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 

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.

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. 

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.

Practical Screen-craft - 1st December

Tuesday 1st December 2015 

Course Module - BAFI101                         Practical Screen-craft                    Lecture - Stu Bailey 

CODECS/Bitrate/Chroma-sampling/colours/compression/frame rate

At the start of todays lesson, Stu went over the piece of work that he had set us last week to do, based around Codecs, Bitrates, Chroma-sampling, he used the lesson to go through the questions we were asked and to give a deep analysis on certain aspects i.e. different codecs, their uses etc. 

Codec is an algorithm - Compression and Decompression 

Real important to use a codec to make images more manageable

All digital format use a codec 

A codec trades off image quality for file size

Balance between image Quality and File Size 

RAW - Known as uncompressed - 40MB

JPG - CODEC - 4MB

CODEC used in a 600D - H.264 (variations for the codec vary which is called Open Source) Re-work it to suit their needs. AVC CAM, AVC HD etc. It has become the go too codec, it gives very good image quality! 

Pretty much all DSLR's will record to H.264 - Can fit much more footage onto the card - seen as an advantage- 

H.264 IS OPEN SOURCE, H.264 CONTAINER IS MP4 

The newest version is H.265 (supports 4K) 1GB - H.264, H.265 - 100MB - will become the new replacement.


Another CODEC

Apple Pro Res - (Professional Resolution) is INTERMEDIARY - Within the pro res there is a family - lots of different versions.      

CANNON XF100 will give you an approved CODEC - . records in .mxf - MPEG-2 open sourced by cannon for their consumers.

CINEFORM - High end codec that is used by Go Pro but it doesn't have to be used for Go Pro.

If there is a film that is going to be extensive, steer away from shooting on H.264 - you could light up the film on camera with lighting equipment and shoot it the way you want to - You could get away with using H.264, however the colours wouldn't be vivid. 

Convert video - Transcode from on codec to another 

EXAMPLE - PRO RES ---- CINEFORM (Putting our film in a better container so we can do more and get more out of it, great for colour correction.

DVD - MGEG-2

Anything for streaming or for use on the web - H.264 - Codec's need to define video compression 

Bitrate - Decreasing the bit rate would decrease the overall size and quality of the image. Variable bit rate is good to use for motion. 

COLOUR - Chroma Subsampling 4:4:4 - used for red camera's like the alexia, doesn't chuck much colour away. broadcast colour system we use for PAL is 4:2:0. Were aiming for a suitable colour of 4:2:2.

Colour Bits ^ Amount of colours 8 bit/10/12/14   H.264 (4:2:0) 8 bit (28)

Pro Res (4:2:2) 10 bit (210)

RESOLOUTION - SD HD 4K 8K

FRAME RATE - 24/25/30 - FLASH VIDEO 15

COMPRESSION - INTERFRAME / INTRAFRAME - COMPRESS A GROUP OF FRAMES OR A SINGLE FRAME AND COMPRESSES IT, TAKES THE COMPRESSION FROM THE FIRST FRAME AND WILL GUESS THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EACH FRAME, ALL IT WILL STORE IS THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MOTION AND LIGHT, NOT THE COLOUR AS THAT WAS DONE IN THE FIRST FRAME.

^^^ Group of Pictures ------ USUALLY ABOUT HALF A SECOND 11-13 FRAMES

Practical Screen-craft - 24th November

Tuesday 24th November 2015

Course Module - BAFI101                         Practical Screen-craft                     Lecture - Stu Bailey

Researching different CODEC's, Bitrates, Chroma-sampling and what they do? 

What does CODEC stand for?

A device or program which is capable of performing transformations on a data stream or a signal.

Compression and Decompression

What is a CODEC used for?

Codec is a software that is used to compress or decompress a form of a digital media file, a few examples of this would include a song or a video file. Programs such as windows media player and other programs actually use these codecs to play and create digital media files. A codec can consist of two components, known as an encoder or decoder.

An encoder which can be a device, circuit, transducer, software programme that converts information from one format or code to another for the purposes of standardization, speed, secrecy, security or compressions.

A decoder is a circuit that changes a code into a set of signals, it does the reverse of encoder, they are simpler to design.

