The Game 2

For the first time this year, we have stuck closely to our original idea resulting with this production about a drug dealer who takes things too far.

I feel as though, with this production, the idea was good but the execution was not. It could have been better but I think with the issues within the group and the technological issues, things began to fall apart quite early on and this resulted, in my opinion, a poor product. The effects that I wanted to use for this took a long time and I realised this too late and so I had to delete hours of work because I would not have had time to complete it. Because of this I feel as though the narrative doesn't make sense in the way that I wanted it to and I also don't think that this production represents myself and the things that I want to achieve.

If I was to do this over with a bit more time and a clearer idea, which I now have, I think it could be much better.

Career Development - Job Posts

Junior Reporter, Noble House Media - All

This job is an entry level position which is partially aimed at graduates. Applications from journalism are useful but the variety of consideration is wide.

The requirements for the job are technological as they require writing for mobile. They require writing features and analysis, attending industry events and sometimes representing the magazine in media. It is also creative in a variety of different ways.

Job requirements:

Accurate news writing skills - this is creative as well as efficient. The applicant will have to be committed in order to be able to write in an accurate way and also to be able to find the information for the articles. The creativity comes in the applicant developing and showing their skills and their own style of writing.

Ability to present information in a readable way - this will come with education and training, either before or within the job. A lot can be learned from practice and the skills will be continually developed throughout the work.

Interviewing techniques - the majority of this area will involve communication skills, preferably good ones, the sources of information must be reliable, the self-presentation must be professional and the personal responsibility will be high as the applicant will have to organise the interviews.

Creativity and inventiveness - this is, of course, creative and will depend on the applicant showing their flair and individuality within their work.

Social networking skills - this will involve technical skills as the applicant will have to be fairly advanced with using technology; a computer or a mobile etc. They will also need to understand how the social networking websites work so that they can navigate and utilise them efficiently, therefore, efficiency also comes into this section.

Being able to cope with a large amount of deadlines - this will take commitment from the applicant as it will not always be easy to stay on target and to finish work within the time, being committed will make sure that they can at least aim to get the work done to a high standard. Time management is vitally important and being efficient with the work will be a great help in finishing everything with a high level of professionalism.

A desire to make your mark in this area - this will require a lot of commitment from the applicant as they will have to try incredibly hard to stand out from the crowd. Being creative is vital here as they will need to be creative and well as meeting a purpose. They will have learnt what it takes to be different and can use the job to showcase what they can do. This will also be their personal responsibility and it counts on them being able to prove all of the above to others.

Creative Producer - DMI Productions Ltd

The requirements of the job are managerial, creative and financial with other requirements of professional development.

Aims of the job:

Production - for this job, the applicant is asked to consistently exceed the client's expectations, to be outstanding within the brief and the budget and then to give even more than that. This is part of the creative side of the job as it is asking that you are creative and inventive with the way that you do things, whether it be producing, idea generating or coming up with solutions to problems.

Account Management - this part of the job requires communication skills and self presentation as it is about creating and maintaining 'outstanding' relationships with the clients in face-to-face meetings as well as following up contacts through e-mail or by telephone.

New Business Generation - this is about marketing, efficiency, reliability and personal responsibility. The marketing comes from the requirement of researching new clients. The efficiency, reliability and personal responsibility comes from working independently or with the business development manager. It also includes financial issues as they require the ability to generate revenue and the maximisation of profits.

Service - this requires commitment, self-presentation, communication skills and contribution to team projects. This section asks the applicant to be able to offer high levels of service to clients, suppliers and to offer the same service and support to other member of the staff.

Values - this include creativity, efficiency, self-presentation, communication skills and personal responsibility. The applicant is asked to be friendly and fun, but also to have professional integrity and honesty. They are also asked to respect the confidentiality of the company and of the clients, this is where personal responsibility comes into the equation; it is up to the individual to maintain their professional standards.

Professional Development

For both of these jobs a high level of education and training are required. For the journalistic job, they are looking for a university graduate who will have experience with this kind of work, although they state that they will accept people who have studied things apart from journalism, their choice will be people who have at least some kind of experience with this type of work.  Therefore, at least two years at a college and a minimum of three years studying a degree will be required for this job. The advert also goes on to say that they will accept applicants from all backgrounds, so perhaps they would accept someone who had experience over a degree.

