SWOT Evaluation

Strengths

1. Concept & Narrative: I feel my concept is strong and has a clear meaning and is easy to follow throughout the film. Even though I have taken lots of different influence from various places I feel they have all come together cohesively and everything looks like it belongs together
2. Team Working & Organising: This project has involved a lot of team working and organisation skills from me. Organising the location, 4 site visits, 2 model agencies, 4 models, make up artists, accessory and jewellery designers, music composer, photographer and assistants, required a great deal of time management and thorough plan.
3. Styling: For this project I got a bit more hands on with the styling than I have done with previous projects, I made some of the bits such as the skirt, necklace and pompoms and I think the looks wouldn't have been the same without these bits and wouldn't have reflected my vision for the outfits. Also I extended my sourcing to people at uni because after using some garments from a student for a previous shoot I found that having that element of uniqueness with the styling is a bonus.
4. Flip Book: My flip book has had a lot of positive feedback for its professional appearance and overall impact, during my mock interview they said that my book should have been the first thing that I showed because its a really professional way of presenting my work in hard copy. I'm really glad I took the effort and time to put together the book, as I am really happy with the way it turned out.
5. Photoshop & InDesign: I have always had fairly good skills when it came to using photoshop and indesign, however for this project it has really pushed my skills further and they have developed a bit more. Due to the fact that my photographer didn't have any professional lighting, the lighting of the final pictures are a bit all over the place, so I had to photoshop a large percent of the final images to get them looking cohesive.
6. The Team: I think despite the problems I had finding models, with so many cancellations I ended up with a pretty good set of models, all of whom looked good on camera and took direction well especially as stop motion is so long to shoot. Also, my photographer Jacqui, who I had worked with before, is a talented photographer and gave me some good lighting despite not having proper kit. Also my make up artist Caitlin, worked really hard as she had a lot of make up and hair changes to do. I think we all worked really well together and I tried really hard to help everyone out (by providing pose boards and make up boards) and make everyone feel comfortable. 

Weaknesses

1. Stop Motion: I fully stand by my decision to do stop motion, as when it works it looks really interesting and I like the quirky element it adds, however I feel in areas of my film the sequences don't match together too well and parts are a bit jolty. Also I feel that parts are too much like stills put together rather than a flowing sequence of stills, however I guess this is just the nature of stop motion sometimes.
2. Editing: The decision to edit the film myself was my own, so I have no one else to blame for the editing of the film. Some parts are a bit dodgy and parts are too fast, however I tried my hardest and it took a long time, and I don't think I would have ever of been happy with it, I could have spent forever tweaking it, but I didn't want anyone else to edit it and I wanted full control over that area.
3. Commerciality: I feel that my work wouldn't be appropriate for a commercial purpose. My film isn't trend led or based around anything that would be relevant to the commercial world. With sites such as SHOWstudio, this isn't such a problem however I think that it would be very hard to place my film somewhere, however I created this film as a way of promoting myself to show my skills, not necessarily thinking about where it would be placed in the industry.
4. Communication: I have always struggled with talking about my work, especially in front of a group however I have had real trouble this year communicating my ideas clearly to the tutors and I feel that's where things get confused. I'm not really sure why this has happened, I think MPP really made me doubt a lot of things about myself and what I was doing at uni, which I guess made me loose my confidence with speaking about my work.

Threats

1. Relying on other people: Part of the role I do is organising other people, however people are not very reliable, this project I had a massive problem organising models, I had so many drop out and cancel last minute and many more who weren't available, however at the last minute everything came together. Also I was relying on my photographer to get lighting as I was after a very specific effect and she wasn't able to get lighting, this is something that was out of my control and we had to make do with what we had.
2. Sourcing: Finding exactly the right clothing that I am thinking of is very difficult. This is why for this project I have made some of the pieces to get the right look, as relying on whats available in the shops is very tricky and not always what I am after.

Opportunities

1. Technical: The opportunities I have had have mainly been learning new technical processes. I have improved my InDesign and Photoshop skills as well as skills with film editing, which will be helpful to know in the future.
2. Assisting: During the shoot I had a lot of opportunities to help out Jacqui with the lighting and photography which gave me a better knowledge of the photography side of things, such as how is best to get the right shot and the type of appropriate lighting, whether natural or flash lighting would work best. 

