Week 26

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Monday 21st March

I continued with the research that I started yesterday. Today that research focused on Equipment, target audience and audio.

I started with research into equipment. This involved research into cameras, tripods, gimbals and sound equipment. This was a really good first step into the equipment I plan to use, and this research will be furthered later on this week, as I plan to carry out primary research demo tasks where I can practice with the equipment I researched today. The main goal of this specific research task was to get me thinking about the possible equipment I want to use and by the end of the week, thanks to all my research tasks I will have a solid grasp on all my equipment needs. However, I may have to be slightly flexible on the equipment I book out as it is likely some of the equipment will be inaccessible as with so my class and the year 2’s all filming at similar times booking equipment out may become tough.

The second research I focused on was the target audience. I will continue research on target audience’s in my primary research where I will use surveys and focus groups to gather these people’s opinions. However the research today allowed me to discover the rough target audience I should be aiming for. I researched into the target audience’s of Documentaries and Mockumentaries, and the research showed the target audience I should be aiming for is around 18-49 year old however the audience most likely to view my work was 15-35 year olds. I discussed this more thoroughly in my conclusions for that research, but this research has allowed me to narrow my focus for my primary research, as I can now avoid gathering data from people below or above the target audience as I know it is unlikely that it would provide useful data for my research. This research turned out a lot more fruitful than I had expected and will really make a difference to what I had originally planned for my primary research. I am now considering holding several focus groups with people across this age range in each group, e.g. one for young adults and one for middle age people. This will then allow me to discover the differences between the ages within the target audience and possibly allow me to focus my target audience even more.

My final piece of research today was focused on audio, where I researched into Dialogue, Foley and Soundscapes. As I mentioned in the research I already had a decent amount of knowledge thanks to my options project. This research allowed me to progress this knowledge, and similarly to my equipment research, I will keep this research in mind when it comes to carrying out my Demo tasks as well as later on during my production stage.

The last thing I did today before uploading all of my work was to update my Bibliography. I used quite a lot of sources today and so keeping up with them is important. Every time I use a new reference I will update my Bibliography as this will stop me from losing any references, which would significantly damage my research. Later on during this week, it is also likely my action plan may change, so keeping on top of both of these pieces of work is important.

Monday 21st March

Tuesday 22nd March

Before lesson today, I went to the library to look for books I could use as references for my research. I was able to pick up two books that I felt would be useful for the secondary research that I was going to undertake today. One of these books was focused on animation and the other was on editing.

With these books to hand as well as the computer I started on my research for today. I began with rotoscoping research where I used my references to start looking at the benefits and weaknesses of using rotoscoping and then the ways to improve my current skills in it. The benefits and weaknesses went really well and the book I had gotten out of the library was really useful for this topic.

However it was during my research into ways to improve my skills that I made an amazing discovery. I talk more about it in depth within my research, but I was able to find a software called Ebsynth, which utilizes keyframes in order to create the animation. This means I would only have to draw one, or a couple of frames of animation, which the software would then apply to all the other frames using the keyframe as a reference. If I can learn to use this software effectively and it works for what I want to do, it could save me so much time, as well as allowing me to include more animated segments within my piece. I plan on carrying out a primary research demo task in Ebsynth which will allow me to learn how to use it as well as understand its strengths and weaknesses.

The final bit of animation research I did was to find already existing pieces of media which I could look at for inspiration. I was able to find three different pieces which were all very differente, one being the full length film “A Scanner Darkly”, the famous music video “Take on me” and a youtube short film titled “Exordium”. I have watched both the short film and music video currently as well as the trailer for the full film. If I have enough time I will try to watch the full film as it seemed super interesting and could be a great source of inspiration.

I then moved onto editing research where I researched into potential techniques I could use as well as specific editing of documentaries and mockumentaries. This allowed my knowledge of editing as well as docu/mockumentaries to advance. All of the techniques I was able to discover could potentially come in really useful for when I arrive in my post production stage and I think it was really useful for me to start thinking and researching into it now.

I texted the people who I need for one of my focus groups today to ask if they were available for Thursday. However, one of them was unavailable. This has led to me moving the focus group forwards one day. This does note affect me too much as I can create the PowerPoint for it in the morning and then hold it in the evening. This has led to me updating my action plan which I have uploaded the new version alongside the old version to my WIX.

