Digital Creative Learning Journal for CAT109TC - Yahan Lai_2141799

This week is my first week of learning post-production. Here I will use two parts to record what I've learnt from the last two classes.

1. What is post-production?

From what I learnt in class, post-production is a process that after pre-production and production, is often used in making a film, a music video and so on. It's about cutting videos which were shot before, changing their colours, adding music, adding special effects etc.

I'd like to introduce two films which I think have good use of post-production.

2001 A Space Odyssey 1968

1) 2001 A space odyssey

It is a film that was shot about 50 years ago, but its special effects look so wonderful that it's hard to connect this film with 1968. In those days there was no green screen technology and the level of computer processing was very limited, so many of the grand scenes in space were created by model building and the producers' original 'front projection technique'. The hard work of the post-production crew brought realistic space effects and made the film a classic on an artistic level.

Transformers 2007

2) Transformers

This film's main characters: Autobots are all made by computer special effects. Industrial Light & Magic, the company responsible for the special effects, spent six months in 2005 creating the computer animation of the robot transformation, carefully cross-referencing every detail on the model of the car(Bay, 2007). They were meticulous about every single robot they made down to the smallest of movements. I think the passion and dedication of the production staff to this job were also a big part of the success of the film.

2.Learning about Davinci Resolve

I learnt some basic operations in Resolve like dragging videos into the editing timeline and adding titles and music. It was a first for me and I was very unfamiliar with the panels and functions, but Resolve was clearly labelled with editing, quick-cutting, colour grading etc. and with a little time to observe it, I was soon up and running.

Reference: 

Kubrick, S.（1968）2001: A space odyssey.

DeSanto, T.（2007）Transformers. United States: Paramount Pictures.

This week I learnt shooting elements: sizes, frames and angles. Here is my note:

I'd like to share some of my thoughts after learning them.

1. Framing: POV shot

In week2's lecture, we mentioned that we need to make a short film about a self-less portrait. That means I cannot show my face in the film, so I need to use POV to shoot most of my video. In my story, a POV shot can help me show this world to the audience from my point of view, which makes me easier to express my emotion and some unique perception of this world.

2. Angles: Ground level

This is the first time that the shooting angle catches my attention. I think this is a great way to show when we need to shift the viewer's attention from one scene to another, or when we need to show some important details of the journey. For example, if I need to show the change of environment on my way from the dormitory to the school building, or if I need to show the change of season or time through the change of flowers and plants on the roadside, the ground level is an ideal angle.

3. Shot sizes

Through learning and thinking after class, I found that different shot sizes are often needed to be combined to tell a story or to express a feeling and so on. Like if I need to show the grow-up of my age, the angles should change from low-angle to medium shot or high-angle.

Before this class, I have never thought of angles, sizes or shot perspectives when shooting things, just photos by feelings. I have learnt a lot from this week's classes.

screenshot of my working in the video

In week 4's class, we tried to cut a video completely. It was my first time editing an entire video. My teacher gave me several separate videos and audio which were possibly parts of a documentary, but they are of no order, so I have to think by myself and combine them and think in what order will I make a proper and smooth short video. The teacher said we were to use the interviews as the main body of the video and intersperse them with clips of those who had filmed various aircraft.

After collating the audio clips, I found one that could be used as background music throughout the video, while the others were mostly very short sound clips such as sound effects of some planes taking off. The interview videos are not very long, so not all of the aircraft videos were available, nor were the sound effects, which added a lot of splicing possibilities and complicated things because I couldn't try to put them together one by one in a permutation, which would have been particularly tedious. So I needed to sort out my own logic at the beginning: what does this interview say? Which parts fit better with which video? Would it be better to insert this video before the interview or after? ......

Although the video was short, I actually spent a long time editing it, changing many combinations and insertions, but I was still only barely satisfied with the final result, and after seeing other students' cut videos, I think I did far worse than they did. But this is my first time doing video editing, and I should have a lot of practice after this, and I will try to improve my ability to connect logically when cutting videos.

