Use of Digital Technology - Photoshop. Hate-boarding print advert

My A2 print advert for our documentary was made using digital technology in the form of photoshop. I used the idea of polaroid pictures and applied this to my advert, I also incorporated generic ideas of "the road" and the freedom which this symbolises for skaters. I think that the utilisation of this idea and its application to my print advert through photoshop is creative. However, I do not think that photoshop developed my creativity because although it enabled me to express and produce this idea into a media text, it did not give me the initial idea and without digital technology I would have still had this creative idea. Even though I would not have been able to express and produce this idea, the creativity of the idea would still have been present as an idea, although this would not have been tangible as my print advert is, it would still have existed as a creative idea. Photoshop gave me the tools to express creativity through digital technology. Photoshop has enabled me to articulate a manner of creativity in an easy way, and I think that having the tools to express creative ideas will inevitably increase creative potential. 

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Hateboarding Print Advert - Sorcha

USE OF TECHNOLOGY - PHOTOSHOP

Publications suitable for the advertisement of our documentary

I think that a relevant magazine in which we could advertise would be Sidewalk Skateboard Magazine. I think that this would be appropriate as it is a magazine based on skateboarding, and so it will inevitably have a readership of skaters who would be interested in our film. It also has a target audience of primarily male teenagers, as does our documentary. The ideology of the readers of the magazine would also be similar to the ideological standpoint of our target audience, as they are of the same age, gender, social class and have a considerable interest in skateboarding, as is required for our target audience. Advertising in Sidewalk Skateboard Magazine would help us reach our target audience and encourage more people to watch our documentary as the readers of the magazine would inevitably be interested in a documentary about skateboarding as they themselves have a keen interest in skateboarding.

Another magazine which I think may be relevant for the advertisement of our documentary would be Kingpin Skateboarding. This will be appropriate for many of the same reasons as Sidewalk Skateboard Magazine - it is a skateboarding magazine. Kingpin Skateboarding will also appeal to a slightly older target audience as well as our intended target audience. This may widen our circulation as some older skateboarders may well be interested in our documentary.

I think that we could also advertise in a liberal newspaper such as The Guardian as although the audience is very different, they appeal to left wing liberal interests and have considerable youth readership, and although the readers may not be interested in skateboarding, they may be interested in watching our documentary because of the positive message which it transmits about youth today.

Print Advert Analysis

use of technology - photoshop

Interview with harrassed skater

Yesterday afternoon I was able to conduct an interview with a skater who had been harrassed and stereotyped. I believe that this interview will help to round off our documentary and illustrate our point about the stereotyping of young people. We have yet to add titles to our documentary and upload the final two interviews and incorporate them into our documentary, we also need to put the credits at the end of our film. After this we will have completed our documentary.

Last minute interview - professional skateboarder

We have scheduled an interview for this afternoon with Daniel Chapman, professional skater. Hopefully this interview will give our documentary a more professional edge. Shona and I will film him today.
Some questions which we have prepared are as follows:
How did you get into skateboarding, how old were you when you began?
Do you find that people stereotype you in a negative, or possible positive, way?
What do you like about skateboarding?
Have you ever been harassed due to being a skateboarder?
How did you get into the professional world of skateboarding?

Reschedualed interview

Unfortunately my interviewee - the harrassed skateboarder, was unable to make our last appointment. However we have reschedualed for Tuesday, January the 5th at 15:00pm.

Interview - harassed skateboarder

Tomorrow I will conduct an interview with a skateboarder who has been harassed. As of yet I am not completely sure how the interview will go as the interviewee has not disclosed under what circumstances he was harrassed other than that it was due to him having a skateboard at the time and "looking like a skateboarder".

Our feedback from the audience screening advised that we get an interview of a skateboarder who had been harrassed or assaulted and stereotyped, and hopefully this will help us achieve our goal and round off our documentary.

First Audience Screening - Feedback

A concern was expressed about the sound on our film, and we will bring the sound metre to six and normalise everything.

Some also thought that we should change the music - we may keep this music but also add some different music to different sections of our film.

We also need to add some footage of what London authorities have done to prevent skateboarding.

We will also interview a skater who has been harrassed.

Last minute filming

Today I was able to arrange and complete an interview with a youth worker. An outline of my questions and topics of discussion are as follows:

Do you think that young people are badly represented by the media?




Do you find that people hold unfounded stereotypes on young people are certain groups of young people?


In your experience, are skateboarders generally regarded as being anti-establishment?


Do you think that the stereotype of skateboarders as anti-establishment is a valid one?


Do you agree that a general trend for authority figures is to regard skateboarders, and young people as a whole, as delinquents?


Do you think that skateboarding is badly represented?


Do you think that the general public regard skateboaders as anti-establishment?