After uploading everything else to my WIX page, I also made sure to update my Bibliography with all the new references I used today. This makes sure I stay up to date with it.

The final thing I did today was watch the Netflix Mockumentary “Death to 2021”. During tomorrow’s lesson I will be textually analysing this piece as I feel it will be a great source of inspiration. Watching it tonight was super useful as it allows me to be better prepared for tomorrow and start thinking of possible ideas.

Tuesday 22nd March

Wednesday 23rd March

This day started off with me receiving feedback on the initial ideas development work that I had done last week. I was thankful to finally have this as I felt it would be a great opportunity to find out what I needed to do to improve on my work. Nigel went through my website with me and highlighted some things that he felt could be improved. All of this was recorded and I will upload the recording with additional notes when I receive it. Some of the additions he recommended were just cosmetic changes, such as trying to get better zoom on the images, adding some more subheadings and fixing a couple of spelling mistakes. Others were things I could add in or improve on such as adding in the learning outcomes, defining a couple of my headings, changing the way I have referenced throughout these pages and explaining a bit more on certain sections. And finally there were some new things I could add in such as ethics of a mockumentary and how documentaries use cameras. Nigel said overall my website looked very good but these were just some features I could include to push it up even more. I am happy to change these and I was able to do a couple of them today, such as fixing the spelling mistakes. However, I am extremely busy this week with research and so the larger improvements such as adding in the new information will have to wait for this weekend when I have time to add them in.

So then after the meeting I moved into some primary research. Initially, I was going to start with my textual analysis as this is my last bit of secondary research. However, as my focus group has been moved up a day I felt it was more important to prioritise the work I would need to effectively carry that out. So I started with creating my PowerPoint for my focus group tonight. Within this PowerPoint I have included what I felt were the most important features they would need to know. These are; Premise; Characters; Locations; Style; Techniques; Target Audience and Purpose. I chose these features as they outlined all the information about my piece and also are the parts I feel I will benefit most from receiving feedback on. Once I wrote up all the information, I added images as well as a questions page at the end, where I will ask the people in the focus group if there is anything they want to ask me.

I then moved onto creating my surveys. There were two surveys I needed to create. The first survey is for people to answer before their focus groups/interviews and focuses on their opinions of Documentaries, Mockumentaries, and genres. It includes questions on their age and gender as well to allow me to make sure the target audience I concluded from my secondary research is accurate. This first survey acts as a way for me to gather their initial ideas before they see any of my work.

The second survey is then after they have been through the focus group and is more focused on how they feel about my idea. This includes questions on, what they liked, what they disliked and what they would change. The purpose of this survey is that it will allow me to get further knowledge of their thoughts and opinions on my idea, after the focus group/interview has ended. But both of these surveys are going to come in useful when it comes to proving what I have discovered in my secondary research is accurate information.

Before returning home to work on the Textual analysis I attended one of the Technician’s workshop. This workshop was focused on lighting. I felt this was a useful workshop to attend as if I’m trying to achieve a professional look within my Mockumentary then learning how to properly use the lighting equipment would be beneficial.

The Workshop took place in the studio where Ash took us through how to use the lighting equipment as well as going through the basics of three point lighting again. I had already learned three point lighting, but having a recap of it and making sure my knowledge was all up to date was important. For instance I had forgotten the rough brightness each of the three lights needed to be on, but I now remember the Key light is 100%, fill light is roughly 50% and the back light will depend on the effect you are going through.

I also had basic knowledge of how to use the lights, but Ash introduced me to this app they have on the Ipad which you can remotely control the lights from. This was amazing, as it meant you could control the colours, saturation and brightness of the lights remotely. I had known you could change the colours of the lights but I had never figure it out until now.

Finally, Ash introduced us to the studio lights on the ceiling of the studio. This was useful to learn about as I had not used these before, however, it is unlikely I will be recording in the studio so I am not sure if I will use these lights within this project at least. But it’s still good to learn about these lights as it means if I change my mind and do want to work in there, I will know what I’m doing.

I have also planned when I am doing my demo works now. I will be carrying out my gimbal and Ebsynth demo tasks tomorrow morning before college and then I have booked out the studio and equipment out for Friday afternoon where I’ll be able to do my camera, tripod and audio demo tasks. Now that I knew better when I was doing it I was able to update my action plan and add the updated version into my website.

