Marketing & Promotion – the first steps…

This unit is pretty much broken up into Marketing and Promoting 3 separate projects – The Comic-con, Film Festival and you.
The Comic-con – 4th May

Comic-con is more of a dog whistle promotion for the college – we are focussing on a good event that covers Film, TV, Comics, Video Games, Desktop games, cosplay,  Fantasy & Sci-Fi.

Content will be Cosplay related, with Vendors, Workshops (Computer Games, Video, Media Make-Up), Tabletop Games, Screenings, Retro Gaming, Artists and Special Guests.

We need to get a Logo, design the web page, promote the event to Vendors (Pricing and contracts), set ticket prices (using eventright?), Security, attract more guests (Actors, artists, writers, Cosplayers, youtubers etc)

Workshops will be an essential, especially to focus on the courses the college offers that link into this niche market. Establishing the revenue streams now is also essential if we are to expand this to a Saturday as well.
Film Festival – 25th April

A more corporate promotion of the college, we will need to promote it early to raise awareness of it for students and local schools alike.

Content will be a combination of Bridgwater & Taunton College Student Film work, based on projects they are doing for qualifications – so music videos, TV, Short films, Documentaries on a theme of Identity.

We need to get logo designed and develop the website, talk to Marketing, design posters and distribute them (around college, around local schools and colleges), set a budget for prizes – and most important of all, get it on Film Freeway ASAP. Design Academy is working on a Logo, and we can get Film Freeway moving before we update that.

We have an existing web WordPress website here.

You

You will need you do your Bio and Personal Statement, as well as any progression materials – UCAS applications, CV, Showreel, website, twitter feed, Facebook page, Linked in profile, Course Site, etc…

All this will support the college projects, as well as the college projects promoting you.

Narratvie Exercise – Monomyth

This week, I have a number of things I need you to look at – Composition & Movement and Monomyth.

The first one discusses movement from left to right across the composition of the frame, and the psychology of our understanding of this.

The second talks about the overall structure of the story, based on The Writers Journey and how this is influenced by myths and legends.

So, what I need you to do, is explore elements of both using the camera. Home many of the stages of the monomyth can you represent using composition and movement?

So, for example –
Your character is has the call to adventure, and refuses it – how do you frame the hero? How does the Hero move within the frame?
Crossing the Threshold – How do you show the Character “leaving the limits of their world?” And how would you show them coming back for the Return Threshold?

You can either pick stages and explore them in  a series of shots, or try to construct a narrative from a selection of the stages to show a narrative developement following the Monomyth theory. either way, I am not worried about location, acting or sound / dialogue – I purely want to see how you use the camera to communicate the stage.

 

Monomyth

On of my favorite approaches to storytelling is the Monomyth. The idea that all stories are essentially linked through the structure to our understanding of myth and legend.

Narrative in Film & TV: Composition and Movement in a frame

We are looking at narrative as the series of clues & cues within the frame that tell the story. Focusing on Composition and Movement gives us a chance to simplify the construction of the frame to better communicate the narrative element we are referring too.

Movement within a frame is important, but what does it communicate?

We can look at the main axis of movement in relation to the camera  – up & Down, closer & further away and left & Right. It is this movement across the screen that is potentially the most interesting and least obvious when it comes to meaning.
In the video essay from Channel Criswell, he explores how left to right indicates movement towards the future or progress, whereas right to left indicates movement to the past or regression – but there is a further negative feeling that doesn’t occur with left to right. while initially, this could be about what we are used to  – reading, right-handedness, conventions in mathematical representation etc, it seems that it is a constant across cultures.

See the original article at NoFIlmSchool for more info.

But before we move, we need to know where we place our subjects and other cues that form the narrative that communicates the story.

Reflective Practice pt1

You need to keep a Blog. This can be written, sound, video – anything, as long you are making a record of an event or action you have been involved in.

In general, while it can be descriptive, it is useful to think: What? So What? Do What?

What? Describe what happened or what you did.

So What? Why was it important?

Do What? What are you going to next?

This can be a quick way to keep a note of what has happened- involvement in a shoot, an experiment you have done, some research you have found.

When it comes to the Reflective Report it is useful to refer back to these. You can save words by referring to your descriptions in the blog, and look with hindsight as to how useful anything you have done was. This way, you can develop a spiral approach to your own learning.

This is when we can use Gibbs Reflective Cycle –

So now we have:

Description – Describe what you did, what happened – the “What” moment.

Feelings – Explore how you felt about this – it could be a piece of research that jumped out at you. This is an important element of self analysis.

Evaluation – Begin to explore the “So What?” of the event – what was good about it? What was bad?

Analysis – begging to look at the why of the event. Why was it useful? Break the thing down into elements to look at it more clearly. You may not have enjoyed the whole thing, but ther ewas one bit that got you interested…

Conclusion – Draw conclusions about the experience in total, summarizing the important elements.

Action Plan – How can you apply what you have experienced?

Once you have action planned, you can start the cycle. This is what really makes this reflective – you have an experience, and you analyze how you can learning and apply parts of the experience.