Week 11, last post

Today 30 August 2010, I already send the extend assignment that Toula give it to us. I was really happy that I could make it on time to finish this assignment. Once again thank you Toula for the extension time.

Our Journey to finish this movie is not over yet. We still need to do more shooting for the "because I care" scene which is once again we need to do more shooting from different angle for that scene. Me and Nargol will probably doing it at Wednesday, but for the rest actor Sarah, Drue and David will probably doing it in the next Friday.

Gladys as a producer, Editor and the actress really doing a fantastic job and we really appreciated for her effort to finish this movie. Nargol as a director and actress doing a great job too direct us to do a great job from this movie. Thanks too for all actor and actress that helping us develop this movie. For me, I'm quite satisfied of my job as a director of visual. To be a great cameramen is not a easy job and I proud of my self to do that.

We will start the editing a soon as possible and we hope the result from this movie is good and stratified and the most interesting is can give the correct message to the audience. YEAHHH!!!

Week 11 - My final post

Finally, this is my last post in the process of filming In-courage.

After filming last Friday, we captured all that we've filmed. In Final Cut Pro, I compiled everything into one sequence and exported it to Quicktime because I was gonna take the file home. Thankfully, Toula said that we can edit it with any programmes we want. That's why I'm going to edit it at home with iMovie because I don't have the Final Cut Pro programme. I was about to download the trial version of it but none of us sure whether it will function as good as the full version or not. But for now, I'll just do what I can with iMovie and if there are some difficulties I could ask Toula in class this Friday.

This Wednesday we are also going to finish all filming. Mainly, we are going to shoot the 'Because I care' scene with Nargol, Lanita and maybe one more person. Also, I think we are short of the 'racing thoughts' scene so I suggest that we shoot that scene too.

I've finished the treatment, 2 synopsis and the editing style statement. In order to write the editing style statement, I did a little research on movie editing. It's not much, really, because I did it in such a short time. One of the things I learnt is that an editor role is as important as hard director's role. Finally, I hope I could get good marks for this project documentation.

This project has been fun and educating for me. I'm really thankful that I got two very very talented people in my group, Nargol and Lanita. Thank you too for Toula too for helping us dearly throughout this semester.

But it has not finished yet! We still need to do editing and a critical evaluation. By the way, Nargol and Lanita have promised that they're going to help me with the editing. I'll totally make sure that they keep their promise. Hahahhaa

Less than 2 weeks to go. Wooohooooo..

See ya! God bless!

week 10 : 3rd day of shooting!

At this point i must say that we are almost done with our video project!

on friday we managed to shoot some of our last scenes with two more actors to play the part of teasing boys ,which personally i found it slightly hard to extract that exact form of acting that was well fitted with our concept. However the result was satisfying.

there was another scene where i had to play apart as well.

in this scene i had to approach the protagonist while she is on the floor picking her loads papers that are scattered on the floor, ( caused by an arrogant and negligent bump of some self indulged kid) where she is feeling a lot of anguish. In that moment i offer ( my character )her one simple act of kindness.

this scene in particular was hard to nail for its fragility in performance in our heroine's character.

Therefore, for gladys it was slightly a difficult task to master,since she had to portray a range of emotions from amazement ( of somebody reaching out to her ) at the same time confusion of not knowing how to react to this matter

i have to say she mastered this task quite eloquently.

well done to her and to our communal hard work so far!

cheers to everyone !

we are on our way..

Week 10 - 3rd shooting

This Friday, we did some more shooting and we are almost finished with filming.

At first we imagined that the mean characters would be girls, because usually girls are meaner than boys. But we cannot find any girls at that moment who could act for us so we asked Wesley and Zakri. That day Wesley helped us a lot; as an actor and as an assistant director. Zakri, Lani's friend, also did a great job even though he is a very polite and nice person in the real life (Nargol had to push him a bit to act meaner). We are soooooo thankful for Wesley and Zakri who agreed to help us in such a short notice. :D

After the shooting, we also recorded the voice overs in the audio room because it is the best place to record sounds, it's quiet and people couldn't hear us from outside. Nargol had to direct me because I was not too emotional at first, but it turned out fine. She is a good director.

