Local Youth Interactions

Junction Young Ambassadors

This is an event held at The Junction on the 8th May 2010 for the youth of Cambridge.
The day will involve workshops such as sound and lighting, DJing, spoken word,dance, beatboxxing, digital imagery and more.

This is an example of a video to promote the Junction Takeover. It shows the interaction between the Junction and the local youth.



Strawberry Fair

Simon Bates - Final Feedback

Here is a copy of the feedback we recieved from Simon after he watched our final cut of the documentary.

- Professional looking documentary
- Nice use of music and voiceover
- Covered the full range of people who should have been included in it
- Gives an excellent portrayal of Work Related Learning at The Junction, looks exciting
- Could have done with some interviews with students
- Illustrates the good points

Guys, this was not an easy task but we are very happy with the outcome. You have worked well as a team and bought together a great range of technical, creative, and project management skills. You should all be happy with what you have achieved here.

This is all very positive feedback, which I am glad to see.

Final Documentary

This is the final cut of our documentary. Hope you enjoy.

Final Documentary - Kirk, Philippa, Alie, Mike, Matt H, Joe and Dave from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Promo Comparison

I looked at a promo video that was made for the junction and also looked at the skins series 4 promo and compared them.



This promo is good as it gets all the relevant information across to the audience. It mixes the live footage in with the interviews on what it is like to play at The Junction well. There are quick cuts and it looks nice.

Here is the link to the skins video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho69_sCkwyI

The video features several quick cuts, of each of the individual characters. This is done to introduce audiences to the new cast of skins. This sets the audience up well as to what to expect for the new series of Skins.

Each video promotes what they are aiming to well.

Documentary Comparison

This video is about the making of the promo for the third series of skins.



The video opens with edgy music, which grabs your attention straight away. There are lots of quick cuts and jumps straight into the action, with Cook lighting a flare and some of the cast members talking about a fight scene. All the interviews are filmed during breaks on the shoot, which adds to the interest. There is always something going on in the background. This video was designed for teenagers to get an insight as to how the promo video was made, and to also anyone who would have a possible interest in working in television production. It gets the point across very well.

Their video is along the same lines as our documentary. What they are trying to get across in their documentary is how the promo was being made. This is partly the same with our documentary, as there is footage of the making of the fiver, but we also explore how the Junction has worked with Long Road on our projects. We have relatively quick cuts mixed in with frequent interviews.

Different Organisations

Here is a list of all the different establishments that we worked with on this course, and also a brief history regarding them.

Bournemouth University

Bournemouth University is one of the top media universities in the country and also the country's top new university of 2008 and 2009. It became known as Bournemouth University in Novemeber 1992. We were going to Bournemouth to recieve feedback on our promo videos from some of their editing students.

The Junction

The Junction is a music venue that first opened in 1990, now twenty years old. They focus in live music performances, stand up comedians, theatre and dance performances. We made the promo video for the Junction to help attract more local bands to play at their Fiver event. We also made the documentary to show how the Junction has recently worked with us, from the Level 2 samba event to us filming our music videos for the A2 media coursework.

Skillset

Skillset provided the budget for this project. It was a total of £3000. Skillset provides training for people and businesses who are working in the creative and media industry. This includes video gaming, film-making, TV and radio.

Health And Safety For Fiver

Upon arriving at The Junction to film the Fiver, we were given a list of health and safety issues that we had to take into consideration.

1) Ear plugs - we were issued with ear plugs as the performances were loud and they did not want our hearing to be affected.

2) We had to be careful not to trip on any loose wires, and also to be careful whilst filming as we were filming in the dark and were liable to trip over.

3) Passes - we had to wear passes in order to get backstage and not endure confrontations with members of staff.

4) Visible - as we were in a dark room, we had to wear white t-shirts in order for people to see us.

5) Stay away from the fork lift - it was dangerous, so we were not allowed to be near it.

We had to follow all of these rules in order to avoid being involved in an accident.

