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Blog Entry
Before we went into April half-term break I was Able to set up a lot on my weekly page and get an image of what it should look like by the end of the project. I was also able to book all of the equipment I needed, write up character design scripts and storyboard the video part of the project. I was also able to go out and look at the different locations recce's to decide which one would be best to record at, I was able to settle on a few places at my house as well as the park and field nearby my house.
During the easter half-term break I was able to get out and test record after writing up a shot-list, after I looked at all of the test recordings I was confident in going out and fully recording all of my shots, I was able to get my brother and sister to help me record as characters in my video, it took 2 separate days to fully record everything as I wanted to show that the days had changed in the recording by having the weather outside look different so I recorded the second half 2 days later.
After I had recorded everything during the second week of the half-term break, I uploaded it all to one drive and left it until college started up again, as I had only really planned to do the location recce, test record and full project recording during the half-term.
In my opinion the footage I have recorded was good especially because of the challenges I was faced with. The technical quality of my shots I believe to be okay, I maintained good focus throughout the recordings, I got the outside lighting to the best of my ability, and I showed good shot composition as I used different close up shots to display what the characters emotions are at the time and make it clear to the viewer. I was also able to use some good camera techniques like whip pans, tracking shots to show the audience a fluid set of movement throughout the video. My lighting throughout the recordings could have used a little bit of work while outside as an issue I was faced with was that it was quite cloudy and windy which did work in my favour as it made the scenes feel sombre and projected a feeling of tension and confrontation, these theme ideas are things I wanted to carry throughout my project so recording while it wasn't sunny outside was a must for me, the issue that lied with that was that the sound quality for the piece was pretty horrific and I didn't have a wind muffler on the camera so to fix this and allow for good audio hearing I will have the actors of the piece try and voice over it along with the other Foley sounds. The location of the recordings felt fitting to be in an isolated field as I was easier to record due to it being isolated from random people, but that also helped me achieve my targeted look and feel as I wanted the audience to feel like the character has no one to back him up or help him, setting up a feeling of abandonment, isolation and fear.
I have started test editing different rough drafts using what I have recorded to see if I need to correct or re-shoot different parts of the project to make sure I'm not missing out any of it.
The thing I have been most proud of so far during this project has been the 2 montages I have recorded for my video as i believe they will turn out well so I am looking forward to seeing what I am able to do with them.
I have started a rough edit of all of my clips in order to see what it will look like and what if there is anything else I might need to re-shoot as well as to help me make a list of all of the Foley sounds I need to gather, my idea is to put all of my clips in the timeline and make it as close to finished as possible and then watch through and check for any recording errors/ out of focus shots and then write down the shot that needs re-recording and go back out and re-shoot it, I will also use this same methods to see all of the areas I need to gather Foley sound effects for.
Today I put through another camera booking form as when I went through all of the footage in the timeline, I noted down all of the areas I need to re-shoot as I want the video to come out at the best of my ability and I feel the footage I have now doesn't make the cut. In my re-shoot I'm going to experiment with better camera angles, different transitions, different aspect ratios etc.
Today I went and did another test edit and really tried to make the footage I have at the moment work and in my opinion it is still just sup-par, so I'm going to go and re-shoot certain areas and once I have done that I will begin with the final edit, one other thing I need to test in the mean time is the audio and Foley for the video as I haven't really tried any of that out yet.
Today I completed quite a lot of my unfinished work, I have; Finished my proposal, Finished my authentication form, Finished my location recce, Moved my story board to a more suitable area on my website, Moved my blog to a more suitable area on my website, I have finished my tutor feedback section, And finally I have my first finished video to use though it might see tweaks later on after I receive feedback on it.
During the easter half-term break I was able to get out and test record after writing up a shot-list, after I looked at all of the test recordings I was confident in going out and fully recording all of my shots, I was able to get my brother and sister to help me record as characters in my video, it took 2 separate days to fully record everything as I wanted to show that the days had changed in the recording by having the weather outside look different so I recorded the second half 2 days later.
