Wednesday 21 October 2009

8 Shot Journey-Video

In My 8 shot journey Andrew was the actor whilst I was the camera man/director. In the first shot we see Andrew sitting at a table in the atrium of the college having a drink of his water, this is obviously a break time. In the second shot we have Andrew looking at his phone realising he is late. Shot three he leaves the table and goes through the double doors. In shot four he goes down the corridor and around the corner, shot five we carry on from him going round the corner to where he will scan his card which brings us to shot 6 which is an extreme close up of the card being scanned. In Shot 7 after scanning his card we see his coming through the doors and into the film studio. Shot 8 is the final shot and we see him come through the door and go to his seat sitting down with only a few seconds to spare. Overall I am very happy with how my 8 Shot journey went and if i changed it i would this time remember to remove the sound as i forgot so i do apologize that there is sound as there isnt meant to be any.

8 Shot Journey Log Sheet


8 Shot Journey Story Board

Tuesday 20 October 2009

Cinematography laws - Do's and Don'ts

Cinematography laws - Do's and Don'ts

Directors plan every frame, shot and sequence. Some terms are:-
- Frames
- Shots
- Sequences
- Scenes
- Movies and Programmes

- FRAME- is a single cell of a film. In film making 24 frames make up a second. So real time film is 24 frames per second (fps). In video if you wish to shoot real time you will need to shoot 25 fps.
- SHOT- a shot is a continuous strip of motion picture film, created of a series of frames, that runs for an uninterupted period of time.
- SCENE- is a part of the action that happens in a single location. As soon as the location changes it is the start of the new scene.
- SEQUENCE- is a series of scees which form a distinct narrative unit, usually connected either by a location or a unit or passage of time. They can also follow a narrative and usually have a beginning a middle and an end of some description.
- A MOVIE (FILM) OR PROGRAMME- are an entire bodies of work. They are created through series's of shots, frames, scenes and sequences.

Shot Sizes
They are a variety of shot sizes form extreme close up (ecu) to a very long shot/wide shot (vls). Different shots serve a different purpose and can be used to show the viewer the desired information. Generally when filming you start away from the action (ls) and then gradually move closer (cu) drawing the viewer into the scene and the action. A vls is a very good shot for establishing where you are and what maybe going on. Shot sizes communicate infomation, emotion and details of the intended meaning of the director. To establish a location or setting it is best to use a wide shot so the viewer can drink in all the general information. As there is a lot of information, it needs to be on screen for a while. If the communication or highlight something of the intrest to the viewer shuch as an important prop or character emotion they are likely to use a close up. These need less time on screen as there is less to take in.

Rule of thirds
The rule of thirds is a fundimental rule of compostition that objects placed off centre are more interesting to look at. A grid is imagned over the frame (like naughts and crosses) and generally the eyes are on the top line (eye line) the horizon on the bottom (horizon line) and the subject on either of the two horizontal lines. The sweet spots are where the lines intersect and where you want to place the subject. Consider looking/moving space.


180° Line Rule: line of action
An imaginary line you must not cross or the action is inconsistent when you cut together the edit.
Position 1: Camera below the line action is moving from right to left in the shot.
Position 2: Camera above the line action is moving from left to right in the shot.
If you edit from 1-2 then the action makes no sense as the subject changes direction. You must always film the action form one-side of the 180° degree line or your action will not edit properly and the movement in the shot will simply not work. The only exception is if you cross the line during a shot by moving the camera accross the line during a tracking type shot.

Camera Angle
High angle shots make the subject of the shot seem weak and inferior. Low angle shots make the shubject seem strong and powerful and viewer feels inferior. Canted angle or Dutch tilt shots make the fram seem awkward and mysterious as we do not see the world this way.

Camera Height
As human beings we generally see the world at eye level standing up or sitting down. If we shoot the camera at eye level it is used to how we see the world so it is comfortable, anything else is uncomfortable and feels weird.

Using lines can add drama and make your shots more dynamic and had the viewers eye within the shot. Diagonal lines add intrest and energy to your shots, Curved lines make things seem graceful. Shallow focus is when certain subjects are in focus and other elements are not and you have a small depth of field. It draws attention to what is in focus. You can use this to effect to pull focus. Deep focus is when everything in the shot is in focus and you have a large depth of field. It makes everything in the frane seem important as it is all in focus and sharp. Action planes are the foreground, middle ground, and background. The best and most interesting shots incorperate all of these or at least two.

Film/Tv Conventions
Continuety of travel: If your subjesct enters the shot camera left and exits right thus must continue. Only if your subject changes direction in the shot and enters the camera left and leaves the camera left. Works both ways.
Edit points: When shooting consider your edit points in your head a good way to go is to let your subject completly leave the frame and then completly enter again in the next shot.
Cut ins/aways: These are shots that can help with continuety and also add to the action.
Compression of Time: Film editing is all compression adn manipulation of time generally to compress (montage) but can elongate (slo-mo).

