E-mail to Jaimie Oliver

I have E-mailed Jamie Oliver at the London Sea Life Centre after visiting at the weekend. This is to organise dates for filming and his participation in a filmed interview for the video.

Dear Jamie Oliver,
My name is Henry Cramer-Todd and I am a student at Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys and am currently studying A2 level Graphics, Media studies and Business studies. In the future I hope to become a film producer after studying at university. I have been a marine hobbyist for many years and have a reef tank of my own.

I am also currently working towards an EPQ qualification in which I have chosen to specialise in making an informative video about one of the reef tanks at the London Sea Life centre. This will be produced onto DVD format before being placed as an insert into the Marine Habitat magazine for Aquarian hobbyist.

I have undergone extensive research into critical theories and documentary filing as well as drawing upon my personal knowledge of marine species to create a plan for the video. The video will roughly be split into three sections relating to information on LPS, SPS, soft corals and invertebrate in one section whilst the other two are based upon the fish and technical elements to the tank.

I am wondering if you would be willing to participate in a filmed interview at some point between the 21st of October and the 11th of November to talk about the keeping and maintenance of the tank as well as its set up in terms of chemical dosage and lighting. I would also be filming the tank on the same day for the other sections of the video and would greatly appreciate a response.

If you are unavailable or do not want to participate in my project, I would be thankful if you were able you to put me in contact with another member of staff who would feel comfortable helping.
Thank you for taking this into consideration.

Yours Sincerely,
Henry Cramer-Todd

Update (treatment and gantt chart)

Treatment:

This is an nformation video starting with an establishing shot of the Sea Life Aquarium exterior. This is then followed by several more establishing shots of display tanks inside the aquarium.This includes shots from the turtle displays, shark enclosures and freshwater fish tanks to give variation and to show the wide veriety of species that are available in the aquarium. The entire video is overlayed upon a cool soothing soundtrack to replicate the smooth motion of the fish. A female voice over will begin explaining the London Sea Life centres background and scale.

The next part of the video will include a voice transition where the interview with Matt Haworth begins. His voice will be overlayed upon the main fish footage before cutting to the visuals of him. His name will appear to animate itself in the bottom right hand corner of the frame 'Matt Haworth - Coral Section Head'. These visuals are of him explaining his postition at the sea life aquarium and how he got to where he is now. He will be talking for about 4-5 minutes about the various tanks in the aquarium and the set up and up-keep of the red sea tank specifically. The video is static with Matt placed on the left hand side of the rule of thirds. The lighting is dark but brighter on Matts body and face to give him importance. This video will be intercutting with a more mobile camera to the right side to give variation.

This treatment was approved by my supervisor and now I can begin to plan the practical side of the filming process.

Premier Pro CS5.5

For my video i will need to accumilate my footage into one piece of software and edit them together. I have past experience with Premier Pro CS5.5 and therefor am going to use this software when editing the clips. This software is complicated however is perfect for putting footage together and adding visual and audio effects/transitions. I have used this software before to create videos for my Media Studies projects and have had great success however it has been some time. I have looked on You Tube for tutorials on the basics of Premier to brush up on my skills. This video allows the audience to create a composition all the way to exporting in the correct format. I have learned a number of skills i hadnt before known through the entire length of the video. He covers the following areas.
Overview of Interface
Settings Setup
Keyboard Shortcuts
Sequence Setup
Importing Footage
Tools Overview
Applying Effects and Transitions
Creating Titles
Creation of Color Mattes
Overview of Exporting
This video is fully explained and shows exactly what is being explained. I was able to find all of the tools explained in the video and due to the large number of positive reviews i believe this is a credible video as it has helped me further my undersanding of the software.

Technical Analysis

In order to create a documentry video i will need to analyse the common conventions of this type of film making ad therefore i have decided to use a technical analysis of a video shown on YouTube featuiring David Saxbys marine tank.

