Film Class DW Entry

*MY BDAY WAS 2 DAYS AGO!

Monday, March 30, 2009

We reviewed the last video from our previous project Film Noir today. This film was done by the last group - Julien, Chris, Raphael, Hannah and Jeffrey. This project started off with a surreal theme, where it portrays Hong Kong thirty years later, with a shrinking working force and ageing population. This catchy theme created atmosphere, and was a good arrangement to explain why cops like them are roaming around the dark city fighting crime.

After watching this production, we discussed on their cinematography techniques: how shots were planned, how lighting was achieved, the use of digetic and non-digetic sounds as well as the editing. We learned specifically about the 180 degree rule, where the camera cannot flip itself to the negative half of the screen and digetic sounds where the object producing the sound has to be on-screen. This allowed us to be more "knowledgeable" and better "communicators" in the IB learner profile since we are sharing ideas publically with our fellow schoolmates.

We were also briefed on the new procedures on equipment and shot log handling. Mr. Chang devised for us a new set of rules on borrowing equipment: where now a more tedious process including stating a reason for borrowing, signed by the teacher on the storyboard and handed in for reservation 3 days in advance. Many of us were shocked by this abrupt change in rules, but realized it was their last resort due to budgeting problems of IB Film. Another conformation was to expand on our shot log, where now we have to add short descriptions to each shot log, which will organize our work and ease the editing process. As editor of this project, I find this arrangment more ergonomically advanced for me. Facing the new changes, they challenge our "open-minded" skills in the IB learner profile.

During the rest of the lesson, we continued discussing our work with the storyboard completely finished. Mainly, we were planning on the setting for each shot, since we have to film before the end of the week. In our setting, we needed a dark room with a window, a rooftop, a chinese house, a ledge (jumping into the sea scene) and lamposts. Camille's aunts are restaurant owners, granting us access to the dark rooms. The restaurant can also be used as the "chinese house" scene, and her relatives are willing to participate as actors. Hence, this issue is solved. Alleys and lamposts were suggested to be shot in IFC during the night, since the setting fits our theme.

As for the dark room scene with a dangling lightbulb, Chris came up with a good idea of pasting newspaper all over the walls to create the creepy atmosphere, a scene used in the movie "R.E.C.". Throughout our discussions, we explored many areas in the IB learner profile: Knowledgeable by applying our knowledge into generating formitable ideas, Thinkers by looking for inspiration and solutions in our groups, Communicators by discussing our ideas, Open-Minded and Caring by listening to ideas and giving feedback and comments, Risk-takers by providing challenging ideas as well as Balanced by ensuring an equal distribution of roleplay and responsibility.

Film Class DW Entry

Wednesday, March 09, 2009

Today as the main members of our group edited together, I stood beside them on a seperate computers as they edit while I looked for sounds. My aims for this lesson was to discover a range of sounds for our Film Noir Project so that the Film's atmosphere could be built up and make the tone more fruitful in general. I have came up with a list of sounds that I plan to incorporate into our footage:
- Heels Clicking and Walking Sounds (Diegetic)
- Gulping Sounds (Diegetic)
- Clock Ticking (Non-Diegetic)
- Heartbeat (Non-Diegetic)
- Metal Clanging (Diegetic)
- Leaky Tap Dripping (Non-Diegetic)
- Some Voiceovers (Diegetic & Non-Diegetic)
To gather the sounds for the walking, heartbeat and voiceovers, I went into one of the vacant music rooms to record them using the boom-mic connected to a camera. For the walking sounds, I basically placed the boom mic on one of the surfaces then walk past it. To recreate heartbeat sounds, I basically did some contractions with my throat to create a throbbing sound.

I also collected some mandatory voiceovers - which was the beginning scene where protagonist "Jackson" thinks in his head after waking up in confusion.

Film Class DW Entry

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Our group continued the tedious editing process - starting off by clipping the footage into digestible bits, referring to the shot log to remove outtakes after doing so. Each cut was made precise as we looked for each ending shifting through frame by frame. Elliot skimmed through the whole footage once, making cuts on each section of the storyline, then started the more precise ones for each take. I accompanied and assisted his judgment for the first half of the film session, making helpful pointers and suggestions for cuts, transitions, order and some sound assistance, for I am the sound editor. We explored techniques such as "match-on-action cuts" and "directional continuity". Working together as a group proved excellent "communication" skills, since we are discussing as a group, "open-minded" because we are allowing equal contribution and flow of ideas throughout, "caring" because we commit showing respect and compassion, as well as "balanced" so that we understand equal contribution.

