April 27, 2009

During this single period, we spent our time importing our film from Henry's portal hard drive into the computer. 10 minutes long, our video took a long time to import; however we put this time to good use by watching our video a few times through to notice any last minute adjustments/improvements. From watching it through, we discovered a few things that could be rectified.

Joyce, who was our writer commented that the caption for the device's abilities were incorrect. Rather than "pushing the button and opening the door at the same time" it was "pushing the device first, then opening the door". Despite the fact that this caption for the instructions of the device lastly a few seconds, I think that she posed a valid point. Especially with a complicated device, it is important that we clearly establish the ramifications of the device, or else the audience will have a difficult time understanding the abilities of the device. The scenario that I most fear is that Justin would use the device and portal into another location with the audience clueless of what just happened. By clearly stating what the device is capable of doing, it will clear up any misunderstandings Justin's actions and subsequently the story of our film.

Another was to get rid of any "inside jokes". For instance, during the opening scene between Lucas (nerd) and Justin, he gets frustrated with the device and because our film is a silent movie, his annoyance is expressed as "angry gorilla sounds". Although this is humorous, at least to our group, Ms. Wong pointed out that this may not be the case of the audience. She then recommended that we change it to something which achieves the same effect (expressing what Justin is doing) and being humorous, but not necessarily using an inside joke. I think something like "&*(*#" would be slightly better, but a bit vulgar.

Overall, despite the this class being a single period and the fact that we spent most of it importing our movie, we still managed to be productive and utilize the time we had as well as possible. Today I exercised my ability to be a good "thinker" in terms of finding better ways to express our story and finding universal jokes and language to make it more suitable for the audience. Being "open minded" in terms of the techniques used and being a good "risk taker" in our choices. I'm really looking forward to the viewing session next lesson.

April 22, 2009

Having finished all our editing we spent today's period working on the poster. We also had unanimously voted for the name "Wabbit Hunt" for our film. Personally, I though this name was a very witty title which makes references to the antics of Looney Tunes and also most of all, it is applicable to our film.

Our poster is of Justin holding is device in a seemingly very mighty pose, however contrastingly, we have edited over him making him look like an idiot. This was done by drawing on a mustache, a suit and tie and many other funny and awkward pieces of apparel. The theme of our poster is "childish antics". This is most clearly expressed through our crude editing which resembles that of a child. By only using the pen tool on Photoshop (even when colouring) it made Justin look like a bit of a joke.

The purpose of our poster is to evoke a sense of naivety and hopefully strike up memories of drawing on peoples faces as a child (which I have done profusely). This crude editing, as if done impromptuly with a colour marker, is very effective in depicting the childish concept or motif that we are trying to achieve with our poster and in our film.

Initially, we had chosen not to manually edit our poster, but to simply use the effects that are open to us in Photoshop. One such function was very appealing to us, which was called "Colouring". This function made Justin into a complete silhouette and the background a stark red. Also by adjusting the amount of redness, we also achieved a semi silhouette with the red that looked like blood. The contrast between this bloody and 'film noir like' poster and the actual comedy of our film made this poster not very applicable to our film. Although some of us argued that the stark contrast between the poster and the movie was amusing, personally I didn't think that this would be very appropriate. I think that the poster resembled a very similar communism poster of Mao!

Today was a very productive lesson in which we managed to finish our poster. Today exercised my ability to be "open minded" of the suggestions of my group members of how to improve our poster. This was also closely related to being able to "communicate" with each other, bounce ideas off each other and eventually arrive on a synthesis that we all agreed on. Making the poster also made me explore my "knowledge" on how to convey the theme of our film through a still image. This really got me thinking of how important a poster is for a movie and am beginning to notice how much time and effort it takes to complete a good one.

April 20, 2009

Most of the editing was completed over the holidays, so today majority of the editing was already completed. From watching a few times, we saw only that only a few adjustments had to be made.

1) Match on action cuts: there were a few which were used throughout our film and I think that some could have been more precisely time, so that the direct continuity between the moving object could be more flowing. Another reason that time is important in a match on action cut is so that the actor does not repeat an action twice in two consecutive shots. This was the case for one of our match on action cuts between 1:30-1:38, where Justin repeats the same action twice. By making the first shot shorter, it will make the scenes connect in a more flowing fashion, thus making the match on action cut more cohesive.

