12.12

Last week we worked quickly and really started to try to get things going so we didn't have to do too much over the holiday. Today we moved forward from what we had finished last class. We downloaded the clips and started to organize them onto the timeline and we even started cutting and doing some fine editing in terms of the sequence and how they were going to play out in order. We didn't have much difficulty or trouble downloding the files becuse we all knew how to do that. We really didn't need everyone doing something because we didn't have lot of files to download and we only needed one computer to lay out and get all the clips down on the entire timeline. Once we downloaded all the clips I started to cut out the specific parts we needed from those clips and dragged them down into the timeline in the correct order. After that I went in for some fine editing and I started separating those clips and adding new parts in between the original clips because we were aiming for a mashup effect. I thought it worked pretty well because the clips we found flowed pretty well together: the clip with the pranks was set in a grassy background, and the main clip was lso set in a grassy background so that worked well when fitted together. So far the film doesn't seem to be jumping around randomly, which is my main concern when cutting two different clips and putting them together. We alwys referred back to the main clip and used that as our base, like the basic storyline and I think having that worked to our advantage in structuring the whole story.

There was one chllenge we faced, which was the quality of the different video clips. Since they were all different, when we imported those files into Final Cut Pro, the result was that some of the clips were very pixelated while others looked quite good. This caused the entire sequence to be very unbalanced and look a little strange when we were playing it through because you notice the differences in quality immediately. We asked for help, and we managed to find a solution to the problem. The solution was that after importing all the clips we needed into Final Cut Pro and dragging what we needed onto the timeline, we should export the film, then open a new project and import that exported file. We have yet to do that because we said we would do it once we had done a little more editing (we also need to see if we might have to add some more clips), but hopefully that will balance out the video qualities of all the clips and turn it into one complete film.

"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." - All About Eve

8.12

Today we officially started the second unit on making the soundtrack for a chosen comic strip or animation. We broke into our groups and started brainstorming ideas for the visuals. There was lots of choices we could go with; taking pictures (stills) of people and turning that into an animation, drawing and turning that into animation, doing flash animation or taking a comic strip or cartoon and making our own soundtrack to that.

We wanted to make it easy for us to get the visuals, nothing too complicated because we were only focusing on the sound design after all. We wanted to be able to spend the most time on the sound design; but we also wanted something interesting for the visuals to be able to experiment with many sounds. We originally thought of doing a parody of a cartoon or a short video clip, but that was too broad. We narrowed our thoughts and started thinking of our favorite cartoons. I said Pink Panther, Marshall and Cara both said Tom and Jerry. I was fine with that because I love Tom and Jerry as well! We thought about taking clips or even sounds from different episodes and mash them up into one, creating a completely new story (this way we would have made it our own original idea). It would be like creating a remix with the cartoon, which is pretty neat. We also considered making stop-motion as I've always wanted to do something like that, but we couldn't think of any story that really intrigued any of us so we decided to stick with Tom and Jerry.

Our basic structure of the storyline is that in the beginning Tom and Jerry are friends, but in the middle something happens, there's a betrayal of some sort and the truce is broken. This way there are different dynamics, and we would also be able to add in clips of them 'pranking' each other which is the most fun to add sounds to and it also picks up the pace of the film making it more lively. We went on Youtube and started looking for clips that was of them being friends, but because of something unexpected they get mad at each other and are back to being enemies. We weren't really sure if we were going to add in another character, the bull dog, because he comes up in some of the episodes (in particular the one we found of Tom and Jerry establishing a truce) but we thought that if we added him in the film would get a little too complicated. He would have been quite random, because sometimes in the clips we want to use he doesn't appear. By the end of the class we were already going into the details and looking out for specifics, like Tom or Jerry's laughs, for us to add in as sound.

We worked quite efficiently and got a lot done in this class, so that's a good sign. I think it really helped that everybody contributed in the brainstorming and we all agreed with each other when someone thought of a good idea. I'm excited!

"Go ahead, make my day." - Sudden Impact

2.12

We finished watching Billy Elliot in class, continuing to pay attention to the sound design of the film, how it affects our emotions and especially the layering of different sounds, non-diagetic and diagetic.

There were a couple of things I noticed when I was watching the film. The first thing was when Billy and his dance teacher were dancing by themselves in that gym, the music was loud and funky and cheerful. It's very upbeat and it makes you feel like dancing as well, especially because at first all you hear is the tapping of the cymbals. The music is part of the soundtrack, and the film cuts from clips of Billy dancing to shots of what his family members are doing, with that funky music going on in the background. It makes you feel like Billy is completely oblivious to the other world and although those worlds exist parallel to each other, they're not really connected. Billy's family members can't understand his feelings and don't want to. The music goes on while they go on with their daily lives, so it's as if they're ignoring it.

