Health and Safety for unit 32, Bristol promotional

Health and safety was a key issue when filming the Bristol promotional, the fact that we were in a city which non of us were familiar with only added to the possible issues we would run into.
To maintain our safety whilst filming in this unfamiliar location, we grouped into teams of three or four, this was done not only to have more people filming at any given time, but also the additional benefit of safety in numbers. If we ever were to find ourselves in a dangerous situation we would have the support of the rest of our groups to rely on. Filming in groups also helps us to locate our filming locations.
Groups also help us to transport and protect our equipment, carrying hundreds of pounds worth of equipment brings its own risks, but being in a group means that whilst two or three of us are filming, the other can keep our unused equipment safe.

Loose wires and equipment also raises issues in regards to health and safety, during Filming it was sometimes necessary to lay our wires and cables, this created a danger of a pedestrian or indeed ourselves tripping over the wires and injuring ourselves. If a member of the team were to fall over some of the equipment this might not be such a big issue, but if a member of the public were to trip on our equipment than this would be much more serious. To remedy this we used tape to secure all of our equipment together, minimising the area which an accident could occur, we also had a member of out team stand next to the wires to warn anybody who passed by of there presence.

We also tried to avoid public locations during peak hours, at peak times of the day the presence of the public is to large to film, not only for access to locations to film, but also as a health and safety risk. Filming in these locations in these locations during these times would increase the risk of injury on the the equipment.

Client Feedback; Promotional Video

From the Clients feedback i know that changes need to be made to improve the quality of the final piece, the fact that four out of the six check boxes are only marked good proves this. 

Communication between me and the client should have been constant, with me providing him updates and drafts over the course of the production. The only contact i had with my client was at the initial meeting and when i handed him the final piece, if i were to re-do this piece i would have set up meetings throughout the production, showing him the progress made throughout the week, and if not meetings than emails providing him the drafts. 

The safety aspect is always tricky to do sensibly and responsibly, during the filming in Bristol, we set out in groups of three or four, whilst i could maintain responsibility for my group, there was very little i could do for the others. However if i were to re do this then i would have sat down with the full team and gone over safety precautions with everyone. 

Incorporating the clients ideas was tricky as i was essentially given free reign over the content of the piece, the only brief i was given was to provide a 1 minute cut and a full cut, which i provided. In hindsight i should have shown and explained all of my ideas in detail rather than the explanation i gave. 

Organisation Of Footage

 An example of how i have organised my footage and audio for my Promotional video is within the communal HNC One Drive account. Following our return from Bistol, we all unloaded our footage onto this One Drive so that we will all have access to everything we recorded. I reviewed each piece of footage within the folder and titled it so that i would know what each clip when it came to use them. This proved invaluable when machining my Promotional video, as without these labels i would have potentially spent hours going over every clip.

Bristol promotional video, 3 minute edit

My promotional video proved to be quite challenging, shot types, colour grading, camera techniques and lighting varied across the clips due to the fact that the entire HNC contributed to this piece. For example, one persons aperture might be slightly higher than it needed to be, on its own this wouldn't necessarily be an issue, but directly after it there might be a clip where the aperture is higher than it needed to be. This creates a contrast in quality that is hard not to notice, whilst this is a flaw in the work it would prove to be very hard to fix, each location required its own camera settings, its own lighting settings and so on.The only way i could imagine this being fixed if i were to recreate the piece would be if a small group of people filmed everything, rather than a large group which assisted me in this piece.

The fact that this piece was cut to music also raises issues with its quality, due to the fact that the music within the video is fairly fast paced, with rapid, consistent beats upon which i used as a template for my editing, the final piece could perhaps be to rapid for viewers, the audience only has a few seconds or two to interpret and appreciate the images they are seeing. whilst this is an issue, i believe that this is still true to my original plan for the video.The rapid pace and the frantic editing only justifies my idea of representing the fast pace, grimy and essentially human aspect of Bristol and our time there.

