Pre Production Work

 

Research and Planning: E4

E4 are owned by the Channel Four Television Corporation, that was founded in 1993. E4 was created to branch off to a more teenage audience and to remove some programming from the main channel that was deemed to be an audience for teens and was placed on the new channel. With shows like My Name Is Earl, The Big Bang Theory and 2 Broke Girls, it seems that E4 is a channel for mainly comedy. But with other shows like Made In Chelsea and Revenge, it is also for reality and drama. When I set out with the job of creating an E-sting, I decided to use comic elements to it and also a little sci fi as this seems to be E4's target demographic. I used old techniques in a bright and colourful cartoon-y way to attract the younger viewers in. I also used new editing techniques like Chroma Key to clip out the white background and replace it with a space background to give the idea that the E-String was floating in space. Here is the pre production work I had completed for my project:

Animation Evaluation

STEP ONE
In order to complete the first task, you will need to exhibit your work and collect responses. To do this effectively, you should distribute your work via the internet, across as many different websites as you can. You should also send out questionnaires and request responses to specific technical and aesthetic elements, which are outlined below. Be sure to (briefly) explain what your project was.

Criteria for feedback:

• Genre & audience - Comedy/Sci Fi.
• Content & narrative - a cheestring or E-string eats himself and forms a blackhole swallowing everything and is then blocked up by an E4 logo.
• Style (of animation; claymation, puppets, models, etc.) - Claymation
• Characters (development, quality of production, costume, etc.) - E4's E-String
• Techniques & technical qualities (frame rate, movement, skill in animating multiple actions) - Morphing clay models each frame to produce a smooth video.
• Aesthetic qualities (the way it looks; mise-en-scene etc.) - It is set inside of an E4 shop where they only sell cheestrings, and discounted copies of 'Made In Chelsea'
• Creative qualities (imagination and flair) . - It uses a mix of chroma key and paper sets to give the idea of floating in space once the E-String turns into a blackhole and swallows everything.

 

STEP TWO
In order to meet grading criteria for Unit 33: GC4, you must show that you are able to evaluate audience responses to own stop motion animation work.

Consider and address the following:
1. Decide how you want to review your animation project? Will you produce an oral presentation, audio commentary or written report? Why?

I will be producing a blog post detailing my exact thoughts on how this project went, I will be listing the positives and negatives of the overall video.

2. Discuss how you exhibited your projects and how you could have shown it to a broader audience/other methods of exhibition.

I would share it through social media websites and will get the word of mouth going through my friends and colleagues hopefully causing more buzz.

3. Discuss how you obtained feedback from audiences and state who you asked. Also, list the questions/criteria for feedback and present your results. What was the general reaction to your work? Graphs and print screens are vital here.

I did a survey through survey monkey getting opinions from people around the world, some of the answers on it were a little crude and I knew that they were prank answers so I deleted them immediately.

STEP THREE

Consider and respond to the following:
1. Did you experience any constraints when making your ESting? For example, legal & regulatory issues, financial difficulties etc. Quote relevant text where appropriate.

I did not face any legal or regulatory issues when making my E-sting, although there was a worry that my 'E-String' closely resembled a Cheesestring and that I would be using their likeness, but I've been informed that because my character does not have the words Cheesestring on it, there would be no copyright problem.

2. How well did you manage your time? What was the time frame for the project and how well did you stick to it? How well did you manage yourself during the project?

I believe that I managed my time well, working hard I got the pre-production work done in a day, and then the production took about 2 hours to do, and then post production took a further two days. The final project was finished well within a week, but due to time constraints, the whole process spanned about two weeks.

3. Did you meet the requirements of the brief’s content? For example, did you conform to the guidance set-up on the E4 ESting competition’s website?

The criteria on E4's website stated that they "can’t show anything explicit or violent in the daytime, but we might be able to after the watershed as long as it’s broadcastable" I have confirmed that this E-sting does not have anything like that in it, although a few comments on the survey stated that it looked like the character was performing 'Self Philatio' but I concluded that this person was merely being immature. The Criteria also states that the E-Sting has to be ten seconds long, with careful cutting and keyframing, I had made my E-Sting exactly ten seconds long, no more, no less. It also states that you have to use one of the ten seconds pieces included in the .zip file on their website, I have followed these rules and have used the soundtrack labeled 'estings-africa', along with some sound I made at home using a professional microphone, and a royalty free belching sound I had in my sound library on my laptop. Finally, it says that it has to have the E4 logo in it, I used a plasticine logo I made, there were concerns that the logo wouldn't be recognised as the E4 logo, but after talking to my teacher, I confirmed that it did look like the E4 logo and the judges would understand what it is.

4. Where did you obtain feedback from and what was the general tone of it? (Mentions peers, tutors, friends, family and questionnaire respondents). I obtained feedback in class from my peers, but I also got feedback through social networks by linking it to my survey, I have received mainly positive views, some with criticism and immature answers with vulgar language, I deleted those comments immediately.

5. What do you feel you have learnt from this project? For example, was working to a specified brief difficult? Did it mean you were less able to be creative?

