After effects Photoframe

This week, I have been working on after effects. I used after effects to get the photo frame effect. This is where we wanted our character to be looking at a photo in a frame, the photo inside suddenly starts moving, and the memory is formed. This the process I took to do so:

Print work and digipak discussions in class

Editing progress - 26/11/15

We're onto the final stages of editing the film now. We've finally completed the photo coming to life in the frame sequence with after effects and we've also completed the time lapse. Those were our two technical shots and now that they're done, all we have left to do are the following:

• Colour grade all the shots. This will consist primarily of putting a warm temperature on the POV shots.
• Put a slightly fuzzy/blurred effect around the edge of the memory shots.

Recently I've been taking charge of the editing while Hamish has been doing the digipak and Mia has been on After Effects.
The ending sequence's cutting rate as seen in the screenshot below increases. We've decided to include more and more memory shots towards the end of the film to contrast between the rest of the narrative. The last 10 or so seconds therefore are purely memories.

Progress on Magazine Ad

For our magazine advertisment, we have selected a medium close up of our actress. She is breaking the fourth wall by looking directly at the audience. She has a plain expression on her face. The reason we chose this for the ad was to create a sense of mystery about the album. She is also outside surrounded by grass and trees. This reinforces her meta-narrative of Lucy Rose being a free spirited young girl. In other Lucy Rose albums and singles, she is outside therefore we chose to make her ad outside. The image we selected as the front cover of her digipack, is also her outside in the same clothing. Therefore there is a connection between the album and the magazine advert.

New editing layout

Problem

• The issue with editing a music video that has 4 separate narratives as well as non narrative shots is that it can become quite difficult to keep track and edit the timeline along one row.
• We found that putting in a shot we weren't too sure about committed it to the structure far more than we would want. Seeing as we're currently doing a rough cut, we're very mindful that many of our present decisions will change as we get feedback and polish the film.
• The result was that shortening a single clip later would have a butterfly effect on the rest of the film.

Solution

• To combat this we separated each location (which are also narratives) into their own row.
• By doing this we acquired far more space on the timeline across 5 different rows which acted as 'lines' of action.
• This awarded us with greater flexibility to go back and change shot sequences on a whim. We no longer have to envisage or get held up on the consequences of making an edit, allowing us to liberalise our creativity.

Thursday 12/11/15: Digipak progress

So far...

• We've decided we want a 6 panel case. We plan to have 2 different locations/themes on the pack, one for the inside 3 panels and one for the outside 3. The two themes we are likely to choose are a wooded surrounding; cliff shots; cliff shots and shots with them together; shots with them together in ambiguous/varied locations.
• We've made a start on the back cover and are now in the process of getting photos to go in the other frames.
• We've decided it would be a good idea not to do too much to the photos (colour grading etc) until after we've completed the video, as the digipak is essentially an offspring of the music video so we'll adapt it to suit our finished production.
• I picked out a photo from the cliffs that we took of Anna against the sea, added it to a Photoshop document and cropped & scaled it to fit into the correct frame dimensions.
• On Thursday Mia continued with the Digipak and added and positioned both the album name and the majority of the album's songs onto the back. She chose a select few from the album because the number of songs on it is unusually big. Mia also began to search for the Lucy Rose font however we've deduced that her font was probably custom designed and can't be found on the internet.

Friday photoshoot

• On Friday 13th we used our double free first to organise and execute a photoshoot, Anna being the subject of the shoot.
• The purpose of the shoot was to get a suitable photo to put onto the front cover of the digipak. We therefore looked at our previous analysis' of the genre and of Lucy rose and decided a shot of her looking into frame for the print ad and a centered shot of her not looking into frame/looking into frame would work best.
• We took the photos in the small meadow behind St Gregory's school and ours in which trees encompass its perimeter. This meant we would never get a shot with something in the background that would force us to discard the photo.
• The theme of the artist being among nature was conforming to the genre's themes which was our intention.

F.O'C: Reflection of shoot 3

Location - Dunorlan park

• After school on Friday we walked with the cast down to Dunorlan park in Tunbridge Wells.
• By the time we got there it was starting to get very dark. To save time, we shot as soon as we got into the park instead of walking down to the lake which would have taken an additional 10 minutes, making the footage on the camera even more grainy than it already was.
• Mia and Hamish had a free last so they went and met our male actor early to get some much needed footage before it got too dark.

