Audio Editing and Colour Grading

The audio for my TVC was a little more tricky than I first thought it would be, as I wanted to superimpose sounds of race cars over the top of a boy playing with toy cars... this I think is ok but I may try and change the edit slightly so it becomes more apparent. A lot I am going to change the edit slightly to make the title stay for a longer amount of time at the end.

The colour grading I felt to keep it very natural but with strong colours, I also crushed the blacks a tiny bit and crushed the whites so the white mat looked cleaner. I also had to desaturate the colours to make the chroma levels legal.

The Wall

Pink Floyd The Wall 1982

Directed by: Alan Parker

Screenplay by: Rodger Walters

Animation Director: Roland Carter

The main themes of Pink Floyd The Wall were presenting the horrors of communism, the film uses animation with live action to give a disturbing picture of what the realities are are people living under corrupt governments. The film could be considered a surrealist film with its frequent use of things like marching hammers etc.

Films that have blown my mind

Films that have Blown my mind,

From early memory:

The CGI when I first saw Starwars episode 1, really impressed me

Another film that impressed me was The matrix

I think the difference then till now is that I was impressed with computer graphics, now I am impressed more with the story. However, If the film is different and I know more of the background n how they made it I am more impressed

From recent memory was Ben Hur this blew my mind because I found out before I saw the movie that all the work with the horses was real and not CGI:

Another movie that really impressed me was The Martian, which blew my mind with the detail that they went to get the movie scientifically accurate. 

Films with an uplifting effect

Films that evoked an uplifting effect: 

From early memory:

I found the battle speech scene in Braveheart to be uplifting. speaking against fear and reminding people why they are fighting.

And another was in Gladiator when the protagonist is asked his name, and he replies knowing who he is...

 

From recent movies:

I found the resolution scene when the dinosaur is reunited with his family, really inspiring.

Also, the resolution in Jack Reacher was very uplifting when the girl goes back to hug the protagonist the the end.

Commedic films

Films That have had a comedic effect:

From early memory:

Laural and Hardy

Shanghai Noon

I found that watching these films again I didn't find them as funny as I remember, I think as a child I preferred funny actions rather now I prefer movies that bring up awkward situations to bring abo ut a comedic effect.

Recent memory.

Just Go with it

Moms night out

Robocop Review

Robocop 1987

Directed by Paul Verhoeven

Other films by the same director: Total Recall 1990, & Starship Troopers 1997

The main themes in the movie robocop are about corruption and greed, also about AI technology being potentially dangerous. Considering the technology of the time the film was made I think that Robo cop was well made, obviously not as spectacular as CGI but none the less it still told the story.

I probably would not recommend this film as I find the main charicter unrelatable and almost completely void of emotion. I feel like they tried to make some kind of emotion but it had no resolution as we never met the wife and son, except in memory flashbacks.

The one shot vs TV coverage

Ok I learnt a lot about different shooting techniques...

One was about shooting for TV coverage.. this is shooting a scene about three times

First a wide shot covering all the action in the scene...

Then shooting close ups of each character to capture their expressions.

This is boring. and its the same on every show, its a fast way to get the coverage, but not original...

The other way is to plan out a shot and cover all the action so there is no need for any editing.

This really inspired me when watching the end scene of Children of men. that there was no obvious editing, and it made and it made for an amazing immersive experience.

This really inspired me to think differently about shooting and my approach to any specific scene. both in the way to shoot quickly with TV coverage. but also trying to capture the action with one shot in a creative way.

Shooting day debreif

Ok, It's time to do another debrief for me after the shooting day.
On the whole, it went pretty average...

One good thing is that the location was nice with good natural lighting...
But...

I didn't check the equipment before I left for the shoot... and the shoot was a long way away from town... and someone had taken the baseplate off the camera. So the only thing I could do after many failed attempts of resting the camera on toy boxes was to go handheld... so I tried a one-shot which actually worked. ( I think)

The other thing was that the microphone was stuffed... good thing I can do sound in post.

The other thing is that kids are very hard to get to stick to a script... but on the whole, I think the idea was captured in the free playing with the toys. (however the mum was camera shy so that part of the script was left out and replaced by my amazing one-shot!


The most important thing I learnt... check the equipment before leaving. and make scripts very simple if working with inexperienced kids...

Toy commercial preperation

Locations, My ideal location for the Toy Library commercial is in a modern clean living room with a nice white sofa and good light. these are the things I am looking for when location scouting.

Just like the following picture...

BUT!

I need a backup plan because most people with kids under 6 are not going to have a white sofa in their living room... and if they do it probably is not very white anymore...

So my ideas are to take white duvet to cover the sofa (as well as covering the floor) this way if I can't find a nice looking living room I can do a lot of close-up shots to get only the white duvet in frame and use a large aperture to give a very shallow depth of field.

So while location scouting I must keep in mind...

lighting placement,
wallpaper,
windows and color temp,
Framing for d.o.f.
Power points

Music video Self evaluation

Overall I think I was not really satisfied with the music video. There were some good parts but there was a lot I was not happy with.

Things I think I did well...

• I think the Yellow lanterns worked really well and added some visual interest to the video.
•  Some of the shots were interesting and I liked the way that they came out especially the dolly shots around the rose garden. 
• The editing worked well and I found a good way to do it efficiently that didn't take much time.
• For some of the shots, the colour grade worked really well.

Things I think I could have done better...

• Shoot more footage... I think I was worried too much about people helping on set being bored and getting tired that I didn't take the initiative to get the number of shots that I really wanted... or go over shots that were "just ok" and do them again to make then good. I really wish I did this better. This was probably the main problem I had that was in my control.

Things I wish had gone better...

• The biggest problem was that the talent was very uncomfortable in front of the camera... she did after a while loosen up and become less awkward but I think that was the biggest letdown... I wish I did more practice shots first and then more at the end when she was more comfortable.
• I asked the talent to not were black or white just colours or greys... so she came in a black cardigan over a white t-shirt...
• Makeup: I really wanted the talent to wear the bright yellow nail polish I gave her... she left it to the last minute and ended up taking it off before she came to the shoot as she said it was "a disaster". (I also just assumed all girls were good at applying nail polish... this is not the case as I found out.)
• The weather was a big problem for my shoot as I really wanted it to be cloudy... and this is not asking a lot in Invercargill... but the day we were scheduled to shoot it was raining then the next day was sunny... This had a big effect on the colour grade as I needed the high colour temp to oppose the yellow set design.

So I learnt a lot doing this production...

• Learning the Black magic was really good.
• Using the follow focus was a great help.
• Set design and wardrobe is really important but I will make sure I really drill it into the talent what to wear.
• Set a backup day in case of the wrong/bad weather
• Shoot more that needed... and don't be too worried (within reason) about taking too much time to get it right.