Summer soon summer soon summer soon

Dance Video - Post Production

Here's the thing - I am not a good editor. There are numerous things in this industry that I think I am good at, but editing - seeing what looks good with what, colour correction, sound editing, etc. - is just not one of them. So for this project I figured, its time I actively bring on an editor, so that we can properly put together this project. So that's what I did. Originally I had to talked to Rufaro about editing together, but on the day we decided to start I had already edited sound with Nina, so we decided to carry on with the video too. Rufaro was okay with this, and agreed to be credited as Camera Operator, while Nina would be Sound & Edit. 

For the sound we first discussed what I had in mind, and what she figured would look good with the edit she had in mind. We started piecing together something we thought would give a nice rhythm to it, and create an interesting piece to edit to. The background sound gives it a nice atmosphere, and creates tension and works really well with for an example slowed down clips. The beat we put in with the guitar creates a pattern that we could edit to, and musical beats that would sound good with visual cuts. We also decided to add heartbeats to make it more intimate and to help with the beat, but as we didn't want this to be the main focus, we lowered the audio gain on it, and slowed it down so that it would only we barely visible. This was also done so that you might not even think about it being there, a listener might just accept it as their own heart beat. We also added a rain effect, as we didn't want to record anything during the shoot. Also, because it is an added sound we could control how much there is, and how the rain increases until the point were the dancer breaks. 

As for the edit we faced a couple of problems. We quickly realised that we should have filmed more, possibly extended the shoot until the day after. Even though we felt like we didn't have enough material we still managed to put together a rough cut that day. It had the general tone of the project, but was missing something to make it feel more complete as a video, but also as a narrative. We decided to leave it for that day and look at it with rested eyes the day after. 

We started the next day of editing by looking over the areas of the video that we didn't especially like, and that we wanted to change. We then played around with the clips to find out how they might fit together better. At times it felt like a puzzle, where we just had to find the right pieces for it to become complete. I decided I wanted to slow down the beginning quite a bit, to better see the crescendo into the middle of the video, and also to get a complete visual of what the dance is supposed to look like. That way it would be easier to understand how the water is interrupting the dancer, and how she has to change her routine. 

As for colour correction we started by all over lowering the highlights, and making her skin less bright. There were also multiple shots where the background is glistening because of the water - we tried our best to make up for that in the correction, but it only worked to a certain degree. If I could I would probably in the future make sure that the background is far enough away so that it doesn't get wet. We also added a 25-30% saturation in the beginning and all the way towards the breakdown to symbolise how the dancer is just mindlessly repeating the same routine, and only gains more colour and saturation towards the end when she finally accepts the water, and dances with it. 

I all in all like the edit, although I wish we had more material to work with. I would also have liked to use a better camera so that we could capture her movements and the water even better. But Nina did an outstanding job with both the sound and the visuals, and I can't thank her enough for working with me. 

-TJ

Creative commons:

I Am Running a Marathon with Thousands of Other Highly av Chris Zabriskie er lisensiert under en Creative Commons Attribution-lisens (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Kilde: http://chriszabriskie.com/honor/

Artist: http://chriszabriskie.com/

Eastminster av Kevin MacLeod er lisensiert under en Creative Commons Attribution-lisens (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Kilde: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1100719

Artist: http://incompetech.com/

The best crew in the world made it efficient, fun, and an amazing directorial debut all together

Dance Video - Production

After Pre Production was over and done with I felt like the world had been lifted off my shoulders, and that I could finally breathe again. I genuienly looked forward to the shoot, and I was excited to see how I would do as director. As I've stated in my learning agreement I wish to become a director or dop in the future, and I really want to hone and try out my skills more during 3rd year. In many ways this project was my first attempt at just that. In the weeks leading up to the shoot I had felt the stress of producing, and although I managed to complete that too, I dont think that is the right position for me. The parts of pre production that I really enjoyed were the meetings with my dancer, where I got to actually direct, and create the cinematography for the project. Now that everything was in place I was ready to start my first shoot day. 

