one minute video

So today we began filming! I decided not to be a ghost in the video, as I didn't feel my face looked right for the part and that gave me the perfect opportunity to get behind the camera instead, this way I was able to direct the actors and control the camera at the same time. I felt alot more confident with using the kit this time around, and feel it was used alot more professionally in comparison with last time I used it.

I still wasn't sure what I was doing with the white balance and settings etc but Katherine was a great help to me with this, taking care of the settings for me. I am a little  disappointed  that over the year I have not had tutoring with this, I would have thought that the second time round we would be shown advanced techniques, however all we got was a ten minute "presentation" on how to set up the lighting on green screen, nothing practical and no advanced editing tips.

But anyway, I did Hoi Kam's make-up, (she was now going to take-over my bathroom scene) And we got to work! filming went really well for the day especially considering how busy the college was, people were walking past constantly in the hallway, a guy even walked past right in the middle of filming and we had to cut! but side from that one ignorant person the rest waited for us which was nice, and the teacher for the room at the top of the stairs we were using allowed us to occupy the space for a while. 

It was fun having Hoi Kam as a ghost walk around the college, she got alot of looks and one guy jumped when he saw her on his way out of a classroom! that was funny.

The last scene had Hoi Kam quite far in the distance so I had to shout "action" for her to come into the scene quite loudly! (i felt a bit stupid doing that but oh well!) Here are some pictures from the days shoot! (above)

Make-up designs

I have been thinking of some ideas for my ghost character, and started by covering myself in powder! after ten minutes of powdering my face I gave up, it wasn't going to get as white as I wanted it with just talc!

It just didn't seem enough, so I darkened my eyebrows... then I added more blackness to my eyes, and more. but still look like a twit and not a scarey monster! 

 Maybe if my hair was still long and black it would look better, I can't possibly be a scarey ghost with a new haircut and color! lol

brought out the red lipstick for blood! a little better I guess, maybe the pale ghost looks just doesn't work on me, so I can be the "clown" ghost and Hoi Kam the "pale" ghost! 

well hopefully we will be able to edit the video afterwards to make it scarier.....

(will add pics tomorrow as server keeps crashing)

Stage one, still not scarey enough...

OK, so I add more "blackness" to the eyes, still not scarey...

Maybe some blood to the lips? nah still doesn't look right!

Scared yet? hmmm. maybe you are, but it's still not the right look! am glad I decided to "opt out" of being a ghost and let Hoi Kam do it all because she was Awesome and had the right look!

One Minute Horror!

This was my initial idea for the 1 minute horror movie, basically, a girl sleeps in her bed with her back to you, her door slowly creaks open and as the lightning flashes, (ala frankenstein) a hand appears at the doorway. The hand scuttles across the floor and quickly dives under the girls bed. 

The camera then pans toward the mirror on the wall, in the darkness nothing can be seen until another flash of light reveals a hideous ghostly face in the mirror, after another flash it is gone.

Suddenly footsteps can be heard, the camera is switched to the other side of the room where a stop motion effect creepy ghoul is walking toward the girl in the bed, (I planned to do this using stop motion but playing it backwards to create an odd effect and having it deliberately jerky, parody to the ring) the idea is for this imagery to flicker on and off the screen, (by cutting frames) and when she is leant over the girl the girl wakes up and the ghoul disappears...

We have now decided as a group to film this in the college as none of us really have large enough bedrooms at home to pull it off, so it is now going to be a girl walking down a corridor for the entire minute, we will have the same ghouls trying to scare her along the way, we still want to have it dark with flickering lights, this will have to be achieved using special effects.

We plan to start filming on a quite day or evening when most students will be at home.

We will need a large mirror, or if not possible we will have to have our main girl going into the toilet which I don't really want, as I wanted it to be a straight walk down the corridor, but we will just have to do whatever is needed to make it work.

We have been watching Horror scenes from alot of Japanese horror movies for inspiration, well we are actually "ripping" them off as a parody and hope to fit as many characters in as possible!

