Commissions Unit - Communication with the Client

Communication with the client was brilliant for the commissioned piece. It's something that I learned from Helen Curston is that always phone someone as they can answer your question there and then. Rather than leaving it a week on an email, get it sorted out. Harrisons were always avaliable to take my calls and answer my questions about sites as long as it doens't affect their confidentialityagreements with clients.

Commissions Unit - Risk Assessment

All producers makes a risk assessment of what we are going to be dealing with on site. Overall, theres not many hazards in the office and on site that we are worried about, mainly weather fluctuations. Onsite stuff will be recorded at a distance if necessary for the footage.

Commissions Unit - Critical Reflections

Working with Lex has been great. We have great communication skills and complement each other really well. The key to a successful team is to have faith in each other’s opinions. For example, if I didn’t like how a shot looked, even though I am not the camera op for this project, I can openly say that I don’t like something and know that I mean it in beneficiary to the project, not berating the person. I feel we really brought the best out of each other. 

The equipment we used benefitted our shoot with Lex’s knowledge of cameras being more prominent now more than ever. Sam Creamer kindly lending us his tripod slider gave our shoot something that others may not have. We were smarter on this shoot being very lightweight and mobile as some of the construction shots were actuality based.

Our clients were very good in terms of communication. Any information that I needed in regards to the company and sites that we were researching for the video they were more than happy for us to do. Due to time constraints and the office never being in a recordable state because the office isn’t exactly pretty, we couldn’t get the office shots according to the plan. However, we took a different angle on the film and used some small stock footage to make up the difference.

In terms of producing and organisation, I feel competent in talking to people that I don’t necessarily know. I always had bad self-confidence but this project brought me out of my shell and enhanced my producing ability as I have to call and talk to people I don’t already know. My organisational skills have increased a great amount, too.

Overall I am happy with the outcome of the film and comparing it to my first works on the course it really shows the capability even on a zero budget. Hopefully I venture into commissioned works for a production company as I did find working in a small team on a project I procured a nice feeling.

Transitioning my work to the third year, I am ready for it more than ever, I can't wait to round off the course with some beautiful work I have done myself, ready to be shown at a screening.

Commissions Unit - Post Production and Critical Evaluation on Video.

As soon as the shooting days were over, we immediately got into the edit. We edited the film at 1280x720 and we filmed it flat. Our export settings were in prores and our ideal deliverable was vimeo.

As Lex got to work with colour correcting and stabilising the footage I got to work with the sound. Background noise with any microphone is present, however small.  So instead of using Final Cut Pro’s built in noise cancellation (which is pretty poor to be honest) I used Adobe Audition. I used audition before and it’s a great piece of software for pin-point audio editing. After importing the audio tracks, I captured a noise print. A noise print essentially captures a small section of the clip, in this case it’s the static noise in the background. After capturing the noise print, I selected the whole clip and applied the noise print. This took all the static out of the footage and sounded great. All the case now was to re-import it into final cut and press the ‘Synchronise clips’ button which automatically matches the clips with the Canon footage.

After showing the rough project to a first year, he enquired if it was a two camera shoot when in fact it was only a single camera shoot. I learnt this technique from Fergus Moloney when studying the previous unit (studio production). If you’re rendering at a lower resolution than what you shot at, you can zoom in without losing much quality. As I stated earlier, we recorded at 1920x1080, and we set the project properties to 1280z720 as it’s only going to be a small web video. This allowed myself to zoom in after cutaways to get a nice mid close up of the contributor, effectively getting more angles without recording any more footage.

Comissions Unit - Feedback from Rough Cut

After editing a rough video, I got into contact with Adrian to give me some feedback on the video. He loves the video but feels he needed to be tuned up a little bit as he was quiet. The main part is that he loved the video which personally I have fulfilled my aim. Anyway, more editing to do to satisfy the client just blogging to mention that there was initial feedback from the client and amendments were made.

Commissions Unit - Ease of Access + Stock Footage

Overall, most of the access we had were great, the only problem we really had was office shots as it wasn't the best dressed office and they were'nt prepared to sort through everything to make it presentable. Also they weren't prepared to show us plans as they were sensitive with their clients, which is understandable. This gave me the opportunity to use stock footage for the first time ever. I bought the music from AudioJungle and some video from its sister site VideoHive. Stock footage might come across as lazy but actually saves you in sticky situations and still looks good. Envato isn't really expensive if you split it in half with your colleague. It has a licenses to use it commercially which is always good.

Commissions Unit - Production

Firstly, we shot the interviews in the base room, with the contributors (4 directors of the firm) shooting 2 on the left and 2 on the right (Appendix 3). This will add variation to the interviews and make the shots less stale. A board relating to Harrisons was placed next to the contributor. The boards were not relative to the contributor in question necessarily but showed a bit of backdrop to what the company has dealt with. I used the Zoom on its basic stereo setting and placed the microphone in front of the contributor to get the best sound. Based on projects I have seen before, a lot of others practise with clipmics in shot. I have an internal logic that you wouldn’t have a boom pole, tripod, lighting kit or any other sort of kit in shot, so this can be sorted with a zoom microphone. We had ultimate control over the room and there was little to no buzz noise in the background so I could get in as close as I wanted, whilst maintaining an eye line with the contributor. Lex prepared and asked a series of questions that we could then edit in post-production later.

Before we filmed the interviews, Lex and I based on the script shot the front of the Harrisons Office in Gillingham. We used a tripod slider to capture the sign for when the promo starts, and a slow track backwards with a GoPro wide angle to capture the ending.