We started building the set around 7:30, so that we would finish in time for the first shot. Nina and I started building the party tent, and covering the sides in the black cloth I had bought during pre production. This all took longer than we thought, and by the time we had set up camera we were already a little behind schedule. Rufaro was my camera operator and sat up the slider and camera with help from myself and Nina. By the time Gabby had warmed up, my first aider (Anna Woods) had showed up, and I had also made sure of that the campus security guard was available. (We exchanged phone numbers in case of emergency) 

We then started filming. We were quite lucky because it was a fairly warm night, but also the crew remained positive, and encouraging. We did the first take, and had coffee, a towel, and a warm jacket ready for Gabby immediately, so that she wouldn't freeze while Rufaro and I set up the next take. Gabby and I also did some exercises, like running on the spot, and star jumps to keep her warm, and to keep the spirits up. We carried on with this routine for the entire shoot, as in we would do a take, and then we would fuel up on towels, coffee (or tea), snacks, and warmth, and then we would commence the next take. I would say that this worked really well, and although we went half an hour over time, the crew remained positive and set on completing the shoot. We cleaned up as a team making sure that everything was packed properly and the lights had cooled down first. We also made sure that we didn't leave any litter. We didn't have time to take the set down, so we pushed it against the wall, and marked up the path next to it, to show people that they could just walk around it. We also tied it down to make sure that it wouldn't blow away over night. Nina and I then packed down the rest of the set the next morning, and that was that. 

All in all I feel like I did well as a director. I feel like I was able to keep everyones spirits up, and made it into a fun shoot, rather than a chore. The crew was extraordinary to work with and they all put 110% into the project, so I thank them all from the bottom of my heart for giving me their evening, even Logan (BTS) and Anna (First Aid) stayed for the entire thing, and remained positive and focused. This was an amazing experience, and I am now more hungry than ever to pursue directing. 



Also a massive thanks to the crew for making this a successful shoot. Rufaro did an amazing job on camera, and it was really good working with you. Nina was constently ready with anything we needed, be it snacks, coffee, something warm to drink or good advice. You were absolutely amazing! Also huge thanks to Anna for being there in case we did a boo boo, and thanks to Logan for taking all these pictures!



-TJ

A lot of running around University

 Dance Video - Pre Production

I was at a point where the idea for my project was complete, and I had to start the actual work on it. Like I've said multiple times already in previous post, I knew that finding a location was going to be my biggest problem - as my shoot required quite a specific set of needs. (Water outlet, electricity, a way for the water to run off, and enough space to make the set.) With this complication I also had to make a massive risk assessment to make sure that the electricity didn't touch the water, the dancer didn't get ill or cold, etc. I knew that the pre production that was ahead of me would be extensive, and difficult. 

I sent out multiple emails to places I thought might be able to host my shoot, including public pools, car washes, and fire stations. I also emailed Surrey County Council and Surrey Film Office for help, and in case I needed additional permits. Sadly none of these hailed fruitful as they were either too expensive, or not able to host at all. So for now I still didn't have a location although I still had to keep working on the rest of my production pack. I kept emailing similar places, and I also kept this one area in mind outside my house in the back of my mind as a backup, should I not be able to find anything. 

I carried on planning my shoot, and my production by setting the 4th - 6th of April as my potential shoot days. This way I would be able to finish my production before Easter, and get a head start on editing, as I would not have that much time before hand in after Easter break was over. I also started looking into my budget and what I would need to aquire for the shoot around this time, and I ordered different materials such as a hose, sprinkler, and cloth for the set. At the same time as I was working on this I also had regular meetings with my dancer. I was very lucky to find a dancer fairly quickly, as I posted on the students facebook page and got a reply within the hour. Gabby Ellison, which is her name, is an aquaintance of me, and I really think this was benefical to the project as we could very comfortably explore and shape the chereography together. Within our two first meeting we had the routine finished, and we had agreed upon how the dance would transform throughout the video. She showed great enthusiasm for the project, and loved the idea behind the narrative, as well as the message I was trying to send. We also stayed in touch outside of meetings by sending each other videos of different dances as to contribute any inspiration we could find. I tried my best to keep her updates on any dates that changed during pre production, as well as how the set would look, and how we would take care of her safety. This was my first time directing a dancer, and I was at first very insecure about what to do, but I figured that she probably felt insecure too, so I therefore decided that she would never dance alone during practice, except when looking over the final routine. I always did the moves with her, and we warmed up and stretched together as well. I think this made the whole practice feel less strict, and more fun. 

