Tuesday, 12 July 2011
Saturday, 2 July 2011
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Light
The video to the right shows what happens when I zoom. A significant amount of light is lost, and quality reduces. It is much better to bring the camera closer to the subject, although of course that is often difficult.
Wednesday, 23 March 2011
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Making March LIFE
I filmed my first feature on Sunday with two people who had gone on short term mission to Tanzania.
The first thing I learnt was to be organised; not because I am particularly badly organised but simply because other people are not that organised. One example was with Veritas. To make the interview a bit more interesting, I chose to film it in a bar called Veritas rather than in a meeting room at St. George's where filming normally happens. To check it was ok though, I rang earlier that morning and said they would check and get back to me which they failed to do. I went down before filming to chase them up about it and found it was fine though, but it was lucky that was the case. If the plan had failed I would have had to revert to using the meeting room, so in future I will make sure to organise any external filming well in advance.
Organisation is also key in time planning. Unlike with graphic design where I can be fully flexible as I only require my computer, with video I need to calibrate my time on the Mac, my time when filming others and time to go through the video with others to check it.
The second feature I filmed was a mock up small group at my house. I had been asked to film a feature on 'Carbon Fast', basically what people are doing to cut their carbon and why over Lent. Filming a group in a different setting presented me with different challenges to filming a simple interview, particularly as I had to make it look relatively natural. One mistake was not getting any good establishing shots, but I was quite pleased with some of the cutaways.
Light was difficult in my living room, and I also had two sound areas so had to keep moving the microphone. I'm not really sure how I could have sorted these issues out easily but I am aware of the problems such as over exposure, dodgy sound in places and varying light conditions. What I did do, but could have done more, is colour correction in editing. The first feature was a little blue while the second feature had higher red values.
Another feature I filmed, which I didn't put into the final production ultimately, was a Climate Change summit. I planned to link it in with the Carbon Fast feature, but it ended up being a bit random. I tried to get some vox pops and shots of what people were doing, but on the whole they weren't that successful. This was partly because the only good interviews I got were from a steward and a vicar... not great. Other people wanted to plug their business, and the few I got that were neutral didn't speak clearly.
It presented a network opportunity for me however as I was approached by one company that asked me if I would be interested in doing a promotional video for their company. I gave them my details, but in made me realise I should be carrying business cards.
At the end of the production process, I learnt how to burn it onto a DVD. I have done this before (years ago) but on a PC and using different programmes in a very amateur way. I also learnt how to optimise the video for projection; when one watches it on screen it will appear the contrast or brightness is slightly out, but this is because it has been edited for essentially a poor projector. The person who has produced this before has sometimes produced separate issues for web and projector, and I may do this in future but as this was my first time it would have been rather ambitious!
Production Time
Feature 1 & some editing: 5 hours
Climate Summit: 4 hours
Feature 2: 2 hours
Planned Editing Time: 16 hours
Actual Editing Time: 24 hours
Total production time: 34 hours
Costing
£4 taxi
£2.50 Beachtek battery
Total: £6.50
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
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