Another thing I noticed is that there's a lot of moments where the music suddenly cuts off, and where it cuts off is usually when the music is the loudest or after reaching the climax. The piano starts, builds up, then when the door opens back at his house the music cuts off again. This reminds me again of the symbolism of jumping up against a wall; this wall of reality that he can't get out of, he cannot escape from. Every time the music cuts off is when he "comes back to reality", and the music in his fantasy world hits that wall and cuts off abruptly as the wall is hard and impenetrable. Another good example of that same symbolism is when his dance teacher is arguing with his brother in the house, he runs outside and the film shows him trying to jump up on the wall, trying to get out. Then he's stuck in between the two walls, like being stuck in a box; although he can see the way out, but he just can't reach it. He finally 'escapes', and the tapping sounds he makes with his shoes overlap with the music (diagetic and non-diagetic) and it's almost as if he's trying to let out all the frustration out through his dancing.

There's another moment in the film which I really liked; it's when he's dancing up the street and he keeps turning and turning and turning until he reaches the end. The important thing about this is that when you spin you have to focus on one point, so that when you spin around you won't lose balance. To me this was like he had what he wanted in mind, he had a dream of dancing, and the spinning symbolizes him trying not to lose sight of that in the face of everything. He really wants to achieve that dream, he really wants to hold onto it despite his circumstances. But at the end, he still hits the wall (that was at the end of the street), which again goes back to the symbolism of hitting against the wall of reality.

"There's no place like home." - The Wizard of Oz

24.11

Today we watched the last group's film. I really liked their documentary, about a domestic helper's dream in Hong Kong. I thought the quality of the film and especially the sound was very good compared to the others because there wasn't a lot of wind noise and it was balanced quite well. While watching the film I noticed they only interviewed one helper, and kept going back between that helper and the mom, showing both sides of the story and both opinions. I originally thought they could have interviewed more helpers, as their topic was about domestic helpers so they could have a gotten a range of interviews to get more information and thoughts from that side of the story. But I think in this case it was okay that only one helper was interviewed because the switching back and forth between the mom and helper, the way the footage was cut that way created really nice tension between the two. That pieced the film together and sort of weaved it along, because we can tell there's a whole other side to the story that someone is probably not telling the viewer directly, but that we can assume and guess.

The rest of the class was spent watching the movie Billy Elliot. The movie was directed by Stephen Daldry. It was later adapted into a musical and opened on Broadway in 2008. It was set during the 1984-1985 miners' strike which happened in the UK. The reason being that coal had been nationalized, and although some mines remained profitable, many mines ended up being shut down, resulting in tens of thousands of job losses. The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) called for a national strike. It greatly affected the coal industry in the UK at the time. This is the background for the movie. Billy is a young boy who loves to dance. Billy's dad and older brother Tony are both on strike, no money is coming in, so Billy's dad is very upset that he's wasting his money sending him to learn boxing while Billy is off somewhere else dancing.

While watching we had to pay attention to the sound design of the film. Sometimes it's hard to pick out the specifics because usually when you watch a movie you don't really pay attention to the sound. It comes very naturally and you expect it to be there; it plays a huge role in creating and stimulating emotions but you don't realize that. I have to focus and really try to notice the change in sound and the tone of the music. Sometimes it's easy to pick out the details such as the contrast between the music of the ballet and the noise from outside (workers on strike, protesting), which shows the two complete opposite worlds. One of childhood innocence, and the other of this hard-core reality. There was also the scene where Billy's dad is confronting Billy about the dancing. While this was happening there was no music, just the sound of their voices. This was to instill the sense of tension between the two people, especially with the invalid grandma sitting almost in the middle of them. But as soon as they get up from the table, the music starts and you notice the strong bass in the music to show the anger that's being let out and the frustration in the two people. I like the movie, but there's a lot of profanity and sometimes the accents make it really hard to understand!

"You're gonna need a bigger boat." - Jaws

22.11

Today we previewed the rest of the documentaries. I thought that I learned quite a lot from watching other groups documentaries because I could compare it to ours and see differences in where they did well and where we could have improved on. I thought having a good title sequence really set the mood and tone for the rest of the documentary and subsequently it really put the standard up high for the rest of the film. In particular Wilson's title sequence with the drop of water which really connected well with the topic of the film and I really liked that. I learned that it's really important to do research, because that really shows up in the film and it also makes the film a lot more knowledgeable, which is good if it's applicable to the topic.