Thoughts On The Roughcut 2

Having watched the second rough cut of the documentary, I noticed a few things that need changing in order to make the documentary better.

The soundtrack does not fit the theme of the documentary - the song is far too loud and plays over some of the interviews, while in other parts of the documentary, there is no sound, but it does return after a while.

The interview with Gary Brown at the end of the documentary isn't necessarily needed at all in the documentary. It does not add anything to the documentary and it slows the pace of the video down.

The montage at the end of the video could perhaps be used at the start of the video and looks as though it was taken off someone's promo video.

The montage at the start of the documentary does not explain anything, it is confusing and therefore needs a voiceover.

Those are the main points that I noticed with the documentary.

Documentary Rough Cut 2

This is the second rough cut of our documentary. We still need to add in the interview with the principal and also the footage of James talking about his experiences with working with The Junction to create his music video.



Enjoy!

Budget

We were given a budget of £3000 by Skillset for this project. The budget was broken up into these different sections:

Travel - it would cost £1000 to hire the coach

Accomodation - it would cost £20 per person for an overnight stay in Bournemouth with the total being £400

Food - it would cost £20 per person with the total being £400

University pays £500 for the student mentors to look at our work

Samba Tuition - it cost £260

Equipment such as cameras and computers for editing would cost nothing as they are free to use at Long Road and Coleridge.

The grand total of this project would come out at £2560

This is not the actual cost of this project as we never spent the night at Bournemouth. The cost of the food also came out at a lower price. We were hoping to carry the leftovers of the budget for our extended project, which is to design and make a printed newspaper.

Editing The Samba Performance

Again, Philippa imported the Samba performance onto the computer. The footage lasted over sixteen minutes and Philippa managed to cut the video down to seven minutes. We decided it would be a good idea to get an interview with a Level 2 student on their experiences on working with the Junction and also what it was like to do the Samba performance in town in front of people.

As we were unable to get an interview on time, I remembered that the Level 2 group made video diaries on their experiences, which was on vimeo. This was what we were looking for, so I downloaded the video from vimeo and put it onto the editing timeline. Due to time restraints, I didn't have enough time to sit through the entire video, so I used the first interview. I mixed it in with the footage of the Samba performance .

I also edited the interview with Nick and put alternate cuts within the video to make it look quite edgy and fast paced. After that, the video was ready. I quicktimed it and gave it to Dave, who put it into the documentary. So from a sixteen minute video to a minute and a half, we cut it down quickly.

If only we met the deadline...

Interviewing Nick and James

Today was our deadline day and whilst we were unable to arrange a time to interview the principal, we still had to get our interview with Nick as this is what Simon Bates had requested for us to do. Me and Alie worked on a set of questions to ask Nick. We knew that we had to ask him questions about the Level 2's samba performance as Pete had already spoken about the project as a whole.

I set up the camera and Alie interviewed Nick whilst I filmed it. It took a few attempts, but we eventually managed to get the interview. Next, we had to interview someone about the music video that they made at the Junction. Me and Alie decided to interview James as he is confident about talking on camera and would give us the answers we were looking for.

After a few attempts at filming the interview, we ended up filming it in the stairwell, where there was less background noise. Here is a copy of James's music video, which he filmed at the Junction.

L3/13 - YOUTH OF THE NATION (James) from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Editing The Bournemouth Footage

Philippa imported all of the footage that I gathered from our trip to Bournemouth onto a computer. She then cut the footage down. She asked me to take over and I added fade transitions from the interview with John Walder and the footage of the students getting their feedback on the promos.

I also worked on cutting some of the shots down as I thought they lasted too long and slowed the pace down of the video. I also added an on screen title explaining who John Walder was, then quicktimed the video ready for Dave to add onto the documentary.

Feedback From Bournemouth And Our Response

The feedback that we recieved on our documentary from the bournemouth student is as follows:

The introduction needed to establish a feel for the documentary to inform people what it is about and to also get their attention. We needed to pick out the best shots of the Fiver to use as a montage sequence.