Clearly me and Jessie J think alike....

While watching a music channel Jessie J's new video for her new song comes on.... and she has used suspiciously similar themes to mine! Thought it was quite funny. Clocks spinning and exploding, black creatures, corridors, old houses. Guess shows what can be done with a massive budget!

NoShow

This is my video of the catwalk show at NoShow, until my camera died. The show was great and the catwalk was amazing, everyone's work looked so good, really proud of everyone. My film however was not really shown how I would have liked as the music was so quiet you couldn't hear it, and I don't think my film is as good without the music. But I got good feedback on my flipbook which is something.

Final Film

The Persistence of Time from Laura Collins on Vimeo.

Here is my final film in alls its glory. The final music from Emma really sets it off amazingly.

Flip Book

Here is my final Blurb book, I am really happy with it! It is massive and the pictures have come out really good quality, it is also quite easy to flick through and gives a new dimension to my film. I have got this stand for it which I will use at NoShow and GFW because I don't want my book just put somewhere flat, I want it propped up so people can see it and it looks more professional.



Music from Emma

Here is my final film with the start of the music Emma is doing for me, she sent me what she started with to see what I thought and so she was going in the right direction. I really like what Emma has done and was exactly what I was after, I did suggest to Emma that the ticking at the start needed to stop a bit later/earlier because it ends at a bit of a strange place, also I said that I liked the parts that were layered with all the different sounds so to continue with sections like that further on. Usually with films, you edit the film to the music however Emma has done a great job of editing the music to the film and timed it perfectly for example the bit at the end with the door. I am really happy with what she has produced and I am looking forward to seeing the rest!

CV

Marketing Plan

Currently I am in the process of writing my marketing plan. I am finding it very confusing writing a marketing plan, my film isn't something that would be 'marketed' it wouldn't be something that would be sold, like a print etc, someone interested in my film would be interested in me and my skills, so for this reason I am struggling to write a marketing plan in the right context. Also, the fact that I'm not a 'brand' and have no interest in working freelance, I am struggling to see myself in that light for the purpose of the marketing plan. I still am going to write the marketing plan, as I do think in someways it will help, particularly with trying to explain where I see my film being placed.

The most appropriate place for my film would be SHOWstudio, my film is not a commercial film and was not made for advertising purposes, so SHOWstudio being a place for creative fashion film is the best platform for my film. In the future I would quite like to create fashion films for a fashion magazine, as I think this is an area in which fashion magazines are starting to use more, however as my film isn't very trend led it wouldn't be appropriate for a fashion magazine.

My Website

I have had my website for a while now, but I have updated it and changed it a bit to match the design of my business cards and portfolio. I think a website is the best way for promoting my work and myself, as I work mainly digitally so it is easier to send people a website address than a pdf file or something.
Link: http://www.laurajanecollins.co.uk/

Film Editing

Here are some screen shots of my editing process. I used a basic film editor as it is perfectly efficient to use for the purpose of stop motion. If I had done a moving film I would have used more sophisticated software but for stop motion purposes this editing software was fine. The film took me quite a long time to edit as there were so many images to put together, and also to try and get it to run smoothly and not too quickly was difficult. I tried to vary the lengths of the shots to give a sense of pace throughout the film also adding a few effects to blend scenes better. As you can see from the images below, I have shown various sections to show how many images I was dealing with as well as changing the lengths of individual shots.



Business Card

Here are the designs for my business cards, I wanted them really really simple, with little information and straight to the point. I have decided to use one of the images from my film as the front because I really like the image and I think they reflect my work and my film and should hopefully remind people of my work. I have ordered these and I am also planning to do round business cards, which can be spun by string to create a moving image, I will be creating just a few of these to give out to the more important people as more of an eye catching way of presenting a business card.

Blurb Book

For hand in I am going to create a book and Blurb to form a flip book of the images from my film. It is quite a large book with 360 pages so hopefully wont be too tricky to flick. I have also had to put all the pictures in reverse as I found people mainly flip from back to front, so that was very time consuming going backwards.