Some criticism I had while I was watching our film was the shaky camera, the unfocused footage at some parts, the sound, sudden audio cuts and the entire length of the film. We went for the personal approach, adding the feel of us being a part of the film like a participatory documentary style. That's why a lot of the film is shot with us hand-holding the camera, instead of setting it up steady with a tripod. One of the reasons we did that because it was also very inconvenient for us to carry around the tripod everywhere in the school. Even so I still think we could have tried to make the camera more steady when we went around shooting because there's a really big difference between hand-held footage and footage shot with the tripod, creating a big contrast during the film, which sometimes affects the way the viewer sees the film. Because we used the school camera which doesn't give very good quality, which isn't a big deal, but when the footage is unfocused it ruins the overall effect of the film. We had a bit of trouble with focus when filming, because it was turned to manual focus and we weren't really sure how to work with that. We only realized that after we had shot some footage, which we couldn't go back and shoot again. But we can learn from that and next time improve :) All groups had the same problem with sound, the wind noise and it really bugged me when I was editing that I didn't know how to soften that noise and make the audio clearer. I think that would be a really useful technique to learn, whether it is something to do with the mic when we're out on the field shooting or afterwards during the editing process.

Another thing was the length of our film, which was pretty long. I think to cut that down we could have used some of the sound of the interview footage as voiceover for parts during the classes to make the footage less boring. An issue with that is the interview sounds have a lot of wind noise, so it would probably be very disruptive if we overlaid it over the footage of class time. We also wanted to have a bit of sound from the classes so if there was interviews at the same time there would be a lot going on, probably making it very confusing.

Nevertheless, I think we did pretty well :)

"May the force be with you." - Star Wars

16.11

Today was again focused on editing, finishing up on final touches and finally exporting it as we had to hand it in this class. It was quite an intense class because we had been a little behind schedule and we knew we had to finish by today so we all wanted to get it done and also do it well. There were a few things we needed to add in: the subtitles for the different classes/periods so that it would be clearer to the viewer what they were seeing, the opening credits, the ending credits and finally music. We also needed to add in audio and video transitions to make the whole film flow smoother, not with awkward fast cuts, jumping from one clip to another. There was also another thing I was concerned about which was the timing of the whole film; we were over by a few minutes so I wanted to see if there was anything we could cut out or make more concise, leave out anything unnecessary.

We started working on the audio and video transitions. I tried to pick simple effects, the ones as subtle as possible because we didn't want it to be very extravagant we just wanted a slight transition between say two interviews, and not for it to be very abrupt. This way the viewer has an easier time adjusting to the sound difference and it's also not so quick, so the viewer will understand everything easier.

While I was editing, cutting, Sophie and Bridgitte were looking for free music clips that we could put into our film as background music. We wanted something upbeat and happy because we thought that it would fit better, or create a positive atmosphere to our film, which was what we wanted. We found one clip from Royaltyfreemusic which was nice, but there wasn't anything else that we particularly liked so we decided to go elsewhere to look for the music. We didn't want one song to keep playing in the background on loop because we didn't want the music to distract the interviews so we chose to have a few clips of music for the beginning, the end and some parts in the middle where we could have done without the sound of the film.

There are many things that I still wanted to do when it was time for us to export. I think we could have spent more time looking for more music because there were still parts that I thought it would have sounded better with music for backup rather than the noise. I thought we could have spent a little more time on the opening and ending credits; we wanted to have a split screen effect in the ending credits where we showed a picture of both schools side by side with the credits rolling. If we had more time I think we could have tried to make that work but since it was too rushed we decided to just leave it simple, leave it be. But on the other hand, I think we did a pretty good job despite the many drawbacks, complications and challenges. I personally thought it was quite an interesting experience.

"We rob banks." - Bonnie and Clyde

8.11

During this class, some people were chosen to do their film documentary presentations in front of Ms.Rosati and others just continued with the editing of the film. We started to really get down to business and write down a plan, a general outline for our documentary. We had to keep asking ourselves the question, what are we trying to show? What is this going to tell people; what is the answer to our guiding question, what do we want to prove with this footage? I personally found it quite hard, because it's not like writing a story where you are in full control of the different way the story twists and turns, and the message is clear in your mind. You're the one telling the story and the message can become very explicit. It's a lot easier to make the reader understand the message, compared to trying to make a viewer come up with a conclusion on their own (with our documentary). I think our topic is also quite hard, there can be many ways to go about putting it together.

First we all agreed that we should put the footage together in the way that is like showing "a day in the life of a student in HKIS" compared to "a day in the life of a student in CIS". Since we filmed the same classes from both schools to make proper comparisons, we thought we would put the footage side by side, in order of each of the classes. This way the comparisons are clearer, which is what we want to show. To break up the pure footage, we would add bits of interviews to further explain what we're trying to show, to give us examples of the comparisons and further emphasize them. This is only a general outline so I didn't put the specifics of the interviews, I only wrote what I thought should be appropriate at that part and what I think should be there in order to make a balance between footage and interviews. I think to really put everything together we need to re-watch all the footage and really capture the things that relates closely, and the things people say that we can put into our documentary.

