For our group project I was assigned into a group with Aaron, Johanna and Racheal. We were tasked with making a short documentary piece about a local business (that wasn't a branch of a national organisation). After a brief walk around town brainstorming, we came up with a short list of companies we'd like to do and began approaching them to arrange times to interview. We agreed to let Johanna and Aaron operate the camera for this project.
After some companies (such as the Tuatara Cafe) declined the project, we approached the Trevor Daley music shop who were more than happy to work with us. I took charge of directing this project, and confirmed the availability of Trevor Daley and Hayden Budd. I came up with the list of questions for the interview, arranged the time of the interview, and produced the set-up for the interview set up.
We later dedicated an afternoon to the production of more B-Roll footage and I contributed an extensive amount of potential shots related to a variety of sub-topics within music, and 3 hours later, we were done with getting our footage.
Sunday, 14 June 2015
Note to self
625 pixels in a frame
Using 4:3 aspect ratio:
PAL Standard Def = 768 x 576 Pixels
720 x 576 =
25 frames per second
50 fields
Using 16:9 aspect ratio:
Full HD = 1920 x 1080
1280 x 720
"1080p25 -> Progressive scan
Vertical dimension = 1080
Frame rate = 25fps
"1080i50"
"576i15"
"576p50"
Frame Size = 4k >
Able to scale down in aspect ratio, rather than having to magnify
RGB Curves
Three-Way Colour Corrector
Note to self: When colour correcting, regularly take breaks and come back with 'fresh' eyes.
Using 4:3 aspect ratio:
PAL Standard Def = 768 x 576 Pixels
720 x 576 =
25 frames per second
50 fields
Using 16:9 aspect ratio:
Full HD = 1920 x 1080
1280 x 720
"1080p25 -> Progressive scan
Vertical dimension = 1080
Frame rate = 25fps
"1080i50"
"576i15"
"576p50"
Frame Size = 4k >
Able to scale down in aspect ratio, rather than having to magnify
RGB Curves
Three-Way Colour Corrector
Note to self: When colour correcting, regularly take breaks and come back with 'fresh' eyes.
Video Editing 28/4
Tuesday April 28th:
Some members of the class presented our Microsoft Powerpoint presentations that day. This was our first assessment of the class.
My topic was 24p vs 23.98fps, which was relatively straight forward and people followed what I was saying. I offered chocolate as a reward to anyone who answered the questions as an incentive to ensure that they kept paying attention. Sure enough, they answered my questions correctly and remembered the educational facts I told them.
Most of the class gave their presentations that day, but we had to wrap the class up near 2:50 so the rest of the presentations were due to present on the following Friday (May 1st).
Friday May 1st:
Powerpoint presentations continued, amendments and additional notes to some of the presentations that happened on the tuesday. Marks would be next week.
Tuesday May 5th:
Today we started working in Premiere Pro to create a Pre-Roll. The rationale was to help us deal with demands from broadcasters.
The main aspects that were necessary to include were:
Some members of the class presented our Microsoft Powerpoint presentations that day. This was our first assessment of the class.
My topic was 24p vs 23.98fps, which was relatively straight forward and people followed what I was saying. I offered chocolate as a reward to anyone who answered the questions as an incentive to ensure that they kept paying attention. Sure enough, they answered my questions correctly and remembered the educational facts I told them.
Most of the class gave their presentations that day, but we had to wrap the class up near 2:50 so the rest of the presentations were due to present on the following Friday (May 1st).
Friday May 1st:
Powerpoint presentations continued, amendments and additional notes to some of the presentations that happened on the tuesday. Marks would be next week.
Tuesday May 5th:
Today we started working in Premiere Pro to create a Pre-Roll. The rationale was to help us deal with demands from broadcasters.
The main aspects that were necessary to include were:
- Bars + Tone -> Calibration
- Black Screen
- Slate -> ID (Identifying format specs, who/what/when etc, I.E. - clapper board)
- Leader -> Countdown (Leading into the footage)
Sunday, 10 May 2015
Video Editing 24/4
Friday April 24th:
This class was again allocated to working on our cuts of Admit One. We were expected to finish editing our final cuts of the film that day.
