Evaluation Post 6: What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

I have learnt quite a lot in the use of both hardware and software during the process of constructing our film opening.

Hardware

During the filming of the project I used the Canon Legria HF G30 camera. Although I had experience with this camera during GCSE, only during this project through experimentation did I work out how to change it to manual focus mode.

I had never used a camera jib before, but due to being very interested in photography and videography I did know a bit about them. Although no shots using this piece of equipment were used in our final sequence, we did shoot several shots with it, mainly shots of the table in a bird's-eye view style.

The lights were something else I had never used before, but knew a bit about, mainly due to having worked with virtual lighting in 3d animation software Cinema 4d. I learnt again through experimentation how to change the intensity of the light from the Arri floor lights, and learnt how to adjust the angles of the light hitting the scene. I also learnt how to adjust the shape and size of the ceiling fill light using the extendable rod.

Software

I had a lot of experience using the composition software Adobe Premiere Pro, but nonetheless managed to learn something new, as before starting the project I had never known you could have multiple sequences within the same project. Through the course of the editing sessions I also got to grips with and got into the habit of using the hotkey shortcuts, such as holding 'Alt' whilst scrolling in order to quickly zoom the timeline in or out.

Animating individual mask points

Although I had some past experience with Adobe After Effects, I had never really used masks much before, and learning how to make any shape mask and animate the locations of each point within the mask was a great new skill I learnt during the course of the project.

Evaluation Post 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

I feel I've learnt a lot in the progression from the prelim to a full product.

The briefs:

The brief for the prelim:
"Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanged a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule."

The brief for the film opening:
"To produce a 2 minute opening for a fiction film. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright free source. It should be clear from your sequence who the target audience is. "

The brief for the film opening gave us a lot more freedom than the brief for the prelim task, however this could be viewed in hindsight as both positive and negative, as although it was great to have more control over what was going to happen, we had to take more consideration in planning a more filled-out story, and finding ways to apply what we had learnt during the prelim.

Pre-production:

When planning the prelim, a lot less work was involved than when planning the film opening.

Prelim storyboard

For the prelim, we made a rough, messy storyboard on a piece of lined paper, the function of which was purely to just get an idea of the shots we needed to film, whereas the storyboard for the film opening task was in colour and more neatly organised, greatly improving the efficiency of the project as we could all just use it as a visual reference of the required shots.

Film opening storyboard

For the prelim we made a rough shoot order list, just stating the location/setup and the required actors/props. Like the prelim storyboard, we did this in a very rough format. For the film opening however, we made a far more organised shootboard with the length of the shot, the shot no., a visual representation of how we thought the shot should look, the actors/pros involved, the location, and who was doing what on set. This really helped keep track during the shoot.

The prelim script

The script was another integral part of both the prelim and the film opening task. Our prelim script was thought up very quickly, scribbled on a piece of lined A4, we only had one copy, and we mainly used it just to work out timings and so that Thakshana and Mario knew their lines. The script for the opening sequence took far longer to write, included stage directions, and we ended up printing multiple copies for both us on set and the actors themselves.










Production:

There were a lot of big differences between producing our prelim task and producing the film opening project. Unlike during the prelim, during the main project we had to worry about lighting, a lot of props, a lot of other continuity features, and a lot more direction for the actors was involved.

Continuity in our prelim

The prelim task taught me quite a lot however, the focus on the obvious areas of continuity, such as opening and closing a door, made us think more about smaller aspects, such as in the main shoot where the chips were located in each shot. We also got to practice correct framing a lot more during the prelim, helping us in the main project.





Post-production:

The post-production of the film opening sequence was a lot more involved than the post-production of the prelim task. During the prelim task, all we really needed to do was place in the shots in the correct order and cut them to the right length so that the continuity flowed well. During post-production of the main project we had to do all that and more.

Continuity in our film opening

For the film opening we had to add titles, transitions, and use ProcAmp to grade the shots. We also had to use After Effects to create the special effects of the gunfire. We hadn't had to worry about After Effects during the prelim.
Had I been less experienced with the software, I think the prelim task would've given me great basic knowledge, a sort of starting slow and easing into the more advanced concepts that we used during the post-production of the main project.


I found working as a team more challenging in the film opening task. During the prelim I had been directing and behind the camera most, so was able to be in control and make sure we got the shots we needed, which is something I think I did well. During the film opening task, I was not directing or behind the camera so much, so found it harder to know when to input my thoughts on how to do something or if I should give better direction to the actors. During the course of making the full product however, any issues I had I learnt a lot from.

Construction Post 10: Looking back - reflections on our final outcome

Final Opening Sequence:

Positives:

- Overall, throughout the project our team worked fairly well together. Though there were points where we may have disagreed, we always managed to eventually sort out our issues, and have probably all learnt a lot about working as a team.

