My original idea for a short film was a documentary on the anti-mosque protests in my hometown of Bendigo. I am partially hesitant to pursue this though as I although it interests me I feel as if its something that people have already have heard alot about.

Genre/Form: Documentary

Background: On august 29^th about 200 people gathered in Bendigo for a protest organised by the anti-Islamic group United Patriots Front, where they were met with equal numbers from left-wing groups including No Room for Racism and the Socialist Alternative. The protest was organised as a response to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Council recently dismissed an appeal against the building of a mosque. The groups tried to clash on several occasion but were met with high numbers of police. Anti-Islamic protestors tried to break the line of police when an anti-racism protestor burnt an Australian flag.  The protest shut down many businesses in the CBD of Bendigo and now the UPF plan on returning on the 10^th of October.

Summary: The documentary will include cutaway footage from the protest on the 29^th in which I have already captured. As well as interviews with key personal such as a key member from the Bendigo Council, a member from No Room For Racism and the UFP as well Vox Pops from Bendigo locals to get their thoughts on the protests.

Of late I have been distracted from planning my short film for Film3 as I have been busy editing a film for Plan B in partnership with Bendigo Bike Inc. Plan B is Latrobe Bendigo’s Planning Student Association. The groups purpose is to formally represent planning students of Latrobe University. My task was to edit a short film that compared four different travel modes in Bendigo; driving, catching the bus, cycling, and jogging. The goal of the short film was to promote active forms of transport and to highlight major issues with Public Transport Victoria’s Bendigo Bus Network.

I had nothing to do with the actual production of this film and when I recieved the footage I discovered that it was quite low quality as the students filming the race didn’t really know what they were doing. There was a mix of footage from GoPros, Phones and a DSLR. It was a challenge to get all the footage to display at the same aspect ratio without decreasing the quality to some of the raw videos. Furthermore, there was no sound recorded other than from inbuilt GoPro and Phones mics which resulted in poor quality audio. Although the thing I found most challenging was the lack of direction I was given for this video. I was sent a video brief but it was.. well quite breif. This resulted in me taking longer than I expected to edit this video as I was always second guessing the direction I was taking it in. It’s the greatest video but I did my best with the footage, intructions and timeframe I was given.

Although the short film is not technically brilliant it was a success as it got the point across. Members from Plan B met up with Jacinta Allen (Minister for Public Transport) and exhibited the video along with a detailed report  containing findings from the Race and recomendations for the Bendigo Bus Service. The overall response to the video was positive from feedback I have recieved from the Plan B Student Association.

 

For today’s studio we were to come to class with an idea for our short film or ready to try something that interests  us. The exercise was about trying an approach or technique of filmmaking; the content was not first priority. Over the last few days I’ve brainstorming for an idea for my short film project but failed to come up with anything solid. So for this exercise I decided to approach the method of recording an interview as I am interested in the field of documentary filmmaking.

We split up into groups and took turns of assisting each other with our projects. It took us a while to set up all the gear as we had some trouble with the sound mixer but after referring to my related blog post we got it operating. I framed Brydan in an interview style. I zoomed in focused on his eyes and zoomed back out to get a crisp focus. As we were using both the light source from the window (in which we were right next to) and the artificial light source above I decided to do an auto white balance with a piece of paper. The microphone which was pluged into the camera via the sound mixer which was positioned on the table in front of Brydan just out of frame. Once all this was set up to my liking I got Mitch to ask Brydan about the cricket in which he spoke very fluently about. I didn’t end up getting many shots as Mitch’s hired help (actors) had arrived and I didn’t want to make them wait. Furthermore I wanted to give everyone else plenty of time to finish their projects, for instance Brydans which appeared more complex and time-consuming. I found the exercise to be good preparation for our short film. It was especially useful to practice working as a crew as things go more fluently if everyone has their own role to focus on. In addition it was interesting to be on the other side of the camera for a change when Mitch and I ‘acted’ out a scene that Byrdan had scripted.

Tomorrow we will be in the editing suites to edit the exercise. I don’t have a lot to edit for this exercise but maybe I will be able to go out and shoot something else, work on the video I am editing for the Latrobe Bendigo Plan B group or start formulating some ideas for my short film.

Over and Out,

Luke Egan

After importing our experimental footage filmed from last week into première Mitch and I both decided that it wasn’t up to our standards. It was rubbish. Literally, it was videos of rubbish.

We borrowed a SONY EX3 Camera and shot something completely different. Our problem last time heading outside and not really knowing what we wanted to capture. This time around we picked one thing to focus on and then shot it in different ways. The idea was partly inspired by Hilary Harris’ Longhorns and Nine Variations on a Dance Theme. Both, he films a singular movement but from different angles and with different camera techniques. We decided to shoot a water feature on Bowen St. Instead of just framing the entire water feature, we framed parts of it and shot it separately. In post-production I then edited it so these parts come together to display the water feature in its entirety. I used one audio recording for the full video to create a sense of continuity and repetition. Unlike Hilary Harris’s work it did not contain much camera movement as I believed that movement of the water was enough. I believe this is a vast improvement on our original idea for exercise 3B.

Water – EX3B

 

 

Audio Mixer (Studio Reflection)

Today we became familiar with using audio mixers for recording sound with a video camera. I am unsure of the particular model we used but the principles aresame for most devices. It was Powered by 3 AA batterys. In the audio kits there is a special cable called the lune cable. It also has got 2 XLR cables (plug them into the output of the mixer). There are two cables so you can record stereo.

Set the camera input to Line not Mic on the camera when using an external audio mixer.

Press status on the camera to make sure you have an audio signal coming in.

Go to menu –> audio –> and make sure the audio channels (L+R) are separated .

The intermittent switch titled 1k turns on an internal mic inside the mixer. It puts out 0dB. We need to calibrate the camera and mixer as the mixer is analog and the mixer is digital. To do this press the 1K switch  so the mixer is outputting 0 dB and then calibrate the camera audio levels to be on -12. Because we are still learning to record audio we set one of the channels to -20 just so we have a different level incase.

We made sure we could hear the audio through the mixer and then plugged the headphones into the camera to see if we could still hear the audio. If not, adjust the headphone vol rocker switch on the camera.

We plugged the headphones back into the mixer and plugged the lune cable into the mixer and the camera. This way you are still hearing the audio out of the camera but from a distance. On the mixer we switched it from ST (stereo) to RTN (return) ways have it on RTN so we can the confidence that it got the camera in the first place. Only use ST for setting up. The moment the audio is plugged into the camera it should be switched to RTN.

With audio you have to go through everything methodically. It’s easy to skip a step and ruin your whole audio recording.

The only way to judge what you are actually recording is to look at the meters. The volume you are hearing it at is to do with headphone levels. Eg. the two return nobs, headphone volume on the mixer and camera. On the mixer there are two gain controls. One to get into the ballpark and one to make fine adjustments. This means we can make quick and correct adjustments to audio levels.

Analog and digital recording devices have different ideal recording levels.

Analog audio recording – peaking between 0 -> +3

Digital audio recording – peaking between -12 -> -6

 

On the mixer watch out for:

The two little black nobs on the input side of the mixer control the return (RTN) volume. Ff they are turned down you might not hear anything.

 

Using a mixer means the sound operator is not tethered to the camera and can focus on making adjustments to record the sound they want.