The Design of Our Facebook Page

our facebook page was the simplest of them all, allowing people to network, link to videos, read blog posts and share us about. We were also connected to Twitter, allowing our facebook posts to show up on there automatically too - now and then i'd add my daily limit of people on twitter to publicise detention deficit as much as possible - our main page on blogger had our twitter feed showing on there too, essentially connecting three massive social networking sites together, all working sybiotically to target each sites main audience, giving them universal information.

the 'info' page on our fan site. we kept the information simple yet intriguing. we wrote an insight into the cast and crew and who was invlolved. we also wrote a short character profile for each character.

Keith:
Keith is a troubled caffiene addict who suffers from anxiety attacks. he causes conflict from annoying people with his mood swings and excessive talking. and when he get's angry, boy does he flip out.

Sonny:
Sonny doesn't quite understand the meaning of detention, but enjoys the thrills that go with getting himself in it. He's certainly the most agressive out of the characters. This guy likes to shout.

Pier:
Pier is one of those people who always wanted the excitement of life to be like the films. He also loves freedom, and because of this, draws up ways in which to escape detention. obviously, his ideas are better than simply walking out the front door.

Valerie:
This girl feeds off everyones problems, causes conflict, and sits down and enjoys watching the mess she's created. She enjoys a good old shout as well, so her and Sonny don't tend to get along.

Vince:
The best way to descibe Vince is he's a paranoid pesemistic who believes that people are watching him at times. If he's reading, it's about conspiracy theories. Though he's obviously troubled, he's very calm in his approach.

the images above are examples of "facebook insights", a festure that facebook offers 'pages' rather than users to see their content popularity, tallying visits and 'likes' in all areas to give the admin an insight into how to optimize their page and gain as many views as possible - it's a great feature.

you can visit our fanpage here:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Detention-Deficit/240802514737

script for episode 3 - gas leak

script for episode 3 - gas leak


pier: why are you always getting at me? your always around me. where is the pen? vince! (pause) your always, like getting at me. i just cant stand it, the one time..

sonny: (interrupts) well think of a desent plan then and i'll stop getting at you.

pier: i just cant think of a plan, like, what the hell. (looks at keith)

sonny: you are such a vegetarian

shot of keith looking really 'out of it'. sonny and pier stare at him unable to figure out whats up with him. vince goes to see if he's okay.

vince: what seems to be the matter keith?

keith: i have eaten a rare amasoneon coffee bean. (sticks head up while talking and then continues looking around the room)

vince: aah, i see where you're going

shot of vince is from keiths perspective. everythings colourful and morphing.

sonny: what are you two talking about?

pier: yea, what are you two talking about?

vince and keith are talking in gibberish and sonny and pier can't make out what their saying.

sonny: am i missing something here?

pier and sonny look confused at eachother and then continue looking at vince and keith. damien walks through the door

damien: alright guys

keith: aah, cheif. (rubs face paint on his face to look like a red indian. the face paint magically appears with no explanation of why its there) get this spirit out of me

the next shot is of damien but he looks like cheif from 'one flew over the kookoos nest'

script for episode 2 - trapped

detention deficit

episode 2 ‘trapped’

starts off with everyone sitting down at their desks, sonny starts talking to keith

sonny: keith. we’ve been sitting here for 15 minutes now. why haven’t you annoyed me yet?

keith: (looks frustrated with sonny) I'm pacing myself

sonny: so, you’re going to annoy me in a little while instead

keith: no. you ignoranus

sonny: (laughs)

vince and valerie start talking over sonny laughing

vince: what did you call him?

valerie: ignoranus, what the hell have you been smoking in your crack pipe.

sonny: crack (continues laughing)

pier: guys, i’ve nailed it. i have nailed it (bangs book on desk)

keith: sorry, but am i going completely mad? (raises voice)

valerie: going?

sonny: you’ve been a patient at the fucking luni-bin for a while mate

keith: can i just explain how im pacing my. fucking self

sonny: well, it happens

pier: what

sonny: he’s annoying me again

keith: fuck you guys

pause for a while

vince: enlighten me keith

script for episode 1 - pilot

Detention deficit – Pilot episode script

Starts with pier looking bored leaning on his desk. He looks at the clock, the hand keeps on moving slower and slower. Even goes backwards. Sound of the clock out rules everything else. This is pier zoning out on the clock. Sounds comes back and you can hear Keith mumbling. This turns into Keith talking really quickly. Keith is talking to pier.

Keith: (talking really quickly, hard to make out what he’s saying)

Pier: (sighs)

Pier looks at sonny. Sonny understands what’s on Piers mind.

Sonny: he loco

Pier: (laughs)

The model release forms for all of our actors involved throughout our productions

model release form for me, who played keith

model release form for alexander whitcombe, who played pier


model release form for matthew hornby who played vince


model release form for laurence smith who played damien


model release form for aimee who played valorie

model release form for tim hodson who played cheif

model release form for josh lucas who played chris

model release form for James Walker who played sonny

production forms for episode 2 of Det. Def.

