PRELIMINARY TASK (trial)

After a lesson on how to work a camera, we were put in groups of four and sent off to start our first shooting. We were given a very simple scene that included a wide shot, two over the shoulders, and two closeups. The only direction made was to shoot the whole scene in all the shot types, after that the groups and our cameras set off to find a location. We chose the studio for our task, however it had been used for another project, therefore it was decorated like an office. The studio wasn't a very good choice of location because the scene included an entrance and exit but there was no door ! Other than that we made a couple of mistakes such as shooting right next to a brick wall, which made it very difficult to obtain good angles (specially for one of the over the shoulder shots). We also found that the camera work is slightly more difficult when one of the two actors are in a seated position.

BACK IN THE EDITING SUITE:
It wasn't until we saw our shooting on the screen, that we found out we had done the whole thing wrong by shooting all shots with only the dialogues belonging to those shots instead of shooting THE WHOLE SCENE IN EVERY SHOT. When we suggested that we had paused inbetween lines to be able to edit, Matt explained to us how that would be a problem of continuity in the dialogue if the conversation was edited together. This experience deffinately tought us alot, specially because we weren't given much instructions, we tried to sort things out by ourselves. Mistakes were bound to happen, but surely the same mistakes will not repeat themselves :).

STORYBOARDING

The first time I used a storyboard was during our prelim task. We were given out a set storyboard which we could slightly change in the editing room. A storyboard is basically prepared to put things in order and to give a rough idea of the required shots. It includes storyline, dialogue, shot durations, lighting and camera details. Because it's a flexible preparation it's better not to stick solely on the planned shots. So it's pretty much to give the crew a hand on the shoot day.

Video Cameras

In our video camera session we used a Sony NX5 camera. The basic idea of using a professional video camera is to always keep in mind that it's very stupid. This means that we have to remind it wether it's inside or outside, in the dark or light, even it's position meaning how far it is from the objects being shot!
After we have set the camera firmly on the tripod and made sure it's not crooked, we turn it on and start telling it where and what it's going to be filming. To get a clear shot of an object, we first zoom in and focus on objects after this we can zoom out of the object, now the camera knows where it is and what its filming. We adjust exposure to have the desired view. Whilst we're shooting we see zebra stripes on some parts of the frame, this does not come out on the actual footage however it is there to show us the brightest areas in the scene. We can achieve colour balance simply by zooming into a white area and pushing the white balance button.

If we wave in front of a camera, we can see that we have a blurry effect. Shutter Speed is made to adjust the visual in these situations. The shutter speed can be identified as the number of frames photographed and the composure is the size of the hole so these two have to be set up in harmony depending on the desired footage.

Photoshop

I was always aware of the existance of photoshop and how it transformed not-so-attractive people into super models; dreadfull sandwiches into delicious looking, hard to resist burgers, however I never knew quite how to work it.
In our first week of media we learned a bit about this miracle making program. Using Adobe Photoshop, we practiced first by using several movie adds.
TOOL BOX:
On the tool box we used the rectangular marquee and lasso tools to cut around the wanted parts of the pictures and move them around or on to a different poster using the move tool. To bring out certain colours we use the dodge tool, to darken colours (gives people sharper expressions if applied on cheakbones etc.) we use the burn tool.
LAYERS:
This is probably the most important section on the screen. Whenever we have a problem and we can't seem to work the program properly, it's most probably a "layers problem". Layers tells us which background we're currently working on, so if we want to work on different backgrounds and pictures, we should check that we're on the correct layer.
TRANSFORM:
The transform section which is under edit is very usefull. Scale changes the images size, by this I mean it could blow up someones head, make them skinny, fat, tall and short (yeah it's quite cool:) ). In this section there are also rotations etc that comes very much in handy for making accurate posters.

These were some of the more important things we've done on photoshop, other than these we've also learned other things like colour and saturation changes. Basically one of the expectations of our teachers are; no more amateur facebook photos :) .