Production and post-production diary

Monday 5th December 2022:

Today, my crew began recording and finished the podcast. We used a canon DSLR camera with an audio jack microphone. Luckily, we managed to very easily access the studio to record the podcast. Due to the fact that the podcast could be done with internal shots only, we did not have to consider the weather as it did not effect the production of the podcast. We also used a tripod and made sure to bring my SD card as several of our crew brought them just incase they were needed. The week before this we sat down and had a meeting where we decided that it would be in our best interest in doing the podcast at 10:00AM as that gave us enough time to double check everything was good to go and that there wasn't any immediate issues that needed be amended before we could record. 

Our team communicated very well as issues that could've been a lot worse was resolved quickly due to teamwork. We had to re-print out the script for the podcast due to the fact we lost the previous copy however this was a quickly resolved issue. Using this, I could go over the script again to double check that everything we wrote down was correct (in which it was.)

In addition, whilst gathering the resources and equipment to shoot the podcast, we ran into a few issues. The first issue we ran into was that the battery in the camera was not charged. Prior to collecting it, we had been told that the battery was on a serviceable percentage. However, we came to realise that the battery was on the verge of running out. Luckily, it was a quick fix as there was another battery close by that we could borrow which had enough charge. In the future, we will have to make sure to double check the charge so then we don't have to waste time trying to find another battery.

Moreover, we had some technical difficulties with the microphone as the equipment we had was slightly damaged meaning the microphone would not connect to the camera. We ended up having to use a different microphone so then the audio quality didn't have to suffer too much. In the future, I will make sure to test the equipment when I receive it so then if there is any issues it can be rectified straight away.

Finally, I realised that there is a possibility of us being disturbed whilst recording so I decided to put a note on the door so then we wouldn't be as likely as to be disturbed. 

Tuesday 6th December 2022:

Today, we were originally planning on beginning to shoot for the TV advert. However, our plans were thwarted as one of our core actors became ill and although we believed the weather would be decent enough to shoot externally, it proceeded to rain a lot therefore our team decided it would be best to work on editing the podcast so then we were still being useful and not wasting time. 

Wednesday 7th December 2022:

Similarly to yesterday, I ran into several issues mostly consisting of the weather. On this day, it was very cold to the point where I believed it was unsafe for my crew to go out and film. Therefore, we decided it would be best to not film externally and instead do most of -if not all- filming internally to avoid any of my crew falling ill. Thus, we began making changes and planning when we should film which concluded that we should do the bulk of the recording on the weekend. 

Friday 9th December:

Today, me and my crew began shooting the TV advert at my house. We realised that it would save the potential of falling ill from the cold to shoot most of the TV advert internally. Thus, we recorded the introduction and the second scene today. There were not any issues with recording due to the fact we double checked everything was working the day before. 

Sunday 11th December:

Today, we managed to get a large sum of the shootings done and took several takes to make sure we could get the best quality possible for each individual scene. Although it was a struggle due to my lack of dancing skills, we managed to complete both montages thanks in part to the fact that we decided to do much less difficult, complicated and time-consuming dances. Moreover, we managed to complete several more scenes with little to no difficulty except being weary of the camera's battery as we did not have another battery on us. However, all this led to was that we had to be a bit more conservative in our camera usage. Overall, today was a very productive day as we managed to complete all of the recordings with several attempts meaning we weren't confined in the video clips we had to use.

Monday 12th December:

Me and my team decided that we would make today an organisation day. Due to the fact that some of my team communicated the fact they were not 100% physically, and because of the very poor weather conditions, we thought it would be a good change of pace whilst also being productive. Overall, I ended up creating a new folder and renaming all the files to an appropriate and easy to determine name so then my organisation would be in a great condition. However, we ran into an issue involving downloading videos from my phone to the computer. To solve this issue, I decided to gain assistance from my lecturer in which I attempted several different ways to resolve the issue including connecting my phone to my pc to transfer the files directly however it wouldn't connect. In the end, I sent myself an email with the documents inside thus this issue was resolved in a timely manner. I have learnt that one of the more consistent ways to transfer files between devices is through emailing them to myself.

Tuesday 13th December:

Today, I finished organising files and then proceeded to begin editing the podcast. However, today was more of a slow and methodical day as I wasn't in any rush to do anything major due to being far ahead of deadlines. In addition, I assisted someone else with their project but this did not take too long. Me and my team were worn out from the weekend recording thus we decided that these first few days of the week we would not be as quick with what we achieve due to not having to worry about recording anymore. There were no issues with what we did today as it was quite a smooth day as everything flowed nicely together as no technical difficulties occurred.

Friday 16th December:

Today, I continued to edit the podcast and ran into a few issues including accidentally cutting a clip too short and I tried several different types of music which took several attempts until I found the correct music that fits the montage.  Luckily, it didn't take a long time to find the correct music and I managed to correct the clip by pressing ctrl+z which reverses your previous action. 

Once I completed the editing for the podcast, it was time for the Christmas break in which I decided to give myself two weeks to relax and spend time with my family without worrying about any of the post-production. 

Wednesday 4th January:

Today, I started by gathering my bearings and had a catch up with my team. In addition, began editing my TV advert. There were no issues regarding editing due to the fact that I did not do a lot of editing and spent certain portions of my day checking everything was up to date (which it was.) 

Friday 6th January:

Today, I ran into an issue involving Blogger as I inadvertently logged into blogger trying to use my college account instead of my gmail. This led to me being blocked from accessing blogger thus my goals for today (updating my dairy) were thwarted. However, I managed to solve this issue by logging in to google as a guest which fixed this and allowed me to access blogger. Other than that, I continued to update my blogger. No other issues occurred today besides the initial issue which got resolved fairly quickly.  