-how long filming would take

-what equipment we'd have and what we were filming

this covered health and safety as teachers must know where we are at all times. if there were any problems with what we had written, we'd have to change it before shooting. the reason teachers wanted this was to make sure they'd know who had what so they could make sure it was all back and in fine condition at the end of every shoot - I  have had a previous experience where i bought equipment back late, meaning Nick placed Philllipa in charge of these details instead - although upsetting for me, knowing that he had little confidence in my punctuality for bringing things back, I understood his concerns and made sure I helped out Phillipa with double checking things at the end of the shoot.. hopefully he is now ok with me borrowing equipment in future. I have many plans for it's usage again, after study leave when we're finished at Long Road..

Health and Safety forms Det. Def.

The Spot - '95 to '97

The Spot, or thespot.com, was the first episodic fiction website, and pioneered the underwriting of bandwidth and production costs by offering paid advertising banners on the web pages and product placement within the journal entries, much like Spotify's method of profiting. The site earned one of the original Webby Awards.

Technologies used in the distribution of Web television

• BitTorrent
• Dirac
• HTTP
• RSS
• RSS enclosure
• RTSP
• SMIL
• WTVML

TV vs Internet

"According to the results of a recent online survey conducted by IBM, television sets are losing ground to the internet when it comes to personal leisure time. 19 percent of all respondents stated that they spent six hours or more per day on the internet versus nine percent of respondents spending the same amount of time in front of the television. 66 percent responded that they spent one to four hours in front of the television versus 60 percent on the internet."
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/08/23/tv_vs_the_internet_internet_wins/1




when broadcasting on the internet rather than TV, there are many different aspects you need to take into mind - TV is a medium of media on it's own, having a specific format/pattern of publishing and advertising that works best for it's viewers - usually only showing shows at a set time schedule (unless we're talking online 'sky anytime').
With the internet, you have the chance to check out a program at any time convenient to you. many tv broadcasting companies have internet anytime broadcasting like "40D" or "BBC iplayer" where you can catch up. web series pages usually specify a date for the next release but again allow users to view it at any time once it's released. although "40D" or "BBC iplayer" programs expire eventually it's still a big step up from tv conventions and the advertising is unique too, allowing users to click on the screen during an appealing advert to be taken to the companies page.
from the statistics mentioned earlier it would seem that the internet is quickly pushing television out just due to it's convenient nature - it's on a screen which you can minimize if you want facebook or blogger up in the background. with normal  tv you cant do this at all, and with the sharing capabilities that social networking/web 2.0 sites offer, watching a great program can be spread among your peers to also view. again, tv isnt capable of this.

Equipment needed to put a show together:

beneath will be a list of the things I needed to complete our Webisode. It'll include both software AND hardware:

-Coleridge Media department. Complete with high end editing macs and cameras/sound equiptment
-Sony HD cams + lenses and glare reducers
-Boom mic + telescopic boom mic pole
-Long Road MacBook laptops
-Final Cut editing software
-Adobe After Effects editing software
-Garageband music editing software
-tripods
-hardrives for footage transportation

all of these pieces I used in each episode as we have lessons in both coleridge and Long Road which meant I needed to use both facilities equipment for each episode...



This was the first clip that used all of the above. the time-displacement effect was created in  after effects after finding a tutorial on how to do it... I worked between two colleges and edited the sound effects ourselves. the main editing was done on final cut (composing the timeline).

Final Reflection

How does an online show differ from a TV one or a theatre one in terms of how people might watch it? (when they watch, where they watch, how they watch- e.g. on a computer or a phone)

Online webisodes differ in the sense that their target audience is usually of the more web savvy demographic, able to easily get to videos via adverts and/or share them about via social networking - i'd say this demographic typically is around the ages of 13-21, fitting into the generation raised with a computer for most of their lives, meaning they'd all have some form of knowledge regarding big-media coverage and culture around the world. This knowledge would allow the demographic to easily identify with issues, parodies and pastiches from around the world making both humour and understanding very very versatile. If a comedy was created with the same calibur of humour as, say, Family guy (not a webisode, i know), where it often takes in stories and issues from around the world and makes fun, but aired in the 1970's, nobody would understand it, as nobody would have access to trivial information like that. So when people watch these typically student-made webisodes, i feel that the humour is far more cliquey, giving the audience a sense of self - as if they are in a club, knowing that the others "know" too, making the issues raised more enthusing and private.