I tried uploading the video we took of the finished routine after our second meeting, but for some reason neither blogger or youtube was able to upload it even though it is a .mov file. Anyway, here are two screenshots I took of the video. During our third meeting we went on to work with water, and how the water would change her movement, but I don't have any visuals of that.

 

I also discussed costume with Gabby, and what we thought would fit the film. We both agreed that we wanted it to be inspired by marital arts and yoga, as well as still being flexible enough to move comfortably in.  

I was also working on the rest of my production pack even though my location had still not be procured. In the synopsis and treatment I pretty  much just summed up what I have written in my previous blog post about the project. In cast and crew I made sure that I would have enough people on location to help with filming, lighting, and taking care of the dancer. 

For equipment I kept it fairly simple. I wanted the GH4 so that I could shoot in 50fps to properly catch the water, and film better at night. The lighting was very basic as well, as I wanted all the attention to be on the dancer. I also made sure that I already had sandbags so that the lights would be secure. I also chose to have a slider for my shoot, as I wanted to explore shots with only slight panning, this was just so that I would have more options to choose from during the edit.

The Location Drama

It was now a week before the shoot, and I had given up on finding a location. I therefore decided to go with my backup although it wasn't the best at all. I did my risk assessment accordingly, and hoped that it would be enough. I went to my final tutorial with Rosie, and she immidietly says the she doesn't think she would be comfortable with me filming there, as there were certain aspects of it that were unsure, and could be unsafe. We start brainstroming where I could shoot, and if I possibly could shoot on campus, as this would make it safer, and easier to transport equipment. She makes a couple of calls and we discover that there is one spot that matches all my requirements. This started my most efficient, stressful, and productive week of my entire life. If I were ever to film on campus with electricity and water I would need to be signed off by Health and Saftey, the Campus Location Manager, and my Course Leader. This included having a risk assessment of massive proportions, a set that has been constructed safely, ladder training, and First Aid perosonell on site in case something goes wrong. I had multiple meeting with Julia Critcher about the set and how I would make sure it was safe in every way possible. I had multiple meetings with Tipu and Emma from Healthy and Safety to make sure that all my materials, equipment, and risk assessment would be safe for actors and crew. And I had countless meeting with Rosie to update her on how I was doing. I kept updating and adding to my risk assessment to make sure that everyone was fit, and in the end everyone signed off on it and I was ready to go.

This was the biggest production I had ever done, and it was my first time producing, so everything took its time, but I think I did an alright job in the end, and I am very happy with how I pulled together and managed to pull it off. 

-TJ

Maps and Networks comes to an end

I have now come to the stage of this project where I have to think thoroughly about my installation while also finishing my project. I have my clips, and I just have to edit them properly - maybe remove some noise without losing too much information. But that comes further down in this post, first I want to talk about installation. 

Hallway Gallery - advantages/disadvantages

During my first presentation I said that I simply wanted to have three screens right next to one another in the hallway. A simple way of showing all three colours and the contrasts between them. Since then I have a thought about many different way of doing it - projection, have the screens on top of another, make a three wall thing in a corner - but they all sort of do the same, they just show the pictures without adding anything. The whole point of putting thought into your installation should be to a) give additional meaning to the project, and b) make people who pass by want to stop and have a closer look, preferably standing there for a while. At this point in my work I decided to do two pictures instead of one. This lead me to think about duality, and how I could show this through my installation. Red and blue are very contrasting colours that both catch the eye, and it is my thinking that if you put them right next to one another you might lose some of that, because they lessen each other. Another thing I wanted to show was that these emotions that the images are based on don't necessarily flood your mind at the same time - they usually linger in intervals. When you're extremely sad and lonely, you feel less passionate, but it is still there in the back of your mind waiting for its chance at the wheel again. 

To portray this I want to place my two screens on opposite walls. 

Considering that its a narrow corridor, and that at multiple point there is a wall directly on either side, I think it would be perfect to have one screen showing the blue footage on the left wall, and one screen showing the red footage on the right wall. That way when you look at one of them you have to turn your back to the other one, just the way emotions do. I think this definitely adds to my project and I hope it can be done. 

