Assignment 1 | Digital Video Collage Project | What you see is not always what you get

The brief for this assignment was to create a video collage on theme ‘Two or three things about me’ using stock footage, images and sounds, photographs graphics and illustrations - and be creative with it.

I wrote in my brief that I would explore static imagery of me doing different things I have captured, plus video footage shot over the last five years exploring contrast and light and shade. I also stated I would create a soundtrack for the video with matching contrast with sweeping strings vs. a techno style musical score.

At first I was thinking I would use static shots up front to show imagery of myself, then cut to motion picture footage of motorbike riding through the mountains and then cut to imagery or grabs from videos of movies that have inspired me.

Once I started loading footage into a new project though, I hit a real creative block, I couldn’t get past loading footage and didn’t know where to begin any edits. So I grabbed a camera with the idea of trying to emulate the Kuleshov effect and filmed myself staring dead ahead, with no expression trying not to move. I then thought that maybe I could use this footage for some montage style editing and really hard fast obvious cuts. With that idea in mind I gathered different pieces of clothing together and marked a spot on the white wall in my kitchen and sat in front of it whilst shooting and changed clothes.

This resulted in having some different footage that made me think I could do a series of shots of me, video and stills, and in between the real hard fast montage cuts introducing the key elements of myself I was focusing on what I enjoy, riding my bike, one of my hobbies keeping tropical fish and what I do for work. In that sense I would have a complete picture of Dan, Fun, Hobby and Work interspersed with montage edits of things I have done over the years.

In a real breakthrough late one night it started to really take shape and I had a full 90 second video in no time that I could start to manipulate and really turn into something. I was so excited that the video was really starting to follow my brief, my storyboard, and what I had envisage from concept. It just took that small breakthrough and the story started to come to life. I threw in some template title slides that I found after completing the Lynda.com tutorials (I wanted to create my own but they looked terrible by comparison!) and all of a sudden I could see what was needed to complete the project.

I focused on the key areas in between the montage edits and found that I could tell the story easily, Fun/Entertainment/Hobby and Work a full quick snapshot look at my life including elements of other parts of my life in the montage edits. I believe the end result is a single-idea story that follows the brief and most importantly I am more than happy with.

Once I had exported a version of this take I decided that my Kuleshov effect missed the point so I went back to the notes and discovered that the discipline is quite strict and mine wasn’t working for an obvious reason. I used shots that weren’t of the discipline in scenery shots so it wasn’t working. I quickly found some stock photos in my library and recut the video with a food shot, a young girl, and a coffin and the difference is now obvious! The Kuleshov effect works… apart from one big difference, I clearly ignore the basic rule in the very last seconds after the coffin shot where I crack a big smile and laugh a little. This is my creative interpretation where I exhibit my own wry sense of humour through self-deprecation, nothing is all that serious and you have to be able to laugh at yourself.

In summary, I feel that I have met the brief, I have followed my original concept and I have learnt lots about creative direction plus I have thrown in something that I have learnt from the lectures and notes by including a recreation of the Kuleshov effect which really appealed to me as I read about it.

You can view my assignment on my YouTube page here: http://www.youtube.com/user/danblack72

NB: this is my 500 word blog report by not my final submitted video submission.
I am also including an optimised for iPod version here:

The countdown to deadline

Well I thought I should do some updates as things have progressed somewhat since I last posted.


My assignment has taken more form since I last blogged in panic mode. I now have at least a 60 second project in Premiere on the timeline.


I think it starts well and there is a soundtrack which I composed in Garage Band but it lacks some continuity. I think this stems from a lack of proper planning actually. Although it does follow my original thoughts in that I introduce a shot of where I live, some random bizarre cuts of me being silly and wearing different clothes then cuts to shots of riding my bike, shots of my fish tank which I love, and then cuts away to shots of me at work. But when I look at it I just see it as all random shots thrown together. I dont really see a story about me. I am hoping that when I finally get the audio voice over layed down over the top that maybe this will pull it all together.


