Thursday, 5 February 2015

Production management project - Prodcution Blog and DVD authoring Blog

Pre Production

5/2/2015 - Is the first day of the project and I have got my idea about a football club and its history. Now I have to prepare my pitch and my proposal and I will make my idea an idea no one can say no to this whole project depends on the idea that the football club says yes and gives my permission to use the club in this video. I am confident that if I get a meeting then I would be able to get the go ahead and I have confidence that I can get a team together to make a documentary worthy of this club.

10/2/2015 - I have had a few more ideas and decided that doing a short film isn't what i want to do because its not what ill be doing at university but its still on the table because i keep having ideas. Another factual film seems definitely on the cards as I have three ideas for that and they will need developing before the end of the week.

12/2/2015 - I have made a set decision on what idea to do and I've been spending the morning researching the idea and gathering contact details for all involved. My new idea is about bands who are up and coming in the music industry and i will follow a band called 'John and the Rag-men' when they perform at 'Stockton Calling' a festival for local bands.  I Will also interview several other people such as the event organisers and the venues owners and a local critic.

17/2/2015 - I've spoken to the event organiser and i hope to get permission to film the festival later this week. I have also shown my near complete pitch to the band and they have said that it looks like a promising idea and i hope that i can get my proposal done by the end of the week ready for when i go back and run the pitch past a few other people too.

21/02/2015 - I've been working on my pitch and my proposal trying to make my idea as presentable as possible which hasn't been too hard since i know what I'm aiming for and i know my idea inside out and i want this idea to happen so the passion to sell it will always be there. I've told the band who ill be working with the further developments on my idea and they feel that its developing well but they are not the people that i must convince.

25/02/2015 - Today i have been finalising my pitch and my proposal to get ready for the pitch tomorrow. At this point everything is in check and there aren't any spelling mistakes and nothings in there that isn't supposed to be. I have rehearsed my pitch and read through my proposal and all is looking good. I will be continuing research into my topic as I almost fell down last time because of my lack of research but i am feeling confident.

03/03/2015 - Over the past few days i have been thinking of possible interviews and different locations to film. Communication between me and my contact that the festival has broken down and I'm trying to reestablish contact between me and them. I have given some thought to possible locations and i would like to speak to some other venues in the local area. This topic is proving harder than my other because I'm relying on another company to help me out i have to move fast now or I risk losing the idea.

05/03/2015 - today i have been gathering information on different people and groups I can speak to about interviews and its looking like a good list. I have also set up a Face book page for my production 'Breaking through: Making it in the music indsutry' which will help to raise the profile of my production for myself. I have also made a schedule what i aim to achieve over this production and i aim to start as soon as possible.


09/03/2015 - I have spoken to several people today including one event organiser and the secretary of the other organiser. I have also got the first of many interviews set in stone now with one of the event organisers and the other organiser will be getting back to me tomorrow because he is currently on his way to Manchester to meet Noel Gallagher, Its clear to me at this point that I need this guy because hes even bigger than I first thought. I'm really excited now and I feel really up for this production. The future is looking really bright of me at this stage.

12/03/2015 - I have been trying to tie down another interview with the other organiser and i have also talked to the band that i will be interviewing and they have said that they are willing to do a rehearsal before the event.
 
19/03/2015 - Today I have arranged yet more interviews and I have made my voice overs as I prepare to start filming next week. We may be starting on Monday or Tuesday depending if I can get an interview arranged next week but it all hangs in the balance until I’m certain.

Production

24/03/2015 - Today we started filming which turned out to be much more eventful that first anticipated. It all started once we had the equipment and on the walk to the interview it started raining setting the day off to a bad start. Once we made it out of the rain and to the interview i was then told that one of two of my interviewees hadn't turned up due to business issues that couldn't be helped. Since there was a valid reason for his absence i took it on the chin and moved on. Then while setting up we found that the camera appeared to be unwilling to accept my tapes but it was just that the tapes were at the end and needed rewinding. Today has been a real Jekyll and Hyde day but it has all worked out in the end i have good footage and to me the day was a success.



26/3/2015 - Today I interviewed John Harrison which didn't turn out all the best because I hadn't made sure I had all avenues covered and problems came form every corner. To start the day since he didn't know where the college was I had to go and get him but first I had to set up the green room so it looked somewhat professional. Then when he arrived i couldn't find my questions and the room was hot so i was desperately looking for my questions in a hot and stuffy room. After 5 minutes of looking i decided I couldn't find them and i would have to get them off my email so that's what i did. Once the interview had begun it was plain sailing and we got the job done in a swift and easy manner. We packed up the room and left with the equipment we would need for the filming of the festival on the next Saturday.



4/4/2015 - This was the day of the filming and i was taking no chances i brought 3 tapes for an in case of emergency situation, 3 batteries and a crew of top professionals. The first problem we encountered was one of the tapes which wasn't working int the camera for some reason which made me more nervous than i already was but then we fixed it by simply putting in another tape. I had foiled the cameras evil plan to ruin my film and that was a win for me. After we had got some footage around the town centre we went to the gig we had been invited to at the Georgian Theatre in Stockton and we simply got out the camera and the day played out nicely form there on in really.



