My first eveing with StaffsTV

On Wednesday night, I went to the uni to join the StaffsTV group for their WhatsNext show. I booked to be a camera operator.

I got there with my carer and they told me that they put me in for camera assitant, which I didn't mid at all. We all got the cameras in posistion, in focus and the white balance corrected.

All of a sudden, one of the leaders, Sophie got hold of me and took me to the sound and lighting booth. Because nobody turned up for the lighting, I had to take over the posisiton. I felt very nervous to begin with because lighting is my weakness through filming and I not familiar with the lighting deck. She tought me what I had to do at certain time with the lights. We had a rehersal of the show before going live so we know what were doing. This went pretty well but I got the lighting part wrong. So Sophie had another talk with me about it and then one of the other member's called Hammish, had another talk with me and taught me what time to change the lights at a certain time. After this, I did feel more confident.

We then went live and the show was a success. Everybody did thier jobs brilliantly. There were a couple of hiccups but we quicly past them and it went very smoothly. I also got the lighting correct and changed them at the right time.

I really enjoyed this experince because it gave me a good sense of achievement at the end. It also gave me the experince of what its like to work in the studio. The group were brilliant. I really like the way we all comunicate with eachother and I got on really well with them. This will definitely work for my studio module next year. I really want to go back next week.

So overall, a very successful evening. Here is a group photo that was taken at the end of the evening.

Shooting my corporate video

I am still making my corporate video for promoting my course. I have to say its going well so far so good.

Production
Last week, I asked two group members if I can film them making their drama for my corporate. They agreed and I filmed them making their drama in the black room. This I thought went very well, even though I captured their outtakes! Here are some images of the shoot:

I then asked after their shoot, If I can interview them about their project, how its going and about promoting the course. This took a while to do because we kept laughing or forgetting what we were going to say. But I did capture some good takes.

I also did another interview with a lecturer I interviewed before. I wanted to do this because the setting didn't look right. The background looked very plain with only one single camera, the angle looked too high and there wasn't a shot of me, nodding and agreeing to what the lecturers saying. I chose the new library for the setting because it looks new a fresh. The interview itself went very well. There were times where I needed to retake because the lecturer joked around a couple of times.


Post Production

I have been editing straight after shooing. I have now decided that I will capture all the footage and then gather it all together and choose the best bits out of all the clips. I know this will take a while to do but I think it will work. I then decided to cut one of the group members from the video because I didn't follow him much through out his work. At the moment, the video is not in order but it will be
soon.

Through out this, I have learned that I have to make sure the shots look right and use shots of over the interviewee's shoulder, to show me, nodding and agreeing to what they're saying.

The last day of shooting 'Paralysis OF Fear'

Production
On the 13th of November, I completed shooting my drama 'Paralysis of Fear'. I got there at about 1:20 that afternoon and started setting up as soon as I got there. This time, I used a different camera, which is a XM2. I really enjoyed using it because there were parts that were more simple than the A1E's.

During that time, the actress told me that she's changing her hair style, so I felt this had to be the last shoot. Also, she was up to her neck on her own uni assignments.

The first part of filming went brilliantly well. The angles looked really good, the actress did a fantastic job and the lighting was exactly how I wanted it to look like. It was sunny and the light shon through her closed curtains. This gave the very dim effect. Here's what it looked like:

But as the day drew on, it started to get darker. So I used a portable lighting device that I borrowed from my drama lecturer. To use this, I asked for assistance from the actress's younger sister (who also had a tiny part in the film). To give the same effect from earlier, I asked for her to put the lighting behind the curtain to make this happen. This did work beforehand, but then it got dark quicker. This was very challenging. I knew this had to be the last shoot, so I chose as a last resort to make the lighting very obvious and I thouht that I can fix it on Post Production. The rest of the shoot went really well. Here's is the example of what I meant on how the light is obvious: The first picture is the lighting gear and the second is how obvious I wanted it to be for a last resort decision.

After the shoot, I had to get some quick shots of interior of the hallway inside the house. This was for an establishing shot for the second scene of the film. I also had to get an exterior of outside the house for the same scene. This I couldn't get because the lighteing wasn't good enough. I then wanted an extra shot of the main character by a lightpost for the beginning scene. This was also unsuccessful because the light was broken. So, I decided to leave that shot out.

When I got home, I decided to walk around my street like I did before for establishing shots for the beginning of the film. This time, I wanted to take a shot of someone's house from the outside on the front for the establishing shot of the main character's house. I walked around and took a few shots of different houses. I thouhght then, through out post production, I could choose the best looking house for the film. This went very successfully. But, I didn't ask permission to do this. I just quickly took the shots and left. In the future, I will ask for permission to this.

