CUEAFS Practise

Above is the videos of CUEFS which i edited for them for the first time using Final Cut Pro. I was doing it for practise for this project. Although the projects are nothing alike it was good practise just to get use to it.

I also done a promotional video for them however this still isnt available and although it wont be marked i will still put it on here so they are all together.

Reflection

The interviews aren’t the best in world however i had to make do with what i got from the society. As it was only practise i wanted to just get use to the software really. Having to do these interviews was good for this.

The interviews was quite difficult to edit because there was a lot of mistakes in the asking of the questions so i had to cut and because there was no natural way i could cut into so i had to dissolve it in and although this looks really bad like above, it was actually the best that i could do.

I did enjoy working to some demands from a society which is going to be good practise for the future however my main concern for the past couple of months while doing this has been with the software as this has been the biggest thing i  have edited on my own in my life, so although i am excited it is also quite nerve racking because i am the only one in my group who can edit.

Editing mistakes?

This is a bit of a clip from Moulin Rouge. Although my 2 main roles in this project has been Director of Photography and editor, I think that the editor role is the biggest responsibility. Although Adam is Director and and my role is DOP, we have been helping each other out with the roles, but I am a firm believer that editor is one of the most important roles in the entire making of any film.

Back to talking about this clip, as you can see (I slowed it down to help people see it) there is a very big mistake, which in normal view is very hard to see. But the character falls, and then it suddenly cuts to him on the rope swinging. I had seen this film a couple of times and didn’t notice it until the 4th or 5th time I seen it.

This has shown me, even in main stream production films that mistakes can be made, either in production or post production, and even then that film can be still be very successful, after all looking at Moulin Rouge, it is so successful, winning many awards including oscars!

Although films like these make mistakes like anyone else, it is obviously very important not to make these mistakes but it isn’t the end of the world. With the musical we have had lots of problems, but just because we have had all of these problems doesn’t mean that the project is going to fail.

Also, if there is a mistake you have to make in editing because of the lack of options you have, if you make it tight enough then the audience may not notice, which becomes the most important thing if you don’t have any other options.

Panning shot….Moulin Rouge

I was watching ‘Moulin Rouge’ for some research as this is one of the most popular modern musicals, winning a couple of Oscars. I have watched it before however I haven’t really paid attention to the technical aspects, and now it has gone into my top 5 favourite films of all time.

The 2nd time I watched it I saw this clip above. I imported the whole movie into Final Cut Pro and and isolated some clips that I like and that has inspired me with the ‘Rialto’, the music that I am making for my Final Major Project.

The first time I watched this film was back in 2003 and It didn’t bother me, but I watched it again a couple of weeks ago and the moment I saw this shot, I loved it and it is something that I am going to be putting in the musical that I am making at the moment, although I’m not sure when, but it will be in Charlie’s song.

I have already got the crane out for the entire holiday however I have not done any test shoots on it yet. This is something that we are going to be doing tomorrow before the shoot later on this week and early next week.

I love this shot above because its such a nice panning shot of Nicole Kidman’s whole body although as the shot goes on the camera gets closer so by the end of the shot you don’t see the whole body. But the shot is very smooth. This shot has been used because at the end of the shot she gets out of breathe which is very important for the audience to see as this is showing that she is dying and this is probably the biggest part of the story.

If  I do use this shot in the musical then it will only be for stylistic reasons, for how it could make the musical look. It wouldn’t be for a very specific reason like it is in ‘Moulin Rouge’. For the musical, I want to really take it up a level and I think that the way to do this is take real care with the shots that I use, and for them to tell a type of story like this one shows.

Taking this film up a level isn’t just about using a crane, its getting the right shots at the right time and Adam and I have thought a lot about this. Although last week when I was ill and couldn’t make it in the shots was not very good and I think that we are going to have to go back and film them scenes again because I don’t think that they are passable although we are going to have a meeting with Steve and Phil about this and show them the footage that we have got.

Reflection

Before watching ‘Moulin Rouge’, I was starting to get annoyed at the musical because it just seems to be dragging with everything going wrong, but now that I have watched this, its kind of given me more motivation and enthusiasm going into the last stretch of the project.

I am quite excited about using this particular shot in the musical, I like it that much. I think that with shots like this, it will really improve the musical a lot. Although this is a student film, I want it to be an excellent student film which, despite all of the problems, it still has the potential to be.

Video Research

I am now going to be doing a workbook with all of my work in, but I am going to be using this blog for video research as it is so much easier to do video research on here then on paper back.

Private High Musical

Adam Carvell was looking on youtube, not for anything in particular, when he came across something called ‘Private High Musical’, which was made in 2008 and starts Dennis Haskins, principle from the famous kids show, ‘Saved by the Bell’.

This was something we looked a lot at because at the time when Adam found it, our musical was going to be set in a secondary school. But even with it now not been set it in a school, this 6 episode short series really has helped us in terms of songs, dancing and stereotypical characters.

