15. scripting

Yesterday, in film, I learned how to format a script, using this example:
INT. a bathroom. NIGHT.
MAN is vomiting in the toilet
HIS WIFE walks in

WIFE
Honey, what’s wrong?

If I had to draft a script like that before yesterday, this is how I would have done it:
A bathroom at night.
Man vomits in the toilet. Wife walks in.
Wife: Honey, what’s wrong?
The part in the beginning, where we create the setting, was especially new to me, and I had never heard of the term ‘INT.’ before.

For homework last week, I had finished researching on intellectual property, and watched videos to help me get an idea of what to do, and I came into class with an idea of what I should do, and I started drafting my script. LokLok was a big help with this, giving me ideas on what to do and keeping me on track so that I didn’t go over the time limit of 30 seconds. I also learned how to use a program on the Mac called Final Draft, which is made for producing scripts. It is different from Pages because of the functions. I learned to use two functions. By selecting an action, I can click the action button, distinguishing the difference between an action and dialogue. There is also a function called transitions, which allows me to make a clear transition from one scene to another, using the words 'Cut to' on the script.
I am almost done with the script for my video, but as Ms. Wong said, my idea is too ‘within the Public Announcements box’, meaning that it is too impersonal, and very similar to the commercials shown on TV and in the cinema. Now, trying to make my video more meaningful to me, and creative, I am giving myself until tomorrow to come up with a better idea, or I will just finish with the script I am working on now.

14. research

As part of the research I am doing for our new project, I watched a few videos regarding intellectual property to give me ideas on how I can portray the theme in my own video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3HHeyM1KQM
This is a video explaining intellectual property through the views of people from various countries. It discusses the importance of respecting intellectual property right, and the challenges intellectual property is facing. This video expressed the theme of intellectual property well, giving a wide variety of opinions on various issues regarding intellectual property. It was also concise; it was only about 4 minutes long, and I learned quite a lot. I also liked the introduction, which was a creative lead-in into the main topic. However, since my video is only 30 seconds long, I do not have time to make an introduction. Other than the introduction, though, the rest of the video portrayed the theme only through talking and explanations, which made it a bit boring. The camera was also shaky on a few occasions, and should have been put on a tripod. I noticed the background music they played was fitting to the theme. Other than that, though, there was not a lot to comment on in terms of audio.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXAcrqtaOdU
This video focusses more on the emotional aspect of intellectual property rights being violated. It is the story of a poor man who composed a song, only to have it stolen through piracy. Although it is not particularly relevant to this project as it has a very narrow focus point (copyrights in Armenia), there is much to be observed from this video regarding the filming, editing, and sound. It is a much more professionally done video than the previous one, therefore improving the general quality of the sound and filming. There is no use of the spoken word at all in this video, yet it tells the story perfectly clearly. The background music in the beginning, as well as the faded effect done by the camera and dim lighting, creates a poor (not badly done, but poor in terms of poverty) setting for the man, as well as indicating his old age, instantly creating sympathy for him. The choice of sound effects is also good. For example, there is the sound of his footsteps. This sound can be recorded in so many different ways, each creating completely different sounds that could change the mood totally, and choosing the most appropriate way to record a sound can be hard, but it is well done here. The footsteps are slow, measured, and hollow, creating the feel of the man pacing around the house. It is also accompanied by the ticking of the clock later on, farther enhancing the pacing feel. There is a scene of him playing his piece on the piano, and this piece is used as background music for other scenes, therefore making it a form of both diegetic and nondiegetic sound. It is a slow, slightly repetitive piece, with frequent solos that create a feeling of sadness and isolation. The bassline also comes out strong in certain places, creating the feeling of time running out and impending doom on the man. Overall, the two different pieces of background music created a real sense of sympathy for the man within me, and depicted the emotions of the man well, and, on a larger scale, creating sympathy for those whose ideas have been stolen, fulfilling the criteria 'advocate respect for others’ creative efforts' (http://www.myvideocompetition.com/HKenglish/home01.html)

13. March 23 & 26

Monday, March 23rd
Today, we finished watching the rest of the group projects. Ours could not be viewed because the file, which was edited at home, was too big to be saved, and therefore we did not have it at school today, a setback to us as it was due today, and we will now be marked as late because of this.
Group 3 (documentary)
Their documentary has shown quite a good understanding of sound design and all the aspects included: foley, dialogue, background music, etc. However, the organization of the documentary needed improvement - it seemed very rough and unedited, as Isaac said, 'a bunch of clips randomly thrown together at the last minute.' They should also have made use of a script, so that there would have been more fluency in what they were saying.
Group 4 (soundtrack)
Their soundtrack lacked ambient sound effects to create a setting, and background music to create a mood. They also could have acted with their voices more, especially the narrator, who could have stressed on the '...'s, which were very common in the beginning part of their section of the comic. However, I liked the sound they used to portray the crumbling of rocks - I think that was very convincing. Overall, a larger variety of sounds could have been made use of, instead of repeating themselves over and over again, and there should have been more layers to portray more parts of the setting.
Group 4 (documentary)
Their documentary only included a few aspects of sound design, and did not go into great detail, so that they showed very little of their knowledge of sound design. It also lacked a documentary feel - it was structured in a diary format, so that the register wasn't formal enough, and was more of a record of what they did rather than a guide for a sound designer.
We also got our next project. We plan to work in the same group as before, even though I know that it did not work out so well last time. This time, however, we have made promises not to be distracted so easily, and hopefully this time we will finish before the deadline, instead of right on time.
Thursday, March 26th
Today we started our new film project - a 30-second video on intellectual property, to be accompanied by a Chinese translation of the dialogue, either as a script, or added on as subtitles. We have two weeks of time at school to work on this, as well as our easter break.
We encountered a problem before we even started: we were now only allowed to work in pairs, as opposed to our original plan of working in the same group as before. Splitting up into pairs was now quite difficult for us as we had all grown quite attached to our group from the previous project. We finally had to resort to drawing lots to form pairs. I drew LokLok as my partner.
Our task alone has already taught me something - I did not know what intellectual property was before, but now i know that it 'refers to creations of the mind: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce.' (http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/), and we are, according to myvideocompetition.com, 'aiming at encouraging creativity and promoting public awareness of intellectual property rights as entries to the competition.'
As LokLok and I have both learned the importance of time management from our previous project, we started by making a timeline of small due dates throughout this project in order to make sure we reach the big, final due date without having to rush at the end, or compromise quality for speed this time. We have also made plans to keep reminding each other about meeting our due dates. I think that we have started off well, coming up with a plan to keep track of our progress, and, although we both agree that this project will probably not be as enjoyable because there are only two of us now, our ability to concentrate will improve vastly without as many people in our group to cause distractions. Hopefully, we will be able to come up with some good ideas for this project!

12. march 16-19

Monday, March 16

Although we are a lot closer to finishing than we were since the last class, there is still a lot to be done. As far as I can see, we are the last group left that still needs to film things for the documentary, and we really have to start getting organized and working hard. We are generally quite a hardworking group, but we occasionally are sidetracked and start joking around and chatting rather than putting all our energy and concentration into our film work. This has to be stopped if we want to finish on time. Also, many of our recorded parts have gone missing for some reason, showing us that we have to be more organized. I had really thought we had a good, oragnized and efficient system of separating our tapes: one tape for the soundtrack and the other for the documentary, but apparently, I was wrong, or we would not have so many parts (that I am sure we recorded) missing.
We came in again at lunch and after school. I tried editing the voices of the characters, as they sound too much like us. The tones need to be altered, in some cases, quite drastically in order to suit the character. For example, because Jerald is acting as the ‘Daemon King’, I thought he should have a deeper sounding voice to match his character. My sound editing was a bit of a failure as I have never used the sound editing tools on Final Cut Pro before, but with a bit of time and experimenting, I should be able to get a satisfactory result.

Thursday, March 19
Our film is finished! Not to very good quality, but it is finished. I think we have a good soundtrack; there are many layers of sound and they accurately portray the storyline and set up atmospheres matching our interpretation of the atmosphere in the comic. However, we had a lot of difficulty today. Our documentary is quite disorganized, but there is nothing we can do about it now, since the film is due. We spent the first few minutes of class trying to organize the rather misplaced, random clips. Our soundtrack, which was on another hard drive, came up as ‘unrendered’ when put into Final Cut Pro, and came up as a bunch of beeping sounds, without the actual soundtrack in it.
Luckily for us, the screening of the other groups’ projects took a long time, so that it did not get to us, and we now have until Monday to render the file. We watched Group 1 and 2’s projects, as well as Group 3’s soundtrack. I think Group 1 did not really capture the mood of the comic well through the dialogue, but their use of sound effects was good. There were many layers of sound used to create the setting of the story. Their documentary was really good – it was well organized so that I had a clear idea of exactly what was going on, and there were examples to illustrate every step. It was surprising to learn how many of the foley effects were created, such as the sound of walking in mud.
Group 2 had an amazing project – both the soundtrack and the documentary were outstanding. Their section of the comic was very action-packed, and this could be reflected in their soundtrack. Every movement was highlighted by sound, and although there were no visuals to help me, I could understand exactly what was going on. The choice of music was also appropriate and really accentuated the mood of the comic. All in all, they really made good use of sound to produce a vivid portrayal of a fighting scene. Their documentary was a very thorough, step-by-step record of how they created their soundtrack. It also made use of many creative ways of showing their work, for example filming the camera screen to show how they recorded sound.
We only had time to watch the soundtrack for Group 3. It wasn’t that impressive after watching Group 2’s, but I think it was pretty good overall. There could have been times where more dramatic music could have been played, but I think that the sounds were well chosen, suitable to the action portrayed, and their foley effects were very good.
My group has been staying after school since Monday, and working through lunch periods, so it is quite a disappointment that our soundtrack is unavailable now. However, as we have until next Monday to export it and put it into the Drop Box, hopefully everything will be fine by then.
As an overall judgement on this project, I think that our group could have worked together more. During this project, we were more or less split into two groups: Michele and I doing the documentary, and the other three doing the soundtrack. This meant that I had only a vague idea of the progress we made with the soundtrack. We also should have kept a tighter schedule, made a plan to follow, so that we didn’t wander around as much wondering what to do, wasting time by arguing over what comes next. I also think that a plan would have kept us from getting sidetracked so much.

11. almost there!

Okay.. not really. We're not really almost there. But the finishing of the project is getting closer and closer, and I think we actually are going to finish pretty soon. After recognizing how far behind schedule we are, Jerald, LokLok, Michele and I decided to go work on the film at lunch yesterday. I found out that two pages of recording by Jerald and Marcus had just disappeared, so we spent our lunch re-recording Jerald's parts. In between giving Jerald comments on his recording, I continued editing.

Today in film, we went through a lot of problems with one of the computers, so some time was wasted fixing the problems - Michele could not even capture a two-minute clip for the documentary before the computer froze. After restarting the computer, the same thing happened, and we gave up capturing. In between trying to figure the problem out, Lok Lok and I edited the soundtrack for the comic. As I have been concentrating more on the documentary than the comic (I had not done anything for the comic other than record my dialogue and coming up with a few sounds using the foley method), I actually had only a vague idea of how the soundtrack was turning out. After working on it today, though, I can see that it is almost done. The soundtrack is harder to edit than the documentary in a way because of the amount of recording that needs to be done for every line. I can only imagine how much work Lok Lok, Jerald and Marcus must have put into it to watch everything and choose the best recorded line and cutting all the rest out. Today, LokLok and I basically the sounds and dragged the clips around to match the sound and the image. First, we had to import the images again as we had imported them on another computer before. We realized that the images weren't available on the computer we were on. This required help from the technician to drop the files into an accessable folder again for us. Although this did not take long, and was not really a problem to us, it did teach me to always keep one project on one computer, instead of messing around with different computers.

We all came again at lunch to work. Marcus finished recording his dialogue, and Michele and I cut down even more on the documentary to make room for the new sections we want to include. Although we had already cut down on a lot, watching it today made me realize that what we had left wasn't all necessary either. This taught me to be more discreet in my choices on which clips to keep, something that I can apply to my next project. All in all, today was a pretty successful working day.

10. so much work!

There is only one week left until our project is due, which is a bit worrying to us as there is quite a lot left for us to do. Our documentary so far has only been a compilation of clips according to a basic outline from the making of our soundtrack, but today, I wrote an exact script of the narration needed, an exact plan of what should go where. I did not finish, so I will be doing this for homework.
Michele and I filmed a faked reading of dialogue for the documentary - we went to the recording room and read a line over, first in monotone, then suggesting improvements. In this way, we will explain to the audience how to successfully record dialogue.
Apart from the script writing and filming, I also did a little bit of editting, and I feel that this class has passed well.
My group still has a lot of work to do until the due date, but it is really coming along. We still need to film a scene using the boom mic for the documentary, and for the soundtrack, non diegetic sounds have to be found and put in. I should have planned our work time more carefully so that less time was wasted in the beginning; we wouldn't be rushing now if I had. We will be looking for non diegetic sounds for homework so that the soundtrack can be updated on Thursday. We will also come in during a few lunchtimes to make sure we complete all our work on time.

9. more recording

Today was, I think, another quite productive lesson. The documentary is really coming along, and despite our fears that it would run too long due to the massive amounts of footage we have, we have managed to cut many parts out, while still fulfilling most of the things required on the rubric. As Jerald has been constantly commenting on what we record for the documentary, we only need to record a little bit of narration for the beginning.
As for the adding of audio to the comic, we recorded the last of the dialogue and re-recorded some previously recorded dialogue as we were not satisfied. After finding out that the practice rooms were full, and that we could not use the instrument storage room, we set out on a 5-minute hunt for a room to record in. We discovered there was actually a small 'recording room' on the 5th floor, which we used. We were a bit worried about the quality of the sound as many people passed by, talking loudly, but on listening, we realized that the microphone didn't actually pick up the sound, which was good.
Today I learned better how to interpret the different expressions characters should have based on punctuation, especially since we couldn't actually judge by their facial expressions since the comic was in black and white. I also learned the importance of really putting the expressions into your voice. This was the reason we had to re-record in the first place - because we weren't expressive enough. In this kind of situation, facial expressions are not available to enhance the emotion we are trying to get across; it is totally reliant on the 'voice acting' of the speaker.
All in all, today was a productive class both toward the project and toward my education as a film student.

8. editting

A bit of a setback was thrown our way today as the last camera with a microphone input was taken before film even started. Lesson learned: early bird takes the worm. It pays to get to class not on time, but early, and start working immediately. Since we couldn't record, we captured and editted. Jerald, Marcus and Lok Lok captured and editted footage for the comic, while Michele and I editted the already captured footage for the documentary. In about 15 minutes, we had halved the length of our documentary, showing just how much footage we had to start with, most of which was absolutely useless. Watching our discussions, I realized we have not really thought about non diegetic sound yet. This is something that needs to be done soon, as our project is due in about two weeks.
I also learned how to extract audio from video clips on Final Cut Pro (by clicking the two green buttons consecutively).
This has been the most productive film class we have had so far, despite the minor technical problems we encountered and the fact that we only managed to get a camera to record toward the end of the class. However, as we are getting closer and closer to the deadline, I think that in order to ensure the same kind of productivity in every class (lesson learned from class 6; we can't afford to waste any more time) I suggested that we come up with a checklist of things we need to get done every lesson.