Brass project update and Week plan 25/11/2012

Hi,

This post is a bit late but here it goes...

I finished burning the iso file for the pure brass concert and handed on to my lecturer to burn the dvds and send them out to the client. It was a fun experience working on this, but one thing I have learned is don't take on more than one project at a time. This allows more focus to go into the project. Apart from that problem, it was good experience and would do it again.

Anyway...
Here's the plan for this week:

- I have completed my schedule and budget sections of the planning stage document. So I will spend the rest of this week completing the first draft, then fix any problems with it with the remaining time before the deadline

- I have began a working up some 'roughs' for the sky arts sting competition. So further work will go into developing my idea for this competition.

Well that's it for just now.

Cheers

Mike

Promotional Material - Sky Arts Comp

Hi,

Here's a quick one.
I was e-mailed about a competition with Sky Arts. The idea is to produce a 20 second animation with the word 'arts' being revealed or built in some way. It is a great way to get my experience of working to a brief and more promotional material to be on the website. Here's the link to the competition site: Sky Arts Competition.

I will be starting the designs over the weekend to get the ball rolling. Should be good fun to play with After Effects.

Cheers
Mike

Pre Production Pitch and Week Plan

Hi.

Here's the update:

Did my pre production pitch today. All went well and the feedback was great. So I now continue on to finish off my planning stage document and from then on, its the fun bit. My presentation can be found at Graded Unit 2 Planning Pitch.

Also, I managed to get a lot of backlogged work done today. I finished the majority of the VFX for 'Prisoner', I completely underestimated how long this would take me to composite, however the job is just about done... I have completed the Pure Brass Concert edit ready for output, now the problem is I require export the file as an image (.iso file) so that multiple copies of a DVD can be authored. Another problem is that I wanted to export it in full Blu Ray res, So it's exporting now and estimated at 2 days. Great. More updates to follow on this.

Now, here's my week plan:

Complete estimated budget for planning stage.
Collate all paperwork for side projects ('Prisoner', 'Green Screen Shoot' Pure Brass Concert).
Produce an .iso file for the Pure Brass Project (Final Output)

And thats it for now.

Cheers
Mike

VES

hi folks.

Just a quick post about a good bit of vfx advice. I bought a book called the visual effects handbook of vfx. I bought this book for thirty pounds. Seems steep, but it was written by 88 successful vfx gurus in their specialism and published by VES (the Visual Effects Society. VES is a non profit organisation which provides help for vfx professionals all over the world. Heres the link if you want to check it out

http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/

That's all from me.

Mike

Update on client work and week plan

Hi folks.

First of all, an update on client work:

I have completed converting the footage into SD proxies. I have started an assembly edit for the first half of the gig. Mostly everything gas went well except a glitch in the audio and a slight syncing issue. These problems will be dealt with and shouldn't cause too much harm. I have estimated that this project will be finished, colour corrected (a possible colour grade) and author a dvd by the end of this week. Updates to follow...

As for my week plan:

The footage for the 'prisoner' project must be completed by Thursday afternoon to be passed onto the editor. This job should only take around 3 hours (I hope).

Pre production pitch - the deadline for my promotional materials pitch is next Monday and I have completed the design of the presentation. Just need to practice it now.

Come up with a design brief for my website - lucky for me, my sister is a professional web developer, so she has kindly accepted the job of coding a website for me. So I will meet with her on saturday and discuss website designs I have come up with.

So another busy week. However all these tasks should be completed by the end of this week...

Cheers
Mike

Client work

Hi folks.
Todays post is about work experience. I have recently been part of a crew filming a brass band concert. The main role I assigned myself was to be the editor. I spoke to a member of the band after the concert and he asked for a dvd and a version of the concert to be played on their website. So post production work has begun and I have used this workflow:

- down convert all full HD footage into SD quicktime files (to be used as proxies)
- edit the program on Adobe Premier Pro (syncing all video tracks to the master audio)
- when the edit is complete, I will replace the standard def proxies with the full HD versions.
- then add colour correction
- to finish off, author a dvd with a dvd menu on Adobe Encore.

