That's a Wrap!

The semester has ended! I can't believe it, I feel like it was just yesterday when I walked onto campus for the first time. How time flies!

Assessment A was handed in on time - thank goodness. It was a struggle, but we managed to get it done. Unfortunately it wasn't exactly how I envisioned it, it was a bit more comedic than I set out for, which I'm worried will bring our marks down as the poem is quite deep and meaningful. But it's an adaptation, and the meaning is still in there (if you look hard)! 

After handing in this assessment, we had one last test to do; a Passport test! This entailed setting up the camera and answering a few questions. Unfortunately I did not do well in this... which frustrates me beyond belief! I've set up the camera a million times, but for some reason during the test I just wasn't in the zone. I was fumbling, I was slow... ugh. It was one of those days. I ended up not answering the questions well, which I must admit is my fault. I'm not a whizz on camera terminology yet, I'm one of those people that will know what to do but I can't tell you what I'm doing (if that makes sense). But, I will 100% brush up on my terminology over the holidays! The last thing I want is to disappoint Tristan (I'm sorry Tristan! I promise I'm better than that!). 

I will watch the video online, and this link will become my bible: https://blackboard.regents.ac.uk/bbcswebdav/pid-271324-dt-content-rid-422362_2/courses/2013.4.6_MPP405.R_T1/Notes_for_JVC_GY-HM100_150.pdf

I was disappointed in myself. But I still feel I'm better than I was at the beginning of the semester, so I'm holding onto that glimmer of progress. One of the reasons why I wanted to leave my old course in Australia is because of the lack of practical experience we were getting; it was a lot of theory and sitting in the classroom, so I rarely got that hands-on experience. There was a fair bit of scriptwriting, which is my favourite part, but to be well-rounded in the industry you need to learn how to use cameras (duh)! So I was essentially coming into this with no knowledge on cameras at all (I never studied photography or anything like that!). So, with that said, I'm fairly happy with where I've ended up. 

I can't believe how much I've grown during this semester, and really ever since I arrived in London! Being independent for the first time on the other side of the world from everything and everyone I've ever known was a hard feat at first. I'd always been in a bit of a bubble, shall we say. When I first arrived, I was scared to take control, to voice my opinions, to take action. But now? Now I'm not worried about expressing my ideas, and even secretly enjoyed being a Director, which I never thought I could've done. Although I'm still worried about other people's judgement on my work and ideas, but one small step for man.

While I may not be perfect now, I can only improve little by little until I become the person that I want to be, and hopefully I won't disappoint anyone again in the future. That's the worst feeling in the world! I will make it up to you Tristan, I swear! I'll show you what I'm made of next time.

:)

Filming Times

We finished filming today! PHEW! So. Relieved. I was so worried we wouldn't get it done, I'm ecstatic we got it all filmed by this stage!

Although, I'm so incredibly frustrated with my group. I think I would've enjoyed being Director a lot more if my group was more responsive. I got the vibe that they didn't care a lot about the project, and they couldn't be bothered with it. As much as I prompted and tried to get them to act, I received nothing. There's only so much I can do, right? Maybe I need to speak to a professional about how to deal with a group like this! It got to the point where I felt helpless, and I hate being "that guy" where I have to channel my inner bitch, so to speak. Gerry was the only one who, once we got the ball rolling, seemed enthusiastic about the project.

After not being able to film on the weekend, I was hoping we could film most of Monday. Our Production Manager said she would have everything organised for that to happen. However, she didn't end up getting the kit booked until 4pm... and our original location, she decided to tell us on the day that we were filming, had fruit and vegetable markets right at the entrance of the door. If she'd read the script, she would see that that doesn't work out. STRESS. Luckily another member of our group suggested her place, which is where we ended up going, hoping it would be suitable. 

Luckily it wasn't that bad. A very small space though, which we had to deal with. I'm so grateful to the actor we ended up with, he was very patient as we tried to figure out our space. I'd done up a storyboard which we tried to follow as best we could. Unfortunately, due to our limits, some shots just couldn't be done.

We also had a time limit because our actor needed to head off, so we had to cram everything in! Plus, because we didn't get the kit booked until the evening (the script ideally would've been filmed in the morning...), we had to try and recreate the light so that it looked like morning/daytime. Fingers crossed that works out!