Later, I isolated myself from the group and worked on another computer. My aims for this lesson was to find a suitable soundtrack and plenty of required sound effects for the Film Noir project. As thought of beforehand, I needed some sort of high heels clicking, shoes walking, gulping, heartbeat, clock ticking and water dripping sounds. I began by looking for free music in FreePlayMusic.Com, which took up the rest of my lesson's time. Themes of music for the ending scene I was looking for should allow suspense and deliver mystery. I specifically chose somewhere between the lines of "Moody/Dark", "Mysterious", "Simmering/Edgy" and mainly "Suspense/Terror". Looking for sources broadens the "knowledgeable" region in the IB learner profile.

Througout the lesson, I built a list of the possible soundtracks that my group members would find exciting and suitable for the context. After generating the list, I invited my group members to listen to them one by one towards the end of the lesson. Soon, we all decided on a slow drumming techno-piano piece because it had some bar music elements within it and fully expressed the dark and mysterious side of Film Noir.

Overall, I was considerate and helpful througout this lesson. I have provided suitable ideas as a group and individually as my sound director role. I was a good "risk-taker", because I looked at many different themes of music offered, as well as experimented with the presence of sound effects.

Film Class DW Entry

Monday, March 02, 2009

We filmed over the weekend in Hugo Lam's house becuase he had a mini-bar in the basement - which was the perfect scene we needed. This was done along with actresses Michelle Lai and Valerie Chiu. We came back during lesson with completed footage on the tape. Immediately, we imported our clip into Final Cut Pro, so we can start our editing process.

We have recorded an abundant amount of clips into our shot log, ending up with twenty minutes of raw, unedited footage. As Elliot and others began editing the footage straightaway, while I supervised some of the action along with planning the sounds I intend to add in. Throughout, I helped synchronize the scene where the glass bottle lands and the "clink" sound occurs. Since they were recorded seperately, we had to drag a seperate bar of background noise into one of the tracks, and stretch it. The clink was placed in the middle of the background noise, making this transition fluent and flawless. I also made a list of sounds I need to record: high heels clicking, shoes walking, gulping sounds, heartbeat and clock ticking. I used my "thinkers" and "knowledgeable" skills in the IB learner profile because as we scroll through the footage, I am generating suitable ideas based on experience and knowledge.

The high heels clicking and walking sounds were fundamental, since they convey methods of movement and emphasis on background tension as each click is broadcasted. Heels clicking was also significant, since the elegance of the sound elevates the femme fatale's status in sex and mystery, and adds to the touch of seduction. During the night when we filmed, sounds were not precise in front of the boom mic, hence I decided to re-record these sounds to increase the pressure in the atmosphere. Other sounds include gulping sounds, because Elliot did not drink the "wine" due to hygiene purposes (which was grape juice in reality) since it was contaminated during the shot. At last, we continued this action by showing him putting the glass down, emptied. To make this more convincing, I needed to record gulping sounds.

Clock ticking and heartbeat are also used to add to the atmospheric details. I plan to record the heartbeat from performing some rapid contraction with my windpipe, and clock ticking perhaps from a real clock. These will appear during the the intensive regions of the footage, when the protagonist wakes up in a midst of confusion (clock ticking can be used as an effect to create time distortion) as well as scenes of him being seduced. These add up as proper characteristics of Film Noir, and such rules state the "principled" factor in the IB learner profile.

Throughout this editing and brainstorming process, my active group members and I were being great "communicators" for exchanging ideas, "knowledgeable" and "thinkers" for generating ideas, "open-minded" and "caring" for respecting each other and giving each other the opportunity to express themselves and contribute to the work, moving towards the goals of IB learners.

