5th January - Today is the beginning of the TV Unit assessment. Our task is to create a 'make', a video demonstrating the creation of an item of our choice. We have assembled ourselves into two large groups and were given our roles (which we applied for a month ago). My group and their roles are: Poppy & Hrishita as the presenters; Dayton, Alex and Emily as the camera operators; Mathew as the floor manager; Daniela as the vision mixer; Myself as the sound mixer; Daniel as the autocue; Alicia as the PA; and Jacqueline as the director. Insights for the roles can be seen below

In order for our roles to be determined, we had to create letters in order to express our feelings on why we wanted that particular role and any skills that could be handy for the job. I applied for vision mixer, a very similar job to by role in the previous unit (horror film), my application letter can be found in the folder below. My role is sound mixer, my job is to take control of the sound panel during the make and mute parts of the film where needed and to adjust the volume of the presenter's voices if one is too loud or too quiet. I also had to learn which sound channel is linked to what presenter and my phone (for the background music), which could get confusing at some times however by labelling which channel is which it makes it much less confusing. I believe that I can manage this role well as I have experience on editing and a part of editing involves adjusting volumes of clips and/or having background music, which I believe is a crucial skill to have for managing this role. We also had side jobs such as: Modeling, creating VTs (prerecorded tapes or animations), script writing, buying equipment and figuring out the method of creating the make. The jobs we were given are: Jacqueline as the script writer, Mathew and I as the VT designers, Dayton and Alex as the Plan B creators and Emily as the studio designer. We were to hand in our VTs before Tuesday. The jobs, list of equipment, instructions on how to make the item and the script can be found in the folder below (note that I didn't contribute to any of the main document).

A good TV Make example would be the blue peter make series, as they have so much experience on managing the creation of a make. While analyzing one of their makes (specifically the hoodie backpack make), they use a range of shots to show: the reactions of the host and guests, the make itself along with the presenters and the creation process. They've also ensured that the volume of the host's voice was louder than the guests in order for the viewers to be able to hear what the host was saying on how to create the hoodie backpack. This is crucial unless there are no guests as the instructions on the make are more important than the reactions of the guests. A company must be able to gain attention and popularity through social media in order for their t.v program to survive. Some social medias include: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr etc. They can use a range of techniques to spread their t.v program such as: Using hashtags, allowing users to 'share' or 'like' or 'react' to their post to spread the media and through the use of publishers to create threads or news of the t.v program.

7th January - Mathew and I met up to create the VTs, we've agreed to create 4 VTs for the film: The Intro, The 'What you will need', A "Sweater Subheading" and a credits sequence. We've used an editing software called 'Screenflow" to create our VTs and developed a theme of paint as we're using watercolours to create our sweater. For the intro, we've created an idea using a roller paint to paint the intro on the spot. For the "What you will need" VT, we've taken a shot of a wooden table with paintbrushes, a paint can with paint (watermelon juice diluted with water) and a white background for the list of items. For the "Sweater Subheading" VT, we've taken a shirt template and created our own mini shirt logo to place below the subheading. For the outro, we've taken a plain background with green borders and made all the group members and their roles on the creation of the make. The VTs were hard to create due to the delay of feedback for our VTs, without her feedback, we wouldn't know how to improve the VTs. numerous feedback given by our director to improve the VTs, especially the intro since the script was altered so that the intro was to be made longer/shorter. I've also found music which is calm and relaxing (as requested by the group) for our background music (can be found in the folder below). The VTs and background music can be found in the folder below.

12th January - Today is the day of filming our make. Coming in to the studio I was very nervous about how the shooting will go as we seemed to be very disorganized at the start since it was a new environment and a new experience for us. We were placed in different areas of the studio depending on our role, the studio, the stage and the technical room. Those who were positioned in the studio are; the 3 camera operators (Dayton, Alex and Emily) were positioned next to the camera and is in charge of changing the angles upon the change of a scene; the floor manager (Mathew) is in charge of ensuring that health and safety is ensured throughout the studio, ensuring presenters look in the right camera, and in charge of informing the studio when a VT was about to end. The presenters (Hrishita and Poppy) are in charge of delivering the make process and took their place in the stage. And those who were placed in the technical were; the director (Jacqueline) ensuring that the make is ready to be filmed; the PA (Alicia) reminding everyone what is coming up in the script such as: the duration of a VT and when it will start/end and when a camera needs to be switched; the vision mixer (Daniela) who is in charge of camera switching and VT changing; and the sound mixer (Myself) who is in charge of when a presenter's voice needs to be muted or altered and ensuring that any background music is playing. Upon my arrival at the studio, I've been given a copy of the script to annotate any extra notes and was introduced to the sound panel to learned how to use it. The sound panel consisted of many switches with different functions, some switches include the presenter's microphone volume switch and the device volume switch (in this case, the switch for the volume of the music playing from my phone). I've made multiple annotations in the script to note when I should mute the music or mute presenters when necessary, this was a very laid back yet slightly crucial job to the shoot, because if any noise was made in the background of the shoot it could really affect the outcome of the shoot. We were beginning to start the rehearsals and we've made a lot of mistakes such as presenters stuttering, late camera and VT shifting and the auto cue not working properly. However, in the final shoot, we've luckily resolved most of these problems. The rehearsal and the real make can be found in the folder below.

In order to distribute our make, we must ensure that we understand our target audience and the current state of media consumers. Since we've produced a make, our target audience is for all ages since tutorials do not have a target audience unless the genre is intended for certain age groups. The current state of media consumers plays a huge role on whether we will have a lot of viewers or not. Currently, the use of televisions to view media is no longer as popular as the past, and the use of handheld devices to view channels is how most people view media nowadays. Therefore, we should publish our make to channels such as YouTube, one of the most popular websites for viewing media.

In the end, it was a brand new experience and environment for us, and although our make didn't come out the best, we still tried our best and produced a decent make. During the week of preparation for the make, we all found it a rush to get the VTs and the modelling done as our director had to deal with both. This delayed the response for our feedback on the VTs and also put the VT editing to a halt as we wouldn't know how to improve the VTs without the cooperation from our director. This put a huge burden on the director as she was basically in charge of ensuring that everything is prepared for the day of the shoot. While replaying the make, I noticed that the vision mixer had made a lot of errors such as; playing the VTs too late and switching camera POVs when they should not have been switched. These errors really bugged me as they really affected the outcome of the make. Nevertheless, it was understandable as it was the first time she's used an editing software (contrary to her previous role in the horror unit). The outcome of our make reflects our hard work on rushing to prepare for the make, I am proud that we were able to deliver a decent quality make given from the stress we've had during the week. I hope to come back to this unit and give it another go.