Wednesday, 12 December 2012

Video Age Classification

I have chosen 12+ category for the video as it incorporates the use of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. According to the BBFC's classification process children can watch such content if it is not glamorised and does not give instructional details. The video suits all of these requirements. Therefore, 12 eyars old children and over can watch the video. More information about the BBFC you can find here:

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/what-classification/how-does-classification-work

Sunday, 9 December 2012


Evaluation of a group work

This project has been a struggle for my team in parts due to several of reasons such as not being familiar with video compression settings, sometimes lack of demonstrated effort in the team towards the goal and time constraints. However, I have enjoyed working in a team because I have learnt new things from my colleagues and have had an experience how to collaborate with other people.  
In my opinion, we have not developed fully as a team because we could not finish all of the group work, such as storyboard, creating the video about legal and ethical issues surrounding Interactive Media and production schedules, on time. The reason for this is a lack of effort in the team towards the common goal. I was the team leader in the group. I organized all of the group meetings and constantly provided direction and leadership to the others. For example, I organized both of the video meetings preparing suitable material for it. Before each video meeting, we had at least one discussion in order to clear what we are going to talk about in the video. All of the team members presented at all group meetings. In my opinion, the first video meeting was more productive than the second one as all of the members were more prepared and successfully contributed to the development of the video script as well as resolving an issue about video production which consists of three stages: pre-production, production and post-production. Everybody expressed their opinions and the team came to a consensus agreement. For example, when I designed the company logo using black and white colours, Firat insisted on red and black colours. Then, Shane suggested the colour of the zigzag line of the logo to be changed to a red colour and everybody agreed to this consensus. Working with Firat was harder for me than with Shane because Firat cannot concentrate for a long time on studying and he can easily be distracted from other things. I and Firat had a few small conflicts when I was trying to make him to work under the pressure as the success of every project depends on how hard the team works. I had several conversations with Firat in order to create a positive climate in the group. I explained to him that I understand that he is too young to work under the pressure and I just asked him to give a little bit more effort as his future also depends on this. In my opinion, these conversations have positively reflected on our work as Firat has really showed his cooperation. He was responsible for filming and editing the video. Firat brought his camera. He has already had the knowledge how to work with a camera and tripod which really helped for filming the video. Firat was also working at home editing the video on his laptop.
I shot the scene with Shane and Firat where they smoke and drink and I brought some props for the video. I also was responsible for publishing the video, using DVD Studio Pro. I shared my DVD cover and menu designs with Firat as he did all of the video editing. After the assessment feedback, I re-edited the video improving some bits. All of the evidence of my working process is uploaded in my blog.  
Shane was the main character in the video. He was also responsible for choosing the song as he is more familiar with this kind of music. Shane explained the reason of the song choice on the Shock & Awe blog. He did not motivate the team to work more productively. Shane was just waiting for someone to tell him what to do next in the project but he never showed his disagreement that he did not want to work.
We also communicated through a Facebook. I sent to them different ideas and materials about the project in order to motivate the team to work more productively. Most of the project materials I published on my blog so they could see it there and gave their opinions and ideas.
Overall we produced a very good work fully completed after referral. We shared tasks and certain roles within the team. We also overcame communication difficulties and learnt to listen to each other which are very important things for any team work. The lack of effort within the team prevented us from achieving best results and managing the time properly. 


Thursday, 6 December 2012

<!--[if gte mso 9]> Elena Veleva elena 2 28 2012-12-06T14:49:00Z 2012-12-06T14:49:00Z 1 68 394 3 1 461 14.0 <![endif]
CALL SHEET


SHOOTING DAY NO.2            CALL TIME 12:00             DAY/DATE 20.11.2012

PRODUCER Elena           
DIRECTOR Firat      
PREPARED Elena, Firat, Shane


SCENE
LOCATION
ACTORS
PAGES
1
In the men toilet of Coleg Gwent college
Shane
1
2
In the back area of Coleg Gwent building
Shane
1



ACTOR
CHARACTER
MAKEUP
SET
PROPS

Shane Brown
Main character
NA
NA
Jacket, blouse and shirt

REMARKS:
Firat Koskocan – Camera and Tripod
Elena - flour

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<!--[if gte mso 9]> Elena Veleva elena 3 13 2012-12-06T14:19:00Z 2012-12-06T14:19:00Z 1 130 745 6 1 874 14.0 <![endif]
CALL SHEET


SHOOTING DAY NO.1            CALL TIME 10:30             DAY/DATE 16.11.2012

PRODUCER Elena           
DIRECTOR Firat      
PREPARED Elena, Firat, Shane, Steve, Tom and Casey


SCENE
LOCATION
ACTORS
PAGES
1
In the yard of Coleg Gwent college
Shane, Tom, Steve and Casey
1
2
Coleg Gwent smoking area which is located in front of the college
Shane, Tom, Steve, Elena and Casey
1
3
Coleg Gwent smoking area which is located in the back of the college
Shane and Firat
1



ACTOR
CHARACTER
MAKEUP
SET
PROPS

Shane Brown
Main character
NA
NA
Jacket, blouse and shirt
Firat Koskocan
Dealer
NA
NA
Cigarettes
Elena Veleva
Shane’s friend
NA
NA
A can of beer and flour
Steve Evans
Shane’s friend
NA
NA
Casual clothes
Tom Hunt
Shane’s friend
NA
NA
Casual clothes
Casey Jenkins
Shane’s friend
NA
NA
Casual clothes

REMARKS:
Firat Koskocan – Camera and Tripod

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Monday, 3 December 2012


Video Editing

I improved the video adding fade in and fade out transitions respectively in the beginning and at the end of the video. The video gradually becomes black and white as the life of Shane. It is used dissolve transition between the footage in the video as it perfectly fits the slow rhythm of the song. I also added a black background for the white text. Therefore, the text is more readable. I reduced transparency of the black background to 62% in order it to look as part of the scene. The video font is Verdana Bold 10. At the end, I added fade out transition to the song as a sign for the end of the video.



Sunday, 2 December 2012

Shock & Awe Bibliography
Storyboard

Image 1
 The first image is a long shot of Coleg Gwent college where the life of Shane changes forever. It introduces to the target audience the college area where actually were shot all of the scenes of the video.  

Image 2
This is a close-up of Shane which introduces the main character of the video.

Image 3
 This is a close up of a smoking area sign in the college area which introduces the location of the next scene.

Image 4
  A long shot of Shane, in the smoking area, shows that he feels secluded from his friends as he does not smoke as they.
Image 5
Shane feels under the peer pressure because they try to make him smoke. He hesitates for a while but ,unfortunately, gives in to negative peer pressure in order to be part of them. The next two scenes shows how Shane takes his decision. 

 Image 6

A long shot of Shane and his friends shows how he gives in to the peer pressure

Image 7
 A medium close-up of Shane reinforces the drama of the video showing his final decision to smoke.

Image 8 
This a long shot of Shane and his friend. It shows how they smoke and drink. Shane is negatively influenced by his friends again and he starts drinking alcohol. Here he is with only one friend.

Image 9

 This is a medium close-up of Shane in toilet of the college. He is already starts taking drugs.

Image 10
Medium close-up of Shane reinforces the drama of the video showing how his life has changed in a bad way.

Image 11
Medium close-up of Shane again reinforces the drama of the video. It shows Shane as a homeless boy lying on the ground alone without any friend.