Facebook Cast and Crew Site - http://tinyurl.com/lines-webisode-Cast-Crew
Myspace Official Site - www.myspace.com/lines-webisode
Twitter Official Site- www.twitter.com/lineswebisode
Friday, 12 February 2010
Clear Marketing Links
Facebook Official Site- http://tinyurl.com/lines-webisode
Facebook Cast and Crew Site - http://tinyurl.com/lines-webisode-Cast-Crew
Twitter Official Site- www.twitter.com/lineswebisode
Facebook Cast and Crew Site - http://tinyurl.com/lines-webisode-Cast-Crew
Twitter Official Site- www.twitter.com/lineswebisode
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Group Reflection
I think as a group, most of us worked quite well. I think the group mostly worked quite well together, as we got all the necessary paperwork in on time and managed to meet every deadline we were set. I think the marketing group worked quite well, as the videos were available and easy to find when they were supposed to be, with clear links to the various websites you could watch it. It did appear, however, that many members of our group were posting links themselves instead of just leaving it to the marketing group, which is fine, as if more of us post it, more people are shown via friends lists and things.
Unfortunately, the website that was being made for our website was apparently made, then something went wrong and nobody bothered to fix it, so we had to use a website that Dave made on dreamweaver, a program that we don't have at school, so Dave was the only one that could edit the website. This was a big problem, as the website is now incredibly dull as we had to create all the content and e-mail it to Dave, who, at the best of times isn't really the most helpful person and when contacted seems somewhat hostile to anyone.
This was a bit of a problem, however we decided we would just leave Facebook as our main website, and keep that constantly updated, as we can do it anywhere. We changed director for each episode, so each one has a marginally different feel to it, but each are good for different things. Our organisation, i think was very good, with Tara and I working as Production Manager and Production Assistant respectively. We made sure all the paperwork was done, request forms, budgs, bookings etc. Kirk worked very well to make sure everyone had work to do and spent lots of time organising us to make sure we were all doing something constructive while we were working.
When it came down to actually shooting the episodes, we weren't quite as tight first time. With Kirk directing, as he hadn't planned the shot list or the storyboard, he didn't really know exactly what was happening when, and got a but confused with the storyboard. We managed to work around this, however, but we didn't get quite as much footage as we would have liked to edit. The second time, with Dave directing, we were filming with almost military efficiency, film, stop, next, film, stop etc. This meant that we got all the shots we needed, but didn't get much in the way of extra footage, for any last minute changes. We also did basically one shot for everything, so we didn't have much footage to play with. Whilst Matt was editing the footage together to create the episodes, we were slowly figuring out how we needed to play this game to ensure we got everything we needed in the time we had. When it came to Mike's turn to direct, 3 of us went to shoot one of the flashbacks, while the others went through a rehearsal of the script so they had an idea of what to do before we had to film. I think this worked, because we then got everything we needed in just about enough time.
I think this was bound to happen, first shoot, you make some mistakes but you learn from them so the next time you can improve. We also took the feedback we were given from the class and tried to work around that. I think as a group, most of us worked quite well together, one or two people really didn't pull their proverbial weight though, which i think was really unfair to the rest of us, who were working constantly to ensure we could film and stuff.
Unfortunately, the website that was being made for our website was apparently made, then something went wrong and nobody bothered to fix it, so we had to use a website that Dave made on dreamweaver, a program that we don't have at school, so Dave was the only one that could edit the website. This was a big problem, as the website is now incredibly dull as we had to create all the content and e-mail it to Dave, who, at the best of times isn't really the most helpful person and when contacted seems somewhat hostile to anyone.
This was a bit of a problem, however we decided we would just leave Facebook as our main website, and keep that constantly updated, as we can do it anywhere. We changed director for each episode, so each one has a marginally different feel to it, but each are good for different things. Our organisation, i think was very good, with Tara and I working as Production Manager and Production Assistant respectively. We made sure all the paperwork was done, request forms, budgs, bookings etc. Kirk worked very well to make sure everyone had work to do and spent lots of time organising us to make sure we were all doing something constructive while we were working.
When it came down to actually shooting the episodes, we weren't quite as tight first time. With Kirk directing, as he hadn't planned the shot list or the storyboard, he didn't really know exactly what was happening when, and got a but confused with the storyboard. We managed to work around this, however, but we didn't get quite as much footage as we would have liked to edit. The second time, with Dave directing, we were filming with almost military efficiency, film, stop, next, film, stop etc. This meant that we got all the shots we needed, but didn't get much in the way of extra footage, for any last minute changes. We also did basically one shot for everything, so we didn't have much footage to play with. Whilst Matt was editing the footage together to create the episodes, we were slowly figuring out how we needed to play this game to ensure we got everything we needed in the time we had. When it came to Mike's turn to direct, 3 of us went to shoot one of the flashbacks, while the others went through a rehearsal of the script so they had an idea of what to do before we had to film. I think this worked, because we then got everything we needed in just about enough time.
I think this was bound to happen, first shoot, you make some mistakes but you learn from them so the next time you can improve. We also took the feedback we were given from the class and tried to work around that. I think as a group, most of us worked quite well together, one or two people really didn't pull their proverbial weight though, which i think was really unfair to the rest of us, who were working constantly to ensure we could film and stuff.
Using the online audience
FINAL REFLECTION for the weekend: "Using your experiences on this project and relating your programmes to other webisodes you have researched, discuss how taking account of the online audience affects the process of showing creative work"
By taking into account the online audience, the process of showing work has changed dramatically. Before internet was a mainstream service, available to basically everyone, if you wanted to show something, you had to produce it and show it either on TV, or by giving someone a physical object, such as a video or DVD so they can watch it. If a show was on TV, you had to either record it or make sure you were home to watch it. Nowadays, however, you can watch a lot of mainstream TV via online catchup such as BBC iPlayer, or 4OD. With products like webisodes, however, the internet is even more useful that simply a means to display your product to a bigger audience. Especially if you create the episodes as we have, where you film one or two, release it and wait for the response.
