Location Scouting

We started with a list of places that we want to explore.... 
Graveyard
bench
cinema

Beach
lake district
coffee shop

freshem pond sands
tower block
cranes
suburban street
windmill
school
kids play park
rugby pitch
light house
pier
viaduct

ports down hill, porstmouth
barbacan estate
bournmouth beach
portsmouth dork
terllick tower



am -
freshem pond sands
Surrey hills

pm -
Portsmouth 
Southampton 

Someone brought this up:



It is just like what we want! Except we are doing dance.

Then we went on location scouting around Farnham and Southampton. Taking photos/ videos, thinking about each possibilities that we discussed in making a silhouette effect. We end up coming back home 12 hours later.... What a long location scouting day!

Then on a separate day we had the green screen studio to test stuff out.

This is a vlog that combined the location scouting in Farnham and the studio test.





We really like the green screen result and we are sticking with that! I allowed us to have more creativity on the background locations in terms of constructing the landscape and also constructing the meaning.

In this week, we are going to do a storyboard together and put up advertisement to look for a dancer.

Post-production of Studio Shoot and Reflections(Camera Operator/ Editor)

I started with changing the file names according to their scenes and shots 

It's been so long since the studio shoot. When I first imported the clips into Avid, I was so confused about the names. So the first thing I did is to rename all the clips into scene-shot-takes. One thing I noticed what I had done wrong on set is that I started recording before the clapperboard was in place. I was thinking: I must not miss a thing. That means I have to skip a little bit in every clip to find the clapperboard for the information I need. I guess in the future if I am operating camera on set I will only roll when the clapperboard is in place and focused.

Finished. I call this satisfaction. 

After renaming and rearranging them according to names, I feel very satisfied. Also, all the memories of studio shoot came back to me at once. I remember shooting most of the normal light shoots on the first day, coloured shoots on the second day. I remember what scene is about which part of the "narrative" as I put them into 5 scenes when making the shot list. I remember the extra 6th scene was added on set to have shoulder rig shots of the whole "dance", in every different lighting.  I remember my shoulder and arms were exhausted filming intensively the shoulder rig shots. I remember each shot and what camera movements were taken with which equipment used. I remember that a day before the shoot we had to completely change the shot list as we found out the actors are doing movements that are not expected by the camera team. I remember now, I was a proud Camera Operator. It might be an advantage for me editing this, or a disadvantage. It being an advantage because I can edit fast according to the planed scene and shots. It might be a disadvantage because I know which shoot we put the most effort in and I might prefer those than the ones that are more suitable. So I have been keeping that in mind and remind myself: I am an editor, do my job. 

Then I labeled the colours of each shot. (picture taken after doing 3 edits)

I started by doing a rough cut of just picking best shots. Then I started the "rough cut 2" in the aim of picking best shots to add into the edit. I also started thinking about which lighting I want, blue, red or normal. The third cut is more about effects. While playing around with effects, I suddenly question myself: Do I need effects? What do these effects add to the edit and how do they help with the story telling. I had fun but at the end, I decided to get rid of almost all the effects but one. That one effect added is FluidBlur, in the part where the actors decided to interact/ hug each other. It is a state where they are trying to get to know/ feel each other. It is also uncertainty that they are figuring out what to do with each other/ Superego doesn't know what to do with her "reflection". The blur added towards the feeling of uncertainty. Also, cutting between the two lightings, red and blue, help illustrate their feeling of a decision making. 

My goal in this edit is to make audience watching it without noticing the edits. Well I guess that's the basic, being seamless. I am not sure if I succeed because I have watch the edit for so many times. I would say I definitely improved my skills since the last time I used this programme for my Maps & Network project.

At the end of the editing sessions, I started doing the title and credits. My first idea for title was to have "Entity" appear on one side, then have another "Entity" to come out from the original one going towards the other side. It doesn't look good and there is not necessarily an "original" between Id and Superego.  

Then I thought about the lightings in the film. I made a few version of titles playing with the colours but it all seems not right. The red and blue just made it look like 90s or 80s show. The font doesn't work as well. I chose it thinking the crack of the font just like the crack in the reality of Superego's (i.e. the "mirror"). 

I decided to just go with the basic. Normal font, white and still. There is no need for a distraction to the film. 

As for the credits. I decided to go with the rolling credits. The duration of that would be shorter than having stills showing the names. I really like the fact that it gives a feeling of an episode of a mini series. 

Timeline with sound edited. 

This sequence is called "Rough cut 3 Effects. Copy01", lol. I duplicated the final editor that I decided to go with and started doing colour correction in this sequence. I totally forgot to rename it. 

I only did some simple colour correcting to the clips with normal lightings and kept everything in the red and blue lightings. 

I made some sounds with my MIDI keyboard so that I can edit them according to the pacing of the visual edits.

Overall, I hope I did well.