In terms of acting, I didn't have as much energy as before on that day so I think there will be some emotion differences in the shooting. I noticed it after we have finished shooting but I'm sure it will be hard to recognise. Anyways, I think it wouldn't be a big problem. Hopefully.

That's all for now. The next post will be my last one for this project. See ya!

Week 10, We've done it !!!

First of all, i need to say thank you to Toula coz give as an extend to finish our treatment, visual statement and the synopsis until next monday. This is really good opportunity for me to do the maximal work for this assignment. Hopefully i will do the best to finish that.

Today, 27 August 2010. We have done the whole shooting part. All we need to do is finishing the last sequence which is for me, Nargol, Drue and Sarah. We just need to shoot a lot of different angle from each of us and after that we ready to editing. For me the most difficulty time is when we need to find the correct angle so we can see all the expression of character. We find out that the last sequence that we shoot was really dark. We will trying to increase the brightness in editing so hopefully the result that we get is good.

We also have so many extra for this movie and they are really good. Weasly was really helping us too, he become part of this movie. Gladys personally is really good at acting, she is so into character and it is not really difficult to get her right expression. Similar with Nargol, she is really do a great job to direct this movie.

After all i'm quite satisfied about what we done so far, hopefully we do the great editing too. So we will able the get the best result of this advertising movie. I really wish that people will understand the meaning of this movie.

Inspiration for the music

as we all know the last sequence is the pivotal moment in our 5 minute length project.

it is on this sequence where our campaign gets credited and recognised , therefor the choice of music for the back ground music of that scene is quite important.

i was thinking of something very soft and smooth that matches the tone and the feel of the final scene.some kind of a score that can capture and emphasise on the sense of peace and serenity that we are meaning to offer through our campaign.

I was thinking something like a piano ballad, with low key's of piano playing a major part of the sound production.

Tomorrow's shooting= scene 2 +3

Tomorrow we will shoot the rest of the scenes for the video project and we are hoping to finish most of scenes by late afternoon.

the scenes which we will shoot include the last 5 characters saying their one line" because i care".

we still have to do at least four more footages ( one was shot yesterday, this time not just a stiff and rigid angle , however we shot it hand held and from 3 different angles, once with a tripod on both right and left side of the frame and one hand held) . since it is the continuation of last week's project we need to keep in mind that our continuity is one of our top priorities, in terms of wardrobe and hair styles of out actors.

changes in the script while shooting

i think i need to mention here that while we were shooting , i realised that some slight changes could be made in to the script ,such as splitting some of the sections which were regarded as " Sequences" in the first draft , to some smaller scenes.

therefore, instead having a prolonged scene ,we can divide that one long sequence to two smaller sequences.

this can make the preparation for filming the scenes easier and faster.

this way we know exactly of the changes in camera movements and angels, and won't tire the actor as well.

of course it will be easier for me as well to keep track of the scenes we shot.

this point is exactly evident in scene 1 of our second day of shooting.so instead of having a long sequence one ,this section will be turned in to two scenes,shot at different times.

Yesterday's shooting= successful!

yesterday we shot 2 main sequences from the project .

The first sequence and the last one where a guy bumps in to our main character( in the corridor),and when she is feeling all those tense feelings and emotions.

the shooting was very successful i have to say , as the director i was quite happy with the result of our shooting results.

at the end i took some time to review what ever footage we had for that day and the performances were quite remarkable.

Gladys was able to portray a character who is feeling a

lot of pressure and rejection from her fellow peers. i have to say after discussion about her role and some guidance she managed to do just that and even more , quite effortlessly.

it was slightly hard to find some extras, we spend about one hour wondering around the corridors just for people to come to the building!

but then after going on some 'extra haunting' i managed to find some genuine students who were willing to help us out.

lastly but not least , our camera operator conducted a fantastic job , capturing all the angles required to for editing ,specially in scenes with increasing movements.

overall : thumbs up!

