WORK EXPERIENCE – CASE STUDY – PART TWO

I always prefer being in control of a production, so seeing as i was the only person working on this project, i was in my element. Abby arranged for the first set of interviews to take place on the knightstone campus. This was the reason for our first problem that occured. The technicians done a great job with supplying me with a tripod with a dodgy leg and some lapel mics with no mics on them. This meant that we had to record the audio using a hand held mic. Although it records sounds to a good quality, Abby wasn't used to using the hand held mics and didn’t keep a firm enough grip whilst using it. it wasn't too bad, it just resulted in minor disturbances to the sound.

Most students we worked with gave good answers. We did have to hint at what they should be saying. A lot of them didn’t have much good to say about the college at weston which obviously wouldn’t have gone down well in a video that’s designed to promote it. Most of them were very cooperative and consistent with their answers, though some interviews I had to cut out all together. There were some students that were giving very childish, one-liner answers, which aren't too interesting to listen too.

With each interview, I tried to get as much cutaway footage of the subject they were talking about as possible. This would make it easier for me in the edit to cut from answer to answer without the viewer noticing. for the most of it, this wasn't a problem. However, Abby didn't manage to arrange any filming of the drama students at work, which resulted in me having to use random cutaways of the college and tacky transitions. And breaking up the interview was tricky, being drama students, they weren’t short of stuff to say, and gave really long answers.

My final edit turned out to be ok. I think it’s an improvement on the promotional video the college has been using in the past. In the end, im not really happy that I spent so much time on it, its not particularly a piece of work im that proud of. I just wanted to get it done, and time ran out which I think effected the final product. I dont really feel any kind of achievement at the end of this project. Not much thought or creativity went into it. It wasn't much of a challange, Abby arranged every interview but the music students. It wasn't a good or a bad project to work on...just very very bland.

YR2 - WORK EXPERIENCE – HEART RADIO

I didn’t get the best reviews about the placement at Heart from the students who done it before me. They both thought it was an extremely boring experience, and for the most part, I would have to agree. I didn’t really do anything whilst I was there, it was the stuff I learnt about that interested me the most.



My first day was spent doing pretty much the same thing I done every other day, shadowing producer, Ben Marks. It was interesting watching him on the first day, seeing how fast he works, how he generates different ideas. He got to telling me about how he got into the industry, how long he had been working in radio. I was very surprised to hear that he was still quite new to the industry. He had only been working there for about two years but had already progressed to producer. By watching him work, you would have thought he had been in the job a lot longer than two years, he was so fast using Pro Tools. He got into the industry through an interest in music, which turned out to give him the edge that would put him above the rest.

At first, I thought his job was pretty straight forward. The first couple of days I sat in on him working, all he was doing was creating jingles and links to and from different segments of the show. However, after spending more time with him, I found out that his job and his influence played a very big part in the branding of the station. This was more noticeable when the station was GWR, before it merged into Heart radio. Back then, he had the job to brand the whole station, make it unique from all the others. However, since Heart has taken them over, he has less say in how things are to sound. Economically, the merge to Heart radio was a good idea. It means that there will be less work for each individual station to do because they are all using the same brand. Though less work means less jobs, and Ben has had to do extra work for other Heart stations around Britain to keep himself busy and in the good books. Whilst I was there he was working on promos for Heart Exeter, previously known as Gemini. It was kind of sad to see the industry in such a way that a good producer like Ben would fear so much for his job, as does everyone at the station.

Although I have no desire to work in radio, it did seem like a fun environment to work in. listening to the links for Breakfast with Bush, Troy & Paulina made me laugh. Ben took me in to meet one of the DJs, Stuart Elmore, who showed me around his deck. It was surprising actually seeing how easy his job was, all he done was push a button to play the songs that have been lined up by Heart already, add a bit of personality to the links and job done. He also took me around the news department. I spoke to Cormac MacMahon for a while about how he got into the industry...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CE6I-YfplI

Although Ben seemed very happy in his current job, he did tell me that he didn’t wish to work there forever, and that he would love to work for stations like 1Xtra or Kiss, stations that are better known for the kind of music he’s in to. Whilst I was there, he was emailing one of the producers at 1Xtra that he met at the Sony awards, at which he collected a silver for his promo Bristol's Big Give. at the moment he’s working towards another nomination for Race For Life for cancer research.
And his interests aren’t just in the radio industry, he still has a massive interest in music, and is DJ’ing a reggae set at the Bijou lounge in Whiteladies road.

YR2 – WORK EXPERIENCE – ACROSS THE POND PART THREE

The third day got off to a better start than the day before…we didn’t have to rectify any mistakes made by the sound and camera people. I was in a much better mood than the days before, as they only needed me, the stills photographer, to be there a short while. The day’s locations were in a Weston chip shop, so we were going to get fed, and the Blakehay theatre, so we were going to be warm. The day was shaping up well.










