Technical Skills - Lighting, Camera & Sound

 Technical Skills - Lighting, Camera & Sound

Lighting

For the lighting task, we had quite a simple objective; take some photos using several different lighting set-ups in order to compare and contrast the advantages and disadvantages between the different set-ups. We were given 2 DSLR cameras, a tri-pod, three LED lights with stands and several colour gels to allow us to colour the lights within the images. With this equipment, we had to attempt to capture the following on camera:

• High-Key Setup
• This required us to use 3 different lights at the same time in an attempt to remove all of the shadow from the subject, making them lit from every single angle. In terms of our success with this set-up, it took us a while to figure out how to position the lights to remove as much shadow as possible, although we eventually got it and were able to achieve some very nicely lit images.
• Low-Key Setup
• This required us to use only one light (although we used two so that the shadows wouldn't be ridiculously stark) and to position the light on a single side of the subject's face, giving the subject some lovely lighting with one half of the face lit and one half in darkness (quite like the scene in Casa Blanca). We had some positive success with this attempt, as we were able to achieve the half lit/half dark face that was being aimed for.
• Cookaloris
• One of the things we had to try and use during our lighting experiments was the use of a Cookaloris, known as a 'Cookie' for short. In simple terms, our 'cookies' required us to take an object such as cardboard cut into the shape of some bars and place it infront of a light to create an interesting shadow on the face of a subject. However, we didn't have much success with this task due to the 'Cookies' not casting stark enough shadows.
• Colour Gels
• Finally, we had to use some colour gels in order to give our shots some interesting lighting. Needless to say, this went very well and we were able to achieve some lovely shots with interesting colour combinations from different angles.

Video

For the video task, we had to record some footage using two different camera set-ups; single-camera and multi-camera. For this task, we were given 3 DSLR cameras, 3 tri-pods, a slider, a shoulder brace and some police officer uniforms along with a script to actually record. With this equipment and these tasks, this is how we did:

• Multi-Camera
• The multi-camera was the first thing we had to shoot, and I'd say that it went well personally. We set up three different cameras and had them recording at the same time, so that the continuity within our shots was completely exact with no concerns. Of course, if we had been lighting the scene, we would have had to consider our angles with that lighting, but this wasn't a concern for us. We were able to get three interesting angles of the scene with relative success.
• Single-Camera
• As for the single camera style of filming, we had similar success (although I'd argue less than multi-camera). We recorded from similar angles as we did with the multi-camera shoot, although we recorded the scene over and over to get further coverage from each angle. This meant we had to remember how we shot each scene to ensure our continuity was in-tact - something we were able to succeed at due to memory of how we had been holding objects/moving.

Audio

Finally, for the audio task, we were given a multitude of varying equipment that we had to attempt to make sense of. We were given a single DSLR camera, a boom mic stand, a shotgun mic, two TASCAMs of different type (one handheld and one that could be attached to the camera), a power pack and some scripts to record audio from. With this equipment, we had to record the same piece of dialogue using three different set-ups:

• Camera Audio
• The first set-up we had to try was recording the audio for the dialogue with our camera alone, without any supplementing equipment. Naturally, thanks to the shoddy quality with the microphone in the camera, the audio was windy and even quiet due to what I can assume was the camera's distance from the dialogue.
• TASCAM Audio
• The second set-up we had to attempt was recording the audio directly from the hand-held TASCAM, which was connected to a power pack in order to supply power. While the audio quality for this was slightly better than the camera audio, it was still remarkably quiet due to the distance we held the Tascam from the dialogue readers (an attempt to experiment with keeping it out of frame of the DSLR camera).
• Boom Mic
• The final set-up we had was the closest to a professional set-up; we had to use the shotgun mic attached to the boom mic stand with a dead cat attached, all wired up to the more efficient TASCAM. This boom mic was held over the readers as they read dialogue, although for some reason the audio was still quiet, indicating we could have done better. With that in mind, however, the audio was definitely louder and better quality than the other two attempts, with little to no wind present in the background at all.

