As of this week and the coming weeks, I shall be getting my interviews edited for my May 15th (5/15) finished project deadline. Since I had a bit of a wacky schedule this last production week, I did not edit as much as I wanted for my Dr. Blanchard interview as I was hoping. To counteract this, my plan will be to have my interviews separately finished by the end of the next week. That means completing the rest of my Dr. Blanchard interview as well as doing my Mr. Martin interview. My Dr. Blanchard one shouldn't take too long either, since I've laid the groundwork for having the clips nested together with correct audio for multi-cam editing. All I need to do is get the angles timed and add the extra B-Roll that I had friends help me shoot. That is all I have as of now, I look forward to finishing this project and think it will go well!
Over the last week, I have spent my time editing the music video for The Visitors' cover of Burndt Jamb by Weezer. I was able to implement and employ a lot of new and old things in the making of this. Specifically, I think I've learned just a little bit of what goes into making a video look way more cinematic and professional. For me, I honestly think having the two black cinematic lines add something, but what really takes the cake for me was the use of color grading. I think compared to the video without color grading, there is a fair difference in the sense of artistic professionalism and quality in how the visuals look.
Along with that, I learned about motion tracking stabilization to edit one of my shots. As a disclaimer now, the shot in my opinion is the worst one in the music video. However, I still think I prefer the final shot compared to the original. This video below is what I roughly learned this function from:
So to explain the motion tracking that I implemented, it works by essentially going into After Effects, clicking on the "Tracker" option, and then using the stabilize motion option. What this does is not only keep a certain object on the screen in the same spot throughout the clip, but it will also attempt to stabilize the rough movements that come from the camera shake. You put the focus of your tracker on a certain pixel, and then press the play/analyze button and it will put the focus on that pixel throughout the entirety of the clip, leading to the points that you can see on this image. The program will then reposition the clip around on the XY-axis to then keep that pixel on the same point of the screen throughout the whole clip (this is also why you need to track a pixel that is constantly in frame without anything covering it.
In general, I do not have many changes with my plan for my District Arts Festival display. As stated in my plans, I will be incorporating three different areas of the trifold that have my films from Film 2, CVTV's CV 9 Documentary, and my films from Digital Portfolio this year. The specific screenshots I will be printing out will be one from each of my three films from last year, one from each of my three from this year, and then three different ones from my CV 9 documentary. That idea, along with a table with sticky notes/pens for comment will not change. However, I am considering changing the way I format my display's trifolds. Instead of having a closed triangular prism with laptops on high chairs/tables inside of it, I could make a rectangular prism with a fabric that closes off the fourth side of it. This would allow for more space inside of the display. Since I am not 100% sure how much space I would have inside of the triangular prism, this is simply a thought I have that I will need to decide on once I see my trifold and know just how much space I'm working with in person.
For my post today, I will be talking about what I learned from looking a little into Messiah University's Yellow Breech TV (YBTV) weekly hour-long shows. I think the biggest thing I saw from them was their use of branding. For us, we have CVTV "Eagles on Air," with a jingle and a logo, but we don't go far to actually integrate that outside of our openers. One simple thing we could do more often is incorporate our logo/slogan more often into our shows. For instance, we could have the logo be placed in the top left or top right corner when one of the anchors is speaking to cameras one or two. We could have the logo in the corner during our segments as well, both when the producer of it is introducing the video as well as during the video. This was just a thought but I think incorporating the actual branding of CVTV isn't a bad idea and the logo is an easy start.
This week I spent my time going through my footage that I recorded with Mr. Martin in my interview with him. I have everything from both angles recorded and named, as well as the audio that corresponds with it. Going through my footage was actually a lot more difficult to label than it was to label to my Dr. Blanchard footage. The issue is that I had stopped recording on one camera because it died during its recording session, so I was massively confused when my recordings weren't matching up. Long story short I had messed up the timeline of my Angle B clips in relation to which questions that they should relate to. I had to spend a whole day reorganizing my clips to make sure that they were the right ones in the right places. Now that all is said and done, I have all my clips labeled for the documentary and will begin editing my stuff. Cool!
For my Digital Portfolio class, I must create a physical display of the works I've made throughout my high school career. It will showcase the digital work I've done, meaning the videos and films I've made. This will all be on a cardboard triangular prism that includes screenshots from films as well as the films actually being played themselves.
The Sketch
Allow me to explain the sketch:
The whole thing will be a triangular prism folded in on itself. If there ends up not being enough space on the inside of the display to put what I need to into it, then I will simply have it be three panels facing forward that are kept straight up with weights or stands.
On each panel is a different focus of my works. I have work from my Film 2 projects (as well as Film 1 if I can find my videos that were deleted off of YouTube this year), my Digital Portfolio works at the center, and then my CVTV Year 3 Documentary will be played on the far right.
Inside the prism are three high chairs with books on them. On top of the books will be three different laptops playing YouTube videos of each section. They will all be playing my videos on YouTube playlists. There will be a cutout on each part of the cardboards where the laptops are placed. The laptops are put at around 5'4" as well so that people won't have to look too far up or down for them.
A power cord will come in through the bottom of my Digital Portfolio side into a surge protector that will power each laptop.