Last week's script and where we are standing now....

last week on week 9 , the first draft of our project script was finalised.

the feedback from the first draft was quite successful and Toula was happy with the overall theme explored in the script and the idea behind it. with her guidance i omitted some of the lines ( such as the protagonists inner dialogues with her self) .

some of them were giving the audience to much hints regard her situation ,and were blocking the opportunity for the viewer's creative instinct to predict the story behind her sadness or loneliness.

after preparing the equipments, we were ready to shoot some of the final sequences of the film ( the scenes where 5 different protagonist say the one line : because i care)

the result however wasn't really satisfying after all!

some of the scenes we shot did not evoke that sense of emotion of care or compassion for others.

for instance all of the scenes were shot with a tripod,therefore it looked as if all scenes were so rigid ,stiff and lacked that innovative quality about it. so we thought all of the scenes we shot will be shot again , however we will keep these footage for the sake of editing purposes.

Week 10, Continue the Shooting

Wednesday 25 August 2010, we continue shooting for our campaign strategy video advertising. At that time we have a problem with borrowing the equipment for the shooting. In last semester, we do not need to have the permission from teacher to borrow it. But unfortunately this semester the rule is change. But thank you God with calling Toula the security allow us to borrow the equipment.

In the first sequence, we asking the random student to become an extra to our movie and their acting is quite good so we do not need to take this sequence in long time. For me, shooting the first sequence is more easier than sequence 2 it is because we using tripod to help us holding the camera.
For sequence 2, I'm using hand to holding the camera and I find it quite difficult. I'm kind a worried if it comes out really bad. The other problem is we have difficulty to find the correct angle for this sequence. In this sequence we need to capture the move of actor and also include the expression of each of them. However after taking a lot of shoot for this sequence,we finally get the correct angle.

I personally quite stratified with our group work, three of us really supporting each other.We need to finishing the shooting at Friday, hopefully we can finish it at that time and start the editing.

hope all goes well..

Week 10 - 2nd shooting

On wednesday this week, we did another shooting and it covered most of our scenes. At first, we had no idea that we have to book the camera and we almost didn't get it if Toula didn't talk to the security guard. Thankfully I got Toula's phone number and then it went well.

We shot the walking-in-corridor sequence first. It was 11am and it was pretty quiet in the corridor but we wanted it crowded. So, Nargol managed to get some random people who were willing to help us and become extras. They did a great job! We coincidentally met Mirae too and she became our extra and then she did the 'because i care' scene.

It was a very fun experience, one reason is because we had to repeat the 'bump' scene for almost 10 times. Next, this Friday, we are going to shoot the rest of the sequences and we will be done! Can't wait to finish it!

Week 9, Because I Care Scene

We starting our shooting this Friday. "Because I care " that is all that we need to say for this scene. The problem is we forget to bring our original tape, so Toula borrowing us the second tape. There is a problem when we using the tape, it say " cleaning tape", maybe it because a lot of student using that tape that is why the feedback that we get not that perfect when using the new tape. However, suddenly the tape its back to normal and we can using it.

Thanks God 5 people that saying "because i care" doing a great job so we didn't spend a lot of time to finish that scene. This is the first time i'm be the actor in short movie, even thought only saying "because I care" but i really like it.Toula give us advice to do the shooting again in different scene, so it can help us to have variation of angle. Probably we gonna do the shooting again for this scene.

We gonna do the shooting for the next Monday, I really hope that we can finish the shooting as soon as possible so we can starting the editing and finishing the short movie.

Week 9 - Shooting begins!

This weekend, we are going to start shooting our In-Courage commercial.
Starting from Friday, we are going to shoot some scenes in Insearch with a few other classmates who are, generously, willing to help us and act for the commercial. Thank you thank you so much for you guys!

We did a shooting practice last week and it turned out really good. From the practice we figured how to do lots of practical things, which are handled mostly by Nargol and Lanita. They managed to do it really well.
Personally, i think it's very useful for me because i had a chance to practice the acting.The fact that I've done some filming before turned out a benefit for me this moment, thank God.

I hope the filming goes well till the end. :)

Week 8, Change the idea

This is the problem :

1. We already try to fix Nargol camera in the past 2 week, but it still haven't finish yet and we need to do the photo shoot immediately
2. We have the idea, but until now we haven't finish the script. To be honest we still confuse about what we are doing
3. We try to do the editing that combine between photograph and video, but we have the difficulty to match the size of photograph when we editing
4. We found the new idea with simple character and more easier to edit.

