Film/Tv
Producer
Producers are at the financial, practical and creative heart of a film or TV drama. They are often the first to get involved, spotting the creative opportunity and commercial viability of a production. They continue as the driving force right through to distribution.
They are the overall decision makers. Producers will come up with story ideas and hire writers or choose and secure rights to scripts. This is known as ‘optioning’ a script. They decide on the scale and budget of the film and source financing from investors, studios and distributors. They work with creative ideas from the director and approve production costs. They spot and solve potential problems throughout the production process. They approve locations and hire a team of staff for the production, delegating certain responsibilities to a line producer. It’s their job to create a good working environment and they constantly communicate with everyone to make everything run smoothly. They have ultimate legal responsibilities for the health and safety of the crew on set and delivery of a completed film at the end of the production process.
Who does a producer work with?
Producers lead and communicate with the whole production team as well as distribution and marketing teams. They answer to executive producers who serve as the overseeing face of the film studio, financiers, or who (in TV drama) are the overall leads on a series.
What does an executive producer do?
An executive producer (EP) is the head producer who supervises other producers in the creation of a film, television show, web series, commercial, or theater performance. An executive producer may work independently or on behalf of the studio, financiers or the distributors. They will ensure the film is completed on time, within budget, and to agreed artistic and technical standards. In television, an Executive Producer may also be the Creator / Writer of the series.
Bottom line: An executive producer is usually a financier of the project. Typically, this person may assemble the core team, but will not physically produce the project.
Short film Research
How Long Should a Short Film Screenplay Be?
I asked a teacher and the answer was 3-5 mins. A short film are usually under 50 min
Step-by-Step Guide for Writing a Short Film
An executive producer (EP) is the head producer who supervises other producers in the creation of a film, television show, web series, commercial, or theatre performance. An executive producer may work independently or on behalf of the studio, financiers or the distributors. They will ensure the film is completed on time, within budget, and to agreed artistic and technical standards. In television, an Executive Producer may also be the Creator / Writer of the series.
Genres for short films
Animation
Experimental
Comedy
Drama
Documentaries
Colour Grading
Colour grading is a post-production process common to filmmaking and video editing of improving the appearance of an image for presentation in different environments on different devices. Various attributes of an image such as contrast, colour, saturation, detail, black level, and white point may be enhanced whether for motion pictures, videos, or still images. Colour grading and colour correction are often used synonymously as terms for this process and can include the generation of artistic colour effects through creative blending and compositing of different images. Colour grading is generally now performed in a digital process either in a controlled environment such as a colour suite, or in any location where a computer can be used in dim lighting.
Cinematographer
Cinematography is the art of photography and visual storytelling in a motion picture or television show. Cinematography comprises all on-screen visual elements, including lighting, framing, composition, camera motion, camera angles, film selection, lens choices, depth of field, zoom, focus, colour, exposure, and filtration. Much of the impact of a film or television show is visual. Cinematography represents that visual aspect, whether through the camera and lens choice, angle width, aspect ratio, or other visual elements. The impact of certain shots also plays a significant role in the overall feel of a film. For example, an extremely wide shot places the subject in a more vulnerable position, while a medium shot helps the audience feel like they are part of the conversation. The size of the shot restricts how much of the scene the audience can see.
PRACTICAL SHOTS
Cloning attempt 1
What have you learnt?
I learnt how to use adobe premier in more depth. I have used it before but doing a task like this has helped me discover new skills when using this software.
What went well?
During this task I found that the ideas I came up such as the scenario was really good but I wish the result would of come out better.
What went wrong?
A lot, I found it very hard to communicate with my team because during the filming not everyone understood what I was trying to say and this was shown in the outcome. The camera moved during the video what has made the video look very strange and obvious that it is poor cloning. I wish my team would have been more engaged within this because I felt like me and one other mostly did the work what made it very difficult to give the best outcome as possible.
How could you make the next brief more efficient.
I would make sure that the instructions are more clear meaning that the videos supplied were very difficult to work with because I didn't find that they were beneficial to me due to the lack of detail within the video.
What would be the next small goal for you in the next project.
Personally, I would like to work alone because I feel like I produce the best amount of work when I'm on my own due to the fact that I don't have to rely on anyone else. The next goal I would like to achieve is making my project at a higher standard and more professional. I'm not too bothered about this video looking how it does because this is my first time doing this so in a way its a new achievement for myself.
Foley
What is Foley?
Foley Sound can best be described as sound effects recorded during post-production while watching the edited picture. It is intended to blend with the rest of the soundtrack, which includes dialog, music or other recorded effects or ambient sound.
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Who and what is a Foley Artist?
A Foley artist is a person who re-creates sounds for film, video, and other media in post-production to enhance audio quality. They replace sounds that cannot properly be recorded on set. Foley studios have viewing screens, and props, as well as recording equipment to record sounds as they watch the film. These sounds include anything from the swishing of clothing, the breaking of glass, footsteps, or squeaking doors.