The internet is useful simply due to the sheer convenience of it. Hundreds of thousands of people all over the world have access to the internet. This graph clearly shows the amount of people with access to internet from various parts of the world. Being able to tap into this incredible amount of people simply by uploading a video is mind-blowing. Though i very much doubt that the internet is ever going to replace traditional forms of showing work, such as TV or theatre, i think it will be a close call for a while. TV has faults, being that everything is only shown at a certain time instead of when you want to watch it, but that's what Sky+ is for. The internet, however, while you can watch almost whatever you want whenever you want, it has to be streamed from somewhere on the internet so you have to wait for it to load, buffer, download or whatever you are doing to play it. I have spoken to people who feel that TV will soon be a thing of the past in favour of online TV, because it's more convenient but i disagree. For our purposes, advertising our show on the interenet was the best thing we could have done, as we managed to target our audience easily as it was aimed at teenagers really, and teenagers basically live online nowadays.
If we had solely advertised our show through conventional methods, such as putting adverts in papers or on TV, not only would we have totally blown our budget instantly, but we would have attracted the wrong audience. My stereotype of somebo
dy who would read the paper, is a 'suit'. Does some dead-end job in an office somewhere, somewhat older than our target audience and wouldn't care about a 3 minute episode about some kids locked in detention. Adverts on TV, while they would potentially hit far FAR more people than our methods, again, even with a big budget, a traditional TV advert is about 30 seconds long. That's 1/3 of our show shown in the advert. These factors considered, the internet seemed the best option, because there is still a massive audience, and social groups mix and match with millions of people. If one of my friends joined the group we set up, it would then tell all their friends about it. Then they could check it out and if they liked the look of it they could join, and it would tell their friends about it, as the image shows.
Online video sites such as YouTube are very useful because you can upload videos, send people links to them, get them to watch them and wait for them to make comments on it. Occasionally this will be good and you can use your feedback to improve you show. If you get several comments saying 'I don't like this character because of this reason' you can decide to kill him off in a hilarious way, or change the character. Changing a charatcer already known to the audience, however can be risky as some people wouldn't want them to change, or it could get confusing. You can also ask people what they would like to see in future episodes of the show, so you can aim your show towards what people say they want, instead of what you th
ink they want. You can also find out various stats about your video such as the star rating (out of 5), where it has been viewed most, the age groups that are watching it and how people have come across it.
It does also mean that your audience base increases significantly, a video i made last year, an animation of the CSI: Miami opening credits, now has more than 1,700 views, as you can see, mainly in America and Canada, but it has been viewed all over the world. This in an incredible audience i would not be able to access without the use of the internet. This is because when i crated it, i posted a link of a worldwide forum, so people from all over the world got the link to it and could watch it whenever they want.
Mass forums like this are a great way of getting your products out there. When Dave actually got round to putting the first episode of our webisode on FacePunch, an online forum, our first episode is rolling into 800 hits, with plenty of feedback. This number dropped signifiantly with episodes 2 and 3, because he didn't bother posting them on time for whatever reasons. Hopefully they will get uploaded soon and our videos will get more hits.
While we still decided to put up posters advertising our show, i believe using the internet was a
better way to advertise, because it is just easier. The use of Social Networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace can easily increase your fanbase, because it is a good way to get constant updates and information about the series you are following. Red Vs Blue is a good example of this. It is an incredibly popular machinima webisode made from Halo models. As you can see, their FaceBook page has over 120,000 fans, and they announce whenever episodes are going to be released and how things are going. This type of information makes sure that anyone following you is constantly reminded about the show, and the more you say about it raises the hype for the next episode. You can send someone a link to a video, and all they have to do is click on it. If we had only advertised on posters, the first episode wouldn't have got many hits at all, because people can't be bothered to remember web addresses or anything unless they are incredibly interestd in what is on the site. As our posters didn't really say much about the episodes, i don't think they would have got much attention.
By taking into account the online audience, the process of showing work has changed dramatically. Before internet was a mainstream service, available to basically everyone, if you wanted to show something, you had to produce it and show it either on TV, or by giving someone a physical object, such as a video or DVD so they can watch it. If a show was on TV, you had to either record it or make sure you were home to watch it. Nowadays, however, you can watch a lot of mainstream TV via online catchup such as BBC iPlayer, or 4OD. With products like webisodes, however, the internet is even more useful that simply a means to display your product to a bigger audience. Especially if you create the episodes as we have, where you film one or two, release it and wait for the response.
The internet is useful simply due to the sheer convenience of it. Hundreds of thousands of people all over the world have access to the internet. This graph clearly shows the amount of people with access to internet from various parts of the world. Being able to tap into this incredible amount of people simply by uploading a video is mind-blowing. Though i very much doubt that the internet is ever going to replace traditional forms of showing work, such as TV or theatre, i think it will be a close call for a while. TV has faults, being that everything is only shown at a certain time instead of when you want to watch it, but that's what Sky+ is for. The internet, however, while you can watch almost whatever you want whenever you want, it has to be streamed from somewhere on the internet so you have to wait for it to load, buffer, download or whatever you are doing to play it. I have spoken to people who feel that TV will soon be a thing of the past in favour of online TV, because it's more convenient but i disagree. For our purposes, advertising our show on the interenet was the best thing we could have done, as we managed to target our audience easily as it was aimed at teenagers really, and teenagers basically live online nowadays.If we had solely advertised our show through conventional methods, such as putting adverts in papers or on TV, not only would we have totally blown our budget instantly, but we would have attracted the wrong audience. My stereotype of somebo
dy who would read the paper, is a 'suit'. Does some dead-end job in an office somewhere, somewhat older than our target audience and wouldn't care about a 3 minute episode about some kids locked in detention. Adverts on TV, while they would potentially hit far FAR more people than our methods, again, even with a big budget, a traditional TV advert is about 30 seconds long. That's 1/3 of our show shown in the advert. These factors considered, the internet seemed the best option, because there is still a massive audience, and social groups mix and match with millions of people. If one of my friends joined the group we set up, it would then tell all their friends about it. Then they could check it out and if they liked the look of it they could join, and it would tell their friends about it, as the image shows.Online video sites such as YouTube are very useful because you can upload videos, send people links to them, get them to watch them and wait for them to make comments on it. Occasionally this will be good and you can use your feedback to improve you show. If you get several comments saying 'I don't like this character because of this reason' you can decide to kill him off in a hilarious way, or change the character. Changing a charatcer already known to the audience, however can be risky as some people wouldn't want them to change, or it could get confusing. You can also ask people what they would like to see in future episodes of the show, so you can aim your show towards what people say they want, instead of what you th
ink they want. You can also find out various stats about your video such as the star rating (out of 5), where it has been viewed most, the age groups that are watching it and how people have come across it.It does also mean that your audience base increases significantly, a video i made last year, an animation of the CSI: Miami opening credits, now has more than 1,700 views, as you can see, mainly in America and Canada, but it has been viewed all over the world. This in an incredible audience i would not be able to access without the use of the internet. This is because when i crated it, i posted a link of a worldwide forum, so people from all over the world got the link to it and could watch it whenever they want.