 Monday 9th January:

This was the final day of working on my initial prototype of my TV Advert in which I encountered no issues regarding editing excluding my attempts at experimenting with some of the visual features of certain scenes however this did not look good so I decided to revert it back to the form I was most happy with. Moreover, I began gathering audience feedback and I realised there were a few things I had to amend before gathering additional audience feedback. 

Tuesday 10th January:

Today, I completed my second iteration of the TV Advert in which I gathered feedback from it by using a survey and there were no major issues with it as it was positively received. In addition, I began collecting all screenshots linked to the editing process.

Here, this is the behind the scenes footage me and my team managed to capture for the TV Advert of the actor looking through the script and showing the setup of the camera. In addition, it also depicts me and the crew trying to use our surroundings as camera angles due to not being able to get a hold of a tripod for the filming process. Lastly, it shows the actor being prepared for the filming process. 

    Here, this is the behind the scenes footage me and my team managed to capture for the podcast of the actors looking through the script with the camera being set up. In addition, it shows the actors being prepared for the filming process.

Post Production

Here, you can see that I had already organised the files with what I wanted to use and also named all the files with an appropriate name so I knew exactly what clips I wanted and could drag into the timeline without scouring into each individual clip. This saved a lot of time and made the editing process a lot easier. When I organised my files I moved any of the suitable clips to a separate folder to avoid mixing any of them up with the unrefined clips with mistakes in.  

Here, this is where I began editing. I dragged the recording files individually at the time they were required. In addition, the line on the timeline symbolises the volume level. To avoid copy right, I decided it would be a good idea to lower the volume on that section due to the fact that I had a TV show on in the background to try and -originally- create a more immersive atmosphere, but in the end I don't want any copyright issues therefore I decided to lower the volume to where you barely able to hear that clip.

Here, I decided to experiment with unique transitions. I tried to figure out which style suited the clips the best and for this specific scenario I decided that a simple dissolve transition suited this best to show that minimal time had past between the clips. I also tried to use transition06, transition07, fade, flash and a wrap zoom however none of these looked particularly good with these 2 clips. I decided not to use the other transitions as they didn't look very professional.

Here, you can see the different and unique experimentation of a POV shot on my phone. For context, in this clip, the character is using their phone and scrolling through TikTok. Instead of potentially getting copy righted, I decided to improvise and use my phone and insinuate I had a found a healthy TikTok page (to still follow the story of the advert.) For this clip I tried to change the saturation in order to make it look more refined and match the other shots however it looked worse and turned more green than I wanted. I decided to revert it back to the original clip.

I decided to use the blue lighting on these scenes to reflect the low mood of the character, in order to allow me to demonstrate the drastic change to a happier mood later in the advert.

Similarly to the first use of transitions, I decided to experiment with several different styles of transitions. Once again, the dissolve transition worked best to keep as much continuity as possible as all the other transitions either looked very unprofessional or just didn't match the theme of the TV Advert well. 

Here, I needed music for my TV Advert so I decided to go onto my YouTube audio library as I could confirm if the music I wanted was copyright free as all music on the audio library are copyright free. There were lots of options to consider so I began testing the music to see which one would suit my TV Advert best. 

Eventually, after much deliberation, I decided to choose the song "ILY Baby" and downloaded it and imported it into the editing software as it mostly suited a high energy montage which is why I needed the music. All the other options were not a great fit as they were either too slow or did not have a consistent beat to them which is not great for a quick and lively montage. I cut down the song using the snip tool so then it only had pure uplifting beats to make the montage more entertaining.

Here, I added some footstep audio as it sounded very similar to a knock on the door (which is what I needed) which I got from the audio section of filmora. This was needed to keep the story of the TV Advert on a constant narrative that makes logical sense. I also had to use the snip tool to cut a large portion of the clip to try and keep continuity throughout a stream of clips. 

Here, you can see me experimenting with different camera angles as I did a POV of what I see. In addition, I tried to make it look more realistic (as if it was from my eyes) by using certain effects however I decided that due to the fact that it did not add anything and took away from the scene, that I should just leave the clip as it is. However, I ran into an issue where I inadvertently deleted the entire timeline and all the editing up to that point. Luckily, I fixed this issue similarly to how I fixed the last editing issue by undoing the error with ctrl+z. In addition, I cut this clip down by 10 seconds so then the advert would not drag on for any extra time that would not be needed.

At this point, I was getting ready to upload my first adaptation of my TV Advert however I came to the realisation that it would be a sensible idea that a NHS Better Health Campaign playlist so then it would be a lot more organised. This was a new skill I developed as before this I did not know how to set up a playlist although I managed to grasp how to do it in a very short space of time.

Here, this is the talent meeting between the main actor and the director in which there was a discussion over the script and to confirm that the main actor was able and wanted to to the TV Advert along with explaining in detail the role the actor would have. 

Here, this was the first version of the TV Advert I made in which I gathered feedback for so then I could improve upon this prototype.

Here, this is one of a few examples of feedback I got. Thankfully, they made me realise there was a major continuity error that I completely overlooked. In addition, people generally had positive receptions towards the advert and thought it was very inspiring. Thus, I began making slight tweaks/ changes to my TV Advert to make it the best possible version.

 

Here, this is the second and final iteration of my TV Advert, in which i gathered feedback and thanks to the changes I made to my TV Advert, it was overall very positive as there were no negative aspects to speak of. I made sure to view it myself before rendering so then I knew there would be no editing flaws and if there would be any negative feedback it would be linked to the overall narrative/  story of the advert (however thankfully there was no negative feedback regarding this too.)

Here, for the podcast, I gathered feedback on if it was informative enough and if the edits were up to standard. I received several responses which were all positive therefore I did not need to re-shoot any of the podcast nor change anything.