They use a variety of props to create specific sounds. Footsteps are created by the artist putting on a certain kind of shoe and walking on the appropriate surface (e.g., wood floors, asphalt, grass). Foley artists also re-record poor quality sounds from the initial set recording, which ends up being most of the sounds you hear in a film.
The term ‘Foley’ comes from Jack Foley (1891-1967), a sound effects pioneer. He worked with Stanley Kubrick but never received much credit besides the term itself.
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How do you create Foley?
Foley artists use different types of props to recreate sounds on screen in movies, TV shows and commercials. Props include various items that are used in creative ways to re-create sound. For example, Foley designers use the sound of celery breaking to re-create the sound of bones breaking.
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Types/examples of Foley?
There are three main types of Foley effects: footsteps, movement and props. To recreate footsteps, Foley artists walk on the same surface as the actor in similar shoes. A Foley pit can be utilized with different flooring that allows the Foley artist to record the actor walking through different terrain.
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Elements used in creating Foley?
There are three main types of Foley effects: footsteps, movement and props. To recreate footsteps, Foley artists walk on the same surface as the actor in similar shoes. A Foley pit can be utilized with different flooring that allows the Foley artist to record the actor walking through different terrain.
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Find 3 specific examples of Foley and how it was created?
Hands/Feet Touching the Ground
To replicate these sounds, someone will gently pat on the mound of coffee. For the character's big push off the ground, someone will push a little bit more dramatically into the coffee grounds with both hands.
Brushing Sand Off
A person will wipe his gloves together to simulate the sound of the character brushing sand off of their body.
Jogging Off-Screen
For the character's jogging, someone will put more weight into his pats and drag his palms across the coffee grounds to give the steps a little bit more of an exaggerating "push off" quality.
Sounds in a specific genre (Horror)
How is Foley used in horror?
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What sounds are used in horror films?
Knife slashes
screaming
foot steps
Door creaking
bones breaking
blood gushing
crying
During this film many sounds are included, such as knife slashes. This sound is used through the majority of the film because the perpetrator main weapon is a knife. Like every horror film another sound was is used many times is the classic horror movie scream, this usually appears after the knife slash.
Group Project (Foley)
Sounds we tested (rough sound)
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Door shut
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Fan
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Phone dial
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Walking on stones
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Walking through leaves
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Pot smash
Our genre is action so what we done was we went and gathered certain sounds what can be heard within action films and series. These were the tests we done and I'm going to use them later in Adobe Audition and make them sound even better.
Review and Refelct
Sounds heard in Action Films
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explosions
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Gun shots
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Glass smashing
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Phone dialling
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Knife slashes
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Door slams
I compared the sounds I gathered through the microphone too the ones we filmed on a mobile phone. The ones we gathered through the microphone were much more efficient than the others because the sound has higher quality and you can work out what sound is happening on the microphone
Videos I used to help me improve the sound quality
Final sounds- when being put into Adobe After Effects
Review and Reflect
I am very pleased on how this has went because I am not always confident on using this sort of software but by watching the tutorials I feel like this has helped me very much and I have made a good job. The sounds are much better now they have been in after effects and they will sound very effective when using in film scenes. I think this went very well I will consider doing something with this in my FMP.
The only disadvantage we came across was that you could hear speaking in the background. This was very hard to block out and we became short on time so w had to keep them.
Filming (Western Short Film)
Western sounds
Western Film
Reflection
Which way worked best for you to come up with an idea?
Discussing any ideas myself and my group come up with and then picking out the ones we think will suit the best. We also merged our ideas when discussing them because then we all feel like we had a part in this film. During the filming we also came up with new ideas and this helped develop the film even more.
What was your role and how do you think it went?
I done the story board, meaning I sorted out how the film is going to go and I developed our ideas together to create this short film. I also helped work out the location of shooting and what we need to make it feel western, such as not having modern buildings in the background.
What would you have done differently, if anything
Did you practice soft skills (teamwork, communication etc or hard skills: editing camera, lighting etc, or both?)
Next time I would of liked to have more of a plan, my group and I ran into some problems just before going out and shooting, this was difficult for us because then the plan wasn't as we wanted. We had a team member leave our group and join another group, this person was our actor so we had to sort out job roles again what was difficult seeing as we had a deadline.
Overall what do you think of the final film?
I'm happy about the footage but no so much the sound. A different group made the sound for our film and the sounds were not so good, this gave us a disadvantage because we needed to use them sounds and we didn't have time to get new ones. The purpose of this project is too use those sounds we were given but other than that i think myself and my group worked really well and produced a good film.
What was the biggest issue the group had and how did you resolve it?
Our biggest issue was that someone left our group and we needed a new actor, no one wanted to take this role so it took a lot of our time up discussing this but we finally agreed on who will take the new role and from there everything went how it was planned.