Mass forums like this are a great way of getting your products out there. When Dave actually got round to putting the first episode of our webisode on FacePunch, an online forum, our first episode is rolling into 800 hits, with plenty of feedback. This number dropped signifiantly with episodes 2 and 3, because he didn't bother posting them on time for whatever reasons. Hopefully they will get uploaded soon and our videos will get more hits.
While we still decided to put up posters advertising our show, i believe using the internet was a
better way to advertise, because it is just easier. The use of Social Networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace can easily increase your fanbase, because it is a good way to get constant updates and information about the series you are following. Red Vs Blue is a good example of this. It is an incredibly popular machinima webisode made from Halo models. As you can see, their FaceBook page has over 120,000 fans, and they announce whenever episodes are going to be released and how things are going. This type of information makes sure that anyone following you is constantly reminded about the show, and the more you say about it raises the hype for the next episode. You can send someone a link to a video, and all they have to do is click on it. If we had only advertised on posters, the first episode wouldn't have got many hits at all, because people can't be bothered to remember web addresses or anything unless they are incredibly interestd in what is on the site. As our posters didn't really say much about the episodes, i don't think they would have got much attention.
Focus Group
Today we created a focus group of people to question about Lines. We got 3 people i don't know and Catherine, who played Megan in the show. These are the questions Tara and Mike came up with yesterday:
What do you think of the concept of Lines?
(show first episode)
Overall, what did you think of the first episode? What were the strengths and weaknesses?
Did episode 1 make you feel like you wanted to carry on watching future episodes?
(show second episode)
What do you think is different from the first episode?
What did you think of the second episode? What were the strengths and weaknesses?
(show third episode)
Do you like how the story has progressed over the series?
What did you think of the third episode? What were the strengths and weaknesses?
What would you like to see in future episodes? Would you want a change of characters/different locations etc.
overall questions
What ways did the characters appeal to you, what did you like about them and the social groups they represented?
Do you think Lines was marketed well?
Are there any other ways you think we could promote the series of Lines? (not including facebook, myspace, twitter etc)
Would you look forward to an episode four?
Thank you for taking the time to come to this Q & A session, we welcome any further feedback you may have.
The feedback given by the people was overall quite good. Two of them spoke much more and gave much more feedback than others, but generally they were positive about the show. The also said they would like it if we carried on with the show, so that could be a laugh.
The feedback given by the people was overall quite good. Two of them spoke much more and gave much more feedback than others, but generally they were positive about the show. The also said they would like it if we carried on with the show, so that could be a laugh.
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Assorted Graphs and Data
This graph, I made shows the viewing figures for our 3 episodes. As episode 3 has only been out for 3 days, the data stops quite suddenly, unless people suddenly start watching a lot, i don't think the trend will change much though.Here is the first pie chart I made today, showing the percentages and statistics of our amount of views and where they came from.
Here is the second pie chart I made on Pages. Click to enlarge both the images above. You can see the percentages of views in terms of where they came from, so Facebook etc, and this helps us evaluate our target audience in a visual form as well as general statistics.
Detention Deficit
Yesterday, i was asked by the Detention Deficit group to be in their episode. I said i would, and i basically had to stand where one of the other characters was while Haydens character was tripping out thinking Loz's character was some dude called Chief. I dunno, it might look alright when it's finished with effects and stuff.
Episode 3 Progress
This is the 3rd episode of our web-series Lines. After 20 minutes, episode 3 had 30 views. After 30 minutes, it had 45 views and after 4 hours it had 85 views. The day after release, it has 115 views. Again, not as good as the first episode, not even as good as the second. This is bad, because it means less people are viewing each episode :( This might be because they just didn't like it, or they didn't feel the episodes were good enough to tell their friends about, so we didn't get as many views that way.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Monday Feb 1st
In today's lesson Tara and I worked on another poster advertising episode 3. The screenshots below show Tara and I working on the poster. They show us editing the pictures in photoshop that we took off the youtube video of episode 2 and the episode 3 trailer. They also show us adding the pictures to the pages template of the poster and changing the text in the poster. The image below is the final poster for episode 3:
We decided putting posters around college wasn't worth it, as the launch is tonight, and by the time we got around to putting posters up, most people would be gone home. 
Feedback from episode 2
In todays session we have received peer & teacher feedback on our 2nd episode of 'Lines'.
Peer feedback
- A couple of interesting shots
- Strange narrative, cannot understand it (7 People mentioned this)
- Cuts well
- Characters work well
- Sound levels are high & low (5 people mentioned this)
- Taster bit / preview works well (3 people mentioned this)
- Too much in one content in one episode (2 people mentioned this)
- Good angles used
- Jumps too much
- Pointless shots used
- Confusing genre (comedy or drama?)
- Acting is not very good, could be better
- Spy could of been done better, e.g appears in the room like is the skeleton
- Silent moments ned sorting out
- Need quicker cuts
- Continuity works well
- 'Jaws' sound / music cuts in too suddenly & drops out to early
Teacher feedback (Pete)
- Continuity with previous episode (costume, scripting) works well
- Elliot's character has been developed well
- Use of jaws music?
