Skins Competition Entry

E4 was holding another competition so i again decided it would be a good idea for some practice and the possibilty to win a weeks work experience with the skins editors so hopefully i will win you can see my entry below.... if youre reading this go on the e4 website and vote yay! for it to help me win.. thanks

E4 esting competition

This a 10 second video imade for a competition on e4 in which you had to include the e4 logo and wasnt aloud to be longer than 10seconds, I decided to do it in a tetris theme using stop motion in which the last section of the e4 logo falls in to place, I madeit using a digital camera then exported it into final cut and added the music supplied, overall it was fun to mkae but i feel the quality could have been better and would of liked to have the know how and software to make it using computer graphics anyway here it is....

My E4 Esting competition attempt from Sean Pearce on Vimeo.

A Short Movie teaser trailer

here is some of the footage i have been helping to shoot for a friend, no where near completion but i thought id put it on my blog for people to see what ive been up to, hope you enjoy

Shit out'a luck trailer from Sean Pearce on Vimeo.

Piracy

More practice with the camera and some editing on final cut, just a short re-make of the annoying piracy advert which is on all the dvds which you are unable to skip!!!!!!!!!

Untitled from Sean Pearce on Vimeo.

Top gear re make

some editing and filming practice

Sid Vicious Documentary

This is a 10minute documentary I made using archive footage about the life of sid vicious. I know some of the images arent the clearest but it was just for some good practice plus I enjoyed doing it and I hope anyone who watches it does too.

Making a Documentary

Since we have just finished the making of a documentary I thought that I would write a piece on some of the things that you need to be aware of when recording your documentary. Firstly its important to come up with an idea that has a catch or an interesting point to it, otherwise people will struggle to engage with it so it s a good idea to find something an audience can relate to, making it personal can really attract an audience.

Secondly once you have come up with an idea its good to do lots of research so that you know nearly all there is to know about the subject, don’t just use the internet for research, read papers, go to libraries and watch other documentaries for inspiration.


Once the research is done is time to plan the making of the documentary, i suggest you sit down with your team with a calendar in front of you and mark out the dates of post and pre production, this doesn't have to be set in stone but it gives you something to work to and is a great help for making sure the project runs smoothly.

Now its planned out you need to find contributors this can be easy in some cases but also extremely hard in other cases, once you have a proposed list of possible contributors its time to phone them, this is a good idea because you need to hear how they speak so that you can check if they will be interesting in front of the camera. Also if you phone them you can really sell the documentary to them, contributors can go off the boil quickly if you don’t keep them up to date with what is going on so keep in touch.


Now the contributors are sorted out arrange the filming dates and make sure you have all the equipment ready and sorted before hand, blacking the tapes is a good plan to make sure you don’t loose the time code on the tape. When you arrive for filming be very friendly and polite to the contributors have a chat with them before this will help to relax them for the camera. make sure you shoot 15-20 seconds of room sound before you start this allows a nice handle at the beginning, at this stage you could also rewind the tape and watch it back to see if the sound and image are sticking to the tape, you don’t want to film an interview and then realise you didn’t capture any of it. Now you’ve got the interview what can you do to make it visually interesting, well firstly you can film a few different shots of the interview such as an over the shoulder of the interviewer and the contributor, you can film the interviewer asking some of the questions, you can include shots of the interviewer and the contributor nodding (known as noddies) and finally you can include a shot of both the interviewer and the contributor on a wide angle shot. Now you have the interview sorted out what else can be added to spice it up, because we don’t just want to see a boring interview, well I suggest adding cutaways to relevant stuff for example if they are talking about restaurants get footage of people eating in restaurants, remember you can never have enough cut aways so if something is slightly related to the subject matter, film it because you might use it.

Now the filming is over its time to edit, I recommend firstly log and capture the spills and watch through them noting down any good points or parts you’d like to include, then make a plan in order of how you want the story to be told and add these clips to a timeline at this stage its not important to worry about how the image looks just the sound, to see if it is telling the intended story this is known as a sync pull (remember to make sure the levels are peaking at -3db) Once the sound is down its time to make it look pretty firstly listen to it through and add the cutaways made to relevant points, when you feel its getting boring change what is on the screen, make sure you cover over any harsh edits you have made, this will make it run smoothly. The documentary is now pretty much finished so have a last watch through and make any adjustments to be made, its a good idea to get someone else to watch it and pick out any points that can be improved on. Well thats pretty much it!!!!!!!!

