We found this great site on Bourke street, the old half of myer was being are torn down but the certain structures were still required by the Heritage Register to be present, according to the builders we talked to.
Photos taken off Shushan's phone
We also did our first interview with Mike. Unfortunately, Lorna wasn't present and so we only had the opportunity to speak to him.
As discussed in the last post, we were going for a more emotional approach to our documentary. However, as Shushan was interviewing Mike, I realised that his answers to her questions were very technical. Even when she tried to explore something that couldn't be explained technically, he still gave a very textbook answer. Yet at the same time, he was asking us what we wanted him to say...
It was an example of how hard an interview could go. It was really hard directing and steering him in the right direction.
As I was struggling with the boom mike, I was hoping he would speed up his answers and get to the good bits!!
Well, not to fret, we still have Lorna! We met her briefly and she seems to be more emotive. Hopefully we will go better when we interview her!
The old primary school campus was so big that half our group was on one end, and the other half was on the other and we were rather lost as all of us thought that we were at the front end of the school. Turns out, we were on the end where it was still the old primary school without any work having been done, and the other half of our team was on the end of the newly constructed eco village!
the old end we were on on victoria street
Mike Hill with a map of Westwyck
To be honest, it was pretty intimidating meeting with Mike in the first place as he was very in charge of the situation and he has seen so many people come and go who have interviewed him, or like us, want to make a short documentary about the place.
He questioned our angle, and if the idea of sustainable reuse was too broad. I think we all agreed with him when we heard what he had to say.
The problems we faced when thinking of an angle was that we didn't want it to be a promotional video for Westwyck if we went for that angle. We already that bad experience when it came to filming Taka and him giving us what he wanted to be on tape rather than what we wanted, despite our efforts to provoke and probe.
Also, as Mike said, if we did the sustainable angle, it could be really general, and also, be too much of a kind of environmentally friendly promotional video, and as much of a good thing being environmentally friendly is, we didn't want our doco to be so general without an interesting angle.
After much brainstorming, I think we all agreed that the history of Westwyck, and the fact that it went from a primary school to a totally different thing was amazing. And in a way, that was using the sustainable reuse angle, but from more of an emotive angle and less of a promotive one.
Talking to Liam was great as well, as he gave us a really good idea of using the concept of 'ghosts' in a place. Meaning, a place has so much history. This place where these residents are staying used to be classrooms where children ran up and down playing and screaming.
All of us loved that, and so we decided to go with it.
Louis Theroux is a somewhat popular documentary maker with the BBC. Having caught some of his work on free-to-air TV on SBS, I thought it would be apt to mention him on this blog.
Theroux largely covers a large range of what is deemed as socially controversial issues, such as the lives
of prostitutes behind closed doors, asian catalogue brides, racist families, and more.
Here's an example of the one about Thai Brides.
His documentaries can be categorised as 'participatory documentaries', as the audience can see how he is in them, and the way he affects his subjects or interviewees. On the same note, this other documentary is on the similar topic of Thai Brides, but has much more of an expository style, with one side being shown, and a voice narrating the story to the audience.
We had to think about whether or not we wanted a narrator, or even an interviewer present in the span of our documentary on Westwyck.
However, it was more unanimous to go with a more observational style for the documentary as we wanted to tell a story of adaptive reuse, using Westwyck, but without any sense of us being in it.
So, our Taka idea turned out to be heading to a dead end so we had no choice but to go with a different idea for our documentary. Shushan, our director, had been on a field trip to East Gippsland recently for a school field trip where they were helping the farmers plant some trees around their farmland.
While they were at that, she happened to have a chat with some of the farmers who were involved in this movement called LandCare. From there, I think the idea of shooting a documentary based on the idea of sustainable living came up. We brainstormed on how we could go from here. At first, we were considering driving up to East Gippsland but soon realised that with our time restraint, as well as our lack of access to a car, as the producer, I felt that we were better off shooting something within the proximity of public transport.
That is where Westwyck Village comes in. Owned by owners Mike and Lorna, Westwyck is an eco friendly village in Brunswick. It used to be an old primary school but the owners have turned in into sustainable housing for the public.
