Professional Practice: 1st Meeting with CONK

Ruby, our placement co-ordinator Laura and myself went to the meeting yesterday and I am pleased that it went very well, we seemed to get on well with Rachel, the project co-ordinator for the Guildhall Museum. As well as Jeremy, who is the educational officer for the museum they both had a lot of enthusiasm to share for the project.

We wrote down some notes so that we can remember the most important information we uncovered from the meeting's discussion.

Sound Production: Further Sound Research

Michael started a Facebook group chat between us and Mark and suggested an ebook titled, "Recording and Producing Audio for Media" By Stanley R. Alton. This looks like a very useful book to use for research and is even referred to by an Amazon reviewer as "the holy grail" of educational books on the subject of audio in media.

Studio Production: Working on Sound Recording Techniques

I have been researching into Sound recording techniques to help with the sound for the promo/behind the scenes. I have been looking on different audio websites I have also been talking to Fergus who is the co-ordinator in charge of the equipment on any possible suggestions he might have. I have already had experiences working with sounds using audio software such as Audacity and Goldwave. However I need to be clear when shooting beforehand to know how it will sound, this means when I use my headphones I need to be sure that the sound is coming through clearly, and the levels aren't peaking. 

I tested out the boom mic to see how it will sound for the behind the scenes filming that I am working with Lex on and I was pleasantly surprised how it sounded. Next I will be testing the clip mic's to make sure that the interview's will be a nice quality.

I will be working closer with Mike Hoad and Mark Cooper on the audio for the project, since this is all a role we are doing in different areas. 

Studio Production: Making Changes to The Poster Design

After we had a meeting on Friday, it became apparent that there were still a lot of changes that needed to be made that the class would like to see made for the poster. I get the feeling that the concept wasn't very clear for some and this is something that needs to be worked on.

Some things that need to be added to the poster include:

adding in 25th March as the Live Date
The website address: whatyousayingtv.weebly.com
the UCA Television Production Logo
The hashtag #Whatsyoursay
There should hopefully be a meeting soon to discuss the content, style a
nd strategy with my group.

Personally I think its a bit of a shame that the poster wasn't greeted with all that positive of a response but its understandable and it'll be interesting to see what else I can use for the design.

I also looked at some of the original posters that have been made by other students at UCA to see how they've adapted those concepts from what they worked on.

Professional Practice: Work Placement

For the professional practice Unit we have been given the opportunity to work in one of three different job roles.

As quoted on our Professional and Critical Practice Handbook:

The three choices are:  

1) A simulated professional commission based project - Set within an industrial context this choice provides students with the opportunity to engage with an employer to deliver an appropriately scaled moving image project. 

2) A work placement within a related broadcast area – Students are challenged to research and negotiate a work placement within a related broadcast company or organisation for an appropriate amount of time.

3) Professional case study– Students would be required to actively research and write a detailed case study on a chosen production professional whose field of work has been identified by the student as a potential career choice. They would also be required to produce a professional CV and showreel of their moving image work, which supports the development of their preparation to launch their careers.

I've decided to go for the first choice, this is something I'm looking forward to because it gives me the chance to develop my skills working with an employer in a professional manner.

I talked to our work and production place co-ordinator Laura and she agreed to set up a meeting for me with the Curriculum of North Kent group. (aka CONK)
I also found out that I may be working with Ruby Rogers on this project afterwards as she had also applied for the same project earlier.

It will be interesting working on this and seeing what they are looking for with the film they want to commission.

I found this website on Google which gives me some further indication at what they might be looking for. 

Studio Production: Designing a Poster in Photoshop

This weekend i've started working on something I was quite looking to making, the poster! I've gone with the second design I made for the concept art. For this I needed to make sure I had the right equipment necessary. (i.e Photoshop)

After Effects

I downloaded the application trial on Creative Cloud and borrowed Vittorio's hard drive containing the master copy of the logo so that I can incorporate in into my poster.  

Once I was on Photoshop I had to match the colour palette from the logo onto my new layout. This was very easy and once I got started the biggest challenge was working out where to place everything so that it was layered correctly. 

When coming up with the people for the silhouettes I filled the colour completely into black and changed the shapes from the original picture. Then I went very carefully around the edges and changed it into a more cartoony and much less comparable image.

When designing the poster, I had a very distinct image in my mind. I conceived of the idea to not only keep the simplicity of the original logo but also build on it by adding some 50's/60's film noir type elements and fusing together a look that is retro but also current with the use of the iPhone that flashes "What You Sayin: Coming Soon!"

When designing it I had a few frames of reference in mind, particularly TV show titles featuring silhouettes such as Mad Men and Archer. Jazz album covers such as Sonny Rollin's album, Saxophone Colossus in their use of basic colour schemes and silhouettes were quite influential. I found this especially ironic since that topic somewhat relates to my initial pitch. (see here)

Overall though I had a lot of fun making the poster and it seemed it turned out pretty well. I'm looking forward seeing this how this project develops!

Studio Production: Working Poster Designs (Concept Art)

For the last two days I have been looking at different designs for the poster to advertise WhatYouSayin'. I decided that it would be a good idea to give it a similar theme to what we have designed for our current logo. As you can see in some of my concept art I decided to incorporate the logo as well as the design choice of using silhouettes to showcase the idea.

Thematically it is a similar theme but it manages to give a lot of mystique towards the show by using the shadows and adding the studio lights behind to imply it is a TV production being worked on.


I want it to be consistent with the work design that our promo team has already been working on as well as create something that I think will be a positive addition to our portfolio.

Here are some photos I took of me and my promo team having one of our first meetings:

Looking as enthusiastic as ever!