Make Up Scene Re Filmed

This is one of the scenes I ref limed for my project. The original clips had extremely bad lighting and the background distracted from the viewer. In this one, the lighting (although redo lights were used in a photography studio) looks realistic and natural, with no harsh shadows or spill. The background is plain and professional really making the woman stand out.

Docudramas

I began to very much look into docudramas as I feel my piece would very much benefit from being within this style/genre. Docudrama (as described on the website link given below) is where

Events are portrayed by actors in front of an invisible "fourth wall"


I believe it is where you are given shots of commentary followed by a sequence of drama where the events are carried out. Shooting techniques remain the same as conventional film and television shots, and whilst these visual sequences are acted out, there is not commentary. Docudramas are non fictional drama. The real is being represented.

I feel the trailer below is quite an interesting example. It shows real footage but merges it with modern day sequences reenacting of what it was like in the past. There is a commentator describing what is happening within the scenes as well as given additional information. As an audience you trust what this trailer is telling you, as the information is factual and the miss en scene used enhances the realism, even though it was filmed many years from the actual event.

Lighting Resolved

Today I reshot my scenes in the Photography studio using Dedo lights instead of the fluorescent lights that I previously used. It looked much better and far more professional. There was slight grain which I sorted out on Final Cut Pro, but apart from that, the models skin colour looked much more realistic and overall healthier! I increased the contrasts lightly to make it more dramatic and then reversed the shots. This created a really unique effect which I felt was highly effective. It is representative of how her daily routine has been disrupted and she now has to remember new tasks to do every day in order to maintain her sugar levels. It has left her slightly confused and this effect is meant to symbolised the chaos now in her life, which she will eventually have to learn to control.

Sound

For the scenes of my model running, I removed the sound as it was not appropriate to the piece. However, I then felt it was far too silent and needed some sort of background noise. As the original footage had people talking over it and was generally poor quality, I used Logic Pro and the effects available to me on that software. I added 'Town' background noise and footsteps of someone walking on gravel. I cut each footstep and timed it every time Lizzy's foot touched the ground. I also adjusted the with the volume making the footsteps quiet as she was far from the camera, and gradually louder as she came towards it. I then bounced the sequence and added it to my piece in final cut pro so that it synced perfectly.

Lighting Issues

I filmed the below footage in my bedroom as I wanted to make the video look more like a realistic account of the girl's life and I feel by filming in her bedroom makes it much more personal. However, lighting was difficult and especially at the time I was filming looked extremely inconsistent and dull. That is why I have decided to book the photography studio to achieve much more professional and dramatic lighting for my piece.

Sound Effects

I decided to use this copyright free website to download some sounds that I want to use in my piece. I rented a Zoom microphone and tried to record the sounds myself however for the dripping of the tap, I feel that I could not get the right sound. I wanted it to be loud with a large echo, which is something that I could not achieve on my own. Therefore I have used a sound effect that sounded as if it had been recorded in a sort of cave, which sounded extremely more stylistic.

http://www.freesound.org/people/sazman/sounds/17431/

http://www.freesound.org/people/Percy%20Duke/sounds/23872/

Opening Titles

For the beginning of the film I created opening titles using After Effects. I used a few text generators as well as adjusting the opacity levels in the transform options. I wanted 'diabetes' to enter quite stuttered, to make it look quite blunt as it is quite a harsh illness generally. Towards the end, 'type one' and 'one type' flicker into each other to represent how type one is quite negative but it eventually becomes something that is manageable and more positive (e.g only 'one type' of illness that exists in the world).

Music Back Up Option

If for some reason circumstances change and I cannot use the 'We are the Ocean' track (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWTIgmAHFS4)  here is another song I found on a website called www.jamendo.com. It provides thousands of copyright and royalty free tracks and arranges them into genres to make it easier to find the song for you. Below is one that I could use as it matches the tempo I want for my scenes at the beginning.

Royalty Free Music - Stock Music Library | Jamendo PRO

Tips for Production

Lighting
http://production.4filmmaking.com/lighting.html

Video Production
http://www.cameratim.com/video-production/tips

Mobile Videos
http://www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/contribute/tips/mobile/camera_video/index.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/contribute/tips/mobile/mobile_video/index.shtml

Technical Tips
http://www.bbc.co.uk/videonation/contribute/tips/camera_lighting/technical_tips/index.shtml
http://vimeo.com/videoschool

Art Class 09/02/12

We were using dry pastels today and focusing on drawing landscapes from a photograph.

Colour Temperature Chart

This chart was quite useful for when I was thinking about lighting for my project. It helped me see what  kind of tones and hues you would expect from certain scenes and temperatures.

http://www.mediacollege.com/lighting/colour/colour-temperature.html

EISENSTEINS MONTAGES Cont.

METRIC:

• Base of Eisenstein's theories
• length of scene is already fixed, therefore the shots are cut and arranged in order to express concepts of a piece

TONAL:

• Used to show an overbearing emotion

RHYTHMIC:

• Edited based on length of the clips
• Normally used to show a solemn or slower moving scene

OVERTONAL:

• combination or metric, rhythmic and tonal
• make audience feel what is happening more than just processing information

INTELLECTUAL:

• way of shown what you mean through a visual metaphor
• deepen the meaning of a scene

http://filmdirectors.co/sergei-eisenstein-filmmaking-techniques/

Art Class 26/01/11

Today we used acrylic paints to paint a still life that was positioned in front of us. We were mainly just experimenting with colour and so I took it as a great opportunity to see which colours work well together. I feel the red and yellows are extremely warm and work subtly together. Yet the purple of the light with the yellow background is striking, causing a lot of dramatic contrast.