- Suddenly goes silent
- Much better editing than the 1st episode
- Add footage, where it goes black / silent?
- Like the taster for episode 3 at the end
Lines Episode 2 stats
This graph shows where our viewers are watching from, mainly the UK.
This graph shows the places our video was watched - mainly links from FaceBook etc.
This graph shows the amount of views we have had on episode 2 and also the date of which episode 2 was released - which was Friday 29th.
First Episode Views
Shown below are some visual graphs / images which shows more information on the views we have had on episode one of 'lines'. (Taken from episode one)
This graph shows how many views the first episode has had so far. Clearly it peaked quite early on, and then went slowly downhill.
This graph shows how many views all the videos have had. The first episode has way more views then anything else got.
This graph shows where people have viewed the video from, most of them are in the UK, but also the USA and several European countries.
This shows where people have seen the video. Most views came from external links, i assume this would be us putting links on Facebook and MySpace etc.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Episode 2 viewing figures
10 Minutes after the release of episode 2, we had scored 45 views. 4 hours after announcing it, that had doubled to 90. 2 Days after announcing it, that had doubled to about 180 views. At 5pm on Sunday, we have gathered almost 200 views. This was quite frankly disappointing. By the 3rd day of episode 1, we had accumulated nearly 400 views, so for that to drop to 180 is bad. I don't know why this happened, as far as i'm aware, we advertised it the same, using the same social networking sites, the same events and notifications on FaceBook, we also put up posters around school to let more people know about it.My first thought could be that people watched the first episode and didn't think it was good/funny enough to continue watching. This theory seems to be confirmed on the event lists, wsaid no and a hundred or so more ignored the hich was frankly disappointing. This time round, we invited hundreds of people, only 38 of them confirmed to watch the episode, well over 100 thing completely. One comment i have seen
multiple times, is that the voices were too quiet.I watched the video while it was being edited, and you could hear everything fine. On YouTube, however, i agree that some voice part are much, much clearer than others, and some you really have to strain to hear properly. This might have been one of the reasons we weren't getting as many hits as we would like, because now any word of mouth advertising is just 'Yeah, it's alright - you just can't hear anything'. This is a real problem that we have to get sorted for episode 3. I don't think this will be some much of a problem, as we changed microphone and played with the settings to get a clearer sound, which i believe is why some sound bytes in episode 2 are much clearer. Hopefully this will sort out some of our problems. I hope that our video will get more hits, and that the problems we have encountered so far will not push our remaining fans further away. Hopefully when the audio is finally sorted, people will watch it again. I just wish we could re-record all the voices and sound for the first 2 episodes using the different mic.
Monday Plan
Basically on Monday, i will basically be promoting the 3rd episode of Lines, which is to be released that evening. This will mean updating the Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace and anything else I can think of putting it up.
As seems to be the trend thus far, i'm probably going to end up making another poster, which is quite fun, but ultimately seems slightly trivial. However if i put them up, we might get some more views and people will pay more attention to it. We will probably all watch through Matt's rough cut of episode 3 and suggest any changes we think could be made before it airs tonight.
Tara had the idea of creating a 'next time' feature that could work as a separate thing, rather then being tacked on the end of the credits, as most people don't sit through the credits waiting for something else to come up, unless they are given some indication anything will be there. I quite like this idea, so we may work on that tomorrow.
As seems to be the trend thus far, i'm probably going to end up making another poster, which is quite fun, but ultimately seems slightly trivial. However if i put them up, we might get some more views and people will pay more attention to it. We will probably all watch through Matt's rough cut of episode 3 and suggest any changes we think could be made before it airs tonight.
Tara had the idea of creating a 'next time' feature that could work as a separate thing, rather then being tacked on the end of the credits, as most people don't sit through the credits waiting for something else to come up, unless they are given some indication anything will be there. I quite like this idea, so we may work on that tomorrow.
Wordle of my Blog
This is a 'Wordle' of my blog. The words that are written biggest are the ones i have used most often, after removing common english words. I assume. Originally, when i did this it was hilariously wrong, many of the words it chose i had only used once in my entire blog. I decided to copy all the text from the blog and paste it into the box, and it came up with a more accurate representation of my blog.
This one, however, is including common English words, so you can see some of them are the same, but the more common words are much, much bigger than anything else. You can clearly see the most common word on my blog is the word 'The'.
Friday, 29 January 2010
Advertising
To 
get the most amount of views for our video, when it was meant to be released, at 7 - we set to plastering it all over facebook and other social networking sites. We made an event for the second episode, to re-enforce the knowledge that it was being released today. I also put a post on the Kids Love Lies facebook page, because their music is featured in the show, and some of their fans might watch it because of that fact, when otherwise they wouldn't know about it. I put the links to the
YouTube and the Vimeo videos, though the YouTube link seems ultimately more popular. This is probably because YouTube is more mainstream that Vimeo, but we uploaded them to both anyway. We also made a twitter post announcing both links and telling people to watch. As well as posting links of the Facebook groups and stuff, several crew members have put the link as their current status, and wonderfully - so have a couple of the cast members.
get the most amount of views for our video, when it was meant to be released, at 7 - we set to plastering it all over facebook and other social networking sites. We made an event for the second episode, to re-enforce the knowledge that it was being released today. I also put a post on the Kids Love Lies facebook page, because their music is featured in the show, and some of their fans might watch it because of that fact, when otherwise they wouldn't know about it. I put the links to the
YouTube and the Vimeo videos, though the YouTube link seems ultimately more popular. This is probably because YouTube is more mainstream that Vimeo, but we uploaded them to both anyway. We also made a twitter post announcing both links and telling people to watch. As well as posting links of the Facebook groups and stuff, several crew members have put the link as their current status, and wonderfully - so have a couple of the cast members.
