Post-Production: Week 24

Week 24 (Final Week) - Seminar & Editing

Tuesday 5th April:

• Today was the first editing session as a whole group - we all went to Milan's room (our editor) and stayed there for around 6 hours, all contributing to the editing process. 
  
  
  
  

  

  Giving my input on the duration of a clip

• Whilst there, we also did some more research. When it came to the scene where Rachel is walking into the library, we realised that there was a slight problem due to the large amount of people around the library. It had appeared in the shots when we looked back that Rachel seemed quite insignificant in shot as there were so many others around her that the audience couldn't really tell where she'd gone. I showed the group this Korean music video by a company called SM Entertainment where they've used three tiles to highlight a character.
  
  

  

  All three shots contain the same person

• We then used this influence to implement something similar into our short film where the camera narrows down to where she is in this long shot and doesn't look to cluttered as the bystanders are being eliminated from the scene.
• We finished implementing all of the scenes at the end of the day in this movie, however the text messages weren't finished and neither was the music. The inspiration we used for the text messages were taken from Sherlock. We wanted something that had that sort of style to it. Here is an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXQV-OQzN6c
  This allowed us to plan time to think about how we were going to implement something like that into our scenes. 

The group at Milan's

Thursday 7th April (Submission Day):

• Today we received feedback from Helen on our final rough cut of the film.
  List of things she wanted changed: - Sound of alarm in the morning
  - Music kicks in at split screen so it's in time with editing
  - Tinder match is unreadable, add a close up
  - Looks like Rachel is the one picking up pizza
  - Music must match editing
  - Flip a library shot because it looks like the same row/aisle
  - Jump cut of Rachel is too big
  - Hold one of Charlie's shots towards the end and cut out similar shots
  - Rachel has a left to right and right to left shot at the end so choose one or the other
• After we managed to fix all of that up, myself and Milan began working on the text animations using an animation guide we found online. I was able to create all the text messages and decided to export them into it's own clip with the texts appearing at their designated times. I then touched this up slightly and added a fade in Premiere Pro. 
• There was a slight problem with this as the text was too difficult to read amongst the background so we added a translucent rectangular box behind the text to make it more legible. 

The difference in the easy to implement text vs. the text myself and Milan worked on for over an hour

• We also had issues deciding how thick the bar should be in between Rachel and Charlie's halves of the screen: 

  

  Coming up with a side by side comparison allowed us to choose our favourite - Option 2

• After this we exported the whole film with the new music that was royalty free (found online) and also with the text messages that piece the whole film together. We were able to put it onto a memory stick, review it back as a group and were happy with the final product and submitted it. Altogether a good experience, next time I would probably choose a different role however as I'd get to learn more about filming from a different perspective. I would also ask to take part in editing more as I only really contributed verbally for the most part, giving my opinion and saying what should go where when putting the clips together etc as I really enjoyed creating the text messages and fitting them into the movie at the end.

The last group selfie before submission.

Production & Post-Production: Week 23

Week 23 - Seminar & Filming & Editing

Tuesday 29th March:

Charlie was free for half an hour at night so Phoebe and Ariane who were the only ones available went to film this scene in the library in our place - this was the only day I missed a filming session.

Thursday 31st March::

• Rachel's scene in the library and walking up the Eliot footpath (the last scene we needed for filming) was filmed today. Thanks to the planning of the scenes beforehand we were able to film very quickly from location to location.
• Firstly we re-filmed Rachel walking through the Jennison doors as it was raining the first time we did it, therefore we re-did it in sunny weather for continuity. 
• Secondly we walked to the library with the equipment in hand and filmed her entering the library from various angles and walking up the stairs and looking for a book. Doing research on library scenes, I managed to find a few good examples in the following link: http://bookriot.com/2013/01/23/great-library-scenes-in-film/
• I decided I wanted to film something in between the shelves like either the Ghostbusters example or the Harry Potter example.
  
  
  
  
• Lastly, we went to Eliot footpath to film our last ever shoot for the short film. What we could have done better in this scene was how steady we held the camera as it would make for tougher editing and cutting to that shot from wide to tight. When I tried to record her legs walking up the footpath it was too low for the tripod and I didn't want to put the camera on the floor so I ended up firmly planting myself on the floor for the steadiest shot I could possibly get. 

  

   Planting myself on the floor for a steady shot of Rachel's feet

  
  

  

  Closer shot of myself 

  

  The whole group bar Milan (who took the photo) filming on the footpath

  

  Shot of the group recording Rachel

Production: Week 22

Week 22 - Seminar & Filming

Friday 25th March:

• Ariane, Milan and I filmed Charlie's scene in the EDA building and JCS2. This was the first scene I filmed but planned out all the shots first on a notepad. This saved a lot of time as I wrote down each angle, distance and type of shot for example, low angle mid tracking shot.
• I learned from this scene that everything goes much more smoother if you plan out the shots from the beginning as it let me understand what kind of shots we needed to transition the film smoothly and gave me an idea of the overview of the scene and what exactly was going to happen in it.
  