It would be interesting to see where we go from here!
This week's lecture was surrounding the ethics of making a documentary.
Liam highlighted the problem of signed release forms which I thought was very useful.
He showed us a sneak peek of the film 'Titicut Follies' by Federick Wiseman which was about a Massachusetts institution for the criminally insane. It revealed the horrific conditions behind closed doors that the patients were subjected to, and though he had all release forms signed, the documentary was still banned for quite some time upon its release. Although all appropriate release forms were signed, it was maintained that the patients were not in their right state of mind when they had signed them.
However, the ban was lifted after the deaths of some of the patients who's' relatives made a claim was avoidable had the film been allowed to air.
This example shows a couple of things. The power of a documentary, the ethics and dilemmas the person making the documentary faces in the editing process, and the grey area of release forms.
I think that this also reflects upon how much more creative freedom and options a documentary film maker has over a film maker of drama as we did in tv1, who has to follow a rigid storyboard and shooting style in order to get it 'right'.
When we edited the footage that we took in class of an activity/observational shooting, we understood the importance of cutaways.
We were supposed to film and edit to make a 5 minute footage of the progression of an activity.
We decided on filming a student's process of queuing up to heat up his lunch, waiting for it to finish microwaving, and then eating it.
However, when editing it, we found we didn't have much footage to make a 5 minute clip, and the footage we had was pretty much boring or didn't have continuity. We realised that many of these problems could be solved had we taken cutaways of other people waiting, eating, etc that could help with continuity as well as making the final result less mundane.
Last week, we talked about sound and the importance of sound setting the mood for the documentary.
We practiced with an in class exercise in filming and editing an interview and using music and cutting funny shots, we created this short, lighthearted interview with Adrian.
Another example is the Mongreloid by George Kuchar, an example that was mentioned during the lecture.
You can see how the music in the background brings out the mood of this film, which is eccentric, disturbing and slightly creepy.
Another example comes from the digital dossier, Drinking for England.
I really liked this documentary as an an example of a good one.
The sound brought out the seriousness of the documentary.
I also loved the opening shots, which was also used throughout the film, which zoomed in and was slightly out of focus, as though the audience could picture what it was like to be the woman who had been drinking too much.
Then it zooms out a bit to show the woman from the front drinking, which was still a close up, and confronting shot as the camera was just in front of her face as she was doing so.
Then, the colour becomes lighter to give a mid shot of the woman's actions and so we could focus on her and what she was saying and doing.
I loved the way this film was shot and the progression of its story, from her drinking, to showing her being taken away to rehab in the car, and ending with a shot of her mother walking back into the house after saying goodbye to her.
Sound would be essential in building up our film's mood and tone in accordance with the story that we are trying to tell.
Our first shoot in our documentary process was pretty much a flop.
We arrived at Taka's house with all the equipment and decided to take the interview outside due to the great weather and his numerous plants in his backyard which we thought would make a great background in the frame.
Everything that could go wrong did in that shoot.
Firstly, we went in without an angle for our documentary, and just asked him a bunch of questions and taped it. As a result, there was a lot of footage which we probably wouldn't have used anyway. The interview was very informal with Taka playing around with the camera as well.
I guess we weren't very prepared the first time around as we did not have full control of the interview. Taka was giving us answers to create this image of what he wanted to be perceived as, which validated Liam's point of "glorifying" the subject in the documentary.
The above clip is a trailer of the documentary made about the rock band Anvil.
It was a particular documentary Take kept referring to, which was about a band which persisted and fame eventually found them.
We were worried that this meant that he already had a fixed vision to what the documentary about him was to look like. And we would have to explain to him that we would be going in a whole different direction, and if he was to still agree to filming it.
Next, the sound was too low to be used.
The camera lens was also not cleaned properly, which could be seen when we uploaded the tape.
We were also aware that we had a problem with the white balance during the shoot, but went ahead anyway, which turned out to be either too dark or too blurry when we uploaded it.
