Lighting is both artificial and natural. Lighting is also about the absence of light. Even to dress a scene is an element of lighting.

So why do we light a scene in film?

First of all lighting is used for the obvious reason of making everything in the scene visible. Although it is used for much more than just that. Lighting is used to control a scene aesthetically. By controlling the quality, intensity, angle and more it becomes a creative expressive tool.

Furthermore lighting is used to maintain spatial continuity. For instance, you may have been shooting part of a scene outside and part of it in a studio. Particular lighting must be used to make footage captured in the studio to appear as if it is outside.

Lighting is also vital in temporal continuity. For instance it may take a whole day to shoot a 60 second scene outside. Throughout the day the sun will constantly be changing position, affecting the lighting of the scene significantly. To counter this lighting techniques such as using blackouts and reflectors must be used.

Light can be either hard or soft. Hard light often creates harsh, sharp edged shadows whereas with soft lighting, the light is more diffused and evenly spread. Hard lighting occurs when you have a concentrated light source. Soft lighting occurs when the illumination is more scattered. Each have their purpose in the world of film.

Hard lighting is generally more difficult to use successfully than soft lighting. Soft lighting is efficient, quick and more forgiving. It’s a lot more noticeable if you get hard lighting wrong, due to the hard-lined shadows.

In our class exercise yesterday to soften the light source we bounced the light off a white board. If we were to use a silver reflective surface the light would have been harder and more spotty. It’s interesting to note that you can use a black board to give negative light, as the light does not reflect off the surface.

Key lighting is the main light source in a scene. For instance in yesterdays exercise our key lighting was bounced off the wall and directed straight at the two characters. We also used fill lighting to soften the effect of shadows on our characters faces. It was interesting to note how the light lit up the two subjects faces different due to different skin tone and face shape.

When we talk about lighting we use terms such as key, fill, hard, soft, diffuse, direct, spread, contrast, quality, color. As well as descriptive terms such as naturalistic, theatrical, stylised, realistic & interpretative.

This talk of lighting has made me think that a reflector could be useful when I’m interviewing people at the anti-mosque protest so I can fill light the subjects faces.

EXERCISE 9A

https://drive.google.com/a/rmit.edu.au/file/d/0B4xPXyVvunuSc3RPU1VpVXU3eEU/view?usp=sharing

Fortunately for my project and unfortunately for Bendigo the United Patriots Front have confirmed their rally for the 10th of October at 2:30pm at the Corner of Forest St & Mackenzie St.

 

While looking at this I noticed that I have 10 Facebook friends that actually like the UPF Facebook page. Meaning there are people my age who support this group. If I see any of them at the protest I may interview them as I think it would be intriguing.

I intend on travelling to Bendigo this week to capture some cutaway shots of Bendigo including the site of Mosque, town hall and maybe some catholic churches to make a comparison. There actually a presbytarian church on the corner of Forest/Mackenzie St where the protestors are meeting. I could some shots of this location on and average day and edit it with a shot of it on the day of the protest to highlight the disruption.

 

 

 

I have been quite sick during the last week so I have not done any filming or editing. Instead I have been doing some background research on the Mosques opposition in Bendigo, some key individuals and the anti-islamic group the United Patriots Front. I read and compiled a number of articles and now I feel more educated and prepared to take on this task. I think its important when interviewing subjects to know background information so I can ask the right questions.

Relevant Articles:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/after-abbott-antiislam-rightwingers-confused-about-who-to-vote-for-20150915-gjnch1.html

The party followed with a political pitch to disenchanted Liberals: “If you are one of the many Liberal members and voters looking for a new political home, a party which stands firm on Australian values, find out more about Australian Liberty Alliance”.

The Facebook page Stop the Mosque in Bendigo, which is liked by 16,000 people, posted: “Make no mistake Abbott was thrown out because of his stand against Islam”.

Turnbull’s appointment by the Liberal Party meant that: “The Muslim invasion will now come to our shores”, the group said.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/bendigo-mosque-protest-antimosque-and-antiracism-protesters-clash-20150829-gjaml8.html

Hoskin accused the council and “complicit media” of trying to convince residents that most people in the city supported the mosque.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/bendigo-mosque-protester-claims-other-mosque-objectors-face-death-threats-intimidation/story-fni0fee2-1227143748069?nk=e9ea2fb5fc20c87b80fefc74fd94c91f-1442392919

“The Islamic Council exploits the fact that most democratic societies are foolishly ignorant concerning Islam and the various and oppressive facets of that system,” Ms Hoskin wrote.

Ms Hoskin claimed whenever local residents opposed an application for a mosque, the Islamic Council of Australia obtained their names and addresses for sinister means.

“These people are then paid a visit by a group of Muslim men and threatened with reprisals if they won’t withdraw their opposition to the mosque,” she wrote.

http://morningmail.org/bendigo-mosque-court/  (This is a right-winged online paper against the mosque)

Julie Hoskin is the person who led the group that first appealed against the building of a mosque.

https://www.facebook.com/unitedpatriotsfront?fref=ts

THE UFP are fighting against Bendigo to welcome their share of the 12,000 Syrian Refugees.

http://www.bendigoadvertiser.com.au/story/3328140/open-home-and-heart-to-refugees/

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/farright-group-upf-plans-to-run-for-senate-and-campaign-on-right-to-bare-arms-20150911-gjk73n.html

The UPF plans on running for Senate.

“Liberal and Labor have both betrayed us … United Patriots Front will be launching as a political party”.

Replying to supporters on the page, Mr Burgess said “Aussie’s (sic) will have the right to bare arms (sic) again if UPF gets into a position where we can make this law change.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-17/bendigo-mosque-protests-mayor-felt-numb-and-shocked/6782230

Recently a council meeting was abandoned and councillors left the Bendigo Town Hall under police escort.

“This group are choosing to come to Bendigo and try to whip up fury and frenzy when there should be none.” -Jacinta Allan, MP for Bendigo East

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-17/bendigo-muslim-community-undeterred-by-ongoing-protests-to-mosq/6784520

Currently the local Muslim community use a prayer room at La Trobe University’s campus which can only accommodate up to 50 worshippers. Mr Febriyanto said it was far short of what’s needed for the more than 300 Muslims in Bendigo, who hail from 25 different countries.

https://drive.google.com/a/rmit.edu.au/file/d/0B4xPXyVvunuSZmE0OGZMcUQwenM/view?usp=sharing

On the 29th of August I captured the events of the anti-mosque protest in Bendigo. The decision to do so was spontaneous and resultingly the quality of the video captured is not great. However I was able to practice documentary style and make an edit of a short video that displays the subject of my video. This is just something I put together with the small amount of footage I had. The final work will contain interviews and better quality video and audio.

The documentary attached is done in quite a normal clean cut style. I am yet to find a unique way of approaching this documentary. I don’t feel like this is a topic where recreations or drama would be appropriate. The same goes with the idea of just following one character throughout. I could make the documentary without a narration at all and just use interviews, footage and text but I feel like narration will be useful for this particular issue. I could narrate from a personal point of view, telling the story from my personal perspective. However although this is something I have an opinion on, I feel that my personal perspective may not be that notable especially seeing I am no longer a resident of Bendigo nor is the story overly personal to me. Furthermore my opinion is that of the majority so who would I be trying to persaude?

In saying this, the method of how I came to choose this idea was unique. I chose to film the protest on the 29th because I wanted to practice using my camera, experience what its like to shoot such an event and simply because it interested me. It was only after that I decided to create a documentary on the protests for my Film3 short film.

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.