Another issue with the final piece is the inclusion of the vox pop, specifically the transition into it, i reduced the volume of the music slowly so it blended into the audio of the vox pop, I lowered the audio about a second to quickly, resulting in an obvious disconnect between the music and the audio if the vox pop. If i were to re-do this piece id extend the transition to about half a second longer, so the transition from both audios is smoother.

After showing the piece to the client he was pleased with the final piece, but also highlighted some issues within that he would like to be corrected. He explained that whilst the song did give the piece a certain energy and vibrancy, it could potentially turn off some potential HNC applicants due to its more chaotic and intimidating music. Whilst i can clearly see how this would impact with HNC applicants, i believe that this song still fits perfectly, and is an accurate representation of my time at Bristol.

Promotional video planning

After our initial meeting my client explained that he didn't want to put to many limitations on my vision for the promotional video, he wanted me to have full creative control over the video. He explained that a promotional video for next years HNC should come from from someone who has experienced it. The only limitations and requests he gave me, is that he wanted a one minute version for use on the colleges instagram, and a full version which should be around 3 minutes.

immediately i began to think of ideas for the piece, i want to create a piece that not only shows my experience on the trip, but also highlights the creativity that the HNC has to offer.

I wanted to make this promotional video personal, i wanted to create a piece that not only showcased what the HNC has to offer, but our own individual talents. This film will be a showcase of our own individual talents. This piece is essentially a showcase of what this years HNC has to offer, This piece will rely entirely on the strength of the footage captured by myself and the my fellow Hnc.

I want this film to personal, in my previous post of the analysis of promotional videos for cities, i mentioned how impersonal it was, how the images shown to the audience didn't capture how intimate a city could be, these videos always show the clean, the aesthetic version of a city, yet they negate the rugged, the dirt, the underbelly of a city, the version of the city we see. The piece i want to make will alter this, i want to show the audience the true nature of this city, its beauty, its pride, its fear and its condition. If this film is for the next years HNC then how better to showcase it then my version of the city.

I wanted to set this piece to some music, something to set the tone for the raw starkness of the piece i wanted to make. I have some friends who form the band "Brown Brogues", they gave my vocal conformation that i could use there song "Split Disk", For me this song is a perfect representation of my experience within the trip, Overwhelmed with possibilities yet nervous of the outcome.
The piece will be edited to the music, which i hope will interest and intrigue the audience into asking my clients about the HNC. I will include links to the college and the course itself at the end of the piece

As the majority of the film will rely on the footage created by those who were with me during our time at bristol, it will be incredibly hard to create a consistent style through the film, but, different styles throughout the film will only highlight the various talents the HNC has to offer, however if the audience can tell that various artists took part in the filming of this piece than that only seven to nightlight the unique talent the HNC caters to.

Bristol Promotional 1 minute version

Bristol Draft Promotional Video

Bristol Promotional video planning

THE BRIEF

As a group you will create a 3- minute promotional video to entice students, young professionals (16-35) to visit Bristol instead of the attractions of other big cities such as Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool. The film will be fresh, vibrant and highlight all Bristol has to offer be it culture, retail or social. the video must not contain and copyright material and must be shot in full HD (1080p) 

To begin planning our promotional video, we first had to review and critique other promotional videos, discussing and noting what we believe worked and didn't work in them, so that we could create a video that not only captured the raw atmosphere of Bristol, but also enticed our target audience to visiting.

We looked at promotional videos abroad and at home to guarantee our plan would be accurate and effective in portraying the city, the first promotional video i looked at was created by a student who attended Bristol University. A student who lives in Bristol would seemingly portray the city in a genuine and sincere way, as they would be more knowledgable in the atmosphere and culture of the city, as they are currently living in that city.




An interesting aspect of this film is that it relies heavily on time lapse shots of the city streets themselves, focusing more on the day to day routine and atmosphere of the cities people, rather than generic establishing shots of the cities attractions and monuments. The film seems to have been colour coded resulting in every shot having an almost yellow or orange tint to it. Whilst this is indeed visual striking, the fact that it is repeated for every shot eventually leaves it feeling generic and repetitive. the same can be said about the technical camera work for this video, the video opens with vast establishing shots of the city streets, almost with overwhelming depth and detail, but again this same shot is repeated constantly throughout the video.

