Tuesday 9th October 2012

Morning              

We started today by making it official on what pathway we would be working on, I was surprised by the amount of people who had either left media or chosen it along with another pathway (which means they won’t be as involved as everyone else). I did have it mind to pick a second pathway along with media but I have spent the last two years focusing on this as a career path and I believe I have a good mind frame within working in media.  I would have preferred it if more people from the previous year would attend media but seeing as I have started to talk to the new students of media and having a good conversation with them I feel more positive about the course.

                On a side note I am so glad we no longer have to work on the rotation pathways, get to do some proper media work.

                Originally I was meant to go and work on media in the morning but I am currently working on a couple of projects with two other students that had to attend printmaking in the morning, so we asked if I could be moved to their group so that no one would miss anything important to the projects. Also I hadn’t attended printmaking and went to media I wouldn’t of been able to do anything considering we was working through reviewing all the footage and had to debate as a team if footage was useful or not. Seeing as I was unprepared for the printmaking session, Jordan Gott offered me to work alongside his piece of work, unfortunately he couldn’t find his piece so we had to borrow another.

                We got a quick tutorial on how to “printmake” well, I have learnt that there are many methods besides the ones we did of printmaking. The printmaking method we did was “Stencil”, where you would imply a thick layer of ink or paint and forced through a prepared screen with a roller.  You had a chose to use any colour and any type of fabric to print onto.

Shown below is how to prep and produce a piece of printmaking work.

          It is best to place the ink at the top of the prepared screen so that when you are able pull it towards you which is better than pushing away. If you are pushing it away you might not be able to get enough of the ink on or even spread it properly. By pulling it you can tell what you are doing. It’s best to repeat this so that enough ink spreads about. You must always keep the screen flat so it’s better to have someone holding it for you.

        If done properly you should get something like this, some areas may not be clear caused by not spreading properly or not putting enough ink on the spread about.

         Once you have completed the printmaking you must ensure you clean the prepared screen on both sides. You must be very thorough when cleaning it, you need to make sure all the ink is gone then dry it off. If you get a wet cloth then lay the screen down on some paper then wipe the screen all over, it creates a kind of ghostly image, being all faded.

        I think this is my best piece of work, at first glance it seems to be a black blot onto some wood but when viewed in the right light you can see everything. The problem with this image is that it is too detailed and when I applied black onto it gave off a range of different shades of black. 

Afternoon

                After break we went back to the edit suite and started finishing off reviewing the footage, this time we didn’t  have much outside interference so we was able to crack on with it. Another student, Tim, decided to watch us work at editing the footage seeing as he couldn’t get hold of a camera and was more interested in our work than others. He didn’t do much I think his input benefited us; he would suggest little bits like shots placement. Also I just enjoyed him being there, he wasn’t a distraction but you could have a good banter with him.

                I noticed that Becky had set out aims for herself, which I thought was a good idea so I did as well.

Re-written from notepad

Aims;

• ·         Finish reviewing footage & debate usable footage
• ·         At least make 30 second sequence of documentary

 We didn’t finish reviewing all the footage last week so we carried on with that which seemed to run smoothly. By the time we finished viewing the footage Jamie came in and wanted to view some stuff so whilst he did that we made a brief structure of how the documentary would be presented.

Re-written from notepad

Structure of documentary (mixture of slow and fast tempo throughout)

·          Peaceful opening with soothing music

·         Short montage of everything; goats, art, media, people laughing.

·         Student reaction

·         In barn footage

·         Possible some farmer interview footage

·         Students outside interacting and having fun

·         Another reaction leading into credits.

Once we had decided on this we finally began, unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time to edit but we were able to create the first fifteen seconds of the documentary.  We started by having a very well done panning shot across the farm itself. We wanted the documentary to be exciting and want to make other people attend the farm and course, so we thought the next shot should be a combination of people happy and laughing whilst at the farm, this would then lead into the montage. We gathered these shots from the reactions from everyone but it was difficult, there was a mixture of thoughts on their experience. Also we were going to start with them all on laughing at the same time but then we discussed on making them faded in and out one after the other so that it creates a pace for our montage.

I do like the shots seeing as it achieves what we want but the only problem I see is Seamus positioning (bottom right),  it would be better if he was standing on the left side of the screen so that it would seemed they are aimed into the centre.  To get them all on at the same time, you have to overlap them on the timeline and adjust the scale perfectly so that they all fit equally.

Once we arranged them into place we decided to have them fade in and out so that it would give a faster tempo for our montage. At this time we got the idea to add the group photo we all did before leaving the farm which I went to collect. We added the image after the establishing shot, this was to separate the slow to fast pace of the montage.

We finished off by writing up the shot list of the sequence so far.

Re-written from notepad

Shot list

·         207- establishing shot of farm

·         Picture- group photo

·         132-student response (don’t know name)

·         129-Seamus response

·         139-Geogrina’s response

·         138-bo’s response

·         055- impressive shot of drawing

Below is what we have done so far

I think today’s session was okay considering the time we had to work in, I would have preferred it if we got more done. Also I think I didn’t get involved enough in editing but I plan to make up for that tomorrow.