By the end of the lesson we managed to finish the outline and now I have a better idea of what our documentary is going to turn out like. For next lesson I think that we really need to manage our time better, come during lunch and break and maybe after school to really get the job done. There are many other aspects we have to work on as well, such as the title sequence which I worked on a bit last class and also the music/sound effects we might like to put in. But the important thing is to really get the footage in order and cut up properly, because then we'll have an idea of what sound effects would work well where and where we should put some music to liven up the mood or to create the mood/atmosphere. They're all very co-related, so that's why the different teams of putting together a film have to work together really well. I think that's very important in many things, such as putting together a music production, or a play.

"I'll be back." - The Terminator

4.11

We had to leave class early so we weren't able to get much editing done but because of that we worked efficiently and tried to get as much work done as possible. We started editing, taking the footage we actually needed from all our videos. I learned that this is called the assembly stage of editing, getting a rough outline of how the end film is going to turn out like. What we should always remember during editing is whenever you know there's a space between clips where we still need to fill in with some footage we don't have yet, we need to put a slug there. I learned this last year but I had forgotten. I think this is so you don't forget the order and timing of the outline of the film, and also so you have something there that you can replace later instead of just a space.

I think that before next lesson what we need to do is really sit down and think about what we want to show with our footage. We need to really plan out the content rather than actual footage. We have a lot of footage, we have a lot of material we could use but I think the important thing to always keep in mind is that your telling a story or giving a message, and that needs to be shown through the footage. We can't just put in some random footage and expect people to figure out what everything means. I think right now if we just started editing the footage, our end result wouldn't look bad, but after watching it people will turn around and ask us, "so what was the point of that?" I don't think that's the point of this unit. We did change our topic question slightly to adapt to the filming difficulties and the situation with getting permission so our ideas have probably changed from what we originally planned. This is again why we need to really think about the whole point of our film. That was the most challenging part of the lesson. It's a little like starting all over again from the beginning, going back to the plan stage, but I think once we get the outline of what we want to show with our footage everything will come together a lot smoother and a lot easier.

During the lesson, while my other group members were editing, I was experimenting with the different title templates. I was trying to find the best template, trying out the different effects, experimenting with the sizes and the timing and the positioning on the screen. At the same time I was also trying to think of a suitable name/title for our documentary. All of this made me realize again how much thought goes into every aspect of making a film. We can't take making the title scene or thinking of the film name lightly, because that's what see first when watching the film. The title has to grab our attention, and also if the director is clever, has special meaning to do with the film. But at the same time the title scene has to be incorporated well with the rest of the film. Sometimes it's a black screen with the title, sometimes the title is text on top of some footage. I guess the way you introduce the film is also like the introduction part to an essay, so it's pretty important as well.

"Round up the usual suspects." - Casablanca

27.10

Today we used most of the time to capture all the footage we took during mid-term onto Final Cut Pro. During class time we also did more filming; we filmed an interview with Isabelle, who's coming back from boarding school in England to visit. We thought it would be interesting to get an interview with her because her school uses an English system like we do, but the two systems are different. GCSE and IB/MYP are both English systems but they offer different approaches to learning. From that you can also see a contrast between systems internationally, as with the American system it's pretty much the same in schools everywhere. Other groups also took this time to do some interviews with the people in our class, so the time was used very effectively.

We're still going through the process of making the documentary. I can kind of understand why people say a documentary is born in the editing room because today gave us a chance to look back on our footage while capturing, and see what was missing, what was good/bad about what we've got and how we should go about shooting the rest of the footage we need. It's like reflecting, while actually looking at the hard evidence. Although, we got into a bit of trouble when capturing the footage. What happened was that the group who used the tape before us, they filmed with 16 bit sound and we filmed with 12 bit sound. The two sound settings don't work together so we kept seeing a "wrong tape format" appear on the camera screen. That worried us but we realized that as the tape kept playing it would all be fine; we just had to fast forward the parts where our footage and theirs overlapped. That meant we lost some of our footage, but we were open-minded about the situation and we figured we could use other parts instead to make up for it. We realized that these things happen and we can't do much so we just have to use what we've got; I don't think the parts we missed were that important and we got most of the rest anyway so that was good. I'm just really happy that we didn't lose all of our footage like what happened to my group last year, that would've really sucked as we worked so hard to get permission and spent so much time getting the footage.

Another thing that got us a little scared was that when we were capturing, our footage on the computer looked very pixelated and the lighting was really bad, but when we looked at the clip playing on the camera it looked really good and it also wasn't that shaky. We really want our film to turn out as we want it to look like, so we were scared we might have to re-film as we couldn't have most of our film in darkness. But in the end when we finished capturing at watched the captured clips, it turned out a lot better than we expected so we were quite relieved in the end.

Next on the agenda is still to film, get more footage and more interviews. We also need to edit the clips we have already to slowly get our final film into shape. I'm really excited to see how it turns out, but I'm also hoping our footage will be able to reflect what we want to show especially in regards to our question. I think the most challenging thing will be to find a way to cut down our clips, incorporating the key parts to really bring out what we want to say.