As a result we were really thrown off balance by this as we were really anticipating being able to come up with an angle from what we had.
However, it was a great learning point as we learnt that we would have to be more prepared next time in controlling the direction of the interview next time round.
We also would have to come up with a stronger angle and have more questions prepared to take Take out of his "comfort zone" to get interesting footage.
Making a film on a documentary instead of a drama has really interesting so far.
Personally, I like working on a documentary better.
Our group has developed a documentary idea based on the drummer of Little Red, Taka Honda, who has gone out and started his own band The Hondas, which features him prancing about in women's outfits.
When we interviewed him, we found him to be a very interesting character and decided to develop our idea from there.
As a producer, I drew up a rough schedule of what we'd be expecting to do for this semester.
TV 2
Production Schedule (rough)
Date
Things To Do
Note
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Pre Production Stage
Develop our documentary concept
Crew organisation
Conduct an introductory interview with Taka
Decide on a focus in the documentary
Draft treatment due
Developed treatment due
Discuss with Taka on the direction of our documentary
Decide on extra equipment needed for shoot (eg, lighting,etc)
Start shooting
Discuss with Liam on focus of story and how to achieve desired final product
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Shooting Sep10th- Gig
Sep 23rd- Single launch
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Shooting + Post Production
Start import to final cut pro and editing
Watch raw footage/ cut and edit/ sound design
Reshooting if extra material needed
Continue filming for extra content while editing from week 9
Week 12
Week 13
Fine Cut Screening due
Reshooting and Editing where needed based on feedback and progress
Our film is really coming together, with the last final touches needing to be added in.
We still have music to be added in for some parts, but on the whole, we are more or less done with editing and are all really pleased with the result.
I was really lucky to be grouped with such an awesome team as everybody has such great media or leadership or creative skills I felt rather redundant at times!
So, today we did the final aspect of the film- the voice over.
It took us about an hour to get the narration done, and another to pick out the ones we liked to add in.
It was the first time I had ever done something like that and it was a great experience over all.
We had an issue at first with the type of recording we would be using for the voice over.
We wanted to use the recording system that was available in the editing suites but we tested it out the day before and had a really bad sound as it would either have too much echo or reverberation of some words if placed too closed, and would sound too distant if too far away. It would require a lot of adjusting of the mic and gain in order to get good sound, which was really too much hassle to do on the day itself before John, our narrator came in.
We decided to go with the h2 zoom instead.
We were worried that the h2 would not look professional enough but thanks to the techs, we managed to get our hands on a stand, a mic, and a pop filter for the h2 zoom.
Thankfully, we managed to book a suite at the far corner as well with no sound coming through the glass.
It all went smoothly and we managed to achieve the exact effect we were aiming for.
Overall, it was great learning experience for a media student.
This blog post I found explains the challenges and some background on voice overs as well I found very educational.
During the editing process, we struggled a lot with continuity editing. Having a continuous shot would be boring by itself, and so during filming, we took different takes of the same scene as Christine had suggested.
The challenge was then to cut it and put it together in a way that would not look too awkward, but natural.
The 180 Degree Rule
It was important not to cross the line of axis when filming narration between Joe/MarySue, Joe/Office.
During editing, we found that one of the scenes, when MarySue was giving her speech, didn't include POV shots of her of Joe. The ones that we had had the distorted audio, and the ones that we tried to put in defied the 180 degree rule, which made the shot look funny.
During our reshoot, we were aware of the position Mary Sue was in when filming her POV, so we didn't 'cross the line'.
We also had to be very aware of continuity,
As we had a lot of office props and decoration during our first take, we had to be careful not to shoot parts of the office where we did not bring the same props in for continuity's sake.
Continuity is a big part of editing to ensure that 'time' isn't confused in the movie and that the movie flows smoothly.
We did self and peer assesment in class last week.
It was a refreshing to listen to everybody describe the roles that they took on throughout this entire tv1 process. On the whole, it seemed that this has been a long and dedicating experience for everybody, as I think everybody would agree that this subject has probably been the most time consuming one we have ever taken on.