We met in the Six Ways Chippy around mid day. it was good filming inside, though it was a bit cramped and i couldn't take many good photos. Though i couldn't complain, the cast and crew were bought a meal of their choice...i went with LARGE cod and chips, it hit the spot. we didn't spend long in there, which was a surprise seeing how the last couple of days had gone. But we only needed a couple of shots of the character ordering some food, then we were off.

The next location was in the Blakehay theatre. It was fun setting everything up inside. i enjoyed wandering around the old theatre and taking snaps. It was great place to film. Someone from the theatre production was helping out with the stage lights. There was a cool little Romeo and Juliet style balcony that was going to be used. Unfortunately, the lightning was just a little too dark for me to take pictures without using the auto flash. As it turned out, i didn't end up taking many pictures whilst filming was going on. As usual, things were taking forever to get up and going. The actors were rehearsing, people were sorting out the lights, the camera man was trying to frame his shots. The biggest hold up was to do with the script. The directors had a problem with the language the characters were using. You could tell the writer wasn't English, and he obviously didn't do his research on how English people speak. The directors liked the kind of language i used, so asked me to take a look at the script. In the end i had to go through most of the English characters lines and change them to how i would say it. At this time, we could sense the tension between the directors and the script writer, they were having a lot of disagreements. unfortunately i couldn't stay too long after i was assigned the new job of script editor, i had a train to catch.


Although i did have some fun working for this production group, i was kind of disapointed in the way each day was treated. I was hoping for a lot more to do, and for a bit more professionality from the crew. I dont think i learnt anything from working on this project. I do know that i dont really have any desire to persue a career in film. I did find working with the Americans more enjoyable than i thought i would. As with all Americans, they were very polite and fun to spend time with. They showed us students with as much repect as they did with the more important members of the crew. The director/producer/actor, Javier, was especially friendly and a great laugh. He's a good lad!

YR2 – WORK EXPERIENCE – ACROSS THE POND PART TWO

The second day really didn’t move too well. It got off to the worst start when we found out that none of the audio from the shoot the day before was usable. This kind of confused me seeing as the camera man and the sound girl were supposed to be professionals, yet both failed to recognise the settings on the camera were wrong. That it was set to mic input instead of line input, something we were taught in the first week of learning about audio. This meant that we had to go back to the same location as the day before and do it all over again, which wasn’t very welcomed considering it was sheltered from the sun and it was freezing.

After finishing up in that location in the morning, we moved on to the next, filming actor Pete Nicholls reading Shakespeare’s “to be, or not to be” speech from Hamlet whilst standing on top of a bench in town. This was kind of embarrassing. The piece he was acting was so cliché, everybody knows it so well that it’s just a bit cringe-worthy to hear it now, especially outside a theatrical environment. I did feel sorry for him, reading out the same lines over and over again. At least we had big coats and scarves on. All he had to keep himself warm was the breeziest of shirts. He was shaking so bad you would have thought he had drunk a barrel of RedBull. I really don’t know why it was taking us so long to get just a few shots. I think there could have been a lot more preparation, a storyboard maybe. Another thing that they failed to take into consideration was the lighting. The location was smack in the middle of a line of buildings, which was fine at noon, but as soon as the sun started to dip, a big fat shadow appeared half way up Petes body. Somehow the directors seemed to think this wouldn’t affect the continuity, I failed to share their optimism.


Most of these days were spent standing around waiting for what seemed to be nothing at all. I know film sets have a reputation of being incredibly slow, but that’s when there are millions of pounds resting on the high quality result and need everything to be perfect. We had everything we had available to us on location. All this waiting around could have and should have been avoided. We could have got so much more done if more preparation had been made.

YR2 – ORGANISING AN EVENT – THE END PRODUCT

After months of preparation, the day of the event was finally here. A lot of hard work had been put into this project, so we were all looking forward to seeing how it would all go. It didn’t get off to a great start, there was far too much waiting around for things to get under way. After Sam had finished warming the speakers up in Loxtons, we were all ready. There were a few minor technical difficulties at first, but soon after we were ready for our first speaker.



Valerie Burke was the first to try to spark interest with the very gormless looking audience. She started with a clip from a program she produced called Challenge America, a spin off from the British series, Challenge Anneka. I think it dragged on just a little, but was quite interesting to see. Her story of how she got into the industry was a big shock to everyone. To hear that she didn’t follow the conventional routes to get her foot in the door, which actually turned out to be a very similar story to all the other speakers.

Cormac MacMahon was up next. At first, I was worried he wasn’t going to get much of a response, seeing as he’s a journalist at Heart radio in Bristol, and as far as I knew, there weren’t many in the audience with an interest in those fields. However, he was actually one of the better ones. His job didn’t really interest me, it was more his personality and humour that got me hooked. You could tell that this wasn’t his first time in front of a large crowd. He was very engaging, and though he was of an older age, he did seem very much in touch with the youth of today.

