Is The DVD dead ? (Sue)

A DVD (Digital video disc) is a form of media platform used to store and playback big quantities of data commonly for tv and film playback purposes. A DVD is portable and can be easily carried around place to place which let's the holder watch at the comfort of their home, in an office or at a friends house for a movie night.The playback of a DVD has no limits and can be watched as many times forward, backwards, paused or started (unless broken). The DVD usually has conventions including a playbutton on insertion of the DVD to it's media player, adverts (less common) for following films by the same producers or films considering the same target audiences, main menus, directors cuts, subtitles and outtakes to name a few.

The DVD has become more and more popular dating back to 1995 when it's popularity sky rocketed, meaning it was and still is highly likely to have a DVD laying around up to now. However with the internet growing and evolving more and more per day with streaming platforms like Lovefilm, Blinkbox and Netflix the DVD is fighting a losing battle and is rapidly becoming a near forgotten platform of media. The new age of media platform as Youtube, Vimeo or Netflix allows users to stream pretty much anywhere and also allows users to stream to many different devices ranging from smart phones, tablets and laptops to televisions, gaming consoles and apple TV type consoles with also a limitless feature, this also means at the touch of a button and not the touch of a bus pass, opening of a door, browsing of a film collection and negotiation of a store clerk you can acquire and watch a whole store full of films live and direct from the comfort of your room, on your way to work, even outdoors in an open field. This is arguable as streaming tends to come with buffering concequenses however, on the other hand DVDs come with scratching and disk-jump concequencially if not kept in mint condition, which as i'm sure the world knows isn't an easy task.
With prices of streaming getting lower and prices of DVD selling for around £9.99 to £20 brand new. DVD is well in the deep end without arm bands and is clearly drowning whilst the new age of interactive media platform is taking over storing all your films in a HUGE digital database, getting rid of your dusty DVD shelf and making room for vases and a trophy collection.

With all that being said, I do however believe there are some huge set backs to using online streaming over DVD's the first and most obvious being network speeds. Network speeds vary and can ultimately lead to your video not playing, or playing in a hugely pixilated rate pretty much ruining the film. Other set backs include payments as if you spend a month not watching a film for whichever reasons you'll still be charged your monthly fee and a DVD is a one time payment for life.
Also in time the databases for online streaming will become crowded and need updating (in theory). During these updates where films are added and deleted from the database your trusty old DVD will still be there, unchanged and ready for playback 40 years later if you need.

In conclusion I believe the DVD is well and truly dead although it has it's highs and lows. These highs are very much clouded by the vast amount of lows and because of this I believe it is dead.

Vertigo (Barrington)

http://prezi.com/2lpsqi52aee7/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Single Camera production (Barrington)

http://prezi.com/a9ji7vklkqtk/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Documentary photography (Joey L) (Sue)

http://prezi.com/gupgamumcywu/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Zoriah Miller (War photography) (Sue)

http://prezi.com/xs6aoxrpgjxm/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Bupa Westminster 1 mile run proposal

The Westminster mile is an annual event open to all in which participants race a mile around westminster through awe filled locations as buckingham palace and The mall located not far from. The event is a community event open to anybody who applied before the deadline, this means everybody of all ages, ethnicities and character will be running from young boys and girls to old folk, gold medalists to olympic hopefuls, fancy dressing fun lovers to charity fund raisers. The event will be celebrating Diane Leather becoming the first woman to run a mile in under five minutes and the 60th anniversary of Sir Roger Bannister becoming the first man to break the four minute mile. Also, Paralympian David Weir is hoping to become the first athlete to run the mile in under three minutes.


There will be 5,500 runners participating in the race and 5 different races special guests such as Mo Farrah taking part

There are races for:
- Families
-  Juniors
- Elite Athletes
- Wheelchair Users
- Adult & Vets

My production crew set up for the day will be 3-4 cameras (2 film and 1 still photography DSLR), One camera at the start and another at the finish with the still photography camera catching the highlights throughout the day (crowd reactions, runners preparing/stretching/laugh and smiles and the overall atmosphere and vibe the events is bringing).  Cameras will be on a tripod panning when the runners come passing by and  will capture all the action and movement from most of the runners/crowd; this camera will be targeting  fancy dress runners and families/groups taking part to add insight to the huge variety of people taking part but overall shot sizes will be more close up/extreme close up and wide shot for crowd shots and more full body long shots for the runners

My main task for the day is to try and capture the overall variety and inclusive and on camera. I will be interviewing runners before hand and after the race in a voxpop format in which i'll hear how the race went, what happened and the overall views of the runners and audience members 

I've drafted some rough questions for the day

Before race (Preparing):

Are you nervous/have any worries about the race at all
What are you most looking forward to during the event
What time do you think you'll clock in
Do you think a world record is going to be broken today

After race:

What was that like ?
Did anything strange/nice/funny happen during your mile
What was your time/are you satisfied with how you done
Would you run again/Recommend the event to anyone

Unit 5: Working on a brief (Barrington)

As part of a unit task me and my class mates had to film the staff awards, this included the main features from video inserts to lighting and sound to filming and entertainment.

