Camera & Health and Safety Tutorial

In order to ensure that there was no damage to equipment whilst filiming, we were given a 'Camera and Health and Safety Tutorial'. During the tutorial we were taught how to use the following peices of equipment:

• Video Camera



• Memory Card



• Tripod



• Battery



• Video Drive

The first peice of equipment we were shown was the Tripod. Here we were shown how to put the Tripod up properly, in order to keep the Video Camera safe. We were shown how to unlock the legs of the Tripod, make them all the same length (in order to keep the camera steady), and how to put the Tripod away properly. We also found that the Tripod is a good way of achiveing steady panning.

We were then shown the Battery. We were shown how to safely insert it, and to release it in order to take it out. When we moved on to look at the Video Camera we were shown where we can monitor how much Battery life we had. Like the battery, we were shown how to insert and release the Memory Card.

When we looked at the Video Camera were shown how to use its shooting features, which would all be beneficial when filming our Thriller openings. For example how to focus the camera. We were also shown how to switch the camera on and off, how to record and how to play back footage we had already shot.

Each individual group has their own Video Drive which they can save all their work on to. We were shown how to save things to the video drive and how to safely remove the drive.

Finally we were told that if it is raining when we are filming, we must cover the Video Camera with a umbrella to prevent it getting wet. We must also never touch the lense of the camera, due to leaving marks on it, and to always remember to close the lens when we are finished filming.

Changes to be made to roughcut after feedback.

After receiving feedback from my teachers on our rough cut created for the opening scene of our Thriller movie 'Of Unsound Mind' there are quite a few things that we decided to tweak or completely change. Some of these were; adding fades to avoid unsubtly or sharpness, add more to our time line sequence and also start to create titles and add the soundtrack.
At the time our rough cut was due we still had quite a lot of work to do, although the soundtrack was already almost complete we were yet to upload it. Also, we were unsure of what editing techniques we should use or effects and so in between the rough cut and final piece we have tried several different effects and modifications like chaning speed or lighting. Once we had done this we settled on just a couple of effects which we used in several shots. An example of an effect we decided to use after recieving feedback from the roughcut was unsharp mask, which we felt helped give the effect we wanted to be given in our opening for a thriller film

Inspiration for Our thriller Soundtrack

whilst researching for our soundtrack, we came across a video that was highly suitable for our thriller video, with a female vocal singing "twinkle twinkle little star" it gave our thriller a spooky and chilling atmosphere.

the video also inspired us to add extra shots to our thriller, at the end of the you tube video there is a close up of a woman's face. You will find in our thriller a close up of our main character(Jessica).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=menntxDUe4I

Rough cut edit and Changed in Light of feedback from rough cut

Here is our 'Rough Cut'. This shows all our technqiues of using the camera and editing.

The feedback that we recieved from our teachers seeing the rough cut was:
* Not to have many effects, just stick to one to portray one aspect instead of several to make it absolutely clear

* To smooth the connection between one shot to another

* Be better to do more fading shots
and
*to add a soundtrack to have that extra effect on the clip.

We now have to apply this feedback and produce a clear smooth clip of our film.

Analysis of 9 shots from Art Of The Title Sequence-- Se7en

The screen shot above is the for the opening of the film 'Se7en'. The movie's story follows a retiring detective (Morgan Freeman) and his replacement (Brad Pitt), using a joint attempt to investigate a series of ritualistic murders inspired by the seven deadly sins.

It is apparent from the moment the opening titles begin that the film will be ominous and thought provoking. You can see this via various things such as the small glimpses of objects with no meaning of yet, like the book which we see someone flicking pages, the Dollar Bill and negatives. The money that is shown in the opening, as seen in the ninth shot in the title sequence makes it clear that the film will have religious connotations as the word 'GOD' is highlight, being cut out by a character you are yet to completely see. The fact you do not immediately see the character carrying out these actions also helps the ominous effect clearly being given over to the audience.

There are many black shots in the opening scene, with titles in white, UPPERCASE. I feel that this is a very effective way of both promoting the theme of being thought provoking and displaying the credits without taking any attention away from the events being shown. The effects used on the titles in the opening had a similar appearance to the 'frigid' effect on Live Type which is where we will be creating titles for our Thriller opening and since seeing 'Se7en' i feel that it could be an effect we use in our own opening.
The majority of shots throughout the opening are close ups of miscellaneous objects around a room, the close up shots work very well as they give you a limited places to look and so emphasis's the object that may otherwise be overlooked such as a notebook.

