Skills development

amstudio music tryout:

I have tried making a soundtrack on jamstudio.com it was going well, I was learning how to add chords and different instruments into my composition but then the programme wouldnt let me save the work I created as I had to pay for the music, which was in dollars but also very expensive. So at least I got some experience of how to make a soundtrack.

Teesside university visit

To learn new skills in filming and editing to aid my coursework I attended the workshop in Teesside at the university. Attending the Teesside university trip was to find out some tips on how to film such as framing, focus, speed, lighting and colour. But later on in the session I got a chance to edit an existing film trailer to learn the basic editing skills to go towards my production.

Using the camera - It is important to keep checking your framing in each shot so you can keep the proportion right but also every location and action is different so this is another factor I need to keep in consideration. In terms of focus I must be aware when using the camera the image can come out of focus slightly, but zooming in on the desired object can refocus it to make it less blurry. We also looked at colour and how to adjust the white balance which will improve the quality and brightness in dull settings to give it more vibrance and a clear shot to make it look professional for the trailer.
We later went out to film some scenes and learnt how to variate camera movements such as panning and tilting which will help me with my production because I will have the skills to pull off different camera techniques successfully and correctly to result in a professional, creative end product.

To add to our knowledge of equipment and how to set up tri-pods correctly and how

to adjust the tri-pod legs etc, this will improve my future filming because I will know how to keep a good angle without the overall image being an unwanted tilt. I learnt how to use ND filters to improve the lighting when filming especially inside which makes the image clear and easy to see whats going on in the shot.

Sound- I also learnt how to improve the sound in my production with the use of a gun mic which aims to stop unwanted noises such as if I was filming outside the wind could be stopped as it is used mainly to capture dialogue or loud noises such as maybe a door slamming, to get this effect I would simply have to get the mic as close to the person or object without it being shown in the shot. To capture good quality dialogue or sound.

Editing- We then began to edit our foota

ge to make a sequence we used transitions, the slice tool to get the better parts of footage to connect with the next shot which will be needed in my actual production. Me and my partner Aaron began to add some music from gladiator to make the footage come to life and discovered how much music gives to the final output to make it lifelike. This affects my production as I will need music to represent the different moods in the trailer.
But later we created a trailer for the existing film Gladiator using the actual footage, we experimented by adding interviews from the director and cast, but also trying to add sound in the background quietly so we can still hear the people talking in the interview this will help with my production because mine will have a lot of dialogue to represent the characters feelings being stuck in eachothers bodies. I also learnt that you could speed up and slow down certain footage to create an interesting effect such as in my production I have a shot of zooming into a characters mouth when screaming I could speed this up to prevent too much time on that scene.

Trailers- I learnt quite a lot during the Teesside media workshop because I have never created a trailer before so now I have some idea of how to make it exciting and well presented. The key components I should consider when editing are sound, speed, transition and effects. Sound will improve the emotion of my work making it more real but also display the feelings and emotions in the scene. Speed and length of particular shots are important as I want to make the trailer exciting and not long and boring. Transition is another important idea when editing the trailer as I need to know how scenes are going to lead to others smoothly. If I need any effects such as brightness, black and white etc, if I need to improve the quality of the film I can easily do this in the editing phase. I may include some test shots in my blog and focus group to get comments on how to improve shots and what else can be added to make them look better.

Video editing exercise

During the making of the video edit I learnt how to log and capture my work correctly and how to set the scratch disks so my work wouldnt get lost and I would have to start all over again. I also learnt how to cut clips to take out the unwanted parts I did this by alligning the cut tool to the footage and clicked then deleted what I needed to.
I also learnt how to add music to the footage by importing the file and rendering it, but also if I want dialogue to be heard I could adjust the sound at the appropriate times.
This will help me with my trailer as I never used final cut before so I know have some basic skills to help me make my trailer more professional.

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Photoshoot images

Photoshoot images: Sophie (BMA awards model) These images will be for the magazine front cover although I can only chose one, I will be weighing out the positives and negatives of all five images. The background will be replaced with a movie star premiere background with the use of photoshop.


+ve:
- It's a good quality medium close up of sophie so we can see her facial features plus the make up we have put on her to make her a movie star.
- The pose is simple and nothing to dramatic.
- We can see the diamond feature on the dress which makes the picture classy and sophisticated.

-ve :
- Can't see the full dress which is one of the main features of a movie premiere the idea of to 'dress to impress'.
-The pose may be too simple? therefore maybe a pose with a bit more confidence.





+ve :
-we can see the full outfit, this is good because we can see the effort the model has made to look the part but also we can now see the full features of the dress such as the diamond and extra fabric to make it different in style
- Thanks to the light, we can see a lovely glamourous shine to the dress which adds to the glitzy theme, and could look like the paparazzi using flash on their cameras to get a nice clearer look.
-The pose I also think is brilliant as Sophie looks confident like a movie star should be. But also the angle is on a slight tilt which makes Sophie look more dominant and gives her more height. However it lets the audience see her whole body aswell including the silver shoes to compliment the outfit.

-ve :
- The only negative I would say about this image is that Sophie is looking away from the camera, which could well be a part of the pose but the image would be stronger if she smiled with her eyes at the camera to give her a sweet, glam look.



+ve :
- Another favourite image of mine, I like this one because the pose gives some innoncence to the model.
- The shine on the dress yet again gives her a glam look, but on the other hand her whole body is in the shot (longshot) which display the whole transformation she has taken to become a movie star. Also it displays the features on the dress such as the diamonds.
- Sophie is looking straight at the camera with her eyes which displays theres contact, her eyes being in the top third which makes her more dominant to the paparazzi.

-ve :
-Yet again only one negative is that her foot has been cut out of the picture, but however I'm sure people reading the magazine would prefer to see her face and dress.






+ve :
-A positive about this image is the audience can see the back feature of the dress which is quite unique in its style.
-The pose is a typical pose used by a lot of movie stars looking back at the audience and paparazzi and smiling which suggests they want to display there dresses but show they are comfortable with what they are wearing.

-ve:
- However I wouldn't say this is the best image because by sophies facial expressions she doesnt seem very comfortable with the pose because she isn't normally a photo pose type of person.
-There is also a bit of a blur which damages the quality of the image.



+ve :
-The photo displays the whole outfit very well as it doesnt cut off the shoes, and display the glitzy glam look very well.
-There is a shine on the dress which brings out the dress to the foreground and makes it noticable to the audience.
-Sophie is using her eyes to smile aswell as her mouth to create a sweet look, but also shows she isn't afraid of getting her photo taken and is photogenic.
-ve :
-If Sophie posed for the picture with her arms this image would be excellent as it would display confidence and make the image more professional.

To decide which image would be the best for the magazine I uploaded an image of the top 4 onto my facebook group. I then asked the members of my focus group to choose which one would be the image to feature in the magazine.

The results was as follows...

3 people took part in the mini survey and they all voted number 2 as they felt it looked 'more like a red carpet pose' I think this is true as sophie looks confident and stylish in the image.