Berwick Post

 After handing in my degree papers I have been making contacts (or trying) in the industry. I have spoken to a friend who has got family contacts within Berwick Post Production in London. He has scheduled a meet with him which I will go along to and see If I can gain a few days or a week in the studio. From referring to the website they have video editing, sound with pro tools setup and augmented realty based projects and even 3D stereoscopic TV technology. An opportunity not to be missed!

I let you know of any further developments.

Check out the website here

Re-energise Evaluation

After completing my first film Energise I carried out a survey using a questionnaire that I had devised. With these opinions in mind I decided that for the re-submission of my work I would reshoot the film using the same actor but in different locations. I would be able to use some of my original creative ideas and the same soundtrack that I had composed. From the questionnaire answers from my Energise film I set about looking at how I could keep with my original main idea but make adjustments and alterations to my film edit in a variety of ways as well as reshooting film in different locations.

I received many positive reactions to the original film. The comments in the questionnaires were positive in terms of content, mood and length. The changes that I set about to make included making the visuals and the music fit tightly. Although some of the reactions to the film expressed an opinion that the essence of the film was about the 'Day in the Life of…' one of the comments received stated that the theme was ‘hard to follow.’ Therefore in Re-Energise I tried to keep with the same pace and style of editing as the original, whilst trying to improve on conveying the story theme more overtly to the audience. I also wanted to modify the ending to ensure that the piece was not hanging in the air and that it felt complete. Several of the audience surveyed commented that the 'visuals fitted the music.' The most positive reaction was for the food colouring in water piece. ‘The dye marked the tempo and style of music,' said Pete.

I used a 7D camera to shoot both films. Nearly all of the shoot was without a tripod and was freehand. This was a deliberate choice, as although filming freehand can look very choppy, this is quite usual in music videos, particularly in terms of cutting speed. My decision to do this was in order to make the film match the pace of the music.

For my research this year I have found out more about music video and sound production by making contacts with professionals and being able to visit studios such as the prestigious Sawmill Studios in Cornwall. Here I was able to spend a day with the production staff. Details of this can be seen on my blog pages. I also had the opportunity to visit a music producer, Kam, in Slough. Details of this day can also be seen on my blog. My blog pages show how I have been inspired by the work of various music artists. By visiting music professionals and finding out more about music production skills I have gained an insight into developing my music production and editing skills with a view to entering this side of the profession.

With my storyboarding complete I decided on my target audience. It is important to bear in mind when filming which target audience would be interested in my genre of film. Although I had decided that my target audience was 16-25, older people have viewed my film and have said that they enjoyed watching it. Diana, who is over 40, commented in her questionnaire 'I felt that it told a story in a very creative way as it left the viewer to make their own mind up about the character and what he was doing during the day. There was also very creative filming using slow-motion and the passing of time from day to night. I really liked the traffic light changing in time with the music and the ending where the character looks up. The ink in water was very mesmerising and the red colouring looked quite sinister, but when it changed to black, green and blue I realised it was just a creative feature.'

Filming

The film shoot went really well. I filmed over a three day period exclusively in Bristol with the intention of shooting enough film so that I could have sufficient film to tell the story and also enough footage to edit an ending that would be a resolution to the story. I wanted the whole story to be interpreted by the audience and I also wanted it to portray some mystery by not giving too much away by literally telling 'a day in the life' throughout the film. I also filmed some of the footage at night and this really gave the video that mysterious quality and style. It also gave the story line depth in terms of the progression of time. As I filmed on two separate occasions I had to make sure my actor was wearing the same clothing as before. Some of the shots contain him wearing a grey jacket over the top of the shirt which I incorporated into the story line by shooting a scene at the start of the video where he puts the jacket on.

Problems - Sound

The sound clicking was a problem when it came to importing and listening back to the final video. I'm not sure why it has a slight clicking in the background as I exported the mix down of my song in AIFF format. I understand that this is what Final Cut finds friendly to use. At first when I was cutting the footage to the Mp3 soundtrack I didn't realise that Final Cut had problems understanding the format. I looked up the problem online and discovered that AIFF is the best format for Final Cut to understand. The clicking sounds have been reduced but I can still hear it faintly in the background at points where the track is in its quieter sections with less instrumental features. Although this has happened and there appears to be no way to fix the problem, with the limited access I have to additional equipment such as a newer versions of editing software and computers, I am very pleased with how full the track sounds in the mix and how it works with the video.