2) Subtitles: Deciding to base our film on the Charlie Chaplin, our film was a silent movie. Where the only sound was of the typical piano silent movie soundtrack. This also meant that there was little talking in our film and had to rely on subtitles to depict what the characters were saying. One improvement for the current subtitles in our film is to have the dialog near the character who is saying it. For instance, at 1:25 both Justin and Lucas are talking and there are two sets of subtitles, although I know exactly what is going on and who is saying what, I think for the benefit of the audience that the subtitles should be positioned close to the person who is saying them. This will show the audience who is saying what more clearly.

3) Cinematography: Lighting to be more specific. Mainly because most of our portals were in one location, when a portal occurs, the last second and the first second of two shots (where the portal occurs) have to identical in order to make the portal convincing. One such instance was during 5:14 in Daniel's house. Most of the portals worked quite well except one portal where there was a distinct change in lighting and where it was very noticeable that a cut was made. Having been editor with our last project, I suggested that we use the 3 way colour corrector or the RGB balance to make the lighting in the two shots similar to cover up the cut and to make the cut less obvious and consequently making the portal look more realistic.

Overall, only a single period we spent today's lesson looking through our film and noting down possible ways to improve it. Mostly the comments were just minor adjustments. Generally, I was very content and impressed by the outcome, Justin and Henry did a great job editing! On showing Ms. Wong, she suggested that we have more portals that lead to different locations rather than portals within one locations. By having portals that are allow the characters travel a greater distance, it will explore a vaster amount of locations and thus make our film more interesting. However, we didn't think that this would work too well, in the context of our film. In our film, only Justin can transport himself (with the device). This would make it difficult for the teacher (Henry) to chase him if he could just portal himself into a completely different location. Although I completely agree that by having more portals that take the characters into a complete different location would make our film very interesting, it would not be effectively applicable to the story of our film.

Today exercised my "knowledge" on filming to notice continiuety problems and areas in our film that could be edited better. I also had to "reflect" on my personal experience in filming and apply certain techniques (e.g. the colour correction) and insights to our film. Today also exercised my ability to be "open minded" to suggestions of others and from the teacher. We are now in the final stages of editing were we are now editing on a micro scale and making the final adjustments.

April 08, 2009

We finished all our filming today. Aside from being relieved we all felt an immense sense of accomplishment. We filmed two scenes today which were the cafeteria scene and the auditorium scene. Both were quite time consuming and were challenging, posing new problems with different locations; however we still managed to complete the task well.

The cafeteria scene was quite a short scene with two portals however, we took a while to finish filming. The purpose of this scene is to convey to the audience that Justin is eating (time passes), he then gets up then feels the urge to go to the bathroom. A unique filming method that I though we could use to convey the passing of time and that the is eating, is to simply place the camera in a central location directly in front of Justin. I will then have him eat slowly and every now and then I would place extra plates of food or cups in front of him. I would do this a few times until he gets up, leaving a pile of empty cups and plates. The effect that I tried to achieve is the "fade in and out" effect. This works by cutting out the areas that I am in the shot placing the cups and plates and fading the shots. After doing so, it will appear that Justin has eaten a lot which is accounted for in the fading techniques which depicts the passing of time. This can be seen in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa-5rRFBQJ4 between 3:12 and 3:26. I think that this method was very effective because I was able to successfully convey the passing of time as well as the fact that he has eaten a lot during this period. If I had done this differently by having actual time passing, this would be effective in the sense that the audience will see him eating but will be boring and unnecessary.

The second scene that we did was the auditorium scene. This was a tricky scene to shoot mainly because there were so many portals in a central location. The unique difficulty of doing portal in a single location is that the last second in the first shot has to match the first second in the second shot. Everything has to be the same. If there is something different, the audience will be able to tell that a portal has just occurred and will make the portal less realistic. Because portals don't really exist, as film makers we have to deceive the audience into thinking that they are. After all, seeing is believing. The way we countered this problem is to take special care in positioning the camera. As the camera person, this was my job. I positioned the camera perfectly making sure that it directly parallel with the stage and that the shot captured the entire stage. I then left the camera rolling while we directed the actors. Especially because this was all shot in one location, we had to have a variety of entrances and exits. With out much planning, this was done on the spot, however, we were very content with the outcome. The actors Justin and Henry performed very well!

