Week11 development

Robin gave me some suggestion about my project. First one is the order of the shots. When I filming the scenery of Melbourne in each part, I have not considered the concrete sequence of those shots. I just tried to film the beautiful scenerys as many as possible. Then I changed the order of those shots depending on Robin’s suggestion. I found those shot became more meaningful and logical in a new sequence. For example, the unexpected shot which the man says, “ what’s that?” moved a little bit forward, so the meaning of it has been changed. This shots looks like an introduction of the content of first part.

Xiaochen recorded voiceover for the project, he slowly, softly talk about his internal idea about this city and his experience in this city. According to this voiceover, viewers may used a personal perspective of XIaochen to feel this city, it is really different.

The sound design is pretty hard to do in split screen film. As the suggestion from Robin, I layered different soundtrack together in some shot, also used fade in and fade out to make it natural. The environment sound, spot effect, music and voice-over should cooperate with each other. So I clearly observe every shots, and add the suitable sounds for it. I hope I did it in a good way.

Week 11 the usage of PR

In this week class, Paul clearly taught us how to use Premier, such as some useful basic skills, cutting, trimming and so on. Through a series of exercises we are already really familiar with those basic skills. In addition, Paul introduced the color correction to us. Color correction is quit necessary to use in our project, because it is a key element to enhance the cinematic effect. Personally, I am interested in this part, so I keep learning different skills about color correction in this semester.

Three Way Color Correction is so good to use in our editing process. We may respectively correct the color in highlight, midtown and shadow areas. When we choose Tonal Range in Output, we may clearly distinguish which parts is belong to which area, then we can moving around each color wheel to change it. It is more powerful tool for dealing with different problems, also it is more accurate than fast color correction.

Week 10 project development

I edited the second part of my project, this part almost shows the comparison usage of split screen. As I mentioned in last week, there is lighting problem in some shots, such as the shots filmed in two different rooms. So I did the color correction for it, making it natural as soon as possible. Even if I notice the consistency of the level and frame of each shot during the film process, but in my editing process, I still found some small distinctions after I put them in one screen. It is pretty hard to do it so accurate. In addition, except the comparison shots, I designed some urban shots too. I want to emphasize the life of the people who live in this city. But the shots I already filmed are not enough to show the idea, so I filmed more out side shots to edit together. In order to emphasize the visual effect, I use some effects for it, such as using slow motion to focus one the action of people, using the color change to show the movement.

Week 10 epiphany

In this week, we firstly did one similar exercise which is pulling focus. We mainly used three different cameras to practice this technique, which are SONY EX3, SONY Z7 and DSLR. Those three camera respectively have different focal length, 20mm, 25mm, 80mm. Our group used Z7 in class, however, we found Z7 is really hard to pull focus, the data is keep changing. Undoubtedly, in my perspective, EX3 is the most convenient and comprehensive one in it. We are able to clearly adjust the focal length depending one the mark of every position.

In addition, we watched lots of clips about the usage of voice-over. There are many people will use voice-over in their project including me, so this is a good opportunity for us to study. One-person voice-over must be a common way to create concrete meaning of some abstract scenes in our film. Also, it is a good way to show or imitate the subjective world of subjects. For my project, the one-person is extremely important, because, my project is a narration of the protagonist, it represents what he seeing and what he feeling. So actually his voice-over relates the three different pats, making them be logical. I hope I can do a good and suitable voice-over.

Week 9 project development

I finished the second part shooting of my project. In this part I want to introduce the life of people in this city, basically emphasizing their actions, such as footstep, taking tram, getting up and so on.

I firstly filmed two people’s daily life routine. I want them to represent the every one who live in this city. As I planed, I filmed several simply situations about their every day morning life, such as they getting up, brushing teeth, drinking milk and coffee, cooking and going outside. Those situations are simple, but the key point is I should choose a good position of it. Because I will compare them with two screen in one shot, so the composition, the lighting, the size of the subject both are so significant, those things have to keep in same level. So in my filing process, I keep reviewing the shots I filmed when I shooting the similar one. However, I found the lighting problem is hard to avoid. For example, when I filming the shot that they get up in the morning, I found the light in the two people’s room is really different, it is so strange when I put them in one shot, so I did the color correction as soon as possible. Except those simple life situations, I also expand scope to shoot some outside scenes. I want emphasize people’s action in this city, how the live in this city and construct this city. So, I mainly used low angel to film people’s walking step, used wide shot to show they crossing road, taking tram, and go shopping.

Lighting is really significant in film. Actually, lighting is the key element to create the cinematic effect of scenes. Undoubtedly, the basic usage of lighting is same with camera, which is allowed viewer able to see something, in other word, it light up the subject. Also, the lighting depicts the story, show the contrast, create the continuity and enhance the special emotion.

As Robin mentioned the lighting could be divide to several parts, which are direction, intensity and quality and color. Like we did in class, the Key light cannot change direction in different shots, because it will lead the problem of continuity. However, we could move the light a little forward or back to cooperate the position of camera. Generally, in filming process, the director will use fill light to make a better contrast of subject. The control ability of key light and fill light is so important, I hope I can try it and improve it in future works.

