Saturday 21 November 2009

Sunday 15 November 2009

PRP - Book Research

I spent theese two days going through the books and reading sections that I thought would help me in writing my essay and planning my overall project. Some of the most interesting parts i have read was about the new MTV style which has come from the Music Video. I found this in The Technique of Film and Video Editing, it has been made popular by young audiences "looking for quick, evocative visual stimuli". It's biggest differnece from the more origional styles are that it doesn't usually have any set narritave goals but use feeling or mood as the main layers.

Friday 13 November 2009

PRP - Getting Books

Today I searched for relevant books on the library website. I was trying to search for books on attention span but couldn't find any, I am presuming this is because attention span would be inside another topic. I also looked for older and newer techniques/ styles of editing. I found 3 books in the end. Two were at Clifton so I ordered those to come, I got an email the next day saying they were in and so I went and got all 3 of them.
  • Film Style and Technology: History and Analysis, 2nd Extended Edition by Barry Salt
  • Sound Technology and the American Cinema: Perception, Representation, Modernity by James Lastra
  • The Technique of Film and Video Editing: History, Theory, and Practice, Fourth Editiong By Ken Dancyger

Thursday 12 November 2009

"Fish Film" - Final Feedback

Today I finally had my final talk with the owner of the Fish Society who told me what the last changes he wanted me to make. They were all cuts and he just gave me the estimated times of the parts he wanted me to cut, which were:

The Fish Society fillets a halibut:
  • 2 seconds off the title
  • 0.21-0.29
  • 0.36-0.42
  • 1.15-1.35
  • 1.51-1.55
  • 3.23-3.43
  • 3.57-4.05
  • 4.15-4.36
  • 5.02-5.13/14
  • 5.50-6.02

To change the name of "How to fillet a skate wing" to "The Fish Society trims a skate wing"

Wednesday 11 November 2009

Simmulated Project Practice Shoot

As I hadn't got the Health and Safety forms signed but had booked out:
  • 1 X SONY HDV Camcorder
  • 1 X Boom Mic. + Cable
  • 1 X Large Tripod

and my actors and crew had said that they were up for filming, I thought I may as well do a practice shoot. I had some issues whilst filming that I couldn't get the shots that I originally planned as the room was smaller than I had anticipated and made it hard to get certain angles.

I captured it and then watched through the footage. It was far too dark although it had looked fine through the camera. There was not enough shot variety as I couldn't get all the shots i had planned. The shots i had got all took slightly longer than i had thought they would as well, and slightly longer in a 20 second piece makes a huge difference!

Monday 9 November 2009

Simmulated Project Health and Safety form

I filled out a Health and Safety form which I tried to show to debs the following day. She said she didn't have time but to come on Friday, I went on Friday and she took the forms and said to get them from her next week. I some changes to make.

(I shall scan these in soon)

Simulated Project My Acting Experience

I came back from my Nana's and played my first acting role in my mate Joe's Ad. His idea was that some one walks around the streets swapping cardboard folders which have band, film and program names on them, with other people. It took us a few hours to film and went quite well.

Sunday 8 November 2009

My Nana's 90th Birthday

I went back home during this weekend for my Nana's Birthday. During this I made a short film on my camera that I will edit and then put onto a DVD so she can remember it, due to her extreme memory loss in her old age!

(I haven't had time to edit it yet but shall post it up when I have.)

Thursday 5 November 2009

PRP - Research

I searched online for journal articles and News articles. I was having problems trying to find useful articles and as I am a very slow reader it takes me a long time to find what exactly is important in the variety of articles I was reading.
I then spoke to a mate who is also on my course Joe Stratton who told me about Google Scholar which is a website that shows full literature works in a variety of different publishing formats. I managed to find more published articles but still it took me far too long to get what I wanted out of them.

These are the main sources I found:

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.

Monday 2 November 2009

PRP - First Presentation

I put together a short presentation for my PRP which was 4 slides:

Title Slide
Research Question:
•Have more recent delivery methods and techniques of audiovisual work changed the perception of the viewer?
Research Topic:
•Decrease in attention span – development, style of editing.
•Compare new to old practitioners – Kuleshov “relationship” editing -Stanley Kubrick
•Delivery Methods – Old to New
•Increase in broadband – more downloads – increase in uploads
•Look at – Contexts and styles
•Upload sites, Film Festivals,
• Test “MTV generation” to older generation.
Bibliography:
•Carol A. Bodensteiner, 1996. [online]. Journal. Available at: http://www.carolbodensteiner.com/Carol_Bodensteiner/Writing%20_files/PRQ-Predicting%20Attention%20Span-1996.pdfRQ-Predicting%20Attention%20Span-1996.pdf. [Accessed 24/10/2009 2009].
•Eastgate: span of attention [online]. . Available at: http://www.eastgate.com/HypertextNow/archives/Attention.html [Accessed 24/10/2009 2009].
•The Kuleshov effect [online]. . Available at: http://kubrickfilms.tripod.com/id21.html [Accessed 24/10/2009 2009].