This book is a cut down version of my final film, as if I have included all my images blurb wouldn't have been able to cater for that many pages, also in my film you wouldn't notice so much an odd smudge or zip or some other small error however in a book when you can spend time looking at each image if you wanted you may notice those small imperfections so I have just tried to include the best images.

The book is standard landscape and should hopefully look really good and be of high quality, I just hope it gets delivered in time!
Link to Blurb Book:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/1654293/b393c30285e7828a448404d1788284f8

Whats in a name?

Trying to find a name for my film is something I have been struggling over for a while. Throughout this project I have been looking for words and quotes to try and give me ideas however nothing has really grabbed me, and now is the time when I am needing a name. I looked through thesaurus's, dictionary's, online, art and film names and finally I have found something I like. After going through names such as: Time, Subconscious, The Trials of Time, The nightmare of Time, etc etc, I found inspiration from the Dali painting The Persistence of Memory and have decided to call my film.... The Persistence of Time.

I feel this is an appropriate title, it reflects my theme of time, dreams and unconscious and also the connotation with Dali just adds to the fact that this is a film about the subconscious and Dali has been a great influence on my film. Hopefully Dali won't mind too much me borrowing his name and adapting it for myself.

Editing, Editing, Editing, Editing....

With so many pictures needed to make a reasonable length film I am having to edit 80% of them and its a nightmare. Mostly its removing spots but I am having to do some fiddling with lighting and tones to make the sequences more cohesive. Also the clock scene is proving the longest thing to edit as I am having to edit a lot. Below are some example of what I have been doing, so far its taken me 3 days and im nearly done so hopefully it wont take too much longer to finish.

Adding Shadow - Unedited

 Edited

Editing Lighting - Unedited

 Edited

Adding Shadow - Unedited

 Edited

Enhancing Colour - Unedited

 Edited

Adding Clock Face - Unedited

 Edited

Removing Features - Unedited

 Edited

Layering Images - Unedited

 Edited

Clock Scene

Today I have completed the last bit of filming I had to do, the clock scene. I did this myself as there was no point getting Jacqui to do it because it is something I can quite easily do myself. I only used 5 clocks however I will edit it in photoshop so there are more to make more of an impact. I left my tripod at my uni house so I have DIY a stand high enough to get the clocks in, which also meant trying to keep the camera still and not to move it when I took each picture. Also another difficulty was trying to get the clocks back in the same position after each move, I use a small pencil mark to try and keep the clocks in as much of the same place as possible. 



Pictures for Models (Sneak peak of final images!)

As I got my models from agencies I have to send the agency some images for the girls portfolios. Below are the images I have edited to send them.

Sophie (Gingersnap):

Johanna (Gingersnap):

Yasmin (Room3Agency):

Picture for all 3 girls:

Ross (Room3Agency):



Stage Review

My stage review on Thursday went as expected, pretty average. Points made were I need to find somewhere where my video would be placed, for example would my video be more commercial or with the videos on websites such as Showstudio and it was suggested I should write a marketing plan like EMPers so I can have a clearer idea, I might write a basic marketing plan, just outlining the things that aren't clear at the moment. Other than that I there wasn't much else, Tiffany kept asking is this what you expected it to turn out like... I'm assuming that is because it doesn't look like what she was imagining but I think with some editing to make the sequences more cohesive and link smoother I think the video will come together nicely.

I have really enjoyed doing this film and I love stop motion, thing were very stressful on the lead up to the shoot with so many people cancelling but I feel I organised an extremely well run team and minus a few small glitches everything went very smoothly, and hopefully this shows how good I am at organising not only myself but a large team of people successfully.

Shoot Day, Behind the scenes

Yesterday was the shoot and everything ran suprisingly smoothly. The shoot lasted for 11 hours and dispite everyone getting lost and the male model not bringing black trousers, there were very few hicups on the day and everything ran easily. I was particuarly glad that everyone showed up as I had so many people cancel on me that most people had agreed to come pretty last minute. The images below are some backstage pictures taken by my helper for the day Katie Tremlett. I was ready prepared with my storyboards, outfit line up, shooting order, make up sheet and poses sheet to help everyone with what they needed to do. From what I saw on Jacquelines camera the images look great and I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on them and start editing them.