Month: February 2017

【Recording Place】#15 Final Reflection

Recording Place is a studio which is a location-based documentary practice. “Place is absolutely the best framework with which to tell a story. It’s the place you begin, and it’s the place you wind back to.” For this summer, we focus on the place Queen Victora Market. From this studio, i learned a lot. It’s very glad for me to took this studio through this summer. I learned how to find the story through the place with any details. I learned how to use x200 camera. I learned how to editing the documentary. Also, I learned what a good documentary should be. Rohan is a good teacher who taught us a lot about the documentary filming. I enjoy the whole sessions of our studio. When I do the filming, editing, having lectures and even write the blog. It’s a nice experience for me.

Our group ‘s work is focused on the Mr.Huang who is a man with an indomitable spirit. At the age of 76, he can be found with a cigarette on his lip and a pallet of produce in his wiry grasp. Originally from Guangdong, Mr. Huang takes us through a day in the life of one who is beginning to feel the weight of his years.`After we have the brief ideas, we started to do some filming. We went to the market in few days to shoot for different footages. The time before market opening, the time after market opening and also during the work time. We shoot lots of footage in different situations for our film. Also, we did an interview at Mr.Huang’s home. He is a very kind man. We had a great time in this home. After all these shooting things, we split footage up into folders. Becuase Mr.Huang is a Chinese who can’t speak English very well. So the interview is in mandarin, and we need to do the subtitle translation. After translation, all of our group members can understand what he was talking about in the footage. Then all of the members watch all the footage, listing highlights, overall action in the scene, and anything else that you feel is important. Write down what happens and what we think is appropriate. This is a huge job and we need to make sure to break the core into manageable chunks.

Then we go to the rough cut part. We break down interviews and other longer things into manageable segments. This can be done in final cut by marking when someone goes onto a new topic. And then we lay out interviews in order in the timeline. On top of this start putting appropriate shots. Then we do the slash cut. Put all your footage in order on the timeline without doing any editing. We also need to find tempo music for us to edit to. One of our group member Meg let her friend make a background music for our film. So everything seems going well for our group’s work.

From my individual contribution, actually in our group we do the works together. Every group members need to do the shooting. But for the interview, i went with Jenny and Jack. We enjoy the time in Mr.Huang’s apartment and listened his story. It’s amazing and he is so kind man. We discussed a lot about our concept. Like we do the concept about “The difference between the life in Austrlia and China”, and then we try to narrow the concept a bit. Also i did the subtitle translation with Jenny.

I feel very happy with my group work, we learn a lot, we know each other a lot and we do our work pretty good. I think it make me want to have more group work in further, because it learn much more in group than you do the work alone. In the further group work, i will be a person have a lot of communications with my members. It is really helpful in the group, because you can have a lot of creative ideas while in communicating.

Also, Rohan gave us so many advice. It’s so useful not only in this course, but also in our future media careers. That’s really nice for me to take this course. I enjoyed it so much in this summer.

【Recording Place】#13

In this week, we are doing the Rough Cut part, here is the planning of our work:

Cut up. Break down interviews and other longer things into manageable segments. This can be done in final cut by marking when someone goes onto a new topic.

Lay out interviews in order in the timeline. On top of this start putting appropriate shots.

Slash cut. Put all your footage in order on the timeline without doing any editing.

Find tempo music for you to edit to.

Rough cut. Start cutting.

Work out why you are procrastinating:

• If you are not satisfied with the structure, create a beat sheet for your documentary and brainstorm what doesn’t work.
• Analyze the structure of similar documentaries. With editing, it’s easier to get lost in the small details. By analyzing similar documentaries it can make you think creatively about it again. With longer documentaries, unless you have a presenter, it is common to have a parallel narrative.
• Do you find it unpleasant? If so, write down why.
• Do you feel overwhelmed by the task? If so, break it down into more manageable chunks.
• Are you disorganized? If so, write down why.
• Are you a perfectionist? Don’t go for perfect. Instead, go for what is achievable. Rough cuts are only rough, so just do it and don’t try to make it perfect.
• Go for a walk. A gentle stroll helps you to reflect.
• Work under time restrictions.

Grading. Colour correct your documentary to achieve continuity between different cameras and achieve a particular mood.

 

【Recording Place】#12

So we finish our documentary Organize part.

And i will list what step we do in the first part of editing:

• Shoot a lot of footage. It is easiest to edit a documentary that has a lot of coverage.
• Segregate the footage in folders. Split footage up into folders.
• List all the footage in a log. Watch all the footage, listing highlights, overall action in the scene, and anything else that you feel is important. Write down what happens and what you think is appropriate. This is a huge job, so don’t underestimate how long it will take. Make sure to break the core into manageable chunks.
• Index the interviews and subtitles. This is where you capture the gust of what the interviewee says, not the entire dialog. Do this by breaking down the interview into half minute segments. Work out where these should go in the interview at the end. This will be useful when it comes to the paper edit.
• Convert to standard definition. Editing a documentary can put a lot of strain on, especially if you are working in HD. Do an offline edit where you convert to standard definition. When you have locked off (finished) the edit, re-import HD footage.
• Paper edit. Create a two column table in word with one column for video and the other for audio. Each row is a different scene. Put all clips and interviews in order and play around until you are happy with it. You can edit after that. This is helping you create a blueprint for your edit.

 

【Recording Place】#11

Still working on the subtitle translation. We searched a lot about how to do professional subtitles.

For example, CPS is important in subtitle translation.CPS: cps is short for count per second or Characters per Second, If your client wants you to make the subtitles 14 CPS, it means that the reading speed per second should be 14 Characters, this is another limitation when doing subtitle translation, you need to apply your translation due to the time length for each timeline, for example, under 2 second timeline, your translation must be less than 28 characters, in this case, if your translation is too long, you should change your translation, rewrite or transcreation.

It’s important that during translation the timelines and numbers remain exactly the same as they are in the original (but if you have the video source and know how to do with the timeline, you are allowed to modify the timeline and numbers according to your translation). Changing them will lead to some corruptions within the subtitles, which is why we should use QA tool to check if we have destroyed the rules at the end of translation. When running the QA, the translator is going to be notified whether any number was changed or eliminated by accident, this is a very important process in managing subtitle translation project, it shouldn’t be an optional step, it is an essential one.This manner of translating subtitle files is simple, creative, actually, it’s a new step of recreation.