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My Project Diary (Weeks 1-8)

  • 1345661
  • Apr 17, 2017
  • 8 min read

Week one

I was unable to start my FMP this week due to illness. This greatly impacted my start to the project and I am regretful for not being able to start my FMP at the same time as my peers.

Week two

Monday (College)

Today is the beginning of my final major project! I'm very motivated as i'm working alone on a film for the first time but it's also a slightly scary thought as I don't want to sabotage my own progress by doing a terrible job.

I'm starting my project with my rationale. I had to write about how this course has helped me develop my knowledge in film, and it refreshed my memory on what I've learnt throughout these past ten months at south thames college. I had to look through my blog and take direct information from my past works to quote in my rationale so it was quite a process but i'm proud to see how far I have come. I also completed my evaluation stating how I will record my progress. I've chosen this diary-like format that I can update daily on wix.com to clearly show my progression. It is important to show progression in order to grow in interactive media, and keeping a log will allow me to keep on-top of my work.

Tuesday (College)

I started to watch YouTube videos and short films on Vimeo in order to get a taste of the different genres and styles of film I could potentially be using for my short film. I made a post entitled "final major project ideas" and explored different types of film in order to get my creativity flowing. Then I started to summarise my final major project ideas and selected three potential genres ; post-apocalyptic, a spoken word art film, documentary/mockumentary or an abstract film. I like all of these genres but I have to bare in mind how long we have to make our films and the practicality of the film in production (costs of props, costume, transport etc.)

Wednesday (College)

Today I concluded that an abstract film would be the correct genre for me as it is something I am interested in, and isn't very common for younger filmmakers to try out. I started to think of a story-line and started to draw up characters to be in film (see blog post entitled 'character analysis.) After college I went to Queen's Mary University and talked to two of my film industry friends, a cinematographer and lighting genius, Amelia Hassard (who you can find here http://www.imdb.com/name/nm5078266/ ) and Aliyah Qayum (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCICSLExDDLd5tn1cHBbIZNQ)

I told them briefly about my concept and they were able to offer me opinions and advice to influence and impact my work, as well as their opinions on the pharmaceutical industry which helped me out a lot.

Week three

Monday (College)

I decided to change my idea from an abstract film to a documentary about prescription drugs! I know this was a rash decision, but with all of the primary research I had received, it seems like prescription drugs was a big subject that hadn't been covered by a young filmmaker before. I carried out another focus group for prescription drugs and asked a young demographic what they thought about them. I will still upload the abstract film focus group and include it in my primary research as it was helpful and lead to me changing my original film idea. Also, I contacted three of my friends (Jake, Ana and Aliyah) to be in my documentary who all agreed. I want to write up a script including them, tomorrow morning.

Tuesday (College)

Today I wrote a script for my documentary! This was hard to do, as documentaries are not scripted, so I just had to write down some of the shots that I wanted to include, the questions I would ask and the sounds that would be included. Writing a script is important to me as I want to be prepared when I start producing my film. Unfortunately, two of the actors have bailed on my production due to university work. This really made me angry at myself for not planning my interviewees ahead of time and not getting their word for being in my film. I will have to contact other people to be interviewed.

Wednesday (College)

I started to write my project concept down, This took a long time as it was my first time writing a proposal and I wanted to eloquently put my ideas and goals down in order to express myself and what I am going to do whilst producing my film.

I also started to research poster ideas in order to figure out what kind of poster I wanted to use. I found documentary posters and wrote about the conventions of them to guide me when creating mine. I will update my "poster evaluation" blog post with my completed poster when it is finished.

Week Four

Monday

Today I started to think about who I wanted in my film as my previous interviewees bailed on me. I thought about my college friend Tatum as she has chronic pain which correlates to the subject of my documentary, The actor who didn't bail on me (Aaliyah) has a eight year old sister, Maya, that suffers from bronchitis and she agreed to be in my documentary. I realise that these actors being in my film was purely based on luck, and made me realise the importance of planning ahead. I will not make that mistake again.

Here are my interactions with Tatum and Aaliyah:

I also spoke to both parties over the phone and secured a meeting, as I didn't want any disruption to my schedule again.

Tuesday

I edited my script today to include Tatum and Maya. I also started to work on ideas for my poster and ended up finishing it on photoshop today. The analysis and final product is on my poster evaluation blog post.

Wednesday

Today I created my location report and budgeting. I didn't create a post for budgeting as I brainstormed props and costumes etc, but realised that my documentary is free of charge due to the fact that my actors/interviewees are unpaid. I started to create a risk assessment for my film as I want to avoid conflict with my shooting and evade dangerous occurrences. After college, I filmed Tatum's part of the documentary. It went well, but the only failure we had was with audio. My DSLR's microphone picked up her voice, but also picked up wind. It was a hilarious situation, but now I will have to wait until next week to make her record a voiceover as the footage was good but the audio wasn't. I also made a short post on lighting in my final major project and a risk assessment.

Friday

I went out and met Aaliyah and Maya! We filmed Maya first as I wanted to make her appear in the documentary in the day and Aaliyah, at night. Nothing went wrong and filming with young child was surprisingly smooth.

Week Five

Monday

This week, in my opinion, is all about playing with footage and trying to fit it into the correct places in editing to make a documentary using all of the clips. But first, I had to get Tatum to record her voice-over (I did record this process but unfortunately the footage was lost due to memory on my iPhone.) I uploaded all of the footage on my cameras onto a TB Hard Drive which took a good hour and started to look through my clips. To my dismay, a lot of my cutaway scene footage had been formatted. But there is still enough time to go and shoot some more scenery in London, so I will do so after college.

Tuesday

I have uploaded all of the new cutaway shots onto Premiere Pro and have started to map out what will make the introduction pop. I borrowed a microphone from my lecturer, Emma, and used an empty room to record the introduction from my script. I also recorded the introduction to introduce Tatum. Having this made it easier to map out my documentary.

Wednesday

Today I asked Ashif, Sherene and Preaya to be filmed for the part in my documentary where I ask about opinions on drugs. They happily agreed to be in my film. I know I should have asked them beforehand, but while editing on Monday, I thought there was something missing to my film and curated another question to be asked on my script. I uploaded the new footage to my camera and started to play around with it.

Week Six

Monday

I started to edit the introduction to my film. I had played around with effects in premiere pro last week, so I knew that I wanted to morph certain clips together and slow certain clips down to go with the voice-over introduction. I also knew that I was going to use adobe audition to make my voice-over have an echo effect. Playing with footage before actually editing an unscripted documentary lets you dictate which footage you need to get rid of and which footage you need to keep. It also helps you know which place you need to put clips in. There is no set order, as it's unscripted. Documentaries need to look polished and well-planned, even though most are often unpredictable and hard to piece together.

Tuesday

Today I edited Sherene, Ashif and Preaya's scene in which they talk about drugs. This took a long while as this is my third time editing, but my first time trying to cut up audio and make the shots look pleasing to the eye. Making the shots visually stimulating was my intention as the viewer may get bored with uninteresting footage.

Wednesday

I used this time to edit, but I was also asked to act in another classmates FMP, which took a lot of my own time. I realised that I should have made my work a first priority. I will come in on Thursday (not a college day) and do my work as I slipped up.

Week seven

Monday

I started to edit on audition and finished the touches to tatum's voiceover, making it more focused and clear. I then continued to premiere where I started to compile the clips in the order that I wanted them in. By the time I found out where to place my clips I was ready to start cutting up footage.

Tuesday

I started to cut up footage in order to take away any inappropriate laughter or noises that may get in the way of my documentary. I don't want my work to look unprofessional. There were a few noises that I couldn't take out though, as the interviewees are speaking when certain noises happened. I don't want to misconstrue my interviewees words by erasing certain aspects of their opinions.

Wednesday

I HAVE COMPLETED CUTTING UP MY FILM!!!! l have added audio effects to it and video effects to make the documentary slightly abstract. I did this by using the video effects and transition presets on premiere pro and then I rendered my project with every effect to make sure my film doesn't crash.

Thursday

I came into college to finish my editing. Premiere crashed five times in total, but luckily, I turned auto-save on so I was able to recover my edit. I started editing at eleven am and at five pm I was finished with my film! I exported my film and uploaded it to Vimeo I'm so glad that I like my end result and I can't wait to share it with my family and friends and get feedback from my peers.

Week Eight

Monday

I premiered my film to the class! They gave me good praises and helpful criticisms. The screening was good and it will help me to evaluate my final major project film. Emma held the mic during the screening but the feedback was very badly recorded as the recorder wasn't paused whilst moving the microphone around... I think this was due to a bad zoom mic, but nevertheless,, I have some feedback I can use in my evaluation, but cannot upload. I will probably get people I know to feedback on my film too.


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