Shortly after me and the production team completed our set task of delivering our project to our target audience I personally received numerous positive feedback regarding my leadership skills in my director job role which I then took and used to strengthen me in future projects. This feedback was commonly along the lines of how easy I was to understand, how affective this made conveying what I wanted done with high clarity to the production team which then could be put to use. My peer feedback came from my fellow classmates Sidique, Zeinab and Catie to name a few.
On a whole, my peers seemed highly satisfied with my efforts and the impact role had on the overall outcome of the event. I received warm congratulating handshakes and joyous after the production from peers and team members as well as the live audience members and staff (client) who participated in making the experience so memorable.
I believe my feedback was good however the delivery was around 45 minutes late which was brought up in the focus group after the awards. Regardless, the staff agreed they all enjoyed the show and left very satisfied at the efforts of the team and entertainment. Other things said in the focus group were that the staff really enjoyed the awards particularly the pre title sequence and that it set the mood for the evening.

Peer feedback aside, my client's feedback was along the same lines as my peer feedback, consisting of positive and appreciative comments on how well the project went and how much the audience and present staff members enjoyed it.
My client comments congratulated me and the team several times during feedback and also in this case I don't have anything I can point out as a negative from my client feedback.

My role during the filming of the video inserts was camera man and occasionally switched to the microphone operator when needed, also for a short period I helped as an editor to push the overall scheduling of our project forward. The filming of the inserts were quick and easy to carry out and few interviews needed redoing. The equipment was properly set up and worked as supposed to, having two camera operators meant for less work and overall boost in possibilities for the editor to further mix shots or replace bad shots. The only weaknesses in my opinion is sometimes the filming teams would get over crowded and slow the execution of the interviews due to people not knowing roles or too many people trying to do the same thing. It was unnecessary and highly frustrating throughout. In the end though the filming and editing was done and the outcomes were very good. This goes from the colour corrections and colour grading to the effects and overall quality of the finished work. The video inserts went very well.

In the meetings my production team focused a lot on what we'll do to express the USP of the project and make it stand out. In the meetings key point were noted for example:

- Use of close and detailed shots to capture emotion in speaker.
- Use of bright and complimenting backgrounds to further enlighten the consumer's attention to the speaker.

As director of the project my role had numerous strengths which suited my own personality and brought the best out of me on the day. Key strengths were that I could tell it exactly how it was and be honest about the way the project was going and correct any issue freely, I had a lot of leadership in the task which I love in general. The role meant I had a voice throughout and could see the project as it was happening from the screen in the gallery. I could give orders and it was almost my show. On the other hand, it was quiet nerve wrecking at first because I knew nothing of the job and had never done the job before but once I got into the hang of how it worked I began working to high standard; Being a director was hugely exciting and very fun.

The only changes I had to make due client feedback were probably around the filming of the interviews in which some of the clips may have needed redoing or footage may have gone missing or some interviewees felt they wanted to start over their interviews to rephrase anything they felt they had said wrong or didn't want to include also we had to be considerate of client expectations meaning we changed a small amount of things to suit the client.

Few constraints occurred in the run up to executing the staff awards and also during the actual staff awards. These were:

Before Staff Awards:
-Damaged/Equipment not working
-SD cards full or not working
-Equipment not being accessible
-Interviewees/crew members being late

During:
Cameras not appearing on the monitors in the gallery
Last minute editing or missing footage

Time management was sloppy but worked in the end. The team rarely missed deadlines to film interviews and the editor(s) did well to get the job done to high quality on time. Our team had unrealistic amount to do in a extremely short time which made it seemingly impossible but we got it done. Leadership skills were good and there were a few people who knew the task better than others and assisted in guiding the team throughout including the assisting staff, form tutors and students

Our target audience were the staff of City of Westminster so we made sure we included lots of teacher humour from their fellow staff members which they loved and the audience was laughing when supposed to and enjoying the show.

To conclude, it was a very new and exhilarating experience and I'd do it again. I learnt a lot about myself and what I can do when I'm put in new and unusual positions and not to doubt my abilities, I learnt a lot about camera shots and how they affect a live audience and I also learnt why managing time is so important.