Storytelling Unit - Video Feedback

Yesterday we watched everyone's completed videos, they were either the first two minutes of their script or a trailer. All the videos were great!! You could see everyone put a lot of work towards their videos and they should all be proud!

When it came to showing my video I made sure that I had my notebook with me so I could take down my feedback to help me with future projects.

After watching my video Simon asked me what I thought about it, there were a couple of things that I noticed.

1. There were a couple of shots that could have had a couple of frames taken away from them.

2. I have a bit of music when my 'production company name' comes up at the beginning. I felt that it wasn't really needed as its only there for a couple of seconds and then goes into nothing as the rest of my video has no music.

Other than that the rest of the feedback I got from people was really positive.

Simon said that my video had a great tone, you get a sense of the story, it was very tightly edited and that when it came to the end it made him want to keep watching more to see what the boy does next. He also mentioned that this video showed that I put a lot of time and effort into it.

Chris said that filming in one location for quite some time can be quite boring but because I had different shots it made that 2 minutes quite interesting.

Ren said that she loved the editing and shots, but there was one little critique where some of the shots could have been darkened more, which I knew as some of the shots were overexposed.

Aimee added that my video worked with having no music and that it was nice to have certain sounds pop up like the ripping of the paper, etc.

I am so happy with my feedback and actually feel pretty happy with my video that I have done. I have made some tweaks on it and have taken the music at the beginning off, shortened some of the shots and darkened the shots I thought were brighter than the others.

Here is my improved video.

Storytelling Unit - Editing notes

Editing is a difficult thing for me as I don't really like doing it. From previous projects I've done my videos have ended up looking crap. I guess that was because I haven't really had much experience in editing, so maybe my views will change when doing more projects for my course.

During editing my 2 min intro I was able to look through the effects, luckily there was a black and white. When I dragged this onto my shots it looked too bright for black and white, so I went onto inspector and at the bottom there's composition. On the drop down list I chose darken as it was the effect I wanted to add to my footage. I only darkened my videos a little bit as I didn't want them to look gritty as well as not being able to see the actors face. Composition helped me a lot with my footage and I'm glad I learnt that from the Final Cut Pro workshop I had with Mark.

 BEFORE

I dragged the colour effect onto
the clip I wanted to change the
colour of.

 AFTER

I didn't have a lot of time with my production title, I wasn't able to use Adobe After Effects to make a cool intro. My production company is called 'Daisy Production' and I remembered that the background of my blog there are Daisy's in black and white. I was able to find the picture online again on what I used and imported it onto FCP. Even though my production title doesn't do anything cool, I'm happy that at least it has a pretty background.






I dragged the image I wanted under my text, which helped keep the writing on top of the background.

The picture wasn't big enough for the screen, so I had to 

stretch it out a little using the transform button.

The finished picture background.

Storytelling Unit - Third draft

I got two people from my class to help and see if there was anything I needed to change to my script.

Helen and Vicci were happy to help and read through them. Helen helped a lot with this script and pointed out what words I could make bigger to stand out on the page. There was only one part she thought that I should take out, as it wasn't needed. I'm glad I asked Helen to look at my script, I felt she was very professional and gave honest feedback on it. I think Helen would be great working in the script writing, as it comes very natural to her.

Luckily there are only a few pages I need to go through to change little parts but except from that I'm quite happy with what my final draft has turned out like.

Storytelling Unit - 'The Meeting' 2 min video

    Here is my short video.

This short film shows the opening 2 minutes of my script.

It's about a boy who finds out that his dad is trying to contact him. Will he go and find him or will he continue to live his day to day life?

Hope you enjoy!!

Storytelling Unit - Reflection

I was able to finish editing my video and I'm quite happy with it. I can't believe on how long 2 minutes of filming footage and editing could take. By doing this project it has given me an idea on how long it takes to get a film or tv episode ready. I changed a couple of parts to my video which I thought would make the story better, but for some reason to me I preferred my video before I made these small changes. I felt that my original piece came across more strong in shots and dramatic. Hopefully when our videos are screened tomorrow I won't think the same.

Helen was able to help with my first shoot. We worked together quite well and I wouldn't mind working with her on future projects. Next time I hope to work with more people in the class.

Even though i've had to do a lot for this project, i'm quite happy with the end result. I was able to get the shots I wanted as well as sort out the production title at the beginning (which I did at the last minute). I felt that I was quite professional with the process and didn't rush shoots.

