Video and Sound Production: Project 2

When the motion picture camera was first invented, filmmakers used dramatic presentation, where the camera is positioned as if its a member of the audience for storytelling purpose even though the shots were simple and straightforward.

They later noticed that, whatever they filmed, while 3-dimensional in reality, becomes flat on screen. And so, they decided to breakup their idea into scenes and arrange them in particular order to create a sense of 3D.

Cinematography

Shot - A continuous recording by one camera without interruption.
Sequence - A series of scenes and shots edited together. It defines the place or setting of a particular narrative and it may depict a continuous event happening in the story

Motion picture/film/video is made up of many shots and cinematography is about how to position the camera in a way that helps drive the narrative forward.

Shot size

Fig 1.1 Different shot sizes
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheHandmaidsTale/comments/civlk6/no_spoilers_a_guide_to_shot_sizes_feat_shots_from/

Wide shot (WS)

Shows the whole body of the subject and important objects in its surroundings. If it is used at the beginning of a scene, it's called an "establish shot".

Fig 1.2 Example of EWS
Source: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/video/tips-and-solutions/filmmaking-101-camera-shot-types

Extreme wide shot (EWS)

Shots the broad view of the environment that the subject is in. Conveys geographical location and scale.

Medium shot (MS)

Shows the subject from waist up, focuses on the gesture and expression of the subject.

Medium close-up shot (MCU)

Shows the subject about midway between waist and shoulders to above the head. (i,e: shoulders to forehead of subject). Used when further emphasis on expression is needed. Background should be blurred.

Medium wide shot (MWS)

Shows the subject from around the knees up, has headroom above the subject. Wide enough to show the venue of the scene.

Close-up shot (CU)

Used to isolate the most important part of the subject. It usually shows the head, hands or small objects. It emphasizes on facial expression and details of objects. Close up shot only shows the head where the forehead and chin are cut off.

Extreme close-up shot (ECU)

Show only a portion of a subject. It is used to magnify a certain part of a detail so as to increase drama or impact or to show a significant part of a picture more clearly.

Fig 1.3 Example of OS
Source: https://nofilmschool.com/over-the-shoulder-shot-examples-definition

Over the shoulder shot (OS)

Shows the subject from behind the shoulder of another person or from the person itself. Used as a kind of point of view shot to show the audience what the other person is looking at.

Composition

Rules of thirds

Fig 1.4 Rule of thirds in cinematography
Source: https://taketones.com/blog/rule-of-thirds-in-filmmaking

A 3x3 grid where subjects should be positioned on the intersection points as it's aesthetically pleasing and creates focus.

Facial modelling

Fig 1.5 3/4 angle with proper lighting
Source: Lecture slides

Best when subject is turned 45 degree (3/4 angle) and proper lighting can show the roundness of the face and gives full display of the eyes.

Fig 1.6 3-Dimensional solidity
Source: Lecture slides

3-Dimensional solidity

Can be achieved most clearly when 2 or more surfaces are photographed. Angle the camera around the subject in a way where two sides of an object are viewed.

Parallel lines

Fig 1.7 Lines guiding the eyes and creating distance
Source: https://learn.zoner.com/composition-light-7-things-you-can-learn-from-the-movies/

Angle the camera so parallel lines in a scene converge at a distance, preferably toward the right. Used to make sure the viewer's eyes are brought into a distance.

Subject height

Fig 1.8 Shot angles
Source: http://faculty.salisbury.edu/~axsharma/mywebs/efp/gramtv.html

Eye level shot

Shot from the eye level of the viewer or from the subject's eye level.

Low angle shot

Soft from the bottom of the subject with the camera tilted upward. Used to make the subject look bigger and strong, or more noble, and gives an impression of height.

High angle

Camera position above the character and tilted downward to view the subject. Used to make the subject look more vulnerable as the subject look more smaller, or younger.

Screen-direction

Fig 1.9 Dynamic screen direction of camera placement
Source: Lecture slides

Dynamic screen direction

Camera placement where it shows the sequence of one continuous motion in different shots. The subject should move in the same direction throughout the whole shooting to show consistency in each shot. Cameras should all be placed at one side of the character for the same reason.

Static screen direction

Fig 1.10 180 degree rule
Source: https://blog.assemble.tv/what-is-screen-direction-in-filmmaking

180 degree rule

Used when multiple angle shot are used to film two people being still facing each other. Cameras should not cross the horizontal axis of the two person to avoid disorientation and to keep the direction constant.

Week 3 / Storytelling in Film

3-act story structure

Fig 2.1 3 acts structure diagram
Source: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/three-act-structure/

Act 1: Beginning

Setup/introduction of the story. Introduce the main character, his background and his goal.