The Creative Producer job requires someone with the education and also with experience. This is evident in the requirements of the job. They have addressed certain things that a graduate would not have learnt; these are things that will be learnt with experience and practice, so this is what the employer would be looking for.

For both jobs attendance and punctuality are vital for proving a professional standard.

DVD cover and disc diary

DVD Cover

For the background I used a gradient fill to make something that represents sky. To create this I used the gradient tool and used the colour bar to choose the colour that I wanted.

I used screen shots from my productions and dragged them onto my Photoshop project from my desktop. In the 'Edit' menu of Photoshop I used the 'transform - scale' tool to scale the pictures down to the size pictured above. After I had done this I arranged them in the order that they were produced and lined them up accurately. To create the box on the outer edge of each of the pictures I used the rounded rectangle tool to draw a box without a fill but with a stroke of 3 that fitted on the edge of the pictures. I brought this outline to the front of the pictures by going to the 'Layers' menu in Photoshop and then going to 'Arrange - Bring To Front'. In order to line the outlines up accurately I used the 'Zoom' tool at 800% and moved them using the arrow keys until they were all line up in the same way.

To add my production logo I used the picture from my desktop and dragged it onto my Photoshop project and used the 'transform - scale' tool from the 'Edit' menu to scale it down to the size that I wanted.

To add the pictures I dragged the photos from my desktop onto my Photoshop project and scaled them all down to the same size. After arranging them in the above positions I created the outlines in the same way as I did for the pictures that are on the left side of the DVD cover. I used the 'rounded rectangle tool' with no fill and a stroke of 10. I used the colour bar to choose different colours for two of the picture's outlines. I used the 'Zoom' tool up to 800% to line up the outlines accurately.

 

To create the clouds I used the 'Ellipse' tool and drew circles with a white fill over the top of each other until I was happy with the effect. With each of the ellipse layers I rasterized them by pressing 'control' and right clicking on the layer in the layers menu on the right side of Photoshop and then by clicking 'Rasterize'. To merge all of the layers together I used the 'Shift' key and right clicked on all of they ellipse layers and made up one cloud and clicked 'Merge layers' from the menu. I made copies of the merged layers by using the 'Alt' key and right clicking. I edited the copies by going to the 'Edit' menu and clicking 'Transform - Rotate' and 'Transform - Scale' to change the size. 

I added text by using the 'Text' tool. After choosing the font from the font menu, choosing the size that I wanted and typing what I wanted I used the 'Transform - Rotate' tool from the 'Edit' menu to rotate "The work of Louise Grimshaw", "The Game" and "Ambition". Then I arranged the words around the pictures.

I used the same font for the blurb but I made it smaller by using the tool in the font menu. After writing it all, I used the arrow keys to arrange the text next to the pictures that correspond with it.

DVD Disc

I used the same gradient fill that I used for the DVD cover; I used the 'Gradient' tool and then used the colour bar to choose the same colour of blue to represent sky.

I used the same method to create the clouds as I did for the DVD cover. I used the 'Ellipse' tool with a white fill and drew circle over each other until I was happy with the effect. I rasterized each ellipse layer by using the 'Control' key and right clicking and then by clicking 'Rasterize' in the menu. I merged the ellipse layers together by using the 'Shift' key and right clicking on each of them and then by using the 'Control' key and right clicking and then clicking on 'Merge layers' in the menu. For one of the clouds I used the 'Alt' key and right clicked on in to create a copy of it. I used the 'Transform - scale' and the 'Transform - rotate' tool in the 'Edit' menu to make the layer bigger and to rotate it. 

I used the same font that I used for the DVD cover, for the title I used a larger font. I used the type tool to type all of the texts. For "The Game" and "Ambition" I used the 'Transform - Rotate' in the 'Edit' menu to rotate the text. I then arranged them in the design above. For the outline around "The work of Louise Grimshaw" I used the 'Rounded Rectangle Tool' and drew a box around the text without a fill and with a stroke of 1.5. Once I had drawn the box around the font, it was too big to fit within the outline so I merged the layers of text and the outline by using the 'Shift' key and right clicking on all the layers, then I used the 'Control' key and right clicked and clicked 'Rasterize' in the menu, the I did the same thing but I clicked 'Merge layers' in the menu. I then used the 'Transform - Scale' tool from the 'Edit' menu to scale it down so that it would fit inside the outline. 