Exclusivity Rights
We have been using a song called 'Count in my Head' by the band 'Kids Love Lies' for our title music. We then heard the other group were planning on taking the piss out of our videos in their next one. This would be fair enough, we wrote about them on the board in our teaser trailer, but it wasn't a main part, and wasn't even shown in the actual video. As some form of passive pay-back for defacing our poster, I e-mailed 'Kids Love Lies' and asked for exclusivity rights for that song. Basically it's so if DD use the song in their video, it means that they either didn't bother to ask permission, or just used the song anyway - which they shouldn't do. Payback via technicalities = win.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
/Sad Face
So I made some posters advertising the release of the second episode, which today i put up around college. I put the final one in our classroom, so the other classes that use our room could see it and it might hit another audience that would otherwise not care. The Detention Deficit group, however, decided it would be better if they ripped down our poster and doodled on the people. When asked about it, Hayden produced it from his bag, and unwillingly put it back up. He then had the nerve to ask if they could use our poster so they could make fun of our group in their video. I think this is probably because our trailer had 'Detention Deficit Sucks' written on the whiteboard, but it wasn't shown anywhere in the actual video. I would have thought about it a bit if they had asked first, but as they decided to vandalise our work we just said no. Unfortunately, we now can't put it back up because it's all folded and drawn on.
Filming Episode 3
Episode 3 will be filmed tonight, however for one of the scenes we need the teacher to come back. Unfortunately, Steve, who played the teacher in the last episode, is away we are stuck. Nick has refused to help us in our hour of need, so I e-mailed Tara's history teacher, Robby. This is a screenshot of the e-mail I sent him asking him if he would like to be in our show.
Teaser Trailer
We were sent a memo by the guys up top, telling us we were given an extra few days to release episode 2. We were, however, told to create a teaser trailer explaining why the release had been delayed. We had a basic plan of what this was going to be, but when we came to film it, it didn't look half as good as it was meant to. Matt did very well editing the footage we had, and created a great trailer for the show, which was really funny. We found a bit of footage that we weren't meant to have shot, and it was Elliott (Seth), just saying "Most importantly detention deficit can suck my balls". We found this and thought it was really funny to put at the end, but we made it cut off the "balls" bit, so it seemed like he had been cut off halfway through speaking. It then just showed information about the next episode. When we showed it to Pete, however he told us we couldn't use it despite the other group saying it was great and so much funnier with it on the end.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Advertising
In todays session, Tara and I decided to put up the posters we had created, to advertise the upcoming 2nd episode of 'Lines'.
Shown below are some photos Kirk took of Tara and I putting up the posters:
Shown below are some photos Kirk took of Tara and I putting up the posters:
Wednesday 27th Jan
Today I printed out some of the posters advertising the second episode, then were told we had to ask at reception to put them up at Coleridge. I left 3 with reception for them to put up, and printed another load off to put up around Long Road tomorrow. I then created another request form, and e-mail Steve to ask if we could use D7 again.
Tuesday, 26 January 2010
Episode 2 filming
Yesterday I filmed the second episode of Lines. This episode was more complicated, because we bought in some extras and not all the scenes were shot in the classroom. To make it more realistic than last time, while Sam, Elliott, James and I went to film one of the flashbacks, Matt stayed in the room with the rest of the cast for a rehearsal. I went to film the flashback, which went ok, then came back to the room to start filming.
It was pretty annoying at the start, because Dave kept making us take a shot, move to the other end of the room, do another shot then repeat exactly the same ones over and over again. I don't know why he made us do this, but we finally finished that and started filming something different it got more interesting. I felt Dave was alright as a director, but got distracted quite easily and we kept having to tell him to stay on track. However we managed to get all the footage filmed, most of it at least twice, so we have extra footage, which was a problem last time.
I think the actors were better this time round, they seemed to be a lot more in character and knew their lines, despite us changing small bits of the script at the last minute. We still have to film one of the flashbacks, because we ran out of time, but i think we did very well for the time we had. I think having costumes for the characters was a really good idea, especially changing them. I bought in the costume for the secret agent, but with 2 different types of glasses. I bought in some proper old school sunglasses, and i also bought some of the 3-D glasses from the cinema. We decided to go with the 3-D glasses, because it looked realistic, but at the same time if you noticed, it was just funnier. Also, if you notice that they are 3-D glasses, it makes you think that it is just some kid pretending to be a spy, which makes the fact the Seth is so paranoid about it even funnier, because he isn't even a real spy.
It was pretty annoying at the start, because Dave kept making us take a shot, move to the other end of the room, do another shot then repeat exactly the same ones over and over again. I don't know why he made us do this, but we finally finished that and started filming something different it got more interesting. I felt Dave was alright as a director, but got distracted quite easily and we kept having to tell him to stay on track. However we managed to get all the footage filmed, most of it at least twice, so we have extra footage, which was a problem last time.
I think the actors were better this time round, they seemed to be a lot more in character and knew their lines, despite us changing small bits of the script at the last minute. We still have to film one of the flashbacks, because we ran out of time, but i think we did very well for the time we had. I think having costumes for the characters was a really good idea, especially changing them. I bought in the costume for the secret agent, but with 2 different types of glasses. I bought in some proper old school sunglasses, and i also bought some of the 3-D glasses from the cinema. We decided to go with the 3-D glasses, because it looked realistic, but at the same time if you noticed, it was just funnier. Also, if you notice that they are 3-D glasses, it makes you think that it is just some kid pretending to be a spy, which makes the fact the Seth is so paranoid about it even funnier, because he isn't even a real spy.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Marketing Poster 2
Here is the second advertisement poster for our Lines webisode, this poster is for episode 2 - made by me. Below are some pictures that show the process of making the poster.
