Christmas market

During lecture time we went into town to the Christmas market as this is a good time to capture worcester as a whole as its very busy. We took the camera out and the tripod. We wanted a day to night shot so we set up on Sabrina bridge and recorded for nearly two hours. This was worth the wait, we had the lights come on the bridge which really brought this shot to life.

After this was done we moved into town and recorded the liveness of the town at christmas. I was happy to do this as I knew it would bring the advert to life. We went through all of the market and found some real nice shots. I was also taking photographs in case we wanted to add them into the final production. It was freezing however the shots we have took look really good and I would like to use most of these within the final production.

Overall I feel that we have a great range of shots to play around with in the editing and this will give our finished advert a wide range.

Audio..

We have collected all the shots that we needed for both advertisements. So we have began putting our shots into final cut pro and editing some shots out and making sure we are all happy with the look of our final film. Personally I feel this has took longer than originally planned. As we all want the film to look a certain way. As me and the others don't know how to use final cut pro Emma has been doing the editing throughout the past few weeks, we have been sitting with her and giving our opinions throughout this stage and hopefully this will show in our final outcome.

As me and Nicky have produced the shots of the university advertisement, I felt I needed to do more so I have put myself forward to think of music in which to use for each advertisement. The reasoning behind this was because I'm already doing a sound module and I have a bit of experience in this element. I asked the others what kind of music they wanted for the advertisements and this was my starting point. I didn't want to take over this element so this is why I asked the others what they thought before I began researching and looking for the two songs.

As the first advertisement is aimed at tourists, I decided to look into Edward Elgar as he has a big influence in worcester. However some of the music which I had been looking at didn't fit the advert in my opinion. So I thought deeper and I knew I wanted a piano version of one of his songs so after much debating I finally settled on this song.

The main reasons behind this choose is because I felt it aimed at tourists well and reinforced that Edward Elgar was a big part of worcesters history. Also I was able to shorten this for the minute long without it sounding awful. As this song had to be a minute long. I used Adobe Audition to shorten this song. However I couldn't make it exactly a minute long as it would of literally sounded cut off. So I had to round it off at about 1.10. I shown this to the rest of my team and they was happy with the outcome with this song. I was glad as I was worried that the other members wouldn't like it. My next stage was to pick a song for the university student advert. This was the most difficult to choose and I didn't want it to aim to a certain type of student. I needed something upbeat and easy on the ears as I didn't want the soundtrack to overpower the visual. This was my main issue. However after much thought I finally decided on this:

The reason behind this song is because the chorus is catching and exciting. Also its not just aimed at one certain audience. This song was a little harder to cut down as I only wanted the chorus. So I had to be careful of not cutting too much out otherwise the viewer would hear it and it would ruin the advert as a whole. I opened up the sound a lot bigger in Adobe Audition so I could see where each element started and finished. However I was able to cut it down well and the rest of my group are happy with the outcome.


As I was already doing the sound, I used a Tascam recorder and a shotgun mic to record Nicky reading out the script that tom produced. As Nicky is from Worcester we thought she would be the best for the voice over, we went into a sound booth during a lecture time and went through the both scripts. I felt this went well and we asked the others and we was all happy with the outcome.

I feel confident that we will produce three fantastic adverts we have worked well within our team and we have kept in touch through facebook and text. We have enough time to edit the adverts in next weeks lesson.

Shot list

Day of filming: Thursday 22nd November 2012

Student Union:
* Three different pan/still shots of the student union shop; including people walking in/out of shop, people browsing and people being served.
* A pan shot of the whole student union area; including students sitting around chatting.
* A still shot of the front desk of the student union.

Pear Tree Café/Bar:
* A pan shot of the downstairs area of the Pear Tree; including people sitting chatting and some playing pool.
* A still shot of some students playing pool.
* Another still shot, this time of the café; including a group of students having coffee.
* A pan shot of the café serving area – showing the staff serving.
* A downwards pan shot of the Pear Tree upstairs bar; focusing first on the Pear Tree logo, and panning down to the whole bar/advertisement screens.
* Two still shots from upstairs looking down on the downstairs area.

Pearson Library:
* A still shot of the main room of the Pearson library, focusing on the seating area and the above lighting.
* A still shot of the stairs showing a sign stating what’s upstairs – including two students walking down the stairs.
* A still shot of the second entrance to Pearson.
* A pan shot of the downstairs study area; focussing on the open space and computers.
* A still shot of students walking past the study area doors, with another student walking out at the end of the shot.

University Entrance:
* Still shot of the Edward Elgar statue by the front doors.
* A still shot of the main door showing students walking in to the university – warm lighting outside.
* Another still showing a group of students walking out of the same doors as previous shot.
* A still shot of the reception area.
* A pan shot of the main entrance area, including seating and advertisement boards.
* A zoomed shot of the corridor leading off from the main reception area – zooming out at the end of the shot
* Still shot of the “Welcome to Worcester University” sign.
* Still shot of the entrance to the Elgar café.

