June and the final days....

I was off (working) most days of June but I managed to come back and do my NAB for Gavin and passed!!

My work here is done........

Alloa Tower

Alloa Tower :

To begin my documentary I had to do some research. I didn’t do much, just went on the internet and googled Alloa Tower. It was mainly for a bit of background information to get me started, and to give myself a rough idea on the camera shots I would try.

3 useful links on documentary makers –

http://www.superflex.net/floodedmcdonalds/

http://www.downanddirtydv.com/home.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_video

Digital video can be stored in 3 different ways

1) Encoding ; This is compressing files so that it can be displayed in specific situations ie the internet

2) Tapes ; Although now mostly obsolete, vhs or smaller tapes are sometimes recorded onto for storage of DV

3) Discs ; The most widely used method of storage used today.

Digital Video can be displayed in several different ways. Here are 3 of them

1) Cinema ; Through a projector on the big screen

2) T.V ; Where we see most of the documentaries that are made

3) Internet ; With the internet vastly growing, a lot of up and coming documentary makers try and be seen using the internet.

Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and liberal political commentator. He is the director and producer of Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11, Sicko, and Capitalism: A Love Story, four of the top eight highest-grossing documentaries of all time.[3] In September 2008, he released his first free movie on the Internet, Slacker Uprising, documenting his personal crusade to encourage more Americans to vote in presidential elections.[4] He has also written and starred in the TV shows TV Nation and The Awful Truth.

Moore is a self-described liberal[5] who has criticized globalization, large corporations, assault weapon ownership, the Iraq War, U.S. President George W. Bush and the American health care system in his written and cinematic works.

Phil Grabsky is a British documentary film-maker based in Brighton, East Sussex. His company Seventh Art Productions has produced award-winning documentaries for television and cinema.

Grabsky’s work such as I, Caesar, Spain - In the Shadow on the Sun, The Great Commanders and the Tim Marlow on... series, has been broadcast on various U.K. channels such as BBC, Channel 4, Five and Sky Arts, and internationally around the world.

His film The Boy who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan was released in cinemas in 2003 and tells the story of 8-year-old Mir and his family living in post-Taliban Afghanistan. The film has been shown across the globe and won 13 awards including the Gold Hugo in Chicago for Best Film and first prize at the Valladolid International Film Festival. Phil is continuing to film Mir and his family in Afghanistan.[1]

John Paskievich is a Ukrainian-Canadian documentary filmmaker and photographer from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Paskievich's 2006 National Film Board of Canada documentary Unspeakable explores stuttering. Paskievich himself stutters and he narrates and participates in the film, which won a special jury prize at the 2006 Whistler Film Festival.

His other directorial credits include My Mother’s Village, in which Paskievich delves into the experience of other Ukrainian-Canadians, The Gypsies of Svinia, If Only I Were an Indian and the Genie Award-winning short film Ted Baryluk's Grocery.

Born in Austria, Paskievich emigrated to Canada at the age of five. He studied at the University of Winnipeg and Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto. An accomplished stills photographer as well as filmmaker, his photographs have been exhibited at prestigious galleries and museums across Canada.

His photographs have also been published in four books: A Place Not Our Own, Waiting for the Ice Cream Man... A Prison Journal, Urban Indians and A Voiceless Song.

In October 2007, Paskievich's first book, The North End: Photographs by John Paskievich, was published.

The process that we followed to produce our film was as follows :

1) Research on Alloa Tower and watching various documentaries to give us a rough idea about hot to go about it

2) Storyboarding and scripting so we knew what to do when we got to filming

3) Getting permission to, and doing the actual filming

4) Editing, which includes adding music and titles

5) Putting the final piece onto a DVD

Adam Easdon

18th - 28th of May

18th & 19th - I was off ill

21st - Friday! - So close to the end we are all basically touching up and editing any remaining work we have, mainly our Alloa Tower DVD. We also did a numeracy task today.

25th - Off ill again. Damn hay-fever!!!

26th - We done our revision for the N.A.B next week, which included watching documentaries and writing about them. I also finished the intro and credits for our show we did.

28th - Today we are finishing any remaining paperwork, including doing our evaluation. So close to the end of this course I cant help feel proud of the efforts I have put in.

The first 2 weeks of May

1st week of May - It was a holiday on the Tuesday so our week started on Wednesday with Gavin , where I had a lot of fun filming "The Adam Eased-In Show" which is our Jeremy Kyle-esc show. This was my only day this week as I was off ill on Friday.

2nd week of May - On Tuesday we visited Alloa Tower to do our filming which took us up to the afternoon and to Angies class where I did some stitching!!

On Wednesday we all got into our groups to do some editing of our show. I did the introductions for the show and weather, as well as the end credits.

O Friday with Brian I helped edit the video footage from Alloa Tower.

Project 4

This week we officially started project 4. With John on tuesday we watched a documentary he done to give us an idea of what ours should look like. He also went over camera angles, lighting etc. 

On wednesday with Gavin we scripted and storyboarded our tabloid talkshow (in which I am the host). It is a Jeremy Kyle-esc show. We scoped out our set and established where the cameras would be set up.

On friday with Brian we are creating slideshows in both iMovie and Windows Movie Maker to see what is the best for our documentary we are making.

Week back after the Easter holidays -

We were all struggling on the first day back with John in the morning. The network was a nightmare as it kept crashing so we just looked through the clips we took of the college and storyboarded the Forth Valley College advert. With Angie in the afternoon I continued with the monoprints. 

On wednesday we thought Gavin was stuck abroad due to the ash cloud from Iceland. However he wasn't but there was so little people in the class we sacked it and went to Alloa Tower to take photographs for Fridays lesson with Angie (for monoprinting)

Friday with Brian we done some maths(!!) and the people who didn't do the evaluation did that. An early lunch then to Angies class with just 3 folk attending to do our monoprints of our Alloa Tower pictures.

Week - 16th March

With Big John on Tuesday I made a start on my podcast, basically recording me reading out my article on Manchester. All I have to do now is add pictures and video. With Gavlaaa on Wednesday I tweaked my radio show a bit then helped other people finish theirs. On Friday with Bri-Bri, he got me to do some video editing from our recorded class meeting. Mon the weekend!!

10th & 12th

Was off on Tuesday, so my week started on Wednesday, which seen me finishing off my radio show piece. Mine was the news. On Friday I started the contents page since I have my article finished..

First week of March

Tuesday 2nd - Looked at Pro-Tools LE in depth, taking screenshots of our progress to put in our blogs, but mine didn't seem to work for some reason.... We also made a podcast just to get to grips with transferring data etc.

Wednesday 3rd - Finished my radio program. It was basically the news, but I used Pro-Tools to edit it. It does need a little tweaking, but am further ahead than most.

Friday 5th - Finished my article on Manchester using scribus. I'm very happy with it. It seems I am now the furthest ahead of everybody. Blue Peter badge well deserved...

16th & 17th of February

John was off on the Tuesday so Colin came in to substitute. With the boss we had a demonstration on the Pro Tools app, recording sections from the college prospectus to make an advert. We went out and took videos of different parts of the college to go together with the recordings. With Angie in the afternoon I caught up with most people and transferred my portrait into a larger scale. I also chose my colour scheme for it.

With Gavin we continued our work on media by doing an exercise on radio stations, listening to different stations and writing down the contents of a said period.

The college was then off Thursday & Friday. The joy!

9th - 12th February

I was off on tuesday so my week started on wednesday, where we looked at radio stations in depth ie national regional etc. On Friday I completed my first draft of my article on my Manchester trip. score.

Week 2 - Getting into project 3

Tuesday - The morning session was catching up on paperwork for our I.T skills. It was pretty basic but needed to be done. In the afternoon I had my portrait photo taken which I will eventually turn into an Andy Warhol MASTERPEICE!

