Prelim. Task Evaluation

  We filmed a baisc scene using loads of different chots and then edited them togather to make a more interesting piece. the dialogue was really basic constisting mainly of 'do it' 'no, i cant' 'do it!'

We decided to film in the editing suite, we made a simple set of a desk and chair with a telephone on it. the background was a white wall. the lighting was harsh which gave a good office feel to the piece which is what we were going for. The set-up of the room was great because we had a glass  door only about 5 paces aways so we could choose wether or not to put the poor in the frame or not. in the end we left the door out but filmed the actor seperatly coming in/out.

 As a group we worked well, each person was given at least one or two shots in which they were the director and camaraman. when i did this i decided what shot i wanted, (I chose an over-the-shoulder and then a two shot in which we cought the whole scetch) we would set up the shot and bubble the camara, someone would go throught the ritual of :

'Stand By'  - 'standing by'

'Roll film'  - 'rolling film'

'Action'  -  'action'

allow for a lead out

'Cut!'

     Like i said the lighting was hars (Light and hard) which provided a good office atmosphere.  if we had softer lighting it could easily have made a different impression onthe scene and the situation, it could seem like a friend telling the other to hurry up and order the pizza before everyone arrives or it could have been more threatening like we could have replaced the phone with a guy. The bright lighing also allowed us to creat shoddows to give the actors a threating air rather than a more exposed innocent look. If we had wanted the same light without the shaddows we would have lit it from other directions aswell e.g from the floor instead of just above.the saddows worked really well as it aloowed the actors to hid their face by loking down and looking quite scary when the suddenly look up and have the light hitting the face yet leacing the eyes dark.

   The things we need to remember when filming are :

well first make sure the tripods legs are set staright and not all at different lengths.

we need to get the hieght right aswell (e.g if filming over the shoulder you must remeber that although the actor may be crouching to begin with, they may satnd up or move in such a was the blocks your view.)

bubbeling is also very important, unless you want a wonkey shot. (just remember to secure camara afterwards)

make sure that there's nothing unwanted in the hsore like the leg of a chair or the edge of a table.

we filmed the whole sequence with a wide whot, the we did all the others such as shot reverse shot, close ups zoom in/out e.t.c

we had a wall that prevented us breaking the 180' rule but in the few ocasions when is was possible the break it we chose not to as it would just get really confusing.

Editing the preliminary task was really fun. we filmed the whole thing over and over agin from different perspectives and angles thien when we cane to edit it we chose shots that best convayed the emotio. we had a super-close up of (Ben's) eyes flickering around, this showed the tension of the coming role play. we had close ups of the telephone to put emphasis that this is going to be a major part of the short.
we used repeated clips at different angles to exaggerate and draw attentionto certain parts, like when (Jack) waled through the door, we had a long shot, a close up of the handel and a reaction shot from (Ben) to (Jack).
we would cut clips and slot them into place where we wanted them to go and how long we wanted the shot to show for.

Photoshop

So i walked into the media room with a certain swagger as i had already used photoshop in art so, naturally, i thought this was all going to go prettty well. i was wrong. the 'lasoo' is actually a lethal wepon designed to ruin your work in the very last second when you are sutting out a spoon or something and at the last moment it decieds to cut the top 2" off! then of corse you get more and more frustrated at make more mistakes and so it becomes a viscouse circle. What it is meant to do is allow the user to accuratly cut out opbjects from one image and either past it into another or cut it compleatly
Once you have tamed the wild beast that is the magice lassoo and have placed you picture into another photo you can start to munipulate! the 'magice wand' is a godsend as it tidies up all of those little corner the magic wand has missed.
The fist Project i was given was to take a person (i chose a 50's style woman) and place them rising out of the water with a back drop of an apocolypto stye New York in the poster for 'Cloverfield'
this all sounds pretty boring but it was really usefull.
To Put an object into another pohot and make it look normal:
first the hues needed to be changed and matched to the background, just go to adjustments- hues-then fiddel about a bit untill it looks good.
get rid of any writting along the bottom(i used a clone stamp to baisicly just print some more sea over the white writing.)
 then we needed to put in some reflections.  to do this is really just a matter of common sense: make a layer of your object via copy, flip it, lower the opacity to hawever opaque you want it mabey smudge a little a. this can also be applied if you want to havea reflection in a window/mirror, copy, flip and move the image about as you please!


   Photoshop is like a maze: its great fun tand you feel great once you have managed to actually get something done but it is a real bitch to find your way about in. i love it because im trying loads of new stuff now, for example the reflections dont need a specail too of their own, its just a combo of simple every-day things.
Photoshop can be very frustrating and i wouldnt recomend it as a way to cool off after a stressfull fay but once you get the hang of a few things i can already see that its getting much easier, the jibberish that is photoshop is slowely turning to englsih!
     despite the fact that photoshop may not be the easiest thing to work with unless you know it bakwards (which i dont think anyone actually does...not even the designer) it is the best thing that has ever happened to the media world. there just isnt a poster or a film anymore that hasnt been photoshopped to within an inch of its life, and theres a good reson for it..it amazing! take Cloverfield for example (an apocotypto film about a group of studants filming the destruction of New York on a mobile pone) how on earth would the producers coveyed that New York dies in the film if they simply photographed it from a fishing boat?! if a photo says 1000 words then a pohoshopped one says 1000,000.