Today, after filming yesterday, we still needed to get in a couple more shots outdoors. It was absolutely necessary to have daylight for these! Our actor was only available for an hour, from 12-1, so I arranged for everyone to meet at 10:45am to enable enough time to get our location set, and to know exactly what we were doing. This was to make the most of our time when the actor got there!

I arrive 10:45. Only Gerry is there. 11:10, another member arrives. We are missing 2 members. One of which has our camera, and the other has our tripod and a vital item of clothing for our actor. We call our camera man at around 11:20, who was asleep!! We told him to get to us ASAP. We called our tripod/clothing girl, who was on her way. However, it turns out she'd forgotten said tripod/item of clothing, so she had to turn around and head back to retrieve them. 

11:40 rolls around. No camera man, no tripod/item of clothing. We call our camera man again. He was STILL at home!!!! We told him our actor was arriving in 20 minutes! He swears and hangs up.

Our actor arrives 10 minutes later, but there was nothing we could do except head down to our location and get some practice runs. After this, we head to the tube station with Gerry calling our camera man constantly. It would ring through with no answer. Super frustrating! At 12:25-ish, he finally emerges, taking his time. No apology was uttered, which made the situation so much worse. We still had no tripod, and no shirt. What else could we do but go hand-held and make our actor wear a jumper? We had no other option, so that's what we did. Our tripod and shirt arrived when we had 5 minutes to go.

However, we did manage to finish our filming, but it's not the way I really envisioned it. A bit upsetting, but what's done is done! I really hope that for our next assignment, I'm arranged into a good group with enthusiastic people! I really feel I've had quite bad luck thus far. Hopefully next time :)

Catch Up

I have a lot to catch up on in this post! Since I last wrote, I received my results back from our Vox Pop assignment - which I must admit, I'm a little disappointed with! Luckily there was some good feedback which I will take on board for the next assignment. Speaking of, we've started that too!

In this assignment, we have to do a 1 minute poem adaptation. I was assigned as Director... eek! Scary! This is my first time being a Director, 100%, so I'm feeling all kinds of nervous! Although I saw a quote which I've decided to take on board:

My fear of being in charge, so to speak, has really come down to that notion of being wrong. But, I'm going to embrace my new position of power! I need to trust my ideas, which I think I'm slowly coming to terms with. 

Being Director, I launched straight in! I picked out 4 poems and posted them to my group on facebook. I wanted to get them involved in this whole process, because after all, we all get the same mark in the end! I don't want any of them to be unhappy with the overall product. But... several days passed and no-one responded. So, I had to just pick a poem in order to get things going. I wrote 4 different script ideas based on the poem "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost with the idea that everyone could vote on the script they liked the most. Again, no response. I approached one of my group members in class, where we discussed the scripts I'd posted and he told me the script he liked the most, so that's what we are going with! I posted on facebook what the chosen script was, the actors we'd need, the location, props and equipment. Our Production Manager said she was on it! Finally, I received some responses! We planned to get filming this weekend. However, nothing ended up being organised, so we couldn't film. A bit frustrating and stressful, seeing as it's now due in under 5 days!! Eeek! Fingers crossed we'll have things organised to film tomorrow and Tuesday.

Working in a group can really test you sometimes! I guess it's good practice for the future.

Apart from this assignment, we've also been learning about mise-en-scene and the top-down plan, as well as storyboarding and we briefly touched over some filming styles including Naturalism, Surrealism and Film Noir. Touching over Surrealism and Film Noir brought back some memories from high school! One significant movement I'd never heard of before though was Dogme 95. Very interesting. No genre? No credit to the Director? Everything seems to have to be very raw and natural. I think I need to see a movie or two in this style! I'm intrigued.

I'm still getting my head around the top-down plan. It's definitely very useful in terms of organisation! It has the ability to save lots of time and money, but I need more practice to figure out where the cameras are within the movie space. Also, the 180 degree rule I need to have set in my head too! I need to really figure out where that line is. Luckily there's diagrams to help me!

Cue: brain power.