Film Class DW Entry

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

We had a double-lesson to work on our storyboards, the rest of the group focused on shots and editing techniques while I focused on the sounds. Many of the shots were very basic - since there are not alot of suitable angles that we can explore and use. Even though "risk-taking" plays a huge role in our IB learner profile, I find that we cannot express all elements of Film Noir with the sophisticated series of dialogue scenes. To make this more interesting, it is up to the sound effects and the depth of script lines.

To dramatize certain aspects of our film and inherit characteristics from Film Noir, we started the first dialogue with the narrative voice of our character - Jackson. After the establishing shot and the bottom to eye-level profile shot (increase in volume and lighting), our character Jackson slowly wakes up and thinks to himself to show his confusion, passing this trait on to the audience at the same time. The narration will be re-recorded separately, with a boom mic in a soundproof room later so that the sound quality is high and no background noises will be recorded. This relates to being "knowledgeable" and "thinker" aspect of the IB learner profile, since I am using related techniques to tackle a problem.

Furthermore, I decided to add one of my trademark techniques into the eye-to-eye shot. This was learnt during the "continuity editing" session, where cuts are made between two footage and are switched from one to another continuously. Our first footage will be a zoom-in on Jackson's eyes, and the second footage will be a zoom-in on Natalia's eyes. This will add to the atmospheric details of Film Noir - to increase tension between our two characters - Natalia and Jackson. My idea was widely accepted by my "open-minded" group members.

We each contributed a fair, equal amount because Louise suggested that we alternate between group members to sketch and write down shot and lighting details on the storyboard as we generate ideas. This way, we enhanced many of the IB learner profile skills: we were very "principled" since each of us got a fair amout of contribution and benefit, "balanced" because we are distributing work load and maximizing commitment, as well as "communicators" because this activity promotes exchange of concepts and methodology between group members.

Furthermore, we have generated a prop and equipment list: Basics like camera, camera stand, tape, boom mic, earphones, boom mic pole, batteries, Props like apple and grape juice, beer mugs, wine glasses, ashtrays and lighter. Actor Elliot will be dressed up as protagnoist Jackson in a collared shirt and tie, with a coat in dark colours to show that he is scruffy and ungroomed. Actress Ashely will be dressed up as femme fatale Natalia in a thin and short-skirted black dress in heels to express her inner lust. The bartender will be dressed in a white shirt and vest (possibility of a bow-tie) to look typical bartender. The setting will be in Hugo's house, since he has a nice contemporary bar in his basement. This way, we can film for as long as we needed to compared to if we filmed outdoors.

With equipments borrowed, scripts and props set, we plan to film before our next film class so we can edit straightaway.

Film Class DW Entry

Monday, February 23, 2009

We started film early this morning, continuing on our storyboard. This time, Ashley conducted an improved version of our script - as well as added names for our character - Natalia (after a model) and Jackson (out of imagination, aka randomness). This script is much more detailed, and delicately crafted. Ashley explored more vocabulary in the script, as well as phrases that emphasizes the tone and attitude.

Our script became lengthier, which meant that our storyboard also required more depth and detail, as well as more scene changes to compensate with the script's length. Hence, we started off with the first few scenes: featuring many point-of-view, wide angle, dutch angle as well as mid-range to close-up shots. I thought of the introductory scene - where it brightens in terms of lighting, as the camera is being lifted from the dark table-bottom to the brighter table-top. I am also planning to make the background bar music gradually increase in volume as this shot is continued, as the sounds director. Providing ideas to the group regarding roles of other team members required the "caring", "knowledgeable" and "communicators" skill in the IB learner profile. This is due to the fact that I need to be intellectual in many different skills and need to care and communicate with other members of the group.

This is continued by a series of carefully planned scenes by Louise, Ashley and Elliot respectively, by planning shots that include point-of-view, to show inebriate vision at empty beer mugs, as well as adjusting focus to show the character's vision. As they planned their scenes, I looked for opportunities to incorporate my sounds as the sounds director. Firstly, I established the background noises: having digetic and non-digetic sounds. In the bar, I assume the clashing of glassware, girls talking and laughing loudly, some soft catchy bar music and perhaps footsteps (mainly the significant high-heels). These ideas were based from experience and observance, hence we were being "knowledgeable" and "thinkers" of the IB learner profile.

By the end of today's lesson, we have planned a suitable amount of our shots. We collaborated well, planning in a "principled" manner in the IB learner profile. Constantly, we were "risk-takers" for planning some of the tricky shots, and we were "open-minded" to ideas in our discussions.

