Website - Day 1

Website - Day 1 

I've done a screen cast taking you through my website from home. Please excuse my horrible, boring voice, I had to be quite!

I will continue doing little bits to it, but until the last day of filming, finding things to add will be tricky, as the last day of filming is the most important!! 

Update 19/12/13

Update 19/12/13

Today has been a very busy day for me, because it was deadline day for our drafts. Unfortunately I was not able to get the last bit of filming I needed to get done during the week, so I have had to hand in an unfinished piece, which is something I really do not like doing. The Christmas holidays give me a great chance to catch up however, and I will be caught up when we come back next year. 

Anyway, with the absence of any new film, I cracked on with the start of my ancillary tasks, and have got off to a good start. A basic template has been made for my website, and I am now in the process of filling it all in with the nitty-gritty stuff, which I am enjoying thoroughly right now. I am finding six very easy to use, and I am enjoying using it, and I think the website is coming on relatively well - I think it will be done to a good standard by the end of December. 

I will create a new post at the end of the evening with my process.

Update 12/12/13

Update 12/12/13

Today was mostly focused on editing little bits and bobs, and perfecting the intro split-screen, which is looking a lot better now. I made a list of the things that I didn't like, and things that family didn't like, so that I could edit/replace that today. I think that was successful. I changed one clip completely, due to it being a bit jumpy, I aligned some lip syncing a bit better, and just added a couple of shots of the guys in the car, to fill in some minor gaps. All I have left to do is film the final part, which is the party. I am going to try and round the guys up for a midweek filming session next week, probably tuesday, assuming that works for everyone. This will be the best time to do it, because the sunlight should be very similar to what it was when we filmed the last shots, providing there's no sudden weather change! I don't think it will matter too much though, because the rest of the filming will be inside - providing I avoid the window, I will be fine!

Update 11/12/13

Update 11/12/13

Today I put my new footage from the weekend into my music video, to replace what I previously had there. I am slightly nervous, because as it stands, I don't think it's quite as good. I think it needs quite a lot of work to get up to scratch. However, the car scenes have not turned out too bad, considering it was a slight last minute job, and a lot of re-arranging had to commence!

The new split screen intro is looking quite good, despite the fact that its so hard to maintain and get right. It's hard to explain why, its just perfecting timing and sizing is something that I am finding difficult. I have exported the clip to put on youtube, so I can analyse it at home this evening, to plan what I need to do during tomorrows lesson, so I don't have to continuously watch it.

Update 8/12/13

Update 8/12/13

Yesterday afternoon I had to go out and do some filming, and quite a lot of re-filming. I got the individual shots that I needed to get for the introduction section of the film all done, and hopefully ready to go up. I had to re-film all of the car scenes, due to the unavailability of the original car driver, and to keep up continuity, everything had to be re-done. A new location has been selected, however, it's somewhat worse than the original. I have had to go for my next best option, which is my games room, which is small and in a state; meaning I have some work to do tidying it, before the next filming day!

As far as I'm aware, it all went well yesterday. I am slightly concerned that the low, bright sun may have caused some issues with the car scenes, and might make the footage hard to use. I'm sure with some colour manipulation, this issue could be resolved fairly easily. 

I will be uploading and editing what I got today, starting from Wednesday, and should be ready for the weekend.

Playing With Wix

Wix Practice 

I had a go on wix today, so that I could get used to it as best as possible. I think the website itself is good, and its fairly easy to use, but its really, really slow and laggy, which at times, can get very aggravating. In the end, I have came up with a sample first page. Its really rubbish, but obviously I don't have some of the material necessary to make it! At least now, I am familiar with it, and would feel confident using it for the real thing. Below are some snapshots of the first and only page that I did ... 

Refilming

This Weekend's Refilming

My Plans For Ancillary Tasks

My Ancillary Tasks

I have probably mentioned it at some point throughout the blog, but I thought it necessary to completely clarify it, and make it clear what I actually intend to do. I have decided that I will be doing a website and a digi pack for the ancillary; I feel that these two are the easiest to link together and I think give me the greatest chance of achieving the highest marks I could possibly achieve. 

From research, I have realised the importance of linking the two products to each other. Things like the same colours and fonts etc is a really easy, yet effective way of making the two products almost like one. It also makes it come across as a more professional piece of work, rather than what I would call a 'Mish-Mash'. 

The only difference I intend on is that the digi pack will look into the party side of the video, whereas the website will be more based on the softer side of the video. I will be doing this because I feel that the digi pack is something that the consumer wants to look at, more than read. I think a cd's digi packs selling point can be if it's cool or not, especially within this genre, and I feel the party scenes can bring this out of the digi pack. The website, however, is something that users will use to acquire information, and the party pictures will be a lot more ecstatic, and could make the website horrible to look at, especially when users are trying to read any text that will be included. The website does have to be interesting to look at as well though, so I think I will have some pictures on every page, and then have a dedicated 'gallery' page, where lots of different pictures will be available, ones that I have taken throughout the filming process. The fonts on the website will be identical to that of the digi pack, but the colour of the website will be a much softer colour, that still has links to the digi pack. (I will be doing some research on the idea of pictures being more appealing on a digi pack)

Next lesson, I will be looking into wix and disc wizard (the two softwares I will use to produce the products) and learn how to use them, as the class did last week with PhotoShop. That lesson was really informative and I learnt a lot of different methods. The problem is that this was teacher led; I will be trying to teach myself, so youtube may be a useful tool tomorrow! I really hope the two intertwine - and have similar features, so that making the fonts match up etc is easy, otherwise I might find it difficult to do so. 

Update 5/12/13

Update 5/12/13

Its been a while since I've done an update, and in this time, I have actually made quite a lot of progress, albeit several minor improvements in quite a few places. The most dramatic decision I've made is to split screen the intro. This means that I will need to gather more footage for this section, because instead of one 4 second shot, I will need four 4 second shots in the longest example. This means that I will have to take extra care in my continuity, making sure the costumes are exactly as they were in the previous shots that I did, and am keeping. The picture below shows what the current state is. There will be two other shots in the two corner gaps of the other group members from the latter shots. There are 5 lads, so to make the split screen work, two of the guys will have to be in the same shot; which is totally do-able.

Split screen

With the fact that the house I was doing the party scenes in, and had begun shooting in has sold completely now, and is no longer owned by me, I still need to find a location to shoot the party, and I have no idea where to do this! I may have to do it in my games room at my house, which would require a lot of work, as it is disused during this period of the year. I will also be missing out on some cool features that the other house had, such as blue plinth lights, which would have made the 'party' seem more 'party like!'  

I was going to look at doing some ancillary task work, but I feel that without having at least all the shots done, I can't really start the proper tasks. I just feel that the party scenes may offer a lot to me, and will make things fall into place. I think the ancillary tasks probably should be based around the party, or at least the digi pack should in some manner!