Final Class

This course was pretty interesting. I have always watched movies and never really wonder how they are made but this course has open my eyes to a lot of possibilities in video production.

However, I feel slighted because as a class we were not provided the necessary equipment to fully enjoy and learn as best as possible.

Our final projects are still due and not finished to date. It's coming along shooting went okay but still need some more scenes to tell the story.

I'm just hoping that next term will be better equipment.

Shooting

Although I was not at class, I was busy sourcing a tripod stand and a back drop but I still have not gotten them as yet. If  I am able to source these items we will just have to improvise. While at home also, I did a trial run on my cameras to see the effect that I would get from the shot, and fr what I have observed, it was really good. The clap method worked perfectly as everything was sync on the cameras and while watching you could see that the person in the video was doing the same thing at the same time. This will make it easier to edit.

Work to do

Well my group is doing a short film and we expect a lot of work even though we will be using point to shoot and we have little experience with editing or software available. however we begin shooting this week with the aim to be ready for next week

Crew List

27th of September

This class was interesting because we actually get to know the roles of the persons in the production cast. Such as the director, producer, art director,etc.

From that we did an in class assignment to decide on the crew list we will use in a Digicel tv Commercial.

above-the-line expenses

Expenditures that are negotiated or spent before filming begins. These costs can include rights for the material on which the screenplay is based; and the salaries for the screenwriter,producer, actors and directors.

Faces

Well it would be really neat to be able to get the video and audio separately and then sync them. It is that world foley artiste live in.I think we go need point and shoot cameras so we go need to do some of the work of trying to combine both.

Foley Artist

Today I learnt that a Foley Artist is the person who 'recreates' sound effects for film, television and radio productions.

Automatic Dialogue Replacement

So far we are into our final project. I am sure everybody wants to do their best to get a good grade.

Todays class we spoke of where we are in our projects and what we need to let our project come out a success.

A look at ADR

Automatic dialogue replacement (ADR) is a process of re-recording dialogue in the studio in synchronization with the picture. There are at least three roles in the ADR process: the actor, the recording engineer, and the sound editor. The actor has to recreate his or her performance and perfectly match up his or her speech to that of the film. The recording engineer has to recreate acoustic spaces so that it doesn’t sound like an actor is in a recording studio. The sound editor has to pick and choose the best parts of multiple takes, combine them into one composite clip, and keep everything synchronized to the picture.

Foley Artist

Today I learnt that a Foley Artist is the person who 'recreates' sound effects for film, television and radio productions. file:///Users/introtovideoproduction/Desktop/Film2.jpg

Recaping key areas

In video production, Story telling comprises of Documentation, crew, composition, Lighting and editing. When capturing footage be aware of the rule of thirds and many other footage recording techniques. It is important to note that using zoom instead of tracking or dolly changes perspective lines or the vanishing point of the video.

For the final we are in the process of conducting our interview for the documentary. This will allow us arrange the cutaways during the editing stage of our production.

Class trip to Edna Manley

Class 7 Summary
week (1/11/2010

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the trip to Edna Manley Class exhibition, however my fellow classmates told me that it was interesting.

Keeping up to date with the class mr Wilkins taught us camera techniques. Mounting a camera gives precise control and elevation with tilt rotation on the X and Y axis.

Using professional Cameras you can have control over these basic parameters: zoom, focus, exposure, frame rate, video resolution, audio recording sample rate and quality, white balance and shutter speed.

By using the thirds or (rule of thirds) to compose our image shows depth in our image which is divided into three areas:

foreground
mid ground
and background

By adjusting, the focus, zoom and your exposure you can compose your shot once your tripod is in place.

Editing Technique

Week 9 (8/11/2010)

When editing video and audio,editors must try to use striaght cuts as possible as to synchronise clips eg finish 1 clip and start second where the first clip ends or select the second clip before the first one finishes.This style acheives smoth transforma and synchronisation.

Another inportant aspect of video editing is to develop a EDL or edinting list which is basically a spread sheet of all of the slots for sequence or timing.When editing, editors must also pay close attenion to composition, lighting, and general story telling.