After I had recorded everything during the second week of the half-term break, I uploaded it all to one drive and left it until college started up again, as I had only really planned to do the location recce, test record and full project recording during the half-term.
In my opinion the footage I have recorded was good especially because of the challenges I was faced with. The technical quality of my shots I believe to be okay, I maintained good focus throughout the recordings, I got the outside lighting to the best of my ability, and I showed good shot composition as I used different close up shots to display what the characters emotions are at the time and make it clear to the viewer. I was also able to use some good camera techniques like whip pans, tracking shots to show the audience a fluid set of movement throughout the video. My lighting throughout the recordings could have used a little bit of work while outside as an issue I was faced with was that it was quite cloudy and windy which did work in my favour as it made the scenes feel sombre and projected a feeling of tension and confrontation, these theme ideas are things I wanted to carry throughout my project so recording while it wasn't sunny outside was a must for me, the issue that lied with that was that the sound quality for the piece was pretty horrific and I didn't have a wind muffler on the camera so to fix this and allow for good audio hearing I will have the actors of the piece try and voice over it along with the other Foley sounds. The location of the recordings felt fitting to be in an isolated field as I was easier to record due to it being isolated from random people, but that also helped me achieve my targeted look and feel as I wanted the audience to feel like the character has no one to back him up or help him, setting up a feeling of abandonment, isolation and fear.
I have started test editing different rough drafts using what I have recorded to see if I need to correct or re-shoot different parts of the project to make sure I'm not missing out any of it.
The thing I have been most proud of so far during this project has been the 2 montages I have recorded for my video as i believe they will turn out well so I am looking forward to seeing what I am able to do with them.
I have started a rough edit of all of my clips in order to see what it will look like and what if there is anything else I might need to re-shoot as well as to help me make a list of all of the Foley sounds I need to gather, my idea is to put all of my clips in the timeline and make it as close to finished as possible and then watch through and check for any recording errors/ out of focus shots and then write down the shot that needs re-recording and go back out and re-shoot it, I will also use this same methods to see all of the areas I need to gather Foley sound effects for.
Today I put through another camera booking form as when I went through all of the footage in the timeline, I noted down all of the areas I need to re-shoot as I want the video to come out at the best of my ability and I feel the footage I have now doesn't make the cut. In my re-shoot I'm going to experiment with better camera angles, different transitions, different aspect ratios etc.
Today I went and did another test edit and really tried to make the footage I have at the moment work and in my opinion it is still just sup-par, so I'm going to go and re-shoot certain areas and once I have done that I will begin with the final edit, one other thing I need to test in the mean time is the audio and Foley for the video as I haven't really tried any of that out yet.
Today I completed quite a lot of my unfinished work, I have; Finished my proposal, Finished my authentication form, Finished my location recce, Moved my story board to a more suitable area on my website, Moved my blog to a more suitable area on my website, I have finished my tutor feedback section, And finally I have my first finished video to use though it might see tweaks later on after I receive feedback on it.
Evaluation
My original idea for this project came as I was brain storming ways a person could go through change, that's is when I had the idea to make my project about bullying. My intention was to have my character be dealing with a bully, and then get the motivation to workout and go through physical change to then overcome (hence the name of the title) the person bullying him.
I felt with this project I had done enough research to understand; what makes a person be a bully, what a bully looks like, how a victim of bullying will act and behave, and also what a proper training montage looks like and how they are successful in motivating someone. My research allowed me to story board what an actually encounter with a bully would look like, and also what the life and motivations of a victim of bullying would look like. this allowed me to create an authentic and realistic adaptation of what dealing with a bully would look like.
My planning was effective in helping me achieve the aim of my project, as planning allowed me to gather all of the equipment I needed to film on time, it allowed me to source and find actors to paly in my project, and also allowed me to finish editing all of my project in time for the deadline.