There was good use of the band footage, but he thought we should've had more.

Instead of just having an interview with someone and then playing the footage afterwards, we should cut between them both, instead of making it drag on for too long.

Some of the shots were held for too long and should be cut shorter.

There was good use of titles to break the video up, but maybe we could've used a voiceover to explain it.

There was too much footage of the students editing their promos. We should've cut between the interview to break things up more.

Our Response

I felt that these were very valid points to make. As we had only just begun editing our documentary and a lot of our work was still work in progress, a lot of the things that he picked up on were all changes we were going to make in our next cut. All of the suggestions that he made we were all going to change in the documentary and we were also planning on adding a soundtrack to help make the video more engaging to watch.

Bournemouth

We went to Bournemouth University to get some feedback on the promos and also on our documentary. Due to the snow, we were unable to film the students boarding the coach and also part of the journey down to Bournemouth. This meant that we were unable to film the journey home as it would no longer work in the documentary.

The journey to Bournemouth took 5 hours, which is a long time, but I felt it didn't drag on too much, though it was nice to walk again. After lunch, I went around the different rooms and filmed all the different promo groups as they got feedback from their bournemouth editing students. I later went around and took photos of this.

I also filmed Alie as she interviewed John Wardle. We filmed him infront of a blue wall as we thought this looked interesting. He was very confident with his answers. We were glad to have interviewed him as this is what was requested by Simon Bates. Before this, I also filmed the 'Welcome to Bournemouth university' sign, which I thought would be a good establishing shot for the documentary footage.

Before we knew it, the day was over and we began the coach journey back to Long Road. The journey back was much quicker. Overall, I thought the day was a success. I managed to film all the important parts of the bournemouth trip, although I would've liked to have filmed a brief part of the journey to Bournemouth and also the journey back home.

Level 2 Cramba Performance

The Level 2 Creative and Media group had been learning Samba at the Junction for the past few weeks. They were due to put on a performance in Cambridge to help raise money for the Haiti earthquake. I thought I would film them as footage of them practising had previously been shot.

We went to the Junction where the Level 2 group had a brief rehearsal. I got a few minutes of footage as I felt this would be a good way to begin the Samba section in the Documentary. After this, we trekked down to Cambridge and set up ready for the Samba performance.

I filmed the Samba boards whilst the group were setting up. I then filmed their first performance from a range of different angles. From in front of them, to each sides and also from a distance so that you could see the crowd that were watching them. I did exactly the same for their second performance, which seemed to be quicker than their first one.

By the end of the two performances, my hands were completely frozen and then never stayed around to interview a few of the Level 2 group and also their Samba instructor. But I got a decent amount of footage, lasting around sixteen minutes. And the level 2 group raised around fifteen pounds for Haiti, which is a solid amount as they only played for around thirty minutes.

Now it comes to the edit...

Documentary Inspiration

We looked at a few documentaries and looked at their style to see how we could make our documentary. We looked at the Eastenders e20 documentary. The style of this video is very informative mixing in interviews with production members to the filming of the actual show. The interviews are very laid back and this makes for a very interesting video to watch.



We also looked at a video to see how to perform an interview correctly. We had to make sure all our interviews were fairly laid back, but provided all the information that was needed without them being boring or dragging on for too long. The video that we looked at was of a Derren Brown one.



The setting of the interview is just right with the camera panning around to not only show the person being interviewed, but also the interviewer. However, in our interviews, we did not keep to this. The camera was static with the interviewer not in shot at all, though they can be heard. However with each of the interviews, we did have different shots, so they weren't just mid shots of people sitting at desks.

An Interview With Pete

During the lesson, I filmed an interview with Pete with Kirk as the interviewer. Along with this, I filmed footage of each of the class members as they edited their promos. I got around three minutes of footage for this. I then cut all the parts out of the interview with Pete, such as background interference, pauses in the interview and then quicktimed the video so that the members of the editing team were able to put the footage into the documentary.

