Contexts of Practice - 27th January - BCOP

Wednesday 27th January 2016          Module: Contexts of Practise      Lecturer: Lucy Leake

Introduction to monstrous feminine

Female monster wear many faces 

The abject and Vagina Dentata are a few things that we touched up on in todays lesson - I had never heard of the word abject but I know that it is the name given to something about a woman that can be seen as shocking, terrifying, horrific, abject. Nasty things that we ignore, don't want to remember or see again.

Throughout the lesson we had a look at lots of different concepts for Abject art from different authors/artists such as Barbra Creed, Julia Kristeva, Cindy Sherman, Gilbert and George, Dali etc.

I especially liked the look of Salvador Dali's work, I have seen his concepts before and they can be quite inspiring, I find them too be both enjoyable and creative, they have a message behind them that can be across visually. The specific piece of art work that we looked at was "Skull" this caught my attention as he photographed and set up the shoot by using naked women in order to form a human skull for Salvador Dali's and Philippe Halsman's (American Photographer) photo shoot. "In Voluptas Mors" was the name given to this specific skull which was composed by seven nude women, apparently this took roughly around 3 hours to arrange, get the lighting perfect.

Here is a picture to portray how the women were arranged, how everything was formed together during the photo shoot for "In Voluptus Mors".

Dali Salvador and Philippe Halsman (1951) In Voluptus Mors

From researching about the forming of this work of art, I started to realise that this wasn't the only skull concept that Dali created, he also create a lot of others with different meanings behind them, I think that he created a range of different concepts which could be interpreted in lots of different ways depending on whether the viewer has been opened up to his other concepts or even other artists/painters who have a similar passion and interest.

A few different examples of skulls that I came across whilst researching Dali's work.

Created for the campaign against venereal disease (Salvador Dali, 1942)

Study, “Soldier take warning” – for the campaign against venereal disease (Salvador Dali, 1942).

After looking at paintings we watched a short clip from the film "Alien", I found this extremely interesting, the way that the piece had been filmed, we took a look at a scene where it shows an alien protruding out of a mans stomach, chest bursts open, blood splatter everywhere which is gory and horrifying, the small creature then scurries away of the screen and disappears.

Reading - Ex Machina

For my reading part I started to look at the review for Goddess from the machine - A look at Ex Machina's Gender Politics. I found it quite interesting to here that these AI robots were being created for a purpose to fufill men and make them happier. However, the AI robots suddenly became attached to each other, it talked about AVA taking her sisters skin in order to make herself human which I thought sounded abject in a way, the fact that she had been created in a specific way but she was not happy with the way that she was looking and so she wanted to become human with the help of Kyko. Caleb throughout the film, it is said that he altered the security in order to let Ava escape, this tells me as the reader that Caleb had strong feelings for Ava throughout the transformation, it says that he watched through the glass window as Ava scanned her naked body to analyse what she was. I was able to work out that Ava did in fact kill Caleb and so now I see her as a bit of a monster as he had strong feelings for her, Nathan claimed that the test was too see if Caleb could help Ava escape. It feels like Nathan created these AI's to become docile sex toys but they were turning against him, becoming human and towards the end it stated that Kyko and Ava became more attached and they stabbed Nathan to kill him, as if they didn't consent to being trapped, forced into sexual roles. They were women who did not wish to be treated as women are treated, they became aware of what sexism makes of women, they were treated like servants by men, as if men had strings attached to them to control there every move.

References

"In Voluptus Mors" Pictures and information:
 Rebecca M. Bender. (2014). The Morphing Body: Salvador Dalí’s Skulls and the Female Form. Available: https://rebeccambender.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/body-skulls-salvador-dali/. Last accessed 28th Jan 2016.

Alien Film: Alien (1979) Director Ridley Scott [Film] USA: 20th Century Fox.

A look at Ex Machina's Gender Politics:
Katherine Cross. (2015). GODDESS FROM THE MACHINE: A LOOK AT EX MACHINA’S GENDER POLITICS. Available: http://feministing.com/2015/05/28/goddess-from-the-machine-a-look-at-ex-machinas-gender-politics/. Last accessed 28th Jan 2016 .

Practical Screen-craft - Tuesday 26th January 2016 - BAFI101

Tuesday 26th January 2016            Module : Practical Screen-craft                 Lecturer: Stu Bailey

Reviewing instructional videos

Today was simply about going through everyone's projects, it was the due date for all of the instructional videos to be handed in, once they had been positioned into the google drive folder that Stu had created we started to watch individuals work, I really liked a few of them, I noticed that a lot of them were focused around different types of equipment, ranging from cameras like the 'Canon 600D' through to accessories like the slider and how to set certain cameras up for manual shooting or just everyday use, we see shots in Drakes park, stationary, college etc.

I really liked the slider video, liked the way that they had talked about the mechanics of the product, how it can be adjusted, how you angle the tripods, it caught my eye the way that we were then presented with footage that had actually been taken using the apparatus, gave me a feel for the equipment and what I could achieve using it quickly, noticed that it was a little shaky so i would look into how to get it a lot more sturdy. I am certainly thinking about taking a slider out to use in my own time, do a lot of pans, get some great field shots, I want to experiment on how I can use my slider to the best of my ability.