Of all the speakers, i was most looking forward to hearing from Jason Holmes. he’s just finished producing one of my favourite programmes on TV at the moment, and has a lot of experience in the side of the industry I’m most interested in making a career. Out of all the speakers, he was the one who provoked the most questions from the audience. Although it was good to see the audience showing an interest, I was kind of disappointed. Every speaker had only a short amount of time to answer people’s questions, and there were just too many to get around to answering ones I had. So I was kind of bitter that everyone decided to ask this speaker all their questions, but I wasn’t too down seeing as we were planning of having lunch after as a group, so I could ask him stuff then. But as a first time speaker, he didn’t show any sign of nerves and was very interesting.

The final speaker to take the spotlight was the young independent Producer/Director, Laura Abrahams. This was the first time she had spoke to a large crowd, and you could notice it. She wasn’t at all bad, but was a little nervous. I think she made a big mistake, at the beginning of her talk, by mentioning that she worked on a show where she was required to walk around town and get men to rate her bum. I think all the men in the audience spent the rest of her talk doing exactly that. But she didn’t just have a pleasant derrière to offer, she had a very interesting career to talk about. it was funny hearing how every one of the speakers, of no intention of their own, had been led down a certain path in the industry. Laura had worked on Big Brother then moved out to Australia and got a job working on I’m a Celebrity, get me out of here. She later admitted to us that she cant stand reality TV shows (though they were fun to work on), and that she had fallen into that line of program making.

I think all of our hard work paid off on the day. the speakers were very interesting to talk hear from.The audience were happy, mainly due to the free cookies in the interval. The meal in the cafeteria afterwards was a bit of a let down. Jason and Cormac were unable to stick around, which was a shame because this meant i wasn't going to be able to ask Jason what i wanted too during his talk. Though it was good to hear Laura and Valerie compare careers, and talk about the industry in a more casual environment.

YR2 – ORGANISING AN EVENT – HOSTING “YOUR MEDIA, YOUR FUTURE”

As expected, it was an early start on the morning of the event. I wasn’t nervous or anything. We all had our own jobs to do. Mine was to sit at the front desk and be stills photographer, both jobs that didn’t really require much preparation. I did need to make a delegates list so that we knew who exactly was coming. This actually turned out to be quite pointless. Only half the people signed in, it didn’t help that everyone was pointed our way all at the same time, leaving a massive cue throughout the reception area. This just made things quite stressful for me and Kate who had to try and get roughly 40 bored students to sign in, sign the release form, take their food ticket, find their name tag, organise them into pairs, and give them their questionnaires. We could tell people were getting very bored standing around.








After getting most of them signed in, all we had to do was observe them filling out the questionnaires and making sure nothing went wrong with the equipment. Whilst doing this, we didn’t get the best feedback from the students. Walking down the hall me and Aleicia over heard a student commenting on the question “have you found the event entertaining?” for which he responded “at the moment, f*** no”. We got the impression that most of them had similar feelings about how things were going. It didn’t help that half an hour was scheduled for them to finish their questionnaires, when pretty much all of them had finished after ten. It was for this reason we tried to get Sam to hurry the speakers into finishing their breakfast and get started. They were keeping to the schedule, but couldn’t see how bored the audience were getting, so we had to try and get things started early.









After everyone was in the performance space and sat down, there wasn’t much need for anyone to be out near reception, though someone did need to supervise the equipment. As I had to take the photos, I managed to get out of supervising, which I was more than happy with. I was looking forward to hearing from the speakers. Things got quite hard taking photos. The lighting was pretty bad in the performance area so the camera had difficulty focusing. I managed to take a good few pictures. I tried to get pictures of the speakers as soon as they stood up, this way I could turn my attention to what they were saying and enjoy the event as a member of the audience.

YR2 – ORGANISE AN EVENT – TAKING MINUTES

In order for everyone to contribute their ideas and to keep up to date with each others progress, we gathered together every Tuesday morning and held a weekly meeting. To be sure we all done our fare share in the build up of this event, we rotated the roles for the meeting. The chairman and minute taker would be the only ones physically doing anything leaving everyone else to contribute their opinions.


Taking minutes was pretty simple, just type down everything that was being discussed, decisions that were being made, and actions that had been taken. It was a bit boring, but so were the meetings themselves. I was lucky enough to only have to take minutes once throughout the whole project.

Here's how my minute notes were layed out:

BC2003 Event meeting 6

21.04.09

Present: Tom Hopkins (Chair), Keely Major, Sam Simmonds, Kim Brooke, Kate Pritchard, Adam Jones (minute taker)

Absent: Alicia Coombs

MATTERS ARISING

TV screen for studio should be ready for deadline.

Poster information has been submitted to the graphics department.

