Matthew Green

In this essay I will explore what is meant by the terms 'ISO' and 'Depth Of Field' In Media. 

ISO:

ISO is the camera's sensor sensitivity to light. The higher the ISO number on the camera means the more sensitive the sensor is. If the sensor is more sensitive to light it means the shot becomes lighter as more light is let into the camera and there will be camera noise in the shot. Whereas the lower the ISO number on the camera the less sensitive the sensor is to light, therefore allowing less light into the camera making the shot darker and a much less chance of noise being in the shot. So if you were in the dark then you would want the camera sensor to be more sensitive to light as you would want your shot to be lighter, however you wouldnt want to put the ISO above 800 as above that number you could start to have noise in the shot. However if you were filming outside in the sunlight you would want the camera sensor to be less sensitive to light so you would put the ISO down to 100. So less light would enter the camera.

Depth Of Field: 

In this essay I will compare and contrast the differences between the movies Raging Bull and Goodfellas. Both of these films were Directed by Martin Scorsese, However one film became a big  hit whereas the other film was a flop. 

Goodfellas is a mafia movie (although the word mafia is never used in the film) that follows the life of Henry Hill played by Ray Liotta as he climbs the ranks of organised crime that he is involved in. 

Raging Bull is a movie based around the life of Jake La Motta, a Famous Boxer in the 1940's. He is played by Robert De Niro. The film is all in black and white and focuses on the rage of Jake as it spills out of the boxing ring. 

Goodfellas did a lot better then Raging Bull In terms of ratings. I believe this was for a number of reasons. First Of All the main character of Goodfellas (Henry Hill) is more likeable then the main Character of Raging Bull (Jake La Motta). This is because of how the characters are portrayed throughout the movie. Notice the differences in the first scenes of both movies. In Goodfellas the first scene shows Henry Hill in background with two friends killing someone in the boot, notice how Henry Hill is not involving himself in the violence which makes the audience believe that Henry Hill is not a violent person which makes him more likeable to the audience. However notice how in Raging Bull the movie starts with the main character getting ready for a fight in black and white, which lets the audience not that Jake is fighter and could have violent tendencies. Also notice how the colour of the Raging Bull text is red, this stands out from the black and white and could be linked to blood which could make the audience more aware of Jake's Violent tendencies. Also the film 'Rocky' Came out not around the same time as Raging Bull and because rocky was a loveable boxer and I nice character, the audience may have expected Jake to be like that and this contrast between to the two characters could make the audience take a dislike to Jake more. 

Secondly in Goodfellas a lot of the colours are bright and vibrant which creates a nice/warm feeling for the audience and automatically makes them feel a good way about the film, notice the range of colours in the film even in the open sequence there is a red mist. However in Red Bull it is all in Black and White apart from some text which is in red this may make the audience feel sad and depressed and the occasional red text can insinuate the violence in the film. Also notice the different image system in both of the films. In Raging Bull there is in imagine system of Animals which starts from the beginning of the film. Notice how in the first shot Jake is seen in his monk-like hooded leopard-skin robe warming up in the ring surrounded by smoke. I believe the smoke represents the jungle and Jake represents the leopard. I think Michael Sorcesse did this because he wanted to let the audience know the characteristics of Jake were similar to a leopard in the jungle. This makes him look savage and violent to the audience before they get to know him so they would take a disliking to him in the first scene. Also notice how when Jake is fighting the audience are making animal noises this could represent the animals in a jungle and Jake could represent a predator killing his prey in front of the other animals. Michael Sorcesse could be doing this to make Jake seem more violent. However in Goodfellas the image system is completely different and is based around food. Food in goodfellas is used to bond with family members and the brotherhood, notice the scene with Henry Hill cooking in Jail food is used to bond with eachother. Food is used as a symbolic element in Goodfellas, which can insinuate many things. Vicki in Raging Bull is used as a status symbol by Jake and not respected she is also abused and she rarely talks, however in Goodfellas Henry Hills wife is respected and she talks a lot she is even a narrator in some parts of the story.

At the end of both of the films the tone is slightly changed. In goodfellas the tone is more darker and you can see that by the mood of the main character Henry he becomes more depressed and there is less food in the movie, also the colours start to become slightly darker which is different from the start of the movie where every colour is vibrant and bright. Also the very last scene in Goodfellas is in black and white which is the curtains. However in Raging Bull the whole movie had this tone and there is barely any difference.

In order to create a successful documentary edit there is many steps which you must take during the post production process. In this essay I will explain the post production process. 