I was then able to move onto my final piece of Secondary Research which was my textual analysis. This was super useful and as I’ve explained in the initial conclusions it has offered me a multitude of techniques and possibilities for me to use in my own piece. Most prominently it has made me think about how I can use music within my piece and so I have updated my action plan to include a time for me to look into potential music pieces I can use.

The absolute worst thing has just happened. I just held my focus group. It went on for around 30 minutes, I showed them my PowerPoint and then had about a solid 10 minutes of questions which were super informative. I felt the focus group was really useful on of the best pieces of research I have done so far and I learnt so much from it. But, then the worst possible thing happened. My phone, which had been set up on a tripod behind me to record the whole thing had for some reason powered off. I had used this technique to record my Options Project focus group and it had worked fine and so I thought it would work just as well for this project.

At first I had just thought the screen of my phone had turned off however I soon realised it had completely powered itself off. This meant the recording had cut off after only 7 minutes of recording without me even noticing. This is absolutely horrible as it means the recording has cut off in the middle of my Style page. This is only the 5th page meaning 3 other pages as well as the 10 minute questions which I found the most useful were not recorded. I have absolutely no idea what to do as I feel I can’t do it again because then it won’t be genuine as I’ll know the questions beforehand. But I also can’t not show the evidence cause I found it so useful and not including it would be extremely annoying.

It’s also currently 8pm and I’ve still got to upload all my work to WIX so I can’t even email a lecturer and ask for their help. My best bet is to ask any of my lecturers tomorrow and try to get help from them. As I’ve said this was one of if not the most useful bit of research so far and not having it all recorded is horrible. I have no idea what I can do now so I guess I’m just going to have to wait till tomorrow and see what my lecturers say.

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Wednesday 23rd March

Thursday 24th March

I think I’ve discovered the problem that led to my focus group not being correctly filmed. This morning before College, I started my gimbal demo task. This is when I discovered my problem. While I was filming using my gimbal, at one point, my phone just powered off and stopped recording. When I turned it back on, I realised it was due to the fact my phone storage had become full. This had meant the video I was recording didn’t save and meant I had to re-record the gimbal demo task. Based on what happened today, I think the same thing must have happened yesterday during the focus group. I haven’t gone to College yet, so I will still ask one of my lecturers when I get there. I will describe less about what I did in my demo work here as during the videos I describe what I am doing and the uses they have.

The gimbal task was quite useful though. I already knew the basics of how to use the gimbal, but it was quite useful to recap and I also learned quite a few ways of how to use it and not to for specific things, which I discuss further within the video. For example, the zoom is quite slow so for fast zooms a different camera would be better to use. However, as long as I fix my storage problem, which I am currently working on then the phone and gimbal should be absolutely fine to use for my project.

The final thing I was able to do before College was film my videos for Ebsynth. I wasn’t able to animate them yet due to the problem with the gimbal task which led to me losing a lot of time. I’ve filmed 5 videos for the Ebsynth, all of which are different stages to test Ebsynths capabilities. The first stage is me sitting relatively still and just talking. The second is me sitting and talking but using hand gestures. The third is me standing relatively still and talking. The fourth is me walking and moving around slowly. The final one is me moving around more erratic and faster. These 5 stages are planned in this way to be able to test Ebsynth’s capabilities. From what I learned from my research, the more movement in a scene, the harder it is for Ebsynth. So in my stages, I’ve increased the movement of each one, and hopefully later tonight when I animate them I’ll be able to discover what Ebsynth is able to handle.

When I arrived at College, I started with reviewing my first survey that I had sent out yesterday. I have done a lot more thorough analysis within my review but to also explain here, the best part of this first survey was it confirming what I had learned in my secondary research. For instance, my target audience has now been solidified. The information that this survey provided was in line with what my secondary research told me about target audience's and so I'm able to move forward into the proper production being a lot more confident about my target audience and being able to adapt my idea to more focus on this demographic. It was also really useful in gaining people's personal opinions on doc/mockumentaries as well as them providing me with pieces I could use for inspiration. All this new information will become very useful in looking for adapting my piece into proper production as I can use these opinions to fuel what I can include or what I shouldn't include. And the pieces I've been offered for inspiration could definitely come in useful to fuel my furthered ideas development, especially when going into pre-production.

So as I explained in my last Journal entry, the recording of my focus group cut off after around 7 minutes of recording, cutting out the latter half of my presentation as well as the entire question section. This was quite a large blow to me as I found the focus group one of my most important and informative pieces of research.

I also think I know the reason for why the video failed. During my gimbal demo task, my phone powered off due to its storage becoming full. I think this was most likely also the reason my phone powered off yesterday. The only good thing about this happening was that I was able to catch this situation early, if the same thing had happened while I was trying to film my proper production it would have been disastrous. Because it’s happened now, I’ve been able to fix the problem and now have about 40% of my storage free which should be more than enough to complete the shots I will need to shoot on my phone.

So, today I asked Nigel about how I should approach the handling of the situation as I have lost the evidence for the last part. Nigel agreed it was a horrible situation and thought that the best way to handle it would be to write up about what happened in the rest of the focus group rather than doing it again. I agreed with this, as if I did the focus group again, I would be prepared for the questions, whereas at the time I had to really think about the questions which helped me to understand and develop my own idea more. Luckily, one of the people within the focus group made notes on the questions they asked so I am able to discuss some of the questions I had to answer. I have also displayed the image of their notes, but I understand their handwriting is a little hard to read so I’ve added a version where I’ve tried to translate what they wrote. See the Focus group within my primary research section in order to see an in depth description of what happened after the video cut out.

I have just finished doing my interviews and I feel they have gone really well. And thankfully, now that I have fixed my storage issue, the recordings went absolutely fine. I will write more about how the interviews were useful and what I have gained from them in my review tomorrow, but just to say quickly, once again the question section was really useful in allowing me to develop the idea of my own piece and also being able to properly explain it to someone else was really good.

I then finally moved onto my Ebsynth demo. Ebsynth is absolutely amazing. I had a little trouble with it near the beginning as it kept crashing. However, I soon discovered that this was due to the naming of my files. For the best results simpler names like 00001 should be used and then it will run fine. As I had lost some time figuring out how to use Ebsynth, I couldn't do all 5 stages that I had planned, so instead I reduced this down to 3. This being stage 1, 3 and 5 as I felt these would be best to help me learn but also to test Ebsynth’s capabilities.

1 and 3 went excellent with only 1 keyframe being used in each. They were both relatively smooth as I was fairly stationary but the face movement looked quite good. There were slight glitches such as in 1 the right eye becomes slightly cross eyed near to the end, but these are thing that would be easily fixed with just one more keyframe. And the best part is that to produce each shot it took just under an hour. So about 20 seconds of content per hour is amazing, especially when it’s animation.

Shot 5 was a lot more complex but I decided to only use 4 keyframes of each side of my body just to see how Ebsynth would handle it. Obviously, it definitely didn’t turn out perfect, but this was more of a test to see how it would handle it rather than for it to turn out perfect. This also helps to give me a better understanding of how many keyframes are needed for certain movements. As it seems that the more complex the movements and the more angles there are, the more keyframes are required. However, it is still faster than rotoscoping so with more practice and primary research into this I hope I can improve my skills a lot before my production occurs.

Overall, this demo work has proven that Ebsynth is definitely good enough to use in my proper production and by doing this demo task I have started my journey in learning how to properly use it. With more time and practice it should work out really well for the proper production and allow me to include a lot more animation within my piece.

Thursday 24th March

Friday 25th March

Today's my final day in my research stage. It's been quite a hectic week with several late nights completing work. However, I understand that in order to gain a distinction, which is what I'm aiming for I need to put in the effort.

So today, I needed to have everything finished and uploaded on my WIX website by the end of the day. This included reviews of my focus group, interviews and follow up survey. As well as my camera, tripod and audio demo work. And finally, the final evaluations for this project, which I decided to split into one evaluation for secondary research and one for primary research.

So I spent all of my time in lesson today reviewing my focus group, interviews and Follow up survey. This involved going over the information I had received from it and reviewing its uses and what I've been able to benefit from it. Once I finished reviewing them one by one, I uploaded them all onto my Primary Research page. This was really good to get done first as that was the large majority of the work I had left. It also meant it was out of my way by the time I had the studio booked so that when starting my final demo tasks, I knew I could focus all my effort onto it.

At the end of the lesson, I moved onto my demo work task, which included me looking into the camera, tripod and audio equipment that I could potentially use.

The equipment I used for this demo was a DSLR Canon 600d, a tripod with gimbal head, a shotgun mic that connects to the camera and an audio recorder. The point of this demo task was just to have a test with the equipment, learn how to use it properly and evaluate whether I think it’ll be good enough to use in my proper production.

