clean up video

Over the past couple of weeks I have been trawling through the footage I took at glastonbury festival and sorting it into rushes, seeing the film again has given me a clearer idea of the documentary that I want to make, and have started making a list of the things I want to capture at next years festival while its still in my head.
This year I managed to loose some valuble footage, in one case the tape simply could not be found, having seached everywhere I can only guess it was taped over before been logged and captured! another lesson to be learned 'label tapes clearly' as I found once you have over three tapes it can get quiet confusing, I also had problems with other tapes too this problem I have had before at Uni and that is trouble logging and capturing in final cut (timecode errors) I may try using a different device to play back the tape.
As I was going through the footage I realised I had enough material to make a short peice on the clean up of the festival. This is a matter close to my heart as I have witnessed the devestation and gross amount of waste left behind each year. This was not the case this year and the site was cleared in a matter of weeks.

Glastonbury Site Clean Up

I am going to pass the film on to the festival office, may be it will find its way on to the screen at next years festival, with a bit more luck.

Gastonbury... On site...

Its been a while since I wrote a blog, but I thought that my experiences over the summer were worth a mention...

Way back in the spring around mid May just as uni was winding up for the year, I decided to have ago at making a short film and entering a competition that Mike had suggested I have a look at. Every year at Glastonbury festival a compertition is held for amamature film makers, they give a list of the criteria of films they are looking for and any films deemed suitable are played on some of the screens throughout the festival, they suggest that the films have a strong visual impact as the audio levels can be very poor.

My initial plan was to make a montage of the varying different stages of the festival building up. I intended to film things such as the construction of the fence and staging and also capture some of the creativity that goes in to the festival such as the binpainting and flag making.


Having gained permission from the festival organizer I set about filming. I was initially suprised at the amount of activity on the site so early on, already things were begining to take shape and there were a large number of site crew already living on the farm.

I began by filming some of the construction and people at work, I didnt realy have a plan and found myself going off on tanjents. Where I saw something happening I would go and ask the people working if they minded me filming, some people were not happy to be filmed but most were fine about it, and in many cases people actually wanted to talk about their experiences. What started out as a mission to collect a varied cross section of footage of the festival developing began to turn into a catalog of peoples experiences. Initially I hadnt been concerned about audio as I intended to use music, but I soon realised for interveiwing purposes I needed an external mic and I also installed the help of my freind Liz as the sound lady.

As the festival loomed and the security got tighter we ran into problems gaining access to the site, the result of which left myself and Liz sat waiting by the main gate in the dust and seering heat for two hours while we waited for one very pissed off press officer to come and give us the third degree, after a great deal of explaination we were allowed to carry on but only under the watchful eye of the press office.

One morning I was out filming and was told that there was a suprise parade planned for Michael Eavis, all the site crew had made some sort of an effort to make a carnival like presession, unbeknown to Michael they planned to parade past the farm later that day. I contacted the Press guy and asked if it would be ok to come and film, luckily he was more than happy for me to come along and gave me the green light.

The evenings filming went well and I managed to capture some half decent footage. The next day the press guy contacted me and asked me for 3 minute edit of the evenings highlights. I began work on the edit and caught up with him later the next day, I was shocked when he asked me if I had finished it! when I told him no, he asked if I could turn it around by four o clock that afternoon, as he was meeting the bbc and would give them my footage ( "if it was any good"!)

Heart pounding I raced back home to try to finish it off in the three hours I had. Not been the quickest at editing I had to limit myself to a certain amount of time on each peice, I just managed to do it with no minutes to spare and ended up with my laptop purched on the passenger seat of my van burning a copy to disc as I drove back to the office. The press guy gave it the ok, next it was the boys from the bbc and the Eavis family, I was so nervous as we all crowded around my laptop, every mistake jumped out at me making me cringe, but they did actually like it and asked if they could take a copy. Which I of course was more than happy with...

Here it is ...Glastonbury Site Crew Parade.

