kylengamann

[kylengamann]

May 18th May

Today we have an interview with local musician Nailiah Blackman which will be a massive selling point for our website while promoting on social media due to her star power locally and can have the potential of going viral. We were able to get in touch with Nailah through Mical who we interviewed previously and while talking to her she was happy to help how ever she can.

We scheduled the interview to take place Thursday 18th at HOTT 93.5 at 5 pm and we still have all the equipment which was needed due to emailing SBCS to extend the time in which we can keep until the end of the week just to be safe due to the interview being cancelled and rescheduled multiple times in the week.

This had to be my favorite interview we’ve done to date, everything went well until when we were wrapped up and home and we realized that Nailah did not sign the release form, which would mean we would not be able to publish the article and video on her for the website until we got the document signed. 

So the goal for tomorrow and the next week is to get this document signed as soon as possible.

[kylengamann]

April 4th

Today we had our first interview at local dance studio Ellett with choreographer Adrian Daniel and a few students who were taking part in class that night. Due to another cohort having a project which included the need of the equipment to film, we were not able to borrow the video camera and lighting kit. 

We had to use a T3 camera to do the bulk of filming and relied on lighting provided at the studio.

When we got to the studio we made sure to have all of our documents signed by those who would be on film and interviewed afterwards and began shooting the person who were in the lesson.

We got as much footage we thought we would need to create a short interesting video for the website, but lighting seemed to be an issue due to video footage coming out too dark even when we would raise the aperture so we knew this would have posed to be an issue when going over footage.  

[kylengamann]

June 3rd

Today is the last day of our scheduled interviews as well as our photoshoot with another person we interviewed Amanda Elliot before we start to focus on finishing editing and writing articles and begin building our display.

We were suppose to also interview a clothing designer Desphianna Phillips earlier in the week but she cancelled on a few occasion but was set to complete her interview today. 

During our photoshoot with Amanda Elliot, Sherrise got a message from Desphianna saying she wouldn’t be able to be interviewed today so we decided to go straight to our last interview with Camille Parris who created art pieces called Octopals for children suffering with CP.

We were excited to start editing this interview due to her creating art which can benefit the community and make a huge difference, whihc would also be perfect to use while promoting our site on social media.

[kylengamann]

May 31st

Today’s our second to last interview with Jerel Ramsey who’s a photographer and graphic designer. Unfortunately we were not able to use the studio even though we emailed ahead of time to use the room, but due to a lecturer needing it for a class we used an empty class room instead. Again we ran into the issue of lack of enthusiasm when the interviewee was in front of the camera, so we decided the same format for Alex Hedley’s article would be best for this interview, which is to do a video which highlights the artists work while there voice is in the background serving as commentary. 

[kylengamann]

May 25th

Today we had another two interviews with Film/Art student at UWI Chris Lou Hing and Photographer Alex Hedley.

I was not able to be at Alex’s interview because of the time clashing with work engagements, but when going over footage it seemed that he would not be the best person to do a full video on for the website so we decided to do a written article to feature his photos.

Chris’s interview was a bit more charismatic but we still felt the same way we did about Alex’s email but Chris sent us some of his work he’s done while in UWI and on the side which we would be interesting to show in video using his voice as commentary.

[kylengamann]

May 23rd

Today we had two interviews scheduled, one being a re-shoot with Mical due to losing his footage and another with our own Matthew who writes poetry on the side.

There were no issues while redoing Micals interview, but while interviewing Matthew he seemed nervous due to this being his first in camera interview so when we were done filming he was not satisfied with the footage and insisted on filming it over on another day even though it was not necessary.

He decided to film his own on his own and would send me the footage to edit.

[kylengamann]

May 16th

Today we had the re-shoot with ELLENYTT.

This time we made sure the proper equipment was requested from a couple days before the shoot so we wouldn’t run into the same issues we had the pervious time we film ELLEs footage.

Again we made sure to get all permission slips were signed by admin for filming at the location as well as from persons who were going to be interviewed and filmed.

This time around while filming we got closer shots from b-roll footage to be more dynamic and interesting so that viewers wouldn’t lose interest.

At the end of shooting all the footage was saved on to my laptop and hard drive for safe keeping as so that we would not have another run in with lost footage.

[kylengamann]

May 4th

During the previous week I was about to begin editin Mical’s interview when I realized the interview footage was not saved onto my laptop or hard drive, so in turn we lost all the work we did that day when returned the equipment. Which i took full responsibility  for.

Today we met to talk about how we should go about planning future interviews and how we should go about saving footage at the end, as well as come to an agreement on the style and layout of the website.

We decided that the website would be very minimalistic allowing the persons who we features work be the focal point as well as creating a landing page featuring headshots of each person interviewed as a preview of what you can expect going into the website.

A schedule was also design for each of us to know whats going on and what interviews we have so that we can stay on top of things and also matthew and myself agreed that we’d both copy the footage we take will be saved on both of our hard drives just to be safe.

[kylengamann]

April 18th

To the three of us went to Ellij web design class to start going over how we would want the website to look style wise as well as technically learn how to build the site using the platform Wix.