The lighting in the scene is generally quite dull creating a dingy effect and eerie atmosphere that darkness can often create. It leads the audience to think about why they are being shown this room and that the room holds i high importance that is yet to be found out. The music and sounds in the title sequence also play a large role in getting the wished feeling of the audience across; it starts with small generally irrelevant noise like pages turning and creaking which is heard mainly throughout the title sequence, then eventually moves onto a beat being created which speeds up slowly right until the end where another reference to religion is made when it says 'you get me closer to God'.

This title sequence interested me particularly by the way the titles are laid out and the fonts, effects used for it. I also really liked the overlaying effect of things like unreadable writing and flashes of other objects over the main action being showed in the opening. I think that the overlay effect gives what may otherwise seem as a non interesting scene much more impact. What i most liked was the way the soundtrack, titles and editing produce the opening as without just one of those features it would not be such an effective scene.

Skills Audit: Livetype and Sound

Live type is a program we use at college that allows us to add text and titles to footidge. this will e helpful and ideal obviously in our coursework for adding the important titles to our thriller sequence. the program allows differnet types of font to be used, along with different colours, size and angles. Another feature Live type allows effects to be added on with motion, such as fades, disolving, bouncing and glazing. This makes the font look alot more proffesional and offers alot of different effects ideal for any situation.

SoundTrack is very similar program as Live type, but it specialises in sound, adding music and noise to footidge. Very helpful for soundtracks or just simple special effects. We will be using this feature to add a heartbeat and piano music to our coursework. It offers other sounds such as up beat and tempo music. it has alot of different ways of expressing sounds and works very well with media work.

Planning Match Cut

our synopsis " a character opens the door, walks into the room, sits opposite to the other charactr, and they share a fue lines of dialogue"

with my group, we had to include about 15 shots in our sequence of a character walking through a door with a match cut. me and my fellow group members chose a sequence of Jessica, our group member walking down a hallway and entering a toilet. it then match cut into the toilet were the other character walks out of a cubicle were they both share dialogue before the scene ends.

i think the task was succesful due to our range of shots including

• long shot
• close up
• panning
• over the shoulder

Camera and health and safety Tutorial!

In our Media lesson we were given video cameras and other equipment we were shown how to use the following peices correctly and safely; Tripod, memmory cards, battery, video drive and video camera.
Being shown how to use the tripod, we were taught how to pull out all three legs to a stable possition to hold the camera. Learning how to use the tripod was helpful whilst filming our courswork as we had stable panning and tracking with out having to hand hold the camera wich looks more ammiture.
The video camera was given to us and shown how to use properly so we could use it to its best ability when filming our thriller videos. We were shown how to zoom, look at previous footidge, focus and many more. Whilst using the video camera we were shown how to slot both memmory cards in, and how to slide in the battery.
Finally we learnt how to slide the video camera on top of the tripod, using different clasps for loser tracking, how to bring the camera higher with the tripod to have higher shots. And how to angle the camera.
with our video drive, it allows our group to save all of our work with out being erased or copied by other groups or damaged on the computer. It gives us a better chance of not loosing any work and alot easier.
Health and safety was also taught, for when we are filming with our camera, three basic rules were taught wich were:

• use an umbrella when filming if its raining to protect the camera as they are not waterproof.
• to not touch the lense and leave finger marks
• closing the lense when finishing filming.

Planning Preliminary Match Cut exercise including storyboard

We were given the synopsis we were given for this scene was:

"a character opens a door, walks into a room, sits opposite another character and they share a few lines of dialogue"

We implemented about 15 shots which included close ups of someones feet walking down the hall and a hand opening the door. We also filmed a long shot of the persons whole body so we can show the background of the setting.
We included the match cut when the girl opens the door and going into the toilet. We chose the toilet as a setting to make it strange and to build up suspense as its a closed space and kind of a secretive room. We filmed a close up of the girls face and then filmed a mid shot of another girl that she talks to. We were intending to do a shot reverse shot but when editing we didnt have sufficient footage to be able to do this but did acknowledge it.