I wasn't quiet sure what was going to happen to my footage, it was only when fellow student Anthony texed me to say he had seen my work playing on the pyramid stage and then I later saw it for myself, I was pleased to see that they ran the whole peice and the credits were on the end. After the festival the Press guy contacted me to say well done and that the bbc had used some of my clips on T.V.
What an exciting month and an excellent learning cerb, I realised how much I had learned in my year at uni and I had the experience of working with all types of people on many levels, from interveiwing to dealing with officialdom. In this sort of media enviroment I soon realised that you need to have plenty of 'blag' a lot of cheek and a certain amount of luck to get ahead. It also became apparent to me that Its not what you know but who you know that hold the keys that unlock some of the doors (or in this case I should say gates)......

A grave matter

Having had a discussion with Ross following the group meeting on tuesday we have now begun to form the structure of our documentary and intend to make Anna and her life style the main topic of our focus.

1st minute
Beginning with a short introduction regarding attitudes towards food in the U.K we will highlight the fact that obesity is on the increase in the uk and that the government has set out initiatives on the importance of eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. with the use of voxpops we will reflect 2 - 3 opinions from the general public.
2nd minute.

Introduction to Holistic nutritionist and raw food specialist Anna who will talk about her lifestyle, nutrition and describe what it is she does and how raw food can be beneficial to our health and well being.
5th minute
Anna will go on to demonstrate in public how to make a healthy dish and we will see if she can convince the public that healthy food can be tasty.
7th minute
interviews and vox pops of the publics reaction and a round up from Anna.
Below is a slide show of some of the research Ive done and other bits and bobs...

19/3/10

We have begun filming some of the content for our documentary, last week saw us record one of Annas workshops. We used the Z1camera for the close ups and my own camera for the wide angle shots, the sound was recorded using the seniser rifle microphone connected to the Z1 camera , the microphone was set up above Annas head where we managed to get a decent sound quality. I am pleased we made the decision to take the microphone rather than use the mic on the camera, as we had to set up at the back of the room so we did not block the veiw of the people attending the workshop, I was stood next to the window and the noise from the street outside was quiet loud given the distance I was stood away from Anna I think we would have struggled to get a decent sound quality.
After the workshop had ended I interviewed some of the guests and asked them some questions regarding the workshop, I was alone at this point and found it quiet difficult to concentrate on all the tasks such as interviewing sound and the camera, the result of which was that the some of the interviewees moved around in the shot and as I wasn't behind the camera some of the framing is out, I am hoping we can resolve some of the problems in post production.

Thursday 16th March

We began filming the second of three scheduled days of filming , The aim of the day was to Interview Anna, capture some cut away shots and interview the restaurant manager and shop owner where Anna supplies her cakes. Ross was in charge of the Z1 camera whilst I took care of the sound and interviewing. Annie was unable to make all of the days filming and although we managed it with two of us, I found it difficult to deal with both the technical aspects of recording and doing the interviewing at the same time. We had a few issues with the framing of the subjects but once again I think we might be able to sort them out in post production. We managed to acomplish everything we set out to and think we have some good interveiws to work with.

DAY THREE

The filming for the third day had us out on the streets of Bath Filming Anna Putting some of her raw delights to the test , are aim was to record the reactions of the general public . Annie took the role of interveiwer, Ross was on sound and I was on the camera we found that most people were happy to record a vox pop interveiw and answer a few simple questions.
Annas food created a lot of positive attention every person who tasted it seemed to realy like it which was very good feed back for Anna and easy filming for us, the only problems that occurred on this particular shoot was the weather. We only managed to get around an hour of filming before the heavens openend and down came the rain , we managed to get all the equipment packed away before it truly lashed it down, That finished off the filming for that day but due to the postive amount of responses we had managed to film, we now had enough footage to move onto the editing process.

Myself, Ross and Annie got together in the gate house and began sellecting what to put in the edit, We started with the interveiw with Anna, that been the main spine of the peice on which everthing else would hang.It seemed that once we had narrowed down the the interveiw the rest of video began to fall into place. The main problems we had with this peice was with the dvd authoring. The file exported from final cut would not be read as 16/9 we tried several times using different formats but the same problems occured over again. Mike finally excepted the disc as it were as there seemed to be no solution that any of us could find.
After many Problems with uploading the file to the net we have finnally managed it. Here is the finished version of food for thought.

