tomscottonline

[tomscottonline]

So this is the final copy of what has now been dubbed: Focal Life. The title seemed appropriate given the content of the film itself, focusing on parts of my own life and relationships. 

This project has been an inherent learning experience for me, and one that I'm glad I took for my final module at university. Reading back over everything I've written on this blog for this project, there's many twists and turns to the journey but it's great to see how this project evolved from a simple interest in something tried out by a director I liked into what I've made myself, stemming out far from my beginnings. I truly believe I pushed myself experimentally in all aspects of my project and am really glad about the positive feedback I've been hearing so far.

I guess the final test for this project is when it gets shown at the exhibition in about a months time. But for now, this is what it is and I'm proud.

[tomscottonline]

A more comprehensive overlook of my finished timeline and the assorted automations I programmed to the audio. As you may see from the bin on the right I took in some of the audio from the videos and manipulated it as well as using some stock recordings of ambience suitable to each location in the film.

This process took a long time to correct and have the audio flowing across the scenes correctly but I believe I did it to the best of my ability and have come out with something I am pleased with.

[tomscottonline]

Focused Results & Exhibition - MEDI323

After showing this film to a few groups I've received an overall positive response to the film. People have been complimenting the humble yet intimate results of the piece. Also, most importantly they commented on how they enjoyed how the audio and image were in sync (e.g. it comes into focus and the audio becomes clearer), which is what I wanted to be one of the main focus points of the film, so I'm really pleased that this came across well.

I've also used these results to help decide on how I want this to shown at my exhibition show. Considering what has become a resounding intimate and private video, I thought that the viewer should be as immersed in it as possible. So for the exhibition I want the piece to be playing on a computer set up in a room/corridor on a loop with a set of one of two headphones and people can walk up to the piece and have all their attention on the audio of the piece without being distracted by other noises so hopefully they're drawn into the piece really well. I'll be working on getting that sorted when we begin organising for the exhibition over the next few weeks.

[tomscottonline]

C'est fini! - MEDI323

Well, it all turned around rather quickly in hindsight, to 2 days ago not having a clue how the audio was going to end up sounding, I blasted through the rest of the remaining audio today to now have a completed project, it's quite surprising to me really!

It has all really naturally taken shape as the project has gone on. I'm planning to do some focus groups ahead of my assessment interview next Tuesday in order to gauge people's reactions to the piece and see if there are any last changes needed to be made to it before then.

But for now, thumbs up.

[tomscottonline]

These three screenshots document my progress over the day to not even really understanding how to use Logic, to figuring out automation setting and eventually onto my use of the low pass filter, along with some volume editing too. Will continue tomorrow, to presumable completion.

[tomscottonline]

Audio Progress - MEDI323

So I had some kind of breakthrough today in my audio, I went into audio to meet my friend to talk about what I could try out but since he couldn't be there to help for a while, I decided to go ahead onto Logic Pro on the Macs at university and teach myself how to use it similarly to how I was editing audio at home on Vegas. When I found the low pass filter on there and started to alter it to my film, I noticed the effect of using dedicated audio software produced far superior results to what I had produced at home. So I started to go through my film again starting from the beginning and make up my own soundscape for the film. When my friend arrived to talk to me about it, I was already on a bit of a roll so he left me to it, so basically now I'm back to doing the same effect again but producing much better results. 

I edited about half of my audio today and I'm really happy with how it's turned out, and I'm going back in tomorrow to work on (and hopefully finish) the rest of it. The project took a dramatic change today and everything seems back on track. Will upload some screenshots so you can compare to what I was doing on Vegas before.

[tomscottonline]

Results of Tutorial: Audio Ideas - MEDI323

As expected, my audio didn't go down too well in my tutorial today, Tony agreed that it just didn't work and didn't compliment the film. We started discussing more experimental ways to record audio he suggested going in to a pub and walking around with a microphone and moving in and out from patrons and then even setting that recording up on a speaker and the moving in and out from that also recording it. It sounds like a reasonable idea but personally I don't think that it would be right for my piece. 

I decided to contact one of my friends who is a little bit more "sound techy" than I am, and I'm going to meet him tomorrow at uni to discuss about what I could do with the audio so hopefully that'll provide some positive results.

[tomscottonline]

This is a screencap of some what I've been working on in Vegas this week, I have been applying a low pass filter to my tracks and bringing the frequency levels up and down in time to objects and people coming in and out of focus in my film. While initially this seems like a good idea, it's the execution that I think I haven't pulled off very well.

