Clients and Credits

This is the logo for the Junction. We inverted this logo so the text was white to put in the corner of our video. This had to get at the end of the video to emphasise that it was the Junction that had produced the promo and the event had been held there.





This ugly little thing is the logo for the Creative and Media course. This was put at the end mostly because we made the promo and it wouldn't be fair if we didn't get credited for it. It is also to show the partnership between the Junction and Long Road. Also, probably partly just to advertise the course.











Skillset is the industry body which supports skills and training for people and businesses to ensure the UK creative media industries maintain their world class position.




I don't know why CRC were credited, but we were told to put it on, so we did.








LOtC were crredited because they believe that every young person should experience the world beyond the classroom as an essential part of learning and personal development, whatever their age, ability or circumstances. I guess they helped out in some way.






Long Road was credited to show the connection between the Junction and Long Road. It also shows potential students the kind of work they can expect to be doing on our course at Long Road, instead of sitting in classrooms doing maths and stuff.







The Arts Council are the Junctions primary funders, and it is because of these guys the Junction have the choice to rent out room to the community.







We were asked to put a load of logo's at the end of our video to show exactly who the project was for and who helped or whatever.

Simon Feedback on Changes

We showed simon a version of our video after we had started to edit it. It wasn't complete, but it gace a good feel of what we were aiming for with our video. I guess unfortunately, Simon really liked our original video and didn't tell us to change much, so there was a big chance that he would prefer our original video. Luckily, he seemed to like the changes we made, too so we seem to be doing pretty good by his book.

He said he liked that our group had tried to stick to the brief, but any feedback he had was very basic, which was good because it allowed us to keep working how we wanted to do it, knowing that he liked what we had made. He also said we should pay attention to the Bournemouth students for any technical advice about the video.

I think this was fair feedback, if again not greatly useful. He didn't really tell us any ways we could improve, but i suppose that's a good thing as it means he's happy with it. I'm glad he said we should listen to the advice from the Bournemouth students for technical things, because he said himself he doesn't really know how it all works, he just knows what he wants it to show. It would have been good for him to say he wanted more shots like this or that, but without watching every bit of footage it would be hard for him to do that.

O2 Priority Pass Analysis

Right from the start of the advert, you can tell this advert is taking a view of the O2 experience from a completely different view to the other one. The first one started with a really light shot showing people being happy, this one starts with a much darker feel, the only light being that from floodlights mounted the the walls.




The next shot shows the mad rush of people running to the front of the stage to be as close as possible to whoever is on stage. This is a feeling everyone who goes to gigs will know. This advert is clearly targeting an audience of people that go to gigs regularly and is saying how much better the experience is here.



This shows the crowd going nuts, as the band or event has either just started or is just about to. Despite the trailer being in slow motion, there is significantly more energy to this trailer than the other one. This is to keep people interested as it is aimed at teenagers who typically don't have a great attention span.




I like this as an end shot, partly because i just love shots of crowds. If you are going to do a video with an audience, you need to show the crowd going nuts and enjoying themselves or people will think the venue is awful.

O2 Priority Pass

This video is much different to the other O2 one, this one is much more intense and crazy, despite all being in slow motion. It gives much more of a feel of being at the venue than the other one, which was clearly focusing more on the events that could be taking place rather than the experience of actually being at one of them

Analysis of O2 video

The first shot of the trailer shows some people walking into the arena smiling, having a great time. You see them walking past as Bill Bailey walks past on some massive stilts. This shot shows a nice, relaxed atmosphere in the venue which is nothing like how it actually is.



The camera then pans moves around backstage showing many numbers of events that are held at the O2 arena. This shot i liked because it shows the sheer difference in events. There's something about horses, and what i assume to be wrestling? Slightly before this shot you are also shown a band rehearsing in a corner before they go on stage.



This shot could either be another event group rehearsing for whatever the hell you need a group of angels for, or alternatively it's more of a stairway to heaven kinda thing. It shows you going up a stairway surrounded by angels, and in many cultures this is suggestive of heaven. The advert could be suggested going to a show there is so great it's almost as good as actually being in heaven.