Action:
go down to graphics and ask about progress with the posters (sam)
Kim sorting out flyers
Kim chase down any further info concerning budget, and Sadie
Foley pictures to be submitted to graphics dept
Arrange a meeting with actors

Keely’s having problems downloading the icould video clips, but have 5 from careers box

Charley Stoddard is not yet confirmed as a guest speaker, Keely is chasing up

Ester may Camble replaced by Charley Stoddard
Ester may Camble hangs out at the Q, if Charley is unavailable, she will need to be chased up.

Budget:
No further progress.
Sadie can give up to £500.

Contingency plans:
In case actors aren’t available. Student films and show reels.

THIS MEETINGS AGENDA

Weston College will no longer be running this course. Text on flyers and banner will have to be changed from promoting the course, as it will no longer be running. Can no longer describe it as an annual event. Advertising has got to be directed towards Bath spa rather than Weston College.

Weston banners will be used instead of making our own, which reduces budget costs.


ANY OTHER BUSINESS

Things to do:
Facebook event (adam)
Tom is going to setup a website. Needs content (domain may need to be purchased)

NEXT WEEK IS OUR LAST MEETING!

NEXT WEEKS AGENDA

Pin down everyone’s roles, products from the graphics dept.
Kim will have a definite list attendees.
Sam and keely will decide on where to have the refreshments, and get permission.
Visit classes and gather questions from them for questions and answers for guest speakers.
Write up a questionnaire.
Kim is taking the refreshments order list to Luxtons.

NEXT WEEK: 28. 04. 09

CHAIRMAN… Kate Pritchard

MINUTE TAKER…. Keely Major

It was the chairman’s responsibility to structure each meeting and to make sure peace is kept and everyone is heard. This job suited some more than others. There are people within the group that are more outspoken than others, which sometimes results in those persons ideas being final. To make sure this didn’t happen, and that all decisions made were fare, we would vote on everything. This wasn’t really too effective, because there wasn’t really any disagreements. I think it was fare to rotate the role of minute taker because every can do it. I think the meetings would have been more constructive if we had established someone to chair the meetings throughout the project, rather than chop and changing.

YR2 – ORGANISE AN EVENT – WORKING WITH ACTORS

It was me who originally came up with the idea to use actors as a way to fill the gaps between the guest speakers, so it was left to myself to organise. Finding actors wasn’t to be a problem, I went through my first year surrounded by them. Whilst living in Weston, I became good mates with one drama student, Matt Ward, who is currently studying on the FDA Perfroming Arts course at Weston College. It was him who I first contacted about the opportunity to take part in the event.
When we finally established that we wanted three short comedy sketches, I got hold of Matt and let him know the rough details. I told him that there was a budget for actors of £150 for a minimum of three actors that he was going to arrange. At first we didn’t know whether to come up with the sketches ourselves, then have the actors just play them out. However, seeing as they were getting paid for the job we figured we would let them come up with their own material. There was a brief hold up in progress as we were trying to finalise a budget, and I wasn’t sure whether or not they would be willing to take time out of their busy schedule for doing me a favour.
We kept contact via mobile and E-mail, and when the final budget report came through I gave him the go ahead to start preparing sketches.

Adam Jones
23 March at 17:15
Alright mate,

how you been? I’m just writing to see if you and some of your fello actor people would be interested in acting in front of a small audience for our media group. we've got this media event we need to host and were thinking of including a few short sketches in there to break up the entertainment. Just wondering if you were interested, let me know what you think.

Matthew Ward
23 March at 22:46

Possibly be interested. Got quite a lot on at the moment. what does it entail?

Adam Jones
25 March at 19:54

well, 5th of may, we've got to arrange an event which aims to inspire, entertain, and inform people about the media industry. we've got a load of guest speakers, but so the audience isn't just sitting there listening to them, we were thinking of haveing three short little 5 minutes sketches in between them. we put together a rough budget the other day and worked out that we could pay 3-4 actors about £50 each, so you would be getting paid, for 15 minutes isn't bad. all the sketches need to be something related to the industry, like the interviewing process for example.

so thats it really, if you're not interested i could probably get you a brief soonish to hand around to someone else that might be interested. just thought i would ask you first.

Matthew Ward
26 March at 11:43

I am interested in the job and I am sure I could find 3 others to do it. Could you send me a brief and will let the others know as well. I am going to have to ask my tutor though unless it is in the evening? Let me know.

Also, are they comedy sketches?

Adam Jones
28 March at 19:06

Getting you a brief will be no problem. I’m not sure whether we wanted 3 or 4 people, so don’t ask anyone yet. Its on the morning of the 5th may, 9:30-12:30.

yes the sketches are meant to be comedy ones, we haven't got any as of yet. We'll meet up before hand and come up with some ideas. Does that sound alright?

Matthew Ward
30 March at 19:15

Yeah. I have asked 3 other people but it doesn't matter because I will just drop one if you only want three. That’s fair enough about coming up with the ideas. There is quite a lot of scope with the topic. Meeting up would probably be ideal.

