Monday October 26th module

Intermediate EFP
Hands-on part of module:
Dana showed me some great shooting tips to help me prepare for shooting at a convention in 3 weeks. It's less cumbersome to take the boom mic off the pole and kneel down under the shot, directing it toward the subject. It's also easier in this position to direction the boom mic with your wrist in the position of the person talking.
The camera is best off a tripod. I will need to practice this.
I learned how to shoot multiple people by keeping a wide shot and walking in towards the subject for a closer shot and moving out when another person joins into the conversation to a 2-shot. With three people interacting, it's best to keep the shot pulled out on all three.
Dana also taught me the duck walk he used at City TV to follow alongside a moving subject and moving forward and back with a subject. (Dana cautioned that it's best to have someone guide you by the shoulder when walking backwards)
More tips:
-Zebra stripes should be set at 80 for Caucasian skin.
-if you have to use a boom mic on top, do so. The camera mic is too directional and will pick up too much noise
-use a light on top of the camera for fill, rather than key
-close your eyes and listen to ambient noise in the room like fans or other noise makers that will wreck your audio track
-look for backgrounds with a “z” access for visual stimulation
-shoot plenty of B-roll and listen to your subject for good B roll clues.
-practice following people shots for B-roll
-Do establishing shots at the convention location...wide shot, find focal point and pull out, could do tilts, etc. Look for interesting shots like architecture lines and flowers to amp up the aesthetic factor.

Paperwork:
Dana went over the paperwork for doc work with me. A plot synopsis is not needed, but a treatment is important for figuring out what technical elements are planned and given consideration, such as camera shots, music, and lighting. If there are more than two people working on a production during the course of a day, a call sheet is necessary just to keep track of the schedule and the people involved. Dana says there's no excuse not to include a map as well. Google Maps is easy to use. A breakdown sheet is used more for dramas than docs so I don't need to do them. Release forms are important for people talking on camera. Background people are to be treated much the way the news treats them. No special release form is needed. Audio plans are helpful for finding extraneous and disruptive source of noise such as fans and buzzing lights. An audio plan is not necessary at a convention as I won't know in advance where I will be shooting, but I will make a point of checking the audio location before I roll tape. No blocked master scene script is needed for docs. EFP storyboards are not necessary, but it is important to do a shot list in case there is some storytelling opportunity through visuals in B-roll. There will not be a set-up and lighting plan for shooting at a convention, again, this is because it isn't know in advance where the shooting will take place. I will scout the location for outdoor light streaming in and move locations if the light affects the colour temperature of my shot too much. I will also attempt to use a camera light for a fill light instead of a key light. Shoot sheets will be used to organize footage by subject and content, but I will not be individualizing each shot. I may do an EDL but most likely I will use the shoot sheet as I will be editing my own material.

After Effects
I joined the After Effects group after working with Dana. We used the vanishing point tool in Adobe Photoshop to create 5 .png walls that a camera and lights could be mounted and moved around within. I kept having difficulty with the Create Plane tool and found that when you cross the points over and over on themselves, the create plane blue line tool will finally disappear! So much for CTRL Z!
We found that the Edit Plane tool needs to be very close to the wall lines to work well in defining the 3D walls.
To create a second panel angle, we held down Command and watched for the white arrow with a tiny grid to pop up before pulling the point out with a cursor. To zoom in and out of the Photoshop project, we pressed Command and plus and to zoom out, we pressed Command and minus.
Next, we exported from vanishing Point Filter as a .vpe file. “Export for After Effects” under the drop down menu in the top left corner. We opened After Effects and went to File, then Import, then Vanishing Point VPE. We were able to add a layer and add lights (the camera automatically loaded as we used the vanishing point feature.

