28 Sept 2007

DJ for the event

I've spoke to a friend of mine who have done a few shows at kiss radio, and does DJ at clubs as part time.

He love our idea, and would like to help out for the event, but he has many big events on hands since September till the end of the year. He said he'll go back and check his schedule, will confirm with me by earli next week.

And he also mentioned that if he can't make it for the night, he will mixed music to couple of cds to play on the night. This is a important thing we should consider actually because since we are not doing a big party kind of event, we don't need a real DJ to scratch the disc or all that.

I think it would be good enough if we just get someone to play the music (from the CD) throughout the night. After all, music is not a main theme for our event, it's more like a background setting, to create the relaxing atmosphere for the event. Eventually, the event is about networking and provide a opportunity for patients to know each other. Guess we don't need too loud musics around, rather more chill music and even commercial music.

27 Sept 2007

Stacey rough cut

Have been working on the rough cut for couple of days since this week, which suposed to be the holidayssss. Well, not only busy with editing but also my ICP group project, meeting up with my ICP group member almost everyday because out event was having some trouble and worries before. Finally, now we have sorted things out and locked in everything.

Just finished another editing session now, I found it sometimes hard to edit our story because we have many audios overlapes and which need to be listening carefully times and times to pick up the better version.

Besides, we actually want to include the parts when Stacey mentioned how important her daughter is to her, however, we still couldn't find a good point to put in.
Somehow, the editing just harder than I espected and maybe because there are really too many assignments due next week, which made me a bit dizzy.

-TV rough cut due next Wed,
-PR presentation due next Thursday
-PR interview need to be done before next Tuesday
-and surprisingly, i even got a class on Saturday for "Complimentary skills for communicators", which is a short course style class takes whole day from 930am-530pm. ><

Tiriing....

26 Sept 2007

Venue Locked in, invites printed

We went to Peter Mac this morning to have a quick chat with Kate about the underage are not allowed to get in the venue problem, and to print out the invites.

Kate told us the underages are minors, and they seldom turn up to the event, so we don't have to worry about it, which make us releive a lot. She is happy with what we've got now, in terms of the venue and the raffling prizes. I felt much more better and confident after talked to her. I was worry that the elephant bar wasn't as nice as red scooter, and the atmosphere might not as good as red scooter as well, but chatting with Kate brought me back to our initial starting point - arranging a social networking night for the cancer patients. The main purpose is not about getting a nice venue, but to arrange and encourage patients to networking with each other.

I finally feel relieved because things changed overnights and I feel heavy responsibility on my shoulder for this venue because Jimeoin's manager seems quite strict on the venue for him. Luckily, Jimeoin happened to performed at this venue before and they are happy if we switch the venue, and also does Kate. From her appreciation, I felt contented and which get me rid of the pressre or sponsorship problem and brings me back to that we are doing it for a good cause. :)

Now the most important thing we need to do is to get the MC, print out the posters and keep looking for more sponsorship for the raffling.

24 Sept 2007

Worry about our ICP project - Back-up venues

Me and kim went to a few venues today, and found one might be suitable for our event as back-up idea, "The elephant and Wheelbarrow" at the corner of Exhibition and Bourke st. Their second floor (click for detaled map)has a stage area, with lightiing where we think should be good for a comedy show or for the MC and guest speaker to stand on. We've got their catering menu as well, click for the function menu. The platters they've got seems good for share, and cost little, the staff there suggessted us 8 platters should be fine for 100 people, which would be app.$320-400, depends on what platter we want.

In this way, it only cost about 4 dollars per head for finger food, and they don't have minimium charge, we don't have to worry how many people we need to get, just try to get as many as we can, aiming to the initial taarget around 100 people. And it can lower our entry ticket price as well, and we will be able to continue our raffling for the fantastic prizes we've got. The entry ticket and the raffle ticket should be enough to cover our extra cost, such as the blank DVd, and the food and drinks for the perfomers, MC, guest speakers, friends come to help out..etc.

This place is not as fancy as Red scooter, but we have more choice on the finger food, more control and less pressure of the budget. There are three car parks around that bar, so parking should be fine, people can park for flate rate which is about $6 or $7 for the whole nigh. Anyway, it's is just a back up venue we found for our event.

For the sponsorship and the venue, i suggest that we might need to set a date to decide the venue within this week. I do understand it takes time to get the sponsorship, because I've triyng on getting sponsorship since beginning of this month, and only a few of them replied. Justine, I know you are very confident with the sponsorship, and I really appreciate that you have done for our project, but until now(25th of Sept, it's about 3 weeks away from our event), we haven't send out the invites and settle down the venue, so I'm worry that we don't have many more time to wait. But if everyone are keen to go with red scooter and happy to wait for the sponsors, that's fine with me also, it's our (six of us) project.

23 Sept 2007

Sunday filming, the last filming for "Stacey"

Christine and Dylan suddenly pull out on Friday for valid excuses., so only me and Kim went for the filming on Sunday. We didn't reschedule out filming and decided to go only two of us because we are worry about the upcoming assignments due might occupy most of our time, and also Dylan will be away from next Friday so he will still not be able to help out for the filming. And we got Kim's boyfriend to drive and Anthony to help out.