Completion of my work 

As I discussed in an earlier post I decided to switch over to Premiere Pro for my editing, as Photoshop didn't quite work out. To be honest that did simplify the process of my videos a lot, and maybe it very easy to complete this task. I simply made sure I had the point of where the screen/phone flickers off, and then alternate between normal footage and reversed footage to make it look more fluid. I did this in Premiere Pro, so that I also could add the tone and bars, and countdown clock. 

This is my finished work: 

Blue

This my final blue piece, without bars and clock. I feel like this video accurately depicts loneliness through colour and visuals. I am also satisfied with the flickering of the screen. Although a lot of people won't realise that it spells out S.O.S. I think it adds a lot to the project. 

Red

As you can see the red is slightly noiser than the blue. I tried very hard to get rid of this and by adjust the original light source, but what you see in the final version is the best I could get. I like the colours, and I like that it has captured an "intimate moment". I also think it works very well in comparison to the blue. 

-TJ

"were you ever happy? and if you were, did you realise at the time"

- the best years of our lives (2016-2026)

Loneliness, anger, happiness - and the headache of it all

After the presentation for this project I left that room with a number of thoughts swirling around inside my head. There were so many things I wanted to do with this project - things I wanted to accomplish, things I wanted to explore. One idea I liked a lot was the idea of changing the haiku I had planned to something a lot simpler, like "help" or "sos". No only does simplify my editing process, but it also fits the simplicity of my idea - the emotions I want to explore are after all basic; the primal feelings that we all feel. 

RED - SEX AND PASSION, image from foot end of bed, raised back, hand on wall, bathed in red light,

BLUE - LONELINESS, asleep in front of computer

YELLOW - HAPPINESS, two people eating together having a good time,

Later in the project I decided to not do yellow, as I feel like red and blue have a nice duality on their own. They are both darkly lit, and portray strong passionate emotions, while yellow might look like an odd out. I also had an idea for how to present it in my installation that would suit two screens better than three. More on that in my post about installation choices.

I've decided to do these images because they represent those different emotions and feelings to me. I am the happiest when I socialise with friends, I am the loneliest on late nights on my own, and I feel the most passionate during sex. 

I've looked into cinemagraphs for this project as well. A cinemagraph is essentially a gif, were the image is frozen, but one aspect of it is moving. I think this would look really cool for the morse code, as it is a subtle way of implementing it into my installation. 

I think this would look awesome

After looking into cinemagraphs, and how to make it, I started thinking about how to use it in my images. In subtle ways, that makes it seamless and not out of place. For the red I was thinking about having the light under the door go on and off, for the blue I want the monitor in front of me to flicker, and for the yellow I want a phone on the table to flash. 

I think I'm ready to do my first shoot, to see how they turn out. 

I decided to first try with the blue image. Right of the bat I ran into some trouble as I had to redo all my setting in my camera to make the quality as good as possible. These shots will happen in very little light, and with that comes noise, thats pretty much unavoidable, but I can try to make it as little as possible. My first try was horrendous. 

As you can see, there is a lot of noise and grain. But I did choose to use this clip to experiment with cinemagraphs. 

Making the cinema itself didn't turn out to be very difficult, but that doesn't mean it was successful. I did it in Photoshop by importing it as frames, then deleting all the frames I didn't need. I then created a copy of the first frame in the sequence - this would be my static layer mask that keeps the video frozen. To then only make the computer move I selected the brush tool and marked the entire area of the computer so that the remaining frames could be seen through the mask. This was all well and good, but after that I encountered two problems. 
1. Because the top frame was a still, the light from the computer would still light me up, even after it was turned off through the mask. This just looked weird, and out of continuity. 
2. I could only save this as a GIF file, which would only be accessible through the internet. This in turn gives me a lot of trouble for the installation, as it would be dependent on the internet. 

How can I improve this, and make it work? 

Well, first of I can change my camera settings. I kept my ISO under 1600, and turned my aperture down to 4.0. Ideally I would use a lens that can go as far down as 2.8, but I don't have that at this time. (I also discovered that my camera was only recording in 720p this whole time. I of course turned it up to 1080p)  Furthermore I can make sure the frame is slightly better lit. I do want the image to be low lit, and moody, but to make up for the reduced ISO, I will have to increase the light. 