Having finished filming we spent the rest of the time importing our footage on to the computer. We had nearly 45 minutes of raw footage. This was a good time to reflect on what we had done. We were all very happy at finally finishing filming. Looking back at what we filmed today, I was very satisfied with how well our auditorium scene turn out. Quite honestly, the auditorium was an ideal spot for filming portals. This is because it was indoor and the lighting was entirely constant throughout the shots. By doing portals in the auditorium, we could fully manipulate our set rather than us adapting for our location.

Today really exercised my ability to apply my "knowledge" of portals and filming to unfamiliar situations. This is most clearly expressed in my capacity to use my "fade in and out" effective, which I knew in theory but haven't attempted before. Today all so tested my ability to be a "risk taker " and to be "open minded" to the suggestions of others. Through team work and taking responsibility for our parts, we have finished filming and are now ready to start the post production process.

April 06, 2009

Today we completed most of our filming and are hoping to finish the rest before our next class. This entire period was dedicated to filming, but with a single period we only managed to film two scenes: the student/teacher chase sequence and the DT room dialogue scene. I am please that we finished both in good time and am content with the quality of our work. Despite this, each task came with its set of problems. Through the of our filming process, the most important tool was the storyboard which we constantly kept referring to and proved to be most helpful in maintaining the continiuety between shots.

When filming the chase I used a variety of camera angles and types of shots, however, I used them specifically and in what I thought were the right places. I used close ups either when it was necessary to point something out in detail or else to hide something that was close to the subject. A good example of this would be when Justin is standing seemingly alone in the corridor with an expression on shock. This may seem odd to the audience however, on zooming out it reveals the teacher standing just in front of him. This technique is very effective in creating suspense and is an alternative to cuts. Like a cut, this method reveals something completely new to the audience, however this method also shows the direct relationship between the previous shot. Another type of shot that was unique to this scene is the hand held technique. I liked this technique very much because it was simply so compatible with the subjects in that particular shot. During a scene in which Justin is being chased by the teacher, I had them run towards the camera which I will be holding and moving backwards keeping my distance from Justin. Originally, in my storyboard I had intended to use a dolley for this shot, however, due to the bumpy tiled ground, Ms. Wong advised against it. She also further explained that in movies, whenever a dolly was used, it would be on a track as well to negate the uneven surface of the ground and thus make the shots smooth. However, as it turned out, hand holding the camera was more effective that if we had used a dolley because the jumpy unsteady characteristics of a hand help camera helped add to the effect of disorientation and urgency. This helped establish the atmosphere more throughly and demonstrated that the more sophisticated methods to approach certain things (using a dolley) may not always be the best way.
The DT scene was very different from the chase scene in the sense that it was mainly just dialogue with little actions. With low action scenes, the camera angle is vital in maintaining the audience's full attention. A variety of shots have to be used as well in order to keep the film interesting and to aid the dialogue. In this particular scene I paid close attention to the 180 degree rule as well as the rule of thirds. Both these rules came in play during this scene and I had to constantly keep moving the camera around (to the annoyance of the actors as we had to redo many shots before I was satisfied). Another problem that we encountered was the unevenness of the tripod. Despite the fact that the legs were either fully extended or retracted, the tripod was never exactly straight. This meant that I had to constantly check the "bubble" to make sure that it was in the center before filming. Occasionally we had to slip pieces of paper underneath the tripod to even the legs out, however these tedious step were necessary to produce a perfectly horizontal shot. One possible improvement that we could have made in this scene is to improve the lighting of some of our shots. Because the angle that we filmed at was indirectly aimed at the window, there was a lot of back light which made our subjects very dim in contrast. Two ways we could have improved the lighting is to either have an artificial light source which is not on location and the other is simply to use bounce cards.

Today was a very productive lesson in which I learned a lot through the different situations that I encountered as camera person. Although I had learned the skills used today in class, the applications skills where through experience and I had to adapt to different situations. Today's lesson exercised my ability to be "knowledgeable" in what I have learned through my experiences and in class and discover how to apply these techniques into our film. I learned to "think" of ways to improve my film and to do things differently (as demonstrated with the hand held camera technique) and lastly being a "risk taker" and "reflecting" on the ways I faced and solved my problems. Through solving problems I think that i have gained a lot person growth as an aspiring film student and IB Learner.