Film Festival

Name of festival: Dirigo 'I direct' (in latin) The Cube Cinema-Bristol 10th of May (to be confirmed) South-West student film competition. Free to enter 'Set up to inspire and showcase creativity of student films in the South-West. Open festival with no set catogories. We actively encourage new styles, voices and direction.' Awards will be given on the night.

Terms and conditions: Films must be under 15 mins long and must be from the South-West.

Above are the details so far for our Film Festival that we are organising. This will be sent to a Graphic Designer by me to create a leaflet/poster.

Colour Grading Practice.

I decided to colour grade Poppy and Seb's short film (first years) to practice colour grading for Writers Block. As you can see the first image is the original footage straight from the C100. The second image is my final colour grade. I feel like I'm getting a lot better at colour correcting. I've learnt to use the exposure pallete to make sure the shadows, mid tones and highlights  are within the 0-100. After watching a video on youtube my technique now is to start with making sure my 'blacks' are black' with the 'shadows' and I go from there. Another thing that has helped me and a tip I've learnt from youtube is correcting the highlights and their colours. I zoom in and look at part of the image that should be near white, make it brighter if it needs on the pallete and then take out the colour that it's tinted by on the colour wheel. It's a common issue to have highlights that are blue in original footage, this is easily changed by taking the highlight spot and pushing it to the opposite side of the colour wheel.
 

It's really important that the shot's are in focus where they need to be when it comes to Writers Block because I've colour graded quite a few times and the C100 has left the data out of focus really grainy and it shows up well on a bigger screen. I picked the shot above to display because it is crystal clear and a beautiful shot. At the moment I normally use the 'Luma' scope for my exposure and 'RBG Parade' for the colour. My next mission is to find out more about the other scope options but overall I can see a huge difference in the standard of my colour correcting skills.

Festival Group Meeting

We had a group meeting about organizing a festival as part of our collaberative Workbase Practice module. Overall the meeting was quite productive, we discussed places the festivals could be held, how long the films entered should be, if they should be themed, who to contact and what to call the festival. I came up with the name 'Southfest' as it suggested that we make it clear the festival is Somerset based. So far 'Southfest' has been the name people have liked but it could change in the future. I contacted Kari Nygard about using the Cube cinema as the venu and sent an email asking about the process of creating an event. I haven't had a reply back from Kari yet so I play to find her around the university campus to try and get things moving forward. Although I skyped the class I did contribute and play a part in the meeting. Other venu suggestions were the Winter Gardens which Ceejay is following up if the Cube is unavailable.

'Vicious'

For a few months I had been in contact with a cinematographer and he gave me the opportunity to be on a short horror set. I'm not aloud to talk about the details of the film but what I am going to do is talk about is myself being a runner and what I learned in the 3 full days I helped out.

On set I became really good friends with everyone and this allowed me to ask questions and get involved a lot more. Aside from making cups of teas I learnt how to change lenses, the right way to hold the lens, helped set up lighting and repeatedly used the clapper board. Helping out with 'Vicious' is one of the best things I have done on this course so far, I enjoyed watching the whole process of it being shot and I have a better awareness now of what its like to be on set which will come in very handy for 'Writers Block.' Keith the focus puller explained to me how he uses a tape measure to get the best possible image he can, Neil asked me for help setting up lights and spoke to me about different light gels and about his profession. 

I asked the actors lots of questions and became good friends with them, on the last day I met an actor who works for Icon Movies and he suggested that he help me get more work experience with them. I am going to try and get some work experience with them in an editing suite. After the 3 days I now have everyone as contacts on Facebook and cannot wait to see the final outcome. The DP (Paul Dudbridge) suggested that my PCP feedback form will contain excellent feedback and also the Make-Up artist on set said that 'Jess is the best runner ever' so fingers crossed for the future!

PCP Evaluation

Jedd Talk

I helped film a lecture with the first years at the Knightstone Campus, the footage is lost at the moment due to technical problems but the day itself went really well. Last year I didn't participate in much professional commercial practise so my technical skill at setting up has room for improvement. I mananged to help the first years set up tripods and the C100's and gave the advice to not mess with the master shot and to always have headphones for sound. I would like to see the footage to evaluate further.