feedback
Today we received feedback on our 1st episode for our web series 'lines'
Here is a list of the feedback we received from the class:
- Sound levels need improving (some bits louder than others)(Mentioned 5 times)
- CD films logo to long (Mentioned 4 times)
- Credits are to fast at the end (Mentioned 3 times)
- Poor acting
- Opening sequence is to repetitive
- Editing of the video is good & works well
- Nice logos, they look well made and effective to the audience
- Poorly recorded narration
- Inappropriate music used throughout the video (including the opening sequence)
- Camera work could be better
- Too many cuts
- Script is too basic
- Poor cuts used
- Poorly planned
- The actors need rehearsals before acting in next video as they don't seem very confident in the first episode (Mentioned 3 times)
- Catchy song works well (Mentioned 3 times)
- The stereotypes are not clearly shown in the 1st episode
- Need more close ups
- Need more core content
- Visual gags of skeleton work well
- Need more comedy rather than drama to make it more comedic
- Continuity issues need improving (Mentioned 3 times)
Here is the feedback we received from Pete:
- When the character is holding the polos, there could of been a close up
- While I was watching the 1st episode, it felt as if I was in a theater, there needs to be more use of close ups and shot changes
- Voice over explaining each character works well, needs to be more narration
- Cut to show different characters
- More planning is needed prior to next shoot (rehearsals etc) to avoid bad acting
- High angle show works well, but panning shot doesn't work within the same shot
- Sound levels need improving / editing
Today we received feedback on our 1st episode for our web series 'lines'
Here is a list of the feedback we received from the class:
- Sound levels need improving (some bits louder than others)(Mentioned 5 times)
- CD films logo to long (Mentioned 4 times)
- Credits are to fast at the end (Mentioned 3 times)
- Poor acting
- Opening sequence is to repetitive
- Editing of the video is good & works well
- Nice logos, they look well made and effective to the audience
- Poorly recorded narration
- Inappropriate music used throughout the video (including the opening sequence)
- Camera work could be better
- Too many cuts
- Script is too basic
- Poor cuts used
- Poorly planned
- The actors need auditions before acting in next video as they don't seem very confident in the first episode (Mentioned 3 times)
- Catchy song works well (Mentioned 3 times)
- The stereotypes are not clearly shown in the 1st episode
- Need more close ups
- Need more core content
- Visual gags of skeleton work well
- Need more comedy rather than drama to make it more comedic
- Continuity issues need improving (Mentioned 3 times)
Here is the feedback we received from Pete:
- When the character is holding the polos, there could of been a close up
- While I was watching the 1st episode, it felt as if I was in a theater, there needs to be more use of close ups and shot changes
- Voice over explaining each character works well, needs to be more narration
- Cut to show different characters
- More planning is needed prior to next shoot (rehearsals etc) to avoid bad acting
- High angle show works well, but panning shot doesn't work within the same shot
- Sound levels need improving / editing
Sunday, 24 January 2010
Nick's feedback
The actors clearly needed more time to rehearse so, keep that in mind for the and episode
Overall if your personally happy with it then im happy
Need more angles and shot changes used
There is some background noise which needs sorting out
There is not enough scenes / interesting content within the episode
Save footage as you go along
Check the scenes before leaving the shoot
Make sure that everyone knows what is going on
Make it more comedic
More energy is needed
There needs to be more visual gags in it
The characters need to be more stylized on their actually character base
Organize it much better, (rehearsals are a MUST!)
Nothing technically wrong with script etc but just needs more preparation
Great introduction, but it is a bit all over the place in the middle but good start!
On track, keep the momentum going
Overall well done!
From the feedback given, we are going to all together going to consider the things which were good and bad about our 1st episode, and we will consider possible changes, in order to make sure that the 2nd episode is better than the 1st.
Overall if your personally happy with it then im happy
Need more angles and shot changes used
There is some background noise which needs sorting out
There is not enough scenes / interesting content within the episode
Save footage as you go along
Check the scenes before leaving the shoot
Make sure that everyone knows what is going on
Make it more comedic
More energy is needed
There needs to be more visual gags in it
The characters need to be more stylized on their actually character base
Organize it much better, (rehearsals are a MUST!)
Nothing technically wrong with script etc but just needs more preparation
Great introduction, but it is a bit all over the place in the middle but good start!
On track, keep the momentum going
Overall well done!
From the feedback given, we are going to all together going to consider the things which were good and bad about our 1st episode, and we will consider possible changes, in order to make sure that the 2nd episode is better than the 1st.
Overall Progress
This has been a very hard project towork on, not because the target was particularly hard to achieve, but because of the problems encountered along the way.
When I first learnt about this project, Alex and I were put in charge of meetings and job roles etc, however this was quite difficult due to some people wanting to do everything, and others not doing what they wanted because other people said it louder. This was a problem but we got passed it easy enough and moved on. We also had problems deciding on a theme, and even a name for the show, the characters, everything.
There was an awful lot of friction going on within the group when we first started, and we didn't get much done at any point. We then split into two groups, and it started to go a bit smoother. Our group spent a lot of time planning and organizing ourselves so we could do everything, while the other group grabbed a camera and went to film. I think this shows how different certain people in our class can be. Many of us just want to go out and film, whereas the rest of us are quite happy to plan and prepare so when we do get to go and film we know what we need to do.
While i believe we worked better when split into two groups, i couldn't help but notice that one or two people in our group seemed to be doing a lot more work than other people in our group, which got very annoying after a while when someone is sitting around doing nothing and you're working on piles on work, however we got it all done, and nobody really argued about it. I noticed that several of us ended up taking on far more than one job. For example, i was doing camera work, however i also ended up taking charge of costumes, budgeting, helping with marketing and being the production assistant. I also booked the room and the teacher so we had somewhere to film and an actual teacher to be in it, and i drew half of the stroyboard.
Once we had got a script, and a shotlist, we decided to storyboard and show. This was alright, as we just had to decide what shots we wanted and how we wanted them to look, but in the end wasn't stuck to as well as it could have been. We had some more problems when everyone got really annoyed with Mike for leaving with all the contact details of our actors, however it was talked through when he got back and we all calmed down and got back to work. He upset one or two people with some of his blog posts, but ultimately, they're there for your opinions so we can't complain.
Once we got to filming, i thought it worked quite well. Granted, we didn't stick perfectly to the shot list, and the storyboard was ignored a little bit, but we got the footage we needed and it worked quite well. I think Matt L said he didn't like the "That'll do" attitude i had towards some of the shots, and i totally agree with him, i don't like the phrase "That'll do", especially not when filming, however as we were filming after school, and one of our teachers had to stay behind - AND we were quickly running out of time, i decided we didn't really have time to re-do every shot as many times as i would have liked. Hopefully, when it comes to filming the next episode, we will plan it slightly better and try to stick to the storyboard so we can get the shots better first time.
