![Harvey Neary Media :]](http://s0.wp.com/wp-content/themes/pub/motion/images/genericlogo.png?m=1266559376g)
Archive for March, 2011
From the 12 production briefs that we we’re given I had some instant ideas and plans I wanted to do, I selected 3 main Briefs that I felt most comfortable with and started to draw up plans.
- Short Film – My first Idea include a short film, a piece of radio advertisement and a poster to support the film. This film was to be based around the Song Kim by Eminem, which is the story of a case of domestic violence.
- Music Video – This was my Key Idea and I wanted to follow the story of the song with the stalker and the girl being attacked, with an the side pieces of the project to be an; album cover, album artwork sheet and a piece of advertisement to go along side a music concert sheet. A key technique I was going to use was Rotoscoping within the video to make it stand out.
- Documentary/ ‘Mockumentary’ – The final key idea was to make a new report on the problems with foot and mouth amongst goats, and how they are effected. It was to be mocking the ridiculous news reports normally seen on the news. It would include a radio advert, T.v advert and a final short interview with a goat. This was heavily influenced by the humor of shows such as Brass Eye and Green Wing.
I took these 3 ideas and presented them to my peers, from their reaction to the 3 possible ideas I wanted to do the music video gained the most positive feedback. This was mainly due to the use of rotoscoping that I suggested to use within my video, this wasn’t my favorite idea but the I did really like the technique rotoscoping.
I began to research into difference forms of rotoscoping and how exactly I was going to do it before I committed to the Idea. My Initial research suggested it was going to be Impossible as I needed to traditionally print my film and use negatives, but it was going to be less time consuming then I first thought. The form of rotoscoping I came across only required me to edit my films in Photoshop with no need to traditionally print the films and directly drawing on the negatives. Although it became realistic to do so it would still require much time as I still needed to edit every frame digitally.
As a result of the needed additional time, me and Andreas draw up a time schedule and a plan for me to successfully finish my in-depth research and being production. we planned for me to have all additional research to be done by the 17th december giving me 2 months to finish it all before I begin any preparation towards production, after I had done my research we suggested I would have all my paper work and forms filled and done in time to start filming and printing pictures on the 5th of November and be done with filming by the end of January.
Once these targets and plans had been made I began research into my chosen brief right away, The first part of my research I looked into was to look at similar music videos to the genre of music my song falls into. I gathered significant information into fast, slow, bizzare and simplistic music videos and took influence from these to decide what camera angles and frame rate to use. As an addition to these I also researched into the band I chose to use and looked in depth at all music videos they have produced across the 5 albums they have produced. I wanted to keep true to the traditions and techniques used by the band so this additional research really helped me into deciding what exactly I would include within my song.
Another way I researched into was a series of album covers, I wanted to keep my album cover and artwork simplistic and basic. I wanted to have either one; image, object or person as the front cover and back cover along side still shots of the music video to be edited and put as part of the album artwork. I chose to investigate into band albums that may not be part of the genre of music, to get a more vast select of information to evaluate. I researched into 6 very different bands that have very similar, but at the same time unique, pieces of artwork. From this I could finalise an idea of how I was going to use the simplistic technique.
I felt this was significant research into my project: I had researched into how and what exactly I wanted to include within my music video, I had taken examples of album artwork and took influence from a series of different pieces to deiced on exactly what I was going to include within my print side of my brief, and I had finilised with Andreas and my peers what techniques were good and how exactly I was going to fit in the time to do so. I now felt confident into starting my research and preparation into filming and shooting my pictures.
The first step I took into preparation was to gain permission from the music company to use the song I wanted to use, a simple email was sent to ask the company to allow me to use the the music video as long as I had no intention to gain profit from the production. After I sent the email I began to draw up a strip and story line for my music video, not being very time consuming because of the nature of the story I was able to draw a story board to go along side this. I did redraw the story board at a later date but I will come to that.
Once I had completed the story board and strip I chose to take time into gathering actors and locations. I aimed to have 4 actors and gain around 7 locations just incase production in one location fails to delivery. I managed to get 6 locations in all different ares so I had a key selection of locations to film, but unfortunately 3 of the 6 were limited to when and how I could film due to ever being on a private road of work. So although I did have a vast choice I really only had 3 to chose from, this could of been a complication but the locations I was able to film in where more than useful.