We also watched Mel's group's rough cut, and boy, was it amazing!
The lighting, and continuity of their piece was amazing, and I think ours is still some way behind.
However, Christine did like what we had so far which was great, but told us to tighten it so that it would go on so that it would be so entertaining people would fail to notice slight glitches in it, such as lighting differences from scene to scene.
Right now we are going quite alright in editing.
We have refilmed the part of the film where sound was really distorted and terrible- (reason of which we still haven't found out).
But it went great much to our relief and we are in the process of cutting everything down, adding in the sound effects, and perfecting it before our actor for voice over comes in next week!
Our shooting day went better than we had all expected.
The actors were great, and everybody fell into their roles quickly and efficiently.
We managed to wrap it all up way before the expected time which made everybody really happy.
We arrived two hours before the actors and super groups to start setting up the equipment and to make sure we had everything in place.
We were lucky enough to have a make up artist on set who was fabulous with the make up of the actors.
We allocated the changing room and had a green room for the actors to break and have snacks if they were not on set.
Our location was the rmit student union office, and so we set up tables and chairs outside as it was a Sunday and not many people would be around school.
The snacks proved to be a great energy boost for everyone throughout the course of the shoot.
The super groups were great as well as I had some help with the holding of the boom pole and the lights.
Although there was a glitch with sound (some wire probably went unplugged somewhere), we have worked through it and are on our way through editing it all.
Over all, I'm really satisfied with our progress and feel like I've brought a lot out from this course.
Some things I've learnt
red heads. Able to control area of lighting via adjusting the flaps at the front. Can be used to light large portions of area and useful as background light. Colour of light can be switched using the different coloured fluorescent paper provided.
Dedolights. Unlike red heads, you would use these if you want the light to have a smaller area, eg, think soft/candle lighting. They have a lighting of about 100-150 watts and are used to create a less harsh of a lighting than the redheads. These proved to be fairly useful in our shoot.
Have never met one of these before doing tv1. C stands are really stable and are much better use and flexible than the stands the dedo come with. Those tend to fall rather easily and are flimsy compared. These are insanely heavy too, but have gotten pretty used to lugging them around.
Mixer
Working with the mixer was pretty much my job scope. During the first tutorial, I was shocked by the number of wires and plugs this thing had. It looked so complicated and I was sure I would never get the hang of it. But I've worked with this so much its become a no brainer which cable goes in where.
Other things I've learnt would be how to set up a camera and tripod, adjust the focus and exposure of the camera, the procedure and protocol each member has to follow on set depending on their roles, first AD, etc. I've also learnt about cut aways and the importance of them. In fact, they were a saving grace in our film as we have filmed and used a lot of them in the editing process.
I'm really glad the shoot is over, but even happier with the things I've picked up along the way. This has been a really packed course over the semester, but one where has a lot to be learnt as well.
I'm going to do a separate reflection for my job as the sound director on the shoot, before a general one.
Firstly, during the shoot, my group member came to have a look at my mixer where we were recorded a random noise and it was peaking below 0. She asked if I could adjust it so that it would peak at 0 and have a little red. I said yes, but the problem with that was that because the sound was happening so fast, and this was the softest part of it, I would not be prepared to lower the volumes when it suddenly became loud, and the sound would end up being distorted.
That was a huge challenge I faced during the shoot. Although I was constantly changing the levels of the mixer (a huge thanks to the super group who helped loads with holding the boom pole), the actors read their lines differently in each take, changing their volume constantly in a take, Sometimes I would be unprepared and start off with a sound that is way too loud and have to go for another take so it'll peak perfectly at 0 or slightly above.
There was no way of playing back sound, although tehre was with film, and that makes my job even more nerve wrecking and worrying.
The last time we recorded the Lenny, it ended up peaking too softly, but then again when we played it back in class, the levels were great.
I also wished that there was a way I could have held the boom pole and the mixer as the person holding the pole may have moved, thus affecting my sound quality in the mixer. It would have been better if I could have controlled the both at the same time.
Effects wise, as we are going for a more dramatic thing, I have found much audio to put in, and will probably go with that.
