Out With The Old

As the year comes to an end, as does my work. Hence with that I have finished my personal project...the title:
Out With The Old
As stated before my idea was to do a piece around how we as humans have become so obsessed and dependent on technology. Over time I created this character called Jeffry. My idea became a story of his life, a classic slob who is crazy about getting the next big thing. He gets a new laptop, and falls in love with it..finally taking this love to far and getting caught.

Here is what I produced:



I used a lot of common devices to convey love and lust such as the cloudy effect and I used humor to make the piece enjoyable. I also made the music myself. I wanted a continuous track that changed with the story so I wrote the music to the edit of the film and then added a few extra string, piano and bass sounds on Garage Band.
In hindsight would have liked to have spent more time on this project. I could have produced something far more professional that what i have, in spite of this i am happy with the outcome. I feel it reflects the message i wanted it to and seems to be an enjoyable piece.

The ACM Gospel Choir

So after months of hard work we have finally finished editing the ACM gospel choir documentary...and due to some highly unforeseen circumstances it is now known as simply:
'The ACM Gospel Choir: The Man Behind The Music'
The process of filming went well, we got around three hours of footage for the editing stage and most of it was very relevant to the piece. On a trip up to a gig in Manchester I managed to get interviews with many choir members as well as footage of the choir rehearsing and chilling on the journey. All this was planned to help back up our narrative and add a lot of depth to the story.
However, not all goes as planned, and after waiting for weeks for the log and capturing process to work propperly we had finally managed to get it on to our machine only to find that the following day it had been deleted! Not only this but the tape with it all on had gone missing. We were at a lose end, we had lost more than half of the story and the cut-aways.
So our solution was simple, to use the footage of Marks De Lisser's interview (the choir leader) and make it a story of his journey. How the choir had come to be and where would it go.

And so we got the editing finished and here is the finished product:

ACM: The Man Behind The Music from Kirsty F on Vimeo.

There are a few things I would change if i were to go back and do this project again. Number one i would have chosen a much smaller project to do. The choir is a group of 29 individuals, each with their own agenda. Not just that, they are over 2 hours drive away and are very busy. It was a great idea but was a little out of the league for a student in the first year. Secondly I would have assigned specific jobs to each individual in the group. We reached a stage of working together where we either didnt know what to do or we wanted to do the same jobs. This made tensions grow between us, ever for students who are close friends. This made our work suffer.
All things concidered however i am very happy with the out come and would love to work with Kirsty and Mike again.

Go It Alone

We have been starting to focus on our individual projects since mid March. Since I have been concentrating on my group project (the ACM Gospel Choir Documentary) I have not had much time to work on my individual film.

My idea is simple, I plan to create a short feature on modern day life and how we have adapted to today's world of fast food, fast cars and super fast broadband!

I did some research on how the internet and social networking has changed our lives:
Daily Mail
Science Buzz
The Internet Today

I have come up with a basic script idea and am starting to storyboard it.
During the first lecture where we discussed our individual projects we were shown a few example videos. One that really stuck with me was called 'Terminal Bar'. It was very artistic and used stills and a voice over in a number of cleaver ways. It inspired me to do my film in black and white, in a Film Noir-esque way. I think this will give it a more professional look as well as helping me emphasize the message i am trying to convey.

...yes she can!

Finally the 'Ozzy Cook' show is finished! After a grueling editing period we have managed to get the instructional cooking video done. We found we had a problem with sound whilst editing. The footage we took was just too long and so when it came to editing it down we realized that the sounds of the food cooking and Rachel talking was jumping about with the cuts. Because of this we had to do a quick audio voice over for much of the video. This is one thing i would have like to have had more time to do as doing it quickly left the video looking messy and the panic over realizing we had to do it again made us rush the entire editing process.


Either way i am fairly happy with what we produced. For what was my first real collaborative video I feel we worked well as a team and got the job done with a good portion of flare!

And so...Enjoy!

And they're off...

Monday the 8th March came and we had scheduled in the all important first full day of filming for the 'ACM Gospel Choir Documentary'. This is how it went:

I was already half way to Guildford on Monday morning as I had spent the weekend at home for a friends 22nd. I was up and eating breakfast (eggs and bacon on toast!) when Cornish Mike and Thirsty Kirsty turned up at around 11am. We downed a quick cuppa, discussed the plans for the day and got on our way to the ACM.

We got there with good time and got straight on the phone to Emily Lambros and Rikki Ancell, two members of the Choir who had agreed to be filmed rehearsing. This was when our first problem hit. Julia, the lady who we needed to approve the filming of the ACM building was off ill and so, after a long discussion, we were restricted to filming only in one of the practice rooms. This was an positive outcome yet it would have been good to get more footage of the ACM and what it is about.

