Reflection

The past couple of lessons in creative media we have been converting videos using mpeg stream clip so they can be used and played in Final Cut Pro. Jasmine has also joined our group for the post production part of this term as she was away last term. We gave every member in our group two scenes to convert so we each had the same amount and so it was fair. We all converted these clips but we ended up having three quarters of our group members away so I just ended up converting the rest. The past couple of lessons we have also been trying to organise filming times as Julian has been away, Bella is selling her house and the rest of us have sport every other afternoon. We have finally organised to do it this Sunday and Mr Andrews has agreed to give us a filming extension which is really helpful as well. The last lesson we had we began to edit the scenes that did not need footage re-shot it. But when we started that we realised we were also missing some of the footage. We discovered Shae had some of the footage on her USB and we did not get it off her last term so Julian then converted that and we will get that off her next lesson. So far our group has had a slow start with people being away and trying to fit into peoples timetables with the filming but I am sure once we get everything done and are out on own editing we will find things a lot easier!

Creative Media- blog

Creative Media- blog

Program for the next few weeks is all about time management. 

Next two lessons are used to convert shots to Mpeg Stream-clip settings.

Each person in the group changes certain format and then you all exchange.

Then import into Final Cut and can start editing.

If you give a standard definition project then a high definition project you can not get anything higher than a B.

Films may be able to be entered into film festivals.

Make sure you have a BACKUP!!

Steps to putting shots in Final Cut Pro:

Steps to putting shots in Final Cut Pro:

1.    Once video has been converted in mpeg stream clip. Open Final Cut Pro.

2.    Delete any sequences that appear in Final Cut Pro when you open it.

3.    Now go to file, easy setup and change easy formats to Apple Intermediate Codec, next change use to HDV-Apple Intermediate Codec 720p30. Finally click ok.

4.    Next go to Final Cut Pro and click on system settings.

5.    Once in system setting set the very first row to the location of where you are getting your shots.

6.    Then set the waveform cache, thumbnail cache and autosave vault all to the location where you are getting your shots from and then press ok.

7.    Now click file, new and then sequence. Now a new sequence should appear in your browser.

8.    Then click on file again but this time go down to import. Once you have clicked on import, click files and find the shot you want to use. Repeat this step to import any other shots.

Reflection- Lessons 1 and 2

In the past two lessons we have been discussing what we are going to work on this term. This term we are each individually editing our film and are making it the way we would like it. In lesson one we disscussed what HD is and what setting choices to choose and why. We discussed the why we choose the format for our film in comparison to what a movie playing in a movie cinema would be. In lesson 2 we spent the whole lesson going over the post production process and what it involved which was:

•Sorting, editing and assembling the footage;•Adding visual effects, computer-generated imagery (CGI), titles etc;•Colour correction or grading of each clip;•Recording/Writing the soundtrack;•Mixing the audio track (Re-recording dialogue, adding sound design and effects);• Transferring the film to a required format, (DVD, Blu-Ray, Quicktime, Windows Media Player).
I thought about this and realised how much I could develop my film and realised how I could make it better. Our homework was set to read some documents about different topics that Mr Andrews has left links to which I plan to do on the weekend. I also think my group has some planning to do but am not quite sure what so I think we should sort that out and get organised! I think it will be hard for me to get on leave this term if we have to film as I have an exchange. But I am sure we can work around that!

Pre-Production and Production Reflection/evaluation:

Media Arts: Short Film Production – Term 02 2013

Pre-Production and Production Reflection/evaluation:

Respond to each of the following dot points (using complete sentences or paragraphs). You should include as much detail as possible in your responses.

Teamwork during Pre-Production:

·      Describe any problems or difficulties your group encountered while developing your plot, concept and characters;

Whilst developing our plot our group did not encounter many problems or difficulties. We did encounter some disagreements within the group but nothing major. A problem we encountered was finalizing what we wanted our main theme of the film to be about. By this I mean some group members wanted the initial murder to be the main problem of the film where as others wanted the girl that found the body to be the main problem. We also had different ideas of where we were going to film majority of our film. I think the main difficulty that our group encountered was getting the same pictures in our head of what was going to happen throughout the film. Once our whole group did this we found it a lot easier to understand what the other group members were talking about.

·      Explain whether your group effectively used the pre-production and planning templates to help refine each idea prior to filming;

I think our group did use the pre-production planning templates well for our initial filming. We used the shot list the most out of everything but it also had the script on it. This assessment was the first time I had actually used the planning and it actually assisted our group in what we were doing. We also used the storyboards not as much, but they still contributed to a quicker amount of time spent on the individual shots, as we knew exactly where everything had to be and where we had to have the camera. I think overall our group planned really well and I think this really showed in our final rough edit of our film.

·      Describe whether your group made effective use of their time in class during pre-production. (Did each group member; contribute; have set tasks at all times; know their role in the group etc.)

I think majority of the time our group used our time really well. I do think maybe we could have spent less time on finalizing the whole film at the start as we did this whilst doing our shot list any way. Most of the group members in our group contributed equally except for one small issue we had with the editing. But we soon fixed this with a couple of us doing a bit extra so we could submit the rough edit in time.

·      List some steps your group could (or did) implement to improve in this area;

There is nothing we could do to improve on spending less time finalizing the whole film at the start; it is just something that we will all know not to do next time. To ensure everything is done in time equally by each group member we could have a between communication system and should have asked each other before the final lunch time whether or not everyone had everything done or if they needed help with it. This would have saved our group from the last minute stress of editing.

Teamwork during Production:

·      Discuss how your group used storyboards, shot-lists, prop-lists and a shooting schedule to assist during the filming and decision making process;

In the planning stage our group made storyboards, a shot-list, a prop-list and a shooting schedule to follow. We each then uploaded these to all of our blogs so we all had access to them and their was no excuses of why we didn’t know about something. We used our prop-list the most out of everything as we had it with us every time we filmed. The shot list included the dialogue, shot type, movement and lighting. This was really helpful, as whenever we didn’t know something we could just refer back to it and we would know what we were doing. We did use our storyboards but not very much, we only really referred to them when we wanted to know if we were zooming, panning, or moving the camera. Our prop-list was also very helpful when we were packing our bags the night before and needed to know what we needed for the next media lesson and lastly we used the shooting schedule. We used the shooting schedule to make sure we were on track at the end of each lesson. This was to ensure that if we needed to catch up we could and if we were ahead it would be even better.

·      Did your group experience any organisational issues during filming, (i.e. members who were absent or did not contribute; finding suitable times to film; forgetting shot-lists, costumes; not booking equipment etc.) How did you manage or work around these difficulties?

Our group only experienced one organizational issue whilst making our film and this was with the editing. We all agreed to edit 2 scenes each and put it all together the lunchtime of the day it was due and one member of our group was unable to complete it in time. We overcame this by splitting the 2 scenes apart and quickly editing them. Luckily we got it all done before it was due. We also had to organize a time to meet up on a weekend to film at Bella’s house as that was where majority of our film was set. We organized this early and had to get Bella’s mum and my mum to organize leave for me as I was a boarder.

·      Did your group complete all shots as detailed in your planning?

Our group completed all shots reasonably detailed in our planning. The shots were detailed enough to use them for camera position, dialogue, lighting and any camera movement.

Discuss your individual feelings about the rough edit:

·      Are you group satisfied with the final result?

I think the final result of our rough edit was reasonably good, but I think there is two scenes we could have improved on. These were the two scenes that were rushed at the last minute to get complete. Although these scenes were not complete, I was still satisfied with the final rough edit.

·      Does the rough edit meet the time requirements for this task? If not, describe why? (i.e did you expect it would be longer? is it incomplete? etc.)

The rough edit did not meet all the requirements for the task as it was a bit under time. I expected the rough edit to be if anything over time then under time, but obviously I was wrong. We did complete all the shots in the film though which is really good and shows that we had really good time management.

·      Does your film require additional scenes, or reshoots?

I think our group could reshoot a couple of scenes in the final film. There are some scene we are a bit more blurry then we thought they would be and this would improve the film a lot more if we cleared these up a bit, but so you still had the dizziness effect. We may have to also reshoot a few more scenes to add into the final film to make it long enough. We will have to think really wisely about this so we don’t ruin the story line or make it more confusing from adding these in.

·      Would like to change any aspects of your film?

If I could change any aspects of the film it would be putting in a scene that shows her hopping out of bed and walking to the staircase as that bit might confuse the viewer. I think we could also improve some of the some of the shot changes throughout the film to make it more dramatic.

·      If you could start the project again what would you do differently?

If I could start the project again and do it differently there is nothing I would change. I think we did our film the best way possible and there would only be minor changes that I have talked about above that I would make.

·      Did planning and filming take more or less time than you anticipated? Define why?

Planning took a fair bit of time out of our actual filming time starting our project. I do think if we didn’t do as much planning as we did our film wouldn’t be as good as it has been made. I do think that doing as many storyboards as we did was a bit over the top and I do think that we could have done less. Doing the storyboards did take a lot of our time as we still weren’t completely sure what some of the settings we were shooting at looked like and this made it really hard to visualize (Bella’s House).

Consider whether you undertook adequate and detailed reflection to throughout your project. Have you provided enough evidence to support your work? (Does the work on your blog/journal represent 5 weeks’ worth of work).

I think I uploaded everything onto my blog as pronto as I could have but I do think I could have completed more reflections. I think that I did not have enough evidence that wasn’t planning on my blog to support my work. On the other hand I think I uploaded plenty of planning work to my blog to support my work and think I did a good job of being efficient with that this term.

