Responding to feedback

Communication Skills: Assignment 2 - Research

Survive and Thrive

Internet Research

For my programme, Survive And Thrive, for it to be broadcasted on TV i need it to be commissioned by a certain channel.  I want Survive And Thrive to be broadcasted on channel 4 as the main competitor Bear Grylls is broadcasted quite frequently as he is constantly making new programs like The Island With Bear Grylls and Mission Survive.

Channel 4 Factual Entertainment is a new supercharged department spanning both Entertainment and Factual Entertainment genres, home to a wide range of award-winning and ground-breaking reality, constructed factual and entertainment shows including The Island with Bear Grylls, The Jump, The Last Leg, The Undateables, 8 Out of 10 Cats does Countdown, Child Genius, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Gadget Man and Travel Man, Derren Brown: The Experiments and Troy.

Factual Entertainment on C4

Constructed Factual for 9pm is a priority – series such as The Undateables, Undercover Boss, Child Genius, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, and 17 Kids and Counting. Access to either individuals or public institutions is important especially when matched with a brilliant idea, way in, or C4 twist. We strive to say something new about the world and reinterpret PSB for a young generation, making shows about broad issues that are contemporary, popular, carry public service values and are also mischievous and counterintuitive in approach. Big reality events and insightful social experiments like The Island with Bear Grylls are a big priority. Authenticity is key as is hiding the hand of the producer - The Island feels authentic because we stripped the format (and crew) out of the concept.

This example is from the channel 4 website about commissioning TV shows. There are multiple category's that TV shows come under.

• Arts
• Comedy
• Daytime
• Documentries
• Drama
• Education
• Factual programming
• Features
• Film4
• Formats and Music
• Nations and Regions
• News and current affairs 
• Off peak
• Offline
• Specialist factual
• TV events and sport

Survive and Thrive would come under the factual entertainment section as other survival programs like Bear Grylls is under this section. 


Book Research

The following is taken from.....

*Similar Programs 

Bear Grylls - The island is a British reality show which is based on channel 4. There has been two series so far and a third is currently being made. The first series featured 13 men on a desert island and they have to survive as best as they can without any tools to help them. The first series was accused of being sexist as it did not include any women, so in series two they included two islands with men on one and women on the other.

Survivalist Bear Grylls presents 21st-century American men with a challenge: surviving on a deserted island without the modern conveniences to which they are accustomed -- and without the promise of a prize or a winner being declared. Fourteen contestants are sent to an isolated location with only the clothes they are wearing and a few survival tools, and they must film every moment themselves, resulting in a raw and unfiltered story. The men test their mental, physical and emotional limits as they hunt and gather food, build their own shelters and rely on their strength and skills to survive.

This is a more detailed example of what The island is.

Book Research

I found this book in the library, this page was relevant as it talked about researching too help you through the production stage. 

The next page included information like the best way too design your page around the topic you picked. Also it talks about post production saying its the most important stage as it brings everything together.

The last page talked about the theory side of things, for example the "content" paragraph talks about how everything that is put on the screen is there for a reason.

Digital Graphics Production Log

Evaluation

The Client wanted a logo, symbol, CD cover, CD face and T-shirt based around the CD cover. I had to come up with an idea based on his interests so that he can use them to represent him as an artist. The logo is too be used for merchandise and used online this will be the main thing people will see when they think of "Omega Ned" which is the Artists name. The symbol will mostly be used for his Soundcloud page and it needs to include the logo. I wanted the CD cover to be simple but not boring to look at, i did this by incorporating the logo on the front and have a plain white background to contrast with the black on the logo. I personally thought this was a good idea and looking at the feed back i got from Omega Ned he seemed to like it aswell. I thought my final project reached the requirments of the brief because i included everything he wanted and came out with a finished product that looks good. It also reached the needs of the target audience because its appealing and gives them all the information they need like all the songs that are listed on the back cover and even the small statement in the middle.
The bits of my work i thought were successful was probably the logo as its simple but yet includes everything the client wanted. But also the unsuccessful bit of my work was the logo when trying to put it on the CD, this is because the hole in the middle of the CD cut out most of the design. I managed time pretty well as nothing too complicated got in the way of reaching the deadline. If i repeated the project again i would probably work more around the CD and see if i can redesign the logo a little differently so that it can fit nicely. Overall im very pleased with the outcome and so is the client which is the most important thing.

Cover letter

Understanding regulation of the creative media sector

Why does the creative media sector need to be regulated?

