A new story…from old stories

Finally, I completed my final project which also was the most difficult one throughout this course with all of my effort. I did not remember how many times I wanted to stop doing. However, I am really proud of myself now because I have done it and felt happy with my final result. I have gone through many steps and challenges in order to achieve this task.

• Brainstorming idea

I was completely stuck on the idea of how could I combine my previous assignments in terms of single shot video, photography and audio to create a story by editing them. Besides, the hardest question I had to answer first was how could I find a link to unite them despite the fact that they did not relate to each other at all. Therefore, one of mistakes that I wished I could change was having a similar theme for all of my works.

My 3 previous projects presented 3 different stories such as hanging poster (video), putting an egg in a bottle (photography)  and cooking (audio). Fortunately, my instructor did give me a hint. He showed me an interesting effect I could use to play with my image that had a phone’s screen by using the crop effect in Premiere Pro as well as finding ideas that linked to cooking theme to apply on my video. Thus, my plan was trying to put all of my materials together on Premier Pro to see what were they look like and searched for supporting footages from free sources such as archive.org and others that I was introduced from Industrial Media.

• Pre Production

I aimed to find cooking shows footages on archive.org but it was really tricky to search for because most of characters were women. However, after searching for a long time, I found one video that I could use by checking their thumbnails. This footage I think was one of the most important ones because I also planned to use my audio records for it.

At first, I only had some ideas which was a man watching some random Youtube videos for some of my first scenes. Then, I had no idea for the middle and the end because the lack of footages and it was so messy when I started working on Premier Pro. I needed more footages, scripts, sound effects etc. finding a different ways to combine them together to make them become meaningful. Therefore, I chose to stop working and rethinking again. I did not prefer using many Internet footages because I wanted to challenge myself, this challenge might happen in workplace. Then, I came up with the idea that I will retell my egg story again in different way with comedy genre. My video will present the whole story of the man in my photography assignment but it will have different details and ending.

I got over 290 photos for my photography exercise so I decide it would be my main source for my video. I did used 5 main pictures as well as the ones I did not submit to support my video. The single shot video would be cropped inside the phone’s screen photo. I also had to find one more video to describe he was watching some videos. It was hard to find that one because most videos I found on archive.org reviewed about mobile functions. They did not have that typical footage so I had to keep changing keywords to find and thanks to my patience, it was there. It was not good as I expected but I could use it.

Besides, I needed some funny images to support my genre so I tried to look for images that allowed people to use with specific creativity common license on Flickr. I decided to use background music to reduce unwanted noises and sound gaps. Besides, I also reused some parts of my audios when the man cut vegetables and himself.

• Post Production

I spent most of my working time for this huge stage because of many things. Firstly, I have not gain enough necessary skills and only can used what I learned from the other course to produce this video. I also did not edit or remix any videos before.

In this stage, I thought cutting videos and trimming process were harder than the others. I could not remember how many times I had to fix the duration times for video, images, scripts etc. to achieve final result. Also, it was because most of my videos were inside photos so I had to make it match to each other as well as my audios. Besides, to create slow motion effect for 5 continuous shots, the duration time also was important, I had tried to test many times to know how many seconds are suitable for this effect.

In addition, to create smooth flow, I did use both of transition effects for my sounds and footages. I also applied key frame to change my sound volume. However, it thought I could not achieve to make my audios for cooking scene clearer when combining them with the background music although I increased to max level. Opacity was another tools I used to create fresh angle for my video and I thought I did it quite well. To make both videos and images appeared beautifully, I tried to use three-way color corrector but I was able to change simple things such as saturation and master levels.

Besides, I relied on some notes in editing flip lecture as my guideline to achieve in editing my story:

For narrative purpose

• Creating a sense of drama of tension: I used materials that help to support my narrative and show comedy genre.
• Pace, rhythm, flow: happy and joyful music background and sound effects
• “Gear changes”, momentum shifts: the man cut himself then joyful moments and back to dramatic when the eagle destroyed the egg.
• Telling a story: I mentioned above
• Cutting out the “bad” or “boring” bit: I only kept the key interesting part of videos and audios for my video.

Overall, I am really happy when I can defeat my own fear, myself to complete all of tasks in this course. It believe that will be my own successful story that I proudly produced. Besides, I really appreciate valuable things that my instructor has provided me through this course. Although my skills have not perfect yet, but the course really helps me build up my confident in telling story with various kinds of gears and using techniques as well as software to reproduce the story again.

