Industrial Media 4-1

This is a clip from my ongoing documentary project, before it looks grey and has less contrast. So in premiere pro, I turned on the “fast color corrector” and did some certain adjustments: firstly, in “saturation”, I increased the input white level, so it could highlight the bright area; in contrast, I decreased the input gray level to make the shadow darker, so that the image would have more contrast. Lastly, I enhanced the green color for hue balance to give the trees a healthy green look.

The second clip is also from the same documentary project, before the color grading, the image looked dark and lifeless, because this part of the film talks about the elderly people’s happy life, so the images are suppose to look warm and bright. So I increased the brightness for the overall image by bringing up the output white level, and also added some orange color into the footage.

For another film that I entirely created by mobile phone 1+1, I decided to give it a cool look. Everything looks well in the raw image: it has good exposure, good contrast and lighting. But if I want it to look cool, I might have to “destroy” some of the good qualities to archive a cold-blood feeling. So I switched the warm light to cold light by adding more blue, and also I decreased the brightness, so that the image would look darker.

The last clip was recorded in a dark room with insufficient lighting condition, it looks very dark. So I had to increase its brightness again, but after I have done the brightness, it left lots of noise on the screen. So I used “Neat Video” plug-in which could automatically reduce the noise for me.

Week 13 Video Work

Industrial Media 4-2

Industrial Media has provided me the technical skills and theoretical knowledge in broadcasting, which I have not learnt enough in bachelor study. Before the course I didn’t know there are such differences between making fiction and non-fiction projects. Now I have gained a general idea about how to prepare and start a video project depend on its genre. Furthermore , I have gained the abilities to review and articulate the inter-relationships of the audience and broadcasters in media production,  and understood that I have to often stand in audience’s perspective to look back the ongoing process as a media broadcaster. Now I believe that I am capable to create and produce a simple project suitable for broadcast on TV or web, and also collaborate with other media specialists on production projects. I am aiming to get into the film and TV industry, so after I will finished the media study, if possible, I will start with an internship position in any media organisation while learning things from others and daily working, most importantly, to grasp how things are running in industry and how to solve authentic industry problems or address real issues faced in organisations.

Industrial Media 3-4 Interview

The shoot

The shoot is not satisfied as we all had not got experience on operating camera for an interview, the camera shook a lot during filming and we didn’t have many shots on the listener which could be used for cutaways. Also some close-up on the eyes or hands would be useful too. But I like the shots that include both people in different camera angles, it gave varieties on visual even two people constantly sitting in same spots. Also we spent too much time on setting up two lapel micro phones into camera, and only have got one worked in the end, so I suppose next time I should get familiar with every devices that using in a shoot. The interview could be better if we previously prepared the questions, the conversation is scattered and has many redundant repeats which increased the difficulties in editing.

The edit

Because the footage has these weaknesses, it requires more efforts on editing. First of all, it has to “lose weight”, I have cut off the redundant pauses, repeats, and modal words to make the sentences more fluent. And I disassembled some of the broken sentences and put them together in one sentence, but the image would be cut and lose visual continuity. So I put cutaways on top of it to hide the incontinuous part. It is similar for solving the lack of listener’s shots(either Leon or Darren’s), I cut the listener’s shots from the abandoned parts and pasted them onto the long shots of talker, so that we can see conversations with images from both people rather than just single people is talking. I also adjusted the compositions for some shots by enlarging their size and moving them to appropriate places.

Industrial Media 3-3 Abstract

The shoot

On the day we shoot all the abstract visuals, we intended to shoot some elements could represent the features of life, such as, leaves, tree bark, annual ring shaped tree base, in contrast, we also collected some lifeless objects which would be used to inform the merciless death, such as, square buildings, iron mesh, vents. Most of the shot exposed correctly, one of them has been over exposed. The compositions of the images were considered during the filming too, we have put thoughts on how they would look like on screen, for archiving the effects we want: one example is to use the edges of the buildings to split the screen, oblique and vertical lines could inform the mood of uneasy and desperate to the audience, just like the feeling people would have when talking about death.

The edit

Firstly, I spent time on editing the interview audio cause I wanted to make it to be the monologue from Darren, who tells a story about his father’s death. Only the 5,6 sentences were selected to use, some of them were put together by half sentences in purpose of more fluent story telling. And after they have been put in order in Premiere, I search through all the abstract shots to come out the best order of showing them according to the monologue, in other words, to make the visuals more or less match with the content of audio, in order to help bringing up the mood of audience. The last part is color adjusting for those shots were too bright, I wanted the whole video would be in a cold tune because it increases the sadness. It is a bit shame that I have not fixed the white noise comes with the monologue audio, and I could have got more relevant shots: I kind of ran out the shots at the end because the tight cuts.

Week 11 Video Work

2014 Video Sketch 6

Edited with: iMovie

For the last sketch,I have experienced making a movie trailer using the templates that are provided in iMovie. The making process was easy, basically anyone can make a movie trailer for iPhone. Just follow the instruction to add in your videos by different shots, and type some texts to where it needs you to write. And then iMovie will automatically compose your clips to a professional look trailer with animated transitions and music.

2014 Video Sketch 5

Edited with: Wondershare Video Editor

My girlfriend doesn’t like me shaking my leg, but sometime I just playing with her…

I edited this video with a PC software called wondershare video editor, it has some visual effects which can be applied on the footage. I appied the 70’s in order to give my video a feeling of old film.

But I have to adjust the image setting as the original video was still too bright and ‘HD’ even with the effect on.

After I had done everything, in the export, there are several options for me to upload my video. I simply signed in my Youtube account and typed in the description of  the video, and then I could sit back while wondershare editor would take care the rest for me.

2014 Video Sketch 4

Edited with: Cinemagram

Cinemagram is an iOS app that you can use to animate your photos. The end result is a cross between a photo and a video. (A GIF, basically.) You use the app to film a short video with your iPhone’s camera, and then the app asks you what part of the photo you want to be animated.

In this sketch, I was suppose to waving my hand in front of the camera too, but I chose only animate my girlfriend’s hand and head by circling this area. So my hand was froze at the first frame as a result of it blurs in motion.

2014 Video Sketch 3

We use mobile phones to take photos to document the moments of our lives, nowadays, the smartphones can take high resolution pictures and it always can be reached around us. The photos taken with phones which are more spontaneous than cameras, also the photos can be directly edited on the phone with photo editing apps.