Production diary 6 - interview of Mrs Allen

Today, we interviewed the EAL teacher Mrs Allen, who is often associated with international students, espacially Chinese students, and we think we could interview her about view of Chinese students and their daily life.

Since we worked as a group, we could filmed in two different angles by each person holding a camera. Therefore, we have two angles of the interview shot:

 The is the side shot that Melissa filmed the left side of Mrs Allen.

And this is the shot that the camera is face to Mrs Allen's face. As I need to ask questions, we decided to use the tripod to hold the camera. However, after we filmed the whole interview, we found that the camera may put a bit lower than we want. But I think it may still be fine.

For the location of the interview, we decided to film in Mrs Allen's classroom, as this is a place that could simply tell the audience that she is a teacher. In the both angle shots, the background could show this is the classroom.

The second draft of website

After getting more footage of our production, I made some change of my website and it is nearly done that it is really close to the finale website view.

This is the new front page of my website. We still made a video for it, however, it is not like the previous one that just put in the pictures, this is more like a trailer that we edited some footage together and mainly focus on our main character - Cynthia. Also, we added the Chinese title as our primary target audience is Chinese people, and we used a really 'Chinese' style typography. Still we put the English title but slightly smaller as the Chinese title is more important. Moreover, we put the tagline on the top right, that is "Travel is never a matter of money, but of courage - Paolo Coelho." This may give the audience a sense of our documentary that what we are talking about in the documentary, what story that we are shown here. And I put the release date at the bottom and it is quite small, as I don't think it is really important and I don't want to cover the video behind.

Here is the information part and I didn't change so much, I just change the colour of the container of "UK's Educaton mode', as I want to make it fit the colour palette that we chose for all our production. 

Under the repeater, I put this picture which is similar to what we put in the poster. Not only because it could let the audience make a link to our poster, but also as in this picture, the location is in school and our character is wearing uniform carrying books, which just show our narrative. I think this is a good picture and therefore I put it inside.

There is not many change here, but I am now thinking about the app that I used for discussion. I used to think about using Forum for this part, and I think I will still use it, however, I'm now thinking about to add the link to a social website which is called 'zhihu' (in Chinese is 知乎). This is a Chinese social website (and app) that people asking questions on it and people could make comments and having discussion on it. The reason that I think about it is because our target audience involve Chinese people, and Chinese people may not know how to use Forum, zhihu for them is more familier. As a result, I think I might add the link to the questions that I create for the topic.

By getting more footage, now I could put the pictures into the Gallery part. As we might still film some more footage, we might add or change some pictures in this part. And the final part, contact, I didn't change it because I don't think that I need to change anything here.

Overall, my website is nearly done, but still I need to finish the pages of discussion and information. When those pages are finished, I think my website may be done. 

Editing plan

As we have nearly done our all filming, we start thinking about our editing. And I used Vizzlo to make a long process diagram about the editing plan.

Here is the plan:

Although I made a plan (or it could be seen as an overview) for editing and filming, it may still be different to the final production as we may change during editing and filming. But it is good to make a plan first as we could know what we are going to do and make.

Production diary 5 - previous footage

In this production diary, it is not the pictures or footages that we took today, but the footages that we have taken from previous day till now. I have already put most of them, but some of them that filmed by Melissa I still have not put on to the blog.
These footages are mainly the scenes in dining hall:

As during that time, it was Chinese Luna New Year, in dining hall, there was a banner with "Happy New Year" in Chinese. We filmed it because we thought it

This is a shot when Cythia was waiting in a queue, which is the things that we will do in dining hall, queueing for lunch or dinner.

Normally, Chinese students would like to stay together in the dining hall, which just same as the picures shown. To make the audience know clearly that who is the main character, we filmed some close up focusing on Cynthia.

These are the shots which Cynthia and other Chinese students playing together. Although these are really good footages that we could use, we might not use it in our product. This is because that we filmed it in a vertical way, and the shots look narrower than other footages. If we put it into the documentary, it may look weird.

