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[lvstna]

Creative Collaborations #Blog5

Tasks completed this week:

- editing draft

- Sound design

Sound design is important in any film as it provides engagement for the audience and sets the tone for any genre of film, including horror or sci fi that really bring a scene to life with sound effects and background music. For our groups short film, I have been assigned being sound designer as well as the editor and so far I have looked into sound effects that would be engaging to suit our films suspenseful theme.

For the editing process in my first draft, I had my group with me in class and we worked on how to change the colour scheme on our footage for parts of it. Our lecturer Adam helped show us and the class how to reduce the opacity level on a video, at first we used the simple ‘black and white’ effect under image controls however the footage became too dark. So I had the idea that we replicate the same footage and place both of them on top of each other on the timeline and only change the opacity on one of the videos. This gave a very different effect as some strong colours like red were evident but faded, this was a look out group was aiming for.

I also used mainly the ‘dip to black’ effect for smooth transitions between scenes and as a way of ‘blinking’ from the first person POV. I added the sound on the timeline and cut each one to a specific part that would be best to use in different scenes. For example, I used the heartbeat at the moment the figures fill the whole screen and look like they are ‘consuming’ the character, then I cut the sound out once there was dialogue of someone asking if they were ok. This emphasises the suspense our group was aiming for.

[lvstna]

Creative Collaborations #Blog4

Now that my group has all the footage we need, the only things left to do is the digital animation drawings by Angel followed by the editing in premiere pro.

So far Angel has done the storyboard twice for our group project digitally, the first one missed a shot scene we needed and the second one was more refined. Our group was happy with the storyboard and Angel wanted to move onto digitally drawing the animated figures this week.

Our group has felt there would be a lot of workload and pressure from one person working on the digital animations however Angel mentioned she was happy to do them mostly herself, however we still offered help if needed. Angel had updated our group before on a test run with a short animation sequence on top of a video playing in the background that was edited in using premiere pro.

The animated figures in our short film play a big part in the final project as they convey the idea of feeling uncomfortable, followed and being stared at. We all looked at the sample animated sequence and were all happy with the result, however it is hard to keep updated with all the progress for the animation as Angel has had a hard time meeting up in class.

I have managed to set up a premiere pro document and got all the footage that was saved to one drive by Luci. I am the sound designer of the group and wanted to help wherever need be and eventually Savanah mentioned I could help with the editing as it would be easier to also add the sound effects and music in all together.

After importing, there was an issue as the last scene didn’t quite fit into the video dimensions as it was on another phone recording, however we were shown by our lecturer how to change it, a loss of quality was the only downside. Another issue we had resolved with the help from our lecturer was the fps rate to keep all the same.

We added some effects we knew we would like to include such as the ‘Dip to Black’ between each scene. Savanah suggested it would be a good idea to get a green screen recording of an animated eye ‘blinking’ from YouTube and use that for a smooth transition between scenes and to emphasise the first person POV, and that was our progress for this week.

[lvstna]

Creative Collaborations #Blog4

Now that my group has all the footage we need, the only things left to do is the digital animation drawings by Angel followed by the editing in premiere pro.

So far Angel has done the storyboard twice for our group project digitally, the first one missed a shot scene we needed and the second one was more refined. Our group was happy with the storyboard and Angel wanted to move onto digitally drawing the animated figures this week.

Our group has felt there would be a lot of workload and pressure from one person working on the digital animations however Angel mentioned she was happy to do them mostly herself, however we still offered help if needed. Angel had updated our group before on a test run with a short animation sequence on top of a video playing in the background that was edited in using premiere pro.

The animated figures in our short film play a big part in the final project as they convey the idea of feeling uncomfortable, followed and being stared at. We all looked at the sample animated sequence and were all happy with the result, however it is hard to keep updated with all the progress for the animation as Angel has had a hard time meeting up in class.

I have managed to set up a premiere pro document and got all the footage that was saved to one drive by Luci. I am the sound designer of the group and wanted to help wherever need be and eventually Savanah mentioned I could help with the editing as it would be easier to also add the sound effects and music in all together.

After importing, there was an issue as the last scene didn’t quite fit into the video dimensions as it was on another phone recording, however we were shown by our lecturer how to change it, a loss of quality was the only downside. Another issue we had resolved with the help from our lecturer was the fps rate to keep all the same.

We added some effects we knew we would like to include such as the ‘Dip to Black’ between each scene. Savanah suggested it would be a good idea to get a green screen recording of an animated eye ‘blinking’ from YouTube and use that for a smooth transition between scenes and to emphasise the first person POV, and that was our progress for this week.

