Reflection week commencing 15/09/2014

After our last week of lessons we seem to be keeping on track with everything, we have contacted many different companies about room hire and have had a lot of replies with offers however, the prices have been way to high. we managed to get in contact with a student from last year that also took media and we contacted the same studio that he used, this was yellow bean studios in Leicester, we emailed, phoned and text him as we were eager to get this studio at  good rate as were on a very tight budget. Also Sophie has met with Cam ad started the dance that we will be filming In our video, and all seems to be going well so far. as a group we have been reduced for a 4 to a 3. however we have managed to keep up the standard of work and continued to work as a team and meet all of the deadlines that have been set. ideas are all still flooding in and are been noted down and taken into consideration, for example camera shots and angels what we cloud include in our dance etc.

Reflection of Week Commencing: 08/09/2014

This past week we have been thinking up of our ideas as a group, as we were still in the stage of deciding what it is that we were actually producing because everybody had a lot of idea that they were contributing and we needed to round them down so that we were producing a video that included everybody's ideas but wasn't too messy or disjointed. This was an important thing for us to do because we couldn't really focus or concentrate on what we were actually doing until we had got a complete idea of how the video was going to look.
Unfortunately that meant that everybody was sometimes on different pages, and whilst deciding who was going to do the video or who was going to be in the band we were sometimes left confused.
However in saying all of this, we came together as a group towards the middle of the week and created an idea that was inspiring to all of us and that we were all excited to produce and create. We actually ordered equipment to help us get the smoothest and most professional video that we can make, that was a camera stabiliser that sits on the shoulder. This is so useful to us as a group because it means that there will be no hand shaking or times when the shot isn't perfect, obviously we still have to factor these things when thinking about quality control and how to make sure that it is as perfect as it could possibly be.
This week as well we were experiencing feedback and also giving feedback to other groups pitches, this was incredibly important because to hear what other people think of your ideas before you actually create them means that you can see whether your audience is actually going to appreciate and enjoy watching what you created, and vice versa. Telling other group's what they need to work on and improve almost makes you look at your work more critically because you are in that frame of mind. Looking at what you are doing so far from a different angle is completely beneficial to how you carry on and seeing all the things that we still need to decide and think about is something that we really needed to realise.
We also contacted a music video director, Lucy Needs, which really benefited us as a group because we were able to gain advice and support from somebody who knows exactly what making a music video is about and is able to voice her comments and ideas as to how she would go about the plan we already thought about. To hear this advice and to hear such positive comments as to what she thought about our idea is so lovely to hear and it has inspired us all to make something professional and up to her standards.
Overall, whilst carrying out more research and planning, we have formed more ideas and come together more as a group which is so important for us to realise so that we can carry on and continue to produce something that can hopefully be considered as a well made music video.