Describe any software that look promising and explain how you could use the tool in your project. Post this task on your personal blog. Word count: approximately 500 words

Klynt is an application dedicated to interactive storytelling, especially website documentaries. It is developed and distributed by Honkytonk Films which is well-known for a webdoc, Journey to the End of Coal (Bollendorff and Ségrétin, 2008). It is notable that Klynt is an affordable and easy-to-use application to explore new narrative formats on the internet.

One of the biggest features in interactive documentaries is numerical coding where contains multi-media formats. Klynt is a perfect platform to design an interactive documentary because it is compatible with various media formats including texts, images, audios, videos, and hyperlinks. The software has a simple and clear interface that allows users to edit mixed media easily.

1. List of media organized by type
2. List of media organized by sequence
3. Parameter: automatically shows associated media when you select or open a sequence in the storyboard
4. Delete media
5. Import media

In the Goffee Beans project, it requires different formats of media. The project will contain a number of interview videos in which the local people talk about their anecdotes in Fitzroy. The raw footages will be massive, but Klynt can help to organize the files. It is because the application has video preview windows where users are able to categorize video by renaming, tagging or adding a description. Also, Klynt offers users an option to customize the thumbnails of their videos. Although customizing a thumbnail seems very small to someone, thumbnails are useful to symbolize a sequence’s content on the storyboard where users can quickly find the exact video. When we are dealing with a large number of files, thumbnails can save time and unnecessary efforts.

Building up a storyboard is the first thing to do in the process of a project. So another functional feature of Klynt is visualizing the storyboard where the application gives a complete view of the project’s narrative structure. We are able to add new sequences to the board and then create one or more links between two sequences. This method is sufficient to visualize the cause-effects relationship in the narrative scheme. Particularly, a web documentary consists of complex non-linear structure in the storytelling part so the visualization of storyboard gives a clear look to users.

The Goffee Beans relies on social media platforms where to enage with participants. Klynt can provides a built-in sharing module which makes it easy for audiences to share the Goffee Beans project on the mainstream social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, and Tumblr.

Lastly, Klynt worths €499 for a complete version. It seems a bit pricey for students but it also offers 14-days free trial version where people can consider to use.

To sum up, Klynt is exactly created to explore new narrative forms on digital media platforms as it is an application made by a new media production company in France with many years experiments and efforts. Klynt helps filmmakers save a lot of time because many functions are humanized. For example, a visual storyboard is useful to construct a clear narrative structure. And users can efficiently manage their raw files with the appropriate design of the interface. Klynt is a convenient software which is worth to try.

In media 6 studio, the major assignment is to organize a theme seminar about media industry.  I am in the film group, and our seminar is presenting on 25th of September, 2015. The concept of this seminar is ‘Epic Journey’ of being in the industry. This idea focus on people have changed jobs throughout their career and how they fits into the new position.

No one could be successful in one step. When people struggling in the industry, they always seek different opportunity to develop themselves. The opportunity could be anything and any forms. Therefore, in our seminar, we are looking to investigate some professionals in the Australian film industry for the development of their career.

As the seminar is about ‘Film’, we choose to use ‘Star Wars’ theme. We title the seminar as ‘Media IV: A New Hope’, which represent a Star Wars series movies. The idea is awesome and we are quickly involved into the assignment.

Also, we assign different roles to divide responsibilities. My position is event filming, creativity production (Poster design), technical supports and post-production. It is a challenge for me because it would be the first time to do a event filming. Although I have done a several of assignments for filmmaking production, this is a new field for me. I am looking to learn new knowledge through this seminar.

Peace Out!

Character and Space from Kai-feng Wang on Vimeo.

This shot is an exercise that I did it in Friday’s class. Actually, this practise does not have any story background or dialogue. The purpose of this shot is improving my camerawork skills. Personally, I am interested in the relationship of character, space and camera. This idea comes from a Hong Kong remarkable  filmmaker Johnnie To. He is famous for camera movement and space manipulation. In his mise-en-scene, the image are dynamic because To always move his camera to reveal new content. Sometime, even though the characters are still, To prefers mobilising the camera.

In my case, I aim to create a vivid image with a camera. This shot consists of two major factor that make it succeed. First of all, camera movement is the prime technique. To reveal the new space, What I did is walking backward slowly by handholding a camera.  In a way, I am able to show more information to audience by pulling the camera from Evelyn’s face to Alex. This is amazing to see what the camera shows in the backward process.

Secondly, I found that some parts of human body, like arms, legs, fingers and eyes, sometimes create a great leading line to compose the frame. Before I start to film, I try to figure it out how do I connect this character together? Where is the connection bridge? Perhaps, Evelyn’s right arm could make this work. So I ask her to expand her arm and to point to the direction where Alex is. Then, it is ready to go. I start to pull the camera following her arm to the spot that I can frame both characters. Although neither character is almost motionless, the picture is so beautiful and dynamic.

Question #1

As per lecture –  in a sequence you’ve called ‘colour’ you will have clips that are indicative of a particular colour or lighting state. To the right of that clip you will have that same clip repeated 2 or more times with different colour grades on it.

Take screen grabs of each clip then upload to your blog the series of stills that show us ‘before and afters’ of your colour grading. Provide a few different examples of at least two different clips – each with a description of what you did to the clip and why.

This is a learning exercise, not necessarily a qualitative one, don’t stress – it is the act of doing it and the reflection on that, that is important

Example #1

Before

After

In the first example, The sky is a little bit over-exposed so I’ve used the three-way colour correcting to tune the highlight section to blue. The sky looks more natural than before.