Problems - Equipment

The first edit that I had completed was on a Mac Book Pro laptop that unfortunately broke. Luckily I had a copy of the draft export of the video which the technicians helped me save onto a new laptop to edit back into. I imported all the newly shot footage for Re energise onto the new laptop and added once again to the broken edit using the exported draft edit underneath in Final Cut as a reference.

Problems - Software

I had a major unresolved problem in the final stages of the editing. Final Cut understood that I had cut the raw footage and placed it in the timeline at a certain point, but when exporting the final video out of Final Cut, it had taken the wrong timings out of the raw footage, meaning that the cuts that I had made were not in the places where I wanted them, therefore changing the whole choice of shot completely. Luckily this was limited to only several places and not the whole video. I sought technical help from the internet and the technicians at university but no one had heard of this problem before. I therefore had to bite the bullet at this point and accept that the video would not completely be the way I wanted it to look.

Cutting techniques - Desaturate filter

In some of the cuts I used a desaturate filter to make the footage black and white. I split the clip that I wanted, to show the effect, into two parts, cutting to the beat. I then placed the desaturate filter over one of the sections of the clip I had cut into two parts so that when the drum beat hit, the clip would switch to black and white.

I also used the desaturate filter on the introduction to the drop of the main beat in the song. Using the key frames feature in the filters section of the clip I could control the amount of the filter used. I then used these key frames to slowly cut out the filter, which meant that the clip would fade in with colour as the key frames dropped in amount. This made the footage of the ink in water look like it was filling with colour.

Cutting techniques - slowing and speeding clips

For the cross angle shots of the pillars I increased the footage speed to match the pace of the music. One of the shots was a twist angle shot from one corner of the frame to the other. The other was a pull into focus shot of a pillar overlooking a river. I think the fast paced footage looks a lot better this way at double the speed. I also increased the speed of the shot of my actor walking up the train station stairway. Other shots such as the ‘ollie’ of the skateboard through the light I decided to slow down by over half. I did this as I wanted to accentuate my actor and the skateboard hanging in the air. I also used the same shot but in reverse for the part before the main melody and beat kick in. I incorporated this reverse technique into where the footage of the colouring in water was desaturated. This meant that when the beat kicked in it felt like the footage was going a lot faster and brighter than before, giving the following shots more impact on screen.

Colour correction and grading

I corrected the footage so that the finished effect was crisp and clean. I then set about grading the footage to the style I wanted for the finished film. When grading the footage I wanted to create a colourful vibrant look by pushing the blues, oranges and reds. I pushed the reds more in the sunnier shots to give it that Nashville old worn super 8 type look. I found this challenging when I was trying to create a reflective and soft mood, but didn't want the footage to look like it had been obviously graded for this, so I kept the colours down to what I felt was the maximum I could push without making it obvious to the viewer. In order to keep to the style I wanted I found that I had to colour correct and grade a high percentage of cuts in the edit. This was time consuming but I am very pleased with the look and the general feel of the final piece. 

Cross dissolves

Depending on the change of mood that each part of the track was portraying, I used a cross dissolve where I thought it necessary to make the cuts bind in with each other. I used straight cuts and jump cuts where the shot only varied in angle or, if I had used a desaturate filter to make the beats in the song more prominent to the visuals.

Locations

I selected and filmed the areas that reflected my storyboarding, closely referring to the main ideas. With this in mind it really helped me find the shots I wanted. The train station played a key role informing the ideas of travel and movement and also provided me with a useful amount of movement shots across Bristol. I stayed on the train through Bristol to get a variety of high rise flats, buildings and panning shots of trees, wildlife and people. My original black and white photograph of a tree was a lucky find, as I managed to get some footage of a tree like my photographic idea from the train.

Production Skills

The production skills that I have developed are particularly in editing using Final Cut. I have learnt on my work experience visits the importance of levelling sound tracks.  From the experience gained I made sure that the sound track was long enough when I exported it out of Final Cut. I would not change my creative ideas but by learning from the problems that I encountered, detailed above, I feel that I could go on to make other music videos.

Cover

I used software called Pixlr which is an online simplified version of Photoshop. I think the software is great as you don't have to download it and it can be accessed by any computer with an internet connection. This was an ideal solution as the laptop I used for a large part of my work didn't have Adobe Photoshop on it. I decided to make a DVD cover for the Re-Energise music video using some of the recce shots I took. The cover consists of two photographs. One which is an out of focus light photo and one is of Oldfield Park train station, in Bath. I cut out the platform edges and merged them into the background using the blur tool. I then used the eraser tool to feather out the train track so that the other photograph would show through underneath.  The simple effect of the out of focus lights shining through the track looks attractive to the eye. With the arrangement of the photos I also designed a dark cream and brown banner at the bottom. I liked how the colours complimented the orange scheme of the DVD cover. I wanted to put more emphasis on the ‘Energise’ instead of the 'Re' out of the title Re- Energise, so I coloured in the 'Re' in a light grey so that it was less prominent on the cover. I also decided to make the title in lower case.

