The reason I decide to shoot this scene is because all of other scenes I made this semester are all focus more on specific events than the environment and atmosphere. So I made this scene to show audience around my apartment. Again I focused on small things, and the frames are tight. However they are just still images of my apartment without people in it. Some of them are stilled related to events.

I shoot this with my Canon 700D and edit it with imovie. During shooting, I was trying to use tripod to get some shots to reduce the shaking, however because my shots are mostly close ups, I found very inconvenient to use the tripod. So I just carried my camera around finally. When I showed it to Paul, He suggested it’s better to use a tripod because it looks shaky. What I should do is to make it stable or shaky enough. But too shaky doesn’t really work for this scene. I shot the same objects in different angles and from different position like the wardrobe shots, the washing machine tube shots, the wall and desk shots. I was trying to show audience different perspectives by doing so. Also, I tried changing focus out during the shower nozzle shot. First audience can see a clear image of the shower nozzle, then the focus starts changing, followed by the filthy shower window. The slight changing is perfectly associated with the big still image, and it feels so real!! Another thing I kept paying attention to during the shooting the depth of field. I found a point and pulled focus to create depth of field  in every shot.

For audio, I chose a slow and a bit sad piano royalty free music. I was trying to bring out the loneliness, sadness and the feeling of real through the scene. The music perfectly matched. when video finished, I made the audio go on for few more seconds with the black screen. I don’t know why, just feel like right.

This scene is divided into three parts, putting on make up, putting on accessories and removing make up. I started with three still image shots of bath room counter full of make ups and accessories, tooth brush, bottles of face cream, cleanser, etc. Again to show the environment. Before shooting, I did some staging, I put make ups, accessories and all these stuff to create a little bit messy looking. In my presentation before I said I will try not to show the face of the character, but a blurry one is fine. So I showed the blurry face with make up on at the end of the first part. The second part is made up by a series of montage shots, These shots are all close-ups and stylized. The third part is just a simple event, removing make up.

During the shooting, the lighting is tricky. We shot in the bathroom, I found it’s necessary to shut the bathroom door, otherwise there will be a slight influence on lighting. Also after you do the white balance, do not take the camera out of the place because the lighting will change immediately, then you will do white balance again. That’s why there are some slight differences among the first three shots in the scene. I used the color corrector later to fix that. another thing I learned is to mark the position of camera if it’s necessary. This works better for continuity. Or you can choose keep rolling and shoot to edit. What’s more, get familiar with the location. When shooting, I felt like not comfortable with all kinds of angles and camera movements. The reasons are firstly it is difficult to shoot in a narrow area with a big film camera, secondly I’m not familiar enough with the location, at least I didn’t check it and rehearsal in advance. If I did so, it will be better. What’s more, I learned one more thing about premiere, how to copy and paste the effect from one clip to another, right click copy on the clip, then right clip paste attribution on another clip.

For the audio, exercise ‘making tea’ reminds me of sound from radio in distance. Then I ask myself what I usually do when putting on make ups. I usually leave the tv show playing on my laptop while putting on make ups, and I can still listen to it. So I get the idea for audio. Again I used the microphone in the edit suit to record the sound of a Chinese tv show I usually watch and used it as the audio for this one.

When I showed it Paul, he suggested to cut down a bit more to around 40 secs. There are some time problems in it. For the shots that shoW Phoebe’s face, I should cut it like one longer than the other. Between the shots of she put on lipsticks and the shots show her face, there should be more shots of her choosing make ups.

In this exercise I used several montage shots to express the entire scene. The shots of typing, scrolling on the screen, change-shaped apple, mouth chewing, feet shaking. The shot of typing is a bit out of focus, I cannot get the right focus somehow and I don’t know why. I was thinking is that because the distance between camera and the hands is too short. Also I found the change-shaped apple shot a bit wired and brusque to watch. The short jumps cuts and un-continuity are just annoying. I think it is hard for post production, it is something needed to be considered in pre-production. I thought about it for several times, what can be done in pre production is that firstly put camera at a fixed spot and at the same height. Secondly prepare three apples, these apples are bitten in different shapes. Thirdly camera assistant changes different apples while Phoebe is checking Facebook on her laptop. when editing, the problems might still there, but it will be very slight and small. There might be some better ways to do this, but this is what I can think of. Another thing I’m not that satisfied with is the mise-en-scene. The blot on the laptop, the placemat, the background in the apple shot and the black box in the feet shot are the things I need to get rid of.

Since there have been several cons already, I decided to work well on audio. It took me a while to think of something. Finally I create something like ‘being home alone, doing some laundry, making some tea and checking Facebook in a noisy city apartment’ sound track. For my audio, I searched for some free sound of boiling water in a kettle and washing machine. The sound of water boiling is not that obvious, so I found another boiling water sound and added right before the switch turns off. The sound of the washing machine I found is really good because it also contains the noise of the city in distance, the sound of washing machine is also in distance which is perfectly for me to use. I put the washing machine sound through the entire sequence, and turned it higher after the water sound.

