Monday The 12Th Of March - First Time Meeting The Client

Quick note - My thoughts:
Today we were meant to meet the client for the first time to ask our pre planned questions for the clients feedback. However the client/clients could not make it in today. This was a bit of a set back in terms of timing and organisation, but we decided to email the client our questions in order to obtain the feedback we need to progress visually. We are now awaiting a reply, however in the mean time i will research into existing website layouts, colour schemes, typography, navigation layouts etc.

Our Email:
A small group of us devised the an email containing all the necessary pre-planned questions that we would have asked the client if they were able to attend the meeting. Below are the questions we
devised.

-
1. Could you elaborate on what do you do as an organisation?

2. Is this a training scheme for managing a project and in how to create products from recycled             
material? 

3. What are the project aims?

4. Who is your target audience?

5. What is the project background and history?

6. What activities do you run in order to enhance the person/s skills?

7. How long has the project been running? Do you have any previous success stories, testimonies available?

8. Is there a team of people in which run the project? Would you want their skill/role background on the website? Any other participates?

9. Where do you you currently operate?

10. Where do you accept people from? Locally, further a field etc.

11. How do you currently promote the business/project?

12. Have you received any awards?

13. Do you know of any other projects similar to this?

14.How do you source your clothes?

15. Do you have any connections to social media, Facebook, twitter etc?

16. Do you want links to journal trade sites on your website?

17. Do you have connections to ethical fashion forum?

18. Do you know the term up-cycled?

Design questions:

1. What do you want the site to achieve/do?

2. Do you have a slogan/tag line?

3. What do you want the site to feature content wise? Anything especially want/do not want on the home page, other pages?

4. If your site was a person what personality would it have?

5. What content do you have available for use? Images, video, documents etc.

6. How will people using the site get in contact? Do you have an email, address, phone number that you want to have on the site?

7. What words/phrases would you want to be able to search online for your site to come up? Which are more/less important?

8. Have you got a theme/colour scheme in mind?

9. Do you want to be able to have people sign up for email based newsletters?

10. Do you have a current logo (do you want a logo?), are you happy with it? Do you any other existing documents? Leaflets, business cards etc, that you would like the design to follow?

11. Have you seen any websites you like the look of?

Others:

1. Do you need to be able to update the website? If so how regularly?

2. Will you be advertising any partners/businesses involved in the project?
-

RSA 21st century enlightenment

I mentioned the RSA in an earlier blog entry before and this wil give you a little but more insight to what the RSA actually are and how they operate just to give a bit more clarity on the client, Clive Bonny.

About the RSA:
This company is a charity based company that gets its income and support depends entirely on that of funders, fellows and sponsors. Clive Bonny is fellowship with the RSA. Here is a brief description and more  information about the fellowship from the RSA website:

Fellowship
"Working with our global network of 27,000 Fellows to be a force for civic innovation and social change. Our networks provide an opportunity to build momentum around new ideas and create innovative solutions."

http://www.thersa.org/about-us 

Clive Bonny

I researched into Clive Bonny and found this website called RSA. This company is a charity based company that gets its income and support depends entirely on that of funders, fellows and sponsors. Clive Bonny has worked in fellowship with the RSA on such projects to do with creative clothing. Below is an extract from the site and the URL of the site so you can see for yourself..

-
Clive Bonny FRSA is based in Brighton and has got involved in a couple of Catalyst projects. Find out what happened with the project for recycling old clothes into new garments:

1) Please give a brief explanation of what it is you do and why?
"I am a Management Consultant and I advise on business continuity planning, to prevent and mitigate risk for individuals and organisations whilst they evolve in fast changing environments. The benefits of a small to medium sized organisation having a business continuity plan include being able to bid for corporate tenders and public sector contracts, as well as having prepared plans to cope with a variety of risks which can affect survival."

"One of my interests is the link to current Big Society principles in driving creative social enterprise at the ground floor level, recycling good clothing materials which otherwise are wasted, and educating people at all levels to make more from limited resources in this Age of Austerity. This year I have been delivering short workshops for the Business Community Partnership, and other membership bodies, showing social enterprises how to apply tools to become more resilient. Many small enterprises are still struggling with the unexpected impacts of economic downturn. Brighton for example has one of the highest rates of enterprise start ups in the UK, yet falls 30% below the national average business survival rates. The Big Society is about local enterprise development, the national economy is dependent on start ups flourishing, and business continuity planning is a critical success factor in survival. There is too little support in this area for them, and business support bodies need to address this big issue."

