Update Digital News Project

After weeks of gathering our stories and booking dates for filming, we finally have a filming schedule and our own personal deadline to complete this project by.

Here is our schedule:


Unfortunately we weren't able to get filming done over the past couple of weeks, due to me being away for a week as well as reporters we had chosen not being able to work on certain days.
However after coming back, we were able to get our interviews booked as well as filming days scheduled.

Luckily we have the next two weeks to film everything for our news project.

Even though were a little behind, I feel that our group has pulled back together and can now get some work done.

Essay: Fiction Adaptation

For this essay we had to choose one out of the three questions given and answer it with relevant examples.

I chose question 1:

'Discuss the view that "with a successful adaptation, the original work is transformed into something new and different, although retaining many traces of what it was formerly" with reference to at least one text adapted for broadcast on television.'

I decided to do a Jane Austen adaptation as I am familiar with her books and some adaptations. I decided to choose the novel 'Emma', as that was a book I had most recently read and found quite interesting.

I started to research and found that there were quite a few of 'Emma' adaptations to choose from, I decided to compare the novel with the TV series 2009, as well as talk about the movie Clueless, as that was a modernised film about Emma.




After speaking to my lecturer, she said that I seemed to be focusing on 'Emma' too much, so we discussed that I would talk about the TV movie version of 'Emma' and how that is quite similar to the original text and then bring in a different adaptation of 'Moll Flanders' by Daniel Dafoe and discuss how that was adapted to a more modern way.

Even though I've had a hard time figuring out what to talk about for this essay after speaking to my lecturer, I now have a better idea of what i'm going to talk about.

Workshop: Studio News/Green Screen

Our class was able to have a workshop on creating a live news piece as well as how to use green screen. For the first part of the workshop we were put into two groups, and had to create our own live news piece.

Crew

Interviewer - Charlie

Interviewee - Ruby

Kate - Director

Sei-Kai - Floor Manager

Sam B - Camera Operator

Tim - Camera Operator

Vic - Vision Mix

Me - Sound

Equipment Used

5 Lights

2 Clip Mic's

2 PMW cameras

Dolly

Screen to bounce light off

Sound

Image of the 'gallery' area, where the vision mixer, sound and directer stayed.

After being designated my job role on sound, I asked Kate what sound she wanted to use, i.e. clip mic's or boom. We ended up using the clip mic's due to Kate not wanting to pick up other noises.

When I collected the clip mic's I wasn't 100% sure whether we had to connect the mic's to the cameras or the mix machine. So I asked Fergus for some help.

He told me that it would be connected to the vision mix, and then went through the stages of how to check the mic's, to make sure they worked properly.

After testing out the headphones I waited until the lighting and camera's were roughly set up before putting the clip mic's on Charlie and Ruby.

He then told me that sound people normally would make notes of who was on what mic, as this would help if any problems occurred and then you would know what mic to sort out. I made a note of what clip mic would be going on who as well as who I could hear on each ear on the headphones.

The one main problem we had when creating the set for this interview, was the back drop. We originally wanted to use the white curtain, but when we looked on the cameras the white looked green. Kate then decided to use the black curtain instead, which resulted to being a better background. We used about 5 different lights, so that the background and people were lit and didn't look flat on the camera's.

Here is our finished video:



Unfortunately due to the vision mixer only recording half way through the interview, we didn't end up have the whole story. However the shots, the lighting and framing were very good and I think we worked well as a group on this project.

At first I was a bit nervous about doing sound, however once Fergus explained to me the process to go through and explained to me how to check the signal was working, etc, I felt much more comfortable with my job role.

Overall it was a really fun workshop and it gave us a tester on what it would be like when we do our live production show next year.

The second part of the workshop we got to learn how to use a green screen.

Unfortunately due to only having a short amount of time, Fergus was only able to show us how to change the background of the green screen on filmed footage.

Kate went on the green screen, Mike was in control of lighting and Sei- Kai was on camera. Kate was instructed to look around as if she was visiting a place. After we had filmed her Andre was able to add the background we chosen earlier to the green screen using After Effects.

Here is the video from the green screen:

Overall I didn't realise how hard it was to use green screen, you have to make sure you get lighting right as it can casts the persons shadow onto the screen and then that shadow would appear on whatever background you would add. Also on how long it takes to set a green screen up, Fergus set this green screen up and said it took him hours even with help.