Film Class DW Entry

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

At the beginning of the lesson, we started by getting into our groups - Elliot as editor, Louise as camera person and Ashley as writer. Basically, this lesson was an exchange of words - an engaged and intense discussion on a script generated by Ashley. Ashley's script is a fine piece - portraying a mystery regarding the protagonist's past, which features temptation, untamed lust and thrilling action. The script was still at a rudimentary stage and is not written in an official scripting format, hence we spent rest of the lesson making edits to it. As communicators of the IB learner profile, our discussions were fruitful and commendably constructive.

Basically, we started with the story being the protagonist half-sobered with alcohol in the bar, offered a conversation by a mysterious lady. At first he shows no interest, however she starts abruptly with a line "Have you wondered how your father died?", which peaked the anticipation of the theater.

From Ashley's script, I can already think of a few significant sounds that can express the pressure of the scene's atmosphere, and the hunger for curiosity and lust. Firstly, the background noise of the bar, which is karaoke music - with loud, echoed microphone tuning. Even though this noise would be loud in reality, but I will tone it down by making it a separate voice clip in the footage and reducing the sound levels, rather than blandly capturing the background noise. This is performed since plot progression is more important in Film-making, allowing the voices of dialogue to have major priority. Secondly, the classique ice-jiggling-in-the-beer noise, where the sound of ice clicking past each other as the drinker swirls the beer bottle is amplified. This particular sound is used in many adultery scenes where alcohol and seduction is involved. Hence, I am going to adapt that. Planning ahead applies the "knowledgeable", "risk takers" area of the IB learner profile. Modifying the script together also enhances "caring", "open-minded" and "communicators".

As for the seduction parts, I have also thought to myself the clicking of high-heels to show feminism, and soft sexy licking close-up(with sound) to express to further seduce the audience. As mentioned beforehand, seduction plays an important part in Film Noir. Juicing out all the knowledge I can offer as a sound director enhances my "thinkers" skill in the IB learner profile.

Our group is heading onto the right path - the path of success. Even though Ashley and I have very different views, I try hard to listen and interpret her ideas, and expand on them using my vast stronghold of experience and knowledge. This alone proves that we are becoming more "balanced" IB learners.

Film Class DW Entry

* Today is my bro's bday XD

Monday, February 16, 2009

Before today's lesson, I finished editing our previous dialogue footage and submitted it onto the shared drive on Friday. The editing took place after school on a Friday, along with my mates Elliot, Jing-Ting and Joyce. With completed footage from last week, Elliot and I started the basic cropping of the footage, removing bits and pieces that will not be in the actual film scene. After that, we started piecing them together, placing transitions at appropriate places. Firstly, it started from a zoom-out to the stairs where Jing-Ting walked down and sat, and started reading a sheet of paper. Following that, Justin Tay our "intimidating" and "rowdy" character steps in with a worms-eye-view slow motion. I then performed a multiple cut on the awkward scene of Jing-Ting and Justin Tay sitting side-by-side. This is to let the audience know that some time has passed through the constant cuts, and obviously to transend some sort of humour. The finale was crafted by fast-forwarding Justin Tay's running down the stairs scene by 250%, also to emit humour in a Charlie Chaplin sense of way. Overall, I turned the dull dialogue scene into a somewhat funny short clip.

After making the edits, I have once again enhanced my editing skills, and mastered the basics like clipping the footage, speeding up/slowing down the footage, tuning colours as well as making sounds pitch louder or softer. Referring to the IB learner profile, I have learnt to be more knowledgeable, since I am learning how to edit from Elliot, as well as exploring myself after Elliot left. I also became a better communicator by confidently and creatively present my ideas, through speech as well as actions. We were also being open-minded and risk-takers, as we constantly explored fields of editing that we rarely breeched, and made use of our newly learnt skills effectively.

We started a new unit today - "Film Noir", which means 'black film' in French. It is basically a popular style of film with special characteristics like narration, seduction, identity-changing, interrogation, attacking and is played by a protagonist and antagonist. There is normally narration to show the deepest thoughts of the character. It is basically a much duller film, with lighting tuned down, dutch angled high focus shots and consists of many night scenes.

