Simulated Project Proposal

I spent these days working on my proposal. This consisted of writing the main body of the text, creating a Frame Forge story board and making a schedule. I took it to Debs on the 30th who gave me feedback.

• Try and shorten a lot of my sections down (such as when I had talked about 3 BBC articles.
• Take out the web links and reference the websites I talk about
• Don't talk about any other ideas I thought of
• Put the storyboards into the main text and write down exactly what is happening in each shot
• To change the ending so that the police don't come in and to stop the last frame on one of their faces and have a voice over saying something against piracy
• To change my FrameForge to correspond to the new ad and to ad shot variety

Simulated Project Frame Forge

I spent today in the computer room working on FrameForge. I didn't have any problems after finally finding a computer with it on (as there is only about 3) and I finished with:

PRP - Agreement form second draft

I then changed my Topic form and handed it in the next day:

What is your PRP research question?

Has the attention span of the audience changed the more recent delivery methods and techniques of audiovisual work?

What is your PRP research topic?

I plan to research the history of people’s habits in a sense of a film. I then shall look at whether more recent delivery methods and techniques of audiovisual work have changed from the decrease in the viewer’s attention span. With the supposed decrease of viewer’s attention spans seen at: http://www.eastgate.com/HypertextNow/archives/Attention.html there must be some effect on the more recent delivery methods and techniques of audiovisual work. To find out whether this is true I shall look at different techniques used by modern day practitions and compare them to older practitioners, for example Lev Kuleshov’s theory of “relationship” editing and see how the old theory has been adapted and used in more modern practitioners work such as Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” in the computer HAL and how the different techniques have changed the perception of the viewer. I shall also look for papers that are linked with this problem like Carol A. Bodensteiner’s paper on “Predicting Public and Media Attention Span for Social Issues” found at: http://www.carolbodensteiner.com/Carol_Bodensteiner/Writing%20_files/PRQ-Predicting%20Attention%20Span-1996.pdf.
There are so many different ways of delivering multimedia work now, from DVDs and CDs to the Internet which has probably impacted the delivery methods the most. The increase in the use of the internet and high speed internet connections in households has meant a huge increase of audiovisual work being uploaded onto the internet. From the internet there are then a variety of ways to deliver the work such as downloading films or music videos on to your computer or mobile or from streaming audiovisual work through sites such as YouTube. I shall look at a variety of contexts and different styles of audiences and see how the delivery methods have changed the viewers perception. These will range from work on internet sites where anyone can upload their videos on to, such as YouTube to film festivals and audiovisual exhibitions where the work will be from practitioners. I will find how these different styles of delivery will impact the audience’s perception. I think they will alter as people viewing mainstream based programming such as at film festivals, are more likely to have a greater knowledge in the subject, and understand what a film maker is trying to say when using different techniques. This is compared to someone using social based programming such as watching a video on YouTube who may have not much or no interest in film. To try and find out if the delivery methods have changed the viewers perception I shall collect my own data by carrying out tests on people from the younger “MTV generation” and people from the older generations by showing them very short video clips and show them larger video clips and seeing how their perceptions on the film change, and research more into the subject by reading books and searching for papers on related topics and see if there is a change in attention span.

PRP - Agreement form Feedback

I sent a copy of my Agreement form to Debs who replied with some suggestions for changes to it which were:

What is your PRP research question?

• Perhaps- Has the viewers perception/audiovisual grammar changed or developed over time.? What are the effects of current edit production techniques and programming upon the viewer in terms of the audiovisual communication?

What is your PRP research topic?

• If you are looking at how it has changed where is the information about comparing the two coming from? Are you testing this on young and older people? I suggest that the attention span of youth is shortening and this could be a contributing factor to the development and style of editing. There may be others but here you compare. I think that you could carry out some of your own data gathering methods here.
  You should be more precise about where you are getting your info for research. Perhaps you look at mainstream and social based programming. It may also include more than the edit and look at issues such as frame size, fidelity, resolution and colour.
  i.e.have current delivery methods and techniques changed the perception of the viewer. This wider subject may give you more to discuss than merely the edit only.
  Kuleshov was such a long time ago has there been any advancement since he introduced “relationship” editing as you describe.

PRP - Agreement form

PRP Topic Submission Form

Complete this form through consultation with your project supervisor. Use it as a tool for further elaborating your research direction. Fill it out electronically then print it off and get it signed by your supervisor before handing it in to the Multimedia Programme administration office in Week 14 (27/10/2009 Wav128)‏.

What is your PRP research question?

Have current delivery methods and techniques have changed the perception of the viewer?

What is your PRP research topic?