Voyage of the Tomb - Script (SECOND DRAFT)

Nature and Purposes of Research (second draft)

Research Portfolio (Second Draft)

Primary Research

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdl5_VdGhW9xTXvkP1P6onaGPSkjn2ct61AzwTXgmD22e14sA/viewform?usp=sf_link

The above questionnaire is a good example of primary research as it was a series of questions intended to gauge responses from a variety of demographics (including my decided target audience) so that I could learn what my audience thinks about not only the genre that I'm making, but also a variety of other genres so that I can consider what to do in the future. Furthermore, I've asked questions about demographics in order to discern what groups they fall into, such as age groups, genders, social groups, etc.

Furthermore, this questionnaire gave me a very wide range of responses from a variety of different demographics, allowing me to gather a good amount of information about many different people and what they were interested in regarding a film alongside what they thought about my film. The demographics that responded ranged from those as young as 11 to those as old as 40, spanning across a variety of genders as well. Thanks to this, I was able to learn a lot about what different demographics thought was good. This information let me figure out what my target demographic (young adult females) were interested in seeing, therefore allowing me to target my film accordingly. This demonstrates why it's a great example of primary research - it was conducted by myself and allowed me to learn more about what my demographic wanted to see.

Secondary Research

The above presentation is a good example of secondary research as it's a presentation that, while put together by myself, includes research and information that I gathered from a variety of different sources across the internet in order to learn more about Unilever and the product that I had chosen to rebrand. It's a good example of secondary research due to the fact that I didn't personally conduct any of the research within the presentation; it's all from other sources.

Another reason why this presentation is a good example of secondary research would be because of the range of sources that I looked at for my information. I looked at websites such as the official Unilever website, the wikipedia article for PG Tips, several news articles based around PG Tips merchandise and advertising campaigns along with two websites about the BARB figures and BCAP code. These websites span across a wide range of different sources, giving me lots of information about how PG Tips had branded themselves previously and how they liked to advertise. Furthermore, I was able to use sources such as Wikipedia and the Unilever website to learn important information about those brands, and therefore figure out what they stood for and how they both branded themselves. Having the BCAP code also allowed me to understand what was and wasn't allowed within a TV advertisement, therefore ensuring that my rebranding attempt wouldn't break any rules. Finally, having the BARB figures allowed me to decide when would be the best time to play my rebranded advertisement and on what channels.

Without all this research, I wouldn't have had any idea how PG Tips were branding themselves previously, no idea what the advertising rules were and no idea when would be suitable to play my advert. All this information was critical, clearly showing just how important this secondary research was.

The above presentation is also a good example of secondary research for many of the same reasons; it includes a lot of research that I myself did not personally conduct, but was instead done by other people. Rather than doing the research myself, I simply put together all the research into the presentation and made my opinions/points for the analysis of the advert based on the research I found.

Similarly to the rebranding attempt, I had to cover a lot of sources in order to learn plenty of information about the advert for my analysis, such as whether or not it followed the proper codes and conventions and what kind of branding the company was going for. First, I had to watch several of the McVities adverts in order to learn what style of branding they were going for, so that I could analyse how effective it was and what demographics it targeted. This research covers the sections from 'Chosen Advert' to 'Advert Style'. After this, I had to then research whether or not the advert followed the appropriate guidelines and tips, primarily the AIDA guidelines and the Ofcom guidelines. This was all important so that I could determine how effective the advert was at capturing the attention of the audience and demonstrating the benefits of their product whilst not breaking any rules such as causing offense.

Finally, I had to research the codes and conventions behind the advert to see just how they had decided to shoot their advert. I had to use my own knowledge of composition within a media production in order to see what the advert had done in areas such as mise-en-scene and lighting. This all comes together to show the effectiveness of the secondary research, as without having looked into all the important details behind the guidelines, composition and demographics behind the advert, I wouldn't have been able to create an analysis that was as detailed as this was. I wouldn't have had any information to base my analysis on.