We warmed up by starting with two clips: one from "Memento". In this excercise, we were given a task to count the number of cut. Eventually, I came up with the same actual numbers of cut Miss Wong noticed (21). This excercise was not to train how witty or how quick our reactions are, but to allow us to appreciate how continuity filming works and how it can blend so smoothly into a scene. The second excercise was to identify the continuity editing techniques used. We came up with eyeline match, point of view cutting, rhythm and much more. This allowed us to be better IB thinkers as well as more knowledgeable, due to the fact that we are applying our knowledge into slightly less familiar situations.

We soon got into groups after receiving our rubrics and I formed a group with my pal - Elliot, along with Louise and Ashley. Ashley was the only amateur member in the group, hence she took the role "writer" since there is not a lot of technical tools involved in this role except for scriptwriting an official standard script. We are being "caring" members of the group according to the IB learner profile, by supporting weaker members in our group. Louise took the camera person role as she is quite experienced, Elliot took the editing role leaving me with the sound director role. Sound directing is extremely new to me, as I am expected to tamper with the noise pitch and levels within Final Cut Pro, plan the sounds during filming as well as use FreePlayMusic along with Garageband to generate tunes. This requires lots of risk-taking factors, as well as inquirer in the IB learner profile.

We will be expecting our first script from Ashley - so we can discuss, make changes and perhaps plan the storyboard during next lesson.

Film Class DW Entry

*Owl City album cover for a change, cos they're AWESOMEEEE

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

We moved on to a new unit today, which features continuity editing. Continuity editing are the basics of conveying a storyline/plot, where an action is cut in-between and continued at a different angle, or even at a different level or point-of-view. Continuity is a vital element in film-making to increase entertainment, to perform a stunt (person jumps down a building cut to when the person lands) or to see an object from a character's point-of-view.

We began straightaway with an excercise - given a script where we have to film the lines and create a short clip that has continuity editing elements inclusive. The script we chosen was a simple four-lined script (script 4), which goes:
A: What are you looking at?
B: You
A: Who was that?
B: MY (MOM)
The last line was decisive, which meant we get to use the Clichéd joke, "MY MOM". After gathering the equipment, we got back into our old group (Jing-Ting, Elliot, Joyce, Justin Tay) and went out to film. Innovated as I always am, I was witty and provided many ideas instantly. We were being good open-minded IB learners, as well as thinkers because we are exchanging ideas spontaneously within a short duration of time.

Firstly, Jing-Ting came up with the idea of filming at the stairs outside the music rooms. This is because people use this passage much rarer than other locations, while other locations were populated by other groups from the same film class. We quickly assigned brief roles: star actor/actresses are Jing-Ting and Justin Tay, cameraman is Elliot, microphone person and assistant is Joyce, and I was director. Firstly, I planned the scene: Jing-Ting walks down the stairs and sits down on the steps. The filming was done by zooming out from a wall and panned to the stairs, continue to slowly zoom out as Jing-Ting walks down the stairs. We then cut the scene to straightaway featuring Justin Tay from Jing-Ting's point-of-view, which is a technique commonly used after filming an actor's vision.

As star actor Justin Tay arrives through the door, I planned a worm's eye view shot of Justin Tay leaping past the camera, which immediately 'boosts' the character's status. Planning further ahead, I also decide to slow-motion this scene when I edit (my trademark, which is basically slowing down certain scenes to highlight pressure and anticipation), which makes the noise sounds deeper and hence more intimidating. Purposely, I required Justin Tay to manually slow down his actions and stop his foot, so it would turn out more dramatic after editing the footage. This relates to the risk-taker factor in the IB learner profile, since we are considering the editing steps beforehand as we capture footage. I also learnt to be a more principled IB learner since I am about to be responsible for many of my risk-taking actions.

Following, we performed an eyeline pan after Justin Tay settles down beside Jing-Ting. This shows their emotions by focusing on their facial regions, mainly their eyes. Firstly, Justin Tay communicates some sort of shyness, then Jing-Ting communicates back with certain amount of disgust by pronouncing her first line, "What are you looking at?". Justin Tay then shrugs and replies in an attempting-to-be calm but bashful expression, "You". Elliot did a great job with the camera, and our star actor/actress was being their typical stars. Overall, we are balanced and extremely knowledgeable since we knew immediately what to do in our respective roles.