However, the filming on Sunday didn't go smoothly as we expected because of the poor lighting. As a result of considering only two of us will be going to film, we brought the dedo lights instead of the red head, which acutally led to a lighting disaster.

The weather on Sunday was not so good, it was windy, sometimes cloudy and sometimes sunny. Most importantly, the sunshine didn't come through into the house as the first time we filmed, which caused the poor lighting of our footage.

The scene and the shot we were planning to get was the livingroom scene where Stacey is doing houseworks, wiping the windows and saying hi to the kids in the neibourhood.

We spent an hour or so to set up the lights, tried to light up Stacey's face, but the dedo light is just not strong enough to balance the sunlight outside the window. Besides, we also have problems of the heavy shadow of Stacey which caused by the dedo lights, as well as the reflection of the dedolights on the window.

I felt bad that I couldn't set up the proper light for the filming because I think the lighting is also part job of DOP's. We really should have brought the red heads:(

We still took some shots of Stacey doing house works and getting together with neighbourhood kids, and hoping that we will be able to adjust the poor lighting in the post editing.

Although it wasn't a satisfied shooting, I really learnt a lot, and have a clear understanding of how different the red heads and dedo lights is.

DRAMA

The sponsor changed their mind...

Now, we are back to the starting point and the struggling point, where we are still struggling our venue and the cost.

However, Justine seems very confident on the sponsorship, as well as the event coordinator at the Peter Mac, so she's still keen on going with Red Scooter. I'd be more than happy to go with red scooter if we can confirm the sponsorship by the end of this week. But now, Justine is away to Queensland and still haven't heard anything back from the Peter Mac, I'm started to worry.

And most importantly, we don't have a back-up venue confirmed yet!!

I know it's better to contact Jemimah, the event coordinator at the Peter Mac consistenly by one person, but since Justine is having her holidays, maybe one of us should take over the contacting job with Jemimah, so that we won't be like a annoying bee, pulling Justine back from the sunny holidays to the school works too often.

sigh, now I really don't know what should we do. I only know that we need to contact more venue and sponsorship spontaneously.

21 Sept 2007

Oh Miracle!!

The event cordinator at Peter Mac called Justine today, and saying that he has got us a sponsor! The sponsor is willing to donate $3000 as long as they have time on the night to have a short speech and their logo is displayed on the night.

That's awesome!!! What a miracleeeee!!

pheeeww, guess we can all breath a sigh of relief, what a wonderfull day, really.

20 Sept 2007

ICP - Tension and worry going on

We had a little bit tense discussion in the tute today, about our budget.

The red scooter decided to charge us for $33 per head, although we have done the marketing proposal for them. I'm very worry now, because the price they charge us is really way to expensive than we expected. Besides, we don't have a main sponsor to cover all the cost for the event, the funding are only come from the entry ticket and the raffling. Justine and Ryan had a bit of argument about the venue, Justine said the owner was very nice and kind, trying to get us the cheapest price he can, but unfortunately it was the price we can't afford. Ryan is personally a chief at the cafe and did many catering before as well, so from his point of view, he thinks red scooter are charging us for too much.

I understand where they both come from, and I do understand that Justine has been putting efforts and time on this marketing proposal, but $33 per head at this stage is really impossible, it's gonna be too risky and a really massive job for us to do the fundraising.

We couldn't really get a agreement in the tute because we have too limited information, so we decided to discuss later again online after I check up the mint bar, a venue that owns by the guy that my friend are close to, and after Justine call the event cordinator at Peter Mac, to ask if there's any possibility of sponsoring us.

The Mint Bar wasn't appropriate for our event, the space is divided by walls and it's smaller than I thought. Matthew (the owner of the mint bar are also runs 2 other bars) also showed us the Pheonix bar on Flinders st. through its website. It looks quite nice from the website, but we will need to go to the location in person and check since Matthew said the venue can only accomondate 100 people.

13 Sept 2007

Good News for the Sponsorship and guest speaker

That's sooo cooolll, Fossil called us and saying that they are willing to provide two man's watches and two ladies watches!!

What a great news!

at least now we have got something on our hand, oohhh feeling contented, hehe. :)

And we also got Jimeoin confirmed to perform on the night!!
Hoooray!

12 Sept 2007

Camera check-up list

Ohhh, one thing i really have to mention that is

It's really important to do the check-up one by one with the check-up sheet which comes in the camera box.

I'm glad that the check-up sheet comes with the camera becasue I forgot to bring it on the filming day. When I was doing the setting check-up, I realised there are many setting has been changed. Apparently someone borrowed the camera for different style of shooting. The setting of the audio was set to record from the mic on the camera, rather than recording from the boom mic/radio mic. Apart from that, there are many setting have been changed, such as the frame..etc.

Guess Alex's group had bad sound might because that they forgot to do the setting check-up.

