October 2014 archive

Analysis and Reflection 5

1. As per lecture – in a sequence you’ve called ‘colour’ you will have clips that are indicative of a particular colour or lighting state. To the right of that clip you will have that same clip repeated 2 or more times with different colour grades on it.Take screen grabs of each clip then upload to your blog the series of stills that show us ‘before and afters’ of your colour grading. Provide a few different examples of at least two different clips – each with a description of what you did to the clip and why. This is a learning exercise, not necessarily a qualitative one, don’t stress – it is the act of doing it and the reflection on that, that is important.

Screen Shot 2014-10-26 at 10.35.46 pm

 

What we used – three way colour corrector and brightness/contrast

 

Image 1 – The Original

We decided that we wanted to use this clip in our documentary, the only problem being it was a little bit overexposed. The sky was one of our concerns – as it is a little bit yellow in this shot, as well as the wall, which is a slightly different shade of blue from the rest of the film.

Image 2 – Test 1

We decided to bring down the brightness, as well as increasing the contrast, to help with the over exposure. We bumped up the blue highlights to help make the sky look a bit more normal when compared to the other clips in our film.

Image 3 – Test 2

In this image we decided to adjust the shadows and midtones to help the colour in the wall look more normal. By adjusting the amount of blue in the clip, we made the wall look similar to the other shots we have used. We also adjust the brightness and contrast again in this clip, as well as adjusting the amount of yellow highlights, making the sky look more normal as well.

Screen Shot 2014-10-26 at 10.06.50 pm

 

What we used – three way colour corrector and brightness/contrast

Image 1 – Original

This clip is a little bit over exposed, but our main concern was that it was not white balanced properly and therefore has way more blue than it should. While we initially thought we couldn’t use this clip at all, we eventually decided to have a play with it and see if we could use it.

Image 2 – Test 1

In this test, we reduced the brightness and increased the contrast, making the colours look more vibrant. As this shot is a pan, while it looked good in some frames of the shot, it didn’t look good in others.

Image 3 –Test 2

In this clip, we tried adding yellow highlights and increasing the contrast. While this worked to fix the amount of blue in the sky, it made the stones look really strange. As this is the main focus of the shot, we decided we couldn’t use this clip.

 

2. “In 200 words or less please outline your goals, desires – what you want to get out of this semester. You will review this later in the course. You may rethink this dramatically – this is a good thing.”

You were asked this at the beginning of the semester. Now, could you review constructively what you got from this semester – has the course lived up to your expectations, delivered what you expected, maybe even surpassed it?

At the beginning of the semester, I was a little bit reserved about working with documentary – I felt that narrative is a really a strong point of mine, as I’ve done a lot of work on that in the past,and I really didn’t know what I wanted to make a film about. However, I have found that I have really enjoyed the semester, and I feel that both my production and post-production skills have increased rapidly this semester. I have enjoyed the opportunity to have more freedom in our production schedule, as well as the ability to borrow equipment whenever we wanted and shoot as many times as we felt like. I also enjoyed learning how to use new equipment, like the Z7, and I feel like I am much more confident in using the equipment than I was last semester. This semester, I wanted to focus on my editing skills a lot more, as I felt I didn’t really get to do very much last semester. I loved the opportunity to increase my editing skills, and feel I am much more proficient than I was last semester, particularly in colour correcting and audio mixing. Overall, I have loved Film&TV 2, mostly in the freedom with our production schedule, and the ability to research and create a narrative with something I didn’t know very much about before.