Film Lesson 7

23rd February, 2009

Under lots of email reminders and constant prompting, Justin has finally written us a two page long script. It has revealed non of the plot, and he did not use any of the notes that I gave him on actor's credo. We were extremely dissapointed at him, and at this level of commitment, and we have decided that he not at all suitable to be director.

Jing, Justin and I have rotated roles, originally, Jing as editor, Justin as script writer and me as sound editor. Jing and Justin was going to swap when Justin suddenly realised that he doesn't know a thing about editing, so I became the editor. Justin became sound editor, and Jing is script writer and director. Without any extra unneccesary help, Jing has already re written half of the script in much greater detail and with defined personalities between the characters.

Joyce and I brainstormed ideas for filming locations. At first, we decided that we were going to film at the pagoda which is in the middle of our cross country route. We thought it was a brilliant idea because it was secluded and unusual and not alot of people would have thought of that, BUT, we had to consider the reality of it at the end and realised that it wasn't feasible. First, we had to think of safety. The path to the location was crooked and steep. If one of us trips and gets injured, who can help us? What about the equipments, what if they got damaged and broke? The Lighting was also really hard to control because it is outdoors, and we also did not think that our time management would be good enough because we were thinking of filming it during the magic hour. It is only one to two hours long. Once it passes, it passes. After considering all of the above factors, we have decided to film in my car park in my dad's car. The lighting is stark and harsh. There are lots of walls around and also a stairwell. We thought that it would be perfect for a crime scene where the murderer comes out from behind one of the walls and escapes into a stairwell.

IB Learner Profile: Communicators
We have expressed our ideas and information to each other confidently and creatively to each other. We collaborated our ideas and worked together effectively.

Film Lesson 6

18th February, 2008

Our progress was extremely slow today.

Justin, our script writer did not do his job. He turned up to class without any script and without having even thought about the storyline at all. He lied to us about having written it at home, but he cannot repeat it back to us. It was extremely inconsiderate and none of us in our group agreed that with this kind of commitment should he be the director.

We don't have any more time to waste now, so we had to make a story plot, create characters for Justin to write at home.

Since I am in the drama extended class, I taught Justin the "actor's credo" when characterising the charaters.
1. What am I going to do/ doing/ did?
2. When am I from? (The time period)
3. Why am I here in this particular location?
4. Who am I associated with?
5. How did I get here?
6.How old am I?
7. What is my identity?
This is the set of rules actors use when we are ad-libbing to create a specific character. The way they talk, act, all influence on how the audience sees us as a character on stage, so if Justin takes note of how his characters should speak, his script should turn out quite alright.

IB Learner Profile: Thinkers
We were thinkers because we have applied all the things that we learnt about film noir into this storyplot. We were creative when creating the layered plotline of film noir, and we were also thinking critically about the feasibility of our ideas.

Film Lesson 5

16th February, 2009

We were introduced to the film style of Film Noir.

We saw a slidshow about the different characters of Film Noir, how the good and bad was blurred, and the protagonist may be a bad person, and the antagonist may not entirely be the "bad guy" either. The deeds that they have done may be bad, or may be for the greater good, but not neccessarily with good ways and methods.

We watched a Film Noir moment of Infernal Affairs about the blurriness of the characters true siding. We are then given our tasks, to create a conversation based on the style of Infernal Affairs, with blurry and layered plotlines, blurred sense of right and wrong and with a tense atmosphere.

Our group has Joyce, Jing, Justin and me. Joyce has taken the role of the camera man, who monitors the shots, angles etc. Jing is the editor, who is responsible for the editing style, pace for the film. Justin wanted to be the script writer because he wanted to be the director as well. I have taken the role of sound editor, who is responsible for the clarity of the conversation and also maintaining and normal background sound.

IB Learner Profile: Open-minded
We learnt that apart from Film Noir in western films, Hong Kong has also started to develop Film Noir. I have noticed some difference in western films and local films. Local films are less "cliche" and I thought that the plot is much more twisted that just having the antagonist, protagonist, "femme fatale" and the good woman. Local films often have more that those characters as a more modern and contemporary approach to this style of film.

Film Lesson 4

11th February, 2009

Today, we filmed a short conversation observing the continuity editing rules.

First, we saw a slide show with some video clips in it to get an understanding what the different kinds of shots are. Then, we divided into groups to film the conversation following the rules.

The group includes Julien, Jeffrey and me. Julian and I serve as actors.
Our filming location was at the third floor courtyard lockers area. We chose that place as our filming location becasue, conviniently, there was an orange line already drawn on the floor, so when Jeffrey films it, he could film from any location and take as many angles as he can and at the same time, be confident that he has closely followed the 180 degree rule.

We did not have a lot of time to do the filming as there was only about 25 minutes left after all the camera borrowing and the hustling in the class room. After those 25 minutes, people will start to pour out of classrooms and it would make filming very unconvinient. Luckily, we finished filming in time and worked well together and managed to film everything with the 25 minutes.

Afterwards, we stayed for 20 minutes into lunch to do the editing, but I did not get a chance to do much editing, because I had to leave to see my PP supervisor.