How do you reach that audience through your marketing that is different from other forms? (via links, social network messages etc- but you may have used some conventional strategies e.g. posters)

I reached them mainly through web 2.0. it allowed us to really publicise what is was doing. First I set up a facebook page and then a twitter, gaining as many followers as possible by adding friends. Next I linked twitter and Facebook together allowing whatever I typed on one to also be simultaneously published on the other - this took a lot of time off our hands. Finally I embedded a vimeo player on our blog allowing the audience to see our productions, as well as a twitter widget that showed our live posts on the blog too. This all added up to a very networked, hive of information where one page would be giving live updates, another would be giving good background information and another would be showing product - for users wanting all at once they simply needed to go to our blog and all would appear on one page.
I had no finely picked audience really, as I knew it was just a class project that would'nt generate money or fame. so when I did invite people I just explained and told them to treat it in a jokey, fun way, just to keep them enthusiastic and visiting on our behalf rather than the actual project's.
We didnt advertise with physical objects like posters, instead Matt designed our logo with photoshop and put it on all our sites - spreading it via the linkages I had between them all and through email as a kind of signature.
Our facebook page allowed us to post updates to the viewers which they'd be notified on every time they logged in - I'd often post messages from the fictional characters in detention deficit adding to the humour as it would be completely anonymous as to who posted.

How do they respond? (how quickly did you get feedback- number of views, comments, sense of trend in audience figures after each episode)

I got feedback as soon as we posted our first teaser - friends personally told me they didnt understand or didnt enjoy it but i accepted their criticisms and took them on board so i could make sure our next was better. however the actual comments on both the facebook and vimeo were all very positive which was nice to know - maybe only a few people didnt understand.. in the post before this the audience figures show a mostly male audience around our age but also a lot older, mainly due to the fact that our media teachers probably checked it out too.

How did you respond? (Idea that you can change aspects of the show before the next episode due to feedback- which would not be the case on TV at such a quick pace)

well, as soon as we saw lines' smooth camera work (not so much in editing however) we realised that OUR camerawork was severely lacking in professionalism - that was our first target. our next was to remove all pointless cinematic editing qualities from ours - I found that for the type of film, our pilot was far to cinematic and that it's style should've reflected a far more lo-fi program like peepshow or spaced. finally, after that, was just to shorten it considerably. our pilot was around 6 minutes long which is fine as long as the humour can stand that long, which unfortunately it absolutely didnt (mainly due to the excessive bad language and violence, which we also corrected).

ORGANISATION

LINES
EPISODE 1: deadline met successfully - all model release forms signed before airing
EPISODE 2: deadline met successfully - all model release forms signed before airing
EPISODE 3: deadline met successfully - all model release forms signed before airing

DETENTION DEFICIT
EPISODE 1: episode late but all model release forms signed before airing
EPISODE 2: deadline met but model release forms not signed
EPISODE 3: episode unfinished and model release forms not signed

ouch. yes, we were a scatty, improv team. i agree. But i do feel that our episodes still came out looking acceptable, even in their rushed state. i am astonished as to how Lines managed to get so organised - i feel it must have something to do with their team size, after all, one of our members almost always failed to show up - if so i beleive we would have had our jobs evened out more allowing more work to be done on certain areas.
It isnt just people not turning up that was the problem though. I think it was the fact that none of us really had a solid area to work in during production - this WOULD've been hard anyway though as our team was so small - in real life, i can imagine an editing team consisting of several people (all working on different sections), just like the scripting and camera team. Again though, that still would've been hard as the films were only 2-3 minutes long, meaning the timeline would've been completed faster had one person worked on it rather than many all throwing ideas about - me and alex worked well on the first episode (even though our camera footage was pretty bad) but when Loz n James did it for the second 2 they completed it a lot faster... maybe due to the progressive shortening of each film or maybe due to the progressive attention to detail while filming in order to avoid continuity errors that would've taken time up being hidden via editing...

In future i hope we all work as a giant team of the whole class, enabling us to all work on individual segments harmoniously without conflicting ideas (due to the fact that the only conflicting ideas would come from within your segment rather than somebody else's, trying to make YOUR work fit THEIR workflow).

Facebook and Youtube Insights

A great way of monitoring demographics and other information regarding Detention Deficit's audience is via Youtube and Facebook's insights feature, allowing the user to have a visual representation of their popularity among different countries, ages, genders, etc. here is our's:

Facebook Results

Youtube Results

From this information, I've definitely managed to have some form of impact on our teenage target audience. However, if I wanted a bigger impact, i should have used the sites recommended in the previous post as they, similar to twitter and blogger, have features allowing them to update across many other sites like Facebook, Myspace, etc. all simultaneously - i used this feature to update our twitter AND facebook at the same time, just from one. With an array of say, 15 sites, i could link them up just like this and have a very broad spectrum of information to be passed onto users. I will make sure to use this technique in our future projects.

Gaining Youtube/Vimeo/Facebook/Blogger "Traffic"

Shame i only thought about all this just now...
(sourced from http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/development/promotional-websites-gain-traffic-quick-easy/)

Next time we have a similar project i'll keep all of these in mind...

1. StumbleUpon* ( 160,154 unique visits)

StumbleUpon is no different – you need a lot of friends, good network to bring traffic. But if you have that all, again it totally pays off 10 times. You should have few powerful stumbler friends as well, who could discover or maybe even share your stories – returning you with easy traffic in that way!