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." - Gone With the Wind

4.10

Today was sort of a re-cap session on what we did last class (when I wasn't here) and also on the progress of our pre-production for the documentaries. We're going pretty smoothly, apart from the aspect of permission. We've gotten permission from one school, got declined by another school so now we're just waiting on one (or two) more. I was surprised that we got declined because I thought that schools would usually welcome opportunities to show their school working together with other schools. I guess they didn't think it was a good idea. But I think this is good, going through this whole process and experiencing the ups and downs because in the real world there aren't any guarantees.

Thing's aren't always go the way you planned and we just have to figure out ways to move around our setbacks, make new plans or revise old plans. I think the good thing was that we were prepared for any situation, although we are still new at this and there are a lot of things we still need to learn. I'm not panicking yet, so it's still okay!

Ms.Rosati set up the camera and the sound system for us to show us how to do an interview. This is different from last year in that last year when we used the microphones, we didn't put headphones on to check if the sound was good or okay or not working out. We didn't know that last year, but this year hopefully the sound will turn out better, especially because our unit focuses on sound. I learned that when filming an interview, the interviewee looks to the left or to the right or slightly off to the distance of the camera, never directly to the camera. They should always have a focal point to where they look at. For some weird reason I had this notion that the camera person was the one to give the questions. Perhaps that's because sometimes when you watch interviews, they don't show the interviewer, or you don't even hear the question, all you see is the interviewee

answering. Now I know that that's not the case :)

Another thing I learned (from the make-up session our group had because we missed last class) is that you should always angle the camera slightly above the person's head. Not too much higher, just a little bit. This is to create a more flattering image of the person. I think that it isn't good to position the camera level with the person because to me, it seems a little overwhelming and up in people's faces, especially with a close up.

"Love means never having to say you're sorry." - Love Story

26.9

In class we continued our pre-production stage of the documentary. Pre-production means all the work to be done (planning) before turning on the camera, before shooting. We mainly focused on working together to produce a letter/email that we will send to the principals or heads of the schools we want to film at. This is really important because before we can really move forward with our plans we need to get permission; this is also a huge part of filming documentaries, as you're filming true events or real life, so you have to respect people's privacy rights.

There's so much work to be done during the pre-production stage of filming any movie, although with a documentary the different aspects of planning are slightly different to a feature film. For example documentaries don't need to go through the casting process of picking actors for specific roles, but they could consider possible interviewees and select the most "suitable" one. We don't need to draw out a storyboard because we're not exactly manipulating each shot, but we can use visual references to give an example of what we're hoping or trying to make it look like. The shot list is extremely important, for almost any type of film. I don't think it would be as detailed as a feature film's shot list because with a feature film each action each movement each spoken word is planned out so the directors would know exactly what each shot should look like.

An interesting thing I learned during class was that location scouting is really important, probably just as important as the actors because the place has to match with the story to make it believable, as well as to establish the mood. Location scouting is actually a real profession, and apparently people get paid lots of money to find good places.

What we still have to do is to make a shot list, get background information on school and students, get permission from the interviewees and set up time/location for interviews and think about making a visual reference (sort of like a storyboard type thing). There's a lot so I think we need to think about picking up the pace to finish the pre-production stage so we can start filming. It's good that we can allocate tasks between the three people so that each person has a responsibility to fulfill to get the whole job done. What we're kind of scared about is what if the principals don't let us come to their school as we feel it's a little awkward, but that would just mess up our whole plan. So fingers crossed!

"Fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night." - All About Eve

20.9

In this class we brainstormed about our documentary: the pre-production process/planning. We wanted to film our documentary on the topic of local schools and international schools; differences, similarities and student's own perceptions/thoughts/experiences.

FOCUS QUESTION: What are the similarities between local schools and international schools? (Including school life and after school life e.g. after school activities, homework hours)

We want to to shoot at different schools to compare them with each other. We're comparing school environment and students lifestyles. We would also like to see if we can follow one specific student from each school to film their after school activities, as co-curricular activities such as tutoring or sport teams are a big part of secondary school.

POSSIBLE SCHOOLS TO FILM:
(One person from each school)
HKIS
CIS
St Stephens
Chekiang school
(GSIS)
(FIS)
St. Pauls
Sacred heart

Because we want to film school environment during school hours, maybe film how a class is taught or how a class goes in different schools, we need to ask permission from the school beforehand. We might have to look at changing our focus question slightly in case it would sound offensive to anyone, but when we were brainstorming it was quite challenging for us to do that, so we might need a little more thought put into our question.

List of possible interviewees:
Jamie Yeung
Samantha Cheng
Boris But
Parents of Jamie Yeung
Teachers (yang lao shi)
Kenny Liu
Alison (Jamies friends/contacts)
LMY

We need to find more possible local students to interview or follow because we have many connections in international schools, but not so much in local schools. The documentary would look biased if we focused too much on international schools, and it wouldn't really help with the leading question as we wouldn't have much to compare with.