I had a Premiere melt down earlier in that I was working with multiple sequences on the timeline as I wanted to do a PiP shot overlaying two different motorbike riding sequences together. I got this down and was happy with it then realised that the Lynda.com tutorials didnt actually cover off how to combine the sequences together once you had done your edits. I worked out after a while that you can copy and paste them back onto the one sequence but there has to be a better way to manage this!
Now I have also lost my 'snap to' settings when I am trying to align cuts together. This is causing some grief as the PiP pieces have lost their alignment. Back to the tutorials.


I am still suffering from camera phobia as well. I really dont like seeing myself on video! Wouldnt make a good actor me thinks out loud.


Have added some title slides in on a some of the cut sequences and think I may be over doing it but this is all part of the process I guess. Definitely going to try and do better pre production, storyboads and concept briefs before I get to this stage next time with major assignment.

What this weekend was meant to be, and what it was

Well, heck. It was supposed to be an absolute first cut and give me a total 60 second short film that I could then tease and post-produce. It was meant to be content. It was meant to be filming, it was meant to be productive, it was meant to have outcomes, there was supposed to be film on page, there was supposed to be audio, video, photography, output. What was there instead?
Well there was some filming at the very least, and I have captured I suppose quite a bit of stuff to tape and imported it into an Adobe project that is called Assignment 1, but there is no sense of achievement or feeling closer to the end of a project associated with those poor achievements. In fact I feel further away from my goal than I did when the weekend started.
I was supposed to get a news reel logo happening. I was supposed to design my intro. I was meant to do so many things and the weekend just slipped past me unexpectedly and all I have is a project with half a dozen imports sitting in it. In fact I cant even look at the imports to see if any of it makes sense. I feel sick looking at the imagery of myself. I dont like the way I look on camera which lead me to belive I am heading down the wrong track entirely. I was hoping to do a Kuleshov Effect with some shots of myself but I dont think I understand it completely and my efforts of sitting in front of the camer are a total miss.
Eegads, will I get this project done???
I think I have decided that I need to introduce myself, but can do this without being on camera with a VO. Then I could possibly just cut to my points of interest and talk about them via VO. No?
Will that work? Is it interesting and creative enough? I have so much doubt about it at the moment that the whole project seems blank and even though the deadline has been extended it seems to be approaching at a rate of knots that makes me feel increasingly nervous! Did this happen last year? Is it my own sense of paranoia about being on camera? Have I actually even seen myself on video before? Do i really want to? Shit!!!

Mid week 3 thoughts and aspirations

This week has been a challenge for me. I have had a hellish week at work lumped with the Chief of Staff role for our business unit. This means I will be handling financial and HR issues, liaising with Directors, GMDs and political giants who have the intellectual giantness of frightening proportions. I have to compile the weekly activity report which is sent directly to the CEO. The mere thought of it frightens the crap out of me. And here I sit time ticking on, trying to get through the case studies, blogs and tutes for this course!
Then there is the fact that I had three days away for my sisters 50th and a weekend away which dug into my study time drastically. Top that with a visit from my Adeliade dwelling sister who wants to 'hang out' and her daughtes arrival into Melbourne which makes me feel like I have a responsibility to show her the ropes so to speak.
Anyhoo... all this will pass and I will cope, glad I knocked off a heap of reading tonight including finally finishing this weeks lecture which I found I needed to read at least three times and I still cant recount from memory the differences between the very complex types of storytelling. Analysing the Blair Witch site was a really good excercise and I found it quite hard to decide what types of story telling it really was a combination of many of them, in fact possibly all of them!
I have made a concsious decision not to read anyone eles's comments on the course blog until I have formulated my own, this way I know that others opinions will not influence my own. That was hard! When I logged in I saw that 4 posts had already been logged and it was so tempting to read them to see if I was on the right track or not but I resisted so hopefully mine will stand up on its own as my own. I think this is important. In fact once I had posted my blog entry on Trigger Street I found that most other people disagreed with my comments. Maybe I am a bit naive, or pehaps it is a good reflection to be really reflective, really think deeply about the question and not rush a thing. There were many other things about the site that other students had reflected on that I had not even considered! I really am an early adopter!
So last night as I was trying, trying, trying to get to sleep my mind wandered as it does to the upcoming assignment. Video collage. I have already submitted my concept brief and storyboard when at midnight I came up with an entirely new concept that I really want to run with. I emailed Cathie to see if that was ok and await her answer.
As usual I find that as I progress through the materials, more ideas materialise and I change my mind. In fact I was just reading Part 2 Pre Production Processes and discovered that this indeed is the role that I am playing, a creative producer/developer/designer/editor! So it should be fine that I have refined my idea and I know it is good, now I just have to excecute!
So this weekend is my post production time, I have already got a heap of footage that I like and I know that if I pour through my photo library I will find plenty of still photography, stuff that I have in mind, that will suit the project, but there still is the stuff that I know I need and havent got yet - to tape. Fortunately I have lined up a fairly decent Mini DV camcorder with a good mic that will do the job. Now all I have to do is overcome seeing myself on tape and this could be a great little piece!
Looking forward to it right now, but I know the terror will set in once I start rolling tape! EEEEK!