I learnt the difficulty in stop motion animation and that it is time constraining, the fact that it took me an hour to make about six seconds of footage also prevented me to unleash my creative talent, but once all the filming was done and I got to post production, it was so much more relaxing as it doesn't take that long to add the music and effects.

6. Do you think you would be a suitable candidate for work within the media industry where working to a brief is commonplace? Why?

I believe that I would be a suitable candidate because even though there were problems with time, I still managed to finish the project on time and hand it in before the due date.

7. How do you feel about taking animation further – do you think it would be a viable career option for you?

I do not think that animation is for me, i will not be taking it any further, to do a job like animation you would need to be incredibly patient. Doing this project was frustrating for me because everything went at a snails pace and to be honest it was incredibly aggrivating. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the course, learning about the history of animation and the pioneers like Ray Harryhausen and Don Bluth, but I still feel like this would not be the career path for me.

Consider and respond to the following:
1. Did you experience any constraints when making your ESting? For example, legal & regulatory issues, financial difficulties etc. Quote relevant text where appropriate. I did not face any legal or regulatory issues when making my E-sting, although there was a worry that my 'E-String' closely resembled a Cheesestring and that I would be using their likeness, but I've been informed that because my character does not have the words Cheesestring on it, there would be no copyright problem.

2. How well did you manage your time? What was the time frame for the project and how well did you stick to it? How well did you manage yourself during the project? I believe that I managed my time well, working hard I got the pre-production work done in a day, and then the production took about 2 hours to do, and then post production took a further two days. The final project was finished well within a week, but due to time constraints, the whole process spanned about two weeks.

3. Did you meet the requirements of the brief’s content? For example, did you conform to the guidance set-up on the E4 ESting competition’s website? The criteria on E4's website stated that they "can’t show anything explicit or violent in the daytime, but we might be able to after the watershed as long as it’s broadcastable" I have confirmed that this E-sting does not have anything like that in it, although a few comments on the survey stated that it looked like the character was performing 'Self Philatio' but I concluded that this person was merely being immature. The Criteria also states that the E-Sting has to be ten seconds long, with careful cutting and keyframing, I had made my E-Sting exactly ten seconds long, no more, no less. It also states that you have to use one of the ten seconds pieces included in the .zip file on their website, I have followed these rules and have used the soundtrack labeled 'estings-africa', along with some sound I made at home using a professional microphone, and a royalty free belching sound I had in my sound library on my laptop. Finally, it says that it has to have the E4 logo in it, I used a plasticine logo I made, there were concerns that the logo wouldn't be recognised as the E4 logo, but after talking to Ellie, I confirmed that it did look like the E4 logo and the judges would understand what it is.

4. Where did you obtain feedback from and what was the general tone of it? (Mentions peers, tutors, friends, family and questionnaire respondents). I obtained feedback in class from my peers, but I also got feedback through social networks by linking it to my survey, I have received mainly positive views, some with criticism and immature answers with vulgar language, I deleted those comments immediately.

5. What do you feel you have learnt from this project? For example, was working to a specified brief difficult? Did it mean you were less able to be creative? I learnt the difficulty in stop motion animation and that it is time constraining, the fact that it took me an hour to make about six seconds of footage also prevented me to unleash my creative talent, but once all the filming was done and I got to post production, it was so much more relaxing as it doesn't take that long to add the music and effects.

6. Do you think you would be a suitable candidate for work within the media industry where working to a brief is commonplace? Why? I believe that I would be a suitable candidate because even though there were problems with time, I still managed to finish the project on time and hand it in before the due date.

7. How do you feel about taking animation further – do you think it would be a viable career option for you? I do not think that animation is for me, i will not be taking it any further, to do a job like animation you would need to be incredibly patient. Doing this project was frustrating for me because everything went at a snails pace and to be honest it was incredibly aggrivating. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the course, learning about the history of animation and the pioneers like Ray Harryhausen and Don Bluth, but I still feel like this would not be the career path for me.

Timeline

 

 

 

Music Video Production

Step 1: Choose Your Track

For my music video, I made a shortlist of five songs to choose from and I decided out of these five:
Queen - Killer Queen
The Beatles - Hey Jude
Queen - Radio Gaga
Daft Punk - One More Time
Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know

I have decided to use Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know as it seems the most fit for my idea. It will be a surrealist video which follows a man who goes to work, and is taken hostage but it is all in reverse, whilst all of the time he is singing the lyrics, whilst he bikes to work, and when he is shaving and it ends with him turning the light off and jumping back into bed.

Step 2: Analysing Your Track

I feel like the song fits well with a surrealist music video as the music itself seems to have a surrealistic sound to it with obscure instruments playing in the background, also it seems that a video like that would fit well with the artists image. The idea of the song is finding out that someone who you thought was a perfect person, turns out to be your allusions of what you want them to be from first appearance, and when you get to know them, you find out that they aren't who you thought they were and they were 'Somebody that they used to know', the female singer, Kimbra, says she "think of all the times you screwed me over" connoting that he treated her badly after finding out that she wasn't who she thought he was, which in turn changed her opinion on him, from her perspective he was somebody that she used to know because she thought he was this allusion of a perfect person. As I said before, the artist has a very surreal view in his songs, in the music video, they're painted to blend into the background, connoting that they're slowly fading away from each other. The song plays at 68 BPM (Beats Per Minute) which isn't fast, but it isn't slow, it goes at a steady beat, maintaining this beat for the whole song. The song is 4 minutes and 3 seconds, which is three seconds over the limit, but excluding the pauses at the beggining and the end of the video, it just goes under 4 minutes.

