SPP3 - Assignment 1 Evaluation

I thought that this assignment was challenging, interesting and useful. Whilst doing the client and the research project it is easy to forget what use all the studying will be once university is finished and I have graduated. This assignment forced me to think about myself as a Multimedia Practitioner, my current position, how I would like to represent myself and how this representation will effect my career prospects.

I found that creating a logo and colour scheme was the most useful exercise and helped me form and identity for myself which I can continue through the course of the final year, use in the exhibition and also use after graduating. I have also realised however that my showreel is a working creation and will always have scope to be expanded on or improved. This is also applicable to my logo, however consistency can prove to be effective especially in the industry.

I would like to continue adding to my showreel as I will collect material from other projects. In addition to this I would like to develop my online portfolio into a hosted website with a personal domain and access to upload videos. I feel that this project can be expanded further by creating business cards with contact details and my web address. This can be seen as a form of easily distributing access to myself and my work as well as portray a professional working practise.

SPP3 - Showreel December 08

This is my final showreel:



I submitted the showreel as a fully authored DVD and also created a label and a case for it. I think that the presentation of the final product has as much of an impression as the product itself as it is the first thing an audience (or an employer) will see. This not only shows a sense of professionalism but also emphasises my brand and logo.

SPP3 - Editing the Showreel

I found compiling and editing the showreel the most difficult part of the assignment. A showreel wholely reflects the artists' work and personality and also sets an impression to whoever sees it. I began with deciding on the sound to accompany and compliment the image montage. It was also difficult to represent my organisational and production management skills. As I already had a brand identity I incorporated the colour scheme and the logo.

I wanted the final showreel to have a professional and creative feel so I used a combination of still frames and videos. This was challenging to edit and ensure the timing was right. I found that establishing a rhythm in time with the music made the videos flow. It is important to keep the viewer engaged but also show enough of a particular video in order to show off skills and style. Therefore I continuously showed friends versions to make sure all the aspects were appropriate and not too long or short.

The beginning and end of the showreel are essential and leave a lasting impression. I felt that my logo and a photo of myself would introduce my personality. The last frame of the showreel had to include contact details. I decided to include my logo again to emphasise the continuity of my brand.

SPP3 - Rationale & Catalogue Text

My rationale included the following sections:

- Introduction
- The Producer's Role
- My Skills
- Routes into employment
- Importance of Brand Identity
- My interests - Women & Children
- Research focus - Representation of women
- Case studies - Mira Nair, Kathleen Kennedy
- Importance of final year exhibition
- Catalogue entry

I inserted the catalogue images into the text and referred to them when appropriate as justifications to why I chose those particular images and how they relate to my current position in the industry and my future career objectives.

Catalogue Text:

"Visualize this thing you want. See it, feel it, believe in it. Make your mental
blueprint and begin. Climb high; climb far. Your goal is the sky; your aim is
the star " [Robert Collier & Inscription at Williams College]

Outgoing effective communicator and a lover of people and places around
the world. Key believer in respect, hard work, planning and action.
Experience and skills range in audio-visual production, image manipulation,
administration and researching.

SPP3 - Catalogue Images

As part of the assignment we were required to submit 8 or more images that may be used in the Multimedia Exhibition catalogue. These images would structure how I am trying to portray myself as a Multimedia artist. I decided that I wanted to reflect various skills through projects I have carried out. I also wanted the images to reflect the kind of subjects I am interested in.

I submitted 11 images and compiled them in Photoshop with a common colour and font theme in relation to my brand identity. The final images can be seen on my Online Portfolio at

http://bindnikaria.carbonmade.com/

The online portfolio can be used as a professional tool to advertise myself and my work. Ideally this would be more efficient as a fully hosted website with facilities to upload videos and my showreel. Although this would require personal funds and additional commitment and skills it would be very useful and valuable. I can set this is a target for the next assignment. Furthermore this would be more professional if I had my personal domain, like I do with my blog.

Live Client Shoot 1 - Preparation

Playworks held a re-launch of the Play Action Network (PAN) which was a social event and debate on ‘the state of play today’. PAN exists to bring people interested in play together; providing a forum for debate on current issues affecting children and young people’s freedom to play, highlighting good practice and mobilising action needed to preserve and promote play at a grass roots level. This was an extremely valuable opportunity to capture some footage of the launch presentation of the Street Play project by Alice and Paul and also gather information and research from the variety of people connected to play in Nottingham.