Music Video
Research
Ideas
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"Golden Hour" Shooting
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Light Movement with Music Effect
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Different Speed Footages Idea
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Slow Reveal Craft
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One-Shot Shooting
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Green-Screen Shooting
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Stop-Motion Idea
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Drone Shooting
5 main types of music videos
Performance music videos
This music video is probably the oldest and most commonly used music video. In performance music videos, you'll typically see the band, well, performing - meaning it's a recording of them playing on their instruments.
A performance-based music video can include dancing, lip-syncing, and band members playing their various instruments. It can even be a recording of them playing live in some cases.
However, that doesn't mean that you can't be creative with a performance music video. Typically the bands are located in various exciting locations that connect with the song and the feeling they're trying to create.
Performance music videos are more uncomplicated to film than other music video kinds, and it's great for when a band wants to create a video with a low budget.
It was also the standard before the other types of music videos became popular. Hence, most old music videos are performance-based.
Narrative music videos
A narrative-based music video is a music video where the artist(s) are trying to tell some sort of story.
It is essentially a short film based on the song. Narrative music videos typically include a structure of a beginning, middle, and end.
There are also usually no lip-syncing or musical performances in the video. The band creates a narrative around the lyrics relating to the song's themes.
There are exceptions, depending on which type of narrative music video it is. There are three different narrative techniques used in music videos: Illustration, Amplification, and Disjuncture.
If the director uses illustration, they create a music video where the narrative is based purely on the song.
The video will usually include a direct reference to the lyrics. The scenes are a more or less direct representation of the meaning of the lyrics.
The director will utilize their creative genes when creating the music video with amplification. Here the lyrics are still closely connected to the music video.
It can have complementary scenes not necessarily in the verses but relate to the themes and amplify the song's meaning.
Lastly, disjuncture is when the narrative becomes detached from the song's meaning. Here the director chooses to create a new meaning or theme through the video.
It is essentially a narrative video that might not make much sense on the first viewing.
Concept music videos
Concept music videos are videos without a storyline and typically have no relevance to the lyrics themselves.
The concept music video is usually based on the artist's vision. It can be seen as a way to expand their creative vision with the song.
The concept music video typically includes a performance or a narrative, so the audience doesn't get all lost. But while there might be a smaller narrative in the video, there is typically no structure to the video.
What makes these types of videos so attractive is their uniqueness which can sear into the audience's brain.
Audiences will get fascinated by trying to understand the video, or just because it's so eccentric, they can't forget it.
For example, who can forget the interpretive dancing between Maddie Ziegler and Shia LaBeouf in Elastic Heart?
And who could really take their eyes away from Childish Gambino's intriguing performance in Sweatpants?
When talking about concept music videos, we typically talk about two types: Thematic videos and symbolic videos.
Lyrics music videos
Lyric music videos are just what it sounds like. Music videos with lyrics on the screen as the song goes along.
These videos were extremely popular in the early days of YouTube, albeit they were usually uploaded by a third-party source who didn't have the rights.
Lyric videos started out as windows movie maker videos, with a blue background and the lyrics listed on the screen. But slowly, the industry adopted it and started making official lyric videos with matching fonts and colours.
They have transformed from a modern karaoke-type video to become more creative and innovative.
The lyric music videos typically include a font that matches either the theme or the genre of the song and the background colour and font colour that goes along with it.
In some cases, the words can be animated to give more meaning to the music. Outside of that, there's usually a lot of movement in the lyric video, so it's not just static text shown on the screen.
Let's take David Guetta's Shot Me Down. It's animated like a comic book, with the lyrics appearing in a text bubble. The lyrics are animated alongside a narrative animated story.
Another example is Adele's Skyfall lyric video. Skyfall was the official song for the James Bond Skyfall movie. It shows different background footage that changes as the song progresses, getting more intense.
Lyric videos are typically used when the artist(s) are unavailable to shoot a music video for the release of the song. The lyric video is also a cheaper way of releasing a music video.
Animated music videos
Animated music videos mean everything from a simple 2D animation to stop motion or CGI. Animation music videos typically follow the same structure as other music video types.
In some ways, you can see the animated music video as a hybrid.
If we look at famous animated music videos, we can look at Kanye West's Heartless. This video features an animated version of Ye performing while walking around at night in his City.
The music video resembles a live-action video and took inspiration from the 1981 movie American Pop. The footage looks so real because they used a rotoscoping technique, where they shot all of the footage in real life and had a team of animators drawing on top of it.
Gorillaz is an energetic band whose entire branding revolves around them being animated. Another favourite music video is Gorillaz's 19-2000, which features the band driving around in the desert.
Gorillaz also released a web browser game alongside the music video that allowed people to drive around just like the video, with the song playing in the background. It shows another way to be creative with your music video and utilize multiple platforms.
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