'See Without Sight' long shot drama

For our final exercise of the year we had to create a short film drama between 3 and 5 minutes long with a minimum of a moving 'long shot' lasting between 90 and 120 seconds. I worked with Jess Remnant, Liam Joyce, Yasmin Amey and Luke Duverney-Ruse. Liam and Jess both live in Surrey and we were planning to use the drone as Liam has only got permission to use it in certain places in Surrey. So we all made our way to Surrey apart from Luke, as he couldn't take time off work. He was the director for the group but instead for the two days of filming, Yasmin and Liam jumped in, directing one day each. Our drama was about a 23 year old male who got his sight back after being blind since birth, this beautiful short film shows him exploring Surrey on a beautiful park, that consisted of a small beach and a lake, where he first laid eyes on his girlfriend for the first time ever.

I was watching the music channel at the top charts and a recent music video came on called Hideaway by Kiesza and whilst watching it, I noticed that the whole video of 4 minutes and 34 seconds was shot all in one long take, which was pretty impressive as they only did the shot twice! 

"Shooting the video seemed impossible," Kiesza tells Rolling Stone. "I had less than three days to learn five completely new dance styles. Almost everyone told me that we couldn't do it. Then to top things off, on the day of the shoot, I broke a rib. I did the video in two takes and couldn't move for an entire month afterward, but I pulled it off." (Wenner, 2014)

My role in this drama was sound operator, as I have been the sound operator for a few location shoots, I now know what to prepare for: having plenty of batteries, remembering to bring SD cards, double checking everything is in working condition. I used the usual boom pole microphone and the zoom microphone recorder. We had to pay for the actors and actress' travel, accommodation and food which we all split it equally between us.

Overall, I think that we had a strong crew, Jess had to take over the 'long shot' shot for the first time as Liam had to work as well but joined us the next day to film the car scene; Jess worked pretty well considering it was her first time using a steadicam. Liam came up with the idea of a blind man who gained his sight back at the age of 23 and Yasmin wrote the script for the drama with a few tweaks and changes by the actors and actress. We found our cast from 'The Studio' when Jess, Liam and Yasmin worked alongside them, which was great because they had already built a relationship with each other and also with the majority of our crew. Dean Kilbey played the father, Tom Windsor played the guy who gained his sight back and Charlie Olivia who played the girlfriend; they all suited each of their character's roles that they played.

The advantages of this short film for us is that we had a great crew, we have worked as a great team throughout the year and the projects that we have all been together in and also already knowing the actors and the actress was also a bonus as they were reliable and easy to work with. The only down fall to the film was the flexibility of a few of our crew as Luke was meant to be directing for the show but instead Yasmin and Liam took turns in directing the two days, Luke booked two days off work before without consulting the actors and actress and after confirming the dates that all three of the cast members were available they weren't able to match the days that Luke had booked off, which was a pain and Luke found someone to cover him but unfortunately he was not feeling very well. 

Wenner, J. S. (2014, February 13). Rolling Stone Videos. Retrieved May 07, 2014, from Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/kiesza-barrels-through-the-pain-in-hideaway-video-premiere-20140213

Avid Media Composer Exercises

For Catalin's post-production module we had to get into pairs and work on three edit exercises on Avid Media Composer. The three exercises were Trauma Room, Car Theft and lastly Gaffer's delight; all of them were completely different two of them were short dramas where as the other one was a short documentary.

"Editing may be thought of as the coordination of one shot with the next. As we have seen, in film production a shot is one of more exposed frames in a series on a continuous length of film stock. The film editor eliminates unwanted footage, usually by discarding all but the best take." (Bordwell, D; Thompson K, 2010).

Trauma Room:

This is the first editing exercise we got set to do for Catalin's module for second year, whilst editing Trauma Room, we learnt the basics of using Avid using the keyboard to use different shortcuts like going a frame forward or backwards, marking in and marking out and many other shortcuts and you can customise your keyboard with different keys to do different commands. Also learning how to import and start on a new project.

