Weekly Journal

Regular evaluation updates are required, as with every unit. Please

remember to take photos and get behind the scenes footage as you film.
You might find it easier if you note down a record of what you did each day
in a diary form.

Please use the following guidance to help you with each week.

Week 1 This week you worked on your research

What have you been asked to For this unit we are creating a video that would be
do? appropriate to show at the Raindance film festival
completed with appropriate promotional material to
accompany the production including a website and
social media pages.

The Raindance will be judging our work on visuals and

how we used cameras, lighting and editing to make a
engaging piece of media.

We will also need to show we have done research

and made enough planning documentation to prove
that we are organised.

In my case I am working in a pair with Leila to create

How has writing the brief helped
you to finalise your idea?
How has analysing videos helped
you to understand the genre
better?
What did you learn from
practising the conventions you
researched?
a performance style music video with her friend who is
a musician.
N/A
The analysing of videos allowed me to understand all
the very different ways that this genre could be used
and what usually works and what doesn’t at creating
interesting visuals. It has also allowed me to get better
ideas at what would look good in a modern music
video, especially the way the performances act and
how the footage is edited together.
I learned through the practising the conventions that
lighting is key to making a good-looking music video
and that the temperature of the light is very
important, for a intimate and close song a warmer
light is needed and harsh colours should be kept to a
minimum as that can often be distracting and
unnatural, however the position of light is just as
important as the song is quite light and warm hearted
the light should come slightly to the side and straight

How did making infographics help
you to process your research?
Are you on track for this week? If
not, how far behind are you?
What work do you need to
complete outside of lessons to
stay on track?
Week 2
What did you find out about
promotional campaigns for your
form of production?
behind to give an almost silhouette look to the
performer. The use of haze is also crucial as it gives the
light more depth and creates a far more interesting
visual spectacle to the viewer. By moving the camera
around it gives the viewer a better perspective of
what is going and allows a more intimate connection
to the artist in question.
Making the infographics made it easier to display and
show my research to colleges and also allowed me
time to look back through my research and work out
what was important and what wasn’t. It also made it
easier for me to explain my ideas to others and show
why I made the decisions I did.
As far as I am aware, I am all finished for this week
N/A
This week you worked on your planning
I found out that keeping all the promotional material
at a similar style helps keep it neat and distinguishable
to a viewer. The approach of larger artists compared
to smaller ones is quite different as the smaller artists
need to prove that they are good and professional all
their material is very professional and completed to a
high degree however as smaller artists need to prove
to people that they are famous and a good musician
their material needs to show this.
The 2 musician’s I researched were Ed Sheeran and
Judy Collins, I choose these 2 as they have a similar
style of music but apart from that they have taken a
very different approach. As Judy is an older artist and
a less well known one, she has a very professional
looking website and social media this is more
appealing to her older demographic that are used to
more stylish looking promotional material. Ed however
takes a different approach as his website looks very
casual and has a ‘Home made’ vibe to it. By doing
this the website matches Ed’s ’independent’ musician
look.
However, both use these formats to advertise projects
and their brand especially their live shows as these are
the major money makers it is given top priority in the
website both had a separate page on the website
dedicated to them and most of the social media
posts were oriented round the tours.
What did you learn from your
planning? How has it helped you
to progress your idea?
The planning itself didn’t change many of our ideas as
there were many other problems that kept changing
our plans so the planning was creates as loosely as
possible so to be easily changed if anything went
wrong. The story boards changed our plans the most
as we realised, we would have to add a story element
to our song to make it interesting enough for modern
audiences.

The contingency part of the planning made me and

How has your idea
developed/changed during the
planning stage?
How did you ensure that your
storyboards were to a high
enough standard?
What issues did you have what
planning your production? How
did you overcome them?
How much work did you
complete outside of the lessons?
Are you on track for this week? If
not, how far behind are you?
What work do you need to
complete outside of lessons to
stay on track?
Leila think about the possible problems especially the
venue and performer.
Please Consult above
The story boards were drawn by hand and written at
the same time as the shooting script meaning they
match up very well and have been consulted by both
me and Leila when designing. They were also created
after we saw the Kenton theatre so we could create
the story boards based of these
The planning allowed us to better understand what
we were doing and found out possible problems and
then find answers to these problems. For example, we
had to accept the possibility that we would not get a
theatre to work in so we had to find possible
replacement venues as well as create a story and
story board that could take place in any venue.
As far as I am aware, I am all finished for this week
N/A
N/A

