Nakeem Carty

Exercise 1

1st Sound

The first soundtrack/song is interpreted as a sci-fi mixed with hip-hop. The tempo of the track is relatively fast paced, and the sound effects remind me of Alien vs. Predator. What I visualise when first hearing this song was a soundtrack from an sci-fi alien fighting game where you as the main character goes around destroying aliens that represent that of Alien vs. Predator.

2nd Sound

The second soundtrack/song is definitely different to the first. The type of feel to it is a mixture of a spy film and road trip. The sound goes from hitchhikers guide onwards to a mission impossible feel with the type of tempo depicted. It feels like the spy has completed his task in beating the bad guy and is on his way home or on vacation due to his great accomplishment.  

3rd Sound

The third soundtrack/song sounds middle eastern perhaps Egyptian or even Moroccan with the flute and chiming bell. The type of feeling its portraying is that of a journey into the desert, perhaps searching for something like treasure. The sound goes from calming to dramatic, as if the scene has changed from a journey into an obstacle in the characters’ path.

Exercise 2

In exercise 2 we were given words in sets of two where we wrote a third word that connects with the two words given.

“Excitement”, “Graveyard”, “Christmas”, “Marathon”, “Watch”, “Love”, “Birth”, “Happiness”, “Necklace”, “Constructed”, “Thor”, “Friends”

In this weeks workshop we focussed on compression and the variation between file format and video format. Compression is used to render original content such as videos with fewer bits in order to reduce the size of the video. There are two types of compression, loseless and lossy. Lossless compression uses the original video size whereas lossy compression reduces the bitrate of the video’s content to make the size smaller.

As for compression there are two different formats, video format and file format. File format is the container of the video and decides what types of video players are able to playing that video file. For example, .mp4 is a file format and can be viewed on video player such as Windows Live Player and QuickTime. Video format is the type of compression that will be used on the video, and decides the quality of the video and like video format, the type of video player capable of playing the video.

When it comes to compression of a video whether it’s an assignment, workshop or commercial use ensure that its compatible with all platforms. An example is .mov and .wmv file formatted video. Videos that are formatted in .mov is specifically catered to apple products and .wmv caters for window products. This means that both .mov and .wmv aren’t cross platform formats and can be a nuisance when showing your work.

For the workshop I was assigned to use five compression codecs onto the montage editing video done for Workshop 8 assignment. A loseless codec consisting of 10/10 quality and lossy codecs consisting of 1/10, 3/10, 5/10 and 7/10 quality.

Lossy Codec - 1/10 For the 1/10 quality version of the Montage Editing video I used a .mp4 file format with a H.264 codec video format. To decrease the quality of the video I reduced the bitrate down to 1,000 Kbps to demonstrate that as the bitrate reduced the quality did as well. As the kbps reduced the video then became pixelated.

Lossy Codec - 3/10 For the 1/10 quality version of the Montage Editing video I used the same file format and video format codec for the 1/10 version, but decreased the bitrate to 3,000 kbps. There was a significant change but was still slightly pixelated which wasn’t as noticeable as the 1/10 version.

Lossy Codec - 5/10 The same file format and video format codec was used for that of the 5/10 lossy version. The bitrate was reduced to 5,000 kbps and the size of the file went to 45.2 MB. The quality was better and had little trace of pixilation.

Lossy Codec - 7/10 The same file format and video format codec was used for 7/10 lossy version. The bit rate was reduced to 7,000 kbps and the file size went down to 62.4 MB. Compared to that of the 5/10 quality, it was barely noticeable that these were two different videos.

Metric Montage

Metric Montage is cuts scene at the beat. In Karate Kid 2, the scene cuts every few seconds when the fighter and his opponent lay a blow. The main focus is positioned back on the two fighters until a next punch/kick is thrown.

Rhythmic Montage

Rhythmic Montage revolves around the rhythm of the action in the shot. In horror films or military films this can be commonly seen. For example, in rhythm of soldiers marching through a town or battlefield can be seen in the likes of Hunger Games. Like metric montage that cuts on the beat of the scene, rhythmic cuts on the tempo of the marching soldiers.

Tonal Montage

Tonal Montage revolve around the tone of each shot, it uses emotional meaning. An example of would be a shot of a child sleeping calmly or the execution of a prisoner.

