Week 12

 

I and Helena received a news that Dey was in a hospital and likely brought the baby due date forward. I and Helena made preparation in mind and decided to continue Dey’s work in editing suite together after we got Dey’s hard-drive delivered by Dey’s friend.

Helena made some changes to the content and B-rolls. I was helping with technical things like sound denoising and uploading on Youtube and adding Youtube interactive annotation.

I learned how to add interactive annotation at the end of Youtube clip at:

 

This is the final video. The annotation at the end of video allows audience get more information about Ardeur Wedding Planner.

Reference:

Thai merr (2015) How to add interactive annotation at the end of youtube clip. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjxT-mkRmLE (Accessed: 17 October 2016).

 

Week 11

It was so embarrassing that I forgot that I don’t have footages. The copies were preserved by Helena and Dey. Once I was trying to solve this problem, I suddenly remembered that we got different versions Adobe Premiere as well. She has 2015.4 Adobe Premiere and mine is 2015. If I update my version to newest one, the file can be opened but it will don’t work again in her Premiere. Thus, we used the bad and last option but fast which is providing timecode for Dey and she will add subtitles by using this timecode.

Link to timecode:

https://docs.google.com/a/rmit.edu.au/document/d/1eQ_7j2KmpesyIP_A7sy8nh0soDW4r8qX2bG9T_mGQgE/edit?usp=sharing

The timecode is exactly the section what character said in the video. I downloaded the video that Dey provided for Helena to review. I dragged the video to my Premiere, played the video and wrote down the timecode line by line. The timecode is controlled in milliseconds.

Week 10

This week after reshoot, we truly moved to post-production. My work was done and only need to do the subtitles for Dey. The Chinese version is not too long, 2mins is an easy case for me that comparing with the documentary in 30 mins we did last time. I think I could finish the subtitles in 1 day or even lesser, therefore, I asked Dey to give me XML file next Friday. This week I was concentrating on another project.

Week 9

We were very happy and appreciate that everyone in this group sacrifices their personal time and contribute to this project without any grumble. Everyone paid their efforts and tried their best to bring the lost footage back. On this Sunday morning, we met at the church opposite the Flinders station again at 6 a.m. It was similar to last time but many location changes applied to the introduction section. On that day, I was doing behind scene, stand-in as well as the security of property. I forgot to mention that on the 3 days shooting at the rented house, a makeup artist nearly lost her mobile phone. It was very busy at that day. Almost 20 people there in the house. When we finished interview of Queenie, the makeup artist found her mobile phone was missed. We found her mobile phone in an actress’s bag and she was packing up her bags and was trying to get out of here. The actress was called out from outside and no one knew her.

This time, I and Naomi (the bridge actress) stuck with and looked after our equipment and properties in turns. Many locations were changed when shooting and based on director’s preference, such as changed the parliament to the royal arcade and the Melbourne star to Dockland harbor.

Week 8

A bad news I heard from Helena that we lost main camera footages due to she replaced the folder with the same name. We were trying to get the footages back by using some software like ‘hard-drive restore’. Luckily, we lost the footage shot in the city and most of the important footage shot in the suburb were found. I thought that the footage we shot in the city was not good enough. I suggested to pick up one day to reshoot and we can make it better than the last time. And we decided to reshoot the lost footages next week after a negotiation with our client.

Week 7

This week, we move to the post-production stage. I helped Karen with recording voice over. Initially, we planned that Karen will do the voice over in English. However, we found that her English pronunciation is not good. Then we changed the plan that the video will have two different versions, one is in English and another is in Chinese. Actually, her Mandarin is not that good as well, she has an accent but this is far better than her English. It took a long time to record voice over. We were trying to tell her to speak with emotion. The first 43 audio files all speak without emotion until I played her voice to her. Because the audio is in Chinese, I have to make a timecode for Dey to understand for editing.

Timecode demonstration and link:

https://docs.google.com/a/rmit.edu.au/document/d/1-hpAtQon1PsqRJglUo1tG6q09zdOO2uWabaMi183ZUE/edit?usp=sharing

Semester break

This week is our main focus, we had 3 days shooting. Before this week, I, Helena and Kelvin have scouted the locations at the city. In the feature story part, the bridge in her dream is running from suburb to the city. We all know wedding photography is all about beautiful locations, pros and photoshop. This part will be a selling point to our audience. I was a stand-in of our actress to test the angles and movements,  where to start running in the frame and when to stop which will decide shots, a full shot or a mid shot. Many shots were added or replaced previous shots after scouting for perfecting the story.