We got some great feedback for my groups submission for our Beauty Guru video, especially on the camera and editing side of the video which made me feel great as my two roles within the project were the cinematographer and editor, people liked the choice of music and how the cut away shots worked to show the settings, as the actors discussed the capabilities and settings for the Go-Pro Hero 4 silver.

Go-Pro Hero 4 Silver - Boxed up (mid shot) 

Title for our Beauty Guru video 

Directing and Performance - Monday 25th January 2016 - BAFI104

Monday 25th January 2016                Module: BAFI104                     Lecturer: Andy and Lucy

Green-Screen Shoot

We got into our given groups from the Exeter trip, I had the job role of Cinematographer, I set up the camera for shooting in the green-screen as well as helping come up with ideas and ways to improve the sound quality. Although, the studios were very un-organised, we managed to shoot our piece in under 5 mins, everyone else took their time in the studios so we had to wait for a vacancy so that we could start to shoot our footage.

I worked well with Janusz as the director, helping to talk about ideas with the actor for our single clip, I knew the footage better than anyone and so I was able to visualise the shots in my head, whilst thinking about the camera angles that would be needed in the green-screen room. I worked well with Dan as the sound man, taking lots of tests of vocals, background noise and thinking about the best way to position the boom, working with Alan, once I had set up the camera and set the aperture and camera angle that we wanted I kept checking the frame to make sure that the boom wasn't viewable in the camera.

Green-Screen Shoot - (Wide Angled Shot) 

Exeter Street - Long shot to portray shoppers

Task

Pick a quote to create a senario that the actors can then write about: 

"Les Miserables" Script - Enjolras falling backwards out of the window, until he hangs upside down, the red flag still in his hands, streaming like blood down the wall. 

Reference: William Nicholson, Alain Boublil, Claude- Michel Schönberg and Herbert Kretzmer. (2012). Les Miserables . Available: http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Les-Miserables.html. Last accessed 26/01/16.

Practical Screen-craft Evaluation - 22nd January - BAFI101

Evaluation - Beauty Guru Video

Below is the instructional video that I filmed and edited within our group!

(refer to previous blogpost for images of teamwork)


Blog's Beauty Special - Go Pro Hero 4 from Luke Curno on Vimeo.

Initial Ideas for our instructional video

Looking back to the planning stages for our project, we were asked to create an instructional video to showcase the in's and out's of a piece of equipment that we have been inducted on throughout our practical screen-craft sessions. My group decided that we wanted to re-create a youtube video, similar to the product reviews and beauty halls that Zoella posts onto her channel, as well as many other beauty guru's.

Our idea consisted of getting two actors, like the ones that we are working with for another module, we had the intention of getting two actors from St. Mark and St. Johns called Chloe and Will. We wanted them to have a profile so we gave them two individual names for their personnel youtube channels i.e. "BlogsBeauty" and "SparklyHermaphroditexx". We had the idea of creating a spoof for a beauty hall video, where predominantly girls make a video to showcase their new purchases and give a product review, they try to sell the products to a wide audience. In this case the product would be a 'Go-Pro Hero 4 silver', the YouTuber's would talk about the Go-Pro, it's specifications, capabilities, what's inside the box etc.

What I thought worked well?

Post

Throughout this project, I had the role of being the cinematographer and editor, I worked closely together with everyone to ensure that everyone had an input, making sure that I could produce a product of a high satisfactory rate to the rest of my team. The background research that I carried out from our camera test shoot I think benefited the production as it not only helped with seeing the types of setting and camera shot's that could be achieved, it also lead to which camera that was chosen for the production (refer back to previous blogpost- more detail), which in this case was the Cannon XF100 as it presented a sharp and clear image. Also the decision on camera was based around how easy the settings were to operate, I played a lot with the zoom and focus within the shoot, adding movement to the video, gradual zoom worked well when the YouTuber was holding up the box, pointing to the settings on the back of the box.

Filming

Whilst in the cove, I thought that the lighting set up worked well, we managed to reposition the lights around the room to make our backdrop a lot lighter, allowing the actors to stand out. We managed to acquire a sofa for our set, as well as a scarf and fairy lights which I thought gave the set a really nice homely feeling, like the one that we were trying to achieve for our set design, originally wanted to film in someone's bedroom so we re-created the scene. We noticed a puf in the corner of the room which we positioned just in front of the camera, in the centre of where the actors were sitting, this acted well as a table for the Go-Pro box and accessory items to sit on, easily accessible for the YouTubers to pick up and talk about. Another element that I thought worked well was the camera, the tripod was easy to use, I was able to use the camera effectively, moving it around the room to achieve different angles, high, low just trying to experiment with the camera, using it to it's full potential. The cut away shots that I took worked really well to not only add different camera angles, mixing things up but it also helped to show the scale and settings on the box. After the shoot I decided to film the lights, pulling the frame in and out of focus to give a blurred effect, I then used this for the start of the video where the title comes up in squiggly writing and this gave a great effect.

