Set Workshop

Sadly I couldn't find the photos I documented as we built the sets but the rest I managed to recover.

To start with, we had a workshop with Chris to teach us how to put flats together to build standing walls. We then had a workshop where we stripped the flats of previous wallpaper and guff that was stuck on there so they were ready to be wallpapered. And the workshop with Jim showed us how use the heavy tools for sawing small and big pieces of wood, sanding properly and safely in case we needed the tools for building.

Panorama of the workshop

What we made in the workshop tutorial

Laura in her beautiful jacket

We all had another tutorial with Chris, who showed us how to use the dolly that lifts the camera up a couple of feet.

No idea why I have a blurry picture of Kat's face

Practice with the camera

Group discussion group

After the tutorial our group (group B) continued to wallpaper and make bricks for our breakable wall. We also painted the bricks red after covering them in clay and roughed them up a little be so they look aged.

The finished look of the brick wall before we wallpapered over it for filming. You can also see the wallpapered wall which was wallpapered with flat white paper then covered in book pages which circled around the hole.

Script Supervising the Studio Shoot

On the day, I prepared with some rough tables ready to jot down the takes taking place, for both camera 1 and camera 2 on both days. 

Notes for myself to refer too:

-Spot watch for duration of shot

the details about the take (position of actors, cameras, movement, important actions or expressions)-

-Directors comments such as: Good or bad, hold take, print take-

-End of the day report: Log actual times that shooting and breaks take place and how long-

Day 1

Day 2

I also made extra tables for anything else, which came in handy, like when the director came up with additional shots on the days, so I jotted them down. I then made a new shot list due to scrapped shots and of course additional ones. 

We also had a schedule on the days of filming. My job was to write what time we took breaks and started shooting again. So I compiled my notes into readable, organised table and compared the times to the schedule.

Evaluation

This has been a tricky one all year round with Maps and Journeys taking the cake. To make something that can an audience engage with as an instillation piece was difficult to come up with. So many ideas coming to mind yet not enough time or knowledge to carry them out. 
To start with my original idea was kept quite small and easy to manage, using a small room to project a landscape upon too and have an individual take part in a relaxing experience or journey through that landscape. Calming noises and the smother camera movements allowing the experience to be relaxing. Of course after many meetings with tutors the idea changed or evolved over time, becoming more immersive, yet there was something missing to make it good. 
After a lecture with a Kathleen and hearing other peoples ideas I was ready to evolve mine own again, but Charlie came up to me asking if she could combine ideas with her and Katherine and become a group. Of course I took the offer as our ideas put together could make a interesting piece. Later, with lots of possible ideas passes between us, we came up with what wanted to create would be too hard. With the lack of coding skills and little time we just couldn't it. The tables turned after having a Skype meeting were we came up with the idea to do a scavenger hunt in Farnham. And with Nick joining our group we could in cooperate all our ideas together. With little to go on but rough ideas we had to make a plan that could still relate to our original ideas but in a way that was flexible enough to change into something encapsulating. We had the idea to do a student related challenge possibly held in the SU, based in and around Farnham, were 4 groups of 3 take part in three big challenges over the course of the term. However as time went on and we tested the website we found that no one was particularly interested in the event. We changed it quickly to a load of smaller, easier challenges that could be done whenever people wanted, so when deadlines came closer they were still doable for a bit of fun. 
However, it took us a long time to reach this point and far too late in the year to get it completely developed and finished before deadlines. With other things taking up time, like the studio shoot, meant that advertisement didn't make out as soon as it could, and the initial worry was that deadlines would have people not doing the event in time, so we changed it too last for a longer period of time, till 17th February, which meant that for assessment, the work that we'd be showing is a presentation for the work laid out on the table in a mini layout of how the gallery piece will look. And with the new website up and posters out, we received emails from people who want to do our event, which made us change the date and encouraged us to keep this going and push it even further.
What I could of done to improve the overall project and process was too plan as much as possible when the idea is new so we're not changing the initial idea over and over again. And as soon as the base for the idea is complete, contemplate the advertisement and get it out as early as possible. Also there's the time of the event, if it was set during freshers or re-freshers in January the hype for it could be a lot higher and it's during the start of term where courses haven't got a lot of work to do. I could have done better time management, with the amount of things happening at once, I need to spread the work evenly so I don't end up favouring specific projects at times. The communication between our group was good, using the Facebook group to help each other, Skype calls for group discussions and planning, then we used texting for emergencies and general contact. However at one point, after the studio shoot, I was creating the posters and posting prototypes on our Facebook group for feedback, yet only one person replied to me on the night that I needed it. Due to the studio shoot everyone sort of crashed and lost motivation to do work for the next week, leaving me to struggle a little bit the posters and preventing them getting out on time.