The client was more than happy to drive us to sites to capture footage for the piece. The sites we went to are as follows

·         Eurolink Sittingbourne

·         Redrow Sittingbourne

·         Midkent College

·         Cranford Close, Gillingham

Lex had a shot list that comprised of sliding shots, fixed static and handheld shots to catch a nice variation of shots for the edit. The tripod slider proved great in the shots and really brought the best out of the angles in question. Midkent College was a special shot as it was a GoPro mounted to a suction cup to the side of my car. This allowed us to get a nice wide angle flyover when the road was clear.

Unfortunately due to time constraints and access to the clients main office we were unable to retrieve any office shots, but based on the end product, it didn’t really need to benefit from office shots. 

Commissions Unit - Job Roles

In terms of roles, the commission is a two-man team; Lex Wilkinson, another member on the course and myself. Based on previous experience working with Lex during workshops and filming each other’s shorts, passion and understanding creative abilities are present. Instead of opting for a one-man team, the pressure is split over two people, which helps out so much when juggling other units too.

The roles for each of us are as follows –

Andrew 

·        Producer

Working with Lex took the focus for me off of camerawork and directing, which gave me the opportunity to try something out that I couldn’t before, which was producing. Projects before I haven’t really been organised so producing will give me the edge in the third year

.

·         Sound Op

Relating back to the first role, the focus for me has come off camerawork and directing. The piece agreed will essentially be composed of interviews and nice cutaways, so I can prioritise the sound aspect without the constraint on my behalf of worrying about the video

·         Co-Editor

As we are a two man team, it would be unfair in my opinion if the sole editing was left to one person. Communication is great between myself and Lex so we have a comfortability factor about opinion and styles of filming for example. I could point out something in the edit that doesn’t look right and vice versa. Editing gives us both a chance to own the product in question and both add our unique parts to make the commission that much better.

Lex

·         Director

Lex has always been fond of directing and we agreed to work on the project with the intention of Lex being the director. I have confidence in Lex as have seen his portfolio as he has progressed on the course just like myself.

·         Script writer

Naturally, the director writes the script as he/she is implementing their creative vision to a product. O course it doesn’t have to be this way, but it feels like the best course of action in this scenario.

·         Camera Op

Over the last year, Lex has been stockpiling camera equipment such as lenses and has now a vested knowledge in camera equipment. As I am focussing on sound and its only a two man shoot, it is logical for Lex to be on camera for this shoot.

·         Co – Editor

Same applies from my justification. Co-editing in this case helps out as you can spot something that can be overlooked if a lot of hours have been clocked in to the edit.

Professional Practise - Potential Equipment to Use on Shoot

This blog will be about the different equipment  that will be used during the shoot and justifications into why I chose these equipment bits and bobs.

Number one, the GoPro, now because I am the producer I will have little input in what shots are used but I will talk about why we are using certain bits and bobs. The GoPro would be great for first person shots such as interacting with the computers and equipment that they deal with, would be great to walk through the office. 

Number two, something experimental in this film, the Tripod Slider Dolly. this will be great for them really smooth dolly sequences that will be in this film, very portable too, so can be easily transported than a normal dolly.

Number three, the ZoomH4N W/ Boom Pole and Rode Mic setup. This is essential for getting the best sounding interviews that will be used in this film. The reason I chose a boom over a Radio mic is because I don't like the way that the clip mic sounds, very 'tinny' whereas the boom with rode setup we don't have to worry about batteries, interference and its like super cardiod so there is no problem picking up the contributors sound. 

Number four, this is potential but not for definite, the BlackMagic Pocket Camera. This captured INSANELY good quality on my shoot before, so I might use this again for the next shoot. 

Professional Practise - Project Plan.

Based on my previous experience in ICT, I am using a GANTT chart used in a program called microsoft project. This software easily allowes me to track my progress and helps me with the steps I need into complete the project. I have split it up into milestones, pre production, production and post production. here is the plan. it may be hard to read if you haven't studied charts before but it is relatively simple for me.

Professional Practise - Medway Monkeys Falling Through, Harrisons

Based on the fact that Medway monkeys haven't got back to me, I've decided to drop them in favour of Harrisons. its a shame because I was hoping for a high octane video with upbeat sound. But now we have to switch to a light hearted corporate video about chartered surveying. Change of tone and I have never done this style of video but it's another challenge in the course, I have good accessibility and its something that I would like to do. More to follow!

Professional Practise - Harrisons Chartered Surveyors

So for my second idea, a company that my family is affiliated with wants a promotional video made for them to promote what they do. They noticed a gap in their market as their competitors don't have a video. I think this video has potential and will definitely take this up if the Medway monkeys falls through. I'm thinking a very corporate video with cutaways and interviews with some of the information from the directors. I know recently that they hired a trainee surveyor so it would be nice to include this angle to the film.

Professional Practise - MedwayMonkeys Promo Video Idea

After finding out that I didn't get the production studio work placement I directed my efforts to working with my friend, Lex. Word of mouth from other friends a car enthusiast entity wanted a promo video for them and their website. This is perfect as both lex and I can work on something that will be enjoyable and worthwhile to great editing and camera work. Both Lex and I did really well on our previous unit and both of us are really excited to take part in. They want a top gear type promo video so what I'm going to do is direct my efforts to looking at how top gear use their footage. Health and safety will be a big thing so Pro-Formas must be sent to the client once this idea gets traction. Early thoughts on equipment is to use a blackmagic portable camera, tripod slider and a gopro.

Professional Practise - Work Placement

So for my professional practise I wanted to go to the 400 production company in south west london. To be honest this could be the best opportunity outside of the course to get my foot on the ladder in a job in television. I've sent a CV to the production studio so hopefully I get picked!