Learning Agreement – Performance Video

learning agreement

 

 

Name: [Andrew James Everington]

 

Course: [Digital Media Production]                                                   Level: 5

Unit: [Performance Video]

Reference number: [DMP551]

Credit points: [20]

Study hours: [200]

Tutor(s): [Phil Beards, Christopher Pegg, Jordan Cutler, Mark Sheldon]

 

Synopsis of study

For my Performance Video Unit I wanted to work in a group with Shoma Jevons and Luke Chapman. This was agreed by Phil Beards our course leader. Our idea for Performance Video was a night of live audio/visual entertainment called ‘Dungeon Dancehall’. The more we planned this project the more we realized we needed a minimum of three people in our group to make the final piece successful.

An early idea for ‘Dungeon Dancehall’ was to hold a warehouse rave where I would be DJ’ing live to an audience of people, accompanied by live audio reactive visuals (VJ’ing). After much thought we decided it would be more beneficial to host this event in a licensed venue, The Winchester, a night club and arts venue located in Bournemouth. Not only would this be a more professional way to attack our project, but it would be legal and we would have reduced health and safety concerns.

In our three man group we began to divide job roles between ourselves.

 

 

 

My Role:

A Live 4 hour DJ set on the night of the event.

Preparation and selection of tracks prior to the event.

Creation and sharing of audio content for promotional purposes which took the form of a promo mix.

To build a following on social media for promotional purposes.

To do two live performances prior to the event for promotional purposes (Live DJ set at The Arts University Bournemouth, A 4 hour DJ set to be streamed live on Ustream)

To learn how to use new equipment so we could perform on the night. (DMP’s Behringer mixer)

 

In the end, we all ended up having input and suggestions into each others areas within the project.

 

Aims

A1. To develop an understanding of performance video and live broadcast.

 

A2. To produce video and sound content for use in a live event considering issues of

project planning and health and safety.

 

A3. To develop skills in performance and broadcast using a range of techniques.

 

A4. Explore a range of broadcast and distribution methods.

 

Learning outcomes:

LO1. Demonstrate and understanding of performance video and live broadcast.

 

LO2. Produce content for use in a live event or broadcast.

 

LO3. Demonstrate skills in project planning and health and safety.

 

LO4. Demonstrate an understanding of skills in performance video and broadcast using a range of distribution methods.

 

 

Assessment Requirements

To Document my work process for this unit including, research, initial ideas, personal development, experimentation and my influences in the form of a Blog.

 

To display an understanding of promotion, how it works, and what methods can be used.

 

To Display a variety of methods of Distribution, online and offline.

 

To host and perform for a live event considering, audio, visuals, lighting, and professionalism.

 

To present video evidence with the other members of my group, that documents our event in the form of a Crit.

 

 

Assessment Criteria

Through detailed documentation of the project. (LO1)

Through presentation of final project work. (LO2)

Through written report and web log. (LO3)

Through production of finished project. (LO4)

 

Transferable skills

• Performance video

• VJ’ing

• Lighting techniques

• Motion capture

• Reactive analysis

• Data capture

• Sound performance

• Professional practice

• Health and safety

 

 

 

References

Cardiff University. (2010). How to promote an event. Available: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/communityengagement/%5Bhidden%5D%20resources/How%20to%20promote%20an%20event.pdf. Last accessed 26th sep 2013.

 

Sageon. (2011). The Dungeon Sound. Available: http://www.dubstepforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=190036. Last accessed 11th Sep 2013.

 

 

 

Action plan/time plan

Our time plan was rather hectic, most of my days had some sort of involvement in the Dungeon Dancehall project.

 

 

10 hours – Meeting and planning with the venue.

40 hours – Developing skills for the night (audio mixing, VJ’ing, creating visual and audio sets)

20 hours – creating, printing, and distributing various methods of online & offline promotion.

20 hours – practicing for the event (live streaming, practice VJ’ing, DJ’ing)

10 hours – sound checks, visual checks, learning to use new equipment, getting the right cables.

100 hours – study in scheduled lectures at University and time for blog work.

 

DUNGEON DANCEHALL – Performance Video

Final Piece, proof of the night. Bangin’! too many shout outs. Big up Phil Beards, Out to the DMP Massive. ❤

Mind maps, narrative plans & editing notes – Future Cinema

Here are a few crazy notes and plans that Shoma and I drew up to help us during the editing process. Make of them what you will.

This image shows the organised chaos that me and the Asian boy used to display a chronological narrative of my day during our editing process. We thought it would be good to do it chronologically as the day had a weird but good flow to it.

Can you break this code?

Is that a doodle of Shoma in a KKK outfit? I would say it makes sense to us… But it does not.

