Brief :)

Unit Title: Time Based Media

Unit Number: AF105

Assignment Title:

Two Short Films: ‘Crash Bang Wallop’ and ‘Sussex Lives Podcast’

Weighting: 100%

In this assignment you will be planning, shooting and editing two short films which you have to produce at the same time.  This is require you to manage your time so that you are making progress on both parallel projects in order to finish each in time for their crit and submission dates.  You will prepare these films for web delivery and incorporate them into your online portfolio.    

Crash Bang Wallop

The Brief

For Crash Bang Wallop, you will use video editing to convey a fast and stimulating experience.  To do this, you will need to make a short film piece that is between 15 and 20 seconds in length. Your piece can either describe an everyday situation in a dramatic or dynamic way or subvert the expected response to a situation.  For example,

• The unbearable loudness of making breakfast as seen through a hangover
• Riding a children’s roundabout made to seem dark, sinister and threatening

Create 15-20 seconds of video with no less than 30 edits, placing an emphasis on abrupt editing that makes it look as action packed as possible, and creates a mood such as discordance or dynamism. You will try to make a film which creates dramatic impact but is as economical and succinct as possible.  

Guiding ideas/ mood direction

Video

Think about these moods or ideas: Crescendo, dissonance, cymbal crash, whistle, stairs bang, part of body collides, impact, slanting light, sound through body parts hitting objects, rip, tear, bash, overshoot, career past, screech, contrast, juxtapose, interpenetration, move, abrupt, stark

Sounds

You can use single individual noise events (crash, bump, bang etc) and/or a soundtrack or piece of music.  This can be based on the sounds recorded while filming and/or sourced sound effects and music.   

Planning and Designing your Film

You will undertake research into shooting and editing styles, storyboard your film, plan your shoot and shoot to storyboard and edit to your soundtrack. 

Sussex Lives Podcast

The Brief

You will be planning, shooting and editing a short interview based film, 1 minute in length, that can be used as a podcast for the Sussex based property and lifestyle magazine Latest Homes Sussex (latestsussex.co.uk).  The aim of this series of podcasts is to reflect the diversity of interesting people that live in the region as part of their ‘lifestyles’ section of the magazine’s website, and the series is called ‘Sussex Lives’.

You need to find an interviewee with a quirky or interesting story to tell, line up the interview, record it in an appropriate location and film cutaways to use in the editing.  To make the interviews a consistent series, the interview questions will be edited out of the sequence and as a group you need to develop a consistent look and feel for the lower third captioning.

Video for Everyone

You will need to transcode and repurpose your final films for the up-coming and emergent smart-phone market and related handheld devices.  This market is currently populated by the iPhone, the iPod Touch and iPad, the various Android phones and latest Nokia and blackberry handsets.  All of these devices run versions of the WebKit browser which can be tested and modelled in Safari on the Mac and PC desktop.  You will need to compress the finished, exported movie in the correct formats and embed it in an html page using html 5 ‘video for everyone’.  You should look into what you have to consider to make your video run effectively on these devices. Think about size, quality, format and any other issues of delivery.

Web Portfolio

Having compressed your films for web delivery and embedded them into an html page, you need to incorporate these into your web portfolio. 

Submission – pass criteria

Practical work

• You will need to submit a standard/authored DVD which plays your films from a simple menu.
• You must submit, either as a separate data DVD or as a ROM folder on the authored DVD disc, your finished video files as full quality QuickTime movies.  
• Your full quality QuickTime movie must also be submitted on the server. 
• Your films need to be prepared to run on the web and on mobile devices, and built into your web portfolio

Sketchbook and Blog

Your sketchbook and must contain project planning, research and development work including:-

• Idea generation through such techniques as brainstorming, sketching, photographs etc
• Research into video editing and video interviews by embedding movies and/or linking to examples online with a written commentary or analysis of your chosen examples
• Storyboards of your intended piece that are detailed, timed and show filming and editing intensions
• The development of your project, showing your working methods, progress and problem solving

• Periodic reviews of your work in progress

• Embed or link to your finished work and evaluate its qualities   
• Research into issues surrounding video on the web

Enhanced criteria

• Your sketchbook shows thorough research and a thoughtful response to your research in your creative decision taking
• Your storyboards are detailed, well thought through and imaginative.
• Your films are well shot, using a variety of suitable shot types.
• You have handled technical issues (such as codecs, formats, compression etc) competently  
• Crash Bang Wallop successfully combines sound with fast editing to create dynamism
• Your Podcast is of a well chosen interviewee, has good quality sound, well framed interview shots and interesting, appropriate cutaways
• You have shown a good level of understanding of web based video delivery

Deadlines

Podcast Crit:  Tuesday 17^th May

Crash Bang Wallop Crit:  Friday 20^th May

Final deadline for submission of all work: Friday 27^th May

 LOOKING FOWARD TO IT!