If possible, I'd like to have a pair of headphones set on top of each laptop so that people could hear my films as well.
Then underneath the laptops will be screenshots from the films of each section, as well as the writing I've provided on the sketches as well.
Fabrics will color each separate section. White (not purple) for Film 2, light (not navy) blue for Digital Portfolio, and red for CVTV. Each will be accompanied by white text on them.
My name will then be displayed above everything else. It will be colored the color of the fabric of the panel to its right. So the part of my name in Film 2 will be light blue, the part of my name in Digital Portfolio will be in red, and Adv. TV Production will be in white (that makes it CV colors with red and white too). The letters will be paper cutouts stapled onto the fabric.
Lastly there will be a table to the right of my display that has sticky notes and a pen with a note that says people can add comments to my works from each section anywhere that there is open space on my panels.
Finally, after a week of scheduling and filming, my glorious filming of my music video with the Visitors which covers the song "Burndt Jamb" by Wheezer. The music video recording has gone very well in my opinion! The crowning achievement of this recording I would definitely have to say is the silhouette shots I got in the photo studio. They were definitely worth the extra struggle and effort to setup everything when I'm able to see it after doing it. I'm very satisfied with what I've done so far and I am looking forward to finishing up my film by the end of this weekend. Most importantly looking into the editing process of this video I want to make sure the color grading is good. I think having a nice color grade over my music video will really go a long way in aesthetics and overall professionalism, so I'm looking forward to do that. Below are screenshots of shots I've liked and also my collection of clips.
I learned that sometimes plot can be too vague on what has happened for it to be understood. In Zach's case here, he ended up not telling enough of what was happening over to the audience for us to understand what the plot was. Our teacher suggested that this kind of thing isn't as horrible to fix than how it could seem. Even simply adding one or two extra voiced lines would have made things make so much more sense in understanding the story being told, so this was helpful to take away from.
Zach mentioned in his post here as well that he used his own personal phone for shots in his film. This was useful for his POV shots that he used, as having a camera up to his face would be too shaky, to awkward, and more difficult to have fluid, realistic movements due to the weight of the camera. As well, he used different camera lens angles from his phone, allowing for more variety in his shots as well.
Zach did an amazing job in transitioning from real life shots to screen recordings. I've seen these kinds of cuts before, but Zach really did an exceptional job with it. What he told me was that he would have the audio be his tool for this. He had audio from the real life shots continue playing from both the IRL shot and had it continue on into the screen recording to keep a sense of fluid continuity.
Just in general as well, Zach had interesting kinds of shots in his film as well. One thing that I always want to keep in mind when I am making my films is that I need to have things to keep the audience captivated and interested in my films. Interesting shots are an easy way to accomplish this without taking away from the plot. Zach accomplishes this with both his POV shots that offer cool perspective and his very nice looking bird's eye view shot at his computer as well.
One thing that Enzo mentioned was how difficult it was to do lighting during the night time for films. Personally, I had never considered this issue before, but Enzo brought up a good point. Cameras can have a very difficult time getting good footage when the lighting is poor. What Enzo did to combat this is having flashlights on near the cast at all times right out of frame. This was a good idea and one I will implement in the future if I need to.
As well, Enzo's experiences with the cast serve as a good reminder that I really need to keep in mind the schedules of those around me. While they might be very willing to help and want to, that doesn't mean that they are available every day that not only I am but the rest of the cast is. My experiences with the film I am doing right now as well as Enzo's in this serve as a good reminder of needing to plan out recording dates fairly out ahead of time.
Another logistics thing to take away from Enzo's production is that of the conditions outside. As I am writing this, I am waiting to film the next day in temperatures that will probably be very cold. With that, while I was considering weather in terms of precipitation, I had not considered how uncomfortable it will be to simply be outside in the cold. Keeping in mind location and weather is something I need to plan better around.
The use of capitalization in screenplays was something that was given a lot more focus in Aliyah's work here than I have in my own. She uses it with also props and actions that need to get emphasis in the screen time. As well, she capitalizes camera movements that she things are important to include in the shots. For me, I've only done capitalizations with the first introduction of a character in my scenes, but now I could maybe do more with emphasis in my stuff.
Aliyah also included parts in her scrips that were for transitions. On the right of her screen plays, there are mentions of new parts of the scene or going into the scene. I have not done nor seen this before, so it was interesting to note.
One thing that I will definitely do from here on out is cut off my dialogues with actions now. Before, I would have a character's dialogue succeed a total description of what happens while he is talking, which makes timing and pacing confusing. However, if I were to just cut off what my character is saying with an action or description of something, then it would make a lot more sense and be a lot easier.
This week, I spent my time labeling footage and preparing it for editing from my interview with Dr. Blanchard last week as well as recording my interview with Mr. Martin on Friday. I think the interview went very well, but I had a hiccup when one of the SD cards I was using ran out of space. In hopes that my shotgun mic was picking up audio well enough, I swapped the SD card from my audio recorder to a second camera, meaning I lost lavalier footage at the end but retained two angles. However, the audio that picked up from my shotgun mic was less than what I was hoping in terms of volume. It's still usable but not as good as I would have hoped. Here is my work done for the week:
