Personal Assessment and How I can Improve

Looking over everything and assessing my own work at Level 2 and 3, there is still a lot needed to do. First things first is I really need to pull my finger out and really start cracking the whip on filming, it really needs filming and I am determined to make sure it is all done and complete, because it is getting dangerously close to the deadline. I also need to spend as much time as possible, using free periods and staying back after school, to make sure it is all complete. Use all that time to just work hard on the print products and the editing as well, just make completely sure everything is fine tuned and up to scratch, make sure it looks how it should in all aspects of the project. Make sure that the video edit is complete, that all effects are in place and that they look good, that they aren’t just tacked on, that they look as best as possible. Also that everything flows in time and pace with the song the video is trying to promote, so it actually work at what it is trying to do and that it is something that grabs people’s attention and makes them want to watch it again. Something else that needs to be done is that I need to become more familiar with the software I’m using such as photoshop and the editing software, to make sure I completely know what I am doing as it will help to reach and finish everything best to my ability. So the key thing here is to just completely knuckle down and just apply any free time I have into making sure this project is not only complete but is also at least at a high Level 3 grade if not scrapping into the Level 4 grade. Odds are however I may not have it completely finished by the deadline and may have to go slightly past it, but I’m hoping that won’t happen, as I am completely dedicated to what I have to do and I am determined to make sure reached the realms of a Level 4 grade.

Updates

Time for some more updates people.  So time is slowly ticking away, we are now down to roughly less than four weeks to have the whole project done and as things aren’t exactly moving along as I would like them to, me and Chloe are getting things done. I suppose first thing to mention is filming. As you know I only have half of it done, with all scenes involving the band still needing to be filmed. I had finally managed to nab everybody together today (as of writing this) only to have this curse rear its ugly head to find the room I wanted to use and the only room that’s suits the video, is already booked out. But I have had words with my team and Mr Earl and the drama room we want to use is free Wednesday and Thursday of this week and I am determined to make sure it all gets filmed this week and hopefully the start of the editing because that really does require a lot of work.

As regards towards the editing goes, once the band scenes have been filmed, rendered and uploaded, that will become the new top priority and I will take any free time I have to working vigorously to make sure the video is complete. There is still that a lot that needs to finished in the editing which I will take you through. First, the footage that has already been shot needs going over again, as Mr Earl has brought to light a few issues that need sorting out. There is a slight pause at the beginning of the first two shots, which I will need a look at, the first one is deliberate, it acts as I kind of build up to the video which will all make sense once the track is embedded on the video, as for the second pause I will definitely cut that because that is meant to be the unknown force chasing the character in the video, so that needs to be constantly moving and chasing because it is meant to be a relentless force, similar to that off the Evil Dead films, which ties in with ideas taken from my research and the themes and influences of the band. As for these point of view shots of the force, I’m going to be applying so affects to them to give off the impression that it is some living and pursuing this character. For this I will possible use a red fill affect or a smoky effect similar to that used in the Evil Dead movies, when it is a point of view shot of the demonic force, or possibly a combination of the both, it all really depends on what will look the best, give the right impression and how far my editing skills can take me, as I’ve mentioned this is my first proper time in the editing seat so it’s still very new and foreign territory for me. The final thing to draw on for editing is the sense of pace from the video, again this is hard to comprehend without the track on the video, but all the shots and time frames are worked out from off my storyboard in which I painstakingly listened to the track over and over again when drawing out the story board to make sure it fit with the track and when it seemed relevant of appropriate to cut to the band and to know how much time I had altogether for the video so I could map out the so called plot of the video. There may be times where I have to speed up the video and maybe even go out and re film some segments but I really hope it doesn’t come to that. Again all I can do is wait till I’ve got the rest of my footage and the track.

Final couple of things to mention is the print side of the project. This is the side of the project that has had the post focus lately, due to problems with getting filming done, and is going pretty well. Both me and Chloe have been designing the magazine article and the cover, which you may remember I said I wanted to do a bigger magazine package to go along with the print portion of the project, so far it is just the cover as the extension on the magazine if I have more time I will work on something else. At the moment none of my designs have been scanned in or adapted onto photoshop with a lot of them been done on publisher because I don’t have photoshop and is another software that is foreign territory for me at the moment.  A lot of my items have been hand drawn as well, mainly the digipack so that will need uploading and will need fine tuning in photoshop, on the other hand me and Chloe will be taking loads of photos of our band (the band in our video acting as representation of Pulled apart By Horses) to serve as purpose for our print products such as the magazine, and we might just compromise loads of different photos to assemble a digipack, again this is still being decided. Chloe actually already has a really excellent magazine cover created by her up on her blog, using an actual photo of the real Pulled Apart By Horses and it just looks amazing, like it has belongs on the front cover of an issue of “Rolling Stones”. I will be uploading it to my blog just when I next get to see her because she isn’t in today.  So for the mean time print products will continued to be soldiered on with, in-between the filming and editing.

