Diary Entry Two

Diary Entry Two

29/03/10

A Nervous Hello

Today is my first day at Suited and Booted and I have to say I am quite nervous. I woke up at 6:30 am in order to catch the 08:06 train from W-S-M to Bristol Temple Meads and change over for the 09:05 to Bath Spa Station where I would arrive there for 9:30 am, which is perfect as I'm expected to start there at 10:00.

After the train journey I officially arrived at the office at 09:45 am. Helen Putler (receptionist) gave me an induction to the company which also involved signing legal papers including child protection acts as 85% of the time I would be working in direct contact with children. 

After completing the induction process I then went out to film with Chris and Sara to Oldfield Park Primary School where were going to interview some of the pupils about their eat healthy menus. 

On this shoot I was operating the Boom Mic. I was nervous for the first half hour as I realized I was doing this for a real commercial project where mistakes would be expensive but after some clear instructions from Chris I got the hang of it and settled down. 

After filming we got back to the studios at 3:00 pm. Chris gave me some time to give me some tips about operating the boom mic and what to look out for and where the sound source is coming from. 

At the end of the day Sara and Chris were pleased with my performance that they let me go home early at 5:30 pm. 

On the train back home I was thinking about the day I had and the tips that Chris had given me. I felt confident about work couldn't wait for the next day to come so I could put what I have learnt properly into practice. 

I finally arrived home at 7:20 pm. 

Diary Entry One

Diary Entry One

28/03/10

Hello Everyone!

Tomorrow I'm going on work experience for four days where I'm working at a production 

company called Suited and Booted based in Bath. 

Before starting work with the company I have done my home work and researched the company of what type of film work they do and who the people are who work there. 

Suited and Booted CIC was founded in 1999 is a highly successful award-winning production company that specialize in making films for the BANES (Bath Avon and North East Somerset) community. 

The Company Directors are Chris Kemp and Sara Strickland who would also be my immediate supervisors whilst I'm working there. 

The film projects that I'll be work on with them is called Health Trainers. The projects consists on creating 4000 DVDS for BANES NHS and Somerset NHS. The film will be mainly focussing on fully trained local people working within the community who'll be offering free, information along with support on how to make positive changes for a much healthier lifestyle. 

The DVD would be used to help provide public information on the Health Trainer Service and also as a resource for the Health Trainer Service recruitment. 

BANES and Somerset NHS has allowed Suited and Booted to use young participates under their trainee scheme, which would enable them to place a trainee/work experience (as myself) to work within the production team. This scheme helps create opportunities for young film makers to gain the experience they need in order to sell themselves in the Media Industry. 

End of Project Evaluation

Hello Everyone!

This is an evaluation of our group project, which has now been completed.

The areas that I will evaluate on would be the group effort, time management, financial costs and the finished project itself.

Group Effort

From our past group project centred on making a radio programme we were each very familiar with working with each other that didn’t cause a problem. We each had to work together again as it wasn’t an option due to lack of students on the course.

Compared to our last project I felt that we each worked better together this time, as we are now more comfortable with interacting with each other.

Our main good quality within the group was that we each identified our own strengths and weaknesses within ourselves, which lead to each of us completing separate tasks in order to make the work load a lot easier.

During completing these tasks we all sent each other regular e-mails to keep ourselves updated with the different stages of the project.

We also helped each other out on location with any technical difficulties that arise like for example one of us didn’t know how to properly set the exposure levels manually on the camera. Instead of criticising the individual we helped out by teaching him the correct way of doing it. This allowed us to create a positive atmosphere within the group that made working on this project enjoyable.

Towards the end of the production we each took turns with the editing sessions to help split the workload so that it would help us get the project completed on time.

Our huge massive constraint within the group was that due lack of numbers it proved to get quite difficult at times especially when filming. We got around this by giving each other the main important jobs that each of us could handle. This unfortunately left the little jobs out that a fourth person could do like holding the reflector. This had sadly made us loose some quality when looking back at some of the filming.

Time Management

During the pre-production phase we as a group had created a production schedule that helped give us all an idea of the amount of time that we had to complete this film. Using this schedule helped us set targets for each of us to complete between certain dates in order for us to meet the projects deadline.


Financial Costs

There were unfortunately no financial costs to the making of this production. We had some money to pay for the costs of petrol for the car to transport us to set locations.

If we did have money we would use it to book out additional equipment like a crane or a dolly that would help improve the movement and the feel when watching the film.

But as there was no budget we couldn’t pay out for these additional things if we wanted to.

The Finished Project

I am happy to say that the finished project has turned out exactly in the way in which we had planned it during the brainstorming sessions.

I am pleased in the way that we had created the mood that we had wanted which was to make it sentimental towards the end of the film in remembrance to those who lost their lives during the war.

We achieved this with the choice of music that we had used along with the use of shots that we included during the montage sequences.