Over this past week I went and recorded conversations of people talking and then put them over the video so the film has an audio track running underneath almost all of the film. The problem that this has brought up is that it's very noticeable of the frequency's changing tone as there's almost a wind whistle behind all movements it makes. This makes watching the film very distracting and subtracts from the overall intimate feeling I wanted to achieve with this film.

I'm going to take this to my tutor tomorrow and see if he can give me any tips on how it can be improved and changed.

[tomscottonline]

Problems - MEDI323

This week has been slightly troubling, and has started to make me panic slightly about the looming deadline. Mainly because I decided to begin editing the audio in Vegas Pro which I had edited my video in and I thought would be a good option since Vegas Pro originally started off as an audio editing piece of software the results sound a bit dodgy though, but I'm out of time and I'll have to show Tony soon. I'll upload a photo of my Vegas workspace in a moment to go into more detail about how I've been editing the audio.

[tomscottonline]

Tutorial: Comments on the first edit - MEDI323

So today I had my tutorial with Tony and it went fairly well I'd say. He asked me a few questions that hadn't even occurred to me but seemed useful to think about for now. Like how it started and ended with a shot of a bike, which I hadn't consciously picked up on but I guess it documents the journey that you take on this video.

He also made a comment about how it seemed very family-orientated and quite personal, and this actually made me think quite a lot. Because when I first approached this project I wanted it to be a celebration of sorts of people's interactions with one another and it has evolved quite naturally from that into being a window into my own life of my relationships with my friends and family, which I believe makes the use of the constructed lens more powerful.

I also started to discuss with my tutor about how eventually I wanted this to be displayed at the end of year exhibition. Since Tony mentioned how this wasn't a conventional film with a beginning-middle-end structure, I said how I thought it would be more suited to a standalone screen or projector on some kind of loop. He said it was important that I continue to think about this while I develop my film further.

Will update further as my films audio takes shape over the next coming week.

[tomscottonline]

So this is my first cut of the film, and I'm actually surprisingly pretty happy with how it has all come together so far. When watching it back I feel like there's a nice flow to the video and it really pulls you in and it does overall feel like quite an intimate experience. I'm going to wait to see what Tony says in our tutorial in a few days and see what advice he has to offer about where the project can go next.

[tomscottonline]

Return to Plymouth: Editing Begins - MEDI323

I returned to Plymouth this weekend and with just a few days until my tutorial I cracked on straight away with editing this film together. First of all, I decided to nail the visuals because after all, that is what is going to be the most engrossing about this film I hope. It will draw you into these situations. So for now, I'm just going to slap on a music track underneath just to help with the flow of the video, then after my tutorial, I'll properly get to work on the audio. I'll probably have a cut done by this evening and be ready to show to Tony in a few days.

[tomscottonline]

These are the final screenshots from my raw footage which was of my second reshoot, filming skateboarding. It was another revisit, improve and tidy up session where we filmed in a couple of different locations to last time, and I also found filming my friend on a skateboard whilst riding a skateboard myself gave a really quite nice dolly-shot effect. I remained true to trying to capture moments spoken between friends and now have all the footage I need to splice together to make my final piece which I'm imagining will sit between 4 - 6 minutes in length. 

[tomscottonline]

The first of the two reshoots, starting with going back to the woods. This was a good opportunity to extend and and improve what I had shot the last time we came here. A lot of what we shot was focused on movement and this time we had brought bikes along so that was another new element in the mix. I tried to focus on conversations happening between us at the time too so as to make you feel involved and looking through this window of the day's events.

[tomscottonline]

Reshoots Scheduled - MEDI323

Quick post: got two dates for two reshoots of the woods and skateboarding days so as to capture the audio that I mistakenly didn't record last time. These last two shoots shall mark the end of my filming and then I will return to Plymouth to begin the edit process.

[tomscottonline]

Another low light shoot in the evening by a local pond. The ISO on this shoot had to be bumped up a bit too as you can see by some of the grainy images but as it was before I don't think it subtracts from the piece. Another intimate shoot of someone painting but this was a bit different in the fact that this was the first time that it was only me and the subject without any other people. This meant that the interaction between me and the person was the most prolific thing captured, so there's this other element thrown into the mix of not just other people's relationships with each other but with me too. 

[tomscottonline]

This shoot was again unlike something that I had done before, I took my camera and lens to my family's big Easter gathering so I got some footage of a lot of people together which I feel like now is what my film is all about. I believe this film is going to celebrate togetherness and relationships between people. The interaction between people is very important to show onscreen and that's what I want to capture a lot of now. Obviously, being at a family gathering I had a plethora of opportunities to get footage of people talking (as soon as I had explained what this strange contraption was on the front of my camera of course.. which I had to do about 10 times over the day).