Adobe After Effects Day 1

I bought Adobe After Effects CS4 a month ago, knowing that I would be able to use it for a learning tutorial. I followed Joanna as she walked us through the first tutorial. I was glad to have her point out the functions in the workspace. Students of mine had demonstrated a project to my class last year, but it was assumed we all knew the basic functions. I didn't want to hold any of my students back by asking too many questions as many of them had already played with the program at home. Instead, I booked a former student of mine to come back and take me through step by step. Fortunately for him, he got a job at CTV and I decided to buy a book and try to learn AE on my own. Well, the school year got rolling and I found I had no extra time to play with the program on my own free time. Joanna's tutorials will be a great help as I will surely forget how to work the program and can now go back and refer to them.

We learned how to bring in various forms of media including different layers from Photoshop and how to use the transform tools of anchor point, position, scale, rotation, and opacity. I learned the importance of locking off a background layer so that I don't accidentally transform it in any way. I also learned how to rag on effects such as sepia, contrast and brightness. There are several of these tools to play with. I also learned how to blend layers by activating Mode.

We briefly touched on cameras and lighting. I'm going to need more time with this part. I got confused when the axes crossed over each other. I'll have to see if I have a chapter in my book to help me along with this.

Lastly, Jim and I got a chance to try out a tutorial on our own. We made a robot fly on a path and put some moving clouds in sideways to look like smoke. We played with the Linear Light mode to make the clouds look like they were blended more into the background. Afterwards, I asked Joanna about render and export and she showed me how to select advanced settings for this.

Testing Video Export Formats

The Board of Education asked me to edit a video and output it to .wmv so that it could be played from a computer. I asked what venue the video would be shown in as I had been given low quality files to work with. The response was that it would be shown on a big screen in an auditorium. I explained that I would edit the video but that the quality would not be very good, even if I were to export it in a better format. .wmv export was out! The file size was small at 103 MB but the quality was just awful. Since the plan was to run a file off a computer, I tested an export using Adobe Encore to .f4v format and it looked pretty close to the .mov. The file size of the .f4v was only 188MB, whereas the .mov was 3.2 gigs. The quality was amazing for the file size! It worked well on Adobe Media Player and I suggested that computer files be played using .f4v in future and that .wmv format be abandoned right away. .wmv is poor quality and an antiquated format.

In case the computer happened to have a DVD-ROM on it, I exported using the .mov to iDVD and put a menu on it. The file was 666MB. I also exported from the editing program straight to Encore as MPEG-2 and onto DVD. This file ended up being 1.8 gigs. The DVD quality of both DVDs looked the same, though iDVD was quicker to burn. Using Encore is the best option for creating special menus, but it seems that iDVD would be better for burning larger projects.

In Encore, You can burn so that the disc starts up right away upon insertion if the workspace is too intimidating but with a little trial and error and time to spend learning all the features, it's also a great program for creating menus and chapters. The workflow is quite nice. You can edit changes right in the workflow area which is a lot more friendly to use than the properties window. The timeline is easy to use for inserting chapters as well. You can easily move these to an exact point of choice.

September 28, 2009

Media Production Module September 28

Lori explained the difference between Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. Example of web 1.0 included one way communication of information while Web 2.0 entailed a interactive approach with user-generated content. Web 3.0 takes on tasks that are more human-like. For example social media that tracks what content a user is using and can change itself based on those parameters. Last.FM is a good example of this. Jango is as well. Both of these programs are radio programs that track your listening habits and search for the that music being streamed over the Internet and plays it for you as it is streaming.

From a production stand-point, I worked a little with Dreamweaver and Flash. Joanne taught me how to take the loop off of a project in the Publish Settings. It still seemed to loop when I played it in Google Earth so I think I'll go back to the web and search for how to give the .swf direction for the amount of time I require it to play before it shuts off. I also learned how to use the gradient tool in Photoshop. First, you use the magic wand to select the areas you want to apply a gradient to. Next, you mark points on a scale and select the colour as well as the amount of gradient you want for each section. Lastly, in Dreamweaver, I learned to create a template that could be applied to each page simply by designing my index page to a certain point where I want to repeat elements on subsequent pages, and then save multiple pages as new names.