Short Film Checklist

Checklist

You should always keep it simple as if its too complicated then people will not understand it.
Always keep it highly visual as most short films dont have any speech in them.
Not too many characters as you dont have long enough to introduce too many characters.
Not many locations if you keep swaping locations people will become confused, just use one and keep it simple.
Use Humour/Fantasy as they can usualy be short and still work really well.
Always end on one big climax as you dont want to confuse the audience.
Anti Narrative it doesnt have to be in a confentional sequence.
And Finally avoid cliches as they are not original, try and come up with your own individual ideas.

A mind map for the structure of the film industry.




Monday 19 October 2009

Jingles Evaluation

Evaluation

The task that was given was to create three jingles that were suitable to be used on the radio station SNC Live, which is the college’s own radio station. To do this we were using the programme ADOBE Sound booth on the apple imacs, this programme was okay but has got a few “teething problems” and has a tendency to freeze or come up with unexpected errors meaning you have to shut down the programme and end up loosing all your work, meaning you have to start again. The three different jingles that we had to produce were a show promotion, a news jingle and a station ident. Out of the three jingles the one which I found hardest was the news jingle because it was fairly hard to get it to fit with a target audience and still sound good, the one which I found easiest was the station ident as it was able to fit with any music and still sound fairly good, the show promotion was also fairly easy for the same reason.

For the news jingle I got a song off the internet of a site called www.soundsnap.com I was able to get this sound by using a link and recording it straight from the speakers to the microphone via the linking cable, this worked really well meaning that I got no background noise. I was also able to get a mans voice saying news off the same site, using the same method. I then copied this and changed the pitch on one of them so that it was higher and sounded completely different, and then put these with the track so that they played over and over again. This was effective as people said that it was hypnotic in a good way, and it meant that you definitely knew what was coming up next.

For the station ident I got some music off YouTube and again used the link to record it. I then recorded myself saying SNC Live and put this playing with the track simultaneously the only trouble with recording myself was that we had to record using the built in microphone and the background noise was very bad as it picked up everything that was going on, luckily when it was playing with the music you couldn’t hear any of the background noise so it sounded fairly good in the headphones that I was using whilst creating all of my jingles, although it did sound very different in the speakers when played to the class.

For the show promotion again I used YouTube for my background track and this time I also used www.soundsnap.com to get some various voice over’s rather than recording my own voice and running the risk of getting in all of the background noise. Again to get this tracks I used a link and again it worked really well. Then I put the voice over’s that I had got in various places in the track and it sounded very professional and very good I was very happy at how it had came out. This reflected with what people said as they all thought it was excellent and all said that it worked really well.

Over all I thought that my jingles worked well and did what they were supposed to do and could be used on the radio if needed. If I did it again I would have a different way to record my voice as the background noise was very loud and I did have to record two or three times to get it so that I was happy with how it sounded. Also I may have used a different programme or made sure that the many teething problems within the programme had been sorted, so that I didn’t have to start over again, which happened once.

The Jingles

Three Jingle Ideas for SNC LIVE the college radio station.

Here are three possible ideas for Jingles that could be used on the Suffolk New College radio station SNC LIVE, one of these is a station ident.
The Show promo jingle will have various clips of the last show playing over the song now we are free originally by gladiator but this is the techno version which is gladiator and izzy.
The news jingle will have a news type sound in the back ground with a man saying news over and over, but one of the voices will be tampered with so that he sounds more like a woman.
The station ident will have me saying “This is Snc Live” I will also say the frequency which is 97.3 fm I will say all of this will be said over the top of the formula 1 theme tune.

Show promo

News Jingle

Station Ident

Radio Jingles

Radio Jingles

A Radio Jingle is designed to advertise something such as a radio show, station events or other media products like upcoming films or TV shows and of course commercial products. Other Jingles include station idents which are important for listeners to know what radio station they are listening too. All Jingles are different as they each have their own target audience they appeal too.
When making a Jingle it’s important to know what it’s for, and who’s it for? A BBC radio 1 audience for example tend to have jingles with lots of sound FX and echo affects that feature lots of non-diegetic sounds that are constantly changing and have been computer edited. Also the voice over tends to contain an echo also. The Jingle tends to last for at a minute which is quite long for a Jingle. They sometimes will play lots of small sections from songs that might be played within the show itself to allow the audience to know the theme of the show that Jingle is intended for.
However a Jingle for BBC radio 4 targets a much older audience and they tend to be much shorter in length only about 30 seconds at most. They feature soft melody background music that can be linked to the host of the show. The voice over is softly spoken in an clear manner that is easily understood, there are no sound FX or echo’s used at all.
Station idents are different from normal Jingles as they never change and always sound similar no matter what station you listen too.