2. Digg* (80,214 unique visits)

Certainly not easy traffic, but when you get the first time of Digg FrontPage you will never doubt it’s power and beautiful traffic income source. Building community takes a lot of time, so be sure you build contacts with few power diggers in your niche.

3. SmashingMagazine + Noupe (74,494 unique visits)

*Updated: in the next day, when I published this article SM and Noupe took off their user news and now there are only SmashingNetwork news in sidebar, so for most of us, this traffic isn’t available more.
Since now SM owns Noupe, their design news are now tied together. This number is not so accurate because I am on SmashingNetwork and get traffic from their features as well, but certainly worth submitting – 2 in 1!

4. Twitter* (22,119 unique visits)

Seems like now Twitter is getting even more popular as it is – if it is possible! It’s good to have powerful account or powerful friends with big networks to share your links with.

5. CSSGlobe* (7,528 unique visits)

If your links will be accepted in this site, you will get serious traffic regularly! This site is my big discovery, I was surprised how valuable it is and what kind of traffic it can deliver.

6. Facebook* (6,574 unique visits)

You need here to think seriously about community building or fan page, because it can really be good traffic income source.

7. DesignBump* (5,921 unique visits)

8. Dezinerfolio (3,678 unique visits)

9. Design-Newz (3,436 unique visits)

10. WebdesignNe.Ws (2,709 unique visits)

Teasers, trailers and previews

Detention Deficit Teaser Trailer from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.

Detention Deficit Teaser 2 from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.

Teaser Trailer Three from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.
i think that it works really well, it doesn't give you an insight into the episode coming up but it does mock the other groups episode. i thought the idea of a little friendly competition would be a great marketing strategy - just like the mac vs pc adverts:



the other group did the same to us too - upping their interest too, creating a "fan boy" effect often found in video-game forums, where particular users debate which systems or games are the best..
in their teaser trailer, they had the words, 'detention deficit sucks' on the white board in shot.
Our initial idea was to have Pier walk into the toilets and find a homeless person snorting lines, he turns around, acing the camera and asks: "hey man, do you wants some 'lines'? i love 'lines' so much!", implying the other groups production, "lines"'s demographic - this was scrapped almost instantly when our teacher realized the drugs connotations and controversy.


Detention Deficit Ep3 from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.
this trailer was meant to give you more of an insight into the episode itself. the other one we made previously was just a poke at the other group for what they did to us. this trailer shows what to expect really. we used really trippy effects and we clearly showed that it was keith who was halucinating as well. that is a rough description of the final episode.

i posted all of these on our facebook and twitter page to publicise our progress and competition with the other group. This added to our popularity but also our professionalism.
As well as that, i also posted casting videos and a blooper reel to enlighten our audience to how we work behind scenes.


Hayden test footage from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.

Matt test footage from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.

James Test footage from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.

Test footage Alexander from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.

Feedback

EPISODE 1 (pilot) Generalization:
Positive:
Good Opening Sequence x 2
Good establishing shots x 2
Good sound track
Milk shake shot good
Confident Characters
Well acted in places x 3
Good range of shots

Negative:
Tried way to hard to be funny
Girl isn't good actor
James way too extreme
Sound level not the same
Out side shot - flashback - needs to be clearer
Shots when characters look into camera don't work
Music cuts too quick
Way too long x 2
Too much swearing x 3
Not bleeped properly x 3
Alex's character changes too much
Shots look studenty
Should close up on cans
Too angry
Flashback too repetitive
Nobody does detention in a computer room
Characters kinda dull
Credits too fast
Door scene does not make sense x 2
Pier isn't french enough?
Too much fade out
Music too loud made them jump x 2
Unrealistic Characters


Detention Deficit: Episode ONE from Detention Deficit on Vimeo.

Episode 2 Trapped generalization:
- Tries too hard to be funny, just makes it worse
- Keith totally unbelievable
- Alexander/James scene too long
- Script not quite tight enough, should be 'laugh every two seconds'
- Shots of Hayden don't flow x2

2/Feb/10

Today, although a little late, i finally uploaded episode 3 "gas leak". it was possibly our most rushed, hectically created episode yet with a day to shoot edit and publish. Yesterday i DID publish our episode but it was so rushed it was missing our title, credits and special effects. Nicely, however, Steve allowed us a final lesson to finish our vidos and upload them to youtube. Vimeo didnt let us upload because i exceeded our upload limit - we'll try again later in the week...

My thoughts so far have been that this has definitely been a highly realistic project. Maybe even TOO realistic for students - it seemed pretty extreme how spanners got thrown in the work but i've already covered that in an earlier post. All i'd say really is that now i know what to expect and that in real life you dont even get an extra few hours.
Our group has been under a lot of pressure - it's great knowing it's gradually being let off. I'm just worried about our next project. I'm sure it'll be the toughest yet as we'll be working with a real company with real deadlines and expectations - even though we've all worked very hard, we hav'nt felt like it was a real peice of work. We all agree our episodes are shabby and rushed but i think when we move on to work with the company we'll be FAR more engaged, knowing how important it is for the both of us.