At which point of the production workflow is a codec used?

A codec is the word given to describe the order used to layout data of an audio or video file, it may be used for playback, editing or changing to other codecs (known as transcoding). Codecs are used to organise media data but that data is held within something known as a container. There are many different types of audio and video codecs and they have their own advantages. Premiere will need a codec to analyse the files but then you would need to choose a codec to place the files, so it would be used at the beginning and end of post production.

What is the difference between a Codec and a container? What they contain?

Codec is a method used for encoding and decoding data, more specifically for compressing data.

Container is what holds the grouping of compressed video, a container can be referred to as a format, the container will take care of the packing, transport and presentation. An example of this i.e. MPEG 4 file is represented by a .mp4 file type.

What is chroma-subsampling and how does it affect an image

Chroma sampling is the name given to a practice of encoding images by giving the images less resolution, in doing so it can reduce the file size, but the whole process can be sensitive to any variations within the brightness, changing colour. Has an effect on adding harsh lines, no visual difference which can be perceived by the person viewing the photograph but it can saturate the colours to form significant artifacts.

What is meant by Bitrate?

How much information is being analysed at any given point.

What CODEC(s) do you think you should be using and why?

H.264 .MP4 - Very good for it's compression, you can create a lot of information with a lot of space to compress files, making the file size smaller but this would be used for if you wanted to put your video online, website or Vimeo for people to watch, this CODEC wouldn't apply to broadcast quality as it makes the quality look flack and degrades.

References 

Matt Laufer (2014) The Difference Between Codec's and Containers , Available at:http://www.encoding.com/blog/2014/01/13/whats-difference-codecs-containers/(Accessed: 24th November 2015).

Margaret Rouse (2005) Bit Rate Definition , Available at:http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/definition/bit-rate (Accessed: 24th November 2015).

Matthews (Not Posted a year) Chroma-Sampling in JPEG Compression , Available at:http://users.wfu.edu/matthews/misc/jpg_vs_gif/JpgCompTest/JpgChromaSub.html(Accessed: 24 November 2015).

Practical Screen-craft - 17th November

Tuesday 17th November 2015 

Course Module - BAFI101                       Practical Screen-craft               Lecture - Stu Bailey

Colour Correction and lighting

Three point lighting - Typical set up for someone in front of the camera or within an interview etc. 

Light one - Positioned on the right or left side of the subject, high with a 45* degree angle - The first light is known as the Key light, main source of illumination. 

Light two - Positioned on the opposite side from the 1st light, high with 45* degree angle again - Known as the fill light, gives 1/2 power.

Light 3 - Positioned behind the subject, known as the rim light - Makes the subject stand out from the background. 

You can change the framing as well in order to eliminate any lighting or use a defuser or snoot to direct any particular light to cast shadow or shine.

Colour Correction

Little tweaks can make the shots look better. Premiere is a fantastic programme to use for colour correction editing. 

Always make sure to get a rough cut of your film before applying effects and colours. 

Editor hands the film to the colourist and then they will pass it on to the sound-man.

 Effects we used for editing the colour within Premiere were RBG Parade, Vector-scope and Curves.

All light (contrasts within the image) had to be no higher than 100, not lower than 0 - Illegal to be broadcast. 

Practical Screen-craft - 10th November

Tuesday 10rd November 2015 

Course Module - BAFI101                         Practical Screen-craft                        Lecture - Stu Bailey

Practising Lighting

Towards the start of the lesson, Stu took us through the colour circle which was quite confusing and seemed complex at first glance, I have always learnt from a hands on experience, actually testing the camera and replicating shots from existing films by putting the techniques that we were being taught into practice i.e. using different colours, ISO, shutter speeds, f-stops and of course the types of lighting such as daylight, tungsten which can create either a high or low key effect for our image.

Anything outside of the circle is called the Hue - Saturates from the middle out.

When looking at white balances and colours, Tungsten and Daylight are the two most common, they both portray a different cast and look.

The best thing that Stu said we could do would be to take a picture, look at the image, get the correct framed shot that we want and then from there we can go to Custom White balance and from there in the menus we can change the colours of the image, increasing and decreasing certain shades within the image, fade out or add noise etc.