We cut to a more zoomed-out scene, because Justin Tay's mobile phone is about to "unexpectedly ring" as planned on our plot progression. We just made the phone play its default ringtone and we have Justin Tay pick up the phone. We did not elaborate on his conversation, since it is not written on the script, which we just did it in a quick whisper or in text-message format. We had to cut off here due to the lack of time.

Overall, we captured a reasonable amount of footage, with many high-quality and thoughtfully angled shots. Throughout, we were being good communicators in our IB learner profile, since we had many ideas to get across.

Film Class DW Entry

Monday, February 09, 2009

During today's single-period lesson, we started off immediately screening the videos of our respective groups. The groups include Adrian's group, Jeffrey's group, Louise's group, Henry's group and my group consisting of Elliot, Jing-Ting, Joyce and Justin Tay. The objective of screening the works of our fellow schoolmates is firstly to see how differently each of us interpret the task(s) given, as well as to share and develop ideas as we discuss the pros and cons as well as display a showcase of how each of us manipulate the tools and editing software differently. Generally, we are just trying to learn from our respective peers, so that we can become more experienced after the excercise. We become more knowleadgeable and better thinkers and communicators according to the IB learner profile, because gradually we develop understanding through expressing ideas, communicating confidently and applying thinking skills critically and creatively as we evaluate our peer's work.

We started off with the video provided by Adrian's group, which was in my opinion the best group that met their objectives with flying colours, using a wide range of extensive techniques, which is commendable from fliming to editing. I particularly found their "gritty documentary feel" style of task 1 their masterpiece, since they incorporated a '• REC' layout and slightly blurred the quality, which I found a devastating achievement for just a simple recap excercise. Their scene for "student typing on the computer" was also fabulously done, as they tampered the focus lens on the camera appropriately to allow high-detailed convincing shots. The only critique would be their second task, which they overdid the shades of red and blue in their colour filter, emitting an articifial red/blue aura across the frame that seemed out of context, NOT expressing the "angry, shocked surprise" and "sad, melancholy surprise". Their sounds were also nicely rendered, however was too visual because they did not cut out the visual footage as they filmed for it.

As for the second group - Jeffrey's, I particularly liked the camerawork since Jeffrey is an experienced cameraman - working well in both cinematography and photography. They were the only group that showed scene change, which immediately enhanced the quality of their screenplay. The "law-of-thirds" shot was frankly no so grand, since they had shaky camerawork and they tailed their actors for a period of time too long. Their sounds were also deserved praise, since they were very verbal but quite accurate. Unfortunately, they did not do a great job in two of their sounds, since they were abstract and had no headings to support their interpretation.

Henry's group was the one which I fear had not done as well as other members in our class. Firstly, they had limited editing in their footage, and provided less appealing ideas to share and develop. However, it is not considered balderdash since none of their group members are editors, which may be the main reason to their downfall. At the bright side, their sounds were pretty nicely generated, using great props for meeting the objectives.

As for Louise's group, they showed a great deal of knowledge and understanding of the topic, however they overdid most of the video editing effects, somewhat defeating some of their greatly captured footage and ideas generated. They managed to understand and hence proceed with meeting their objectives, performing an exemplary job for the sharp, detailed effect of task 1, task 3 and many of their sounds. Their sounds for "time" and "work" was nice, using clock ticking for time and the clicking of heels and pens for work. I found their gritty, documentary feel piece overdone since they lowered the video quality into almost not viewable, their shades of red/blue for their second task was too soft and showed not much difference, and their "student typing on the computer" was too long and their camera angles should be dutch rather than eye-leveled.