Between the group I feel we managed this project pretty well. The comunication and reliabillity was good and everyone turned up on time or gave plenty of notice if they were unable make it. We stuck to all of our filming dates and I feel we planned the schedule well. All of our filming was done by easter and I began logging and capturing over the holidays and we met as a team and began editing, when we returned to university after the holidays we only had to polish up the edits and do some colour correction.
During the shoots myself and Ross took turns on the camera and audio giving us both a chance to practice are skills, Annie was unable to help out on the technical side of things (fustrating for her) but made up by doing other things such as the interveiwing, photographs and paperwork. The main problems we encountered with this project was the format problems in the last few days of production. Other than that I would say that we reached our objectives worked well as ateam and used the time we had sencsibly.
This project gave us a taste of what it would be like to be working on a peice in the real world, given that the end product was going to go on Annas website. The whole process ran very smoothly and I am personally happy with the end product.

A Grave Matter

The filming on day three turned out to be the best day weather wise. I had learned from my early mistakes and brought along a Rhode video mic, which I attached to my camera in the hope of capturing better audio.

I managed to capture more cutaways, record an interview with Ray and catch a few unintentional 'magic moments'. The day seemed to be going well until I realised that I had been shooting in 4/3 from the previous day, all the other footage taken over the previous two days were shot in 16/9, nightmare!! Done it again! We had the same problem shooting the group project, on that occasion two cameras were shooting in the two different pixel aspect ratios. Lesson Learned this time I hope. Despite the problems I managed to capture most of footage I had set out to get, I was on target with my schedule and it was time to begin the logging and capturing process.

THE JOYS OF PRODUTION

I wanted to log and capture all the video and begin the edit before the end of April as I was going on holiday for four days giving me just under two weeks to finish the project, I had initial problems in logging certain parts of one of my tapes, I kept getting logging errors I tried different capturing devices but the same problem occurred each time, I resolved not to use the piece in the end.

Once all the footage had been loaded into final cut, the process of choosing what will go in the film and in what order began, until this point I had not had any clear idea of how the narrative of the piece would go, I knew which elements of Rays story I wanted to portray, but the next step of the process is how to tell it.
I began trawling through the footage marking the peices I wanted to use and sorting clips into bins.

I soon realised that a lot of the footage I had taken had technical errors in one way or another, some footage was over exposed or under exposed the audio had wind rumbling over it in places. Unlike the group project where we had a controlled environment where it is so much easier to set up and make judgements. I found that filming and recording alone is a difficult task as there are so many different aspects to think about, filming outside has so many changing circumstances i found it difficult to .
Once I had narrowed the footage down I decided to hinge the piece around the interview and pick out the audio were Ray had given clear answers or had told a story in full. I wanted to show Ray in a balanced light with both his happy go lucky attitude towards life but also his serious and spiritual side.

I began the project, by setting it to 16/9. Initially I had forgotten the 4/3 footage and began working on the piece. When I did come to offending footage I decided to increase it in size so that it would fit to the widescreen. It was not until later when I saw the quality of the picture that I wished I hadn’t and instead had tried clipping wide screen footage down, I realise either way can be problematic.

Once I had the bones of the edit together I chose the music, A friend of mine gave me some C.Ds of sound tracks that he had composed and produced, the music does not have any vocals and varies in mood and tempo, so it was perfect for my piece The one used in the film is called Whispers By the Sea by Lee Harris. I am fortunate to have the use of professionally produced music, without it I would of been unable to create the same atmosphere and experience that music provides.


Colour correction and trying to sort the audio were the final processes, Having Talked with Richard Wood I tried putting the audio sample into sound track pro and appliying a high pass E Q it helped a little but it also raised the levels of the clip, I over looked the issue and handed the peice in with the audio levels jumping high.