For our first task, we were asked to take a variety of stills and play around with lighting, using a reflector, has a black, white, gold and silver texture to it, depending on the effect you want, you can really bounce the light or reflect the light to give the image mood or in this case add light onto the actors face. Below are shots that were taken using different sides of the reflector from different locations.

All images are taken from PCA students Luke Curno, Dann Hobbs and Danielle Young - November 2015 - Using a Cannon camera in college.

The second task involved us as a group heading up into the studio/green-screen room, we were asked to create high and low key lighting. To start off, each group was allocated an object to work with, my group used an old film camera, looked rusty and I thought that we could get some brilliant lighting and shadows for the rust around the base of the reel. Each group was then given a set of lights inc. one LED panel and a dedo light, I really enjoyed this task as I was able to experiment with shadows, high and low key lighting and just test out everything, using different angles, heights, colours etc. Below are a few examples which I thought looked amazing using the high and low key techniques on our allocated objects.

All images are taken from PCA students Luke Curno, Dann Hobbs and Danielle Young - November 2015 - Using a Cannon camera in college.

Practical Screen-craft - 3rd November

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 

Course Module - BAFI101                         Practical Screen-craft                        Lecture - Stu Bailey

Lighting Techniques

Cinematography - Painting with Light

How you light the film (example for film - 1992 Visions of Light)

What is meant by the word Cinematographer

• Visual storyteller - Speak through light and shadows light 
• Absence of light (used as a form of expression) People think of light as being given a paintbrush or paint, you can experiment with light through movement, using a variety of techniques to achieve lots of effects i.e. shadow, reflections, defusing light patterns etc.
• Defining light with space 
• You have to have a desire and drive for cinematography. Help you become more creative in the process of creating films, portray a narrative. 

Within the credits of a film, TV broadcast, the role for the person in-charge of the lighting can be known as a cinematographer. Other names for the role - Director of photography, whereas in TV broadcast they can be known as lighting cameraman. 

Duct Tape - Sticky, can do the job but it leaves a lot of mess, marks and it is not easy to get off. 

Gaffa - won't get sticky, useful in building sets or tapping down leads.

Make sure that when using the lighting equipment, you check the barn doors, leads and any other accessories to make sure that their are no tears, dents, or to make sure that the end of the plugs aren't loose.

Check the pat test (Portable Appliance Test) - Test to make sure the equipment is safe - Presented by a label (Green for us). 

When turning the lights on, other than checking the wires, make sure that before you hit the switch, the light switch is off and the light is facing away from yourself and others, if not it could blind someone.

Be sure to use suitable resistant filters and gels i.e. the lights can get very hot quickly, could melt the incorrect gel and stick on the barn doors or light, substance sticking.

OHM's Law

(W) Power = (I) Current x (V) Voltage - To find out the amps (Current) we need to do (W) Power ÷ (V) Voltage = (I) Current.

High and Low key lighting

High Key - Used for happy, generic fairs, rom coms, soaps, sitcoms, lighting not used in creative ways, simple adjustments made.

Low Key - Effect to create moods, used to make the films more interesting, add a mood to the film, horror films, film noir (white and black).

Contrast of lighting - Alfred Hitchcock - Well known for Physcho (Film).

People perceive light in different ways, use light and dark scenes for mood change, shift within the film from shot to shot.

Hard and Soft light - Hard shadows, soft light defused, less shadows.

Point source - Use reflectors, soft box - Increasing the point source will make the light a lot softer.

Tungsten - Type of light - Colour temperature which is measured in Degrees Kelvin.

Snoot's - Used to direct light to a specific area

Scrims - Used for defusing

Dedo Light - 2 Tungsten presets on the controller

Think about the noise of the fan in the lights, could it be picked up on sound recorders.

LED Lights - Much more flexible

Z96 - high input

Best light source is the sun, using all of the above you have the option to use the natural light from the sun as a backdrop or lighting for a particular scene, you can reflect, bounce or defuse the hardness of the light using all of the above.