27/Jan/10

Today i was researching substitutes for profanities on the internet. It's fine but to be honest i truly don't understand why a fully understanding, middle-class audience at the arts picturehouse would object to a well placed profanity here and there - it definitely CAN enhance a performance. Shallow as it may seem but profanities can open up characters to audiences often a lot faster than other methods. I do agree with our feedback however that our pilot did contain far too many - it's character structure was lost amidst pointless aggression and language. From our feedback we've focused on using them in a more precise manner.

rehearsals today

We rehearsed episode 2 today - it's going pretty smooth and we're all getting into character but to be honest, it's tough in a room that isn't sound-proof. I always find I can act better when i'm with friends but in seclusion - when i'm in a place that people can see, i often feel like it's my GCSE drama classes all over again. You could call it stage fright.

Our characters have been massively enhanced and enriched since the first PILOT episode (today i actually plan on renaming both the Vimeo and Youtube ep1's to "pilot" just to let the audience know it was in it's very early stages - it's kinda embarrassing knowing your work looks terrible but without a given reason, that's why i'll rename and rewrite the description.

Episode 3'll be even more developed, hopefully, fully imitating professional and commercial forms and functions.

24/Jan/10

EPISODE 2

Between Alexander Whitcombe, Matthew Hornby, James Walker, Laurence Smith and Hayden Martin

Hayden Martin 23 January at 21:09

Hey guys. Congratulations all on our first episode. Rushed I know but still a great introduction (for us) to the frenzy we'll be goin through on the next episode. BTW Matt, your title sequence was a work of art.

First of all I wanna say, we all worked very well and as hard as we could together! Good job! Especially without members on some days and with arguments on others.

Secondly however, we must discuss, in the time we have between now and Monday, what we're gonna refine within our group. I know the other group ARE our mortal enemies BUT, having watched their episode, I must admit their mainstream editing and filming techniques have definitely prevailed over ours. Feel free to disagree but realistically it's true.

Here are my ideas of our areas of improvement if we wanna look a lot more professional and totally live up to our hype:

1. Drop Joe as the cameraman. I know he filmed our whole first episode but he also lacks in actual filming skill - it's clear when you take into account the amount of times me and Alex had to zoom in to create barely acceptable shots.
For our next episode the 180 rule is crucial as well as complete and utter banning of zooms (unless necessary). We don't need to be "experimental" to look good.

2. Be as emotive as possible script wise. I know I'm guilty, I could have done a lot better. But now we're confident acting around each other as shown when shooting Ep2, we should definitely keep it that way.

3. No more "F******". The amount of bleeping was just too much. We don't need it - if you watch The Office, Mitchell and Webb, Extras, etc. you'll notice that, yes, they do swear but no where near as much as we did - we can convey the feel just as well with deeper jokes/script writing.

4. Exposure, white balancing, frame-rates and manual focusing can make our footage look sooo much nicer rather than having things set on automatic. Just imagine how we'd blow our opposition away with an amazing focus pull.. It doesn't take long to set that stuff up. A matter of seconds.

That is all. I do love all of you for creating this project, just get back to this and you can help me love you even more. I've already considered proposing to Matt on Monday. I bought a ring and everything! Don't tell him though...

X

James Walker 24 January at 15:41 Reply

let me discuss my feelings. firstly, i'll amplify on haydens point. i agree that joe shouldnt be trusted filming. it isn't because he lacks skill though, its because he tries to experiment.. and we need a better storyboard so we can rely on that.

i don't lyk the amount of cuts in our episode guys. again, it goes back to the storyboard, we discussed how it should be and the way it looks at the moment it could be a short film for god sakes. it just isnt nessesary. in sitcoms their arent tht many quick cuts because the acting and humour of the script makes it compelling, not the editing. we need to completely transform the edit technique for the second episode guys, just my feeling but it doesnt need to be as cinematic. we're at long road, quick cuts looked rushed.

i agree about the swearing too, the bleeps got on my tits and some swearing didnt even have bleeps. that is something we can change tho for episode 2. i think the credits and the title sequence are amazing tho. the songs work brilliantly, they're catchy. matt, welldone on the title sequence. it looks wicked.

going back to the editing, we are going to have no time to edit the next episode. so lay off the effects, lay off the sound fx, lay off the quck cuts, just try and get it looking good and then add effects. and there is going to be a storyboard for the second ep. and id lyk u guys to folow it. to my mind, aftr the second episode, we can compare it to the 1st and see which one looks better.

we all worked really well together guys, and we do whotever the project. we just gotta remember roles and remember responsibilies. love you all

23/Jan/10

So far over the whole production of the first episode, i feel that the group put in as much effort as possible, even though it was the first time we've ever done anything on such a tight schedule. It was truly mind-boggling how i managed to keep in synch with each other when i=t came to reorganisation and role-changing. Nick decides to "throw a spanner in the works" this was a very harsh decision.

