Moving Image Entry 14 - Kevin Ross:

Date:08/04/2014
Module: Moving Image El342
Kent University

Team 07:

vp216 - Viknesh Prabhakar
kr278 - Kevin Ross
cb595 - Connor Brown
Tws6 - Thomas Stowell



Peer Assessment:

I have made and handed in the peer assessment form for my Moving image Module.
To do the Assessment I considered who played what roles how well they did them and if I feel they worked hard enough.

Thomas Stowell: I have enjoyed working with Thomas. I felt he played the biggest part in the group and almost a leadership role. I would really like to work with him again since he was punctual and did what he needed to do and more. Thomas was in charge of the filming, however he put in the extra effort of making scripts doing large part of our treatment and played a crucial role in getting the film edited with me to be handed in on time.

Connor Brown: Connor has been nice to work with when he turned up, however large part of the time I have also felt he lacked inspiration to do so. Connor had the roles of Acting, editing and story boarding. He did come up with some good ideas for our film and his acting was good for our film, however he didn't contribute much in helping us as for editing and other parts such as treatment. Overall I felt was a minimal effort yet, what he did was good.

Viknesh Prabhakar: Viknesh didn't turn up much so I really didn't get to see much of his efforts for our group, however if I missed any I do apologize, nevertheless, Viknesh main role was to Direct our film, he failed to do so and I ended u taking up this role as my own. Also didn't help in the treatment and barely helped in our editing sessions. I feel he is capable of more but as for this assignment there was a lack of teamwork.

Overall I felt the group may have lacked communication for better group work, but the efforts were much clearer from Thomas and myself.

What went well:

I felt that considering the lack of turning up at times, we managed to effectively assemble a film which was ok. I feel that we may have been able to do a better job with everyone participating however for the time we had the job was good.

I feel my role of Managing the sound effectively, working on fine editing was achieved to the best of my abilities. I also had the chance to act and direct our film which I felt taught me new things and new ways of working with the group.

The treatment part of our work and all pre production work such as the scripts were effectively made and aided us in doing our work. Overall I felt that having this part helped us get the rest of the project done quickly and efficiently.



What I have learnt from this:

I felt that from having done this project, I have learnt new skills as for filming and editing , as well as work ethics. I will have to consider that the team is what keeps the project running next time and try to motivate those who work less to do more.

I would like to pursue this further in my own time and perhaps in the future, but as for now these learnt skills can aid me in other artistic fields. I will however still carry on research into the field and learn new techniques.

Moving Image Entry 13 - Kevin Ross:

Date:05/04/2014
Module: Moving Image El342
Kent University

Team 07:

vp216 - Viknesh Prabhakar
kr278 - Kevin Ross
cb595 - Connor Brown
Tws6 - Thomas Stowell



Final Edit:

For Thursday the 03/04/2014 we had arranged to finalize the film project since Tom was leaving for family reasons on Saturday and there were other pending works for this week.
During this session we had arranged to add SFX to our project as well as background sounds titles and subtitles. I had brought in a Blank DVD on which we will hand in our assignment.
The turn out for this editing session once again was only Thomas and myself, where Viknesh and Connor did see us working on it at one point , watched what we had done,  but left without contributing to this session once again.

In this session our first goal was to apply all the sound effects necessary for our film. For this we used the files that I had previously found and sent to Tom. Just like the transitions we also applied the SFX in a chronological order. The SFX We used in the end were the ringing tune for our phone, a background forest sound for our forest , a splash sound to symbolize Dom jumping in the pond, and a futuristic time travel noise to convey the idea Dom is travelling in time.
We felt the ringing tune was necessary since the phone was on vibrate and gave off no sound, therefore using a generic ring tone noise we found that it would be more understandable for the viewers to grasp the idea that the phone was ringing. We applied a forest background sound effect firstly to make the scene to appear as a new area after the pervious scene transition, and furthermore to give our scene a sense of feeling. We did not overpower the sound however and kept it really low so that any other sounds or talking was clearly heard. Lastly with use of the splash and time travel sounds we could successfully give the idea of him jumping in the pond and time travelling. This is because as for the visual content the screen was white at this point, therefore sound was the only necessary mean of conveying what was happening. However I do now feel that we could have added a bit of subtitle. saying " Time travel noise" Just so it was more obvious what was happening.

After the SFX we worked on the background music. We decided that The Johnny Cash version of Hurt worked most efficiently with our film since the sound was clearer and the mood it set was what we wanted to achieve. This song starts from when Dom Looks sad after the phone call and fades out just before him jumping in the water. This made all the scenes prior to this seem more upsetting and dark.

