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