Having already finished the short film, it was a fairly uneventful class for me. What made it productive for me though, was that we began watching each other's final cuts and critiquing them. Some of them were cut down unbelievably short, some of them replaced the soundtrack songs for comical value etc etc. At the end of the class we were given some advice briefly on the presentations, which was nice, considering it was worth at least 20% of the paper.
This class was again allocated to working on our cuts of Admit One. We were expected to finish editing our final cuts of the film that day.
Having already finished the short film, it was a fairly uneventful class for me. What made it productive for me though, was that we began watching each other's final cuts and critiquing them. Some of them were cut down unbelievably short, some of them replaced the soundtrack songs for comical value etc etc. At the end of the class we were given some advice briefly on the presentations, which was nice, considering it was worth at least 20% of the paper.
Video-Editing 21/4
Tuesday April 21st:
The majority of this class was allocating to working on our Admit One cuts.
I had already finished my final cut of the short film at this point, so I spent most of the class (against the advice of Patrick) researching about my PowerPoint presentation topic and occasionally experimenting with the effects Premiere Pro.
Patrick also went around teaching people individually how to automate the audio levels in Premiere Pro. Having already automated, I just helped out people with it (Iris, Josh, Adam, Aaron) with it. My automation in Admit One adjusted the audio levels to have the soundtrack music get slightly louder when the couple were shown on-screen, and reducing the volume levels of the soundtrack when David put the Minties wrappers into his ears to block out the sound of the couple having sex.
The majority of this class was allocating to working on our Admit One cuts.
I had already finished my final cut of the short film at this point, so I spent most of the class (against the advice of Patrick) researching about my PowerPoint presentation topic and occasionally experimenting with the effects Premiere Pro.
Patrick also went around teaching people individually how to automate the audio levels in Premiere Pro. Having already automated, I just helped out people with it (Iris, Josh, Adam, Aaron) with it. My automation in Admit One adjusted the audio levels to have the soundtrack music get slightly louder when the couple were shown on-screen, and reducing the volume levels of the soundtrack when David put the Minties wrappers into his ears to block out the sound of the couple having sex.
Video Craft: Lighting Exercise
Yesterday we done an exercise in lighting, for more preparation
For differing types of lights, the size of the light is a major
factor for the differences.
We were shown the types of lights available to us in the SIT equipment kits:
There were:
- Lamp
- Red-heads:
Relatively small light. Runs on approximately 650 –
800 watts
Give off a considerable amount of heat
Therefore, you
don't want them too close to the lighting
Or, you might use
them on the environment rather than on the person themselves
- Blonde lights (Bigger than red-heads, presumably a 'medium' size)
Main types of light:
- Key Light
- Fill Light
- Backlight
Monday, 20 April 2015
Preparations for Mini-Documentary Interview
This morning we learned a few key-points to take into consideration when preparing our documentary.
A lot of emphasis was put onto what kind of key points we want covered during the interview.
This was summarised into 4 main categories:
This strongly resembles the emphasis placed onto the Who, Where, What, When, Why and How basis for common questioning in journalism. We watched two videos in this class to get us thinking about how we can go about preparing our assignment.
Three main considerations when deciding on a setting for the interview were:
A lot of emphasis was put onto what kind of key points we want covered during the interview.
This was summarised into 4 main categories:
- People
- Places
- Plot
- Purpose
This strongly resembles the emphasis placed onto the Who, Where, What, When, Why and How basis for common questioning in journalism. We watched two videos in this class to get us thinking about how we can go about preparing our assignment.
Three main considerations when deciding on a setting for the interview were:
Is the setting relevant to the topic being discussed?
Is the setting comfortable for the interview subject to be in?
Is the setting 'Production-Friendly'?
Production friendly in this case could refer to places with a good natural lighting source, minimal outside sound that could get into the recordings and no administrative objections to the interview taking place there. The absence of any of these values would make the setting that much less ideal to use for the main interview.
