Experience during this year

Last year was ok as my learning curve goes but this year is being really good, when it comes to learning. I think so I had grown a lot and I think so it happened because I listen to my critics in my class by patrick and try to implement now. Now I dont shoot any stuff, I think for every thing the composition, the depth, the exposure the lighting to the mood and how the story should flow.

I want to become a Director and a Cinematography as both of them tell stories, one through the eyes of a actor and one through the lens. I had two goals in  the beginning of this year to improve the skills of my cinematography and direction and I believe I had improved in my cinematography and I will keep on striving to improve more and now my next year goal is to improve my skills as a director and polish my cinematography skills.

I am happy to achieve what I had during this year  journey.  I learned more and it will be helped full for next year. Being in all the shoots helped me and doing a green screen movie also helped me to prepare for any future green screen projects. I also learn the importance of collaboration as it is very important part of film making. A film can be ones Idea but if if collaborate and ask right people for the critics we can bring more layers and depth in that idea. This summer I will try improve my skills more. There will be enough time to do more research and and do some shooting. I will continuos to write my blogs through the summer as it will be a nice thing to reflect back and see where I was and what section I have to improve more.

Script to screen

As it happen with lots of film, that it changed ones I edited and screened same happen with my film but the story looked better after the edit as there was potential to change the story in the post as it was green screen and voice over was there . Thanks the Patrick and Callum which helped me to shape the story well.

                 After seeing the final product. I think so the pace was too fast. There was no breathing space in that. I need to give some space to feel in moments in some scene so people can feel the situation and the character. Specially  after the death of Allan I should have put a gap between that scene and the kid stabbing Michael scene as it happened very fast. Still have to find the right music to suit the pace of the movie but now I will have time to seat with a composer and get the music according to the pace.

Work flow for my film

When I started editing my film . I edited in premiere and then linked the files from premiere to after effect but When I comes to rendering, I start taking very long time and start shutting down.  I should have done is separated as it would be easy on the computer to handle it as the ram in the computer are not that high to handle to separate software at same time.  Ideally I should have used one of the editing suits but it was booked. I have loaded all in my hard drive so I can use two computer but the same problem happen with my hard drive to connecting two software. Next time ideally I should use one at a time and then exported it to work on the other. Even 30 sec. of cut is taking 20 mints just to render in the time line.

Experience as a DOP on others shoot...

My first shoot was Matt's shoot.  I had a chat with Matt earlier, regarding his video . Ones I reached the set, I changed the set dressing as the piano was in front of the shadow screen. The second thing I did was try to bring the set to more 3d as compare to 2 d just move few things around . The shoot was shot so used to camera BMC and BMPCC.  There was still some problem as I didn't use the monitor and BMPCC screen was pretty small to see it properly.

The second problem was one of the lead was not do at dancing, So I ask them to do contemporary dance and try to focus more on the girl and the shadows rather than the man guy. My shot selection was difficult due to that but I still try to get a story out of it by only choosing angles which was more from focus on others and on good movements. I enjoyed my shoot with Matt as I got some interesting shoots and will be good reference for future music videos.


The second shoot was with Dan, It was easy as I had got with him in the location and kind of knew what shot I wanted to do . I enjoyed my shoot and I was happy with my cinematography, expected the gip shot as the HDMI cable of the moniter was not working, So I gussed the shot and the space for using gib was very narrow but we move inside due to the bad weather and it was a on the spot decision.


The third was with Dough's second day, It was hard for me as I didnt knew the actions of the actor properly but I was in stick so it was alright.

The third shoot was of Lana's film. I am not sure of all the shoots as Matt did share with him but the shot I discussed with Lana  before turns to be really good.  She had a trippy sequence and I did some research and come up with a plan. I used the reference of Mean Street where the camera was riged to the actor and the same reference in a music video where the camera was rigged to the actor but I diced to change it a bit and told lana that I will use Gopro riged in a dolly. We couldnt find dolly so I decided to riged in a trolly and lucky Ash was in the set and he riged gopro for us. The gopro have a wide distort angle (fish eye ) and I just pushed the trolly around Plus I used lots ok Bokeh effect as a cut away for the scene as they were very trippy. I was just a little bit unhappy with me in the last shots as I was very tired and I was using long lens on a handheld without a IS but lana wanted a handheld movements in it. Hope the shots will turn out to be good. 

Style, lighting for my short film.

For my short film" Last Rescue" I am choosing the film noir/ frank miller style ( sin city) as it will help the story narratives.  I am using green screen and it is hard to make the green screen believable in realistic films thats why I am doing it in a stylized way.

Hard back light, so it will give nice rim light and in black and white, it gives nice look in the film and I am using black and white, as it is a film noir look and in black and white it enhance the feeling of the dark and dirty look and the hard light helps to create the suspense by not showing the character face all the time, as it keeps the secrets from the audience of what the character is thinking at  that time .

I will be also using rain in my film as it is associated with sadness as a metaphor.

This style and look will help the storyline and the character as this story is very dark and there is a suspense in the film which can be carried well with the film noir lighting.

I will be pulling only some colour in each character, so it can stand different as compare to other characters and it can define there personality through the accessories  and the colour will I will pull as in the short film it is hard to establish the character and tell the backstory, this little things help to connivence the story.  

Pre prepration for green screen

Handing green screen is not easy and needed lots of practice. I started with reacher and then did some quick test and find outs: -

Try to equally light the green screen and not to let and random hotspot in it because it is hard to key it.

I used the magenta colour for black light as it cancel the green colour and help[s with the green spill.

used closed aperture  so every thing will be in focus and then it will be easy to key and depth of focus can be achieved in the post.

I used the lower shutter angle so every moment will be smooth and crepes so it will not blur the moment and it makes the post work easy.

Should keep the enough distance between the actor and the green screen is a good idea but I struggle with it, due to the lack of space. Another problem is when you don't have enough space and then when you light the actor the light spread every where and its hard to control it in a small room . the solution for it was to use lots of flags around the lights and camera.

How to approach for a interview

Today we had a skype session with Slavko Martinov the director of Propaganda(2012). He shared some good information about his approach to documentary. One of the important thing he mention is how to approach a person for interview. We had shared more information with Patrick Gillies our tutor in earlier classes plus I had a latest experience in interviewing one of the talent in the resent student profile I did. I come up with this steps after combining all the information.

First step - Research and select people you are interested. For my latest documentary. I started with yellow pages and then printed the information in a paper and gone to all the gym in Invercargill and talk to the trainers.

Step two- is to send him/her a e-mail. Its formal but a good point to start and give time and space to talent to think.

Step three - If they agree. depending how much time they are willing to spend. Its good to just go and have a formal talk with them. So they can be more comfortable with you and by doing this we will have some notes to prepare for the main interview.

Step three- Location - Its very important specially if the talent have not given a interview before.
Ex. In the house of the talent as they will be more comfortable for them.

Step four - Take smaller team as you want your talent to be comfortable in the location.

Step five- Do all the camera and light setup before the talent come for the interview because in my experience I have notice that if we do all the setup in front of the talent then it become donating for them all the things wich will be going around them and it brings them to the reality of that they are in front of camera.

Step six- Use long lens so the camera will not be in the face of the talent.

Step seven - Start the interview with informal talk and dont roll the camera untill the talent is comfortable.