Example #2

Before

After 

The second example has a good exposition. You can clearly see everything. I just did a little bit adjust in this clip. I think red is the dominant colour in this picture. I’ve added more red colour because I want to emphasise the atmosphere.

Question #2

“In 200 words or less please outline your goals, desires – what you want to get out of this semester. You will review this later in the course. You may rethink this dramatically – this is a good thing.”

You were asked this at the beginning of the semester. Now, could you review constructively what you got from this semester –  has the course lived up to your expectations, delivered what you expected, maybe even surpassed it?

Throughout the semester, I’ve been learning how to make a documentary production. Obviously, documentary filmmaking is different from a production of fiction film that I did in semester one.

At the beginning of this semester, my initial idea is Australian Born Chinese but we have changed to graffiti at the middle of the semester. The issue is my group mates and I spent too much time in researching about ABC.We didn’t have a signifiant process in our production because we didn’t go out to shoot. Paul suggests us that we should shoot something on street rather than focusing on the research. After we changed the topic, we decide to discover. We went to Union Lane where is famous for graffiti creation and we started to shoot the street art. At the beginning, we cannot find a clear direction for our project until we went a suburb where is filled with massive illegal graffiti painting on some abandoned trains. We found that atmosphere is the concept in our documentary. There are two dissimilar atmospheres between city and suburbs, even though, the graffiti is created in both place. In the Melbourne city, graffiti pairing becomes a popular and legal culture for artists creations. Many tourists come to see their aircrafts and admire their talents. However, on the other hand, we cannot see anyone to visit the painted and abandoned trains. That place is gloomy. Now, our documentary not only talk about graffiti but also the ambience about the space. More importantly, we know what we want to shoot and how to capture the stuffs.

Question 01 In this clip from Forbidden Lies, Anna Broinowski’s 2007 film: describe in detail all of the audio, how it may have been recorded/sourced and how you think it has been edited / layered in post. (You do not need to describe how the music was recorded)

The audios in this clip are from three different persons, the author, the Jordan journalist and Dr. Sabbagh. The audio is recorded in different way.  Some audio files may have been recorded in another time and place. The filmmaker select one useful audio file from other clips to match a sequence. For example, the audio of the journalist introducing herself is not as same as when she speak in her office.

Interestingly, Broinowski creates an reflexive argument among three person. Her strategy is to make a debates with their audio but they do not debate face to face. She let one person question first and she cut to another person’s audio to answer it.  But this is not the only way Broinowski creating the argument. Sometimes, we can hear two individuals speaking the same thing and these audio file are layered together. This device strongly intense the debate because it hear like two person really argue withe each other.  In this way, Broinowski not only has to know what interviewers say but also she direct what interviewers say. Otherwise, she cannot achieve the debate and the layered device.

QUESTION 02 Most applications reserve keyboard shortcuts for the functions that you use most often. It is really good to learn all of these as it will speed up your editing and additionally alert you to functions that the software developers and other users find important. (You can learn much about the software by looking at keyboard shortcuts).

Find the keyboard shortcuts for Premiere (hint, film-tv blog) and note four or more functions that you’ve never used before and why they may be invaluable to your editing. (Different functions to what you wrote last semester)

Go to In: Shift+I; Go to out: Shift+O; Match Frame: F;

Make Subclip: Cmd+K; Link Clip: Cmd+L

QUESTION 03 “From a distant gaze …” (1964) directed by Jean Ravel, picture Pierre Lhomme & Chris Marker, words by Louis Aragon, narrated by Jean Negroni, music by Michel Legrand.

Describe a few things that intrigue you – it might be shot construction, camera work, editing, overall structure, thematic concerns etc. Describe the camera work and why you think it has been shot that way.

Throughout this film, Jean Ravel use a long-focal length device all the time. The major reason is the theme of his documentary “From A Distant Gaze…” Apparently, He tried to capture people’s emotions, expressions, and behaviour in a very distant place where people hardly realised him.

To capture people’s naturalness, Ravel had to be reflexive when he was shooting. He was not a observer who simply stood far away people with a camera. Ravel has to find a way of telling a story because audience have no idea what Ravel was doing in a crowded city. In one shot, a police is billing a violating car. When Ravel found the police is ready to make a bill, he turn the camera to license plate immediately.

Ravel cleverly used cars as his cut in the opening shot. When a car is passing through the frame, he cut to another frame. Although audience would realise a cut in the film, this device is not “wired” but is a brilliant editing strategy.

QUESTION 04 Select from one of the readings and briefly describe two points that you have taken from it. Points that interest you, something you could apply to your own documentary.

In a chapter of Curran Bernard’s book, Manipulating Time, he reveals that time is an important element to move forward a story. A documentary never success without developing through time. However, moving a story forward through time does not mean narrative must follow a chronological recitation events in the order they occurred.Bernard suggests you can absolutely tell a story in any order you like. How to tell a story is dependent on a filmmaker’s perspective. Whether your story start at the beginning, in the middle or at the end is all on what do you want to say.  Creative manipulating time could lead to a dramatic storytelling.

There are two concept about time in filmmaking, screen time and real time. The screen time is about the duration of a film and the real time refers the duration of an event. Bernard reveals a filmmaker is able to spend 2 minutes in telling 10 years of history meanwhile he also can use 45 minutes to describe an eight months event. The choice of collapsing or expanding time depends on what the concept of a documentary.