Edit

I thought that my approach to the edit was fantastic, the way that everything was neatly labelled which made importing and cutting together a lot easier as I could locate under file names for the sound, music and footage. I like the way that I decided to create a rough cut of everything first, syncing the audio and footage together, making sure that the sound level's were even and that I reduced any peaks in the level of noise. Again, I thought that the cut away shots were edited together nicely, making sure that the movements of the box linked on from each other, as well as giving the zooms that I did on camera a slower movement and transition to add to the elements that I found via my background research. Also, during my research I picked up on the way that the beauty videos are edited, the footage cuts quite quickly, I think that my re-creation of this worked well, not to mention that it made the video length shorter. While sat down with the edit, I decided to keep glancing at the script and listened to the words in the footage as it helped me to decide when everything needed to be cut together and I could then use extra cut aways to fill in the spaces of parts where the two YouTubers are talking to each other. The last things that were added onto the video was the music which I though worked really well, sounded like a YouTube beauty video, I also thought that the title and credits worked well as myself, Janusz and Danielle thought about using a girly text, much like the ones that Zoella and other Beauty Guru's use for their hall videos.











What I thought didn't work well? 

Post

I thought that the idea was achievable which is a good way to think as a cinematographer, but I thought that the research into ideas for songs on the video didn't go well, as I didn't listen to this sort of music, I had an idea of what I was looking for but I just couldn't find many royalty free tracks, in the end myself and Dan teamed up to talk about the types of music tracks we wanted, ukelele came up in the discussion quite a lot which is why we have chosen a fast tempo tune with a high melody, chimes, dings etc.

Filming

I think that the equipment and the location could have been booked a bit more in advance, we only had an hour booked for the cove but I wondered up to see if their wasn't anyone in the cove when we got there early so luckily we managed to get another hour which was well needed by the time that we had set the camera up, created the set, actors had got ready etc. Due to the background noise on the boom audio, I felt like there should have been more than 1 test for the sound in the room before we started recording, I did mention to do a test but perhaps we could have done with a few more.

Edit

I really struggled with the background noise that had been picked up on the boom mic, it sounded like one of the lights was buzzing in the cove, I started to play around with the audio gain and speed/duration but it wasn't working, in the end I managed to add an effect onto individual pieces of audio, used an effect called "DeNoiser" which worked exceptionally well to decrease the background sounds, like it almost got rid of the hideous buzzing noise. I had a slight problem in a few places where the audio peaked, I didn't know whether to remove them and stitch the clips back up to see how it worked, or whether to permanently delete the footage as well, in the end I tried both but they weren't working so I shortened the whole clip, whilst making sure that everything was still factually correct.












What I think that we could change for future productions?

I would definitely benefit from transferring all the footage to everyone in my group so that they too could have a go at the editing side if they wanted. However, myself and Dan sat down for a few hours to work on the edit, once he had transferred the music over too me. Perhaps we could book the cove out for the shoot as well as the camera equipment a lot sooner in order to make sure that we have the room, all we will have to do then is bring the equipment, point and shoot. I think that I would like to actually film part of the video on a Go-Pro since that is the product that the YouTuber is trying to sell, what better way than to show it's capabilities and quality of the megapixel camera than through a series of shots taken with the specific product that i.e. a Go-Pro Hero 4 Silver.

Thinking about the sound, I think that it might be a good idea to have two sets of recording so I might look into the possibility of putting a road mic onto the camera so that we can have that recording sound whilst the boom can pick more directional sounds like the talking, unboxing, rustling of packaging etc.

Conclusion

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed working on this project, I think as a team we worked well together, Danielle as the director helped myself with the shots whilst filming and provided a script, Janusz as the location scouter managed to book out the equipment and location for our shoot, myself as the cinematographer and editor who worked hard to create a piece of work to fit everyone's satisfaction within the group and Dan as the sound man and lighting, even though we didn't use much additional lighting, Dan helped me and Janusz to reposition the lights in the cove and he found a perfect music track to give the video that last push at becoming a beauty guru video.

I think that I operated the camera successfully as the cinematographer using the Cannon XF100's different features to film with, also I feel that I was great at editing the video together including the sound, footage, music and title's/credits.

A few shots from behind the scenes of our shoot for the Beauty Guru spoof, portraying myself as I operated the camera, set it up for the production.

Practical Screen-craft - 20th January - BAFI101

Wednesday 20th January 2016              Module: BAFI101          Lecturer: Stu bailey

Filming on location

Today was the production day, we arranged to meet the actors at reception, once they had arrived we gave them a copy of the script, despite noting before that we wanted to give it to them blind. The reason we decided to give it to them linked back to the idea that they wouldn't have to keep asking us questions throughout the filming process.

As the cinematographer for this project, I made it my aim to head in the room first and get the camera set up so that it was ready to press the record button, obviously I couldn't set the angle just yet because I would need to set the actors down, then I would just the camera angle to make everything fit the shot.

Wide angled shot (Re-constructing a bedroom scene)

The actors started to get ready for the show, whilst the whole of our crew helped to set up the set, lighting, sofa, props and any necessary off camera items i.e. the script, moving chairs, turning on lights, moving light set up etc. Whilst they started to get ready I decided to sit on the sofa, flip the camera screen around to see how the shot looked, made sure that there was head space and that the backdrop looked straight and that the GO-Pro product was in view of the camera, all boxed away and ready to be unpacked. 

Positioning the back lighting and the Go-Pro for the set (high angle).


Whilst filming the content for our instructional video, I wanted to use a range of different camera angles, wide angled shot to show the set, give the video a homely feeling, next I wanted to cut in a some zoom shots and close ups of the hands moving around the go pro case, to give a feel of how everything is constructed together.