I might use the green screen in the future for a project, maybe me, Tim, Sei-Kai and Illy could use it for our studio parts on our digital news project. However we would have to have lessons beforehand with Fergus as they can be quite tricky to get right.

Fiction Adaptation Workshop: Music Video Mash Up

Yesterday we had a fiction adaptation workshop, where we had to choose a song and create a music video for it by using a selection of film clips, pictures and music videos.

As I was taking so long choosing a song I was able to get help from Illy who gave me some artists to look at. I ended up choosing a song by Lana Del Ray called 'Once Upon a Dream.'

It was much easier to come up with my concept for this song, I decided that my concept would be a girl having a fairytale dream.

I  looked up recent films that had come out that were fairytale like. The ones I found were;

Red Riding Hood (2011)

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

Maleficent (2014)

Out of these films I remembered there was a scene in 'Snow White and the Huntsman' where she escapes from the queen and gets lost in the Dark forest. As she gets further into the forest she finds a brighter, much nicer part, known as a sanctuary to other creatures.

I was able to find a clip of this scene on youtube, and while watching it found that I could edit it around to create the perfect dream like video.

After editing the clips, I still didn't feel like the video looked dreamy enough. I decided to look on effects for the video on Final Cut Pro and came across an effect called 'Romantic' where it gave a soft focus look to the footage. I ended up using this effect over my video and felt that it looked much better.

Here is my finished video:

Overall i'm quite happy with how my video came out, however as we only had a short amount of time to complete this, there were a couple of parts that I would have changed. I would have changed the shorter clips for ones that went on a little bit longer and also I would have edited the clips on point whenever the music went higher or lower.

Adaptations of WW1 Poetry

As we have to create our own fiction adaptation of a war poem, I wanted to research to see what fiction adaptations of WW1 poetry there were.

'Dulce Et Decorum Est' by Wilfred Owen

I found a video on youtube of someone who had done an adaptation of one of Wilfred Owen's poems, 'Dulce Et Decorum Est.' This person had used animation to create an adaptation.

This adaptation is an animation of soldiers during the war. They are struggling to walk across the fields throughout the video. Throughout the video the colours change between, red, green and dark blue/black. The red is to represent the violence and gore and the dark blue/black colours represent how gloomy it was in the war. The green was used to show the gas from the gas bombs.
Throughout the video there are sound effects of bombs going off in the background as well as sound effects now and then of the soldiers walking.

The video is quite graphic as it shows someone dying, but as its an animation it doesn't come across quite as harsh. There was a part where a soldier does't put his gas mask on quick enough and starts to choke and cough up blood. For this film there was a man who voiced over the poem. His tone was the same throughout the poem, only at one point did he raise his voice and that was to copy the soldier shouting letting the others know gas bombs have been bombed.

At the end of the video it shows a father reading a book to his son, to show that he is telling him what happened in the first world war with the poem. The story told within the poem is spot on to what is shown through the animation.

I really liked this adaptation that was created in this video, it was different to see animation to be used instead of using real people. I noticed that the storyline of the animation followed the poem word by word. There was nothing added that wasn't mentioned in the poem.

'Suicide in the Trenches' by Siegfried Sassoon, read by Stephen Graham

I researched more on youtube and came across the Channel 4 page, where I found a variety of different WW1 poems that were read by celebrities. This was done to commemorate WW1 and used only poets who were famously known for their WW1 poetry, such as Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke and many more.

I watched a couple of the videos and the one that stuck out to me the most was Siegfried Sassoon's 'Suicide in the Trenches', that was read by Stephen Graham.

The video starts with a pan of the inside of the building and stops when Stephan is shown. During the pan you can hear the gun shots of the guns. The building looks old and run down, it reminds me of a type of work place women would work in during the war. When Stephen starts talking to the camera the camera changes to a close-up until the end, this was done so that it made the poem more intense and personal. when Stephen starts saying the poem, he is light and gentle but as the poem gets more descriptive, he becomes more serious and angry/aggressive. The lighting used looks natural, as there are wide windows and open space around him. When it goes into a close up of Stephen, the camera becomes a bit shaky, which shows that the camera was handheld.