The above research was research that I had to conduct for my Depict project before I created the short film. It involves research that I did into various other short films made for the depict project. This is a good example of secondary research as it's research done into something made by someone else, rather than something I made myself, so that I could learn more information about what I liked and what would do well in the depict format of a short film.

This is a slightly more shallow example of secondary research than my previous presentations, as it doesn't contain a similarly wide range of sources, but it's still an excellent example of secondary research. This was one of the first things I had to do for my Depict Project, and it was vital in helping me to understand what the Depict project was all about - a short film. By watching these examples of previous entries, I was able to understand what could be fit into the time limit for the short film and what variety of genres people tend to do with their films. This clearly shows the importance of secondary research, as this was vital in allowing me to decide what would be suitable for my own depict short film and what would be possible both budget-wise and time-wise.

Quantitative Research

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQYqBJ-bR_5yL7ghM-vfYUk7q8fDzkBRNVQ2pfsTB9Y2jACA/viewform?usp=sf_link

The above is a questionnaire that I conducted not for TV & Film, but instead for one of my games development assignments regarding the opinions of people for a video game known as Garry's Mod. Similarly to the questionnaire below, I only had one quantitative question within this assignment due to the nature of it, but it still demonstrates quantitative research due to the numerical nature of the first question regarding age.

When it comes to a questionnaire such as this one, it was difficult to include many questions that could fall under quantitative research. I could, theoretically, have asked them a statistical question such as 'how many games have you played?' or 'how often do you play games?'. However, while these questions do fall under quantitative research, they wouldn't have helped me massively with this questionnaire as the purpose was to gather opinions from people about Garry's Mod.

Nevertheless, the first question would still fall under the umbrella of Quantitative Research as it consists of statistical, fact-based numerical data that aided me in my understanding of the demographics interested within Garry's Mod as a game.

The above is a good example of quantitative research as it contains all of the quantitative data that I collected during my most recent questionnaire gauging opinions from a variety of demographics to figure out what they thought about fantasy films and my screenplay. Sadly, this questionnaire only really had one bit of quantitative data, with that being the age of my participants. However, this is still an example of quantitative data as it's recorded numerical data.

Similarly to the previous Garry's Mod questionnaire, there weren't too many quantitative questions that I could have asked on this one. However, in a moment of reflection, I've realised that I could have reworded one of the questions to make it quantitative in nature. The sixth question in the questionnaire asked participants how often they watched films and TV shows. I formatted the answers as categorical words such as Daily when I could have done them using numerical forms such as '1-2 hours'.

Despite this lapse of judgement, I do still have the example of a quantitative research question within the first question; asking participants' ages. The question was statistical and fact-based in nature, obtaining numerical data which aided in allowing me to discern what demographics were interested in what. Therefore, I'd consider that question a good example of quantitative research.

Qualitative Research

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeAacwgaVHkdGdjsm4FrBsP3WcYkpS_7HydLglzjffusTjnNQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

The above is another questionnaire that I conducted for Games Development about Garry's Mod, containing different questions than the previous one. This is a good example of qualitative research due to the nature of the majority of the questions in this questionnaire being categorical in nature such as questions asking opinions of the participants as well as questions asking for gender and location.

Unlike my squabbles with quantitative data, I was very easily able to obtain qualitative data within the majority of my questionnaires, due to the nature of the topic I was researching - opinions on games. As I was attempting to gather the opinions of a variety of demographics on a specific game, I was naturally limiting myself to a lot of qualitative research. However, that still allowed me to obtain the information required for my assignment.

I'd consider the majority of this questionnaire (barring the age question) a good example of qualitative research due to the categorial, opinionated nature of the questions and due to the success of the research obtained. Without the data learnt during this questionnaire, I wouldn't have had a good idea about what my target demographic was interested in when it comes to games, forcing me to guess on how to brand my advertising strategy.

The above is a good example of qualitative research as it has all of the data from my most recent questionnaire that was qualitative. All of the data within the above snippet from my questionnaire consists of data that involves categorical data such as gender, opinions and location which proves that this is a good example of qualitative research.