-

http://www.thersa.org/fellowship/news/in-your-network-clive-bonny-frsa 

This extract was taken from the RSA site. This extract seemed to be a sort of interview with Clive Bonny explaining what exactly his business does and why it does it.

After further research about Clive Bonny i discovered that he is the founder and principle consultant of strategic management partners.

https://www.crunch.co.uk/clive-bonny-strategic-management-partners/


Again after digging even deeper i found that Clive Bonny sponsored the Guinness book of record 'giant pompom' build just in time for Brightons fashion week. The pompom was created out of used clothes and weighed a staggering one and a half tonnes.

The images above show the giant pompom and the sponsor, Clive Bonny.

I found this information from the website:
http://www.bag2school.com/u/k/about_us/sponsorships/brighton_fashionistas_create_g/


So after finding out about Clive Bonny and what he does, i then researched and found the current strategic management partners website:

http://www.consult-smp.com/archives/2005/02/who_we_are.html 


Below is a snippet from the website, again explaining who they are and what they do..

"Who We Are
Strategic Management Partners is an independent consultancy. We provide strategic planning advice, training, coaching and support to organisations both large and small, across a wide range of sectors. We are based in South East England and provide services to an international client base.

We are registered by professional bodies to advise on:
- The Business Excellence Model
- Background Personnel Security Vetting
- Wellness and Wellbeing at work
- Corporate Social Responsibility
- Innovation, Sports and Culture

We have active membership of:
- The Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce
- The British Computer Society
- The Institute of Business Consulting
- The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
- The Fraud Advisory Panel

These provide access to current best practice across a wide range of sectors for research, HR management, process improvement, manufacturing, marketing, sales and customer service.

Founded in 1989, Strategic Management Partners operates as a consortium of professionally qualified and highly experienced business managers. We are supported by innovative specialist experts, selected per project. This allows us to offer a wide choice of services so clients can avoid the problems of multiple supply sources. It also reduces costs since consultants are not an ongoing fixed overhead, which means clients pay only if and when they are contracted for delivery on site." 

Devised Questions

We have devised questions for the client in order to gather further information on the background of the company and also the ideas and thoughts they may have about the website itself.

Employability:

What do you do? What are the project aims? what activities do you run?

Whats the projects background and history?

Who else participates and who are your sponsors?

Whats the site for?

What do you want the site to feature?

Do you have a current logo?

Have you got a theme or colour scheme in mind?

What are the statistics of your current stories?

Where do you operate?

Set new brief - Developing website for client

Here are the brief requirements set by the client:

Client: Clive Bonny 

Project: Self Made Creative Clothing 

Description:

Self Made Creative Clothing supports, and acts as the catalyst for, projects helping learners of all ages with creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship using low cost accessible clothing materials and other associated recycled resources. 

In the short term, learners have the opportunity to further enhance these skills whilst working towards an environmentally sustainable outcome.

In the medium term, learners have the opportunity to enhance a further range of skills from presenting and project management though to fashion marketing and hand-made manufacturing. 

In the long term, the programme will act as a bost for social/sustainable enterprise and help improve employability amongst young people.

the programme will eventually deliver a report recommending tools and processes to enable non-accredited entrepreneurship skills and knowledge (developed during extra-curricula learning activities and projects) to be better demonstrated to employers, thereby enhancing a person's employability. 

Requirements:

A media rich website to showcase project aims, background, participants, activities and outcomes.

Target Audience: 

Students, employers and people interested in recycling, sustainability and enterprise.  

Evaluation

Brief 

In response to the brief:

I i created/ produced/ edited a 'One minute trailer' 

I feel the imagery, footage and graphic styles used helped portray the meaning of the speech. 

I feel that i may not have used as much speech as i could, the simplicity over ruled that by the choice of shots and the different camera angles. 

I feel i researched enough about the actual speech and visual language to then start the production itself.

I 'logged my progress' 

I produced story boards with in my sketchbook that i submitted

What i thought worked well:

I thought that the choice of shots worked well. The effects used on top of the composed footage made it look authentic. I think that the sound used complimented the footage and the speech so i decided to keep it. The panning and focusing when filming worked really well to again give it authenticity. 

What i thought could be improved/ if i had another chance...

If i had another chance i would plan my theme to even greater detail, i would go further a field to shoot and gather footage. I would expand my knowledge on art and imagery, existing styles and format. 

I would look into greater detail about font in terms of the background of the font and find out more information about it. I would plan everything to a greater extent, make my own deadlines and meet them. 

Crit

This is my critique write up that i got back from my teacher and my peers. Focusing on what works and what doesn't, what could be changed and what could be left the same.