Getting In Touch With The Principal

Alie sent an email to the enquiries at Long Road in order to get in contact with the Principal. It was important to get an interview with her as this is what Simon Bates wanted to feature in the documentary.

We heard back from them and me and Alie worked on a reply to get permission to interview Sandra before the end of the week. We did not get a reply, so the interview with Sandra needs to be added into the documentary at a later date.

Simon Bates Feedback

Here is the feedback that we recieved from Simon Bates

Visual Looks clear and mature
Audio Sounds good
Interviews with students, Junction staff, lecturers Good interviews, more, i.e. Nick would be great, Sandra at Long Road, Jonathan at Bournemouth
Demonstrations of students working alongside Junction and Bournemouth staff Some good footage but more of the Samba and CRaM conference would be great
Interviews with students who are going to Bournemouth and how Long Road has developed the link Needs more of this
Information for other consortia on how to schools and FE colleges should engage with employers More on: students saying how important this is to the success of diplomas, at the end of the day this is why students do diplomas!

We took all this into consideration. We were further behind the promo groups as most of our material still needed to be filmed, such as the trip to bournemouth and also the level 2 samba performance, the trip to bournemouth and also the interviews with Nick and Sandra.

Documentary Rough Cut

This is the rough cut for the documentary. 

Documentary Rough cut from cmdiploma on Vimeo.

Sandra Hamilton Fox Questions

I worked on a set of questions ready to interview Sandra Hamilton Fox, the principal of Long Road. The questions are as follows:

1) Could you tell us who you are and what you do?

2) What do you see as the value of the new 14-19 diplomas?

3) What's your view point of the work that the creative and media students have been doing with the junction?

4) Can you see any future opportunities arising from this project, and if so, what could they be?

Thank you for giving up your time to allow us to interview you.

Bournemouth Shot List

Here is the shot list that I made for everything that needs to be shot when we go to Bournemouth.

1) open with the coach journey down to bournemouth

2) establishing shots of the university and signs "Welcome to bournemouth university"

3) Shot of the university students talking to the class and shots of the long road students listening to them.

4) Shots of long road students being helped by university students

5) Interviews with university students

6) Shots of all the long road students working

7) interview with some of the long road students about what they got out of going to bournemouth for the day.

8) Interview with a university lecturer (this may not be needed)

9) A shot of the long road students finishing for the day and heading back to the coach, the journey back to long road

all of the shots have been listed in the order in which they will be filmed to make the edit easier.

I checked with the other members of the group and they said these are good enough.

General Risk Asssessment

This is a general risk assessment that me and Alie created for this project.

1) Dropping the camera - making sure we hold it tightly and properly

2) Drinking liquid over expensive equipment - no drinks near the equipment

3) Not plugging in the microphone - check that it is properly attached and do a few seconds of test footage before filming to check that the sound is working.

4) Forgetting to use a tape - check that there is a tape inserted and that it is inserted correctly.

5) Straining eyes from looking at the computer for long periods of time - take regular breaks when working on computers

6) Tripping over any cables - check and remove any cables or wires that are obstructing people area of walking

7) Musculoskeletal problems from maintaining an unnatural seated position at a computer - move around, get up to stretch at regular intervals

8) Ensure all legal documents are complete before shooting

Interview Questions

Here is a list of questions that I created to help the interviews run smoothly.

1) Could you explain who you are and what you do?

2) What's your involvement within the Junction project? Would you say you have a specific role?

3) Could you give a brief outline of the project?

4) What do you hope the students can get out of working with the Junction?

5) Can you see any further opportunities arising from this project?

The questions will be altered slightly when it comes to interviewing the bournemouth students.

Filming The Junction Fiver

I went down to the Junction with Nick, Kirk, James, Sam and Dave with the filming equipment in tow. We arrived while the bands were performing their soundcheck. I was in charge of interviewing Simon Bates and filming the class members as they were going around filming the night.

