Sound plan

Last semester we have learned about iMovie and Garage Band. iMovie can helped to add music and sound effects for the film with different layers and timing. It also can slightly edited the sound task, but it did not as well as I want. So this time we learn about Final Cut Pro, which is a more professional film edit software for us to achieve our goal such as multiple screen and better sound edit. Now when did not design our final plan of film yet, but we already notice that we want something happy, positive, gentle and emotional for out film. Therefore, pure music and a little bite rock style may be suitable for the film.

Also we has been ask for the type of our film. I personal think that documentary is not our prefect choice, because our PR company is tend to an airy style but not too formal. An reason is link to our target audience, which is teens and parents, therefore our campaign should also be interesting, may be more like an advertisement style.

Yoko's Week Four

In week four’s class, Toula taught us more details about camera control and also showed us some fabulous short films to us. They were very impressive and creative, especially these short films displayed on website which expressed the way very different to television broadcast. It may not be very professional as television broadcast does but the ideas of these short films are usually very fancy and diverse. It probably because these short films were created without the settled framework like broadcast so the directors could make the film just followed their thoughts. I have to admit these films definitely gave the valuable inspiration to our own video project like how to attract the audiences at the first time through changing the story narrative order.

Toula also asked each group to prepare a short presentation about final video project in next week so our group had discussion and finally decided the general conceptual framework of our video. We will choose four to five performers to represent different age groups and occupations, and we will shoot them individually about their regular lifestyle. We were thinking about that created a way to make them notice about our campaign and this would be the common thing among them. From this point, we wanted to split screen into four parts, which may show these four performers’ actions at the same time. This is our rough framework about our video and we are still thinking about the performers and the opening sense and ending.

Yan's Week Seven

Week 7 26^th November 2010

In week seven, each group shared their script idea in the class. After working on the script, this is the best way to receive useful feedback in terms of developing each group’s script idea. Hence, the development of storyboard will be followed by the script idea.

The book “Operating cinematography for film and video: a professional and practical guide” written by William E. Hines effectively provides a diversity of essential information relating to camera operating. There is no doubt that this useful guide can facilitate us during the process of drawing storyboard in terms of creating better result for the major project.

Meanwhile, we need to start thinking about our second assessment which is based on the script and storyboard. As Toula mentioned, it is a good experience for everyone to try the different aspects of the project not just focusing on their own role. Therefore, I will be selecting Editing Style statement of the project by giving evidence of the creative approach. As I am the production manager, the way of writing an Editing Style statement is a useful benefit for me in understanding the editing style and how editing style play its role in filmmaking.

Wini's blog Week7

I have taken all the suggestions that Toula gave me last week and I have finished the new edition of our script.
Today, we have to present our script in front of the class and gain opinion from our fellow classmates.
I think this is a really meaningful practice because it would be good for our group to know the ideas of our 'target audience'.
I found that there are a lot defects of our script. As Toula suggested, the method of promoting our campaign to the characters is a bit boring, and there should be more variety. After considering others' advice, I have added more elements into our script and I have described the actions of the characters in a more specific way.
I think discussing the script with different people will help to make a better script. Since our script have nearly finished, our group started to draw our storyboard. It is important to create a storyboard before we start filming, because storyboard is like a proposal of our video, it can remind us the angles and settings when the video starts.
We planned to start filming in week 9 and we will finish the storyboard and the documents before week 9.

Style and Genre

Everything that goes on the screen or into the audio of our film affects how the viewer perceives it, so it is important for our group to talk about how genre is affected by stylistic choices, both technically and otherwise, we can classify our goals somewhat by focusing on this subject. In our project, the main genre will be documentary as we decided to create a non-fiction story of exercising prevent obesity. This will be demonstrated to inform and educate the viewers about the important of exercise by using some simple facts of being healthy which can be done by everyone.

Also, since everyone in our group have a sense of humour and want to create something that make the audience laugh while acknowledging them with several facts and ways of exercise that can really be used in real life. So, the genre of comedy will be considered as a sub-genre for our project and we believed that this genre will be a great vehicle for our group to reach the target audience more easily, and we will be grateful to see the viewer watch our project with a smile on their faces. =)

Learning sound record

After taken experience from last semester filming for doing the sound recorder, the most important thing I think is the quality of sound. Outdoor shot need to be aware the noise condition very carefully, such as the natural sound (sometimes the wind blow too loud), noise from human behaviors and machines (such as car and electric equipment). Therefore, the filming location and record equipment is very important.