In this class, we learned about how to use colour in our work. I will write a list to summarise today's learning outcome.

1. What is colour

Colour is a visual effect of light. The light we see with the naked eye is produced by electromagnetic waves with a narrow range of frequencies, and different wavelengths will show different colours. The recognition of colour is a sensation of the visual nerve caused by the stimulation of the naked eye by the radiation energy of electromagnetic waves. Colour has three characteristics, namely hue, lightness and saturation.

2. Color combinations

color wheel, from bing picture search

On the colour wheel are seven monochromatic lights as well as the common compound lights. Using the position on the colour wheel allows two or more colours to be matched in harmony. For example, using complementary colours (two colours on opposite sides of the colour wheel, or contrast colours) can give the picture a rich colour palette, and similar colours can be matched to each other to give a soft and muted look.

• Primary colors: red, yello,blue
• Secondary colors: orange, green, violet

3. How can I apply color theory to my work

Chromophobia by Raoul Servai （1966）

The colours of a picture can convey many messages: the atmosphere, the mood, even some deeper hints, etc. This screenshot is from the animated short film Chromophobia, which is set in the Second World War and tells of the evils of the Nazis and the damage they did to the world. It shows black and white soldiers capturing coloured civilians, who are stripped of their colour by the soldiers, leaving the civilians in monotone black and white as well. This does a good job of bringing out the fear and despair that the extreme ideology of the Nazis brought to the world at the time.

My video style is a warm self-narrative, so I shoot my material in brighter tones, with a lot of warm yellow tones, to give the viewer a positive and hopeful feeling.

My color board

Reference:

Raoul Servai （1966）Chromophobia

Whether it's a soundtrack or a voiceover, etc., the presence of sound is almost a necessary element for a modern film. Here are my notes and thoughts.

1. Basic terminology（physics）

• Acoustics  音质
• Rythm and tempo  节奏与速度
• Sound wave  声波
• Frequency  频率
• Amplitude  振幅
• Bit-depth  位深
  ……

2. Diegetic sound

Diegetic sound is important in a video, it is sound that comes from a person or something on the screen, like footstep noise, dialogue, and so on. Generally speaking, the diegetic sound appears as the source appears and moves away as the source leaves. And internal diegetic sound can be a character's thought, it can be heard by the audience, but cannot be heard by other characters in the film or video.

3. Non-diegetic sound

Simply put, this is in most cases a sound that the characters in the video do not hear, such as background music, sound effects, and other sounds added in the post that can be used to set the mood or help the narrative.

4. My reflections

What I needed to produce was a small 3-5 minute video and the main task was to make a self-portrait which, although focused on narrative, didn't need an extra soundtrack (Non-diegetic sound) as I was dictating almost the whole thing. I just had to add some subtle footsteps or the sound of clocks in the environment to make the video content coherent and not monotonous. It is a very simple but effective use of the content of this lesson.

This picture is my initial vision for the content of my video, using the three-paragraph story writing that my teacher taught in class.

1. Step 1: Preparation

As I wanted to briefly tell the story of my life so far, it was a bit of a problem at the beginning to get somewhat old video footage. It took me a while, but I eventually found a video I had taken when I was home because I had seen the renovation of the kindergarten I attended as a child, plus I had been involved in the production of a graduation video in high school, so there was a reflection of the past.

my story board

2. Rethinking when producing the work

I changed my mind a bit during the making of the video. Originally, in the high school to university section, the college entrance exam section, I wanted to talk about how I was very small in a sea of college candidates, but in the end, when cutting the video, I felt it would be better to carry my theme: my dreams, from start to finish. I believe this is an important enhancement to the coherence of the video.