The actors were for the picking, I had a huge selection of participants willing to film so I chose people for their likeliness to the characters rather than the lack of choice. I did reduce the amount of Stalkers I would work with to just one because I felt 3 stalkers were to many, even though that is how many are in the song. The rotoscoping also effected my decision to use less actors, the more actors the more rotoscoping I would need to do and the depth in which it would needed to be done.
Now my actors and locations were secure and chosen, I decided to discuss with Andreas what my next step would be. He suggested to; do some more research and re-write my story board to a better standard, Gain more experience into the camera work side of the project and practice with the editing process. I decided these were significant steps I needed to take as the year before I had no real experience with the Camera or the editing process apart from personal projects.
My story board was the next key step I took, I re-wrote the scenes in more depth and added more detail to the images and added more information about the length and depth of each scene. It was significantly more detailed compared to my pervious story board but unfortunately I still couldn’t going into a depth that I would of liked because of my time schedule and the nature of the video. My main concern now was not the story board but to be ready for production as soon as possible.
My Filming was the next stage, my print would be done after the filming as the majority of images I was going to use were going to be still images from the film itself, so I needed to film and edit as soon as possible. I began filming over the christmas break and felt confident with what I was producing, although they was a slight complication, I hadn’t taken into consideration the lighting of my clips. As I filmed I ignored the fact it was getting dark while filming so the clips I had produced was useless. This was a spanner in the works as now I had useless media clips and now needed to film again before I could advance.
I did not waste these clips though, although I could not use them in my film film I decided to use them as an experiment into editing techniques and the process. It was extremely useful as it used the time I had before I could film again so I was always doing something productive, as well as giving me more experience in the film side of my project.
Once I had some significant practice with the filming and editing side of the project I chose to finalise some templates for my print side of my project, I needed to make at least 3 different templates for the advertisement side of my project as I had not yet decided which form of advertisement I was going to use as I still didn’t have the final images that I was going to use. I chose to do 3 very different types of advertisement as I felt it was needed due to how unpredictable the images I gather will be. A5, A4, and a Double page spilt type advertisement was what I chose to be an adventurous and bizarre form of advertisement. Although the templates were vert basic and did lack detail they were not necessary, the advert will be determined on the image rather than the image being influence by the templates.
My second session of filming was done after the templates were finalised. It was a swift and speedy process as I felt I was lacking behind my pre-agreed deadlines that I had made with Andreas. I took the camera from college and had filmed all sections of my story plus some additional parts that I felt could be used ever in the final video piece or as part of the print section. Once I had done all my filming I didn’t waste time, I took the camera and selected the pre-edited clips that I was going to use as part of my rotoscoping, I took these clips and edited them and put on the rotoscoping effect on at my home computer that has similar programs to the one at the college. (Slightly out of date programs but could still work with the college’s programs) The rotoscoping was painfully time consuming, as I needed to layer every frame of all my scenes which were at least 76 frames long. The rotoscoping was done in time and I was able to start editing the first lesson after I filmed, as I already had the song I was using on my home computer so it was needed.
The editing process was simple; as I had pre-edited the rotoscoping had no intention of using additional effects and techniques on my films it was simple, the only complication was the switch of scenes and frame rate. A key feature I found in the deftones videos is that all the cut are done in time with the music, this was a key thing I wanted to pick up on while filming and editing, this was unfortunately a slight down fall to my plan, as the lengths of my shots were all different. because of this the process of cutting meant I would have to shorten quiet a few of my scene’s just to make them fit into time with the music, also because the music had no real fixed time signature it only complicated thing more. I successfully done the timing technique I wanted to achieve but at a cost of length.
The production of my product had it’s ups and downs. I felt I kept to a significant timing appropriate to what I wanted to achieve, but the hiccups in certain situation did slow down process. I feel if under certain circumstance I could of produced my final piece under a faster time, but the things that did slow me down were not preventable at the time.
My final products overall I feel were an overall success.