Although I did not intend to begin filming until early February, I decided to shoot the re-launch of PAN as a form of research. Considering many important people were going to be attending it would have been a shame to shoot the event with only research objectives. This forced me to think about the narrative of my documentary and capture particular shots as well as research. This meant I would need to prepare various pre-production documents. To start off with I found this difficult to put into context as I had not planned the rest of the shoots or set the story in stone. Therefore I approached this task by looking at the basics – I considered what foundations would be required for the client project as a whole. Below is a list of the preparation I carried out:

1. Find crew for the shoot – E-mail 2^nd and 3^rd Year students

2. Book equipment

3. Create posters to inform guests of filming

4. Location Release

5. Talent Release

6. Shot List – shots that will be used in documentary

7. Location plan and Recce

8. Shoot day schedule

9. Call sheets for crew

10. Brief client on what will be filmed

11. Brief crew on what is required of them

12. Risk Assessment

13. Buy Tapes

14. Interview questions for particular guests

SPP3 - Creating My Brand

The objectives of this module are based around how this degree can be put into practise after graduating. I see it as a way of forcing you to think of what you will do after university. This particular assignment is about branding yourself and compiling material that can be used as tools to sell yourself. Critical ingredients of a brand include a logo and a colour scheme and in order to design these I first needed to establish what I want this brand to say. What connotational messages do I want my logo and colour scheme to send to my audience - potential employers? I wanted to say the following things:

- Organised
- Creative
- Multimedia
- Management
- Professionalism
- Cultural
- Belief in respect
- Belief in reaching for the sky
- Strong and bold
- Technical - production skills



These were aspects that I wanted to be reflected throughout the assignment - in the showreel and on-line portfolio. Amanpreet Budesha is on the Online Environments pathway and is focusing her final year around Brand Identity. Through consultations with her and experimental designs I established a colour theme and also designed a personalised logo.



I felt that this logo represented me as a person, my values and what I believe in. I think that it also portrays a creative and professional persona that can be carried through my creations as a brand identity.

Live Client - Playworks

My live client is going to be Playworks – is an independent citywide voluntary organisation that exists in order to support and promote children’s right to good quality / freely chosen play opportunities.


Playworks is funded by the National Lottery for various projects and is launching a new ‘Street Play’ project. I will be producing and directing a documentary about the project assistant Alice Sidwell, how she is involved in the project and what she intends to do with it. The final multimedia product will be an authored DVD and will also act as a promotional video for Playworks. I intend to make a character lead authored documentary with a strong stylistic approach.

The research process had begun from the first meeting with Alice and the Project Co-ordinator Paul Booth. They have given me an overview of the project, how it fits into the Play Action Network (a larger project) in Nottingham and what their intentions are in the coming months with regards to Street Play.

Holding Pattern

ISIS Application

ISIS is a programme being offered to Women Film Makers from the Documentary Filmmaker’s Group. I had made an application to this programme which included a proposal for a 5 minute short film on a Human Rights subject.

I had chosen the subject of a child’s right to freely chosen play opportunities as this was an area I had already looked into for my Live Client project. The proposal included outlining a summary of the film, the structure, style and scenes that would be included. Unfortunately I was not successful and was not short listed for an interview. However the application was a big learning curve and improved my application skills as well as my CV.

I had worked on my CV extensively to make it more subject-specific and to show my multimedia skills, experience and qualifications. This was difficult and I did not realise how irrelevant many sections in my CV were. Overall I really enjoyed the application process and I am sure it will help me develop my skills in the SPP3 module.

SPP3 – Assignment 1

Showreel
- Camping
- Boy
- Holding Pattern
- Virtual Water
- India Documentary
- Sketching in the Nature
- Indian Women Installation
- Name
- Logo / Brand
- Producer & Director
- Contact information

Online Portfolio – Website
- Domain (bindni.com / bindnikaria.com)
- Logo / Brand
- About Me (biography, main skills, aspirations)
- Showreel
- My Work (images, stills, installation)
- CV
- Contact Information

Catalogue Entry 75 words
- Who am I
- What do I do?
- What are my main skills
- Goals and aspirations
- Contact information

Rationale 1000 words
- What images I have chosen
- Why I have chosen these images
- How am I a practitioner
- How I position myself in the audio-visual industry

SPP – End of Year Exhibition & Electronic Portfolio

As part of our final year we are given the option to take part in an end of year exhibition. The main purpose of this is to showcase ourselves and our work to professionals in the industry. This will create networking opportunities and also a chance to ‘sell ourselves’ to potential employers.

This links in with the first SPP3 assignment which includes an electronic portfolio and a written catalogue entry that can be published in an exhibition handbook. Considering most of my work is in an audio-visual format a digital Showreel would be the most ideal and appropriate format of an electronic proposal. An online portfolio would also complement this and can be targeted to a wider audience through the World Wide Web.

