Unit 62: Digital Video Production for Interactive Media, Unit 59: Web Authoring

OUR TASK
We have been split up into groups and are creating an interactive promotional college website. This website will contain; video interviews, video footage, pictures and text.  We are also going to be making a production file, this will include; our ideas, booking forms, meeting minutes and risk assessments. In our blog we are going to be writing about our progress on this blog through out.

In our group there is me, Aimee Simmons, Chris Brereton, Daniel Forgaurd and Adam Powell.

WHAT WE GOT DONE IN OUR FIRST MEETING
We started to write down our Proposal,Treatment and schedule. Also we done a rough drawing of the website layout we want to do. We all wrote down them in rough. In our proposal we wrote down who we are going to interview. About what we are doing and ideas for the website. In our Treatment we wrote down how we are going to contact the teachers to arrange interviews and what questions we want them to answer. We started to write our schedule but couldn't write it in detail as we need to hear back from the teachers to see when they are free to do interviews.
 Tomorrow we are going to take some pictures and video footage for the website. And E-mail teachers.

UPDATE ON GROUP ASSIGNMENT
Chris e-mailed the teachers to see if we could get some interviews with them, Tim from the Media department replied.

'From: Chris John Brereton
Sent: 05 October 2010 13:11
To: norman_lomax@weymouth.ac.uk; tim_abberley@weymouth.ac.uk; justin_legg@weymouth.ac.uk; jackie_arnold@weymouth.ac.uk
Subject: Promotional film material needed

Hi all,

I am writing to enquire as to whether you would be kind enough to offer your assistance for the production of one of our assignments.

As part of a small group of four, we are working towards creating a promotional website for the college and one main component of this is to produce some relevant media content for inclusion on the website.

Therefore, one thing we would like to feature is possibly some interviews with key people in the media department, which of course, includes yourselves!

Ideally, we would like to take a very informal approach and grab some fairly short pieces (or sound-bites if you like) to film that we can edit later.

The kinds of thing we would like to capture are, for example:

• Who you are and what do you do/teach?
• What do you offer students? (facilities / industry-experienced lecturers / proven past results etc.)
• What paths can students take after? (straight to industry / further study / university etc.)
• How well is the college recognised and regarded in industry? (industry links / past students / awards etc.)
• And anything else you wish to say!

If you would like to off your assistance we would be very grateful for this and aim to be as quick and unintrusive as possible as to not disrupt your activities, however if you are unavailable please do not hesitate to say.

Either way, we look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Chris Brereton'

UPDATE ON OUR ASSIGNMENT
We have had a few more group meetings since the first one. In these we took some pictures, started on a flash banner and interviewed some teachers and students.  Also we have managed to agree on what we want the website to look like. Originally we were going to make a promotional website for just the media block of the college. But now we have come to the final decision of promoting the whole of the college.

We have shown our ideas to the class and Julian. Now we are trying to finish off the editing of the video interviews and getting a mock up of our website finished.

We have also given each of us group roles. Chris is the Production manager, Adam is working of flash with Dan and I am doing the Mock up and photo editing on photo shop along with the video editing on premier pro.

I think what we all need to do now is make sure we keep to a schedule and have good time keeping as there are deadlines for this assignment coming up and we cant afford to get behind.

COMING UP TO THE DEADLINE
We are getting close to our final deadline now, which is quite scary because I don't feel our group has been that organised, we have not made a specific schedule to keep to, although we are getting what we need to get done done. There is not that much communication within the group. The video cutting is taking longer than expected and we can only do it in M019 as they are the only computers that have the software, so I need to take every opportunity in that room to get it done. Chris has been working on the website and Adam is doing some flash. I think we are keeping on top of things but its hard to tell as people in the group seem to prefer to work by themselves and not that talkative. I have been asked to do the photo shop mock up for the website but I feel I wont have the time when I need to finish the video cutting as again that's something we can only do in M019, so I think I will talk with the others and see if maybe Dan wants to take on that role as I'm not to sure on what he is doing. I'm hoping we can get it all finished in time as we also need to do our production file. I have found it quite awkward with the group I'm in as sometimes I feel abit excluded which is worrying when this assignment is such a big part of our final grade.

LAST LESSONS BEFORE HAND IN DATE
Our final hand in date has been extended so we have a week longer to get everything done. This has been really helpful as I finally managed to get the video cutting all done. I put it on a memory stick then Chris transferred them to the website. I think personally that our website is looking really good. After me writing my last post the communication in the group has got alot better and the production file is near enough done. I helped Chris on the production file as i had finished what I needed to do. I wrote about the video editing and put in some screen shots this only took one lesson. So we are on track with everything and we will defiantly be finished and ready for the deadline.

After doing this group assignment I have learnt how to work within a group of people that I don't really know,even though I found it abit awkward at times I can see now that if your working in a group its vital to keep communication going. As you need to work together to be able to get things done. Also I have learnt how to get things done for a certain time, this is all really helped as i will need these skills if I ever get a job in the industry.