[lvstna]

Creative Collaborations #Blog3

Tasks completed this week:

- Script writing

- Shotlist + Scene ideas

- Shooting

Script writing before filming any film project is important as it sets the foundation and standards to follow to create a successful production. In our group this week, Savanah worked out writing our script for our story idea and this was sent to everyone for discussion. We were all pretty happy with the outcome and the story flowed smoothly within the script, this was then our full story completed with locations, dialogue, acts and place sorted.

A shotlist is important as it can guide you through essential shots that can be effective in the final production of a film. In our group, Luci created a Google docs document to create a shotlist and we were all invited to edit the file and add information on there. We have also completed rough character descriptions within our film, including the main girl, dark figures and the friend. We have decided as a group that it would be interesting to film this in the first person pov as this separates us from everyone else’s idea and creates an eerie sort of perspective we were hoping for. Our art director Angel also came up with a few notes on how these figures can be included in the film through animation, there will be real life footage of the environment and sketches of animated dark figures layered on top for the suspenseful vibe we’re trying to set.

Our group completed the shooting for the film all together on Thursday evening and we met at the coLab in university house. We had a bit of difficulty in the beginning with meeting up but in the end everyone showed up and we started filming near the Newcastle bell tower. Luci being the cinematographer filmed in first person POV and panned from the clock to Savanah who played the role of the ‘friend’. We had one issue occur, we wanted to achieve a smooth transition within places yet not film the entire trip to achieve that, so I suggested we pan down towards the characters feet and then on another shot pan back up to a new environment. We agreed and continued to film taking the tram to Newcastle beach. On other issue we had was the pouring rain and loud wind, however we kept filming through it and finished up our whole film.

[lvstna]

Creative Collaborations Blog#1

In this group project, I was interested in creating a short film where there would be a genre of suspense and drama. For example I shared with a new class my idea of someone at a cafe getting a mysterious call from someone saying ‘get out right now’ and as they head out the building explodes or there is some sort of shoot out. However, for this short 1 minute short film, I was placed in another class due to a mix up with enrolling online, and my initial group consisted of 4 people.

Our groups original idea was that we started out with a conflict and a moment of realisation, questioning the things the character is doing, then a moment of peace after the moment of realisation. We expanded on this with a person in our group providing us with a three part act they have laid out, and offered to the group what the conflict would consist of.

The conflict was meant to be ‘detective’ based, the main character seems to want to solve a mystery and there seems to be people they want to interview and find out their backgrounds. This is because there seemed to be rumours going around about a secret mishandling with the COVID vaccines. So after some interviews the main character has a suspicious feeling about one person so they follow them and find out they are behind the act, trying to add some sort of dangerous chemical to the vaccines.

Then a moment of realisation occurs and they stop them from attempting to release the dangerous vaccines, having a moment of ‘happiness’ or ‘calmness’. In my opinion I wasn’t that happy with this idea because it seemed hard to tie all together and film since there also seemed to be a ‘gun’ scene. However, my group discussed this further and created a short drawn storyboard to visualise the film camera angles and shots.

I was interested in any sort of role to take in the group, and I was assigned with being the director/producer aiming to give direction in filming and setting up, as well as give some critique on what we should do to achieve the best results.

[lvstna]

Creative Collaborations #Blog2

Our groups story is about:

- a teenage girl who talks to her friend after university classes headed outside the building and toward the trams (and possibly the train afterwards)

- Friend leaves to another class or heads home, and the main character leaves to take the public transport

- A group of people that appear as dark figures follow her on the tram

- They start making gestures, weird faces, and copying everything she’s doing on purpose

- She feels uncomfortable and after she arrives from the tram/train she heads on home as fast as she can while the figures keep on following her

- Once she reaches home the figures seemed to have disappeared and she starts talking to her mother and relaxes about the situation

The genre of this film will be thriller and suspenseful, located outside of the main university building at the light rail trams, then at a neighbourhood with houses. The main character may be viewed in first person or may be a real life person, she will appear tired or stressed after a long day and not as chatty, her friend will have a bright and bubbly sort of personality while talking to her. Other characters include the dark figures on the tram and background audience.

What inspired this story idea was real life experiences with people that make public services and travel uncomfortable or unsafe. As discussed with my group, my role is to be the sound designer with adding the needed music and sound effects to the short film, as well as editing the footage all together. The only difficulties we have so far is that not everyone is in the same class for this project, this is fixed with using a group chat to keep up to date with everyone.