End of SAA & Road Trip Review

During the SAA project and "The Road Trip" project, as we had a client  they gave us a brief with the specifications of the video which we we're going to create for them.

Both the SAA project and "The Road Trip" we worked towards two types of briefs...

For "The Road Trip" Project our client was a website called "IdeasTap" in which they enlisted a competition involving a small phrase "The Road Trip" where people would post a submission of their work and their idea with the inspiration based around what the phrase "The Road Trip" inspired them to create. The brief we received contained little detail as it was a formal, yet open-end flexible competition brief, meaning it was deliberately low on detail to leave the people partaking in the competition with a large variety of possibilities, the competition had a deadline which was strict as no submissions we're being taken after the date. When I first read the road trip brief I realised the massive amount of possibilities it left with as there were little requirements, the only requirement was that it had to have connotations or leads to the phrase "The Road Trip" and from their on out it was what I made of it. In class we did an ideas generation lesson which involved mind-mapping out ideas relevant to the requirements of the brief, immediately I thought of an idea as I believe every idea you make for it to truly work out it needs to be relatable to you, as I'm quite interested in controversial subjects in society I decided to involve drugs in mine, despite being a risky subject I had faith that I could pull it off in a mature way, even through my project being a comedy. After deciding upon my idea through 'Market Research' which involved pitching our idea in fair detail to our class of around 20, once I had confirmation that they believed it to be a good idea if  pulled off, I proceeded to read the brief in-depth to make sure I understood it fully. After reading through the brief multiple times I searched for the deadline in which once found I believed I had the basis of my idea and knew exactly how to set out my project. We then undertook the project in groups in which I made mine in a group of two of us, we had to establish some sort of contact with the client, which we could do through two ways, email and direct questions through the "IdeasTap' website, we believed after trying the direct questions through the website that the best way to contact them would be E-mail in which we found out that copyright could create a massive problem. With this in mind we considered the other legal issues we could get caught up by, with this being a formal brief the legal issues were strict, however we managed to  overcome the issues, these included: Soundtrack Copyright, Avoiding public spaces etc.
For the SAA Project our client was the 'Society for Abandoned Animals (SAA)'. We had to make a short educational advert, in which would be used in schools and to promote the charity. The brief we received from SAA was an informal brief, therefore increasing the amount of communication and cooperation between us and the client, seen as this was an informal brief a lot more communication and cooperation was required, however this made it easier to understand what are client wanted and expected of us, moreover there were disadvantages such as he deadlines not being an official set date, thus creating confusion as to the creation of the schedule and time management, nonetheless we got the project finished. Once we had been briefed and made sure we had the requirements and details of the video, in which we were given topics to choose from to center our video around, these being, the microchipping of domestic pets, mainly dogs and cats, the re-homing and general care for your pet and neutering. With these requirements in mind we carried on to generate our ideas, after selecting our final idea it was time to create a pre-production folder and to expand and reinforce my idea in preparation for the pitch to our client where I would find out if my idea was going to be selected and then produced. I made many documents such as storyboards, research and a rationale. Once we pitched our idea to the SAA they then took some time to decide upon the best ideas. Due to this being informal it was very mix and match therefore I was selected to combine my idea with another student in my class. I then proceeded to make sure I had the deadline date secure and memorable so that I wouldn't forget it. We made initial contact with our client through pitching our ideas and also a short trip to the charities shelter and office, this included a tour of the shelters and some more personal areas of the charity, which I believe really helped us connect with and understand how the charity runs. During the filming process of our project if we had any questions upon the content of our video we would contact the charity through email, or directly ask the members of staff during our visits. We did not encounter any legal issues during the making of our video as there was no need for popular music.