Storyboards

Shot List and Script

	Production Title:			A Night to Remember				Shoot Date:
Shot No.	Shot Name	Scene No.	Location	Shot		Movement	Description of Action	Characters	Lighting Notes
				Type	Angle	Type
1		1	Outside detectives office	Medium shot of detectives door.	Medium	Nil	Faint ticking noise	Nil	Medium hall way lighting
2		1	Office	Wide shot of office.	High	Nil	Medium Ticking noise	Emma, Detective	Faint lighting
3		1	Office	Close up of clock ticking	Slight low angle	Nil	Loud Ticking noise	Nil	Normal
4		1	Office	Panning shot of side and back of Emma with detective in front	Medium	Pan	Dialogue- "Are you sure you cant remember anything from the night of the murder?"	Emma, Detective	Light coming from in front of detective
5		1	Bedroom	Slow pan upwards of bed and someone in it (3sec)	Medium	Slow Pan	Ticking Continues	Emma	Dark lighting
6		1	Office	Close up shot of Emma's face	Medium	Nil	Dialogue "I promise, I can’t remember anything."	Emma	Light coming from in front of Emma, Light defuser
7		1	Bedroom	Slow pan continues, but further up on bed (3 sec)	Medium	Slow Pan continues	Ticking Continues	Emma	Dark lighting
8		1	Office	Side view of Emma and Detective sitting at desk	Medium	Nil	Dialogue "Just try and think back to going to bed that night"	Detective	Nomal Lighting
9		2	Bedroom	Top, close up view of Emma's face, then her eyes open.	High	Nil	Emma's eyes open and clock stops ticking	Emma	Part lighting
10		2	Staircase	Emma's POV	looking down stairs (High)	panning down stairs	Kind of shakey camera with blury lense	Emma	Lights shining down over her head onto her face
11		2	Staircase	medium close up of Emma (slightly canted)	High angle	Steady with Emma	Blurry as Emma walks down the stair case	Emma	Lights shining down over her head onto her face
12		3	Hallway	Long shot	high	Nill	Emma is walking up the hallway (blurry)	Emma	High lights at the right side of hall shining down on Emma
13		3	Hallway	Medum Shot	High	Nil	Emma is walking up the hallway (blurry)	Emma	High lights at the right side of hall shining down on Emma
14		3	Hallway	Close up shot	High	Nil	Emma is walking up the hallway (blurry)	Emma	High lights at the right side of hall shining down on Emma
15		4	Kitchen	Wide shot	Medium	Nil	Emma walking into kitchen, to draw and opens it	Emma	Medium lighting coming from ceiling lights
16		4	Kitchen	Close up shot	High/ Medium	Nil	Looking through draw and takes the panodol out	Emma	Medium lighting coming from ceiling lights
17		4	Kitchen	Wide shot	Medium	Nil	Emma walking from the kitchen to the living room	Emma	From the light of the kitchen into the dark of the living room.
18		5	Living Room	From behind (medium), then changes to over shoulder (high)	Medium/high	Follows Emma then moves to left over her shoulder	She walking into living room and sees the TV on with a sihlouette of a body on the floor	Emma, Katie	Dark as she walks to living room then room lit by TV light
19		5	Living Room	Medium close up of Emma's face	High	Nill	Emma is shocked as she realises it's her sister	Emma	Shadowy lights from tv shine onto her face (Shining up on her face)
20		5	Living Room	Extreme close up of sister's eye	Medium/high	Nill	Shot of sister's eye with Emma blury in background	Emma, Katie	Light from TV shining down on Katie's face
21		6	Office	Medium close up of detective (over Emma's shoulder)	Medium	Nill	Dialogue- "So, that's when you found you're sister?"	Detective	Normal Lighting
22		6	Office	Medium close up of Emma (over detectives shoulder)	Medium/high	Nill	Dialogue- "Yes."	Emma	Normal Lighting
23		6	Office	Medium close up of detective (over Emma's shoulder)	Medium	Nill	Dialogue- "And you don't know what happened to her? How she died?"	Detective	Normal Lighting
24		6	Office	Medium close up of Emma (over detectives shoulder)	Medium/high	Nill	Dialogue- "No… They think I did it, the police. But I promise I didn't! Why would I kill my own sister!	Emma	Normal Lighting
25		6	Office	Medium close up of detective (over Emma's shoulder)	Medium	Nill	Dialogue- "I know."	Detective	Normal Lighting
26		6	Office	Over Emma's shoulder with pictures blurry in background	Medium	Nill	Emma is looking at the picture with teary eyes.	Emma	Normal Lighting
27		6	Office	Close up of pictures	Medium	Slow pan of pictures	Shot of the pictures on the board, close up of a picture of the sister	Emma	Normal Lighting
28		6	Office	Medium close up of detective (over Emma's shoulder)	Medium	Nill	Dialogue- "I promise you, I will do all I can to find the monster who killed your sister."	Detective	Normal Lighting
29		6	Office	Medium close up of Emma (over detectives shoulder)	Medium/high	Nill	Emma nods and says, "Okay".	Emma	Normal Lighting
30