Music Video Project

http://snc0910-nd1apop-shaunforsdyke.blogspot.com/

Short Film Evaluation

Short Film Project

The project was to shoot a short film, without sound, consisting of eight static camera shots of someone's journey from point A (shot 1) to point B (shot 8).

8 Shot Journey.

I used a simple story element of the student not being aware that the college was empty because he was too engrossed in his music. This would have been conveyed a lot better if I could have used music, like we were originally told.

It was my intention to make the college look as isolated as possible which I believe I managed fairly successfully by having two shots in an unlit classroom and a wide shot of the lift hallway with a full bin of rubbish in the front of the shot. All that was really missing was a wide shot of the empty atrium although this was not possible for obvious reasons.

Storyboard

Before filming I drew out the eight shots on a storyboard along with some basic notes for each scene.. I managed to film each shot as I originally intended apart from the need to flip the direction (I.e. actor walking left to right instead of right to left) for a few shots to keep the consistency of the film/shots.

Log Sheet

Once the recording had finished we had to playback all the footage on the camera, taking a note of the time codes for each shot, and make a note of the best take for each scene.

Using time codes are a massive timesaver when working on a longer film or a film with lots of different shots, like a music video. This is why a log sheet is extremely important.

We used Final Cut Pro to complete this project. Using the ‘Log and Capture’ feature it allows us to enter the opening and closing time codes for each shot we want to use. Once all shots have been captured you can then begin to edit and create your short film. I dropped my eight shots in the timeline and within the ‘Viewer’ I was able to edit out any handles or unwanted frames. The editing was simple as the project itself was simple and therefore did not take long to complete.

Radio Production Evaluation

Jingle Overview.

A radio jingle typically lasts between ten seconds to one minute. Within the first couple of seconds of any jingle the listener should be able to immediately work out what type of show is either starting or being advertised. A jingle is designed to stand out, engage and be memorable to the listener.

Radio Production Evaluation.

Using Adobe Soundbooth we had to create three clips for Suffolk New College Radio comprising of a News Ident for 15-30 seconds, a Show Jingle for 10-15 seconds and a Show Promo for 30 seconds to 1 minute.

News Ident. – 20 Seconds.

The most prominent sounds from my News Ident was a loud bell opening and closing the audio file, and a ‘two-pop’ every 1.5 seconds running throughout the whole jingle. These are two sounds that immediately relate to news. My background sounds were a continuous thudding baseline heartbeat, setting a rhythm for the jingle. I also added the sounds of someone scribbling on paper. To finish off I added two sets of drums. The first was of symbols that started around four seconds into the piece with the volume slowly rising. The second sound added was from a set of standard drums comprising of a drum roll to finish the drum segment off at a peak and lead directly into the last bell toll. The first edit lasted 22 seconds. When I edited out two minutes from the middle of the piece it made the jingle sound a lot more precise and focused.

Script

"This is SNC News, its 1 o'clock."

Station Ident – 11 Seconds.

The main focus for the Station Ident was to keep it clear, simple and short. For the music I chose the Arctic Monkey’s track Brianstorm and had a simple voice over of myself attempting a Michael Caine impression. Michael Caine with a runny nose and sore throat. I raised the level of the voice and lowered the level of the audio while I was talking, then for the final three seconds I skipped to the end of the song and raised the audio to its peak creating a prominent finish with the song's natural drum roll of an ending.

Script

"My name is Michael Caine and this is SNC Radio. It'll blow your bloody ears off."

Show Promo - 53 Seconds.

My main idea for this was to have a simple three second clip of my own voice over and give out the rest of the information from the type of music and from particular lyrics from the music, editing the tracks together for one seamless mix. I choose to create a hip hop show. The genre contains a lot of remixes, instrumental and a ccapella versions of tracks than others types of music, enabling me to mix up tracks with vocals and edit a lot easier. I started off with a very prominent drum baseline from Jay-Z ‘99 Problems’ which leads straight into a sample of Dizzee Rascal shouting “oi!” which I used to immediately grab everyone’s attention which then carries on with ’99 Problems’ again. Stopping for “Im just a man that loves rap” by Atmosphere. Within the opening ten seconds it is immediately clear what genre of music and what type of show I am promoting, even before I have spoken. The rest of the track samples vocals such as "Friday", "ten" and "hip hop" all key words to when the show is aired and what the show features.

Script

"Join me Shaun Forsdyke every Friday at 10pm for two hours of hip-hop."

I was overall very happy with what I created although the weak point in each file was my voice; this was mainly because we recorded in a full classroom directly into the built in mic on the computer instead of a sound booth, or even a quite location where you could confidently record.

Photography Evaluation

Pinhole Camera
As the name suggests a pinhole camera has an aperture the size of a pinhole. The only professional equipment that needs to be used when creating a basic pinhole camera is the photographic paper itself. The rest of the camera can be made from any light-tight box from anything such as a metal biscuit tin to a cardboard mobile phone box. The inside of the camera should be painted black to stop any unwanted light from bouncing around inside and creating undesired effects on the photographic paper.

The photographic paper needs to be held in place within the box, this can be achieved using some masking tape or Blu-Tac. The aperture must be directly opposite, and centred, to the photographic paper. Light is projected in a straight line so the cone of light that has entered the camera, through the aperture, has been inverted onto the photographic paper and is known as a ‘negative’.

It is important not to over expose the photographic paper. This is why a shutter is vital to the camera. The shutter can be made up from a simple piece of cardboard and tape that will cover the aperture at all times when you are not taking your picture.

The calculation we used to determine how long the shutter needed to be open for was;

Focal Length / Diameter of pinhole = f.stop

The focal length is the length from the aperture to the back of the tin/box (where the photographic paper is situated).

My pinhole/aperture was 0.8mm.
My focal length was 9mm.
f. stop = 118.75

Due to the large f.stop number of a pinhole camera, photos will encounter severe over exposure if the shutter is open for too long and result in a dark or completely black image.

Using a rough guide this equated to a 45 second open shutter or ‘shutter speed’ for outside locations and for 10-12 minutes inside. This proved to be too long and overexposed all of the images so we halved the exposure time, creating much better results.

Developing Film.

The developing of black and white photographic paper takes place over three steps.

Before you begin it is imperative that the camera is opened up in the dark room. Exposing the paper to any light will clearly ruin your picture.

The paper has a light-sensitive surface called the emulsion. In it there are silver halide grains; silver atoms bonded to chlorine, bromine or iodine atoms. If you expose a silver halide grain to light, the photons in the light will loosen the bond between the silver and the halogen. The paper is usually suspended in gelatin.

1. Developer.
The developer is a chemical that makes the latent image visible. It does this by reducing the silver halides that have been exposed to light to elemental silver in the gelatine matrix.

2. Fixer.
Typically a dilute solution of acetic acid or citric acid. This halts the developing of the picture.

3. Water.
Washes off any remaining chemicals.

Below are the original negatives I shot and also the Photoshop edited images (on the right).

Atrium
4 minute 30 second exposure.

I darkened this shot slightly so the blacks and whites are more distinct and prominent.














Outside Bike
0 minute 20 second exposure.

This shot could have benefited from a further five seconds of exposure. The sharp edges of the buildings and pavement goes well with the bike leaning against the railing.

Outside Trees
0 minute 20 second exposure.

This exposure captured the detail of the gravel and concrete bench extremely well.












Mug Shot
3 minute 0 second exposure.

This shot didn't come out too badly considering I had to lean against the window looking like an idiot for three minutes. The background didnt come out at all because there simply wasn't enough light in the room. The slightly blurred effect is because I am not a robot.

Photography

Photography
Photography is the process of creating still or moving images by recording radiation on a sensitive medium, such as a photographic film, or an electronic sensor. Light patterns reflected or emitted from objects activate a sensitive chemical or electronic sensor during a timed exposure, usually through a photographic lens in a device known as a camera that also stores the resulting information chemically or electronically.

Camera
A camera is a device that records images, either as a still photograph or as moving images known as videos or movies. The term comes from the camera obscura, meaning "dark chamber" in Latin.

Shutter
In photography, a shutter is a device that allows light to pass for a determined period of time, for the purpose of exposing photographic film or a light-sensitive electronic sensor to light to capture a permanent image of a scene. Photographic film can be over exposed if the shutter is open for too long. This will result in the film coming out as either a darker image or completely black.

Shutter Speeds And Descriptions

1000th of a second – 8 seconds.

1000th – 250th = Freeze Action
125th – 60th = Hand Held
30th – 1s – 8s = Motion Blur
B = Bulb*

* The bulb setting relies on the photographer opening and closing the shutter manually therefore giving the opportunity to take prolonged exposures.

Aperture
In optics, an aperture is a hole or an opening through which light travels. In photography this can be measured in increments called ‘F-Stops’ - Focal Stop. The measurement of an f-stop is arrived at from dividing the focal length by the aperture diameter.

• The focal length is the distance from the aperture or lens to the photographic paper/film.

Diagram of decreasing apertures, that is, increasing f-numbers, in one-stop increments; each aperture has half the light gathering area of the previous one. The actual size of the aperture will depend on the focal lengh of the lens.
Source: Wikipedia.

Lens
The lens of a camera captures the light from the subject and brings it to a focus on the film or detector. Most lenses can be adjusted to make it possible to focus on objects from varying distances.

Exposure Control
The size of the aperture and the brightness of the scene control the amount of light that enters the camera during a period of time and the shutter controls the length of time that the light hits the recording surface. Varying aperture sizes and shutter speeds will vary the amount of light that enters the camera. As mentioned before, it is possible to ruin an exposure by allowing too much light into the camera.

Welcome To My Blog

Here I will be listing my work from my initial three courses comprimising of film, photography and radio production.