Notes to accompany video project

Notes and Storyboards to accompany "how to" project

500 word individual evaluation

I started this project by generating some visual idea's in my sketchbook for a possible how to video. I wanted to go with something interesting, maybe even a bit bizare, I had some idea's along the lines of how to catch an alien,  how to annoy a cat, how to be a samurai etc. I decided to go with how to loose weight, thinking of those silly weight loss adverts on the shopping channels as my inspiration. However as i went along the darkness crept in as usual and i ended up making the whole thing a little dark, and during the animatics it got a little abstract toward the end so i aimed to try and keep it simple for the live-version.

I started by creating storyboards, scanning them into photoshop and then piecing them together as an animatic using Final cut pro.

This gave me more confidence in using final cut and proved to be crucial to my overall work during this brief.

The first half of the brief was to create the animatic which realisticley can be done in a day, I think i did get the first one done in that time but then instead of moving onto the live-video i wanted to do the animatic again not happy with it's visual style after seeing some of my colleagues work.

For me i'm glad i did this, because i'm much happier with the second animatic, although the key element in it was the sound which is the same in both, the visuals are more pleasing and have a more professional look as a pose to the scruffy and random images used in the first animatic.

For the second half of the brief, making the live-video i feel i could have done alot better but am still happy with the outcome due to the sound and editing involved. This was alot harder than it needed to be due to the amount of footage i had recorded, for example, I had hoped to film each scene individually from different angles, and then they would be edited together to form the full film. however my partner in this case was not the most patient of people and being the actress in the video also i found difficult to direct them, finding that they would go straight into the next scene without pausing, therfore some scenes did roll on when i would have preferred them to be individual.

I had forgotten most of the settings on the camera by the time it came to filming, but to be fair i was only talked through this once before and did not get the opportunity to take notes.

This resulted in some very poor quality shots in some cases- especially with lighting as i did not know which setting to put the camera on and because i had limited time with actors i just had to film whilst they were available.

for example the scene where the postman is delivering a package, that was a random person i saw outside and asked them to do the part, i didn't have time to get the lighting right or anything as they literally had to stop what they were doing and play a part in my film for 2 minutes, i could not ask them to do it again and again so i had to use the first and only shot, i also missed them knocking on the door as i should have hit record some seconds before the knock! 

I enjoyed the editing process, i found it very redeeming as i felt the footage could have been better i tried to make up for this by putting as much time and effort as i could into editing the clips to go with the sound, and trying to make them flow a bit better.

One scene worth mention was the eating scene at the start, when filming i had a fit of the giggles, and could not stop laughing, we tried this scene 5 times then the actress lost patience and refused to do it again, as a result of my laughing of course the camera was shaking and kept getting put down as i just couldn't film at one point for laughing. during editing i had to pick out all the bits that seemed "sturdy" and put them together, i like the overall effect this has given, as it starts with her eating on the beat of the music and each eating clip comes in and out with the sound.

I am happy with it as a piece of experimental student work definitely, as i feel i did the best i could with what i had and my time-limitations plus the fact i started the course late and didn't have a partner, as a professional piece of work- no, it would need to be alot better, but i feel i could easily achieve higher standards if i were to do this type of work again which no doubt we will be!

If and when i do this kind of work again i will plan a work-flow and make sure i get the shots/footage i want as this is vital for later editing! 

New and Improved Animatic!

Here is my finalized "Animatic" which i have spent an extra 3 days on as i have drawn all the pictures again from scratch on photoshop and then have made the video again basically!

Although i'm not sure if my tutor is happy with me! as i have prob spent too much time on this as it was meant to be a basic storyboard like the first one was, and of course i need to be moving on to the live-video, and then there are all the research notes etc to go with it! so i just need to get the live-vid done now! hopefully when i'm finished they'll be happy with the overall result! I just really got into this and when i get like that i get a little carried away! but it's the first thing i've had that feeling for since we started back! (because i was on another course which was not suitable for me and have transfered to digital media just last week!) anyway enjoy! comments welcome.

(Error uploading- will upload to youtube and copy onto here instead)

Animax/Animatrix/Animation/ Whatever it's called! basically an animated slideshow that you do before the final film!

This is just my "Animax?" which i've done as part of my current project which is to create a "how to" video that must visually explain how to do something of your choice. I chose how to loose weight in a day, my aim was to make it kinda dark but humorous, this is just the first draft, I'm gonna do a couple more if i have time!