• References

I used all free sources or the ones that have creativity common license for personal using purpose.

Videos

• Youtube mobile

https://archive.org/details/tweakers001475

• Cooking rice with Roland

https://archive.org/details/411Show-CookingRiceWithRoland276?start=149.5

•  Skateboard bird

https://archive.org/details/SkateboardBird

Images

• Think’N – Ivan Moskvin

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ivan_moskvin/370606381

• Finger face having an idea – Tsahi Levent-Levi

https://www.flickr.com/photos/86979666@N00/7623744678

• Look – Nick Page

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nicksie2008/12679036865/in/photolist-kjpnVT-eHD1Zw-n3bV2r-akvJfS-ntJvVW-eDijUe-avo6Dp-beDgrZ-oAVbn-ga5ne-iRsT7w-b41Sac-97VfF6-44AezQ-4EhJLS-nK7yJE-55pr2W-k4MJzK-oHNwmn-oivqPD-6PH5CM-28YR1j-7GYFCy-9F2hFB-ovuzjB-7VonVk-jbtcBn-jj3uJa-3czGPH-aksVst-4gHYmR-oMK9VA-akvJrY-7KyxE2-9x6CXY-4vUtYb-bYWweh-7sZ5nH-6Bc7Xr-67nNta-i3W5yN-8uZWQi-nErjjd-pzqXnA-8sXtci-nHdSWc-4GxVBt-ovUFDu-fc1zje-nM4NF7/

Sound effects

• Baby crying

https://archive.org/details/BabyCrying_807

•  Glass clink

http://www.soundjay.com/drinks/sounds/glass-clink-1.mp3

•  Sharp bird call

http://www.nifter.com/sound_effects/animals_sounds/animals_sound_effects_sharp_bird_call_NifterDotCom.wav

Music

• Look – S.U.N

https://www.jamendo.com/en/track/699361/look

• Thief in the night – Townhouse Wood

https://www.jamendo.www.jamendo.com/en/track/1156057/thief-in-the-night

What does success mean to you?

Telling a short story through 5 photos for this photography assignment with the theme of success was not easy as I thought. I decided to create a new story instead of using my previous video’s idea because I believed I can challenge myself and played with techniques that I learnt in class to visualize my story through photos. I would like to reflect on my work in terms of techniques I used and what I achieved and did not in this assignment.

Brainstorming ideas

Firstly, I had to do some research to explore which idea I could apply some basic techniques such as exposer time, shutter speed, rule of thirds etc. Then, I chose the idea of putting the egg in the bottle because I thought it would allow me to play around with those techniques and create interesting photos.

Next, I also reviewed again the materials from my tutorial and it include online lecture slides, photomatter to learn about shooting with exposure time, light, depth of filed, focus and the photo essay article to build the attraction for my story.

Making process

I used my Canon EOS 600D with the EFS 18 – 55mm lens to capture all photos and the tripod when using slow shutter speed to avoid vibration. In this stage, I struggled with locations because I have not experienced many places in Melbourne yet due to the fact that I only live here in 2 months. Although I planned to shoot at the park’s playground during weekends, it had many people so I could not complete my shooting. Thus, I had to change to another the location, which is my friend’s university, and I could control this place because it was Sunday. My shooting also has another difficulty with time making because my friend who was my main actor had a busy schedule so I had to follow his time and tried to complete my shots in the limited time with good quality as I expected. Also, here is my making process for 5 photos. I did not use software to change the raw files because the raw quality was quite good.

• Photograph 1:

To catch the attention, I established this hook shot that I leant in my tutorial and used long shutter speed to make the egg freeze in the air and rule of thirds to structure the photo. Actually, I had to try many angles and ask my friend to do the action many times to capture the best shot of the egg. Also, the egg’s color was quite similar with the light so I also had to reduce the ISO to make it become clearer.

• Photograph 2:

For this shot, I used large aperture to create the large depth of field, slow shutter speed and frame in frame. Although I tried to set my camera to focus on the phone’s screen to capture the clear text, it was not clear enough and had some reflection of the tree on the phone’s screen. The other limitation was the sky’s light that I could not change because if I increased the shutter speed to make the sky darker, the text on the screen could not be visible.