Week 3 | Activity 2 | Trigger Street

I see Triggerstreet as a start-up for budding enthusiasts of storytelling. As the site itself proclaims – Help others, help yourself. An unbiased place to load your script to get feedback on your writing skills or a launching pad to a new career in film making. The site is logical, easy to sign up for and provides hours of reading and insight into the industry which is largely about film making. An enticing Web 2.0 social media experience, people are invited to load stories, movies, enter competitions, post real time comments on blogs, load photo’s and share ideas with each other.
Having never known this site existed I can see many uses for it especially as a budding film maker.
No longer do I have to sit staring at a blank page with writers block! I could upload my outlines and ideas to the site for instant feedback.
I could request a script for use in my own film, or best yet in my mind, hone my own skills by requesting to review others works. It offers script writers loads of interesting industry news and podcasts, comics, plays short stories and books, in short this site is must have subscription for any film maker or person looking for aspiration and inspiration!

Week 3 | Activity 1 | The Blair Witch

The Blair Witch as a story utilised many forms of the identified story telling techniques in Lecture 2. In essence it is a cross media story the producers used a website with an ARG style to heighten awareness of the film, create hyperbole and interest in the movie itself which could be described as having an interactive threaded plot, or non linear structure. Once released it was a box office success and then came the DVD and assorted paraphernalia along with it.
At it’s height it is probably best described as Multimedia storytelling, which is what fascinates me most. It shows us how to exploit maximum exposure to the widest audience possible through the use of all of the available mediums in digital video. The use of the nonlinear format whereby the audience is enticed to decide what is real and what is fiction with websites, animations, creepy audio soundtracks and of course the now infamous hand held camera shots of one of the young female students filming herself at night, only showing her terrified eyes as she pants and cries and tells us how terrified she is, a classic in-story example of convergent journalism. The makers have every angle covered!


The use of the website to pull the audience in and want to know what happens is a very clever use of multimedia storytelling itself and holds well even today as a method of advertising, offering the film for sale at a very low price.

These techniques are now common amongst film makers but I don’t believe it has been done as well as the Blair Witch Project since.

Notes on Premiere Pro shortcuts

I have now finished the Premiere Pro Workshop in its entirety. Once I started it was hard to stop myself doing the whole lot cause there are obviously great tips and tricks inside the workshops.

Anyhoo, just a quick capture of some shortcuts - some I have used before, others are ones I know I will use now!

I key - set in point

O key - set out point

J key - backwards on timeline

K key - pause on timeline

L - forwards on timeline

Pressing J or L and holding will speed up the action respectively.

* key on a numbered keyboard (not above 8 key) will add un-numbered markers, very useful for beat markers in and out points on audio tracks

CMD key while dropping clips in the timeline will perform insert edit

CMD while lifting clips inserts and cuts while shifting other clips in time

CMD + Option shifts clips in target tracks

Holding CMD and dragging clip performs a ripple edit when trimming

Slip Tool - two rolling edits simultaneously

Slide Tool - changes in and out duration points while keeping duration.