8/4/2015 - Today was the final day of filming at ARC in Stockton with Chris the vent organiser and this would be me finished if nothing goes wrong with capturing then we would be home and dry. Chris was 10 minutes late for which i could have killed him for but he was there and that was all that mattered. We got underway with the interview and the filming was done after just 10 minutes so i got a few cutaways and a bit of footage of me asking the questions to Chris. It's all down to the edit now though so we are crossing everything.


Post Producion

13/4/2015 - Today every was captured and everything was fine with the footage but there was a problem with the story. Originally the documentary was about rising music talent but now it was about Stockton calling and the festival itself. No matter though i will re script and come up with a new plan.

16/4/2015 - I have a new plan finally after long deliberation i have a new film for my self to do and focus on. The new film would need new script and new voice overs along with a whole new story line and this means working out what footage i have and working our what i can get from this footage.

23/4/2015 - Today after 2 weeks of waiting I got my voice overs done and this is great news because this means that i can go from having a film on the edge of being finished to the film actually being finished. The voice over were done in about 15 minutes which is good going for me and the film is now scheduled to be done by the 30th May to give me time to get feedback and make any changes if necessary

27/4/2015 - FILM FINISHED. The film is finally complete and even before most people have even started filming now to get any other projects done and to focus on the DVD menu, label and cover which shouldn't be too difficult with the finished film and then once that's done I'm done.



6/5/2015 - I have a modest but professional looking DVD cover done and i am happy with it isn't not that most gripping but it has a tag line and a film description along with a eye catching front cover its simple but it does the job.

7/5/2015 - I have exported the film in all the different ways that i need to export it on Premiere pro, it has been exported into AVI, Quick time and the Mpeg DVD 2 format that we will need for DVD authoring some time in the future. Now I'm going to post the film onto social media on my Twitter, Face book and You tube account along with a survey to gather any audience feedback that may come from the film.

12/5/2015 - I have made a few changes to my film for example I have put in a few more stabilisers on the film to make the footage we got which was handheld look nicer. I have also finished the DVD menu, cover and label for the disc itself although I still have yet to add some animation to my DVD menu which will be added at a later date.

Team Reviews

Sam - Sam performed excellently as I expected of her. I picked Sam because she is great at camera and her reliability is exceptional at arriving on time and at the right location. Sam's keen eye was something i picked up on when i made my first documentary and her talent has shone through on the second attempt. Sam is a great person to have on set and she used her abilities to make myself another great factual film.

Liam - Liam was a very helpful person during his time working on my film. I picked Liam because he's competent and he has the ability to really offer something to a production. Liam performed the role of sound operator and performed it to a high standard he made sure everything worked and that if anything broke he was there to fix the problem. Overall Liam was a useful tool in my production and his work was greatly appreciated.


Problem solving
On the first day of filming with Chris in Stockton there was a problem with the tapes and the camera. A message appeared on the screen saying the tape slot in the camera needed to be cleaned. We had this problem for several minutes but when we tried a new tape the problem went away and we continued as normal.

The second problem was on the day of Stockton calling and I had seceded to take the fig-rig to get some steady shots of the event and so the handheld shots would look better. The problem that arose from this situation was that the plate for the fig-rig hadn’t been put in the bag. The solution to this problem was we just went handheld and I fixed the problem at the editing stage.

The third problem was on the same day with the same problem as before with the tape and the camera scenario and this was fixed in the same way the fact that I had brought 3 tapes with me on both days really saved me.

Working on other peoples productions


Tak – The work I done on Taks PMP was fairly easy work. The first time we just went to the gazette offices in Middlesbrough to interview on of the editors at the offices and his interview went well but there were no serious problems. The second day was getting vox pops from around the college which I was happy to do and they were good and fast interviews which were well carried out.
Overall Review
I would say for an overall review of the project that the whole production was that the production went well in all departments.

Starting from the pre-production stage of the project I started by coming up with a few ideas using the gazette online Face book page and I came across a few different stories and in the end I settled on two for final pitches. The first was to do a documentary on the 20th anniversary of Middlesbrough football club moving to their new home on the banks of the river tees. The second idea was to do about raising stars of the musical scene in the local area which was a product of the local music festival Stockton Calling of which the story would be about. I also had a few other ideas for music videos and short films that I would pitch if my documentary ideas weren’t accepted.

I then decided I was going to do the documentary on Stockton Calling and this meant that now I had my idea I could now begin getting research and deciding what I would put in the documentary along with the style. I also had to decide what crew I would need to help me on the project.
By the production stage I had all my interviews planned out and I had made arrangements for my team too. My whole production was planned out to start and finish before everyone else had started their productions and this was a good thing from my point of view because then if there were any mistakes I could come back and re-film. My first interview was with Chris Cobain an event organiser and I took place on a rainy day and this meant we weren’t all in the happiest mood when we got there. The interview through up a few problems but in all went well.

The majority of filming went well and there were no problems with the equipment while we were out filming and this means that we were able to move at a steady pace through the film and got it done in good time. After filming at Stockton calling I arranged an interview with Chris for the last time and although Sam couldn’t make the interview I and Liam got it done easily.

When it came to the post production there was no problem capturing footage and I got the edit done in good time along with dealing with any problems that came my way. It took me a while to get my voice overs sorted but once they were done my film was complete and I released it for 3 days to get some audience feedback and then removed the film. The film is due to be re-released in early June with all finishing touches made by then.
In a full round up of how I think my film went I would say it was a good, quick and clear production that has led to a very good production and an excellent final project.

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