in the end we couldn't think of anything to further the initial concept. Plus I found out that 75% of the people who did my survey said that they liked theme of 2016, and the other 25% said that they thought it might be too hard to think of stuff to do. One person said and I quote "I think it sounds like a hard theme as it is so broad. I wouldn't even say it is a theme as you could do anything!" All in all the research wasn't all that helpful, mainly because our group already kind of know what we are doing for ours, but still it's good to see different opinions.

I started another video deconstruction on a TV show called "Black Mirror s2e4: White Christmas" , which follows a similar structure to my short film. However unfortunately I for the first time this year didn't save what I had, and I lost everything that I did for that particular video deconstruction. Luckily I didn't lose all of it, but I suppose lesson learnt. Also this was a reminder for the furture that I have to save all of my stuff on my OneDrive, or even the group Google Drive, which would probably make more sense; so I will remember to do that for the future. ]]> 2017-06-07 10:12:23 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/175532435 07/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/175538992 In the minute meeting today, aside from mentioning how we will continue with the current work that we are working on at the moment, but we will also planned to book equipment to start filming tomorrow. We also discussed but didn't include in the minute meeting, because we've talked about it a lot, but we will finally do our pitch tomorrow; which is good, because I want to officially finish all of Task 1 now. For the first half of the day I organised my padlet diary for the pre-production, as it was looking all messy and for the second half of the day I started again on my "Black Mirror s2e4: White Christmas" video deconstruction. I didn't really learn much today, I more regretted accidently deleting my work from the previous day, which I have learnt never to accidently do again and will remember not to do that again later on.

Later in the day we actually couldn't find Dave to book our equipment for tomorrow, we asked him in the morning, but he told us to come back later because he was in a class and was busy. But we couldn't find him after lunch, so our hope is tomorrow we will find Dave and if we're lucky we will film tomorrow. ]]> 2017-06-07 10:59:07 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/175538992 08/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/175914881 Today in our minute meeting we discussed the fact that Greg and Oliver will continue with their pre-production/Task 1 & 2 work and I will work on Task 2. We also discussed how we will attepmt to maybe film today and hopefully do the pitch together and finish Task 1. Luckily we achieved both of those things. Before we did the pitch, we discussed what we would say, for example Greg would explain the overall idea, then I would explain what each of our roles would be. Later in the day we got Cliff to do the pitch with us and it wasn't actually anything like what I expected, if fact it went way better than I expected. I thought we would be filmed, but instead Cliff just got us to record it on one of our phones; we used Greg's phone. So the pitch went a lot better than I thought and I tried to explain every question that was asked of me as best I could.

Then later in the day we were able to find Dave and book equipment. Dave said that we could use the motion room today as well to film our scene. We filmed the audition scene in my script when we started. We were lucky enough to get Tinashe playing one of the casting directors, which was very nice of him. We got a really cool shot of some light shining on the camera, making this really cool effect, which was from my characters perspective. Now before I get into the problems, let me just say that overall it was a semi-successful day, we finished the first scene of our production, we did the pitch so Task 1 is over. Keep that in mind when I tell you the negatives. A couple of problems that we ran into, Greg kept trying to direct even though I was supposed to be directing. When I wanted him to get a certain shot he wouldn't want to do it and kept trying to get me to do something else. For example I wanted a long shot of Greg's character from my character, to show how distant my character was from everyone else, but Greg kept insisting that we have a closer shot of his character. Afterward we cleared it up with each other, but that was after filming. I feel like my story isn't going to be as good as Oliver's or Greg's, which is a shame, because I've put more time into my story and I had a vision for how it would look. Now I'm not sure anymore. It just kind of made me feel like I wasn't doing a good job as a director, but no one wanted to listen to me, but I kept all my thoughts and emotions in. When the actors left and we stopped filming, I went and washed my face with some cold water and I went back up and we gave the footage to Oliver; and me and Greg both told Oliver to put the footage onto the Drive. Then Oliver came back we gave Jack Bowman the camera and he put it away for us. However when we asked Oliver if he put it onto the Drive he said no he didn't and he just put it onto one of the MAC'S, despite both me and Greg asking him to put it onto the Drive so that we could all access the footage. We asked him why he did that, but he just shrugged and walked off home. So we asked Dave if we could get the camera back so that we could upload the footage onto the Drive ourselves. After we did that we had a look at it all and you know that really cool shot that I mentioned before of the light shining on the camera causing a really cool lighting effect, well it looked really nice on the small camera screen, however on the big screen it came out looking really grainy and horrible. So now we can't use that shot.