Possible Questions:
(students)
1. How many after school activities do you do a week?
2. How long do you spend doing homework?
3. Do you have tutors/tutoring centers (for what subjects)?
4. How long are your school hours (start time and end time)?
5. What subjects do you take and what are your favorites?
6. How long are your classes for?
7. How do you get to school, when do you get to school(footage as well)?
8. What time do you go to bed/wake up?
9. Which is your preference?
(teachers/parents)
9. What are your perceptions of local vs international schools?
10. Why did you choose to teach at an international/local school?
11. Why did you choose to send your kids to the school they are attending?
12. Which is your preference?

We didn't want our documentary to be solely based on interviews because that would make it very boring, just listening to people talk. So we tried focusing our interview questions mostly on personal experiences/thoughts, things that we couldn't show using footage that wasn't part of an interview.

What we are going to film (footage):

How different students get to school

Film school life (classes/surroundings/break times)

After school life (activities and transportation)

When we are filming (schedule):

Mid-term break
Weekends
Class time (during school)
Before school
After school

"What we've got here is a failure to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke

16.9

Today we officially started on the new, or rather our first, unit: documentaries.

There are three major types of film making: documentary - non-fiction, about true events, depicting 'real' people; narrative - fictional; and experimental - uses only highly stylized images and sound to create a visual landscape, often has no clear story, manipulates reality. I've never heard of something called experimental films before and it seemed very abstract, because it seemed to have little meaning to it other than to create stylized images. It started from the avant-garde movement in Europe during the 1920's. It aimed to push the boundaries of what was considered the normal, or the status quo. I don't think there are much proper or professional experimental films because most of the time when a film is made, a story is told or an opinion is given or a message is given across. People want to make it just a little bit realistic, even if it's a narrative, so that the audience or the viewers can feel more connected to it.

We looked at two documentaries; Bowling for Columbine, directed by Michael Moore and No Direction Home, directed by Martin Scorsese. Bowling for Columbine is about the 1999 Columbine shooting, and it poses the leading question of how and why did this event happen. No Direction Home is a biopic about musician Bob Dylan, and I think the leading question of this film would be "What was his impact on 20th century American pop music and pop culture?". Bowling for Columbine was praised for talking about an issue that was slighted by the mainstream media at the time. I think what Marilyn Manson said in the interview in the documentary, about how instead of talking about gun control and violence in our country, instead of focusing on how the President is sending bombs overseas, we should focus on these boys, this kind of relates to that idea.

I think it's really nice how we are constantly learning new things and gaining new insights to things we had thought about one way before, and now think about it another way, from another perspective. I used to think documentaries weren't as interesting as narrative films, because well, who doesn't love fictional storytelling? I think that by really understanding how documentaries work, learning about them, watching documentaries and sort of analyzing them, there's a whole new world to them. Although documentaries depict real events and 'real' people, there are still many careful considerations gone into the editing and compilation of the clips, as it is still a film meant for the viewers. Just like in No Direction Home, when the first section of the opening part transitions into the second, it's very abrupt. It's a sudden transition from dark to light, a noisy environment to a silent one, from a hand-held camera like quality to a still image. That was done deliberately, possibly to convey innocence, purity, starting fresh or "going back to the beginning of the story" in a sense, because the film is showing clips of the past.

"You can't handle the truth!" - A Few Good Men

8.9

In this class we watched all of our films and talked about what was good and what needed improving. There were a few things that were important that we needed to know. In a long shot we have to show the full body, including feet. It's not a proper long shot if it only goes up to the knees or a 3/4 length. Those shots aren't good because they're neither nor, they're in between. We needed to make sure the camera was focused when shooting, and also to adjust the camera height when doing close ups of people to suit their heights. We are allowed to cheat the geography, to suit our shots, because the audience isn't there, they only know what we show them. It was important that we didn't break the fourth wall - look at the camera when acting, because that is interacting with the audience and it becomes distracting.

I learned about the observational and subjective nature of the camera, how sometimes directors can choose to make it cold and passive and just there, or to have an opinion on/about the scene.

The really important thing we had to remember was the 180 degree rule. Breaking that is called crossing the line, which some directors choose to do to create a certain effect but generally it's not a good idea because it changes people's conception of things in the film. I hadn't really thought much about the rule while we were filming so I wasn't sure if we had broken the rule in our film but I'm glad we didn't, as I learned it last year, so I should know.

Another important thing we needed to remember was the continuity of acting and also the continuity of the background. I learned that because you can cheat the geography to your advantage, you can shoot the scene from same place even when changing the angle, because the audience doesn't know any better. We should do this because we need to keep the continuity of the background so there won't be any sudden changes in lighting or color when we switch the angles, especially if in a real film when they shoot on different days, the weather conditions might be different so it could be really obvious that the scenes don't line up. It's extremely important to stay in character for exactly the same reason. So as I said before, I have a renewed appreciation for actors and directors, to be able to recreate certain scenes exactly as shot before on different days and to get into the same emotional state every single time. That takes quite a lot of dedication.