Opening up the GO-PRO 4 Hero, Silver

Once the filming was finished, I started to think about types of shots that I could perhaps cut into or edit to be at the intro or the outro for our video, looking over at the lights on the sofa and after thinking back to the typical look of Beauty Guru videos that I analysed, I decided to film a short 10-20 sec piece of the lighting, playing around with the focus to give a blurred out effect.

Fairy lights draped over the sofa (re-focused to give a blur effect).

Throughout the shoot I worked closely together with Danielle as the director by angling the camera to fit the script, worked with Dan/Janusz as the sound engineer to make sure that the boom wasn't in the background as well as checking that there were no shadows casted. I worked well with the actors in order to suggest where they would sit, if they could move positions, asking them to hold up the Go-Pro and point to it as they read the specifications and important features.

Shots on location of the film crew setting up and the actors getting ready.

Directing and Performance - 18th January - BAFI104

Monday 18th January 2016                  Module: BAFI104             Lecturer: Stu Bailey

Exeter Shoot 

For this shoot we were sent to Exeter City Centre, we were given the task of filming around Exeter, trying to capture different camera angles of the streets, buildings, old ruins, parks etc. This footage would then be projected next week, or filmed with a green screen backdrop, we would have to work with a few of the St. Mark and St. Johns actors, trying to bring them into the footage, myself, Janusz and Dann came up with some great ideas, all the time we were filming we made it a priority to think about how the actors could walk in front or in some cases just stand in-front, giving the impression that they have froze but everything is swiftly moving around them. 

Moving cautiously around the centre we managed to capture both a wide range of interesting sounds and camera angles, wildlife, buildings inc. the Exeter Cathedral, streets, shoppers, reflections along the floor, transport, using either pans, tilts, zooms, playing with the focus, Iris, trying to use the camera to it's full potential (we took out the XF100 on shoot).

Here is a list of equipment that we used for this particular shoot;

Camera: 

Cannon XF100 Camera 

Tripod

Nikon 7200 DSLR

Sound: 

Zoom H4N Microphone

Boom Mic

Dead Kitty

XLR lead for Input and Output 

Of course we used a notebook and pen to make any necessary notes as we ventured through the city, taking the angles, measurements, ideas behind, thinking about how the actors would walk into the scene i.e. mise en Scene.

Trip to the "Bill Douglas Centre" 

The first part of the trip I found extremely interesting, being able to explore and see different types of cameras, technology, famous films, actors, posters, mechanics, moving images etc. 

I was really interested in looking at the Zoetrope I liked the way that you could spin it around while looking into the mirror to get a sharp image, especially liked the one which portrayed a tiger running around the edge, the faster you spin it, the quicker the moving image.

I also liked the Mutoscope, this was an early motion picture device, operated by turning a crank, this in turn would give the illusion of a moving image on paper within the machine, looking at it using the viewfinder. 

Bill Douglas Centre - History of Cinema and Popular Culture

 Panning shot at Exeter Cathedral - Statue in the foreground 

 Long shot of Exeter City Street - Portraying shoppers and old buildings

High Angle at Exeter Park (Wide Angled Shot)

All of the following images are shot by Luke Curno (PCA Student).

Contexts of Practice - 13TH January - BCOP

Wednesday 13th January 2016                      Contexts of Practice                   Lecturer: Lucy Leake

Monsters Session 2

At the start of the lesson, we had a recap on the story Bluebeard which I must admit I did quite like, we started to discuss what we thought the moral of the story was, I thought that I might be able to answer this question as I thought that it could have something to do with temptation, Bluebeard's wife gave into temptation by using the key to open the door, leading to her finding something horrific i.e. the bodies of Bluebeard's other wife's when he specifically told her not to open the door.

We started to look into words that I had never heard off, everything that we did throughout the lesson, linked back in some way to being monstrous or popular culture.

Orientelism - Parts around the Mediterranean - Middle East - Orient almost a European invention, the place of Europe's greatest richest and oldest colonies, sources of it's Civilizations and languages.

Subjugation - To put down a culture i.e. beliefs, skin colour, when someone feels they have more power in a sense, they feel over empowered.

Tenopgobic - Be scared of a different race

Diaspora - Scattering of a race

For the second half of the lesson we looked at the different types of monsters in popular culture, can we really categorize them;

Here is a list of the categories that we found out;

1) Fairytale - Myth/Legend Folklore

2) Body Horror - Metamorphous

3) Taxonomy - Medical Gaze - Science

4) Monsters Difference/ Other - Notions of difference and normality

5) Monstrous Feminine

6) Technology turns bad - District 9, War of Worlds

7) Home - Disturbing the neighbourhood - We locate new or recognisable places on a daily bases (mundane) - In some sense it could be said that some of us are really engaged with monsters.

Group task

We were asked to create a mood reel

Ideas that myself, Dan and Emily came up with in lesson was minimal as we didn't have much of an idea about how to start it, I came up with a few ideas to cut together some clips from films portraying transformation, just like what happened at the end of the film, District 9. With the ideas that I had in mind I started to think about what category that the mood reel would link into, I thought about Taxonomy as well as body horror, when the human body changes into a monster.

I came up with the idea of using clips from similar films to District 9 to tell the narrative for our trailer, I started to look into fan made trailers for films, this got me thinking what if I was to try to re-create a fan made trailer and then link the shots to special scenes within my film.

