Story Board- angle

As I mention before, angle is the most important when we are drawing the story board. Different angle and create different feelings. For example, when the camera shot the character from up to down, it make the character looks powerful, horrible and big. If we shot the character from above, it make the character looks small and weak.

This video has the example of both high angle and low angle.

For camera shot and movement, it is another difficult issues needs to be design when we are drawing story board and filming. As the image below, mostly we used medium long shot (MLS) size and filming with the eye-level. However we also need to use camera movement, mainly zooming and pan left to right( right to left). The pan movement is depending on the view. I personally like to shot from the views which not so important, and move to the most important one, usually is the character who going to moving or act, or the location where the main character is going to come out.

However, after started to film in these few weeks, we find that some shot sizes have problem with the distance. The final result is different with the story board, so the filming location need to be very clear when we filming in the real case.

Project proposal

By making film that invite people to notice the important of exercise, our group have decided to create it in a different way from those projects in the previous semester. Our project will be separated into 4 stories which mean that we have to show the story of 4 people by making them connected and attracted to the audience. These 4 characters included teacher, office worker, student and housewife, will portray their usual lifestyle which is lack of exercise and physical activity. The group have chosen ‘split screen’ technique to separate the lifestyle of these 4 persons into 4 screens.


But as Toula suggests us after the group presentation in week 5, by using this technique, the film will be quite hard for the audiences to focus on only one action thus it might create the confusion to them. As a consequent, we will still make the four split screens but playing one by one. This means while a single screen is playing, the other split screens will be frozen. This will helps the viewers to understand the scene more easily as well as decrease the mess of this technique.

Working with camera controls

As the camera is the main equipment for shooting film and my role is cameraman, knowing all the controllers on it will help us to a better understand and utilise of this equipment. According to what I have learned from the lesson and my experience as a cameraman in last semester (Ghost in UTS), the ability to manually focus the camera is a critical skill at any level of video production. Professional cameras which we will use in our project usually have a manual focus ring near the front of the lens housing. Consumer-level cameras usually have a small dial (Note: we need to select "manual focus" from the menu).

After we make sure the camera is set to manual focus, we have to zoom in as tight as we can on the subject we wish to focus on, then adjust the focus ring until the picture is sharp and turn the ring clockwise for closer focus, anti-clockwise for more distant focus. After all, zoom out to the required framing, the picture should stay nice and sharp. These basic steps to control the focus on camera will be our first consideration on real filming days.

Crew role (cameraman)

As we have divided the role of our group members for the major project, my responsibility will be in the role of camera operator. Working as a cameraman is one of many staff on set in news, film, or movies, and my position is the one shooting the actual footage. In narrative filmmaking, the camera operator will collaborate with the director, director of photography, actors and crew to make technical and creative decisions. Therefore, in our project my role is to work significantly with Yoko (the director) and Angela (sound manager), in order to capture the film image and sound as required by the script, and under supervision of the director. Also, I can use my specialized training from last semester to manipulate factors like angle, lighting and psychographic effect in the career field.

Yoko's Week Ten

In this week, we finally finished our shooting project with a few unexpected challenges. As our shooting schedule, we went to Tee’s place and finished first part of this week shooting, it was smooth because I thought each group member was corporative and active. Therefore, all we needed to do was that just followed storyboard and script; I can say the first part gave us more confidence to both project and our group members, and also practiced our filming skills with the new camera. Unfortunately, we encountered some unexpected problems during the second part of film shooting. The second part shooting is outside shooting, we supposed to use external microphone for getting high quality sounds. However, the external microphone was not available due to other students didn’t return it on time. In order to solve this problem, our group finally decided to change camera angle and make camera get closer to our characters. Besides, the weather was windy and suddenly began to rain. We had to stop filming and used umbrella to cover camera.

Fortunately, it was raining only for a while. We continued film shooting and finally we finished the tough second part. At afternoon, we went my place for shooting Wini’s part, everything was going well and I was so glad about this, especially after the difficult time in the morning shooting. On Friday, we finished remaining shooting as we planned and also injected the video to Wini’s laptop. The editing is only one thing left we need to do. We believed we could create a great short film after Christmas holiday.

