Week 8

I decided to give myself the first week of the break off to relax which was lovely. I saw my family and friends and enjoyed Easter and went to Melbourne and Bendigo which was all good fun.

Came back to uni on the first Saturday because Tez, Kitty and I had the photography studio booked for the Monday and Tuesday. We needed the studio to complete Assignment 2 for PHT220 and we thought if there were 3 of us sharing it, it wouldn't look so bad to have it for two full days, this also allowed for us to help each other with composition, moving lights, holding up bounce cards etc. and we chose these two days so we knew we would have a few days to touch them up in Photoshop and submit them for printing allowing the 5 working day turnaround for printing. It was all about managing our time effectively.

Not long after this I developed an extremely painful toothache and after a spending the weekend not being able to move managed to get into a dentist and be told I need a root canal done which they started then and there. Good bye more money! Because of the pain I was in no work was completed for any subject really, though I did watch quite a few movies which I can write about for my journal in COM123 so I guess my time of sickness was not completely wasted.

In the week I had off I got myself up to date with my journal entries from the previous term's movies we had to see weekly at the cinema. I also updated this blow with things I had left out by accident. Both of which I did in my down time because they weren't too strenuous to complete and I also felt guilty for taking time off which is not a good thing either.

In the third week I concentrated mainly on my MPI303 documentary on dancing. I started with the footage of Marty and cut together the footage in Premier including titles and freezing the section of footage I wanted to write on. I then attempted to make it look stop motion like and was not happy at all. A fellow student saw what I was trying to do and suggested After Effects. After playing around for awhile I decided that I was happy with how the stop motion was looking with either of my attempts in Premier and After Effects. I feel I was hasty in emailing Jenny and asking her if I could put this down to mistake learned from which she said was fine. However I think it was a bad idea to be working on it so late at night when I was tired because the next day I had another look at it and decided I was really happy with the After Effects stop motion look and wanted to run with it.

I then thought about stylising and the same student also gave me the idea of using a graphics tablet and just drawing over the footage. After another quick run through of how to use layers and draw etc. with her I was set. All I can say is WOW! I love After Effects! It's just like Photoshop for footage!!!

I finished all the visual stuff for Marty's clip and moved on to choosing a song to put with it and I wanted something quite dancey and seeing as he is a Presets fan and I think what he was dancing to originally was a newer Presets song I decided to choose an older one that we both love called Are you the one?, which I edited to fit the clip in Garage Band.

My plan is to continue to have each dancers clip black and white, make it stop motion look in After Effects and then draw over the top with a different colour for each dancers. This makes it stylised and connects them all still.

I moved on to editing Alana's footage and going through it all in Premier I couldn't work out why it looked so crap and my filming was so off and I managed to crop so much of her head and arms out. I didn't know what was going on so I imported Emmas footage to see if that was any better and low and behold it was worse, I couldn't work out how I had managed to crop her head of in every take I had of her.

After a massive freak out and not being able to get hold of anyone that might know I felt I just had to continue on with what footage I had, because there was no way I could re-shoot. In the Tom whose camera I filmed with called me and I told him how stressed I was because it had all gone so horribly wrong and he told me it sounded like I had imported it incorrectly. I went back and sure enough I had chosen the wrong project file to import in so everything had been zoomed in on and then I was left with better footage and everything felt better!

I was later showing the clip of Marty to someone and they said that it was interlaced and this required me to go back in to Premier, export without interlace, which in this time someone else had asked me why was I working in 720 by 576 and then convinced me it should be bigger and then I couldn't make it bigger because I was exporting as an AVI file and I got another friend who is a Proddie to come and help me export it bigger without interlace and we couldn't work it out so I ended up just leaving it that size and exporting with no interlacing.

Then it was importing it all again into After Effects and I had to work out how to copy the effects over to this new one which took some time and more people helping and then at some point I lost 2.10 seconds of the original cut I had which then required me to move individually all the brush strokes in the layer effects over.

Now the music goes longer then the footage and I do not want to cut it down because I have it finishing on a good spot so my plan is too hold the frozen frame for longer, this allows you to read the writing for longer as well as the fact there are no effects after this point so I won't have to shift any pf them over to make them appear in the appropriate spot. I am still working out appropriate music for Alana's clip.

This was the first week back for this term and I couldn't go to class because I became sick, which is very unfortunate but my lecturers were very forgiving and OK with this and luckily my Photography assignment was done so I got Tez to submit it with my medical certificate.

I also had been quite stressed out over the holidays and this week with trying to organise to go on Exchange. I have been having a difficult time getting hold of the right people to answer questions as well getting people to approve things and as of this week 8 it looks like I won't be going any more because I cannot find a third subject to be credited for whilst I am over there, and it's very stressful having to nag people all the time and not knowing the outcome and I am frankly over some people's behavior. I am clutching at straws at the moment and if this last attempt for help fails I am defiantly out, which has made me feel very down and unmotivated.