I enjoyed the concert. Was quite surprised how modern and jazzy it was.
Here's hoping everything goes well...
The finished product will be linked to my website and vimeo channel as soon as it is complete.

More posts soon
Cheers
Mike

Graded unit 2- Stage 1

Hi folks.
Another post. So here it goes.
After my graded unit class today at college, I have realised there is a large planning stage document that needs to be submitted along with my presentation. So from now on, to manage my time, I am writing weekly plans down to keep myself on track. This will be a post every Monday.

Week beginning 5th Nov:

• Write contents page for planning stage document- this will allow me to keep everything organised so I don't waffle.
• My green screen reel is to be completed before my next shoot on Thursday morning.
• In addition, paperwork is to be completed for the green screen shoot. The paperwork will include a budget, schedule etc. This will add to my pre production paperwork.
• Production meeting- this is to be held at around 12 to 1. The script has been passed around and a rough storyboard and shot list can be drawn up. Also we will discuss all other business at this meeting.
• Begin a Pre Production Schedule for my Promotional Material - This will take some time to sort out, so I'm tackling it first. 
• Continue preparing pre production speech on 'Prezi'.

Well that's the plan for this week. There will be further posts on each item as I complete them.

Until next time
Mike

Pre Production Pitch

Hello again.

As in my previous post, I have a presentation to show to my lecturers. The pitch will include all the methods I intend to use to promote myself and become more employable to the Post Production world. So, I have began work on a presentation using 'Prezi' Presenting software. If you haven't checked it out, its really cool http://prezi.com/index/.

When I began thinking about ways to promote myself, I thought of the following things:

• A Showreel: Containing all my best bits of work in a short video at a length of 1 min 30s to 2 mins. The thing is... I don't have enough content, yet. So I have began organising side projects with my colleagues to get more material to put into a Showreel. 
• Major Project: As in my previous posts, I am working on a disaster movie set in Edinburgh. This film will be completed in May next year and (if I think it's good enough) submit it to a film festival. 
• A Vimeo channel: I have just created a vimeo account to publish my work to. Honestly,I don't know how I haven't got an account before. It's really useful for finding other creatives who are doing the same thing (see the competition). So I will be posting all of my work, side projects, shot breakdowns on this page. 
• CV: I have been adding and updating my CV constantly to make it better in order to make myself more employable. I am looking for work experience in all areas of the country to try and get more experience in the creative industries. 
• And finally, a website: This will be linking all the above together in one convenient place. It will have an embedded video box on the site which will be linked to my Vimeo channel (which will hold my Major Project ad Showreel), my CV, with cool shapes and colour schemes to make it awesome. 

This presentation will be filmed so I will possibly get a copy of the footage, so I can post this to my vimeo channel, for further self promotion.

I will have more in depth posts about each aspects of my self promotion as I start working on them. 

Until next time

Mike

Recent work

Here's the news:

I have started compositing the green screen footage shot last Thursday and adding a background with some effects etc. During this, I have noticed that some of the shots were shot incorrectly (wrong perspective, shot type). So for next time... plan the shots I intend to film.
The reel is close to being completed and exported for monday 5th November.

Anyway I have arranged to do another green screen shoot with a bigger crew of my class mates. We have all positions sorted including a writer who will write a 60 second script, lighting operator, production assistant, sound, 2 camera ops and a 2 people working on the Post Production including myself. This shoot will take place on Thursday 8th of November. In order to get the best experience for everybody, we have tried to get people who were interested to take on the role they wish to persue professionally. Hopefully this works...

With my first pre production deadline coming up on the 19th, I have almost completed my pitch outline. I will be using the presenting medium, Prezi. Once I have finished the planning document, I will be sorting out my pitch.

Major Project: I have received a story outline from my writer. I will look over this, find out what I like and suggest changes (if any), then I will have a meeting with him today to dicuss the story.

Plans for the future: I have started the saving for an imac to give me the perfect tool to finish my major project next year. I have also added to this list trapcode particular, a particle system plugin for after effects. This plugin is essential to the VFX of my major project as I feel After Effects pre installed plugins just aren't enough.

Well that's all from me just now.

Until next time.