Midterm and Final

We are on the final leg of our final project, except the key elements are missing: The editing software and the camera to use.
This reminds me of last years photography class were we didn't have the equipment therefore we didn't grasp the course full potential, but i believe that every semester there is a class without equipment.
Hopefully, i will get through this course grasping the information and can put it in practice.

I can definitely see where this course is going. If we had the equipment,this course would be the bomb.

Have you guys seen RED?? It's a must watch. actionpack, comedy it's a really good movie.
For the first five minutes i was wondering what was happening and then it came together.(the establishing shot)

I'm really learning!!!

Impending final

So we basically have all the ground work covered to complete the final project except some keys things.. equipment and software. We should have the software issue sorted out for next class (hopefully). We'll see how that goes.

Editing and transition

Well we have some theory and the teacher is trying his best to educate, however I am at odds with the school with software and hardware. They know that the class needs Final Cut Pro and cameras and yet there is none. The class is good but without the tools we are a tad off. There has been mentions of using Premiere but the IT department is lagging behind and right now, this class is very important to me and I am losing my cool.

Kingston

So our last class was in Kingston. It was a cool class but most of us were very tired rom the early, long bus ride so we may have missed some important information.

It is now time to work on the final project but there are a few glitches- we have no equipment or editing software. Hopefully this will be resolved ASAP.

Class 7 Summary

Last post we discussed editing. This post we will look at Camera Technique.
when we mount a camera on a tripod we get precise control of our elevation from our surface. We also get tilt (rotation on the x-axis), pan (rotation on the y-axis), and roll(rotation on the z-axis). The knob and levers vary from one tripod to another so take time to learn how to adjust these parameters before you start shooting.

Before mounting your camera, observe the mounting plate. Video mounting plates have two standard size screws that fit into the base of any camera. Once the camera is securely fastened to the mounting plate on the tripod then you can take advantage of the features of the camera.

Professional Cameras give you control over these basic parameters: zoom, focus, exposure, frame rate, video resolution, audio recording sample rate and quality, white balance and shutter speed.

You can wikipedia these terms for additional explanation.

Using thirds to compose our image allows us to show depth in our image which is divided into three areas foreground, mid ground and background. You can adjust, your focus and your zoom and your exposure to compose your shot once your tripod is in place.

Class 6 Summary

So this post picks up from the equipment requirements for a video shoot.

We will now look at the responsibilities of an editor in the process of video production.

We will categorise these responsibilities into three stages: Collect, Conform, Collate.

***Collect***
Video Footage, Pictures, Audio, Animation, Music, Foley Effects, Illustrations, etc. are the building blocks of our video production. We need to document them at this stage in a process called "logging" where we name and describe the files in manner that will be helpful later on. The process will may span the entire project as the editor may realize he needs new material down to the last minute, in order to tell a better story.

***Conform***
Before we begin editing is important to ask what our final output format will be, in terms of screen size, video codec, audio codec, sample rate and quality, and aspect ratio (the ratio of actual width to format width).

As long as we collect material we have to change the format of that raw material to one that fits our edit format. That way we have a consistent assets on our timeline. Otherwise our editing software has to re-render footage every time a change is made on the timeline in order to be viewed, which can be a time consuming process.

Media manager tools within the editing software can automate the conformation of video footage and photoshop actions or OS macros can automate the photographs and illustrations. Depending on the format of animation or sound, these may have to be conformed manually.

***Collate***
The creative process of the editor culminate here where he take the resources he has collected and conformed and tell the story as we have learned, according to the plot. The story is then trimmed down to the limitations of time an content restrictions. Read www.digitaljuicetv.com for information on editing software procedure.

Edna Manley Class

Being the field trip to Edna Manley on Monday, we had class over at the school. I felt quite cool as we taught in a different environment. All we did mainly was learn about the video camera and what it can do. Also how to manipulate it. After enjoying the trip, the other day, someone crashed and died in my town and it was someone I knew. That was so bad but that is just life, you live and you die. Anyway we had our group meeting and we finally come to an agreement what we want to do for the final and how it is suppose to be done. Hopefully we are able to get all the equipment that we need to make this a good documentary.