You Failed – Future Cinema

“Ruin my day”
You Failed!

Bangers & Mash – Future Cinema

So here it is, the final piece for the Future Cinema unit.

Bangers & Mash… It felt great to be famous for a day, you never know I might be an extra in ‘Doctors’ this time next year, this is definately one for the portfolio.

The final edit was a little longer than planned, we loved the beach scene a lot because of the sheer contrast to the resr of the day, so we kept that bit quite long.

Overall, This is piece of work demonstrates how entertainment is changing, the prospect of voting on T.V shows has been around for quite some time, but I think that Bangers & Mash gives an audience controll over the overall theme of the show, and my day! They literally controlled me for over 10 hours.

I think we smashed it with a target audience and a platform to broadcast on when considering this. Teenagers love to see people make a fool out of themselves, teenagers also spend most of their lives on Facebook sending out invites to crap games, and moaning about their days when they should really be out hustling.

Here it is!

Shout out to Tim & Barry, Pork & Potatoes, & everyone who voted to make my day, random, stupid, funny & painfull.

What Shoma & I have also realised is just how important Bangers & Mash is to the world of psychology.
I took A Level psychology, it was boring and we didnt learn about murderers enough. However we did learn about 2 studies which inspired me & Shoma to look deeper into the voting side of Bangers & Mash. I knew that everyone would vote for a bad task, not just because my mates are bellends, but because their is real psychological evidence to back our project up.

The Stanford Prison Experiment. (Above)

Milgram’s Experiment (Below)

Enjoy learning more in 10 minuites about the human mind than I did in two years.

Tim & Barry, DIY Video, Purity in film making – Future Cinema

Just another example of some more magic from Tim & Barry, This video shows off there use of green screening and subtle visuals…

I seriously love how DIY their videos are, they make a lot of money out of them as well, it just shows that it’s not all about being slick and industry quality all the time.

Fish, Eggs, Coke & Garlic – Future Cinema

So Bangers & Mash was yesterday, I can finally do a proper blog post about it!!!

It’s been fairly hard for me to blog in depth about the project, as the whole point was for me to be kept in the dark about the challenges that I was going to recieve. We decided that this would be a good thing to do as it would make the video a lot more real, and get the ability to shoot my genuine reactions on camera (although I’m not sure how genuine anything is when you’re being filmed).

What I learnt over the course of this unit was that Bangers and Mash was not really about the video itself, but about the role that Facebook had in making the day possible. Facebook is the largest social network in the world, so we focussed soley on this site instead of branching onto Twitter and Vine.

The image above is pretty powerfull, when you realise your part of that 50% who return on a daily basis you start to question what you’re doing with your life, wasting on a site which won’t even let you change the theme colour… What if you hate the colour blue? WHAT THEN!

I’m not saying I hate Facebook, I just hate the ammount of time I choose to spend on it.

So focussing purely on this site we set a page up and started to invite people, initially off of the course to ‘like’ our page. We gave the page a custom cover photo and profile picture as well as an insight into what Bangers and Mash actually was in the description section.

The night before Bangers and Mash I ‘unliked’ the page so that nothing to do with the challenges would appear in my ‘news feed’ on Facebook. At the end of the day when all the challenges were completed I looked at the page to see how it went, and Shoma and I were both really pleased with the interaction we had.

Since the start of the day we had doubled our ammount of page ‘likes’ and had loads of notifications from people who were supporting the project. What Shoma had also done was create a short video to post on the page at the start of the day for people so that they knew how to vote.

If you want to watch the video then there is a link to the Bangers and Mash Facebook page below.

https://www.facebook.com/bangersmashAUB

So we used the comment section under each set of tasks and wrote the bad and the good option. All people had to do was ‘like’ what option they wanted to see me do. In true Bangers and Mash spirit people still commented on the posts themselves to make it harder for us.

Shoma also made the page really visual for people by drawing out concepts of what people would be voting for. The style he chose matched the silly nature of our concept really well and also gave people an idea of what they would be voting to see.

So this was Shoma’s visual aid to the public for my 1st challenge. Do I have a nice breakfast or attempt to eat 14 slices of fried bread. As well as the written description this gives the audience an entertaining drawing to look at.

He did one of these DIY (very Tim & Barry) drawings for each challenge I had. I don’t think that we’d have got the same ammount of interaction on our page without these.

As well as this was a photo update that was posted after each challenge and a quote from me. So the people voting had something to see before the video was edited.

This is one of the updates that they were given, me attempting to eat 14 slices of fried bread… filthy.