The part I enjoyed doing in this project was writing the story, this is definitely something that interests me and is something that I hope to do as a career. I felt that this was the part I was more focused on and didn't mind re-writing.

Overall this is just our first filming project and the first time I have filmed using a Sony XDCAM and writing a proper script. I think I have done very well on this project and i'm quite proud that I was able to complete this by myself.

Storytelling Unit - Editing Research

There were two books that helped me with filming and editing my footage. They were 'The focal easy guide to Final Cur Pro X' and 'Film directing shot by shot: visualizing from concept to screen'. I found these books to be so helpful and I'm glad I went to the library and took them out.

'The focal easy guide to Final Cur Pro X' tells you about where everything is in the new FCP. It also has seven very helpful chapters on importing media, editing, effects. audio, etc. I used this book or help on effects as that was the main area I was unsure about. I love how this book gives you picture diagrams as well as written information, which I found very helpful as i'm more of a visual person. There was a section in this book which helped me understand one of the points Mark was showing us in the FCP workshop on key framing.

The other book I got out was 'Film directing shot by shot: visualising from concept to screen'. I got this book out because I had to re-do some shots and I thought maybe this will help towards sorting my shots out instead of continuously taking the camera out. This was another great book, there was a page that shots where the different shots are on a  body which I found very helpful.

Both of these books were extremely helpful for this project and will definitely use them again in the future.

Storytelling Unit - Filming progress 4

I was able to use this weekend wisely and film my last couple of shots I thought were necessary for my video. Even though this would be the fourth time I have filmed I feel like it still isn't complete.
Maybe when I add these shots into my story the video might flow a bit better. I'm hoping that when my video is finished that it is to my standard as I have spent so long filming shots and also that my classmates understand roughly what my film is about by watching this video. If them two get ticked then I will be very happy!!

After filming again and again and again i've noticed that I got annoyed with re-doing shots. If I didn't get it right I would do it again, I guess thats a good thing to know when a shot is bad even if its your own work but when its just you filming, its easier to give up. Filming can be very frustrating, for you and the actor. I've learnt more by using the camera multiple times and was able to get taught a couple of other things by Helen when helping out on her shoots. I'm hoping to continue building my knowledge about the equipment and shots, etc. Hopefully my mistakes from these shoots will help me for when I do future projects.

Storytelling Unit - Second draft

I looked though my feedback from Simon and I was able to change where the meeting between the boy and the stranger from the end of the story to the middle. I then had to come up with a different ending.
My story has now changed to so that the main character 'Luke' imagines meeting his dad. It has the same kind of concept of The Wizard of Oz where at the beginning and end of the story is in black and white, which is the real world and the colour being the dream, where the boy meets his father.

Simon seemed to be ok with the change of my ending, he just wanted to make sure I played with the dream part so that you can recognise from the real world. He also mentioned to add right at the end that the boys father turns up at the end to his home.

I was able to read through my script a couple of times and get a couple of other people to look over it so that I made sure that my sentences made sense as well as grammar being correct.

All I need to do is make these changes, read through the script again and see if the story still makes sense. The parts I want to focus more at the moment is when the boy meets the stranger and finds out he's his dad and the part where the dad turns up at the door.

Storytelling Unit - Cast

In my script there were a couple of people that I needed for the first two pages I was filming.
The two main people I needed was a young boy called Luke and a middle-aged woman to play Luke's mum, Lorraine. There were two other small roles needed for the second page of boys voices to add to the shot where Luke is playing on his xbox. This part is going to be played by my two cousins. Luckily I was able to ask family members to help out with playing these roles. My younger brother, Jake was to play Luke and my mum to be Lorraine.

Here are the photos of my actors.

Jake

Role: Luke

Main character

Rebecca

Role: Lorraine, Luke's mum

I was lucky enough for my brother and mum to agree to this, but I have found out by using family members in your projects that it isn't always a good path to use more than once. After doing this I have decided to not use family members as a first choice.

Storytelling Unit - Fourth production schedule

After to speaking to Simon about my video I decided to get the camera out one more time and see if I could get these little shots to make my video a bit better.