I plan to research whether current delivery methods and techniques have changed the perception of the viewer. The film industry is growing and different software is being developed allowing the film makers to use more advanced special effects and have the ability to create more surreal plots. Thus the viewers are more accepting to different scenarios. There has also been an increase in popularity of three styles of audiovisual which are sitcoms, music videos, and sound bites. The rise of these styles has resulted in a lot of critics saying that these styles are “debased by their brevity” and has decreased viewer’s attention spans. The supposed decrease of viewer’s attention spans could be affecting the development and style of editing for current work being produced. The increase in internet and high speed internet connections in households has changed the delivery methods of media drastically, with a huge increase of audiovisual work being uploaded onto the internet. I shall look at different multimedia contexts and a variety of different styles of audiences. These will range from work on internet sites where anyone can upload their videos on to, such as YouTube to film festivals and audiovisual exhibitions where the works will be from practitioners. I will find how these different styles of delivery will impact the audience’s perception. I think they will alter as people viewing mainstream based programming such as at film festivals are more likely to have a greater knowledge in the subject, and understand what a film maker is trying to say when using different techniques, compared to someone using social based programming such as watching a video on YouTube who may have not much or no interest in film. To try and find out if the delivery methods have changed the viewers perception I shall collect my own data by carrying out tests on people from the younger “MTV generation” and people from the older generations and see if there is a change in perception and research more into the subject by reading books and searching for papers on related topics. I will also look different older techniques and theories and compare them to the more modern ones, for example Lev Kuleshov’s theory of “relationship” editing and see how the old theory has been adapted and used in more modern practitioners work such as Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” in the computer HAL and how the different techniques have changed the perception of the viewer.

NOTE: The description must be approximately 300 words (minimum). It should aim to describe your research topic in a concise and precise way. You should complete the document through consultation with you project supervisor – incorporating any further conceptualisation that they provide.

Try to use language that is clear and understandable for a general and non-expert audience.

Supervisor: Supervisor Signature:

Name: Chris Dubock

University ID: N0170475

Signature:

Date:

PRP - Research for Agreement form

These are the main sources I used whilst writing my PRP Agreement form:

The Directors Template: 180 degree axis rule and coverage. Kuleshov effect
http://www.solutioneers.net/cinema/axis.htm

The Kubrick Corner The Kuleshov effect
http://kubrickfilms.tripod.com/id21.html

Times Higher Education
'MTV generation learns through fun'
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=403507

EastGate
span of attention
http://www.eastgate.com/HypertextNow/archives/Attention.html

The 'Grammar' of Television and Film
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/gramtv.html

Journal Article Excerpt:Scott Bukatman. Matters of Gravity: Special Effects and Supermen in the 20th Century Journal article by Oscar R. Marti; Utopian Studies, Vol. 16, 2005 Special effects – changes perception of viewers
http://www.questia.com/googleScholar.qst;jsessionid=KmrYxww6Lv0gnqqxNnSml5QKvmntS68BTQxfr0vpfGs7dryT2TTJ!568259201!-950397748?docId=5009651178

The Effects of edits on arousal, attention, and memory for television messages: When an edit is an edit can an edit be to much?
http://www.theaudioprof.com/research/pubs/potter.edits.pdf

Times Higher Education
'MTV generation learns through fun'
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=403507


Eastgate
Span of attention
http://www.eastgate.com/HypertextNow/archives/Attention.html

Addressing diverse learning styles through the use of multimedia
Atlanta, GA, USA
November 01-November 04
ISBN: 0-7803-3022-6
http://www.computer.org/portal/web/csdl/doi/10.1109/FIE.1995.483093

Carol A. Bodensteiner’s paper on “Predicting Public and Media Attention Span for Social Issues” found at: http://www.carolbodensteiner.com/Carol_Bodensteiner/Writing%20_files/PRQ-Predicting%20Attention%20Span-1996.pdf.

Client Project - Health and Safety Forms

22.10.09
The Natural Ites were having another rehearsal tonight and so we went to it to get the health and safety forms signed and filled in. I then typed them up.
23.10.09
I took the form in to get Debs (tutor) to sign. She told me to make the following amendments:

(I shall scan in original with amendment notes on)

Client Project - Meeting with Lenroy and Rich

Chase and I set up a meeting with Lenroy at a Cafe/ Bar. We went there and he was with his business partner Rich. We came out of the meeting with the following plans:

• That he is doing a podcast for the evening post at the rescue rooms on the 2nd December and that we should try and sort out recording it if possible.
• We also came up with some ideas of what to show during the documentary: What each member of the band is doing now, a performance video in the studio and how he made his new CD in his living room.
• To promote the company and the diverse talents and artists
• We talked about doing the DVD/ CD package and they thought of using the Live performance sound track as the CD.
• Lenroy also said that they were going to Manchester to do a gig on Monday Nov 2nd and were having a rehearsal on Monday 26th Oct and that we should come and film that.

