Monday, 19 March 2018

Research and Planning a Music Video

Choose your track:

The track that I have chosen is "Running home to you" by Grant Gustin, written for 03x17 "Duet" for the CW tv show "The Flash" by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul.



Analyzing your music video:

"Running home to you" was written for Flash / Barry Allen (Grant Gustin) to sing to his fiancee Iris West (Candice Patton) after being trapped in what he believed was a world where everything was a musical. He was in a comatose state and his friends tried to help brake him free. He sings this to her to let her know that no matter what has happened in the past, or what happens in their future together, he will always be by her side and support her. He has saved her from criminals/ "villains" trying to kill her many times, and to try stop he latest villain "Savitar" from fulfilling his promise to murder her, he becomes distant and is so focused on saving her he will do anything to do it. Because of this, "Running home to you" is also a sort of apology.

Although this song is not particularly long, there are two versions, one sung by Grant Gustin, and Another sung by Melissa Benoist (Supergirl) at the West-Allen marriage. If i were able/allowed to do so, I would consider merging them together to make a longer and possibly more interesting track.

The tempo of the song is quite slow and it is played in a minor key, which stereotypically would make the audience think it is a sad song, and although this song is emotional, there is a happy message behind it.

Lyric Analysis:





































Style:
Examples of Grant Gustin Singing:





Grant Gustin's uniform is similar to the suit that Michael Jackson wears in the original music video, and the hat that Naya Ravira wears is also reminiscent with Michael Jackson's signature look.



Please disregard this Risk Assessment, an updated one has been posted bellow.

Friday, 23 February 2018

The Commissioning Process

https://prezi.com/p/xhjngv5joeys/

Updated

https://prezi.com/view/WSMwLMCJM97gKWRwvl6K/

Tuesday, 20 February 2018

Production Meeting Record - !0 Min Short

Production Meeting [1] - 20/02/18

We agreed on a script (The College - Speech Day) and started to work on the pre-production. I have designed the Talent release form for Luca, as well as leave notes on the script to suggest improvements.

Production Meeting [2] - 21/02/18

Today I completed all of the talent release forms, as well as working with Nic suggesting extra hazards that needed to be address in the risk assessment, and talking with Luca about his changes to the script. We have begun discussing possible locations to shoot several scenes.

Production Meeting [3] - 21/02/18

Today I added some finishing touches to the release forms, printed them out and had one signed and planned, I have begun to write the shot list, and have read through the script.

Production Meeting [4] - 27/02/18

Today I am have completed the shot list for scene 1-5, as well as show examples of what I envisaged for a couple of transitions.


Production Meeting [5] - 06/03/18

Today I worked on the shot list again as I wrote it into the proper sheet this time and I got up to the end of scene 4.

Production Meeting [6] - 07/03/18

Today I have finished the shot list for scenes 1 - 5, however it is now only 4 scenes as when we looked at the shot list/script scene 2 and 3 should have only been the 1 scene, rather than being split into 2.

Production Meeting [7] - 07/03/18

Today I continued to draw the storyboards and i have completed them for scene 1.

Production Meeting [8] - 13/03/18

Today i completed the full storyboards for scene 1, and have nearly completed the first sheet of scene 5 so that we can start shooting faster and easier.

Production Meeting [9] - 14/03/18

Today we had a refreshers course on how to properly use a DSLR camera. Although i already knew how to do most of what we went through, it doesn't hurt to refresh your memory in case you have forgotten anything.

Production Meeting [10] - 27/04/18

We have filmed all of Andrea's scenes know, simply have to finish the shooting of luca and Lochlan. Today I finished editing what i could of the scene in the canteen, with L and J cuts which I am quite proud of. I also put a slight colour correction which doesn't change much, but I believe that it adds to the visuals of the film.

Monday, 19 February 2018

Single Camera Techniques

What is this essay about?

In this essay I will be talking about the different techniques and the differences between Single camera and Multi-Cam. As you can imagine, a single camera set-up is when the production use one camera at a time to shoot a scene , giving the film a much more intimate feeling, however it takes longer as you have to set up the shot each time you want to change the shot, which in turns make the production more expensive. On the other hand a multi cam setup conventionally uses 3 cameras, one focused in a wide shot, one a close up on a main character, and a final one may be a mid shot/two shot.

Camera:

Most moving image production is filmed with a single camera setup,  with the exception of documentary's, the news and soap's. However, saying this, single camera shorts don't always only use one camera as for high intensity action set pieces, such as a fight scene or large jump on top of a building, They do this so that they don't have to do it multiple times making it cheaper, but also using multiple cameras allows them to cut it together better.



Soaps, such as Eastenders or Coronation street, use a multi-cam set up because they have to film an episode for every night, so for them is is faster and more cost effective to use a multi-cam set up than a single camera set-up.

Lighting:


When lighting a shot during a single camera production you can re-adjust lighting on characters as and when you need to, whereas when you shoot with a multi-cam you set it up once and have to stick with it, which can make it look fake/a bad studio set.



