Key areas of learning

1. How did/will this project consolidate and extend your creative skills and knowledge towards your individual career aspirations and desired areas of practice.

 

My aspirations here are to express and practice the extent of my skills as an editor. I’m pushing my abilities once again with a follow up to a project I did over a year ago for a Final Major Project. I’m developing the idea further, and taking it as far as I can at this stage of my skills.

 

2. How did/will the Film and Media work that you produced explore and articulate key codes, conventions and practices of Drama or Factual film and media.

 

While the film I’m creating doesn’t follow a typical narrative or practices of film making, it does take from an analysis of the fighter genre of video games. The aim is to create something that at a glance looks like the average video game fighter.

 

3. How did/will you investigate areas of synergy, dialogue and exchange between genres, disciplines and specialisms?

(E.g. The makers of Breaking Bad combine crime drama with absurdist comedy. Captain Philips and District 9, both use documentary styles in a drama to differing effect. How did you explore, contrast or recombine genres, disciplines and specialisms?  Did you gain any insights or open up any creative possibilities?)

 

I think I am uniquely combining video games and films once again.  Video games try so hard to be like movies lately, so now I do the reverse.

 

4. How did/will you plan and manage your research, experimentation and development?

(E.g. How did you create a critically focused research portfolio/blog, one that could be a useful resource for you on future projects and one that is also effective for working with collaborators and possible funders?)

 

I am researching into the fighter genre of video games.

Presentation of my intended essay

I gave a presentation to the class about my essay on Classic movie plot archetypes in hollywood movies.

Here is the presentation, it’s purpose was to aid my research and take in ideas from others.

Mainstream movie plot archetypes

Death and Twix

This short film was shot and edited in a group in about three hours time. Just like my full project, I’m the editor.

The aim for this mini project was for the groups of the class to randomly pick a piece of paper from a set of quotes. The quote that picked us was “My! Surely this must mean something?”. A cheesy quote if any, but it was added in at the end of the film while the plot was created purely around the quote.

Project Proposal

Project Proposal Form 2013_14

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSevenBasicPlots

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3632074/Everything-ever-written-boiled-down-to-seven-plots.html

The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories by Christopher Booker

Lighting practices

During Andy’s lesson, we got to experiment with lighting in an attempt to black out the background while having the subject in the foreground fully lit. This was achieved by turning down the exposure and adjusting the aperture while a light was aiming onto the foreground. I am impressed by how such a drastic change in lighting can be achieved without adjusting the light source.

Originally I was used as the subject while the rest of the class worked behind the camera.

As you can see, the background is still visibly green, and I’m not very well lit.

Below is my setup of a followup practice I did after that session,

Here are the before and after

Title Sequence – Doctor Who

Here is my recreation of the Doctor Who title sequence, and it takes the brief requirement of having a green screen element one step further, as every shot in this is green screened. As I started the initial editing, I found myself frequently needing to watch over 10 minute videos in search of how to properly use the software or for a simple shortcut, but it paid off in the end.

The Tardis

There were a total of three Tardises used in the project. The first Tardis, which is shown in the second shot of the film extremely close up wasn’t actually a Tardis at all. None of the Tardis images I could find were both fully front-on nor HD, so the one that you see is simply the front of one that I compiled in Photoshop from different elements I found on the internet. Below on the right are all the elements used, and to the left is the final product that you see in the film.

As the film continues, two more Tardises are shown, these are simply images from the internet. I had originally planned to include a scene of the Tardis spinning through space, but found this difficult without any modeling software, and in the end I decided it wouldn’t be worth just ripping a spinning Tardis from Youtube.

While the third Tardis used in the last shot of the film was just a fairly weathered looking one, the second was edited to let me walk right inside.

This was done by Photoshopping this full image of a tardis..

The background was removed as well as the reflections in the windows. The door side of the Tardis was moved to the left side to suite the scene better. I then cut out the door that I wanted to open, and saved these two files..

                  The door was animated in Premiere on an axis similar to an actual doors motion.

Using layers, appropriate audio, and the background of the insides of the Tardis; I created the illusion of entering one and taking off.

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Chroma Keying

I used two main plug-ins on this project, and they are

*Video Copilot – Optical Flares

*Red Giant – Primatte

Both are very present in the film, the optical flares are all throughout the film, and add an aspect of sci-fi. I also found them useful to make the inside of the Tardis seem real as I opened the door, and were used as a slight flickering sun in the back of the frame.

The Red Giant Primatte plug in was one of my last decisions as it replaced Keylight for me. After rendering the project, I realised that the footage was shot with a too higher exposure, making Keylight struggle with the keying.

I also used a tutorial from Video Copilot called “The Dead Planet” which features at the end of the film.

Here is the difference of the final film and earlier tests. (An earlier optical flare set is also present). The first image has poor optical flares that obstruct my face. The second and third screenshot have the same flares but show the switch from Keylight to Primatte. As you can see, it’s removed the graininess that’s more evident in the moving image than a screenshot, and I was more successful at removing the outline.

Throughout the title sequence, I tried to represent the Doctor and the adventures and dangers that he faces. It starts with the Doctor giving the same warning message that Matt Smith gives to an alien on his first episode. The usage of slow motion in this film was inspired from the title sequence of ‘Watchmen’ by Zack Snyder. The final shot showing him standing on an alien planet in an alien universe represents the Doctor as a time lord and his power over space and time.

External work – Professional project

I’m  a script editor on the promo project for ‘This Time is my Time to Shine’, and am working with Tom. The client is satisfied with the script and now our job is completed as the rest of the crew work with our script and get to work. Below are some early examples of work I’d sent to work as we collaboratively created the final script.

Character quotes 1

Character quotes 2

Songs

My individual external project is to film lectures for the Enrichment Programme about Futures. I film and edit inside the college with Connor and Richard.

Here is a list of the lectures and lecturers what we created films for:

Futures Conversations Series – Autumn 2013

Stalker trailer – genre edit

https://vimeo.com/80089242

Here’s an edit I made from the 1979 movie ‘Stalker’. I was tasked to edit the trailer as is a directer such as Edger Wright was behind it.
Because of the 3 hour limitation, I don’t think that quite came across, though I feel as if it’s a very different film than the original.

Title sequence progress

I’m expanding my knowledge of Premiere and After Effects as I’ve never used them for such a demanding project before.

World Cinema – Japan

Popular

*A lot of Anime

*Without stereotyping, their popular films can often express honour and sacrifice among men. And a lot of samurai. Films like “Seven Samurai, Battle Royale, Yojimbo, Rashomon, Akira”

*Popular Japanese culture of horror is very different to western, and in my opinion much better. They like to use long black haired girls in their horrors. Eg The Grudge, The ring.

Art

*Art house cinema of Japan tends to be very traditional, as well as going into their traditional history.

Experimental

*Corridors of Echoes (Experimental Japanese ghost film) 2009

This Japanese non narrative film reminds me of the tape from the Ring, as it appears to be disconnected shots that are all individually creepy in their own way.