Overall, this term was difficult but I managed to get done what I needed to do, and have managed to make things works within the project. If we do get a space in the gallery I think the piece will be worth all effort and really set off the event in motion. 

Logo

Charlie recommended I create a logo for the website to replace the plain looking one that was on the website already. Looking back at the poster colours, I made a simple design that looked good and used a readable font, then coloured it to the palette I had, with colours that fit.

I showed this to Charlie as she is the one that wanted it for the website.

Taking her advice I looked at the website and took a screenshot so I could use the eye drop tool the colours, using that colour scheme.

I also decided to change the font to something a bit easier to read and the colour change also made it clear against the circles.

After approval from Charlie I exported it to a .PNG file and sent it to her, however she had to make the background translucent as I forgot how too.

Poster Update

After printing off a tester for the poster it came out that the text on the back was upside down compared to the image on the other side. Also the fact that A4 paper seemed way too big size wise, specially if we were going for leaflet like posters to be placed in the SU. 

We settled for A5 as it's a suitable size to work with as it would save paper by having 2 posters on one sheet.

I printed these at home however the paper I used not of good quality, so I waited to do it in the library. Yet due to personal reasons I wasn't able to print out the posters till Monday 8th. Which sadly didn't go as planned either. 

Once I got into the library I had a few problems with printing it through a laptop, so after that kerfuffle I moved to a PC and tried again. YAY, it finally worked, but this it was the posters themselves that were the issue.   

On the back where the basic information is put had some errors on it due to the fact I print screened from the original .pages file. So after ridding the posters of errors I could finally print these off, and get them around uni.

But because the hassle with the posters took longer then I hoped we barely managed to get the posters into the SU in time for lunch. In which case we stuck some on notice boards throughout the uni and used the ones we had left on the student village. We weren't able to cover much as the cost of the printing was quite high for a small amount, however we managed to print off 40 posters in total.

Surprisingly this hasn't put me off making posters in the future, it just means I know what to look out for and what not to do again. Also PDF's are a bitch.

Final Poster

For the final poster I used the map and urban part of my research to inspire this final piece. I searched for a urban colour palette just to see what it gave me, and to my surprise I found a nice selection of colours that stand out but aren't an eye sore.

I then had to think about what I was actually gonna put on the poster, and looking back at the research I had done I decided to try something new with a map of Farnham.

Taking this screenshot of Farnham I rotated it 180 degrees so it fit into the portrait format. Then, with a lot of patience, I used the magic wand to highlight the main roads, cutting them from the image and filling them with a different colour. I also added a texture over the top to give the poster some texture rather then being plain bold colours.

With the colour palette in mind I went back to Text Giraffe to find some suitable logos for this new poster. Returning with many logos, I had to put them of to the base of the new poster and flick through each one of them to see which looked good and which ones I had to get rid of.

Not sure on what title was being used at the time of making it, I made doubles just in case (Urban Quest being the final choice). 

After much umming and ahhing about which one to use, I remembered that I could change the colour using the fill tool in Photoshop. Switching out some of the colours for the ones in the palette, only one came out looking worthy enough to be on the poster.

But then came the font for the slogan and website. I needed to find something decide that would stand out clearly from the background as well as sticking with the theme.

Looking through Dafont I found some that seemed to fit, and I decided to test them out just in case.

I created two different coloured ones just in case someone in the group preferred one to the other. In which case we could have both. Posting these up on Facebook to get some general feed back, I got that the in yellow poster, the roads look like veins or arteries because of the colour. Also I was told that the text in the same poster, was difficult to read.

So I changed it.

I later got some more feedback saying that the background colours were too vibrant or harsh, so to change that I added a complete white layer over the top of both of them and set the opacity to about 35% to lessen the harshness of the colours.

I then added the QR code to the corners and the website underneath (for people who don't use QR codes) to finish off the posters. Of course they were not fulling finished as I needed to get more feedback on the 'final' posters. My group replied with, the font showing the slogan and website were too difficult to read in the background. So in response I changed the font to a thicker style in hopes that it stands out more and clearer.

These two images above, are the finished, final posters.

Correction, the two images above were the final posters, till things got changed around.