It was all very dramatic and although it might not seem like I did much over the holidays, I had to teach myself more about Premier, learn After Effects and battle being sick. I think in hindsight listening to too many people and being tired and working late are not good combination. I have learnt a lot from these experiences and hopefully now I know what I could expect it won't happen on the next clips. Also I can understand how a blow of disappointment can make you feel unmotivated and that you need to continue with things no matter what, which I am slowly working on doing. I know what I have to do and now I need to get myself motivated to do it.

Week 4

On Sunday I filmed Marty and Liam. I did this outside the council office and library in Wagga Wagga. This was the only place out of the four I applied for that the council gave me permission to film at. The others were carparks and alley ways throughout Wagga but apparently the council won't give permission for any filming in such places because it doesn't comply with the RTA road rules.

So because I only had the one place to film I thought I would try and make it look like two separate places. I filmed Marty first in front of some bushes and shrubbery that I thought would be nice and look like a different location just beside the council buildings. Filming Marty was a bit difficult because he was the only one out of my dancers with no training what so ever and there fore he was shy dancing in such a public place with many people we knew from university driving past. It took a bit to get him moving and he also kept asking for lots of direction which I didn't feel prepared for, I think I went in a little blind being like I'll film, they'll dance, Marty kept asking what else did I want him to do and its a little difficult when you don't know what moves are called let alone what he is capable of. I didn't want to push him so far that he was really uncomfortable and I didn't want him to do anything he didn't want to. 

Marty was lucky that he had some music to dance to from Liams phone which unfortunately died soon after as this helped him keep time a lot better and being the lesser dancer of the day was a good tool to have. Also looking at the footage later Marty would some times talk while he was dancing which is not good when you take away the audio that was recorded and just look at the footage it is very distracting.

Liam is a very good dancer, I think he is self taught but he's had years of acting experience and has a confidence about him that really shows. Also him being a Proddie helped with following my direction a lot easier.

I really appreciated Liam being able to help explain and demonstrate and provide some ideas for Marty and was willing for Marty to "bounce" of him, like boosting himself with Liam dancing behind the scenes.

I filmed Liam right outside the buildings and he was really good, the only downside was that he had hurt his ankle the night before and was slightly limited to what he could do and I was not prepared to have him injure it further and asked often if he would like to stop or have a break, so many breaks were had which was perfectly fine it just made filming take longer.

As said earlier Liam didn't have any music to dance to as his phone had died by this stage but he was perfectly fine to bust out some terrific moves. I also did some filming of Marty and Liam working together walking/dancing down the steps which looked cool but I am unsure how to work that into my film.

Monday I organised my week so I would be prepared.

I showed the footage I shot on the weekend in class on Tuesday and Jenny didn't like Martys at all, she said it needed to be an arty background not shrubs and bushes that swayed and looked like they grew out of his head and that we needed to be able to see all his body. This was quite confusing for me as we had previously said that I should film up close and far back and this is what I had tried to do and what I was showing was only a tiny bit of what I had filmed which the rest did contain full body shots. Other class members gave me feed back as well, particularly the Proddies saying things like I had too much head space etc. and I tried to take everything in that was said to improve the next shoot.

For Liam's footage Jenny was a bit happier because the background was more what she was wanting though again told me she wanted to see more full body shots and questioned why his feet were missing from the shot etc. 

Again I took all that was said in an felt I could work with Liams footage but I should re-shoot Marty's but it would have to wait for a few weeks until I had organised filming of the others. I explained I was going home on Wednesday and was planning to film Alana on Thursday and go to Melbourne on Friday to film Caroline. I wasn't going to bother seeking council permission in either place as I didn't think I would get caught in any way, it's not like Wagga council who are on the look out for students filming - I really think Wagga council should be a lot more helpful towards the uni!

Wednesday night I managed to get a Shepparton councilor to help me get approval for filming the next day - mum luckily is friends with half the board and what's a small town without doing favours for friends! I was dealing with someone quite high up for the approval and by Lunchtime Thursday I had permission to film and was told I "Shouldn't have even bothered to get permission as we had forgotten we even had a policy on this, you should have just gone ahead and filmed!" This was strange to hear after the run around I had with the Wagga council and how every single person I spoke to on the Wagga council repeatedly told me " In future you are meant to give 5 working days notice" it was a vast contrast!

Alana is trained in a few disciplines but is an amazing ballerina and won a scholarship for her dance school a few years ago. I wanted to make sure this time I had plenty of footage in as many locations as possible so I wouldn't have the same issues as this week. I also wanted to give her as much direction as possible so told her to have a few different leaps and twirls and just to repeat them over and over as I would be filming from different angles and up close and far away.

Firstly I filmed Alana in front of a corrugated iron shed on her family's farm. This was difficult because in the background cars constantly went past and in front of the shed where she needed to dance were wooden stumps in preparation for an extension, however it was different.

