Evaluation

Main Tasks + Ancillary Tasks

Audio Commentary

Adobe Premiere Pro Skills #2: Warp Stabilizer

For a sequence of shots in my film, I decided to use a handheld approach to reflect the growing chaotic nature for the main character in my film. With a lack of professional equipment to achieve this, such as a dolly, I carried the camera rested on my shoulder, in order to gain the smoothest shot possible. When editing, I found that the rushes weren't smooth enough and detracted from the action and the film's overall quality. Another tool I learned about was the warp stabilizer, which would aim to smooth out the shot.

I learned to use this tool from a Youtube video entitled "How to: Smooth moves from Shakey Footage" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p83KtXrxwNA) and this gave me the adequate understanding to know how to achieve this effect: the steps included:

1) Go to effects
2) Search "Warp Stabilizer"
3) Apply to the selected clip and wait for clip to buffer; this should smooth the motion.

The warp stabilizer worked effectively in my film. It added an unexpected feature that distorted the shots- in another context, this may have looked bad, but I felt the distortion effect the Warp Stabilizer provided reflected the tone and atmosphere of the sequence. 

Consequently, whilst I wouldn't in future shorts use warp stabilizer for distortion, I now know how to smooth out rushes in order to make a more professionally authentic short film.

Adobe Premiere Pro Skills #1: ProcAmp

This is the first in a series where I reflect upon technical skills I attained in my construction stage- in particular, post-production editing. Adobe Premiere Pro was a new piece of software for me, and I thought it pertinent to go over what I've learnt and solidify this learning by relaying it in this post. So, to begin, my attempts at turning the image black and white...

One of the key elements of my short film is flashbacks. Following a non-linear narrative, it was of fundamental importance to convey the past. Typically, flashback is conveyed through the use of black-and-white colouring, which is effective as it has indexical connotations of the past. I realised that I had no idea how to change the colouring of raw files. Through a correspondence with my teacher I learnt the following steps to take:

 

1) Highlight the clip you want to effect within your sequence and then click on the effects tab on Premiere Pro, searching for ProcAmp.

2) Click and drag ProcAmp onto the selected file.

3) Find ProcAmp on effect controls and look for 'Saturation'. At this point it's presumably '100' (see second image) meaning the clip currently will be in glorious Technicolor. Adjust this to '0' to change to black and white. #Yay!

Simple in retrospect, but half the trick of being able to use Premiere Pro is to know where to look, what effects to use and how to implement them. Using ProcAmp was an effect that was invaluable in helping me to achieve something close to the product I'd envisioned. Consequently, I'm pleased with my learning of this tool and can now use it in future.




Change Saturation to '0'

ProcAmp tool






Creating a black-and-white...ProcAmp!

Reflecting on my Use of New Media Technologies...

Over the past week I've reflected on my use of new media technologies in the construction, research and planning plus evaluation stages. The following stages of evaluation have helped me to reflect upon my work and formulate part of the first draft of my evaluation presentation.


Construction:
I used new media technologies to construct my short film in a variety of different ways. For instance, I decided to use my own Canon 500d camera to capture the film, which I hoped would create a film with a better resolution than that of the cameras used in my AS project. The familiarity of the camera gave me a better command of what I wanted to achieve: for instance, I manually adjusted the aperture by applying a micro lens (100mm) to the counsellor scene, where the natural lighting was overbearing.  Furthermore, on the first filming shoot, I struggled with chromatic aberration; a diffractive optic lens would have been useful at that point, but by perseverance I was able to adjust the focus to create a clearer picture. Also, I adjusted the lens when I needed a close-up (eg. a close-up of Liam’s character in the counsellor scene to reveal his frustration). Using a tripod was new to me -my photography is usually freehand and I left tripod adjusting to my peers in last years project- although once I got the hang of what can be achieved with a tripod, I felt more at ease with tracking shots and tilts. Consequently, I feel as though using the Canon 500d DSLR was a new media technology that was fundamental in ensuring a short film that looked visually aesthetic and of a quality standard.

The antithesis of my camera confidence was my difficulty with using editing software: Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. I feel as though a degree of prior knowledge was needed to tap into Premiere Pro’s undoubted potential; consequently, to improve I should have thoroughly researched the editing software even before I’d started production, so that I would have a sound foundation with which to work from. However, of the skills I did amass, I was able to implement changes that were tantamount to improving the quality of the film. Examples of this include using the stabiliser effect to smooth out the picture for rushes shot handheld (see 3:30), the ProcAmp effect to turn the picture black-and-white to connote a flashback (see 0:50) and the use of “Dissolve” transitions to make the picture fade to black, furthering the endings impact (see 5:20). One issue I encountered was levelling the volume of the .mp3 audio files; this wasn’t an exact science, but involved placing louder audios on levels with lower volume on the audio mixer, and vice versa- this was important to ensure the film’s sound was equalled. Using a boom mic was influential in recording a higher quality of sound and eliminating external sounds (such as wind etc.), but this also involved placing sound and visuals together in their exact places, lest the sound look out of sorts with the mouth movement. I averted this issue by using asking the actor in question to clap before each take whilst the camera was rolling- this meant I could match the movement to its sound, meaning audio and the rush itself were in-sync, allowing me to start trimming the clip. Although frustration arose from Premiere Pro, I feel my progression within editing skills has significantly improved, allowing to me to add effects that helped me to make the film I wished to create.

