Week 11 (28/11) : Creative Project Edit and Further Issues!

This week we were able to crack on editing our creative project as our group media folder had been resolved. Unfortunately when it came to editing we stumbled across a lot of further issues, a lot of the time Premier Pro had a notification saying that our media was continually pending and we could hear the audio but not see the visuals. Every time we came to editing we were always stuck with this issue. A couple of times we managed to sort it out but it just kept happening at random. We managed to get around a minute of our project done despite these issues but we were nowhere near on time to finish our project by the time of the deadline.

Due to group members being available/unavailable at different times and with the extension to our deadline only 3/5 of us actually being in the country to work on the project we were very limited when it came to finding time for us to manage to edit. On Wednesday (14/12) the day before our submission deadline we managed to sort out the issue of the pending media files, it was a case that the media cache was going to the wrong destination and was fixed in terms of a lot of trial and error. We got to around half way through our edit and the computer we were on (Silverstone Building, Edit Workshop 2, Mac 'Chaplin') crashed and restarted itself. Unfortunately when we logged back on to the computer and tried to open our group media folder it came up with the message "resource currently unavailable" the same issue that we had a few weeks back, that took a while to be resolved! As it was around 18:15 that this issue occurred none of the media technicians were on campus and ITS was shut. We sent an email to all of the relevant people who we thought would be able to help us with the issue, but unfortunately in the short time that we had we got little to no responses. 

As we cannot currently access any of our files we have no other option but to submit what we do have i.e our blogs and our critical introduction.

Week 10 (21/11) : Further Group Media Folder & Voice-Over Exercise Issues

This week my group and I faced further issues regarding our group media folder. Unfortunately despite our constant emails to ITS we had still been facing problems and this meant that we had been unable to access and edit our footage for the past two weeks. In class (23/11) we sent further emails to ITS to see if we could get a response, as well as asking the Media departments IT technician for futher help. As we could not edit our footage the class took part in a voice-over exercise, although this did not turn out so well for us either as all of the computers in the voice-over booths that myself and my group tried to use broke down. The pc's worked perfectly fine for the other group but they just did not want to respond to us, so this meant that we were unable to get any work done this lesson, which we all found very frustrating.

As most of the group were busy this week, Andrew visited ITS services in person on Friday (25/11) and managed to get some advice from them. Unfortunately they gave us some tips on how to get our regular media for drives back, not our group media folder. So Andrew had to go back to ITS to get further help, and somehow they managed to resolve our issue by the weekend, which we were all very thankful for! We were unable to meet up as a group to edit our footage this week so we plan on editing next week and cracking on as soon as we can!

Week 9 (14/11) : Group Media Folder Error

In this weeks class (16/11) my group and I encountered a rather large problem. We logged onto the macs in Silverstone and we noticed that none of us could (seperately) open the group media folder that we were given the week before which contained all of our footage. We all emailed ITS and reported the problem, and the response that we got was to restart the computers and try again. Unfortunately this did not fix the problem and we were still stuck with an unresponsive group media folder. We contacted the Media technicians and they tried to fix the problem and also had no luck. To add to the problem, the internet and computers all over campus then started facing issues and completely crashed out. This meant that not only were we unable to access our project, our teache was also unable to teach us anything or show us any videos because all of the equipment was unresponsive. 

My group and I have been trying to resolve this problem that we are facing in regards to our group media folder but we are still yet to make any progress.

Week 8 (07/11) : Old Police Cells Museum Shoot & Editing Our Rushes

This week my group and I had our Old Police Cells Museum project shoot (08/11). We arrived on location at 8:30am in order to allow ourselves enough time to set up the equipment and get any extra exterior shots that we wanted to get before the staff at the Museum unlocked the museum for us to shoot in. The shoot went extremely well as we had almost no problems with the equipment (apart from a slight bit of confusion in the beginning when it came to white balancing the camera, but we quickly overcame that). It was great because we all took it in turns to act as each role, so one of us would start on the camera, going through each room and getting nice cutaways for us to use over the top of our interviews, whilst the others would record certain sounds of the museum (e.g. doors shutting, whilstling vents, keys jangling, etc.) which we want to add into our project in post production to really capture the atmosphere of the place. The best part for me when it came to shooting was using the camera and working with the fig rig, it was really nice to use the camera handheld rather than being restricted to a tripod, and it allowed me to get some very effective and stable shots. 