How to Create the Silhouette Effect in Video?

Having the silhouette scenes in the dance video will be a big challenge.

If it is in the form of photography, it would look like that in the photo. However, it will not be that perfect when filming as the light will change whenever the camera or the dancer moves. The only possible way of doing it might be using the technique of rotoscoping to fix it frame by frame in AfterEffects. For a picture, most likely people are doing finishing touches in Photoshop, making perfect silhouette. 

We tried looking up ways to film a silhouette video. 

This is nice but has to be done in a studio.



 Again, in a studio. Black and white.



 This was really cool when I watched it 3 years ago. They are performing behind a projected screen, making use of their bodies to create locations.

All of these are not really what we wanted as they are quite flat images. So maybe filming on location is not we are looking for in creating the style.

How about, instead of filming the dancer on location, we film in a green screen studio? After consulting Phil, we decided to look into making compositions out of photographs. We recalled the video that he showed us when learning AfterEffects in year one about parallax effect. It actually looks pretty decent in creating moving images. Also, we were looking at Limbo the indie game for its interesting quality. We figured just put more layers in the image to create a sense of space. Phil suggested us to take multiple pictures of the location, play with the ISOs other settings. We can animate the objects by layering different photos with different settings together as well. 

We are going on location scouting on Monday and a studio test with green screen on Wednesday. Will definitely play around with the photos taken and the footages with green screen to see if the technique works. 

Wish me luck. 

Dance Video Pre-production - Concept

The Outline

The dance video will follow a dancer's Journey in practising the dance in a studio. Through practising, some sounds would trigger the dancer into an emotion and the dancer will be brought into a location from the past. While in locations, the dancer will be in a silhouette form, so as the objects in scene. Ideally, the dancer is doing ballet so that the movement can clearly be seen in the form of silhouette. After going into different emotions and locations, or even coming in and out of the locations and the studio, the dancer completes the dance in the studio, hence the video ends. 

Possible look that we want for the silhouette part. 

Thinking about the smooth transition between locations. This might be a set built and they are working in a studio. It's interesting how they put them together in edit.



Change of light is very interesting as well. The potential of completely changing the mood of the dance is inspiring. I wonder if they did that on set or in post. Doing that on set can be good as well. In a practise shoot in Mirella's Grad Film Unmerciful, we did the light changing from blue to red on red. That worked really well.


There are a lot of things that we need to consider:

1. Locations and what they mean
2. Post-production - how would it work to create the style in post-production
3. Dancer - choreographing, going to locations
4. Camera movements
5. Fundraising?
6. etc.

Plans

We are going to location scouting soon and try to film them. That way we can test out the footage and see if we can achieve the look in post-production. Once we confirm it will work, or if we found a way to work around it if it doesn't, we will start storyboarding. Also, we will look for a dancer soon after getting the locations down. There are surely a lot to do and I am a bit nervous about it. I believe once we get it started, it will surely flow naturally, I hope.

Dance Video Research

TV vs Film

Music driven vs Dance driven




TV industry is a very competitive entertainment industry. Every episode has to appeal to the general public and "to entertain" is the aim. Glee was a very popular TV series based around a group of school students' singing career.

Dance: Music driven, tends to be repetitive along with the lyrics

Camera: focus on faces, as they are the selling point

Editing: flows with music

*In words: samey, poppy

"PINA is a feature-length dance film in 3D with the ensemble of the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, featuring the unique and inspiring art of the great German choreographer, who died in the summer of 2009.
PINA is a film for Pina Bausch by Wim Wenders.
He takes the audience on a sensual, visually stunning journey of discovery into a new dimension: straight onto the stage with the legendary Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch ensemble, he follows the dancers out of the theatre into the city and the surrounding areas of Wuppertal - the place, which for 35 years was the home and centre for Pina Bausch's creativity."

Dance: choreographed

Camera: focus on movements

Editing: flows with the movements

*In words: immersive, poetic

"Wenders felt that he had not yet found a way to adequately translate Pina Bausch's unique art of movement, gesture, speech and music into film."

"With 3D our project would be possible! Only in this way, by incorporating the dimension of space, I could dare (and not just presumingly), to bring Pina's Tanztheater in in an adequate form to the screen. "

"After half a year of intensive work, and only two days before the planned 3D rehearsal shoot, the unimaginable happened: Pina Bausch died on June 30th 2009, suddenly and unexpectedly."

"Wim Wenders used Pina Bausch's own method of "questioning" with which the choreographer developed her new productions. She posed questions and her dancers answered not in words, but with improvised dance and body language."

The major difference between the two works: the music driven one has no meaning in it, the dance film provokes thinking. In relaxing hours, music driven works are very appealing as seen how popular Glee was. The dance film was absolutely amazing even though I didn't watch it in 3D. The storytelling was great and the film was immersive.