Fourth Production Schedule

Wednesday 20th November

- Pick up camera

Thursday 21st and Friday 22nd November

- Try to film some shots

Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th November

- Film the shots again if didn't work out first time

Monday 25th November

- Bring back camera

This is definitely the last time I can take the camera out before handing in my video and other pieces of work for the deadline in a couple of days. I want to be able to not take the camera out so many times, a couple is fine but when it gets to the fourth it can get a bit tiring. Hopefully I will be able to organise myself better and plan shoot days in more detail.

Storytelling Unit - Feedback on video

In todays lesson I was able to show Simon the first two minutes that I edited on FCP.
His response was really good. He said that the shots were great as well as the editing.
I was shocked about this as I don't really like editing nor using the camera and to have that type of response was brilliant.

There were a couple of things he thought could have made the video better. First of all as i'm showing the first two minutes of my script I have to have my 'production' company name at the start of my video. The other thing he mentioned was that I should include more close up shots of the boys face throughout the video as you don't see his face as much but also because it helps create emotion and drama to the story. The last thing he said would be a good touch is to add family noise or the TV in the background when the boy looks out his door.

I'm glad he looked at my video and I hope by making these small changes, that it will make the story much more better.

Storytelling Unit - Shot list

Here is the shot list I used for when I was filming my script. I was able to get all these shots done, but was able to take extra shots when I was actually shooting.

Under framing I shortened on what the different shots were. The abbreviations are:

MCU - Medium close up

CU - Close up

MS - Mid shot

There were the main shots I used in filming. By having this all written down helped when it came to filming, especially with the shots. I felt more organised with this and will definitely continue to do this for future projects.

Storytelling Unit - Filming progress 3

Filming the third time round went brilliant.  I wanted to be prepared with these shots as I wasn't as much the second time round and I think that time contributed to me re-doing these shots. I was able to speak to Fergus, our technician, about the my shots.

The only time that was availed as soon as to get the camera out was Wednesday 13th and Thursday 14th November. I booked the camera out even though I had a slight problem. My brother who plays Luke in my film has school during the week and as it's coming up to winter it gets dark just after 4.

Two if the shots I needed could be filming in the evening there was one shot I was  worried about. One of the main shots I needed was of my brother sitting on his bed and putting a piece of paper away. The problem with this shot was right behind him is a window.

I spoke to Fergus about whether I could film in the evening and then edit it to be daylight outside. The two different options he gave me were that, Incould use lighting and put a coloured gel onto the light to make the lighting look like its daytime. The only problem with this was, I wouldn't be able to take out any lighting as we haven't had any workshops, also I didn't feel comfortable enough using it anyway as I haven't used lighting in filming before (only natural or lamps, etc).

The second option I had was to use a green screen, and that first did I could create animated lighting to shine through the window to make it look more natural. The only thing Fergus mentioned was that it can be quite tricky using green screen for the first time and that it can take some time to do. I thought about it and decided not to go with this as I wasn't very confident on using this at the moment but also I only had two weeks to completely edit and hand in my work. I thought about it and decided the only way I can work around this situation is to film early in the morning before my brother goes to school and in the evening when he finishes so then I have both shots and then can decide which one looks better.

I filmed both of the shots and the one in the evening was too dark and you could tell that it was dark outside as well. I then filmed it early the next morning, even though it may have been a bit bright it was a much better shot to the evening shot. Hopefully as my first part of my script is in black and white the bright lighting might not show as much, otherwise if will have to see if there's ways of editing it out.

One of the other shots I was having problems with was a close up of a photo. I was struggling with focusing the camera properly when I had it up close to the photo the second time I filmed. Fergus said to me to next time to turn the macro on and then I should be able to have a focused shot. I was able to shoot this shot in two takes, the macro worked really well and I'm glad I was able to figure this problem out for future projects and shoots.

I've learnt that by filming my first film to never to use family members unless you are desperate and they AGREE to do it. Especially if their your sibling as they might take it as a joke and get stressed out more easily with you. Also to sort out the lighting and set before filming and that it's ok if you don't get fantastic shots when you first film.

I definitely know that camerawork is something that I'm not interested in doing at the moment. Maybe in time when I use the camera more I might change my mind. Even though filming is a tiring and stressful job I kind of liked that and felt pretty much in control most of the time and professional. Getting the camera out multiple times and re-shooting happens in the filming industry. I can't wait to get into the profession even though it might take a while to get there.

Storytelling Unit - Research 3

There were a couple of things I wanted to look into when I wrote my first draft of my script. They were just little bits of detail that I wanted to be correct so that I was sure it was as realistic as possible.

