#timcubitt

Cameras and Audio

There are two types of aspect ratios which include tape, SD and SDD cards. The two ratios are: 4:3 and 16:9. These are the main two which are used in televisions and film industry mainly 4:3 was used before HD cameras came out on the market is basically a square frame size and if you would play it on HD screen now, it wouldn’t cover the whole screen the would be black spaces on both sides. 16:9 is more stretched out so you can watch something and see more around the object and understand the scene in more detail also 16:9 is HD Standard for example YouTube uses 16:9 aspect ratio because if you would upload 4:3 footage that you have filmed and edited then it wouldn’t cover the whole screen on YouTube as its not HD footage and the quality is not great either. Is similar like compering VGA cable and HDMI you will see a big difference such as the sharpness, colour temperature and the detail. 4:3 uses anamorphic pixels and the frame size as 720x576 and 16:9 uses 1280x720 which is 720p HD standard but you can also have 1080p which the frame size is 1920x1080 which most of the films used before higher format came out than HD.

The only Audio cables that I personally know about and have used is 3.5 jack cable which mainly comes on all devices that are on the market right now and also XLR cable which is mainly used in the filming and studio recording industry is 3 times thicker than 3.5 jack and is more heavy duty and professional standard they also can be used to control stage lights to set the right voltage and dim the lights. With XLR cable you can have from 3 pins even up to 7 but I only used 3 pins which connect to the Zoom4 which records the sound onto a SD card which then can be transferred onto a Mac or Pc and added to your editing software to create a film or whatever you are making. But before you can record anything you need a microphone and not a cheap 20 pound microphone it needs to be professional so the audio is clear without any distortions so once you have connected the microphone Rode NTG2 or you could use Radio Microphones such as Sennheiser that clip on to the person that is been interviewed but they are really sensitive and can be only used in indoor because if there is wind near the microphone it will ruin the interview or whatever you are recording.  Once you have the microphone ready you can clip on the XLR cable but with the Radio microphone you will have an adapter that will go into the XLR and you will have two little boxes one is a Transformer and one is a Receiver but once everything is turned on a connected in to the Zoom4 you’re ready to go.

Zoom 4 is more newer and records Stereo channel but I did use the Zoom2 I think and it did record Mono Which is just one channel rather than two but is alright because you can sort that out in the editing software by duplicating the channel and then you will have Stereo which means Stereo in on two speakers and Mono is only one speaker on its own. Once you record the Sound on the Zoom you need to watch out that the audio doesn’t go over -6 just stays at this level because if it does then is too loud for the Microphone and the sound will be distorted and if it is too low under the -6 it will be to quiet you can adjust it on the editing software is well but you prefer to record the Sound properly on the Zoom and save some time in the Editing software.

There are different video formats the two common ones that I used are QuickTime and MP4/H.264, QuickTime is mainly the format that the Canon and Nikon Cameras use if you were filming then you convert the file format once you want to edit into the format that they software uses. Hard drives are very useful if you are moving or backing up files from one computer to the another also one thing you need to remember is if you have a Mac and you would like to use the same drive on a PC then it will not work same if you would have a PC hard drive but if you have a memory stick then you can move the files between the two computers without any trouble just make sure you have the right amount of memory to move a big size file.

Camera for a specific location

Well depends what camera you are using but most of them have the same principle when you adjust them so what you want to do is set the white balance so for example you are filming on a sunny day around 2 o’clock but there is shade under a tree and the shot is little bit dark so first thing I would do is go on white balance and chose either outdoor light blue or indoor light-green but if the light is fluorescent then is white scene, basically sets all the colours in the room temperature .Then look at exposure which make the image lighter or darker if the shot is too dark go up try not to go too bright, Iso is the sensor applying the light that is going into the camera and it should be always left on 400 you can go more if it’s dark but the recommended is 400.  Shutter speed should be set at 30 which how much light is hitting the film. Overall make sure you set the right frame size for the camera which would be 1920x1080 and 25 frames per second.

Lenses is one of the major parts that you need on the camera the stock lens is mainly 18-55mm which has a shallow close of field, there are many out the such as 50mm which is a wide, 100 mm Macro lens these are the 3 that I have worked with and my favourite one is the 50mm the image quality on it is perfect. Depth of focus is what’s in focus and what’s not in focus, Wide depth of field is basically everything in focus, Bokeh is everything that is out of focus but the subject is in focus. Focal Length of your lenses, the furtherer the Iris the shallow depth of field will be. The higher mm lenses the wider shallow depth of field.