Instead of using Photoshop, I will move over to Premiere Pro to keep it as a video, instead of turning it into a GIF. Because of this choice I will have to limit the movement in frame as much as possible to still almost create the cinemagraph effect. The tiny amount of movement might even be in my favour, as it could give the image more emotions. 

-TJ

The Shoot - the stress, the problems, the victories

Before me stand the two most important days of this entire project - the shoot. I have a lot of expectations for these days, as well as some worries, and a whole lot of responsibility.

So what do I expect, what do l look forward to, and where do I think we'll have trouble?

I expect it to be stressful, at least the first day. We're all new to this, we've never had this much independence when it comes to a film, but as the same time we've never had the same amount of responsibility. We all know that the entire group is expecting us to do our part. So yeah, that is a lot of pressure, but I'm personally excited to see how I work under this kind of pressure. Will I be able to keep my head cool, and make important decisions when needed? Will my storyboard look as good in real life as it did in my head? I'll finally learn the answer to all those questions and doubts! 

So Monday comes around, and we're all on set. The first scene goes swimmingly, and the actors are doing amazing jobs. But then we encounter our first problem - the dolly won't fit on set and we can't make room for it because of the continuity of the shot. Because of this the camera scrambles a bit as it tries to build the shoulder rig and fin a solution to the problem, but this costs us a lot of time. For the rest of the first day we tried our best to make that time back, but because of all the dolly shots we have to change, and a generally bad work flow among the crew, we have to go overtime. We do manage to finish all the scenes we wanted to finish on the first day, but in the industry you could get fired if the production goes overtime, so after talking to Preston, I took note of how the work flow could be improved for the second day of the shoot. 

This is one of many many impromptu meetings Preston and I had during our two day shoot.
This seems to be a calmer one, with less panicked stress

That being said, I think the camera department managed to compensate for the lack of our missing equipment very well. I think any department would have a bit of trouble keeping time with that kind of obstacle, and although the communication between Preston, Natalie, and myself could have been better, I feel like the camera department was able to get the shots we needed efficiently so that we could finish everything for the day. Umor also did really well, and we worked well together to make the light changes as swiftly as possible. 

The second day went very well I think. The work flow was better, and the the whole crew worked well together. I was able to more thoroughly instruct Arturs in how I wanted the frame and the shot to move, and also I communicated better with Natalie so that we more easily and faster could get to an agreement on how we wanted the shot to look. 

I definitely felt like Arturs and I worked better on the second day,
and that our work flow was really good.

We did have some differences were we both had a vision for a shot, and thought it was the best fit, but ultimately we had to do whatever we had time for. I did notice during the shoot that I missed a lot of the shot that had to be cut, as I feel like they gave the film that little extra, but I understand that when we're limited to 3-5 minutes, we only have room for the highly necessary. We did have a slight difference of vision when it came to the centered shots, which as I described earlier was a conscious stylistic choice on my part as I feel like it would give the film a constant that tells a story of its own. In my mind if you took out all the establishing centered shots in the film, and cut them into a montage of stills, they would still tell the story. But, during the shoot I discussed it with Natalie, and she made it clear that it didn't fit her vision of the film. That was of course okay, she is the director, and I adjusted the shots so that they still made sense -like putting them at slight angles and a couple of over the shoulder shots. I think they still work well with the film, and that her vision makes a beautiful film. 

I've enjoyed working with Natalie as director a great deal, and I think she has a great eye for this.
I also feel like our styles complimented each other very well.

Another challenge we faced on the second day of shooting is that we had to polish the lighting plan for the morning scene. We decided to do a drastic change by adding a door on the fourth wall that would creative a slit of golden morning light on the back wall. I feel like it was the right creative decision to make, as it add some difference to the scene, and makes it more apparent that its a different part of the day. We created it by putting two large pieces of poly on c-stands and holding them up against a studio light with orange and nd gels on it. I think the final product looks amazing! 

We finished on time, and I think we were all pleased with the result!

