Production Skills #8 - MM&I Final Edit

Today I finished the final edit for my Me, Myself and I project. The production of the project has been on going over the past couple of weeks. This past week I have been editing that footage toward the final product, and today is the day I finished, a day before the hand in deadline. Slowly but surely introducing myself to Avid over this past week I have become a lot more used to it therefore a lot more confident. With some minor setbacks including one this morning with some exporting issues, there has been nothing I was unable to overcome myself, with the help of peers of tutors. The export issue was fixed in time for me to export my project by around 10:30AM. This left me a lot of time throughout the day to tie up loose ends with miscellaneous paperwork. 

I must say I am very proud of the final outcome. Though at times I believe I could have done better, in retrospect my first University project has went better than I had hoped. I have worked with some excellent people in my crew who have totally immersed themselves in my project and not just their own. When it comes to my next project, I will focus a lot more on the organisation side in pre-production. I left myself a little short on preparation and shooting times/dates.

Below is an embedded video of the final edit which I recently uploaded to YouTube.

 

Film & Screenwriting #8

This weeks screenwriting session brought the script read throughs to a conclusion. The final few members of the class who had not read out their scripts the previous week were made to this week. From this final session we concluded the script concepts and brief drafts of everyones scripts. In this session I learned a little more on structuring a script and more on characterisation and adding depth to that particular character. This comes with every session, the more emphasis on script read throughs and scripts being brought to life by people playing characters, the more of an understanding you have on what works and what doesn't work. During this module and over the past few weeks I have absorbed information from both my lecturer and peers, and I have also taken a lot of inspiration from these sessions. In the near future and over the christmas break I will be developing my own scripts even further in the hopes that I can come back after the new year with at least two to three 20 minute scripts completed.

Production Skills #7 - MM&I Editing

Today was my set day to edit my project. We were all automatically assigned one day each in the studio booking system. Luckily for me it was Wednesday. As I was filming on the previous Saturday, it gave me enough time over a few days to get organised and to plan ahead before entering the editing suite to edit all through that day. I planned by sorting through all my footage (as there was a fair share of it). I marked down the good clips, the bad clips and the clips I was unsure of in a rough edit decision list. When it came to editing I was able to thank myself for my previous organisation prepared in my own time. The edit went very smoothly at first as I knew exactly which clips to import and use within Avid. This saved a lot of time sorting through each clip in the suite itself marking them down as usable or unusable. This would have eaten into my allocated hours to edit greatly. I then began to upload my footage into a rough timeline, where I then chipped away at it with great precision to ensure the clips were in the order shown within my storyboards. I became more confident as the day went by. This was my first time using Avid for more than just a few minutes in tech dems etc. By the end of the day I was in very good stead to finish my project the following day. Although this was not my allocated day for editing, I organised with a fellow student via Facebook chat to use just half an hour of their time to export my final edit. This was because I ran out of time by 7 o'clock, the time we are kicked out of the building at the closing hour. 

Production Skills #6

This weeks session was divided into two halves; morning and afternoon. Both sessions were focused on something similar in context but with a different focus. In both sessions we had a further focus on the super 8 cameras. In the first session we gathered an extra 10 seconds of footage to add to our me myself and I projects. This was another opportunity to experiment with lighting. This was proven to be a task and a test of our abilities and knowledge. Another student had forgotten to return the lighting meter which we were previously so reliant on, meaning we had to work out the f stop ourselves depending on how much lighting there was coming into the lens. For higher amounts of light a higher f stop, and for small amounts of light a small f stop. This becomes easier to understand once you get your head around everything working backwards in film. The easiest way to understand it I believe is to simply imagine a low aperture level such as 1.4 being very open, therefore letting in a lot of light which is ideal in a low light setting. In comparison an aperture level of 8 is rather small and enclosed opposed to the open 1.4, meaning that it lets very little light in. This is ideal for high key lighting or daylight settings. In our morning exercise of our production skills session we were working with low levels of light as the blinds were shut and we were experimenting with the three point lighting. Others used the lighting equipment to create a very naturalistic visual effect illuminating the image completely. I wanted something low key, sinister and very visually dark. With the use of only two redheads and a dark blue lens gel the lighting was reduced to a minimum. This then meant the f stop of the super 8 had to be very low I believe to be around 2. This meant the lens was very open to let in as much light as it could to capture the image in frame clearly. 