So, I hope the levels will turn out great when we put it in editing!
Last Thursday, auditions were held for the roles of our main characters in our script and we were really pleased with the results!
Overall,the characters that turned up were really excellent in bringing out what we wanted them to in the script. Because our script was very narrator based, we want the actors to well, literally act! Over the top, dramatic kind of acting to bring out the comic film we are creating. The main characters are really eccentric and over the top and extreme.
The whole movie is very the cat in the hat kind of a cartoon-y crazy reality and the actors really reflected that.
The narrator was fantastic as well, with the exact voice we were looking for. In fact, it was tough deciding between a few but we ended up choosing by votes and logic.
So that's settled, next up would be the costumes and makeup and other such details and then, probably the practice shoot itself!
I'm still settling into my role as sound and after recording the auditions, I have realised that
a) pointing the microphone directly at the actor, even at a distance, makes a huge difference than when it is pointed slightly away. The microphone picks up even the slightest bit of noise which is a pro and a con. It is fantastic in delivering excellent sound but also picks up ambiance noise as easily. When playing back the audtions of the narrators, there was this bit were the background noise was overwhelming due to some cleaning truck outside. So, although we are filming indoors, we definitely have to be very aware of our surrounding noises as it would make a big differences.
This also occurred in the Lenny exercise as well where we filmed in a room and in the corridor. The difference in the levels of the natural sound of the surroundings was very obvious and even after editing, I think we could still tell that there is a difference. So, if possible, the microphone should not be switched to many different positions if it is the same shot from a different angle.
b) Spare batteries is essential. We ran out of batteries during the auditions and it would have been a hassle, not to mention unprofessional if we had to run out for new ones and made the actor who was auditioning wait.
c) Must remember what goes where!
Getting the hang of it, but still pretty nervous when plugging in wires!!
We will be filming May 15th, followed by editing, and then narrating voice over, and then editing again.
There is a long journey ahead of us!
The Lenny exercise was really great for us to practice being comfortable in our roles,and to minimize mistakes on the actual filming day.
One such mistake was made on my newly appointed part as a sound director.
The mixer was running on low battery and the levels at which they were reaching weren't very clear, but I was getting great sound through the headsets and decided to leave it as that. Smart move.
It sounded great on FCP..... until it was batch captured. Dismay.
So, mixer levels.Important.Duh.
We added sound for the drama of it all too.
Also, the actors were standing around for a good half of the time while we were setting up and figuring out how to go about shooting the scene. So we're going to have to be very prepared in advanced for the day itself for professionalism's sake. We definitely would be needing the extra hands on set or we'll really be fumbling with setting up and the process of it all.
We have to have a clear vision of the location and positions to avoid any unnecessary procrastination on shooting day.
So I realised I hadn't reflected at all on our group work or what we have acheived so far.
Firstly, we are going with Hugh Brophy's idea, the original one you can view on the class blog.
However, we have tweaked it here and there, to come up with an expanded and better version of it.
Here's the script.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scene 1: VO
Let me tell you a tale, of envy and woe
The tale of a boy, known only as Joe
A vulgar and ill mannered prick was he
At his funeral, his eulogy would simple read “whoopee”
A selfish and greedy ball bag of hate
he even stole money, from his little sister Kate
He worked in a building, made of stone and oppression
making others miserable, had become his obsessionIMAGE
Joe, a 20 something insurance consultant, is a predominantly despicable person. When he is first introduced, the audience is shown a brief montage of Joe’s favourite things to do. These activities include not holding elevator doors for people, giving small children the finger, and wiping his filthy hands on other peoples clothes.
Scene 2: VO
When Joe’s birthday arrived, you’ll be shocked to hear
no one had bought him any gifts that yearIMAGE
After the narrator has introduced Joe, a calendar, with a date circled and the words “MY BIRTHDAY” written on it, is shown hanging on Joes wall. When Joe arrives at work, he is shocked to find that no one has gotten him any gifts for his birthday, or even wish him a happy birthday as he walks in to the office.