To be honest I'm not sure if we'll be able to finish this on time. The amount of delays that we've had in this project for certain reasons is now causing me to think that we wont be able to complete it on the agreed time-frame. Today has really been an eye opener for me, in that I have identified my mistakes, the problem however lies with solving them. From what I have learned I know I shouldn't work with people who need to do other work before the current project, thus causing delay in progress. Overall just learn to work independently from others, because people are too untrustworthy. And just to reiterate, it is not completely Greg's fault as he has personal issues which I wont disclose here for privacy reasons; I'm sure he has explained it in his own padlet diary. There's no point in lying or pretending everything is working perfectly, because it's not. There has just been one unfortunate event after the other and overall has been a nightmare. I've been trying to be positive and I've said in a lot of words like "hopefully" or "maybe" in my padlet diaries as of late; that was me just being hopeful. Now I don't know what to think. Just so you know I don't fully blame my team members, I am obviously partly to blame, as I shouldn't have worked with those two in the first place, when I found out that they were far behind; I just didn't anticipate this. So this is what I've learned and I will definitely remember this experience and apply this to my future life decisions.]]> 2017-06-09 19:01:32 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/175914881 12/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/176224111 Today we started filming Oliver's storyline. We all came in at around 1:00 to film. Greg had the equipment list already written out ready to show Dave. We then went to the motion room to film Oliver's drug trip, in the dark, with a single light illuminating a side of Oliver's face. We had a problem with the lighting, as there was some light shining in the back of the room, which was ruining the shot; so we got all of our coats and bags etc, to put in front of the blind which was jammed. We used the steady-cam today, knowing it wouldn't be steady. We did this because we didn't want it to be steady, and in our past uses of it, it hasn't been steady at all; so the unsteadiness of the steady-cam helped add to the effect that Oliver was on drugs.

At one point we got stuck with the camera as it stayed on camera mode and not video mode and we couldn't figure out how to change it back for 15 minutes. However we got Andreas to help us and after a while he managed to figure it out and it turned out to be a little switch on top which we missed. We also had a problem where we had a shot of Oliver's eye, in which we turned a light on to make his pupil dilate; and it kept going out of focus when we turned the light on. In the end we used the out of focus to our advantage as it kind of added to the effect, again, of Oliver on drugs. 

The skills that I learnt today was lighting, as I haven't really been all that exposed to lighting and now I think I could confidently know how to set up some lighting for a scene. I will use this skill in the future if I were to work on another set and I was asked to set up some light for a scene, depending on what kind of light it is, I don't think I would have much of a problem. ]]> 2017-06-13 10:25:07 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/176224111 13/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/176245187 Today in the minute meeting me and Oliver discussed what we would do today. I said that I would continue with Task 2, while Oliver would start editing what we've already finished filming. I also mentioned that I have an MRI scan next Tuesday for my nose, so I wont be in for most of the day most probably; however I did also mention that I might see if I can find a way to rebook it as it is the last day of our deadline. 

During the day I finished another video deconstruction of a Radiohead music video called "Just", which an interpretive music video and leaves the door open for questions. I've always thought that music video would be interesting and fun to talk about, plus I chose it because it kind of fitted to mood and atmosphere that our group is trying to go for in our short film. That now makes 3/4 video deconstructions complete. In-between this I looked back at Oliver's edit and it turns out that there are other shots which are pretty blurry also for my storyline. I honestly wish that my story wasn't in our short film and just have Oliver and Greg's story in there, but we can't get rid of it because I've already dont the paperwork for it. 

Today I learned from Greg that there is a nifty way to edit music together using this effect called constant gain, which I might use in future if I have to edit down a song or a piece of music to fit a certain timeframe, which is exactly what Greg was doing. ]]> 2017-06-13 13:10:47 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/176245187 14/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/176381322 Today we learned that the whole of Task 3 including the video is due in today. Well we couldn't exactly send them a whole video, because we haven't stared filming Greg's short yet. We also found out this morning that as Oliver saved the edited footage on the Mac computer itself and not on the drive or on a memory stick, so he lost all of the edited footage that he did yesterday. So today Oliver re-did everything he did yesterday, plus some additional footage that we filmed today.

Speaking of which on a plus note, I did update the production schedule. There wasn't much to change in terms of what was used; we still used the props and sound effects that were used in the scenes we kept. However I did change the fact that some of the scenes weren't used anymore, so I explained that they weren't used in red. We did manage to finish my storyline. We went outside the media block to film the final scene for my storyline. We filmed through lunch and while my original idea for it wasn't utilised, where it would be one continuous stationary shot of me walking at the front of the media block, we went for something a bit different which turned out to be better. We instead did film that stationary shot, but added another shot where the camera follows in front of me and switches to Oliver's character where we go into his storyline. Then we came back and Oliver added in the stuff we filmed at lunch and the finished product of that actually looked better than the edited one we did before, so it kind of worked out for the better. Greg also asked a bunch of people from our class if they could come round mine on Friday and be extras in our film. Most agreed some are awaiting conformation, but for the ones who agreed I gave them my address; so now we have Friday planned.

