Understanding media 4

Employment in the creative media sector

Types of employment

Full time
A full time job is a job for person who works at least 39-45 hours a week. A full time job means more pay, but also means more dedication. according to this Link: Link "full-time employment is employment in which a person works a minimum number of hours defined as such by his/her employer. Full-time employment often comes with benefits that are not typically offered to part-time, temporary, or flexible workers, such as annual leave, sickleave, and health insurance." A full time job can vary, mainly a full time job is about being employed by a person/boss/employer and earning money off of them by working for them. Full time is more a "full time" thing, you work for just about the rest of your life, unless of course you get a different job, promotion, or lose the job.

Part time
Part time is basically half of a full time job, you don't do it forever and the hours can be less. A part time contract/job is one of those jobs that you may have just on the side for a bit of extra pay, the hours can be from 30-35 or possibly less. Part time contracts work in shifts however they remain on call for any employer whilst they are not working or as it may be said "off duty or annual leave" Shifts for part time contracts are normally rotational thats why workers are considered to be part time.

Freelance
A freelancer is a self employed person, they choose their job and what they do, essentially they choose the salary as well, however the downside to this is that they could work one week and not the other so their salary is kind of messed up because the money they gain will be random and at unpredictable times. Usually freelancers are represented by a temporary agency that "resells" freelance labour, however some do work independently without an agency. You will find the other name for freelancers are Independent contractors.

Hourly paid
Hourly paid is in the name, you get paid based on the hours you work, for example you get paid £4 an hour for working for 8 hours which would be roughly £32. This type of employment can be quite handy because the pay varies, sometimes it could pay more than the ones above but it is unlikely it will be more pay than full time employment. Hourly paid jobs are very common in todays industry you will find that most students from college's have part time or hourly paid jobs as a little side earning or work experience.

Piece work
According to: Link Piece work is "any type of employment in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed regardless of time" To dumb that down piece work would be working for any employer and in any employment(part time, full time etc.) but their salary would be "fixed" it would stay locked on that no matter how hard they work or how much they slack on the job, it will stay at that fixed rate.

Employment areas
Creative
This employment area is for people with "pizzazz" a little bit of creativity, people with ideas that can improve the industry greatly bringing new plans to the table. For example a digital graphic designer will design multiple products, showing off their creativity obviously. This type of employment is all about how creative you are, how big and wild your imagination can go. Mainly this area would be for artists, animators, and graphic designers. However creativity is not only in the visual arts section of the media industry, film makers are as well, they produce film to be on their wildest imagination it could vary from fantasy to horror.

Technical
Now technical can be used all throughout this industry, of course its to do with technology. Film making, film editing, animating, graphic designers and many others. The media industry does require a good amount of technical skills especially if its setting up for a film; camera operators, editors(which relates to editorial) lighting crew, sound operators. It can all vary really but they must know what they are doing, You don't want someone who hasn't touched a camera in their life to be a camera op, they wont know what to do with shutter speed or anything about lenses.

Editorial
Editorial is focused more into the film side of this industry, editing films, cutting properly and knowing everything you would need to know about editing. These things could be from cutting to knowing how to make audio fit into the sequence. editors are used in music videos, films, tv shows, pretty much anything that requires you to make some type of video with a series of shots/clips. Editors are not just to do with films, they are involved in newspapers and other readable products, they choose the necessary and interesting content for the audience to view.

Marketing
Marketing is what increases a films revenue, what makes people money. Marketing is selling products or virtual products to a client. This is where advertising comes in handy because it would promote a product like this. However you would find that marketing is more a "business" lifestyle it requires you to communicate with other companies or possibly work with them to promote products. The reason being for marketing is to promote say a film or some product that will interest buyers, this product is made but with marketing if successful the cost to make the product wont be a problem because the sales of the product will cover it.

Managerial
Managerial also known as management is what "keeps everyones butts in gear" Its about forming a group to organise and control various subjects/items. Take a producers job for example, thats a management job, the producer controls the content and handles everything published, making sure its going to the right place and that it is suitable. They manage all the hard jobs that require jobs to keep intact.

Administrative
An admin is similar to managerial, it makes decisions for the company and organises resources needed to produce films or products. An admin will make sure everything is being funded well enough, the admin will make sure that all the content and players are good/happy, not being hurt or going to sue. To be brief an admin is the paperwork side of managerial.