All media needs to be regulated as if it is not then it can feature content that is inappropriate for the viewers age. All media is given an age rating so that the viewers know whether it is appropriate to watch.


BBFC

The bbfc is the UK's regulator for film and videos. They provide age ratings for all the films that come out in the UK so that they are fine for people to watch across the different age ranges. They even have the power to reject certain films if it has strong sensitive material. For example the human centipede 2 was not allowed to be sold in shops because of its strong violence, blood and gore.

Ofcom

Ofcom is also another regulator like the bbfc but Ofcom regulate communication services aswell as TV and Video. Ofcom is funded by fees from the industry and operate under the communications act 2003. Top gear was being investigated by Ofcom as in one of the episodes Jeremy Clarkson uses the word 'slope' as a asian man walks over a bridge, this led to a complaint of 'casual racism'.

IPSO 

The international press standards agency was established in 2014 so its a very new organisation as ever since 1990 the Press Complaints Commission has been in charge. IPSO is a independent  regulator for newspaper and magazine companies too make sure that everything that gets printed is suitable for the readers and wont cause any harm or offence.

ASA 

The role for the asa is to regulate the content of advertisements, sales promotions and direct marketing in the UK. They do this by investigating complaints made from people about certain advertisements. A TV ad by moneysupermarket.com featured a man walking down the street and dancing whilst wearing denim shorts and high heels, the ASA got a lot of complaints from people saying that was offensive. But the ASA did not judge the ad for being offensive and was not in breach of any codes.

Consumer choice

Consumer choice is where the public gets to choose what they want out of a company. Companies do this as its a good way of making more business as you get to hear the customers point of view. The problem with doing this is people have said that because they have been given a choice, the companies then make the products more expensive which is then hard for people too afford

Freedom of information

There have been quite a few issues with freedom of information regarding journalists leaking information just so that they could make stories. This is a issue in the media because this is information that should not be kept private but has been publicized by the media. Media censorship takes many forms in the way you get your news, some information is edited out of news to protect the public. This is sometimes an issue as the public feel they are being denied information that they feel like they should know about.

Music Video production log

Music Video

I originally had an idea for a music video before i actually found a song i wanted to use, this unfortunately meant i had to look for a song that would fit the purpose of my video. It had to have the right sound to it and have the right lyrics to match with what the viewer would be seeing. After a while i found a song by Catfish And The Bottlemen called Hourglass, this song was perfect as it had the right tone and feel. The song isn't too long and isn't too short which means the viewer hopefully wont get bored watching it. The song its self is about missing someone and thinking about them all the time, the lyrics show that the person is struggling to cope without them, and this is how it relates to my music video. The content of the song is this person trying to get someone back into their life, the lyrics state that the person is sorry so they must have done something wrong for the other person to leave, it then goes on to tell all of the things he will do when when they see each other. The song has no specific narrative too it and the band itself is classed as indie rock but this song is more chilled out than other songs by them.



Research

An idea i had for my film was for it to be in black and white, this gives it more atmosphere especially as its meant to be quite a dark video. so i looked at some black and white music videos like fire starter by the prodigy. The songs genre is punk so it doesn't really fit in with the my music genre but it gives a great example of how a black and white video can create a certain atmosphere. The main song that inspired my music video was "Hozier - Take me to church". This is because of the story behind the music, when there is a story it takes the listeners attentions so then as well as listening to the music you are also being entertained by the narrative.

Pre-production

The first thing i needed to do to plan my music video was to created a mind map. This helped my to generate all the ideas i had and get them together to see which ones were the best. The key bits that i wanted do include in my music video was a narrative and for it to be black and white. The narrative gets the viewer interested and the black and white sets the right atmosphere. I also wanted there to be some sort of twist at the end, this took a while too think of as i was struggling for ideas but in the end i decided that there was going to be a murder in a house, which results in the murderer going to a cliff and contemplating death. In the middle of this he will be driving to the location where the cliff is. This idea is good because it fits in with the lyrics of the song and is at a good pace. I then turned my idea into a storyboard. The last bit of preparation would be the equipment. I used my own DSLR for filming and borrowed a Glidecam from the college as i wanted the footage to be as steady as possible seen as though i am going to be moving quite a bit.

After i had made the storyboard i needed to find actors and find locations. I needed an actor who could play the role of a murderer and take the act seriously. I used my dad for the murderer as i didn't want anyone my age as it might not look as believable, and i think he fits the role perfectly. As the murder victim i used my dads girlfriend as i needed a female to be the murder victim, this is because the song lyrics for my song talks about a female. I didn't need anymore actors as i didn't want to take the viewers attention away from anything else that might distract them from the murderer. When i had all my actors i needed to think of some locations. I decided that the murder was going to take place in the living room, and i would be filming it from the outside window. The next location is in the car and as its a 20 minute drive to the last location i could get plenty of car shots on the way. The last location is a place called Alderly Edge, its surrounded by trees and has a big cliff which is exactly what i needed for my video.