Have a look at VideoMaker.com

References

Visions of light (1992) Directed by Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy and Stuart Samuels [Film]. USA: Kino International

Psycho (1960) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock [Film]. USA: Paramount Pictures

Practical Screen-craft - 20th October

Tuesday 20th October 2015

Course Module - BAFI101                      Practical Screen-craft                        Lecture - Stu Bailey

Experimenting with Sound

Today we had a tutorial on the sound equipment that can be used with the H4N Zoom microphone such as the boom mic, shotgun mic, omni mics etc. We looked at directional and Omni directional mics and we were able to test out some of the equipment towards the end of the lesson.

Myself and Sam went down to the library, we had the aim to use a really quiet place, people see it as a tranquil space to learn and relax with a book, we found out through the tests that the library sounded much louder through the shotgun mic, which was what we were using. The following is a list of sounds that we captured and what we thought they sounded like, could be used as foley for specific scenarios within film;

Sound Test

Pens/pencils - Writing with chalk on the board, if this was recorded slower or at a lower frequency we thought that it could have sounded like the sea moving.

Brushing the carpet - Sounded like someone using sandpaper on wood.

Walking down the corridor - We got a teacher to walk down the corridor outside our tutorial room, we could really hear the sounds bouncing of the walls down the hallway, lots of reverb. We followed his footsteps with the microphone, as we traveled and brought the microphone closer, the sound started to pull in and the further we got, the more quieter his footsteps sounded.

Flicking through a magazine - Sounded like crisp packets, the fasted that you flicked through, the more it sounded like a fire starting.

Shuffling the DVD boxes - Train going across the tracks

Tapping and dragging our fingers - The repeated tapping started to sound like a gun firing where as the dragging sounded like an aeroplane starting up.

Practical Screen-craft - 13th October

Tuesday 13th October 2015

Course Module - BAFI101                         Practical Screen-craft                        Lecture - Stu Bailey

Camera control -Exposure Triangle 

If an image is too dark then that means that it is under exposed, known as "crushing the blacks"  and if it is too light then that means that it is over exposed, known as "blown out". 

3 main controls in the exposure triangle 

Shutter Speed - Creates motion and blur for the image - important to use a set shutter speed of 1/50= 50 - standard is 25fps so x2 to get 50 but then if you want slow motion you can do 50fps x2 to get 100fps. Adjusting the exposure of an image doesn't need to use the shutter of the camera. 

Going down makes our image look lighter, going up makes it look darker, increasing everything will make the picture look fake, unrealistic which can look awesome for films like horror and SCI FI. 

ISO - ISO is the sensitivity of the camera, standard ISO 100 - 400 lower the iso the slower the filming speed. Iso within the Cannon 600D's is only usable up to 1600 as after that the image will start to deteriorate and become grainy. Even using 1600 ISO can give you some of that grain which could create noise on your image, doesn't look great, better to have a nice clean image. Always make sure to set your ISO before you start shooting. 

Aperture - Predominantly this is the main way to control exposure and light into the camera - Hole in the lens of the camera, know as the iris which is the mechanism that controls the whole for the aperture. 

Term used - F stops - There are a set range of F-stops in each camera which will give you a different sized whole. However, we have to be aware that the numbers are the reverse to the aperture. 

F2, F2.8, F4, F5.6, F8, F11, F16, F22 - Stopping down on these will half the amount of light that the camera is letting in, opening up will obviously increase the amount of light that is being let in to the camera - Not all lenses will open to the same amount, 

Example of a slow lens - Cannon 600D which has an F-stop of 3.5 
Example of a fast lens - 1.5 F-stop 

The brighter the aperture, the shallower the depth of field. Depth of field is the term used when we describe whats in focus from the front of the camera to the back of the lens. The better the lens, means more aperture which will give a shallower depth of field. 

Always a great idea to under expose your image as you can bring up the colours of the foreground in post production i.e. editing.

If an image is dark, you will need to add light but if an image is light then you will want to use something known as an ND filter, known as a neutral density filter which you put onto the end of the lens. You can get a full frame ND filter or you can get a variable ND filter but in most video camera's such as the Canon XF100's that we are using, they have ND built into them so video cameras are much more setup as oppose to DSLR cameras.