So we decided change our story and our script.
Hopefully this new idea can come out better than our previews idea. Then we wish we could finish the script
by this week and do the shooting next week

thanks

Change of script : Week 8

ok we are now feeling a need for a change in the script , since we were thinking about 3 characters leading our plot ,but now we are realising ,given our resources and our facilities how hard it is to actually film.

we might have to change the whole story only to one main protagonist.

Or if not one, at least not three characters!

Initially i thought of the last scene to be 5 , 6 jump cuts from our actors to say a line that will be inspirational and moving.

i won't say what that line is exactly since it needs to be a surprise for our visitors!

there are lots of interesting ideas we could think of but the problem is at this point ,given our resources ,it is not feasible for us to shoot,therefore, we should stick to something that is reachable within our contrains.

Week 8 - idea change

Never thought this will happen to us but it did! We changed our main idea of the ad.
This new idea was brought up by Nargol on Wednesday and we think it's easier to do.
Previously, we wanted to make an ad about 3 depressed characters, presented in photographs with fast cut editing. We were still confused about how to film it and how to write the script. This new idea is much much clearer for us to do and I have a clearer view about how this ad is going to be.

Next, I'm going to write some ideas and compare it with Lani's and Nargol's.

Week 7,Camera Tutorial

Today, Toula give us the tutorial about how to set up the camera. She explain us about lens hood, we using this tools to protect the front of the lens. We probably using lens hood for shooting at outside the room. Then Toula explain about wide angle lens or conversion lens. We can using this tools to make the image more wider. She also telling us how to take it in and take it out the lens. After that we learn how to setting the camera set, the tape set,how to control the light and the sound from camera. This is really good opportunity for me as a Director of Photographer to learn that, because it help us to get better quality of image.

Crew role: Director and Script writer

In the position of the director, it seems that our project is going smoother and is on track .

the script is still not developed and written , however the idea behind it is formed and well crafted.

There are still some minor confusion regarding the flow of the story and how we can impress the audience regarding the character's sense of trauma and dispair.

hopefully i will have some help from Lanita and Gladys in terms of constructing a good story for each character.

In terms of other aspects, and pre-production requirements , we were struggling with the suitable actor to play opposite of the character whose having troubles in her relationship and as a result , ends up depressed and hopeless.

fortunately we found the actor! one of our friends who is willing to play called "Miguel Tiongson".

Moreover , another issue was to find a proffessional camera.

innitially we thought of using my camera to capture images that shows the depressed and anxious protagonists faces,but since there was a problem with the memory card ,that option was not available any more ! but now gladys's friend said he will be lending his camera to us.

so all good!

Week 7 - Final Cut Pro

For the past few weeks, we have been learning about using Final Cut Pro, an editing programme that is better than iMovie and of course, Windows Movie Maker. I haven't really used to it but I think it's very useful for us to get a good edited project. And Toula has provided us with its manual in uts online, so I'll use that as my guide.

The project documentation will be submitted in week 10 so I should also start thinking more about the editing style statement.

We got, more or less, 4 full weeks to work till the end of this semester. Fingers crossed.

We got " The Boyfriend "

There are three part of our movie stories, one of them is stories about relationship problem between boyfriends and girlfriends. From that stories we need to find an actor. I'm asking one of my friends to help us to be an actor and he really happy to be one part of our movie. So, this is good news to our group because we finally get the actor. Our group still in the progress making the script. We haven't finish the script yet but hopefully we finish the script by next week. Today, Toula arrange the time for our group to borrow the camera. Our schedule its gonna be next Friday and during the weekend. We wish we can finish the movie at that time and start the editing a soon as possible. Next week its gonna be a great time.. Camera rolling...ACTION...

Week 7 - inspirations

Lanita told me about these music videos the other day, and I think they're awesome. , "Mad" by Ne-Yo.
The girlfriend's frustrated emotion in this video is the kind of expression we want in our film. She is shown very anxious, sad, and unable to concentrate. I think it's suitable for Lani's story where a close person of her passes away and Lani gets depressed because of it.

Next, is a music video from Rihanna, "Unfaithful". The fast cut in this video is the exact cutting style we want to use for our movie.