After filming the first episode, we decided to change director so Dave was doing it. Almost as soon as we did this, some of us saw it as a mistake. When Dave got some control, he abused it and ignored us. This caused problems because when we said we're filming at lunch tomorrow and e-mailed the cast, he then decided we hadn't told him despite all of us informing him. He then sent the cast some very inappropriate e-mails calling saying Mike's script was "shockingly painful to read" which is really unfair. This upset several members of the crew, who then realized that Dave was just being a jerk to everyone and it was barely worth working with him. He then decided not to allow anyone on the set, as last time - despite him not being there - decided the set was too busy so we didn't need to be there.
Despite me being the cameraman, i wasn't allowed to be on set because i said i didn't want to film the second episode because i tried my best and people just sat around bitching. However after talking it through with some others, i agreed i would film it, but Dave again wasn't listening so didn't realize this. We got to school the next day and had a big BIG discussion about what we were going to do and how we were going to sort these problems, and after everyone calmed down and said what they wanted to say, we all got on a lot better.
As a director, Dave started to listen to what people were saying, and as we could move the laptops and tables around at Long Road, it was easier to work in one big group as opposed to being split up around the room at Coleridge. I think that despite several rough patches and one or two days when i could barely bring myself into school as i couldn't stand the project anymore, once we started talking again as a group instead of in small groups within the team, things really got going and i have quite high hopes for the future of this project. If everyone talks to one another when we are making decisions about filming and times and stuff, i think we can work incredibly well together, like we proved in the final few days of getting the first episode complete.
When I first learnt about this project, Alex and I were put in charge of meetings and job roles etc, however this was quite difficult due to some people wanting to do everything, and others not doing what they wanted because other people said it louder. This was a problem but we got passed it easy enough and moved on. We also had problems deciding on a theme, and even a name for the show, the characters, everything.
There was an awful lot of friction going on within the group when we first started, and we didn't get much done at any point. We then split into two groups, and it started to go a bit smoother. Our group spent a lot of time planning and organizing ourselves so we could do everything, while the other group grabbed a camera and went to film. I think this shows how different certain people in our class can be. Many of us just want to go out and film, whereas the rest of us are quite happy to plan and prepare so when we do get to go and film we know what we need to do.
While i believe we worked better when split into two groups, i couldn't help but notice that one or two people in our group seemed to be doing a lot more work than other people in our group, which got very annoying after a while when someone is sitting around doing nothing and you're working on piles on work, however we got it all done, and nobody really argued about it. I noticed that several of us ended up taking on far more than one job. For example, i was doing camera work, however i also ended up taking charge of costumes, budgeting, helping with marketing and being the production assistant. I also booked the room and the teacher so we had somewhere to film and an actual teacher to be in it, and i drew half of the stroyboard.
Once we had got a script, and a shotlist, we decided to storyboard and show. This was alright, as we just had to decide what shots we wanted and how we wanted them to look, but in the end wasn't stuck to as well as it could have been. We had some more problems when everyone got really annoyed with Mike for leaving with all the contact details of our actors, however it was talked through when he got back and we all calmed down and got back to work. He upset one or two people with some of his blog posts, but ultimately, they're there for your opinions so we can't complain.
Once we got to filming, i thought it worked quite well. Granted, we didn't stick perfectly to the shot list, and the storyboard was ignored a little bit, but we got the footage we needed and it worked quite well. I think Matt L said he didn't like the "That'll do" attitude i had towards some of the shots, and i totally agree with him, i don't like the phrase "That'll do", especially not when filming, however as we were filming after school, and one of our teachers had to stay behind - AND we were quickly running out of time, i decided we didn't really have time to re-do every shot as many times as i would have liked. Hopefully, when it comes to filming the next episode, we will plan it slightly better and try to stick to the storyboard so we can get the shots better first time.
After filming the first episode, we decided to change director so Dave was doing it. Almost as soon as we did this, some of us saw it as a mistake. When Dave got some control, he abused it and ignored us. This caused problems because when we said we're filming at lunch tomorrow and e-mailed the cast, he then decided we hadn't told him despite all of us informing him. He then sent the cast some very inappropriate e-mails calling saying Mike's script was "shockingly painful to read" which is really unfair. This upset several members of the crew, who then realized that Dave was just being a jerk to everyone and it was barely worth working with him. He then decided not to allow anyone on the set, as last time - despite him not being there - decided the set was too busy so we didn't need to be there.
Despite me being the cameraman, i wasn't allowed to be on set because i said i didn't want to film the second episode because i tried my best and people just sat around bitching. However after talking it through with some others, i agreed i would film it, but Dave again wasn't listening so didn't realize this. We got to school the next day and had a big BIG discussion about what we were going to do and how we were going to sort these problems, and after everyone calmed down and said what they wanted to say, we all got on a lot better.
As a director, Dave started to listen to what people were saying, and as we could move the laptops and tables around at Long Road, it was easier to work in one big group as opposed to being split up around the room at Coleridge. I think that despite several rough patches and one or two days when i could barely bring myself into school as i couldn't stand the project anymore, once we started talking again as a group instead of in small groups within the team, things really got going and i have quite high hopes for the future of this project. If everyone talks to one another when we are making decisions about filming and times and stuff, i think we can work incredibly well together, like we proved in the final few days of getting the first episode complete.
Online Progress
Once a Facebook group for our webisodes had been created, and people had been invited to join it, the show started getting some hits. This was good, because it meant anyone who showed interest in the episodes, could get almost instant updates on whatever was happening with it. This meant when the video was uploaded, we posted it on there. In the image, you can see Sam posted it on our wall a couple of times shortly after each other, so people got the updates more. This was good because it meant people knew exactly when it was up and how they could view it. You can see that only 30 minutes after the first post, Mike says we had already had 85 views on the video.
We also got some good advertising from the bands we used in the episode. The band, Centrefolds agreed to let us use their music in our video, and in return got credited at the end - however, they also put a link to the video on their Facebook page, so we got a potentially bigger audience that way. Centrefolds have 250 fans that may otherwise have no known about Lines, however might have checked it out because a band they like was featured in it. I think using real music like this instead of stuff made on Garageband was a really good idea, as it just sounds more professional to have real music.