Digital Arts Centre:
* Still shot of upstairs area – with a student walking through right hand side of shot to walk down stairs.
* Pan shot of the Mac area of the DAC

Dining Hall:
* Pan shot of the whole dining room area, including students walking through and sitting.
* Another still/pan shot of dining hall, this time focusing of the food area, showing someone being served and the fridges.

Shots for student video

On Saturday some members of my group went into town and started shooting shots for visit Worcester. I was meant to go however I was unable to attend this because of illness. This advert is aimed at tourists so they produced many shots around the town. Me and Nikki looked at these today and I'm very impressed with what Emma and Tom have produced. 

Whilst Tom and Emma was editing the shots which they had already produced, me and Nikki started shooting shots for the video which is aimed at Worcester students. We had already agreed that this would be around St Johns campus. We wanted to capture the university atmosphere. 

So these were the main places that we wanted to include:

• Cafe
• Library 
• Student Union
• Student shop
• Student bar - Pear tree
• Reception
• The digital art centre
• Elgar's cafe 
• Corridors

We started in the cafe and began doing pan shots of the whole room, as we wanted to capture the liveliness of the university. However because of the time that we filmed the university wasn't as packed as it normally was. This was a issue which I was aware of straight away. We produced several shots of the whole cafe and the food section to reinforce the cafe factor. 

Next was the library I was unsure about this as its very open plan and plain. However Nikki thought this was a main point so I took her thoughts into consideration. We began with a shot of the library as a whole however we wanted to make the viewer feel more invited so we added a shot of people walking through two doors, this in my opinion really brought the library alive. We also wanted to include the upstairs, so we have took a shot of people coming down the stairs. As we felt it reinforced it without having another pan shot as this could be boring for the viewer.

The next location was the student union however again because of the time, Berry's was shut which is one of the main elements and also there was a clothes sale going on which covered most of the room. However after a quick pan shot of the student union we moved into the shop and this proved to look better on the camera. We began looking at what angles we could use as we already had many panning shots. So we had a still shot of the shop itself. But I personally felt that we needed someone buying a item, so after waiting a little while we had the shot we needed. 

The next main element of university is the social side and this is why we added the pear tree into our shot list. Firstly we wanted to capture the downstairs, this included the small cafe, pool table and a large seating area. This was a good shot as many people was enjoying a coffee and a chat. We had a shot of three guys playing pool, one of the guys was wearing a sports t shirt. I thought this fitted in well with the social side. Me and Nikki both agreed we needed to have a good shot of the bar upstairs. I thought it would be a good idea to zoom into the pear tree signage and slowly zoom out to show the whole bar. This worked amazingly well because of the soft lighting in the bar, this made it inviting. We had a short pan shot of the whole bar itself. I felt we needed some more interesting shots as I felt it was very repetitive so I asked if Nikki if she would be happy to have a over shot of the whole downstairs, she felt this was a great idea so we pushed it forward. 

The next few shots were around the university, corridors, entrance, elgar's cafe and the entrance. We found a great corridor just by reception which was long and we had a shot of a group walking down whilst I zoomed out. We also had a shot of the whole reception area, I felt this gave the university a bigger look on camera. Finally we had shots of the digital art centre as me and Nikki felt this was the most modern part of the university and we want our target audience to come to worcester university.

We took our film back to the rest of our team and they was impressed with the shots we had produced and Emma will be editing these in the next few weeks. 

Edward Elgar

Edward Elgar was an english composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Although Edward is often regarded as a typically English composer, most of his musical influences were not from england but from continental europe. He felt himself to be an outsider, not only musically, but socially. He was also a self taught composer, and in protestant britain, his roman catholicism was regarded with suspicion in some areas. He was sensitive about his humble origins even after he achieved recognition. He married the daughter of a senior british army officer. She inspired him musically and socially, however he struggled to achieve success until he was in his forties. After a series of moderately successful works his enigma variations became popular in britain and overseas.

After finding a little more about Edward Elgar, I was thinking we could use a piece of his music as the soundtrack to our video, however I would still like to have the soundtrack played on a piano. I have been looking at examples on youtube and I think this song could work nicely. 

History of worcester video

History of Worcester - Cathedral

The city of worcester is a city and a county town of worcestershire in the west midlands of England. It has a population of 94,0000 people. Also the river severn runs through the middle of the city which is overlooked by the twelfth century cathedral. Worcester is also the final battle site of the civil war, where Oliver Cromwell army defeated King Charles II's cavaliers. Worcester was also home of Royal Worcester Porcelain and the birthplace of the composer Sir Edward Elgar. It has also has the Lea and Perrins factory where the traditional worcestershire sauce is made and it has one of the fastest growing universities, the university of worcester. 

The cathedral was founded in 630 with bishop Bosel at its head. The first cathedral was built in this period but nothing remains of it. The existing crypt of the cathedral dates from the 10th century and the time of St Oswald, bishop of worcester. The current cathedral dates from the 12th and 13th centuries.

The cathedral contains the tomb of King John in its chancel. Before his death in newark in 1216, john had requested to be buried in worcester. His buried between the shrines of St Wulstan and St Oswald. It has also got a memorial to the young prince arthur who is also buried here. Because of this factor King Henry VIII was spared destruction during the english reformation. 

Brief - Visit Worcester

Today we was given our brief. The brief is produce three versions of an advert or a service, this will be produced in groups of four. I began thinking of what advert we could do. I started to brainstorm some quick ideas.

There are some:

• Chocolate -  Milka, Cadburys, Galaxy. 
• Fast Food - Mcdonalds, KFC, Burger king, Pizza hut, Dominos, Subway.
• Drinks - Pepsi, 7UP, Fanta, Coca cola, Lilt, Fanta.
• Games - COD, Spyro, Skyrim, Gears of war, Fifa.
• Places - Birmingham, Worcester, London
• Audience - Men, Women, Young adults, Children. 
• NightClubs - Tramps, Bushwackers, Sin, Mars bar.

After much debating we decided to do a promo video for visit worcester. As we checked on the worcester website and they haven't got a video. So this would be a great angle and we would contact them and see if they would like to use our video. Again we began brainstorming the main places that we want to include in the video.

• River Severn 
• Food
• Nightlife
• Hive
• University 
• Art gallery
• Theatre
• Cathedral 

However I will be researching deeper into worcester, as I want to capture worcester perfectly, otherwise this video won't be a success in my opinion. I would like to show a lot of the history as worcester is an interesting little city. However as a group we need to properly discuss about the target audience as this will help us decide what we're going to show on each certain video. I would like to aim our video at tourists and up and coming university students. I think this will be the best angle to go down. I will be putting my ideas to the other members of my group and see what they think. 

We have been looking at other videos that are promoting a certain area or part of the country and here are a few examples I have found.

After looking at this, I knew we needed a soundtrack. I noticed the music is quite soft and relaxing. I would like to use a soundtrack that includes a piano. 

Journey Development

This lecture consisted of doing another journey however this time it had to be longer and more thought had to put into the pre production. We could've developed the idea from last week, however we chose to produce a brand new idea. 

This is  some of our brainstorm:

• Train
• Relationship
• Book
• Moving
• Life experience 
• Emotions
• Car
• Funny
• Travel 
• Item

Our final idea was a journey of a can of pop, this consisted of making the cans "come to life". I was looking forward to doing this. As a group we decided what we needed to be in the minute long film. For this particular film we needed to cans of pop. One of the problems which we came across was the choice of the different cans, as we needed a boy and a girl. We was going to use coke and diet coke for the girl. However we finally decided on tango orange and apple. As last week we didn't spend enough time on the storyboard, we sat down and run through what we needed to do.

These are our frames:

•  Someone buying a can
• Drinking it 
• throwing it away
• rolls towards another can
• three of scenes of the cans together in love
• feet walking towards the cans (cans point of view) 
• a foot stepping down on one can
• a black shot
• one cans have been crushed whilst the other is sad

We used the university as our location, including the cafe, the smoking area, and a fore court. As a group we decided to add expressions on the cans to show emotions. Because otherwise the shots would be stiff, as we couldn't add any music. However I felt the stickers added emotion well even though it was very basic. 

The hardest part of this production was getting the cans to roll to each other. We had to redo this scene several times, as we was editing in camera. Also we was going to do four scenes of the cans together but we remembered the rule of three, the viewer expects something to happen in the fourth scene. However overall I thought this particular production went really well, I feel more comfortable with the camera and the frames. I'm looking forward to producing my own film.

Camera Movements

Pan

The horizontal movement of a camera from left to right or vice versa, where the camera base is static. 

Tilt

A camera movement in which the base remains stationary, but the head of the camera moves up and down.

Tracking shot

A camera movement where the camera follows the action on rails or tracks.

Steadicam

This camera has the freedom of a handheld shot but its stabilisation device smoothes out the bumpiness of the handheld shot.

Handheld

The camera is literally handheld by the camera operator. Often bumpy and jerky.

Zoom

A single shot which moves towards a particular subject.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSzjUQ-OsSU

First Task - Journey

This lecture consisted of producing a short film on a journey. This could've been a typical journey such as your walk to university, a bus ride, love story etc. However we was told to move away from this initial thought path and think outside the box. We was put into groups and we started the pre production of a journey. In our group we had many ideas however we all agreed they was too basic. We finally decided on a journey of a person reading someone's diary. 

I knew the main element would be the frames and what we needed to express the journey efficiency. We agreed on what roles we would undertake, with this in mind we began storyboarding. 

As a group we decided these were going to be the main frames:

• Person coming in and finding the diary
• Sitting down and reading it
• Views of different emotions whilst reading
• Slamming the diary down in anger

With this in mind, we began seeing how it would look in production, we sat in one of the sound booths because this was our location. The actor had to do facial expressions as he was reading. As he was reading what a mystery person had wrote about him. As a group we decided to have laughing, sad and anger. We needed to make the viewer aware so out next stage was to think about how we could do achieve this. After much debating, we used a pan shot. This also gave the effect time had gone by, which fitted in nicely. 

This was my first time on a camera, and thinking about each frame is very important. We also had difficulties with editing in camera as we had to rewind the tape back several times. This slowed down our production. When producing a film again I would take more time on the frames first as this slowed us down.