Teamwork!!

Working in a team can prove to be difficult for some people, so it is vitally important to try and make it work. Problems in a group can create problems for the project, i learned that its important to make sure your ideas are heard but its important to listen to the ideas of others. In our team we would each come up with our ideas and if the team liked it we would include it with in the edit or if the majority of the team didn't like it we didn't include it.
For the beginning of our project we set each-other roles for within the team all though for the majority of the time we did this we were never completely stuck to these roles we all pitched in on each section of the process of the making of the documentary for example for the majority of the edit we were all present and had our own inputs. We also all took part in the filming we would look at the the shot and see if it was the correct shot for what we intended. Overall i think that our group worked well as a team i feel that we were considerate for everyones opinion and everyones opinion counted.

MY Roles and few things i learned!

Greengage have just finished there 1st in my opinion excellent piece so i thought id talk about some of the roles i took on board creating our amazing project. Firstly we had to research our contributors to see if they were suitable so I found a few email addresses and emailed round, we managed to find a few contributors who were suitable so then it was time to arrange some shooting. We all decided that it would of been a good idea to each come up with a few questions for our contributors, so then we took are intellectual questions to our interviews, during the interviews i was in control of the sound, a few of the things i learned during the recording was to be more aware of surrounding sound after the first interview i noticed you could hear people walking by the window in the background, so after this i learned it would of been a good idea to ask to shut the window whilst we did the shooting. I also learned its important to leave the sound running for a few seconds at teh end of the filming so that it gives you handles to play with, you are then able to leave a pause at the end of the speech if it is needed in the edit. After our shoots one of my tasks was to be involved in the editing so firstly we began by importing all the footage and then arranging a sync pull which is basically putting the sound down first so that it tells the intended story, we then put the images over the sound to make the project visually appealing.

Feedback and extra editing!!!!!

We finished our project and showed the class to gain some feedback on our edits. I thinks this is a very important part to editing as it allows you see the project in a different light. it allows people to tell you what they think on how you can change it, they also seem to notice some of the things you may not have noticed yourself. It also allows some variety to your project for ideas that perhaps you may have not of thought of yourself. I think its also important to take time away from your project then to take another look because if you are constantly working on a project its easy to think that it is boring when in fact it is just becasue you have watched it too many times. When the class gave the feedback to us we then had the time to go away and perfect on our edit to make it a more complete piece. I also feel that when you watch your edit with other people you look at it differently and try to notice any mistakes. Its very important to try and finish your edit with time to gain feedback if you are to make a truly successful project.

Lighting

I attended a lighting demo today and thought id share soem of what i have learned from the demo and also tips we've picked up from class, we went through a few different kits on how to set them up and where to position them firstly we looked a 2point lighting where the subject on the camera is light up by two lights one main light and one filler to light the shadows although this makes it look good it can still be improved, if the fill light is too bright it contrasts with the main light so its a good idea to pop a filter on the light to dim it down so it isn't so harsh this creates a slight on one side of there face, but to really enhance the lighting its a good idea to introduce 3 point lighting in which another light is placed behind the subject lighting the top of there head,this really helps to lift the subject out of the background. Another small tip i picked up which seems useful is to use a a spot light to light up the background, this just makes the background look more interesting rather than dull and dark. I really enjoyed the demo because it taught us some useful tips for future projects we were also able to get our hands on the equipment and get used to using it along with picking up tips on where to place lights as well, overall a very enjoyable demo which will put me in good stead for future projects.

Cut-aways

With our recent error shooting cutaways i thought i would write about what i have learned from my mistakes on my blog, we recently shot cut aways but didnt record the sound along with it!! Its impotant to record the sound even if you use voice over or music over the peice because your shot wont seem natural if there isnt any real sound to it!!! Ive also learned that its important to keep the continuity right for example if we shhot some one walking along to the left then the next shot they are walking towards the right it wouldnt look right, you need to be thinking what is going down on the tape at all times. In our documentary Hannah did one of interviews waering certain clothes as we didnt get the cutaways done properly we will need to make sure that she is wearing the same clothes as she was in the interview otherways the continuity will be wrong. remember you can never get enough cutaways becasue you never know what might need patching up in the edit so shoot as many as you can and you dont have to use them all.

