Filming interviews for NCC

In April, I spent a day filming at a special school in Nottinghamshire. This was followed by several weeks editing; the product of which was a series of 5 videos that capture the views of professionals, parents and students who have all been involved with trialling out the Wiki - technology that has been developed by the RIX centre at the University of East London, which enables multimedia advocacy amongst those with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The day went well, and we managed to find some good quiet spaces within the school to shoot the film.

The video below captures views from teachers who work with young people with SEND, providing their informed reviews of the Wiki, and the effect that it has had at the school. Other videos in the series reflect the views from students and parents. Additionally, there's a compilation video which features segments of everyone. These other videos can be viewed on Nottinghamshire's wiki pilot page here.

Animations for Nottinghamshire County Council

Just a quick update..

I've recently completed my second animation for Nottinghamshire County Council. This time, for the Children's Disability Service, explaining their Short Breaks and Personalisation service. This can be found on my website here. I'm pleased to say that it has gone really well and that I'm now working on the next animation for the Children's Disability Service.

Alongside this, I will be completing a couple of animations for Dr Clare Bale explaining a Pathway for children and young people with concerning behaviours. Furthermore, I was recently asked to film Nottinghamshire County Councils SEND Conference in February, so the next step for this will be editing and exporting as videos of keynote speakers and vox pop interviews. It's great to be busy!

Filming at the SEND Conference in Nottingham

I was recently invited up to the SEND Conference in Nottingham, by Nottinghamshire County Council to film some "vox pops" (voice of the populi - i.e. people expressing their thoughts and opinions) and keynote speakers.

The content of the conference was around the same topic my previous animation was based on, and it was really nice to see my animation being played at the conference to help delineate the new EHC plan.

The event presented me with some great experience in the area of filming. I found the vox pops looked the best, and I think a DSLR is well set out for this purpose. Since the conference I have put together 8 seperate videos (3 vox pops, 3 keynote speakers, key messages and a summary video.) The summary video was fun to make as it was an amalgamation of various cutaway shots taken thoughout the day with selected bits of the speakers and vox pops. So a nice mix!

Cinematography - The Hoovering - final film

This was a nice project to work on and I really enjoyed learning the technique of film making. Its a little dark (literally) so you may need to close the curtains and turn the lights off to watch it in its full glory!



Heres the documentary:



It was a good team to work with and I'm happy we saw this idea through from conception to completion. I have learned many skills from this which will come in useful for animation and film production. As a director, it was a bit tricky at first as there were a lot of people in our crew but I felt more comfortable in this role as the production went on. Good times!

The Hoovering - storyboards for our short film

I have spent a few hours today designing these storyboards. I think my drawing has improved as a result of going to a lot of the life drawing sessions. The storyboards are for a short 90 second film we are going to make - a horror spoof about a hoover.
If you click on them they will expand..





I think its quite a funny idea.

Cinematography - notes and reference on shots

We are currently on a 10 week (1 day p/week) cinematography course taught by Frankie Keung. We have been learning a lot about how to operate the cameras, different kinds of shots, lighting, and different roles in production. This is in order to strengthen our animations with a deeper understanding of film.

Below I have posted the notes I have taken throughout Frankies lectures. We are lucky to have him as our teacher as he has worked a lot in the industry and is keen to share his wisdom :)









Here I have posted up a page from a 'how to make films' guide that came free with The Guardian a while back. This page is a very useful and interesting guide to the different shots used in film making.



And a page out of the book: Film directing shot by shot by Steven D. Katz.



Soon we are going to be making our own 90 second films. For this I will be working with Emily, Laurence, Miguel, Ryan, Sasha and Alice. It will be good to have a hands-on experience of making a film.

Cinematography - experimenting and time lapse

I got out a P2 camcorder from the media desk on Friday to have a good play with it over the weekend..



One of the first things I wanted to try out was time lapse so I positioned it to point out of my window:



Apologies for the funny grey start - they all start like this, it must be the way I exported them out of premiere.

I took the camera down by the beach and filmed my girlfriend Nina walking along the rocks; I know that Pete Langford may have mentioned something about typical student film methods but I couldn't resist..(mmmmm zoooooooom)



Heres a random one I took as it was getting dark. My friend Carl pretending to sit on a bench. Comic genius :D



On Sunday I still had to quench my desire for more time lapse footage so I rushed over to Falmouth Docks before the sunset.



It got pretty cold but it was totally worth it. I learned that: if filming a time lapse over a period when the lighting alters dramatically - its best to work without the filters clicked on. When I turned them off whilst it was getting darker it altered the brightness a bit too suddenly. Next time I will just adjust the iris/aperture gradually.