A Grave Matter

The authoring of the dvd looked like it might pose problems, I had the same issue as with the group project, for some reason when I export the file from final cut into I dvd it sees the file as a 4/3 not 16/9 (pixel aspect ratio again) I decided to use dvd pro as it exported the file as widescreen, one other problem I encountered was that I had left some media in the time line which made the file lenth some thing like eleven minutes instead of seven. I had used all my DVDs so Mike accepted it as it were, given that I had already identified the problem I will not loose any marks.

I realy enjoyed making my personal project from working with Ray to the editing process the whole journey has been a learning cerb, I think that most things that can go wrong did go wrong especially in the filming department. It gave me plenty of work to do in the editing process
From the lessons learned during this project I will now move on and spend some time on improving my camera skills. I need to think more about camera shots and angles and start to think of the camera as more of a creative tool rather that just a window from which to veiw through. I also need to practice with exposure, white balance and generally operations of the camera in order to produce more professional material .

Glastonbury Emerging talent competition

Recently I was asked by Glastonbury FM the local radio station I have been volunteering for, If myself and presenter Liz Janaway would help out at the emerging talent competition, which is an annual event held by glastonbury festival and is designed to unearth unsigned bands and give them a chance to win a slot on the main pyramid stage. Previously the competition has given prominence to winning bands such as Scouting For Girls and Stornoway.

Twelve bands compete in the finals which are held over two nights at the Pilton Working Mens Club six bands compete each night in front of a panel of judges. Our job was to interview the bands back stage in the waiting room before they went on stage, Most of the bands had already had a main interveiw during the day with Worthy Fm ( the festivals official radio station who join forces with Glastonbury Fm to cover the event) We were asked to do an in formal interview which most band members were more than happy to do, although there was one band who wanted to 'have some space' before going on stage, with those guys we waited until after their performance.

We had a few technical issues one of them been that one of the stage crew kept walking in out of the room, everytime he opened the door we got a loud blast of noise come in from the stage, which ruined parts of some of the interveiws and resulted in me having to cut out large parts of the interveiw during editing. I was only given a couple days in which to edit down all the material, I kept it short and each band interveiw was narrowed down to approx 3 minutes each. I was pleased to hear that Steve bilborough used all the material in his show and was happy with the results.

The line up was of a high standard and I would of struggled to pick between some of the acts. The winning band was Ellen and the escapades (one 0f my favourates). Ellen was a sweet little girl with voice of an angel, she was very shy and we didnt manage to get much of an interveiw with the band but we did get a live recording of them warming up just bfore going on stage.

The whole experience was enjoyable and very rewarding, there was talk of us working with worthy fm during the festival as roving reporters, they will be following up the six winning bands that earned themselves slots on the smaller stages

A grave matter

For my personal project I intend to make a documentary a bout a local man who lives in my village and by trade is a grave digger. Brother Ray as he known to all the locals is a colourful and earthy character with a very bright attitude towards life.

I intend to film Ray as he goes about his daily work and record his attitudes towards life and death and how he feels to be gravedigger. I also intend to do a little research on the history of gravediggers ( fossers as they were once known ) and give a list of famous people who have been diggers.

I feel that the character of Ray is a strong one. He's a bit of a rouge and is best described as a real life Steptoe in the 21st century. I Hope to encapsulate the true nature of Ray, if he comes over on camera as he does in life I think he will make a good character to base my documentary on.I intend to make a documentary about a local Somerset man, known as Brother Ray. Ray has earned his living from working the land since childhood his main occupation is grave digging but takes on a whole host of jobs from tree felling to stone wall building. I intend to tell a little of Rays story, how he came to be a grave digger and his attitude towards his job.

• Ray will be the main character I may also include his young apprentice (his nephew) lukerow Scarecrow as Ray calls him, and possibly a vicar from one of the churches whom Ray works for.
• I will show the day to day life of Ray and look at what is required of him as a gravedigger. As the decline in burials gives way to the increased number of cremations Ray finds himself turning more and more to alternative sources of income, I will show how Ray lives from working with the land and the various jobs he under takes in order to make his living.
• I will present the documentary with the use of interviews photographs, cut aways, and music.
• The issues I will be exploring are one mans attitude towards life and death and his role in the burial process of a person as they passage from this life on to what comes next, and also how Ray has managed to support himself all these years by using his initiative and contacts throughout the community in order to secure work.