Do you think that older members of the public, or people from certain social backgrounds regard skateboaders as anti-establishment?


Do you think that older members of the public, or people from certain social spheres regard young people in general as delinquents?


Do you think that such stereotypes should be disgarded or that they are simply exaggerated truths?


Do you think that the state establishes such biases for any particular reason?

Hopefully this interview will add more film to our sequence and give a different perspective to our film. Tomorrow we will capture this and continue editing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Arranged Interview and conducted interview

I have arranged an interview with a regular skateboarder for tomorrow afternoon at 1:30pm. I will interview him in his chosen location so that he will be most comfortable. I will only be conducting a short interview which may only be a pilot interview and will not neccesarily be used in our final documentary, however if our group deem it satisfactory then it may well be used in the final piece.
My interview questions are as follows:
Have you had any hostile experience as a skater
Do you find that certain groups have particular opinions on skaters
What are you're opinions on the restrictions which the authorities have placed on skateboarders in terms of the use of public space
I have intentionally made these questions open-ended so that the interviewee is able to elaborate and in order for the interview to conversational in some manners. These questions are subject to change as at the time of recording the interview our interviewee may present ideas which I have not previously though of.
Sorcha


Post Interview:


After interviewing the subject this afternoon it has become more apparent the level of communication skills needed to successfully conduct a professional interview. Although I think that overall the interview went rather well, I am also aware of its weaknesses. I found that the awareness that my voice was being recorded made it slightly more difficult for me to articulate my questions as well as I would have liked, I was quite disappointed with this as it could be percieved as the interviewer having a lack of knowledge on the subject on which they are interviewing which could possibly be damaging to our documentaries quality. However, I have also acknowledged the good points of this particular interview which could possibly be treated as a "pilot interview", namely the interview was well lit, and the interviewee kept at eye level with the camera. I was also quite pleased with the location of the scene - one which the interviewee himself chose as a location which he felt comfortable in, and one which was appropriate to the subject of our documentary - a place where the interviewee sometimes skates. I also attempted to stick to the rule of thirds although it is debateable how rigidly the rule was maintained throughout. I found that the interviewee developed his answers sufficiently and gave satisfactory responses, however I thought that the interview as a whole lacked a certain chemistry between the interviewee and the audience which would be neccesary were we to successfully market our documentary. Although I thought that considering it was the first conducted interview of our documentary, it had its qualities, I also think that the interview seemed almost tedious at points and that this will need to be developed in order to keep the audience intrigued in future interviews.
Sorcha

Interviewee possibility - update

I now have a contact for PC Wells who we will be able to interview, I have attempted to contact him and have left him a message with a contact number so that he can get back to us and let us know when he is able to film.
Sorcha

Similar documentaries and potential target audience. Presentation preparation.

"An inconvinient truth" is an example of an expository documentary which follows classic genre conventions which we will attempt to follow in the making of our documentary. These include trying to persuade the audience to agree with one point of view based on appealing to a common sense response using logical arguement,  a voice over; and incorportaing images into extracts.
"Hot Chocolate" is an example of a similar documentary about skateboarding which is a half skateboarding film and half documentary on the life of skaters. It incorporates a lot of film of skateboarders skating into the documentary which we would also like to do in order to engage the audience visually.
"Slammed" is a skateboarding documentary which tells the reader of the physical pain and hard work involved in being a skilled skater. Although it is unlike our documentary, in that it showcases personal journeys and ours involves exposing negative opinions of the public and in particular, authority towards the skater community; it has edited into it a lot of footage of people skateboarding and cutaways, which we would also be interested in incorporating into our film.
Another documentary which is on a similar subject to ours is "freedom of space". This documentary shows the nature of skateboarding culture and, in particular, skateboadring in public spaces. It is similar to ours in that it talks of the access which everyday skateboaders have to using public space to skate, and the way in which public spaces have been skateboarder-proofed, thus refelcting the anti-establishment stereotypes and assumptions which the authorities hold of skateboarders.
From research of similar documentaries, I have noticed that the target audience seem to be mainly from the skateboarding community. From further research, it has emerged that the viewers of skateboarding documetaries are often from middle class backgrounds, between the ages of 14-23 and are highly interested in skateboarding as a lifestyle or a hobby. From this I think that a potential target audience for our documentary could reflect this : young boys from middle class backgrounds who are highly interested in skateboarding. However, I do not think that our target audience has to be limited to skateboarders, as I have seen that many viewers of similar documentaries do not infact skateboard, but are aspirational skateboarders, because of this I think that our documentary will be very interesting to younger males (12-16) who are interested in potentially taking up skateboarding. Our skateboarder interviewees are mainly older (17-20), so this may possibly be aspirational to younger males, particuarly those who are able to identify with the programme in some way or who take a keen and regular interest in skateboarding.
Sorcha