-TJ

Writing down the equipment is easy, knowing everything you need is not

The Equipment List - Conscious Decisions 

The equipment I was responsible for getting out

As head of the camera and light department it was my responsibility that Mary (Producer) knew exactly what camera and light equipment she had to book out for the shoot. So if we needed anything extra we would have to take our chances that they still had what we needed when we needed it. So by giving Mary this list I was able to make sure that we would have all the equipment we needed. It was simple enough, as we were given a list from Anne over all the equipment she felt like we needed, all I had to do was add to the list with whatever specialised equipment I felt like would add to the film - much like I wrote in my research post that Tod Campbell chose a more rounded lens because the actors had big eyes. 

So what I added was three lenses. After talking to Arturs (Camera Operator) we decided that it would benefit us if we had a macro and a micro lens for certain scene. Particularly the hospital scene as we have to film that on the back of the set were there's limited space - our kit lens might be too big. For that we got the Nikon 105mm f/2.8 lens, as we knew that it comes with good image stabilisation, which is critical at close ranges. We also got a Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 for the wide angle establishing shots, as well as a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 to have a lens with a set focal length as well. During the shoot we ultimately didn't use any of these lenses, but I still stand by the decision to hire them just in case a shot could have been improved by it. 

-TJ

Lighting - a lot of new ground to cover

As head of the camera department and the visual look of the film it was very important that I got lighting right. Lighting can make or break a film, and can be the difference between a shoddy "student film" and a professional film. So once the storyboard was finished Umor (Gaffer) and I spent a lot of time on set imagining how we wanted to light the film. This posed a lot of challenges as it was the first time either of us had properly done lighting (outside of lighting workshops and minor personal projects.) And as this is our biggest film to date we wanted to do do it justice. 

We had to create five different moods; morning, day, early night and dark night; for scene six, as we wanted scene seven to be even darker, and ultimately we had to create the hospital lighting. At first we tried reasoning ourselves to a solution with the knowledge we both had of studio lighting, but we didn't really get anywhere until we asked Anne for help. She told us that it was important that we have enough light on our actors faces, as to give the shots a nice look. We took this piece of advice and created a very basic lighting plan. 

It had two studio light which we would use for modeling the actors faces, and one light shining through the window to act as daylight, moonlight/street lamp. We later realised that this would not be enough as there were a number of things we had not taken into consideration. Firstly we had a talk with Preston and Arturs, they had some ideas and concerns which we had to address. Mainly that the light shining through the window would not be enough to light up the room at all point during the shoot, as it would have to move, because the sun also moves in real life. We did some changes, but decided that we were still not done. We then had a talk with Chris, who is the studio supervisor, and he had some ideas that ended up using - primarily a large piece of poly roughly at the fourth wall, that would act as a fill for the entire scene. This gave us a set that was dimly illuminated, and easier to work with. After this we could start working out what our key light was (usually the one behind the window) and what gels we could use to create the different times of the day. 

We ended up using this design: 

The daytime scene

So we could not aim two 2ks at the poly to create a fill (we could alternate this for the other scenes as to create different effects, and add gels for the night and morning.) We had the 5k behind the window shining daylight through the blinds that we put over the window. This created a pattern on the wall that further created the illusion of daylight. And lastly we had the house lamp and the desk lamp on set to create an even more realistic feel. 

On the second day of shooting we made slight changes to the morning lighting plan as we felt it need to be a little bit different from the rest. We had used the light through the blinds on the day and night scenes, and it wouldn't make sense for the sun to be shining through the same window during the morning too. Therefore we created a door on the fourth wall that would let a slit of golden light into the room. This worked really well. 

Thoughts:

All in all I am really happy with the way we met the challenges and solved them. Umor was a great Gaffer to have, and him and Ollie (who helped us out) were an amazing help during the shoot. We definitely learned a lot, at least I did. I realise now how important it is that the DoP knows his lighting and how he wants the film to be lit, because if not you end up with a lot of back and forth without anyone actually knowing where this is headed. I don't think I did a bad job with the lighting, but it had to be a collaborative effort with multiple people on the crew because I was working it out. Towards the end of pre production, the set building, and the shoot, I felt like I had better control, and was able to properly instruct how I wanted the lighting to look. 

-TJ