In last semester, we mainly learned the mythologies of drama, and in this semester we put more attention on documentary. In other word, this semester provide us a chance to learn how to apply the methodologies of drama production to documentary making. So when I planning my final project, I decided to do not limited with the types of film, instead, creating my own film which both have the features of documentary and drama. I am an overseas student who came alone to Melbourne to achieve dream. Melbourne has different meaning for me, it bring lots of things to me, such as the beauty, challenge, lonely and so on. So I want to show this city and show the relationship between the strangers with this city in a personal perspective to viewers. Also, because I want to illuminate the impression about this city, so I will film varies of scenery in this city. Generally, the scenery of Melbourne must had been filmed numbers of times by other people, so I have chosen a special visual way to present it in my own film, this special way is the design of split screen. I really interested in split screen when I watching some films. So I investigated some usages of split screen, and tried to suitably and reasonably apply them in my project.

In order to make this film more clear and logic, I divided it to three different parts. First one is the basic impression of Melbourne, second one is the normal daily life of people in this city, and the last one is the experiences in this city. Actually, the fist part is close to the genre of documentary. From this part I deeply realized the importance of “ time” and the necessary of proficient skills in documentary filming. Having an ability to capture the luck is same important with having a good luck in filming process. Also, the split screen design in this part is mainly focus on visual effects of scenery, so I mostly use a special way that divided one shot to few parts, adding color effect for each part. The second part, I used the comparison usage of split screen to show the life routine of different people. It comprehensively and interestingly shows varies life styles of people who live in this city. Comparing with the first one, it is unnecessary to add any color effect of it. And the third part is close to drama, so the split screen design in this part has to be logical and clear to understand. Using one screen to show different perspectives shots is a suitable style for this part. So that viewers are able to know the situation in a comprehensive way.

To sum up, the split screen have different usages, when we using it, we should depending on content of our project. In this producing process, I deeply felt the difficulties of split screen film in filming and in editing area. The consistency of lighting, frame, subject size, level both are so important. Also, the complicated audio design makes me feel struggle. Obviously, I gave my self an interesting challenge in this semester. But I am so happy that finally I tried my best to complete it. Expecting next semester studio.

Collaboration post of FILM 3

Actually, the process of creating a whole film is a fantastic journey with other people. However, it also might be a “nightmare”. Every one should cooperate with others in the filming process, the most important thing is understand the role we played, and keeping listening others suggestions. However, in some class exercises, I thought we did not achieve it. Some times, people cannot do their own job in a professional way, but it is not a big deal, because they might lack of some experiences. But the bad thing is in one exercise, one people refused to listen others suggestion, it directly leads communication problems, and finally make the project looks not good. Also, I think respect to each other is a basic thing in teamwork. No matter you paly the role of director or the actor, when you need other people to do something, you should be polite and be nice, rather than impolitely ask them to do it. I feel disappointed this situation happened in this semester, because, there isn’t similar situation in last semester studio exercises. I hope every one including myself can learn how to respect each other, receiving useful suggestions, and responsible for the roles they paly.

In my final individual project, I have a fantastic and wonderful journey with my partner Mona and Xiaochen, and two more actors, they help me to complete my plan in a perfect way. They both give me some useful suggestions, and patiently, passionately work with me. Also, Xiaochen always help us to carry the heavy tripod. Thanks to him! In lighting exercise, I think every one have a improvement in collaboration. Everyone clearly know their roles in filming process, and communicate with each other in a good way. Joel and me responsible for the lighting, he is so nice to quickly move the light together with me. In conclusion, I meet some wonderful and talented people in this class, and get one well with the them, through working with them I learn something. I expect to meet most of them again in future.

Week12, new shooting

To be honest, the third part of my film is the most difficult one, because there are concrete plots in this part. I want to use split screen to instead of frequent cutting in drama, and ensure that viewer won’t feel confused about it. Because it is complicated and I do not have enough time, so I only filmed three scenes. First one is Xiaochen arrived in Melbourne. He dragging his luggage and walking in the street. I want to show his action in details. So I used one low angel close up for his foot and luggage, one close up for his hand, one wide shot showing he walking on the street and curiously looking around. The second scene is that he takes a bus, and looking outside, this is the first time he see the appearance of this city. In order to achieve this script, I purposely took my friend’s car, and hand held the camera to shoot outside street in driving process. The third scene shows how Xaiochen practice his English in daily life. I chosen one place have a best view in our apartment. And use several shots to show he reading English with different posture around this place in different perspectives. I hope it is able to emphasize the time he used in this thing is pretty long through this design.

In addition, I make those shots in this part slowly changing from black white to color one, because this is the memory of Xiaochen, so I think maybe this design is suitable.

Week11 development

Robin gave me some suggestion about my project. First one is the order of the shots. When I filming the scenery of Melbourne in each part, I have not considered the concrete sequence of those shots. I just tried to film the beautiful scenerys as many as possible. Then I changed the order of those shots depending on Robin’s suggestion. I found those shot became more meaningful and logical in a new sequence. For example, the unexpected shot which the man says, “ what’s that?” moved a little bit forward, so the meaning of it has been changed. This shots looks like an introduction of the content of first part.

Xiaochen recorded voiceover for the project, he slowly, softly talk about his internal idea about this city and his experience in this city. According to this voiceover, viewers may used a personal perspective of XIaochen to feel this city, it is really different.

The sound design is pretty hard to do in split screen film. As the suggestion from Robin, I layered different soundtrack together in some shot, also used fade in and fade out to make it natural. The environment sound, spot effect, music and voice-over should cooperate with each other. So I clearly observe every shots, and add the suitable sounds for it. I hope I did it in a good way.