Production

The night before we started filming i got everything i needed ready, like the camera gear and props. To make the murder more realistic i got one of my dads old white t-shirts and covered it with the fake blood (which was made from red food coloring, flour and syrup). Also i needed to balance the Glidecam, but because my camera is so light i didn't have any weights on the bottom which meant is wasn't as stable as it could have been. I changed the video setting on my camera to 60 fps as some of the shots were going to be slowed down, and then made sure my batteries were fully charged.

On the morning of the shoot i woke up about 8 and decided that i wanted to film the cliff scenes first, this is because if i left it till later then it might have been really busy and will have been unable to film. The only problem with doing this is you might get some continuity errors. As we were driving the Alderly Edge i filmed some shots of my dad driving in the car,  and filmed an important scene of him wiping blood off his face. Once we got there i started to follow my dad walking using the Glidecam, this made a big improvement on how the footage looked. I walked around the forest area getting footage of him climbing up hills and rocks, and finally footage of him standing over the cliff. I shot a close up of his face when standing over the cliff as i wanted the viewer to see the facial expressions as he stands there.

When we got back from the cliff the last thing i needed to film was the murder. originally i wanted to film the silhouette of the murderer and the body but as it was quite a sunny day all you could see was me and the camera, even if i got out of the way so i was out the shot you couldn't see inside. I had to rethink my shots and eventually decided to film my dad walking out of the living room and then as he walks out of the door i end the scene there. I preferred doing this as i like the fact there is movement in the scene rather than it being a simple panning shot. Another prop that got used in this scene was a knife, i filmed him drop the knife when he comes out of the house ad in post production i wanted to slow it down a little bit. The last bit of filming was me following him into the car and then driving off. All that i needed to do was take the clips from my camera and put them onto the computer at college.

Post-production

I opened up premiere pro and made a new sequence which was 1080p 30fps, i wasnt sure on where to find 60fps so i went with the highest one i could find. Once i had my timeline i started importing my footage and placing it in the timeline. When i dragged the first clip in a popup window came up saying if i would like the change the sequence setting to match the clips or to keep the sequence as it is, i clicked on change as it would then see that all my clips are recorded at 60 fps. I edited all of my clips and placed them into the timeline and once i had added music and was happy with the way it looked, i went into effects, selected Black and White, and then dragged it onto the first clip. To add the same effect to all of them i right clicked on the first clip and then clicked copy, this copy's all the attributes that the clip has. I highlighted all the remaining clips and pasted attributes so when i play the video all the way through, every clip should now be in black and white. Now that i had finished editing i needed to export the video. I went into export media and chose H.264 and then clicked on 1080p HD 30fps, but when i looked at the estimated file size it said it was 507mb, this is a problem because the maximum size for Vimeo is 500mb. To fix this i just lowered the maximum bitrate down a little bit so that the file size went down.

Final product

Overall i think my music video has turned out great but next time i would choose a longer song as i feel like i could have done more with the footage i had.

communication skills assignment 1

First ideas

Animation of a man going into space and visiting the moon and seeing if he any find any life. After a short while of searching he finds an alien and has some fun. The equipment I would need a lot of clay and cardboard so I can make the different sets. My inspiration for this idea is "Wallace and Gromit - A Grand Day Out" as they build a rocket and fly to the moon and whilst there they encounter a robot called Cooker

This will be a time lapse of a night sky starting from dusk and ending at dawn. Shutter speed will be left open longer than usual so that it can gather more light. This will be very challenging as lots of stuff could go wrong but night sky time lapses look amazing if I can make it well. I got my inspiration from YouTube videos people have made and some of the outcomes are brilliant.

This will be a Animation of a person doing their daily tasks around the house. This could be interesting to see as it is such a basic idea but if i plan it out right then it could look really nice. I would film my mum do tasks like ironing clothes, doing the washing, cutting the grass etc.

I chose the night sky time lapse as my animation as I feel like it the outcome if made good could be better than my other ideas, plus a night time lapse is different to a normal one as you have to put a lot more effort in rather than a normal time lapse.

