Believer Make the Cut

In the article “How to Write Great Character Descriptions”, I learned a lot about what the title suggests: writing a great character description. It covers a lot of the elements involved in successful people’s character writings and descriptions. This comes into play with screenwriting as well as in any type of job in which a character needs to be developed. Here are some of the helpful tips.

It says in that article that what makes a show your favorite show is that people have a favorite character who is a lot like them. It’s possible to get as deep as what the character is doing or what they are wearing. Everything starts with a blank screenplay, the writers have to imagine the characters and gain a mental description before an actor can portray the characters and bring them to life.

This article didn’t have many applications as a filmmaker in the since of actually using a camera in filming things, yet it had a lot of insight in how writing works and successful tips that can be applied to the field. For example, I have liked the idea of writing a screen play before, and now that I know some tips to help me with character development, the overall screenplay would certainly be better with that knowledge being put to use. To set up a good character, you need just enough information to explain their actions without taking away too much for the audience to discover themselves through development during the scenes. They used an example from the movie The Big Lebowski. It says that they introduce The Dude with his diary, setting up his love interest in White Russians for later in the plot and gives an explanation of his demeanor without ruining anything for the audience.

There are also ways to set moods with character descriptions, either being funny, sad, big explosive ones, yet the most successful are ones that aren’t overly elaborate. Having a sad character description can set up situations that happen within the plot and can set a sort of pre-mood to get ready for that sort of scene with that character. Every character introduction can convey a mood.

I personally am very interested in the idea of writing or assisting in a screenplay writing and I know some people who are involved with the sort of thing and would be happy to join in the construction of the thing. I would first like to clarify something first. Namely, what defines a character description as too long or too short? I get that something crazy like a nine minute long character description is too long but for a situation what would be an appropriate time length for character description? I believe that since we watched the Star Wars fan film in class that I could probably ask a professor at a college about time lengths because they probably have quite a lot of experience answering questions such as that when it comes to filmmaking.

Match Cut Project

Journal Reflect: Photo Project

This week in film making we worked on making a slideshow or photo montage as a project in class. I learned a lot of tips and tricks for using Premiere Pro and a lot of tips for making a successful photo montage in general.

First of all I learned just about everything I know now about zooming and fitting images from the past week of working. Not only did it speed up the process but it made the project enjoyable and I was very engaged in my work. I learned how to zoom in and fit by setting up key frames, which when they are placed on a photo set the zoom and movement of the image by placing different points where the image is a certain way and moving the image to reach where the second key frame has the image. Without this feature there would be no way of moving the images or increasing their size, zoom or opacity.

I also learned how to use the razor tool. Whenever one of the images had too long of a duration for how I wanted it to fit in the project, I would manually go in and change the duration by numbers at first. After I figured out how to use the razor tool, I didn’t have to even open that menu. By using the razor tool, all one must do to change a clips duration is click where they want it to split and delete what’s left over after. It was as simple as that.

I also, through reading an article about key shortcuts in adobe Premiere Pro, learned about the J and L keys. These keys can be used to to go back and forth from what ever speed necessary (change the speed by holding shift or pressing the other button), which is very helpful in many situations, especially when you have one Clío that you need to go back and make sure it changes right when the music hits a certain spot. I specifically used this in order to change from pictures of certain characters because they were the ones singing the song in the music video online, so I used the keys to slow down and backtrack and then slow down and go forward in order to make sure they images I had in the montage would change to the next at the perfect time.

Although I learned a lot and felt relatively good about how much I learned and the outcome of my project, I wish I learned a little more. Namely, I wish I could’ve learned a lot more about transitions. All of the pictures in my project would simply transition to the next with a quick flip. I wish I could’ve learned about how to add more interesting transitions, like something where the images fade into each other or dissolve to reveal another, maybe even slips into to halves like a curtain being drawn back. I am definitely going to learn how to use more of the features the more I use Premiere Pro I’m sure.

He-Man Tribute

Article Review Blog 3

Since we have been using Adobe Premiere Pro in class so much over the recent couple of days, I decided I would review an article entitled “How to Use the J, K, and L Keys in Premiere Pro to Speed Up Your Workflow”. The article acknowledges just how tedious editing can be, especially since the differences between “well done” and “sloppy” can come down to just the smallest of details. However, there are some keyboard shortcuts that can help speed up the project, while making less unintentional errors and brewing frustrations. It’s also good that none of these shortcuts are too complicated for a beginner, which really helps make learning how to use the software much easier.

First of all, every editor needs to know how to start and stop playing their clips, wether the project is a slide show, movie, music video, etc. Every project should be reviewed before it can be completed. Everyone should be familiar with the play button on screen, but another shortcut would just be the K key or simply the space bar. It’s much easier to just press the space bar to start and stop a clip than to move your mouse over to another panel every time you need to play the project. It’s especially good when there’s some minor details that need fixing, because you won’t have to move around from panels so frequently.

Now in more advanced situations, Shift+J, Shift+L and the Right Arrow key come in handy quite a bit. If you need to play something back slowly, you can just use the Shift+J keys, the will play back the project but in slow motion, very helpful to see what changes should be made with a different perspective, especially when using special effects. Shift+L is also very helpful considering it’s basically the space bar but for slow motion, good for catching any small errors or continuity problems. And the Right Arrow key can play back frame by frame for any very detailed corrections that need to be made. After reading the article, I now know a lot of helpful shortcuts that will surely help me in the editing process for the PSA project and the Slideshow we are working on. It’s very useful to have an article that can be applied to projects we are working on in class, especially when I was wondering about ways to speed up the process myself.