Add the cover (the furry one:D) for outdoor in windy day, to avoid the unwanted background noise and record a good quality sound.

Last time when we filmed, we got another problem for sound record- the cable can make a noise when it 'hit' the boom-pole. It will create a quite clearly ‘tick' sound in the sound task and quite difficult to clear it because it mixed with character's speaking although the volume is not big.
Also from the Class, we learn about the stand position of sound recorder, be careful to not shot any part of boom inside the frame. It may be a big problem when we edit it after. We also learn to set up and check the equipment, especially when we got the new camera set! .

Yoko's week three

In week three, our subject tutor Toula taught us many useful functions and special effects of using camera in more details. I was the camera man of my last semester’s group and I had several limitations of controlling camera to reach our original shooting goal because of lack of camera using experience. I thought today’s class was very helpful to develop the understanding of camera controlling and I also wrote down some very specific notes to memorize each steps we might have chance to use in our project. I am not the camera man this time, but the camera skills are also very fundamental and basic to every group member, especially for director. If a director wants to express the idea through a film, he or she has to have very deeply understanding of camera use rather than anyone else.

Meanwhile, I also began to prepare my first assignment of this semester which is a webdoc review. We need to watch an online documentary named ‘Journey to the end of coal’. It is very engaging and touching documentary film and the style of this video is also creative, especially incarnates on interaction with viewers. Once I watched this documentary, I didn’t feel like I was only a viewer but also the participant. This creative interactive way of film taught me that how important the interaction is, no matter it will be used in documentary or other different genre of films. It is an effective way to engage audience and target audience unconsciously. We will keep this key point in our mind while we are creating our own project.

Yoko's week two

In this week, we had group meeting during the 416 class and we discussed the genre of our final project. After one week research and tutor’s suggestion, we finally decided our video will follow the advertisement style pattern and we will also put something very creative and interesting into it that in order to relevant to our campaign’s topic. As last week we mentioned, our campaign is about encourage people to do daily exercise in order to prevent obesity in Australian local region. Moreover, the tactic of promotion of our campaign is to use the new media platform, especially the prevalent social network sites like facebook and twitter, which is in order to create social connection between we and audiences and also audiences and their families or peers.

Therefore, the emphases of our campaign are regular exercise and social connection that will determine the style and structure of our video project. I was thinking about maybe we can use the way of screen by screen as a style of our video and also makes some connections between screens which would match the idea of social connection. For example, once we set four screens showing up at the same time, and there would be the four characters in each small screens, they are doing something individually, after a while, they will begin to do a common thing (relate to our topic) and characters begin to notice someone beside them and make connection with each other like the effect of across the screen.

There is a very successful example of screen by screen style and also the important inspiration to our video project. The screen by screen effect starts at 0:35.

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Yoko's Week one

For the purpose of week one, we organized the group members and ensure everyone’s roles and their responsibilities for our major project. Our group members are: Wini, Yan, Angela, Tee and me. I think it’s a great group for working together because we already worked together as a team for last semester film shooting. This means we shared same experiences and privities which are good for collaborating again. We decided the crew roles in terms of everyone’s speciality and interests due to we believe that interests are always the most incentive thing making people to work on their best.

Therefore, our crew roles arrangements are: I am the director, Wini takes a role as editor due to she is very good at writing and her English is the best among our group. Yan’s crew role is producer manager because she had already experienced this job in previously semester and she did this very well. Tee is our camera man and the reason is same as Yan. Angela is sound record and design and she is very interested in it and also talented on this one.

Besides, we also discussed the ideas of our video project and every group member got various thoughts which are good because diverse ideas mean we would have different choices. I was thinking about maybe we could make a video more likely as an advertisement in terms of our campaign’s purpose is to encourage audiences to do regular exercise. For this goal, I personally thought the way of advertisement could be more encouraging and promotional to our audiences rather than documentary style. I also thought about the image of our campaign are energetic and lively which matches usual advertisement style but not for serious documentary. I wanted to promote an idea that regular exercise is the easy way to keep your health, which should be matched an easy and interesting advertisement. If I am an audience sitting in front of television, I would not want to get a healthy suggestion through a lot of serious interviews which documentary did.