Legal and ethical consideration

A definition and an example of representation:

Representation is the portrayal of a person or a thing in the way that the creator wants them/it to be perceived by an audience, whether it be in a positive or a negative way.

An example of representation is an advert for Goodyear tyres where the advertiser represents women in a negative way by implying that they are terrible drivers and that they need the tyres in order to drive at all.

Harms and Offence Act

This is about protecting under-eighteens and members of the public from any material that would be harmful and offensive. If broadcasters want to use material that could be deemed as offensive, it has to be justified by the context; content of the program, time of broadcast, what is broadcast before and after the program, the degree of offensive material, the effect that the material may have on people. Examples of harmful/offensive material include offensive language, violence, sex, humiliation, human dignitary/discrimination. Appropriate information should be broadcast alongside the program so as to reduce or completely avoid offence.
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/harmoffence/

Race Relations Act 76

This is about protecting people from discrimination against a person on the grounds of colour, race, ethnicity and nationality. This is for Britain only but in Northern Ireland a separate legislation covers religion.
http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/emire/UNITED%20KINGDOM/RACERELATIONSACT1976RRA-EN.htm

In 2009, the Standard published an article about a Jewish school that rejected a student because his mother was not an official Jew in the eyes of the Chief Rabbi. It was argued that any race relations laws had not been broken because it was a religious matter, but the court judges had stated that the school had broken race discrimination laws.
- http://www.standard.co.uk/news/jewish-school-broke-race-laws-by-rejecting-pupil-judges-rule-6701628.html

Obscene Publications Act 59/64

This is about protecting people from the from the effect of content that would offend or deprave. The definition is 'likely to deprave or corrupt' people and it includes content with violence, sex or drug taking. It states that it is against the law to publish any content with this implication.

http://www.iwf.org.uk/hotline/the-laws/criminally-obscene-adult-content/obscene-publications-act-1959-and-1964

Representation Of People Act 83

This is about how a political party and their actions are portrayed. It provides a guideline as to how much broadcast time can be spent on showing this and what the broadcaster can do with the information.
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/elections/

Public Order Act 86

This act prevents the broadcasting of offensive material on television. This material could be offensive to people of a certain ethnic or racial background. The material may be drugs, weapons, alcohol, etc.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64

Sex Discrimination Act 75

This act makes it against the law to show sex discrimination or discrimination on the grounds of marriage. It is working towards the elimination of these discriminations and is working on promoting the equality of men and women.
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1975/65

Broadcasting Act 90

This act states that all Channel 3, 4 and 5 licenses are required to ensure that no more than 25% of the allocated time that is available for the broadcasting of any qualifying programs, is allocated to a range and diversity of independent programs.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/itc/itc_publications/itc_notes/view_note68.html

Set up under the Communications Act 2003 - Governemnt.
Ofcom is a communications regulator. The things they regulate are TV, radio, fixed line telecoms, mobiles, postal services and wireless device airwaves.

They regulate all kinds of communication.

What they do: they give a wide range of electronic communications including broadband, they make sure that the radio spectrum is used in an effective way, they make sure that different organisations provide a range of television and radio services, they make sure that the people who watch and listen to these are protected from any harmful or offensive material. They make sure that people's privacy is protected.

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/what-is-ofcom/

ASA - Advertising Standards Authority

They are an independent regulator of advertising within media in the UK. They are narrated by the Advertising Codes which are written by the Committees of Advertising Practice. Their work is about addressing complaints that concern harm or offense to an individual; they constantly check media to make sure it is clean from anything that could be misleading, harmful or offensive. They are different from Ofcom because they do not have the right to ban anything. They investigate the problems and then send it to Ofcom. They can advise but they cannot legally do anything to alter the problem.

http://www.asa.org.uk/About-ASA/Our-mission.aspx

VLV - Voice of the Listener and Viewer

They represent the consumer's interests in broadcasting. They work for the Public Service Broadcasting  for which they conduct research. It allows the consumer's voice to be heard. It supports the independence of broadcasters. Its belief is that every citizen should benefit from the potential to deliver resources to the public across the UK and to make sure that they are not disadvantaged by any technological developments.
They are different from Ofcom and ASA because they are more about listening to the public and making their voice heard. They cannot legally do anything. They will collect the complaints and then take them to Ofcom.

