Week 3 Exercise

Editing the other group’s shots was pretty confusing initially, and it definitely took us a while to get on track, though it gave us a new perspective. What I would have done differently, if we were to film the first part, would be to film the apple dropping out of Mia’s nose using an over-the-shoulder shot, as well as getting a close-up shot of Mia sneezing, from the front, at a low angle.

I feel that this would help the audience make more sense of it, rather than just the apple rolling on the floor, though I do think that it was a clever attempt at trying to replicate the effect. I first realised this when I was watching all the clips from the scene and I could not quite figure out how the rolling apple was supposed to fit into the scene – I found it quite out of place.

For the shot where I am appearing, we decided to film the empty space first, then film me in the same spot. From there, we placed the two shots together and used a fade in transition. Although the transition wasn’t the most perfect and smoothest, due to our camera moving just the slightest, it did almost successfully replicate the effect that we wanted. 

Since we were under time constraints, we did not manage to take a proper look back at the clips. I feel that, if given the chance, I would have re-shot the last scene in particular, where I was supposed to disappear, and taken more time to ensure that the camera did not move between takes.

Looking back now, another thing I would have done differently would be colour grading. In our scene, we did set the white balance on the camera, but for some reason, it still seems as if there is a green tint to it. I would correct small things like that in post-production in the future, and perhaps even place a dreamy filter over it, to add to the whimsical narrative.

Week 6 Exercise

For this exercise, I decided to edit two clips – one where Ruby has ended up in a heaven-like place, but ironically thinks that she is in hell, and another where I am high on drugs and think that I am flying in the sky, when I’m clearly not.

We were simply experimenting with the green screen in this exercise. At first, I didn’t realise that the lighting was too harsh – and especially since this was my first time experimenting with a green screen, I did not fully understand how big of a role lighting plays in making a green screen work.

But when I began to edit the video and key out the green screen, I came to a realisation that, due to the harsh lighting, there was a huge beige spot that was too close to the shade of my skin, that I could not key out. In an attempt to key out the huge beige spot, I played with adding a second colour key, but since it was so close to the shade of my skin, any settings that would somewhat significantly key out the beige spot also ended up keying a large chunk of me out. Especially since I was moving around quite a lot in the clip, it made it even harder to key out the beige spots.

In the future, if I were to use a green screen again, I would definitely make sure to check that the lighting is not too harsh – something valuable I learned from this exercise.