I am pleased with the final film Re-Energise and I am looking forward to making more music video films in the future. 


I will be posting the Video here soon.

The Digital Future

BBC Radio 4 Start the Week - Presented by Andrew Marr, with guests Nick Harkaway, Anab Jain, Charles Arthur and Simon Ings.

I just caught the end of this programme on Bank holiday Monday morning and sought it out on Listen again section on BBC iplayer.

The discussion was over forty minutes long but discussed some very interesting things about the digital age and the next big idea.

In my research for my professional studies portfolio I had asked the professionals from the media that I had interviewed about the next big idea, so I was interested in how Andrew Marr’s guests would answer that question.

Nick Harkaway was talking about his recent book (The Blind Giant) which discusses the digital era. He explained that people see it as either a ‘dark place or a bright future.’ I was interested to hear his take on new technology as he went on to say that ‘it won’t just happen to us, we can shape it ourselves.’ We make the future as we go along. The digital world brings us opportunities. He expanded on the fact that as humans it is important to take ownership of digital technology.

Simon Ings writes a digital magazine which is linked to the New Scientist series.  He talked about Augmented Reality. He says ‘the best way to protect the future is to make it up.’ He went on to describe what augmented reality is. It is a way of sewing information into your picture plane or soundscape together with your mobile or digital glasses. The information is mapped in real time to connect us with our physical environment. So that when you call someone up on your phone you can see them sitting opposite you on a table. Perhaps no more long meetings with clients travelling to and from locations?

Anab Jain is the co-founder of Supaflux, a futurology company used by larger companies to test out ideas. I was interested to hear about Prosthetic Vision for blind people. This technology makes the damaged retinal cells sensitive to light when you wear a digital headset. Obviously it is so much more complex than that but it means that visually impaired people would be able to engage at some level with the sighted world. That really interests me as a photographer.

What really caught my attention in this interview was her explanation of a 5th Dimension Camera. She is currently working with market research scientists in Oxford. The camera, perhaps still some 20-30 years in the making, will process information in a parallel way. It will take photographs of people in a parallel world and it will bring back these images. It is a complete fictional prototype. The discussion also went on to describe the power that Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon have in controlling what we do. There was also a quote from William Gibson ‘The future is here, it is has just not been distributed.’

Listen again to this very interesting and thought provoking discussion about digital technologies. It will be available on iplayer for the next few days.

BBC Radio 4 Start the Week-Monday 7th May 2012

Listen to the discussion here
Nick Harkaway website here 

Want more? Check out Aleks Krotoski's 'The Digital Human' here

Reflections on last year's experience

Contacting the students from last year seemed an easy task at the start of my project. I began by emailing my cohort of students and requesting their input into my work.

The aim of this study was to find out from the cohort that I had studied with last year what it was like working the way they did, what was that way of working, and how that way of working has informed the way they work now. I also wanted to link this work to my professional portfolio.

I have also been making contacts with various professionals this year including people who have just started out in the media industry as well as seasoned professionals. Their knowledge has been invaluable to me, particularly about freelancing. I have discovered the importance of getting a foot in the door, as well as understanding the need to start at the bottom. During the first few weeks of my project the replies from the students were slow to materialise. Perhaps this was due to the fact that they had to answer my questionnaire. Writing the questions was important because I needed to get the right responses from the group. Asking closed question wouldn't give me enough information to analyse. Additionally I phoned some of them, used Facebook and also used text messages. Persistence is needed to get what you want out of something and it worked in the end. When they eventually responded it was great to see that they had all got paid work after university. All graduates told me that they enjoyed the practical nature of the last year at Artswork. I have looked at other media courses that are more theory based but I think that they miss out on a lot of valuable experience. The professionals I talked to commented that media graduates needed to have practical experiences as well as the theory. The sample group all liked the professional feel of working on real projects during the last year. It seems that the course at Bath Spa University prepares graduates well to take the next step in their career.

Having technical back up from Ollie and Dani was mentioned many times. I know that when you 'go it alone', that crutch of help will be taken away. To have on tap advice and also trouble shooting know-how is really supportive for project work. Having to work away from the Artswork hub has been quite a challenge for me to complete this work.

