Semester review

This independent shooting experience taught me a lesson about shooting a documentary,that pre-communication is really important which decided whether or not your interviewees will open their real inner world to public. Apart from that, doing more research about the questions to ask is also very important, they have prepared the questions, but when shooting they trend to recite the answer, though I add some extra questions,they seems don’t know what to say in front of camera.
Except those terms I need to improve next time,I will keep learning technic stuffs,like try different mode of camera,doing more experiment of filming. 

Color correcting weekend

This weekend I use Da Vinci resolve to finish color correcting, it's way better handy than Premiere, and same time I'm using Premiere to add English subtitle on it, I hope I can finish it on time.

Sound editing

This week I'm adjust sound by Pro tools,we learn this software last semester,lucky I'm still remember how to use it,to be frankly,it's much more handy than Premiere,and same time there are much more complex sound effects I haven't try to use.
Due to the different environment that I shoot of each interview,especially the one I shoot outdoors,the background noisy is very loud, and I also need to modify each person's voice volume and so on.

Editing week

This is a very intense week to editing,which include color correcting,sound modification and so on,besides the oral presentation of internship!

Interview part shooting

This holiday, I arranged interviewees to shoot the documentary, most of them were a little bit nerves in front of camera, and some of them changed their answer,overall, it was a excited and meaningful experience to us.

This week, I'm going to shoot some b-roll footages according to their answer and finish translation for subtitle.

John key interview!!

As same as last week,we go out to shoot interview at morning,then editing in the afternoon.This Tuesday morning,we shot a interview with prime minister,talk about new flag design.Besides,this week I learnt how to shoot a interview when the interviewee is talking,and what kind of footages we need should match with the news context.

The first week of internship in WTV

At the first day,I only followed the experienced camera man and reporter to shoot news in the morning,and edit footages at afternoon,the final editing should be completed before 6pm,because it gonna to be board cast at 6:30pm,therefore,I feel the most stressful work during a day,is to put all CG and news clips all together fast and accurate.

Script breakdown

This week,after work I finished a part of storyboard and script,budget breakdown,mainly I'm going to shoot the interview part within two days,and another day for footages.

Location scouting this week~

Tone and Feel of the documentary

The overall theme that I want to illustrate in this documentary is a bright mood.By the fresh elements of nature and city,through contrast with interviews which are shot indoors,to give viewers a sense of difference,in order to enhance the feeling of barriers that the Chinese immigrations will face in the interview.  

Storyboarding of my documentary

This week I just got my wisdom teeth removed,so I don't have extra brain cells to continue draw this, but any way,the point is I want stress the difference between the beautiful scenery and interviewees' struggling, so there will be a lot straight cut away from outdoor to indoors scene.

Individual project idea

This semester,I'm planning to shoot a documentary of Chinese in NZ,I've already approached two people in Invercargill,one of them is a friend,we come from same province of China,and I'll follow her's story line to complete this documentary. 

Last week,I designed some questions for them to answer,here are some examples:

What's your feeling of NZ nowadays?Can you please tell us one thing that gives you a lesson after you come to NZ?Do you think you lost something after you come to NZ?What's the biggest problem you've encountered when you are in NZ?And how does it been solved?and so on,I'm still work on the question in order to make the documentary more interesting.

Nuke week

Just one week before due date, we are still doing rotoscope, I'm very worry about this :-\

My favourite directors

<YIYI>

1.Edward Yang.A great philosopher director of Taiwan,born in 1947, and he died in 2007.A innovative pioneer of new movie in Taiwan.He's film career began in a land of love and humane care of depressed teenager,in his films he delicate depict the changing face of Taipei life,and same time try to find the value of life of young people and how to master their own future.

<Happy Together>

2.Wong Kar wai born in 17 July 1956, a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker. In his film philosophy that life does not exist but the feeling of it,therefore his shots do not live in the story,but the "feel".He make film a poetry,rather than tell us a story, for example, he always seeking unique atmosphere,texture,mood in movies.He quoted the words of a French director to express his understanding of the film:the film is your first dream and your last dream.His film is an excellent footnote of this statement.

<Dreams>

3.Akira Kurosawa is a Japanese filmmaker.one of the most influential filmmakers in the history of cinema.He is definitely love make film,once he cut he self more than 30 knife attempted suicide after the film <Train Crazy> defeat, some people think he is narrow-minded,but it is hard for outsiders to understand the kind of pain that his dedication in a film which no one cares.Even when he reached his 85 years old, he still insisted to create film.When Kurosawa at 80 years old, he did shoot <Dreams>, eight dream in eight short films,eight different heroes and topics.Seemingly unrelated,but they had hidden and subtle performance of the dreamer look back on life and love.

<Life of Pi>

4.Ang Lee is a Taiwanese-born American film director,in his movies,he like to put some ordinary things that people simply do not think they are related together,and then let them collide and conflict to each other.In the <Life of Pi> Ang Lee use the greatest length, the most magnificent picture and the most breathtaking shots to explain the first story.For the second story is different to say,not even a shot,just line drawing protagonist languages, and the third story is make people even more helpless to tell which is directed only by a beautiful metaphor.

<3 Iron>

5.Kim Ki-duk is a South Korean filmmaker noted for his idiosyncratic"art-house"cinematic works.Due to his personal experience that is a quite legendary battle after he graduated from high school, he got very through understanding of human nature.I think in his story that the edge of the crowd,are linked with how he saw the society.Maybe art is the same,when we watch his film,sometime may feel pity to miss a shot, because he has a high talent in painting aspects of a story.