I went off with James, who interviewed Simon while I filmed it. Kirk took photos. The interview dragged on for quite a while and by the time it was over, I already had 15 minutes worth of footage. The night hadn't even begun and already I had quite a lot of footage.

I then went with Kirk and together, we got interviews with the sound and light technicians. I filmed a few cut aways and also brief footage of soundcheck. I thought it was interesting as we learned what goes into making the evening so good. We also got to witness a few of the bands as they did their sound checks, which was an added bonus.

I filmed a few cutaways that could appear in the documentary, this was on the list of footage that was given to me by the rest of the group. I interviewed FranKo's manager, along with Kirk and the whole group filmed the interview with FranKo. After that, I went around filming the others as they were filming the performances. I also interviewed a member of the Junction staff, who had been working there since it first opened. I thought this could be interesting for the documentary. I also filmed some crowd footage, then went home.

All in all, I got forty five minutes of footage, which is quite a lot. Nice.

The Junction Fiver

The plan was to film the Junction Fiver on Friday the 29th January. The event begins at 6:30 pm and finishes at 10: 30pm, lasting a total of four hours. As it was the January sale, six bands were playing, not the normal five. The bands that are playing that night are: Boiling Point, Operation FM, After4, Talkshift, The Colour Movement and FranKo.


FranKo are a signed band, who had recently been on tour with Elliot Minor. We had to ask permission to film their performance and to also interview the band, along with their manager. This was due to the fact that they have a debut album released over the coming weeks.

The bands play in order of experience. The bands that play first are more likely to have less experience at playing in front of a crowd than what the bands that play last do.

Conference Time

There was a conference at The Junction where students from the Creative and Media courses all came to showcase their work in front of college teachers. The students came from Long Road, Parkside, Colerdige and Cambridge Regional College.

I went with Matt L to help film the day. We took brief turns in gathering footage. As a member of our group was unable to make the presentation, I took their place and talked briefly about our previous project, Lines.

We got quite a lot of footage that day of all the Students and the different work they had made during their time on the course.

Fun, fun, fun.

The Idea of A Brilliant Documentary

Our idea for the documentary was to open it with a brief introduction, possibly explain all the different parts of the documentary that the viewer are likely to see.

We would then have the Level 2 Cramba workshop, from the rehearsals through to their final performance.

We would have a brief snippet of the Junction conference

The making of the promo - footage of the others filming the promo and interview Simon Bates and Gary Brown - maybe other Junction staff?

We would then have footage of the group editing their promo with also the interview with Pete

Footage of the Bournemouth trip

An overall conclusion on how Long Road and the Junction have worked together

Interviews that we need to get for this project are: Simon Bates, Gary Brown, Pete Fraser, Nick Potamitis, Sandra Hamiliton Fox, Bournemouth students, Level 3 Creative and Media students

We pitched this idea to Simon Bates and he said that he likes our idea and it features everything that he asked for.

My Role In The Project

I decided to work on the making of the documentary as I felt this would give me more work to do on the project. I became in charge of sorting out the paperwork, filming interviews and also planning questions for the interviewees. The other members of the class working in the documentary group are: Kirk, Alie, Philippa, Joe, Matt H and Dave.

Idea For A Promo Video

I worked with Loz to come up with possible ideas for the Fiver promo. These are the ideas that we came up with.

1) Open with a band playing - focus on their live performance - and a voiceover explains how to get the chance to play at the junction.

2) Interview with a band explaining how they got involved with the Junction - this would mixed in with live footage of them playing

3) We also came up with the idea to make it like a music video but to also have elements that looks like the anti piracy adverts on the television.

These were just basic ideas and I did not develop them any further as I was not making a promo. I was in the Documentary Group.

