Abstract Exercise

My exercise for this week was using Pr to combine both audio files and footages in order to produce one-minute film. Below is the process of making my second short film.

The shoot

• Audio

For the audio shoot, I worked with YoYo and we decided to record random sounds that we felt interested in rather than stick with rough theme for the abstract exercise. Most of our sounds were recorded from outside such as alumni courtyard, streets. I was the one who listened to the sound quality as well as control the level of sounds. At the beginning, I faced with technical issues in terms of increasing or decreasing the sound level of the recorder and confusing about the rehearsal/start button. Thus, our first results were not good when we listened to them again and we had to start again when we knew clearly how to use the recorder. We tried to record simple sounds that surround us such as bird, trams, waterfall etc. As the one who wore the microphone and heard the daily sounds through the small recorder, I felt quite strange and also excited. Although these sound were really familiar to me in daily, I did not notice where are they come from. We gained various kinds of sounds from outside but it also was the problem because the outside was really noisy and combined many ground and field sounds. Thus, it was very hard to record good quality of sounds that we wanted so I had to increase the maximum level of the recorder to have the best sounds. Another problem was we did not have the enough length of sound to choose and when we come to the editing part because we only recorded them from 4 to 10 seconds. Thus, I did not have the flexibility to select the best period that had good sounds to add in my film. The last problem was not applying specific theme for our recordings. Thus, it was quite hard to me at the start of editing part to find the way to unite all sounds. Thus, I think we should plan ahead if we have a chance to make it again or do new audio project in order to have a clear vision and direction to follow and stick with it. Also, noticing on the length of sounds also is very significant because we can have plenty of choices to edit if we have long sounds in good quality.

• Video

For the video shoot, I worked with another team so it definitely was a challenge for me. Due to the limited of time and the heavy of the camera kits, we could not produce a lot of footage as we expected. However, our footage had various angles and I was quite happy about that when I used them to create my one-minute film. We tried to move the camera a lot to shoot from the bird eyes view, worm eyes view, wide and long shot. We also explored many different levels of zoom functions, exposure and shutter speed to bring the differences into our footages. Besides that, we also had the same problem with the audio that we did not plan the location as well as what was the specific theme we wanted to shoot. Moreover, we were not in the same audio group so we could not be able to link our footages with the sounds that we already recorded. Therefore, we decided to shoot whatever we can to practice out shooting skills with the Z5 camera. We took turn to capture the outside of RMIT, the trams and people walking on the streets. We also moved to the 8^th level of building 80 to have high angle for out footage. Overall, I was quite happy with our footages and we already did the best as we could during the short period of time. However, for the next shooting, no matter what time we could have, I believe I should have to spent 5 minutes to plan what I suppose to do in order to avoid the issues I made in this part.

The edit

This was the second film project that I used Pr to produce so I felt more confident than my previous one. I already knew basic steps so this process was quite smooth.

The most difficult things in this part I believe was choosing the appropriate Haiku for my film because not only Haiku poem was completely new to me but also I had to create the link between my footage and the Haiku in order to make my film become meaningful. To have the connection, I picked the Haiku first and found appropriate footages to combine later. I tried to stick with simple idea as much as I can. During the process of exploring footages, I found some of them can be applied the opacity to support my film effects. I really enjoyed the opacity because it brought colorful elements into my film. However, it was quite hard to use this function logically. I also used the transition effects to make my cuts become smooth and reduced the gap between different rough cuts that the audiences might realize. Besides that, adding the Haiku texts on the screen was quite challenged to me because I wanted to add simple animation effects to them in order to make it less boring. Thus, I watched some tutorials on Lynda website to find out the way to do it.

For the audio of my film, I used both of original sounds and sounds I recorded. I chose to add sounds for some specific footage such as moving trams, green light signal, bird, bicycle’s bell etc. I use the original sounds for footage that I did not have specific sounds for them and try to reduce the sound level because I also used a song as a main theme for my whole film. Due to the fact I chose the romantic theme for my film so the music also was a key element to make the viewer could read the Haiku and feel it as I expected. Moreover, I believe adding the daily sounds help to reduce the cliché when they watch and listen to the song because I use the song without lyrics.

Overall, I am satisfied with what I have done for my film. Although it still has mistakes but I believe I am able to do better in the next time through lessons and tutorials I have and will learn more in the next couple weeks.

References

Chris, Z 2012, The 49^th Street Galleria, Free Music Archive, viewed 2 October 2014, <http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chris_Zabriskie/Undercover_Vampire_Policeman/05_-_The_49th_Street_Galleria_1620>.

Your Dictionary, Examples of Haiku Poems, viewed 2 October 2014, <http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-haiku-poems.html>.

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.