Adam Jones
30 March at 23:40

Alright then mate. I'll let everyone know, find out the exact details about the budget, and get back to you about meeting up before hand. sound good? speak to you soon.

However, as keen as they were to take part, we didn’t take in to consideration how much their tutor was up himself. Apparently letting his students perform for us would only damage his course' reputation. Matt was disappointed with his tutors’ decision not to let them participate, and thought that two weeks would have been a stretch, but would have been enough time to organise something. The lack of confidence in his students is unfortunate for not just us, knowing that your mentor doesn’t believe you can pull off what other professionals would be required too, must be a bit of a confidence blow. Hopefully in the future their tutor will put the welfare of his students before his reputation.

YR2 – ORGANISE AN EVENT – FACEBOOK PAGE

After clarifying all the major stuff that had to be done, we turned our heads to things that would get us extra marks. So far, the only promotional material we had were the banners and posters designed by the graphics department. So we got to thinking about other ways of getting the event noticed.
Taking into consideration the world wide phenomenon that is the internet, we decided to create a Your Media, Your Future website to educate potential event attendees. Now, why stop at just a website…the biggest thing to come from the internet since the discovery of Paris Hiltons bedroom antics, is of course Facebook. As it was my idea to create a Facebook event, it was up to me to set it up.


It didn’t take up much of my time, and it felt good creating something that would progressively get better with the help of contributors pictures and videos. Although we were effectively inviting a load more people to the event, we understood that many of them wouldn’t be interested in attending and that we couldn’t seat them all if they did. The aim of the Facebook event was purely to build on our portfolio and show we were thinking of other forms of promotion.











I’ve tried to loads the page with as much material related to the event as possible. There’s a section containing the videos we’ll be showing at the event. There’s also a short brief of the event, which is actually our press release that Katie wrote. And finally, “the wall” is the section in which people can leave comments and add anything about the subject. In this section, I have added what exactly the event will include, who will be speaking, and details of the time and location of where it will be taking place.
Even if this site doesn’t attract any more people, it was still fun to make and see it grow week by week. Hopefully it will serve as a good way to get feedback from the people who attended.

YR2 – ORGANISE AN EVENT – GUEST SPEAKERS

Obviously, one of the main attractions to our event was going to be the guest speakers. Not only were they going to be interesting to hear from, but would also be a good opportunity to get chin wagging with media professionals. We knew that Kim would be getting the majority of guest speakers from her contacts within the industry, but were encouraged to try and find some for ourselves. I happen to know of someone within the industry. His name’s Warren Smith, he started out working for TwoFour studios as a researcher and has moved up through the ranks to assistant producer on such programs as Boozed Up Britain and the Extreme series on LIVINGtv. He’s a mate of mine I know through my older brother. He got me work experience at the studios a couple years ago and is quite an interesting, young character. Seeing as he fit the criteria, I though I would invite him along…

Adam Jones
Sent: 28 March at 19:36

Alright fella.

I was just wondering if you had any plans for the morning of the 5th of May. My group on my course are organising a "media event" in Weston Super Mare, and have two spaces left for guest speakers. We pay £25 per hour plus mileage. Each speaker will present for 20 minutes but will get paid the four hours the event will last (I think).

There’s no pressure mate, just wondering if you were interested.
Let us know. Hope you're well.

Warren Smith
Received: 31 March at 22:23

Thanks for the offer mate, but I am really busy working on a show at the moment and will be until august. Thanks for thinking of me though. Hopefully see you over Easter weekend. Good luck with the event.

So unfortunately, I couldn’t contribute to the guest speakers list. I’m not too concerned, we already have some great speakers. I’m particularly looking forward to hearing from and speaking to James Holmes. He’s currently directing my favourite TV program on TV at the moment, Extreme Fishing with Robson Green. He should have a lot of interesting experiences to share. The series follows actor Robson Green travel from continent to continent fishing for a variety of fish the the worlds rivers and oceans to have to offer. Although I don’t really have any interest in fishing, it’s the travelling aspect of the program that’s so appealing to me, the kind of program I would like to be involved with in the future.

YR2 - WORK EXPERIENCE - CASE STUDY DAY 1

I was first made aware of the opportunity to take part in this project by my tutor, Kim. She presented the class with a bunch of projects that that clients were looking for. What originally drew me to this project was the possibility of getting paid, and to tick off some of my required days for which I need work experience. All I knew about the project was that it was aiming to promote the college through a promotional video.

I originally thought my role in the project would go no further than edit material that had already been filmed. This is what I spent my first day doing. However, the footage collected was really poor quality. Interviews were recorded without the aid of a microphone or consideration for the room ambience from which it was filmed. So I tried to make best of what turned out to be the outcome of bad preparation and execution by the filming crew before me. The only bit useable were the interviews with the media students, but even that material lacked extra footage of cutaways, which made things harder for me to allow the sequence to flow.