I set up the rough composition of the camera to resemble that of a documentary interview. Commonly the person is sat down slightly off centre to the camera. This wasn't essential to my demo tasks, but I just felt it was worth getting a little practice of framing an interview.

I made quite a few mistakes in this demo, mainly due to me not being used to the equipment. But I think it’s actually more beneficial to make mistakes now as that means I’ll know how to fix them and remember not to do them again in the future production. For example, about halfway through, I was worried that it didn’t seem like the shotgun mic was picking up any audio. After talking with Ash, I discovered that this was because I hadn’t actually turned the shotgun mic on. Obviously this is a very silly mistake. However, I had not used a shotgun mic that plugged into the camera before so I had not realised it needed to be turned on. But I’m definitely going to remember that now cause it was quite an embarrassing mistake.

Because the mic wasn’t turned on I had to redo a lot of my tests. In each of the videos I explain what I am doing, but to explain a couple briefly here, I did tests on how the different audios sounded. Including using the raw camera, shotgun mic and audio recorder to record the sound.

I also did a little test of the gimbal, just checking out how it works and how I could possibly use it for my piece.

And finally, I did some tests with the camera, I framed most of my shots in an interview style framing as this will be quite a common feature in my piece. It was a little hard to do as I was working alone but I think it definitely turned out quite well. I also did a little walk around just to see how handheld footage would look. This was made as a comparison to the gimbal and I think from this I’m definitely going to use my gimbal as the handheld stuff was a lot rougher.

I summarise my thoughts a lot better in my initial conclusions, but to add a section here as well, thanks to this demo task I now know how to properly use all this equipment, and it’s quite likely I am going to use all of this equipment in my actual piece. However, it is likely I will use a regular tripod unless I specifically need a gimbal head, simply as I find them easier to use and have a lot more experience with them.

Aside from that this demo task has definitely improved from my secondary research that I had looked into equipment and I will definitely make sure to remember this for when I’m picking out my equipment for my final production.

The very last thing I did today was write up evaluations for my secondary and primary research. These are simply summarising what I did and why it was useful. Some of the things I discuss in the evaluations I also mentioned within my initial conclusions, but the evaluation was a good place to compile it all together as well as add new things that I’ve discovered or realised now that my research is complete.

Overall, I’m very happy with the amount and quality of my research. It’s been quite a stressful and work packed week but I think the work I’ve produced from it is definitely worth the amount of effort I put into it.

Friday 25th March

Sunday 27th March

Today I implemented all the new and updated things that Nigel recommended to me in my feedback meeting last week.

There were a couple of things I had already discussed later on in my research such as the use of documentaries and cameras. But there was also one thing I couldn’t implement which was the more zoomed in images that Nigel recommended. The reason that I couldn’t do this is because it’s not able to be done on WIX. The only zoom feature only zooms in based on the size that the image already is on the page and so is pretty ineffective. Because of this I feel the pop out method that I’m currently using is the best way to display images on my website.

So, I then started on the features I could implement. I started with the subheadings and a bit more explanation of my mind maps. This was not too difficult and just adds a little more to my initial idea development.

I then added the learning outcomes onto the buttons on the main page. This shows which learning outcomes are on which page and means the marking should be made easier for my lecturers and the examiner, as well as making searching for work a lot easier as well.

The rest of the changes were then mainly focused on theory application in my idea development. This included, finding examples and referencing them at the end of the corresponding sections. This meant I also had to update my bibliography to include these new additions. Later on I also used references to my insight into Ethics which I also added to my bibliography.

The other parts I updated included defining and adding some more explanations into what I was talking about as well as adding the theories into the codes and conventions section. I had become a little confused onto what theorist Nigel had meant as I had used most of the ones I knew. But as I was going back through my notes I realised Steve Neale’s theories also applied to codes and conventions. Originally, I had just used him for genre but now I added in his own section within the codes and conventions.

And finally, I looked into the ethics of Mockumentaries that Nigel had recommended. This included looking into examples of mockumentaries and considering their ethics as well as looking into Ofcom’s rules in regards to using people for pieces like Mockumentaries.

Overall, today was really useful. Mainly just to get this work completed as it allows me to move onto my Pre-production with no other work needing to be completed. As well it keeps me free for my next feedback meeting where I will likely need to change more things to improve my work.