But, I do understand that it was only to mimic the realities of the film/tv production industries. Still, considering it was our very first project i do still resent that choice. It was unnecessary - i should have at least had a chance WITHOUT any business simulations just to let us know how good it feels when nothing goes wrong. AFTER say, the first episode, then i feel it would have been acceptable to suddenly change the rules as that way, i'd have had the experience dealing with a perfectly smooth production already at hand and prepared for change.

Marketing has gone exceedingly well - beyond our predictions. So far we have around 170 fans (and climbing) on Facebook, as well as followers on both Twitter AND Vimeo...
I'm pleased with this steady increase of fans - it really feels great knowing people are tuning in to our productions. It gives me guts to even try making films OUT of college briefs/parameters.

Scripting has been okay. I do feel however that James' scripting methods are a little close-minded mainly focusing on his on comedic preferences - using a lot of profanities and canned-laughter sitcom layouts e.g. Friends, Frasier, etc. which personally I (and I don't know about the rest of the group) don't really find funny. When there is only one script writer however and your deadlines keep getting shorter and shorter to replicate reality, you really end up not caring and just working - putting as much effort into the script as possible, just to make it more amusing than it may possibly be...

HERE is a great link I found on Wikipedia to do with both timeline construction and production management...

21/Jan/10

Christ. Tomorow our movie needs to be finished n ready for broadcasting. our MAIN target is to finish our film!!! We gotta do this by composing the whole edit, adding sound and adding the title sequences. We also need to add the credits as well as some final censoring of our bad language in the vid. It should'nt be too hard. We need to get ourselves in gear big time if we want that vid to be as high quality and proffessional as possible.

20/Jan/10

Phew. Sorry I've been here so infrequently - the shooting, editing, continuity errors, re-shooting, re-editing and sound design have kept me occupied beyond belief. Most of the time at home i've been corresponding with James, Loz, Matt, Joe and Alex to make sure all of our information is solid in order to move forward in our operations. Right now me n Alex have pretty much finished our first ep but still need a title sequence with a jingle (being created by Matt and Phillipa). Once we've completed our episode the whole way through, minor alterations to transitions, colors and effects will be applied giving it a polished edge and render it professional looking.

Cant wait till it's aired!!!

17/Jan/2010

All day I've been working on jokes and researching how to edit comedy.

Joke 1:
After Keith explodes in a caffeine fuelled anger fit, he is left passed out on the floor - surrounding him is empty cans of "Monster", "Kick" and "Devil". The Characters walk up and check to see if he's okay. When they're around him they come across the cans - Sonny picks up the "Kick" can: "Jesus, Keith is getting totally hooked on this! He needs to KICK this shit". Valory Picks up the "Monster" can: "Totally, he's turning into a complete MONSTER". Pier interveines saying how "if you like something you should "JUST DO IT" (Nike) - like smoking". Which is when he pulls a fag out and lights it. Sonny (wearing a nike t-shirt with the slogan) goes on to say Keith's brain is "TOASTED" (Lucky Strike Cigarettes - Pier is freaked out) and Valory says some other accidental relevant slogan of something in the room. The joke continues until they are literally communicating via slogans and getting ever more freaked out by the coincidence of the brand being in the room some way.

Joke 2: All of the students are in detention for misbehaving in English. During the detention the start dissing English and how pointless it seems via accidental famous Shakespeare phrases (in modern English). This is a dry ironic joke. Later on it comes back to that theme and they're using very long-winded English-lnguage terminology to have an argument and/or say why they don't like their English teacher ("Oh, I bloody hate the way he sarcastically uses youthful colloquial slang in all his interoggatives - he's so uncool."

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH good one Hayden!"

Today's Teaser! 13/Jan/10

For the better part of today I've been working on our short teaser trailer (roughly 15 seconds long). It's a slow artificial zoom into a class room window - you cant see any students. As the camera zooms in, the audio begins to muffle in much like the audio in Saving Private Ryan. As this happens, we realise the audio is of a giant student argument - they're all yelling their heads off behind the door, as it escalates even more a student yells "NO!" and a chair hits the window that the camera is peering through. It fades to black giving the title of the series as well as a link to our blog (www.detentiondeficit.blogspot.com).

I'm pretty proud! although, If I were there when filming, I would've made sure they color corrected more by white balancing and exposing properly. I fixed that well enough in FCP however. Experimenting with audio was fun - I used a lo-pass filter, making the audio fade in via bass, coming from sub-sonic into perceiveable sound creating a good transition in rather than a simple volume increase.



Keith:
Keith is a troubled caffiene addict who suffers from anxiety attacks. he causes conflict from annoying people with his mood swings and excessive talking. and when he get's angry, boy does he flip out.