BFI

Founded in 1933. They award Lottery funding to to film production, distribution, education, audience development. Its key objective is to establish and care for the development of moving image history and heritage of the UK.
They set up the age restrictions for DVD's.

Refreshing Change Review

Individual Learning Plan: Bottled Water Production

Student name: Louise Grimshaw Year level:	Course/Unit: Media Production/ Unit 30 Date: 19/03/2013
Objective. What is your team project goal, and what tasks are you responsible for completing? Complete all B Roll footage for production two and have a completed individual offline edit for both adverts. We also need a voiceover for the second advert.
Target 1 - What will YOU complete by Lunch? - I will contribute to the reshooting of the first advert. For this I will be filming the project and helping to direct so that the other people in my team, who will be acting in the advert, will have some input into what they are be doing.		Target 2 - What will YOU complete by 16:00? - I will have helped in the recording of a voiceover for the second advert and I will have completed both edits with all assets in place.
How does target 1 contribute to group objective? This contributes to the group objective because we need to reshoot one of the adverts, filming the production will give all of the people in my team the footage for the individual edits. Helping to direct will also contribute because the other people in my team may need some input into what they will be doing and this will also be helpful for the directing of the camera.		How does target 2 contribute to group objective? This contributes to the group objective because all of the people in my team will need the voiceover for their edit. Our group objective is to have an offline edit for both of the adverts, so completing these will contribute to that.

                                    Production Diary:


26th February 2013

Today I generated ideas and created a mindmap with my team, we came up with nine ideas and then chose the two that we were most confident with and developed them with further detail and started the treatment and the shooting script.

I researched into our chosen company, Volvic, to find out information about the product and the actual company. Myself and another team member contacted the company and were given an address in order  to send a letter. I wrote the letter for the company asking for information about the target audience and how they appeal to their audience, I also asked if it would be possible for them to send us a vector graphic of their logo and an example of their bottles that we could use in our production. I looked at other adverts for bottled water to see what has been done before and to look at the kind of style that was achieved, also so that my team can try to make something that hasn't been done before.

I also started part of the asset list and researched the kind of music that we want.

1st March 2013

Amber and myself filmed our test footage for our first idea. We reaslised that there were no trees that were suitable for our idea so we had to come up with a new idea but we tried to keep it similar to the original. After brainstorming and coming up with a new idea we tried some test shots with Amber acting and myself managing the filming with the camera.

5th March 2013

Laura, Amber and myself practiced some camera techniques around the college in areas that are similar to the place that we will be filming. Amber and myself wanted to blur the bottle in front of the camera and have the background in focus and then reverse this so that the bottle was in focus and the background was blurred. We tried this numerous times to perfect it but we couldn't get it the way that we wanted because of the camera's iris. We decided to just blur the entire shot and then bring the bottle into focus and this worked quite well to give the effect that we wanted. Amber and myself also tried some test shots of other ideas just to see how well they would work.

9th March 2013

Amber, myself and our actor went to Chorley, Astley Park to film out first advert. I did the majority of the camera work; framing the shots and actually filming the action under some direction from Amber.

12th March 2013

Today I did most of my individual edit for the first water advert, I spent quite a lot of time colour correcting the shots to make them look brighter since the day we filmed was quite grey. I went out with Amber to capture some sound effects for the edit. We also went to the sound booth to record a voice over for it. I helped to set up the equipment and recorded the voice over. I spent some time editing the voice over to the sequence.

26th March 2013

Today I spent the day editing the two water adverts. I spent most of the time arranging the sequence, colour correcting, choosing music and applying for copyright. I also went out with Amber to record a part of the voice over. I finished the editing and exported the videos to upload onto YouTube.

Understanding the Creative Media Industry Structure

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