Busy Weekend- Final version of "The Suspicious Birthday"

Last week, I had spend most of time working on my context 1 essay, I have finished it and send it to Jools, then I got some feedback from it.

Therefore, during the weekend, I had improved my essay and it was done now then I had finished the edited of my one shot film. 


At the start, I had added some typewriter sound effects with some digital style words, because this created the tension to make it look more serious. The texts that I added at the beginning were inspired from a HK film that I watched recently.

In addition, a suspicious music gradually increased as background music. Sound effects such as, walk steps on the snow had added on the top. I had added sound effects of the action in order make it standout and again increase the tension e.g. zipping the jacket, envelope hand over to the birthday boy etc. Once the birthday boy, open the envelope, some loud party blowers sounds added to increase in order to make the audience feel shock, then “Happy Birthday” background music played gradually to create the happy and cheerful mood.

In this edit, I had created my own sound effect. At the end, when Hollie and me said “Happy Birthday” I had cut this section from the Adobe sound booth, I made the it louder and reduced the background. Although It still contain the background noise, it was better compare to the actual one.

The title of the film, I had added this at the end, as this would not break the serious mood at the beginning, and I think this fit very well. There we go of my final edited:

The Suspicious Birthday (Seminar of Premiere Pro)

Today, the seminar was about how do we edit our film. At first, we thought we edited the film as a group. However, Deborah said that as we won’t have enough time to improve the film, so that we have to edit our own one.

In the seminar I didn’t do much, I just experiment with Premiere Pro and try to find the sound effects and back music for my final edit. It is hard to find, cause most the website I have to pay for the sounds.

One shot (unedited) Feedback from seminar

Today seminar, it didn’t last for 2 hours only 1, because most of the people haven’t do their filming yet due to the weather. However, groups that done their filming got feedback from the seminar.

The feedback that we got overall this is a good one shot film. Chris didn’t say much, the only thing was he recommended that we could put the title at the end and sound effects of the walk step.

After showing our video, we had 10 minutes group discussion; we discussed the sound effects , visual effects and the title that we can edit. Then we will edit our film in tomorrow seminar.

Filming of - Errors and Final

We chose to do our filming on a snow and freezing day, this is not a good idea right? But it is the only chance that we can film before Thursday, and it is hard to meet everyone due to the snow. However, we managed to film our final shot at the end that we had spend 2 hours after the seminar.

On the day, I managed to borrow a camera and a reflector from the equipment store. After the seminar, we went to the Arboretum Park start our filming.

During the filming, there are couples of errors, due to our casts and weather. However, errors helped us to improve our final shot; changes are white balanced and position of casts.

Error of our takes:

Final shot:

Lighting Seminar

In today seminar, we had taught about the use of lighting in film. It is interest, and there is a big different with light and without light. And I found out that lighting is the main element that creates the atmosphere in film.

I learnt the four main properties of lighting:

-Coherence (quality)

-Colour temperature (colour)

-Intensity (strength)

-Three point lighting

During the seminar we were given a task to do- 

create an interview in a daylight atmosphere inside a studio.

We did experiment with the position of lights and the gels in order to get the correct lighting. The problems were the face’s looked too dark or too bright, and once the video imported in a PC, the quality looked very poor.

Then we showed our practices to Deborah, she said that it was due to the wrong camera setting. So she told us to adjust the white balance by using a white paper and set the iris to 0db. And the first attempt, the background looked too obvious in the camera. Therefore, she did help us to adjust the height of the main light. The light then shine from the top, which made everything clear and the background was black with no shadows. 

Group Meeting & Final Idea

After the lecture that about the DP1 presentation, I was starting to nervous, because it seem the pressures are on the their way (Assignment 1 X DP1 presentation). However, I will try my best to produce my best work.

In the presentation that I will have on the week 20, I am thinking to present my presentation on a website, because this can show what I have learnt in the first semester. In addition, I think it is time for me to do some preparations of this presentation. E.g. Developing it, feedback, improvement etc.

The task that I would like to improve is the interactive space project; I found it was too obvious. I would like to create another on that is more exploring and abstract, and I properly will start do it after I finish my Context 1 assignment.

Anyway, let me write about what I have done in today’s group meeting.  Today, we have shared about the ideas that we thought during the weekend, and the final decision for the twist is having a mini birthday celebration at the end. So the mood of the beginning of the film will be serious, and at the end it will be a happy mood.

Before when draft out our storyboard, we have written out a plan:

Location:
-Arboretum park
   -using the bench where the canons are.

Equipment:
-Video Camera
-Tripod

Characters:
1.) One that left the envelope to the birthday boy -?
2.) Birthday boy -?
3,4.) Party guests- ?

We haven’t decide it yet.

Things that we need:
-Party poppers x2
-Party Blowouts x2
-Party Hats x3
-Birthday card x1
-Wrap present (box) x1
-Mobile phone
-Newspaper/ magazine x1

Costume:
-2- dark and dull clothing
-2- bright, colourful or party wear & hats

Camera setting:
-Zoon once- Zoom in on expression/ action at the end?

Expression:
Character 1- serious
Character 2- serious at the beginning, then unhappy, embarrassed, shocked, uncomfortable, and at the end a smile will on his face.
Character3,4- Cheerful, happy, dancing and singing.

Storyboard:

In addition, we will do our risk assessment today, and hopeful we can start some practice filming on Friday. 

2nd Seminar of One Shot Film

As I said yesterday, we have our practice filmed in today seminar. 

Before we filming, we have done a rough storyboard of what our film will look like.

In this task, we only allow to either zoom/ pan/ crab/ track once, and we decided to use, because this could built up the tension and gave a direction of what audience should focus on. In order to create a best film, we must need lots of practice and trail, so we have tried 5 different angles.

During our filming, we received some comments from Deborah; she said that we could added a twist at the end to make it more entrainment and make the audience memorable. At the weekend, in our group we have to think about some ideas and discuss it on Monday.

After an hour film, here are the best 3 that we think:

1st Seminar of One Shot Film

Today, I have my 1^st seminar of this new task was called “You Decide!”. We will working as a group of 4, my group members are Sam, Lee and Elliot. Our task is working together to shoot a one shot film- shoot in on go by without any stop and the film must be short as well 1/ 2 minutes film (maximum).

Today seminar, I have been taught about what is the task about, and we have went to the arboretum park and walked for 30 minutes to get some ideas.

During the walk, I did came up some ideas:
1. Hide and Seek
2. A group of family member taking their family album- this sounds interesting, because during my AS I went to the Tate Gallery, and inside there one of the room was showing a video that a group of people standing in a room, the video seem took forever, the setting looked like they were taken photography. But instead of having still image, they were being video. From the video, we can see the people facial expression, scratch their head, looked boredom etc. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the artist name and the title of that work, I wish I can post that video in here.

However, these weren’t use for our final decision. The main idea that arose in our group after a half hour walked was confrontation between two characters in a suspicious style, like when we watching a cops and robbers’ film when they exchange ransom.

The film will start with a character walking toward to a bench with a bag then sit on it. Another character will meet the first character, then sitting on the bench and looks strange with each other. However, when the character gets to the meeting place, a homeless person would steal the bag and run.

This is what we have discussed in our seminar today, but in tomorrow seminar, we will shoot some practice to see what the film will like then we will have some discussion and make our final decision of this task.