Vision mixing is a board with buttons layered out 1,2,3,4 each button is for different camera you see when you are watching the live News and the cameras of the presenters are in different angles well vision mixing is basically that changing between the multiple cameras with one button you can fade the cameras if you want them to go on next but keep in mind vision mixing is basically for live streaming like news, Festivals with a Projectors around the stage and multiple cameras this is only for Live streaming cameras mostly News and this is used daily around the world.

Digital Editing

So each group have received a script we got one from Michael after that we sat down in a group and read through the script and though of ideas how to create this film at the end of the little meeting that we had everyone in the group had a brief idea what we think the film will look like at the end.  We thought of doing the paper work first (pre-production) and do some of it at the end after we filmed most of the clips and uploaded them on the computer. I have let Harry edit the film because I thought of giving someone else a chance to create something as I am always editing when it comes to a project.

The script that Michael has wrote from my point of view was about a girl that wakes up in her garden has no idea  where she is and walks through her kitchen, sees her mum starts talking to her and nothing then she walk around the house a see’s pictures but on the pictures one person is cut out the picture so she lost she looks in the mirror and can see herself after that she runs upstairs and remember herself all the bad thing is that her Dad done to her so run upstairs jumped in the bath and cut her veins and died and around the background there would be faded video with thing what her Dad was doing and most of it felt dramatic to show the audience and also the budget that we had because the last bit when she kills herself we would need to buy fake blood to cover the bath and most of us didn’t really want to do that as it would leave marks on the bath tub.

We changed the story little, well most of it just played around but it works out and look nice after you watch the full short film. The reason why we changed the story well not all of it but just the last half of it.She dies in the same spot which is the garden where she wakes up at end of the short film she looks through her window and sees herself killing her self saying’ I can’t do this anymore’ and takes strong tablets which kill her and she falls onto the grass.

Changing the location where she fell on grass and been in the bath we didn’t really want to have it really scary and dramatic for the audience. So what we done are tried our best to refer to the script and not to change all the shot within the short film that we have made. We didn’t use Tyla’s Dad and the showing of him making her to kill herself, if we made this we would need to take family photos and cut the dad out the pictures which would take more time that we had to film the short film after this filming most of the clips of Tyla’s Dad doing staff to her that all would take time to set the angles to look real but it would be too much for the audience and when she jumped in the bath tub we needed lot of fake blood which costs about five pounds per bottle which contained about 800ml so we would need bout 25 bottles just to fill the bath tub and maybe two more bottles to create effects around the bathroom. Which could be drops of blood dropping from her hand onto the floor, many of us didn’t want to get the bath dirty then I thought of using food colouring but would leave marks on the bath tub .

When my group and I were first given the script for the short film, 'forget' we all read through the script together and loved the concept immediately, we then discussed how we were going to film and edit every shot. As well as sharing ideas of how we would film the scenes as a group, we also discussed the script with the director and asked the director, Michael Williams, about his intentions for the short film and its effect, as well as ask any other questions that we felt did not make sense to us and therefore the audience.

There were a few scenes and some dialogue that our group felt could be improved with a few adjustments, so we came up with some ideas, and with the director’s permission, made necessary changes. Some of the changes we made included the dialogue, location, and the cause of Tyla’s death in the film. The first thing we decided was to cut out the films dialogue completely, as we wanted to tell the audience the story visually rather than direct with speech. As Tyla is actually dead in the film, and now a ghost of herself, we muted her dialogue to her family, along with using tense music playing throughout, to show that she cannot be heard, as well as keep the audience feeling tense and on edge with the pace of the music.

We also changed the location of Tyla’s death, and how she dies. originally in the script, Tyla wakes up in the garden and later watches her own self committing suicide in the bath using a razor, however we decided that this scene would be confusing to the audience and not make sense as to why she wakes up in the garden when she had died in the bathroom. We decided to change the location of her death to the garden, and instead of using a razor to kill herself, she would take pills immediately after sending a text to her mum saying 'i cant do this anymore' which we would also show the audience.

The original script would show a reflection of the two Tyla’s in the bathroom mirror, however, as we changed the location to Tyla’s bedroom,  this allowed us to experiment even more with using both Tyla’s in the shot, instead we filmed various shots of Tylas watching herself taking the pills, in the garden through her window, and banging on the window trying to tell herself to stop,  as the tension builds within the music. we created this shot by filming both Tyla in the house, looking out of the window and tyla in the garden kill herself, we then masked the two shots together in after effects. we also used after effects again in our edit, so that we could fade out Tyla in the bedroom scene after watching herself commit her own death, reinforcing the idea that Tyla is now a ghost of herself.