This adaptation is simple but quite effective, just by adding a couple of sound effects and using an actor who can express the poem through him makes this adaptation 100x better. I don't think there could of been anything to improve it, as the poem only lasted a minute.

'The Attack' by Siegfried Sassoon

I was on the BBC website looking for more information about the First World War, and I came across a video that was an adaptation of Siegfried Sassoon's poem 'The Attack.'

Here is the website link to the video: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/siegfried-sassoon-the-attack/1245.html

The video starts off with a medium close up of a soldier on his desk, after receiving a letter of news the actor turns more aggressive and then archived footage of the war comes up.
Throughout the video it goes between the actor and the archived footage, so it doesn't become boring. The archived footage is shown in sepia where as the actor is shown in colour, this could be because the archived footage was filmed when colour wasn't invented.
You can tell that a spotlight has been used on the actor as the light is focused on a part of him. The actor is also in traditional uniform of someone who would have been in WW1.

This adaptation was different to the others as it used archived footage as well as using an actor. As it flicked between the archived footage and the actor it made it not as boring.

For each adaptation I analysed the locations used, how the actors performed the poem (if used), the lighting and camera use as well as the style and tone of the film.

Overall it was interesting to see other people's adaptations of other war poems. By looking at these adaptations of war poems it hasn't really helped me with any ideas towards my poem, as I want to do something more experimental and maybe even not about a soldier.

Meeting with the Museum Trust

Last Friday we had a meeting with two people from the museum trust, the councillor of Swale and the PR of Swale at Swale Borough Council.

People at the meeting:

- Mike Whiting - Swale councillor
- Michael Baldwin - Head chairman for 'Friends of Milton Regis'
- Paul David - Secretary for 'Friends of Milton Regis'
- Mike McGann - PR for Swale
- Me, Sei-Kai, Tim and Illy

We only had an hour for our meeting as Mike Whiting was very busy that day, however an hour seemed to be enough. We was able to get a ton of information such as the history of the building, who the 'Friends of Milton Regis' are and what they are doing to raise money for this building; as well as explaining what plans we had towards this video.

During the meeting Michael, said that he would get me into contact with the historian that has some archived images that we could use towards our video.

Notes from the meeting:


After the meeting Michael and Paul took us to the Milton Regis building. This gave me, Sei-Kai, Illy and Tim time to check out the building and think about lighting, what areas we would film interviews, as well as the health and safety of the building, due to it being hundreds of years old.

Paul gave us a bunch of leaflets that had information about the building and the surrounding area. I have also been contact by John Clancy, who is part of the Archaeology and Heritage of Swale, said that he is willing to give us a copy of his manuscript about the history of the building, before it is published as a book.

I'm very happy with how the meeting went and feel much more better on what type of information we could include in our news package. As we have a lot more information I feel that our next step would be writing a first draft of the script.

Analysing 'The Death Bed' by Siegfried Sassoon

After choosing what poem I was going to do, I decided to start annotating the poem to see if it would help me come up with some ideas.

  

Here is what I found through analysing the poem:

After reading the poem there was definitely something eerie about it, mainly because I read it as if it was a journey of a soldier dying.

There were certain lines that caught my eye:

- ‘Aqueous like floating rays of amber light’ – reminded me of orbs

- ‘Queer blots of colour: purple, scarlet, green’ – like the person is blinking and seeing the different colours each time

- ‘But death replied: ‘I choose him.’ – I imagined ‘death’ in this part as a character, like the grim reaper taking his next victim

Maybe it was the way I was reading the poem, but the lines about ‘amber lights’ and ‘death’ came across quite paranormal to me. I really like the paranormal feel I was getting from this poem and would like to include it to my film, to add some creepiness.

There were also sections of the poem where I felt the person was in and out of reality/consciousness.

   - From ‘He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped’ to ‘Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls:’ he/she is awake and in reality.

   - From ‘Aqueous like floating rays of amber light’ to ‘his groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs’, He/she is dreaming or we’re in his/her imagination.

   - From ‘But someone was beside him; rouse him; you may save him yet’ to ‘Then, far away, the thudding of the guns’, He/she goes back into reality.

Overall I didn’t realise how many ideas I would get just by analysing the poem. I have definitely found some useful information and will use some of it towards my film. I haven’t fully decided whether the person dying is going to male or female yet, hopefully after some more research I will make a decision.