My house

• I directed and shot the timelapse and this time made sure that once we'd finished the 10+ seconds shot of Anna at the table, we switched to Hamish and Mia playing chess and took the chair out of the frame this time. It posed a problem in after effects when we didn't the shoot before.
• Outside, it was raining. The fire pit at the bottom of my garden was wet and so we replaced them with more however we had to be relatively fast so as they didn't become wet. When burnt, wet wood produces a lot of smoke. Not only would this not look good on camera but it would also get in the actors eyes, possibly harming them and hindering their acting capabilities. At one point Luke's eyes were victim to said smoke but luckily we nearly had all our footage.
• Hamish's camera isn't waterproof (that we know of) and so filming in the rain, albeit it light, was a possible risk and could have potentially harmed the camera. Therefore we attempted to get the filming done as quickly as we could (while getting all the shots we needed). (Post filming, we found that fine droplets of water covered the lens for the end sparkler shots, filling the frame with hexagonal lights; a silver lining from the clouds themselves.
• I filmed and directed the majority of the shots outside and found that the camera had trouble adjusting it's exposure to make details clear. When it did, the result was often grainy. To combat this we brought the actors closer to the fire and pointed their faces towards it so to illuminate their features and expressions.
• In hindsight it was probably a good thing we filmed at my house and around Tunbridge Wells rather than going to Hastings because although we would have taken some great shots in Hastings, we took, in my opinion, ones equal to that in Tunbridge Wells. In addition to this the logistics and fees were far easier to manage.

Finished Time Lapse Explanation

Callsheet and risk assessment 4

TWGSB Media Studies Film Production

Call Sheet & Shot list

 

Date:6/11/15       Location: Dunorlan Park

Meeting Time:14:30   Group: 3       

 

Crew & Cast Contact details:

 

Anna Jennings                 Phone: 07910870272

 

Mia Pavey                     Phone: 07746202947

 

Hamish Maslen                 Phone: 07542687807

 

Freddie O’Connell             Phone: 07403083989

 

Luke Cole                     Phone: 07915570095

 

_____________________         Phone:

 

 

 

Props & Equipment                               crew responsible

Hamish’s Camera                                 Hamish

Camera Frame                                    Freddie

Tripod                                          Hamish

Kites                                           Freddie

 

 

 

 

Location	Shot number (on storyboard)	Cast	Technical notes
Dunorlan Park. By the lake and the café at the top of the hill.	First chorus, second chorus, middle 8. 10 shots.	Anna (lead) & Luke (supporting) The couple.	Actors – Running and smiling and laughing, having fun just being with each other. Props – Kite will be in many of the shots. The camera itself will be held and passed between (while filming) the two actors. Kite. Camera – It should look amateur as though the couple are filming eachother. Lots of close ups. Purely handicam. Steadicam with the camera frame may be used in shots afterwards when Anna’s on her own. Clothing – Anna will be wearing bright clothing such as a bright yellow, traditional raincoat. An orange wooly hat. Luke will be wearing casual clothing: jeans, jumper underneath a raincoat.

TWGSB Media Studies Film Production

Risk Assessment

 

 

You need to consider all the potential risks at each location shoot and outline how you will work to prevent any accident or injury to you, your cast or the equipment.

 

 

Location	What is the hazard?   Think about road safety, filming at night, potential damage to equipment	Who/what might be harmed and why?   Think about who needs to be aware of the risk	How will you reduce the risk?     What steps will you take to ensure that the risk is lowered?	Signed   Approved by JF, CF, KJ
Dunorlan park	Falling in the lake.	The actors and the crew equally. If we don’t look behind us when using the camera we could trip and fall in the lake.	Have members of the crew tell the camera man and actors to look out if they go too near the bank.
	Slipping because the grass will most likely be wet.	The steep hill and the wet ground may cause us to slip and get hurt. The camera may be damaged too.	Wear grippy footwear. Try not to run.
	Getting attacked by dogs	An enthusiastic dog may try to run into us or possibly bite the camera.	Stop filming if a dog comes near us and put the camera away.
	Hitting children	We could walk into a child. They could get in frame.	Don’t hit children. Try and film away from kids.

HM:Reflection on Shoot 3

• Shoot 3 we went to meet Luke at 3. We then took some shots in Calverly park. These shots included POV shots from Anna's point of view and will make up the memories of her with Luke. These shots will be aimed to appear towards the middle to end of the shot. However the trouble we had with these shots was that the location was to local and made the shots look unrealistic. Our other issue was the weather. the day on which we filmed the weather was overcast and drizzling. This did not add to any of our shots. After meeting up with Anna and Fred we went to Dunorlan park to get shots of both of them together. The trouble with this combined with the weather it got dark very quickly so we were unable to shoot a large volume of shots. However what we did get was good.
• The second location we went to was Freds house in Tunbridge wells. We met up with Fred and Anna to do these shots. We filmed the time lapse shots again making sure all the dimensions and objects were either in or out of shot to allow us to edit on after affects successfully.
• Other shots we took were night shots with a fire and sparklers. These were highly successful as we managed to create illuminations of their faces with the background in the dark. This has allowed us to amplify their facial expressions and features. the trouble with filming in the dark was that the shots were occasionally blurry due to the lack of light. Therefore we had to take many shots and add light with a torch in some cases.  