Firstly, we have to decide how the documentary will be edited and in which style. In order to do this, research must be done into the documentaries storyline so you know how the story goes and in what order to edit the documentary, a lot of research may need to be done as you may need to incorporate archive footage (which is footage taken from another source) to make the storyline more effective. This research may involve speaking to producers, directors and other stakeholders involved in the production. It may also involve you doing research of your own and searching up on the topic so you have more knowledge of the topic. This will help you have an overall idea of how the documentary is meant to be and start planning it out carefully

Once all the footage is collected and research is done it is then time to organise the clips in order to start the edit. First the clips from the SD card need to be transferred to a file where all the clips can be stored on the PC, I normally use Capture Scratch as It is easy to remember where I put my clips and easily transcoded. Secondly the clips need to be  transcoded this takes quite long and varies when there is different amounts of clips. In order to do this a software called MPEG Streamclip is needed. When transcoding open the software and go to the top and it should say 'Batch List' , when this is clicked it gives you the option to transfer many clips at one time to the transcoder which is very useful when transcoding large number of clips. When transcoding the codec of the videos needs to be changed from H.264 to Apple Pro Res 422, codec contains the information for light and colours which makes up the overall video quality. When this is done the quality needs to be changed to 100% and frame rate needs to be 25fps and then click 'deinterlace' and the clips should start transcoding. Now a new project is ready to be opened in Final Cut Pro 1920x1080 25fps.

Now when the footage has transcoded, the edit is ready to be started all that needs to be done is the organisation of the footage, When organising the footage make sure each clip is renamed intelligently so that no time has to be wasted searching for clips. This is done by intricately going through each shot and rename it based on what is going on in the shot. Once this is done group the materials into bins based on what is going on in the shot and what type of shots it is. For example I used separate bins for the cut away shots in the documentary and the Interview shots in the documentary so it was organised better and easier for me to access the shots I wanted. 

It is now time to start editing the rough cut, The first thing that is needed is to sync the audio from the Boom Mic to the Interview shot. This process is quite easy and only takes around 15minutes. However the audio should be renamed aswell so it is easier to find them and link them up with the interview shot. To sync the audio you need to make sure that the voice coming straight from the camera and the voice from the advanced boom pole is synced together accurately. When this is done delete the camera audio and just leave the audio from the boom mic as it is much higher quality and will sound better in the documentary.

Once the interview shots are synced with the boom mic audio, the interview needs to be edited. This is so no parts of the interview is left in that will bore the audience or that is not revelant to the topic of the documentary. Also pauses in the speech of the interviewee should be taken out and any mistakes or speech from someone behind the camera, this will give the interview a more natural effect and make it like the interviewee is just talking and not being questioned. Once a part is needed to be taken out at the side there is a cut tool which can be used to cut out unwanted pieces of audio and video, this makes it much easier to organise your rough cut edit and make it look and sound more proffesional. 

Now that the interview shots are cut and synced well, it is now time to make the storyline interesting and build it up, this may involve using tension, suspense etc. and make sure that the audience are never bored by the documentary and always change the scene once in a while so it is not on the same shot for a long period of time. There are a number of ways to present your documentary but you need to choose the one which will suite the documentary's topic the most and which will make the storyline more engaging. Also there may be jump cuts after this is done which is jumps between the interview of a person which could look highly unproffesional so cut away shots are needed to cover them and are also needed to tell the story and keep the audience interested. When this is done the next step is to add music into the project this makes the storyline have more emotion, for example if there is a suspensefull moment in the documentary a track will need to be added which can accompany that. In order to add music you have to make the music file a wav and not an MP3 file this is because final cut pro does not recognise mp3 files. To do this a program called adobe audition is needed.

When all of this is done your rough cut is finished, when finished it is good to let people see your rough cut so you can get feedback from it and perhaps make it better, It is also good to meet with the stakeholders of the documentary project and let them see the rough cut to see if they would be happy with it. If they are happy with it then the final stage is adding colour correction.

The final stage is to add colour correction to the project, this is to make each shot look similar and have a better effect to them. For example each interview shot may be lighted different or may be different to the cut away shots this can be easily changed with magic bullet looks (the software used to change the colour correction).Once you find the right filter for your project or certain clips you can copy and paste them throughout the whole project which makes it easier then opening each shot and having to colour correct them seperately.

Once this is all completed you have finished your final edit and are now ready to export the file to be shared on youtube, vimeo etc. To do this the compression needs to be changed back from Apple Pro Res 422 to H.264 and the file needs to be 1920x1080p 25fps to make it the best quality it can be.

In this project we had to produce an up to 30 second advert, on a product that is not popular in the 21st century. We decided to do our advert about Rice Krispies as we felt that the advert for Rice Krispies was old and dated. So we felt that we should do a new advert for the product. While doing this advert we had to consider who was the target audience and how we were going to produce this advert in order to make it effective to the target audience and make them want to purchase the product. I was in a group with Herbert and Pawel, we decided to work together as we had never worked together and thought we would work together well.