Camera effects

In week 2, we had learned some skills of camera controls in order to make a special feeling of video if we need. Those skills including the setting of Iris, Shutter speed, Gain, that affect the lighting conditions, and white balance, focus, zoom, etc that mainly affect the colour of picture. There are few effects I personally interested showing by those photos:

Shutter speed is an interest camera effect we normally used for filming night view of city and light movement etc. It controls how long a shutter stays should open, usually can take a photo in 1/1600th of a second, or stay open for 30 seconds or more.

This is a example of using shutter speed. Left: 1/40 sec, middle: 1/125 sec, right: 1/2500 sec.

White balance can controls the colour temperature, which means the colour of light because not all the light is pure white. When we are filming, we should notice the condition of light, or use white balance to create a warmer colour tones (more yellow) or colder one (more blue) for our story.
An example of using white balance:


Focus: "Accurate focusing over a range of subject distances, so that the person in front of a tourist sight is as sharp as the landmark behind, requires a small lens aperture. -naqhi" It means we can used focus to sharp the person's position wherever he/she is, and bur other people or background. For me, I think it is useful when we need to follow the character or attract audiences' attention on the specify target.

Can you see the focus of this building is moving?

After learning those effect from class, of course we will use some basic effect such as focus and zooming, and aware of white balance, but we also consider of using other too.

Refrence:

Bennett, R (2008), Photography boot camp: Mastering depth of field, obsessable, http://www.obsessable.com/feature/photography-boot-camp-mastering-depth-of-field/

Digital Photography Tutorials-How to Deal with White Balance in Photography a Complete Guide for the Beginnersat http://www.photoaxe.com/how-to-deal-with-white-balance-in-photography-a-complete-guide-for-the-beginners/

idigital photo (2007), Shutter Speed - Everything You Wanted to Know but Thought it Was Uncool to Ask, http://www.idigitalphoto.com/shutter-speed-explained/

naqhi (2009)Using Compact Cameras to take DSLR quality images, v9konhttp://community.v9kon.com/_Using-Compact-Cameras-to-take-DSLR-quality-images/blog/254112/87240.html

Wini's blog Week6

This week I have finished the first version of our script.
I have given the script to Toula and she has pointed out some of the mistakes of my script.
She suggested that I can visit UTS online and take a look of the script template, since I have made some mistakes of the structure.

As I have mentioned in my last blog post, our group want to make split screens at the end of our video.
Toula has taught us how to use 'Final Pro Cut' to make split screens and freeze frames which are the techniques that could not be made by iMovie. 'Final Pro Cut' is a bit difficult for me, because this is my first time to know this software. But i think it is amazing since it can make all the effects that we want to include in our video.
Toula also taught me how to make text which will show on the screen by 'Final Pro Cut'. I think I still need some more times to use to this software, but i found today lesson is really really useful.

Yan's Week Six

Week 6 18^th November 2010

As Toula explained the editing process from ‘Final Pro Cut ’ during the class, we have learned a new skill that was different from iMovie. With a good script, editing also plays an important role in the major project which plays a significant role throughout the whole story. By using the split screen, Final Cut Pro 7 is a professional non-linear editing software for us to use, which provides a wide variety of formats. I believe that Final Pro Cut is a useful tool in creating abundant vision of a film.

In addition, we have started working on the script and Toula also gave us few suggestions of our script structure which is based on the script layout from UTS online website. As we all know, writing a successful script is not an easy task, so a good script structure can effectively develop the idea of the story and draw the audiences attention.

A video that I found from Youtube is a really helpful guide of how to write a script in a story structure.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0yqUmedyOM

Project Development

As Wini mentioned before, our project will be similar to TV ads which encourage people to do exercise frequently and keep away from obesity. In order to create this project, we need to think of some meaningful messages which can help us attain our target audience well and easily. This refers to the underlying idea that captures the attention of a message receiver. Appeals can fall into such categories as emotional, fearful, humorous and sensational.