Week 3 This week you worked on your production

What practical work This week we shot almost all of our production as well as remixing
have you done and the song ‘Soldiers of Fortune’ and also started editing.
how helpful was your On Monday we remixed Steve’s song ‘Soldiers of misfortune’ to
take out a lot of the instruments heard as well as the backing
earlier planning?
vocals, by doing this it makes it more believable that he could
actually be playing this song in a live environment. When we got
on site at the Kenton our first job was to set up the lighting rig this
 was meant to be a 1-2-hour operation to set up 2 Source 4’s with
a yellow gel and Gobo which would create a sparkling pattern
over Steve’s head. We then had to set up 2 spotlights, one
focused on his entire body the other was set just on his face, this
would allow more light to be on his face to make it stand out
more in the camera. We also mixed up some of the colours
already present in the rig which allowed a mixture of red and
yellow washes. This took us 4 hours to tig up which meant we
were a little stressed when it actually came to filming. Recording
took around 6 hours and we started at the back of the theatre
and made our way to the front. As we got further forward, we
started using the drone more as it worked best at close distance.
How will this be useful The earlier planning and special recording of the song will make
as your production it far easier to edit and stay focused, the use of changing
process continues? lighting presents will hopefully make it easier to sync the visuals
with the sound as these cues should give us a good indication of
where each part of the shots should go.
Upload your behind the
scenes photos and
videos (explain what
they show)

This picture taken from Steve Morano’s social media shows me,
Leila and Louis setting up cameras and lights.
In this Photo Louis is seen setting up a camera for one of the final
takes as the drone was the main camera used he spend a while
walking around the subject to come up with good shots for the
production.
In this photo I am seen setting up a camera to record the scene
when the technician from the theatre (Acting as Steve’s Dad)
comes and sits down in the chair Infront of the lights, however
after recording we realised these scenes didn’t look very good
and their wasn’t enough footage of him to be able to easily add
him into the final cut.

In this scene the lights are being set up by me and Cliff and Leila
and Louis are setting up the cameras so in post they should all
look the same.
 In this photo the source 4’s have been set up and me and cliff
were in the process of hazing up the theatre so we could focus
and angle the Gobos inside the lights.

What issues did you One of the main issues of filming was the timescale as we only
encounter when filming had 1 day to get every single shot we couldn’t afford to waste
and how did you time, to speed up production we created a timescale for how
long it should take to do each element of the filming prosses
overcome them?
including setting up and load out, to save even more time we
only shot scenes that had to be shot in the venue such as the
long and medium shots, however close ups and shots involving
the tech side will be shot at college as we will then have plenty
of time to record them. Despite this we were 3 hours behind
schedule before we had even begun as setting up the lighting
rig took 3 times longer than had been set aside for it in the plan,
this was a mixture of trying to get the look exactly right and
programming cues took up and extra half hour which was a last
minute decision on our part to actually cue the video.
Our second problem was that my hire order for some reason
didn’t make its way to the college so a lot of the equipment we
needed wasn’t available for us. Because of this we had to
improvise with a lot of equipment especially as the gimbal we
needed wasn’t available because of this we couldn’t use the
DSLR cameras on site for moving shots we fixed this problem
however by using the drone’s camera and built in gimbal. This
transition from relying on the drone rather than the DSLRs turned
out to be a good choice as despite having full battery’s before
filming they quickly ran out and no backup batteries were
 available for either. The drone however was far more efficient
and had 6 back-up battery’s which allowed the drone to last
the whole filming day with plenty of battery to spare.
What locations did you The venue was used was the Kenton Theatre in Henley on
use and why did you themes, the decision to shoot here was simple, we had nowhere
choose them? else to go that offered the same amount of resources and
space that the Kenton was offering. The Kenton was offering us
a free technician to supervise us and help rig up the lights as well
as full access to the Auditorium and lighting rig.
How well have you For the most part we have kept to our production schedule
worked to your mostly because it was so simple to begin with as there was only
production schedule? one filming day to start off with.
However, the editing process will be when most of the problems
regarding our production schedule will be evident.
Are you on track for this I still need to complete some shots of sound and lighting desks
week? If not, how far which could be used as B -roll when editing.
behind are you?
What work do you I might have to redo my planning as at last minute the song was
need to complete changed, however despite this as the songs were so similar, we
outside of lessons to kept using the story boards and ‘the music video shooting
script’.
stay on track?
High Grade Tips

Use screenshots to support your analysis – especially when comparing your work to other
pieces.

Considered and capable demonstration of processes – detailed documentation of your

production process – such as still images, and annotated screenshots of your specific
production and editing process – including ‘what’ and ‘why’ and not just ‘how’.

Specific – be specific! Don’t just say e.g. ‘the lighting was good’ – show us where the
lighting looked good and why you think that.

Week 4 This week you worked on editing your production

How did you The editing process took far longer than expected and my final product
find the editing is not edited to the highest quality I would have liked partly due to the
process? short amount od time to edit and the difficulty finding enough shots to fill
certain parts in the song.
What new skills I learned how to sync audio with visuals even if there wasn’t an easy
did you learn point to a line the clips.
when editing? I also learned how to do more advanced colour correction.
Upload
screenshots of
the editing
process and
discuss why
you made
these changes.