Act 2: Middle

Also known as "Rising Action", set up confrontation for a problem. Develop obstacles or complications which leads to the climax of the story.

Act 3: End

Ending of the climax and provide resolution to the problems in act 2. Tying loose ends in the story.

Plot point 1: "The plot thickens"

An incident that turns the story in a new direction. Set up the story for act 2 and reminds the audience there's another possible outcome for the story.

Plot point 2: "The longest mile"

Also known as the "Climactic turning point". Set up the story for the climax by creating a cliffhanger in the story.

Week 4 / Intro to Production Team

Production Team

Producer

The person who initiates the project, involved throughout the entire filming process, from start to finish

Screenwriter

Responsible for the story of the film, making sure it follows the 3 act sequence and let the story unfold smoothly

Director

Responsible for overseeing the creative aspect during the film production, controlling the content and flow of the film's plot, working with the camera and sound department

Assistant director

Assists the production manager and director, take note of the filming schedule, equipment, script, set, and keeps the crew focus in their work

DOP/cinematographer

Head of camera and lighting department, makes decision in framing and lighting together with the director

Gaffer

Head of the lighting crew

Sound recordist

Head of the sound department, responsible for recording all sound during filming

Production designer

Responsible for creating the physical and visual aspects of the film, props, actor's makeup etc.

Film editor
Combining the various shots taken during production shooting to form a coherent film, works closely with the director

Visual effects artist
Responsible of compositing videos and images from different sources, which includes videos and films taken, 3D CGI imagery, 2D animations, matte paintings and text

Sound designer

In charge of designing and editing the sound for the film in post-production

Film Production

Development

The creating, writing and planning stage of filming

Pre-production

The planning stage of the filming, where scripting, casting, location scouting takes place

Production

The stage where the actual filming starts, bringing the crew and needed props and equipment on set

Post-production

The stage where footage is edited, sound and soundtrack are mixed and composed, visual effects

and title is created

Distribution

Fig 3.1 Process of film distribution
Source: https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/film-distribution-guide/

Film distribution is the process where a movie is made available for viewing by audience.

Week 7 / Intro to Premiere Pro

Media info

Media info for the usual video format

frame size/resolution: 1920px x 1080px

aspect ratio: 16:9

pixel aspect ratio: sqaure pixel (1.0)

fields: progressive scan

display format: 25fps

channel format: stereo

audio: 48000Hz

The higher the number of pixels, the better the quality.

Aspect ratio

Fig 4.1 Different types of aspect ratio
Source: https://www.videoconverterfactory.com/glossary/aspect-ratio.html

The ratio of a frame width to its height. The default aspect ratio in DSLR is 3:2, it can be changed to 16:9

Pixel aspect ratio

Fig 4.2 Pixel aspect ratio
Source: Lecture slides

Ratio of the width to height of a single pixel in a frame.

Fields

Fig 4.3 Progressive vs Interlaced scanning
Source: https://mymusing.co/interlaced-vs-progressive-scanning/

Older generation uses interlaced scanning, while modern television uses progressive scanning. All horizontal scan lines are transmitted to the display screen together in progressive scanning. While in interlaced scanning, only the odd or even lines are transmitted over the broadcast network.

Frame rate

Fig 4.4 Different formats used throughout the world

Number of frames that are displayed per second. Different world region uses different frame rates

Audio

The standard studio channel is stereo, usual frequency range is 48000Hz

Adding title

Rolling credit

Fig 4.5 Creating a rolling credit in Premiere Pro

Choose the suitable fonts, size and position the text. Enable roll toggle in the graphic panel.

Tools panel (toolbox) in Premiere Pro

Fig 4.6 Tools panel in Premiere Pro
Source: https://www.universalclass.com/articles/computers/adobe/premiere/how-to-use-the-timeline-effectively.htm

Often used tools:

Selection tool: The default tool, used to select clips in the timeline
Track select tool: Select all clips or multiple clips from a given point
Ripple edit tool: Adjust the start or end point of a clip and move the other clips to compensate for the adjusted timing
Rate stretch tool: To adjust the speed of a video clip

Effect control

Audio volume

Fig 4.7 Volume level for different sound

When editing, make sure the volume doesn't excess 0dB as that will be too loud.

Instructions

Tasks

Week 2 (8/4/2022)

Shooting Exercise: Framing

In this week, we are given a shooting exercise where we needed to take 8 shots in different framing sizes. The shot sizes that are assigned to us are low angle wide shot, frontal medium close-up (MCU), front medium shot (MS), extreme close-up shot, side angle MS, ¾ angling MCU shot, close-up shot and eye-level medium-wide shot. We also needed to have a soft background for frontal MCU, frontal MS and side angle MS, while a blurry/soft foreground for ¾ angling MCU. Each shoot needed to last 5 seconds and then later compiled together as one video with captions labelling them.