Legal
Legal as it does say in the name is being "legal" making sure a product is not breaking laws and therefore being illegal. For example in the film industry, before any tv show is published it has to be looked at to make sure that it has no content that could be racist, sexist, ageist, or anything to harm a person and their identity. Without legal consideration any industry would completely destroy a community and most likely create a war.

Financial
This is about finances, the money, having money to create, produce, promote any type of product. You need money to make money. The financial side for example is about making sure that the cost of a film is affordable, the producer making sure that money will be made from this film and if not then there is either no point making the film or lowering its budget to something more affordable.

Professional behaviours
Reliability
Reliability is being reliable in performance or at a good, standrard quality. Being reliable also means they have to be able to be trusted. The worker is obviously a main essential to the company, but they have to be a reliable worker, an employer can not promote his company or "look good" if the staff he has are not hard working and do not seem reliable at all. Hard working staff means better reputation, which also means possibly more pay, or even a promotion. In every job someone does, you will have to be a reliable employee; if its being a teacher, or a film producer, every job to get from the bottom to the top you need to be reliable, trustworthy, show dedication to you're job.

Attendance and Punctuality
Reliability can relate to this very much, being reliable also means actually being there on time, or earier, also to have a good punctuality. Attendance is simple really; just attend work, be on time, just be present for work. Employers look for people who show dedication and are there at work on time or earlier to get a head start, being early will most likely show your employer that you show dedication and are possibly a worthy worker for a higher ranking job. Punctuality is your tone, the language form you are at, being punctual is handing in top notch quality work. Making sure that the work is not done as though a 4 year old did it. As said in reliability, being on time shows that you have commitment to you're job and will definitely impress you're employer.

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Commitment
Commitment is something we all have, by commiting yourself to a job you are kind of getting married to it, it takes time and effort to work through. But in the end it pays off. It's to be dedicated to you're job. Commitment does relate to all of these professional behaviours if you look at it right; reliability which then relates to attendance and punctuality, being reliable to you're employer shows dedication and that he/she can rely on you. Commiting yourself is putting in those extra hours, doing the extra work.

Efficiency and Time management
Being efficient showing the employer you're your work producing rate is at a high level enough for him/her to give you more work that will possibly result in extra pay/promotion. Efficiency also means managing your time well, you do not really need to explain what time management is because it is in the name. These two go together because being efficient means using your time effectively and wisely to get the most out of your employment. The more frequent that you are efficient and commited to you're job then over time it will soon increase that your work will be at a good high standard in lesser times than before.

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Self-Presentation
Self presentation is the main role to you're job. you see news readers delivering the news to you, you notice that they are in a lovely formal attire; this is because they wants to present themself and seem reliable to the audience and that the news they are giving out is actually true/accurate. Self presentation is they key to a happy employer, obviously reliable, commiting and attendant as well. If you look all "scruffy" when you turn up to a job what will your employer think? Something along the lines of "Oh look at this guy can not even dress formal for a job, where did he even get those clothes what will that make my bussiness look like if he has a job here?"

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Communication skills/ Contribution
Communcation skills help you in most jobs, not all but most of them. Sometimes in order to have great level work and dedication to you're work you might need to communicate with your team, or even you're employer, this will help you in the long run because it could make you friends in you're workplace and you could get know you're boss, know what he/she think a good amount of work is, what you can do to give them satisfactory work amount.

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Personal responsibility
Being responsible is a day to day proccess that we all have to go through, being responsible in you're job is the biggest professional behaviour you could have; taking responsibility to you're work is something big to do. For example if you broke something in you're workplace that you're boss will not be happy about and you admit to it you're emplyer may be mad at you but it also means you are taking responsibility for you're actions which is very loyal to you're job.

stop motion practical

Stop motion assignment

I am creating a TimeLapse for my stop motion assignment, my task is to plan and produce a animation of one of five techniques in the stop motion side of animation; cel based, model based, pixilation, cut out, and TimeLapse.

How it was made

Idea Generation.

When we got this assignment handed to use I did not know at all what to do or how it would work. So I needed brief ideas of what to do, one thing that I liked doing was TimeLapses. My first step was to look at how they were made, and what I would need to make one. I had a look on youtube and found this quite handy video:

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This video gives a few great and handy tips to making a TimeLapse and this is where I got most of my ideas, but not all of them:


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These videos to me are some of the best TimeLapses ever, not just because they are in 4K but because of the atmosphere around all of it, like the clouds in the beginning of the Norway of TimeLapse it just looks like something not real or in this world, to see clouds move that fast and that colour is a whole new thing. These videos gave me inspiration to create my own TimeLapse that of a type of scenic nature. However I did not have a camera that could shoot 4k or even 1080p for that matter but I gave it a try with my phone.