Over-Tonal Montage

Over-Tonal Montage is a combination of metric, rhythmic and tonal montages. Over-tonal montage uses pace, ideas and emotion to create an effect onto the audience. An example of over-tonal would be a woman taking a shower, cutting through shot from when she’s showering to the shower head then back to her and the rhythmic of the killer creeping towards the shower as he comes to kill her.

Intellectual Montage

In workshop 7, the main focus was montage editing. Montage Editing is a collection of scene layout out to portray a story to the audience. In montage editing there’s four types were discussed within the workshop, analytical, idea associative, comparison and collision montage.

Analytical Montage

Analytical Montage is where the audience analyses the scenes to determine the outcome of a next one. Analytical Montage consists of subdivision like Sequential, Cause to Effect Order, Sectional Order, etc. Sequential Montage is where the sequence of the film isn’t display on screen but is left for the audience to determine. For example, a boy riding a bike, then riding down a hill, then he falls down, and people surrounding him.

Idea Associative Montage

Idea Associative Montage is where two things that are contrast are combined to give off an idea to the audience. For example, in the idea associative montage the group film a shot of an actor lying on the ground and a car driving off. This gives up to the audience that the reason the guy is lying on the ground is because he was ran over by the car that’s driving off.

Comparison Montage

Comparison Montage is comparing two things. In the development of the film, we compared the likes of a good pianist to a novice pianist.

Collision Montage

Collision Montage is comparing two things but more to give off a meaning. For example, a person who loiters and someone that’s eco-friendly when throwing away rubbish.

Montage Editing

In workshop 6, the main focus was centred on continuity editing. Continuity editing is where scenes of a film or video are constructed in a manner where the transition in a scene is consistent and smooth.

Continuity editing is where film reality is replicated in order to match the audience’s reality. In continuity editing, the film is created to ensure that the audience is able to comprehend what’s happening on the screen.

In the workshop we looked at the different types of continuity editing such as, graphic continuity, rhythmic continuity, special continuity and temporal continuity. The different types are used for various mental maps seen by that of the audience. For example, rhythmic continuity focuses on the tempo or beat depicted in the film.

Graphic Continuity

Graphic continuity editing is a transition between two shots that have a similarity in one another. In the development of the video, we focused more on graphic continuity where the camera was position when the actor was walking down the steps to exit the building. This meant that the audience would understand that the even though the actor was walking down steps, the positioning of the camera varied upon the scenes.

Rhythmic Continuity

Rhythmic continuity editing focuses more on the beat or sound in combination to the scenes. For example, in a dramatic scene of an actor hiding in a closet to make the mood more intense it could focus on the heartbeat thumping as the actor waits until the coast is clear.

Spatial Continuity

Spatial continuity editing focuses more on space of different shots. Spatial continuity editing consist of 180-degree rule, the eyeliner match, shot reverse shot, etc. For example, the 180-degree rule is where there are two or three cameras positions at shoulder length of the two actors. The transition between the two cameras focuses on whoever is talking at the given point only displaying portion of their head and the person that the actor is talking too.

Continuity Editing Video

This week, we talked about sound frequency and recording techniques used for filming. The lab started off with the discussion of how much Hz (Hertz) the human ear can hear as they get older and did a test to see how much hertz members in the class can hear where I found out I am capable of hearing no less than 17,000 Hz.

As well as discussing sound frequency, we talked about different microphones used. In discussion we talked about various microphone such as omnidirectional microphone, unidirectional microphone, cardioid microphone and mini-cardioid microphone.  Each of these microphones are used for specific purposes such as the mini-cardioid microphone being used wide shots where it is hidden in plain sight from the camera and shotgun microphone is used for record from a direct angle of the person speaking.

Sound production was also another thing we worked on in this week’s workshop. We were assigned a tasked in which where we recorded noises, whether door opening or someone walking up the stairs, and uploaded those noises onto Logic Pro X and create a short audio file with loops and instruments. Throughout this process I meddled with different loops and adjusted the equaliser on the sounds recorded to create a short song file. To find the loops that suited the sounds recorded, I searched through the hundred of loops provided until I found some that suited the sounds.

Adjusting the sounds recorded with the loops in Logic Pro.