We initially thought that we would be interviewing one former police officer, and then we would have another person from the museum who we would be giving us a tour of the whole place which we would then add in to our project. On the contrary, we were actually given three old police officers! This actually worked quite well as it meant that we were able to get a lot of content and we had lots of different personal stories that were really interesting that we thought would intertwine nicely throughout our narrative. The only problem that we encountered with this was that sometimes it became a little hard to keep the interview strictly about the Old Police Cells Museum as our interviewees tended to stick more to talking about themselves as old police officers rather than their experiences with the museum itself, so the interview became more like a portrait of a person rather than a place. We tried to ask as many questions about the museum as we could without overloading our interviewees so hopefully we will be able to edit our interviews in post production and cut together all the relevant questions/answers in order to keep strictly to our brief of a portrait of a place. Over all it was a really great experience and it was lovely to be able to work as part of a group again and work on something really exciting!

 

For this weeks class (09/11) we were supposed to be having group tutorials, but out of the whole class only my group came to the lesson so instead we were able to have 1-1 tutoring with our teacher which was really useful as it meant that we could receive more detailed feedback in relation to our footage which that we shot. The group got to look through all of our footage and we went through and labelled all of our shots and made a note of which were the usuable ones and which were not. After organising all of our footage and labelling it we started a very brief edit, we created the opening sequence and played around with a few effects to create a smooth transition between shots. Organising our footage took up most of our time so we didn't get to edit too much in class but we were definitely able to get a better feel of the footage that we were working with and better prepared us for the next opportunity that would have to edit further.

On Friday (11/11) my group and I booked out one of the editing booths and met up to edit more of our project. We spent around 3 hours in the booth editing our footage and after the 3 hours we had managed to edit about 45 seconds of our project. After creating this initial sequence we noticed that the tour part of our video didn't have a clear and consistent enough narrative to use as it was so we decided on using only certain parts of the tour which were clear and then adding in a voice over of our own in order to tie all the parts together and make the narrative more precise. We planned to record this voiceover in the next week or so.

Week 7 (31/10) : Non-linear Editing Workshop

In this weeks class we were introduced to Adobe Premiere Pro, and given a demonstration of the basic functions that we will be using throughout the edit of our creative projects. I have a lot of experience using Premiere Pro so I have a fair amount of knowledge about how the programme works etc. but it was really useful to be given a recap of some of the basics and I actually found out a few shortcuts I did not already know which was very interesting! 

In pairs we were given a folder full of footage (both audio and visual) and we were asked to organise it into seperate folders on our group hard drives and then into bins on Premiere. We were able to play around with the different options on the programme and because I have a little more experience than my group mates I was able to show them a few more complicated things on Premiere Pro like using effects and adding in moving titles which was really fun as we all found it really interesting and it was nice to be able to share my knowledge with others!

Week 6 (24/10) : Reading Week & Old Police Cells Museum Tour

This week we had no lectures, seminars or classes so as we had a little bit more time on our hands my group and I decided to book a tour of the Old Police Cells Museum that we could go along to in order to gain a bit more of an idea/feel for the place before we plan to shoot the documentary there.

It was a really good experience being guided through the museum by one of the tour guides as it gave us a lot more insight into the building itself and we saw a lot of things we didn't know about that we thought would slot very nicely into our documentary, e.g. the old police officers' uniforms and vintage photographs which would give a nice visual representation of what policing was like when the cells were being used for the viewer. 

Booking the tour was definitely a very good idea as getting to see the museum and the cells themselves really gave us first hand experience of the place and it enabled us to solidify our previous ideas and artistic visions of where we wanted the project to go and made the lead up to our actual shooting day a lot easier. After the tour, throughout the week we all spoke online in our group chat and discussed final details and points that we needed to make clear before the shoot, and we created a shot list of the shots that we wanted to capture most and a list of the most important questions that we wanted to ask our interviewees. 

