Week 6 filming techniques in camera

Today, Simon have reviewed some useful techniques to help us making a better story.  Our group chosen Slow-motion and presented by tossing a coin. This short video aimed to show a student’s anxiety before he starts to study.

Here is my final video:

The sound effect of coin tossing is called “Crash Metal Plate Big Room”, and the background music is called “Impromptu in Blue”. They are both came from Youtube Audio Library. As you can listen, I had reversed the coin tossing’s effect when it has falling back to his hand. It made the coin’s tossing more vivid.

When I published this video and replay several times, I found that the times of head turn maybe too excessive. I will avoid this problem next time.

Elements:

Reaearch – short film porject about study’s aim

1. Point of view:

If you have an aim, you can move a mountain.

2. Dramatic Question:

Why I have to do this?

3. Emotional Content:

Study is never easy,  no pain, no gain.

4. Voice (voiceover not dialogue):

None

5. Soundtrack:

With the advance of the story, the rhythm of music becomes faster.

6. Pacing:

Using the contrast between the two boys, the study hard boy got successful , and the other has expelled.

7. Imagery (economy):

Different phones, dressed and study attitude made them be a different person.

The rich student did not take his chance. Even though he had a superior family environment, he was still lost to the poor student who study hard.

Research – Camera Movement Techniques

Unfortunately, Simon did not made it because of his illness. So, this week’s first class I had an opportunity to searched something about camera techniques.

Here are six basic camera moves can help me let the film more professional:

    Tilt、Pan、Zoom、Pedestal、Dolly、Truck

And also some advanced fancy camera moves:

    Handheld Shooting、Floating Cam or Stabilized Shot、Crane/Jib

 

Find more detail in: Camera Movement Techniques – By Kyle Cassidy

Reaearch – friendship and growing up

STORY:

   What type of digital story is it?

        Comedy, Drama, Romance

   What happens in the story?

        Four young girls grow up during a summer in 1970.

   What changes in the story/scene?

        Girls began to understand the difference between the sexes.

AUDIENCE:

    Who do you think the story is aimed at? Who is the audience for this piece?

        Family, young people

    How do you know? What in the piece tells you it was created for this audience?

        This film tells about growth and family.

MESSAGE:

   What is the message / are the messages of the story/scene?

        Childhood experience is invaluable and growing could transfor a person.

STYLE/GENRE

  • How would you describe the genre of this piece? 
    • Is it fiction or non- fiction?

It’s non- fiction.

    • Film genre? drama, horror, sci-fi, crime, teenage film, action?

Drama.

  • What media and techniques do the artists used to convey their message? Do they use interviews, text, still images, video, performance, music, voice over, dialogue?

Voiceover and dialogue.

  • What is the quality of the audio and visuals? Are they clear? Is the sound at a good volume? Are there objects or sounds that are distracting? 

The performance was great.

  • How do the audio and visuals contribute to the message and the story?

Vigor, enthusiasm and optimism. The value of the most important stage of life was set off.

Second scripts

The second version of my scripts is much better than the previous one. I borrowed some of my own experiences into this scripts, it will makes the story more vivid.

 

It was two years ago when she left her hometown stepping into this strange land. She did not even believe that she could hold on for so long, however, when she looking back, her heart is very mixed feelings.

She did not do well in her studies, because her family’s passing away led to her depression, but one day, in order to shake off her past, she made up her mind and made her way. The story begins with the red brick railway station…

 

(Full shot of the railway station)

 

‘Dear passenger…’

The station platforms warning sound was ringing in her ears, and she was struggling to pull the suitcase off the shelf. When she finally came down from the train (very ordinary dressing), there was less excitement in her face, but the earnestness and determination did not change (close-up, more melancholy). She looked carefully at the instructions in the station, and went smoothly out of the way. Her slight figure gradually disappeared into the crowd. What will be waiting for her?

Change(I will detail this part later):

She met her best friend and felt the warmth, they were together all the time, and she felt that life was full of hope again.

 

Once again standing in front of the railway station, is already two years later. Her dressing has become fashionable. She needs go to another city to continue her study, although she does not willing to depart with her friend, but the convenience of the communication will not let them feel the distance. So, she is looking forward more on the anticipation of the future and reunion in one day.