I would like to portray Ray as the down to earth, comical and spiritual man that he is, in the face of his work Ray still maintains a constant cheery attitude to life. In the low budget Austrailian film Kenny Clayton and Shane Jacobson created a mocumentary about portaloos and plumber named Kenny Smyth the character was a funny, likable and a down to earth chap. As one reveiw read.. A mockumentary with a dash of corporate video that treads a fine line between fiction and reality, a film that is hilarious but doesn't ridicule its subjects or subject matter, and one that makes a hero out of not just an ordinary working bloke, but one who's working in something most of us shy away from: the pumping of poo.
That is that very same essance I want to capture in Ray, although in my case the subject is real life, I want to capture Ray as he is, I personally feel that documentarys ought to document their subjects as they are and I dont wish to stage my film in any way.

Filming Begins

Last week I began filming Ray, Using my own camera a cannon xm1 and a labec tripod from uni. I started shooting Ray digging one of the two graves he had to work on that week, the weather was fine and I managed to get some good footage of the grave been dug both by hand and with the mechanical digger, I also interviewed Ray as he worked and again later whilst driving around in his truck, I had a few technical problems in both of the locations.

At the cemetery the audio recording was very poor as I didn't have the right external microphone, so I had use the internal Mic which picked up wind noise and the audio levels were really low in places, In the truck I had problems with the light changes and I was unable to see the veiw finder as there was very little space, I had to point the camera and hope for the best. I found that interviewing Ray whilst driving around seemed to be the most relaxed for him , I am hoping that I am going to be able to do something with the footage in post production so I can use some of it in the final piece.

The second day of filming was thwart by heavy down pours of rain and sleet, I managed to film about the first ten minutes of the grave been prepared for burial then the heavens opened up. I did manage to get a few interviews with Ray in the truck whilst he waited for the funeral to leave. I have asked Ray to allow me to come with him again so I can once again follow the process from beginning to end and capture the moments I was unable to catch, I do hope that the weather is going to be better.

Instructional Video

Project breif:

Was to make a 3 minute short self contained instructional video, that focases on cheap heathy food for students.

Our group decided on making a vegetable curry, the ingredients cost us £5.80 and we managed to feed four us and could easily of stretched to five decent sized meals. The idea for the curry came from one of sainsburys feed four five recipes the food was healthy, tasty and cheap to buy. We adapted the ingredients a little as some of the vegetables were not to our liking.

I watched several cooking programs on you tube and television, to get an idea of how they set out the cameras and what camera angles they used. From the hairy bikers to master chief they all seem to use a variety of angles. Using celtex we broke down the stages of the recipe and sketched out each shot needed to explain the process.

We decided to use two cameras to film, one to take the wide angle shots and the other for the close ups. We nominated Rachel as the presenter a good choice as she took to role instantly, and kept us all highly entertained with her Australian student role.

Technically we had a few hiccups one camera filmed in 16 by 9 and the other 4 by 3 which is going to cause us problems in post production. The lesson to be learned there is ALWAYS check and make sure both cameras are set the same. We also didn't take into account the short time limit of three minutes and may have to use a voice over to explain each stage when we come to edit it all together.

Finished

We finally edited and finished the demonstration video. It took us a couple of hours to record the voice over and finish the editing, we had a few headaches with file formats and FCP, which resulted in having to render the film as a quick time movie, import it into Adobes Premier editing suite and add the audio, it seems that Premier is compatible with WMA audio format.

This was a fun and productive task, it made us think about camera angles and shots. Was I to take on a task like this again I would consider the time factor and work the shots and narrative around the time, rather than record the piece and then try to cut it later. We got around the problem by recording a voice over afterwards , which worked out quiet well in the end.

Structure.

Having had a discussion with Ross following the group meeting on tuesday we have now begun to form the structure of our documentary and intend to make Anna and her life style the main topic of our focus.