This is the first episode of the series, each episode last around 3 or 4 minutes. i first noticed how many extras there are in the whole episode, which is 12, 13 including the teacher of the class. If we was filming in a school then that would have been perfect but now we have moved it into filming in a club it is going to get a little bit more difficult. We are going to need a lot more extras to fill the club and get good location shots otherwise the shots we use are going to have to be pretty tight so we don’t see much of the background or lack of extras, which is something that we desperatly don’t want.

Adam and I also had a look at the dancing in this. Ours is going to have some dancing in it but we don’t want it to be hard dancing as we want all of our extras, if not most of our extras to dance. But looking at this first episode, the dancing is so simple. There isn’t much moving in it, the most the move is walking either a couple of feet in front of them or to the side. Other than that they just bump hips and wave their hands in the air and on camera all of these simple dances really does work.

I also had a look at the stereotypical characters in not just this episode but all of the series. You have the typical nerd, the guys who try and sleep with anyone, the black guy, the girl who wants to be different, the popular girl, the 2 blonde bimbo’s and a ‘rocker’ who does drugs. We don’t want the typical American stereotypes in our musical because we want it to be more British.

This is the 2nd episode of ‘Private High Musical’. This was quite good for us to look at because we are also filming in a toilet so it was interesting to see how they used their space. We’ve already done a test shoots in the toilet that we are filming so we don’t need to look at this in great detail but for some of the shots it has given me some other interesting ideas. Things like having the camera looking down into the toilet, this is a good shot and the audience wont see anything of the subject looking like she isn’t using the toilet, which obviously she won’t be.

Although our musical isn’t of a serious nature, it is still a drama, but we do want to incorporate some comedy into it, which is always going to be hard because comedy is one of the hardest things to do I think. In the video above, comedy is incorporated in the dances, which is something that are trying out best to look at. In the video above, there is a scene where they are sitting on the side moving their legs to the music, and the girl in the wheel chair just looks at them, kind of embarrassed that she can’t do the dancing because she can’t move her legs. I didn’t notice this the first time I watched it, but I did the second time and found it quite funny and this is something I would like to put in our dances. This is something that Michelle Bailey will mainly look at because she is our choreographer.

In terms of camera shots, most of them in this video I have already thought about with certain shots. Shots like the camera looking into the mirror and seeing the characters in the reflection, this is a shot I have already not only thought of but I have chosen where it is going to be going and I have also done a test shot of it at the location we are using.

In this video, the main character goes from sitting on the toilet to sitting by the sink while the other people in the video dance. Musicals tend to be very unrealistic like this. In some musicals, it even goes from one location to another and this is something that I wanted to put in this musical. Adam is set on having some of the music outside in the night, but this I know will be so hard to do so I have said I think that the best thing that can be done is start the song outside and then bring it inside where the lighting can be properly controlled. This will make our lives a lot easier, although that isn’t just why we should move it inside. I think that having the ability to control the lighting will make the quality much better. What we could do is start the song of outside, bring it inside and then finish it outside. This is just one of a series of possibilities which Adam and I will talk about.

A reminder of the 3 ideas I was going to take forward!

Here are the 3 Ideas I looked at over the Christmas break but decided against it as the ideas was not only developed enough, but also not good enough.

1. Photo shoot/Photo album of the 7 deadly sins. This wouldn’t be just 7 photos, but it would be the 7 sins in different scenarios. Perhaps it could be put into a hardback book, or even put in an exhibition. Along with this I would like to make a documentary type film about the making of the photo shoot.

2. A very slow paced short, maybe about a man’s life. It goes through, and it creates suspense but  then its a let down and nothing  happens. Maybe this  happens a few times, but then near the end something  happens which you just don’t expect coming. This is all I have  for this but I am interested in what I could get out of this idea.

This idea isn’t strong at all because the audience would simply go away feeling really disappointed and this is the last thing I want to happen. For this reason I am going to drop the idea.

3.  Cause and effect  - Everything has a cause and effect. I am not quite sure about this but it is the one I am leaning more towards at the moment. I have done a little research on it already (See post on ‘George Orwell’ in 310MC research)

These are the 3 ideas I looking into a little before decided they wasn’t good enough. I also had a talk with Jonathan Lee and he also said that they wasn’t really strong at the moment and they would have to be developed a lot more however I didn’t have any confidence with them at all. The one Idea that I do like more than the others is the 7 deadly sins Idea.  I think that this is the strongest Idea but I know that it needs more developing.

For more on these 3 ideas, if you go to my other blog, www.dosullivan310mc.wordpress.com you till find more.

7 DEADLY SINS

These 2 photo’s are from test shoots. They are both envy. They are meant to showing the power that girls have over  men, which I think everyone would agree is true. Not all, but certainly a lot. It is that sexual desire, saying here I am but you can’t have me. This is just one of the deadly sins.  My idea was to create a photo shoot of 7 of them however I do feel that because I don’t have much photography experience this may not be the way to go.