Shot Number	Duration	Camera	Mise-en-scene
1	4	Static, Low angle. Flat lens zoom. Medium Close-up	Colourful fish swimming around, lots of motion. Mellow, methodical electronic sound track in the background.
2	3	Static Flat lens zoom	Very vibrant colours, lots of motion. Same sound track
3	5	Low angle, Mid shot. Wide angle with small pan from right to left following subject. Subject on right third	Fish swimming with subject in plain clothes covering the tank. Voice over begins with David Saxby – the subject talking about the tank.
4	3	Pan from top to bottom of the frame, Medium close up.	Fish swimming. Specifically follow the path of a yellow tang. Voice over continues
5	6	Static medium close up with subject on left third.	David shown in the centre/ left third of the frame with tank in the background.
6	7	Pan from right to left, medium shot.	Contents of tank showed swimming in the pan.
7	4	Mid close up, static shot with main subject (coral) in the centre of the frame.	Blue coral contrasting white sand and blue/ green trigger swimming from left to right.
8	4	Static medium close up with subject on left third.	David shown in the centre/ left third of the frame with tank in the background.
9	7	Low angle pan from top to bottom, medium close up.	Fish swimming to a pan down to closer corals, almost a rack focus.
10	9	Pan from bottom right to top left, mid close up.
11	7	Static medium close up with subject on left third	David shown in the centre/ left third of the frame with tank in the background.
12	9	Worms eye view pan from right to left mid close up.	Corals and fish, fish in top half, corals in other.
13	3	Close up pan left to right, main subject in focus on left third.	Cardinals in shot, mixture of colours.
14	7	Static close up with subject in centre of frame	David shown in the centre/ left third of the frame with tank in the background.
15	6	Handicam high angle close up.	Goldfish showing a completely different side to video. In freshwater.

This technical analysis pointed out a number of things that i can use within my final video.

• The cutting rate is often varied and gives an even feel to the pace of the video.
• Intercutting between the video of the interview and the B roll of the tank is very effective.
• Voice overlappping onto B roll video was proffessional and looked and sounded great.
• The same shot of the David Saxby used when interviewed throughout the video gave a constant. Something that gave the video direction and a shot the the audience could view over and over.
• Variations in shots of fish kept the video exciting, repeated subjects in the frame of repeated footage would get very boring.
• The information given by the interviewee was concise and to the point meaning there was little disturbance in the inteded and trasmitted message supporting the view of sheltons communication theory.