Scene 3:
IMAGE
Joe sits at his desk, moping and mumbling to himself about how rude everyone else is and how they don’t care about him at all. He tries different ways to attract attention to the fact it is his birthday, he puts a party hat on himself, answeres his phone to a fake call and says out loud “thank you so much for the BIRTHDAY WISHES”, “I’ve had a great BIRTHDAY!” He keeps looking around to see if anyone has ntocied him, but all he realizes is how disinterested everyone else is and how his desk is isolated from everyone and everyone’s back is towards him.
Scene 4: VO
When he confronted his co-workers, one gave him a cup
when deep down, she really wanted to tell him to get f*#$edIMAGE
He angrily confronts his co-workers, who, surprisingly, aren’t very sympathetic. However, one of his co-workers generously gives him her coffee cup-which says world’s best mum- purely to appease him. And walks straight off leaving Joe standing there fuming with this coffee cup in his hand.
Scene 4: VO
Despite the nice gesture, Joe was not impressed
And he glared at his co-workers, with growing distress
His anger was rising, and he spat under his breath
“a curse on these fiends, f*&#ing a*%holes didn’t buy me any f*&$ing presents”.
A bad rhymer and even worse sport
Joe decided “I’ll steal all their s*%t without being caught”.IMAGE
Joe does not appreciate the gesture, and rather than changing his ways, decides instead to teach the rest of his office a lesson by stealing all their belongings- or at least any he can get his hands on. When his co-workers head out to lunch, Joe seizes the opportunity to liberate their possessions for himself. He scours the office, stealing things as mundane as pens, as well as going so far as attempting to steal chairs and appliances. He even steals pictures of family members, pushes papers off their tables..
Scene 5: VO
Satisfied with his office looting
Joe gets into the lift hootingBut like any good steal
Making an easy escape is not part of the deal
IMAGE
Joe puts all his ill-gotten goods into a large sack (a sheet filled with empty boxes), and squeezes into the elevator, heading down to the ground floor. As he struggles to pull the sack out the door, it breaks, and a few items tumble out.
Scene 6: VO
And just as he thought he had committed the perfect crime,
His co workers were in the lobby waiting in line.
No explaining would justify Joe’s actions,
And the cake his friends had bought him, just missed his face by fractions
Poor, old, Joe, got what he deserved,
But not what he wanted, which was just to be lurved.IMAGE
He turns to gather them up, only to find that his colleagues have returned from lunch and have witnessed his thievery. As he begins to splutter excuses, the woman who gave him the cup walks up to the camera and appears to knock Joe out cold.
Or
The lift opens and all their belongings come tumbling out and all his co-workers are standing there with a birthday cake for him in their hands with candles.. and they all stand there awkwardly for a minute in silence then ends or they chuck the cake in his face. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The words highlighted in red are the voice overs in the scene and the image is what the actors would be actually acting out.
We waned to do it following a Dr Seuss "The Grinch" style. However, we decided that it being a big production, and us being on a tight budget, we would not set that expectations to meet it exactly and panic when it flops to be something far from it, but rather, incoporate elements from films we like to make it our own.
This tropfest piece, 'bubble boy' is something to similar to ours in regards to the piece being mainly around the narrational voice over.
My groupmates thought that this piece was slightly too draggy though, being 6 minutes of non stop narration and images instead of scenes at times.
Hence, we want to mix it up with narration, and the actors actually reciting words or lines so that it would not be too mundane.
We're still in the process of getting it all to make sense, so... keep watching this space!
This week was all about working with the camera.
Learning how to zoom, white balance, the camera iris, and the different camera functions in tut.
As the 'camera person' of my group, I have to say, I'm rather overwhelmed by my responsibilities.
We did a practise exercise trying to film a Lenny scene, and my group helped with my fidgeting of the camera, but the end result was quite pathetic, prompting us to rent out the camera on a practise basis before we actually get down to any filming.
Sound is going to take some work too, with all the wires and knobs. Thank goodness, 4 brains are always better than one!
From last week to thsi week, importance was placed on the frame.
