SHOOT #3 REFLECTION

Today we shot at the Aberdeen Marina Club. The shoot was around three hours. We filmed in the library of the Marina Grill, which was a very nice well-furnished room that fit our mise en scène very well. The shoot went relatively smoothly, as there was a consistent amount of background noise and charging ports for the camera and light batteries, but our primary concern was positioning the mic in order to stay out of the frame while still maintaining an equal level of sound for every actor, as there were several dialogue scenes and wide shots.

Additionally, a major prop was a short glass of ice and coke, and we had to refill and maintain the same amount in the glass in all takes, even though the ice would melt and it had to be sipped repeatedly; also, the actor accidentally spilled the glass over the floor, our crew and a little bit of the equipment. However, we cleaned it up and the shoot continued smoothly.

Another obstacle we faced (and not very much in the other shoots) was the actors' delivery and breaking character. This may have been because of the comfortable environment and the absent pressure of time, but we had to redo takes because of varying volume or people giggling. However, we overcome it and everyone performed well.

SHOOT #2 REFLECTION

Today we had a 6 hour shoot from 7pm of October 25th to 1am October 26th (which was my 15th birthday). We encountered several difficulties along the way but it was overall a very productive shoot.

It started at 7pm on a rooftop in Causeway Bay. We had set up all the lights and equipment, when the boom pole stopped working and fell apart. Then, just as we were about to recording, the owner of the building came and said we were trespassing so we had to leave immediately. 

Then, we improvised and packed five people into the backseat of Kevin's car and drove to Happy Valley to use an alley Kevin and Ryan had scouted the day before. Although the alley was rather smelly, we filmed most of our scenes there and the actors were very co-operative, especially considering our long hours, small space and hot weather. We also incorporated the original fluorescent "cold" light on site and the warm and cold settings on our LED lights. Moreover, because of the narrow alley and some scenes with people talking, facing different directions, it was quite difficult and required some creative poses (especially because the boom pole broke) to record equal sound all throughout.

Then, some time after 11pm we then drove to Tamar Park (Central Waterfront). We filmed several scenes, and relied mostly on our film lights to light the scene. Surprisingly enough, there were many people running at that time of night, so we had to stop rolling intermittently for them. Additionally, we had several wider shots so it was more difficult to get a good volume for sound, so I had to pose precariously to get the best sound from every actor while still staying out of shot.

Finally, we wrapped at around 1am, and I was then 15. I am very satisfied with our shoot, from our problem-solving skills, to commitment filming until dawn, our lighting, mise en scene, cinematography, and sound. 

SHOOT #1 REFLECTION

Today we shot after school on Wednesday the 19th. On Monday (two days ago) we had film class, and we had booked equipment and took out equipment as we initially planned to film in our director's house. However, because of previously unforeseen circumstances and miscommunications, we had to cancel that shoot. So, we rescheduled for Wednesday instead.

During film class on Wednesday, we scouted several locations for the shoot in the afternoon. After the drama studio, and music rooms were ruled out, we finally found a perfect location: a small (relatively soundproof) meeting room in the University Counselling office with a small amount of windows. We asked for permission and it was approved. However, during class when we went to collect equipment, it turned out there was a miscommunication with Mr. Chiang and we had to talk it out, but at the end we got the necessary equipment for our afternoon shoot.

After school we went to the meeting room and starting shooting. Kevin had previously communicated with the actors, so they came with their costumes. We also got black fabric from the Art department and hung it over the windows to block out the light. However, then the construction right outside the office started, so we had to shoot whenever they stopped drilling. We set up very noirish low-key lighting, with only halves of their faces lit and harsh lighting, with a shutter-like overcast made by closing the lights' barn doors in a particular way. Then, the black rain arrived, so we had to work with the sound and then our delayed leave from school, but we rolled with the punches (and the water).