Teaser Trailer - I started to think about monsters, scientifically created beasts, how they are all portrayed powerfully across which entertains us and gets our blood boiling, perhaps I could show this but with a sense that they are never seen, move fast paced through the trailer, catch a small glimpse. Now I am starting to think into the category Technology is bad etc. Here is my trailer that I have created.

 
Disturbia - 2016 from Luke Curno on Vimeo.

In order to create this action packed trailer, I took a look into films of a similar nature i.e. used scenes from District 9, BladeRunner, AVP Aliens vs Predators, Predators the final fight etc. I started to look into fan made trailers for District 9, wanted to give the impression that there was a search for the unknown beast, as well as giving a few ideas as to what the monster looks like, creating suspense which was helped by the fast paced music, got louder as the trailer went on.

I wanted to give the audience an idea as to the havoc and destruction that the unknown monster has created. As the viewer, you are given hints to try and interpret what it is, why is it after everyone, who disturbed it? The scene from AVP Aliens vs Predators I think works well by the way that it grips the audience into thinking why is someone hiding (see debris and frames being smashed and rocked), gives a sense of enigma as you want to find out what it is.

The hardest part to edit together was at the start from the film Blade Runner, this is where Rutger Hauer can be seen jumping of a roof, I wanted to give the impression that he has disappeared and descended into the mist, where has he gone, the idea was to create metamorphous as he appears human and next we see a prawn from District 9 leaping onto a building roof which could suggest that he has transformed into a monster. The idea that I had after that was to use different film clips to show the monster as a threat, everyone is searching, running and hiding for this unknown beast. However, the words throughout the trailer work well in a sense that they bring the footage alive, it brings the viewers in by asking questions, WOULD YOU HIDE, WOULD YOU RUN, WOULD YOU ACCEPT.

References

District 9 (2009) Directed by Neil Blomkamp [Film] USA: Sony Pictures

AVP Alien vs Predator (2004) Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson [Film] USA: 20th Century Fox

Blade Runner (1982) Directed by Ridley Scott [Film] USA: Warner Bro's

Practical Screen-craft - 12th January - BAFI101

Tuesday 12th January 2016                             Practical Screen-craft                      Lecture: Stu Bailey

Production Ideas

We started to look into more videos, types of equipment/props that would be needed for our shoots, also myself and Danielle went up to have a look at the cove, we took lots of photographs to decide on the types of angles that we wanted to film, taking into consideration the white background.

Here are a few photographs that were taken: the idea of the visit was to find out how all the lighting works, what angles we would like to direct, how we were going to achieve the correct camera angles to show the actor, as the cinematographer I thought about high angles, low angles, mid shots, all the time I was thinking about the types of angles as well as thinking about how the footage could be edited together, would we need possible transitions or stick to the natural harsh zooms and crops that I found while viewing other Beauty Guru videos.

Once we came back from the COVE, we started to think about the types of equipment that would be required i.e. camera, sound and lighting.

Camera: Going back to the lesson where we tested camera's against each other, we all agreed that we wanted to use the Cannon XF100 video camera, the features and settings were a lot easier to use for adjusting lighting, focus and zooms. We thought about requiring a Manfrotto tripod for the filming so as to make the footage a lot less shaky, wanted this project to look professional.

As the cinematographer and editor for this project, I wanted to look back to some of the test footage when we got into groups and tested the Cannon XF100, Cannon 600D and the Nikon D7200 against one another, despite the camera not being focused on the XF100 footage that I chose, it gave me a good representation of how sharp the camera footage would look like. The shot that I looked at that was filmed on each camera was a long shot walking down a hallway, the lighting was pretty bright, hardly any shadows and the walls were completely white, I started however to look at the different types of reflections that each camera gave as each of us walked past the window.

Cannon XF100 Camera:

The lighting was extremely bright, not so much tungsten, the light bounced back off really nicely, I thought that it looked like a hospital corridor, the walls looked really vibrant, not to mention that they are the same colour as up at the COVE (our filming location).


Cannon 600D Camera:

I think that the lighting looks less bright, it looks more washed out which wouldn't go with our scene as we are going to be using the COVE which has a white background, I thought that it could however be a bit easier to use for focusing as you would have more control over focusing shots, but then if you were adjusting the focus whilst filming, I think that this would increase the chances of camera shake.


Nikon D7200

Looking back at this camera's footage, I really liked the colours that it produced, despite these I was again thinking about the possibility of zooming and re-focusing the camera while filming, again it could result in a lot of camera shake, where as with the Cannon XF100 we can easily zoom and focus the camera, not to mention that I can edit the footage in post production.

Overall I think that the Cannon 600D portrayed a washed out image, not so much colour on the settings that we were using, whereas the Nikon D7200 provided us with a nice clear image, not to mention the easy accessibility towards the camera's settings, however basing the camera on lighting conditions and the possibility of re-focusing while filming, in my view I feel we should possibly use the Cannon XF100, any additional touches to the footage can be performed or carried out in post production.

Filming by Luke Curno, Janusz Czerniecki, Danielle Young (PCA Students). 