Yoko's Week Nine

In this Week, we got film shooting place permission from Janet and my landlord because our senses would be shooting in UTS area and my place. After group meeting and took suggestions from Toula and classmates, our group finally finished the script and storyboard and we also made a shooting schedule for effective time management. And, our characters are all our classmates so they are busy for their own project as well. Therefore, efficiency would be the most important issues we considered about. In this week, week nine, we will shoot the first part of Miji during Toula’s class. Miji acts a role as a tutor in UTS insearch, she will show her working condition to audiences like she is so busy on teaching and working with computer. And then the mysterious narrator will interview her about her lifestyle and exercise frequency. This sense will be finished inside our classroom, then we will shoot that she is going to have lunch and meet another characters Tee in the lift, Tee takes a role as a UTS student. As our script, the moment they meet together, this particular sense will be frozen for emphasizing.

In week ten, we are going to shoot from Wednesday to Friday. On Wednesday, we will go to Tee’s place to shoot his regular lifestyle after class and on Thursday, we will go to my place for shooting WIni’s part as a house wife because my place is the nearest one to the University. On Friday, we are going to shoot for both Alina and Miji’s part because Alina is only available in Friday. This is our shooting schedule in first place; we hope everything would be going well!

Yoko's Week Eight

From last week, our group started to draw storyboard. Based on the experience of last semester, we found out that prepared a good storyboard before video shooting will effectively save time and make everything under control. This time, our group distributed different roles to each member during storyboard process. Angela is responsible for drawing storyboard because she is very good at drawing stuff, I and Wini are responsible for confirm and decide camera angle and different shot, such as: close up shot, medium shot, long shot. We ensure each sense of our film would develop well that based on script. Once we finalised one page storyboard, we discussed with cameraman Tee, I think it is better to make camera man to be familiar with camera angle and senses before shooting starts and then he will work more easily and skilful. Yan and Tee are also responsible to do research about film shooting techniques and final check to help us finishing storyboard.

The storyboard really took time and fortunately we finished within this week as our planned. In this week, Toula taught us more specific functions and techniques about SONY HD camera. It is a new one that different from the camera we used last semester. I was glad our group members were all very concentrating on this lesson, not only the cameraman because we all have responsibilities for each process of film shooting. I think our group effectively followed the plan and the film shooting will be started from next week.

Yoko's Week Seven

In this week, our group member Wini took the suggestions that Toula gave us last week and she already finished the script of film shooting. Toula also gave us a chance to present our script to class in a very creative way, which was each classmate took a role and read out their scripts. During this activity, each group practiced presentation skills and also gained different opinions from other classmates. Our tutor Toula also corrected some written mistakes we made and gave useful suggestions as well. For example, Toula advised that we should described the characters in more specific way and gave them more obvious characteristics, which will make our film became more interesting and engaging.

After that, Wini started to advance the script with these meaningful suggestions and other group members, Yan, Angela, Tee and me started working on storyboard. I think storyboard is very essential part for film shooting, it is a preparing process which will help us to make all aspects under control, like camera angle controlling and time managing. As the director of this film project, I will corporate with other members to finish storyboard, especially cameraman and script writer, and it also could be an important practice for everyone to be familiar with the final film shooting before the video starts

Our group planned to finish storyboard by next week and we will begin the first shooting in week 9.

Story Board- camera setting

My faviour part in the whole filming process must be the story board. It is the most important part need to be prepare before our filming started. I think there is no matter with how good the drawing skill is when drawing story board, (although good director always draw story board very well, such as Hayao Miyazaki) but the interesting things is design the angle for every flames.

When we drawing the story board, there are flew things we need to design- the position of camera, the height of camera and the size of shot. The position for setting the camera is important. After testing in class, we found that the zooming effect can not solve all the distance problem. For example, if the room is very small and we want our character looks very far, it can not be shot inside the room because the distance is not enough for us to film. Another problem is the height of camera. In our testing, we found that the height of camera is not always prefect for everybody, this problem has come up when we did the filming for all of our members.
While there are many problems, the filming testing in class already give us a chance to avoid and aware of these problems. I think we will do it better then the last time.