Sonny:
Sonny doesn't quite understand the meaning of detention, but enjoys the thrills that go with getting himself in it. He's certainly the most agressive out of the characters. This guy likes to shout.

Pier:
Pier is one of those people who always wanted the excitement of life to be like the films. He also loves freedom, and because of this, draws up ways in which to escape detention. obviously, his ideas are better than simply walking out the front door.

Valerie:
This girl feeds off everyones problems, causes conflict, and sits down and enjoys watching the mess she's created. She enjoys a good old shout as well, so her and Sonny don't tend to get along.

Vince:
The best way to descibe Vince is he's a paranoid pesemistic who believes that people are watching him at times. If he's reading, it's about conspiracy theories. Though he's obviously troubled, he's very calm in his approach.

13/Jan/10

Our plan today is to work on our teaser trailer, audio, casting, clothing design and internet publicizing. I'm on the teaser trailer n audio.

First, i need to upload the footage onto a Colleridge computer making sure the quality is okay and at HD levels.

Next, I need to colour key, edit and add titles to the teaser.

Finally, I need to upload the video for internet streaming via quicktime conversion at 800kbs to allow quick online viewing.

7/Jan/2010

James, Matt and I all worked on the script plan today - we nailed the first episode!! great news!! As James, now with the plan in his hands shall be working on the script - hopefully posting it on the blog tonight for us to make edits to and repost, therefore completing it (-: (-: (-: (-:
So far the episode is 3 minutes long, excluding the intro title scene which'll probs be about 25 seconds. I'm currently working on the title story board so that'll be up soon as well as the actual episode story board, although, to be honest, i actually believe that the whole idea of making a proper story board for the episode may not be a hundred percent necessary, since it is only 3 minutes long and set only in a class room (except the flashbacks). Maybe instead of spending a load of time storyboarding, we could just write what angles or moods we wanna provoke into the script - seeing we'd have a clear image in our heads writing it n all... for flashbacks with a lot more motion and action we probably WOULD use a storyboard.

Otherwise, today was ok - Nick (our teacher) was managing the class n all was going smoothly - we were split into our groups and it all was just... nice... no bitching, aggression or spite... or MIND CHANGING! which was a great help - it seems that we've got over the hump of who's doing what and how it's gonna get done and we're all doing what we've been assigned to do. It seems like pairing off and grouping up can be a real help if time is at stake.

This is how our lessons had been beforehand:

How Creative Practicioners Have Exhibited their Works (1000 words)

All famous (or underground) media practitioners have exhibited their work on way or another. Right now, most commonly it is via the internet – the infinite scale of it allows people to literally find anything they want. In other words, if you search it, chances are you’ll find it, or at least something related to it. Websites like Youtube, FlickR, Vimeo and Facebook as well as the more niche marketing sites like 4chan and Facepunch (targeted more at the internet-savvy geekier ones of us).

An artist that has come to fame this way over the years is Kate Morosse – she is a graphic designer that has worked on many productions including (most majorly) Simian Mobile Disco’s new music video “Synthesise” and her work with Nylon, Silver Cross, Super Super magazine. Her illustrative and overall aesthetic appeal is very minimal and naïve – she uses geometric shapes and circular ones to create imagery reminiscent of cell-division and kids drawings. A lot of her work looks very similar to So Me’s Ed Banger Records artwork, publicized the same way via web 2.0 socializing capabilities.

“I run ISO & Isomorph Records which you can read about here. I have a fascination with three sided shapes, illegible typography, and freeform lettering.”

With a good few years of experience of churning out designs for bands, clubs, gigs, record pressing, live show co-ordination and rare boutique product design for music projects, Morosse runs a team that covers all mediums of the modern music market in order to maximize their stylistic influence on the world. Vice and NME magazine have often regarded her as the future of uprising music and design, constantly referring to her works both online and in their publications.
ISO are always creating internet based media pages and channels for upcoming artists and musicians. Filming gigs, backstage footage, featurettes, documentaries and interviews. The whole of each production is done ISO’s team of avid young practitioners (in their own right) who all have a great interest in film, video and music.

Morrose's artwork is pretty much always by hand. She is renowned for not starting over again with her work and instead persisting with it until the visuals she was initially after return, like a happy accident. She finds working on the computer can be hugely satisfying but often acts as a barrier between her minds eye and the finished product by taking out the emotion that goes into her pen or brush strokes.



The information above was found on an art blog from a post written prior to her media explosion proving that to some extent, blogs, just like the one I found the post on, have a very big impact spreading the word across the world for all people on the same wavelength to pick up and look at. Art like this happens almost secretly due to it’s extreme lack of mainstream features but a weird hive-mind pre-conception begins to spread, leading to word of mouth, eventual blogging takes place documenting the underground uprising and from there on it’s projected into the thick of the mainstream, sucking up everything and labeling it for mass consumption – this can also be the death of many once highly controversial artists as when it is picked up by everybody (like the sudden craze for triangular shapes in graphic design and fashion right now) it becomes old news and then therefore becomes naff.