In my first meeting with Abby Dobson, effectively my boss, I showed her what I had managed to edit already. As much as she liked what I had done with the footage already gathered, it wasn’t really what she was looking for. She showed me the promotional video that the college are using at the moment. It was basically an archive of clips of the college and its pupils, with a cheesy backing track to break up the audio. As bad as it was, the original video did give me more of an understanding of what Abby was looking for. So we made arrangements to collect more interviews and footage. No deadline date was established, just that it needed to be completed as soon as possible, but not so that it effected the quality of the finished product.

if you're interested in the courses Weston College has to offer, visit the website at: http://www.weston.ac.uk/

YR2 - WORK EXPERIENCE - ACROSS THE POND PART ONE

I was offered the chance to be part of the crew by my classmate Sam Simmons, whose boyfriend had flown all the way from the glitz and glamour of Los Angeles, to film here in the most super of mares, Weston.
At first I didn’t know what my role was to be, I was thinking it was going to be something basic, like running. Though, seeing how much of a dab hand I was with a camera in the past, Sam bumped me up to Stills Photographer, which was great! I didn’t have to worry about things the director wanted from me, I just had to take pictures and make the cast and crew look like they were being professional. It wasn’t going to be used in the film itself, just to document each day. I do have an interest in photography. I’m always taking photos, and have my own SLR camera, so this would not only be fun for me, but I was probably the most qualified there for the job, which made me feel a lot more professional and appreciated.
My first day was a really early one, so early I woke up as my housemates were returning from a night out. It wasn’t the best of starts to my day, having to get a train from Bristol, not knowing what I was going to be doing the rest of the day. The freezing temperatures didn’t help raise my mood. I arrived at Sam’s, had some breakfast, and met the rest of the crew. It was slightly weird being in a room with so many Americans, wearing my “Founding Fathers are Fairies” t-shirt was a big mistake!
After breakfast I was introduced to the camera I was going to be using, the Olympus E-410. I was really impressed by its fast shutter speed, its responsive auto-focus, and its great picture quality.

We headed off to our first filming location just after breakfast. The weather was really nice and sunny, not too warm though. I was glad to have a camera with a long zoom lens, it meant I could keep warm without being heard by the camera filming everything. I managed to get some great shots, the sun was lighting up the crews faces perfectly. Though being so far away from all the action meant people would come up to me and ask what we were filming, and to be honest, at first, i didn't know what to tell them, so i just went with "they're just a bunch of Americans filming some low budget film".














After finishing the filming at our first location, we moved on to our next. It was someplace in town, outside a small B&B. the problem with this location was the road going through it. This meant we had to block it off everytime we were going for a take, which didn't go down too well with some of the drivers. The main problem concerning myself was the sun being blocked out by the buildings, that mixed with the wind gave my hands a mild touch of frost bite.
Our last location of the day was in Westons bus depot. There weren't many shots to be had, but the use of a bus and some pain in the arse kids, held things up a bit. One of the bus drivers offered to help out and drive his bus through some of the shots, which was nice of him, considering he wasn't getting a penny for it, just his face on camera. Though half way through filming,


we came into contact with some of the filth that seem to roam Weston constantly. They hung around asking stupid questions, asking to be involved, making fun of some of the crew. I was truly embarrassed that these Americans got to meet the scum of British society. After a while they got bored and left, leaving us to film the remainder of the shots.


After finishing, we made our way back to sams to view the footage and look at the photos i had taken. Though i missed everything because i fell asleep as soon as i hit the sofa. It was a good first day. view all the photos of the cast and crew and each days progress by visiting:

http://picasaweb.google.com/acrossthepond.pilot

My Semester

Like most projects off mine this semester has had its highs and its lows. In this final Blog entry, I shall be explaining where and how I failed and succeeded in the semester. Unlike most of my reflective writing, I am determined to stay positive about how I’ve done.
This semester hasn’t really turned out how I wanted it to. It seemed like we had so much more stuff to complete than last semester. I’ve commented on my time management more than once in my Blog’s but it is the key reason for why my work is half the quality I’m capable of. I don’t really find the work much of a challenge it’s just finding the time and motivation to do it. In this last year I think I’ve matured enough to make sure this doesn’t happen again next year.
Another challenging aspect of this semester was working in a group. I like to be in control a lot of the time, but also don’t like to upset people within the group. This is why I struggled and sat-back in the idea building process. I didn’t like how we came up with the idea and didn’t have the heart to say to people their idea was crap. Of course there are upsides to every project, I didn’t have to do any of the paperwork. However because the idea we went with wasn’t my own I wasn’t allowed to direct which I think is where most of my strengths lie. If the same kind of situation occurs next year, I will suggest that the group appoints each member to a job that most suits them rather than everyone saying “I want to be director” “I want to be producer” that way everyone knows what they are doing and someone’s in charge keeping order.