An equipment list was mentioned in one of the video lists, to which I added a few extras that I think would be ideal to have during the production process.
The list is as follows:
- Camera
- Tripod
- SD Cards
- Memory Cards
- Laptop (to transfer memory to so that you can format the cards if they get full during the day)
- Microphone
- XLR Cable
- Headphones
- Lights
A summarised checklist approach was made during this class for some of the key bullet-points:
- Research / gather info on project
- Have a task sheet / shot list and questions ready
- Keep in mind crew members are potential interview subjects
- Prepare plenty of Video Cutaways (Make use the environment)
- Use a tripod as much as you can
Thursday, 2 April 2015
Exercise with composition
Video Craft
We've started this week by focusing on elements of composition to get the right type of shot for the right scene that we're trying to portray. We watched a pretty good, informative video explaining some of the concepts in class.
We've started this week by focusing on elements of composition to get the right type of shot for the right scene that we're trying to portray. We watched a pretty good, informative video explaining some of the concepts in class.
Some intriguing things which stood out to me were the use of "flat" frames without much use of depth to portray a dissatisfactory situation - such as a character feeling lonely, or having a boring job etc.
The examples in the video gave us a bit to think about on composing frames using colour, positioning and even shape. Another interesting thing to keep in mind for
So now we're starting an exercise of making a 5-Shot film sequence, to tell the story of something happening.
My group (myself, Aaron Askew, Nicola Abbott) decided to go with the action of someone grabbing something out of their locker at course.
- Establishing Wide Shot (character walks down hallway)
- Over-shoulder shot (focused on the lockers)
- Extreme close up on lock (hands unlocking it)
- Over-shoulder shot (Grabbing book out of locker)
- Mid Shot (character puts the sheet of paper in their bag
The shooting of the shots was easy enough when we got a grasp of the camera, but had some difficulties.
Editing the clip and putting it together was easy, too.
Our biggest criticism was that the camerawork was "shaky", but this was due to us not having a tri-pod at the time we shot it and having difficulty. Annoyance in the lighting of our scene (having no natural light).
Editing the clip and putting it together was easy, too.
Our biggest criticism was that the camerawork was "shaky", but this was due to us not having a tri-pod at the time we shot it and having difficulty. Annoyance in the lighting of our scene (having no natural light).
Monday, 16 March 2015
Working with video cameras
In our Video Craft paper, we began working with actual video cameras! Week 5 what up.
Kevin further taught us about the different types of camera shots that Patrick taught us (as well as the different tools in the camera kits) and then we took the cameras out in two groups and made examples of each shot as an example of that particular camera shot. Another straight forward exercise.
Apparently the cameras that we're working with at this stage are 'semi-professional' (not industry standard, but enough quality for us to work with) and are worth approximately $9,000. It begs the question how much 'professional' video cameras of industry standard quality would cost.
Kevin further taught us about the different types of camera shots that Patrick taught us (as well as the different tools in the camera kits) and then we took the cameras out in two groups and made examples of each shot as an example of that particular camera shot. Another straight forward exercise.
Apparently the cameras that we're working with at this stage are 'semi-professional' (not industry standard, but enough quality for us to work with) and are worth approximately $9,000. It begs the question how much 'professional' video cameras of industry standard quality would cost.
1st Assembly Edits
A bit of fashionably late commentary on last week's lessons...
After finally finishing the painful logging stage of our video editing, we recently got taught the production process for post production. We immediately started working with using the timeline sequencer to put our sub-clips that we'd noted to be the best takes of each shot into sequential order and worked on our 1st assembly edit. It was a reasonably straight forward process.
As we became more familiar with working in the sequencing window of Premiere Pro, we got taught the purposes of some pretty practical tools to save us some time. Things like razor cut, Ripple Edit Tool, and setting in and end points to cut a chosen sub-clip and snap the newly adjusted end or beginning of the sub-clip to the previous or next sub-clip so that there was no gap of empty time in between the sub-clips and make it more streamlined.
One more session and we should be ready with our final cuts!
