Ollie Tristram

Today I started work experience in the PR department of BCS, the company of whom I have produced a few previous pieces of work for (see below). This time instead though it is in PR as opposed to broadcasting, so no cameras in sight yet.

My main hope for doing this work experience is that I can build a stronger bond with the company and it's staff to help me further when I work with them for any third year projects.

Tensator are one of BCS's clients that design and manufacture tensabarriers, those barriers you see for queuing in cinemas, at airports, etc.

They have come to BCS for a new demonstration to be produced to show how their barriers are safer than the cheaper alternative.

There are two animations one showing the Tensator barrier and one showing the competitor barrier and how the Tensator one is much safer. My job is to work out how we can improve on these two animations in making the product look better.

During a meeting at BCS on Wednesday we discussed how filming the 2 barriers would give a better realistic impression of how they work, but the problem was that we can't really show it hitting a child. We could create 2 new animations from scratch but that could be time consuming and again not be as realistic.

What we do know is that we would like both the competitor product and the Tensator product to be in one horizontal split-screen so the viewer can see how both products are working simultaneously, and to include a timer showing how the quicker one is more more dangerous.

**UPDATE** Tensator opted to edit their existing animation for a quick turn-around, therefore I was not needed in the end.

Ok so my plans for doing Multimedia work over summer are not all finalised yet but this is what my intentions are:

1) Filming a music video for a friend of a friend called Sam Bennet who is a singer/songwriter and has just released his HUMMINGBIRD EP. I already have a first draft of the script and it aims to be a narrative-based video in a guy-meets-girl scenario.

2) Some friends and I plan on making a comedy sketch when the 'beach' is created in the city square. My friend Andrew has a wet-suit, flippers and a body board so getting him to walk down in that attire will make for some funny scenes we think.

3) I have asked BCS, who I have worked with for work experience in the past (see earlier blog posts), for some work experience. They are a PR company so it is not directly related to my direction, but they are a well established company with a good reputation so experience with them will look good on my CV. Also, if they have any work at the time I'm there involving broadcasting/filming then I'll be put in too help out with that. Next year, Tom, Jason and I plan on using BCS to create our client project, so this work experience will certainly boost relationships before then.

Admist this work I plan on going camping with friends (although would prefer to be going abroad but nevermind) and... that's it.

From Wednesday to Saturday I have been working as the sound assistant for an indie short called "Coffee".

The film is about an underground betting organisation that bets on when volunteering insomniacs will fall asleep. It follows the main character Jeff as he suffers from sleep deprivation and his relationship with his friend Jack who is betting on him to stay awake also.

As for the experience as working as part of a film crew, I enjoyed it so much. To watch professionals at work, such as Felix Weidemann, the Director of Photography and to be using all the proper equipment it was a brilliant insight into how it all runs. I think the most interesting thing I found was how they light all the sets and the different techniques they use to do this.

The days were all at least 12 hours and there was lots of hanging around between shots, but I expected that to be honest, and it was at these times where I got to have conversations with some of the crew. Not only that, but I made friends with some girls from the Design for Film and TV course at Uni, whose roles it was to keep continuity notes as well as props.

I worked with Ian Currie on sound who has been working freelance for over 20 years. He has done a lot of TV work for shows like Derren Brown: Trick of the Mind and Grand Designs, but also worked on film sets with actors like James McAvoy. He gave me a lot of help in knowing how sound recording for the screen works and couldn't really have asked for any one more patient. I will also be working with him on the post-production of the film's audio so there is still some more exciting to work to be looking forward to.

Here are some of the best pictures taken from the 4 days shooting in the various locations.