 

Message:

Life maybe beat you, but as long as there is tomorrow, you should not give up.

The loss of family love can make a person hard to recover, but the sincerity of friendship can also make a person shining again.

Week 3 – weekend homework

Storyboard practice activity

 

Comments:

This video is not good enough for me, because I did not add any soundtrack(could not find suitable music in a short time). However, I will improve this situation next time and present a better quality of my work.


Objective:

In your group, create a storyboard for the scene, trying to use a range of shots. You should use a minimum of 6 shots, but can use up to 18 or more.

You will use it to create a video no longer than 30-40 seconds in total.

 

And this was our chosen:

 

Our script:

 

Our work:

 

At the end, we take photos with each other, then said goodbye:

Research – shoot your story by using iphone

1. Point of view:

This is a short Chinese New Year story shot on iPhone X by director Peter Chan called ‘Three Minutes’. If your family reunion only lasts three minutes, what will you do?

It also showed the iPhoneX’s amazing shoot performance. Through this film, I can see its infinite possibilities.

 

2. Dramatic Question:

What can we create just use our phone?

If there are only three minutes before parting, what could you do?

 

3. Emotional Content:

The Chinese New Year is coming, we should give some consideration to those people who are still keep to their posts.

 

4. Voice (voiceover not dialogue):

The mother told us her background story before the main story. And the director use voiceover showed us her story which is writting on her diary.

 

5. Soundtrack:

At the begining of the main film, the director using some extra sound effects showd us the enthusiasm of passengers returning home and the busyness of the crew.  These extra sounds made the short one minute’s begining more vivid.

When the train door was opening, the ticking of the clock are followed us all the time which is remind us time is passing.  As time goes by, the sound became more rapid. And when time comes to the end, all the noise came to peace. It told us : time has its length, but love is endless.

 

6. Pacing:

Using a countdown meter and placed at the top of the whole picture. Although it was only three minutes, but it grasped the attention of the audience well.

 

7. Imagery (economy):

In this film, we can see some elements of chinese spring festival. It let those overseas Chinese which like us in different country felt the thick festival atmosphere, and made us pick up our smart phone  subconsciously to record something belong to our own “New Year”.

 

First draft of script

This is my first terrible script, and because of my misunderstanding(I can not clip any scene from an existing video game) I have to completely change this story. So, just have a quick look.

Background:A young man lost his mother because of his born. And when the young man received his uni admission notification,his father was also dead because of overworking.

Big city,sunny day…

A ragged young man squatted down in a shadow.

He is too hungry to do anything even stand up.

A car stopped in front of him.

An old man which dressed rich got out of the car.

The old man moves down his glasses and look at the young man with a kind smile.

…………

12 months later

Same city,sunny day…

A perky young man stands in the roof of a high building.

A panoramic view of the city in his eyes.

His eyes were moist with tears.

(close-up shot) 

It 's my day!

He was the young man in rags. Such a big change! What happened to him? 

…………

Time goes back more than one years ago…

A young man walks down the street.

He studied in a pretty good university.

One day, he made some bad friends, and had some bad habits.

Even narcotic drugs.

……
When he ran out of all his father's savings, all his ‘friends’ left him.

Because of my misunderstanding, I need more time to completely change this scripts.

 

Pan and Zoom


At this time, we learned something about camera movement:

•Pan:

– The camera pivots left and right

• Truck:

– The camera moves left and right

• Zoom/ Dolly:

– Note: zoom = change camera lens (avoid digital zoom)

– Dolly = move camera nearer/ further

• Tilt:

– The camera pivots up and down.

• Pedestal:

– The camera moves up and down without tilting.

Finally, we put ‘pan’ and ‘zoom’ in some pictures by using Premiere and create a short video which I already put in this post.

And the reason why I chose pan and zoom in the way I did was just improvise.

Week 2

This week we are start developing our project story and submitted our first draft of our story proposal.

In the Thursday’s class, we got into the Adobe Premiere and created our first(but not my first time:-) I use Premiere almost everyday before this module) video, and uploaded it to the YouTube.

At the end of this week, we had a homework about writing the first script, it will be a big challenging work for me. I’m looking forward my next week’s performance!