Outside the front of Brighton Town Hall

 

Bartholomew Sq, The road of the Police Cells Museum location

 

Week 5 (17/10) : Group Project Presentations

This Tuesday (18/10) my group and I met up to discuss and finalise exactly what we were going to put in our presentation. Answering the key questions 'Who, What, Where, Why, & How?', we designated one question to each member of the group and we all contributed ideas in order to help eachother finalise what we were to present. We spent around 2 hours in the campus library making note of our points and later proceeded to create a powerpoint on google docs in which we could all edit our specific slides at the same time and help eachother make final decisions both aesthetically and literally.

In class the following day (19/10) my group and I presented our powerpoint presentation to the other groups, each group member discussing our designated slides and talking through each point 'Who, What, Where, Why, & How?'. I feel that the presentation went considerably well and I was able to talk through my slides effectively and with little difficulty! The feedback that we all received was mainly positive with only a few points of constructive criticism which stated that we should have related our project back to our chosen documentary filmmaker a little more strongly and made visual reference to her work throughout the powerpoint. Apart from this, the rest of our feedback pointed out the successful parts of our presentation and we were all very happy with how it turned out!

Our presentation can be found here. 

My presentation notes

Week 4 (10/10) : Composition & Aesthetics

In this weeks lesson we discussed the composition and aesthetic elements that relate to documentary video making as well as the theory of editing. First off we started by discussing the rule of thirds, which says that "if you were to divide a TV screen into thirds using lines, you'd find that where those lines crossed the eye is naturally attracted to". We were shown examples of this and instances where filmmakers had carried it out well and also not so well. It was interesting to see how this theory worked by looking at previous student work as it gave me an idea of how to frame shots throughout the progression of the project. We then moved on to discussing the 180 degree rule, which explains that "the 180° rule is a guideline that says two characters in a scene should maintain the same spatial relationship to eachother. When the camera passes over the invisible axis connecting the two subjects, it crosses the line and the shot becomes a reverse angle". It was really enlightening to learn about this rule as I had heard it mentioned briefly in previous Media courses I have taken but I never fully understood what it meant or how to put it into practice, so it was really useful to have it explained in depth. 

Connecting from this weeks set reading by Rabiger, Ch.16, we discussed the 'dramatic curve' and the three act structure, (more typically known as beginning middle and end). Deriving from Greek theatre the dramatic curve explains the progression of events throughout a plot/narrative; starting at the exposition, through the rising action to the climax, leading to the falling action and finally the resolution. I find the dramatic curve really exciting to learn about, I studied it briefly when I took A Level English Literature at college previously so I had a brief understanding, but learning about it more thoroughly was really interesting to me. 

Our groups were then asked to screen our 1 minute short documentary videos to the other groups and then discuss them afterwards. My group had some problems editing the footage that we had collected. I was unable to attend the editing session for personal reasons, and by the time I was available it was too late, so the rest of the group took over the editing for this little project. None of my other group members had ever used Adobe Premier Pro before so it was completely new to them and from what I heard they didn't get on with it too well! Nonetheless, I still think they did a good job considering they had never used the software before! The feedback that we got was constructive and we were able to learn from the editing mistakes that we had made like the obvious use of jump cuts, and the fact that we lost the save location of our cutaway footage so it appeared as "offline" on our editing timeline. This exercise was really useful as it gave us a chance to explore the new cameras, sound equipment, and editing software and get to grips with it a bit more before we go out and shoot our final creative project.