- Seeing our initial idea progress into a finished product was quite inspiring for all of us I believe. Though not totally polished, I think we are all rather proud of our sequence.

Negatives:

- At times there was considerable stress felt by the entire group, this was mostly due to the time constraints of the project, and increased pressure due to availability of the studio and actors.

- There was sometimes lack of communication within the group, resulting in further stresses and making it harder to get work completed.

As a whole, despite any issues during the project, I am happy with what our group have managed to produce. There are still some continuity issues within our sequence, however to fix these we would need a further week of shooting and editing.
I hope that audiences find the stylistic look and feel of the sequence, and can relate to or aspire to the compelling lead characters within the opening sequence. I also hope the opening really grabs the audiences interest and attention so they are compelled to keep watching and find out what happens next.

Construction Post 9: My technical learning curve (production and post-production)

The jib was something I had never
used before.

Within the area of production

- I learnt how to use the lighting panel, studio controls, and floor lights
- I learnt how to setup the jib and safely operate it
- I came to realise how small continuity mistakes within the shoot can be blindingly obvious when       coming to edit
- I learnt that time management is key to getting shots successfully



Within the area of post-production

Using masks in after effects.

- I learnt how to make masks look cleaner within Adobe After Effects, (by having the edges fade           rather than sharp edges)
- I learnt how to effectively grade footage to prevent jarring changes in the style between shots
- I became more aware of the need to organise footage into folders and naming them

Thus far I've really learnt a lot about organisational skills. Though I already knew a fair bit about the skills required for the technical side of creating the sequence, the more practical sides of it, such as time management and deciding what we need against what we want, is something I learnt through experience within the project.

Construction Post 8: My personal contribution to the Edit Sessions

During the first week of editing, I contributed as much of my time as I could, a total of 10 hours editing time.

Firstly I had to transfer the shots from the camera to the pc, and then into the project. I then began giving them their correct shot numbers to allow the group to quickly be able to reference the shots and find them easily.

I also spent a lot of time reviewing the shots to select the best takes for us to use, as well as placing them into the timeline within Premiere Pro, and cutting them to the correct length. I also put in our music and worked on balancing the levels of the sound so that no dialogue was drowned out.

Though I did some work on grading shots, the majority of grading was done by the other group members during the second editing week, for the majority of which I was taken ill.

The grading I did do was mainly testing what sort of values to put into ProcAmp to make the black curtains no longer visible behind the actors, but not ruin the light on the characters, which was difficult in shots where our lighting was not ideal.

The curtains are no longer visible, however he is now too bright
due to having to increase contrast to combat the darkening caused
by reducing the brightness of the shot.

Though I feel I contributed as much as I could have to the editing process, I do feel that had I not been ill I would've been able to do even more to improve our sequence, and this does annoy me.
Nonetheless, the time I did spend editing was very productive, as I was just able to sit down and get work done.

Construction Post 7: My personal contributions to the Shoot Sessions

During shoot sessions, I mainly took on the role of organizing lighting, how I did work behind the camera for some time as well. Alistair mainly worked behind the camera, and Iggy mainly organised the shoot board and shot lists, however we rotated the roles somewhat so we all got experience in all areas and found what worked well for us all.

In organizing lighting, I found myself needing to design a studio plan as to where each shot was being taken from, and thus the optimal positions for the floor lights to be located. Initially we only used two floor lights, but by the end we found using four gave the best possible look in terms of shadowing characters.

The studio plan I designed

I also had to use the studio control panel and the leapfrog lighting desk, which I learnt how to use pretty quickly despite seeming quite a daunting task initially.

Overall I believe I contributed a lot to the shoot sessions, despite the first two sessions finding it very difficult to arrange the lighting exactly how we felt it should look. I feel I learnt quite a bit about lighting design from doing this.

Construction Post 6: Reflections on Edit Week 2

As with the previous edit week, a schedule was made listing which days each group member would be editing, and during what time. Annoyingly I was taken ill for the majority of the week, so was unable to come into school and help with the edit.

The group made solid progress without me however, reworking the sound and dialogue to create better flowing sound, fading the audio in and out to prevent jarring sudden sounds. The main reason for this was that the microphone had picked up a lot of white noise. Really, what we should have done to correct this would be separate the audio from the shots, load it into a program such as Audacity, and use it's noise removal tool, then re-insert the audio back into the project. However, this would be very time consuming to do for every shot.

You can see with this quick recording I made how the waveform is before and after noise is removed.

Dialogue before noise removal, the parts without speech are
still quite thick lines.

Dialogue after noise removal, the lines
either side of dialogue are thinner.

Grading was also done, through the use of ProcAmp, to help make all the shots of similar composure.
Unfortunately some of the shots from older shoots had to be kept, so masking was used to keep the same style throughout the sequence.

Despite editing starting late due to the availability of the studio, the group still managed to complete the sequence to good standard, the final sequence looked like what we had in our heads when starting the project.