Using Snap-To, press and Hold Shift while dragging clips on the timeline to Snap-To

Note to self after transcribing those notes from my notepad, may need to revisit Volume 8 Editing in the Timeline to really understand and get the hand of those tools and tips.

:0)

Week 2 | Update

Wow it has been a big weekend of learning for me! I thought that it would be timely to do this update thang each Sunday night when I finish assignments, upload things to DDB or Blackboard so I can track my progress. Well I have uploaded my Draft Concept Brief and Storyboard to DDB this afternoon and made significant progress today/tonight so here is my sanity check. :P)

Lecture 1 WAS A MONSTER. I don't know how other students found it but the volume of information that was in that 61 page PDF was STAGGERING! Interesting but overwhelming is another way of saying that, actually it was more than interesting, it was amazing. I am one of those people (early adopter) that must have every new gadget as soon as it becomes available, I usually have Google alerts set up for anything new and interesting in technology way before most people and become well conversant way before the products hit the market. That may seem irrelevant but in terms of digital media an being asked to think about it in a historical context I was quite flabbergasted by what I didn't know. I had no idea that it went back so far in time! So for me this whole weekend was just a complete trip. The 45 degree weather on Saturday helped in that it was better hiding indoors than out.

But seriously, that was a monster lecture, it took me two full days and I reckon 14hrs plus to get through before I provided some feedback to Cathie about the volume of content and she advised that I was able to be more selective about my areas of interest. Regardless of that I regret nothing because I know now more than I ever did about the history of film and digital media. Watching all of the YouTube videos (YES I WATCHED THEM ALL!) was an incredible journey. Totally fascinating. Just getting through that lecture however so that I could post my thoughts to this blog was a arduous task only in that it really took my time and full concentration.

But then on top of that was all the module readings, which I am yet to gain access to on Books 24x7, plus the actual course outline, the workshops, setting up the blog, posting thoughts to Lecture 1 on my blog, using the BlackBoard to discuss stuff (even just in the welcome forum) and Module outlines themselves... it already seemed to much even though I was enjoying it and I had barely started gathering my thoughts on the Concept Brief and Storyboard for assignment one yet, when I found all of the Lynda.com tutorials (BTW what a stupid name for a online learning system??).

And so it is about 10:30pm on Sunday night and I have been at it since 10am this morning which makes for a full 12hr day of learning about Digital Video and I must say my enthusiasm has not waned one iota. I am more pumped full of ideas and creative information now than I have ever been. If only 3D modelling and Animation last year had some tutes on Lynda.com for modelling! God that would have been good.

So these tutes on Premiere CS4.. I opened with hesitation after having a minor log in problem only allowing access to the first 3 modules, I thought.. meh.. .yeah whatever... I know how to use the interface, I know the basics, dont waste too much time. But such is the curse of the early adopter who thinks he knows everything, was I about to be taught a lesson.

It is the intricacies and finer points of being able to use those buttons that up until now I had just thought were fancy show pony buttons I didn't need. Boy was I wrong. The tutes are fantastic! A must see. Especially the tips about using the Program VS Source window. Up until now I had always just imported my clips straight into Bins in the Project window, and then edited on the timeline. I used ins and outs, I cut chopped, ripple edited and locked audio to cut video and vice versa, but never had I bothered with the Program window! What a waste of time I thought! Now I see the error of my ways. Capturing clips to you project window is the basic, but now I see how you can do most of your pre-production in the program window, batch bunches of clips from the same source to the timeline and change one without the other, log ins and outs that can be drag and dropped on the timeline, inserts and overlays.. OMG so many things that I didn't know!

These dribbled late night random unfocused over tired thoughts are probably not very cohesive but to me in short mean a new world of digital editing. The exact reason I wanted to put the theory to the 'madness' of what I thought I knew has all of a sudden in one short day become completely validated. I feel so happy to know that after years of doing sub par courses at other unnamed places of education that this has been worth my persistence. I am finally learning everything and more than I ever wanted to know.