Although I lack skills in web developing there are many programmes and online avenues through which I can create an online portfolio with minimum programming experience. This has really made me think about how I want to brand myself as a multimedia practitioner and what how I want to represent myself.

PRP – The Conclusion & the Question

Part of the conclusion was to define what I had found out from the process and what I intended to test in the second part of the project – Research Via Practise.

How have successful women multimedia artists managed to enter the industry and what provoked them to avoid or overcome the limitation commonly characterised as ‘the glass ceiling’?

How can women Multimedia artists be encouraged to develop their education into successful carreers?

What are the limiting factors that prevent women from developing their education into practise and succeeding in the workplace? What can be done to encourage women to overcome these limitations?

PRP – Writing the Document

I found that beginning to write the document was very difficult. Although I had looked at a wide variety of sources it was a challenge to place them in a linear and coherent manner. So I decided to make a table or a form of database which I could constantly refer to and also put all the sources in one place and into perspective. The table consisted of the following fields:

1. Area (Multimedia, women, representation, technology?)
2. What is being said in the source (main points)
3. Who said it (author, title, section, page number)
4. How does this relate to my topic
5. Is it ‘for’ or ‘against’ my argument

This process not only gathered all the sources into one document but also gave me a clear idea of what my argument is and what I can use to back it up in the discussion. I began with writing the Literature review followed by the discussion. As I wrote the conclusion the question that will be tested in the second part of the project also became clearer. The Research Method, Introduction and Abstract were straight forward sections.

To improve my project I could have concentrated on time management, as I found that having a draft to constantly work on and revise would have benefited me further. However I spent more time researching rather than actually writing the document. I would have been able to develop the final document if I had allowed myself more time between versions of the drafts to reflect on what I had written. In addition to this I also found that referencing the document as I wrote it would have also saved me time. I learnt how to personalise and use the Refworks software package which proved to be very efficient.

Simulated Client – Presentation and Feedback

The final stage of the simulated client project was to present the multimedia product in your tutorial group. The following are the main points of feedback I received:

- Message not so clear – what virtual water actually is
- Message could have been stressed further by voiceover
- Video quality not so good – could have been improved by lighting
- Sound levels needed to be adjusted
- Voiceover was very effective
- Graphics were good – could have been slightly bigger and bolder
- Concept was really good, the idea made sense
- Good subject choice – something that people don’t really know about
- Could have been improved through better technical skills

I felt the feedback was well justified, and agreed with what my peers and tutor advised. My specialisation within the AV pathway is producing and directing and therefore the final product lacked high quality standards although the concept was really strong. By concentrating on my skills and using other specialised people for the actual production I could drastically improve my future projects. For example someone with camera operation skills and specific sound skills would know the technical aspects better than I would and I could therefore concentrate on directing them towards what I want to achieve.

Overall I thought the concept of Virtual Water was quite strong, however due to my lack of technical skills I was unable to deliver the idea effectively through the advert.

Simulated Client – The Final Multimedia Product

This is the link for the final Multimedia product:

Simulated Client – The Edit

Unfortunately the editing process began with my tape being wound up in the editing machines, resulting in loss of some footage and sound. This really stressed the importance of cleaning tape machines and backing up footage. Luckily I hadn’t lost too much to require a re-shoot.



As the total footage was only 5 minutes I was able to capture it all at once. In addition to this I had decided the sequence of shots in my storyboard, so it was very straight forward to prepare the first edit. I showed this version to various people and received the following feedback:

- slow down the part where food is thrown into dustbin so you can see the product
- Improve graphics
- Add a voiceover to accompany graphics
- Increase the pace of the advert

I recorded the sound separately on an Ediroll which gave clear quality and enhanced the image. During the shoot I had made the error of recording the sound in mono and this not only created further work during the post production but also resulted in clipped audio which decreased its quality. I used Adobe Sound Booth to master the final sound mix.

Although I have used Adobe Premiere before to edit video I found it difficult to get used to the new version CS3. To overcome this I made use of the online tutorials through which I learned about new features only available in CS3 like ‘Time-remapping’. In addition to this the integration with other Adobe software packages was a lot easier through Adobe Bridge. This was especially beneficial for creating the graphics in Illustrator, developing the graphics into a frame in Photoshop and then finally transferring them to Premiere. With CS3 I didn’t have to save the frame or graphics in particular formats to import them into the other software. This could be done directly through the ‘Export to ….’ Feature.