MY FMP WEEKLY DIARY
For the first week of my FMP I created a mind map on all my ideas. I gathered together everything which came to my mind about what I wanted to create and what I am passionate about. This helped me choose my pathway on whether or not I would be doing a digital publishing project or a moving image based project. I came to the conclusion that I would be doing mainly a moving image project however I also include digital publishing into the idea. After putting together all my passions into a huge mind map there was one which stood out to me the most and that was a spoken word poetry film. The reason behind this is because it's been something I have always wanted to do since along as I can remember. Watching you tubers do similar ideas always inspired me when I needed some inspiration. It fascinated me how words could strike an emotion and bring up past memories. Writing has always been a huge part of my life ever since I was a young girl so I knew I wanted to base my project on that considering I want to do something with writing in the future however I am also extremely passionate about photography and I knew I needed to include this with my writing somehow because I have found the importance behind a photograph and a simple video capturing a memory due to the fact you never know how important that memory will become to you in the future. So because of this connection I came up with the idea of not just doing a spoken word poetry film but a concept film. What I mean by this is creating a film which makes my words come to life, quite literally. The main topic behind my writing is going to be life so I thought why not film aspects of life and combine words together.
During my first week of starting my FMP I mostly gathered ideas and played around with different themes and topics which I could base my project around. These topics included ideas for my poetry and video clips. I tried to figure out how I could link my clips and words together to make it more meaningful and the message to be more powerful. I started to film little clips for my FMP already, whenever I would be out and about and something which capture my eye for example a sunset I would record it. This is the same with the writing aspect of my FMP. If I found a quote or thought of something which was inspiring I would write it down onto my notes on my phone or into my journal. I have found that doing these 2 things side by side is better than focusing on only one side of my FMP and leaving the other for a later date because it means my words and clips link together more nicely.
As you can see here these are my ideas which I put onto paper and just let my mind flow to allow myself to see which topics I can talk about and link together.
Week 1 3rd March-8th march
Week 2 9th-15th March
During week 2 of creating my FMP I mostly did research gathering to find out information and planned my pitch. I planned my pitch by lowering it down to 4 main topics which I should discuss. The main topics:
-Concept
-Method
-Research
-Skills
This helped me arrange my points in a organised manner. I also put together my pitch during this week and found fonts and background to use. I created my pitch on google slides.
This is my powerpoint for my pitch:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1gET4WfD16R4bOTyp7OQ6hHmo3GoFjD3QhUdXoDu3R34/edit#slide=id.p
Also during this week I started to research into influencers and people who inspired me. The main person I focused my research on was Alan Watts. I gathered information from online sources and wrote down everything which I discovered and put it into my statement of intent.
Which you can find linked below:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14QStVOOdIK91I18QQ8jeaVD_EKKPk5-xTnhfYXy4eSg/edit
While doing this it made me realise what an important topic I had picked and how positive messages last for decades.
Week 3 16th-22nd March
For week 3 of creating my FMP I did some research on the colour spectrum because I think its important to add colour into my video because colour manipulates and sparks emotions to the audience. I went onto online sources and found several things giving me information about the importance of colour and details about the colour spectrum. While being enthuse sites I created a google slides to look back on the main points which I wanted to remember and I also wrote notes down in my notebook.
These are the notes I took this week from different resources online which are linked in my powerpoint which I made:
My powerpoint on colour research:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1_wJHb3bVEgRqalln3nOpA9hHPuug7oH2vO_INMJigmA/edit#slide=id.p
Also while doing my research on colour I also decided to make a checklist of clips and shots which I had already filmed and wanted to film that week when I was out and about. This allowed me to keep on track of my research and planning but also film things in advance and keep onto of everything. I also scribbled down a few extra ideas which came to mind.
This week I did my pitch on Tuesday (17th March 2020)
The feedback I got for my pitch was mostly positive and I was told to take into consideration everything which is happening in the world currently due to Covid19. I may need to take some consideration into how I will film certain things if the situation gets worse and may need to readapt my project. I need to think about how I am going to record the audio for my project.
Here are some clips I got this week:
Week 4 22nd-29th March
This week the college has shut due to Corona virus because of this we will now be doing all our work from home. This means I will need to adapt on certain things in my project. For example one of my shots which I wanted to film was people in a coffee shop. However I won't be able to do this now due to the current situation. I will need to think about how I will adapt certain clips I had planned. I luckily have quite a few already pre filmed as you have seen previously. Due to this situation I will not be able to access audio recording equipment at college so I will have to compromise. I think the biggest thing which this situation has made me realise is how ironic it is that I am doing this project and basing it of the topic of happiness and life. I never thought back when I thought of this idea that a situation like this would unwind and I would be making it at such a peak time in society. Now more than ever we all need something to look forward to and something positive to watch. Covid-19 has impacted everybody across the world, schools, colleges and uniersities have all been shut. People are working at home. Some even losing jobs. People are panicking and stock piling and due to this leaving the supermarket shelves empty as you can see below. It's a scary time for all of us.
Week 5 29th-5th April
This week I have been out filming a few clips while going on my daily walks. I live near the countryside so it's easy for me to go out without the worry of bumping into people. I'v started to do my primary research too. So far I have created a small questionnaire which I am going to publish to social media at the end of this week to collect results. Here are a few of my clips I have gathered so far.
Week 6 20th April-26th
So this is the week after the 2 week easter break. During the easter break I still did a few bits and there regarding my project however I decided not to document these things on my website due to them being small. I started writing up a development and progress word document about my website and talk about the changes which I made throughout my progress so far. Heres a little sneak peek at my progress so far with my website and my improvements which iv made.
This week I have mostly trying to touch up my website and iv started to slowly plan my writing and poetry side to my project. I have been picking out the main topics which I am going to base it around.
Week 6 & 7 27th April-10th May
I decided to combine these 2 weeks together due to them being both based around my whole editing and writing process. I have started editing my film and currently near the end of these 2 weeks have gotten the hard part out the way. At first I started to put all the clips into adobe premiere pro and sorting through the best ones. Once I had picked my favourites I started to play around with colour. I made some clips brighter, darker, enhanced their natural colour to make the clips more appealing to the eye and hinder emotions in an audience. I did this also with exposure, saturation and shadowing. As you can see below with a side by side example.
I also used Lumetri Scopes as a guidline when I added colour to make sure I didn't over exposure or use too much of one colour.
I also had to make clips shorter by cropping them and cutting some down due to some being too long and certain seconds being better than others. While doing this I slowly started to build an idea and a concept around my film. Which is the metaphor throughout that 'Life Is A Puzzle' I started to see the small clips as puzzle pieces and thats what I wanted my film to be based on. I needed a main concept and I grasped onto one by editing through all my clips. This then helped me with the writing process. This gave me a main thing to base my poem around. So I wrote my poem and based it on puzzle pieces and train tracks.