1) Rail way officer

In my story there is a part where the thief gets stopped by the stranger and is then held by the rail inform cement officers until further police come. I didn't know if rail officers could control the situation until the police arrived.

I was able to find a piece of information on Wikipedia and it explained the powers that rail people have.

2) Policeman

There's a part where the stranger (who happens to be a policeman) hears a boy saying a thief stole his iPad, so he chases after him. He is able to catch the thief and hand him over to the rail officers. I wanted to look up to make sure policeman off duty could still cease a person.

Wikipedia again was able to explain how police officers can cease someone when off duty, as long as they show their warrant car to prove who they are. I did find another article online explaining about this, but because it was made commented by someone in the Law enforcement in the US, I didn't really trust the information.

3) Father and son legal rights

As my story is about a son finding his dad and vice versa, I wanted to make sure that it was legal that a dad could meet his son without permission/ court hearings.

I was able to go onto - http://www.dad.info/divorce-and-separation/fathers-rights-and-law/the-family-courts-residence-and-contact-orders. This website had information on how to contact each other via court, within this information there was a little part that mentioned that if you can independently sort something out you can go through with it.

Storytelling Unit - Filming progress 2

After filming the second time, I was still unhappy with three particular shots. This time round it was just me filming my brother. I think because I wasn't able to get certain shots straight away as quickly as I wanted to, my brother then started to get annoyed and tired with re-doing shots. I tried to get as many shots as possible, but when looking through them they still weren't right. Those three shots were getting to me. Even though we are not particularly getting marked on our filming as much as our script and blog work, I still want to make the film as good as possible. I decided to get the camera out one more time and see if I could re-do these shots any better, otherwise just use the ones I have.

Third Production Schedule

Tuesday 12th November

- Pick up camera

- Try to film as many shots

Wednesday 13th November

- Film the shots again in the morning

- Decide on what shots would work better

Thursday 14th November

- Film extra shots if needed

Friday 15th November

- Bring back camera

Storytelling Unit - Editing notes

I've started editing my short film on Final Cut Pro. As a class we were given the opportunity of having Final Cut Pro workshops, there are about 5 lessons. So far were on week four and I'm really enjoying them.

Even though I've had previous experience using mac computers and software like FCP, adobe after effects, photoshop, etc. I have learnt a lot with these workshops and finding them very useful.

Mark Beer who teaches us is very helpful and explains everything thorough without going on too long about the same subject.

These lessons have actually helped me when I started using FCP. I.e. I've learnt that you don't have to trim every section you go through to get rid of a specific part of a clip, that you can just drag in the part, which makes it a lot more easier to edit and wastes less time. I was also unsure with how to change the colour of the film and in one of the lessons, he was able to cover this.

I'm hoping to get the rest of my clips filmed soon so that I can edit my short film properly, but at the moment I've got quite a few clips to work with until I can get the last shots.

Storytelling Unit - Filming progress

I was able to look through my footage and edit the first two minutes of my film. I filmed the first two pages of my script and ended up using the footage from my first page. I put the shots in order and looked through them to see if I needed to re-do any shots.

There were about five shots that were either out of focus, had something in the frame, I.e. A tripod and just wasn't in frame. Luckily I was organised and planned out my filming, as it gave me a chance to re-film if I needed to. I was able to get her camera out again within the week to re-shoot.

Being able to critique my own work wasn't hard, as I'm normally quite critical on getting my work right until I'm ok with it.

Second Production Schedule

Friday 8th November

- Pick up camera

Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th November

- Film the shots I need
- And extra shots

Monday 11th November

- Bring back camera

Storytelling Unit - First draft of 'The Meeting'

I received my first draft back from Simon and was kind of unhappy with the results I got back.

Here is my marking sheet and marked first draft.

               

From what I got from my feedback I understand where I went wrong. First of all I added too much information on what the mum was doing in between the story, instead of focusing it on the meeting between the boy and dad. I also made the mistake of having the actual meeting happen at the end of the script instead of the middle. By having the meeting at the end of my story made it have a lot of build up before then.

I need to go through my script make a couple of grammar changes and also take out the parts that are not needed. I then need to look into the story and think about the ending as well as add a bit more and change parts to the meeting of the boy and dad.