We had a slight problem with saving the video. To avoid losing all the edited footage again Oliver wanted to upload it to the drive, however it saved in a different file and it wouldn't have worked when opening it up again. We then tried to put it on my memory stick, but there wasn't enough room. For a while we weren't exactly sure how we would be able to save the Premier Pro file. However we quickly realised how simple the solution was, which was to render the footage and use that on the timeline next time we go to edit. So the morning was stressful, but after we filmed and Oliver finished editing it up to speed again, it wasn't all that bad.

I learned today how to use warp stabiliser properly. I already used it once in a past video, but I had forgotten how to use it again, but Greg reminded me and Oliver used that for the clip where I walk past Oliver. I will probably use that again in the future, however I don't know when I would use it next. Maybe there will be an opportunity later on in the edit.

Overall today was successful and productive and hopefully tomorrow we will have finished Oliver's story if not get close to finishing his story for next Tuesday. I would upload the rendered film here, but I can't because the file is too large, so instead here is a screenshot.]]> 2017-06-14 10:40:04 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/176381322 15/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/176725731 Today Oliver didn't come in, but me and Greg decided to film anyway, because we're on a tight schedule. Greg approached Jack and Andrew to see if they can be extras in our film, while I booked the equipment out. This was the start of Greg's storyline and although we didn't have Oliver, we didn't really need him all that much, as we didn't use a lot of sound. I was now in charge of the sound equipment and camera equipment; and the only sound we recorded was the sound of the classroom as background noise. We spent the whole of the afternoon filming up until 6:00pm. Today we learned how to use the steadycam from Dave. We learned how to set it up and how to hold it, to get a proper shot using that thing. He described it as "You have to dance with her", in reference to the steadycam. I may use the steadycam in the future, in fact we did book it out for the weekend, so we may use it tomorrow for the party scene.]]> 2017-06-17 14:59:30 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/176725731 17/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/176864445 Today Greg came round my house and we edited the footage that we filmed on Thursday. We were going to film yesterday for the party scene in Greg's storyline; I set up my house to look like a messy house party, and decorated it to look as realistic as possible, but none of the extras who said would be there didn't show up, apart from Kitty Smith. There were issues with the busses and people just cancelling last minute, so we couldn't film the vital party scene; and it's vital because Greg's story is called 'The Party'. So instead we are going to have to make do with what we have. Greg stayed round mine overnight and in the morning we got started on editing until 6:30pm. Today I learned that my premier pro has no effect control panel, so I will look into that, but for now me and Greg will have to add the speical effects at college.

Apart from that minor set-back today was successful, even though we now have no way of finishing Greg's storyline, we've still done the best we could with the situation that we have been given.]]> 2017-06-19 13:52:16 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/176864445 21/06/17 joekgreen7 https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/177039973 Today we showcased our short film to the class. From our audience research, we were told that without seeing our presentation beforehand and without seeing what the storylines were, they wouldn’t be able to tell what was going on. They liked the sound effects, as it added some variety, however they didn’t like how the drug one was a little shorter than the others. Andrew Opoku said that he liked the beginning, but for the bit in the park, the audio was overshadowed by the wind. Jenny Solomon said that she liked the camera angle that nicely linked in mine and Oliver’s storylines, and she said that it would have been nice to see that happen for Greg’s storyline. Dave said that really the only thing we need to work on is our narrative; while Cliff agreed and explained that he thinks that it was an opportunity missed to produce something really good, which I completely agree with. He went on to say that when he watches it; he’s seeing loads of potential, lots of interesting shots. The concept he thinks is great, but ambitious. He thinks there are a lot of opportunities missed, but there are lots of positives in there as well. From a critique standpoint, looking at it from the outside, I completely agree with every bit of constructive criticism that was given to us, but I also agree with all of the good things people have said about it. I mean it isn’t perfect, but it’s not bad, and the fact that we were able to achieve what we did in the short time that we did it in, I think it went well. 

When I got home I finished off the evaluation pretty quickly, however the problem came with uploading the audience screening evidence. Because the video was so long, Oliver decided to split it into 12 parts, (1 minute per video). However I thought there would be a quicker way to do this, which was upload the video to YouTube and give the link. However this took far too long and before I realised how big of a mistake I made, I decided to try to upload all of the seperate parts like the others. However after half an hour of waiting for just ONE video to be uploaded to showbie, it was already midnight. There are a couple reasons why this could have happened: 

1. I live in a village in the middle of nowhere, so the internet signal has always been terrible here. The village won't get a decent signal until 2020 aparently.
2. I left my computer on all day, so that it could finish uploading some of my work to showbie, which could have tired out my PC a bit.

Either way I was very unlucky tonight and it wasn't until after I thought it would be a good idea to upload a word document containing a screenshot of the drive, to show that the videos are there, it just wont let me upload it to showbie. Also my computer was being so slow I had to split my Task 2 into 4 part documents, because it wouldn't upload all of them; but even then it still wouldn't let me upload them, so I might have to wait tomorrow to get it all completely finished. Same goes for the audience feedback video.]]> 2017-06-21 00:07:33 UTC https://padlet.com/joekgreen7/tqd4ldjpjly2/wish/177039973