Video & Sound Production / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylors University / Project 2
LECTURES
INSTRUCTIONS
Project 2:
WEEK 7: For our new second project, rather than it being the Zach King video, (our new final project), it is now a short 2-minute film reflecting "How young adults' lives have been affected due to COVID-19). This is a group assignment and my group members are Hanan, Jon, Shaayif, Yumnu, and of course me. For our idea, we want to explore how we all have really felt throughout the quarantine and online classes. Specifically, the idea is about how to lose our sense of motivation throughout the course of a semester. This has been reflected in a lot of our lives as the constant isolation can oftentimes demotivate you. When you're constantly talking to a screen and have minimal to no human interaction, our state of mind can go downhill rather quickly if we are not actively aware of it.
Firstly, we had to discuss our plot segmentation to understand how it will be filmed. We decided on Jon & Shaayif to be in charge of editing, while Yumnu, Hanan & I would be taking the editing portion. Since we are all not able to gather together to film.
We discussed over discord about our possible ideas and decided on a final simple storyboarding:
The alarm going off.
S wakes up, sits in bed rubbing eyes, smiles slightly when
he remembers it’s the first day of the semester. Cut to
J sitting in bed smiling a bit as well, gets out of bed.
Calendar shot with April 13 circled.
J walks to bathroom/closet. In and
out. Wide shot on door if possible. J will walk into frame from one side, enter
the bathroom, and walk out of the frame from the other side.
Figure 1: Rough sketch for the described scene above, by Yumnu.
J sits on chair near desk and picks
up picture frame. ¾ shot.
Over the shoulder shot on the
picture, slowly zooms into the picture? Alternatively, ¾ shot changes to a
close up shot on the picture frame in J’s hand.
¾ shot on J’s face again, showing
that he’s a bit sad.
Transition shot. Medium wide shot of
J at his desk from behind. 7-10 seconds of him talking animatedly, gesturing
with hands. Try to portray excitement from behind! Keep laptop’s brightness
high (will help in post when changing lighting for the different transition
shots? Laptop will have to seem brighter in darker environment and vice versa).
Transition shots start. Six shots, 3-4 seconds each? Desk gets progressively
messier. If showing floor of room, show crumpled pieces of paper on the floor
as well? Maybe even clothes on the floor. Change clothes for each shot.
Texting shot. Sitting on the floor,
leaning against some furniture (can be changed depending on how your room is) ,
looking kind of sad. Wrinkled clothes, messy hair. Show laundry on the floor
in the background. If sitting near bed, show unmade bed as well. Keep one side of
frame mostly empty for conversation to appear.
Cut to S lying on sofa or bed, staring up at ceiling blank,
gets notification (sound effect here and notif will appear in frame) and picks
up phone. Show a messy and darker environment here if possible too.
Sits up and texts. Glow of phone on face, so keep
environment dark if possible. Camera angle changes to a more close up shot
(above waist?) Keep one side of frame empty here as well.
Conversation:
J: Hey man, how’re you doing?
S: Hey I’m doing ok! A bit overwhelmed with assignments, but
all’s good. What about you?
J: Yeah. I’m doing great as well.
Figure 1.01: Rough sketch for the text scene described above, by Yumnu.
S throws phone onto bed/sofa and falls face down onto
sofa/bed, keep camera angled at
bed/sofa with another part of the room also visible. Keep at the same angle while
showing transition shots. S goes from the bed; plays with the phone in bed; walks
out of frame; walks into frame throwing and catching a ball or something; lies
in bed again. All cut shots.
Cut to S desk, same as J’s desk transition shots. The first shot
will also have a messy environment, it gets worse with each transition shot.
Keep the same shirt on or maybe change it once. The environment will get darker.
S in bed, under covers, half his face showing. Asleep.
J in bed, under covers, half his
face showing. Asleep. The alarm goes off, J hits snooze.
WEEK 8:
After completing our storyboard, Jon and Shaayif had to film the shots we had in mind and send them to our group chat so we could discuss. They were all done really well and had minimal to no corrections done. After we received the shots, I stitched all of the clips together and added some background music as well. Jon then helped me add the background noise and ambiance to the video.
Figure 1.02: Premiere Pro with the edited clips and sound effects
Figure 1.03: FIRST DRAFT
FEEDBACK // DRAFT 1: The video seems a little confusing to understand, as Mr. Martin had to view it without any sound at all. Do the colour corrections and effects for the video. Maybe make it darker as the video progresses to convey the darkness and loneliness they are both feeling. It was definitely confusing with the text messages and felt rather empty. The story aspect wasn't very clear either.
WEEK 9: After receiving our feedback, we had to make amendments to our video. Yumnu added the text messages overlaying throughout certain scenes in the video. She was also responsible for some of the editing along with the script writing for the whole project.
Figure 1.04: Yumnu editing the text overlays onto the video
After the text messages were added, we once again showed our video to Mr Martin and received some more feedback.
FEEDBACK // DRAFT 2: The video looks more put together and has a better sense of storyline. Everything looks okay, just add the colour correction and colour grading to the video. As he explained last week, the video starting off with brighter colours and slowly decreasing and becoming darker as it progresses towards the end.
Figure 1.05: Yumnu editing the text overlays onto the video
WEEK 10: With the feedback received, all we needed to do was to colour correct and colour grade our video, this task was done by Hanan along with any final touches she felt was necessary. After the colour correcting, our video was complete and sent to Mr Martin without any further issues as of now.
FINAL VIDEO // PROJECT 2 // FAZAL, JON, YUMNU, SHAAYIF & HANAN:
Figure 1.06: Final Video
REFLECTIONS:
WEEK 7: This week has been extremely stressful. The sudden changes in our projects and inclusion of the Adobe Creative Jam have caused for a lot more stress than anticipated! Luckily I got a great group, and we're all Maldivians!! Except for Jon. It feels nice to meet people from the same country as me, it's always nice seeing fellow Dhivehi students. However, this does not soften the blow from the sheer amount of stress that comes with a new assignment within a weeks deadline. One observation I made was that the topics for Adobe Creative Jam were a little weird, didn't seem super appropriate for a video. One finding I made was that mental health is very important, and sadly many peoples mental health seem to be declining in constant quarantine.
WEEK 8: Thankfully a major crisis was averted. We were told that we are no longer participating in the Adobe Creative Jam. However, we will continue on with our video project and stick with our theme on how COVID-19 has affected all of our lives. One observation I made was that working under pressure can really force out your ideas when you need them. One finding I made was that there are many ways you can make a video interesting using only angles and framing.
WEEK 9: This week I finished editing the video together. Jon and Shaayif filmed over the week and I stitched the video together and put some background music. Just some basic and rough editing as we'll refine it over the next weeks. One observation I made was that music can really add a lot of elements to a rather empty video. One finding I made was that storytelling without verbal communication is very hard to tell without proper visual cues.
WEEK 10: We are almost done with our video now. The editing is all done, and Yumnu has added on the text messages. I realise now after Yumnu has added the texts, the video is much easier to understand and it shows how important visual cues for an audience can be. As without them, there are entire scenes that look very pointless and confusing. One observation I made is that without colour correction the video looks very inconsistent. One finding I made was that editing to the beat of a song can really allow someone to connect with a video better and feel more satisfied.
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