Once we had completed our projects and submitted the finished videos we reviewed how the process of making a video for a client went. Starting with the skills I have learnt during the time of "The Road Trip", as director I had to show superior leadership and organisational skills to pull off the project, this involved being able to direct a small crew of two and a small amount of actors. I believe I handled the small crew and actors well, however each member I had known for at least three years, so I believe this made a considerable difference as their was no need to familiarise ourselves with each other. Also on this project we worked with my dog for a single shot, which we managed to do in one take due to the skills I had learnt during the SAA project. Finally, during "The Road Trip Project" we only ran into two constraints which were song copyright as we wanted a song from a much smaller group however copyright still applied  therefore we had to swap the song for a soundtrack with a creator commons licence which didn't take too long. The second constraint was a requirement from 'IdeasTap' which was that the final piece had to be two minutes long, due to the entertainment we got during "The Road Trip" project our final piece ended up being six minutes and fifty seconds which was over triple the allowed time, so through many hours of editing we eventually managed to get the best out of our project and squeeze it into what was considered a very short two minutes, however we managed to tackle both constraints for the project and were happy with the outcome.
During the SAA project I learnt a few valuable lessons, time management and communication skills. These played a vital part in the making of our final piece however it took me some good time to realise that,  I believe this happened due to the lack of communication which caused some members of a certain party to not fully understand their role in the project , such as I didn't understand what my contribution to the project was other than a small amount of clips that were edited together to create a story, however once overcome I can say in confidence I was happy with the final piece and to leave it at a lesson learned. The second constraint I faced during the SAA project was Time Management which could also be considered to be part of the communication constraint as time management was only a problem as it was a product of the communication breakdown as I personally wasn't too sure of the hand-in times of my certain clips, however we overcame this through the use of internet 'drop boxing' as it is called to get the clips to my team as quick as possible.
Overall, I believe both projects as a whole had their issues however we managed to tackle them in the end, I believe you can see this through the quality of our final pieces, upon judgement you can see that they are fairly well-done however there is always room for improvement.

Report On Factual Programming

Intro
With stereotyping and bias being such a prominent hot-topic in todays society it is hard for programme and film-makers to create a form of media that isn't going to offend someone, there are many issues that such a person will face when trying to portray a fair and accurate representation of their subject.
During the course of this report I will outline many of these issues and explain them thoroughly using examples for the purpose of understanding.
When a program or film is labelled as "factual" it is almost creating unspoken trust with its audience to show that all the information in the following media is 100% factual, this means that every statement made in the media whether it be spoken or visualised is fact and does not contain any personal opinions.

Main
This leads us onto our first issue of a "bias opinion", this is where someones personal opinion corrupts the factual nature of a programme, this can be that of the film crews or the publics thoughts.An example of this could be "Fahrenheit 9/11" by Michael Moore. Constantly from start to finish of this documentary Moore is bombarding his audience with facts that lead to one explanation of such a massively controversial subject, when he could also be providing his audience with explanations leading to different outcomes rather tan pushing all the blame to one side. This is seen with Channel 4's programme "Benefit Street" where even the name of the programme strikes controversy amongst people in the UK.

The second issue for discussion is the "accuracy" and "reliability" of the information provided to and in many cases by the public. This factor is especially vital in News programmes offering a national audience international news. Much like the childhood game "Chinese Whispers" information can become distorted by the time it reaches a certain news station, this is why it is key for stations to interview many different people when trying to get information on a story. This is where eye-witness accounts of a story can prove vital to the success of a station. However, sometimes this is not the case as many witnesses may make events up or even exxagerate them to make for a more interesting story. This is better known as "Sensationalism". Sensationalism can not only be used by the public but also the news station itself to increase viewer popularity, this involves revealing a story in an "over-hyped" manner in which to make it seem like an important subject when in truth its status is completely the opposite.

The third and final issue for discussion that a creator of media will face when creating something factual is stereotyping. Stereotyping is one of the most talked about topics in modern society, in close relation with being acceptant of one another.  All filmmakers must be very weary to avoid stereotyping in their media, with such an active public response to such a topic any story or documentary can turn sour very quickly. Stereotyping can often lead to an unfair representation of a subject or subject matter for. For example, many teenagers are seen as to be feared by the older generation, this can tie in closely with "hoodies", however if one story of an unprovoked assault on a helpless man by a hooded teenager is broadcast, the station has to be careful not to represent that all teenagers wearing a hooded jacket are criminals that want nothing more than to cause harm to you. Despite its arrogance and hatefulness, stereotyping is seen in many factual programmes today. For example, in the programme "benefit street" all the people shown are represented as the lower working class, who stay at home and laze about all day, however in many cases this is not true as the reason the benefit system was originally created is to work as a safety netting for anyone that is struggling to find a job or has recently lost a job.