Skills Audit: Livetype and Sound

LIVETYPE:
This is the program that allows you to add texts, objects, templates and effects. We did a practise of it on our matchcut prelimanary and added titles such as our names.
We used different kind of styles such as dissolving,fades, glows and we used different backgrounds.

For the matchcut, i created a blue font masculine style to go with the match cut just as a tester. I used some glows and decreased the size of the letters. I was also able to lengthen the time i left the title onthe sceen.

SOUNDTRACK:
This enabled me to explore different kinds of sounds and input them into one big track for the title sequence. One of the favourite sounds that i liked were the footsteps, the heart beat and the different kinds of percussion sounds which i feel would be great to be used in our thriller. There are various sound effects which is great because we have a variety to use for our title sequence.

Intro To Cameras & Health amd Safety Tutorial

Before we were allowed to start filming, we had to have a tutorial on how to use the equipment such as:

- Tripod
- Video Camera
- Memory Card
- Hard Drive

The Tripod is used to keep the camera still and is perfect to use it for panning. Also to use it for different angles as i can extend or shorten the legs.

The video camera is used to film our scenes. I learnt how to put the battery in and out. We also learnt how to switch it on, record by pressing the red button and looking back at the footage that we filmer by pressing the button on the side of the small screen. Moreover I learnt how to focus on an object in the shot to make the shot look sharp.

The 2 memory cards is inputted onto the side of the video camera and the recorded footage would be saved in there. But before recording we had to make sure that both memory cards are unlocked. When putting the footages in for editting, we insert the memory card on the memory card reader and input it to the mac computer.

The video drive is used to save and access all of our footages and work that we have done like final cut pro, soundtrack and livetype.

THE HEALTH AND SAFETY!:
* If its raining then we should use an umbrella to keep the video camera dry
* we should not touch the video camera screen as it would leave finger marks on it.
* after finishing filming then the lens should be closed.

Analysis of 9 shots from Art Of The Title Sequence

The fonts used for the titles are bold and white which contrast between the black and colourful backgrounds. The styles look friendlier, feminine and easily attracted. In 5 different shots the titles include the actor’s names which are placed on different places in the shots. Some are at the bottom of the page while others are at the centre and top. The titles are put in front of animated images so it stands out.
But some of them are off the images and are placed outside so we can clearly see the images and the titles. In the 9 shots, it consists of close-ups, mid shots and long shots to give us a brief overview of the movie.
The most interesting thing that appealed to me was the images and the colour used. They used the effects of using black as the main pictures/images while the backgrounds is another colour.

Cameras & health and Safety Tutorial

At the start of our lesson we received a cameras and health and safety tutorial to ensure that we know how to use all equipment correctly to prevent damage in any way. The equipment that we were taught about how to use were:
- Tripod
- Memory Card
- Battery
- Video Camera
- Video Drive

We learnt how to set up the Tripod correctly, making sure all legs on the tripod were the same length to make it sturdy so would not tip and damage the camera. We also learnt that its a very good way to use panning from different angles smoothly.

I also learnt how to use the video cameras that we would be operating when filming our Thriller opening. We learnt several things including where and how to place the two memory cards which will save all our footage and be what is used when transferring the footage onto the Macs, how to insert the battery, how to switch it on and off, record, play recorded clips and also things like changing the camera mode incase of a lot of sunlight and how to change from manual to automatic.

Each group has a video drive in which is used to save and access all of our filming, sounds or titles and work that we have done such as final cut pro, editing, soundtrack and livetype.

During the tutorial we were also taught that there are three basic rules to abide by the health and safty rules to make sure no damage occurs while using the equipment:
- If raining use an umbrella to protect the video camera by keeping it dry
- Do not touch the video camera lense as marks would be left which could effect quality of footage.
- When finished filming the lens should be closed.

Animatic Storyboard

PITCH

Here is Our pitch that we did through powerpoint. We showed it to our class and teacher and recieved positive feedback. One of the positive feedbacks that we recieved was that the idea of making it psychological which is interesting. They also liked the mise en scene of the setting and clothing that 'the girl' in our clip is going to wear.