Interview Technique

With an interview looming tomorrow i thought i would write a little something about it, so I've read up on some interview techniques. Some of these techniques include making sure that the contributor is comfortable and at ease, this way they are more likely to relax and give good answers, its also a good tip to ask them if they could try and include the question within the answer as in the edit you may not have the question included so would sound rather odd. Its important to actively listen so that if they give a good answer you can ask them followup questions so that you can get a lot of information on it. It's also a good idea to make sure you don't fidget or play with paper when interviewing and also make sure the interviewee doesn't do this, so sitting the interviewee on a still chair and taking away things they can play with is important. Also if you ask questions at the start of the interview it is more likely that the interviewee will be slightly nervous or not warmed up so ask a few simpler questions at the start then when they get talking ask the more in depth questions, also if they don't answer a question how you would like you can ask the question again at the end, but remember to tell not to say "as i said before" because it is likely you wont include the previous answer in the edit. When interviewing on camera its a good idea to place the person asking the questions right next to the camera so they are looking towards the camera. I intend to use these techniques in my interview tomorrow so hopefully i wont forget them!!!!!!!!!

Researching

Researching is very difficult but very important if you are to make a successful package, its not only important to have the correct facts and figures but also important to find out whether contributors are correct for the piece the locations you will use will be safe and whether you can film in certain areas. All this needs to be done before you start any filming otherwise it will only cause troubles in the long run. Ive found the researching in our documentary interesting, i originally thought that it would be hard to contact contributors but discovered it to be alot easier than i anticipate, before starting our documentary i was unaware of the amount of research that had to be done, so this has stood me in good stead for future projects so i am able to research and organise my self properly!!!!

Video Quality

On the video I added just below i had to lower the quality so that blogger would allow it on, so i have now uploaded a different video onto youtube keeping its original quality, but had to embed the video instead of an upload. Hope you enjoy it!!!!

Live Video Recording of the clash's whats my name

Heres a video me and a few mates made, we set up a live set using a mixer recording straight into the computer, we didnt have the best equipment available but improvised on what we did have which was a few jack mics and a couple of xlr's, i set it up so that the sound was picked up through the mixer but the images were picked up by the built in isight camera, i would like to try this again with a decent camera and a few more mics so that we can mic up the drum kit properly. anyway all good practice!

Photos in FCP Pro

Above is a short video i made to music in which ive imported some photos i have taken and a music track and edited together. I have used movrement in some of the photos to keep it abit more interesting. Its only a practice attempt to get used to some of the techniques that are available on FCP pro so that i am able to use them with future projects.

FCP Practice

Above is a video i made using FCP, during a lecture we were given 3 hours to make an edit to music, we had a choice of music and clips from a variety of films, during this time i struggled to grasp FCP so i decided to come home and make a new edit for practice so i dowloaded a few trailers and added a music track of my own, and pratcied some editing to music, I decided to make a sky movies type of advert but due to a lack of clips it makes this video weaker but all in all i feel its better than the one i did during lecture plus you can only get better through practice!!!!!!

Proposals and Pitches

Very important in the broadcast industry, if your are to get a programme commissioned these will need to be good, its important to grab there attention in the opening paragraph of a pitch and the explain the details later, otherwise it will be put down and forgotten about even if you have a great idea, same goes for the pitch as well, grab there attention early on then go into more detail later on, you need to make sure you have done enough research too so that you are able to back your ideas up so that your idea can be fully explained and justified for it to be commissioned and funded. If you have the facts and figures to hand its a good to way to show you know what you are doing, you need to be confident and enthusiastic about your proposal and take this enthusiasm into the pitch as well, you have to remember that this is your idea and if you're not enthusiastic about it the people reading the proposal or attending the pitch wont be either!!!!

3D Experience

Whilst at the broadcast expo in Earls Court, I came across a 3D, which used the use of 2 cameras which would act like the left and right eye whilst capturing the images, this allows it to get more perspective on the item that they are filming. I found this interesting as it looks as if this could be the future of television. I thought this could be a good broadcast development especially for things such as sport, because as a viewer it would seem as if you were in on the action of the game, to view the 3D footage you have to wear 3D glasses which use a liquid crystal shutter to help make the image 3D. Whilst asking about this product I was given the opportunity to test it out, so i put the glasses on and watched the television screen, the images did come out well in 3D but they weren't very clear I feel that they will have to develop this further in order to justify people paying lots of money to view it.