Sound: Myself and Danielle looked into the types of sound equipment that would be required, I came up with a list of sound equipment that I thought would be required to pick up the dialogue, sound off camera and sound on the camera while shooting. I thought that we would need a Zoom H4N mic, XLR lead for the input to the zoom and output to a possible boom mic, dead cat to cover the mic incase we decide to shoot outside for any reason. We decided on the possibility of getting a mic stand to help with the recording of sound so that we could position the mic a lot easier to our subject, set a height to record and speak into but we still might hand hold the mic on a pole for a lot easier movement, especially for panning shots from the camera.

Lighting: We didn't feel that we needed any additional lighting, the cove lighting would be perfect and we obviously had the option to dim the light if it was too bright, we could move lighting across or we could make the light harsher to eliminate any shadows on the backdrop.

Camera Angles

Myself and Dan sat down after the lesson to discuss a proposed shot list, Danielle had written a short introduction to the video, we used this to develop camera angles and ways to introduce the presenters i.e. the upcoming Youtube stars.

Looked at existing beauty guru videos for inspiration on our focused camera angles.

Zoella [Zoella]. (2016, January 11th). My 2015 Beauty Favourites [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eXEZ1DRbpc

Emma Blackery [Emma Blackery]. (2015, November, 24th) How To Make & Edit Videos [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSuYPoWR4Ts 

Personal further research and collaboration within the group 

From the videos that we looked at we've decided on using lots of mid-shots, the previous Beauty Guru videos consisted of short clips, snipped and cut together to form a kind of montage, I noticed that when watching the videos, there wasn't a wide range of camera angles, so to make ours unique I thought about having a pan shot to show movement and for the intro so as we can see the Youtube guest as they walk in-front of camera. I thought about using a mix of these mid shots and close ups for the subjects face for any facial expressions that we would like to capture. 

For the Editing techniques I have decided to make the video footage jumpy, use a small amount of transitions and any that are used I shall make them consistent throughout the film. In Zoella's videos, she seems happy and cheery, moves her hands a lot on front of the camera which I think can be distracting but also very effective to show an object, in our case we could have the actor moving their hands and holding up a Go-Pro, link back to the idea Danielle had of VO where the actor will talk about the settings of the go-pro and how they can be used, what is the interface like. This will link back to the other idea we had of our actor not having a clue about the product, starts shaking and panicking, giving off a bad impression. Linking back to the idea that for the script, we are going to give it to her in front of camera, she will be reading it for the first time, we feel that this will flow a lot better compared to if she has already seen the script, she'd know a bit what she is talking about. 

A really key feature that I noticed when watching the Beauty videos was the fact that the background was always blurred out (fairy lights, clean coloured background) and in the foreground the YouTuber was in focus. You could clearly see that they were really well presented, wearing make up, hair straightened or tied up and they just looked ready to present, I think that we should have our characters well dressed, looking glamorous as this would appeal to a female and male audience as females would want to be her and males would want to be with her (male gaze perhaps).

In addition, myself, Dan and Danielle talked about the types of music that could be used as a backing track for our project, the first types of music that we researched involved Ukulele however upon closer research we found better music to fit the purpose of the music that we wanted it for. After further discussion we worked out that we wanted a type of upbeat music, not too fast but enough to add movement and give our video a happy feeling just like the types of music that YouTubers use i.e. Pointless Blog, Emma Blackery, Tyler Oakley, Yogcasts, SoCloseToToast and Zoella etc. 

Directing and Performance - 11th January - BAFI104

Directing and Performance

Monday 11th January 2016               Directing and Performance              Lecture: Andy and Lucy

Initial Idea: At the start of the lesson we had a look at method acting, as a class we were asked what we thought was the difference of acting within film or theatre. I came up with the idea that within film, the cinematographer and director will use different camera angles to shoot the actors, won't show all of the movements on camera, if anything goes wrong you can re-shoot the footage and editing can cover up a few mistakes. Where as for theatre the actors would have a big audience watching and if there was any mistakes for any reason, the audience would recognise and it could mess the whole production up.

The task for today was to use the scripts that we created for homework, get into groups of 5-6 (not including actors) and we would have to re-enact the storyline, we were asked to shoot 5 scenes and leave un edited.

Our idea was based around a football script, taking place was a conversation between two lads who were playing FIFA, we took this idea and we wanted to re-create the scene by playing a game of pool. Unfortunately the pool table wasn't working so we came up with the idea of going out to play football on the astro, it worked really well and we had great fun with directing the actors.

My role for this task was the Cinematographer, my key role was to work with the director, to establish the scenes that we wanted to capture, once we arrived on the pitch we had the idea of the actors being in the crowd as spectators, the script talked a lot about the ref and fouls on the ball. Ed had the idea that we could film it from a perspective of spectatorship, the girls were shouting over at the ref, 'c'mon ref'. Claudio and Charlie came up with the idea of bringing a ball into play, wanted to give the actors something to track up and down the pitch.

I was really pleased with the way that our shoot went, as soon as we got the ball (props) we started to film and record our 5 continuos shot scenes, we used a variety of different camera angles again which I liked because it helped to bring the viewers into the conversation, especially the line "c'mon" which was shortly followed by a short clip of Ed hitting the crossbar. The pan up at the start really helped to introduce the scene as the audience became aware that the girls were behind a barrier, followed by the spectators sign which helped to establish that they were spectators at a sporting match (astro within the start of the frame).