We started shooting at 6 a.m. at the church opposite to Flinders station on last Sunday. We wasted a little time to wait for the sky turning to light and test the camera movement. From a low angle and a circle movement to shoot the bridge. The following shooting went very well and quick thanks to the scouting last week. We took half a day finished all city shots.

In the afternoon we went to the rented house and started shooting directly after having food. We took 2 days finished 3 days work. Only one thing we need to pay attention to next time is that we need to design lighting plot for interview as well. Maybe it is not useful but I will try next time. The background behind the interviewee was too dark and we spent nearly 1 hour to set up lights. The result was really good.

The traffic sound interrupted the interview when I recording because that was the time people after work and go back home. However, the sound is pretty good at the end after we record again and again.

I really learned a lot of things from two Dops, I played around cameras and lens and took the chance to take pictures as a practice and they were happy to teach me things. I also learned technical stuff about camera online.

http://www.gizmag.com/camera-lens-buying-guide/29141/

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Week 6

This week, I learned how to design a lighting plot. Take the chance of having cinematography workshop, I asked many questions about lighting and insufficiency of the work I have done, such as why there is too much noise when I shoot on Canon 80D, what kinds of light do we need in a rented house for a feature story and interview, why do we need to design lighting plot and so on. The lecturer suggested us to design the lighting plot at the pre-production stage. I followed the suggestion designed the lighting plot for the location where we are going to shoot (I just saw the image of the rented house on our group chat) and booked the lighting equipment (3 Dedos, 1 Keno, 2 LED lights and batteries). All the things I asked is all for next coming shooting on Sunday. The Link below is what we did for thanks to the couple in week 3. The video was shot on different camera, Sony a7s ii and Canon 80D). The clips shot by different cameras are too different, different colors and different styles. Sony a7s ii is more like a romantic shot film style; however, Canon is more flexible and suitable for different filming. My camera is not good for filming. Lights need to be added in dark place, otherwise, it will be like the clip when I shoot the bridge was doing make-up.

https://drive.google.com/a/rmit.edu.au/file/d/0B1fSC9Yy_T0nLVplcDYxNmtuQnc/view?usp=sharing

(This video is private, so I didn’t upload on Youtube or Vimeo, only for Ardure, our production team and our lecturers)

(The study of designing a lighting plot and a floorplan)

(THE LIGHTING PLOT FOR FEATURE PART)

(The studying of cinematography)

Week 5

Last semester, I and Helena have decided to work together on New Direction in Narrative. We decided to write different proposals and pick up the better one this semester. We always had a long chat after class about projects, ideas, and other tiny things. Therefore I am familiar with her idea of Your Dream Wedding Planner. Another group member Dey, she is pregnant. We all understand  her situation and trust her editing skill and let her do not stress out at the moment but try the best at post-production. This week, I met up with Helena and two Dops (Chi and Kelvin) who I worked with last week during the couple’s wedding day to go through the script and storyboard. We decided the cameras and compositions. Different cameras have different styles. It is so cool to follow with two experienced Dops to gain experience and knowledge. Four of us are Chinese, that is easy for us to communicate and exchange ideas.

 

 

Week 4

This week, we welcomed another people, Albert, to help us taking pictures. Finally, I propose to quit the project due to the workload and my importance in the group project. I was assigned as a photographer, a story developer and an illustrator assistant last semester in which occupies at least 50% workload in the group. However due to two people joined in, since they are unfamiliar the project, my job has forced to became a project manager to make sure that the project is still progressing. However, people in the group of Mixi’s mini dairy aren’t cooperative, they don’t really follow the timeline which I made for scheduling to meet up or discuss the process of work, so the project goes really slowly. I stopped writing group journal as I found that is useless and unnecessary to us and I feel I wasted time doing that. Meanwhile, project manager is not my interest. My initial idea was as a photographer in this group and the project manager couldn’t drive my passion to the group work. After having long chats with Olivia and Helena, I decided to give up Mixi’s mini diary and become a member of ‘Ardure Your Wedding Planner’. Seems I am more needed in Helena’s group. I and Helena work together 3 times and know each other well and we believe that we can make a good work again.

Additionally, I continually help Aliee’s group. I am not happy with the sound recorded outside. We had an outside interview which was on a ship. The color of sea and sky are really good for visual content but the condition is bad for audio especially for recording sound without a sound mixer device. Shooting outside is an unforeseen situation that the producer (Stacey) told us we will shoot the interviewee at her apartment but the interviewee changed her plan and insisted shooting on the ship.