I often find that after reading more and learning from hands on experience that I would have gone back and done things differently. As with today's submission to the DDB, I now have tonnes of ideas about my collage project collecting in my mind about how I will complete that assignment. I want to rewrite and resubmit my concepts but understand that this is the process of learning, no need to really, just refocus and make it a work of progress, learn as I go, do by doing, and make it the best I possibly can. I am so excited I can virtually hear Hollywood knocking my doors down!

Yours sincerely, the mentally fatigued, Surrealist film maker to be... aka Dan Black.

Week 2: Blog Discussion: What is Digital Video?

A direct question such as this deserves a direct answer so I am going to try and do just that in a short succinct sentence.

Digital Video is a freeform visual medium that allows artists of every kind to express their views without restriction on their interpretation and vision and ideas of how they see the world, dreams, ideas, thoughts, musicality, hopes and aspirations.

That probably doesn't do the last 100 years of pioneer film makers justice but it sums up well how I feel about digital video.

The lecture itself was such a journey and amazing learning experience for me and opened my eyes wide to not only the history of film making but just how adventurous and creative those before us have already been. To think that in the 1940's people were doing these amazing animations and creating film techniques that will be used for so many centuries after they have come and gone is just gob smacking.

What would Mary Ellen Bute or Len Lye do with Flash I wonder?!

Digital Video in the current age for me means the culmination of everything I have ever found intriguing blended into endless possibility. I can animate, draw, photograph, create anything I want into a visual format and share it with the world in an instant.

So many technological advances have occured in the last 20 years in personal computing and home recording that now almost anyone has the ability to say 'I create Digital Video'. Handheld PDAs, mobile phones and of course the personal handheld video camera have become 'standard' and accessible by so many that everyone can have a flitter with the medium and become published from the home office, just as I can now.

CGI has played an enormous role in the evolution of digital video and as computational power increases exponentially we are seeing changes in the commercial Hollywood film industry that would have never been possible 5 years ago. Special FX people can create illusions of particles, wind, smoke, fire etc so real that Producers can no longer tell the difference. Examples of films that have 'wowed' me in recent times because of such advancements in technology have been the Harry Potter series, Transformers, M Nights Shyamalan's movies, David Lynch (my all time favourite surrealist film "The Lost Highway"), and of course, Finding Nemo as well as so many others.

Digital Video is a fascinating medium and I believe we are in an age where massive advancements will only lead to more incredible experiences and breakthroughs in film making and I for one, want to be part of it!

Digital Video Lecture 1 - "The First Films'

Watching the 'First Films' playlist on YouTube itself was the first reminder I had of how much technology has changed. I sit in my office wired to a high powered multimedia personal computer on high speed broadband while the Lumiere brothers had a single film camera that was capable of very little and what do they record? Images of people walking out of a factory, images of a train arriving. No plot, no story and no sound. But in the day legend has it that on premiere of 'Arrival of a Train' that people fled the cinema fearing being struck down by a train.

I have no real critique of the films as there is naught to critique apart from what I have noted above. It is more interesting from a technological view as well as a socio-political perpective. The camera used, the type of film, the lack of audio all very incredible nonetheless when you consider this is over 100 years ago today, I didnt actually realise that we had film that long ago! But why did the brothers film what they did? Look at the subjects in the film, few of whom you can actually see the trepidation in their faces as they stare down the barrel of the camera as if it were about to steal their soul.

Fast forward 80 odd years to the premiers of William Friedkins 'The Excorcist' 1973 and the audience members were so mentally disturbed and frightened by what was happening on screen that the fled screaming and vomiting from cinemas. Why did William chose to shoot such a terrifying yet imaginery movie about demonic possession? It is beyond comprehension but Oscar winning nonetheless.

The 'First Films' playlist is like every first persons film I imagine, and attest too, no real idea why we are about to record what we are recording, rather just an experiment with technology that we dont really understand but must explore and strive to master. I often shoot random images and things without any real understanding of what I am shooting or why until I import the footage into an editing program and start playing with what I see on screen.

That in itself will be my biggest challenge this trimester, planning, drafting, scoping, briefing concepts etc are all very foreign to my understanding of creating film.