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.

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'.

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.

Episode 2

Our second episode was release today (29th) at 7pm.

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.

/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.

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:

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Costumes

I was thinking about costumes for our minor characters and how they may be slightly more complicated than the costumes for our main characters. The mains ones are just in uniform, however one of the minor characters is meant to be a secret agent and it would look ridiculous if he was just in normal clothes. After doing some basic research into stereotypical secret agents costumes, they basically either wear a suit, or dark clothing consealing as much of their body as possible. As i don't have a suit, and trying to buy one would go WAY over budget, i figured we could use something else. Kicking around at home, i have a black trench coat, some black sunglasses and a black hat. Sort of like the picture. I think this will probably look better, not perfect, but better than the guy just being in casual clothes.

Wednesday 20th Jan

Today our lessons started off with a team meeting to talk about what we thought was going wrong with our group. The main problems I saw was a lack of communication between crew members while we were filming. I also have a problem with people either not turning up or turning up late. I got a bit annoyed with Mike's blog post about the filming yesterday, as he basically said that i was doing it all wrong and couldn't care less about the show. I thought this was quite unfair, because while i was trying to get it done quite quickly this was because we were staying after school and people needed to get home so we couldn't stay late. If we had the time i would have re-done several shots however as we ran out of time without even starting the second episode i don't think it's fair to blame me. I wouldn't mind this if he had said about the other things i did to help the group, such as booking the room, acquiring the uniforms, recruiting the teacher so it looked more real and drew half of the storyboard. and no matter what he says, he spent the whole evening sat around the corner not doing anything. Initially, i simply said that if Mike thought i was doing such a bad job, he could film the next episode, however i realized that as we are going to have even less time for the next episodes, i figure if Mike has it his way we wont get the first scene done. I also don't appreciate the fact that he has said that we 'hurt him' with comments we made just because i asked why he wasn't in on Thursday and asked why he turned his phone off to so we couldn't get hold of him.

Once our meeting had finished, I set to work making another health and safety form for the next shoot. I also made a request form for the equipment we are going to need and another budget form. Me and Tara were going to make a quick website because Ash, whose main job was to create a website - despite having loads of time off school - failed to make a website. Dave made one, but i don't really like the look of it. Unfortunately, i can't make anything better, so i guess we're just going to have to roll with it. Ash was then asked to make a storyboard or a shot list, but Dave decided to tell him not to bother as they were going to change some bits of the script. Nobody told us this, and they didn't bother to start changing the script until the end of the lesson. I have e-mailed the cast and asked if they are free to film at lunchtime for the next two days, so we'll see how it goes from there.

I spent a lot of time promoting the opening sequence on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Vimeo etc. I still don't think the website that Dave and Ash produced is to a high enough standard for what we need, but as i can't do any better and when Tara suggested we work together to create a website Dave just laughed at us. I'm beginning to think promoting him to director was a really bad move. While he has no problem bossing the cast around on set, he also has no problem being a jerk to the crew. When we were discussing ideas, he just kept retorting with 'How about shut up?', which is neither helpful nor particularly nice. As soon as he got any power, he started to abuse it, and i am beginning to think that Kirk was a way better director, who just got a bit confused during the first shoot.

Title Sequence

This is the title sequence for Lines.

Filming Request

Today I made another request form for the equipment we need to film. I also e-mailed Steve Picton, requesting the use of D9 for filming again. He said it should be fine if we use the rooms at lunchtime, but we really have to keep to schedule as if we stay in there we will delay other classes.

20th Jan - progress - emailing the cast

Today I emailed the cast again to see about filming the second episode. We have agreed as a group to film at lunch times tomorrow and friday if the cast are available then.

I also emailed James Amey and Angelica Thomson, to ask if they would be willing to play the extra parts of the secret agent and Taylor's girlfriend.

I also requested the use of D9 once again for the detention room, but if we get another room if doesn't matter - as it is a different detention so therefore could be a different detention room. We are now waiting for replies by text or email to confirm times, and if everyone is available and we get the room then we will be ready to film the second episode, bearing in mind we also need a storyboard so we will get to work on that also today.

Tuesday 19th Jan. Filming

Today we were mainly planning our filming and stuff that we were going to later in the day. Tara had created a request form allowing us to film in D9 after school, which was signed by Nick and seconded by Sue Dulgarn, to prove that she was OK with us filming there.