Codes and Convention of a radio Jingle
· They always contain speech in the form of a voice over that provides clear and relevant information.
· They always have music that is also relevant to the target audience.
· Station idents occur frequently and are always the same sounding.
· Sow promotions always give the name of the show and who presenting along with the time of day the show is on.
Health and Safety

Inside the Photography studio:
· Beware of cables spread out across the floor because they are a tripping hazard, especially when the main lights are turned off.
· The special lights in the photography studio can become very hot fairly quickly which could burn you if touch them. Also the lights are very bright especially the flash lights so don’t look directly at them otherwise you could seriously damage your eyes.
· Be careful of the backdrops in the photography studio as they are very fragile and very expensive to replace if you damage them, also they are very heavy to move so take care when moving them into position otherwise you could get crushed by them and that would hurt…a lot .
· Put all coats and bags in the corner of the room out the way when the photography studio is in use, because they are also a tripping hazard and if you were to trip it is possible that you would land on and break expensive equipment or injure yourself.

Inside the Dark room:
· Be very careful in the dark room as you can hardly see anything or anyone so it’s a very bad idea to be running into the room in case you bump into someone or worse break the equipment which is very expensive and breakable.
· There are various chemicals and amounts of water within the dark room, which if spilled can damage the equipment, become a tripping hazard or could possibly get into your eyes, ears, mouth etc which could do you harm.
· Again no food and drink in the dark room because it could ruin the machines or get left on the floor and become a tripping hazard.
· And don’t bring lose clothing or bags into the dark room in case anyone trips over them.

Digital suite:
· Try and manage to have a short break every few hours when using the editing machines as it allows you to take a step back from the work to obverse what you have done so far and allow to focus on how you can improve it. Also it’s uncomfortable to sitting down for long periods.
· Try to avoid working long hours if possible because editing can get very frustrating and stress level can grow really easily.
· No running around the editing areas as there are lots of wires trailing about which you could trip over and injure yourself.
· No food and drink in case they get spilled over causing a trip hazard or in case they get into the machine damaging it.
· Whenever possible use headphones when editing sound so that only you can hear your edit and not everyone else which might be very distracting for others.

On location
· Check over your surroundings when on location making sure that you aware of any possible hazards such as traffic flow, unwanted noise etc. This very important as you don’t want to run over when filming.
· Be aware of other people when on location as it’s against the law to be obstructing someone’s right of way without their permission.
· When using equipment on location be sensible when handling it at all times, otherwise you could drop and damage it.

Thursday 15 October 2009

Pin Hole Camera Photos

These are the photos that i took with my pin hole camera.




A non-inverted photo of the atrium.





The same photo but this time inverted.




A non inverted shot of alexandra park.


The same shot but this time inverted.

Photography

Photography.
Is the process, activity and the art of creating skill or moving pictures by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as photographic film, or an electronic sensor. Light patterns reflected or emitted from objects activate a sensitive chemical or electronic sensor during a timed exposure, usually thought a photographic lens in a device know as a camera that also stores the resulting information chemically or electronically. Photography has many uses for business, science, art and pleasure.

Genres
- Aerial - Black and White - Commercial - Documentary - Fashion – Fine art – Forensic - Glamour – High speed – Illustration – Landscape – Nature – Paparazzi – Photojournalism – Portrait – Still life – Stock – Underwater – Wedding.


This is an underwater photo we can tell this as the Seal is underwater.




This is an Illustration of the DVD cover, showing what it will look like.








This is glamour/fashion as it has got women in some fashionable clothes striking a pose.


A Camera
A Camera is a device that records images, either as a still photography or as moving images know as videos or movies. The term comes from the term Camera Obscura (Latin for “Dark Chamber”), an early mechanism of projecting images where an entire room functioned as a real-time imaging system; the modern camera evolved from the camera obscura.

Shutter
In photography a shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period of time, for the purpose of exposing photographic film or a light sensitive electronic sensor to light to capture a permanent image of a scene.

Aperture
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. In photography this can be measured in increments called f-stops.

Lens
The lens of a camera captures the light from the subject and brings it to a focus on the film or decoder.

Exposure Control
The size of the aperture and the brightness of the scene controls the amount of light that enters the camera during a period of time, and the shutter controls the length of time that the light hits the recording surface. Equivalent exposures can be made with a larger aperture and a faster shutter speed or a corresponding smaller aperture and with the shutter speed slowed down.

Links
http://www.flickr.com/groups/pinholers
http://www.pinholeformat.com/gallery.html
http://www.lenoxlaser.com/pinholephotos/

Pinhole Photography
What you will need;
• A light-proof container – a tin, cardboard box etc.
• Some black card/black paint
• Tin foil
• Tape
• A pin..!!
• Photographic paper

Then you have to paint your tin/box etc black inside tape up any holes so that no light can get in, make a 2cm square hole in the side or top wherever you want it and then put tinfoil over the square and put a pin hole in it then make a cardboard flap that no light can get in, put photographic paper in it and then your ready to go!

An example of a pinhole camera:

Hello

This blog will be displaying all of my initial skills in Media. On here you will find some photography, video and radio files.