I’ve always known that the theory side to a project wasn’t my forte however since working on the group project I do believe I have a number of skills when on location. I would love to see how I would get on with a group of people I was in charge of, I think I could be quite assertive if the job required me to be. I knew the practical side was where I was strongest before I even started this year however through the duration of this course and in this semester especially, I’ve found that I’m also quite confident in front of camera. The feedback I got from a meeting with my tutor recently backed my thoughts about heading towards a career in front of the camera rather than behind it. I hope to learn more techniques which will help me if I decide to choose this path. The lessons from the first semester about using body language to get the most out of an interviewee were very helpful.

I would say I’m quite the perfectionist which is good if I have plenty of time on a project. However this is why I take so long editing. I’ve got to grips with final cut pro and feel I’m as good as anyone else in the class, however unlike the rest, I spend too much time on minor bits that may contain the tiniest of glitches. I definitely need to learn more about the techniques of editing rather than what the software can do.

As much as i may complain, i am looking forward to what the second year has install for me. i think i smart enough to know where i went wrong this year and act upon it for the next. i still have alot to learn about the industry and think i have the ability to stand out from the rest of the class next year, maybe not with my writing but with my charactor.

Round up of the semester and year

This opening year of the course hasn’t really been a good one. There are many areas in which I, and no doubt the rest of our class, think this course have failed in….so bath spa and Weston college listen up and please act upon this Blog entry.

• Studio fees - when we first enrolled at the college we were told we had to pay “studio fees” these “fees” came to £80. Now, what I’m wondering is, why do the media students have to pay an extra £30 more than the music student at the same college considering they regularly visit studios in Bristol and attend plenty of workshops. From our £80, all we’ve seen are a couple of measly blank DVDs and two DV tapes, for £80! Where are you buying these from? Marks and Spenser’s! Last year the students were given hard drives, what’s changed in this last year for us not to get one?
• Learning - I’m a bit disappointed, to say the least, with what we’re being taught. I don’t think we’ve really learnt much this year. We’re being given assignments and told to get on with them. The college hired in an “expert”, Sacha Atkinson (http://www.sacha.me.uk). He thought he was there to teach us new things on editing. Unfortunately our studio fees don’t cover that, so instead he’s just there to support us with our work and wear dodgy clothes. I think he would make a great teacher and we could learn a lot from him, which is what I thought university was all about in the first place.

I know I’m being hard but this course is costing me just over £3000 and I don’t think, so far, it’s been worth the money. Its not all doom and gloom, there are some positives to come out of this year. The people I’ve met on the course, teachers and students. The skills I’ve gained in editing. The things I’ve learnt about myself. I started the course looking to move on into a career behind the camera, but after some of the exercises we’ve taken part in, in class, I may choose to change the direction of my career path.
I’ve found it quite hard to concentrate on my work this year because I’ve been living from home which can get very distracting when I’m supposed to be getting on with work. Next year I’ll be living closer to the college and will be making a lot more effort on keeping on top of my work.

note: its come to my attention that this blog may have come across in the wrong way concerning our teacher Sacha. i dont a problem with him at all (apart from his choice in clothing) its quite the opposite, i enjoyed his lessons thoroughly! and think the college would do well to find more teachers like him!

Filming 'Beach Body'

We started filming three weeks before our deadline, and even by this time I didn’t know what the story was about. Again I had to get stupidly early to get to Weston for 9:30am on the Saturday. When we arrived at our first location, we sat around for a bit, had a bite to eat, and then started. It was a scene about a family loading their stuff into a car and heading off to the beach. Of the whole day these few shots were the most time consuming.

I was the cameraman which I always enjoy doing, it means I can direct without the pressures being the director. It was fun but we weren’t getting much done in the little time we had. From there the shots were of the journey to the beach, not to long, mostly GV’s of the surroundings. The next location was sandy beach in Weston. The wind was so strong that capturing any kind of audio was going to be a challenge, however it did create a miniature sandstorm over the beach that looked mental. Sam had her son bring along some of his mates as extras, so the first shots we got done were with them in it. This way they wouldn’t be hanging around, getting in our way, however this did become a problem when it came to food…they stole mine and Tom’s chicken sandwiches Sam had made us. After they had gone we were left filming just the family doing beach holiday stuff. It soon became apparent that this film wasn’t going to win any awards, we were just trying to get through the shots as fast as we could. The day was a bit of a bore but I did enjoy having a lot of input towards the project, as bad as it may have turned out. I think we’re going to have to spend a lot of time editing to get this film looking half decent.
Even though I think the film will turn out to be total crap, it’s not a wasted project. This assignment can definitely to used as a learning curb, when you finish any film, its not all about the outcome but what you learn from it.