Sound Experiment

I used a commercial I found online to add sound using Logic Pro. I decided to make all sounds realistic to the scene, which is why I chose sounds such as a door opening, dog barking, truck going past etc. I used sound effects that were available to me in Logic Pro, yet there are some I could record myself such as the door and footsteps on the gravel.

http://www.archive.org/details/Cigarette_Commercials_Marlboro_2-of-3

http://www.archive.org/details/Cigarette_Commercials_Marlboro_2-of-3

Art Class 19/01/12

In this class, we used charcoal to draw from a still life that has been placed in the centre of the room. There were many curved objects that had been set up, making it particularly hard to create movement, as charcoal tends to smudge and become quite messy. It is also hard to gradually create tone with this medium.

Art Class End of Term

This is an oil painting I did using a photograph I had taken from one of my very first blog posts of lilies outside. I focused very much on colour, blending many shades together to see the effect. I found that purple really made the yellow stand out and jump off the page, probably being because they are strong complementary colours on the colour wheel. Reds and greens also worked very well together. 

Art Class End of Term

Below are some quick sketches using different pencils such as HB, 4B and graphite sticks. They were drawn from pages of magazines as I quickly flicked through them. Each character took about 3 minutes and I feel it really helped me explore my skills, deciding which detail was most important and effective. 

Montage

I created this montage using Final Cut Pro. I wanted to show the stress and panic that the fish feels after the man is fishing for it and it becomes hooked. At the beginning the shots are longer, setting the scene. However, suspension slowly builds when the shots become shorter. The tea cups here look extremely quick paced and chaotic which is probably what the fish is going through as it tries to escape.

http://www.archive.org/details/tmp_AmateurF

http://www.archive.org/details/Cigarette_Commercials_Marlboro_2-of-3

Sight Sound Motion - Herbert Zettl

CHAPTER 18 THE SYNTAX OF COMPLEXITY EDITING

• Used to intensify emotional content
• Based on story and emotion
• Basic concept for complexity editing is creating a MONTAGE
• Montage is a juxtaposition of several separate events that when shown together combine into an intense piece
• Analytical montage: break down montage in terms of rhythmically precise shots
• Sequential: shows the cause and effect of an event
• Idea associated montage: juxtapose disassociated events to reinforce an idea (SOMETHING I WANT TO CONSIDER)
• Comparison idea associated: compare two similar themes by juxtaposing images from different events
• Collision idea associative idea: collide two conflicting ideas to create a new idea
• Metric montage: images flash on screen and regular intervals, rhythmic framework is essential

Idea for Final Piece

For my own project, I  would like to create a visual non narrative piece, featuring flashing images and metaphors for my chosen theme. Recently, someone very close to me was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, an incredibly life changing condition. I want to gain more knowledge about it, and try to represent the effects it has on the person not only physically but emotionally. I want to try to convey not just the negative aspects of it, but also a sense of feeling in control and somewhat powerful enough to cope with it. I have used many techniques to come up with ideas and images I could use to represent the physical words associated with diabetes. In particular, I found using ‘Oblique Strategies’ (Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt, 1975) as a form of idea generation most effective. I enjoy creating sentences and asking a range of people of different ages to write down the first ideas that come to mind, as each and every one of us thinks differently. I will then try to adapt these and come up with whole new inspiring concepts of my own. My piece will be titled ‘1 Type’, which was inspired by the condition my friend actually has which is Type 1 Diabetes. When read like this, it sounds as if it is the first and therefore the worst condition to have. I feel ‘1 Type’ makes it seem far less daunting, and clear that it is actually only one of a huge amount of conditions that exist within the world.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Dean’s thoughts on using physical film to create her work, with no post production. I want to explore this myself, however instead of using film, I want to use more available and everyday forms of recording, such as mobile phones and hand held compact digital cameras. I feel that these forms of medium have a way of making the scene look far more realistic, which is exactly what I want the audience to feel; a sense of movement and realism, and to be aware of the fact that Type 1 Diabetes does exist and does not just disappear. I also liked how Dean layered different images on top of each other within the same frame; it created an extremely interesting and distorted effect. It makes the audience focus much more, and so this is something I myself want to explore. I may want to layer scenes that are more negative, such as needles pricking a person’s finger, with scenes of someone running and having a sense of power and freedom. I feel that Dean’s idea of contrasting images in a scene is highly effective which is why I too would like to do that. I need to research how to layer different videos in Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects, and will do this by following online tutorials and experimenting with the software. In regards to sound, I feel that a silent film like Dean’s is highly effective. It makes the video far more intense, and the audience hear their own sounds whilst watching, making the film far more personal to them.

The Kuleshov Experiment

GRAPHIC: matching of images
TEMPORAL: passing of time
SPATIAL: showing the space
RHYTHMIC: matching rhythm

Eisenstein's Montage Types

A montage is a compilation of dynamic and often discontinuous relationships between shots, as well as containing a juxtaposition of images.There are five key montage types that we have explored.

1. METRIC

• Shots are joined according to their lengths
• Tension can be created by shortening the length of the shots

2. RHYTHMIC

• Tries to create a rhythm that conflicts
• Strong link with music, the music creates a rhythm
• Focuses on what is actually happening in the scene

3. TONAL

• Driven by the characteristic or dominant emotional sound of a piece
• Reflects emotional intensity

4. OVERTONAL

• Combination of metric, rhythmic and tonal
• Comparison or collision montage

5. INTELLECTUAL

• Montage of sounds and overtones
• Metaphorical, not literal
• Based on the theme of the scene