Wini's blog Week 10

We have finally finished our shooting.
We started shooting on 15-17th December, these 3-day shooting is a real challenge for our team both mentally and physically.
The first day shooting was finished at Tee's place, it was very smooth, since we only got all interior scenes.
As for the second day shooting, our team has encountered several challenges. First, we do not have an external microphone for outdoor shooting, if we want high-quality audio, we could not rely on the built in camcorder microphone. Second, the weather that day is not good, it rains when we are filming.
In order to solve the first problem, we changed the shooting angles. We tried to make the camera get closer to the actors, so we could record better audio. Unfortunately, the weather gone bad at the same time, and it was so windy and started to rain. We need to hold an umbrella over the expensive HD camera, we need to protect it and prevent it gets wet. We all in a difficult situation, but luckily we have gone through the hard time and has finished the exterior scene. Later, we shot at Yoko's place, I think most of the stuff are smooth, expect my poor acting.
On Friday, we have finished the remaining parts of our video. We started filming after class and finished shooting within an hour.
After we have transferred the tapes into my computer, the first stage of our video has done. Editing is the only thing we need to do after, and I am confidence that we can make it great by the cooperations of our team-mates!

Yan's Week Ten

Week 10 16^th December 2010

This week we have spent three days to finish our film shooting and later we transferred the video from camera to the computer. In making this short video, it is an important stage for all members in the group to be cooperative. The difference between the film shooting from last semester and this semester is that we found better ways to improve the quality of our short video, based from the previous experience. Thus we are looking forward to see the final work after editing and we believe that we will receive a good outcome of this major project.

The new tripod that we borrowed effectively facilitates us to stabilize the video camera in improving our video. With a stable quality tripod, it is the best way to improve the appearance of our video. Moreover, we have also learned not to quickly pan the camera from one subject to another. When panning and zooming, use slow, smooth and deliberate motions. By using this method, it will make our video much more watchable. Overall, although there were some problems during the film shooting, our team still tried our best to fix all the problems. Therefore, this is a very helpful experience and good attempt for us to work in a group by shooting a short video and I am sure we will get more and more better in the future.

Film concept

In Week five, we have the first plan of the script and showed the story to the whole class. The most important issues in the story is about interactive media plate from. It is present by different kinds of communicative methods and the way we pass the message. These methods will be showing in the film by using computer, email, mobile phone, flyer and even friends. The film is mainly present a part of social networking system around us, and how people will be influence by these kind of communicative skills.
Split screens can be use on a very emotional way-
Think!

This ads is aim at aware people about talking
People in different screens in different time and place can talk to each other and created an interactive feeling to audience although they were actually filming in a different time.
At first I personal thinking about using this skill in our film to create an accidental "meeting". Our members begin to doing exercise after joining our campaign, then one day meet on the street or some where else. But after consider about our editing problems and actual result, I think Winnie's idea is better. Just like this ads, people can talk one or two sentences to each other and just make it cool.

Wini's blog Week9

As I have talked about last week, our team has got everything prepared and we are ready to shot!
We made use of our class time to do the first part of our video shooting this week.
Our team has invited our classmate, Miji to be one of the actors in our video.
By cooperating with different units, our team is able to undergo our shooting schedule smoothly.
The first scene of today shooting is inside the classroom, it is easy to handle because we do not need to consider something uncertain. Under the directions of our director and cinematographer, the first scene has finished.
However, we found the scene that we need to shoot inside the elevator is challenging. Since there are lots people around the building. Later, we changed that scene to shoot at outside the elevator, which would be much more easier for us to capture the 'interaction' between our characters.
I think our project is on track and stick to schedule, I hope our shooting will go smooth next week.

Yan's Week Nine

Week 9 9^th December 2010

In week nine, our team has started our video shooting in the classroom for the first part of filming. By using the Sony HD video camera, we found that better quality was produced in making this promotional video of our campaign Get Twitter, Be Fitter. In addition, my role as a producer entailed organizing the filming permission, the schedule and the crew and the properties that we needed for the filming. Apart from the role of producer, I also played the role of a mysterious narrator in the film. The reason that I was given this role is that I was in the same position as a producer of the short film I’m a Barbie Girl from the last semester. Thus, it is a great opportunity for me to improve my confidence in my ability as a producer.