Critial Resource Analysis

SOURCE TYPE	HARVARD REFERENCE	CREDIBILITY OF SOURCE	IMPACT ON YOUR RESEARCH/PROJECT
Book	Shelton, M (2004) Communicating Ideas with Film, Video, and multimedia. Illinois: University Press.	This source is relatively credible however a large proportion of the content is drawn upon by Shelton’s own thoughts whilst the rest is from other books and authors.	This book provided great critical theory concepts worth noting as well as a large impact on my background research on information media.
Website	Marine Habitat (2012) ‘Conservation: Background info’www.marinehabitatmagazine.com/coral-reefs/background-info	This source is very credible as it provides solid facts regarding their ethos towards conservation and background to their company.	This has provided a good selection of background information into Marine Habitats work ethos and supports to keep in mind when drafting for my version of their cover.
Website	Terry White, (20/8/08) ‘Magazine Cover Design in InDesign’  http://layersmagazine.com/magazine-cover-design-in-indesign.html	Terry White is well renowned in the Adobe industry for design and is known as a ‘guru’ for these reasons his teaching credible.	This has given me a good understanding of how a magazines cover can be designed using Photoshop.
Magazine	Marine Habitat magazine. Cover page (1)	Marine Habitat is a well renowned marine hobbyist magazine and as I am assessing the hard copy of the magazine for conventions it is a credible source.	Using this magazine to analyse layout and techniques has given me an insight into the common conventions of a magazine from Marine Habitat as well as text and imagery ideas.
Website	www.marinedepot.com/md_educationcenter_species.html	This source has very precise information on a wide range of species. Some of their information may be debated in the caring of species although for my project this source is credible enough to trust the facts provided.	I now have a reliable source of information on any marine species I wish to include on my project.
YouTube	UnravelMedia. (2011) ‘Introduction to Premiere Pro CS5.5’ YouTube. (0:41-1:24:26/1:24:26) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1sNeLJLACI [accessed  25th September 2012]	Unravel Media produce high quality informative videos that have been given strongly positive audience reviews. For this reason this source is credible as well as the fact that the techniques are current and were used by myself effectively	This has allowed me to enhance my skills of using Premiere Pro which I can use for my final product including text effects and colour correction.
YouTube	ExpertVillage. (2008) ‘How to Make a Documentary Film: How to Interview for a Documentary Film’ YouTube. (0:00-2:34/2:34) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdzQHSZRd2Y [accessed 25th September 2012]	Expert Village have 138,000 tutorial videos online and have always had popular view counts and ratings. The information given makes sense and is relatively credible.	Viewing this has given me a great idea of what to think about when interviewing Jamie Oliver at the Sea Life centre.
YouTube	ExpertVillage. (2008) ‘How to Make a Documentary Film : Equipment for Making a Documentary Film’ YouTube (0:00-2:38/2:38)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN_rsJephcY [accessed 26th September 2012]	Expert Village have 138,000 tutorial videos online and have always had popular view counts and ratings. The information given makes sense and is relatively credible due to the poo ratio of likes to dislikes.	By watching this video I now have a greater idea of equipment I will be needing to consider when both filming the tank as well as the interview.
YouTube	Lindoshop. (2011) ‘Depth of Field and Lens effects.’ YouTube (0:00-24:05/24:05)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KmnnJQ3X_k [accessed 29th September 2012]	Lindoshop do some very informative technical videos on camera capabilities and how to incorporate them, they all have high positive views and are practical tutorials and therefor are credible.	I found this useful as despite being aimed towards photography the focus information is essential for this type of filmic design.
YouTube	Polcan99. (2011) ‘Documentary Filming Tips & Tricks: Camera Equipment - Filmmaking Tutorial 18’ YouTube (0:00-9:57/9:57)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8sr1CswWcE [accessed 30th September 2012]	The view count is very high and the ratings are largely positive meaning the information in this video is relatively reliable. Also the information is practically shown and therefor solid fact.	This video has been useful in terms of what to include on a shoot to a location far away.
YouTube	PetStreetFilms. (2008) ‘The best coral reef aquarium in England.mov’ YouTube (0:00-3:14/3:14) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmlx4Qi6SlM [accessed 30th October 2012]	The information I have gained form this sources is very credible as it is solid facts about video making and not personal opinion.	This has been very useful to analyse as I have gained a greater understanding of how to plan out a video about a marine fish tank with regard to video and audio intercutting etc.
Leaflet	Karen Johnson (2011) Advanced Portfolio: Unit G324 A2 Media Studies: Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys media department.	Quite a credible source of information as the author is an A level teacher. If I were to question any part of the source I could always ask the author as she is a teacher at my school. Although the text is based around construction of music videos I could use the fundamental principals and gear it towards documentary filming, although this does impact the credibility.	Important source proving information toward how to go about completing a technical analysis of a video to understand the construction of these texts.
Leaflet	Karen Johnson (2009) Unit G324 Advanced Portfolio and Unit G325 Critical Perspectives Q1a & b: Theoretical Concepts Reading Booklet: Tunbridge Wells Grammar School for Boys media Department.	Extracts are used within this leaflet from other authors. The extract I used is from Stuart Hall who is a renowned cultural theorist, therefor the information is reliable.	This provided further reading into the communication theory I had previously looked at by a different theorist. (Shelton, 2004)
Website (printed)	Fraser (2002) ‘Production Tips – 50 ways to improve your practical work’ http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/download/archive_mm/_past_archive/Production _tips [accessed 30th October 2012]	This source is largely credible as it was published on the englishandmedia website as well as the mediamagazine, showing these sources are willing to present this knowledge and trust it.	A number of the tips ranging from 1-50 helped in every stage of production from research to production and post. They were small things to think about in all areas that made the project run smoother.