The lake one is similar to the Norway one, the clouds, but this one was more of a fog one which is kind of what I wished to capture in mine but I did not have the right equipment to do so; when I look at these TimeLapse I think of it something from a high budget movie and this gave me ideas to try and create my own atmospheric TimeLapse. Something that I haven't seen already, the sunset. 

Before Editing

1. 

The first stage to editing was uploading the footage and sounds, this was done by ingesting them into Adobe prelude and then send them to premiere by highlighting and right clicking.

2.
After the clips were finally in premiere I inserted a sequence from clip which is done by right clicking the clip and clicking sequence from clip, this made it so the dimensions would be the same as the clip dimensions.

3.
The next step was to adjust the speed to a suitable level so it didn't look like a TimeLapse also so it added additional time onto the video.

4.
Since my original clip was only 4 seconds long and the adjusting the time was not enough I decided to duplicate the clip and reverse it at the same time, this was done by right clicking, duplicating and going to the same settings to adjust the time but click the reverse box. 

5.
As you can see there is a box called Reverse Speed, this is what i clicked to reverse the clip and make it the opposite way it was played before.

6.
One of the most important steps was the audio, I grabbed an non-copyrighted song off youtube, this was Hans Zimmer. This song was over an hour long but I only needed 20 seconds and cutting it in premiere just wouldn't do, so I imported the audio file into Adobe Audition and cut it all down to a suitable time and place in the song.

7.
The next step was to import the file back into premiere. To do this I just dragged the file from the desktop onto the media browser and that was the clip imported.

8.
The final steps to editing the animation was inserting an intro and outro title. To do this I made a title file and inserted the text I needed. 

 9.
To make the text move I went on effect controls > Motion then clicked the start of the track and pressed the keypoint button to insert a keypoint then an  end point and making the position of the track at the different points of the keypoints, and it automatically makes it into a motion clip.

10.
After that I did the same steps as number 9 but with different text.

 11.
This is the same step as number 9 and 10

 12.
The difference between this title and the other is that I changed the direction in which the text goes the other went across whereas this one went down.

13.
After that I dragged the text files from the media browser and into the media sequence which blended almost perfectly with the audio.

14.
In Audition I had to change the levels of audio because it was too loud.

15.
To do this I simply highlighted parts of the clip then right click and changed the DB levels on it.

 16.
My final step was to export the sequence into a movie.

 17.
I had to choose a destination for the video file to go, before the editing I mad a file on the M: drive on the college computers where all of the Premiere files are to be stored so I simply left it to export in that folder. 

18.
When you export you get one of these screens, it lets you select different preferences to export in, the file format, the width and height to export, the time to export, etc. so I just made the settings to my liking and hit export.

19.
After I had done that I uploaded the file to youtube and once it had been uploaded then it was ready to go into this blog.

Factual: Production techniques

Production techniques in Factual Programming

Accuracy

Accuracy in the film industry basically means that facts are presented with the highest of quality and precision, and of course have to be correct and not false. If its a documentary the facts given have to be exactly correct; if they are not then it will cause issues and conflict through audiences and issues for the documentary itself, possibly being taken down. If your areas are not fully researched then incorrect data is most likely to be broadcast. When you research data you have to be sure that the research is impartial and not bias, for example if you give an opinion of someone in your documentary but then the whole documentary leads on to being only with that opinion and not the other side, this relates to bias and impartiality which is explained more in the other sections below.  You always want to make any documentary impartial and give both sides/opinions it can cause more issues in the and will give false facts to the wrong audience. 

Balance

Balance is essentially what keeps a documentary fair. To "keep the balance" The best way to keep balance is by giving two sides of something. For example impartiality can relate to this, giving facts or opinions that have to have both sides and can not be unfair, because if it is documentaries will begin to taken off air and audiences will probably get offended. To balance your research you need to take into opinion what the audience will and will not find offensive, obviously you will take out the offensive content. When you take out both sides, they have to be equal, fair, and of course true. In the video below it gives a good example of balanced sides, "both sides of the story"

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Impartiality

Impartiality as said before, is the equality of opinions, facts, or any given evidence. Everything has to be fair, facts have to be fair. Instead of bias which is taking only one said, impartiality takes all sides or none at all. Impartiality closely links to balance, its a type of balance that doesn't use balance, taking no sides meaning no one can make any harm, no bias info nothing unfair at all. A good example would be top gear, where they discuss cars and other facts. The reason I chose this example as an example is because it was completely the opposite of being impartial, according to feedback on this example they were being racist towards Mexicans. They could of stopped this by not broadcasting the episode with leaving little offended or not actually saying that and being careful with what they say, presumably top gear has a script like most other documentaries, tv shows, films etc.