While filming we had to make sure the kitchen room was free before so we could book out the equipment as we wanted to film the advert in a kitchen as we thought that this would give the advert a little more realistic. This meant we had to ask the Cooking Department when and If the Kitchen was free, when we asked the kitchen was only free on Tuesday which was not a college day so we had to go in to film on that day and also book the equipment. What went well with the filming is that we managed to get every shot we wanted to get, however what did not go well is that we had to film three separate times and we just managed to finish the project on time as we did not plan the shots well. We also had to organise filming with a green screen for one of the last shots.

While Editing our Advert we had to use Adobe After Effects because we used green screen for one of the shots, for this shot I put a freeze frame of the cereal in the bowl and Pawel dancing on top of it, This took around 2 days. However the whole editing process took about a week for me. What went well with the editing is that we managed to finish editing on time and managed to edit the green screen clips. What did not go well is that the edit for our advert was above 30 seconds, it was about 1 minute so we had to shorten it down and we could only manage to shorten it to 50 seconds to keep the storyline.

We faced some problems while doing the advert these were that ; The Advert's audio was recorded before the filming took place this meant that some of the shots looked out of sync with the audio. Also the finished advert was around 1 minute and the limit was meant to be half of that (30 Seconds) this meant we had to make our advert shorter. We overcame these problems by making the advert shorter while keeping the storyline in the advert.

 The pre-production paperwork was done quickly in our group, we split the paperwork out between us evenly so we each did the same amount, we managed to finish the paperwork in the first week so there was a whole team effort to finish the pre production. We had also planned out all our shooting days so we were prepared.The feedback from the audience was that the advert was funny but the clips were not in sync. Overall our advert was rated 6-10 by the audience.

DURATION

The duration of this video will be around 5 minutes long.

  AUDIENCE

This documentary is aimed at people who are interested in music and interested in what compels young people to start music and how it impacts on their life.

  FORMAT

High Definition (HD) 1920x1080p for the My Street documentary website or maybe even YouTube.

  RESUME

I believe people will watch this documentary as it will be different to other videos as it would not have any interview shots and would be mainly based on cut away shots depicting a storyline. So the audience will not be bored because of the same shots as they will be constantly changing all the time.

  Also the genre of music that the artist is doing is popular so it may be more interesting to people. This means a lot of our target audience may watch it and it will gain more views and better credibility.

  This documentary is about an artist from the suburbs and what music means to them and how it impacts on their lives. We will use a series of shots in many different locations showing the storyline of a journey either from London Bridge to the studio or from his home to the studio. We may also add in some of his music in the background.

    SUGGESTED ELEMENTS

1. We could start the video in the studio, the artist could be just starting to record a track, and then the video could end with him taking off his headphones.

2. We could add shots of the artist writing music and listening to music throughout the video.

3. We may add a letterbox effect to the video to make it look more a lot more cinematic, and therefore make it look more professional.

4. We could make sure that each shot has background blur and each shot which will make each shot look cinematic and therefore make the documentary look better overall.

  SHOOTING DAYS

We will be shooting on the following days;

Tuesday

Wednesday

Friday

Saturday//Sunday (Maybe)

  BUDGET

This documentary explores a top secret base in Nevada called Area 51. The documentary shows the conspiracies that are surrounding the base and shows some 'evidence' for these conspiracies. Throughout the documentary personal experiences of people who worked at the base and revelations from the government are used together, this makes the documentary seem more realistic and believable. They also use silhouetted interviews for the interview shots because access to the Nevada base has always been highly restricted and those who worked there were sworn not to speak of it. This showed that the identity's of these characters need to be hidden and this shows the audience that the people speaking out could be in real danger which makes the documentary more tense. During this essay I will explore the techniques used in the documentary and if they were effective and what mode I believe it conforms to. Also I will consider the issues the documentary makers had while filming this. 

This documentary uses archive footage of UFO's and aircraft to back up the claims of the characters who are speaking out., so we find the characters more believable and we see visually what they are talking about. In this documentary there is also a commentary over all the video, which makes it easy for the viewer to follow what is going on. The commentators voice also may suggest what the audience should think as it feeds the viewers all the information in the documentary. The documentary combines personal testimonies with recently declassified information, photos and video this makes the characters story's look more official as it is looks as if the government are providing evidence for the characters stories. Also notice how most of the characters interviews are silhouetted this makes the threat of the US Government seem more real and makes the documentary more tense. Also when the characters are talking about the scare tactics used by the US Army they use archive footage of helicopters and CIA cars to show the viewer how much the base is kept secret. Also the film crew managed to stay hidden from the US eye when they were filming the base this means they managed to get good shots of the base and few things were concealed/hidden from the camera crew.

I think these techniques are effective because the camera crew managed to get very close up shots of Area 51 (the closest shots ever) which gave us an insight into what goes on in the base. Also the mixture of actual government declassified information with personal statements made the documentary seem much more believable and realistic for the viewer. Also the audience may have felt on edge as all the interviews with veterans were silhouetted so the veterans were not in any danger which could have made the documentary much more tense.