Planning the Documentary

We couldn't do much planning for the news story until we had witnessed the event. The documentary is along the same vein.

We have met with Josh Normington, the editor of the Spot, the JagNews weekly program. The orginal idea was a behind the scenes look at how the Spot is created on a weekly basis. Josh is very excited because they were going to create some recruitment materials.

Now there is the added stress of their expectations. I don't know if we should go with the original idea, or make it some sort of retrospective. We'll be filming all week, so lets see what emerges.

Approaching People

I have no problem talking to people. However when our formal interviews didn't pan out, we had to approach people at the 10th anniversary event. It was difficult to approach people to ask them if they would consent to be interviewed.

News Story Technical Issues

This project had a lot of technical issues. We had an external hard drive fail that meant we had to recapture all of the footage (2 cameras, 1 hour and 20 minutes each,) The only thing that saved us was we had the Final Cut file open so we didn't have to recut the footage, only reconnect it.

We also had a portion of the tape that was damaged, and some of our B-roll could not be used. When I was creating the DVD, the lab computer crashed. Isn't technology great.

AE Animation Effect and Photoshop/Illustrator

I need my video to look animated. I was able to find the proper feel using three or four filters in AfterEffects on the video. I would have liked to Illustrator to Live-Trace the pictures and remove the colors by putting a limit on the amount of colors. I thought 64 colors looked good.

I was unable to go that route because I couldn't get it to automate the process using the Automate tool. I didn't have time to retouch 600 photographs (20 seconds at 30 frames a second)

Audio Warning

I've learned as I'm putting the DVD together that DVD Studio cut off my audio. I had to go back and add as second of silence on the end of my audio to be able to get the last note of music.

Always leave room for that sort of thing.

Brainstorming Exercise

Here is my brainstorming exercise from class:

My Brainstorm
➢ The purpose of my product will be to personalize the experience of dealing with stocks during difficult economic times.
➢ The root word of my product is
• Personal
• Personality
• Humanity
• Knowledgeable
• Wise
• “Bringing humanity back to finances”

Charles Schwab

OK, I have an idea. Here is an example of what I'm trying to create:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTsg9-JOogI


They are selling a service right? That is a product. I like this because the audio is almost nonexistent for the video portion. Also, it will give me a chance to play with AE to use some of the tools I didn't think were appropriate for the first project.

Ideas

The joy of commercials. I have learned an important lesson. All of my ideas are PSAs. I guess if you don't actually want them to buy a product at the end it is not a commercial. I think a call to action would still qualify as a PSA.

What I Would Do Different

I have worked with After Effects for one other project. I find there has to be a better way. Maybe I haven't seen AE do what it was designed to do.

I thought I would add narration of the poem, but there wasn't enough time. Also, it might have been too busy. Trasitions were simple because I didn't think that flashy movement really served the story after the first introduction.

The Connection of the Images

As I seached Flickr for images, I found there was a lot of statues. It was only when I put the two images together (the woman, and the statue) that I found there were similar poses.

I also though it would be good to have the juxtaposition of the woman in the black dress and the white statues.

Charlie

Charlie was someone that I went to high school with. He was killed in a motercycle accident a few months ago. I had the pleasure of having dinner with his parents. Talking with them and seeeing what they are going through brought the grieving sentiment to the for front of my mind.

Poem Idea

My second idea is to use the poem "She Walks in Beauty" by Lord Byron to create a slide show.

At first I was going to create the regular slide show and then using animation and titles show the passage of time, and the girl recovered and smiling. Here are the images:








The only issue with this is there are very few images. I also thought of incorperating death into my first idea, but I found there was not enough events that I felt I could add together for that project.

The family idea would have included bits from:

1. My grandparents relationship and how they met
2. A death that happened a few months ago
3. And of course lots of fiction.

The First idea

My first idea for the narrative spawned from the single image narrative exercise:




Stewart and Elizabeth had been coming for a meal on this train for 64 years on their anniversary. What was unique about this pair was they never spoke on the train after ordering. Their faces spoke volumes. All that could be heard was the rhythm of rails and the timpani of tableware.