Week 3 (03/10) : Audio Introduction & Ideas Pitch

In this weeks lesson we were introduced to all the different types of microphones and recording equipment that we will be using throughout the first year of the Creative Production Video module. I have very little experience working with sound so being shown the different types of mic that we could be using and what situations they would be used in was really helpful and gave me an insight into what sort of equipment I will be using in the future progression of the module. We also discussed interviewing techniques and were shown examples of what to and what not to do when carrying out an interview in preparation for the short interviews our groups would be doing this week for the short 1 minute videos (The Pitfalls of Independent Living). I have carried out a lot of interviews during my time studying Media in the past, so I am quite familiar with the techniques used but there were a few things mentioned that I had not come across before which was interesting to find out!

This week we also had to individually present our ideas for our 4 minute final Creative Project at the end of the first year module. My idea was to create a portrait of 'The Keep' in Brighton. (The Keep is an archive and historical resource centre which gives the public access to over 900 years of records relating to the county of East Sussex and the Special Collections held by the University of Sussex). I found that not a lot of people were familiar with The Keep so I thought that it would be interesting to create a visual representation of the building itself and to explore the records that it holds as they are extremely important to the historical significance of Brighton, and Sussex especially. The other members of my group came up with some really interesting ideas also, but we finally decided to go ahead with Laura's idea of creating a video on the Brighton Police Cells and the 'haunted stories' behind them.

As a group we met up (07/10) and headed to Northfield accomodation with the camera equipment to film our interview for the 1 minute video. It went really well and luckily the weather held out for us and we were able to carry out the interview smoothly and effectively. We got some nice angles of our interviewee and the answers she gave to our questions were really great and informative, I think that this will be great material to use in the edit of this short video. 

Week 2 (26/09) : Camera Introduction & Cutaway Footage Shooting

In this weeks lesson we were introduced to the cameras that we will be using throughout the first year of the course (Sony X70) as well as other camera related equipment such as tripods, white balance cards etc. I found the workshop extremely useful as I am used to working with DSLR cameras such as the Canon 700d, so when I was approached with the Sony X70 I was a little overwhelmed! I have never used equipment of this standard before so being taught the ins and outs of all the functions of the camera etc was really eye opening. 

After the group had been shown how all the equipment worked we were split off into our smaller groups and went out onto campus to shoot cutaway footage for our 1 minute videos on either 'My First Day at Sussex' or 'The Pitfalls of Independent Living'. My group and I ventured out and got various little cutaways around campus, we all took it in turns using the camera to record things like the Sussex University sign, general goings on around certain busy areas of the University and students going about their busy schedules, while the other group members kept an eye on the time as we only had 20 minutes to do this exercise. We then went back to our lab and put all the equipment back where it belonged and have since planned to meet up again during the week to finish shooting any last pieces of cutaway footage as well as our main interview!

 

Week 1 (19/09) : Introduction to the Course & Group Formation

The first Creative Production Video lesson was really interesting this week as we were introduced to the course itself and most importantly the world of documentary video! We started off by watching a few examples of past student documentaries either on 'a portrait of a place' or 'a portrait of a person'. We saw a wide range of different approaches and techniques in order to explore the chosen theme of the video and discussed each after watching them as a group. There was one documentary video in particular that stood out for me, it was called 'Blue' and explored how the colour blue has different effects on different individuals. A few of my peers disliked the way in which the piece was shot and found it very repetitive and thought that the talking heads distracted from the video and made it feel slightly disrupted. I actually really enjoyed the cutaway shots being repeated throughout the piece because in the first half they fitted perfectly in time with the music and flowed nicely, in the second half the clips were reversed and gave the video a cyclical nature and I liked that it made the piece feel like it was coming to some sort of resolution. 'Blue' really inspired me and I would like to use techniques that I noticed in this video in a documentary of my own.

After being sorted into groups of 3/4 we were then asked to plan a one minute video on either the theme of 'My First Day at Sussex' or 'The Pitfalls of Independent Living'. My group and I chose to plan out ideas for 'The Pitfalls of Independent Living' as we felt it would give us a little more creative freedom in what we could explore through the video. As a group we met up (23/09) and discussed our individual ideas and then decided on the ideas that we would most likely be able to film in a short space of time without it affecting our artistic visions. We then went away with clear ideas of what exactly we wanted to film and planned to meet up in the next few days to talk about filming times etc.