Social Action & Community Documentary; Preparation

Today I started to draw the animation for our social action and community documentary. I first typed up all the text that is going to be in the documentary using photoshop before drawing numerous versions of the cartoon character and other things such as the balloon and the clouds and rain that appear further into the animation. I then scanned the images into photoshop. After I scanned the images I used the ruler tool to make sure each image was accurate with the placement of the cartoon figure.

Before I printed all the images I wanted to make sure that the animation flowed properly and that I hadn't missed anything out, to check this I imported the photoshopped images into IMovie where I made a rough draft of the animation. 

To get my cartoon character to walk I first ran a little test to make sure that everything flowed smoothly so that when I come to draw it up neatly everything would be fine. I first drew three templates of the character in three different positions before drawing each step the character makes on each piece of paper and repeated this technique to get the movement of the rain and balloon.

I then took photos of each drawing before importing them into IMovie where I changed the speed and arranged them in order.

Stop Motion Animation 'walking' Test;

Group work & Filming;

Today me and Ben finished all the group work we had been assigned and also the documents we needed completed to be able to start filming. After we had our work checked by Andy we then went and got a camera, which we have booked out until Tuesday 14th June, before starting to film.

Taking the camera around college we interviewed numerous people including teachers and students to get their view on Facebook asking how it effects their lives and the way a student works in a classrom. We also filmed in open access and in our own class to gets shots of students actually using the computers in college. As it was raining we had to limit what we could film and only managed to film inside because of this we plan to finish filming the rest of the scenes for the documentary on Tuesday and to also begin filming our social action documentary as well.

Group work; UPDATE

Today I finished the shooting script, resources & budget, storyboard and shooting schedule for our Social Action and Community Documentary. I also completed the shooting script and a basic outline for a script for our Factual Programme Documentary as well as the techniques document. Now that we have the main documents we need to start filming completed we can now book the cameras and hopefully start filming sometime next week.  

I think it will be fairly easy getting the shots we need and the interviews of students for the factual documentary although on the other hand for our social action documentary we are going to attempt stop motion animation which I am a little nervous about doing as we've never done anything like this before. To get around this I plan on creating the drawings and text for the animation by hopefully using Photoshop, although if this doesn't work out I'll be drawing the animations by hand which we will then take still images of using the Sony Handycam which we'll be using to film both documentaries. Something to consider is that if we are unable to take still images with the camera we will have to film the still shots and these may come out to be slightly blurred during the editing process when we import the footage into Adobe Premiere Pro or Adobe Encore. 

Script & shooting script, resources & minutes;

Today I finished writing the script for for our social action and community idea and also started the shooting script. I'm also half way through writing the resources and budget for the project.

I found out that to hire a Sony HDR XR550 for a week would cost £100 from www.camerarent.co.uk, and for 3 days would be £40. The hire of a tripod would also be £25 for 3 days and £80 for a week.

http://www.camerent.co.uk/services/

Script:

I also typed up the minutes from our group meeting we had on Tuesday.

Group meeting + production schedules;

Today we had group meeting to discuss our ideas and figure out which one we were gonna use for the factual programme and the social community projects.

For the fact programme we decided on using Ben Hammonds idea of doing a programme about facebook, I thought this was a good idea as the majority of people have facebook and it's become really popular over the years. I also think that there are a lot of angles that we can take in creating the short documentary. Jack Waddups idea was based on fashion and brands such as Hollister I thought this was a good idea as we could approach the public with questions regarding fashion e.g their favourtie brand/ highstreet shops and we could also do something about getting student discount. My idea was then to do a feature about what people have done since they left school, if they went to college, taken a gap year and how it worked out for them.

For the social community project we dicided on using my idea which is to create a stop motion animation feature accompanied with a poem that fits with the theme, which is depression. Both Ben and Jack had the same idea of doing a feature about uni fees I thought this was a good idea as it has been a big topic that has been debated since the rise in uni fees this year, however we also thought that this idea would be popular and that many people would choose this topic so we thought we'd like to do something different.

After discussing our ideas and choosing the ones we wanted to take forward we then talked about the different jobs we were goning to take on and reallocated certain jobs.

Factual:

Social:

Similar & existing products;

Today I finished working on the similar and existing products document for social and action community. I looked at a range of adverts and short films to see what kind of elements they shared in terms of techniques used. 

Looking at similar and existing products I noticed that the majority of them, most of which were based on supporting or highlighting a serious cause, shared similar traits between them. The adverts that I watched relating to serious causes such as highlighting the problems of anorexia and child abuse all seemed to use dark lighting, sombre moods and long shots accompanied by saddening music or voiceovers.

The advert below for the Looking Glass Foundation which offers support for people suffering with eating disorders, uses a lot of close up shots throughout which makes the viewer focus on the things that you may miss if shot from a further distance e.g the close up of the scales as this is a key moment in the advert. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjwZhEnSWvg&feature=related

Another advert I looked at which also highlights the problems with eating disorders also used close up shots so that the audience could get a clear view of the girls face, doing this helps to set the mood of the advert as it lets the audience see the pain the girl is going through.  The next advert looks at child abuse and continues to use a sombre mood throughout keeping the lighting dark, however when the viewer is introduced to a new child on the screen the shot is then freeze framed and accompanied by a question that challenges the viewer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8pYjWiFmpA

I then looked at adverts that were supporting charities such as cancer research uk and an advert for Great Ormond Street Hospital. These two adverts amongst others where entirely different from the previous adverts I looked at as they focused on the good and not the bad. Using brighter lighting, light hearted and upbeat music and positive footage to gain the viewers attention.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38aYyJsTkTY

The majority of the adverts I looked at also used voice over’s to narrate facts and figures or to narrate what was happening in the advert, as many NSPCC adverts do, and also included websites and help lines that viewers could use to get more information about the subject of the advert.

Legal & ethical considerations;

During the process of creating our factual programme we will need to be aware of any legal or ethical issues that could effect production and follow the guidelines set out by the regulatory bodies and codes of practise.

One of the main legal issues we will have to consider during production is copyright. We will need to make sure that any material we use for the programme is not subject to copyright, although if we do use any copyrighted material we will need to get first hand permission to use the material by its original owner. We will also need to consider if any of the material used or portrayed in the programme is slanderous in anyway or if anything used can be deemed as unfair or portrayed in bad faith. Discrimination will also need to be thought about, making sure that anything we use or say in the programme does not discriminate against anyone in terms of sex, age, race or disability.

Health and safety will also need to be looked at, taking in to consideration any hazards that may arise that could harm anyone involved with the project. To help with this issue we will be undertaking a risk assessment of all locations and equipment that will be used during production so that all risks will be minimised.  

We will also need to consider any ethical issues that may arise during production of our factual programme such as morality (what is right or wrong), exploitation, sensationalism or any material that can be seen as offensive as well as any representational issues. We will also need to be aware of peoples privacy, making sure that those who agree to being filmed sign a release form or state before the camera that they are willing for the footage that features them to be shown.