Sonia's Television Blog

I came into this year not really knowing what's to come but i was very excited when Helen introduced us to the Digital News project, i didn't realise that i was a group project and didn't know who i would end up with. Overall i feel like partnering up with Amber, Joni and Callum has taught me a lot, both of the girls have a lot of experience and they gave me so many tips on filmmaking that i will treasure, it is also fun making new friends! After we got together as a group we started to think of ideas, straight away Amber thought of a free cinema screening that was happening in Rochester from there our ideas started to spark, after more and more talking we wanted to make a project about hidden event's that not a lot of people know about here in Kent. We really based our main idea of the 'Open Air' cinema that everyone always hyped about, we thought it would be fantastic to show people that these things exist, and even get them to go. We really wanted to get s...

Today we spent a very long time at the studios making sure that all of our edits are perfected. We also had a fine cut meeting with Helen and she gave us great positive feedback which was very helpful. Amber and Joni cut together the 'Live and Studio' section while i worked very hard on editing the folkestone section and re doing the voice overs to make sure that they sound good! We were all together and started sharing computers and editing what we thought was needed, Joni and Amber also managed to get the trailer shot together quickly and easy while i made sure to keep the website updated and also all the social media. I feel like finally everything is finished and finalised, we couldn't be happier with the outcome overall.  With out final look at the Folkestone edit we decided to add some funky music over it to really create a fun atmosphere, Helen also told us to add more cover shots so the audience understand where they are. The only thing that really bugs me is t...

After i had made a few changes to the Folkestone edit i sent it to everyone in the group so they can tell me if they wanted anything changed or added. This is my second export i had done with the sound effects added and music + all the colour correction. My group came up with some great feedback to make this sequence even better. -Skip Dianes first question -Sound is too low - raise the GAIN -Add cover shots in Cafe Teria -Shorten Marcin walking into the cafe -Music is too loud? -Voice Over needs to have more energy? -Add Folkestone cover shots over Diane All of this i took into mind and made sure i covered it all, i had adjusted the gain and made sure that the whole sequence is shorter as we only had 2:30 minutes for this entire sequence. There is still much more i want to do with this but i will get more Feedback as i feel like the entire group deserves a say on it. What i also noticed is on some of the shots the camera lens has rain drops on it which is very unfortunat...

We were set a task to create a trailer for our project, Amber and Joni decided to go and film this in Rochester quickly before our deadline while i edited the rest of the package. The trailer turned out great, it is very informative and uses many cover shots of not only just Kent but all over the UK we were lucky that Joni had these shots ready! 

I have been in charge of editing the Folkestone section while Joni and Amber edit the Studio section for the project. Editing this section is actually very difficult due to the time limit, there is so much that i would like to put it but i am not able to because it can only be 2:30 minutes. I had to add Wrap Stabilizations onto most clips as we filmed a lot hand held. Amber and Joni took charge of creating the Trailer for the YouTube channel i have created. Before i began editing i made sure to create bins and sequences to help me organise the footage. I created multiple sequences to make the editing easier. I began by editing the introduction with adding the graphics that were made by Amber, i figured that it would be the easiest way to start. I imported all the footage and synced the clip mis audio and stabilized all the handheld footage. While editing the interview at the cafe i decided to mic the long shops with the medium close ups as i know that the viewers want to see who is s...

I needed to record a voice over for a section that i had in the 'Folkestone' sequence. This voice over needed to inform the viewers about Folkestone itself and what it used to be, general history behind Folkestone. I decided to get my brother to record his voice over my own setup that i had at home with a Blue Yeti and Audacity, i only needed to record about 30 seconds of his voice.  Once i set up everything and made sure that the program was recording the voice, my brother started reading the lines and recording his voice. When he was recording the VO he sounded very mellow and down so i told him to lighten up but he couldn't haha, so i tried again with my partner. After he had recorded the voice over it sounded lovely and nice, but Amber and Joni thought that he sounded a little sad also! I now decided to record the voice over myself and see if that makes anything better.  Overall it wasn't a big part of the editing process but it was still important to d...