11 Sept 2007

Documentary filming this coming Saturday

After being the DOP for my group, I became more sensitive on framing and visuals on the films/TV program/documentaries. This coming Saturday, we will be doing our last filming for Stacey's story, I'd like to get a few more artistic shots of Stacey doing hoseworks at living room and making tea/coffee at kitchen. I watched a few free docukmentaries online, and also the movies that include the kitchen scene, trying to get some inspiration from the movies that depict normal hoousewife's life.

Because there are not many space at Stacey's kitchen, we couldn't really set up lighting. I would like to get the shot with natural light in the frame/on her face, such as when she opens the fridge, and the light come from inside the fridge lights up her face, and the shot of her doing dishes at the basin, with sunlight coming from outside.

Ohh, guess I should go back and watch desperate housewives to get some more ideas, hehe. :P

camera movement

Got lots of feedback from the class last week for our footage, as well as realised that I really gotta learn more on controling the camera movement when we are capture the footage.

I didn't realised that I zoom in and out to the subject too often during the filming, was a bit regret about that, sigh, I could have done betterrr...

Although we could do something in the post editing to cut out the uneccessary zooming part, it could be better if I just stay at the subject for a while or if really needed, or zoom and frame at the 'right' distance. since I'm not really a experienced DOP, i think i'd better just reduce the possibility of zooming in and out. :P


But I did realized that I didn't really follow what Stacey is saying when during the filming, because before the filming, our group already kind of 'planned' for the filming and audio. We planned to record audio first as a narration for the visual, that's why the footage seems a bit not following the audio and there are many slow pan or slow close up of Stacey.

I do understand the importance of following the subject while she's talking, in case there are some good catch we can intercut with the other cutaway. But this time we are kinda planned to saperate the audio and visual so I was kind of looking for the specific visuals that will go with the audio that we recorded from another week, and which led to a little disconjointed audio and visual.

For me, it's great that we can watch each other's rushes and give feedback to each other in teh class, it's one of the best ways for me to learn things quicker. I love to learn from the lesson. :)

It's hard to get things for FREEEE!

Received a few email sent to reject these days, and the rest still no reply yet.

The big coporates, like David Jones, Colse Myer, Big W, Quantas, Suga all are sponsoing big charity already, therefore they don't have budget on us (which is the 'small' event ) But well, at least they replied, and most of them are showing their mental support to us as holding this kind of charity event in the email.

Now I'm sending out proposal to the relevant shops which can sponsor our printing cost and provide us blank DVD for the short vedio, which we are intend to film on the event that night.

10 Sept 2007

Regualr meeting for ICP today

Heard from Justine that we are making progress on getting the venue. She got two venues replied and are willing to charge us cheaper on finger food and drinks. We will be having meeting with them one on Wednesday and one on Thursday.

Wednesday 1230pm at Alley Bar
&
Thursday 130pm at Redscooter

It's very excited to hear back from them, they are both nice place for holding functions. And most importantly, they are both willing to sponsors the venue for free, just need to discuss the further details of the catering and drinks.

7 Sept 2007

sponsorship list

Here's the list of the shops/retailers/restaurants me and kim have sent out our proposal. We went door by door in the city in person to send out the proposal, as well as contact them through email and phone call.


Waiting for reply:

-Fitness First
-Haighs chocolate
-Esprit
-ichipan pancake
-subway
-shoes shop on swanstont st.
-coloroda
-optus @ little bourke
-Virgin mobile
-Swatch
-perfect potion
-Aesop
-Jester Pie
-GNC
-Coles Myer
-Big W
-Starbucks
-David Jones
-JB Hi-Fi
-the world game store
-Sony @ melbourne central
-Matrix Yoga

Getting sponsorship for 'Strength in Numbers - Social Networking Event'

Me and kim went to over 25 shops in the city today, range from health care product, food, clothing to shoes shops. We are trying to get as many sponsorship as we can, to get the gifts for the luck draw on the event that night and to get the sponsors for funding to cover the cost of the event.

We only got Nandos (swanston branch) reply, they kindly gave us about 150 free upsize vouchers. Althogh it's a small start, we are very appriciated already. It's just so hard to get sponsorship, especially most of the shops are chained shop. They will have to send the proposal to the head office, wait for couple of days to get the permission from them, and then get back to us.

We already sent out as many proposals as we can on Wednesday and today, but so far we still didn't get anyone's reply yet, which is quite disappointed actually :(

I'm now sending out the proposals to the family restaurants and department store through email, hopefully they would reply us asap.

3 Sept 2007

ICP weekly group meeting

We settle down our project timeline today, although it seems a bit tight for us, we will still try our best to make it.

Now all of us will be sending out the proposal to the people we know, in terms of getting sponsors for venue and catering, as well as extra sponsorship.

We figured out that our funding may be one of the crucial problems, therefore getting as many sponsors as we can would be the most important thing now.

we divided into three groups, Gabby and Justine will be dealing with mostly the venue and celebrities, me and kim will be getting some more sponsorship, as well as looking for the possible venues. Two Ryans will be starting to design our invitation, fliers, and poster.


Hopefully we can get the venue and the guest speaker/celebrities confirmed by next Friday, so that we can send out our invitation and start to promote for the event afterwards.