After finally finishing the painful logging stage of our video editing, we recently got taught the production process for post production. We immediately started working with using the timeline sequencer to put our sub-clips that we'd noted to be the best takes of each shot into sequential order and worked on our 1st assembly edit. It was a reasonably straight forward process.
As we became more familiar with working in the sequencing window of Premiere Pro, we got taught the purposes of some pretty practical tools to save us some time. Things like razor cut, Ripple Edit Tool, and setting in and end points to cut a chosen sub-clip and snap the newly adjusted end or beginning of the sub-clip to the previous or next sub-clip so that there was no gap of empty time in between the sub-clips and make it more streamlined.
One more session and we should be ready with our final cuts!
Sunday, 8 March 2015
Logging
Last Tuesday and Friday I started working on the basics to video editing for the very first time. A welcome experience, and a relatively straight forward one too. I didn't really expect basic video editing to be very challenging - and sure enough, logging took up the majority of my time and was more time-consuming than anything.
Maybe some of that was the fault of my work process. I initially worked by making a huge amount of time markers in the original video file clip (well, in the software's window of it at least) at the end of each scene's different takes so that I had a rough estimation for where I'd be cutting. Eventually I started habitually zooming in to re-adjust the marker to a finer position in milliseconds so that I didn't waste any frames by cutting earlier or later than necessary. Getting more familiar with the spooling key commands to fast-forward/play faster really helped me in this stage of the process when I got more familiar with it.
I reckon using Adobe Premier Pro, I can probably now do something that I've always been curious how to do (and suspected it was rather simple) - that is, how to cut certain scenes I like from larger video files. For an example, I've always wanted to know how to cut fight scenes out of a martial arts movie so that I don't have to skip through the movie to find the scene if I wanted to watch that scene in particular.
What was more interesting to me that I learned while catching up on missed lessons, was the different types of camera shots there were (Extreme Close Ups, Close Ups, Mid Close Ups, Mid Shots, Mid Long Shots, Long Shots, Wide Shots and Extreme Wide Shots) and how to recognise them as well. Adding descriptions to the generated sub-clips by referring to and from my notes was easily more enjoyable than actually generating them. I started off with a very minimal approach, noting pretty much only the type of shot and character shown and gradually got more descriptive of the scene itself. The descriptions more or less resemble a more concise version of the storyboard now.
My base video having a different time code to everyone else threw me off a bit as well. Still not all that sure how that happened. It's made me a bit suspicious that somehow my project's gonna end up weird and potentially miss things, but oh well. One way to find out.
Maybe some of that was the fault of my work process. I initially worked by making a huge amount of time markers in the original video file clip (well, in the software's window of it at least) at the end of each scene's different takes so that I had a rough estimation for where I'd be cutting. Eventually I started habitually zooming in to re-adjust the marker to a finer position in milliseconds so that I didn't waste any frames by cutting earlier or later than necessary. Getting more familiar with the spooling key commands to fast-forward/play faster really helped me in this stage of the process when I got more familiar with it.
I reckon using Adobe Premier Pro, I can probably now do something that I've always been curious how to do (and suspected it was rather simple) - that is, how to cut certain scenes I like from larger video files. For an example, I've always wanted to know how to cut fight scenes out of a martial arts movie so that I don't have to skip through the movie to find the scene if I wanted to watch that scene in particular.
What was more interesting to me that I learned while catching up on missed lessons, was the different types of camera shots there were (Extreme Close Ups, Close Ups, Mid Close Ups, Mid Shots, Mid Long Shots, Long Shots, Wide Shots and Extreme Wide Shots) and how to recognise them as well. Adding descriptions to the generated sub-clips by referring to and from my notes was easily more enjoyable than actually generating them. I started off with a very minimal approach, noting pretty much only the type of shot and character shown and gradually got more descriptive of the scene itself. The descriptions more or less resemble a more concise version of the storyboard now.
My base video having a different time code to everyone else threw me off a bit as well. Still not all that sure how that happened. It's made me a bit suspicious that somehow my project's gonna end up weird and potentially miss things, but oh well. One way to find out.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)