The major plan for now though is to get this filming done for our assignment! Fingers crossed...

Vox Pops!

It's been quite a while since I last wrote, but that's because there's been so much happening! We were entrusted with the task to create a 3 minute vox pop on any topic of our choice (oh the possilibities!), and were placed in groups in order to do so. Once in our groups, we decided what each of our roles would be. I ended up being the presenter/interviewer, however we all agreed that we would help each other out, and that our roles weren't completely exclusive to just ourselves. After all, we will all be judged the same for the final product!

The difficult part was coming up with a subject. At first we were going with headlines and what was trending in the news. However, I wanted to do something a little bit different, something more fun... so I suggested we do something based on the entertainment industry. But what was something controversial/interesting in the entertainment industry at the moment? This got my mind rolling, as I then suddenly thought of the street artist Banksy who is indeed quite controversial with his work. Not only do they stand out with his unique stencilling technique, but he uses dark humour and comments on issues within politics. Here are some of his works to demonstrate what I mean:

We decided that focusing on street art was the way to go! We figured that people would have differing opinions, and decided to focus on street art as a whole as well as Banksy to create more interest. Our two questions were: 1) In your opinion, do you think street art is vandalism or a form of expression? and 2) What do you think makes Banksy stand out against other street artists?

There's street art everywhere in London, in some places more than others, which is where we ventured to in order to get some great cutaways. We also thought the people in these areas would have an opinion on the art surrounding them. The main places we went to were Brick Lane and Camden, and we truly got some amazing shots!! Here are a few of the cutaways we managed to capture:

We planned to find a few Banksy artworks to include, but we only managed to make it to one due to time restraints and the difficulty of getting everyone together at the same time. We ventured to Shoreditch, and went to the street that we were looking for and the particular place where the art was... but it wasn't there anymore! They'd painted over it. At first we were disappointed because we'd traveled all the way out there to get a nice cutaway of a Banksy artwork, however we decided to use it to our advantage to prove a point; that some DO consider street art as vandalism as it was clearly painted over due to opinions based on it being a nuisance.

During this assignment, I definitely learned a lot. I found I had more confidence to input my ideas and to take a bit more control. I was overviewing the shots and sound, I was finding people on the street to interview and asking the questions, and I found myself directing quite a bit... something I never could have done a few weeks ago! Progress.

I would say there were a few downfalls with our group, as a few didn't really put in as much effort as the rest of us or seem to care as much, which was a shame. But we did the best we could under the circumstances, and I must say I'm rather proud of what we managed to conjure up with about 3 of us working together!

Overall, a very helpful project, and one which I had a lot of fun with! :)

Lesson Five

We were to continue our interviews in this lesson! We had to get some footage to use in our next lesson for editing, which I was quite looking forward to. I love me some editing!

We were arranged into our previous groups for this task, which I was quite pleased about! Although when we went down to pick up the kit, one of our members just walked off, leaving us one member short without explanation... we managed in the end, but it would've been nice to have her stay and lend a helping hand. 

I learned to take more control in this lesson, which is progress! While I wasn't quite in charge of the camera yet, I set out to ask people if we could interview them (before, I was too scared to even do that!). Baby steps, baby steps. 

Luckily there's this page that was created for hesitant people like myself:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/production/article/art20130702112136311

It gives out advice when it comes to approaching people for interviews! I need to remember that "even if you're smiling, some people won't stop. That might be because they are in a rush or don't feel comfortable. Whatever the reason, remember it's nothing to do with you". I need to stop taking things so personally!

Lesson Four

More interviews! This lesson we got to venture into the real world again - but this time the question was entirely dependant upon us and we had to get cutaway shots as well as the interviews. I was put into a group with Natalia, Miseth, Ornela and Kat, and I feel we worked quite well together. However, one of them in particular was more difficult to work with in terms of not being able to voice my opinions or ideas, which was a bit frustrating at times. But we still managed to make it through to the end! The question we came up with was "How do you feel about Google's lack of action towards internet piracy?". A question we all agreed was simple and open, a non "yes or no" answerable question, which was what we were after. 