<The Wind Rises>

6.Hayao Miyazaki is one of my favourite animation director.He has relatively simple narrative style,there are some keywords of his films:girls,flying or running and animistic type of natural magic.In his works it is difficult to see the heavy sense of character through changing times,instead he is good at express more individual lives and experiences. 

9 different shots types and 4 different camera movements in film making

These are most frequent use movement in film making, according to the way I tell story, I will choose different camera movement. For example: when I'm shooting a environment, I prefer to pan or tilt camera to show the surrounding.

When it comes to shot types, a tip I learnt is to visualise the story by storyboard and give it to others to read and get feedback, in that way I can keep my personal frame style while doesn't confuse audiences.

The steps of film production

The illustration shows the fundamental steps to make a film, here are five major stages:

• Development — The first stage in which the ideas for the film are created, rights to books/plays are bought etc., and the screenplay is written. Financing for the project has to be sought and greenlit.
• Pre-production—Preparations are made for the shoot, in which cast and film crew are hired, locations are selected, and sets are built.
• Production—The raw elements for the film are recorded during the film shoot.
• Post-production—The images, sound, and visual effects of the recorded film are edited.
• Distribution—The finished film is distributed and screened in cinemas and/or released to home video.

B-roll footage and how it works

B-roll footage refer to the  alternative footage intercut with the main shot in an interview or documentary,in order to illustrate the story fully and stay attract viewer's eyes. So B-roll is definetely a big deal. 

To shoot a B-roll footage is slight different from main shooting. For instance: blur for focus, add different angles and so on, Due to B-roll footage will go over audio, so it gives filmmakers more room too be creative and chance to go back do it again.

Self-evaluation of first project

After editing the interview of Sandy, here reveals some flaws that I need to bear in mind.

First of all, when we shoot interview in a fashion shop which down on first floor, the lights here are quite warm and dark, due to that I used a small light, because  at same time, I want to keep the vintage feelings that fashion shop brings to me. However, when we browsing the footages on computer, the gain of pictures is to high. So next time, I will double check lights and camera setting.

Apart from that, through editing, I found out the B-roll footages of interviewee are very limited, before shooting, I planed to set two cameras on different angle of interviewee, but it was too late to book two of them. Lesson learned--sufficient prepare of equipments.

On the other hand, the interview questions are the best part of the whole interview. I did researches about questions of fashion designers and give them to Sandy beforehand, besides rehearsal in her mind, she can also choose the more interesting one to answer.

To sum up, with classmates corporation, we did this interview very productively, though there are problems left for editing, after this self-evalution it just become more clear to me where should be improved during film production.

Group shooting project 2

This week, we have a new team in class,with other 3 brilliant members,we are planing to shoot a short film to horn our filming skills and story telling skills as well.

Learn NUKE

Thanks to Rachel who devoted her time to teach us how to use Nuke to key the footages we got with green screens. It is totally different from After Effects which I used to use, but it very convenient and the results comes out are very good. Next week, we will start keying all the green screen shoots, and same time, we will start doing foley and hard effect sounds for the project ;)

Experiemental film

This week we watched some cult film on class, which revealed an other hand of film making.
Like a drawing, it can be an illustration,an abstract painting and so on. As a method  to express a kind emotion to audiences.

Back Sandy Point to reshoot a scene

This Friday, we back to Sandy Point, reshoot a scene which is a creature holds the GPS. It was a great  sunny day, but  we were  too late to catch the good day lights for shooting, so we still got one more scene need to be reshoot in next Friday :)

Green screen shoot weekend

Due to the awful weather, we decided shoot indoors this weekend, I'm doing BTS still this time, today is last shooting day,thanks to everyone's diligent efforts, animators will continue working on effects and CGs, looking forward to the final product :-D

Group project one

This Monday we worked out questions to interview and set gears up in Zoo Keeper Cafe. We interviewed two staffs with eight questions and film the B-roll footages.
Overall shooting goes quite smooth, and results looks good, however, there are some points we forgot during the shooting. First of all, asking interviewees to repeat the question when answer it. Second is  we lack  B-roll footages of interviewees, for instance, their hands movements or a close-up of their eyes. Besides, when we arrived here around 3 pm, it was really busy at the time, so we got quite noisy background souds.
Anyway, we learnt form this great experience, thanks team members :-D

Storytelling in documentary

4 "P"s to guide us shooting a documentary.

1. People, find a person or a group or a object which is interesting, and do some pre-interview with them, get some inspiration of the questions to ask they in filming. And same time doing some research about their background, topics and so on.
                                   
                                     
2. Place, considering the context of interview and interviewee's feeling, choose location properly.

                                     
3. Plots, when prepare questions, think like telling a story to audience. Introduction, development, problem, resolution, should be contained in questions.

                                      
4. Purpose, always bear in mind with the purpose of this interview, what do we want to express through this video to others  

Interview a fashion student -- Sandy

At this Friday,with help of Aman and Kimberley,I shot a short interview of Sandy.Here are the questions I designed for Sandy:

1.What is your name, and where do you come from?
2.When did you start becoming interested in fashion design?
3.How did you develop your taste and what inspires you today?
4.Where are you producing your pieces?
5.What was the most surprising aspect of fashion design when you start to study?
6.Can you tell us about your most favourite piece?
7.What are the biggest obstacles?

In the next week Aman will edit the footage and I'll upload it to blog, discuss what's I need to improve in next project.

Green screen shots weekend

This weekend, we planed everything just right to shoot  indoors. We borrowed sands from the nearest beach, director installed green screen, art department put cave floors and space ship floors on,and same time, I got chance to do behind the scene shooting and  take still photos.Though we don't have a lot people today, on the other hand, it makes everybody hands on practice~~