Neon 5

The neon 5 project for Weston Hospice I really enjoy and the project suited me. I feel like I communicated with Claire Dibbens very well through email and created an edit that she wanted. I worked well with the others whilst shooting the event and we captured as much footage as we could. Dave and I made many adjustments to the final edit and in the end Claire sent an email saying thank you and the final outcome looked 'brilliant'.

Behind the Scenes for Poppy & Seb

I had a big impact on helping Poppy and Seb behind the scenes of their PA film. We started at 6am and I didn't get home until 10pm. I drove around picking up a few things which made a huge impact on how their shoot went and Seb himself said that Will and I were a big help on the day. I managed to capture funny behind the scenes footage, interviews etc. and Seb messaged me saying it was exactly what he wanted. I really enjoyed the day and it made me feel like I am making progress and it was a good chance to practice my technical skills. I learned how to use the Sony Nex VG20 and was really impressed with the camera.

Setting Up Winter Wonderland

I helped set up the cameras and audio for Winter Wonderland amd again this was a great opportunity getting use to setting up equiptment because I haven't actually done much of that. Setting up made me feel more confident. I was helpful again with trasport and I think the fact that I have a driving license will help me in the future to gain work experience.

Overall So far I am happy with the way my Collaberative Practice is going at the moment and I intend to carry on and do as much as possible to gain experience. I have been working with other students like Ceejay and Will to experiment on different projects and so far feel like I have a good work ethic. I need to improve on my technical knowledge and skill. I have recently found out that I have work experience with Paul Dudbridge in Jan 15 assisting on a short horror, I also plan to push for a day work experience at a colour grading house next year. I am excited but nervous as I don't feel completely confident on set, yet.

Test shoot no.1 preparing for 'Writers Block'.

Test Shoot testing out 'Custom Camera Profiles.' Colour Grading.

Ceejay, Dave, Will and I decided to do a test shoot comparing different custom profiles on the C100. The short film 'writers block' is going to be shot on a C100 so it is important that we do lots of test to know the camera inside and out before we go on set. The three custom profiles we tried out were; Eos Standard, Wide DR, Cinema. We shot the same scene with three point lighting 3 times but changed the customs each time.

This is what each Custom Profile looked like before colour grading...

Above is Ceejay shot with 3 point lighting in WIDE DR

Same scene shot in EOS STANDARD

Above same scene shot in CINEMA.

This is WIDE DR colour graded, colour grading this setting I found that I was able to bring back more detail whilst keeping the colours close to reality and visually appealing. This was my favourite setting to colour grade.

This is ESO STANDARD colour graded, this was my second setting to colour grade but I don't like the fact that the shot is too orange and I found it really difficult to get rid of some of the orange without making the right hand side too blue. This was the best I could do and I think it is a dramatic change and looks nearly as realistic as WIDE DR. This setting does lose some of the detail on Ceejay's left shoulder though.

This is CINEMA setting colour graded and it was my least favourite to colour grade. It looks too dark and the setting makes everything tinted too blue. Although it does look like 'cinema' the look does not fit the character profiles, theme of 'Writers Block' as Ceejay has discussed with me that the film needs to look 'colourful' as the theme is 'Hope'.

For this shoot WIDE DR looked the best in the edit but we have decided that we are going to shoot another scene in low light, natural light and shoot the same shoot again with additional soft boxes. Doing more tests will allow us to find out what lighting and setting match together and what will look best in colour grading. 

Our coursework evenings!

What I've been doing for 'Writers Block'. (Group Film)

I was picked by Ceejay to be in-charge of lighting and colour grading for 'Writers Block' our group short film. I have recently been looking into different films with Ceejay that I can take as colour inspiration. As previously posted I have been reading 'If it's purple someone is gonna die.' which is all about the use of colour and I have been looking on the internet further into the definition of colour and colour tinting in film. Tomorrow 03/12 Everyone is testing out different equiptment and I will be looking at the way camera settings affect my colour grade. I have started and will carry on looking at the technical side of colouring and practicing with actual equiptment. It is important that I carry on working alongside Ceejay and watching more films so I am well prepared.

