Tuesday 25 March 2014

Google Form

Last night, I sent out a Google Form to find out more about what the Selwyn House School thought of our school and what things make it special. I sent the form to:
a) Years 5 - 8 Teachers and Students
b) Support and Specialist Staff
c) Year 1 - 4 Teachers (for them to fill in the form as a class)

The google form I sent to Year 5 - 8 looked like this




The same form was sent to Year 1 - 4 Teachers and Support/Specialist Team except I deleted the last question.

Even in that short amount of time, I have already received thirty responses. The four most popular places have been; The Playground (17), The Atrium (14), The Food Tech Room (13) and Other (13).

I can't wait to get more answers and I will use this information to help me to develop a route that I will most likely use. This will also be useful for my proposal when I create my mock up of the lip dub.

Best places of the school - ✔

Sunshine & Rainbows
Hana

P.S. Feel free to fill out the form if you know anything about Selwyn House.

Thursday 20 March 2014

Proposal Sheet

Today, I filled out my personal project proposal sheet. This is what it looks like:


All of Year 8 had to do this,


My friend has asked me to help to support her blog for her personal project, click here to see it.

Sunshine & Rainbows
Hana

Working Backwards

Today, I created a plan of what I need to do by working backwards from my main goal this Term and the beginning of next Term, talking to our principal to get funding. Here is what I planned (excuse the messy hand-writing):


I am planning on creating the Google Form for the school tomorrow. When I set it all out like this, it looks quite manageable.

Here's another lip dub. Notice that they don't really showcase the school in any way.



Sunshine & Rainbows
Hana


Tuesday 11 March 2014

My First Mentor Meeting

On Tuesday, I had my first mentor meeting with Señora Ryan. I told her what my personal project was about and then how my progress had gone so far. She thought that I was on the right track and didn't need much help from her for the time being. Her advice to me was that I had a mock up of what the lip dub might look like when I propose to get funding by just using a handheld camera and maybe getting one of my peers to walk around with me so that our principal can have a good idea about what it might look like. Then I will most likely have a better chance of getting funding.

While I'm here, here's another clip to get you thinking. What parts of the school do you think I should showcase? I think, definitely the music room, all of our specialists and the IB Programme.





Wednesday 5 March 2014

Happy

Hey!

Today I found out who my mentor is - our Spanish teacher! I've sent her an e-mail asking what mentor meeting times would work best for her (She hasn't given me permission to use her name yet so I'll update this when she does).

I've also been looking at a whole lot more lip dubs. While searching, the song "Happy" by Pharrel Williams came up on the side bar part where there are links to related videos. I had a look and thought "Hey. This is lot like what I'm doing." Our art teacher showed the Happy website to us and I thought that it was really cool. It is a lip dub to "Happy" at different times of the day with different people. Here is a compilation of all of the people in one video.



I thought that this was a really good lip dub because of its great, catchy song and the fact that each person who fronts it is really into the song. I also thought that the website was pretty cool too.

Click here to go to the "24 hours of Happy" website where you can see all the different at different times of the day.

My next step will be to start working out how much the equipment is going to cost. To do this I am going to have to look up some companies that will hire me out the steadicam and the other equipment I need. Then I am going to have to ring them up and get a quote so I can go to our principal with a proposal that includes all the information I need.

Sunshine & Rainbows
Hana

Monday 3 March 2014

Receiving A Reply

On the 1st of March, I received an e-mail back from my expert. He answered my questions very thoroughly and I put together some of his main points to share with you -

  • Approximately it took him a month and two weeks to plan, film and edit the lip dub
  • Approximately it cost him $2000 dollars to plan, film and edit the lip dub not including editing equipment and other things that his school already had. He said that that would cost about $2000 dollars more, although he did hire a segway and special sound system and given that Selwyn House is quite small I probably won't be needing a segway!!
  • He told me to get in touch with the composer of the song that you chose and check it with them if it is okay to use their song. Also, it's easier to get in touch with a New Zealand artist so try to chose an upbeat, fun, recognisable, Kiwi song.
  • The most important step is planning. Everything needs to be thought out before the day because you don't wait to have major problems on the day of filming caused by you forgetting something. 
  • When filming, you need to get people engaged and excited so that the school looks good on camera.
  • Necessary equipment - A camera (a stedicam is better if you can get hold of one), sound system (for playing the music so that the people who front it, the people who go in front of the camera, can lip-sync in time.)
  • Helpful but not necessary equipment if you can't afford it - Lighting (for moving from outside to inside), a helicopter (probably not necessary, but how he did the last shot in the StAC lip dub), Segway (As I said earlier, I probably won't need one)
  • IT IS NOT EASY! If you can pull it off, you can be very happy with what you have achieved, but it is by no means a small undertaking.
I was very grateful for his prompt response. Now, I will need to find out more information. My next step will be to find out exactly how much it will cost. I probably won't need lighting, a helicopter or a segway so that takes off some of the $4000 dollars that it might cost. I will also need to find out what editing equipment I will need to use as I have not done this sort of thing before. Then, once I have the costs,  I will need to make a proposal to our principal to see if I might be able to get some funding for the lip dub. 

Sunshine & Rainbows
Hana