There are some examples from previous campaigns which many of their interesting ideas can be adopted into our campaign, for example, “Walk when you talk” (Indian) commercial. This Idea commercial tries to convey that when people walk while talking (on mobile), it helps them maintain their health and hence prevents them from going to a doctor for health-related problems. This is the positive angle of looking at the benefits that technology can provide, which also can be useful to our project in term of encouraging people to be active. Well, let’s watch the clip ;)

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Style of ads

Week 4 4th November 2010

After looked some successfully promoting video advertisement of health campaign, we got a idea that message can be passed through humorous or emotional sense rather than a very education serious talking show. Those advertisements used some very emotional picture, stories to create a totally different sense of before and after such as some car safety belt ads and banning smoking ads, they used family as one of the important characterise to stop peoples’ bad behaviours with a concept that their dangerous behaviours may affect their family members. Another car speeding ads shows a social common sense that against teens who love car speeding, present with a slow motion that reflect to the topic- car speeding. Audiences are more likely to accept and feel comfortable with the real concept behind those emotional stories or humorous acts. For me, I personally think emotion is a very effective element in advertisement especially for promoting a health concept; it can work with a good camera angle, effect, sound effect and lighting to show a deeper feeling.

This advertisement “Get Active: TV-campaign to get out of your chair” is a nice ads that shows a sense of humour by a soccer game between people who are fit and running, and people who are fat and sitting on their chair. Also the lighting and time( at night) is quite good to shows a sense of how people usually sitting on the chair and watching TV, but now they have to play games and lose.

Wini's blog Week5

Last week, we have come across with many ideas and the main theme of our video have been decided.
I think we have made a great step this week, since half of the script has been finished.
Our crew also got many creative ideas which could make our video stands out.
In Week5, we have presented our idea in front of the class, classmates and teacher have given us many useful advice.
The idea of our video will stress on our aim of using new media platforms to interact with our target audience. This idea will be seen throughout the film. The main actors are 4 representatives from our target audience group. We will first show their lifestyles and profile before they join our campaign. We will shoot them individually, and they are reflecting the lifestyles of our target audiences, and it is true to say that most of them are only concentrated on the inactive activities. We would like to show how the new media platforms encourage them to do exercise. The film will be shoot at both interior and exterior areas. We will use split screens at the end of our film to show the interactions among our representatives.
I think it is challenging to make split screens in a video, we have asked Toula for more information today. I think we now have an idea how it can work, but for the further skills, we are going to learn in next lesson.

Wini's blog Week4 Part B

In Part A, I have talked about the roles of our crew and I think it is time to talk about the ideas of our story.
I got many ideas in mind, but it is always hard to put everything together beautifully.
Our group would like to film an advertisement to promote our campaign, I think it would be a great idea.
A successful campaign is always relying on a good advertisement.
I got several ideas about how our video could go. Firstly, i think we can do an interviews with people suffering from obesity and let our audience know more bout the seriousness of obesity. However, I think it would be too boring to make a video with only interviews.
Later, I think maybe we can invite people from our target audience groups to participate in our video and show their changes after they have joined our campaign. After I have discussed with my groupmates, they agreed that inviting our target audience to participate in our video would be more convincing and realistic. But I know there are more details and ideas that have to be developed. I hope we can come up more ideas before next week, so that we can ask for Toula's advice.

Wini's blog Week4 Part A

This week we have decided the roles of our group members.
I think it is a great start of our project, when everyone have chosen their own role,
and give full play of the strengths that they possessed inside.

Yoko is the director of our project. I think she is really suitable to be of one the leaders of our project because she is rational enough to make the right decisions when we encounter difficulties. Also, she has many knowledge about the filming process and I believe she can provide useful advice to the camera operator and the actors.

Yan is the producer manger of our project. She will be in charge of bringing the whole production process together, she will also take care of different problems that may occur during the development and production of our project. She will also responsible for the schedule of the project. I think Yan will be a excellent producer manger for our project since she has the experience of being a producer last semester, and she is also a really responsible person.

Tee is the cinematographer of the project. He is responsible for capturing the film image as required by the script, and under supervision of the director. He will also be completely control over the camera operations and the planning of angles. I believe will be the best person to take up this role as he knows the function of the camera very well and he is creative enough to shoot film from different angles.

Angela is the sound recorder of our group. She will be responsible for the sound recording and every audio element in our project. I think she will be a god sound recorder because she has an experience of music recording before, this experience will definitely help her to do a good job i our project.

Lastly, I will be the script writer and editor of the project. I really enjoy doing these work because I like to express by idea by words and make it in some visual elements. I am responsible for creating the script of the story. After it has been made, I will edit it and during the process I will select and combine the best shots and create a final motion picture. I will do my best to participant in our project.

I hope five of us can operate very well and give our best in this project. I know we all can do a good job!