Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Fourth Class

During todays class, we have started to get into groups in order to create sounds for a comic that was randomly assigned to us. At first, we had some problems into organizing our teams of 5 as friends wanted to go together. Somehow, we have decided on how to organize our groups and my group consists of Jerald Lim, Mung Lok Wong, Michelle, Charis Kong and myself. We have started to analyze our comic given and we have imported the images onto Final Cut Pro to look at the different sounds we need. I have learnt today how to discuss in a group and how to project different ideas in my mind politely to others without offending other's imagination. I have also learnt how to analyze the images in depth within a group discussion which was pretty hard for me before as I am used to working individually. Throughout this class, Ms Wong has introduced the topic to us and we have discussed as a group as to how we are going to produce this piece.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

The Third Class

Today as a class, we have learnt what a diegetic and a non-diegetic sound is. As this class was a introduction to something completely new to me, at first, it was really hard for me to adapt to the class as I did not really know what was going on. After a while, I have started to understand the differences between diegetic, and non-diegetic sound; a diegetic sound is when the sound comes originates from a film, for example, the ringing of a phone in the scene, the sound of door creaking etc. A non-diegetic sound is when the sound does not originate from the film itself, but is added in to create a psycological effect, for example, if the film was a horror film, the editor would obviously add some suspenseful background music to the film to enhance the mood of the film.

To start the unit of sound studies in film, we have gotten into groups of 4 or 5 to search for different sources of sound using a boom and headphones for sound precision. Some sounds that we needed to find was the sound of water, youth, danger, emergency, silence etc. Throughout this lesson, we have found most of the sounds that represent these words' definition.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

A Special Class

Throughout this class, I have learnt limited techniques on how to edit the film and how to actually use Final Cut Pro as a tool to help us edit the clip that we have produced on the First Class as a member of our group has forgotten to bring the tape and has left it at home. To solve this problem, we had to film the clips quickly to produce a complete film as the project is due today (including the editing process). This taught us a lesson on why we should be responsible for ourselves and also for our group. After repeating what we had done on the first lesson, we have started to edit with Final Cut Pro. Being a complete amateur towards editing, I had to watch Jerald Lim, a member of our group who has took film for two years, to teach us how to properly edit the film.

As time was running out, we had to leave when we were halfway done as we still had class to attend. So as a group, we have decided that we came back during lunch to finish the project off. However, a member of our group did not compromise and was not willing to work on the project at lunch, so we had to finish the project with a group member missing.

This lesson was really useful and had taught me a lot; not technically but it has taught be how to take responsibility for your own actions, and how to deal with urgent situations that occur during a limited amount of time. However as I am in a film class, I wish that next class I will gain more technical skills compared to the class today.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

The First Class

Today was the first class of film, and I have never experienced filming or even acting in a film. I have learnt a lot of filming techniques that I have never even heard of. Firstly as a group, we have produced different usages of the camera angles such as using the 180 Degree Rule to film a 2-way dialogue which is panning the camera from left to right 180 degrees. We have also applied the Rule of Thirds by filming a student walking anywhere in the school and we have chosen the student to walk on the corridor applying the rule. The Rule of Thirds is basically dividing the scene into thirds, and what ever is located on the intersections of the division lines will look better than directly filming the person. To experiment some of the techniques of using the camera to create different emotions by changing the lighting to show either a harsh, or an upbeat emotion.

The feeling of being recorded is very exciting, and after producing the film, the great satisfaction of the finished product is unbelievable. I would look forward to learning the different techniques of filming as I am very interested in this subject. Throughout today's class, I have learnt the 180 Degree Rule, the Rule of Thirds, and how to use lighting to vary from a harsh, to an upbeat emotion. I would, however, like to investigate how the music of the film affects the overall video in the future.