Commission Unit: Documentary

For this Unit I have some rough ideas so far:

One idea is based around international students and looking into how they cope with the life changing decision to study abroad; living in a different environment and society, lifestyle, weather, expenses etc.

My second idea is a pre-developed project.
During the Easter break, I got the opportunity to document a week long fashion course run by the UCA Rochester for young kids to encourage them to take up the career path and progress on to study it at the university. For this project, we only had to produce a five minute brief promo for the five days duration of the course. Needless to say we had surplus amount of footage recorded over the five days.
I feel I could incorporate incorporate this event into a documentation of the course.
Also in a cause to develop the idea, I could re-visit students who attend the course and document their progress after the course and their feelings towards taking up a career in fashion and the overall impact of the course in their lives.

Direction Unit: Charcters and Props

Still deciding on what shoes for the female character.
I am kind of swaying towards the red converse shoes
just because well they are red and could signify characteristics
and relate to the twist in the plot.

Behold my Episode Prop - 'The Shovel'!!

This was roughly the kind of look
we have agreed on with the female actor.
So this is her in full costume!

This will be the top costume for the male character 'Drew'
who I will be playing in the episode.

Direction Unit: Final Title Sequence

I have finally been able to finish off the title sequence for the Web-series so here is the final product.
Overall I am pleased with it and feedback from the group results the same so we are happy to stick with it.

Direction Unit: Title Sequence

I have finally been able to finish off the title sequence for the Web-series.
We collected clips from most of the episodes and mixed them up into the sequence, putting down the opacity at certain points to allow a blend.
We then decided on the font for the title which was 'Technovia'
For the music, I experimented with a few of my brothers tracks and the group decided on the one that works best in terms of mood and flow.

Direction Unit: Final Piece - Episode 1

Behold here it is - Episode 1 of 'Park Story'

Park Story: Episode 1 - DEBT

Overall, I am pleased with the final outcome. My only let down is that I had to cut a few shots that I was quite happy to include. However, watching the final piece now I don't regret that but instead feel they would have made it unnecessarily long and a bit of a drag. Whereas the final state I feel is now at a steady pace for my intended mood and style to be successfully achieved.

Direction Unit: Feedback and Development

I had a chat with my tutor, showing him my episode edit in order to get some feedback on what I could improve on to gain the final piece. Points to improve that I noted down were:

- One hard cut needs shortening in order for it to be much more smooth.
- In the opening scene cuts should be made when the car door and boot are simultaneously shut to materialize the 'jump-cut' editing technique.
- A clip needs the speed and cut sorting out.
- Lesser clips for the shovel hit scene to allow quicker cuts and more impact.
- Sound levels still a bit hit at certain points.

These were all minor issues so I was able to make the required adjustments quickly and my episode is near enough ready for release.

Direction Unit: Edit

I have successfully synced the sounds together with the clips now and found some good sound effects to go with most of my key scenes. Now I can get on with concentrating on the visuals.
I decided from the start to go with a dark feel in the visuals as the story is set in the dusk hour. Also so that the mood of the film could be tense and gritty. I can use color correction to play around with this to get the right tone of visuals.

Direction Unit: Title Sequence

So I have now got clips for most episodes and put them together to experiment on my idea for the Title sequence montage. There was also a nice pov tracking shot of the park pathway by one of my colleagues Kevin O'Flanagan which we decided to incorporate into the title sequence.
I decided to use this shot as a background for all the episode clips to layer on and it's worked and coming along really well.

Direction Unit: Edit

I have now cleaned up my edit and started work on the sound. As I recorded my sound separately this will be a bit of a mission trying to find the right sounds let alone sync them properly with the video.
However, the sound quality is so much more better that that on the video camera so can only be worth it I suppose.

Direction Unit: Title sequence

The course group came together and had a discussion regarding ideas for the Title sequence and a lot was I talked about it terms of using shots of the Vinters park as it is a central link to all the episodes.

So I thought of a montage idea in which clips from each episode is used together to make up the title sequence.

Direction Unit: Edit Cut 2

I have now reached the second stage of edit and have successfully but painfully cut down my episode to the required 3 minute mark. A lot of establishing shots that I really hoped to use have had to be rejected; not the easiest decision I have to admit but has to be done.

Direction Unit: Park Story - Edit

I have now uploaded my footage and started editing.
Overall I am pleased with the footage I got from the shoot, the only one I am not too satisfied with is the angle of one of my shots which was too wide and another of the shovel digging into the ground which I didn't watch back instantly and isn't now what I wanted as the digging seems effortless.
The first draft of everything is in place but its up to 3 minutes 45 seconds at the moment so a LOT of cutting out to do!! Oh dear!!

Direction Unit: Filming

My shoot is now successfully over after a few battles with the weather.
The weather today wasn't the worst but frequent brief showers meant interruptions and waiting around a bit but as time went on the weather cleared up especially as we moved to the digging scene where we were protected by the trees.

For this shoot I decided to experiment doing a two-camera shoot. This worked quite well and easier than I pre-judged. It meant being able to get two different shots/angle at a time cutting down the amount of retakes required.
The only negative thing I can think about it is probably the restriction in shot angles while trying to avoid the 2nd camera getting in shot. But then again an extra take could always be done in order to get that tighter angle.
Also, another thing I picked on which could give me a problem in post production will be the fact that both cameras are different - I was shooting with the studio Sony XD cam and a Canon 5D MK II so their qualities were physically different. However, this isn't unsolvable as beauty of Colour correction exists.

Direction Unit: Script Update

 I have had to make some changes to my script due to unforeseen circumstances:

One of my stated props is a BMW which I was going to use one owned by a friend of mine but unfortunately he is unable to make my shoot date so I will have to make do with another.
Possibilities: Mine (Again) or one of my course colleagues.

After the peer reviewing session, I realised that a vital requirement in the brief stated that we begin our episode and end it at the entrance of the park so I will have to change the ending of my story/script.
Instead of ending with a bang as initially intended, one of my characters will now exit the park at the end.

Paper Talk

Our short project brief was to create a 1 minute film using a prop and 2 characters; having one of the characters approach the other with a note which had some sort of message which the receiving character had to react to.
My approach to this was by having a message that would evoke a negative reaction on the receiving character. I also thought as my characters were a male and female, the note could be relative 'divorce' i.e. the female handing over the divorce papers to the male character. During filming I decided to play around with the audience expectations and portray the male character as optimistic and reassuring only to be approached by the female character, leaving him shocked and dissapointed by the message in the note.

Summer project - Mechanical ME

During the summer holidays, myself and Neill Morris helped run a film lab course as ambassadors at the Uca Rochester campus.
People of different ages applied to take part and were divided into three groups to produce an episode each of a web-series titled 'Mechanical ME'. Myself, Neil and the other ambassadors involved had to act as producers for each episodes taking charge of a group each.
The course production ran for just over a week leaving each group 3 days to film and 2 days to edit after pre-production. I was in-charge of episode 2 and due to shortage of time, in-experience amongst the peers and  other difficulties, I ended up also editing the episode.
Here is a link to all three episodes... MechanicalMe Web Series