10/11/2015 Production Post

In our last lesson as well as Fred and Mia working on the time lapse in after affects I was editing. In this edit I mainly focused on shots that were taken in our first shoot. The key shots which have worked well have been the forest shots and the park bench shots. I have attempted to use a fast cutting rate while keeping in mind and fitting it to the pace of the relatively slow song. 

Production Progress 10/11

Production progress - 9/11/15

Week beginning - Upload and editing

• Today Hamish and I uploaded the footage we took on Friday onto the D drive and then onto the premier album. Uploading the footage took the whole lesson as the premier crashed if we put too many folders in at once. However eventually we completed the task and there's no more footage to go into the premier file. 
• Mia continued work on the Digipak, looking at the font options for the back cover and deciding on the placement of the song list and album title. 

We also organised what we'll all be doing in the course of the week:

Tuesday - Mia - Editing

Freddie - Digipak

Hamish - Editing

Wednesday - Mia - Editing

Freddie - Editing

Hamish - Digipak

Thursday - Mia - Digipak

Freddie - Editing

Hamish - Editing

Friday - Mia - Editing

Freddie - Digipak

Hamish - Editing

• Mia and I had a free last period so we made a start with the editing. 
• We started off with a small amount of lipsyncing and were trying to edit it in one timeline.
• This was impractical however and so we've decided to first construct our 4 separate story arcs on 4 seperate rows on the timeline. This way we can inter-cut them all far easier to conclude the editing process.

Anna's House Call Sheet and Risk Assessment

TWGSB Media Studies Film Production

Call Sheet & Shot list

 

Date:25/10/15         Location: Anna’s house

Meeting Time: 09:00   Group:3                    

 

Crew :

Freddie O’Connell                                Phone:07403083989

Hamish Maslen                                     Phone:07542687807

Mia Pavey                                              Phone:07746202947

 

Cast:

Anna Jennings                                       Phone:07910870272

 

Props & Equipment                      Crew Responsible

3 Kites                                              Fred

Long Board                                      Hamish

Different clothing                           Anna and Luke

Camera frame                                 Fred, Hamish, Mia

Camera                                             Hamish

Tripod                                                Hamish, Mia

Mia’s phone                                     Mia

Photoframes                                    Mia

 

Location	Shot number (on storyboard)	Cast	Technical notes
Anna’s bedroom	10	Anna	Camera: Over the shoulder shot of Anna, some movement, not a lot, will be held using a camera rig Props: Photo frames and a kite may be in view Actor: She will be looking at each photo in the frame. She will then switch them to the frame underneath. In the end she will put both down. She will be wearing baggier clothes, casual e.g. jeans and a long top. Mise-en-scene: We want the lighting to be low key as she is in her room.
Kitchen table (Anna)	28	Anna & 2 of our cast	Camera: The camera will be still. We will place it on a tripod then improvise with something as we get closer to the table. Props: Playing cards, drinks on the table, table. Actor: This will be a time lapse. Using after effects we can film 2 shots of the kitchen table. We aim to film one of the shots of the two extras playing cards and talking. The second shot will be of Anna sitting at the head of the table with a blank expression. Mise-en-scene: We want her to sit at the head of the table with two people either side. She will be in the center third of the frame. The lighting will be bright and we will create this by turning on the light in the room. The two people will be playing cards and she will not be joining in. She will just sit there.
Anna’s hallway		Anna	Camera: Will follow Anna as she leaves her bedroom and goes downstairs to leave her house. Props: Kite, Anna’s coat, shoes she puts on Actor: Anna will grab her things in a hurry to get out. We will film various different shots of her doing this and merge them together to show continuity of her leaving. She will be wearing the same clothes as in previous shots in this house. Mise-en-scene: The lighting will be less light as it will be later in the day we film this scene. She will be entering the frame from the right and then the camera will follow her.

 

 

TWGSB Media Studies Film Production

Risk Assessment

 

 

You need to consider all the potential risks at each location shoot and outline how you will work to prevent any accident or injury to you, your cast or the equipment.

 

 

Location	What is the hazard?   Think about road safety, filming at night, potential damage to equipment	Who/what might be harmed and why?   Think about who needs to be aware of the risk	How will you reduce the risk?     What steps will you take to ensure that the risk is lowered?	Signed   Approved by JF, CF, KJ
Annas house	Falling over and damaging equipment	The crew and cast and the equipment may break	Make sure we do not run around the house
Annas house	Knocking things over in annas house causing breakage to her house	The things in Anna’s house	Make sure we are careful and look out for potential items that could break