Fig 1.1 Files of multiple shots

There were no requirements on how we should do the shots so, to make things less awkward and more fun for myself during the shooting process, I decided to have a small situation scene in my video. I asked my cousin to be my actor and the video will show a situation of him arriving at a place to read a book. We planned to shoot at a park but since it was closed, we decided to do the shooting outside his house. I also did some shot multiple times as I want to see which works best during editing.

I used a Nikon D3400 for my shootings as my phone can’t achieve the soft background produced by a DSLR. The battery of the camera got flat mid-way shooting so we took a break and my cousin changed shirt when we did the ¾ angling MCU shot haha.

Fig 1.2 Editing timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro

Fig 1.3 Brightness and contrast adjustment for the first shot

After shooting, I imported the video files to Adobe Premiere Pro to cut and trim unnecessary parts of each shot and compile them together while also adding captions for each of them. I adjusted the brightness and contrast for the low angle wide shot as it originally looked too dark compared to the other shots.

Final Shooting Exercise: Framing

Fig 2.1 Final edited shooting exercise video

Premiere Pro Editing Exercise

Other than that, we are also tasked with an editing exercise using Adobe Premiere Pro. Mr. Martin provided us a pre-recorded demonstration video for us to watch before beginning the exercise, and also the storyboards and video files to use in the exercise.

Fig 3.1 Given video files
Source: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LGt1c2xPYia6gzLQGG_IuLnXgLvQnJvu

Fig 3.2 Editing timeline in Adobe Premiere Pro

After following Mr. Martin’s demonstration, I further trimmed some parts of the clips to make sure the timing between each scene isn’t too abrupt or dragged on too long, so that the cut to each shots feel natural. Dip to black transition is added to the start and end of the video and a cross fade transition is added between scene 1 shot 6A and 6B for the disappearing effect of the male main character.

Final Premiere Pro editing exercise

Fig 4.1 Final edited editing exercise video

Week 3 (15/4/2022)

Shooting exercise: Music Video Filming

To further do practice on framing camera shots, we are tasked to create a minimum 30 seconds music video using a song and choreography of our choice. We are required to form a group where each of us are to produce a full body dancing shot and later edit them together in Adobe Premiere Pro. We are also required to produce 6 more other individual shots which are high angle wide shot, medium shot, medium close-up shot, close-up shot, extreme close-up shot and low angle wide shot.

Fig 5.1 Out of Time music video

Fig 5.2 Out of Time dance video by Soula

My group chose the song “Out of time” by The Weeknd and pick one part of the choreography (0:58) in a dance video by Soula to later tweak it to suit our own moves.

Since I’m admittedly bad at dancing, I decided to come up with a little storyline and a karaoke situation for my induvial part in the music video, since I thought it suits the song too. Basically, the storyline shows a character coming back home frustrated, decides to drown it in a drink and ends up venting out through singing alone.

Fig 5.3 Files of multiple acting shots

Fig 5.4 Files of multiple singing shots

Fig 5.5 Premiere Pro timeline

I took several shots for some scenes and picked the usable ones to edit, I filmed the acting part and dancing part in daylight while the singing part in a dark room with a ring light as the only light source. I positioned the ring light at a side so that it would produce a long shadow on the wall. All the shots were done using my phone camera and a tripod. I changed the singing parts to black and white and added grain filter on it so that it would look somewhat old and differentiate from the other scenes. I also adjusted the brightness, contrast and saturation for the 3 full body shots so the colour correction of our videos would look similar.

Final music video editing

Fig 6.1 Final edited music video

3 acts structure and "Munich" analysis

Other than that, we are also tasked with writing down the 3 acts structure from analysing 3 short films: Burrow, Guang and Lalin. We also need to analyse and further discuss the 3 acts structure, story outline, the main character and his goals and obstacles in the movie “Munich”.

3 acts structure

Burrow

Fig 7.1 Burrow part 1

Fig 7.2 Burrow part 2

Fig 7.3 Burrow part 3

Act 1

Bunny and her blueprint. Introduction that she wants to build a house.

Plot point 1

Mole and rat appeared and disrupted her plan to build her home alone. They offer to help but she refuses.

Act 2

She starts digging deeper but can't find a place for her to build her home in peace

Plot point 2

Accidentally causes flooding when digging further away.

Climax

Bunny tries to escape the flood and gets help from others to direct the flood away.

