Wednesday, 18 December 2013

LARP: Journal

November 6th:
Richard showed us Superheroes documentary in channel 5. we then talked about real life people and their strange hobbies.

Me and Jonny talked about what kind of documentary that we want to make. Jonny was the one who picked the idea called Larping. I decided to go with his ideas because he was passionate about it and had lots of knowledge.
Jonny showed me what is larping in the website because I had no knowledge. He talked about weapons, costume, game rules, events and friends' hobbies.

November 13th:
Richard gave us little instruction, we had to make a film in between 2 to 3 mins.

Me and Jonny were doing some research about Larping.

I learned that LARP stand for 'LIVE ACTION ROLE PLAY'
Jonny to meet most people who are into Larping action.
Look at history of how it began.

Jonny was making storyboard concepts and showed me what he wanted.

November 20th:

We thought we were using stereotype looking people and stereotype Larp characters.
Me and Jonny had ideas,
a person wearing a hoody (teenager "Chav") wear a costume with a hood. (Assassin)
Dustbin man = High VIX jacket (Barbarian)
Kitchen worker = white coat/hour net (Healer)
Jogger (Archer)
Business man (Knight)

Jonny showed the website called Lorien Trust, it is company who sell weapons, costume, amours and make ups.

We planned to interview Jonny's friends and to film at Larping action.

Pre-production was starting,
I was doing health and safety, Call sheet and Cast list.
Jonny will film at one of the larp event.

November 27th:

 Jonny did a rough storyboard.
I looked for the font and found "Deutsches zierschrift" So I gave the font to Jonny.
Antony was doing shots?
Jonny can get the costumes for next weeks filming.
Jonny will colour the font at home.


December 6th:

Sean gave us a lift by using his mini bus. He took us to 'Hunter's way' road. I set the camera up and checking it. However the problem is the camera was not working with my SD Card 10 class and the tripod was unstable. We went back to York College to get other SD Card 8 class and replaced the tripod with better stable. We went back to 'Hunter's way' again.

I take the role as cameraman and actor.

When we finished the filming so we went back to York college and then we acted in the green screen.


Film Project (Shaun of the Dead) Unit 38

Me and Jonny joined up to make Foley sounds for the film, 'Shaun of the Dead'.

When Jonny was not here, I went outside and I was looking for the sounds. (soft winds and footsteps).
 I made few sounds so far outside. There were problems trying to get the right wind sounds because it was a noisy environment  with sounds like the cars, leaves rustling mixed in with the strong wind. I would not be able to get rid of the extra sounds digitally.

I went inside of York College. I looked for the sounds (footsteps indoor, fan noisy, hitting the wall with the shoes). I went to the small shop called 'Duets'  to use the real fridge. It created the sounds for fridge's opening and closing. However at editing, I could hear there were two people talking behind fridge opening and closing. I decided to remake the sounds. I went to the downstairs because it was quite and empty.   I tried to make a sound like the character's shoes as they hit the roadblock. However during editing, the sound was like a bit echo. I went to the office to get the fan and used it to make a sound like a fan sound. I used my voice to make a sound for Zombie's groan.

Jonny was here, he listened all of the sounds that I made. He gave me a feedback and decided to remake the some sounds that I made. For example, footsteps indoor sounded a bit like a splash. so we used a different flooring and found concrete made a similar sound. We also re recorded the sound when the character trips by using our shoes against the wall outside the college.
Jonny knew a  room which was very quite so we went to that room. Jonny used his voice for 'yelling-running man's' character sound. I made the sound like slipping on the blood by rubbing my shoes on the floor to create the sound. I had a idea and I told Jonny that I used my hand to scratch my head. It created the sound like the character when he scratched his head. I used whistle to create a sound like a car alarm.

At editing, we did not use EQ, Pitch and Reverb because I don't have a skill to do that. I need to learn how to use them. This is something I will do in the future.

We worked well as a team. Jonny and me divide the tasks between us and we listen to each other's views and take on board any positive criticisms.  Jonny can help to fine tune the sounds I have made and that is a good thing to do so we produce some quality work. However, if all of members are here then teamwork would be the best and with good time management we could complete the work earlier.


Thursday, 12 December 2013

Cyber-bullies and Swearing videos for police evaluation

We were given a brief by the police, who visited York College's classroom. They wanted each group to make videos which are 2-3 minutes long, and then combine their videos into one.  They are aimed at young children about 12 to 14 years old who are learning about Anti-social behaviour.