I believe I applied practical skills and techniques to the best of my ability during this project. for example during filming I made sure every shot wasn't blurry or out of focus and I also made sure the camera work wasn't boring so I used to camera to set up cool transitions between shots, and also used tracking shots during scenes where the character was walking and I needed to capture emotion, and I also used tracking shots to capture the main parts of action in one fluid take.
The audience feedback of my project, seemed to be quite well-liked, and the action scenes though quite corny did get quite a few laughs from the audience as I made the punches seem brutal and realistic using Foley and speeding up the punch so to make it that you cannot see the fist and face not connect. Though next time around to maybe make the dialogue scenes less cheesy I would fully write up dialogue scripts for the characters to read and act out when filming and also give them more time to choreograph and act out what the scene should look like, as during this project I only showed the actors the story board and shot list and then made up a lot of the dialogue once we were out on the field filming. I believe from some of the audience that watched my video who had no prior knowledge about it, were still able to understand and go along with the video as it played out and weren't left confused or having to guess the reason as to why something had happened.
Ultimately my final thoughts on my project as a whole (trying to be unbiased), I thought it was generally a success, and achieved the aim I had set for it in the beginning. And though it did go through some changes and was missing/ needing improvement in areas it has left me feeling fulfilled in the fact that I was able to create something that shows my capability in going through the process of making a project like this from start to finish and succeeding in completing it on time. The finished version of my project succeeded in showing my aims and aspirations I had set for it such as showing people that bully's can come from anywhere, of any background, gender, race etc. And that it is not okay to treat people so badly no matter what your situation is and that if you put yourself to it you can overcome any bully that's harassing you in life.
I felt with this project I had done enough research to understand; what makes a person be a bully, what a bully looks like, how a victim of bullying will act and behave, and also what a proper training montage looks like and how they are successful in motivating someone. My research allowed me to story board what an actually encounter with a bully would look like, and also what the life and motivations of a victim of bullying would look like. this allowed me to create an authentic and realistic adaptation of what dealing with a bully would look like.
My planning was effective in helping me achieve the aim of my project, as planning allowed me to gather all of the equipment I needed to film on time, it allowed me to source and find actors to paly in my project, and also allowed me to finish editing all of my project in time for the deadline.
I believe I applied practical skills and techniques to the best of my ability during this project. for example during filming I made sure every shot wasn't blurry or out of focus and I also made sure the camera work wasn't boring so I used to camera to set up cool transitions between shots, and also used tracking shots during scenes where the character was walking and I needed to capture emotion, and I also used tracking shots to capture the main parts of action in one fluid take.
The audience feedback of my project, seemed to be quite well-liked, and the action scenes though quite corny did get quite a few laughs from the audience as I made the punches seem brutal and realistic using Foley and speeding up the punch so to make it that you cannot see the fist and face not connect. Though next time around to maybe make the dialogue scenes less cheesy I would fully write up dialogue scripts for the characters to read and act out when filming and also give them more time to choreograph and act out what the scene should look like, as during this project I only showed the actors the story board and shot list and then made up a lot of the dialogue once we were out on the field filming. I believe from some of the audience that watched my video who had no prior knowledge about it, were still able to understand and go along with the video as it played out and weren't left confused or having to guess the reason as to why something had happened.
Ultimately my final thoughts on my project as a whole (trying to be unbiased), I thought it was generally a success, and achieved the aim I had set for it in the beginning. And though it did go through some changes and was missing/ needing improvement in areas it has left me feeling fulfilled in the fact that I was able to create something that shows my capability in going through the process of making a project like this from start to finish and succeeding in completing it on time. The finished version of my project succeeded in showing my aims and aspirations I had set for it such as showing people that bully's can come from anywhere, of any background, gender, race etc. And that it is not okay to treat people so badly no matter what your situation is and that if you put yourself to it you can overcome any bully that's harassing you in life.