As for the piece I did with my group members, the class found the "student walks up the stairs" scenario and our sounds for work the most praiseworthy pieces. Firstly, instead of giving our image a colour filter for our second task, we tweeked with the RGB spectrum, highlighting the blue regions blue and red region red for the respective objectives. This allowed the piece to look natural however still strong enough to suggest the moods. As for our "work", we used much more different props to represent this - typing, mouse clicking, pencil scribbling, calculator clicking, background noise, human talking as well as phone ringtone. Picking on our negatives, we can improve on our camerawork, since we were not able to zoom out quick enough for our task 1, leaving the camera rolling in confusion after locking on Justin Tay's facial regions.We explored many areas of the IB learner profile during today's lesson, even though it was just a screening session with discussions. Mainly being reflective, since we evaluted on each other's works, allowing individuals to give thoughtful consideration, and learn though our strengths and limitation. I find this screening and discussion session vital towards our personal development.

Film Class DW Entry

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Basically, we hopped back to our original project - "Recap Scavenger Hunt" instantly when we got back to our groups. Working with one less member unfortunately (Joyce is absent), we have no choice but to take extra responsibility to cover up and fulfill the quota she initially needs to cover. Today's lesson was predominantly capturing footage and editing, leaving a less but reasonable amount of time to catch up on filming the other scavenger hunt objectives. Upon editing, we found out that our skills and techniques with Final Cut Pro has depleted over months of lacking practice. Fortunately, Elliot and I slowly managed to piece together little by little of what we learned last year into mastering the basics like the bevel tool, speeding up footage as well as capturing and maneuvering clips. Overall, we developed thinker and risk taking skills from the IB learner profile to overcome problems and refresh our memories.

As a start, we captured footage from the previous class into the computer. Capturing was indeed successful, as experienced members like Elliot and I ran Final Cut Pro and started with the editing process. This reflects upon the caring and communicator factor of the IB learner profile, since we took initiative to work and help first-time amateur members like Justin Tay by guiding him through the basics. Justin Tay seems to have good progress with learning thanks to the help of me and warm-hearted Elliot. Jing-Ting was also very helpful, giving useful hints and suggestions when we were out of ideas and when we stumbled upon difficulty. Overall, we were balanced learners of the IB profile.

The first scene we edited was our superstar - Justin Tay's solo scene of him crumpling paper. There was not much to edit, since the techniques used during filming was suffice to cover both sub-objectives of our first objective. All we did was cut and seperate the desired footage to eliminate flaws at the beginning and ends of the clip. Under such circumstances, we moved on to our second objective - student walks up the stairs and looks up in surprise. Since colour filters were not meddled on the camera features, we tried looking for the tools on Final Cut Pro. Eventually, we excavated the RBG colour spectrum contrast tool, which basically highlights the whole clip into the desired colour by tampering with the filter in terms of Red, Blue and Green shades. This system was hard to master, however we managed to achieve red for anger and orange-green for sad, melancholy surprise. Moreover, to enhance the dramatic effects, we slowed down the footage to make it 50% its initial speed the instance where I launched myself at Elliot. This not only allowed the viewers to observe the quick-paced action at a slower time frame, but also see every detailed change on Elliot's face as he gets traumatized.

With approximately half an hour left, we decided to work on filming the third scene and augmenting the effects of our "work" sounds footage. We started recording sounds for the "work" sounds footage, since we did not need to relocate ourselves because the mac lab's background sounds provided the background noises for "work". Together as a group, we attempted to generate more ideas into what contribute to the noises of a working environment. Ultimately, we ended up with several new creations - phone ringing from mobile phone ringtone and calculator clicking using a real calculator. Respectively, we assigned roles and generated a top-notch quality clip of a working environment. We were being extremely good risk-takers, thinkers and open-minded when we tackled this situation. We analyzed the situation logically and ended up with descisions that fitted perfectly into our context. To improve the atmosphere, we combined our two footages, tuning down the volume of our previous one to allow our main soundtrack to stand out.

Following, we spent our last minutes tackling the third task on our objectives. Our third objective is to film a conversation and by using LIGHTING, we have to show "harsh, unforgiving encounter" and "upbeat, happy encounter". Without a script, we decided to improvise due to the lack of time. Improvision not only saves the trouble and time to fabricate a script, but also makes the conversation flow more naturally as the characters within exchange words. Clueless on what topic we want the topic our two characters (Elliot and Justin Tay) to endulge in, I suggested a hot topic which guys will discuss on - girls. This required much courage and to advocate and embark on this plan, yet again the risk-taking skill from the IB learner profile was greatly in need. The target "fantasy" girl was later decided to be Yumiko Shaku, a Facebook commodity that is 'coming' to our school. In this way, audiences will understand the inside story and yet will not harm the person in any way. The filming process was unexpectedly fluent and stupendous, as Elliot and Justin Tay were able to generate typical 'girl-discussions' in front of the camera, as I handled it alongside Jing-Ting. We handled this filming procedure in just two takes! Staggering accuracy and speed. Similar to the second task, we plan to leave all the lighting effects during the editing process on Final Cut Pro since it has better tools to generate the most suitable effects.