What a day today was, today we had our final shoot at Folkestone Kent and it was truly amazing. It was an early start for the 5 of us Me, Joni, Amber, Marcin and Callum. We had to start our day at 8:00AM and finish by 3:00PM. We drove to Folkestone just in time to make it to our first interview that was at Cafe Teria which was great, Benedetto Robbio who was the owner of the cafe was kind enough to talk to us about his cafe and why he decided to open it here in Folkestone he gave us great answers and they were very interesting, he also was a fantastic actor and helped us A LOT! He made sure the coffee shop stayed closed for as long as we are filming and offered us any hot drinks which is more than we asked for. Bennie really did a great Job and we appreciated him very much. We did not have any major complications but the sound, the clip mic was working great but the actual rode mic did not want to co-operate so we had to just try and best to get the best sound from the clip mics. Marci...

Since i have been trying really hard to get contributors to respond to us i have finally heard back from a few people!  The Escape Hub in Maidstone has agreed to help us out with our studio section, it is a place where you get locked in a room for 60 minutes and find your way out. We thought this would be a great place to film our studio segment! Thanks to Alex we are going to have a great location to film our Studio Segment. I had also received an email from the Moonlight Cinema who were our main contributors for our Live segment allowing us to come down on Friday the 13th to film whatever we needed. Without the Moonlight Cinema our segment would have been very boring! Thanks to Tom we filmed some exciting things and we can't wait to see what it will look like in the final export. We did wait almost a week for their answer but it was very much worth it!  I have also started to reach out to many places in Folkestone that we can go ahead and film in, one o...

It has been a fantastic day filming today! We were able to choose our own room that we wanted to film in and we had control of pretty much anything so the possibilities were endless. As you can see from this picture the location already looks amazing, in the rooms they also allowed us to play around the LED lighting where we could make the room any colour we wanted. Victoria was our amazing presenter who did a fantastic job for us and we enjoyed filming with her. Within this shoot we didn't have many issues which was actually amazing, we shot the entire sequence within 1 hour. There was only a few things to shoot but thanks to the brilliant location and a prepared presenter we had no issues and everything went very smoothly. The entire concept of the location was to escape the room within 60 minutes which we found very interesting and it made a great studio location. Since our entire project is about discovering Kent's hidden location this was a great find. There was aroun...

After we have filmed our footage from the Moonlight drive in cinema there was a lot that we filmed and couldn't actually put into the final sequence. All of the clips were interesting and FUN but only a few could be cut into the final sequence. Amber and Joni decided to cut some clips together with me acting in the background and choosing which footage could look great.  We had a lot of filler clips that Joni had taken earlier in the day of the actual atmosphere that went over the interview stage which looked great. While i presented and stuck to the script there was a few things i missed out, but that was not a MAJOR issue only minor, i had also spoke to many people that attended the event and received some great feedback which worked great with the overall footage. It was dark and we didn't have any plug sockets to plug in any lighting, but thankfully we had some torches to light up my face and any other faces that were in the shot.  The entire interview made it int...

I have decided to stay on top of the website development as well as keeping the social media up to date. The website has an about us page that introduces us to the viewers and i didn't actually know what to write on there, so i asked Callum to write me a little description of Wanderlust UK and put it in that section with our pictures on. I also made sure that the website has the colour pallet we originally set up, orange colours mixed in with reds I think the colour pallet overall looks very nice and professional especially on the homepage! I wanted to make sure that the web page has all of our social media links on it as well as having cool effects when you move your mouse cursor, it just makes it more engaging to the viewer. When i began making the website it looked nothing like it does now, it was plain and simple which is not what i originally imagined! I also added a gmail account and a fake number to make it feel as real as possible. What i like most about the web pag...

Unit Outcome Engage with and critically reflect on a work based learning experience.  Demonstrate a developed knowledge  Time management Research and development of creative content  Focus on chosen specialism  Report writing/analysis Self directed schedule Freelance work - client liaison Use the time wisely Helen and Laura are leading this unit - professional placements 50/50 Written report 1500-2000 words 50/50 project portfolio - blogger  Guidhall Museum - Film Commission  Option 1 - 2-3 minute about one of the 100 objects that made Kent Maidstone Studios - Film Commission Create a 90 second promo film for Maidstone Studios emphasising new brand, prime location.  Renegade Production Company  2 Weeks work placement 2 students London SoundCredit.TV 2 weeks working n shoots in the office prepping and out on location Office based: Crayford Technical Job Ignition Creative Through Nathan on Friday 3rd No...

The script writing is something that i am not very confident in, i am not a writer i like to be in post production BUT that doesn't mean i don't have to do it. Everyone had their own section to write, i wrote the Live section of the script Callum wrote the studio part and Joni and Amber wrote the News Package part of the script. I had started writing and felt more and more confident in what i was doing since i was actually presenting the live i felt like it was the right direction. I also had Amber and Joni helping me overall with what questions i can write down and how to execute them. I had started the script a little rough and then started to develop it every day to make sure it was prepared on the day of filming. Callum also helped me come up with some questions i could ask Tom who i was interviewing on the day. He printed out a sheet for me with some question that would be very helpful on the day. Within the first draft i already felt more confident towards the end becau...