The feedback that we got on our project was great as a whole and it showed that us as the film team and the actors worked closely together to create a naturalistic piece, using the script and improvising.

Here is a link to the finished short film of our task that we created for the "FIFA Film".

Contexts of Practice - 6th January - BCOP

Wednesday 6th January 2016 

Contexts of Practice                                   Module: BCOP                         Lectures: Lucy Leake

Introduction to monsters

Existing fairytales: Little Red riding hood - looking at the representation of the wolf

Identified the key elements of Little Red Riding Hood - The colour red what does this signify, blood, mortality, love, lust, danger etc. 

The mother and child relationship - Overly protective, makes me think that she hasn't told her daughter enough about the outside world, doesn't know what dangers lurk around in the woods. 

Have a read of Bluebeard, originally written by Charles Perrault (19th Century), it contains three distinctive motifs, a secret chamber, curiosity and keys. 

Find some examples of different ways that fairytales have been interpreted in popular culture.... games? Films Music? Ads? Old stories used again and again in different ways, targeted at different people/demographics. 

Auteur - A film director whose personal influence and artistic control over his or her films, they are so great that they are recognisable to know who the author is when watching films, film by the same author will share common themes or techniques, expressing and individual style or vision. So if you know the types of themes, techniques and styles that certain authors use, if a film uses the same ones then you would immediately be triggered into thinking who the author was going to be.

Look at a fairytale that has been reinterpreted in popular culture.

My chosen example of a fairytale: 

I looked into the fairytale called The water of life, the main plot for it was two sons who go in search of "The Water of Life, advised by a little old man, the two need to find a cure for the king (their fathers) as he is sick. I came up with the idea of using my footage of a river flowing as a way of portraying the journey of not only the "The Water of Life" but also it could be used to show the journey of the kings sons as they go on an adventure to collect "The Water of Life". I added in lots of metaphors as well as I wanted to use words to describe the waters texture and power, clean, fast flowing at places and it meanders and trickles down the valley in a lot of places, all of the video footage shows different parts of rivers/streams within the woodlands.

Myself and Dan then got a small quote to conclude the river by talking about the way rivers move, personifies the truth, this sounded like a great line to use to describe the wisdom behind the river.

Here is a link to the short film that I created to re-interpret a specific fairytale called "The Water of Life" This is the link to the video on my Vimeo channel.

"The Water of Life" Short Film from Luke Curno on Vimeo.

Practical Screen-craft - BAFI101

Tuesday 6th Wednesday 2016

Practical Screen-craft                                  Module: BAFI101                               Lecture: Stu Bailey 

Introduction to instructional video

We sat down in our group, decided on a theme for our video, gave out the roles and came up with initial ideas on how we were going to film everything. Here is a list of notes from the lesson with my group, we sat down and talked to Stu as a group, he gave us a few existing videos to watch a few in order to get some inspiration.

Main Idea:

Beauty Guru Video 

Spoof

Male actor dressed as a female

Collaboration (Possibility of getting an actor from Marjons).

Ideas for channel names 

Guy name idea for channel: Sparkly Hermaphoditexx

Girl name for a channel: Blog's beauty

Possible Editing Ideas

Inside Voice

Stereotypical song (Royalty free music songs). 

Q&A - Screen Grabs 

Storyline - Opening ideas

Introduction of female character and the go-pro

Introduce other You-tuber [Informercial]

Typical Youtube outro Q&A

Thinking about using the go-pro 4 silver 

Look at go-pro information/ specification 

Storyboard

Brief

My input and given role

My chosen role was to be shared with Dan, we were given the roles of Sound, Cinematographer, Editing and Lighting. I took it upon myself to research different types of royalty free music for possible use in our instructional beauty guru video. Didn't get much luck with that so I decided to move onto look at different types of beauty hall videos as we had the idea of setting the location in someones home. The elements that I picked up on were the bright fairy lights in the background, stereotypically associated with girls as they like the girly lights, makes the background a lot more colourful for use within their Youtube videos.

Researched into the way that some Beauty Guru videos were being shot, the types of lighting, camera angles, editing techniques, typical bloopers and transitions that were used throughout the wanna be beauty guru's. I started to see that the editing was jumpy, clear that the shots thad been cut of and edited together quickly with a high pitched melody in the background, made the videos a lot less boring, the music gave the videos a different edge making you want to listen on more, some people used royalty free music with a fast tempo and slow tempo, sounded like they didn't edit the speed of the music, just let it play and then they edited the footage to the sound of the chimes. Camera angles were consisting of harsh zooms, close up, mid shots so as to show off their purchases or any items of make up that they were talking about, cut out small segments and made them in slow motion for when opening up products and then used time-lapse footage (sped up clips) for shots when we see the girls applying their make up. The backgrounds are mostly clean and bright, to make the presenter pop out from the frame, they wear a lot of make up, apply lipstick, do their hair, do anything to make themselves look good for the camera, preferable at the start they talk about the make up that they are wearing and make connotations to that with the video i.e. today I am wearing l'oreal skin care which I bought at ..... and I would recommend that you get it etc, so they try to sell the products through there appearance and what they wear in their videos.