My group choice was 'Misuse of Social Media' because I believe most kids have a lack of knowledge about cyber-bullying and new technology. So I used my best skills to make special effects to make this video a big selling point.
My group (Cyber-bullies) were me, Jackie and Naomi. My co-group (Swearing) were Jonny, Regan, Connor and Nyall.

Cyber-bullies

What I did (Pre-production): 
Risk assessment
Script  shot list.
Research, Notes and ideas for anti-social behaviour
Contingency plan

I created the Risk Assessment and Contingency Plan without any problems. When Jackie was not here, I found it a struggle to make the script shot list, so I worked with Naomi to do the storyboard and script. I put lots of my ideas into my Research, Notes and Ideas blog. I wrote about the Text message effect style from Hollyoaks. I researched facts about Cyber-bullies and taglines and then got the idea of how to create the quote.

What I did (Production)
Asst. Director
Cameraman
Camera works
Help other's equipment

Jackie asked me to be 2nd Asst. Director. During filming, I watched how Jackie directed the actress, cameraman and camerawork. After that, I helped Jackie to improve the camerawork. For example, Jackie used the zooming in on the actress in the close up shot without blur background.  I recommended her to use the Canon camera's lens which can use the close up shot with blur background, because I wanted the viewers' focus on the actress' emotion.

Jackie tried to make the camera focus on the actress with her phone on the medium height level. However, I prefer to use very low height level to look up at actress' face beside her phone with soft focus, because I thought it would create tension in the scene.

I chose York College's stair as a location because it showed the character's loneliness as the location looked empty.  I put the camera on the 4th floor to film at the actress walking downstairs. I made the camera pan down slowly as if to follow her out of the building.





What I did (Post-Production)
My role as Editor and SFX.


I edited the clips carefully because I looked for the best scenes' place for adding SFXs (Text messages).
I followed what Jackie wanted; for example, she wanted the text message to look like Apple's green text message. I create Apple's green text message in After Effect, by using Shape tools, colour and Apple's font. After that, I reviewed the text messages effect, and I decided that to make the words shaky and creepy in the text message. I made the text messages move like a fly around the actress for example in the 'downstair scene' and 'York museum scene'. I made the text messages look 3D by using After Effect and then following to actress, for example in 'the corridor scene'
.
Sometimes there were time management problems because I finished my editing role a bit early and the rest of the group were not ready to add the Foley sound, so they had to go out and record the sound earlier than the plan said.

I realise that the next time I film with a group we must copy all the pre-production plan to each member. This will mean we have copies of risk assessments, health and safety rules; scripts, storyboard; script shots and permissions all prepared for the group. Then we will not waste time asking which member did which work.

Communication with the other people was good; they kept in contact with me at all times. 

I think that we completed the police's mission because the videos can be shown to 12 to 14 year old young people, and the message is clear that if you bully him/her it is wrong. It lets them see what can happen to someone who is badly affected by cyber bullying. The film gives them knowledge about cyber bullying.


Swearing

I got the text from Naomi,and she told me that we planned to make a film on Tuesday.
I joined the group to make a film about Swearing. I looked at their pre-production folder and then I was bit confused because some of work was missing, for example the roles list, locations and permission. I was not sure which role I should take and which location we would film at. The storyboard was a good concept, however, I didn't understand what the detail of the story was about. I asked one member of them to explain it and what my role was.

What I did (Production)
Asst. Director
Asst. Cameraman
Camera works
Help other's equipment

During filming, Regan asked me to be Asst Director and Asst. cameraman. Regan took the role as Director and cameraman, so I watched while Regan directed to the actors, cameraman and camerawork. I helped her by adjusting the camera work to improve it. I made sure the camerawork was following the storyboard; for example, I looked at the storyboard and it said that we needed a specific wide shot with bit high height level. However, this camerawork was not my signature's camerawork, so I changed the camerawork from wide shot to close up shot. The wide shot of 3 actors was a bit bland because the background was more detailed than the actors. I chose the close up shot because I wanted the viewers to focus on the main actor's emotion.

The man caught us filming at York Museum Gardens. He told us that he was in charge of this. My group were unaware of the law and didn't have legal permission.

What I did (Post-Production)
My role as Editor.

During editing, I encountered some tricky technique problems. For example, the Nyall scene was shaky when Regan filmed him whilsy walking around him like 360 at the same time. But the bumpy grass made Regan unbalanced. So I added the effect called 'stabilizer' which could remove 'shaky'. 
I addes the 'blue' colour on some scenes to help the viewers to identify two different scenes. (The present scene is normal colour and the future scene is blue)

Communication with my group was quite good; however, Pre-Production was unprepared.