Wednesday - I was off...

Friday (tf) - In the morning we done a 'meeting agenda' basically outlining what we should be accomplishing in said week, then done some reaserch into our chosen topics. We carried on with our Warhol artwork in the afternoon.

First Week of Project 3

We were meant to begin project 3 coming back from our week off, but ended up finishing up project 2, it only being minor editing problems to overcome. We did graze the surface of what the new topic entails, and what is expected off us. With Angie in the afternoon we researched Andy

Warhol and printed off our favourite portraits of his then wrote why we chose them.

On Wednesday with Gavin the team was taken through the things we would be doing in the second part of the year (non-fiction) and we done a little exercise linked to media.

Friday consisted of an exercise all to do with our magazine spreads, more specifically double page spreads and the language that goes along with it ie headers and footers. In the afternoon we will be posing for pictures which we will be recreating into an Andy Warhol style portrait. Smile!

Summary of my work on project 2 : Show Racism The Red Card

Although I had a hand in all aspects of the project, my main tasks that I undertook were the design and making of the backdrops and the final editing of our movie.

There is 2 backdrops. 1 is a combination of the restaurant scene and the living room scene in which our racist is watching football. The other is a stadium, or more specifically a close-up of a penalty kick -

The both backdrops were made using foam board which I stuck together using the single sided sticky back of the foam board and strengthened it with brown tape. The first backdrop I created was the restaurant/living room scene. Using the sticky back I attached a piece of accurately measured and cut black and silver wallpaper. I then glued a piece of purple card to the floor. The curtains were made by printing off a picture of a window which I glued to the wall (on the left) and then fitting 2 pieces of fabric, cut and measured semi-accurately, onto a thin metal rod. I'm particularly proud of this, as it gives attention to detail. The second set was made in much the same way, sticking on the background (which Dawn and Abee painted) onto the foam boards sticky side, then gluing the floor with green card to give the impression, if not a good one, of grass. I then chalked in the penalty boxes outline and made the advertisement boards, printing out strips of advertisements and gluing them onto poorly cut strips of card.

My second main task was the editing, particularly the sound production. Myself and Ryan made a commentary for throughout the movie, which I thought was a fantastic idea courtesy of Big John. I finalised it by putting crowd noises, making it louder as scenes changed from living room to stadium, and again as a goal is scored.

Last Day of Project 2

Today was generally about finishing off paperwork ect, and this blog. We also finished off our projects, with sound being the only thing we needed to do. Holiday next week, then back to reality with a new project!!! Happy days......

The History of Animation

Animation has changed dramatically since it was first introduced (believed to be in 1671). Back in the day animation was created using sketches and paintings, with light transferring them onto some form of backdrop. Nowadays computers are the main source of animation, capable of creating almost lifelike characters. Cameras play a big part in animation as well, giving us stop motion (an example of this is Wallace & Gromit, which uses plasticine for its models). This is created by taking a series of photos with only the slightest of movements from the characters. However, drawings and sketches are still used, in cartoons for example. The Simpson's is the longest running of these, now in its 20th season, but once again in today's technology crazed world it is edited on computers for a far smoother finish.

Flip books, a form of animation, are still used for entertainment by a lot of school children, sketching on the corner of their jotters and whatnot.

Another modern type of animation is rotoscoping, where animators trace over real film movement to produce a different kind of image. This method has been used quite a lot recently in today's cinema with films such as Sin City and Spirit. It was a revolution that hasn't really took off yet.

First and second week back in 2010!!

The first week back in 2010 we didn't start until the Thursday. Quite nastily we came back to a N.A.B for our communications course, which is now over and we are into a new block soon. Friday involved touching up our filming, editing times etc. I left in the afternoon, feeling ill.

The second week, on Tuesday, we finished filming and done some vocals for our video, as well as editing as much as possible. I fractured my wrist on Saturday, so wasn't much help. Also, I had a hospital appointment on Thursday so didn't attend college.