One final brief note, as I have mentioned in past blogs I have had issues with my laptop, which basically is what I do all my work on when I’m at home and is just my life most of the time. Anyway it got a lot worse over the holidays because I just woke up one day and the casing on it was coming off with loads of exposed wires and one side of the screen was nearly completely unscrewed and close to hanging off. So as of last Saturday (14^th January) it was sent away to be repaired along with the other issues hopefully and will be back in about 2 weeks. So until then all my work that is done on computer will be done at school, library or on my home’s main computer which will be very little as it is in a worse state then my laptop, it is incredibly slow and close to about 9 or 10 years old, so its quite a surprise it hasn’t died yet. I’m hoping this won’t affect my work flow too much but if it does, a lot of it will most likely be charted up to me not having my usual means of working.he beginning of the first two shots

Back in Action

So first day back at school, and its time to whip things into gear. So we have a total of 5 weeks now to get the project done, that includes a finished video and print products. Good news is though most of the print productsare done so it's just a case of getting them up on the blog. But as touched upon in my last blog it is all in different formats (publisher, word, hand drawn etc) so it may take a bit of time to get up what we have. Filming is the main issue on focus, the plan is to film first thing Monday morning and then get it all edited into place, so we can spend most of the attention on fine tuning, fixing and cleaning up the video, iron out any creases that are present within in it, so it looks it's best, that is what will take up most of the timing given that me and Chloe have very limited skills on using editing software, but hopefully that will be corrected whilst using up, picking up and adapting our skills with it as we go along. Obviously the other major part is finishing off the print products, a lot of what we have is just basic ideas and designs that will obviously need fleshing out more, especially because a lot of them are drawings by me, so they will either need bringing to life on photoshop or publisher, or will be scanned in and cleaned up, depending on if I think it can be pulled off with my level or drawing and art skill. So it's a busy few weeks a head but I'm feeling confident and refreshed from the break off, so hopefully everything will done with hopefully much less interruptions and distrubences like last term.

So it's been a while...

Sorry it’s been such a while since my last entry, I’ll explain what’s been going on since my last one. Basically I’ve been off these last two weeks for Christmas break and I’ve been rather busy obviously due to celebrating the holidays and seeing the family, as well as going to work and balancing other work for my other subjects, I’ve hardlys had time to upload much. Another factor is, and I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned this in other posts, that my laptop is pretty much broken and has gotten worse lately. It can be really slow a lot of the time, has terrible lag, and is terrible for overheating, even after an hour it becomes red hot and starts to burn up.  Plus the fact that my internet connection is also pretty bad, so getting online can be a chore, which is why I do all my blog posts in school and lessons. But despite this I have been hard at work making good on what I promised. I’ve been written several blog posts on my laptop in word, and have been working on all the other practical aspects of the project, the magazine, the digi-pack, adverts etc. Now obviously I havn’t uploaded any, because a lot of them have been designed on word or publisher because I don’t have photoshop (or publisher, ones I did on there were in school before I left for the break or going to places that had computers with the software) so I’m not sure how to go about uploading them, plus a lot of it is drawings and sketches so I have been without a scanner to scan them in and upload them, so a lot of that will have to wait till I go back. I’ve also done some more and rewritten some of my research to bulk it up a bit more. A final thing I have been doing is organising the filming that needs to be finished for the video itself as when I go back I have around 5 and half weeks (maybe longer, not entirely sure) to film it, edit it  to what I already have and upload the finished product. So a lot to do and a long way to go, despite having already done quite a lot.  Anyway today and tomorrow is all I have left of my break, then I’m back into school on Thursday, between now and then, over these next two days I’m going to upload as much as I can from what I have been working on as these are the only two days I have basically had to myself, so I’m using it to upload what I can. All I have is work today and then once that is over it’ll be all uploads and work. So stay tuned.