Car Theft:

Editing Car Theft was different as it was like a short documentary but again we were learning the basics of how to use Avid, montage editing, putting in a voice over, putting in an interview and also using cutaways. This is our second time using Avid, at first I didn't like it but now I'm really getting the hang of it and I love editing on it. Catalin taught us how to create freeze frames, blur it out and then have text scrolling on top. This was difficult at first but with the help of Catalin, it brought me to understand how to do it. We had to duplicate sequences after each one; so we had the first sequence of assembly which was just a rough structure to see how it flows, then it was the rough cut assembling it shot by shot and then finally the fine cut where we finalise the cuts, trimming down the unnecessary frames.

Gaffer's Delight:

The last exercise of the year was Gaffer's Delight, this exercise was different as we had to introduce the two characters and identify them with dialogue editing and emotional mediation. Importing, organising and backing up Gaffer's Delight before making our sequences. During the fine cut we had to use J-L cuts showing reaction shots whilst the other character was talking and afterwards we would add transitions and edit the audio as the audio was different in every clip.

These three Avid exercises have given me the chance the experience, experiment and learn the ways of Avid Media Composer, giving us an insight on a different editing software. In these exercises I was working with Luke Duverney-Ruse and he was great to work with despite the fact I had to edit the most of exercises and export them all on my own because he had been feeling very poorly this year due to his operation. 

Bordwell, D; Thompson K (2010). Film Art: An Introduction. 9th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill. 223.

Semester Two Review

Semester two came around in no time, we have been given a few documentary roles and studio production roles to keep me busy this term, preparing for all the job roles and planning my essays.

My favourite part in this semester was helping the TVP film their dramas and documentaries as I loved travelling to different locations and helping them shoot a film and also getting to work with lots of other different crew and actors. I also liked working on the field lighting exercise, where we recreated a scene in Memento that was pretty fun, as I was location lighting operator. 

The only sad thing about semester two is that it is our final semester and we finish second year of University and leaving my course mates and going back to my life in Essex is difficult, as I have grown so close to them but we still keep in contact through out the summer. 

'Dare To Flair' studio show

We have just finished the second episode of 'Dare To Flair' and for the first show I was camera assistant but could not make it as I was not very well and the second show I was given the role of camera operator, which went very well.

'Dare To Flair' is a multi-camera talent show in the studio, similar to the format of X Factor, where the judges get to choose who stays and who goes.

This show was very unorganised compared to 'Quote That' as I turned up at 9:30 as it said on the call sheet, but the camera supervisor and the other cameras apparently had a different call time, which was a couple of hours later. As I was the first camera operator to arrive, I was unsure of which camera I was suppose to be on, so I had to keep myself occupied for a few hours helping the rest of the crew setting up.

"You may be the driving force and creative fount, but you can't make a film all by yourself. Whether you have a 2-person crew or 30 people assisting you in your vision, you need to find people who are as passionate about your film as you are." (Stoller B; Lewis J 2003).

After all the camera operators and the camera supervisor arrived, I was given the camera with the auto cue on, so I got mid shots of the presenter and two shots of the presenter and the contestants and also close ups of the contestants whilst they were performing.

Before the show I had to make sure that the white balance was correct on the camera and that the air in the ped's of the camera had enough gas in it so it would flow smoothly. We had a few rehearsals to make sure that we were getting the correct shots that the director wanted.

Overall, I thought the camera crew worked very hard together getting different type of shots for the director to cut to. The only down fall I think for this production was the organisation and communication, some of the people need to be confident, making sure what role they have, sticking to it and communicate with the whole crew properly. The sound was flowing pretty well until we were recording as live, one of the judges, 'Mister Ayo' performed and then his mic completely went off. Other than that, the production wasn't too bad just a few muck ups. To improve the communication next time for myself I would contact the camera supervisor, director and producer and make sure when the actual call time for the camera crew is.

Stoller B; Lewis J (2003). Filmmaking for Dummies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley Pub.

DaVinci Resolve + Colour grading in 'The Maxtrix'

Today Danny Hollingsworth taught us the basics of DaVinci Resolve 9 Lite. DaVinci Resolve is Hollywood's most powerful and creative colour correction software and has been around since 1984.

"DaVinci Resolve 11 combines the world’s most advanced color corrector with professional multi track editing, so now you can edit, color correct, finish and deliver all from one system! Davinci Resolve is completely scalable and resolution independent so it can be used on set, in a small studio or integrated into the largest Hollywood production pipeline!" Date accessed 1st April 2014.