We also went through the agreement form with them.

Simulated Project Initial Ideas

After thinking I came up with three basic ideas.

• Show the outside of a house, have a title pop up saying that it is a director or music artist's house and have some one break in. Then show them inside the house and steal a film reel or an album. then have a voice over saying something along the lines of "you wouldn't break in and steal, piracy is illegal".
• The second idea was to have an interview style ad either with an artist or with random people saying when it is illegal, why it is illegal and the consequences.
• My third idea was after finding an article saying that "research also showed that half of 14 to 24-year-olds were happy to share all the music on their hard drive" which was on Times Online. It was to have two guys are in a room and one gives the other a hard drive. He puts it on his computer then you can hear sirens and Police burst in the room saying something like "Piracy is a crime! Do you have the right?"

My favorite out of these was the third idea and so i planned on expanding on this one.

Simulated Project Initial thoughts

With all the research I've done in mind i came up with a brief outline of what it needs to contain:
File-sharing: Copying files from one computer to another.
When is it illegal?: When the files being shared are copyrighted and you don't have the licence for it.
Why?: As it is an infringement of section 16 of the Copyright and Designs and Patent Act. The owner of the copyright has the exclusive right to:

• Copy the work
• Issue copies to the public
• To perform, show or play the work in public.
• To broadcast or include the work in any cable program
• To make an adaption of the work or do any of the above in an adaption.

Copyright is then infringed when a person without the liscence of the copyright does or authorises somone to do any of the above.

Consiquences: Can result in penalties of up to $150,000 per copyrighted file £90,656.

Simulated Project Inspiration - YouTube

After having the questions in my head I started looking at other ads to try and get some inspiration for my ad.
After watching a wide variety of different adverts I felt that funny ads were more affective, two particularly I liked were, one about Jack Black talking about piracy:

The second was an Ipod Shuffle add which has a girl in that thinks it is a pregnancy test:

I also thought other ads that start off light hearted and then have an abrupt part that changes the mood worked well and gets the point across clearly. An example of this is the THINK!

Finally it seemed there were alot of ads that were basically just interview style ads with people blatently saying the issues or points they want to get across. I found one done by American students from SIFE Belmont University that had a very simmilar breif to ours.

With all these in mind I had a good idea of what I wanted my ad to be like and so I started brainstorming ideas.

Simulated Project Script

I came up with the script for my advert for the Idea I wanted to use which was the following:

Simulated Idea 1 – Script

Two guys are sitting in a room next to a computer.

Guy 1 – Hey man, have you got those games, music, videos and that version of adobe you downloaded?

Guy 2 – Ye man,

Guy 2 takes an ext. hard drive out of his bag.

Guy 2 – There on the hard drive.

Guy 1 – Cheers mate, its crazy to think you can get such a heavy fine for just doing this!

Guy 2 – Haha ye but who ever gets court!?

Police Sirens are heard in the background and then police man bursts in the door. The guys quickly turn round and look at the door.

Police man – do you have the right!?

After this there will be a black screen with some white text will flash up.

Simulated Project Research

After finding out about Pirate Bay and the Pirate Party I then went on to do some more research to find the answers to the questions we had to answer with in the add. I found out about when and why file sharing is illegal and I got the answeres in the Designs and Patents Act which I found in an article called "BBC Copyright and Filesharing" at Lawdit Reading Room http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_article.asp?name=../articles/1305-MC-Filesharing-BBC-Copyright.htm which was as follows:
“Section 16 of the Copyright Designs and Patents relates to 'acts restricted by copyright in a work' The owner of the copyright in a work has the exclusive right to do the following acts in the United Kingdom (a) to copy the work (see section 17) (b) to issue copies of the work to the public (see section 18); (c) to perform, show or play the work in public (see section 19); (d) to broadcast the work or include it in a cable programme service (see section 20); (e) to make an adaptation of the work or do any of the above in relation to an adaptation (see section 21); It follows that copyright in a work is infringed by a person who without the licence of the copyright owner does, or authorises another to do, any of the acts restricted by the copyright.”