Act 3

They solved the issue of the flood and bunny gets help from others to build her home.

Guang

Fig 7.4 Guang full short film

Act 1

Man ask the main character to introduce himself in a job interview.

Plot point 1

The main character hears the sound of glass produced by stirring and didn’t get hired.

Act 2

The main character's brother gets an interview for him. He searches for the glass he wants.

Plot point 2

The main character found the glass he wants but he forgot to attend the interview.

Climax

An argument is started between his brother and him because he missed the interview.

Act 3

The main character's brother sees main character performing music with wine glasses, understands that he was wrong to insult him and judge him.

Lalin

Fig 7.5 Lalin full short film

Act 1

Introduce the main character’s name and shows her personal life.

Plot point 1
A boy messaged her asking her to translate his book for him.

Act 2

The main character befriends the boy through chatting online.

Plot point 2

The boy arrives to Sapporo to meet the main character. The main character doesn’t want to meet the boy and tells him to leave.

Climax

The boy is about to leave on the train platform and the main character runs to try and catch up with him after reading his book and finding out he was her classmate when they were kids.

Act 3

She starts to accept herself more and decides not to hide behind a fake appearance.

"Munich" movie analysis

Fig 7.6 Munich movie trailer

(the full movie was watched before writing this analysis)

3 acts structure

Act 1

A group of Palestinian terrorists murdered 11 Israeli athletes in their dorms during the Munich Olympics. Avner is asked by the Israeli government to help them assassinate 11 Palestinians who are part of the terrorist group. He accepts the offer and is joined by 4 other men, in which he is the team leader. He also has a handler to brief and look over his progress in the mission. Avner and his group went to do their mission, where they had help from Louis, a French informant. They tracked down the Palestinians terrorist one by one and assassinated them.

Plot point 1

In one of their mission, the explosive that Louis provided for them are not the one that they ordered. This endangered Avner's and a few innocent lives.

Act 2

Avner's team starts to doubt Louis, thinking he's untrustworthy and told Avner to no longer trust him. But Avner continues to get intel from him anyway. Avner and his group decided to go to Beriut to join a raid, where they are given orders beforehand to not engage in anything in Beriut. He asked Louis for a safehouse and Louis put his team together with Palestinians terrorists in a safehouse he assigned.

Plot point 2

During their mission, Avner and Carl, one of his team members, met a Dutch woman in a hotel bar. In the next morning, Avner found Carl dead in the woman’s hotel room.

Climax

Avner later found out from Louis that the woman was a hired killer and there are other people who are hunting them down. Avner and two of his team members went to kill the woman for revenge. Later, one of his team members was killed by an unknown person while his other team member died in a bomb making accident.

Act 3

Avner and Steve, his remaining team member, went to kill their last target but failed. Even then, he went back to Israel and was hailed as a hero, though he wouldn’t let his handler know about what he had learnt. He then lives with his family in the USA but suffers from PTSD, he wanted to make peace with his handler by inviting him over to his house, but his handler refuses.

Story outline

Following the 3 acts structure, the story starts with a Palestinian terrorist group killing 11 Israeli athletes in the middle of the night in their dorms during the Munich Olympic. The news quickly became widespread in the country and an agent called Avner Kaufman was then asked by the Israeli government to help in their mission to defeat the Palestinian terrorist group. They want him to help track down 11 Palestinian and assassinate them as a response to the Munich Olympic incident. He accepted the offer from his handler and was joined by other 4 men, Steve, Carl, Robert, and Hans, each with their own strengths to help in the mission. He became the team leader of the group and had help from a French informant, Louis, to help track down the terrorists and assassinate them one by one. During their mission, Carl was found killed by a woman who he spent the night in the day before, the group went to seek revenge, but Hans was later also killed by an unknown hired killer. Robert didn’t join their revenge mission and instead died in a bomb making accident. Avner and Steve failed in assassinating their last target, but Avner was praised when he went back home, but refuse to give intel to his handler. He then suffers from PTSD and lives with his family in the USA, he wanted to make peace with his handler by inviting him over to his house, but his handler refuses and leaves.

Description of main character

The main character’s name is Avner Kaufman. He works for the Israel government as an agent and has a wife and a child, who was born later as the storyline progresses in the movie. He is patriotic towards his country so as to why he accepted the offer to assassinate the Palestinian terrorists, but this later change when 3 out of 4 of his team members died during their mission together. His love to protect his loved ones is his biggest value in life, and this leads him to leave his home country and live in the USA with his family instead, where the Palestinian terrorists agreed to not cause trouble in. Although he agreed to take on an assassination job, he has a gentle heart where he would cook for his team members when they were together and choose to talk and try to understand his enemy’s perspective instead of killing him at first sight, he resorts to killing when there are no other reasonable ways, or when his emotion took the best of him. He lets his emotion drives most of his decision making most of the time. This is apparent when he decided to lead his team to assassinate the newly appoint terrorist leader when they are told beforehand to only stick with the targets given to them. And is also apparent when he agrees on taking revenge on the woman who killed Carl.

Main character’s goal

Avner’s goals always are to protecting the ones he loves. He loves his home country, so he agreed on an assassination job and did his best effort on it. He loves his family so he made sure to see his first child when she was born and planned for his family to live in the USA so they would be safe from the terrorist attacks. He loves his team members, so he made sure to keep harmony in the group and made sure they are okay to his best effort.

Obstacles faced by the main character

Avner faced multiple obstacles throughout the storyline. When undertaking the mission, he had an argument with his team on the morality of their mission, whether they would harm innocent lives or not since none of them had proper tactical training. He also had paranoia, worrying that someone would kill him or his family members. He also had an argument with his team member on whether Louis is trustworthy or not since they were given the wrong bombs in one of their mission.

Week 5 (27/4/2022)

Group shooting

In this week, we did a group shooting as a part of our project 2. Mr. Martin gave us a selection of clips from the k-drama “Happiness” trailer and we are tasked to remake the shots. We filmed the shots in campus using professional tools. We also divide ourselves into different roles for the shooting and I chose the role of director of photography.

Behind the scenes pictures

Fig 8.1 Behind the scene picture #1

Fig 8.2 Behind the scene picture #2

Fig 8.3 Behind the scene picture #3

Fig 8.4 Behind the scene picture #4

Fig 8.5 Group picture of all the crew members

Click here to view all our behind the scenes pictures

Each of us adhered to our roles during the shooting and worked together well to get the shooting done in time. The rooftop scene was filmed by Li Wei as he was the one who knows how to climb on a ledge and film it far away from the actor at a top angle.

Shots and sound files

Fig 9.1 Screenshot of google drive folder for video files
Google drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SVVR7hm5XPpx_DHCkZM-vFWogCdUMpHd?usp=sharing

Fig 9.2 Screenshot of google drive folder for sound files
Google drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1OL3VEIzssEehSaGFPskr0iXuH_ub2vGH?usp=sharing

After we’ve finished filming, we uploaded the shots taken and recorded sound to separate Google Drive folders and share it with our crew members. We took some extra shots while we’re shooting for any extra uses that we want to do later in our editing process.

Week 6 (6/5/2022)

Video editing of group shooting

For this week, we are tasked to use the shots that we’ve taken in our last week group shooting and edit them while also syncing the externally recorded sound with the video clips.

Fig 10.1 Screenshots of Adobe Premiere Pro workspace

I manually synced the audio with the video clips so that I can get an accurate match between each of them. I applied the DeNoise effect on one of the audio clip to reduce the background noise and adjusted the brightness and contrast on some video clips. After editing the videos according to the scene and shot order by Mr. Martin, I went to edit a movie-trailer-esque video with a dramatic music that I downloaded from Freesound. I left some video clips muted and only included the audio recordings for shots that need it. I also used some extra shots that we’ve taken last week in the edit and apply the warp stabalizer effect on it since the original video was very shaky.

Final outcome of group shooting

Fig 11.1 Final edited video with audio syncing only

Fig 11.2 Final edited video with music

Feedbacks

Week 7 - Shooting exercise: Music Video Filming

The opening scene of the music video is good, and it's good that it's plan ahead too. Though, the high angle shot should show the full body. But overall, the video is nice.

Reflection

The exercises in project 2 were really fun to do as I personally enjoy video editing and always wanted to try out filming a live-action video. Besides learning about camera shot sizes, I got to put them to use through doing the exercises which I think helped a lot in understanding how to use them. While it is fun, it does take a lot of time to shoot multiple scenes, especially when it’s done by only yourself. I had to do a lot of takes when filming for the second exercise as I needed to make sure the shots are the sizes I want while also being in the scene myself. I also can’t use my phone front camera as manual mode is only doable on my phone’s rear camera. This shows that shooting is best done as a group where someone can be the in front of the camera and the other behind it, especially when the shot calls for hard to reach angles like a very low angle shot.

Other than that, I found that shot sizes can also make a seemingly boring video to something interesting as different sizes can convey different feelings, adding some drama to the scenes. I also noticed that using a proper DSLR camera is always better than a smartphone camera, as DSLR is able to give a clear and crisp quality video with a larger range of depth of field.

Chung Yi Ki (0345014)

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