Storytelling Unit - Filming 'The Meeting'

I was able to film my first two minutes of my script 'The Meeting' on Saturday.
I'm so happy that I had Helens help on the project, I don't think I would have been able to complete filming it in a day if she wasn't there. Not only was she there to help with sound, she also gave me many ideas on different shots that I could use that I didn't even think about.

My brother, who played the young boy in this story, was very cooperative during filming. Even though he had moments where he was fed up with doing one clip over and over again, Helen and I was able to keep him going. My mum who played the extra/Lorraine in the Story played her part well, we was able to get her parts right in a couple of shots.

 Here's a picture of me filming a shot from the story.

The only problem I had was that my cousins who play, Player 1 and Player 2 in the script weren't able to come over. Helen had the idea that we could record their voices over the phone as it will give more of an effect on hearing them through the headphones in the scene their in.

Aquila was going to help as part of crew, but mentioned nearer the time of filming that she wouldn't be able to come. In a way it would have been better if I had two people to help me with filming, but i'm happy with what me and Helen have recorded so far.

Th only thing i'm worried about, is that my clips have different lighting. I'm hoping that i'm able to control this when editing them on Final Cut Pro. I'm glad that my filming is over with for the minute, I just have to look through my clips and see if there are any parts that I need to re-record.

Storytelling Unit - Production Schedule

Tuesday 29th October

- Collect camera for filming

Wednesday 30th October - Friday 1st November

- Look through camera and go through settings.

- Take test shots so that I have an idea on what shots I want to use on the filming day.

- Record any shots that I can do by myself so that I have more time to record the important footage.

Saturday 2nd November

- Filming shots - 10am - 4pm

- Helen will be here as part of crew

- Aquila will also help as part of crew

Monday 4th November

- Hand camera back and get footage onto the computers.

Camera Workshop Test

Our year was lucky enough to have camera workshops for a couple of lessons and was shown how to use a Sony XDCAM. Fergus our technician, taught us for these workshops. During these lessons we learnt about controlling the sound, lighting, aperture, framing and loads more on the camera.

For a part of our lesson we was told to get into groups and try and sell a product using different camera shots. I paired up with Aquila and we decided to use her scarf as the product to sell.

I roughly know how to use a filming camera but i've never used Sony ones before. Sony cameras are great, they have HD screens and have a lot of settings that you can use to edit the screen without doing it in post-production. Im looking forward to filming and hoping to film the first two minutes of my script this weekend.

Storytelling Unit - 'Soft' Trailer

In today's lesson we was given a task to pair up and create a trailer for the short film, 'Soft' by Simon Ellis. I paired up with Helen and we decided that we wanted to create a serious and dramatic trailer.
Our brief was to create a 1 minute trailer, our lecturer gave us 4 hours to complete this task.

Helen and I watched through the film again to remind us on what happens in the story.
We discussed on what type of ending we wanted to have, i.e. how the title of the film would look, etc. While looking through different ideas, Helen came up with the idea to have a cricket bat picture next to the title at the end. The cricket bat is in the movie and is shown through different ways throughout the film. As I knew roughly how to use After Effects, I offered that maybe we could have the cricket bat to swing and hit the film title, 'Soft' and then change to 'Coming Soon.' Helen really liked this idea so we decided to go along with it.

We chose clips that we thought were key to telling the story about this film but also the most catching and interesting to us. When we completed this we put the clips in order to what we thought would make sense. After we thought we had finished it we went through it again and thought that this trailer didn't really tell a story so we decided to take out a couple of clips and rearrange them. I'm glad we looked through it again as I definitely think the trailer makes sense now.

All the class showed their trailers they created. When we showed ours Simon told us that next time we had to make sure we make the video 1 minute long exactly, as ours only lasted 58 seconds. He also said that at the start of the trailer have a blank page so that it gives the audience a second to get into watching the trailer. If me and Helen added the blank part at the beginning, our video would have been the full 1 minute. The last thing Simon mentioned was that one of the clips we showed (the dad getting hit in the face) was not necessary to add, as it gave a part of the story away. Luckily we will learn from our mistakes and will hit our brief exactly next time.

After watching this in class there were a few things I would have added and done a bit different. At the end when the bat is shown I would have liked to added sound effects on top of the audio, to make it pop more. Also I would have liked to change the titles shown at the beginning of the film to 'a film by Simon Ellis' and adding the Sundance film festival logo, as they seemed more relevant to add then, 'UK film council & Film 4 production'.