Things that could be done differently 

- Using the picture of Martin Luther King Jr and the picture of Barrack Obama would be to literal. I need to come away from literal and be a bit more abstract in terms of the style - No images of either two. 

- One fo the shots in my sequence was a no entry sign and some of them felt it didn't help the flow of of the video, because as it built up and built up the no entry sign brought everyone back to current affairs.

-The background music used was good up until the bit where the woman starts singing in the background. Everyone thought this was a bit to much and i could have toned it down a bit in order for it to be a bit more subtle. 

Things what worked well 

- Choice of shots were interesting and abstract 

- The use of panning and focusing was really well done

- The editing of the clips were seamlessly put together allowing the video flow with no technical difficulties. 

- The old film effect projected over the top of the footage was really good, gave it an old film effect which was fitting for Martin Luther king Jr's era. 

- The section of speech was well fitted and went with all my choice of shots.

Overal 

I think overal my video is good in some areas however in need of improvement in others. I will edit my video with in the couple of days between critique and submission in order to maximise my videos performance. 

Using Adobe After Effects To Make The 8mm FIlm Effect

After gathering all of my footage and composing my sequence i wanted to add the 8mm film effect on top of my work to make it look old and authentic. To do this i searched around for an 8mm film effect that i could apply over the top of my sequence using Adobe After Effects. I found the effect on video copilot as i mentioned in a previous blog entry. So heres the software log for importing and applying it to my footage.

First of of all i had to import the files into my editing pane in order to go back and forth to the original files. To do this i went on file - import file - files. This then through up a loading pane wher eyou could load up/ import your clips simply my choosing them and adding them.

 The files i imported then are shown in the files pan where you can go back to if you need more footage or simply duplicate the footage in the editing pane apple cmd D.

As you can see from the image below i added/ duplicated more footage in order to edit.

Also as you can see from the image above the mode is set to multiply. This is the setting you want so you end up keying out the white background on the 8mm film. this the mode is not set to multiply then you can change it by clicking on the drop down box like so

After Selecting multiply my editing pane looked like this

 As you can see the white background was keyed out leaving the composed footage i created earlier behind it. I then added an adjustment layer as you see in the image below. An adjustment layer is a layer that allows you to add effects to it.

Adjustment layers are useful because they allow me to add effects, for example i then added a fast blur with the adjustment layer selected like so

 

i went to effect, blur/ distort anf fast blur. this gives the layer a nice blur, however i added mask to this layer so the blur would only effect the mask not the actual raw footage. i then wanted to adjust the colour because i thought it looked to modern so i went to effects, colour correction, hue and saturation.

This then through up a hue and saturation window that looked like this 

I wanted the footage to look old and as if it was shot ages ago. So i thought i would use sepia effect to give it that sort of tanned warm look. i also checked the colorize button. 

 After applying this effect to one of the footage takes, i then applied it to all of them.

I then duplicated them on the time line so that the effect would be over the footage the entire time.

Composing My Sequence

After i took the footage and compressed the footage using the software from Apple called 'Compressor' i then began to compose my clips in Final Cut Pro. Firstly in order to keep my files organised and easy to find i created 'Bins' in the options pane. This allowed me to navigate my files - clips and sound allowing me to work more efficiently.

I then began to import my files from my Mac into Final cut pro. To do this i went to file , import, files. Final Cut then through up a window in which aloud me to select files and import them straight in. I then organised them into there designated bins.

As you can see below they are organised into their designated bins.

I then organised these clips into the order i wanted by dragging them over to the time line. i cut, cropped, blended in clips into one another. 

I then dragged and dropped my sound clips into the time line. On the time line there are two different work lines. One is for video and footage and the other is for sound. 

As you can see bellow i inserted a soundtrack to in behind everything else just to give the video a bit more depth and detail. 

The image below is that of the speech and the way it looks on the sound time line. 

I then edited the sound in the edit pane in order to blend the music out at the end of the video. This was to give the video a professional feel, allowing the video and sound to fade out gentle and adds a very subtle effect. The image below is that of the Martin Luther King Jr Audio.

The image below is that od the soundtrack i added. 

The image below shows some of the effects i used in Final Cut Pro in order to adjust the contrast and colour to make it look more authentic.

I then rendered the video when i was finished editing my clips ready for me to export it to quick time MOV.

Compressing My Footage

After i took my footage i had to then compress it before importing it into Final Cut Pro. I used the Apple software called Compressor. The reason behind me doing this was because my footage was to big in terms of file size, so i opened up Compressor and imported my footage.

I then when down to the bottom left window where there are folders containing set presets of compression. 