The Final piece of filming I feel was done well, My timing to the music and the way I included traditional features of the band I feel most proud of. I could of added more effects to the video to make it more professional and follow the lines of a music video of the genre, effects like defocus and a shift in camera angle and distance to the actors were missed out on with my final piece. This would of been a nice technique to use but I feel I couldn’t achieve them. This technique is usually used with videos that have the band or artist in the video perform the song while another story or line of scenes are happening at the same time, but because I could not record the band or pose as the band I felt I show leave this technique out.
Another factor that I did not predict and am slightly disappointed about is the natural lighting in my film. Because the whole piece is out side I was completely dependent on the natural light, which significantly changes through the process of the film. I did want this to happen but because of how dark it has become it begins to lower the quality of the film. I would of prevented this if I had more time to film but because the lighting has slowed down the filming process twice before I felt I could compromise with what I already had.
Problems with the print side of the project they had similar problems. Again the lighting effected the quality of the images, because they are all from the film piece themselves they were also lowered with quality the later in the film the image comes from. This could of also been avoided by an additional shooting period but again the time factor left me with no choice but to use the images I already had.
Another problem the the print I have is the lack of depth I could have gone into with the images, because I wanted them to be stills of the images I could not take separate images and relate them to the video incase of continuity errors. I did have a vast choice of images I could use because of the high frame rate that I filmed in but finding a completely focused and stable image amongst moving images was a problem.
A last key problem I have with the project as a whole was the limited time the rotoscoping was on screen. Because of the unpredictability of the rotoscoping: How long it would be on screen and the amount of time needed to do the editing, I felt unsatisfied at first with the length the rotoscoping was achieved. I am happy with the overall result of the rotoscoping but the impact it could of had on the viewer was limited because of the small amount there is.
When I presented my final pieces to my audience there was one key problem they all had, it was the rotoscoping. They felt the rotoscoping was lacking in length and detail, I asked in my questionnaire for suggestions to improve my film side of the project and they all stated that the rotoscoping needed more length and because of the detail of the lines in the arm scene and particularly the eye scene they felt it was not done to a professional standard. I underestimated how key the detail of the rotoscoping was needed to be done and how much of it was needed to be a key feature of the movie.
The light also came into question, many questioned why the beginning of the film was at night and then the next scene was at day, it was the desired effect to make the video a loop but this clearly did not come across. I had not made it clear that the beginning and the end were of the same scene. If I were to change this I would again need more time to film.
As a whole conclusion I have mixed feeling about my final pieces. Yes I am happy with the outcome I gained from the editing process and the experience I gained was significant, but i feel with more time I could of done better. The main problems that I feel and the audience feel could easily be avoided with more time filming, the same with the print aspect of the project. With more time comes more detail and more correction that could of been made.
Today I asked a series of people to view my final piece and fill in a questionnair about it, the result I got were mixed.
I asked a series of basic questions; Age, gender, occupation etc. The majority of people I asked were male and many students between the age of 14 to 20.
I understand from this I did have a bias of young males but unfortunately I did not have significant time to conduct a in-depth survey.
Results:
7 out of 10 saw that the video was related to the genre of Rock and Metal while viewing the video without audio, and 6 out of 10 understood the print was also related to the genre. The few that did not pick that genre were over the age of 18, so from this I could conclude that the age of my audience did depend on the genre of music they related the video to, which is a positive result really because my target audience was in the age barrier of 14-20.
When I asked them to view the pieces with the audio the result were very balanced, 6 out of 10 said that the music video did work well with the genre of music that I used, the print side question had slightly better results with 7 out of 10 saying the print and music video work together. Although it seems to be a good result I consider it a failure because all the print images came directly from the video so when only 7 out of 10 picked up on this I was slightly disappointed.
The areas that the people said needed most improving were rotoscoping, all the audience stated that the rotoscoping needed improve, they enjoyed it or that it needed more time on screen. I took this as a positive result as although they say it need improving it means that they were interested in the effect.
Overall the results of my questionnaire are bias because it is a student majority of viewers, they still gave me a significant insight to what I could or could of improved as a result. Maybe if I had done another viewing mid way through the editing process I could of took these results and improved the problems that people pointed out. Character acting, rotoscoping and audio cutting were the three key issues people had with the video. I plan on resolving this issue with any future editing or new projects that I do.