Be it a wide shot, a mid shot, a deep or shallow shot, it was up to us to decide what kind of shot inside a frame would best capture the emotion and character of the scene we were shooting.
"Whatever is in the frame is all there is. There is nothing else." (Oumano, 2985)
Drawn from the week 5 reading, it helps us understand the importance and emphasis we place on a frame. Why we draw out story boards in preparation for a shot, etc. It tells us to play with the frame, to play around with the space of the frame to our advantage. It tells us that due to real life situations we expect things to be a certain way in real life, but with frames, we can play around with that to cause suspense or relief in a movie.
As a camera person, I will have to master these different techniques to suit what we will decide in a group to do.
This is a useful list I have found to help me with working the camera.
Basic Camera Moves
As with camera framing, there are standard descriptions for the basic camera moves. These are the main ones: Pan: The framing moves left & right, with no vertical movement. Tilt: The framing moves up & down, with no horizontal movement. Zoom: In & out, appearing as if the camera is moving closer to or further away from the subject. When a shot zooms in closer to the subject, it is said to be getting "tighter". As the shot zooms out, it is getting "looser". Follow: Any sort of shot when you are holding the camera (or have it mounted on your shoulder), and you follow the action whilst walking. Hard to keep steady, but very effective when done well.
Different Kind of Shots
extreme wide/long shot (subject is not visible, used as an establishing shot)
very wide/long shot (subject visible, but emphasis is still him in his environmenmt)
wide/long shot (subject in the full frame)
mid shot (shows a part of the subject, but impression on him as a whole subject)
medium close up
close up (certain feature or part of subject takes up whole frame)
extreme close up (shows extreme detail on that part, gets right in)
cut in (shows other parts of the subject in detail)
cut away (shows a shot of something other than the subject)
two shot (shot of two people, framed as a mid shot)
over the shoulder shot (looking from behind the subject)
noddy shot (shot of the interviewer listening and reacting to the subject)
point of view shot (shot from subject's perspective)
weather shot (for, wait for it.. the weather! Can also be used for the background of shot)
I think the point of view shot and over the shoulder shot would sound different from a typical shot and rather interesting to film.
This is just a video describing the different kinds of shots I went through previously in visual detail.
This week we're doing sound.
Sound is a vital composition of a movie. It is usually understated, yet it pulls the entire movie together.
For example,
when you hear this
you inevitably think of, jaws.
And who has never heard this one,
Sound can make or break a film.
You can have a blockbuster but without the right sound, its like toast without butter.
It creates atmosphere, and allows the audience to be part of the movie.
Hence, it is a crucial part of film making and definitely not a component to be left out!
Me,myself and I
Open on a man grocery shopping. He is pushing a trolley fast with a hat covering most of his face and his body hunched. Somebody comes up to ask him directions and he jumps and then shakes him off. He leaves his groceries, visibly shaken at the encounter and goes home.
When he’s at home, the doorbell rings and again, we see him jump.
It is the postman who greets him with a smile. He grabs his mail and shuts the door on him as fast as he can. He then locks the multiple locks on his door and sighs in contentment on being alone.
“Alone at last” He turns on the tv and laughs at the screen heartily while stirring some stew.
“Bathroom” he says, holding his stomach and shuffling off to the bathroom. When he returns, the food is on a plate on the table, half eaten and the stove is off. He starts trembling.
“Is anybody here???” he voices out in fear. Nobody responses. The same thing happens the next day. He decides to record himself the following day and upon playing back the tape, he sees his own self eating the food and screams in disbelief at the discovery of his schizophrenia.
This is the synopsis for my short film idea.
I've replayed this to myself and I reckon it would work.
The beginning was supposed to make the idea of a man who's afraid of people come across to the audience.
He is only truly happy and shows happiness when he is by himself, think Scrooge.
So he becomes really fearful when he finds out someone's eating his dinner every night. So after the second night, he takes matters in his own hands only to realise that he is bipolar and has been doing this without realising it.
It was supposed to be a nice twist at the end and hopefully it'll come across as such.