1st minute
Beginning with a short introduction regarding attitudes towards food in the U.K we will highlight the fact that obesity is on the increase in the uk and that the government has set out initiatives on the importance of eating five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. with the use of voxpops we will reflect 2 - 3 opinions from the general public.
2nd minute.

Introduction to Holistic nutritionist and raw food specialist Anna who will talk about her lifestyle, nutrition and describe what it is she does and how raw food can be beneficial to our health and well being.
5th minute
Anna will go on to demonstrate in public how to make a healthy dish and we will see if she can convince the public that healthy food can be tasty.
7th minute
interviews and vox pops of the publics reaction and a round up from Anna.
Below is a slide show of some of the research Ive done and other bits and bobs...

19/3/10

We have begun filming some of the content for our documentary, last week saw us record one of Annas workshops. We used the Z1camera for the close ups and my own camera for the wide angle shots, the sound was recorded using the seniser rifle microphone connected to the Z1 camera , the microphone was set up above Annas head where we managed to get a decent sound quality. I am pleased we made the decision to take the microphone rather than use the mic on the camera, as we had to set up at the back of the room so we did not block the veiw of the people attending the workshop, I was stood next to the window and the noise from the street outside was quiet loud given the distance I was stood away from Anna I think we would have struggled to get a decent sound quality.
After the workshop had ended I interviewed some of the guests and asked them some questions regarding the workshop, I was alone at this point and found it quiet difficult to concentrate on all the tasks such as interviewing sound and the camera, the result of which was that the some of the interviewees moved around in the shot and as I wasn't behind the camera some of the framing is out, I am hoping we can resolve some of the problems in post production.

Thursday 16th March

We began filming the second of three scheduled days of filming , The aim of the day was to Interview Anna, capture some cut away shots and interview the restaurant manager and shop owner where Anna supplies her cakes. Ross was in charge of the Z1 camera whilst I took care of the sound and interviewing. Annie was unable to make all of the days filming and although we managed it with two of us, I found it difficult to deal with both the technical aspects of recording and doing the interviewing at the same time. We had a few issues with the framing of the subjects but once again I think we might be able to sort them out in post production. We managed to acomplish everything we set out to and think we have some good interveiws to work with,

DAY THREE

The filming for the third day had us out on the streets of Bath Filming Anna Putting some of her raw delights to the test , are aim was to record the reactions of the general public . Annie took the role of interveiwer, Ross was on sound and I was on the camera we found that most people were happy to record a vox pop interveiw and answer a few simple questions.
Annas food created a lot of posertive attention every person who tasted it seemed to like it which was very good feed back for Anna and easy filming for us, the only problems tha t occurred on this particular shoot was the weather. We only managed to get around an hour of filming before the heavens openend and down came the rain , we managed to get all the equipment packed away before it truly lashed it down, That finished off filming for that day but due to the postive responces we had managed to film we had enough, and now had enough footage to move onto the editing process.

After many Problems with uploading the file to the net we have finnally managed it . Here is the finished version of food for thought.

Documentary Making

On tuesdays lesson we will be covering documentary making and have been asked to do some research on the subject, below are some of links to videos and forums I have visited.

Make a documentary
write a documentary
Interviewing for a documentary

Here a list of tips from the site; SUITE 101.COM

• Watch documentary movies. Go see them on the big screen if you can. If not, then hit your local video store or join Netflix or Greencine to get movies mailed to your door. You can even watch them online at sites like FourDocs and the Documentary Film Network. Learn what makes or breaks a documentary film. Think about what kinds of documentary films you like. Learn the various genres and filmmaking styles. For example, Michael Moore's filmmaking style is very different than Ken Burns' filmmaking style.

• Become familiar with technical equipment. Beg, borrow, steal equipment like DV cameras, final cut pro editing systems, cheap mics, flood lights. Experiment with lighting setups, audio recording, splicing clips together. Read filmmaking forums like IndieTalk to get sound technical advice from experienced filmmakers.

• Choose a subject that you find fascinating and is accessible to you. Choosing a subject that is compelling & timely will result in a strong and relevant film. It is often better to focus on a local personality or local event so that you will have access to loads of resources for your film. Besides, it's much simpler & cheaper to shoot at home than abroad.

