Media Event Lesley 5001 25th February

Today in Lesley's lecture we discussed how the Media Event is going to progress. We started off discussing the individual roles of members of the group and who would specialise in which area.

The areas that we included are technical, marketing and and ideas and organising. I found to be more suitable in the organising group as well as liaising with the technical group as my role would involve setting up and rigging equipment for the event when the BTEC students arrive for the activity.

Also as well as preparing questionnaires and a shedule for the day so that the group has something to look at and see what they are going to be doing for the day. Chloe [Leader], James ]Technical], Esther [Marketing] and Brad [Ideas and Organising] are the leaders of each of the group. We then split up in our individual groups and discussed the structure and the angle for the day.

The Schedule for the day is as follows:

9.15-Icebreakers

9.30-Group Division

9.50-1st Activity

10.15-Second Activity

11.00-3rd Activity

11.45-Walk Tour to Moreton

12.30-Toilet Break

12.45- Room 111 Guest Speaker/Also de-rigging/Lunch

1.45-Evaluation

1.50-Goodbyes and Montage-goody bag/Take the group to the bus stop.

Media Event Lesley 5001 Friday 4th February

Today in Lesley's lecture as a group we discussed what makes a good leader in a team as in a couple of months we are planning a media event for BTEC students at Bath College. The discussions of what makes a good leader varied from confident, responsible, passionate and a good listener.

Next we split up into our individual teams which we were in last week and we were set the task of deciding the perfect film crew for a documentary being commissioned by BBC2 called "Plight of the Polar Bears".

These were the choices:

• Richard Hastie as the camera man as he has won awards for Wild Life Photography.
• Ingrid Gunsten as she speaks a variety of languages such as English, French and Russian, she has a good track record in research and has written many books on the destruction of the planet.
• Brian Mccormack, Producer/Director, very experienced producer. He has worked with David Attenborough . He is reliable and knows how to keep up team spirit.
• Sven Magnesson, who owns and works dog sleighs and is a survival expert.

Media Event Lesley 28th January

Today we discussed our next assignment which was a task for us to organise a Media Event which will involve the whole group being involved in organising the event and each having an individual role, however the event will be held in stages as the audience will swap from activity to activity throughout the day.

The content for our media event, which included the audience [who it was aimed at], what time it is due to start and finish and where it was being held. The media event is aimed at first year BTEC students who are hopeing to persue the same course as we are doing and w therefore want to help steer them in the right direction and make sure it is as interesting as possible to make them involved and to help them decide if this course is for them.

We also had to make sure that the Media Event has two Ambassadors in the group to smeet and greet and show the group around to make sure no one is lost and that everyonr is enjoying the day.

The event will be help at 9.30 until 2.00 on Friday 8th April and it had to be help at the university. We had to make sure that it was interesting, hands on and would hold their attention. Our next step was to decide on the content on the media event.

The event may also involve a member of the group giving the audeince a presentation on the course, for example what we are doing on the course. This could be useful to show off what we have done by diplaying our show reel but also giving the audience a flavour of what they will be learnig on the course.

Our next job was to decide the content of the event. We then split into individual groups to discuss ideas for the main activities for the BTEC students at the media event.

These were some of the ideas we had:

• Stock Motion-Paper Draw
• Make your own advert
• News feature
• Make a film [concept]
• Acoustic 2 camera unit
• Interview filmed
• Red Nose Day [Independent Student in Need]
• Green Screen [Music Video]
• Radio Debate [West Speaker]
• Bath Life [Greg Talk]
• Photo Maraphon

Evaluation of my personal project 16th May

I was very pleased with the finished project and I felt that it was a big improve compared to previous projects that I have done throughout the year as I feel that I have improved technically, for example my camera handling has improved as I have taken the Panasonic camera out on a number of occasions to get more practice this has allowed me to get some interesting and different shots that I have used in my project. Also my use of the tripod has improved too as I can set up the Manfrotto tripod more efficiently and without hesitation as I can properly level it and position it correctly.

Also I feel that my editing has improved I can now find my way around Final Cut Pro more easier, for example I can now do sub clips more confidently than had done previously and add more to the layout and the presentation of my work by using title sequences.