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Objectivity

Objectivity is a type of judgement that is intended to eliminate bias and prejudices, this as you can tell may relate back to balance just like impartiality. It is to make everything clean, fair and balanced. The objective of objectivity is to look at more facts to form documentaries rather than going off of opinionated facts. Unlike most documentaries objective is not like subjective, objective does not give the audience it gives a basic knowledge of informing to the audience. You will find that objective is not used in documentaries, it is mostly used on the News as you may be able to tell the News gives and states facts not opinions, but documentaries can be completely opinionated.

Subjectivity

Subjectivity is the opposite to what objectivity is, it will give the audience something to thoroughly learn, to be taught something. Think of subjectivity as a sub-objective, a second if you will. The second judgement to facts is opinions; the thoughts of the people being interviewed. If this is opinionated this will however mean that any subjective documentary, tv show, or any other type of media can possibly be extremely biased; but there may be a limit to this, for example the audience can get offended by opinions which is the most likely outcome of an opinion if it involves racism, sexism, ageism, many other types of offensive content; so subjectivity will limit that make it applicable to the audiences viewing.

Opinion

Opinions are the common judgements on this earth, or any earth if there is another. Opinions is what give the world something to believe, something to judge, "something that makes something" Everyone's opinion will be different in one tiny way or a huge way. To define an opinion it is eligibly defined as: "A view of judgement formed about something, not necessarily on fact or knowledge" I cannot proved the link for this information I can just provide that if you Google "define opinion" it will be at the top of the page. Opinions are our everyday routine of judgement, it could be a TV episode, a film, or maybe even some food; you give opinions on everything for example if you buy the latest meal from McDonalds, The McRib and you try it but don't like it that will be your opinion. 

Bias

Bias is the opposite to impartiality and balance, being biased often unfortunately ends off with racism, sexism, etc. Being bias is strongly something that can lead into many issues in the media industry, you have to be very sure that what people say on TV or in a documentary is not at all racist. The source of being biased is mainly opinions. Therefor bias is very much related to opinions; as I said before giving opinions is the main part to a persons life but that was about food, this is about documentaries, so anything said or done can be biased, which is why scripts are made! Scripts are the main purpose of any media product. 

News readers

It is not hard to describe or know what a news reader is as it is in the name, they read the news to everyone. Their job is very important and the people who read the news cannot be any type of person, it all depends on the way they are presented. If you were watching the news right now would you want to have some random guy in some run-down clothes delivering the news to you telling you something that "could" be true? I believe not; all presenters are presented in smart, well dressed clothes. They make us believe that this news/evidence is true. In the picture below is an example of a well presented news reader.

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Field reporters

Field reporters are similar to news readers, you will mostly see them on the "field" in the action itself. The Anchorman, a movie, is a good example that is about reporters, and news readers in a comedy way. In the picture below you see a picture of a field reporter from the movie; mostly field reporters are presented formally as like news readers. Their role is to deliver news but on the field, in action, and in front of the place itself. The majority of the time when a field reporter is delivering news they are on the field because it provides more evidence and make it more believable.

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Interviewing

Interviewing is not the same as field reporting and news reading; interviews are sort of a main base of opinions or to collect evidence on a certain character. Interviews can vary in many different ways, you could be interviewing an expert, a witness, a local, anyone. Interviews are made to gain knowledge and various opinions, as defined from Link: "a meeting or conversation in which a writer or reporter asks questions of one or more persons from whom material is sought for a newspaper story, television broadcast, etc." There are many interviews from various places in the world a good example is one from Robert Downey Jr. where he was interviewed on his latest movie the avengers, he answers questions for the reporter but does however leave early due to being upset with a question.

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Experts and witnesses

Experts and witnesses are included in interviews, they can give great valuable knowledge on various topics that they are being interviewed, witnesses on the other hand are just about as valuable as experts; there may be tragedy's in the process because they might have been an eye witness at a scene of a crime therefor it can put them in quite a high role of choosing whether to tell what they see or leave it out and possibly be the cause of a crime.