Simulated Project Proposal Presentation

I spent this day preparing my presentation for the following day. I split it into 10 slides:

Title slide
Intrododuction:
•Brief
•Want to get into film industry.
Initial Research:
Pirate Bay
•sentenced one year jail, £3 million damages entertainment industries
•7% Sweden vote
•13% Germany first time male voters (BBC, 19/10/09)
Why, What
•Copyright, Designs Patent ACT 1988 (IPO, 2009)
•14 to 24-year-olds happy hardrives (Times Online, 2008)
Consequences
•Up to $150,00 £90,656
Influences:
Humorous:
•Jack Black: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LkWKvMCzqA&feature=relatedLkWKvMCzqA&feature=related
Light hearted/ abrupt change that changes the mood / feel.
•THINK! “Drug Eyes”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dytCWrf92zc
FrameForge:
(See "FrameForge" post)
Idea:
•Two guys in a room.
•Clothes: Tidy – scruffy
•Light
•Sound
•Swap hard drive
•Blue Lights, Jail door
•Voice Over – “Don’t want the fine, Don’t do the crime, downloading copyrighted material is illegal.”
Location Stills:
(See "Proposal" post)
Schedule:
(See "Proposal" post)
Schedule continued
Bibliography:
•BBC, 17/04/09. NEWS Technology Court jails Pirate Bay founders [online]. . Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8003799.stm [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
•BBC, 19/10/09. NEWS Entertainment Pirate Party hopes for free future [online]. . Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8314620.stm [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
•IPO, 2009 – Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 [online]. . Available at: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/cdpact1988.pdf [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
•Sulair, 2004. File-Sharing: Beware of the Consequences [online]. . Available at: http://speaking.stanford.edu/Back_Issues/SOC66/highlights/03.File-Sharing-Consequences.txt.htmlConsequences.txt.html [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
•Times Online, 2008 - Average teenager's iPod has 800 illegal music tracks [online]. . Available at: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article4144585.ece [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].

Sunday 1 November 2009

Simulated Project Proposal

I spent these two days making the changes to my proposal. My final proposal was as follows:

Simulated Project Proposal

Introduction:
I am undertaking a third year NTU project in which we have to create a 20 second T.V. advert which explains what file sharing is, when and why it is illegal and also the consequences of file sharing. It is for a public information campaign run by the Copyright Protection Society.
As I want to get into the film industry I feel quite strongly about file sharing. This is due to the fact that so many people do it. As it may affect money I could be getting in the future. Since I have started this course I have stopped downloading films and have bought a lot.
This document shall be split into three main parts. The background and context which will explain the background research I did and how it influenced my project designs and plans. The project designs and justifications are the second section which will include my final product designs including some of my shots from frame forge and my location shots. I will then explain why the designs are appropriate for the project and what way they fulfil the brief. The third part is the project schedule where I shall out lay what I plan on doing and when I’ve planned to do things by, and why I have organised my schedule like this.