I started to think about the types of sounds that could be used within the video, perhaps we could use the Zoom H4N mic and a shotgun mic for directional noise, including the unboxing, go pro features (clicking), constructing the additional features if any like mounts, arms etc. I think that we would need to use a Shotgun mic in order to record the voice overs, any dialogue from the presenter. As a group we came up with the idea of getting an actor from Marjons to be the face of the programme, act as if they are a You-tuber, recording a hall video, as a beauty guru.

We then came up with another idea where the You-tuber would be a man dressed as a women so as to add an element of comedy to our instructional video, thought about making the video a spoof, it would give a humorous imitation to the way that the video could be shot, events could occur where the You-tuber doesn't understand what they are talking about, seems quite unintelligent.

BAFI104 - Directing and Performance - Introduction

Monday 4th January 2016

Directing and Performance                   Module: BAFI104              Lecture: Andy and Lucy

We watched a short clip of a film called "Gasman (1997) dir. Lynne Ramsay. I thought that this short clip was edited together very well, I especially liked the beginning where the child was pouring salt over a toy car but in the background we heard the lyrics "Let it Snow, let it Snow, let it Snow"

We were split off into tables, given 5 different roles to choose from and we had to choose which one that we wanted to carry out for the day on the film task we had been set, I decided that I wanted to be the sound engineer so I had to go up to get some equipment including a H4N Zoom mic, XLR lead, boom pole, boom mic, dead cat and of course a pair of headphones so that I could monitor the sound quality.

Later on during the day we were split of into the group roles that we had specifically chose, on each table there were different roles and so we had to find everyone with the same script as us in order to form a film production team, our teams then had to travel to the Marjons University, where we sat in the theatre room and got introduced to the programme leader for the acting degree. Once we had finished listening to the task, we were given actors to work with, 3-4 in each group, plus the film team.

In our small groups we were told to make a short film but we had to incorporate the dialogue on the scripts that we were given, whether the words were spoken or acted out, this would depend on the approach that we wanted. I thought my team worked really well together, with George as the cinematographer (directed the shots), Ed as the creative producer making sure that everything was running smoothly, myself as the sound engineer, Rhi as the Production Designer helping to come up with ideas for the location and Jade who helped direct the actors. As a group we wanted to give the actors some ideas but we wanted them to come up with most of them as we felt that they could act a lot more fluently if we gave them the freedom to change the script, make everything a whole lot more interesting.

I thought that I worked very efficiently as the sound engineer within our group, I had to hold the recorder, boom pole with the shotgun and then listened through the headphones to make sure that sound was ok. However, we found a generator in the room, type of fan which we thought might be good to leave on as it gave the room a busy feeling, as if the noises within the actors heads were moving around within the bathroom, sounded like they had power over his mind.

Once I got back to college I started to import all of the sound clips and video footage so that I could put the sound and video together as my role said to link the sound up to the video and put onto your blog, I changed the levels of water so that they would stand out, used cross fades, transitions and I changed the colour slightly for the film to make the mirror look slightly darker.

I have uploaded the video and exported to VIMEO as a short, here is a link to it!
There is a Mirror - Short edited from Luke Curno and filmed by other PCA Students, uploaded by Luke onto Vimeo.


Additional Work 

We were asked by Andy to record a conversation between two people, we could either set up the reorder or secretly record people talking, however we would have to ask for their permission to use the sound. Anyway myself and Nathaniel were aware that we were being recorded, lead to less um's and r's, we still managed to interrupt each other a few time, whilst finishing each others sentences.

Transcript for conversation:

(Inaudible)

Nat: We'll you know, what kind of we'll you know, sound

Luke: We'll I was using the zoom H4N mic and then I had an input mic which was the output, most yeah we did have some sounds that was actually picked up on the camera

Nat: Yeah

Luke: That we was using so that was quite cool

Nat: Yeah I saw that and when you screened it

Luke: Yeah I like your's as well, like the way you, because all of the other groups they did theirs hand held...

Nat: Yeah

Luke: Which was quite funny

Nat: Haha Yeah

Luke: The fact that you used a tripod

Nat: Yeah well that was Dan's idea to use the slider, I always wanted to use the tripod because I don't know I didn't really like hand held, I like it for some shots but not for...

Luke: Perhaps you could have looked in, explored the idea of using the slider...

Nat: Yeah we did use the slider

Luke: No like the, using two different tripods

Nat: Yeah

Luke: On either end

Nat: Yeah

Luke: So you could slide it more efficiently

Nat: Yeah yeah yeah were going to do that for our, because were doing our instructional video on the slider

Luke: Oh are you

Nat: Yeah so we are going to get some local shots using the slider and then we are going to film us you know, using the slider...

Luke: Oh ok

Nat: What are you doing for, with the instructional video

Luke: Were thinking about doing some sort of hall video, so you know when girls do like beauty halls

Nat: Yeah

Luke: So like were going to do some sort of like beauty guru, something like that but were gunnu have a man whose dressed up as a woman, so were going to have like a comedy twist on it.

Nat: What, whose going to dress up as a woman

Luke: We'll I'm not gunnu volunteer

Nat: Whose in your group

Luke: Janusz, emily, no Janusz

Nat: Maybe Janusz will dress up as a girl

Luke: Yeah Janusz could dress up as a girl...... Quite funny that

Nat: Yeah, gotta go now

End of Conversation

References

Gasman (1998) Directed by Lynee Ramsay [Film] USA: Cinema 16 on DVD