We got our video of the guys practicing, asked them a few questions regarding Mark and the Choir then moved on to Emily's house. We considered filming some of her everyday life in Guildford but decided against it as we already had one hour of footage from the rehearsal alone! Once again, we hit the road...this time, destination London...

We arrived in Croydon just before 4pm. We had a chat about what we were going to do then went in. Having looked around we decided to film in Marks lounge as the lighting was best, it was a more relaxed environment and the sound was better (no echos etc). We spent an hour and a half filming our interview with Mark and even got his wife, Tracy, to answer a few questions.


We hit the road for the last time at about 5.30 and, after escaping the London rush hour traffic made a quick return back to Bath. All in all it was a great day filming and I'm very happy we made the extra effort to go all that way as it will add so much more depth the the documentary...

Storyboard Friday

Friday the 5th March brings preparation for the following weeks filming. Mike has presented us with a script. It is our challenge to go through the script, pick out what we feel are the 'beats', use these as our stills.

We went through our script and chose the 'key moments' we wanted to use for our story board. When we had made our final decisions we headed up to our filming location (the sports changing rooms!). With our camera and took stills of each beat and wrote down what kind of shot is was and what was happening in the scene.

When this was finished we took this information and put it into Celtex:


Following this we decided to use Quicktime Pro make a slide show of our storyboard. This helps us to see just exactly what the shots will look like when edited together:

Sheila Cooks?

We have been set another assessment: Make a 3 minute long instructional cooking video.

The key points of this project are that it is to be aimed at students who are interested in learning how to cook healthy meals for a cheap price. I was put in a group with the simply fascinating Rachel, Mandy and Keiran. We had the idea of cooking a simple veggie curry as this appeals to all people, curry being the nations favorite dish of course!
We looked through our recipe and picked out the important points and the timing. We then did a rough story board of what shots to use and where. We wanted to add a splash of humor to the piece, and so we decided to do it in the style of a Nigella-esque Australian student cook...sounds bizarre but believe me it worked! Not only does it look good and induce humor, it also made our presenter (Rachel) much more comfortable in front of the camera.

The problems we faced were few...the most obvious being timing. We have been used to taking our time over filming, allowing take after take until we get the perfect shot. When it comes to filming cooking however we have a time limit. We have to follow the recipe exactly and hence the food controls the time. For example we had the rice cooking while we cut up the veg and prepared the sauce...before we knew it the rice was getting close to over cooking and we went ready!

We are currently in the editing phase of the process, we hope to have the finished video ready by next Wednesday.

More work with the Z1...

This lecture brings another chance to practice with the better cameras available... except this time we get to work with the audio equipment as well!
We decided to set up a small, very fake, interview. We asked Rachel to be the interviewer and Chloe to be the interviewee. They then came up with a short script about holidays.

The equipment we used is known as a 'boom mic'. Once we had set the levels and got the mic in a good position we were ready to film.
We got many different shots, the standard over the shoulder, close ups and wide angles. It was interesting working wit a sound man for the first time. It adds another variable to the mix. Something else for the camera man and the director to worry about. Like getting good quality sound requires the mic to be fairly close to the subject, but that limits what camera angles we can use.

This is what we produced:

I was happy with what we had produced. It is quite clearly an amateur production but the focus was on the audio, which i feel is fairly consistant throughout. I would have liked to have chosen a bigger space to film in as we had problems getting all the angles...especially as we were using the fairly large Sony Z1!

ACM Gospel Choir Documentary - Continued

Unfortunately I was unable to attend Tuesday the 23rds session. However Mike and Kirsty made a draft of Important scenes to include in our project:

Scenes to include

• Markde Lisser interview - spilt into 2/3 sections
• Mini interviews with choir members - Interspersed
  
• Rehearsal footage
  
• Performance footage
• BBC Archive footage

Interview Q's/Points to cover

• Why you started choir?
• What you ask from members?
• What message you have?
• Any difficultly/struggles and how you have overcome them?
• What is the future?

Act One

• Archive
• Past Tense/establishing interview Q's
  
• Intro to choir and location
• Intro to some elements of conflict/struggle

Act Two

• Interview Q's with Mark about personal life
• Quotes from members about struggles/other commitments
• Some rehearsal footage

Act Three

• Looking to future
• Message of ACM
• Reflection on successes
• Summary interview Q's
• "Live" footage

OH MY GOD!

To finish off this project we were asked to group together with another team and edit our two 'Oh My God' videos together and then film an ending.

We teamed up with Ant, James and Ester and decided to go for a comical ending as it went well with my ridiculous acting.

Here is our Final Edit:

OH MY GOD! from James Harris on Vimeo.

There are a few nice edits we added, that i feel highten the humor. For example the slow motion effect when I drop the phone. My problem is that the two seperate projects dont really relate to each other at all. Individually they work well but put together they just leave the audience confused. That said I feel for a short 3 day project we have produced a good final product.