• Become an expert on your chosen subject through research. Research your subject as thoroughly as possible. Gain knowledge through the internet, books, and word of mouth. Attend events pertaining to your chosen subject.

• Create a structure/outline for your film through visualization. Close your eyes and imagine how you would like the final product to look. Think about how you want to structure your film. What do you want to start with? How are you going to build your film? Write down your ideas. This will give you a blueprint for shooting. But remember that in documentary filmmaking, unlike fictional filmmaking, the footage informs the final structure of the film. Your initial written outline exists to serve as a guideline for shooting.

• Analyze your wants/needs for making the film. Make a wishlist of any people, locations, items, equipment you WISH you could have for your film. Cross-reference this list with any people, locations, items and equipment that you do have access to. Ask people. Check with local art centers, film departments at universities and colleges. Talk to the local film office. If you still can't find it then go to Myspace or Craigslist and see if you know someone who knows someone who can help fulfill some of the items on your wishlist. If you are looking for footage, check with stock libraries for material that is in the public domain and free to use.

• Find finances for your film. Use Google or check with your local film office to find out what existing documentary funding programs are available to you. For example, the International Documentary Association has a great list of grants you can apply for. Hold fundraising events. Other options are to apply for credit cards, borrow from Ma & Pop or donate yourself to a pharmaceutical company and become a lab rat like Robert Rodriguez did.

• Shoot! Don't talk about doing it - get out there and shoot your film. This is the step that differentiates the aspiring filmmakers from the actual filmmakers.

• Post-production. Fast forward through all of your footage, and take printable screenshots of key scenes. This way you simplify the editing process by creating a visual map of your footage. Once this is done you should watch ALL of your footage and create an action log listing timestamps. This will help you to save time in the editing room.

• Show your film! Upload it to the internet, four-wall it in a theatre, send the cut to distributors/networks to see if they are interested, hit the festival circuit. You can apply to multiple film festivals at once through the website Withoutabox. If all else fails, invite people to your place to screen. Burn multiple DVDs and get the film into the hands of family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, anyone you know who is in the film industry.

ONE SHOT SCENE

In Fridays lesson we looked at one shot scenes, mike showed us several videos illustrating the various ways directors have used the one shot scene. One very interesting approach was that of Michael Figgis whos film Time Code used four one shot scenes that ran simultaneously.

Mike demonstrated the various ways in which the camera can be mounted. From the use of a tripod for still shots, panning, zooming and tilts, to a monopod which can be very use full as its not only light and easy to carry but also very versatile and useful for very low shots and high shots that are difficult to get a position, but care is needed to keep the camera strait upright, a figrig was the other device shown to us and one that I have never seen before, designed by Michael Figgis for the purpose of keeping the camera hand held, steady and easily maneuverable.




Before setting out on this project I did some research and looked at many one scene shot videos on youtube. I was hoping to glean some inspiration and the scene below was my favorite and I feel it illustrates continuity as the scene plays out.



Our project for this week was to create a one shot scene, along with Edem, Ross, Simon and myself we decided to use the fig rig as we wanted to use a lot of movement within the scene. Each of us took turns in the different rolls of acting, camera handling and director giving us all a chance to use the fig rig and come to grips with camera handling and directing. First of all we blocked out the scene and decided how we wanted it to unfold and marked out where we wanted each person to stand. It proved to be quiet a difficult task as we encountered many problems such as weather changes and passers by walking into the scene. we shot the same scene ten times. In the end only two were worth using as the others all had very obvious problems that could not be used, even the final choice had errors but overall appeared to be the best.

scene 1 from mandybriggs on Vimeo.

This exercise highlighted some of the problems film makers encounter when shooting. The weather was our biggest problem as we had extremes of snow to bright low winter sun light, because we were filming a one minute shot that could not be edited, we were unable to alter the cameras settings when we changed directions and the light exposure dramatically changed, the auto function didn't take in the light readings very well either. We found that the footage taken during the snow where light levels remained the same was much better, although we did have a few problems with snow on the lens. For this type of shooting I think a cloudy day where light levels are the same is essential to this type of shooting.
This was a good exercise and I feel we worked well together as a team and came away from the experience having learned quiet a lot from an afternoon of shooting.