After having my short story idea critiqued upon, I realised that I have not put much thought into the entire film. It seemed to be a problem most people stumbled upon based on the story ideas in the tutorials. I guess most of us brain stormed on 'story ideas' and not so much as to whether it would work out great as a 'short film idea'.
Christine suggested that the reason why most of us struggle with this was that we were exposed to long movies and weren't familiar with the structure and composition of short films because we didn't watch them as much.
I realised that this made a lot of sense and went home to watch some.
Be my brother
This is my favourite of the lot.
There was a twist at the end which brought the story nicely together, and was quite unexpected.
At the same time, it deals with a deeper issue of the mentally challenged in the society and the social stigma they face daily.
So far, I've seen a variety of short films, some comical and lighthearted and others having a more serious tone. There are many different genres of short films out there which somewhat surprised me initially. Yet as they are so short, if you miss a part of it, it would be hard to catch on with whats going on in the film.
Back to the topic of my short film idea. Zee gave me a really good suggestion which helped to pull my entire film story together and make it plausible as a film. Credits to him!
I'll be going along with that idea, and will post an updated version on this space soon!
When I was 5 to 6 years old, not considered a baby anymore but a child who was quite able to perceive her surroundings, I had a big birthday bash thrown by my parents. My entire class of preschoolers were invited, although I never exactly felt bonded in any of them in particular, children as such being in their own world.
Anyway, my parents invited entertainers to come entertain the little kids so the adults could take a break to chit chat. They included a magician, dancers, clowns, and people dressed up in costumes of different cartoon characters.
I still remember vividly, when I set my eyes on the clowns with the exaggerated makeup and costumes, and the cartoon characters which I knew too well were not the real ones I saw on telly, boy did I bawl my eyes out. There was always something sinister to me about the painted faces or costumes with smiles, as I would always know it was fake and wonder who was behind that get up.
Having to come up with a storyline by tonight, I tried turning to the course guide for some help and inspiration.
A script was available on the online digital dossier entitled 'Clown Train'.
The synopsis of it was basically a boy who woke up to find a clown in his full get up sitting right in front of him.
He tried to make conversation with the clown only to realise that the clown had a sinister twist to him.
It doesn't surprise that this particular story sent chills down my spine and left plenty to the imagination of the same 5 year old girl 13 years ago.
People doing out of the ordinary things makes for a good short film.
Because trust me, people can be pretty boring.
And so, think up these out of the ordinary things is what I must do in order to be a good film writer.
I enter film TV1 with much trepidation having no experience in this field at all.
Hopefully, I'll leave more knowledgeable, with my eyes to the world of film and drama opened.
And so begins my journey to the path of enlightenment.
Open on a man grocery shopping. He is pushing a trolley fast with a hat covering most of his face and his body hunched. Somebody comes up to ask him directions and he jumps and then shakes him off.
He leaves his groceries, visibly shaken at the encounter and goes home.
When he’s at home, the doorbell rings and again, we see him jump.
It is the postman who greets him with a smile. He grabs his mail and shuts the door on him as fast as he can. He then locks the multiple locks on his door and sighs in contentment on being alone.
“Alone at last”
He turns on the tv and laughs at the screen heartily while stirring some stew.
“Bathroom” he says, holding his stomach and shuffling off to the bathroom.
When he returns, the food is on a plate on the table, half eaten and the stove is off.
He starts trembling.
“Is anybody here???” he voices out in fear.
Nobody responses.
The same thing happens the next day.
He decides to record himself the following day and upon playing back the tape, he sees his own self eating the food and screams in disbelief at the discovery of his schizophrenia.
This is the synopsis for my short film idea.
I've replayed this to myself and I reckon it would work.
The beginning was supposed to make the idea of a man who's afraid of people come across to the audience.
He is only truly happy and shows happiness when he is by himself, think Scrooge.
So he becomes really fearful when he finds out someone's eating his dinner every night. So after the second night, he takes matters in his own hands only to realise that he is bipolar and has been doing this without realising it.
It was supposed to be a nice twist at the end and hopefully it'll come across as such.