Kit list

• DSLR camera 
• DSLR shutter remote
• Tripod

I will need to find the right location where there is no light pollution and i need to find a night where it is not windy and not many clouds as this might ruin the footage. I will have to do a couple of test runs so that I can find the right exposure times for the camera.

Running times

6 minutes = 1 sec

360 / 25 = 15                    1 frame every 15 seconds

30 seconds

25 frames

750 images/ frames

Tine to have camera running

7 hours = 420mins

420 x 60 = 25,200

25,200 / 750 = 33.6

1 photo every 30 seconds

http://www.lonelyspeck.com/the-milky-way-in-los-angeles-light-pollution/

Preparation

I need to find a day when there was hardly any clouds in the sky and the moon is hardly visible. This is because if the moon is out it creates more light which might disrupt the images. I plan to film at my granddads house as the is no light pollution, this means that when i take long exposures with my camera it wont pick up any light from near by lights. As i am filming a time lapse i need an option so that the camera could take a picture on its own without me having to click the shutter button, as my camera doesn't have a built in intervalometer i will buy one which plugs into the side of the camera.

 The intervalometer as four main settings:

Delay - how long between pushing "start" and the first photo

Long - how long the shutter will be open for

Interval - how often the shutter is triggered

Number - total number of shots taken

Production

Once i got my equipment ready i set up my equipment outside whilst it was still light, this makes it easier to see what I'm doing and i can frame my picture to how i want it. When i finished setting up the tripod and the camera. i had to change the camera settings so it is suitable for a time lapse, first i turn of VR (image stabilization) and turn the focus onto manual mode, this is because if you leave it on auto focus it might focus on something different like a tree when you want the stars to be in focus. Another thing i had to change was the focus ring, i looked through the view finder and focused the a tree far away in the distance then taped the ring so it wouldn't move, the focus is not set to infinity meaning it will be able to focus onto the stars.

I left the camera outside for about 2 hours to let it acclimatise to the cold conditions and once it was completely dark i went outside to do some test shots.

These where the settings for my first test shot:

ISO - 1600

Shutter speed - 20 seconds

Aperture - 3.5

When i looked at the image it was a little bit too light so i changed the shutter speed to 15 seconds, this was better. After fiddling around trying to get the best settings, the images were just getting worse. I gave the lens a wipe and took another test shot, the image was perfect which meant that the lens was misting up as it was in the cold. Unfortunately the only solution to this problem would mean me standing outside all night wiping the lens every half an hour. Also i got a plastic bag and cut some holes in to and placed it over the camera just in case it rained in the night, even though the weather forecast was clear you can never be too carefully. I wiped the lens and started the time lapse which meant by the time i wake up in the morning i could check the images and hope for the best.

When i got up in the morning i went straight outside to check the camera. The battery had died in the early hours of the morning (i didn't expect it too last all night anyway). After i had charged the battery a bit i put it back into the camera and had a look at the images, they looked good but you could see that after a while the lens mists up. Also you can tell in one of the frames i cleaned the lens as it goes from misty to clear.

Post Production

I got all the images from the camera (533) and put them onto the computer, this took a while as they were all shot in RAW format so the file sizes were quite big. I opened up premiere pro and clicked on import media, once you find where your images are kept i needed to click on the first image, click "image sequence" and click the last photo and it should open up all the images as a video sequence. But i had a problem, when i tried to import the photos it was saying the video sequence was only 5:15 seconds long. it had missed out most of the other pictures. After a long time of trying to sort this problem out i realised that it had stopped importing on the image where i cleaned my lens so i imported the first lot of images and then the rest of them.

And as i had 2 image sequences i just put them together and i then had my full time lapse. now that i had my time lapse in place i needed some titles to introduce the clip, i clicked on Title, New title and default still. I typed the title of my time lapse called "The Sky at Night" and dragged it into the time line. I did the exact same for the credits but i also added a fade in and a fade out by command clicking the beginning and end of the title and selection default transitions.

The last thing i needed was music. I wanted some nice piano music in the background so i went onto Free Music Archive and found a nice piece of music that fit well with my time lapse. Also everything on the site is public domain which means that no one owns copy-write so that everyone can use it. Once i downloaded it and put it into my time line i was ready to export. I went into export and media, this gave me loads options but all i needed to do was click on h.264 and then scroll down to HD 1080p 23.976, gave it a sensible name and then exported it.

Outcome

I was very pleased with the outcome of my time lapse as you can clearly see many stars and the music went perfectly with the clip. Next time i would prefer to make a time lapse in summer as its warmer on a night meaning the lens wont fog up and i get a clear picture.

http://freemusicarchive.org/