Because our question revolved around that of music and movies, for our cutaway shots we wanted to find media outlets such as CD, vinyl and DVD stores. In such a short time span that we had, however, we couldn't venture too far so had to work with what we had! We ventured down Baker street and found a Beatles store (we wanted to interview the lady inside but unfortunately she didn't consent) and a Rock 'n' Roll CD/vinyl store. We were lucky enough to grab an interview with the owner inside, which was quite cool with all the rock 'n' roll posters in the background, and he was very passionate about the whole thing! But we had to adapt a bit as it was really dark inside, so an adjustment of the iris was in order (yay newfound knowledge!).

Panning shots of the outside of these stores and a shot of a phone downloading music were the only cutaway shots we managed to get in our timespan. But we managed to get a few interviews, I believe we got around 6, all with different types of people ranging in age and gender to achieve a fair, well-rounded response.

My role was cable/reflector gal. I was too nervous to be in charge of the camera! I'm hoping one day I can take the responsibility and take charge with it - I do feel I have good ideas and know what I'm doing, but I'm worried others won't like the way I do things! One day, fingers crossed, I will feel comfortable to take charge!

Lesson Three

There was no venturing outside in lesson three. We learned about the different roles within filmmaking and we also took a special test that would assess what roles would suit us best.

Learning about the different roles was very helpful to me! There were a few more than I realised, especially concerning the different production roles, and all the assisting roles that are necessary to get the show on the road.

For me, the roles that I always hoped I'd get involved with were Scriptwriting and Editing. I'd like to have thought I could be a Director (what a fulfilling role!), but I don't know how I'd go with all of that pressure as well as giving out orders to others. You'd have to be so focused and know exactly what you want. At this point, I feel I'd struggle a bit with all of that! I love writing and coming up with ideas of a story, and seeing those ideas come to life on the big screen would just be incredible! I also love Editing - I'm a bit of a perfectionist so chip-chopping everything to make the final clean product is rather appealing to me.

The test we took was called "The Belbin Test". It was a series of multiple choice questions, however it was a little bit more complex than average! We were asked what we would do in different situations, and we had to tick the answers that related to us most, and THEN we had to disperse 10 points between the answers we ticked in order of what was most relevant. For example, one of the questions was:

In contributing to group projects in general:

1. I think I have a talent for sorting out the concrete steps that need to be taken given a broad brief.

2. My considered judgement may take time but is usually near the mark.

3. A broad range of personal contacts is important to my style of working.

4. I have an eye for getting the details right.

5. I try to make my mark in group meetings.

6. I can see how ideas and techniques can be used in new relationships.

7. I see both sides of a problem and take a decision acceptable to all.

8. I get on well with others and work hard for the team.

In this scenario I ticked 2, 5 and 8. Then I had to share my 10 points between them (which was quite difficult for my brain at the time)! I gave question 2 3 points, question 5 2 points and question 8 5 points. At the end of the test was a scoring key, where we would assign our points into different categories to determine which roles would best suit us. 

Overall, my points were very well rounded with similar totals for each category. The two categories I ended up with were tied! I scored 14 points for both IMP and TW. IMP stood for "Implementer" and was assigned to the role of Editor. Yay! I was quite happy to see that, and definitely confirmed my passion to delve into editing. The TW stood for "Team Worker", and was assigned to Lighting. I'd never really thought about lighting much, but I suppose it could be quite fun to play around with shadows and contrast and essentially the 'look' of the film. Apparently, in order to be a good Editor and good at Lighting, I have to have great organisational skills, have practical common sense, be hard working, have self-discipline and an ability to respond to people and situations to promote team spirit. I would like to think that I obtain all of these points, but especially in terms of self-discipline and organisational skills, I have my lacking moments! My weaknesses, according to the test, is that I have a lack of flexibility, resistance to unproven ideas and that I have indecision at moments of crisis and some failure to provide a clear lead to others. I would say these results were fair!

However, while this test may be quite on the mark with its results, in terms of the questions asked, it's hard to judge yourself in these scenarios. I may think I'd react in the ways I ticked, but then again I don't observe myself from an outside perspective. I could be more assertive in my ideas than I thought! I guess I'll never know until I play a part in every role. Also, looking upon the question above now, I would also tick question 4. Either way, I think the results are fairly accurate!