O2 Promotional Video

I like this promotional video for O2 because it is interesting. It is all one long fluid camera movement with everything falling into place as the camera moves around backstage. The use of celebrities and events on the walk from the entrance to the seat, i assume the camera is meant to represent someone in the audience, in reality the O2 arena is nothing like that, but the use of celebrities keeps the viewer interested as it not only shows the type of people and events that feature at the O2 arena, it also makes it feel more intimate by walking around backstage and the celebrities just going about doing whatever.

The advert is quite relaxed, which makes the venue appear nicer to the viewer. They do this by using a single long shot with lots of motion, showing that everything at the O2 works nicely and in conjunction with everything else. If they had tried to edit this advert using lots of quick cuts and intense music, it would have given a totally different feel to the venue and advert.

Feedback from Bournemouth

Before we went to Bournemouth, our videos were shown to a group of MA students who would give us feedback when we went there. We had a crazy Scottish guy. He was nice. Here is his feedback:

At the opening, you can hear the crowd over the music without ever being shown a crowd. Why? Drop the audio of the crowd.

At 7 seconds, the shot cuts before you are shown the bands on the door. Why did you do this? Is the shot too long?

The crowd footage at the beginning is far too dark, almost silhouetted. Do you have anything better? - Try showing and empty room, fade out. Fade in to a room filling up, fade out. Fade in to a room full of people.

15 - 26 seconds, like cutting to the beat, does it need to cut to black? Slows down the pace and excitement, still cut to beat, but w/o black.

After showing the singer walking offstage, you don't need to cut back to him onstage. Keep cutting to backstage area.

When first singer comes off the stage, you don't need the bit about the heat. Just cut to the audio of him saying "Quality. One of the best nights i've ever had"

You also don't need the shot of the bassist - who cares, and he doesn't say anything great.

Get rid of boiling point. Might not be nice but it's a cut throat world. MURDER YOUR BABIES!

Guitar shot at 1m 41 is far too long with nothing happening. Work in frames, not seconds. Nothing should lag or become static.

Last section is far too slow. Promos should always be fast because you want the audience to feel something towards it. The shots chosen are all wrong.

The whole thing lacks structure. Why start with the bands coming offstage?

£2 per ticket text isn't held long enough.

Some shots are far too long. People should be having fits at the end of it.

I think this feedback is fair, it's nowhere near as bad as it could have been, and was all very constructive. I agree with basically everything he said, but we are not entirely removing Boiling Point as including them was one of the things Simon liked about the video as it included a whole new audience showing the younger band. Some of the things he suggested we do we can't as he was using Final Cut Pro and we use Express, but most of it was fine.

Action Plans

So we got our feedback from Bournemouth and while we agree with most of the things that was said there are one or two small things that we aren't going to do.

The main areas to change are the music, keeping it all on one song instead of swapping between them, as we are advertising the events, not necessarily the bands and some of them were just awful. We weren't going to do this as it seemed unfair to only use one bands music, but i think it will work out better.

We are going to move the interviews to nearer the end, as starting with the bands walking off stage doesn't work. We are also going to cut the interviews shorter. For example we are going to cut anyone who comes off and says it was 'alright', and the guy from After 4 who says "Hot! Real f***ing hot!" as that doesn't really advertise the venue.

We are going to speed up the cuts at the end, as that is when it should be building up more so it can sort of go duu-duu-duu-du-du-dududududadada-BANG as the footage cuts quicker and quicker and it would really build up the tension.

We also need to get the logos and put them on the end of the video

Rough Cut 2

After the feedback given to us from the MA students at Bournemouth, we decided to make several changes to our video. The main changes we've made is to keep the starting song going throughout the whole video instead of swapping between bands when they come onscreen. We figured as it is an entire song and is quite punchy and easy to edit around we would just use that. The advantage with a promo is that we don't need everything to sync up properly, we just need it to keep your attention and give the information we need it to.

We also edited the start, so the footage didn't cut to black. Even though it was only for a split second, it apparently slowed the feel of the footage down so we removed it so it seemed faster. The other major change was putting the interviews towards the end instead of at the beginning. This was because it didn't make much sense showing the bands on stage, then showing them walking off stage, then showing them back on stage. We agreed with the bournemough guy that it would look better having them walking off and talking about it towards the end of the video so it looked more like an ending. This would also give our video some structure.