Photo shoot/Photo album of the 7 deadly sins. This wouldn’t be just 7 photos, but it would be the 7 sins in different scenarios. Perhaps it could be put into a hardback book, or even put in an exhibition.

Above is one of my ideas to take into final production. I do really like this Idea and I may, at this moment want to take this into production. However, doing this I don’t think would be enough to do to get a good grade for this module, which is what I want. So to boost up the grade, I had the idea to do a documentary on the making of the photo shoot. But then this leaves me with the question, how do I direct a documentary and do a photo shoot at the same time.

I have had some ideas for this dilemma. They are shown below.

• Try and direct the documentary while taking the photos.
• Ask someone from university, preferably who do photography, if they would take the photos.
• Ask a photographer outside of university to take control of the photo shoot.
• Forget about the 7 deadly sins Idea and do a documentary on someone else putting together a shoot.
• Ask someone who is doing photography and who have experience putting together photo shoots to help me with putting together this one and to give advice on how to put on an exhibition or making the album into some sort of hard back book.

The idea that I like at the moment is the last one. Of someone who has an expertise in photography helping me in what I need to do. I know someone who goes to Bournemouth University and a close Friend in someone called Giovanny. I was thinking that I could ask him for some pointers, or maybe even if he would help me with the project.

This could be a problem though as he is also in his 3^rd year at University so I am not sure if he would have time to help with all of the project, but I am certainly sure that we would put me in the right direction and of course if I did need help I am sure that we would me more than willing to help.

Obviously this been my final project, it is very important, so I don’t want to do anything that I have not done before because I want to do something I know to get the very best mark. I do want to do something I have not done before but I would like to use a media form that I am use to and good at. I have done some photography before and I am happy doing it. It is just producing the hard back book and an exhibition that I have never done before and I would want and need some help and advice with this and I am sure I will get the advice off the tutors and people I know which will help.

There will be more on the back up Idea(s) on a different page to this one, as this page will now be focusing  on the 2 FMP’s, ‘Hidden Emotion’ and ‘Divided Kingdom’. There will also be separate pages for ‘Love fifteen’ and ‘The Voyer’ (If I work on that) and any other projects I take part in.

310MC Presentations..

Last month we done our 310 Presentations and if I’m honest, it didn’t go as well as I thought it would go. Over the Christmas holidays I did come up with some ideas of what to do for my FMP but I wasn’t happy with them or what they could achieve. All 3 of them seemed very simple, something I would come up with in the 1st and 2nd year. So I quickly dropped all of them. But this left me thinking, what am I going to do?

I was talking to Adam Carvell and he told me about his idea, which I loved when I first heard it (Hidden Emotion – Musical) and I asked if I could jump on board with the group and they all wanted me in it. We then looked more at the project and developed it a bit more and we made our presentation.

We felt, and still feel, that the project and the idea is a strong one and we know that, if done properly, it could be very good and very successful. Even with tutors like Steve and Philip telling us it is going to be very hard to do we was still excited and enthusiastic because it is something that we have never done before and it is a massive challenge, and I think it is this that led me to this group and this project. My ideas wasn’t challenging enough, and that wouldn’t of got me a very good grade for the FMP, this project I believe will.

Back to the presentation. We created it a week early and we was very confident with it. But when we got into the room on the day, I think we was all a bit nervous and this led us to waffle on a bit, which was really disappointing because at the start Steve said don’t waffle, but we made the mistake and it is something that we will learn from.

I felt we focused more on the story, and not enough on the research and development we had done for it. Doing this, it didn’t leave us with much time to cover all of the research we wanted to share and we was rushed, which led us to waffle even more! So not good!

With the questions that Steve asked afterwards, I felt that we answered them well, although we should of answered them in the presentation itself. But I do believe we shown how much work we done for the presentation even though we did mess it up a little bit on the day.

I think that from a personal point of view, working in this group is going to get myself a better mark at the end, but I also believe that me been in the group will get the whole group a better mark with my input. Especially because we, as a 5 person group are making 2 projects. One of my main skills, and something I am looking at getting into after Uni is Editing. With Sam the only other editor in the group, he is going to edit for 1 project (Divided Kingdom) and I am going to edit the musical (Hidden Emotion) and if we need help of each other then we will ask. I think this is the best thing to do.

Start of 311MC

So last week was the start of 311MC and this last week I have been trying to decide what to do, a blog or a paper based work book. I have went with both. I am going to intermix them as I think if I am looking at video I can do it on here but I would also like the control of paper based so this is a win win.

I have done some work using word and will paste them into this blog in the next few days and will also get the work for this module I put in my 310 blog and I will also put that in here as that was really the start of the module for me.

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