Production Progress Presentation

A while ago, in a media lesson, Tom and I were asked to talk about our production in front of the class. Our teacher asked us questions to find out what progress we had made, what stage of production we were at, and what we were still planning to do.



Above is a video of the presentation. Unfortunately, because someone decided to record on a high-definition camera with a relatively low storage capacity, the available memory ran out at around 3 minutes, meaning that only about half of our total presentation was captured. Still, the video gives an idea of the stage of production we were at.

Animatic for a Short Film

Finally, here is the animatic of our short film's first two scenes. Unlike the music video animatic I produced for my preparatory task, the purpose of this animatic is not to show exactly and precisely how our film will look; it is to establish the content and general ordering of the shots, sounds and effects we intend to use. As a result, although the scenes will only be around a minute in length each, the animatic is much longer, because I spend time expanding upon the relevance of each shot and at the end talking about other aspects. Basically, this animatic is a rough but detailed guide of what we are aiming for. 

Short Film Animatic from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

Tom and I decided the animatic should show the first two scenes because we feel these are the most complex, and probably also the most important. Having these scenes as an animatic will allow us to preview the film to people to get early feedback and suggestions, if we feel this is necessary. We have also had some different ideas about how the first two scenes should be ordered, so, if time permits, I may produce another animatic that shows the other idea of intercutting the scenes.

Pitch: Ideas and Inspiration for a Short Film

Since my last post, where I explained my decision to make a short film for my A2 Media practical unit, I have also decided to work on the film with Tom Palmer, and together we have combined ideas and shared our inspiration to develop a succinct plan for our film and its subsidiary projects. Below is a video of Tom and I pitching our initial ideas to the class, and also sharing some useful information we have found about the creation, distribution and exhibition of short films.


Project Pitch from Blaine Kenneally on Vimeo.

For further information on the visual inspiration for our short film, please follow this link to Tom's blog.

Music Video Research Presentation

As our first task for A2 Media Studies, we have been asked to choose a favourite music video, research it, and present our findings to the class. My immediate choice was the video for Fallen Angel by the British alternative rock band Elbow. The video is excellent, and despite watching it over and over, I still enjoy it, because new subtleties reveal themselves each time. 



Although I was familiar with the video even before the research task, I didn't know much at all about the actual production of the video, or how this linked to the meaning of the song and the promotion of the band and their album. 

The research itself actually proved to be rather difficult, because the video isn't particularly popular or well-known, and the band were only enjoying quiet success at this time. At a point when I was almost ready to give up, a trawl through some 10-or-so pages of meaningless Google search results presented me with this: http://www.mvdbase.com/, a resource which proved very useful, at least for crediting on the production of the video. For more detailed information, such as the production budget and location of first exhibition, I tried contacting Flynn Productions, but to no avail. As a result, I had to rely on what little information I had.

Below is a slidecast of the presentation I gave to the class, including both the slides I used and an audio file of my speech.Music Video Research Presentation Slides