• Photograph 3:

I applied the slow shutter speed to create the painting effect when the actor attempted to put the egg in the bottle. Again, this shot took me very long time to achieve the effect because I expected my photo could show a part of an egg for viewer to understand my story. Thus, I came up with the solution that was using multiple shooting to capture all moments and I could select the best one after that.

• Photograph 4:

I wanted to create the sharpness and make the egg and bottle stood out so I used the small depth of field to blur the background and the rule of thirds to structure the main objects. I had to keep the ISO as 100 and increase the shutter speed because the bottle’s color was so transparent and it was hard to see clearly through my lens.

• Photograph 5:

It was raining while I took this photo so I could not capture the little flame inside the bottle as I planned due to the cold weather and strong wind. Thus, I had to change to play with the rule of thirds and depth of field instead of using fast shutter speed to freeze the flame. In this shot, I did not capture the actor because I believed it would show that he decided to leave this idea and find different solutions. He did not stick with the challenge anymore after few tries.

You might ask why the story related to success theme although the man could not put the egg into the bottle? Due to the fact that I researched when exploring this idea, it would be really hard to put the egg into the bottle because the success of this challenge depends on the size of eggs, bottles as well as the temperature that you use to heat the atmosphere inside. You have to try different size of eggs and bottles to figure out which can fit each other. I believe this idea is the same with challenges we have to face with in life. Sometimes, I think we cannot try to achieve something we know exactly that we will fail when doing it. Thus, it likes the metaphor of egg and bottle. In order to have success, I believe we should try many ways or solutions if one does not work. We cannot stick with only one solution for every issue and learning how to leave it to find other way for problem solving is more important. In the story, the man’s egg could not fit in the bottle so he decided to not try anymore because he knew why it happened due to the scientific fact I have mentioned and he had to find another egg or bottle to continue doing this.

Overall, I feel satisfied with my final result. I believed I achieved most of basic techniques but need to improve more on finding angles and how to shot with every different light condition. This assignment was really interesting to me because it helped me to improve photography techniques to create a story that I have never tried before and I only used my camera for taking landscape photo or event. Also, it made me feel again my camera that I did not touch on during the last 6 months.

 

Teamwork contributes to success

Media Objects Assessment 1: Single Shot Video

Teamwork contributes to success

• Building the idea

In the beginning, due to the busy time of all members, my group created the Facebook page that is called Media Object in order to post all of our ideas and decide which one we will shoot by voting. Beside that, when we picked our favorite one to shoot, we worked together to continue developing the idea as well as fix some details we thought that the camera might be unable to capture.

• Shooting film

My team and I decided specific roles for each member such as cameramen, director, assistant director and actresses in order to reduce conflict and work well together. At first, we had challenges to find an empty and quite room at peak hours in RMIT. We also had to test shooting many times to find the best way to act and good angles to produce good video. Moreover, we encountered to set the time for each actress to walk into the frame because we afraid if we made it quickly, our film would be unnatural. In contrast, we had to make sure every action happens consistently and easy to understand within only one minute.

• Strengths

I think my group was successful in creating the process for all members to contribute their ideas. Furthermore, choosing Facebook as a social channel to communicate, worked effectively with my group because we are the biggest group that had 5 members and everyone also has busy schedules for working and studying. Thus, it helped us to save time and meet the deadline without having too much meeting for the brainstorming ideas. If I had another one-minute project in the future, I wish the group size would be reduce to three or four members for a better process. Another strength I believe is spending time for test the camera as well as finding the way to act naturally because this is the first time we make the very short video. Beside that, I have to mention that creating the specific roles for every member in the group contributed to the smooth process and avoid the conflict between us.

• Weaknesses

At the beginning, we had so many ideas but we could not stick with the best one. Thus, we could not produce the perfect one and had to do the second video. However, I think my group had a solution for that problem which was creating the channel to present ideas and voted to choose the idea that everyone wanted to shoot. Besides that, I think we had difficulties with the light in the film and it was not the result that we wanted. Actually, we did not try both solutions for the light of the film. The classroom has many curtains but we thought the light in the room was quite enough for our video so we did not pull up the curtains for making different versions. I think trying different solutions and making a comparison are very significant lessons to learn in order to figure out which one is the best film for audience to enjoy.
Overall, I feel very happy and satisfied with the final result of my team because we had try all and although we failed one time, we did not give up and produced the good final product.