Day Project: Continuity Editing

This task follows on from our previous lecture about crossing the line. We given a very simple set of stage directions and asked to make a short video following someone running to something in a panic. The title was:

OH MY GOD!?

I was chosen to be the subject. I had to look concerned about something i had seen or heard on my phone and then run from camera right to camera left throughout every shot untill i got to my final destination.

Here is what we created:

Looking back at it there are a number of shots which I would have like to have done again. There is one in particular just after i have jumped over the rocks where the sun is almost completely blinding the camera. I think we should have changed that to be just a still shot looking in direction i was running, with a slight angle. That I aside the film flows fairly nicely and we didnt make any mistakes in terms of crossing the line.

The ACM Gospel Choir Documentary

We have all been doing small bit of research in the last few days for this project. We all felt we needed to get a full understanding of the choir and what they are about. Kirsty looked into the BBC Last Choir Standing website. There was one video on there she found "particularly useful". The video focused on the choir Musical Director Mark De Lisser. Not only was it made in a very similar style to what we wanted to achieve but it focused on Mark, someone we believe could be the backbone behind our documentary. I phoned Mark, asking why he started the choir and how had he found the journey so far...the ball seemed to be rolling!

The Pitch

Tuesday came and it was time for us to head over to Paintworks in Bristol and Pitch our idea to their team. Unfortunately however I was unable to attend. The choir had been asked to go to the ITV studios and be involved in a show called Ultimate Movie Toons. We decided as a group that it would be beneficial not only for me but for the project if I went along, took and camera and did some field research.

I helped make a simple power point presentation for the pitch:

For this we used Google Docs.

Its a shame I wasn't at the pitch, I felt bad that I had left Mike and Kirsty to do it alone when it had been my idea all along! In spite of this i know they did a great job.

Thrown in at the deep end:

Group Project - Initial ideas

We have been set our group project. The task is simple; produce a video between 5-8 mins long in groups of three. We were given the brief and then left a 3 days to come up with an each. We then had to pitch this idea to the class in the hope that two others would want to be involved.

My initial idea was simple. As a member of the ACM Gospel Choir I felt it was a obvious choice to make a documentary based on us. I am passionate about music so the subject is something I love and over the last two years we have been through many ups and downs as a collective.
I managed to get into a group with Kirsty Fraser and Cornish Mike. This is great news as I get on well with them and they both have a big interest in music.

Here is our rough treatment:

We intend to make a documentary following the progress of the ACM Gospel Choir. To Tell the story we will have one on one interviews as well as live footage of the choir, to show the progress we will also contrast the footage by using some archive material and some from BBC.
Though we will not neccessarily have one story running throughout, the choir itself are the spine of the documentary and the use of a voiceover will also help hold the piece together.
the ACM Choir are based in Guilford, Surrey and rehearse and perform regularly including featuring on BBC One#s Last Choir Standing in Summer 2008. Their development has been quite rapid and this is what we aim to give an insight on within the documentary.
Another aspect we will focus on is to look at particular members of the choir who have their own side projects, this will also give an insight on the struggle to become professional, successful musicians.
We will go to Guilford to film rehearsal process and also go to one or more of their gigs to get a good range of footage. In terms of how we film it we will use traditional documentary style filming but will also include some backstage hand held camera footage to add a personal touch (in the form of video diary) as well as contrast.

The ACM (Academy of Contemporary Music) is an school for rock and pop music based in Guilford. Learn more by going to the ACM website.

Pre-Production & Celtx

In this session we looked at some of the techniques behind the pre-production of filming a sequence. We looked at a car chase scene from the 1968 film 'Bullitt'. Our method was to deconstruct the scene, break it down into individual shots with a view to broadening our knowledge of how scenes such as this are put together and the thinking behind it.
To help us to this we used a application called 'Celtx'.
Celtx is a fairly simple program that is specifically designed to assist with pre-production:


"Celtx is the world's first all-in-one media pre-production system. It replaces 'paper & binder' pre-production with a digital approach that's more complete, simpler to work with, and easier to share."

quote from the website.


Crossing The Line:

When filming sequences such as chases or running there is one rule which stands above all; the '180 degree rule'
This rule, in its simplest form, states that when filming a number of shots following a moving subject, all camera angles should have the subject moving the same direction, i.e. camera left to camera right. This prevents our audience becoming confused with the action.


For the work we were put in groups. I was working with Mike and Kirsty. Here is an example of what we managed to achieve:



I have learned a lot from this exercise. Celtx can be used for more than just story-boarding and planning a scene, it can help to deconstruct and understand what we watch. My only issue with what we achieved was that because we were working on an older film the car chase was fairly slow. Although this made it easier for us as our first project of this type, I felt the sequence was too long...the process became repetitive and tedious.