We gathered the entire cast, who had assembled outside the hall and walked over to the room at about 4:10. On the way to school, i decided i would get a tin of quality street to thank the actors for staying after school to help us out, as they totally didn't have to - especially as one or two of them only had morning lessons. I also picked up some plain white shirts as costumes, as they were supposed to be in detention, it was like a uniform.

When i got to the room, Matt decided to set up a camera in D7, the other room we were allowed to go into, to film the title sequence. This meant we couldn't start filming until later, however as he was only taking one person at a time it did mean that those who were left could re-read their lines and try to rehearse what they were meant to do. I was a bit worried when they were rehearsing because they were messing around and stuff, however when the camera was turned on, they were very well behaved and did exactly what we asked them to do.

The title sequence took a lot longer than i thought it would, and we were only meant to have the room til 5:15, but we got our time extended until about 5:45 so we could finish. To start off with, our organization was terrible. Nobody really knew what to do and we weren't getting anywhere. When we started, however things got moving a lot smoother. As i was the cameraman, i basically moved where i was told and filmed whatever people told me to. Sam was the sound guy so he got in closer with the microphone and stuff so we could record sounds and talking. As a lot of the first episode is narration, we didn't really need the sound, but we have it anyway and can put it in as background noise.

Kirk was the director, but i don't think he was really into it. He agreed on what needed to be done, but seemed a bt hesitant to actually tell people what to do some of the time. When Matt had finished the opening sequence, he didn't really do much, but that's fine, we had basically everything covered. Mike turned up with some scripts and stuff but realistically we could have done without him on set, as he was complaining there were too many people - however as he wrote the script i guess he just wanted to be there to tell us how he thought it should look. Tara technically wasn't needed but i'm really glad she came along. While her designated job role wasn't anything to do with filming, she helped out with the camerawork, suggesting different shots and angles i could film from, she helped Kirk sort out the stroyboards and stuff and generally helped things to run smoother.

I was a bit concerned earlier because while we had the main characters, we didn't have the minor characters to do the flashbacks and stuff with, however we shall record those another day. We also needed a teacher for one of the scenes in the first episode, who we didn't have. Kirk was going to do it, but i felt it would be better to have an actual adult play the part so it didn't just look like a bunch of kids twatting about with a camera. I e-mailed Steve Picton, one of the teachers at our school, who happily agreed to be in our video. This was great, because it made it look much more real. He was very good as well. We got him to fill in a model release form, and gave him his lines and he was told to be really angry, which he did very well.

I think after we got into it a bit, the filming went quite well, but we lost valuable time at the start, which we would need to work on if we are going to get the episodes recorded. We got all of the first episode and the title sequence filmed, i'm not sure if we got much, if any of the second episode, which is a problem we will have to sort out tomorrow. Maybe we could try and film some Thursday morning when we have most of the cast. The only problem is that one of the actors has a full day on Thursday and we can't expect him to miss any for us.

Tuesday

Today we are planning on filming our first episode of Lines. We had to get permission to use a room, however as we are filming after school a teacher has to be present. I have managed to get a confirmation that we can use either D7 or D9 for filming after school, however i got permission by text and we really need an e-mail so we have some paper evidence that we can print. Ultimately, we need someone to play the role of teacher, and i would much prefer it if it was actually a teacher. I think it would look more convincing if we had an adult than if one of us tried to pull it off, even though Kirk is technically an adult. However as the people i am trying to contact about securing the room and acting are both teaching, i can't get them to respond.

Tuesday 29th Jan

Today i made the budgeting form so i could claim money back for buying the T-shirts we needed the cast to wear in detention. Unfortunately, Tesco don't sell many plain packaged shirts for people our age, so i just bought whatever the biggest was and hope they fit. Luckily everyone acting in our film seems pretty thin so they shouldn't have too many problems getting in the shirts.

Monday 18th Jan

Today I worked mainly on storyboarding our first episode. Matt and Tara had created a shot list, so it was just drawing up what they had written. I'm pretty b ad a drawing, but it got the point across. I got most of it done, i have 4 or 5 frames left to draw, which can be done tomorrow.

