Filming last pieces of footage

Over the past few days I have filmed my last pieces for my promotional video.

This has involved filming students holding up pieces of card, each writing what they love about the course. I think it make it more interesting than just panning shots of different views. It gives the student’s a voice, involving them in the promotional video.

I also filmed a student interviewing in the college, showing different aspects of the course. It shows the use of technology on the course, and how much practical we do, instead of just theory.

I may need to film a few more shots to finish off my video, which I will do on the Sunday if need be.

Creative advertising

I really want to make my video creative and eye catching. So I’ve had a look at some different creative adverts.

This one caught my eye because of the wide range of methods they use within the video. They use stop motion, animation, standard filming and many other effects that makes it fun and quirky.

I will explore the use of stop motion, and see how it fits in with my promotional video.

Self-initiated tutorial

During this morning’s lecture I had a tutorial with John about my progress so far on my promotional video.

I told him how far I was, how much filming that was left to do, and we had a chat about what sort of things I need to do to further my video.

We discussed the structure of my video, which I need to decide on before editing the video. He said that I needed to find to hook the viewer at the beginning of the video so they will keep watching, and choose HSAD over other universities.

He mentioned that I should have a look into different promotional videos that have already been created to get an idea of how I want my own video to look.

I’ve took this on board and will start to look in to these areas. After this chat I have had a few ideas that I would like to try out to make the video stand out, which I will try and then blog about in the future.

I’m really glad we got the chance to discuss my progress, as I wanted to make sure I was on the right track, and wasn’t forgetting anything important. I’m going to meet with Jackie and John possibly next week with all of my footage and paperwork, so they can check my progress and let me know about anything that they feel is important to include in the promotional video.

Filming for promotional video

Over the Easter holidays, whilst filming the fashion week for another assignment, I filmed some shots of Hull City Centre to use in my promotional video. This is because in my survey, the location of university came out as one of the most important factors when deciding on a university.

Although focusing mainly on another assignment over the holidays, I feel like I am progressing well with my self-initiated project. I need to edit my footage together, which I will when my hard drive has been delivered as I don’t have a memory stick big enough to hold all of the footage.

Filming shots of Hull

During the Easter holidays I am going to record some shots of Hull City centre, as location was seen as important in the feedback I got from my surveys.

This will include the shopping centres, different scenic views of Hull, as well as other popular places that are nearby the college and student accommodation.

This is my updated version of my Gantt chart. I’ve added periods when I will be filming, as well as organising interviews and editing footage.

I feel that I am progressing well with my self-initiated project. I’ve filmed a good deal of footage, and when I couldn’t go ahead with my original plans I rearranged to get things done.

Reflection 17/03/15

So far I am feeling confident with my self-initiated project. I am keeping up to date with my progress reports and I have completed some filming which will go towards the promotional video.

I’ve organised some interviews, and have collected some recording equipment ready to record parts of the Journalism Day tomorrow.

I am also helping out with the streaming of the event in the afternoon to increase my video skills. This will give me more experience of how the cameras work, which will therefore help me with my promotional video, as well as other assignments this semester.

I am also going to hand out some surveys to students at the journalism day to gain more feedback from different demographics and target markets.

Progress on self-initiated

Today I managed to spend the morning’s session and some of the afternoon working on my assignment.

This morning I have produced both my proposal and my brief. These give a view of what I am doing, and include the context of the video.

I have also updated my gantt chart, planning what I am going to do in the future so to keep me organised and making sure I finish by the deadline.

As well as this I created a shot list and an equipment list, so to give me a guide on what I am filming and what I need to be able to film.

Finally I produced a treatment for my promotional video. This gives a feel for what my video will look like, and includes information such as information on voiceovers and interviews.

I feel that I am progressing well with my assignment, and hopefully will be able to stay on track and complete within the deadline at a standard that I am happy with.

Progress 09/03

After missing last week it was great to catch up and discuss how far we had come on our documentary.

We updated Sally on our progress, and then spoke about the shots we would like to shoot, to create a storyboard. During the session we then created a set of storyboards, which we can use as a rough idea of how we would like our documentary to turn out.

As well as this we updated our basecamp, and the Gantt chart that I created to help organise the project.

We will next meet on Thursday to talk about our next steps, including filming and setting up interviews

Meeting with camera stores

Today we had a meeting with Nathan from the camera stores to give us an idea of the equipment we will need to shoot our documentary.

He gave us some great advice, and advised us to use a camera for filming, instead of a video camera. So the camera we will use will be a Canon 60D. This camera is great for filming interviews, as it focuses on the individual and slightly blurs the background to put all focus on the person.

He also told us to use some dado lights for our interviews, to get the right lighting, as well as a tripod so our shots will be steady instead of shaky.

I found this really useful as I am not very knowledgeable in equipment. It will help us both in our group assignment, as well as separately, as I have a few assignments in which I need to use video.