Week 11 the usage of PR

In this week class, Paul clearly taught us how to use Premier, such as some useful basic skills, cutting, trimming and so on. Through a series of exercises we are already really familiar with those basic skills. In addition, Paul introduced the color correction to us. Color correction is quit necessary to use in our project, because it is a key element to enhance the cinematic effect. Personally, I am interested in this part, so I keep learning different skills about color correction in this semester.

Three Way Color Correction is so good to use in our editing process. We may respectively correct the color in highlight, midtown and shadow areas. When we choose Tonal Range in Output, we may clearly distinguish which parts is belong to which area, then we can moving around each color wheel to change it. It is more powerful tool for dealing with different problems, also it is more accurate than fast color correction.

Week 10 project development

I edited the second part of my project, this part almost shows the comparison usage of split screen. As I mentioned in last week, there is lighting problem in some shots, such as the shots filmed in two different rooms. So I did the color correction for it, making it natural as soon as possible. Even if I notice the consistency of the level and frame of each shot during the film process, but in my editing process, I still found some small distinctions after I put them in one screen. It is pretty hard to do it so accurate. In addition, except the comparison shots, I designed some urban shots too. I want to emphasize the life of the people who live in this city. But the shots I already filmed are not enough to show the idea, so I filmed more out side shots to edit together. In order to emphasize the visual effect, I use some effects for it, such as using slow motion to focus one the action of people, using the color change to show the movement.

Week 10 epiphany

In this week, we firstly did one similar exercise which is pulling focus. We mainly used three different cameras to practice this technique, which are SONY EX3, SONY Z7 and DSLR. Those three camera respectively have different focal length, 20mm, 25mm, 80mm. Our group used Z7 in class, however, we found Z7 is really hard to pull focus, the data is keep changing. Undoubtedly, in my perspective, EX3 is the most convenient and comprehensive one in it. We are able to clearly adjust the focal length depending one the mark of every position.

In addition, we watched lots of clips about the usage of voice-over. There are many people will use voice-over in their project including me, so this is a good opportunity for us to study. One-person voice-over must be a common way to create concrete meaning of some abstract scenes in our film. Also, it is a good way to show or imitate the subjective world of subjects. For my project, the one-person is extremely important, because, my project is a narration of the protagonist, it represents what he seeing and what he feeling. So actually his voice-over relates the three different pats, making them be logical. I hope I can do a good and suitable voice-over.

Week 9 project development

I finished the second part shooting of my project. In this part I want to introduce the life of people in this city, basically emphasizing their actions, such as footstep, taking tram, getting up and so on.

I firstly filmed two people’s daily life routine. I want them to represent the every one who live in this city. As I planed, I filmed several simply situations about their every day morning life, such as they getting up, brushing teeth, drinking milk and coffee, cooking and going outside. Those situations are simple, but the key point is I should choose a good position of it. Because I will compare them with two screen in one shot, so the composition, the lighting, the size of the subject both are so significant, those things have to keep in same level. So in my filing process, I keep reviewing the shots I filmed when I shooting the similar one. However, I found the lighting problem is hard to avoid. For example, when I filming the shot that they get up in the morning, I found the light in the two people’s room is really different, it is so strange when I put them in one shot, so I did the color correction as soon as possible. Except those simple life situations, I also expand scope to shoot some outside scenes. I want emphasize people’s action in this city, how the live in this city and construct this city. So, I mainly used low angel to film people’s walking step, used wide shot to show they crossing road, taking tram, and go shopping.

Lighting is really significant in film. Actually, lighting is the key element to create the cinematic effect of scenes. Undoubtedly, the basic usage of lighting is same with camera, which is allowed viewer able to see something, in other word, it light up the subject. Also, the lighting depicts the story, show the contrast, create the continuity and enhance the special emotion.

As Robin mentioned the lighting could be divide to several parts, which are direction, intensity and quality and color. Like we did in class, the Key light cannot change direction in different shots, because it will lead the problem of continuity. However, we could move the light a little forward or back to cooperate the position of camera. Generally, in filming process, the director will use fill light to make a better contrast of subject. The control ability of key light and fill light is so important, I hope I can try it and improve it in future works.

The quality of lighting mainly is talk about hard light and soft light. Hard light creates the obvious contrast of subject, it might show strong emotion in some time. And soft light largely and normally used in film to create natural shadow. In class exercise, Robin taught me a good way to adjust the quality of light. When we feel the light is too shard, we could use a white board to bounce light making it be more soft. This is really useful.

I really like the different color usage of lighting, I think it is perfect way to give a special emotion to environment and characters. For example, using the cool blue color to emphasize the isolated, lonely or high technical feeling, the yellow red color to create romantic and dubious feeling.

After I shoot the part one of my project, I edit it immediately. I mainly used two usages of split screen in this part. First one is using different perspective to show one space. For example, I divide the screen to three parts to introduce the graffito street, one is the close up shot for a interesting graffiti, and one is the wide shot for architecture, also I filmed one medium long shot for one person who are taking photo with a graffiti wall. I believe this three shots is able to show the graffito street in a broad scope in a same time. In addition, in order to enhance the visual style, I simply divided one shot about some place to different parts, such as the Victoria library, the Finder Station. I found that those places both s better to used wide shot to film, because they are fantastic architecture, the wide shot can show their glamour in a comprehensive way. Those wide shot is easily to evenly divide to different parts. Viewer is able to directly and clearly focus on the beauty of each part of it.

However, as Robin talked to me, I haven’t designed enough suitable transition. Also I have to create more effect of each screen, the visual style not so strong and special. I am so agree with him. I will change it in next week, making it have terse rhyme .