The primary colour corrector can change the lift, gamma and gain with the controls of Davinci's unique YRGB colour space; creating perfect coloured images. The primary controls include; shadows, mid tones and highlight log controls. 

If you want to get a certain colour you can use the secondary precision colour corrector on Davinci. Precise HSL, RGB colour and LUM qualification lets you get the specific colour of the photograph.

Firstly you will have to create a node, which is kind of like another layer so that once you edit, you can click between them showing the before and after pictures. A node is a more powerful version of a layer as you can connect each node together, sequently or parallel. Each of the nodes can have its own colour correction as well.

Before starting to colour grade anything you will have to fix the contrast, so the image is not over or under exposed. You can crush blacks but certain broadcasters have a limit. Waveform scope tells us how bright the colours are.
Most directors like high contrast 90% of the time but sometimes they might like low contrast depending on the choice and style of film.

Gamma show us the mid tones of the image where as Gain show us the high lights of the image.

Using colour wheels to change the contrast only enhances the low lights where as if you use the primary setting you can enhance shadows and brighter areas.

Vectorscope is the colour information with an imaginary colour wheel. Parade shows us the red, green and blue colours of the image and if one of those colours are too cool or too warm.

Some directors like to use some artistic decisions whilst creating a film, setting the tone and the mood of the film by drastically or just a minor change to the colour of the film. This can effect the audiences emotional response as if the film was dark containing mainly blacks, greys and reds the audience would feel scared and frightened where as if the film was yellow they would feel much more happier.

Throught the film 'The Matrix' the director choose to have a slight green tint to the movie but they also had to make sure that they got the correct skin tone colour and not making the actors look like they are going to throw up. 

In order to do this they would have to lower the saturation to about 30%, make the shadows and the mid tones a but towards the green and then a tiny bit of yellow in the highlights, this helps with keying back in the correct skin tone colours. 

Once they got the correct type of green that they wanted, they would have to change the skin tone back by using the secondary colour corrector and then put a key onto the skin tone, adjusting it slightly. 

(2014). Davinci Resolve 11. Available: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve. Last accessed 1st April 2014.

Adobe After Effects

Adobe After Effects is a software for creating video compositions, animations and special effects. After Effects is perfectly capable of producing high-quality compositions for television programs, commercials and even feature films. To use After Effects you would need to be very imaginative as it is a creative tool, which allows you to create special effects in loads of different ways you could ever imagine.

"After effects has taken my career in Video to a whole new level. The entire creative suites have pushed my production levels to new heights and have made MANY clients very happy!Thanks Adobe for keeping the Creatives in mind!" (BobConrad, 2014)

We had a tutorial with John and learnt the basics of keying and creating titles. Green screening is a very popular technique used to change the background to any exotic location or a fantasy world. In order to get the green screening to look decent, during production you would need to use a high resolution camera and making sure that the green screen is lit evenly with no shadows.

We learnt about the matte layers and how much difference the white and blacks make. A matte is a layer that defines the transparent areas of that layer or another layer. White defines opaque areas, and black defines transparent areas. We also learnt about motion tracking when the camera is moving and to make it look more realistic, you would need to use tracking motion and move the tracking point to one of the markers on the green screen and analyse forward. To get rid of the markers you would need to apply a mask to the markers and then invert the mask.

BobConrad. (2014). Adobe After Effects CC / Reviews. Available: http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/aftereffects/reviews.html. Last accessed 26th March 2014.

'My Precious Folk Culture' documentary

I got given the role of sound operator for Mikela and we filmed in a Sixth Form Colllege on a weekend, where Albanian children go for dancing lessons and a few academic subjects. This documentary is about the Albanian language and lifestyle and if being brought up in England has any affect on their ethnic background or culture.

I was working with Mikela as the director and Charles Gyamfi as the camera operator, I used a boom microphone and a zoom recorder to capture sound of the interviews and the music of when they were dancing.