We have decided as most of the cast cannot all make it on the same day due to lessons, the most suitable time for recording would be after school. Unfortunately, as it is after school, we have to hope that the actors want to be in it enough to wait around after school instead of going home. We have had two responses and both actors have said yes, so we just need to hope the others will, and find a room suitable for a detention setting. I also need to go to Tesco and get some school uniforms - basically just some white shirts, possibly some black trousers. Unfortunately, if we want this to be budgeted, then we have to run it by one of the teachers who I will e-mail later and OK it. If i am going to get these, i will have to go to Tesco's before school tomorrow and buy them all then. Unfortunately, i don't know what size to get, so if people do want me to get the shirts, i will probably just get medium or large as they will fit everyone in the cast.

Paper Work

This is an image of the e-mail we sent to our actors saying that we needed them to act after school on Tuesday 18th. We are awaiting responses.

This is our risk assessment form, we needed to fill this in before we could go and do any filming. It just outlines all possible risks, who could be harmed and what we are going to do to prevent the risk.

This is our permission letter. Before we could borrow any equipment, our production manager had to write a letter asking for it, and our teacher had to OK it.

This was us changing our MySpace URL. We decided to keep our brand strong, it would be better if all of our websites had a similar URL.

Cast Recording Times

Elliot Hickey - Monday 9 - 10.50,

Tuesday 2.40 - 4.10,

Wednesday 9 - 12,

Thursday 12.20 - 4.10.

Catherine Montgomery - Monday 10.50 - 12.20,

Tuesday 10.30 - 2.40,

Thursday 9 - 10.50,

Friday 12.20 - 4.10

Grant Cole - Monday - 12:20 - 4.10

Tuesday - 10:30 - 2:40

Wednesday - 9:00 - 10:50, 13:00 - 13:35, 13:55 - 2:40

Thursday - 9:00 - 2:40

Friday - 9:00 - 10:50, 13:55 - 4:10

Tom Jakes - Monday - 1 - 4.10,

Tuesday - 1 - 4.10,

Friday - 10.30 - 2.40.

Josef James - Monday - 10.50 - 12.20,

Tuesday 10.50 - 4.10,

Wednesday 12.20 - 2.35,

Thursday - 9.00 - 12.20,

Friday - 9.00 - 10.50 then 1.05 - 4.10.

This is the available times for the main cast of our webisode. Unfortunately, everyone has free periods at different times so we don't have an appropriate time to film where we can have everyone unless they miss lessons. I'm fine with them missing lessons, but it seems a bit unfair to expect them to do it just to benefit us. We will have a discussion on Monday about what we are going to do.

Friday 15th

We didn't get up to much. We tried to arrange times for our cast to all be available, but some still hadn't replied and the ones that have don't have free's at the same time. Unfortunately, this means we will either have to film after school or not use outside actors. Which sucks, because half of them were really good...

We printed out a lot of paper work to put in the group folder, but Mike decided to take most of it on holiday with him so we've lost quite a lot of it until he returns.

Logo

This is the logo we are using for our Miniseries. It was created by Matt L. I like the logo, because it is an image usually associated with a school, hence the blackboard. With it being written on a blackboard, you are reminded of the Simpsons opening, where Bart is shown writing Lines on a blackboard while in detention.

I think this gives the right impression of what the show is about, as oposed to the Detention Deficit logo, which is just a mess.

Thursday 14th Jan

Today, I looked through the responses from the people Mike chose to be in our series. He requested that they all sent us a list of their free periods so we could work out a shooting schedule, however nobody really has frees at the same time. We are going to have to sort out times either when most people have frees or after college to decide about shooting times.

Elliot Hickey - Monday 9 - 10.50, Tuesday 2.40 - 4.10, Wednesday 9 - 12, Thursday 12.20 - 4.10.

Catherine Montgomery - Monday 10.50 - 12.20, Tuesday 10.50 - 2.40, Thursday 9 - 10.50,

Friday 12.20 - 4.10

Grant Cole - Monday - 12:20 onwards

Tuesday - 10:30 - 2:40

Wednesday - 9:00 - 10:50, 13:00 - 13:35, 13:55 - 2:40

Thursday - 9:00 - 2:40

Friday - 9:00 - 10:50, 13:55 - 4:10

Currently we do not have free times for Josef James, Tom Jakes and James Amey, but we will update them as soon as we get emails back.