The change of location ad therefore shots, also helped us to imply a stronger statement and story within the film, giving the idea that Tyla is experiencing 'limbo' or hell, as the act of suicide is sometimes considered a sin.  The house we filmed in was the ideal location for our filming, the house follows in a perfect loop from the garden, to through the house and kitchen, up the stairs, and finally to the bedroom overlooking the original scene location, the garden.  this circular loop following Tyla walking through the house, indicates to the audience that much like her route through the house, Tyla is also having to re live the last few moments of her death in the same constant loop as the result of committing a sin, and therefore being stuck in this hellish experience. We ended our film with a quote that read Hell goes round and round. In shape it is circular, and by nature it is interminable, repetitive, and nearly unbearable.” ,re-enforcing the idea that Tyla is stuck in the same loop constantly every day because she committed suicide.

In this Essay I will be talking about Wally Pfister who’s an American Cinematographer and film director. Born on July 8th 1961, know very well by Christopher Nolan who is also a film director. Wally won an Academy award for best cinematography for Inception, which is a science fiction heist thriller produced in 2010 starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Pfister is also known for his work on director F.Gary Grays for Italian Job that came out back in 2003.  

Pfister was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised up in New York City. He is the son of Patricia Ann and Walter J. Pfister, Jr. His grandfather was the urban editor of a newspaper in Wisconsin. His father, also recognized as Wally, was a TV news producer, who created his career with CBS-TV in Chicago back in 1955.Later on while working at ABC News, the leader Pfister planned with David Brinkley and Peter Jennings, planning political agreements, space flights and the civil rights mission.

Back when Pfister was about 11 year old, a film group shot scenes for Shamus (1973), featuring Burt Reynolds, in his neighbourhood. He was really amazed by the crew setting up lights and cameras. So he thought of shooting 8 mm home movies and short films. Pfister also matched his Dad by shooting slides on Kodachrome, colour match on film presented by Eastman Kodak in 1935. It was one of the first colour footages and was used for cinematography and still photography.

After Pfister has finished school he found himself a job as a production assistant. At a television station, after couple of months, he borrowed a CP16 news camera and started shooting little films in his spare time about all different things that he found interesting. These are most of the models of this camera such as CP-16, CP-16A, CP-16R, CP-16R/A and CP-16R/DS they are all 16mm motion picture cameras made by the Cinema Products Corporation of Hollywood in California. Most of them were mainly for TV news and were really good with filming local and national news companies, before ENG format came out  also as good as documentary and drama.

After his job as a production assistant he got a job in News for Washington as a Cameraman which has provided film around all different stations around the country he covered the United States, the White House and breaking news from 1982 over 1985. In 1985 Pfister began a temporary career shooting documentaries and industrial videos for many Washington production companies.

Roger Corman gave Pfister and chance to shoot pickup shots and inserts for a Papamichael film. It was his first time he shot 35 mm film. After all this Pfister has discovered a second unit for Papamichael on Body Chemistry and also on additional Corman films. 35 mm film is the film device used for motion pictures and natural still photography. The name of the measurement is the width of the photographic film, which is basically strips of tape (few mm x inches wide). The normal negative downside for movies is single frame format which is four gaps per frame alongside both edges which is 16 frames per foot of the film. For still photography, the usual frame has eight perforations on both sides.

Pfister has shot the film format on 35 mm film, with main instructions filmed on 65 mm, and aerial systems in Vista Vision. Nolan hasn’t filmed any tapes with the IMAX cameras as he had with The Dark Knight. Pfister said that he didn’t know if to film on the IMAX because of the size of the cameras since this film given that it deals with a possibly weird space, the nature of thoughts and so out, he wanted it to be as realistic as possible. Not be certain by the scale of those IMAX cameras, but he loved the great quality format on the IMAX. Wally also has gave the team a dream level a unique look to support the audience's credit of the narrative's location during the deeply crosscut percentage of the film. The mountain fortress looks bright blue and snow cold, the hotel lobbies have warm temperature, and the parts in the van are more neutral.

Most of the slow motion were filmed on a Photo-Sonics 35mm camera of speeds reaching up to 1000 frames per second. Wally Pfister has played around filming with a high speed digital camera, but he found out that it would be hard and take a long of time because of technical issues and glitch footage.

