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

For our doco, we used a green screen setup and the lighting has been the same for all interviewees. However, eventhough this entire doco will be in black and white, i still think the colour makes a big differences for the images. Picture one is the one without editing any of the colour and picture two is after editing with the colours. The first differences is that after the colour editing, the image tells more story. Instead of a dull, and plain black and white, we crank up the colour contrast to make a more dramatic effect for deeper story. The second differences for me I think, its the background. Before editing the colour, i’ll feel as if the object and the background are ‘blending’ together whereas the one after editing, the object ‘stands out’ and pops up to make it more appealing.

“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?

At the beginning of the course, when we were asked to outline our goals for the semester, what i had in my mind was, skills, more skills about the camera, the editing, the shooting, the lighting, more skills that I want to get out of this course. But what i felt i got most out of this course is actually experimenting.

For this semester, what i tried to do is mostly experimenting stuff, my group experimented with the green screen, the lighting, the idea, and even the post production. Paul is always encouraging us to try different techniques of editing, trying to put different things together without thinking instead of starting with a plot, because that way you could most probably get the most out of it. I think there is always skills which one can never finish learning, but what i realize was that, experimenting different stuff generates experiences, and thats the most precious thing, the most I got out of this course.

Question 1

Then reflect on the whole process – Consider: the quality and usability of your recordings; the effect of layering and juxtaposition of both the audio and the video and; the things you learnt from working with this kind of audio and video.

Select from one of the readings and briefly describe two points that you have taken from it. Points that excite you, something that was completely new to you. (Please put a full stop when you return so we get a paragraph break. Makes it easier to read.)

The readings that i’ve picked is

Pawel Pawlikowski. Imagining reality

The article talks about the details of human brutality and the filmmaking that has tried to cope with it. The point that i’ve taken away from it is that, making films is not to convey objective information about the world, but to show it as how I see it and to find a form which is relevant. Shoot what you think about the topic, the message that you want to convey, instead of shooting something because you think it ‘should’ be in it.

Besides that, from the author’s point of view, making a documentary involves a degree of schizophrenia, he tries to understand and enter the subject, see the world through its eyes, accept its logic, while at the same time maintaining an aesthetic and often ironic distance from it.

Consider Sandra’s lecture “Directing Actors” and describe at least a couple of points that you took away from it (even if you’re not the director).

Sandra’s lecture “Directing Actors” talks about the importance of maintaining a good relationship with the actors. While on set, director should be giving out clear direction instead of overwhelming them making them to feel confused. I think this is one of the main point for all film makers, decisions should be made clear before giving out to the actors, no matter what position you are in, one of the main thing is to ‘act’ or be professional in front of others, even during the times that you are unsure, to give them a sense of confidence.

Moving on, she also talks about how everybody should be aware on set, even when you’re not doing anything. It is very important that each member of the crew knows exactly what is going on on set. For my group, I was the producer, where most of my job are mainly focus on preparing the film, as compared to the cinematographer and director. During that day, i didn’t have a lot of things to do, but i make sure i’m aware of everything that is going on and point out the problems that i thought was wrong. Fortunately, our group worked really well together and everything went smoothly and finishes on time.

In this clip screened in the lecture from the Coen brothers’ ‘Blood Simple’ describe what is happening in terms of the edits specifically in terms of the audio and video. Also name the different kinds of audio you can hear.

This scene of Blood Simple (Coen Brothers 1984, USA) has a really great audio recordings.

Firstly, most of them are ambient sounds throughout the whole scene, the sounds that i catch up from the scene was the crickets sound, the toilet flushing sound, the lighter dropping on the table, footsteps and the sound of siren etc. Sometimes I do feel like a well recorded sound effect like that are definitely a big plus point to the whole film. It is something that break the suspense.

The scene uses a lot of medium to close up shot on their actors whole constructing the story and overall i think it’s a great scene.

Most applications reserve keyboard shortcuts for the functions that 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 Adobe Premiere and note two or more functions that you’ve never used before that may be invaluable to editing.

I’m the type of person who uses a lot of shortcuts in my laptop. So i’m quite familiar with most of the main shortcuts like undo, save, group, find, delete, copy and paste etc. However, I found a new shorcut that might be helpful for me while i edit for our film, which is Snap and Trim. I think these are the shortcut that i wasn’t familiar with as they are only useful when it comes to editing.

This is my first K-film.

http://themediastudents.net/im1/2014/wengyan.yap/