East Budleigh: Football Finest

I was really gutted after finishing this documentary because it didn’t turn out like I wanted it to. I had intended for it to be quite funny using the footage of the manager, Viv, watching his team to contradict everything he says in his interviews, for example, (managers voice over)“as a manager, you’ve got to keep a cool head” then show him going mental and cursing at the game, pretty typical of this particular manager. It turns out Viv didn’t feel like being too vocal during this game, perfect timing for him to put a sock in it. It wasn’t just that, I had left myself with so little time to edit, I couldn’t add any kind of effects, filters, or music. I got some good shots and the football footage looked awesome in the rain, it’s just a shame I didn’t have more time to use it to its full potential. I also wanted to use some of the footage I got from the showers, blanking out the nudity with the players faces laid on top of it, which I think would have been quite funny. As the time I had drew to an end I had no other option but to arrange all the shots in order so it was presentable. In the end all that came of the documentary was a viewing of an average Saturday’s football match, ok if you really like to watch football, but it’s not got any story behind it and serves no purpose.

Filming of footballs finest

As always before filming, I was nervous. Nervous about not getting all the shots, nervous about getting in the way of the management or players, and most of all, nervous about what I looked liked to onlookers. I never get this nervous when playing. The day started early at East Budleigh’s recreational ground. I started filming the manager as he carried out his daily duties. I wasn’t too worried about getting in the managers way as he’s my dad. This meant that I could get him to do what ever I needed him to, anything from holding a pose to giving me the right answers to my questions. It was lucky he done these chores in the morning as it gave me time to go home after and fix the problems I was having with the crappy tripod. After sorting out the equipment, I made my way back to the football ground. It was a lot different now, people were starting to gather outside the clubhouse, asking me what I was up to. I wasn’t too rushed at this point, the only footage I needed were GV’s and cutaways. I got a bit of stick from the players as they came in because I was filming rather than playing. I think it would have been harder to film a team I wasn’t so familiar with, everyone involved in the club were very helpful with interviews and so on. When it came to the kick off, the heavens opened. There were puddles in the middle of the pitch. Obviously the camera wasn’t water proof, so to avoid breaking it I made this brilliant sheltering mechanism using a brolly, a belt, plenty of duck tape, and a cotton-bud. It was a touch of engineering genius. It didn’t make me look like the coolest fella on the pitch but it kept me dry.

(i apologise that the video is on its side, dont know how to change it, but you get the message)


At half time I waited in the changing room for the coach’s team talk, however I couldn’t stop the camera from steaming up, so I filmed the tea ladies, Peg and Pam, instead. Second time kicked off and I had gathered all the footage I needed so it was now just a case of filming the rest of the game. I had always thought it would be an amazing job to film football matches, and dreamt of one day filming at old Trafford itself. But I found it so hard not to get involved, at one stage the linesman made a shocker so I invited the ref over to look at the replay. I could never film united or England playing, I wouldn’t get anything on camera, I would be to busy cheering. It was so hard watching fellow players battling it out without me. I hate not playing football as it is, but to be watching it knowing I could play if I wanted to, was agony.

Radio Advert

For this project, we had to come up with a comical script for an advert on a random subject that we picked from a hat. I picked ‘golf course’. I didn’t know how the hell I was going to do it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an advert for a golf course before.
I tried to make it sound like one of the nationwide adverts, it didn’t really work.
My first draft turned out to be a bit to complicated, it took me another two drafts to get a finished script however I was the last one in the class to finish. This wasn’t because I particularly slow, but because I was so good at acting, everyone wanted me in their piece. After completing our scripts we had to go into the TV studio to read our scripts out to a camera so we could use it in our portfolio.
I didn’t enjoy this script writing exercise, and a lot of the other adverts turned out better than mine, which made me feel great! I did however enjoy taking part in other people’s pieces, I think I’m a natural at acting and making a tit out of myself.

My Finished script:

Int. A man is at the reception desk of a golf course talking to one of the employees.

Employee: Hello sir, welcome to Cranleigh golf and leisure club, how are you today?

Golfer: yeah fine, I was wondering if I could play golf today, if that’s alright

Employee: yeah that’s fine sir. Just have to get a few details off you if that’s ok

Golfer: yeah sure

Employee: Ok…. Do you know anybody currently at the club?

Golfer: No

Employee: Ok…. Have you ever played on a professional course such as this one?

Golfer: No

Employee: Right…. Are you married?

Golfer: Yes

Employee: Ok…. Right, let me just add this up a second… right so you’ve got the
Opportunity to meet new and influential people… the new experience of
Playing on a professional course… and one day of relief from the wife…
Right, ok, well here’s your receipt

Golfer: HOW MUCH?!!


V.O: Don’t let your hobby lump you with a hefty bill. Come play at East Devon golf club, where none of your experiences will end with a bogie.




Visit the website of the golf course that inspired the advert at: http://www.edgc.co.uk