So the Professional Project unit has finally drawn its curtains. What a long couple of months it’s been. There have been some ups and some intense downs through the process, but now it’s time to look back. The original project that would take us through to this point was a professional music video shoot run by Phil Peel. Although with a lot of troubles throughout the process, we had the opportunity to take on some side projects until the final problem had been resolved.
The first project was an organised thing by Phil Peel, involving a theatrical production of Oscar Wildes Lady Windermeres Fan. This all took place down at the Lighthouse Theatre in Poole. The first job was to load the van with the equipment. Once we all arrived at the Lighthouse, the equipment was unpacked. With four HD camera set up, they were the first jobs snatched straight up by classmates. This time round I wasn’t quick enough, so I was given the role of a runner. I was told to untangle really long wires, plug up the cameras. With equipment set up in the wings, for health and safety purposes, the wires were taped along the wall and fed behind the rear chairs. The filming took place over two days, and through three different performances. Once the filming was finished, the footage was compiled into a final composition.
Another project was a taste of some journalism. On the 24th March 2010, my friend Joe and I went to the HMV Forum in London to check out Josh Rouse. I was impressed and surprised with his performance, nice songs as well. I made memos every so often on my phone to remind of specific moments in detail, which would make it easier for me to fulfill the work. The whole take on journalism and being a critic was a fun process, but I realise I do need a lot of improvement in that area. I will definitely take up this idea again for other events I attend, whether its music, comedy or film.
One other project, we had the chance to film an alternative music video with a band called State of Undress. When it came to the day of filming, we met bright and early at 9 30am to help load the van. Phil left us to it as in the previous project he had taught us the art of loading equipment into a van. We headed towards a desolate road to capture our first schedule shot, involving the band walking down the road playing the song in its entirety. The van would slowly crawl forward working as a tracking device. The objective was to toy around with perception. After this Phil ideally wanted to create the feel of a stadium sized football crowd rather than the reality of about one hundred people. This was fulfilled by zooming in with standard and extreme close ups, whilst panning horizontally along the crowd. Mike shot the footage as we both decided on various shots, zooms and pans. This experience was a really great one, which proved a sense of commitment, teamwork, reliability and strength within a group of people who fought through some tough turns, and still produced a quality result. I’m proud to have been part of the team, and hopefully it won’t be too long till it’s edited.
Before the Easter break, Jack and Ali confronted a few of us for an opportunity to be part of a competition set up by Doritos to create a thirty second advert. I have also included this for the Professional Project unit. The winner gets a cash prize and a viewing of their advert on the television. This was a really fulfilling and creative activity to be part of. A dolly was created for the main shot, and we got hold of some redhead lights to really bring everything in the shot to life. The shot tracks across a long ways set table with people building objects out of Doritos crisps. The final punchline is the last person (myself) getting gluttonous with the tagline being ‘you can eat them you know’. This punchline evolved into ‘built to be tasty’, which i think is less hard hitting than the last. All in all the production was undertook with a very professional attitude, putting aside the humorous content of the advert.
So the fifth project was a back to Lighthouse Theatre to film Dracula. This project has taken place over a couple of weeks for me, as the filming was three days, and I have also taken on the post production too. This was a really brilliant task and I had a lot of fun doing it, plus I learnt a few new techniques about camerawork. The shooting of the production took place over three days, and was pretty demanding. We all had headsets on linked up to the main video box which Phil was operating. He would send us instructions down the microphone as to where we needed to shoot footage. Once this process was complete, I asked Phil if I could edit the piece which he accepted. In the end I tweaked the asset, beginning and end credits, plus created the DVD with functioning menu. Overall this project was very hands on, which I enjoyed immensely. The productivity and the independence of the workflow was something I really felt comfortable taking on as a student.
The main piece for the unit finally came underway. This was of course the music video shoot for the ‘Wooden Pigs’ song ‘Light of Day’. The project was postponed after big troubles with booking out a location for filming. Once the band arrived, we discussed the matter with them and luckily enough they were having a band practice at Josh’s place that evening. My job was to keep to the perimeter of the work area and capture everything on my DV camera. I then took this into a composition and created the final video. The first week of editing was smooth, and I planned to finish everything off by the weekend. Yet an absolute disaster took place on Friday morning, where my hard drive wiped the content. Luckily my dad saved me and brought me back home to work. I have learned to be more frequent with backing files. The project was intensely stressful, but I’m happy with the result. I have learned some lifelong lessons about post production, and some more skills and developments on organisation, and production.
I was planning to heading back up to university today, but I feel like I still haven’t done enough. Plus to be honest the work environment is much less stressful and quieter than in my student house. Being the end of the year, and the housemates all first years and immature, it’ll be hostile there!