Video Promo Comparison

I decided i would compare our promotional video with other ones. The one i have used in this comparison is advertising the media school at Bournemouth University. I know they are advertising very different things, but i noticed a few thing about each trailer that interested me. They are both created to advertise, so they should have a reasonable comparison.


I was very interested when i saw this image, because it shows one of the students using a sound desk. This shot is almost identical to one we used in our promotional video. This works because it shows that Bournemouth University has professional level equipment to be working with, and the Junction uses it too.





This shot of some guy from UKTV is good, because it shows him in his normal working environment surrounded by monitors and junk. This is similar to the shots we used in our video showing the bands coming off the stage when we talked to them.

This shot shows the editing suite for the TV studio. This is a good shot because it shows the equipment the students are given. This would make the viewer interested because it shows they will be working with top level equipment instead f what many of them have used previously.








Both these promotional videos target their audience very well and i believe show exactly what needs to be shown to hit the purpose of said video. They both use very different styles but they are both well made and show the necessary bits of footage to get the audience interested and wanting to know more about the product being advertised.

Simon's feedback from rough cut

Fiver Matt/Tara/Tim
Live footage of The Fiver Very good, great intro, like the build up of band/tech/crowds
What the requirements are for getting in Doesn't make clear that you need some footage or experience first
What you get if your band is accepted Clearly sets out both financial offer and opportunities to work with pro sound and lighting people
How to apply Provides info
It must look contemporary Looks modern
Fast Retains excitement
Appealing to the 14 – 17 age group Good interview with younger band
Supply all the relevant information Yes
General comments If young band could be brightened up that would be good.
Really clear, good pace, like (love!) the intro
Sticks clearly to brief, well done

General Feedback
Don't use the junction/fiver.myspace address, it is no longer live!
All promos need to use our logo and NOT stetch it in any way.
Please use Helvetica as the font with no additional formating (ie bold, shadow etc)
The following logos MUST appear in the promo: The Junctions, The Arts Council, CRaM, Long Road, CRC, Parkside Federation, QB Learning Outside the Classroom, Skillset
All promos should include some advice on getting noticed, for example 'good photos' of them gigging, consider testomonials, 'action' photos

I think this feedback is alright, because it says what he does and doesn't like about our video. Unfortunately, he didn't really tell us to make any massive changes and appears to quite like it how it is. This is good because it means we have made a product that he is happy with, but it also means he hasn't given us anywhere he particularly wants us to improve. We are going to have to rely on the feedback from the Bournemouth people to give us areas to improve.

Useful Shots

In Monday's lesson we looked through the assorted footage for anything that stood out particularly or we thought would look really good in the video. I think this was a good idea, because it meant when we got round to editing we already had a good idea of what shots we could use in the video. Tara decided to make a note of the shots on her phone, some of them with comments next to them like "Good response" or "great crowd footage". The shots she noted down were: C47, C75, C83, C1, C15, C21, C23, C25, C28, C3, C38, C40, C43, C44, C62, C63, C64, C66, C69, C70, C67, C72, C73, C74, 83, C9, C49, D10, D18, A1, A10, A90, A9, A21, A24, A25, A3, A34, A38, A48, A49, A50, A51, A56, A58, A66, A73, A74, A75, A84, B71, B76, B23,
B51, B83, B75, B48, B19, B67, B70, B64, B72, B56, 45, B62, B84, B47, B57, B38, B52, B34, B86.

Feedback

Today we were told to give feedback to each other about our videos. The people making documentaries were meant to give the promo group feedback, and vice versa. This is the feedback we received from Philippa. I agree with most of it, and alongside the feedback we will get back from Bournemouth will help us create a good video.






Philippa's feedback is simply:

-Beginning cuts really good, quick cuts are really effective.

- Too much footage, not enough text or voice over - needed more text or a voiceover to make it interesting.

-Too many slow cuts towards the end - needs consistent cutting throughout.

I think this is fair enough, at the beginning we were trying to cut fast and to the music, but that took a long time, and we couldn't keep it up for the whole video. When we started to put interviews in and play the footage before them, we realised that we would have to slow down the cuts or nothing would make any sense, so it gradually slows down towards the end.