I think these are the all footages that I didn't put on the blog. Even though now we have more footages than we used to, we may still have too few footages that we could put into our documentary. Therefore, we might still need to film more footage or we may focus more on the interviews.

Production diary 4 - go to lesson and during the class and the image for poster

Today we filmed our character going to lesson and study during the class. Also, we took the picture for our poster.

This is when Cynthia is going to a lesson that we just following her and film it. 

These are some pictures that Cynthia is having the lesson.

Those are the pictures that we took for poster, but also for website as we are trying to create a 'brand' for our production. The reason that we choose to film in this location where the statue is because it is a sign of our school. And we let our character wear uniform to give the code of narrative that it is about school life.

Production diary 3 - Prep time

On Tuesday, we filmed Cynthia when she was working on her prep in the prep time as we need to get some daily life footages of students study in a foreign country school.
Here are the shots that we chose for filming.

This is a mid-shot but could be seen as an establishing shot that it shows the mise-en-scene: the background is Cynthia's room to show that we study in our room, and it also shows the character which the audience would be clear that who is working on the prep.

This is a close-up, which focus more on the prep. But actually, as the light is too bright, it doesn't really show what the prep is. However, I still think when we show the prep time in the film, get some close-up like this could also be great as it makes the scene not be so dull.

This acturally is just a testing photo that is not really for the filming, but it is a good photo to show our prep and what we are learning, so we might use it in our documentary as well.

the first draft of website.

I started making website seveal weeks before, and today I'd like to show the first draft of my website and also I would like to talk about what I may change or do to get the best website that I could do.

 This is the front page of our website. As we think about we could add a bottom which could change the language, at the start, I use English title. at header, I put on some social media which is familier to most of people in the world, especially people who is not Chinese (this is because some social media that shown in the header are blocked in China). But also, I have put on a Wechat, which is a really common social media that most of the Chinese people, almost all of them would have an account in Wechat. The reason that I put it is because our primary target audience is Chinese people, using Wechat would make the advertisement and distribution easier. For the front page, I made a video which is just like a moving gallery of the photos that we took in China. However, as we now focus more on Chinese student's school life in foreign country, I think I might change the front page. There are two way that Melissa and I decided to do: one way is to use only a picture which is taken in our school in the UK and the main character is shown in the picture; Another way is still I make a video which I put plenty of footages of Chinese students in our school that we have taken recently, which looks quite similar like this one.

Also, we used to think about to make a trailer for our documentary, so I have created a bottom just under the title that people could click it to go to the 'trailer' page to watch our trailer. However, now as we don't really think we have time to make a trailer, now I am thinking about to get rid of it and put on the date that we will release our documentary.

 This is the information part. Here I didn't put on the information right there, I put a repeater and split our information into three part. As our documentary relates to education, we decide to give some information of both Chinese education system and UK's education system (as we are now studying in UK). This could give both our primary and secondary audience, Chinese people and foreign country people some information of these two really different types of education system. In the middle, it is more information of our documentary. All these three parts would go to another page - "information"

 Here I might put a picture, but because when I started making website, during that time, the footages that we got are too few, I still not really sure what picture that I would like to put here.

 This is the discussion part, which is my idea that to get the audience more involve to our campaign, I think to get a discussion that people could leave comments about their ideas of study abroad and students who study abroad would achieve it as they could express their idea and communicate with others. After asking teacher(sorry but I fogot his name), I decide to use Wix Forum in another page "discussion" (which is particularly used for discussion). Wix Forum is the app that could build up an online community, and I think this is what I want.

 And here is the Gallery page. I think we will not add any extra page for Gallery because those pictures we think are already enough. And after getting more photos and footages, I think I will start putting on some footages.

And finally, this is the contact part. Here I just make it quite simple, but I think I might put something more, such as, the QR code which is quite common in China, and the Wechat of us and we may create a Wechat just for our documentary and we could put in here.

In addition, you could see that I didn't change the colour of the background or adding any images. This is because now we are still thinking about our whole branding colour palettes, and I will add the background colour after we decide the colour.