This class showed that our group had a lot of work cut out for us since we all couldn’t cohesively come to an agreement on how the website should lookdue to our very different views and tastes on how the layout, colours, and styles should be.

[kylengamann]

April 8th

Today is the first day of New Fire Festival, i made sure to collect all equipment from Matthew due to me being the driver this weekend.

While getting ready for New Fire Festival both Sherisse (Sick) and Matthew (death in the family) informed me they would not be able to make it to the festival which meant i would have to cover the it alone!

Fortunately i was able to bring along a friend who helped me carry around the equipment around the site. 

I got footage of Nailah Blackman performing for her video but was not able to get footage of Mical due to him and his group running late.

At the end of the night i was really proud of the pictures and footage that was collected and could not wait to get to editing the footage.

[kylengamann]

April 7th

Today I began to go over footage to start editing video packages for the website, realizing that the quality of the ELLENYTT footage was not acceptable to begin editing due to lighting issues and a hole in the lens of the camera showing up in all of the clips shot that evening. I messaged in the group chat to inform my group mates that we will need to schedule a reshoot as soon as possible.

Also today we got accreditation for our media passes to cover New Fire Festival which is taking place this weekend. These pass will allow us to get footage all over the camp site as well as an opportunity to interview artists who are performing over the weekend, our idea is to also get b-roll footage of Mical and Nailah Blackman performing to include in both of their video packages for the website.

[kylengamann]

April 6th

Today we have an interview with local musician Mical Teja. We made sure to collect the proper filming equipment and lighting so that we do not run into any of the problems we face while filming at ELLE.

Nothing seemed to go wrong during the interview with Mical, most of the footage of the interview was shot up close from the top of his head to his shoulders from two separate angles for an added dramatic effect, as well as b roll footage of Mical working on his music in the studio at HOTT 93.5. We also made sure that Mical signed all documents needed to film him and use his material in our video and article on the website as well as getting the necessary administrative person to sign the permission form to film at HOTT 93.5. 

[kylengamann]

April 1st

We pitched individually to Ms. Ajim and our classmates today. As each teammate presented we were asked to leave the room which allowed our classmates to get an understanding of how we individually saw the website being created(stylistically, colour and layout), who we thought the website would be best suited for when it came to marketing and demographics, how we plan to monetize the website along with where we see the website going in the future.

I missed the mark while taking about marketing and demographics. I did not put enough information or go into details, which was brought to my attention while the Q&A section took place after the pitch.

During my presentation i mention an idea from one of my original solo projects, which was to cover Boarders and New Fire Festival. This got rave reviews from classmates and Ms. Ajim’s feedback was “it would be good content to have on our website one we find a fresh and creative way to shoot and edit the footage.”

[kylengamann]

March 30th

After five days of taking via Whatsapp with Matthew and Sherisse, we decided to meet each other at Starbuck to put pen to paper for our first pitch as a group, in front of our classmates. We decided not to continue thinking along the line of doing a television series but instead create a website which would feature young and upcoming creatives (musicians. artist, writers, etc).

Along with thinking about what content we would publish to the site, we began early talks on how the website should physically look. Sherisse and myself were in agreement on a very mono-toned, minimalistic and simple website, where as Matthew wanted it to be bright and colourful to reflect the talented persons in which we would feature.

We could not agree on a name due to myself wanting to keep the name from our original idea Vybz TT but Matthew was adamant that we use the name Meraki due to it definition “The essence of yourself that is put into your work.” 

[kylengamann]

March 25th

The first pitch took place today, but due to having the cold i had to pitch my finial project ideas with Ms. Ajim over the phone. For this first pitch i explained my individual ideas which were:

1) Local artist soundcloud/music hub to push local music out to a wider audience (Solo)

2) Travel Vlog & Blog on lesser known tourist sites in Trinidad and Tobago as well as featuring new festivals such as Boarders Festival and New Fire Festival.

3) A Documentary on the new comers to the local music scene and under ground music events in which these artists play at.

When explaining my individual project, the question of these ideas being too much for one person to handle became the number one issue, but Ms. Ajim was optimistic about the website idea, but had a few question about how the website would be built and if i had the knowledge of code/building websites.

After explaining my individual ideas i mentioned that another option was to team up with Matthew and Sherisse to create a TV series called Vybz TT which would feature local events, recent news presented in a fresh, young and comedic way along with local and international entertainment news. Due to another group having a similar idea we were urged to come up with another idea if we were working as a group. 

[kylengamann]

March 23rd

Today I had a meeting with classmates Matthew Chan and Sherisse Mohammed to go over individual ideas we had and if we could all come up/ agree on ideas to possibly work together on our final project.

[kylengamann]

20th March

Today i began to serious think about what route i wanted to take for my final project. I narrowed it down to: 

1) A website which would feature local music and act as a hub for international scouts who can help local musicians get their music out to a wider audience.

2) A documentary on the local under ground music scene which would include interviews with up and coming artists as well as filming of events such as Kaiso Blues, Boarders Festival and New Fire Festival.

3) A vlog based on the lesser know places in Trinidad as well as covering local under ground/new events Boarders Festival and New Fire Festival.