Unsurprisingly, this is the same questionnaire as the second example for Quantitative Data, except showing all of the qualitative questions. This isn't a surprise, as the nature of that questionnaire was obtaining the opinions of a variety of demographics on a specific genre of film. Due to this, I was bound to obtain a massive amount of qualitative data in comparison to any quantitative data.

Nevertheless, the majority of this questionnaire is a good example of qualitative data due to both the categorical and opinion based nature of the questions as well as the importance of the results; without these results, I wouldn't have had any idea what my target demographic wanted in a fantasy film, meaning that my screenplay could have potentially alienated possible viewers.

Market & Audience Research

The above is, once again, my Unilever presentation. This was created as a way to demonstrate how I would have rebranded a specific Unilever product in order to attract a different target audience from the original intent. The first thing I had to do for this rebranding exercise was to look into the PG Tips brand and to attempt to figure out what target audience they were aiming for originally. By figuring this out, I'd be able to decide who PG Tips was branding themselves for originally and then take the brand to a completely different demographic, giving me the challenge of using a different marketing strategy for the same brand and same product.

What I noticed from my research into PG Tips was that they seemed to be branding themselves quite similarly to other brands of tea, minus the monkey. They aimed to seem like a nice warm drink for when you were feeling cold or down - this is especially seen with how the monkey character says to 'flush out' cold feelings within the spring advert seen on the presentation. Using this, I decided that I'd rebrand PG Tips from this standard marketing technique to a sort of stress relief tea marketed at college students; the sort of drink that you'd make when you're feeling worried about an upcoming exam that'd help you feel calm and relaxed, ready to focus on the work at hand.

From all this, I'd consider this rebranding presentation a good example of market/audience research as it forced me to do considerable research into the audience behind PG Tips, what they were interested in and how they were being marketed towards. Then, I had to consider a gap within the tea market that I could exploit to rebrand the product effectively. Without any kind of market research, I wouldn't have been able to discern that gap in the market (this gap being a stress relief beverage) and wouldn't have even been able to figure out the original audience. Without this information, my attempt at rebranding PG tips would have fallen flat, clearly showing the importance and effectiveness of this market research.

Production Research

The above is all of my pre-production paperwork that I had available (minus the less important things such as the prop and costume list which was merely a word document filled with each prop we used) for my Depict project done within my first year of TV & Film production. All of these pieces of paperwork are great examples of production research as they all consist of research done around the characteristics of the production itself - research into the production's location, the actors' consent, the risk of the production and so on. Due to all the research being directly linked to the attributes of the production itself, this research is a great example of production research.

The first flipbook shows my talent releases within the first few pages, where we had to obtain some information about the actors we were planning to cast within the film as well as obtaining their written permission for the film. As both of the actors were minors at the time of filming, we were required to obtain the permission of the parents for filming. All personal information has been redacted for privacy reasons. These talent releases are good examples of production research as they're showing clear research that was required behind an important part of the production; the actors. Therefore, without this research, we wouldn't have been able to tell whether or not our actors were suitable for the roles and we wouldn't have been able to obtain their express permission.

Meanwhile, the third flipbook shows a risk assessment that we had to conduct for the area that we were planning to shoot in. This was a piece of planning that we had to very carefully consider, as we wanted to be absolutely sure what the risks were with our choice of filming location as well as what we could do to dampen the risks visible. Not only did we have to consider the natural risks of the location, but also the risks involved with the production itself - the stunt of the horror movie killer falling over had significant risk involved, as repetitive falling over could badly injure the actor. This is an example of less direct production research, where we had to plan accordingly for our film and ensure we could avoid any potential risks. Despite the fact that this was less direct, I'd still consider it production research as it was conducted behind the viability of the production and whether or not it was safe to do with the location we decided on.

Research Dossier (Second Draft)

Role of the Writer & The Commissioning Process (Final Draft)

National Careers Week - Task 1