"Houston, we have a problem." - Apollo 13

Film Poster

Experimented with two different styles. I really like both of them because the first one has good imagery and the black is powerful, and the second one conveys the message and gives indications as to what the film is about. I liked the effects of the small photographs in the second one as well.

6.9

Today we finished the last part of our challenge shoot: editing and exporting. It wasn't anything fancy, we weren't able to do a lot of extra things to add "flair" to our film, but we edited our clips in a way that everything fit together quite nicely and we completed what we were supposed to. I had used Final Cut Pro last year so I knew sort of how to use the program, but I did learn something new today. I learned that we should always cut out the part we want from our footage to put into the timeline first, instead of putting the entire clip onto the timeline. That way it's much more organized and clean, and I realized it also saves a lot of time. It's easy to do this when you only have one clip, maybe it won't be as easy when you have several and you need to keep going through back and forth to get the little sections you want. We should also always remember to keep things in sequence whenever it's being put onto the timeline. It's always a great hassle to try and put things in order when you just dump everything onto the timeline. Now I know better! :)

I'm pretty proud of what we accomplished. There was one part in our film where we took the same shot from two different angles, of Bridgitte saying her line. We decided to cut both of those sections in half so that the first part of her saying her line was shot in an over the shoulder shot, her back facing the camera, and the next part cut straight into a medium close up of her finishing the line. We edited it so that those two parts flowed straight into each other very smoothly and that was really nice. The last thing we did was to put in the title. We wanted something creative, and Robert came up with this idea of "BAR Productions" because that was the combination of the first letters of each of our names. We got the idea to put that in from the movies where in the beginning they show the production company's name, "presents...". I thought that was a pretty interesting twist to our simple short film.

"Elementary, my dear Watson." - The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

31.8

In this class we had a challenge shoot. We had to shoot from four different angles of a scene with two people talking to each other about copying. It was a race against the clock to see if we were able to finish shooting everything, and then come back to capture the video onto the computer and then edit the film in time. We didn't get to edit our film in the end because there were many things we needed to know about Final Cut Pro in order to edit successfully but everyone managed to finish filming in time. I was worried we wouldn't be able to make it because last year when we were filming we took a long time. It could have been because we weren't as focused or we just didn't have exact guidelines to shoot from so we kept making changes. This time my group and I were very organized and focused. I think having the perimeters of the shoot set was extremely helpful, for the first shoot at least. I also felt more professional and I felt that it just looked clean, not like last year when we weren't really sure what to do and just based everything on instinct.

I also think that I gained a deeper insight to the movie world during this shoot. It was really funny when we were watching the playback, to see the mistakes we made either because we forgot our lines or we messed up because we started laughing. I can imagine this is what real actors do sometimes, and I know that it takes a lot of takes to get just one short scene perfect. I also learned that directors shoot the same scene over and over again from many different angles so that they can cut it to create different effects. I never really understood how they did that in movies; I always thought there was multiple cameras in different positions and they got the footage like that. I have a bigger appreciation for actors as well now, because just think how many times they have to act a scene to suit the directors, and be able to get their lines and their expressions just right.

I think that next time we could be more aware of lighting and sound. We could have chosen somewhere more quiet or somewhere with less background noise so that the audio can be clearer. I don't think it was affected that much because we didn't shoot in the area where it was loudest, as we made the mistake of doing last year, but I think there could have been better areas to shoot in. The lighting could also have been improved a little bit because when we were playing back I thought we could have shot on the other side of the Quiet Zone as we wouldn't have been in the shadows there; but the lighting wasn't too bad. There were many times where we had to stop and adjust our positions because the camera lenses couldn't get in our faces, and also when it was a close up/medium close up and we had to zoom in enough to get it to that kind of shot. I had a lot of fun shooting and I'm really glad I'm learning more and more about how to film, and especially what I should or shouldn't do in order to get it right.

"I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too!" - The Wizard of Oz

29.8

Today in class we listened to two presentations of our classmates chosen clip. The first one was on a movie called Big Fish, directed by Tim Burton.

It's a family movie, or rather a movie she would watch with her family. The genre of the film is fantasy because of perhaps the supernatural element to the story. I learned that there was a skeleton shown in the water as the narrator was talking about death, and that's called foreshadowing. Foreshadowing is used to hint or clue in the audience as to what might/will happen later. I think this is a good technique used quite often in movies or books because it adds to the mystery and suspense and it makes the audience wonder. It also grabs at the audiences attention so the audience will want to stay and find out what happens, although sometimes the foreshadowing can be quite subtle. Just like the skeleton in the opening scene of Big Fish, it wasn't very clear as to leave a huge impression on the audience; it was subliminal.