Sunday 27th March:

• Rachel's EDA scene - parallel to the Charlie EDA scene was filmed by myself and Ariane but then shortly joined after by Katy. 
• This scene went very well and was one of the most easiest ones to record and I felt very in control and that we got it done very efficiently, this is because of the smaller amount of people filming and because we had planned the shots and done the parallel already with Charlie. The only problem I would say that we encountered during this was the battery running out in the camera and having to swap cameras and re-do all the settings which may have taken up a bit more time than intended. 
• In one of the photos below, I am seen squatting on the sofa, this was a small problem that was easily overcome. The specific eye level angle we were looking for that normally allows the audience to focus more on the character (according to media theory) was too difficult to attain due to fixed furniture being an obstacle. This is why I had to set the tripod to the smallest it goes and then crouch behind it on the sofa - simple yet effective.
• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Production: Week 21

Week 21 - Seminar & Filming

Monday 14th March:

• Rachel's morning scene was filmed on this day - with the location being Ariane's room located in Parkwood flats. This was chosen to show that she was in a different location (the other side of campus) to the other protagonist of the story.
• This was the first time I encountered problems with space and having a tripod being too large, therefore I was able to overcome this by creating my own tripod using various items found laying in Ariane's room and bathroom. With the help of another member of the group, I was able to successfully keep the makeshift tripod steady.

• This scene helped me learn that group work is important when it comes to creating a short film as you need assistance from other people and cannot get it done by yourself, for example the lighting and sound being checked by the director and also the sound person (Phoebe). 
• This shot had good high key lighting which illuminated Rachel's face for her makeup scenes making her appear more angelic as it is from a higher angle with a soft glow (soft lighting). 

Saturday 19th March:

• Venue scene with both Charlie and Rachel (final scene in short film) was filmed on this day. 
• Many problems were encountered in this day for example, the sun was too bright and directly where we wanted to film so this caused glare in the lens. To overcome this problem I moved the camera to a different angle and we had to plan a different shot as a group from profile shots to frontal views of our protagonist. 
• We also did not have a dolly to track the character with so we walked with a handheld camera, this caused a lot of shake which would be fixed through stabilising in the editing at a later date.
• Another practical problem was that the location was too busy and there were constantly people walking through the shot which caused me to have to do multiple takes for each scene. Through this I believe it made me gain some patience and the art of remaining calm when people ruined the shot by walking straight through. The director and producer stood in the way of people and kindly asked them to go round, therefore slightly resolving the problem but not entirely as some people managed to get in the scene still.
• At the end of the filming, Charlie had to leave and we remained with Rachel filming some extra tight shots, this was very useful as they would come in handy when editing as they can be used to cut to and from and make it all seem a lot more seamless altogether. This gave me more experience as a cameraman because I was able to adjust the settings of the camera on location to change from the type of long and wide shots we had been filming to close ups on steadicam.

Production: Week 20

Week 20 - Workshop & Filming

Tuesday 8th March:

• Today we filmed our first scene with Charlie Hunt as the actor - Location: Milan's room located in Turing College. I learned a lot from this as it was the first shooting and it made me realise how many different shots we had to get for example; tight shots, medium close ups, wide shots, establishing shots, tracking shots and panning shots (these are just a few of them). 
• I was able to overcome issues as a cameraman by alerting the other members of the group to halt recording when the camera wasn't ready or in focus.
• Problems were arising with one of the cameras we used during filming as it would sometimes randomly stop the filming after I had pressed record so to overcome this we swapped the cameras and transferred the SD card.
• Another problem which continuously arose was that the shot would be out of focus and I would have to ask the actor to redo the scene in the script as it was out of focus but this was my mistake as I was quickly able to remember to refocus before every shot. 

Production: Week 19

Week 19 - Lecture & Workshop

Monday 29th February:

The group got together in the afternoon and we decided to create the storyboard which I drew all but 2 of the frames, however the group were reading out the treatment and we were constantly deciding which scenes should go where and what exactly should be done, the location and minor details were all discussed. This was really helpful to do as a group as it made it all so clear to everybody exactly how the short film was going to be done and what's happening in each scene. Another reason it was so helpful was because it eliminated the individual differences between everyone's thoughts about how each scene was going to be done and now it feels as though there is a collective mind planning out the film. 

Here is what the final storyboard looks like:

The rough storyboard which helped us get an overview of the film

• Although the drawings look of low quality, the notation on them helps a lot and the fact we did this exercise was quite useful as we learned how often cuts need to be made and how much extra filming we might need to fill or shorten the duration of the short film which is limited to 2-3 minutes.

Pre-Production: Week 18

Week 18 - Storyboarding

Tuesday 23rd February:

Treatment was submitted.

Friday 26th February:

On this day was the video editing lab which was worth 10% of this module.