In conclusion, we explored many of the IB learner profiles during today's lesson, mainly risk-taker and thinker. I was glad that my group members were open-minded, who accepted many of my berserk or swank suggestions to improve our work. We worked as a group nicely, being caring and principled, and strived towards learning as a whole.

Special Thanks:
Yumiko or Shelby, whatever your name is :D thank you for the inspiration! <3

Film Class DW Entry

Monday, February 02, 2009

During film class today, we were briefed through some film basics including the unit outline and some of the skills we are going to develop over the months of our film studies program. The units were basically more or less similar to the ones we investigated upon, with the emphasis this time on footage editing and sounds. I was rather gleeful to hear this because I have always wanted a second chance to enhance these two applications - which were my weaker abilities in comparison to the filming, directing and scriptwriting I participated most actively in the previous film class. Moreover, we enticed our day further assigned with a "Recap Scavenger Hunt". I found this exercise useful to get things motivated since minor challenges were incorporated into comparatively fundamental basics. Overall, a little bit of every imperative factor in the recap exercise allowed me to get used to handling filming equipments, rudimentary directing/planning, minuscule pints of acting as well as capturing footage for both imagery and sounds.

During the given time period for our tasks(which was approximately 50 minutes), my group consisting of Jing-Ting, Elliot, Joyce and Justin Tay attempted assignment 1, 2 and Sounds excercise. Assignment 1 and 2 were "A student picks up a piece of paper, looks at it, then scrunches it up into a ball and throws it onto the floor" and "A student walks up the stairs looks up in surprise" respectively. For the first task, we were supposed to film the scenario in SHARP, DETAILED EFFECT and GRITTY, DOCUMETARY FEEL. Using my knowleageable skills as a intermediate IB learner, I was able to identify the factors that contribute to high-quality filming - which was to capture the details of facial expression changes by zooming into the character's face. Stumbling upon the second objective - the "DOCUMENTARY FEEL", I was unsure since I did not apply extraneous attention to the differences in filming techniques during last year's documentary unit, since I covered the scriptwriting, acting and editing procedures rather than the filming one. Hence, being a good IB inquirer, I asked Miss Wong for assistance. Fortuantely, she helped us greatly by providing us with useful hints: which was to create the "rudimentary" and "rough-edge" by handholding the camera. This turned out pretty great, turning Justin Tay (our actor) into a multifariously talented person under the great filming techniques.

In the second scenario, I was being an extremely open-minded IB learner by inducing an extensive act by portraying a "scarer" and placing a prop (bamboo cane) into the production. This was auxilary personal treatment to fit the scenario, since the student is supposed to look up in surprise after walking up the stairs. By incorporating the "cause" made the scene less skeptical. This also empahsized the two objectives - which was to show anger and shocked surprise for the first one and sad, melancholy surprise for the second one. We have also decided to change the colours of our footage on Final Cut Pro, since we found it difficult to tamper with the manual focus and colour filters of our camera, while video editing does the same trick but with better effects.

With minutes left, we quickly recorded sounds for "work" and "joy" for the Sound objectives. Immediately, we generated some quick ideas for "work", suggesting pencil scribbling, professor talking in the background, fiddling of stationary, typing of keyboard and clicking of mouse. This relates to the open-minded, communication and risk-takers factor of the IB learner's objectives, since we needed quick, spontaneous suggestions and role assignment. Overall, we recorded a natural work environment. As for the "joy" soundtrack, we could only come up with the sound of cheering, since we were in a hurry for submission as well as lack of props.

To be concise, we were principled and caring in terms of working in a group. All of my group members were enthusiastic and were eager to share and explore ideas and concepts. We took responsibility for our roles, and respected the final desicions. This was a great start for Film this semester.