I then went down to 'Apple codec' and chose the option 'Apple ProRes 442 for interfaced material'. Here is a screen shot showing you some of the information this preset has:

As you can see from the image above, the  inspector window is lists all necessary information.

The image below shows what i done next. I dragged and dropped the preset into compressor window ready to compress my files, i then clicked compress and it made a compressed copy of my original raw footage.

Shooting My Footage

Ok so the time had come for me to venture out with my ideas and start shooting, gathering footage for my production. The locations i had in mind were Seaford town, Bishopstone train station, on the train ride from Lewes to Seaford, and last but not least Brighton. This was quite a vast area in order to get the shots i wanted so i planned on making it to good use and incorporating different surroundings.

The camera i used was a Cannon 550D
Capable at shooting at 1080p at 30 frames per second and also at 720p at 60 frames per second 16:9 ratio

Day 1 - Brighton
On this day i will be shooting/ gathering footage in Brighton. I plan to use the urban feel and look to get some abstract shots for my production. Below are a few example shots from this day.

Day 2 - Lewes to Seaford
This day i will be able to shoot the train scenes in order to portray the theme of a 'journey' based style. Below are a few example shots from this day.

Day 3 - Bishopstone station
I spent this day to film at Bishopstone station in order to gather footage of movement and scenes that would add to the train journey footage. Below are a few example shots from this day.

Day 4 - Seaford
This day i shot footage in seaford, again like Brighton i was looking for something abstract weather it would be something to do with puddles or water droplets, even surfaces textures and rebounding light. Below are a few example shots from this day.

More Visual Language Research

Text

In my production i need to include text formatted graphics to enhance my video and the message that is being put across. In order to do this i looked at font faces in order to choose the best one for my video. Here are a few examples...

"I have a Dream" - Verdana


"I Have a Dream" - Trebuchet


"I Have a Dream" - Courier


"I Have a Dream" - Georgia 


After looking at these faces i thought these ones were ok, but the font face i actually decided to go with was Helvetica. The reason i chose this font face was because its easy to read, has a nice visual format on dark backgrounds and makes it subtle and isn't to in your face. Subtle is what im trying to go for, i dont want it looking like the text is just slapped on over the top because then the whole video looses authenticity. 


"I Have a Dream" - Helvetica 


As you can see Helvetica is a nice font face, very subtle and not to over the top.

Other Visual Language Research

I looked into other types and forms of visual language such as themes, styles, colours and textures i could possibly include into my production. I was browsing videos on the web and came across this one which then inspired me and made me think i could base my production on a time/ movement/ journey sort of theme. By this i mean portray the aspect of time through the movement or journey from location A (being the start) and location B (being the end). Heres the video that i came across:

This then inspired me to come up with the idea of filming a train journey from one station to another. 

Here is the footage i took: 

I also looked at the the speech itself of Martin Luther King Jr expressing his views and ideas to the people. I noticed that because it was recorded there and then, the cameras had the old 8mm scratchiness to it. So i thought i could include this style in my production to make the footage i take older and warn. To do this i would have to use Adobe After Effects in order to create the effect or i could find the effect from a website that specialises in After Effects. Below is the original speech from Martin Luther King Jr:

As you can see, it has the 8mm film which gives it that scratchy effect

I then found an 8mm film clips that was in fact filmed on an 8mm camera so you can't get anymore authentic then that. I got this 8mm film clip from an after effects tutorial website:

www.videocopilot.net - This is a well known tutorial website in the world of motion graphics using after effects. 

The film i then uploaded on my private youtube account just to embed it into this blog:

Visualisation Styles - David Hockney

In order to expand and gather ideas i decided to research into visual language such as styles and specific designs. As i was researching i found this designer called David Hockney. From what i can gather he is quite well known for his abstract styled artwork both hand drawn and digitally designed.

Here are a few examples of his work that i looked at, all images come from his website...
http://www.hockneypictures.com/photos/photos_collages.php

 David Hockney Image 1

David Hockney Image 2

David Hockney Image 3

I liked the idea and the style of this images and the way that each image is made up of different images/ photographs. i like how they overlap and make the final image look layered, it gives the image more depth and makes it more interesting to look at. 

An idea i had was similar to David Hockney's styled work, only i would have used the same process for my own photos that i took. Thus giving my production an abstract theme. Below are more Images made my David Hockney in which i looked at for inspiration... 

David Hockney Image 4

David Hockney Image 5

David Hockney Image 6

David Hockney Image 7

These are just a few examples of David Hockney's work, i really like the one of the guitar.