The first part of the film shooting is about Miji who plays her role as a teacher from Insearch. While she is teaching from 9:00 to 1:00pm in the class, a mysterious narrator starts to ask her something about her lifestyle in her daily life. Throughout the first part of film shooting, the problem that we have encountered was about the camera angle. The importance of the camera angle is that it can give different experience and emotion depending on different scenes. Hence, as Toula’s suggestion, we should smoothly move the camera (including zooming and panning) and try different camera angles to see which one is better. According to Camcorderinfo.com (2004), “one of the most common video mistakes is making constant movements and adjustments. Be deliberate when making adjustments; don't make changes without a reason. Take a shot of something and leave it there for 10-20 seconds, stop the recording and take another shot.”

Yoko's week six

After our group meeting, we changed our initial idea a little bit which we presented last week. We took the classmate’s suggestion that about characters are going to sign up our website by receiving the flyers on the street. For this part, they said there were not too many people will care about what flyer said and kept it, it will be unrealistic. Therefore, we decided to promote our campaign and information to different people through different ways, which would be suitable for their own lifestyles. For example, one of our characters, our production skill’s tutor Janice, she will receive our message through Email because she uses computer for work all the time and also used to check her email regularly. While for actor Alina’s part, she will get text message about our campaign from her friends or directly from our company because she takes a role as office lady and she is busy on her way and used to collect information from her mobile phone.

Our tutor Toula also taught us the editing process of ‘Final Pro Cut’ in this week. ‘Final pro cut’ is very useful and multi-functional software that is very different from imovie and also more professional than imovie. Toula said it will be very helpful for project editing, especially for our split screens format, ‘Final pro cut’ provided a simple way to split screen into various formats.

Our group has started working on the script writing which based on advanced storyline. Toula also advised us to focus on our script structure due to it will be very difficult to write the split screen part. She asked us to follow the script layout in UTS online and it will be easier to write it clearly and will not be confusing our audiences.

Wini's blog Week8

This week we have started to draw our storyboard. According to our experience from last semester, I think storyboard helps us a lot during filming. It reminds us the angles and many details that we might neglect during the shooting process. We have spent quite a lot of time on our storyboard, hope it can help when we start our video shooting.
Also, we have finalised our script this week, every detail has confirmed. We have taken other's opinions and make changes on our script.
During the lesson, Toula has taught us more functions of the new HD camera. I am so glad that we have a chance to use the new camera. We spent times to practice and figure out the new functions of the camera. I hope we can adapt it because we will start filming next week by this camera. Thanks to our cinematographer, Tee, he knows how to control the camera skillfully after this lesson. Since everything has been confirmed, we are ready to film!!

Yan's Week Eight

Week 8 2^nd December 2010

Beginning of the class, we updated our group’s major project. By finishing the script, storyboard and confirming the role of the characters, we decide to do the film shooting during week nine.

Also, we have tried the Sony HD video camera which is different from the one that we used in our previous film shooting. Even though I have not done much film testing with this camera today, I have seen its footage and it has an extremely clear ‘look’ on the computer monitor. Thus we believe that we will make a beautiful picture of our major project by choosing the Sony HD video camera.

As we finalized most aspects of the major project, the experience and skills that we are going to contribute during the film shooting will be very helpful for us to obtain an effective filming result. Moreover, with a clear schedule of our plan for the film shooting, I will start in applying permission for our shooting places and at the same time arrange such properties that we may need through the filming process.

Yoko's Week Five

In this week, we had chance to present our idea about final video project in front of the class. It was a very good opportunity to interact and share our ideas with other classmates, and also we got several useful comments and feedbacks from classmates and tutor. There were two questions impressed me a lot and made us to find out the limitation of our draft plan.

The first question was asked by our tutor Toula when we said we are going to use split screens for our four characters in the film. She asked us that how we are going to control the time of these four small screens. Be honestly, this question our group has not considered yet before this presentation but then we realised it was a key point of our entire film. The screen will look very busy and crowed and audiences will not know which part they should pay attention on if we make four split screens showing at the same time. Therefore, we decided to make the four split screens playing one by one. This means while a single screen is playing, the other split screens will be frozen.

The second important question was asked by our classmates, they thought it was unrealistic which the characters are going to sign up to our website by receiving the flyers on the street. They said there were not too many people will care about what the flyer said and keep it. This was a good question for our group to think about for this week group meeting and we will figure out for next week’s blog.