Tuesday, 31 May 2011

Wednesday 18th May, 2011

In today's lesson, I was able to complete editing my "School Policy" video, due to me fixing my iPod settings at home.
I chose the song "Ghosts & Sticks and Bricks & Stuff", a mash-up of the band A Day to Remember and Deadmau5, which fit perfectly to what I had organised the week prior.

After I finished this, my group gathered together and started filming our music video for "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. Because all four of us (Daniel, Leif, Brooke and I) had to be in many - to almost all of the shots, Cameron had to help us film with the blue screen.
He turned out to be a very good choice to pick to help us, because he gave us some tips with the blue screen and filming techniques when using it, due to him having experience with those kind of things.

After we were done, Cameron and I previously had planned his music video out, due to the fact we both like the song he chose. Even though we had both shared ideas, Cameron also had many others, so I (along with the rest of his group) helped him film it, and he asked me to be in it alot particularly because I knew the words.

I enjoyed this lesson very much, and actually got a lot done.

Wednesday 11th May, 2010

In today's lesson, we all spent most of the lesson editing our "School Policy" videos.
I had some trouble finishing it due to the fact that I had to change a setting on my iPod, so I was able to upload any of the music I had on there, to the computer.
So in that case, I just did as much as I could to get as close to completing the editing process as I could.

Tuesday 10th May, 2011

Today was not an official lesson, due to the fact it was on a tuesday, but we had an excursion in the city at ACMI located in Melbourne Square.

I arrived at the meeting spot at about five past 9, a little later than everyone else, but only by a few minutes. No one really seemed to notice, luckily.
We all then headed into the ACMI centre, to the theatre area and took our seats. We were accompanied by a few other schools, and in those schools were some of the students whose "Top Arts" entries we were about to watch. Rob warned us of this beforehand, as to not express our opinions on the films too loudly, so we wouldn't offend anyone. Which in hindsight, was quite clever.

After we watched the films, and had small, personal discussions about them, we all got to go into the ACMI "Centre for the Moving Image" which I found exceedingly enjoyable. Considering I had never been there before, I tried to take in as much information from it as I could, and tried to have a turn at all of the gadgets and presentations they had there.

And that proceeded the ending of the excursion. All-in-all I had a very enjoyable time.

Wednesday 27th April, 2011

In today's lesson, we continued filming our "School Policy" short films, ours still being about littering.

Due to my group and I filling in Leif, who was away when we decided on changing the film, we all went out straight away and started to film.
I feel it went very well because luckily Daniel had a very detailed copy of the previous storyboard, and I had taken notes on our new idea, so we were able to merge the two together.
We had decided to make Leif the main star of the film, so he got the most time in front of the camera, while the rest of us took turns filming. But, so Leif could have a shot at working behind the camera, we had pre-planned a few shots without any people in it, so Leif got his turn then.

Also, we had some turns at learning how to properly use the dolly, which will become very useful in the near future.

Wednesday 6th April, 2011

In today's lesson, for the first half, we all got into our groups for our "School Policy" Video.

My group had discussed the week before of changing the basis of ours, mainly after last weeks speaker and everything we learnt from him.
We thought we could engage our audience in a way differently than planned.
Because one of our group members, Leif, had missed out a bit in the previous lesson, the rest of the group (Brooke, Daniel) and I took about 5 minutes to fill him in and ask his opinion on everything.
Once everything was sorted, Rob stopped the class to inform us that we will be filming a music video for a song of our choice in the same groups we were already in.
Our group chose "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, after I had suggested it.

Next, we all went out and started filming parts of our video. We mainly did testing on certain angles and lighting (not to mention we had difficulty with our camera, considering every battery we grabbed seemed to be out of charge).

In the second half of our lesson, we had a guest speaker come in.
It was Gary from the Beaumaris campus.
He spoke to us about his past in film and television and the different jobs you can aquire in the industry, which all had different aspects and requirements to them.
We all started to catch on that you can learn alot of the techniques on the actual job, if you persued hard enough and payed attention.
He also spoke to us about different techniques within a production entirely. Such as how to roll a cable properly, and how to deal with sets being in abnormal places.

A main thing I picked up from Gary's talk was workmanship within the workplace. To work well on a set with a cast and crew, you usually learn to turn your cheek on some things that a boss or co-worker may to (to and extent), for everything to work smoothly and properly.

I really enjoyed Gary's talk and took a lot from it.

Wednesday 30th March, 2011

In today's lesson, a man from Bond University came in to speak to us.
He talked to us about different things to remember when creating a film, such as:
  • Establishing shots so the audience knows where the setting is
  • Dark clothing and walls (painted) can make a bright room (with bright lights) look dark
  • Identifying characters and the relationships with each other with actions rather than words
He also told us about the annual film competition that Bond University run. The grand prize is a schoolarship to Bond University (valued at nearly $80, 000). He then began to show us some short films, and told us about the techniques used by the entrants to make certain affects.

It was a very interesting lesson, and I took a lot out of it.

Wednesday 23rd March

In today's lesson we first started off with correcting the homework we had been given a few weeks beforehand. This consisted of chapters 3, 4 and 5 of "Producing Videos: A Complete Guide, third edition" by Martha Mollison, for which I had gotten almost all of the questions completely correct.

Next, we continued the tutorial we had started watching on "Final Cut Pro", while following the steps one by one on our own computer. Which resulted in us finishing this tutorial, all of us feeling much more confident about the program.

After that, we all gathered around to watch the "Mystery Object" videos, which we all found very entertaining, but also shared constructive criticism about each other's final product.

Finally, we all got split into groups to make a "School Policy" film. My group consisted of Leif, Brooke, Daniel and myself. We talked for a bit, brainstorming ideas, and finally came up with the idea of "Littering".
So, we drew up a storyboard for the film, and went location scoping in hope to start filming the next lesson.

Wednesday 9th March, 2011

In today's lesson, Rob was unfortunately away, so he left us some work to do.
At first we had to complete our "Workplace Safety" certificates online, which at first took some time, but once people got the hang of it, everyone seemed more than happy to give a helping hand; muchly appreciated by myself.

Next, we were giving a task to start researching a career within the Media industry. For which I chose, 'Cinematographer' (also known as Director of Photography), which I learned some fairly interetesting information on.

At the end of the lesson, we got back into our groups for the 'Mystery Object' project and started editing!

All in all, a productive lesson on the computers.

Wednesday 2nd March, 2011

In today's lesson, our class gathered in the theatre to help run a presentation for students from different schools planning to run in the Bayside Film Festival 2011.

We were split into two groups and had to help control the lighting, sound and visuals for the event. My group had to run the first half of the event, while the other group watched the presentation and took notes; vise versa in the second half.

It was an interesting lesson with some technical difficulties (such as wrong timing for the lights, and at one point the dvd player refused to play sound), but with calm encouragement and help from Rob, we were able to fix the problems at hand.