Practical Screen-craft - 5th October

Course Module - BAFI101                     Practical Screen craft                   Lecture - Stu Bailey

Focal Lengths

At the start of today's lesson, we had a recap on last weeks learning, going over the different mediums, their uses, resolutions, aspect ratio's, scanning and others. Next we started to look at focal lengths in a lot more detail, thinking about how the script is read and illustrated in camera/cinema effects (impacts of given focal length on frame), the distance from the lens to the censor at the back. We talked about the fact that some high end camera's have something which is known as a crop censor, the starting point for a crop censor would be 35mm or so. The lecturer wanted to get us thinking more about the effects that different focal lengths can give, we watched a short clip from a film called "Stand By Me" this was a great example as right at the start of the scene their was a long shot of the bridge, tracks back to the children as a close up shot, helps to give the impression that the distance that they have travelled is shorter than what they have left to get across. These specific camera angles have been used to convey the journey across the bridge - it's elongated. 

Examples of focal length and Dolly Zoom

Jaws - On the beach, the camera zooms in really quick to see the guy on the beach, pulling him into focus.

Cinematography by Bill Butler  [1]

Saving Private Ryan - Sniper bullet shot through the enemies scope, penetrates the glass and shatters in front of his eye.

Cinematography by Janusz Kaminski [2]

Indiana Jones / Raiders of the lost ark - The boulder at the start chasing him through the back of the temple. Great example, camera would have been placed with a telephoto lens, zoomed in far away and then the cameraman would have slowly zoomed out to give the impression that Harrison Ford was being chased by the polystyrene ball. 

Cinematography by Douglas Slocombe [3]

Different focal lengths are used a lot, primarily in genres like horror movies to portray an abandoned room or hallway, gives a great perspective of the hall and then could be used to pull back and show someone being chased or just portray how elongated that the hall actually is without having to move the camera, very effective.

Zoom Lens - Different focal length - Much more flexibility, better off for events and documentaries.

Prime Lens - Fixed focal length - Better quality of glass, a lot sharper, making it more expensive but faster. Linked back to aperture, controlled by the f-stop, the whole is a bit bigger, better in low light conditions that the zoom. Used for more considered film work, drama based. 

We were given a short brief to carry out using a Nikon 7200 camera, with a set focal length of 18-105mm, we had the aim to play around with the focal length of the camera to create a short film. I took control of my group and put the idea of stop motion to practise, it was extremely hard to come up with the angles but the planning was spot on for the project, the idea behind "Get Out Quick" was that their was a fire in a students flat, using the idea that we talked about for hallways and I tired to change it slightly with a low angle looking across the light beams on the floor. I made it so that we would be slightly out of focus in parts to give the sense of movement, we were in a rush  and then the parts where people were dawdling were in focus to show that they weren't in a hurry. Worked well for the camera angles and the fact that I used the camera and my brain really well to create an experimental piece which looked quite good. However if we had more time I would have liked to have played around in the edit, slowing down a few of the clips as the piece was made up of digital images and so it would have flowed nicely with a slower duration, say 20 sec.

Types of software

Non linear - Dive into various clips to use anywhere, in any order. 

Premiere Pro - Adobe
Final Cut Pro  - Moved to Final Cut Pro X 
Avid Media Composer 
Davinci Resolve 
Vegas
iMovie 
Lightworks 

We need to make sure that when editing, whether it's at home or in college, to save everything into a big folder which then has sub folders, this will make it easier for us but also the computer as it will be able to locate everything needed to play the project i.e. sound, video, still, effects etc. The lecture then went on to tell us to ask any editor and they will say that organisation of our work space is key to become a success and efficient at what we love doing. 

Shortcuts for Premiere Pro 

Selection - V 
Ripple - B Increase length of two clips (effecting one edit point)
Roll - N Rolling around edit, adjusting start and stop points of two clips.
Trim - T

Lift - Deletes area but leaves a gap
Extract - Deletes area and gap

3 point editing

Slip - Y - Used if you want to make any final tweaks 
Slide - U
Razor (C)

References 

[1] Jaws (1975) Directed by Steven Spielberg [Film]. USA: Universal Pictures

[2] Saving Private Ryan (1998) Directed by Steven Spielberg [Film]. USA: DreamWorks Studios, Paramount Pictures and Film Flex

[3] Indiana Jones - Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Directed by Steven Spielberg [Film]. USA: Paramount Pictures.