For the various photos featured in the film, I used Adobe Lightroom- this is photo-editing software I’m adept at and allowed me to refine the images seen within the film (see 5:30). For my ancillary tasks, I used Adobe Photoshop- the reasoning behind this was that Photoshop was more advanced in terms of media design, allowing me to format a review, and apply text to a photo in order to design my poster. The only issue I encountered was cropping the image of Liam’s character and text wrapping around the image, a key convention of most reviews. However, I was eventually able to do this and format my review in such a way that it looked authentic.

Research and Planning:

The internet was essential to my research and planning. Using a variety of search engines (Yahoo, Google) I endeavoured to scour the internet for inspiration and educational resources. An example of where I learned from was the Youtube channel “Indy Mogul”, an invaluable and insightful source of information with which to learn the basics of short-filmmaking, and a great source of confidence during the planning stage of my short film. Also, I used CCC Media’s (cccmedia.blogspot.com) Coursework Archive section to look at the work of previous students and how they went about their research and planning process. In terms of analysing short films for my research, I found myself gravitating towards Vimeo over Youtube, both of which were video-sharing websites. My reasoning behind this was that I found Vimeo to be more inclined artistic, creative short films that would be worth my while analysing. A consequence of these analyses from previous works encouraged me to challenge myself and broaden the conventions of my own short film. Also, whilst researching reviews, I found internet reviews weren’t at all similar to that of the actual magazine reviews themselves, he only similarity being the text itself; I combated this by using a friends Ipad to photograph, crop and e-mail these images to myself,all in quick succession, allowing me to analyse and highlight the reviews as normal.

Moreover, during my research I created a survey using the free-to-use survey creator on Google Drive. I was able to use Social Medias such as Facebook and Twitter to share a link to friends and associates, allowing m survey to reach a broad and versatile audience, strengthening my data and subsequent results. However, the limitations of Social Media is that many of the people I shared the survey with of a similar age and demographic- therefore, to improve the broadness of results in my preliminary survey using social media, I should have asked older family members to share the survey, to reach an even more diverse audience.

In terms of planning, I was able to use the editing software IMovie to put together an animatic. I used this slightly more basic software as I felt using advanced software wouldn’t be necessary given the simplistic nature of the task, which involves stringing photos of my storyboard together along with recordings of dialogue and non-diegetic music. Asking my cast to record their dialogue utilizing a sound recorder, using such technology to create an animatic was helpful in allowing me to envisage what my media product should look like in production. The animatic wasn’t necessarily identical to that of the final product, but I still found that, during early planning stages, this was a platform with which to work, adapt and develop from.Throughout my research and planning, I’ve been reflecting upon this all on my blog, using the blogging website aptly entitled blogger (blogger.com). This was a helpful source of reflection and allowed me to consolidate my learning outside the classroom environment, allowing me to post work such as my storyboard drafts or an embedded short film I enjoyed.

In summation, it’s a luxury to have such a plethora of new media technologies at one’s fingertips with which to research and plan my product. Since AS, I’ve become more adept at researching more concisely, building upon past experience to  find things I know will be of value. Added to this,  I’ve been able to apply technology to formulate a plan with which to build from- my animatic. All of which I’ve been able to share, compare and reflect upon with my peers, of whom we can share feedback amongst ourselves.


Evaluation:

New media technologies have also been prevalent within my evaluation stage. Primarily, the use of social media has enabled me to promote my evaluatory survey. Again, Twitter and Facebook have been influential in publicising my film and I picked up a tip from one of my peers, to use the hashtag feature to promote the film on a more global basis. Moreover, since my preliminary survey, I’ve asked a number of friends and family to share the survey and film; the idea behind this was, yes, to reach new audiences beyond our mutual friends/followers, but also to appeal to a number of participants who aren’t necessarily of my own age demographic. Consequently, whereas my preliminary survey (and, indeed my AS survey/s) have been narrow and limited in terms of diversity of opinion, I feel as though a degree of progress has been made using new media technologies to reach a versatile, diverse audience through my survey. This improvement has also eliminated a possible bias amongst people I’m close too, which is also surely a positive as well.

Another new media technology that I utilised was Google Docs. The simplicity of creating and sharing my survey has made the process of collating results far more easier. Additionally, Google Docs creates a “Summary of Results” which can give you a visual idea of results, such as pie charts, which you can see I’ve used in previous slides. I’ve shared my survey through Google Docs and shared my video through Youtube, a video-sharing website. The ease with which I was able to upload made the process simple, and Youtube in my experience is better at buffering than Vimeo. Also, to share through Youtube is easy and comments mean I can receive instant feedback, opening up a correspondence between creator and consumer.

Finally, the means with which you can see this evaluation: Slideshare. Sharing my work with others has never been easier, and also means that I can learn from the work of others. An example of this is that even now, writing this evaluation, I can use the CCC Media evaluation archive and the works of others and how they’ve approached their own evaluations, meaning that I can adopt good ideas from previous students. And so, in summation, I’ve found new media technologies invaluable in my evaluation work, both in collecting opinions as well as drawing upon the works of others to make a comprehensive, thorough evaluation.

My Evaluation Survey

As part of my evaluation, I've had to create a survey in order to glean the valued thoughts and opinions of my peers and target market. The questions have been designed to understand what aspects of my film and, invariably, what parts of my film weren't so well received. Combined with this, I've asked questions with regards to my ancillary tasks and how effective these were. Embedded below is the survey itself- feel free to complete this if you haven't done so already...