Some artists however remain underground constantly, surfacing now and then for fame and then sinking back down into their zone of forward thinking, constantly coming up with new styles, ideas and aesthetics – a perfect example would be a guy called John Greenwood. All I can ever find out about him is his date of birth (1959), the name of the exhibition he did at the Saatchi gallery in 1992, his album artwork for Orbital’s “In Sides” album and some other pieces of art on online auctions. He is extremely hard to track. I developed an obsession with his work after seeing his album artwork. It often has an organic yet geometric concoction of organs and machinery – the “In Sides” piece had aspects of the human ear’s anatomy and magnified bacteria alongside octogons, pentagons and triangular rockets. To find out about him I looked all over for some information on the album, from that the artist name was given and from there I rigorously sifted through Google, very occasionally coming across something related to him.



Sadly I still haven’t come across an actual website specifically on him, nor have I managed to find him on any web 2.0 sites – there are many John Greenwood’s on Facebook. Over 500 in fact. Finding him among all of them without any idea of what he looks like, where he lives or where he works would prove nigh impossible. Google advanced searching has proved pretty handy too though – putting in search criteria like “John Greenwood “artist” “1959” “Saatchi” has often come up with Yahoo questions where people have been looking just like me and are questioning the world for some kind of answer. It is only auctions where I’ve found more pieces by him, tempting me to get in touch with them instead as it would be likely they have his contact details (if he’s still alive that is)…

I’d say John Greenwood has managed to defy the powers of mass media communication very well. I’m pretty stunned that he just isn’t anywhere considering the fame he must have earned Orbital for HIS great piece of art. In a way it’s slightly upsetting – I know for a fact that there will be something official out there whether its just a minor interview, a biography or an autobiography even! It’s just a matter of intensive looking.
Funnily enough though, John Greenwood could well be famous, either in his circle of friends and mutual friends or just from the fact that possibly hundreds of other people have been searching for him too with a “where is he now?” motive.

Screen Writing

I've officially become a screen writer/possible actor. Screen Writers are the people on a film set who actually write the scripts for the films themselves - it is potentially the most lucrative job in the business. Getting famous in the industry from screen writing however is tough work - it is all down to networking with people at the right place, at the right time. Often, multiple writers work on the same script over the course of pre-production and actual production ironing out continuity errors and writing aspects that have the writer's best suited themes too e.g. romance, drama, action, etc.



There are several main screenwriting theories which help writers approach the screenplay by systematizing the structure, goals and techniques of writing a script. The most common kinds of theories are structural. Screenwriter William Goldman is widely quoted as saying "Screenplays are structure". When sifting through wikipedia and Google I came across a structure often used for films featuring a hero of some sort, when I looked at it I realised that our 3 minute short doesn't really follow any of these:

1. A call to adventure, which the hero has to accept or decline
2. A road of trials, regarding which the hero succeeds or fails
3. Achieving the goal or "boon," which often results in important self-knowledge
4. A return to the ordinary world, again as to which the hero can succeed or fail
5. Application of the boon, in which what the hero has gained can be used to improve the world

Instead, I feel our upcoming episode will feature a structure more like this:

1. 3 characters in detention and very bored, an subject of excitement occurs in which they make use of
2. The characters explore this subject leading into a detailed story leading into a narrated flashback showing how they'd failed in some way
3. The characters find some form of comedic philosophical, moral value from this story
4. The moral values obtained are accepted by some and argued by others, either resulting in group comedic dismissal or acceptance
5. Later on, this moral value is ironically used against their final opinions beforehand e.g. Sonny and the group agree that karma exists - later on when Sonny helps someone, instead of getting something good in return, something falls on him (or whatever).

So, today we properly wrote up the character's characteristics - some inspired by real life people, film characters and others entirely original.

Keith (inspired by Keith at our local cinema):
After working with Keith on multiple occasions it became apparent that he was a major caffeine addict. He'd often be very jumpy and somewhat stressed, fidgeting and twitching a little under pressure - I often thought he'd explode if anything else negative was bought up. That is what inspired me to create him - I loved the idea of someone just succumbing to years of pent up rage and letting it loose. Especially around other people, locked in a detention room.



Next was a rudeboi-toughguy-badman called Sonny, which is funny as I actually know a kid called Sonny who is just that. His attitude and aggression make him the most feared in the class. I kinda thought it'd be hilarious if he were a bit deaf, making him really loud - probably due to a firework/explosives accident with his friends.



We then came up with Pier. He is a near silent french kid that is obsessed with escaping every detention and is extremely easily bored. His character was slightly inspired by those from Shawshank Redemption and The Great Escape but also from a typical 1950's kid, raised in the country with zero interests in computers of maths, just living off the land and building things. He is always devising ways in which he can break out of school on IN to somewhere else, etc. He's essentially a young, French Ray Mears.