The quality of lighting mainly is talk about hard light and soft light. Hard light creates the obvious contrast of subject, it might show strong emotion in some time. And soft light largely and normally used in film to create natural shadow. In class exercise, Robin taught me a good way to adjust the quality of light. When we feel the light is too shard, we could use a white board to bounce light making it be more soft. This is really useful.

I really like the different color usage of lighting, I think it is perfect way to give a special emotion to environment and characters. For example, using the cool blue color to emphasize the isolated, lonely or high technical feeling, the yellow red color to create romantic and dubious feeling.

After I shoot the part one of my project, I edit it immediately. I mainly used two usages of split screen in this part. First one is using different perspective to show one space. For example, I divide the screen to three parts to introduce the graffito street, one is the close up shot for a interesting graffiti, and one is the wide shot for architecture, also I filmed one medium long shot for one person who are taking photo with a graffiti wall. I believe this three shots is able to show the graffito street in a broad scope in a same time. In addition, in order to enhance the visual style, I simply divided one shot about some place to different parts, such as the Victoria library, the Finder Station. I found that those places both s better to used wide shot to film, because they are fantastic architecture, the wide shot can show their glamour in a comprehensive way. Those wide shot is easily to evenly divide to different parts. Viewer is able to directly and clearly focus on the beauty of each part of it.

However, as Robin talked to me, I haven’t designed enough suitable transition. Also I have to create more effect of each screen, the visual style not so strong and special. I am so agree with him. I will change it in next week, making it have terse rhyme .

Week8 project development

 In this week, I finished the part 1of my split screen project. I went to the center of Melbourne, and shoot different symbolic sceneries, architectures of this city. Such as the graffito street in Melbourne, that is so interesting and artistic. In the shooting process, I found that is a little boring if I only shoot the graffito, so I tried to capture some movements cooperating with that artistic graffito. For instance, I captured one traveler who is taking the photo in the graffito street. In addition, I shoot the church near the finders square and the carriage in Swanson Street. Then I edit those things to three screens in one shot, so that they construct a space. For the church, I used different perspectives and position to shoot it. One is the low angel close up shoot for a part of it. Another is the wide shoot for the whole of it. And for the carriage, I have to say I am so lucky, because I fortunately capture a couple who taking one carriage passing by the camera. Indeed, they talk with camera. In order to show the life style of Melbourne, I went to the area of Yarra River, in here I shot the street artist, the people who relaxed on the grass, the people who are boating. Honestly, those shots are shoot without plan, I just got inspiration when I seeing it.

Actually, through this filming, I deeply realized that how important about the “time” for documentary. Even, I already have a storyboard for this part shooting, but in the real filming process, I still shoot lots of unexpected scenes. So, in documentary filming, we are inquired to capture the scenes accurately and quickly. For example, we should quickly confirm the suitable exposure and good composition when we found any good scene. I thought I got improvement in those aspects trough this shooting.

Week 8 epiphany

1. INTERVIEW

On today’s class, we watched numbers of interviews. When people mentioned documentary, they are easily relate to the interview. However, too many normal interviews will make viewers feel boring to watch. So using different ways to do an interview seems so significant in documentary. Robin showed so many clips on class to illuminate the different style of interview. Usually, in formal interview, the interviewee is looking at the camera or looking at the interviewer who might sit beside with camera. I think this normal style will make the interview straight, powerful and serious, especially used in biography documentary. In addition, sometimes, the interviewee and interviewer may sit together in the shot, they may talked like a friend. This style seems more relaxed than the first one, it is also usually used in television program I guess. In my opinion, I am prefer other one which is more interesting, the interviewer is following with the interviewee, and ask the concrete question when the interviewee doing something. This one is help viewers directly get involved in it. Actually, in broadcast media, we have done the similar one in our television program. We did a food theme program, which introduced Middle East food. In this program, we interviewed one chef during her cooking process, according her cooking step, we asked specific questions. This interview style not only makes audience know the theme more clearly, but also avoid the boring waiting time. If I do an interview in future, I’ll still choose this one.

Then we did a class exercise to shooting an interview documentary. I am a sound recorder. In our interview, we used a different shooting style. For example, the interviewee look at the camera, and we also used the over shoulder shot from the interviewer. But in our shooting process, our group didn’t filming systematically. I think we should consider how to improve cooperation in our future group exercise.

The color is really significant for a film. Undoubtedly, in the filming process, we have to consider about the exposure, white balance and lighting, through those right way we may got a good picture. But it is not means that we do not need do some color correction in post production. The good color correction must make our shot be more perfect and beautiful. So I am really want to know how to do a color correction in a right way. I researched some useful videos from YouTube, and from this video, we can learn how to use fact color corrector in a right way.

One good tip I learned is if we’ve got a problem with one color in our film, we have to go to one hundred and eighty degrees in opposite direction to get read of that color. In addition, in the correcting process, we have to remember two rules.

1. Look away often from our screen. Because, our eyes will easily get used at one color.
2. When we doing the color correcting, it is better to choose a room do not have sunlight. Because the sunlight always changing in different time. We may choose a room have a constant light source, no changing and shifting.

Moreover, we have to use reference monitor in our correcting process, such as the vector scope and YICwaveform.

I will keep learning the different skills of color correction, and used in my film production too.