When we go to Bournemouth, we will be able to edit it a bit more and work with the feedback we have been given to create something good. I think we might have to just speed some bits up and add some more general information about getting in touch and stuff. One of the bands names doesn't come up, and some of the information needs to hold for a bit longer. When we have feedback from our teacher, and some students at University level, we should be able to create something very good.

Rough Cut

Junction Fiver Promotional Video Rough Cut - Matt, Tara & Tim from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

This is the rough cut of our promotional video for the fiver. We want to lighten a few bits of it, and some of the information needs to stay up for longer, but i think it is quite good for a rough cut.

When we were creating this, it was very hard to keep on track making a promo and not end up creating a music video. This was basically because to keep music going through the whole thing was the only way we could see it staying interesting, however it was much easier to edit footage around a single song and make a music video than to try and create a video promoting the fiver in general. To get around this, we found some footage the included a whole song, and used that for the beginning of the video and used the footage to show the atmosphere of the fiver. It was also good to show the band when the singing started so people knew who it was and what was going on.

We then cut to the beat of the song showing all the other bands performing quickly so it showed the different bands. We also found interviews with most of the bands when they were coming off stage, so we could get their instant responses. However we decided it would be better to show a short clip of them performing before the interview so people would understand who each band was instead of it just looking like we were talking to random people. We couldn't find interviews with all the bands, and Tara didn't want to use the footage of Boiling Point because she thought they were truly awful. I thought, however, it was good to show that much younger bands could go up and play, because the others all looked much older. I though showing the younger band playing and their response might attract a much larger audience of people who would otherwise think playing a gig that size was out of their reach.

I like this shot, because it shows the band, it shows a nice big crowd, and it shows the professional lighting that the Junction offers. If a band was looking to find somewhere to play, i think this type of shot shows them that the Junction is exactly what they need.

This is a shot of one of the bands during an interview. You can clearly see the name of the band, so you know who they are. Previously in the video, you are shown a clip of their music, so you can decide what kind of music they are and find them online. We kept the same font throughout the video, and used it for basically anything text based as it was as close as we could find the the logo used in the top corner.

I like this shot for much of the same reason i like the first, but it also has the text informing you about the professional lighting technicians. on the previous shot, you are shown a guy with the sound desk, and it says about the sound, which is why this starts with "and lighting". I like this shot because it is lit quite well, so you can see everything that is going on, which is rare at gigs as they are usually pretty dark. This shows the competence of their staff, thus proving the statement about them lighting staff being good true.


I like this shot because it's a bit different, it is focusing on the technical side of the experience of playing the Junction instead of the live footage. It is again about the lighting, but it shows you the type of lights, so you know they look professional and not some cheap-ass lights used by normal people.

Interaction

Here is the screengrabs we took while editing our rough cut for the junction fiver promo video. Here is my personal reflection on how we did.

During editing our rough cut of our junction promo video, we took a few screen grabs for visual evidence and to show the process we went through. We decided instead of just putting the Junction logo at the beginning and end of the video, we should keep the logo on throughout the whole video so people are constantly reminded it is the Junction's video. Similar things are done on channels such as E4, where they have a small logo in the corner of the screen. We created it in photoshop, using a logo we took from the Junctions website.

We read through the booklet we were given, and created a Pages document containing all the information we needed to put in the video. We wanted to have this information available through a video interview, but we didn't have the footage. We decided to put the different information on screen near relevant footage, such as putting "Play to over 600 people" over some crowd footage.

This is our video rendering. You can see the different cuts of video and sound that we have used to create the video

Here yet again is a picture showing our process of Final Cut process, showing the text we used and the video and sound we were editing.

I think we did quite well to create a rough cut in the 9 hours we were given. When we first got the footage, we decided to look through it all and find good pieces of footage to use before we started to edit, which i think worked quite well. I think when we go to Bournemouth and get the feedback from them, we can quite quite a good video that hopefully meets Simon's aims..

Budgeting

Here is what the budget Simon was given has been spent on to produce this project:

£1000 - Coach Hire
£400 -Food
£500 - Student Mentors
£260 - Samba Tuition
£400 - Overnight Accommodation

Total - £2590

Given that we didn't stay overnight in Bournemouth, we can scrap £400 from the budget.
We also only paid £675 for the coach instead of £1000, so another £325 can be taken.

I make our total £1925 or something