I wasn't at home at 7pm yesterday for the official launch, but we got the video uploaded and told everyone about it and the views have just been rolling in. After creating a Facebook event and inviting hundreds of friends and family etc to join, and generally advertising it wherever and whenever possible, we managed to get 150 views in just 2 hours. We also had some comments, which was a response we were hoping for.At 6pm on Saturday, we has managed to score almost 300 Youtube hits, which could be down to people still getting notified about the launch on Facebook because we set the event to end in February, or just word of mouth. I don't really mind how we got the views, the point is we got them and we are still getting comments about it.
I checked this morning (Sunday), and we had
almost 420 views. We also had a 4.5 star rating on Youtube, which i think is a result. We have had several comments about it, and many people have said they are looking forward to the next one. This is good, because we now have a target market for our next episodes. We hope to make the next episode a bit funnier, as we are not sure how many people will watch it if there isn't any form of humour in the show, however nobody has said anything bad about it so far, apart from an e-mail i got from Steve Picton complaining that he was credited last in the cast list. Though i think this was probably a joke.Lines - Episode 1
This is the first episode of our web-series 'Lines'
I think it has worked really well, i like the finished product. It's not perfect, the sound quality isn't perfect and there's a few minor problems but overall i think it is good. I think in the end we managed to work as a team quite well together, and if we can keep it up, we should be able to produce the next two episodes quite efficiently. I like the use of sound and the finished website looks better than it did first time i saw it. While the episode isn't exactly comedy gold, i think it keeps your attention for long enough and the ending gives you reason to watch the next episode as you want to know what is going on with Seth.
I think it has worked really well, i like the finished product. It's not perfect, the sound quality isn't perfect and there's a few minor problems but overall i think it is good. I think in the end we managed to work as a team quite well together, and if we can keep it up, we should be able to produce the next two episodes quite efficiently. I like the use of sound and the finished website looks better than it did first time i saw it. While the episode isn't exactly comedy gold, i think it keeps your attention for long enough and the ending gives you reason to watch the next episode as you want to know what is going on with Seth.
Friday, 22 January 2010
Plans
We are planning to film on Monday, however this means we have to re-book all the equipment and the room. This shouldn't be a problem as we are probably going to be filming after school for a bit, so nobody will be using the room or the equipment. This also only gives Matt one day to edit the entire second episode, however Sam has said he can take his laptop home and use that to edit if it will help. This also gives us the whole day inc 2 lessons and a free period to finish any leftover work we have to do. Hopefully some people will watch the first episode and want to watch the next, so we might have a bit of an audience waiting for the next episode.
I'm not sure what else there is for me to do, really, because we have basically everything finished for now. We have advertised the first episode, and i don't think we'll have to change much for advertising the second. We really just need to plan how exactly what we want filmed and try to use the time efficiently, so we don't run out with only half an episode.
I'm not sure what else there is for me to do, really, because we have basically everything finished for now. We have advertised the first episode, and i don't think we'll have to change much for advertising the second. We really just need to plan how exactly what we want filmed and try to use the time efficiently, so we don't run out with only half an episode.
Progress Report - 22/Jan
Today i made the images on our poster much lighter as when we printed them out it was far too dark. I figured if we were going to print them, they image would need to be lighter, so i changed it and then we decided we weren't going to put them up anyway. We decided that people weren't really going to look at them, and if they did they probably wouldn't remember, so we decided to just keep updating the social networking area of advertising so they can't forget. I also created the credit reel to go on the end of the episode, as i figured it would save some time if i did it so Matt could just slap it on the end of the video.
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Thursday 21st Jan
Today we started with a class discussion about issues we had within the group. I think it was realyl aimed at our group more than the other as we all knew we had some problems occuring within the groups. I believe our main problem was that the director had taken control and was just doing what he wanted, 
ignoring us and telling people what to do. This resulted in lots of comfusion as when we tried to organise something, he then didn't register it as he wasn't listening to us. I had been talking to a few members of our group and we were getting really concerned about what we were going to do, because the way the director had just started to do his own thing was really upsetting us. I e-mailed David O'Neill, a director i've worked with, to ask if he had any thoughts on how i could resolve the issue and keep the project on track.
He suggested that we sit down, and decide what it is we want to get from this project and what we feel we need to do to achieve it, rather than go in all guns blazing and see who can shout for longer. I think this was really good advice, because when we all sat around the tables and talked through our concerns, we got to work much faster. I think it is much easier to work at Long Road than Coleridge, because we can move the tables together and use our laptops to work close to each other, so we can discuss the things as we progress. At Coleridge, however, we have to share computers and are spread out across the room so it is harder to work and have discussions.
ignoring us and telling people what to do. This resulted in lots of comfusion as when we tried to organise something, he then didn't register it as he wasn't listening to us. I had been talking to a few members of our group and we were getting really concerned about what we were going to do, because the way the director had just started to do his own thing was really upsetting us. I e-mailed David O'Neill, a director i've worked with, to ask if he had any thoughts on how i could resolve the issue and keep the project on track.He suggested that we sit down, and decide what it is we want to get from this project and what we feel we need to do to achieve it, rather than go in all guns blazing and see who can shout for longer. I think this was really good advice, because when we all sat around the tables and talked through our concerns, we got to work much faster. I think it is much easier to work at Long Road than Coleridge, because we can move the tables together and use our laptops to work close to each other, so we can discuss the things as we progress. At Coleridge, however, we have to share computers and are spread out across the room so it is harder to work and have discussions.
Thursday 21st Jan
Today i created a picture to go on the posters for advertising our webisodes. I got an image of each cast member, and cut out the background. I then found an image of a blackboard and put them in front of it. To make it re-enforce the point of the poster, i got the 'Lines' logo that Matt created on the blackbaord.I think it looks OK, and works well on the posters. Unfortunately, when it is printed, the image is much darker so i am going to lighten the image and change the contrasts slightly tomorrow.
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