We then went further down her property and I filmed her by the windmill. This would have been cool but I couldn't do up close shots as well because you lost the sense that she was next to a windmill. Alana performed some beautiful moves, leaping and twirling across the screen which were amazing. Again though there were trees in the background. I felt the very far away shots looked cool as if she was entirely alone.

We then moved down into the dry creek bed below the windmill and in some parts it has boulder or rock walls which I thought would be an interesting background. However the creek bed is sandy which is quite difficult for a ballerina to jump on and perform point work or any twirls as she just sank and lost her footing in the sand.

We ventured into Shepparton to film at the locations I had permission for. The first was a bridge over the river. It probably looked cooler in my head but it was still nice and she could use the handrail as a bar like in the dance studio which meant she could perform a lot more point work up on her toes.

Problems with this location were the bridge actually moved and bounced with each movement, which I was concerned would show up too much on film. The bridge had trees hanging over it slightly which concerned me with Jenny's previous concerns. Also I never realised how often the bridge was actually used, we had to stop numerous times because people came right into frame whilst crossing the bridge.

I had permission to film with the empty lake in Shepparton in the background but I hadn't realised that the council had started dredging it so there were bobcats and constructions fences and tape up in the middle of the lake which really didn't make for a nice background nor did the grotty bits that hadn't yet been touched by the council.

The last location I had permission to film was on top of this green grassy knoll right next to the lake which is a fairly big contrast! I got Alana to go on the top of the knoll and I stayed at the bottom with the camera angled up. The grass was bright green and the sky was vividly blue so that was a nice contrast as well. Alana did many twirls and leaps across the screen and many jumps and upper body movements all which I could film far away and up close. It was a great location!

Filming Caroline was a little more difficult because I didn't have time to get the council approval so Jenny had suggested filming as much on private land as possible. I came up with two locations the first being our vacant block in the outer suburbs of Melbourne and the second was my cousin's place in the centre of Melbourne that has so much over growth of plants and trees (all carefully landscaped!) including a 200 year old chimney from when this property was a farm as well as apartments strewn throughout the property.

I chose to use my cousins place first, I picked Caroline up from La Trobe University in Bundoora. I explained what the assignment was about and what the others had danced and the moves they had done and again explained how it would be fairly repeatitive as I did different angles and zoomed in and out. She decided to create a dance routine to perform so it would be the same each shot.

We first filmed on the winding path throught the property this was difficult as it is made with cobble stones and I didn't want her to roll her ankle. There are some wooden parts so we attempted to keep the dance as much as possible on this. I also gave her guidelines on where she would be out of frame. Again though there are bushes everywhere and the camera does not give the garden justice.

We moved on to a more squarish courtyard section which I filmed from up top in the raised garden, the major issues again were trees hanging and getting in the way and a barbecue in the corner that I did not want in frame. Also the communication between Caroline and myself about what actual style I wanted her to perform was lacking. I couldn't get across to her that I wanted a more jazz or broadway style rather than her hip hop style routine.

Then the idea came up of filming in the inside pool. We scoped it out and I filmed from one side and Caroline danced on the other side against a rocky wall. She altered her routine to include more jazz and broadway type dance moves which also included twirls acorss the frames and the whole thing had a Mission Impossible feel to it which could be the music I choose to use. The downside was there wasn't much light inside the pool room. I was able to do upclose shots of just the wall showing and some floor then further back ones where it had the pool in frame. Filming here was good as we could better make use of the where was in frame and where wasn't and there wasn't as much OH&S where she could roll her ankle.

I made use of my time in Melbourne and went to Federation Square on Saturday as there was a Multicultural Festival on for Diversity Week and I thought this would be good to photograph for my first photography assignment of Documentary Photography. It was heaps of fun and I got some good shots, I didn't bother asking for permission from most people because then they pose and that looks contrived, it felt more real to capture them doing what they were doing without them knowing I was photographing them. I really enjoyed doing this assignment and it was made easier by my friend Michael Brereton coming with me and caring my camera bag and handing me different lenses when I needed them as well as being a second pair of eyes for me!

Two photos I took I was ecstatic with of a big dark women with a bright yellow headdress against the bright blue city sky dancing to the African band playing and it looked amazing and just after I took the second shot she saw me and came up and made me delete the photos I had just taken. I couldn't hear what she was saying because of the band but I think it was something to do with her religion. Everyone said I should have just pretended to delete them but I felt bad and I was also a bit take aback by some one objecting that I did delete them.

Sunday I started work on my MPI304 Seminar. I didn't do much just made a master plan on what I was going to do my seminar on. I decided to do mine on Stop Motion and did a little research on the topic and thought I would:

• Define stop motion
• Brief description of American pioneer - Willis O'Brien
• Brief description of European pioneer - Ladyslaw Warwicz
• Bio on Tim Burton
• Include lots of clips to make my point

That was about all I did, creating the master plan but at least it gave me a starting point to look and research on these sections.

I feel this was a very productive week and I did make the most of my time and with doing as much in whatever location I was in for all my assignments.