For this shooting exercise, I tried for two times. The first time is not good. Something wrong with framing and angel. I didn’t get the shots I want exactly. One time I was talking to Lisa about my exercise. She gave me some advices on it which sparks me. The problem of my first work is that the framing is too wide and the angle is not good enough to emphasize the action. What I did in the second try is to tight frame up and find a good angle that emphasize the action.

In this exercise there are only four shots from different angles. The first one, a close up shot from side, Phoebe is taking things out from/into her purse. The action is very well seen, and the depth of field of the objects on the desk is right on spot, blurry in the front, clear at the background. The second one, a wide shot from above Phoebe’s head, this shot looks wide, but it emphasizes the action very well and artfully. In the framing, there are only the desk full of objects poured from the purse and Phoebe. Although it is wide, it is still tight and neat. The reason I say it emphasize the action is that audience now can be more sure that Phoebe is putting her purse away. The third one, a close up shot of Phoebe’s hand searching the purse. It clearly emphasizes on action. The last one, a wide shot of sitting room with Phoebe sitting in it. In this shot, I intend to use a wide shot to show the living environment of character. Also the emphasized actions shows the character’s personality and emotion in some degree.

The problem I ran into in this exercise is the lighting. Some of the footages I got is over exposed, also the entire lighting tends to be yellow, the color of the sitting room lights. What I need to remember is that to check exposure with zebra pattern and do the white balance before shooting. Later when editing, I used the tools in color correction, fast color corrector and RGB color corrector to help with the lighting, it turns out to be ok.

Getting dressed is another scene I made. I shot for two times and edited for three time for this scene. I shoot my friend Phoebe who is playing me in the scene wearing three different costumes. The clothes are mine, I ask Phoebe to wear them, and imagine herself is looking at the mirror.

When shooting, I was looking for different angles and framings. I kept some of the footages where Phoebe failed the acting. The reason I kept them is because it looks very natural. At first, I shoot two different costumes. They are two different styles. I shoot again later and added another costumes just to make it look more visual.

When editing, firstly I just simply cut the the two costumes. Then Paul suggested to cut back and forth between two costumes. And also cut down the duration of the scene to around 30 seconds. Cutting back and forth is a good idea, it is also actually in my mind. It can make the scene more visual to audience. The changing between two costumes will also make it less boring to watch. When it comes to time duration, at first I didn’t realize that it is too long. When I showed it to Phoebe, she said that she gets a bit boring to watch it at the end because it feels like too many repeating. Then I looked through it again and again, there are indeed some repeating in it, and this is not what audience wants. So I cut it down to 30 seconds the second time. It was much better, briefer and clearer. One thing I learned about editing in this is that cut tersely, give audience what they want to see and do not miss the key points, avoid repeating as much as possible. Also, learn to cut through the moments. There is not a beginning or ending of a moment. For example, when cutting, there is not need to cut right from ‘action’ to ‘cut’. You can just cut from ‘she is washing hands’ instead of ‘she is going to wash hands’, audience will get the message.

For the second time shooting of ‘getting dressed’, I used the ‘DE DO’ KIT to get some good lighting. It turned out to be a failure. During the shooting, I used all of the three lights. I was trying to apply the background light, fill light and key light theory into my practice. The problem I ran into is the overlap and nonuniform of lights. Finally it was too bright and too dark. So after few time of practices, I gave up. The other thing I might did wrong is to shut all of the curtains to avoid the sun lights. Finally I just shoot in natural day lights, it was ok. When I later talked to my classmate, Lisa. She said that Robin said if you don’t have much experience using DEDO KIT, you should start with using just one light. It is actually complicated to use three lights at the same time. For this, I decided to do some research about it, I will come up with another research post of three-point lighting.

For the audio of this one, I decide to use voice-over of me mumbling and whistling. The idea just jumped into my mind. And I really like the idea because what I’ve made is very personal and causal, so it totally fits. Because of doing one assessment in sound design, I found that we can record sound directly through quicktime player and the microphone down in edit suit. This made things much more convenient. When recording, I was too close to the microphone, so there is some buzz sound. To avoid that, to wrap some tissue and to be a bit further from the microphone are good ideas.

When I was shooting this one, I shot it using my Canon 700D. The audio was actually really good, but I found limitation of focal length. As the first scene I made this semester, it turned out to be ok. As I said in my presentation, I am going to shoot some ordinary events like this for my project. Also I will be focusing on actions. So for my exercise, I choose to shoot with a tight framing. There are lots of close-ups in my exercise. I am try to find a way to express a person’s emotion, personality, the environment she is in through these close-up shots.

In this scene, we can see some blurry background of the kitchen counter and sitting room. I intend to cover this in the framing to show the living environment of the character. One thing that actually surprised me is the audio. Firstly the quality is really good. Secondly it creates the atmosphere-when I was recording, I forget to turn off the radio, so it record the singing from the radio as well. It sounds really nice, singing in distance. However when you try to put some music when editing, it is different. As I am trying to combine documentary and drama elements in my work, the ‘plain recording’ sometimes is what I need.