I felt that I presented my project well by displaying it and packaging to make it more professional as I felt that the packaging explained more about what the project was about as pictures helped display this.

I felt that the flow of my project went smoothly, however it might not have been necessary to add title sequences as the interviewee does explains the question well enough for the audience to understand as title sequences could also effect the flow of the piece as it would waste time and audience participation.

I felt that the variety of shots was good as it made it more interesting for the audience as some of the shots, particularly when my dad is running are handheld as this creates a more realistic feel to it also I did a variety of shots, for example some were low angle shots, shots of him running from and towards camera and also point of view shots and the "nostril" shot of my dad. The film RocknRolla inspired me to do that shot.

There are parts in the documentary that don't work, for example the music it does work well in the piece as it helps the documentary have a flow and it breaks the interview questions nicely however the problem with the music is the audio levels which are not as smooth as I would like it to be.

There would be a point in the documentary when my dad is talking where the music would rise suddenly to introduce the next question.

Paintworks Friday 14th May

Today we met at Paint works where "Deal or No Deal" is filmed. The aim of the meeting was to watch all of the previous work we have done throughout the year which included all the group projects and all the individual projects to decide which pieces of work we would choose to show at the showcase at the Little Theatre in Bath.

This was particularly challenging as all the projects were really good and also we wanted to have a mixture of both group and individual projects. Another problem was that we wanted to include everyone and made sure that there was piece of work that someone contributed towards.

When we sorted out which pieces of work we would show and put onto a DVD and in which order, we then decided who would arrange the credits and the intro to the showcase. By doing this we split ourselves into groups our group's job was to arrange the intro, in the end we decided to use stock motion which means taking an object and moving it and each time taking a still picture and by the end you speed it using Quick time.

We did this by making the letters CMP [Creative Media Practice] out of the DVD cases of the project and then building it into a tower and then taking a picture of the tower every time we removed a DVD.

Personal Project 11th May

For my personal project I did the vast majority of my editing on the 7th May which consisted of title sequences as this was a problem in some cases as there were times in the interview were the interviewee would answer the question fully specifying what he was about to say e.g. When did he start getting into running? and if he had done any races before?

I chose music which I thought would create the right atmosphere of the piece and basically tightening shots that I though would make the piece flow better. As this is now done all that was left to do was to export the file and make a DVD menu using IDVD.

This was a long process as it can be time consuming I created a DVD menu that contained a title menu that included a picture as the background of the subject that I was focusing on and the actual file that I used to convert my project which was Quick time Conversion which allows to set the project to wide screen if you wish to.

I previously created a DVD cover for my project as I though this would help with the presentation and make it look more professional. After this was done all that was left to do was to burn the menu onto the disc I found this to go much more smoother than the editing process as the menu did not take long to burn and I was overall very pleased with the finished piece.

Food for Thought 11th May

Today we focused on the evaluation side of the team projects as the editing is now done. This consists of all the team members coming together to have a discussion about who did what and what did that person contribute to the planning, filming and the post production work of the project. This could consist of the filming and the camera work, the sound, the work we did beforehand, for example who came up with the team project and name. Also the post production work that includes the editing and putting together the distribution of the project if it is on DVD, like ours was, who came up with the design of the packaging?

To confirm that we contributed what we said we did, all of us had to go round the group stating what we did and if other team members agreed with our points. Then it was up to Mike to give the end result. We then had the opportunity to comment independently on other members of the group if we chose to, for example how we thought they contributed to the team and whether or not they were an effective team member.

I felt that our group worked really well as we were all reliable and each did the individual tasks that were set each week, whether that be booking equipment or writing out the minutes [which includes who was present or absent at the meeting, what the agenda was for that particular week and what tasks to carry out for the next week] for each meeting we held.

We were all punctual when turning up to shoot interviews or cutaways for our project. Also another reason why we worked well was planning as we filmed most of the interviews and cutaways before Easter which only left us then with the editing to do.

I also felt that we supported each other really well and helped each other out if we had any problems, for example checking to make sure that the interviewee is in the the frame when filming and that there is good headroom, and someone would make sure the sound is properly leveled and that it is not too low or too high.

Also we all kept in contact very well and made sure that we planned and reminded members of the group when we were shooting and remembered to tell them if any thing changed if anyone was unable to make a certain day.