Short Go-Pro Experiment.

Ceejay and I decided to create a short film/ experiment of a character in a bath covered in blood. We wanted to create the impression that the character had just murdered someone and gotten into the bath. The whole point of the short experiment was to practise using a Go-Pro and use it underwater. Unfortunatly the Go-Pro didnt work for us and wouldnt record. We decided to shoot with Iphones as another interesting form of technology as we didn't have anything else to use.

The opening shot of the short edit I am happy with considering the circumstances as the fake blood does actually look quite realistic and the bath isn't majorly modern. The use of the iphone creates a 'indie' horror look in surprising high detail. The mobility of using the iphones made the shots easy to get however, some of the shots came out quite shaky. The iphone only has touch spot sensitive focusing which meant that it was quite tricky to get the iphone to stay focused.

We had too shoot the shots quite fast due to the fact that we ran the bath quite hot and the fake blood thin and run. Ceejay and I plan to do the shoot again but with him in the bath and use a Go Pro that works to get what we wanted in the first place.

Short Edit Below

vimeo.com/113296878

password: thefilmgalaxy

Making Fake Blood

Ceejay and I learned how to make fake blood for a Go Pro experiment. The experiment entailed myself in a bath covered in fake blood suggesting that I had just murdered a person. Unfortunatly, the GoPro didn't work at the time we needed to so we had to shoot all the footage on Iphones.

Here is how to make Fake Blood for future films:

Step 1: Buy Red Food Colouring Blue Food COlouring Flour Golden Syrup (you will also need water.)

Step 2: Put a big spoon full of golden syrup in a bowl and add a small amount of water. stir.

Step 3: Add a small amount of flour to create a thicker consistancy.

Step 4: Add a generous amount of red food colouring and a spot of blue colouring. (Go careful the you don't make it purple)

Step 5: Stir and leave to rest so the mixture becomes slightly thicker.

Graphics Meeting.

Had a meeting with India Lawton a Graphics Design Student about the graphics for 'Writers Block.' She has agreed to create a book sleeve as a prop, design the credtis and a poster for the film. India took notes and will be in contact with me during the process of 'Writers Block' to ensure she is well briefed on what the director (Ceejay) would like to see.

Festival

Just entered 'Perplexity' into a short film festival called Film-Lift Liverpool for £20. Festival enteries close 31/10/14 and find out If I am successful in Feb 2015. I will hopefully be entering more short films from this year into short film festivals.

I found out about the festival through twitter due to the fact I have a twitter account solely based on film called 'Thefilmgalaxy' The festival company direct messaged me a discount code for the entry.

Fingers crossed.

I am going to be creating a short documentary about my great grandfather who is 90 years old and fought in World War 2. I have spent today scanning in lots of photographs he took on his journeys as he was fighting in Japan etc. Henry has lots of stories and experiences to share and I can't wait to get started on what will be one of my independent practice films.

If it's purple someone is going to die

I am reading a book about colour in film. The book is called ' If it's purple someone is going to die' and it is written by Patti Bellantoni. Bellantoni is a lecturer at a university in America and he talks about giving his students lessons where they have to feel colour and live a certain colour of their choice. The book then goes on to analaysing different films and why certain colours are used such as red to represent danger but adding orange tones to that red then makes it a representation of lust. I reccomend this book as I have learned a lot so far from it and it makes you really think about movies that you have already seen or may watch.

The cutting edge...

I recently watched a documentary about the art of film editing and how much control you have as an editor over the whole film and how you can change an audience reaction. The documentary was called 'The Cutting Edge The Magic Of Move Editing.' Here is a link to the documentary if anyone is interested. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U76MBDKQe8s

I found Steven Spielberg's chat about the editing of jaws very interesting and how a few split seconds can change everything.