What i took away from this film was that when it comes time to filming of my promotional video is that various camera shots must be used in order for the film to remain visually interesting, and that i should also experiment with colour coding to create an interesting visual flair that not only looks compelling, but is also symbolic of Bristols culture and atmosphere.



The next promotional video i researched was a video made by a professional advertisement company that creates promotional videos for cities and locations across europe. I chose this video to analyse and discuss as i wanted no only to take notes on a professional piece of work with more advanced equipment and budget, but also to explore possible thematic and technical choices throughout all of my research.





whilst this film is excellently made, all the camera shots and editing techniques used are pristine, light levels are balanced and every shot is focussed well, it feels devoid of atmosphere, rather than capture the raw atmosphere of london, its culture and its essence, the film makers have created an obviously artificial view of london. The video focusses on the attractions and monuments of the city rather than capture the streets, the culture and people that make london such a vibrant city. for lack of a better word the video feels to corporate, devoid of emotion, traded in for an obvious picturesque view of london which is unrealistic. if the film were to feature more abstract camera techniques, shots of the city streets outside of the tourist district than it would feel much more vibrant and real that it currently is. as it stands i believe this film would not attract the target audience we intend to market to.

from this video i have concluded that my promotional video shall incorporate shots of all the attractions explained in the brief, but also intertwined with shots of the streets, the people and the culture of Bristol in order for the video to feel more heart felt and sincere.


The next promotional video a researched was created by a freelance film making current working out of Bristol, i believe this film creates a more personal, heartfelt video whilst still looking professional and slick, i chose to discuss this video as as mentioned above, i wanted to view a promotional video that was both an accurate portrayal of the city by an individual who experiences the city everyday





i personally believe this film is an almost perfect template of a promotional video, it blends abstract camera and editing technchiques with a intimate portrayal of the city which results in a heart felt but professional portrayal. the video relies heavily on time lapse shots combined with an extremely slow pan or tracking shot, whilst similar promotional videos i have discussed use this same technique, what this video does differently is the combination of tourist attractions and city streets, we are presented with an impressive pan of the ss Great Britan, juxtaposed with a shot of graffiti artists creating a mural in the BearPit, this seamless transition between historic monuments and contemporary urban settings creates the impression that the city is just as historically influential as it is urban. i believe that this video is closer to the target audience of young professionals and students than the other videos i have analysed.

this promotional video will essentially be a template for my promotional video, i will emulate the videos use of wide establishing shots combined with more personal close ups of the city streets.

locations to visit 

Our brief instructed us to include 10 pre established locations, in our group plan we came to the conclusion that rather than spend the entire day commuting between the ten locations, we should split the locations into 4 different teams, this way we would not only save time between the journey to each location, but send longer on each location, resulting in more professional and stylised footage.

TEAM 1
Joe; director
Aj ; cinematographer           locations; Cabot Tower/ College Green
Caitlin; safety/runner

TEAM 2
Ben; safety/runner
Claudia ; cinematographer  locations; Millennium Square/ Arnolfini/ Thekla
Leah; director

TEAM 3
Emily; Safety/runner
Olivia ; director                   locations; Clifton Bridge + Area/ Observatory
Ellie; cinematographer

TEAM 4
Emily; safety/runner
Connie; director                 locations; Bear Pit/ Xmas Steps/ Park Street
Leah; cinematographer


We will be staying at the Rock And Bowl Hostel located on Nelson Street, the hostel is essentially in the very centre of Bristol, meaning that it will be extremely convenient for all the groups, as we won't have to commute as far to our locations, compared to staying on the outskirts of Bristol, where a large majority of the day would have been the commute to each location.

Rock and Bowl hotel 

Nelson Street

luckily all of our target locations are within a 30 minute walk from the Hostel, below are the locations shown on google maps,

                                                                         Cabot Tower
                                                              approximately 20 minute walk

College Green

approximately 40 minute walk 

EQUIPMENT LIST 

DSLR Camera x2/per group
TRI- POD x2/per group
SD card/ 1 for each camera
GOPRO
Handheld Steady Cam


Story board