In the afternoon session a level 6 student visited to give us a talk on processing film. Gavin, is a mature student who had previously taken it upon himself to learn the ins and outs of processing your own film reels as a project for University. The session was extremely interesting to me, and it was enlightening to see how someone could save a lot of money by doing what a gigantic machine could do, with some chemicals and their hands. The process is heavily reliant on improvisation of containers and all kinds of weird and wonderful contraptions which proved very effective. Gavin demonstrated the large container which acted as a dark room which the film is left inside to process away from light. The large black container was your average box really, with holes cut in the sides and sleeves sewn into them so that Gavin could reach in and turn the film reels. The chemicals used all serve a different purpose, and are acquired independently by Gavin. This reduces a lot of the time and cost you would certainly face when sending off your film reels for processing. All the chemicals were strictly legal, Gavin ensured. 

Below is an image of Gavin's setup in the class for his demonstration.

Me, Myself and I Shoot #2

The second and final shoot of my Me, Myself and I project was shot yesterday on 05/12/15. The shoot was organised around the dates I had off work, as I usually work weekends outside of University. This meant that my time became very costly, and the shoot had to run smoothly and not into the week as that was to be my editing time before the deadline the following Friday. The shoot was to take place at various locations in Sunderland, my hometown. To capture the essence of my life and the surrounding area I felt like I really had to travel home from Hartlepool and my student accommodation. I organised with my crew to pick them up from the train station in Sunderland and that we would begin filming early that day around 8 or 9 o'clock. The first location is pictured below, at Hylton Castle. The castle and the chapel were to be captured on camera there as major landmarks in my area and places where I had hung around as a kid. Although I did not show this on camera it is a nice reference to myself of my home life growing up, aswell as the architecture looking very sophisticated to the audience. 

We then moved on from there to the other locations we were to film at; Downhill Skatepark and The moon DIY skatepark in Washington. Problems began to arise as I have previously failed to mention. Upon departure from the train station it occurred to me that the sound op had not turned up to the shoot, despite numerous attempts of communication across social media. We could not get hold of the sound op but we went ahead with the shoot regardless. We were confident we could work something out. Initially, the problems lay with the camera op having to capture me skateboarding operating the camera with pan shots and handheld tracks, but then also having to capture sound. At first we thought it would be a good idea to first capture the visuals on camera then attempt to replicate the sound in a separate recording. Pretty soon I realised that was going to be very hard to fix in post production, so we resorted to another technique which enabled us to capture image and sound simultaneously. I have mentioned all of the above in my self evaluation of my Me, Myself and I project as something which went wrong but was fixed.

Despite the problems we continued, and the shots below show our clever improvisation. It turns out film studios could save a lot of money by not employing sound ops at all, and having camera ops attach the boom-poles to themselves for static shots. We got through the shoot on time before it got dark around four o'clock. This was a big factor as I was in an area on the final stretch of the shoot with no source of lighting or no lighting equipment with me. We finished the shoot around half three in Washington in time to return to Sunderland for some night shots of the area I was to use as in-between skateboarding sequences. Now that I had all my footage, it was time to brave the edit!

MM&I Extended Storyboards

As my original concept changed just before production of Me, Myself and I, I updated my storyboards accordingly. The original concept found in my earlier storyboard still exists, but the new concept and the old are merged together in the storyboards below. A pattern emerges in these storyboard between the two concepts. One being my life as a skateboarder, showing some areas such as skateparks and me performing tricks. The other is the more sophisticated and collected side of my life, shown through an orchestrator in a tuxedo and mask. The two concepts are binary opposites in visual style, but link together through the power of editing. I was heavily reliant on the thought of how I was going to edit the two concepts together in creation of these storyboards. The storyboards below go in order from one to five.

Writers Guild of Great Britain

I have decided that I will be focusing my report on the Writers Guild of Great Britain. I have an interest into Screenwriting, and it would be an area of the industry I would be eager to work within. I will be researching the Writers Guild and writing my report based on factual and statistical evidence. My report will focus on the how the writers guild contributes to the industry as a whole, and how it supports its members. I will also be looking at how the writers guild benefits the writer to be part of, whether they be professional or ameterur.

A few key points;

• Formed in 1959, in London, Great Britain. 
• Covers writers of radio, television, film and theatre, poetry, animations and more. 
• Campaigns on behalf of professional and aspiring writers, giving them a voice.
• Hosts an annual red carpet event, supporting and awarding writers.
• Negotiates pay from major industry bodies such as the BBC and ITV.

This week as a task for Professional Skills I will be producing a 10 slide powerpoint on the Writers Guild, as will the rest of the class on their chosen area. The aim is to present the powerpoint to the class as a timed presentation. Taking on a specific formula, the slides will be 20 seconds each meaning that the entirety of the presentation should be 200 seconds long, or 3 minutes 20 seconds. This week I will be working on my presentation, filling it with text, info and imagery. I will also be practicing reading out the presentation to get the timing right, so that I am not left with some dead space between slides.