I've never seen the movie and I've never even heard of the movie before today, but through the presentation and the opening clip I find it intriguing, the mystery element has been portrayed very well, especially because there isn't much we see in the opening. The bits of information we are given is by the short narration, building suspense and wonder, and also what we see under water. The choice of camera angles is also important; to show the point of view, to give away information or to present a scene in a certain way.

The second presentation was on Inception directed by Christopher Nolan. It was the scene where we see the most important on of Dom's memories. It's an intense scene. The music and sound effects of the scene is particularly good. The music producer of the film is Hans Zimmer, a very famous music producer. He composed music for The Lion King, The Dark Knight and many more. He is also the head of film music division at DreamWorks studios. I think it's great that he knows how to play the piano and the guitar and other instruments because that gives him a deeper level of understanding and appreciation of the music with first-hand experience, and he would also know how the instrument works. He could use that to his advantage when producing film scores. I also learned a very important fact, which is that it's what you don't see that makes you the most nervous and scared. I guess it's that uncertainty in the face of the unknown that scares us.

"Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." - Casablanca

23.8

In the first class, we mainly focused on introducing ourselves and learning about the topic for this semester in film. Last year we learned about the cinematography of films. This year we'll be learning about the sound design of films. I'm excited to learn more about that because I think that the sound is also another really important part of a film; to bring out the right atmosphere in a certain scene or to give a sort of "heads-up" to what might happen next like building up anticipation. It could also mean something particular, like give the audience a hint about the movie. Such as in the opening scene of the movie Wall-E, the song played was happy and cheerful although we could obviously see the setting of the film wasn't exactly a nice place to be in. That created contrast, but also told us that maybe the movie would have a happy ending. I learnt last year the importance of cinematography, especially good cinematography, because film is first and foremost a visual media. But I just don't think a scary movie would be scary without those sound effects, both diagetic and non-diagetic. Just like when you watch a film without the sound; it doesn't feel the same even if you can tell if it's an intense scene or something scary might pop out at any second.

Towards the end of the class we had to choose a clip from a film to analyze/talk about. I chose the film The Matrix, directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski . I really liked the film, mostly because I really liked the topics that they talked about. I also thought it was similar to Inception, another great movie. The scene I picked was near the ending, where Neo was starting to really believe and trust himself.

The beginning starts off with Morpheus saying, "He's beginning to believe." Neo doesn't run, he decides to face the agent. There's a medium close up of the agents fist curling, ready for the challenge. There's some non-diagetic sounds in the background as a few pieces of papers float to the ground. You can hear the sound of the paper crinkling in the wind, emphasizing the tension of the moment. Neo's fist closes, and suddenly the action begins. Immediately you hear that typical "action sequence music" and it throws you right into that fast pace, like your heart is races with each beat of the music. Neo and the agent grab each other, suspended in mid-air. You can see the almost invisible paths of the bullets in the air, giving you a sense of how fast they're moving and also to again show how you can manipulate time and space within the Matrix. We see the bullets fly past, whiz past, but again we can see them clearly. The music played when they were running towards each other really fits with the action because it's fast, seems like it keeps going "up" in a sense that notes keep climbing up, building up the tension and the atmosphere. Once they crash into the ground and point the guns at each other the music comes to a stop, as if finalizing something. When they're both on the ground, it's like they're equals. He's not inferior anymore because he understands and he believes. He's making his own stand now.

Then when the agent takes off his dark glasses, that motion sort of says, "Oh it's really on now. You haven't seen anything yet." He's really set his mind to kill Neo now, but on the other hand taking off the glasses was a sign of weakness because now he has nothing to hide. Now he can't hide anything. Also it's like he's admitting they're on the same level now. The music gets louder and more 'intense' as they continue fighting. The lighting of the scene isn't that bright, there's the dim yellow glow of the subway lights and the lighting on the wall of the tracks. Only in close ups of their faces can you see their expressions and the determination, but from the music the atmosphere is retained.

I particularly like the ending, where Neo gets thrown onto the subway tracks. Shot from a low-angle, half of the shot is in darkness except for the part of the platform. The darkness sort of signifies a 'doom impending' scene. The agent appears in that bit of light, and we see him towering over, as if he's in complete control again. He's the superior now. He jumps down and tries to strangle Neo, like giving his opponent one last taunt. Close-up on his face. He has that look of hatred with his eyebrows curved downwards, but his voice seems so slow and calm. Perhaps even a bit cheerful. You can barely detect that hint of menace. The contrast further gives an indication of the fact that he's only a machine or a robot. The final bit where the train comes, he knows it's inevitability, but he's going to change that. He knows he has the power to change it. He's not going to let them get to him again.

I really like the sound sequence in this clip.

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers." - A Streetcar Named Desire