Week 6

Well over the weekend I attempted my first rough edit. I chose to use the footage of Liam to see if the footage I did have really was usable. Took a bit to sort through all of it but I did put an edit together that wasn't too bad. I had to play around a fair bit with culling out parts that were too long, then I tried to speed up certain sections, I put in a couple of transitions and cuts that I felt worked, as well as freezing a frame (copying and pasting the still over and over again) where the text would eventually go for his answer to why he dances. However the freezing frame getting going jittery and the section just before it was freezing as well but I couldn't get a good look at why because my computer was lagging massively! I defiantly need to work in the Animation Lab to make sure lagging doesn't happen again! Then I turned it into black and white as we had talked about the week before.

Jenny wasn't excited by what I had done but she wasn't upset or anything she could just tell it really was a working rough edit but at least I had started and put what we had talked about into practice. She said similar things to what I thought of cutting it down to only a small amount necessary and speeding sections up, and working more with colour grading. She says it needs a lot of work done to it.

I also still need to work out the timing so it has a stop motion look so that it continues to keep with my original idea even if it's done in a different manner.

I also mucked around in Photoshop with the different text fonts I would use for titles and the question part of the documentary. This is what I created:

In class we all decided the last black strip with white writing would be appropriate for my film for titles and asking the question "I dance because..."

On Thursday I re-shot my footage of Marty. I had decided I wanted to use the corrugated wall outside New Residences on campus or by the corrugated shed just behind there. I also put in for permission to film at the amphitheater behind the council buildings. I couldn't be bothered to film in town so just stuck with my ideas for on campus which is lucky because I was denied by the council. According to the Proddies some students haven't been putting in the proper permission nor following the rules or allowing for enough processing time so they have suspended filming on council property by CSU students until further notice. I think this is really slack because CSU brings in a ridiculous amount of money for Wagga would it really be too much for the council to treat us nicely for once?!

Back to filming Marty he was a lot more relaxed in one sense because it wasn't public property but not in another because it was right next to an open area where many students live. He was dancing really well when someone we both knew decided to come over and watch and this made it awkward because she kept trying to put her two cents worth in for what he should be doing. I found this very frustrating and didn't know how to tell her to go away because our relationship is already tense. It was another learning curve for me to have to ignore an outsiders input as well as give direction in the way I wanted the filming to look. 

It ended up being quite good footage I feel and looking back over the first lot I did I can see that I have improved greatly myself camera wise as well as preparation for each shoot. Being prepared is a must for any assignment but particularly for practical ones as it makes the day run so much smoother and more quickly, another learning curve!

I did a little bit of work on my MPI304 seminar, put into order what I was going to say about each person in each section and where I would place clips and sourcing appropriate clips. Then it was finding appropriate sources on Ladyslaw Warwicz and Willis O'Brien much easier to look for information on O'Brien because he is American.

I finally got to show my photographs for PHT220 to Chris who really liked them which made me feel special for once because usually I'm told they will do and I could possibly use them where as this time Chris was quite complimentary which felt good! He picked out ones for me to use, and a few will need colour correction and cropping but nothing to hard. I am really enjoying this class.

For COM123 I had to see the film Milk which was fantastic. It's set in the 70's in San Francisco and is about Harvey Milk a gay rights activist and the first gay person to be in a government position. Really enjoyed watching this and would recommend it to everyone!

Also this week I had my COM123 first assignment due. It was an essay on the use of Realism and Expressionism within films relating to ones we have watched in class as well as the ones we are assigned to see each week at the movies. I am fairly happy with what I produced I had lots of sources and I felt it made sense by giving lots of examples and I didn't leave sentences and ideas only half finished, so I am quite proud of myself. Fingers crossed Fred thinks so!

Update on me going on exchange to America, well I've been accepted by CSU and have been given a Vice Chancellors grant which is rather lovely! I managed to catch up with Jamie who is one of my course coordinators and he was happy to sign off on the Photography subject I want to take over in the States. Getting hold of Johannes is more difficult he wants me to provide in writing why the two subjects I need him to approve are suitable substitutes to for the subjects I would be taking here that outline workload and content etc. I've emailed Louise who is CSU's exchange program coordinator and she has emailed Leo the Western Illinois liaison for me and I am now awaiting reply for what I am to put in writing for Johannes because I have no idea what each subjects fully entails, I barely no what the ones I am taking over here entail!