I then wanted to find out the exact consiquences of file sharing, as they can change slighlty in each case I could not take Pirate Bay's as a definate. Up to $150,000 per copyrighted file £90,656 is what i found in a report on Sulair called "File-Sharing: Beware of the Consequences": http://speaking.stanford.edu/Back_Issues/SOC66/highlights/03.File-Sharing-Consequences.txt.html. I also found:
"No, it's 100% legal. In no state in the United States or in any other country is file sharing illegal. However, if you're sharing content that is protected by copyrights to other users that is illegal. Below are some good examples of where file sharing becomes illegal in many places around the world.
Downloading or sharing a copyrighted movie.
Sharing copyrighted songs (music) to other people who have not purchased those songs or downloading songs from other people when you've not purchased that song.
Sharing or downloading computer software (programs, games, etc.).
Downloading or sharing a copyrighted TV show or program."
at Computer Hope in an article called "Is file sharing illegal?" at: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001042.htm

"Babylon" Film Restoration

Whilst watching the credits I stumbled across a extras section on the DVD showing the restoration from the original 1980s film to the 2008 version which has had a complete digital restoration . This was really interesting and I was amazed by the fact that it is possible to get from such poor quality to the much more detailed, better coloured quality we can watch now. In the original you can hardly make out a head and the colour of some one jacket to being able to tell the colour of their eyes! It is done by "digitising the original film at high resolution, then dirt, dust and damaged sections were digitally removed frame by frame to create an unblemished digital version." This was taken from the DVD, I am trying to find the video from the extras.

Simulated Project Beggining - Pirate Bay

We have been given the brief for this project that we must create a 20 second public information add for the Copyright Protection Society on illegal file sharing. we have to cover the following things in our ads:

• What file sharing is
• when it is illegal
• why it is illegal
• the consequences of file sharing

The first thing that came to my head when hearing this brief was the MPAA Anti Piracy Ad that is shown at the beginning of almost every film whether it be on DVD or at the cinema.

I started off by looking at the recent Pirate Bay court case. I found three BBC News reports on the case two from different times in the court case and the third about the Pirate Party. Here are the notes i made on them.

"Pirate Bay awaits court verdict" found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7921933.stm.

• Prosecutors called for one year prison sentence for the four administrators
• Four men charged with earning 1.2m kronor (£92,000) by facilitating copyright infringement.
• Films, music, video games industries seeking 117m kronor
• Support coming from thousands of small, new and independent creative companies

"Court jails Pirate Bay founders" Found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8003799.stm

• Four administrators sentenced to 1 year in jail and £3m in damages to be paid.
• Administrators find it "bizarre" they got convicted and even more that they were convincted as a team "I cant get Gottfrid out of bed" says one of the administrators.
• They "cant pay and wouldn't" if they could.
• Damages awarded to a number of entertainment companies inc. Warner bros, Sony music entertainment, EMI and Columbia pictures.
• Total awarded fell short of $17.5m in damages and interest, the firms were seeking.
• Chairman of industry body the International Federation of phonographic industry (IFFPI) John Kennedy said "Verdict sent out a clear message" and "There has been a perception that piracy is ok and that the music industry should just have to accept it."
• The four admin denied charges throughout trial as they didn't actually host files.
• Assistant judge Klarius explains how court reached its decision- First tried whether there was any breach of copyright by the file sharing application which was proven. secondly they looked at the team who operated Pirate Bay file sharing service, the court found they knew the material was protected by copyright but continued to operate the service.
• Richard Falkvinge - Leader of the Pirate Party who are trying to reform laws around copyright and patents in the digital age. said the verdict was "a gross injustice".
• "Today's events wake file sharing a hot political issue and were going to take this to European Parliament".
• The Pirate Bay is the worlds most high profile file sharing website and was set up in 2003 by anti-copyright organisation Piratebryan, but for last 5 years it has been run by individuals.
• Millions of files are exchanged using the service everyday.
• No copyright content is hosted on pirate bay's web servers - instead the site hosts torrent links.

"Leaving Home" Short Clips "Bleeping" 2nd edits

I sent the first drafts to the actors, and they then emailed back and said: "I am not sure if the music should be taken off because of copyright. This is really something I should of thought about and so was a bit dissapointed in my self but re-did the edits and tried to make the bleeps slightly better also.

Scene One - 2nd Edit

Harry's Speaking - 2nd Edit

Pickpocketing Scene - 2nd Edit

Client Project - Finding The Client (Part Two)

I was Looking on the Notts Dub website again and we clicked on a link to a website for Lenroy Bassie Guiste which had a poster on it for a art exhibition at which the Natural Ites were playing. We thought this would be a great way to hopefully get a client, as if they weren't interested they may know someone who would be. We went down there and watched them play and filmed parts of it. Whilst they were playing we were getting nervous as we didn't recognise who was who and so weren't sure who to talk to afterwards. We also felt as we may look a bit stupid going up and asking if we could do work for them as they started as musicians (in the Natural Ites at least) in 1980 and we may seem a bit amateur. In the end we didn't mind as if we didn't get anything from it at least we got to listen to some sick reggae! But this wasn't the case when they had finished we went and spoke to the bassist, Lenroy Bassie Guiste. Chase told him the idea and what we wanted to do and Lenroy sounded quite enthusiastic and excited about it, gave Chase his number and Chase said he would call him on monday.