EDITING

In Final Cut Pro, things are arranged from large to small is Project, Event, Library. Under the Import tab of our preferences, we need to check our Transcoding section. We should tick optimized media, as we need a compressed file and a decompressed file. We should also tick Create proxy media. There is no need to select analyze for balance color. Click the changing numbers on the center of the Final Cut window to view the Background Tasks window, to make sure we finish importing all files.
The first step to editing is Logging. This involves favoriting or rejecting clips with the green star and red cross button. Step two is our Assembly Edit. This involves dragging all clips into the timeline in the correct sequence. Next to the cursor drop-down tool, we click the clip transfer tools, specifically the "Append" button, or the shortcut letter E to move clips into the timeline. An extremely helpful tool is found in View > Show Used Media Ranges in order to see which parts of which clips have been used. Step three is our Rough Cut/Edit. We use A and B (arrow and blade) to select and cut out unnecessary clips. Step four is our Fine Edit/Second Edit. During this step, we go in even more detail. We go through our edit points, we play our film and see how it moves from clip to clip. Is it too staccato? Does it have rhythm? Any movement that goes straight from scene to scene is called a cut. A jump cut is when the scene remains the same, but it features jumps in time. A cross-dissolve or a fade is our default transition. These transitions are usually used to separate scenes with gaps in time in between them. They could also be used to transition between locations. Every film must begin and end in black. While color correcting, we can click the color wand, and automatically match the color of two scenes. In the info section of each clip, we can select the roles of each clip. In Advanced Settings, we can also set the scene number, take number and camera angle. Then, we can 'Apply The Custom Name', and then sort them by scene. By clicking the Key Icon, we can also add keywords to each clip so we can sort all clips by the things they feature.

LIGHTING

Light in film is extremely important. Contrast, light and dark, creates the illusion of depth and texture.

HMI lights are quite dangerous lights, as they heat up extremely quickly and hotly, and is able to melt the skin. Additionally, actors in front of an HMI light will eventually have light-burn, which is a visible sunburn.

Yellowish light can be associated as warm light. The closer the light is to an object, the softer and diffused its shadow will appear. Conversely, the farther it is the harsher and more defined the shadow will appear.

Another type of lights is fluorescent lights. These lights usually have barn doors with mirrors to reflect light differently. If you want a larger field of light, then you would widen the barn doors. The shadows produced by fluorescent lights are usually very faint, blurry or even nonexistent. Fluorescent lights can also be associated as cold light.

The final and most popular type of light are LEDs. The models we have are bicolor LEDs, which means they have multiple tones/hues of light. The brightness/intensity of these lights can be adjusted. LEDs can be battery powered or plug powered. They are attached to a stand with a ball head, which allows the light to move in any direction we want. In order to attach it, we can see that there are two latches on the stand. The bottom latch locks the light in place, and the middle latch rotates the light. The LED light has four barn doors, each with a removable textured or matte reflective surface. Additionally, there are clips on the bottom of each one to enable a filter to be clipped on. On the back of the light, there is an LCD screen to control the light. The left dimmer controls control temperature, and the right dimmer controls color intensity. The temperature of light is measured in kelvin.

A downside of a LED is that it's prone to casting a weird choppy shadow. However, we can solve this problem by attaching a diffusion strip popped on with magnets. There are all different types of diffusion strips, from tracing paper-like material to thin cottony sheets. Diffusion controls the contrast and softens shadows. It can also smooth out the skin and make people look prettier.

The most used tool on a film set is the C47 clothespin. It's handy and can be used for virtually anything!

We also have color gels. The number of a color gel signifies how much light it stops going through, for example, 1/8th means it stops 1/8th of the light coming through. It also says CTx, which means Color Temperature (Name of the color). Blue gel makes the light cooler and orange makes it warmer.

Don't film in black and white, we should film in color then saturate the image and create our own black and white.

We also have a reflector/bounce. They can reflect light, take away light, diffuse light, or provide a barrier from harsh weather.

There are two styles of lighting. High key, and low key lighting. High-key has low contrast and is evenly and brightly lit. This kind of lighting is traditionally seen on TV soap/Korean dramas. Film noir traditionally uses low-key lighting. This entails high contrast, dark areas, and shadows.

A LED light stand has four legs in its compact form, which then unfolds into three. We have to remember to tighten the ball head, otherwise the whole light might collapse.

We usually have a three point lighting set up. The first light is usually at 35-50° angle left from the camera and is called the key light. It's usually the brightest (at full power) of the lot. The second is the fill light. It's usually the same height of the fill light and has 75% of its power on. The fill light is to remove ugly shadows and round out the face. The third is the back light. It's usually below our subject. It creates a ring of light to separate the subject from the background. Another important rule of thirds is that 1/3rd is the distance between subject and camera, and 2/3rds is the distance between subject and background.
In low-key lighting, we remove any two of the lights in a three point set up and it creates a more creepy vibe, especially when the light is below the subject and facing upwards. Shutters/blinds are a good way of creating contrast noirishly.