 Laura Crouchley, a freelance photographer, who has graduated within the last six years told me about her difficulties in setting up her own business. Going it alone can be daunting, and every penny is ploughed back into the business and sometimes work is very slow.

Back with my questionnaires; they were slowly coming together, although Rich seemed to be taking a long time to reply. I eventually found out he was away in China of all places.

From the sample group I chose to do a piece about one person's experience over the whole year and Jessie agreed to this. This also took some arranging as I am based in Plymouth and I had to co-ordinate the signing out of equipment as well as travelling to and from Bath and finding a venue to record my interview. This proved to be more difficult than I thought as some of the pieces of equipment were held at Bristol and some at Bath Spa. Travelling with lighting and camera equipment on a train was not going to be an easy task. Jessie could also only be available on certain weekends too.
I have learnt to be adaptable and to understand that for every problem there is a solution so I decided to make a radio piece. I managed to get a zoom audio recorder from Bristol and arranged to interview Jessie at her house. So that she was prepared, like an actor receiving a script, I emailed an adapted version of my questionnaire. I wanted to ensure that it was not just a question and answer session but that the talk flowed so that the listener would be interested.

After setting up the audio equipment so that I was not holding it, I asked the questions and she gave her replies. I put the microphone about half a metre away. We only had to return to a few questions for the purpose of the audio recording as I wanted to be able to cut out my questioning. It took about an hour to complete the interview with a few stops and starts.

I have interviewed a consultant before on camera and I wanted to produce a piece with a different feel to it. It was also a good learning experience as I haven't done much face to face interviewing before. When I began to edit using Soundtrack Pro I had so much audio that it took an extremely long time to edit. It was, however, a good experience using Soundtrack Pro.  Editing from forty minutes to ten minutes was a big learning curve. Keeping the best information whilst editing a few 'ums and ahs' was a challenge but it came out well in the end.

Stream and download the Radio Piece here

Filming for Hothouse

The saying goes never work with animals or children! Well, yesterday I went to a Devon Primary school to film a music workshop with foundation and year 1 pupils ages 5-6 on a Friday afternoon. Friday afternoon is a difficult time to get children motivated and with the added dimension of filming making them excited, some of children’s interaction was hampered. We were lucky that the subject was singing, which kept them fairly motivated throughout the afternoon’s filming.

I had been contacted by Peter Scott who runs 'The Hothouse' who wanted to make a simple promotional film for his website by filming a video which could be used as resource for teachers to help them deliver quality music lessons in their schools. After viewing his website before the shoot I believed that this would be to promote his 'Beatboards' exercises. Instead, the afternoon’s filming consisted of guitar call and answer songs where the children had to follow the lyrics and sing them back to Peter in time.

Having talked with Peter before the shoot, I was instructed to film using only one camera on a tripod, mostly keeping the shot static with a few pans across the room for variation. I arrived at the school half an hour before the shoot to sign in as a visitor. This covered my safety checks as I was not required to have a CRB as the teacher would be present throughout the filming.

I set up two light units and we re-arranged the classroom so that the background was clear so that the children had plenty of space to move and dance to the music. Peter performed his songs in front of the pupils as they sat listening. All pupils involved had permission from their parents to appear in the video for exclusive inclusion onto the 'Hothouse' site. 

We began by filming the Foundation class. These children are the youngest in the school. I was using a Sony HD solid state camera, with a Rode video microphone attached. I positioned myself so that I was as far back in the classroom as possible. By keeping the shot open for random movement allowed me to capture all the excitement and changes occurring whilst Peter sang.

Peter signalled to me when to stop and start filming. This would mean easier cutting of the film later. It was an interesting way of working. Following an earlier discussion with Peter, I filmed in a static position so that the film could be shown as a demo instead of a heavily edited video with many camera angles and effects.

The second group, a year one class, aged 6 years, were quite tired as by now it was 14:30. This class contained one child with special needs. Throughout the filming she had some vocal tics which made me more aware of sound levels. I could then suggest changes to Peter at the end of the song and the possibilities of doing another take.

All children enjoyed the sessions, and so did I. It was my first film shoot involving children so young. I learnt the importance of patience and thinking on your feet as they can be very unpredictable at such a young age. The shoot has also made me aware of the importance of gaining permission to ensure safety and child protection procedures.

I look forward to working with Peter in the next few weeks and seeing the work on his website.

Never work with animals or children? I just might do that in the future. Animals next!
www.the-hothouse.co.uk