Edit Decision List - The Road Trip

Inside - CupView1 - Bad
Inside - CupView2 - Good
Inside - Pullover - Good
Inside - Pullover2 - Good [Best]
FillerClock - Take1 - Good

S1 - Side1 - Take1 - Good (Intro)
S1 - Side1 - Take2 - Good
S1 - Side1 - Take3 - Good
S1 - Side1 - Take4 - Good (Smell)
S1 - Side1 - Take5 - Good (Smell)
S2 - Side1 - Take1 - Good (Pullover)
S2 - Side1 - Take2 - Good (Pullover)
S2 - Side1 - Take3 - Good (Argue)
S3 - Side1 - Take1 - Good ("Wake Up")
S3 - Side1 - Take2- Good (Old Pill)
S3 - Side1 - Take3 - Bad (EngineFumes)
S3 - Side1 - Take4 - Good (Fed Lights) [Best]
S3 - Side2 - Take1 - Good (PillFill)
S3 - Side2 - Take2 - Good ("Wake Up")
S3 - Side2 - Take3 - Bad ("Wake Up")
S3 - Side2 - Take4 - Good ("Wake Up")
S3 - Side2 - Take5 - Bad (Driving Filler)
S3 - Side2 - Take6 - Bad (EmptySeat)
S3 - Front - Take1 - Good (Full Scene)
S3 - Front - Take 2 - Good (PoliceLights)
Inside - DropPill1 - Bad (Unfocused)
Inside - DropPill2 - Good (OverShoulder)
Inside - DropPill3 - Bad
Inside - DropPill4 - Good (BagIntoCup)
Trip1 - Laugh - Take1 - Good
Trip2 - Voices - Take1 - Good
Trip2 - Voices - Take2 - Good [Best]
Trip3 - Raving - Take1 - Good (RaveLightBack)
Trip3 - Raving - Take2 - Good (LightBack)
Trip3 - Raving - Take3 - Good (LightSide) [Best]
Trip4 - Dog - Take1 - Good (SideShot) [Best]

Shot List - The Road Trip

Shot 1 - Wide Shot (Low) - Car drives past camera.
Shot 2 - Wide Shot (Mid) - Inside car when characters are speaking.
Shot 3 - Close-Up - Of radio being turned down.
Shot 4 - Medium Shot - Passenger saying dialogue with other passenger in background.
Shot 5 - Medium Shot - From front view of car, passenger and driver conversing.
Shot 6 - Mid Close-Up - From driver side focusing on one character at a time.
Shot 7 - Close-Up - Sealy Bag dropping into cup.
Shot 8 - Close-Up - Passengers face as they are driving down the road.
Shot 9 - Wide Shot - Car pulling over onto side of the road.
Shot 10 - Close-Up - As passenger wakes up.
Shot 11 - Close-Up - As passenger and driver get "the giggles".
Shot 12 - Close-Up - Panning from passenger to driver for the "voices" scene.
Shot 12 - Close-Up - Panning from passenger to driver for intro of "rave" scene.
Shot 13 - Medium Shot - Front View of car for the "Rave" Scene.
Shot 14 - Medium Shot - Front View of car of both characters for sober scene.
Shot 15 - Mid Close-Up - Of Driver over passengers body with driver in focus.
Shot 16 - Wide Shot - Of car pulling away from pavement.
Shot 17 - Close-Up - Of pill being found on floor.
Shot 18 - Medium Shot - Front View of car of both characters for discussion on pill.
Shot 19 - Medium/ Close-Up - When both character discussing from side view focused on driver.
Shot 20 - Medium Shot - Front View of car of both characters for police lights.