Background and context:
I started my research by looking up information on the recent case of Pirate Bay. I read two BBC news articles that I found online, each at a different stage of the Pirate Bay court case. One of the most relevant parts to this project, was that the four administrators were sentenced to one year in jail and £3 million in damages to a variety of entertainment industries (BBC, 17/04/09). This gives a starting point to finding out about the consequences of file sharing it also shows how damaging it is to the industry. The BBC also had an article on the “Pirate Party” and I was amazed by the face that, “…the Swedish Pirate Party attracted 7% of the Swedish vote in June's European election… In the German general election last month, the German Pirate Party won the support of 13% of first-time male voters” (BBC, 19/10/09). This shows the increase in file sharing and it even continued to say how the founder of the pirate party Mr. Falkvinge said "We are talking about being the largest party for the next generation of voters." and that he proposes “to make file-sharing not only legal but actively encouraged.” (ibid). This gave me even more of a motive to try and create a good advert and I decided my target audience would be people from around fifteen to twenty-five.
I then decided to find out exactly what part of file sharing is illegal and why and what are the consequences. I found the answer to what and why it is illegal in the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (Gov, 1988) (Appendix 1) which outlined the different cases of copyright infringement. I then found that for every copyrighted file you can get a fine of up to $150,000 which is about £90,656 (Sulair, 2004). I also came across a Times Online article which said that “…research also showed that half of 14 to 24-year-olds were happy to share all the music on their hard drive…” (Times Online, 2008) which made me want to do a advert showing this as I know a lot of people that do this, it also strengthened my reasoning’s for my target audience age.
Now knowing all that I needed to fulfill the brief I had a look at some ads on YouTube to get influences. After looking at a lot of different adverts some good and some bad I decided that I wanted to try and make it humorous as I found that funnier ads were more affective, such as a Piracy add which had Jack Black standing there listing off bizarre, over exaggerated reasons of why you shouldn’t download music or films (STUMMPY34, 2009) and an Ipod Shuffle ad in which you can see the top half of a girl in what you presume to be a bathroom holding a white stick looking at it and turning it around trying to see if she is pregnant, a man then walks in and she says “I cant tell if its positive or negative” he then says “Its an Ipod shuffle” it then fades to a white screen with black writing saying “Ipod Shuffle good for music” and fades back to the guy saying “it’s a boy” the girl then screams in joy and gives him a hug (YouTube, 2007). This made me want to create a comedy advert. Finally, I also found adverts that start off light hearted or funny and then change abruptly to something serious, such as a THINK! “Drug Drive” ad which starts out with three guys and a girl in a car driving talking and joking about their night, when they see a police car and try to act normally you see the police drive past then some blue flashes and a siren. There is then a voice over saying the fact that drugs affect your eyes, how the police pick up on this and the consequences for being caught (YouTube, 2009). With all these in mind I started brainstorming ideas.
Project Designs and Justifications:
Taking in that it has to be very short and so needs to be quite simple I decided on a final advert that included all the things that I wanted after doing my research. I wrote the script (Appendix 2) which starts in a bedroom with two 21 year old guys played by Chase Martini and Terrance Nabbs sitting next to a computer. One is wearing tracksuit bottoms and a hoodie and the other will wear jeans and a collared t-shirt to show that it’s not any specific type of people that are file sharing. There will be a skull and cross bones flag behind the computer screens to add a bit of comedy value and to keep the viewer reminded that it is piracy. Chase asks for some downloaded items off Terrance’s hard drive, they then joke about the it being illegal, they then hear a police siren and a policeman bangs through the door saying “do you have the rights?”, it will then fade to a black screen and you then will hear a sound of a jail door closing and white block writing will come up saying “……………………………………………..” I feel this covers all the issues that need to be covered to fulfill the brief. It talks about where file sharing can be illegal and is increasing seen on my research which is by friends sharing hard drives and copying thousands of songs, and lots of films in about 10 minutes. It tells you that file sharing is illegal when the material is copyrighted through the policeman’s dialogue and the consequences from where Chase says “you can get such a heavy fine for just doing this!”. The scene can be visualized from the FrameForge I have created:

Shot 1: (MS) Cut - Bedroom with 2 chars sitting in a room. It’s a static shot, with Chase saying “Hey bro”. It will be about 2 secs long. There will only be the ambient sound ch1 and the dialogue ch2

(Figure 1)
Shot 2: (CU) Cut – Shot of chases face whilst he asks Terrance “Have you…downloaded?”

(Figure 2)
Shot 3: (CU) Cut -, Terrance says “Ye man.”. Terrance leans down to a bag on the floor. Camera follows Terrance and pans down to left on to the bag

(Figure 3)
Shot 4: (CU) Pan Camera stops on the bag and Terrance takes a hard drive out whilst saying “There on the hard drive.”

(Figure 4)
Shot 5: (MS) Cut – Terrance gives the hard drive to chase. This is a static shot. Chase says “Cheers Mate” and turns to the screen.
(Figure 5)
Shot 6: (CU) Cutaway – During this there will be a cutaway to the hard-drive being handed over.

(Figure 6)
Shot 7: (CU) Cut – Point of view shot looking at the computer screen as Chase says “its crazy… doing this!”. It will show the files transferring to the computer.

(Figure 7)
Shot 8: (CU) Cut – Close up of Terrance as he says “Haha ye…gets caught?” and puts on a sly smirk at which point the room starts flickering in blue light. The sound now changes from the quite and you hear a police siren and a jail door slam close.
(Figure 8)
I was not able to put them in the desired clothes as there was only a small selection on the program, but I tried to get them as close as possible. I have also taken some location shots (Appendix 3) to help see the layout and space in the room.

Project Schedule:

Research
1 day
Planning
1 day
Script
1 day
Proposal
3 days
Frameforge
1 day
Presentation
1 day
With the two main deadlines set for us, to submit the proposal on the 30.10.09 with a formal oral presentation, and secondly to submit an agreed advert presented with user instructions 27.11.09. From these I decided to manage
my time in the form of a chart (Appendix 4). I set my schedule
like this as I know I am slow at
writing and so gave myself the
following amount of time for the
pre-production work:
(Figure 9)
Film
1 day
Review Footage
1/2 day
Capture Footage
1/2 day
Edits
5 days
Master Edit
2 days
The filming will only take a day’s
work and the same to review and
capture the footage. I have
given my self a lot of time to
then perfect the edit as things
always go wrong and it is a time
taking process. (Figure 10)
Appendix
Appendix 1

Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. (Section 16, p.31)

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/cdpact1988.pdf

The acts restricted by copyright
16 The acts restricted by copyright in a work
31
(1) 16 The owner of the copyright in a work has, in accordance with the
following provisions of this Chapter, the exclusive right to do the following
acts in the United Kingdom B
(a) to copy the work (see section 17);
(b) to issue copies of the work to the public (see section 18);
(ba) to rent or lend the work to the public (see section 18A);
(c) to perform, show or play the work in public (see section 19);
(d) to communicate the work to the public (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);
and those acts are referred to in this Part as the "acts restricted by the
copyright".
(2) 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.
(3) References in this Part to the doing of an act restricted by the copyright in
a work are to the doing of it B
(a) in relation to the work as a whole or any substantial part of it, and
(b) either directly or indirectly;
and it is immaterial whether any intervening acts themselves infringe
copyright.
(4) This Chapter has effect subject to B
(a) the provisions of Chapter III (acts permitted in relation to copyright
works), and
(b) the provisions of Chapter VII (provisions with respect to copyright
licensing).

Appendix 2 - Script

Simulated Project Script

Two 21 year olds are sitting in a room next to a computer.

Chase – Hey bro,

Terrance looks at Chase.

Chase - Have you got the music, games, videos and that version of adobe you downloaded?

Terrance – Ye man,

Terrance takes an ext. hard drive out of his bag.

Terrance – There on the hard drive.

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

Terrance – Haha ye its pathetic but who ever gets caught!?

Police Sirens are heard in the background and then you hear a jail door slam close and the frame freezes on Chase’s face.

Voice Over – Don’t want the fine, Don’t do the crime, downloading copyrighted material is illegal.
Appendix 3 – Location Stills




Appendix 4

Research
1 day
Planning
1 day
Script
1 day
Proposal
3 days
Frameforge
1 day
Presentation
1 day
Film
1 day
Review Footage
½ day
Capture Footage
½ day
Edits
5 days
Master Edit
2 days
List of figures

Figure 1 – 8: Shot 1 to 8 of the FrameForge I created.
Figure 9 – 10: My overall Time Plan

Bibliography

BBC, 19/10/09. NEWS Entertainment Pirate Party hopes for free future [online]. . Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8314620.stm [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
BBC, 17/04/09. NEWS Technology Court jails Pirate Bay founders [online]. . Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8003799.stm [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
BBC, 03/03/09. NEWS Technology Pirate Bay awaits court verdict [online]. . Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7921933.stm [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
IPO, 2009 – Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 [online]. . Available at: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/cdpact1988.pdf [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
Sulair, 2004. File-Sharing: Beware of the Consequences [online]. . Available at: http://speaking.stanford.edu/Back_Issues/SOC66/highlights/03.File-Sharing-Consequences.txt.html [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
STUMMPY34, 2009. Jack Black Videos Related to 'TENACIOUS D - Jack Black on Piracy', [online]. . Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LkWKvMCzqA&feature=related [Accessed 19/10/2009 2009].
storyboards [online]. . Available at: http://accad.osu.edu/womenandtech/Storyboard Resource/ [Accessed 31/10/2009 2009].
Times Online, 2008 - Average teenager's iPod has 800 illegal music tracks [online]. . Available at: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article4144585.ece [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
YouTube - Blonde Girl Pregnancy Test - Funny Ad [online]. . Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPlqhw8AoQI [Accessed 19/10/2009 2009].
YouTube - Drug Drive TV ad 'Eyes' [online]. . Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dytCWrf92zc [Accessed 19/10/2009 2009].

References
BBC, 19/10/09. NEWS Entertainment Pirate Party hopes for free future [online]. . Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8314620.stm [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
BBC, 17/04/09. NEWS Technology Court jails Pirate Bay founders [online]. . Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8003799.stm [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
BBC, 03/03/09. NEWS Technology Pirate Bay awaits court verdict [online]. . Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7921933.stm [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
Gov., 1988 – Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. (Section 16 p. 31) [online]. . Available at: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/cdpact1988.pdf [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
STUMMPY34, 2009. Jack Black Videos Related to 'TENACIOUS D - Jack Black on Piracy', [online]. . Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LkWKvMCzqA&feature=related [Accessed 19/10/2009 2009].
Times Online, 2008 - Average teenager's iPod has 800 illegal music tracks [online]. . Available at: http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/personal_tech/article4144585.ece [Accessed 15/10/2009 2009].
YouTube - Blonde Girl Pregnancy Test - Funny Ad [online]. . Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPlqhw8AoQI [Accessed 19/10/2009 2009].
YouTube - Drug Drive TV ad 'Eyes' [online]. . Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dytCWrf92zc [Accessed 19/10/2009 2009].