Nolan also thought not to film in 3D as he wanted to be filming on film using the prime lenses but it was never possible with 3D cameras. He has also panned the blurred image that 3D projection produces, and shows that old-style film does not allow specific depth of view.

Depth perception is the visual skill to see the world in three sizes (3D) and the space of an object. Depth is suggesting animals within their vision but everyone knows that animals can sense the distance of an object because of their skills to move accurately and survive, or to respond quickly, regarding to the distance, but no one knows if they observe it in the same individual way that humans do.

In CPU graphics, ambient constriction is shading and rendering way used to calculate how exposed each point in a cutting is to direct lighting. The internal of a tube is mainly more sealed and tiny amount darker than the exposed outer layouts, and the shallower you go inside the tube, the more less you see and the darker the lighting turns out to be.

A prime lens of the main central distance is handier than a zoom where the range contains that important length, but is often of better visual quality, wider maximum gap, lighter weight, slighter size or lower cost. With more explanation with a zoom lens, a prime lens has fewer functions to move around so is easier to operate it rather than having lots of adjustment buttons. With a less multipart lens sometimes they suffer from smaller amount of issues that are related to optical error.

In this essay I am telling about what is the purpose of making a music video. Well to start with most of the their singers out there want to advertise themselves so that they can sell their own song and make people remembering the song so at the end you ever download it of iTunes or buy the song in the shop and most of the times whenever they have any clothes on for example Nike there for they are advertising Nike and getting money for advertising their product.

Sometimes if there is a story in the music video well most of the time there is a narrative and some singers have cars in them maybe you seen before sometimes they cover the logo of the car that’s if they have no permission to advertise the company but when you see the logos like their normally displayed then the Artist has permission from the company whoever they got the car from or whatever object they are carrying or some sort of clothing that they are wearing, during filming.

The point of having a story in a music video is mainly for the audience to understand the song what is mainly about because if you have a song that is really hard to understand you won’t be able to understand what the artist means so when there’s a narrative throughout the video then is a lot easier for the audience to understand the song. This also makes the audience remember the song and the video so that if they remember it they can show it to family and friends and that’s how it all expands and the artist earns more views for the music video and sells more of his albums and people go out to buy the clothes that they see in the Music video they think they look cool so they go out and buy any of the clothes that the artist wear in the Music video.

This is the first music video that came out in 1979 on MTV as you can tell is not the best video in the world but come on that was 35 years ago and it was the 1st music video out so they really couldn'ttimcub get a idea of other artists with their own music video’s - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwuy4hHO3YQ, I wonder what the audiences face expressions were like when their first Music video played.

Many of music videos started more showing up in the early 80’s most of the videos were been produced in the British acts but most of them were increasing in the American charts.

One of the purposes is to entertain basically to show off the talents of the dancers in the background or as the main shot or even people acting in a narrative point of view.

My 3 directors are mainly companies that get couple of directors and create a story line together for the music video that they are planning to be doing.

The first company I like is ‘Roadrunner Records’ it was founded in 1980 by Cees Wessels the Genre they record is heavy metal, hard rock, death metal, grove metal ,treash metal, metalcore. I like the way the company makes a storyline for each music video is set out really good and shows potential.

The music video that I have chosen it will be by Nickelback – Someday it all begins they signing in a band the are two scenes one is their band every angle of the band and on the other side there is a story line of a boy that died in a serious car accident and his girlfriend drives away leaves the house but his following her which basically she can’t see him as he’s dead but the music video shows him to tell the storyline it mixes really nice with the song.

Most of the light used in the music video is cold light and yellowish colour on the first light there’s a massive white light behind him and one key light on his right side of his face which affects the audience’s emotionalism. The story where the boy dies is a daylight with cloudy weather mixed up but you can’t really tell because of the lighting that they used for the characters to light them up and more colour into the video.

The music video was made in 2007 so really is 7 years old from today and you can really tell the difference between then and now how the quality of the video has changed and what kind of light they use now, now you can’t really tell if there’s light on them if the shot is filmed outside but overall the quality of the footage that is the main thing that changes through the years because each camera company upgrade same as Apple with iPhone’s every year there are two models coming out with something newer and more options so the cameras have more options with filming in different environments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VMFdpdDYYA

The colours that are used in the video are really sad, boring colours they are not rainbow colours happy and joyful well it depends about the story line because you can’t really have colourful colours in a storyline where a tragedy happens it just doesn’t look right.