In this Image we can see my starting to sync up the clips and the audio,
this was very simple for the shots taken the DSLR’s as they captured the
backing track as well which made it easy to sync up as this was only a
matter of syncing up both audio tracks. However the drone shots were
far more difficult as they only recorded visuals stop help sync them up I
set up markers on the timeline which represent key words and the
lighting changes these made it far easier to sync up these visual cues
before trying to sync up the mouth movements.

To help me edit between shots I started layering each of the shots on the
timeline each of these shots have already been synced so it was only a
 matter of choosing one of these shots to fill a part of the movie.

The blue clips are from the DSLR’s and the purple from the drone,
although there are far more blue shots in the timeline the top layer (The
layer seen in the final video) is mostly made up of purple drone shots, this
is because I felt the drone shots looked far better than the DSLR shots so I
want to use them as much as possible, however there wasn’t enough
drone shots to fill the entire length of the song so I have kept in a couple
of DSLR shots as well as B-roll of what looks like behind backstage
footage.
What issues did My biggest problem when editing was that the drone footage didn’t
you encounter contain sound so trying to sync it with the audio took around 2 days to
when editing do as I was syncing it with lighting cues and Steve’s mouth movements,
this took a lot more time to complete as it slowed down my progress and
and how did
left me with less time to do other forms of editing.
you overcome I also found that our musician Steve Morano wasn’t exactly precise
them? when performing in all shots so some shots couldn’t be used due to this,
however by using shots from an obscured angle these mistakes can be
taken out.
We also found out when editing that the shots taken on the DSLR vs. the
drone looked very different as the DSLRs were both set for the working
lights in the theatre not the actual stage lights shown in the video
however the drone’s camera auto corrected the white balance
because of this I decided to not use the DSLR shots as much as possible
to create a more seamless look, however this has resulted in me not
having enough drone footage to finish the video, to fix this I have taken
videos of sound and lighting desks that could have been used in the
theatre and used them when there wasn’t any drone footage.
Are you on I might have to redo my planning as at last minute the song was
track for this changed, however despite this as the songs were so similar, we kept
week? Did you using the story boards and ‘the music video shooting script’.
meet the
deadline? If
not, how far
behind are
you?
What work do Maybe I need to redo my planning
you need to
complete
outside of
lessons?

High Grade Tips

Use screenshots to support your analysis – especially when comparing your work to other
pieces.

Considered and capable demonstration of processes – detailed documentation of your

production process – such as still images, and annotated screenshots of your specific
production and editing process – including ‘what’ and ‘why’ and not just ‘how’.

Specific – be specific! Don’t just say e.g. ‘the lighting was good’ – show us where the
lighting looked good and why you think that.

Week 5 This week you worked on creating your site

How did you design your page

and why? (upload screenshots
and discuss)
How did you use social media to
help promote your production?
How effective do you feel your
site is in promoting your work?
I created 2 social media pages a Twitter page and
Facebook page I thought would connect to my older
demographic that would like folk music.
On these pages I posted adverts and made regular
posts reminding viewers of when the video would be
realised keeping the feed active and constantly
reminding people.
I also posted events which I hoped would encourage
the organisers of those events to help promote my
work. I also added #stevieattheKenton to the end of
all my posts to help promote them.
The Website I created I feel is quite effective at
promoting the artists ‘Steve Morano’ who was used in
my production however I think I focused to much on
promoting him rather than my actual production of
the 7 pages on my website only 4 of them had
anything even commenting on my production.
However I do feel the trailer did a good job at
building up tension and anticipation for the

How does you site compare to
those you previously researched?
Are you on track for this week?
Did you meet the deadline? If
not, how far behind are you?
High Grade Tips
production by giving Steve very little Screen time and
hopefully making the viewer want to see him more.
My site layout was inspired more by Judy Collins
Website as I felt it looked more professional than Ed
Sheeran’s which I felt matched Steve better as he is a
lesser known artist so needs his website to help show
how good of an artist he is. However, the content of
my page came from Ed Sheeran as I felt that Ed had
more content that was relevant to Steve as he was still
an active musician whereas Judy has retired from
music years ago and is just promoting existing albums
and tours.
My Site like Ed and Judy’s contains a concert listing
past and present however unlike there’s mine does
not contain any active links to help people buy tickets
for these concerts this was due to me not having
enough time and most of these concerts not actually
having links for them. Unlike there websites I added an
extra tab for my ‘Soldier of misfortune’ music video,
this tab only promotes the video and is designed to
catch the eye of a viewer by being 1 of the only 2
tabs to be presented in colour in the page picker
screen. Like there’s my website also includes contact
info, social media, merch and photos and videos all
of which are crucial to a modern website.
I would like to update my website and Facebook/
Twitter however they are both still operational

Use screenshots to support your analysis – especially when comparing your work to other
pieces.

Considered and capable demonstration of processes – detailed documentation of your

production process – such as still images, and annotated screenshots of your specific
production and editing process – including ‘what’ and ‘why’ and not just ‘how’.

Specific – be specific! Don’t just say e.g. ‘the lighting was good’ – show us where the
lighting looked good and why you think that.