IB Learner Profile: Communicators
In this lesson, we learned some skills for continuity editing, and I thought that I have contributed to some ideas to filming angles. Although we did not communicate necessarily in another language, but I think we have done so in different forms. We knew our angles, and we also know how to edit it. We worked effectively and collaboratively with each others, listening to each other's comments and planning it well before filming.

Film Lesson 3

9th Febuary 2008

Today, we watched the videos and sound foleys created by the other groups.

Some points and notes that people were quick to pick up on was that, for colour tints, we must not over-do it. If we tint, make sure that the normal background colours are still there, but only a slight ting, e.g. keep the trees green and the sky blue.

The sound foley notes was that the soundscape should be more coplex. One good example of an office sound foley was that, there were telephone ringing, people shouting for overdue work, typing, writing, clacking high heels happening all at the same time. It gives us the impression that it was a busy workplace, and we could actually feel the atmosphere at that place. The not so good example was that, the sound happened one by one. High heels clacking, then pulling out a piece of paper, then writing, then folding the paper, then walking away again. It was too quite and singular. Ideal sound foleys are complex, with different things all happening at the same time.

If we were to do anything differently for our video production, we would
1) the footages were supposed to be the same. We used different footages. Next time, we would use the same footage, only different effects were applied.
2) make the grainy documentary/ sharp effect film more contrasted. The only difference between them was that the grainy one was shakier than the sharp one. We really should have added some grainy effects to the footage.
3) make the colour tint more contrasted. The blue and the red were only changed with the white balance and the light that hits onto the filming location. We should have changed the colour tint which we were editing.

Right now, these notes noted here and above would be useful for future references, so in the future when we are making more films, we would take care not to over-do or over-minimize any effects or colour tints. When we are making sound foleys we would also think more realisticly about how the environment would really be like and imitate it as closely as possible, like taking into account what kind of people or animals and how busy or quiet one place should be and noting them down before creating the sound foley.

IB Learner Profile: Reflective
This lesson was mainly a reflection lesson on how we did and how we could improve. I have given it some thought and took down notes on what I didn't do well and how I could improve next time. I also knew what our group's limitations were, i.e. the other sequences were well doen, and our limitations, i.e. the colour tint and the contrast between the grainy/sharp video.

Film Lesson 2

4th Febuary

Today, we edited our footage on the "Scavenger hunt" we did last lesson. Because of time constraint, our group divided into half, so Julien and Jeffrey are going to record the sound foley while Hannah and I start editing our footage.

First, we cut the bits of footage into sections and deleted the ones that we didn't need. Jeffrey and Julien came back from their reording (it took us a long time to get started because the final cut pro needed a bit of fixing from Mr. Chang and that took a while). Jeffrey has more experience in using Final Cut Pro, so he took over most of the editing and he taught us a few tricks that we can use on final cut pro.

In this lesson, I learnt how to add the subtitles without fiddling with all the buttons before I knew which one was which. From watching him editing, I also learnt some editing tips, like how to make a video very intense and hectic. The effect can be achieved by inserting some 1 or 2 econd footages and flashes of footage to make the audience feel the intended effect.

The editing of the other footage wasn't that special, because I learnt that last year already. At the end, we captured the sound foley as well and exported the entire video.

Film Lesson 1

2nd, Febuary

Today, I had the first film lesson of the term. We basically had a recap lesson on what we learnt last year. We divided into groups of four, with Julien, Hannah and Jeffrey.

We recapped on the mood of colour, harshness of lighting, and something that the first termers didn't get to learn, creating a sound foley.

First, we were to film an old documentary style of a person scrunching up a piece of paper. To make it documentary like, we hand held the camera, with some shakiness to create the "oldness" of it. Then, it had to be sharp, so the tripod was used, and we changed the colour setting to a sharper one.

Secondly, we had to film two different mood colours of a person walking up the stairs and being surprised. One is angry surprise, another one is melancholy surprise. For the angry one, the colour setting was changed to more of an orange tint, and the camera was put in the sunlight. Melancholy, the colour setting was more of a blue tint, and the camera was shaded.

Third, we filmed an encounter between two people, one is a happy encouter, another is an angry conflicting encounter. For the happy one, we put the people in front of a background with warm colours. For the conflict, we put the characters under a harsher, less colourful lighting, and the people were fighting.

Fourth, we filmed the keyboard tying with a dream like sequence. Our concept was more like not real life, drifting, and shaky, instead of a dreamy, floating one. We filmed it from several angles, one of the hands and the keyboard bird's eye shot, one at the side, wide shot and the screen, point of view shot and the eyes (with a very scary expression) eye level shot. They were all hand held, shaky, to create the dream like feel.

Fifth, we filmed a conversation using the 180 degree rule. We had an imaginary line on the floor, so we filmed different shots of the people at our side of the line.

Last, there wasn't much time left, so we breifly filmed the sound foley of people laughing. Camera lens were covered, and after we tried several jokes, we all started to laugh into the camera's microphone.

This recap lesson was helpful in remembering all the different terms and to get me familiar with the camera again.