Step 3: Researching The Artist- Image And Representation

in the song, they're not wearing any clothing, as I said before, they're painted to blend into the background. In the video, they are wearing a range of different makeups to look like the painted wall behind them, this gives a good surreal effect because they almost look like a floating air of eyes and teeth. The other existing videos that I could find were all of the same pace. I couldn't find any other music videos made by Gotye.

To do a tracking effect where it is always a closeup on their face, I will need o spend some money making this http://cinematography-howto.wonderhowto.com/how-to/make-lightweight-body-mount-rig-for-filming-unique-front-ots-shots-0146700/
another thing I would need to do is get the actor to learn the song backwards so that when it is reversed back, they lip sync perfectly.

Step 4: Planning Your Video

My idea would be a man, turns on his bedroom light, gets out of bed, shaves and then gets on his bike and goes to work, it will all be one take, when he gets to work, his ex is there and she will lip sync the part sang by Kimbra, he will keep walking down the corridors and is goes into a room, where he sits at a computer and starts typing, two people with guns come in and put a bag over his head, he is taken to an abandoned building, the bag is taken off and then put back on again, he gets kicked to the ground out of frame, and the man shoots down on the ground, once I have filmed this in one take, I will reverse the footage and the track.

Single Camera Production Evaluation

Turning our script into the movie project took a few days to do; the first thing we had to do was associate a segment of the script with one of the people in the group. Once we had finished that we all made a shot list and storyboard for our parts in the project, which we then used when we were filming.

Shooting manually on DSLR cameras took a while to get used to, we had to keep adjusting the Shutter Speed, as well as the Aperture and the ISO to get it looking good. This was tricky for my scene because our location was a dark and spooky basement with next to no lighting, the only thing in shot illuminating the area was a cabaret with three candles so we had to keep lighting dim to make it look like a barely lit room.


We re-shot a bunch of scenes from different angles so that we had a lot more coverage and a lot more footage to work with in case the shot we wanted turned out looking terrible, this also helped with the audio as we had a whole range of tracks to choose from once we filmed it over and over.

We had a lot of difficulty shooting my sequence as I said before the lighting was tricky, but we also had trouble with the candles, every time we finished filming we had to blow out the candles for fear of continuity errors. I also wasn’t too keen on the soundtrack on my sequence, it was practically silence except for a beat that runs through my speech about using an Ouija board, and it suddenly cuts out when Shauna says "Just, sit down Max." The camera took a while to get used to as I was only a beginner at using a DSLR and didn't have much experience with using one. I quite liked how the scene turned out, the candle gave it a spooky feel and it truly felt like a Séance.

I like how the final shot turned out with the doll, the horror sting added on really did make it terrifying, I could tell because everyone in the class reacted to the shot and were truly scared. I don't like how the bad dream shot turned out, don't get me wrong Ollie did a terrific job with the camera angles and the use of audio, it was just the location, it felt cramped and I was gutted when I looked back and saw that I was wearing shoes in bed, considering I had just supposedly woken up. I have learnt that it is always important to gauge the opinions of your group before you finish filming because they also have their opinions on how the shot should be done. Next time we do a project like this, we are going to manage the time better and find more locations and list them from availability.

I studied the feedback and found that people have some of the same concerns as me, like having shoes on in bed and sometimes a little under exposed. But all in all it was positive results; the majority of people say they enjoyed the soundtrack and that the ending scene was done really well and scared them. Other people enjoyed the editing but also argued that the audio kept changing during the cuts, it kept going from loud to quiet, but in some places like the ending scene with the doll it gave it an advantage. Ellie and Sean said that some shots could have used some variety and that some were awkardly long, also, the end credits felt rushed but they also said that it had a good creepy pace to it.

Research Texts

• What happened in the opening episode? There was a shooting outside a night club and the owner, Ainsley Modest's girlfriend was hit by a bullet but no one knows where it came from, they trace the vehicle to an abandoned industrial unit where they uncover the body of a murdered girl, lisa. Now they have to find who is responsible for Lisa's death and find out who the gunsmith is before another war breaks out.

• What, in slightly more detail, happened in the opening scene? It starts with the nightclub owner driving with his fiancee to his establishment, they arrive and exit the vehicle. Within minutes a gang in a black tinted car roll past, pulling out a sub-machine gun and opens fire, killing a few innocent bystanders.

• Who were the characters involved in the opening scene? There was Ainsley Modest, his bodyguards as well as his girlfriend and the rival gang.

• Were there any elements in the programme that could be considered indicative of single camera production? In part 2 there was a scene where Harry, the pathologist discovered a stash of guns in Chris' house, the room was so cramped that they barely had enough space to get one camera in, this would indicate it being a single camera production.