In this scene they would have had to light each individual character/actor as otherwise you wouldn't be able to see their faces properly.

Sound:

 In single camera productions they usually use the "Land J cut" technique allowing there to be a slight overlap over the footage to make the conversation flow better. Often "Boom" mics are normally used to record the background/spoken audio during a single camera production. In interviews or on other multi-cam shoots, it can be easier to mic up the people in shot so they wear a small mie, allowing a crisp sound without worrying about seening the boom in shot.




Editing:

In a live show (Multi-cam) such as the news or the x-factor, the production team use a editing technique called "Mixing" where they simply cut between each camera while the act is perfoming, allowing the audience at how to see the performance from different angles and to see the judges (and audience) reactions.




For a single camera production, such as CW's "Constantine" the editing process would have been a large team of editors working together after shooting had wrapped to cut the scenes in the episodes together and to do all of the SFX. It would be costly and time consuming, expecially compared to live mixing.

Genres:

The most common genre's to use single camera production are; Crime Drama (Such as NCIS Los Angeles) Period Drama (Frontier) Horror (IT) Comedy (Thor: Ragnarok). The main reason most of these genre's use single camera is because it allows the filmmaker to get more emotion and feeling behind the shots/scenarios, as well as make it more interesting.




On the other hand, multi-camera productions are usually limited to Live shows (Such as Britain got talent) The news, some comedy shows (such as Mrs Browns Boys / Big Bang Theory). The reason for this is it is easier to get a more genuine reaction if they are filmed in the same take, rather than making the actor do a fake reaction in a different shot.

Wednesday, 7 February 2018

The Requirements of working to a brief

Brief:

What is a Brief?

A brief is a short document supplied by a client with their objectives/regulations to protect their company, as well as the objectives/goals with suggestions on how to complete these tasks.

What is a commission?

A commission is when a client asks you to create a project for a media outlet/platform which you (usually) get paid for.

For example, earlier this year I worked on a film piece for BBC voices to be shown behind a live orchestra at a live performance to commemorate the centenary of WW1.











What is ‘tender’ in media?

"Tender" is a term used in the media industry when you put your survives out for hire.

How else could you respond to a brief?

You could compete in a competition which would likely have a more broad/lenient brief.

























Recognizing the brief:

We have to create a 10 second short animation to enter into the E4 Ident competition. According to the brief, our ESting has to clearly include the E4 logo and a soundtrack that has been supplied by them.

Negotiating a Brief:

For this assignment we have quite a lot of freedom for what we could create for our ESting, as long as we stuck to the guidelines.

We are quite fortunate with the amount of "Leniency" that we have for this project, for many company's/clients have a specific reputation that they need to keep, and/or have a specific vision of what they want created. If this was the case, then it would be imperative that we stuck to the brief as closely as we could, and - if we had had any ideas that we were unsure of whether or not they would work - keep in contact with the client to discus ideas to get the best possible outcome for all party's involved.

Sometimes your client may not be as experienced in the industry as you/other clients you have worked for in the past, thus leading to complications in budgeting and Legal areas of your project, which would make it difficult to create the product your client wants. In this scenario, you would need to discus with the client what the problems are and why they are a problem, and what could be done to fix/get around these problems. There are also ethical problems you could encounter, such as if you were hired by a charity organisation who are working to improve living conditions in a 3rd world country, would it be ethically correct to show living conditions of these people either early in the day where children could see the footage, or  you are contracted by a vegan/animal rights group who wanted to expose living conditions and how the animals are treated and they wanted it to be shown a 19:00 when family's are eating their dinner and watching TV.

For the final ESting i had to re shoot some of the footage of the characters moving/reacting as it did not flow as well as i felt it could have, as well as changing the colour correction to give it more of a "Crime" feel and make it look more professional.

There are manyt reason that you may need to make adjustments/amendments to your product, for example, you may have been overly optimistic when outlining the budget, and be forced to rethink how you would go about making your product. As well as this, it is easy to accidently overlook or forget parts of the brief when originally working to the brief, meaning that once you hand in the product that you may have a deviated from the brief. This is why it is important to keep checking the brief throughout the production.

Opportunities:

Why might someone respond to a brief?

There are many reasons as to why someone may respond to a brief, for example; they may be looking for a way into the industry and wish to get experience working with professionals, they may be a freelancer looking for work or perhaps an already established individual in the industry looking to broadening his/her options/further develop their skills as a filmmaker.

Identify opportunities that you had for self-development / what new skills did you learn?.

By working on my own I was able to improve my time management, as well as develop my camera and editing skills as I had only edited moving images/footage up until this project. Before this project I had never attempted to make a stop-motion animation before, so I leaned the workings behind it such as for 10 seconds you need to get 120 photos as you edit it/watch it in 12 frames per second.

Do you have to multi-skill at all during the project?

Yes as I will have to do all of the camera work and editing myself.

What contributions did you make to the project brief?

To go away from the generic clay/Lego animation of most EStings and create a live action animation set in a fantasy universe and to have a warden witness a crime and carry out "justice".