Last we Focused on adding a sheen effect to both our Title and end credits. This was to make the appearance of the film to become more professional. We used a metallic textured text on a black background which gives of a shine as the sheen passes through it. To do this we needed 2 sheen layers, 2 title layers and a background layer. Once we finished the title and extended the length of the title so that the effect was visible we copied the sheen and applied It to the end credits. We used a similar font type afterwards to create our films subtitles. We decided not to subtitle the whole film but instead to subtitle the beginning phone call scene so that it became more apparent what the doctor was saying on the phone since we cannot see him talk.

Hand In:

Thomas Stowell made some final touches to our project Thursday night where I couldn't help him unfortunately since I live off campus. He placed our file onto the DVD And handed the project in the next day for assessment.

Overall:

I will be working on my peer assessment soon for hand in however overall I feel this project has come along nicely considering a lack of turning up from some group members.
I feel I have learnt a considerably new amount when it comes to filming and editing from our experience with work and next time I would like to work in a new field such as doing the filming to learn new techniques.

I feel I could improve on trying to make the team work as a whole next time too since I felt Thomas and myself did great part of the work however this is a group effort. Furthermore I would like to improve on editing skills to make the film appear more attractive. Overall I am happy with the outcome of our film.

The total cost in expenses we had with this film was  £ 0.00 and we only required the help of one actor. Special thanks to Scott our actor playing as Dom.

Moving Image Entry 12 - Kevin Ross:

Date:04/04/2014
Module: Moving Image El342
Kent University

Team 07:

vp216 - Viknesh Prabhakar
kr278 - Kevin Ross
cb595 - Connor Brown
Tws6 - Thomas Stowell

Research:

For Wednesday the 02/04/2014 we had agreed on Researching different techniques that we could use in our editing process for our film. We would be focusing on sound effects transitions and text display.

We wanted to do this so that we could make our scenes transition fluidly since some of the rough cut scenes are completely different from the previous. However This part of research was left mainly left for Tom to do since when we worked on editing he was mainly on the computer whilst I worked with him on the sound and giving advice or input ideas.

 Furthermore, being in charge of the titles and end credits I wanted to look up how to give these titles a sheen animated effect. After research I found this YouTube tutorial on how to give a professional look to our title. We will make our whole background for it black since sometimes basic looks more appealing and then sheen will come across:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ2j-KSTh7s

Further research I did consisted In looking at how to effectively edit the sound of our movie. Now for this I needed to learn how to remove background sound since it was interfering with some of our scenes. Once I did this I also looked into how to make sounds fade out and in and how to apply my own sound effects to the scenes. The reason we wanted a fade out effect in our film was so that the background music didn't just disappear from the scene however it gradually goes away.
As for adding these background sounds and effects it is simple, we only need to add another sound layer to our project drag the sound file into it and modify its lengths and properties accordingly.

Editing:

People that turned up: Once again only Thomas and myself turned up for this editing process and the others were not present to aid us. Viknesh did make an appearance hours in however he wasn't there to help but to use the computers however he did take a look at our work.


As far as editing goes, on Wednesday we focused on applying our transition effects onto the rough cut to see how fluid the final aesthetics of our film appeared to be. We wanted to focus on transitions before any other edit since it determined whether wed need more scenes whereas the sound and title are going to be used no matter what the rough cut appears to be like.




We edited the film in a chronological sequence, starting from the beginning making our way to the end. By the end of that day we wanted a fully edited film as far as transitions so that we could finalize the rest of our edit the next day and hand the film in for assessment. Fir the next day we agreed on researching on sound and title effects since that's what we would be working on.
 

As far as the transitions went , we used a whole variety; For instants at the beginning of our film where Dom is opening his eye after the title roles we used a fade in from black transition because it gave that effect of light coming into your eyes as you wake in a lit room. Furthermore since our title has a black background it worked effectively. Another scene which needed a transition was the point of after the phone call to where Dom was walking out of his room This was because before he leaves his room his is less undressed than when he leaved, this gave the feeling that some time had transitioned and he now was leaving the room.

Two other major transition required in our film were from where we see Dom walking down a street and then cuts into walking down a  forest pathway. Since the two do not go together we used a dissolve fade which made it appear as that some time had transpired introducing a whole new area.

Leading from this, soon after Dom would be jumping into the pond to kill himself and then would teleport in time. For this we used a fade to white transition from the point of jumping to the point of where we will add SFX and him coming back out of the pond. This fade to white was used since it blurs out what is transpiring and gives way on the viewer to focus on the sounds to tell what is happening. After the fade to white had occurred we had a slow-mo scene of him looking back at the pond as if he didn't jump in. (This is where we will include SFX for the teleport sound as if he went back or ahead in time.)


Overall both Tom and myself worked effectively and by the end of that day we felt we had learnt new ways of editing and making the film appear more consistent and professional.