Post Production

Through out editing, I tried to fix the obvious lighting. This I really struggled with. I even tried to use it in AfterEffects. I'm not really familiar with AfterEffects, so I tried to use Lynda.com but I forgot my password for the programme. I then used the method of resetting my password, so this was going to take time. I thought then, I was completely stuck. So, I left it that evening and tried to think of alternative solution.

The next day, I had a brainwave. I thouhght that I could change the ending. I asked my family of what they thought of the idea I had and they agreed. So I then edited the footage that I had and changed it to match the idea I had. One challenging moment was with one of the clips, the timing was a off with my voice over. So I then went back to the previous takes and chose one that I thought worked well. I then added my voice over for it and it worked really well. But then I realized that I needed to add one more line. So I used the camera and boom mic and spoke into the mik. Here's what it looked like:

 

To make the voice effective, I used a different tone for myself. On Premier, I added an effect on the voice called Reverb. This gives out an echoe effect. This is what it looks like:

 

This looks really good and its a great success. The only I've got to add now is the second half of the music that one of my group memebers are going to create for the film.

Here are some more images of the shoot: The first image is of me preparing for the shot of the dark silouhette that I play.
The second is of me preparing the shot.

 

What I've learned

 

Through out making this film, I have learned that never have in mind that I'm going to finish the project done in one day, no matter how much I've got to do. I have also learned that I should plan ahead of there are any issues. I should come up with a backup plan. 

Filming yesterday

Filming

Yesterday, I went out shooting my film. I had the intention of finishing the film.

I encounted a problem with transport at first because I forgot to ask my friend, who's acting to give me lift to her house where I'm filming. So we started filming later than I expected.

Filming went very well and my friend acted brilliantly, even when she was tired from her own uni work. I got as much footage as I can but we had to stop because of lighting issues and the house was getting louder because my friend's younger sister came home from school. So at the end I didn't finish the film.

Post Production

When was about to start editing, I looked at the footage that I shot and I found a major continuity mistake. I found that the actress was sitting in a particular position and then the cuts afterwords, she sat differently. Also, the lighting didn't right because it was shaded in a different color and it was too dark. Here is an example of these mistakes:

I am hoping to film next week on Tuesday. So before then, I will ask if I can borrow some lighting equipment and test it in the college before using it. I would to use a particular colored gel because the previous lighting gave out a certain color and I would like that to match with the previous colors. So I would like to also test this before using it properly.

Here's what I want the image to look like:

My biggest thing I have learned through out yesterday was not to have the expectation to finish the film in the day, no matter how much I have filmed. Always think I'll shoot as much as I can.

Hopefully the next shoot will be better.

Filming 'Paralysis Of Fear'

Through out my half term, I have been concentrating on making my short horror film 'Paralysis Of Fear'.

Filming

On the 30th of October, I shot the third scene and some of the final scene with a Z1 HDV camera. This I thought went very well but there were a few issues. I had trouble using the tripod because it was a different type that I've never used. So to avoid anymore troubles, I remember a particular method from the director, Stanley Kubrick, making the film 'The Shining', where one of the cameramen didn't use a tripod through out filming a scene. He had to hold the camera very still wile filming. So I tried this method and it worked successfully, although it was challenging.


This was for the POV shot

The other issue was lighting. I wanted to use a dim effect by closing the actress's curtains. This went very well to start off but then as the day went on, the sun was setting. So I continued filming and I thouhgt I could fix this issue on post production.


Actress reading the script, preparing for the scene


Except these issues, the day went very successfully. The actress did a great job and I thought the camera angles look really good. I asked the actress if she can create her own makeup by putting on smudged lipstick to make herself look really ill. This unfortunately didn't show on film, but it was there just incase.

Post Production

Straight after filming, I went onto editing. I had truobles beforehand because I couldn't find the port for the firewire. I did find it at the end which was good. The footage I shot came out really well. In the scene with the main character and her sister, I shot the younger sister's parts first and then on the 30th, I shot all the main actresses parts. I realised that some of the colours looked slightly different, so I used the colour correction method to fix this. The colours then came out very similar to eachother which I wanted. The footage of the last scene came out very dark so I decided to increase the brightness and contrast. This didn't come out as well as I hoped. I have now made the decision to reshoot this scene.

I also realised that through out the converstaion scene with the main actress and her sister, there is no diagetic sound at parts. I thouhgt of a plan to download a particular part of the film that was playing in the background. But I looked back and thought it would sound different, so I decided to record just the sound of the film and put it in the background. This came out successfully.

The next filming date will be next week Tuesday.