In week 4 of the workshop we discussed about storyboards and what they are used for. Storyboards are fundamental in developing films, as we watched the sci-fi film ‘Gravity’ we read through the script to visualise scenes from the film. After reading the script, we watch the clip from the movie to see how visualise conception is compared alongside the actual thing.

Through reading the script and watching the clip, we then created storyboards sketching out scenes from the movies as well as differentiation between camera positions. The storyboards, attached below, provide a visual of how from reading the script I understood what was going on throughout the scenes.

In this workshop we focussed on the importance of lighting in filming. We were assigned to a group of four to record a 10 second video showing how light could be used in filming.

For the 10 second video during the workshop the group consisted of Amy, Camilla, Laurent, Mohammed and myself. We decided to film a video in which we used the light to reflect shadow puppets attacking the main protagonist of the video. For this we used three dedolights alongside three gels that were placed unto the dedolights to change to glow of the lights.

Each member within the group was assigned tasked, Camilla dealt with the light, Amy did the hand manipulation to create shadow figures, Laurent was the actor, Mohammed was the camera man and myself was the director. Although the concept was a great idea at the end it when viewing the final work of the video the lighting was terribly off so we resorted in redoing another video.

1st Lighting Video

The second version of lighting consisted of a second idea which represented lighting, people gathered around a campfire. Since the first video had to be redone due to poor lighting techniques we resorted to a newer idea where we would manipulate the effect of lighting seen when people are gathered around a campfire.

For the second video we continued to use three dedolights and gels, 1 diffuse and 2 red gels, and also a reflector to bounce the light onto the three actors siding around the makeshift campfire. The concept of this video was the main character, Laurent, telling a terrible but somewhat scary story to two other characters, Amy and Camilla’s friend to whom I don’t know the name to. The camera man was Mohammed, lighting was done by Camilla, and I dealt with the reflector.

2nd Lighting Video

Mohammed, the camera man, in his element.

The actors on set, preparing for a tale from Laurent

Production Planning is important once the script, storyboard and promo video is done. Through Production Planning the director gets an understanding on what is important when before filming. Production Planning can help the production of a video save a lot of money as well as ensure that filming it goes smooth.

Production Planning can aid with scheduling various things needed to be done during filming. Shooting schedule focuses on location, types of shots, lighting, cast required for a particular scene, etc. The use of a Gantt chart is relatively helpful since it focuses on what is required to be done on a particular day. For example, in The Dark Knight Rises, where (Anne Hathaway) Catwoman is needed they schedule for her to be at the set whereas when Tom Hardy (Bane) is required on set he is scheduled.

For workshop 1, we talked about the fundamentals of cinematography such as the rules of thirds when it analysing your subject. As for the workshop we were assigned to talk pictures of what were thought represented compositions like line, shape, value, colour, texture, mass, space, time and motion.

Line

For the line concept, I decided to go along with the keys from a piano. The gap between each key consist of lines.

Shape

For the shape concept, the windows from the art centre represented the concept nicely. As you careful look at the windows they represent blocks from Tetris, one of my favourite video games as a kid.

Value

For the value concept, I figured what best way to represent this composition with a picture that I valued cause it was a photo I took on my trip back to homeland, St. Croix, U.S. Virgins Islands. The picture displays a balcony view of islands across the caribbean sea. This photo represents space concept as well, but I preferred to show a separate picture for that.

Colour

For the colour concept, I took a picture of a leaf on a concrete surface. Being that the leaf has an orangey colour and the concrete, being a flat colour, represents the factors of colour.

Texture

For the texture concept, a picture of the broken cracks within a concrete block was taken. Being that the concrete block is flat with the broken crack there it showed more detailed on how each crater is separated.

Mass/Volume

For the mass/volume concept, I used a picture I took in London of a building with fantastic architecture. The concept is represents by the height of view when looking up at the building as well as the amount of windows it had. The windows for the building like that art centre building in university were very creative which made it pretty good of a building to take a photo of.

Space

For the space concept, my interpretation of this composition was something thats either far out of reach or a panorama view of your surroundings, in which I chose something that would be further out of my reach which was the moon.

Time

Christmas is close and timers are up telling us how many days are left till countdown. For the time concept I took a picture of a sign found inside a shop that showed to countdown till with was time for Christmas.

Motion