Oh my god... 180 degrees

On friday lesson we took a look at the 180 degree axis rule when shooting a film. An imaginary line is drawn through the subject over which the camera must not cross in order to avoid confusion to the viewer.

I found this film that I thought illustrated the point very clearly..

We moved on to cover motion direction across the screen, another important factor to learn when film making. We watched a clip of a car chase from the film Bullet, using Celtex we broke the movie down into shots and described them. This was a useful task as it helped to to give a clearer understanding of how films are shot by unpicking them piece by piece.

Using a camera and tripod and working from a script, Mike, Ross and myself filmed the next exercise as group. The film was as follows; a man is walking through the university when his phone rings, he stops to answer but the call is cut off, he tries to ring back but realizes he has no credit, he then makes a dash across campus to the class room where he enters and has a look of surprise, ( we actually missed that last shot ooops) We had to maintain the same direction throughout the film, the direction we followed was from left to right. At times it was a little confusing working out left to right action and as the director on this piece I had to work out the shots and give it some thought and planning.

Here is the edited version of oh my god..

Oh My God !! from mandybriggs on Vimeo.

food for thought

For our group project we have been asked to make a six to eight minute film or documentry of our choosing. Myself along with annie and Ross have decided to make a short documentary called "food for thought" We will look at the subject of healthy food and our attitudes towards it. Over the past couple of years the nhs and government sources have been telling us we must all eat
"five a day", we will question wether the campaign has worked and if we have become more conscious about what we eat.

Here is a trailer for a controversial film called Food Matters...

The first part of the documentary will have a presenter lead commentary discussing some of the growing concerns regarding diet and health related issues, we will aim to try to reflect current attitudes towards healthy eating by recording vox pops from a cross section of society. The documentry will then move on to Nutritionist and Raw food specialist Anna Middleton who will talk a little about her passion with "living foods" and the benefits of eating highly nutritious food and its affect on our bodies. Anna will go on to demonstrate how to make one of her raw chocolate cakes, which we will put to the test by asking the public to taste test and record their reactions.

The aim will be to raise awarness by showing the audience that healthy food isn’t just about lettuce leaves beetroot juice but can actually be fun tasty and relatively easy to make and something we all could incorporate into our lives.

GFM Radio station

I have recently been invited to volunteer for the radio station at Glastonbury FM. The station is a not for profit broadcasting community radio, whos aim is to reflect the needs and interests of the community and allow listeners to take a part in running of the station. Still in its early days Glastonbury radio began broadcasting in April 2009 when it was awarded one of seven five year broadcasting licenses by the regulatory body Ofcom. GFM was initially set up with funding from somerset county council and other small grants and donations.

Gfm transmits over a ten mile radius covering Glastonbury, Street, Wells and surrounding areas offering opportunities for local performers and comuntiy groups to join in and entertain listeners. They also offer training to volunteers in a wide variety of skills such as production techniques, editing and presenting and encourage people from the comunity to become involved in fund raising and advertising.

I was introduced to gfm when a freind asked me if I could help with the production of a show that she and her friend were planning to broadcast once they had completed their training, after an initial informal meeting with the director and look around the place, I was invited to join the team, along with my two friends Liz and Sarah we will endeavor to produce a radio show one hour long which will be broadcast live and will include prerecorded interviews and jingles. my part in the production process will be to help record some of the pre recorded material and editing the audio. Today we met at the station and I began familiarizing myself with the equipment and software, we managed to record a couple jingles and experimented with the sound recorders taking them into Glastonbury and recording some interviews with the public.

I found that the equipment and software that gfm uses, although not the same as that at university the same basic workings apply and with a little trial and error it became more familiar the more I used it. I enjoyed working in a studio environment and putting to use the skills I have learned from university ( I was surprised just how much I have learned so far) We plan to get together again next week when we aim to begin the process of putting together the pilot show that we are required to present to the directors before been allowed to go live on the air.