Simon Bates Questions

As a class, we came up with a list of questions that we needed to ask Simon Bates regarding the Fiver promo and also the documentary. They are as follows:

1) How long do the videos need to be?
2) What are the limitations on the soundtrack - must they be from Fiver bands?
3) How do you apply for the Fiver?
4) What kind of bands are you trying to attract?
5) Do they need Junction branding or do any other companies need to be credited?
6) What technical equipment can we use at The Junction?
7) Are we able to interview the bands and Junction staff?
8) When is the final deadline for the project?
9) What is the gender balance of the audience?

All these questions would be asked the next time we met with Simon Bates

Background To The Fiver

The Junction Fiver features five local teenage bands playing to a maximum crowd of 850 people, but its average crowd is around 600 people. Tickets cost £5, so it is the equivalent of paying £1 for each band you see playing.

The Bands are given a set amount of tickets to sell from which they take £2 from each ticket they sell. The more they sell, the more money they make and the larger number of people who would be seeing them play.

The Fiver aims to encourage and nuture emerging acts and provides a platform for young musicians to work with professional technicians, a top class PA system and exposes them to an audience five times their normal size.

The Junction needs to continue to attract new bands in order to keep this brand going and must increase the presence of the event on its own website and amongst social networking sites and forums.

Gary Brown is the events manager for the night of the Fiver.

The Junction Brief

We eventually teamed up with The Junction to work on two projects for them. The first was to produce a promo to help get bands interested to play at The Junction Fiver. The second was to make a documentary to show how Long Road has been working with the Junction with some of its recent projects. The Junction were given £3000 by Skillset to make the documentary.

The Promo Brief

The film must have the following features:

- Live footage of the Fiver
- What the requirements are for getting in
- What you get if your band is accepted
- How to apply

It must look contemporary, fast, appealing to the 14-17 age group and supply all the relevant information

Films will be judged by a panel of senior staff and, if the standard is high enough one film will be chosen and used on the website.

Our contact for The Junction is Simon Bates, who is in charge of Learning and Access for the Junction.

Documentary Brief

Make a further documentary demonstrating how Creative and Media colleges ae working with local employers, how students are gaining experience through 'Work Related Learning' and how Creative and Media students can be linked in with Academy's such as Bournemouth University

They are looking for a documentary that is:

- Lively yet informative
- Quirky and interesting
- Cool and contemporary
- In Junction Livery
- Driven by from the student perspective as well as Long Road and Junction staff

Local Opportunities

I looked at a wide range of local organisations who might want work done with them. The first organisation I looked at was the Cambridge Arts Picturehouse. We could help make a teaser trailer to get more people interested in going to the cinema. However, we worked with the Picturehouse when they had the Cambridge Film Festival and as that never worked out well, we decided it would be a good idea if we did not approach them to help make something from them.

The next organisation that I looked at was The Junction, an arts venue in Cambridge. They have gigs, drama and dance productions, stand up comedy and also youth workshops. We could make a promo for one of their upcoming gigs, maybe for the Junction Fiver.

We could also work with the Cambridge Library. We could help make a promo that could be put up on their website in order to help attract more people to come to the library or just other local libraries in general. Also help to get younger children back into reading books again. A disadvantage of making a promo to put on their website is that the only people who would be able to see the video are the people who check the website regularly. We would need to attract a more wider audience, which could be quite complicated.

Working with one of the Cambridge Radio stations, such as Heart or BBC Cambridge would also be a possible opportunity. We could help make a podcast to go on their website to help promote their company. An advantage to this is that our work would have the opportunity to be viewed by a much wider audience rather than just our friends and teachers who view our work normally. A disadvantage to this is that there are sixteen people on our course and if we all worked on this, there may not be enough work to go around and many of us could be left with not doing much work.

The final organisation I looked at was the Cambridge Arts Theatre. We could help to make a short film in order to increase the number of people who go to watch their plays. A disadvantage to working with the theatre are that many of the plays performed there and done by different companies, not just their own.

Introduction

This is my blog for the interaction blog. Here is a link to the main page: