week11 - trix

The more technical edu. we get, the more they get into our practice. The theoretical part of film making is in my view a very good and useful initation before the shooting and meanwhile the shooting part as well. The different shots of people at an interview is important, to know how to ask a person a question is almost life and death, in case you miss his answers and go on talking silly things is not anymore your film, but your monolouge...basic principle.
the more open you are the more people will give you as well, however it is not always the case we can get them to talk. one tricky way is to switch off the camera while the candidate thinks it's turned on (NO tally lights!) and ask the question, when he finished up with his nervous talk switch on the cam as if U had just turned it off and begin to chat with him about the topic. very nice:p - easy way to get the most out of sy:)

Film2 Planning

At last, after 2hrs planning it seems to have been cleared up what's gonna B shooted, however I'm still unsure about its details, the main thing is that it's on our mind to create a film...
As a consesus, of many various ideas I decided to help out our situation and mix the demands in order to get a coherent output.

The following is set so far:

We make a conversation in a studio, a reporter who talks to different guests and the guests after a short introductory lines go on with their stories. The stories'll B represented in videos, as if they were telling them. This gives the essential expression of each person according to his/her styles.
The guests are an animal lover, who challanges to have discovered a new spice, of course some sort of living creature will be the subject to the movie.
Second guest is a spiritual alcoholist, who discovers high mental states via being influenced some beverages.
Last but not least we have a prostitute and a gay guy if possible and while having a veryy important chat with them they introduce themseves and their daily practice...

Looking forward for some commentary:)

Week 8 - Editing techniques

The session about filming techniques and various editing hints left such a great impact on me, that I was counting at home the shots in advertisemnets. Sounds funny but gives a sense to watch such programms you'd never do. Amasingly lots of shots are required even for a small scale film to be done, so the overall working hours of a film and its value has taken a new aspect in me.

week 7 Retrospective Analysis of the films

This lession was about the analitic judgements and the constructive critiques on the films, or at least could have been more sharpened to it, a bit more critical to help for each other.
Shooting for edit is a really importand point that is to be realised at the very first time when sy grabs a cam. We did and I proudly say that it was always on the mind that this is not just going to be like this as we shoot, but as a part of the whole.
Next the continiousity has grabbed my attention in the class, we talked about that movements should go together etc. The long scenes of shooting a man doing the whole process of opening a door or carriing out some activity is just extremley boring on screen. So putting extra view angles, effects and viewpoints boost the action to an enjoyable and hot stuff. That U look at with wide eyes on it.
The thing I also noticed at the review was that color shift is a perfect tool to simulate the passé of time or just a blurry screen for images that happened in the past at some time.
With all these notices I hope the next movie is going to bare these advances on it and will be more sophsticated.

week 6 Shooting

To take a retrospective reflection and to rethink what we did is always an interresting thing and educational, however I am not going to talk about it now, but later:)
the scene of recording the video was various and took place at many different parts as we planned in and arround the school as the story required that environment.
To act all the things that were planned seems to be pretty hard, on the one hand the story board is a useful thing that guides both the shooting and the acting part but binds with the scenes.
As in many shootings in Hungary having the producer, scriptwriter and all the people together on the dot that enables to varify the story to the easily changing conditions... that is what has happened to us, just to adjust the film better to the required flow of the film.
working on the one side of the 180 degree boarder, was a useful advise during the shoot, so that the happenings could remain real.
One thing was in the end that really stuck us, when the papers fall on my head their speed and intensity just remained the same and the usual effect from the films that papers come down slowly just dropped out and all the stuff came down at a sudden moment. May be a special camera, that was used at the San Fransisco balls could have saved the moment for us...

Week 5 Story Board

Finally we have represented our story board to dr Phil. As for the story I really belive that drawing and planning helps to determine a goal and to keep to it while the work will help us a lot. I have also experienced the lack of a plan at the Project Management class when we had a task.
On the other hand I guess to some extent some kind of creative self-expression and other aesthetical intentions may vary the film tha we produce. This is normall, in my view for all films and projects.
The editing phase should also contain some interresting parts that don't show up on the story board, especially the special effects.
For the 1st edit, we have alerady some seconds from the film, we recorded during the lession-time, but as for the main shooting I guess a lot of things have to be arranged, from actors to the finest conditions. looking forward to the results....;)

Week 4

As we were introduced to the basics of film making and some editing tools on the computer, we set out in a group of two to make a 'continiousity' shot. That means we were to shoot a couple of scenes that go together in timing, in the movemenets and in the type as well.
We have choosen the tram as it is a continious thing on its rails and it arrives, and departs in its ceratin manner, meanwhile the doors get open, people exchanged, and is closed again.
The other thing we shot is a litter-bin in the street, I trhow waste in to it in three steps: I throw the rubbish, than magic and the rubbish comes back- so recycling is in progress. That's what we need to do in the class, the magic part...but it'll B a lot's of fun 2 make for sure;)

week 3

Now its time to get to know the process of the film-making deeper so the goal of this week is to gain a decent knowledge to our assignment film, that is due soon:)
By now writing a story board or a synapsis should be and is an easy thing. As for other projects planning is important to reach the maximum level that we can create on a shooting and to know everything how we are to make, even for ourselves, because people forget things to do easily and then when sth is missed out of a film, than it can cause to collapse the whole project.
So with all the camera moves and descriptions for processes I do hope&belive we can make a good short movie:)

Week 2.

After the first introductory lession now we went on with something theorethical, that we can use on the field of movie making. This was the WideShot, Middle Shot, High Angle and many other useful terms, the way how light behaves and the camera takes it up, in different colour sets.
The final and most interresting part of the lession was that we got a story board that we had to act and record according to the given instructions for camera angle, picture framing and actions.
The short film was a funny way of experiencing the features of the camera and the way that we should handle the actors.
All in all, having watched back the movie I say that there is a lot to improove, but the fortunate thing is that meanwhile one does it, you can learn a lot.

week 1 - The 1st lession

After the 1st year's practicum classes there we go again with an interresting and trying module and task. That is to produce real videos and not 'birth day party' shoots as uncle G. would do:)
To turn it serious I never did any film shooting in my life before, just acting for some seconds in a school-campaign video so this whole field is about to take new discoveries and progress for me, for sure.
At first when I took the camera into my hand in the video-production class I felt that it is easy to use and fits well into my hand. I filmed moving the lens over the grass as if it was a nature film and felt that something is catching my attention, the way that you can make something real that is from this world and that you can transfer it just as by a photomachine into something detached from it. That's pretty catchy...;)
On the other hand the thing that is going to be the hottest point is probably the background work via we get the film out of the 'raw' material, from the pre-production to the post producing tasks. I consider it the more tedious part of the job, but in the end I'd like to be sure that it was worth doin' it.