3. On-class critique

screenshot of my dra file of my work

After showing my finished work to two teachers, to my surprise, they expressed their love for my video. But still, the teachers also suggested changes: firstly, I was missing an opening. Secondly, it was good not to add background music, but it still needed some subtle white noise to add richness and realism to the video. And I should have standardised the format of the titles for each section so that the look and feel are improved, rather than using whichever one I see. Also, my voiceover could have added a transition between the beginning and the end which would have looked more natural.

Overall, it was a surprisingly time-consuming assignment for me with little editing experience, and I was able to revise what I had learned in class and learn a lot of new things by asking others for help. And as I was combing through the script, I was constantly reminiscing about my past and rethinking my goals and aspirations. It was a very valuable experience and has allowed me to grow a lot.

1. Conception of my work

The environment in which people grow up influences their way of thinking, their perception of the world and their pursuit of life. And at different stages of life, many ideas change as one grows up because of different learning, eyesight and people around them. And about a person's dream, it is a concrete reflection of that person's overall values. I wanted to show my growth and change in this film.

2. Teachers' suggestions

screenshot of my Resolve work

First, after critique, I added the title opening to the video and the reference list and the staff introduction at the end.

screenshot of my Resolve work

I then added the sound of a clock to the 'countdown' in the video and added some subtle background noise to the preceding footage to give the video a more realistic and richer overall atmosphere.

These details are difficult to notice as a viewer but necessary for the film, but as a fledgling producer it was easy for me to overlook them, but fortunately my teachers raised my issues and gave detailed and specific suggestions for changes, and I revised the work to the best of my ability.

3. Success and possible improvement

After the teacher mentioned it, I realised that I had made the right decision in not adding a background song to my video. At first I just simply couldn't find the right one, and in class the teacher said that if I added a song it would make the film look like a normal vlog and it would also look a bit loud. Simplicity and clarity were my strengths.

I think there are a lot of areas that could be improved, for example, I'm not very skilled at vocal transitions and they come out mediocre. I don't have a lot of time for colour grading and I don't know a lot of things. It's all about knowledge and professionalism in editing, and I hope I can practice a lot in the future to improve my own work.

I have gone through a lot of thinking and gained a lot from learning about the task to finally making a full video. This blog will be my final summary and reflection.

1. About the inspiration

Presenting a self-portrait of myself that doesn't appear on video, to be honest, at first the subject confused me, I didn't know what to write, my thoughts were confused and I didn't know how to start. Then I tried to organize my thoughts slowly: since the play is focused on myself, I have to start from my own personal experience. I decided to take the opportunity to go through my life journey so far from the beginning to the end. But I've had so many experiences in 20 years that I decided to use the theme "What I Want" to tie in each stage of my growing-up. And finally, the prototype of my video was produced.

2. Progress

At first I did a preliminary edit of the footage I'd collected on my phone, section by section, then sent it to my computer and merged the edits in Resolve. But at that point I had over a minute of footage found on the internet in my film, and after hearing that I couldn't use internet video I reshot a lot more and then re-edited it, which took quite a bit of work. So if I have another assignment like this, I will make sure to read every requirement posted by the teacher carefully in advance so that I don't waste so much time.

3. Some parts that I think could be further improved

For one, the voiceover part. I'm not very good at this, and although I think I tried my best, it actually came out as a bit of a stick read. I thought at first about reading the script in Chinese and then putting English subtitles on it, but in the end I thought it would be better to just read it out in English.

Second, I'm actually not happy with the middle school segment. At the beginning, I used online videos, such as physics experiments, and took supplementary shots when I replaced these clips. Since my middle school is too long away from now, and I am studying in a different place, the content I can take is limited. If possible, I hope the content of this video can be more abundant.

4. Summary

In general, although the production process was very tiring, my friends and I ran around the Taicang campus in the evening. In order to pursue better results, we shot the same footage for many times. At the same time, it was really hard to make videos and write learning journal while taking into account the homework of other courses. This video still leaves a lot to be desired, but this is the result of my efforts. Thanks to insist until now myself, and have been helping me teachers.