There are certain areas that I am not that happy with and that is the quality of some of the shots that were taken. There were some errors in the settings of the white balance and exposure levels that had occurred. Due to the lack of practise and experience of our skills this did cost us the loss of quality with some shots.

We can each improve on this by taking the camera out and having a go of experimenting with the manual settings and getting more confident with how to properly handle the camera.

WW2 Music

Hello Everyone

Our film edit of our group project about memories of WW2 is progressing very well. We recently have been importing tracks from CD’s that I have traced from a public library containing WW2 songs. We intend to use these songs as background music to help uplift the interviews and montages when watching them.

The CD’s that I had got from the library were:

1) Spirit of Victory (Hits from the 40’s)

2) Songs That Won The War (Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of VE Day)

The songs that we intend to use are:

1) We’ll Meet Again (Vera Lynn)

2) Thanks For The Memory (Bing Crosby)

3) White Cliffs of Dover (Vera Lynn)

4) In The Mood (Glenn Miller & His Orchestra)

5) Saturday Night is the Lonely Night of the Week (Frank Sinatra)

Our massive constraint about using these songs if we would like to show this film to a public gathering is that we would need to ask permission from the publishers of these songs other wise we would be breaking the copyright laws.

The way to go about it asking permission would be to trace down the publishers of the songs by looking through the booklet that comes with the CD and email them permission through a website that specialise in this called the MCPS (PRS).

In this e-mail I would tell them the song that I want to use along with the duration. In their reply they would give me a quote about how much it would all cost to use this particular song.

As we are using this film for strictly educational purposes this matter isn’t a great deal of worry to us. If we were going to show it to an audience then the copyright laws would then come into place.

An alternative way around this to avoid copyright infringement would be to compose our own music. This unfortunately wouldn’t be the same though as wouldn’t work well as background music to the interviews as original songs from WW2.

Voice Overs

Hello Everyone

We all have been working through the final stages of editing our group project about memories of WW2. What we have achieved at the moment is editing the sequences of our 5 chosen interviews. At this early stage we have only edited 2 of the 5 interviews as editing is a slow and painful process with an excellent out come.

We have very recently recorded in our voiceovers were it will be used during our opening and closing montage sequence. Before recording the voiceovers we were unsure of who was going to do it. We decided by having an audition between ourselves into the microphone to see who would be best suited for this role.

During this audition we decided that Dan would be suitable for this part as he was the most confident with talking into a microphone.

We recorded the voiceovers onto the hard drive of the computer by plugging the microphone into the M-Box. We then recorded the voiceovers into a software called Sound Track Pro were we then exported the data and imported back into Final Cut Pro where our film edit is saved. We then transferred the data over onto the video drive so that the computers hard drive won’t get clogged up with too many files.

Recording these voiceovers was essential at this stage as it helped give us guidance of how the film would finally look.

Edit Day!

Hello Everyone!


Today we began editing our Memories of WW2 documentary as our deadline is not that far away.

The primary role that I had played for today was film editor.

We began the editing session by tranfering data over from our DV Tapes of all the footage that we have filmed in the recent weeks. The software that we were transferring over to was Final Cut Pro. Final Cut Pro is a professional non linear editing sofware software which is used through out the media industry.

After transferring all the data over Dean and I watched some of the interview footage to see whether which one is suitable enough to use for editing. Before hand we decided that we would use two interviews from each location that we filmed at. Although we only had a chance to film at two proper locations including a third one which was Dean's nans house would then make it five interviews to feature in the documentary.

Unfortunatley Dan couldn't make today so Dean and I managed to split the work load between us by taking it inturns to edit. We both agreed to edit for a hour and a half each.

I began editing the interviews first. The first interview that I had edited was Deans nan.

Our next target for the next editing session is to record Dan's voice overs.

My Role as Film Editor

I was not afraid of editing as I am very familiar with operating Final Cut Pro, which allowed me to produce work to an acceptable standard. I was able to use the software without getting into any technical difficulties.

R.A.F. Flowerdown House

Hello Everyone!

Recently we filmed some more interviews with WW2 Veterans and Civilians at the R.A.F. Flowerdown House for our group project. We began filming at the location at 2:00pm as it was the most confinient time for them.

Compared to our first attempt at filming the interviews at the Somerset Legion House the second attempt I felt was alot more successful. It was successful becuase we were alot more confident with our overall approach to the contributers and we knew what sort of answers that they were going to give.

The total of interviews that we had filmed in this session was four as they were the only ones who were the most happiest to participate. Out of these four we found that only two of them were the best interviews to use for the film, as the other two unfortunatley were either too ill or suffering from memory loss.

After the doing the interviews we then gained permission to film some cutaway shots around the guest house as it has lots of artifacts, photos and memorabilia of the R.A.F. which we all found very interesting.

After filming the cuttaway shots it was now 6:30pm which by then we decided to wrap up for the day as we have filmed enough for what we needed.

The next stage for us all now is to begin the editing sequence where we would all go through all the footage that we have filmed and work as a group to help create the final cut.