As evidence from the article, there are many different keys and combinations that have different functions in Premiere Pro. I personally would like to know just how many shortcuts there are and which ones I can use to speed up the process. I am going to look up a website that shows the different keybindings and maybe a YouTube tutorial that can teach me how to use them in my projects. There are a lot of functions that I have used in Premiere Pro that I believe probably have a key that I could use to speed up my editing and I intend on finding out what they are.

Article Review

In the article I read, I learned that in so many cases, fixing everything in post can be so, so terrible. The amount of things that are capable of going wrong when trying to fix things in post is astounding. Somethings that are off can be fixed in post with very little to no worrying. However, as seen in the article, the amount of things that could ruin a project scale from about every situation you run into with a film. In cases with boom mics dipping into shots, it’s easier to just reshoot because having to conceal it via post can be very awful and time consuming or even impossible. Or for instance Auto White Balance can mess up a lot of shots.

I’ve previously learned a lot about the things mentioned in the article, but never have I heard of so many issues that can potentially go wrong with all of these things. When I’m working on the PSA, I will have to be very careful with the boom mic as to not let any part of the thing dip into the shot, and if it does, we have to notice and reshoot right away. For us, we would be utterly incapable of masking a boom mic in post, unless the other members of my group have some hidden talents they haven’t told me about, because I sure don’t. Also I will definitely make a conscious effort in order to make sure auto white balance is turned off; we should be able to hand that ourselves and do not want something of such insignificance as a setting turned on wrong completely dismantling our attempts at a wonderfully crafted shot. Cropping is also something we need to stay away from in post because it lowers resolution which can effect the general quality of the shot which is definitely not what we would want. I would also look into shooting in 4K because it can come in handy in case we need to crop.

In so many cases, it would become so easy for us to just throw the list of repairs in the “post” basket. However I would really like to know what types of things are the smartest to save for post. While the article gives a sense for the kinds of things not to do in post, it doesn’t really highlight on any of the possible complications or errors that could be fixed in post. Personally I would like to know from a professional seeing as how the have everyday experience with the art of recording. What ways do they fix things and how many people do they have working on it? Our three person group is no way capable of producing the results one would expect from a well know production studio but I would like to know some techniques or sources of info that could help expand my knowledge and give me an idea of the things I could be doing to save myself time and money in the future while getting the best results. All of the things we could fix in post so far have been minor things but knowing which of them should be a priority would be helpful

Learning Entry

Recently in filmmaking, we have learned a lot about sound design, mainly microphones, settings, clippings, etc, and quite a bit about lighting, different ways to get lighting on a person and what they are typically used for. Through working on making our groups PSA itself, I learned a lot about all the preparation and work before shooting generally the type of stuff you don’t think about until you realize you need a plan.

First of all, we learned about different mics and what each of them can potentially be used for in a filming situation. Namely, a shotgun mic, is great for getting audio from a source while being able to block out quite a bit of excess sound produced by the surroundings, like wind or cars. Next a lav mic, which can be clipped on to clothes and used to easily pick up sound from a person speaking. Typically it is hidden underneath clothing or other objects, but sometimes is difficult to use because it can be seen. Condenser mics require external power which dynamic mics do not. Camera mics are also very ineffective because of how much the sound and others sounds mix and bounce around the room before reaching it. We also learned in class how to use an audio recorder, which was difficult at first but then became easy the more we tested each mic and setting to record.

Lighting is a much different type of set up and is actually much more complex then I had originally expected. Shots contain many types of lighting with low or high ratios based on hard light and fill. Hard light is a shot in which the lighting is very bright from the front of the subject which is very revealing and typically is used to reveal imperfections and give the person a less attractive look. Soft light is the opposite: it used a little amount of light which can hide imperfections and make the subject much more attractive. Lighting from beneath the subject is very unnatural, thus giving the subject a very scary or unnerving look. Fill is used in shots to bring less shadow to the subject which can make the difference between a scene from a horror and a comedy stand out.

When I worked on the PSA with my group, we worked a lot on the script for it and the shot list before we thought of any of the set up or actual filming. We had meetings just to work on preparing and have actors who will be in the PSA so we can work on the filming and audio. My job is on the audio side, figuring out where to put the book poll and how to get the best audio. Thanks to in class work I know how to operate the audio recorder and the mics, so it should be much easier to work when we start filming. All of the things we learned in class have definitely surfaced and will surface in the making of the project and it’s very good that I now have a better understanding.

PSA Research

Before working on our own PSA, our class was required to review some PSA’s online in order to acquire an idea for what we would be modeling or taking ideas from. In most PSA’s, the target audience seems to be everyday people, those specifically without knowledge on the topic. In my examples for opioid addiction and bullying, the target audience seemed to be people without particular knowledge of what it’s like to be bullied or addicted to hospital drugs.

The message is clear for both, don’t use opioids as a medical option and certainly not anywhere else, and don’t be a bystander or participate in bullying other people.

I saw the use of the slogan “I am a witness” in the bullying videos and in the opioid video it was “know the truth, spread the truth”.

I think both PSA’s are ver effective because both tug at emotions, the bullying one at a more compassionate aim, the opioid one at a more sickening aim.

The opioid PSA uses examples of what people do to get more medical prescriptions for the drugs, showing intentional accidents resulting in obliteration of the persons bones and parts of their body. The bullying one plays on compassion by showing a little animated monster and world and showing how it empowers someone to have positive reinforcement in a bullying situation.