Week 5

I showed in class on Tuesday the footage I had shot over the weekend of Alana and Caroline, I just put a quick edit of the different locations together of each dancer. Jenny wasn't happy at all with the footage of Caroline she questioned whether I had listened to her the previous week and it really did not make me feel good. I had listened and had tried to take on board what everyone in the class had told me - feet were included, more full body shots, less head space etc. I think Jenny's big qualm was the fact that I filmed with trees and bushes in the background again particularly in parts where they got in Caroline's way and I can see why she was upset with me.

She seemed quite happy with the footage shot in the indoor pool and said that was better but I think it might have been it's not fantastic but it's better than the other footage. However we came up with the idea that if I used the outdoor footage of Caroline her text could be I dance because... I like to escape. As in she escapes to the jungle in the middle of the city.

Alana's footage she was much happier with particularly the part shot on the grassy knoll and she even applauded me on this.

Overall she said I was going to need to do a lot of colour grading on all the footage and would like to see me one on one to show me which I was happy about.

On Thursday I filmed Emma dancing, she is also trained in many disciplines but we decided she would do more of a contemporary style. I decided to film against the bright blue wall of the New Residences on campus as it was plain and simple and couldn't move!

Emma came up with a bit of a routine and some flowing dance moves and explaining to her what I wanted was made easier because she is a dancer as well as a Proddie and she had a good grasp on what I wanted! She was going to be the easiest person to film thus far. However the first problem was the camera hadn't charged over night the cord must have fallen out so we only had 10 minutes of battery which meant stopping and re-charging and the second problem was the day got cloudier and cloudier and then whilst filming again it started to spit. I used a pizza box I found on the ground to prevent the camera from getting wet but then we decided Emma was getting too many water marks on herself and the continuity would be lost.

Another break and the clouds and rain cleared up and a brilliant sun came out, this was good and bad. Good for the obvious of no rain and nice weather, bad because it was so much brighter that the continuity was well and truly lost. Still the footage of Emma was really good.

Friday I met Jenny in the computer labs to learn about colour correction. We imported some footage I had filmed into Premier and she showed me where the tools were to fix the colour and basically it is like doing the Levels on photographs in Photoshop which I know how to do! Jenny though wanted to blow out the contrast and play about with extreme colour or even black and white to give it a more artsy look. I hadn't realised this is what she had envisioned for my work. I wasn't keen on blowing out the contrast but I was not opposed to making it black and white but I was a little down because the bright colour in Alana and Emma's footage I thought was great!

We worked out that I needed to start my rough edits where I would:

• Edit footage together including space for titles
• Play with timing- speed it up and create stop motion look
• Implement colour correction
• Export from Premier 
• Import into After Effects
• Create hand written text with graphic tablet within frozen frame of footage.

We also talked about music I might use and lately I've been listening to a lot of Fatboy Slim and Groove Armada which both she said were good choices.

I also sourced a few more text and clips for my MPI304 seminar as I wanted to get a head start. I worked out how I could get clips of You Tube to show using a website called Zamzar.com and sourced a few good websites on Tim Burton which included:

• http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000318/ 
• http://www.timburtoncollective.com/
• http://minadream.com/timburton/

The official Tim Burton website was rubbish because it's basically just to sign up to be on a Christmas mailing list there is no information at all on Burton. 

For COM123 this week we had to see the film Love the Beast it was interesting but the synopsis didn't give a full description and I didn't realise it would be a documentary about Eric Banna's love of his Ford GT Coup. The film follows him rebuilding his car and rally racing it and sourcing out famous opinions of Dr Phil, Jeremy Clarkson and Jay Leno about how his car was the campfire for him and his friends growing up as teenagers because they all worked on it together. Was a nice film and had a flow throughout it and the real footage taken from within his car when it crashed was scary and way to real for me as it stirred up old memories of my own crash. It was interesting but some times a little cliche. 

This week was not very eventful with the amount of work I did but that's OK sometimes you need to slow down a little bit.