We had a few problems at first because the Mikela being the director did not bring any SD cards or batteries so we had to make a trip to the nearest store that sold them, which wasted a lot of time. In my previous short projects that I have been part of the director had always provided me with batteries and SD cards unless they told me to bring my own. The day before I even asked Mikela if she needed me to bring any SD cards or batteries and she said that she would provide them. After buying the SD card and batteries and missing the important half of the sound, which was the dancing lesson but luckily we still caught it on camera, just no sound but we carried on with the interviews once we got the sound equipment sorted out. We were also running out of time as the lessons had finished and the parents were outside ready to pick up their children, so we had to rush things a bit.

Apart from that major problem everything else went alright, I managed to capture all the sound for the interviews and Mikela had to use sound that was captured from the camera. 

Next time I will just bring my own batteries and SD cards, just in case because we can't always keep buying new SD cards and batteries as it is very time consuming.

Pro Tools Tutorial.

We had a Avid Pro Tools tutorial and learnt about the basics of using this digital audio work station. Pro Tools is a very popular software used for music and also post-production, it is a multi-track software-based digital recording and editing system. Allowing you to be as creative as you possibly can, creating different sound effects and mixing sound into certain films and television programmes.

"The first-generation Pro Tools system was released in 1991, supporting four tracks of audio. Eventually, using additional cards and interfaces, these Pro Tools systems expanded to support up to 16 tracks of simultaneous recording and playback." (Cook, 2013)

The edit window is where you would do all the editing by cutting, trimming, moving, copying or deleting the audio files. So once you edit an audio file by trimming it and so on, there is always a way to get back to the original audio file. 

If you have recorded or get given recordings to edit from then you can import them into Pro Tools and use the drag and drop onto the tracks or drag the audio from the clip list.

The zoom, which is the magnifying glass tool that allows you to obviously zoom in and out of the certain audio files to allow you to cut as close and accurate as possible, there is also a different way to zoom into the parts where you would like to edit from by clicking and dragging to and from the certain parts and it will automatically zoom in to make your changes to. There are also certain shortcuts on the keyboard to use certain tools.

There are four different types of editing modes; Slip, shuffle, spot and grid and all four do different things. 

Slip is the main mode that you would want to edit in most of your footage from as it allows you to edit and move selected parts where ever you'd wish to and if you delete certain parts it would leave a gap in it.

Shuffle is another type of editing mode when you drag and drop audio files into the timeline then it snaps to the nearest audio clips, leaving no gaps and it does not allow overlapping either.

Spot mode allows you to only move it to specific time locations within the time line. So a box with pop up asking you to sync it with the beginning and the end of the clip.

The last editing mode is grid which is mainly used for musical applications and works like "snap to grid"

Cook, F. (2013). Pro Tools 101 an Introduction to Pro Tools 10. Boston, Mass: Course Technology PTR.

Recreating Lighting in Memento

For the lighting exercise project we had to recreate the first three black and white scenes from either 'The Godfather' or 'Memento.' Our group decided to do it on 'Memento' as the scenes are more interesting and one of our friends decided to help us act in the film and also let us use his bedroom as the set, which was the closest we could get to looking like the motel room in 'Memento.'

My main role for the exercise was lighting and I used 2 redhead lights and a dedolight lighting kit, as this was a lighting exercise we wanted to make sure we got the lighting as close as possible to match the scenes in 'Memento.' This was my first time working on location lighting and I really enjoyed working with these lights even though it was a small room, so it was difficult to work with trying to find space to put the lights.

The scenes that we had to recreate were your typical film noir type of scenes as the scenes were dark dramatic and also filmed in black and white to show us the contrast between the story. The black and white sequences proceed in chronological order where as the colour sequences proceed in reverse chronological order.

"Film noir is a term introduced in the 1940s by French critics Nino Frank and Jean-Pierre Chartier. The French word "noir" translates to "black" or "dark," and film noir describes a style of filmmaking rather than an actual film genre." (Crawford 2012)

The only problems we encountered was the amount of daylight that was coming in from outside made the room too bright and to fix that we had to get towels and blankets to try and block out as much light as we possibly could. There was also a problem with the lens as the zoom was very shaky but next time when we are out on a shoot again, I would make sure that the weather is suitable for the filming and again I check all the equipment before we go ahead and shoot.

Crawford, S. (2012, February 28). "5 Film Noir Photography Tips. Retrieved March 15, 2014, from HowStuffWorks.com: http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/cameras-photography/tips/5-film-noir-photography-tips.htm