We are all ready to film and Callum put together a shot list for us all to make sure we know what we are doing on our filming days. The shot list gives us a good idea of how the final video production will be framed and also filmed. This will defiantly come in handy in our filming days. After Callum wrote the shot list we all gained a better understanding of what needed to be done when we arrived at the locations. 

Folkestone We finally have everything confirmed for our filming day in Folkestone this Saturday the 21st of October. I couldn't be happier, i had used Casting Call Pro to find the perfect presenter for the day, i had presented Moonlight Cinema and we also have a lady called Vanessa being our reporter for the studio part so i decided to hire a Male reporter to make it more interesting for the viewer. I also took charge of making sure that we had 'Cafe Teria' booked for the morning so that we can interview the manager of the coffee shop to show the viewers how Folkestone is different and cheaper! Joni and Amber made sure that we also have an interview at the Seafront with a lady called Diane w ho can tell us everything about Folkestone and how wonderful it is. We will also be filming at the creative Quater which shows all the exciting things Folkestone has to offer.  Joni also made us a day plan for Saturday so we know exactly where we are and make sure we are not running ...

Moonlight Cinema We have finally started filming and it is so exciting, we have so many cool ideas and locations that i am enjoying every minute of it. Our first location was the Moonlight Cinema here in Paddock Wood, the entire team was so nice to us that they even let us stay to watch the movie for FREE! We have a few issues that day due to our correct equipment not being booked out, it was left with someone but i'm assuming it got forgotten about so we have to work with what we got which worked out great anyway, the only major problem was that we did not have any LED lighting so we really had to work with iphone torches and the lighting that was used at the cinema.  We started filming when people started to turn up to watch the movie as the background was lovely and the lighting actually worked out well. When it came to finding a presenter it was also left with someone but also forgotten about, this is where i had to step in. I tried to find someone so hard last minute bu...

Lately we have been having some issues with locations, people seem to not want Student filming in their locations for free! We wanted to film our studio part at the Kent Farm but sadly they told us that they only allow marketing to be filmed at the premises so that went in the bin. I also tried to contact the Lock-meadow staff here in Maidstone to see if we could film at their premises where they had a lot of fun event BUT they also said no to us as they are too popular and have way too many visitors. It started to annoy me but i didn't give up there, i am now trying to contact the 'Escape Hub' in Maidstone to hopefully get a location booked in and also i'm trying to get a hold of many different coffee shops and locations in Folkestone to try and film some exciting footage there. I really hope we get something confirmed very soon and people stop turning us down just because we are student! We also have an issue were we are filming Friday and do not have a presenter fo...

I have previous experience in creating websites so i took it on to create one for our News Unit! I had also created us a Youtube channel and a Twitter account, it feels real now! I am really happy with how the website had turned out and how our logo + colour pallet looks. The website has all the key elements it needs to make sure our viewers understand how our episodes work, i added a 'About Us' section and also a 'Previous Episodes' section which covers all basis of the entire project. Callum writes our articles for the 'Previous Episodes' section and Amber made our fantastic logo and colour pallet, while i am working on all the social networks. Website -  https://soniamagdalena.wixsite.com/wanderlustuk Youtube -  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuZBjNf8mPk6WOrouL45TsQ?disable_polymer=true Twitter -  https://twitter.com/Wanderlusttuk I'm still working on small adjustments but it is looking and working very well, i need to make some graphics on ...

Locations Trying to get permission on locations is actually harder than i thought, we have been trying to contact 3 open air cinemas to try and film for our live news part BUT it is so difficult for them to get back to us and give us permission. Both Luna and Moonlight cinema are very popular open air cinemas and we would be so fortunate to film their for our news unit. I have tried many times to call them and ask if they could please get in touch with us quicker but they kept saying the same thing over and over again. Joni and Amber both have emailed these locations as well as Callum with cafes all around Kent, but we just feel as none of these locations will let us in to film. We then decided to get in contact with circuses that are in town currently and we thought that it would be a very fun way to show that Kent is exciting and fun. When it got to talking to Jo she thought that we should go deeper into a story and have a clearer angle, she thought the cinemas would be brillian...