Auditions - Weds 13th Jan

Today Mike, Dave, Kirk, Sam, Tara and I attended the auditions in order to oversee them and to help make decisions about the characters. We all set up the room, and after giving out scripts and character profiles, aswell as model release forms out to the auditionees. I was meant to record the whole thing, but i had to leave to go to an exam, so i couldn't stay til the end. This is a list of people that auditioned and the roles they were going for.


Jake Wood - Josef James
Taylor - Grant Cole
Seth - James Amey, Tim Sykes, Elliot Hickey
Zeke - Tom Jakes
Megan - Angelica Thomson, Jennifer Green, Catherine Montgomery

We also have 3 minor roles, which some actors above may be asked if they want to act in if they do not receive the part they want to. These are TEACHER1, AGENT1 and FRIEND1 in the script. All roles will be decided tonight by our casting director Mike Shaw and news will be emailed to the successful auditionees. All in all things are progressing really well. I thought overall the people were quite good, but i felt that some stuck out more than others.

Josef James - Very confident, had learnt lines very quickly. Is IN a band, so could pull off the 'i'm in a band' thing' quite happy to be filmed.
Tim Sykes - Said lines with confidence, but he doesn't fir the image i had of Seth.
Elliot Hickey - Confident, good acting skills and could relate to the character well, would make a good Seth.

Some others were very good, too but i can't remember who they were.

Risk Assessment

Before we can think about doing anything with this project, we need to consider all the Health and Safety aspects of what we are planning. Tara is the project manager, so she has to fill in the Risk Assessment forms, but i helped out. Here is our risk assessment for filming the auditions on wednesday 13th January. We had to explain the Hazard, likelihood, who could be harmed, how badly and how to manage the risk.

Auditions

We decided for our project, we would get some outside actors instead of using members of our calss, because quite honestly, none of us can act. We figured if we auditioned the places away, if people wanted to be in it they could come along and we could decide who is best. We would be holding auditions on Wednesday 13th Jan at 12:20-2:40 at in our media room. I was going to fil the auditions so we could watch them back at a later date, however i forgot to check the mic was plugged in properly, so we had to get a couple of guys back to re-record them. To promote the auditions, Tara made a facebook event, and Tara and Mike made posters and posted them around college.

Both of these worked in attracting attention to the auditions, Alie also posted it on twitter. The Facebook event worked best at attracting people though, as we were able to invite all of our friends on facebook and are able to see all of the people who are planning on attending which has helped in giving us a rough idea of how many people are likely to be attending and how many model release forms and scripts we needed to print out.On the Facebook group we have posted the script that people auditioning will need to read, we also messaged everyone in the Facebook event the script.

The lines that people will have to read for the characters are;

Jake Lines
My name’s Jake Wood. I spent most of my life trying to be like a normal kid. But the fact I happened to be a TV star and also the lead singer of a band, meant otherwise. I began a new school and well, things didn’t go according to plan.

That’s Megan. She doesn’t say a great deal, although she proved she was good at raising two fingers simultaneously. And finally, we come to Zeke Fernando, the nicest one of the bunch.

Taylor Lines
At this school, we believe in a state of hierarchy. I am at the top. You, my friend, are at the bottom. The dirty stinking bottom. You got that?

Will you just shut up? You don’t know what you’re talking about!

You’re one to talk. Little miss perfect to Daddy, but a complete bitch to everyone else you come across.

Seth Lines
If you’d just let me explain.

There’s this guy. He keeps following me around. A bit like a stalker really...

I’m telling you the truth. Do you think this would be something I’d write on my personal statement? ‘Hi, I’m Seth. I spend my time at school getting harassed by a secret agent’.

Zeke Lines
We were at a house party the other night and my mate. He, erm, he had tons to drink. Like a serious amount...

My mate downloads quite a lot.

I don’t wanna keep covering for you. All the time you’re getting me in the shit.

Megan Lines
So you’re an actor? What’s it like being famous?

I love it how we all get to learn these little things about each other. I mean, who’d have guessed you’d be a goody two shoes?

It looks pretty clear from where I’m standing. This whole tough guy attitude being an act.