So overall the interaction side of the project turned out a lot better than expected. There’s an ‘instights’ option on a page that you are admin of and we found that we had well over 200 views on some pictures and posts about Bangers and Mash. I guess this goes to prove people love watching people have a bad time.

 

 

 

Tim & Barry – Future Cinema

Best logo ever.

Who are Tim & Barry?

Tim & Barry are probably mine and Shoma’s biggest inspirations for our Bangers & Mash project. Why? Well what attracts us to the early work of Tim & Barry is how raw and DIY there work is.

What do Tim & Barry make? Tim & Barry are best known for making music videos in the grime scene (a genre of music popular in London). I first heard about Tim & Barry through my love of Tempa T’s song ‘Next Hype’.

As you can see from ‘Next Hype’ (above) it is a really low budget music video, the 1st section of the video focusses on comedey, something that’s not usually associated with grime music. However the video is incredibly popular and has an almost cult following on youtube with various parody’s and re-edits made. An example is embedded below.

So why do me and Shoma like the work of Tim & Barry so much? Personally it’s their laid back and raw style of shooting a video on  a low budget. from the ‘Next hype’ Video you can probably see that they’ve never colour corrected anything in their lives, and they’ll jump at any opportunity to throw a fish eye shot into the mix. I think they know that they’re work is “so bad that it’s good” and this is part of the appeal. However since the early days of Tim & Barry you can clearly see them develop as film makers.

One of the earliest Tim & Barry music videos that I could find.

Below is one of their most recent, as you can see they’ve up’d their game.

 

Me and Shoma thought that the early works of Tim & Barry suited our sense of humour and the overall playful nature of the day itself.

We drew out a badman plan in which we decided an order to show the challenges in. We decided chronological order would be best as it displays a narrative of my day.

DMP don’t use paper!

As well as this we started to think about what sort of music to use in the final edit. I came up with most of the suggestions for this and from what we decided on they’ll fit the scenes well and add some humour to the video. Then we began to think about sound effects, we went for the really unsubtle option to add comedey value, the type you might hear on an episode of ‘you’ve Been Framed’. Something which sounds silly and comical. Overall I’m pleased with how the planning session went today, we had a good laugh as always and we’re sticking to schedule nicely.

 

 

 

 

A Presentation, about… Presentations… Think I’ve just entered the Matrix (Future Cinema)

Yesterday we had a presentation from Mark about… yep, presentations. When I heard that I thought I had slipped into the void.

It actually turned out to be quite usefull as we found out that the lecturers would be looking at how effectively we present during the crits for Future Cinema. I thought it would be quite usefull to blog about this because other wise all I’d be doing would be watching Neighbours.

1st of all I don’t think that the way I present is bad, but obviously in some areas there is a room for improvement. My general thought about presenting in front of people is not to act fake, or more in the know than you really are. You just gotta keep it real like Ian Beale. So basically if you’re less of a business motivated mind and more of a creative thinker, show them that.

For example if someone was pitching an Idea to me I’d be looking more at them as a person and how easy I could work with them, instead of their current achievements and past projects. Obviously these things are great to have under your belt.

Wouldn’t you rather work with a good VJ, who’s funny, out of the box and down to earth, instead of the worlds best VJ who you’re not going to get along with, because of differences in opinions?

It’s things like this, selling yourself as a human being instead of a business man. I’m not a business man, I got a E in GCSE Business, but I think that especially in the creative industrys this dosn’t matter so much.

Anyway less of my perspective on people and more about the presentation. Mark started off by talking about building a plan for your presentations, so a time schedule to stick to. For our Crits this is roughly 15 minuites, although I’m not sure if that is extended relating to how many people you have in your group.

He showed us a breakdown, starting off with an introduction and rough summary of your idea and then ending with 1 minuite for questions.

Mark then talked us through the different applications, programs and sites that we can use to present to people, from the industry standard, Powerpoint, through to newer options like Prezi.

I think that the blogs themselves are a really great way of presenting as well, as it shows a chronological documentation of your project. Especially if your blog is very like visual mine.

 

 

 

 

Interaction With the Public – (Future Cinema)

So as most people on the course will know we have set up a Facebook page for Bangers & Mash where on the day people will vote for what challenges they want me to do.

This is what our page looks like

This is our cover photo, which was heavily influenced by a classic war propaganda poster. Forks and Sausages replace jet planes.

We’re also giving out a bio type thing on myself, to engage an audeince who might not know me, and entertain them.

As well as Facebook, we had set up a Twitter account as another means to interact with us on the day, however during the Barmageddon project by Mili we realised that literally everyone was favouring Facebook over Twitter, which I found really surprising, I thought Twitter was for all the ‘cool’ people these days. So we scrapped the twitter page, and decided to focus just on Facebook.