The second company I went for was ‘Priority Records’ which sounds the same as the other company but they are both different types of Genres this one has various, with a focus on Hip-hop  this company was founded in 1985 by 3 people named Bryan, Mark and Steve. The company has filmed many rappers such as Ice Cube itself, Snoop dog and Jay-z so is not really for one person is for hip hop songs in United States well known in California.

The music that I will be talking about is old school video but I really like the song and the way the Music video was made in them times which there was 1993 4 years before I was born so the song is older than me and is by ‘Ice Cube- It was a good day’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoIgiwEVCUQ

In the beginning of the video Ice cube’s little sister comes home on BMX then walk into their house a shows Ice cube getting up, eating breakfast and then going for a drive in his lime green Cadillac with hydraulic system jumping up and down and been shown many times in the music video, the story line is set really good most of the shots he raps about are dreams that happened but all the staff he raps about you can see it happening in the video so is easier for the audience to understand the song.

The lighting in the video is mixed with sunset view, morning and nigh time weather you can’t really see the light on Ice Cube only in one scene but is a really quick scene so it doesn't really matter it don’t stand out as much it gives a little effect to the video.

At the end of the video he comes home and hear a helicopter suddenly 20 police cars surround him with a helicopter and most of the cops run in the house and part 2 continues in the second song called ‘check yo self’ that’s the song it continues from the bit where the police surrounds him.

The camera angles used in the video are track shots following their moves and mainly zoom in close ups, also many shots on objects his touching or doing something with it first the camera angle on the object that is been filmed then moves on to Ice cube. There are lots of mid close ups and track shot of the car driving along so the camera is in a other car and is filming him driving through the city, wide angles are used in many of the shots to show every part of the story line to show each person’s view and perspective.

The last person that I chose is Calvin Harris one of his new songs called ‘outside’ that he filmed with Ellie Goulding the type of genre Calvin records is electro house – dance pop he founded his own company in 2009 called the Fly Eye Records which has few Artists on the page such as Nicky Romero, Bart B More and Tommie Sunshine but mainly the company is by Calvin Harris.

So as always in most of the videos Calvin does he mainly does the instrumental and Ellie does the main singing. Currently in this video there are two story lines based on the same idea so Calvin has an argument with some girl well she goes bit crazy and Ellie has same argument with the boy but the boy jumps out and goes to ride his dirt bike such as the girl was throwing dishes at Calvin and Suddenly they froze and you could see Calvin and the girl’s body language but there was no movement what so ever in the objects that were getting chucked around the room which basically is two same tracks but one with them in the scene and the other scene only the objects thrown about and the camera does a still image while they are up in the air after is all down to the editor to make look like the time has stopped.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9NQFACZYEU

Most of the frame shots are mid shots and slider/track shot of zooming in while Ellie is on the floor and when the dirt bike drives about in the city they also could of recorded that from the car while he done a wheelie. There isn't much Location maybe like 3 one inside the house the second outside the house where Ellie spend most of the Music video and the third is round the city where the boy rides the dirt bike around they have combines a sunset weather with night time mode which always goes well when you’re making a music video.

In the video there are warm colours mixed with cold colours such as blue white that where Calvin is in the cold area and Ellie is in the Warm and throughout the video everything backfires so it gives that feeling to the audience to confuse them little bit that’s why is worth watching the video again but the thing is with making a story line like this can really help you with the views because the audience need to re-watch it and say to themselves ‘huh I see what happening here’ so always make sure that your story line is good, so that you can surprise your audience.

I like the way they used a mirror effect at 2:00 of the video really look cool but never knew how the really do it because while the camera is moving around her how does the mirror stay still in the air and do all the thing that she does well need to read about this because look really interesting effect that you can do in a music video.

PROGRAMME TITLE - 2015

DURATION:

It will be around 3 minutes long.

AUDIENCE:

Target audience 12+

FORMAT:

HD pictures, Cannon 60D

RESUME:

It all started as a normal day, when suddenly an earthquake hit the campus. Rocks come shooting out of the sky destroying the buildings on its path. The students run home in shock, some of them go off to hiding in an underground bunker. But nothing stops the meteors…

SUGGESTED ELEMENTS:

1. Start shooting in the morning to have some fog if possible, or Photoshop the image.

2. Green screens maybe the rocks that are involved.

SHOOTING DAYS:

Around six weeks

BUDGET:

Cannon 60D – £1200 for six weeks Boom Pole - £240 for six weeks Shotgun Microphone - £180 for six weeks Zoom H4N - £720 for six weeks Tripod - £360 for six weeks

Total = £2700

PROGRAMME PUBLICITY AND FOLLOW-UP: