Introduction

As I'm interested in animation, I'm planning to make an animated introduction for our media documentary. I've looked at various different types of animation and styles, and i've decided to make a short action sequence for our film. Reiss has made a logo for our documentary, which I'll incorporate into the animated sequence to polish off the ending. I'll be using Flash CS4 because I've seen several tutorials on it's use and I feel comfortable around  the programme. Unfortunately school only has CS3 which despite being quite a recent release is very different in programming to CS4 and I find it hard to navigate. Hopefully, allowing for time, I should have the animated sequence finished by next monday.

Shona ☺

Editing

In todays lesson, Shona and I made a lot of progress with the editing. We cut up some more subclips and put some more clips together on the timeline, everything on the timeline is now in chronological order. We currently have 2 minutes of fully edited footage on our timeline in the correct order. Reiss produced a logo which we will incorporate into the introduction of our film.
We still need to do some last minute filming, hopefully Luke will be able to get one more interview and we also need some additional cutaways for our introduction and ending.
We also need to produce voiceovers for some of the footage.
We need to work on our radio advertisement, as we haven't begun this yet.
Shona is also going to produce some animation which we will use as part of the introduction to our film.
Hopefully I will be able to get a camera later today so that I can work on another project, and if I do then I will also try to film some cutaways which we will be intended for use on our introduction.
On wednesday I plan to stay from 10:40 (as I finish at this time) onwards, until I have finished editing and complying together all of our obtained footage, aswell as capturing any additional footage that I may film tomorrow - This will hopefully mean that we have nearly finished the main portion of our film, and this will mean that we are free to work on:
Our Radio Advertisement
Any Music which we will use
Any Voice overs
Any video transitions such as dissolves, fades etc.

Podcast and recent decisions and progress.

In todays lesson, we experimented with using Garage Band, which is the program which we will be using to create a radio advertisement for our documentary. We also came to decisions based on our target audience about which radio station would broadcast our documentary and at what time of the day. We decided that it should be broadcast on XFM at 4:30 during the drive time radio slot, as this is the time of day when our target audience may be coming home from school in the car. XFM is a suitable radio channel as it caters for young music tastes, and their target audience is quite compatible to our own. XFM also has various podcasts for documentaries, making it one of the only radio channels which does this, and making it even more of an ideal channel on which to broadcast our advert. We also decided that we will use a voice over to place over the clip of James playing the XBOX skater game and disable the audio on this clip, we thought that this would be a very appropriate place to put the voice over as we will not loose out on any speech as their is none in this clip, and the audience will have something to watch while the voice over speaks. We have now cut all of our footage and are currently in the process of complying it all together.

Teacher Feedback: One more thing

Put your archive at the end or the side of your blog. It should not appear at the opening. The reader should see the recent entries first.

Teacher Feedback

Your blog reflects your progress. Well done. To improve, continue to look for opportunites to add photos/images.

Also, include more about decisions and revisions along the way.

18/11/2009

On the 16/11/2009, we resolved some problems which we had with final cut express through talking to Blossom, an expert in final cut. We also learnt how to encorporate some techniques which could improve our film, such as how to place two clips next to one another on screen.


This morning we captured all additional footage which Luke had filmed. This included interviews and various cutaways, however not all of this was useable; so we are in the process of cutting it. We are in the process of cutting our footage down to only the relevant material, however, due to technical difficulties, this is proving to be quite difficult.


We have lots of footage and have very nearly finished filming, however, we plan to film some more cutaway footage in order to further enhance our documentary.

Time Managment

Due to the unforseen problems we have encountered with the editing programme 'Final Express' we have been lost a lot of valuable time. In order to counter this our group has spit up in to pairs, that we can work on seperate tasks at the same time. The pairs vary from week to week and sometimes all four of us go our seperate ways in order to use our time in the most effective way possible. We make sure that at least two to three people are focussing on editing, and the others are working on side projects such as research, the blog, or finding appropriate copyright free music for our documentary.

On Thursday 12th of October, Sorcha was ill, so Me, Luke and Reiss worked alternatively on the editting, getting input from the other two, while they did the blog and made a section of music on 'Garage Band' for us to use in our documentary, because the music we found didn't suit our film.

Shona ☺

To Do List

Things we still need to do:

1) Complete all filming: 

We are almost finished but we still have a few cutaways and locations to film. This task was allocated to Luke, who has access to what we need to film.

2) Upload all footage:

Although we have got most of our footage filmed we haven't been able to upload most of it yet, but hopefully come monday, we'll have the tape ready in class so that we can upload it.

3) Edit all footage: 

Due to all the issues we've had with the editing programme the editing isn't going as fast as we would like, though now, with most of the issues resolved, we are making good progress.

4) Continue with blog:

We're still documenting our filming process and we will continue with it until the filming task has been completed.

We're happy with the progress we're making and we should have most or all of these tasks completed during the coming weeks.

Shona☺

Using final cut express: progress and problems; 09/11/2009

09/11/2009


Luke was able to fix the issue which we had previously with the scratch disk, meaning that we currently have enough space on our scratch disk to accommodate all of our footage.


However, we have encountered other problems today which hindered our editing progress. Firstly, footage was un-rendered, although this was relatively swiftly resolved by simply rendering all the un-rendered footage.

We experienced other minor problems however this can largely be attributed to adjusting to a new editing program, and we were able to edit some of our footage successfully today.

Technical problems: editing

This morning we attempted to edit the footage we had gained so far, however things did not go as planned. Initially, it seemed that there was some problem with the connection between the camera and the computer, as Final Cut Express was not recognising the device - this has been a recurring problem. Eventually we resolved this issue, but also experienced various problems involving capturing our footage. This was mainly due to having to capture the audio seperately, we also had difficulty in capturing Shona's interview. As her interview was 10 minutes long, the scratch disk appeared to not have enough space, however attempts to create a new scratch disk failed. On further inspection, it was apparent that there should have been enough space for Shona's interview as there was ample memory left on the scratch disk. We have not yet resolved this issue as we do not know how, we are experiencing similar technical difficulties to other groups which it is quite likely, could be attributed to the confusion of using a new editing programme.
Sorcha

On the 5th of november we were able to capture all of our footage so far by using a laptop.

I found some pictures of Stockwell Park skatepark and Meanwhile 2 skatepark at Royal Oak as location reference.  Later on today i will be filming at stockwell to get some footage of skaters in action for the film.   We chose stockwell park (also known as 'Brixton Bowl' or 'Brixton Beach')  as it is an easily accessible location and a hub for the skateboarding scene in south London.  From experience, the community is vibrant  and there are many interesting characters to meet.  it goes without saying that as one of London's best skateparks you will find some truly amazing local skaters, which will be very useful for cutaway footage.

Interviews

On Monday 2nd of november, I contacted one of our interviewees who said they'd be happy to be interviewed on that day. Jen Campbell arrived at 7.00 and I set up the camera while talking to her about the questions I was going to ask. I set her up so she looked comfortable then started filming while warming her up. The first take I filmed I experimented with zooms and moving the camera but I didn't like the overall effect it gave so I retook the footage with a static camera and I personally think the second take came out much better than the first. (Below: Jen Campbell)

 

I asked her:

Why did she skateboard,

Who did she Skateboard with,

Had she had any injuries while skateboarding,

Had she experienced any violence because she skateboarded,

had any of her friends, 

and,

Had she seen any negative press about skateboarders. 

I enjoyed the experience and I think we got a valuable interview from the filming.

Shona ☺

Filming

We tried to get together to film during half-term but unfortunately we couldn't get any decent filming done. Both Sorcha and Luke were away for the week with previous engagements. I tried to meet up with Reiss at Clapham Junction, but the station was too busy and we missed each other, not being able to find each other we decided to stop and film on sunday instead.

Luke was still unable to film and so was Reiss but Sorcha came and we met up at Stockwell to take footage at the skatepark. However, despite the fact we were organised and met up with plenty of time and a charged camera, The weather was against us and we were unable to film due to rain.

Shona

unsuccessful filming attempt

This afternoon I went to the skating area at Southbank in an attempt to get some footage of skaters performing tricks and skating. Unfortunately, there was no skaters skating at the area due to the current wet weather conditions. Although this is disappointing, hopefully tomorrow afternoon we will be able to gain some more footage as our group will go to Southbank again and try to gain some footage of skaters skating in the skating area at Southbank.
Sorcha

Planned Filming

As I only have lessons periods 1 & 2 tomorrow (Tuesday 2nd November), I plan to use the rest of the day to visit the skate part at Southbank, underneath the Royal Festival Hall. I plan to film skaters and ask them to answer a couple of short questions on what they find interesting about skateboarding. Hopefully this filming will go ahead, but it is dependant on weather conditions. The weather forecast at the moment exibits a possibility of rain for tomorrow, but as the skating area in Southbank is underneath, and hence, covered by, the Royal Festival Hall, hopefully bad weather will not prevent me from getting any footage from tomorrows excursion.
Sorcha

Attempted Filming

On Sunday the 1st of November, Shona and I attempted filming some skateboarders in Stockwell skatepart. This did not go as planned and, unfortunately, due to adverse weather conditions, no skateboarders were at the skatepart when we went there. The rain meant that no skateboarders came to skate on this particular day and hence, our planned filming was unsuccessful. This has further demonstarted the importance of trying to anticipate weather conditions by reguarly checking the forecast for our filming days.