Single camera drama

Single camera drama

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSiJ9Olu108&feature=youtu.be

sound for single camera drama

Techniques that we used

For our single camera drama we wanted crisp but realistic audio, to do this we had to use several different methods, the first method we used was ADR, (Automated dialogue replacement), this is where a voice over is recorded separately to the shoot and then added back in during post production, this gives crisp audio, a common problem with ADR is that it sounds too crisp and 'studio' like that it just looks unrealistic when added to the footage, to make the footage more realistic a 'room tone' has to be recorded, this is where a microphone is placed into the room where the footage is being shot and the sounds of the room are recorded, when the room tone is combines with ADR it makes the audio sounds  like it was recorded on the shoot, which is the intended illusion. We recorded our ADR on a Marantz sound recorder, but for reference we record all of the footage sound on a RODE video mic, this makes the audio easier to decipher in post production.

Sound effects/ music

For our production we are using several different sound effects and music tracks, throughout the interview scene there is a constant low tone ambience sound, almost like a drone, this adds tension to the sequence. For our music we used two songs, ghosts and stuff but deadmau5 and into the house in a heart beat, the theme from 28 days later, both of these tracks appear several times throughout the short. In industry we would've needed to get permission to use the music tracks.
For our sound effects we done a lot of foley, but sound effects we couldn't create we used royalty free sound effects from an online website, royalty free sound effects mean that once purchased you have permission to use them for personal/ cooperate use, depending on hat licence you purchase from the creator.

Foley

Foley is the act of creating your own sound effects, for our production we used a fair amount of foley, we recorded our foley on the Marantz, the main effects we recorded were footsteps, a body being dragged, doors opening and closing, a water bottle being thrown and caught and heavy breathing, foley is a imagination heavy task, there are endless methods of making sound effects; in industry foley is a great way of saving money, making your own sound effects rather than paying out for royalty free sound effects.

Equipment

We used several different pieces of sound equipment, these included a RODE video mic, this is is directional microphone, this means that it picks up audio in the direction the microphone is pointing and cancels out any noise in the background, (depending on the quality of the microphone will depend on how well it cancels out background noise). For our ADR we used a marantz PMD 661, this is a audio recorder with a built in condenser microphone, a condenser microphone gives really crisp and clear audio and is what is used when recording ADR; the audio recorder allows for manual audio level control, ( the sensitivity of the microphone). For our test recording we used a zoom h4n, this is also an audio recorder, personally i feel that the zoom offers better quality audio, although it it difficult to differentiate the overall quality of the audio there is a noticeable difference, as well the zoom is a lot more convenient in terms of size, controls and interface.

Ident lesson 7

For this lesson we were going to learn about motion tracking. The first thing we had do was import the .MOV file into after effects, we then had to make a new composition, after making the new composition we had to change the workspace from standard to motion tracking, the workspace is the way that the layout of after effects is set out, there are different presets, or a custom preset can be made.
The first job we had to do was motion track the footage, there are four options, track camera, warp stabilise, stabilise motion and tack motion; today we were going to be using track camera.
After selecting track camera after effects analyses the footage and reveals tracking points in which you can attach things to and it will stay on that point throughout the sequence, this gives the illusion of your added tex/image, etc… being in the shot; in our case we were going to add text. Seen below is a piece of 'tracked' footage.

What we then done was create a new 3D camera track camera so that it would work with other 3D layers in the composition, (we made our text a 3D layer), we then created the text layer and made it a 3D layer, after placing it by the bottom of the frame it gave the illusion of the text being on the floor we were then finished, we exported it and then saved it.

Photoshop lesson 1

For this lesson we learnt the basics go photoshop, (extension, .PSD), for this lesson we had to import a photo as seen above and correct it.
When first importing a RAW image photoshop recognises the images is raw and opens up raw image controls, this allows colour settings, contrast, brightness, E.T.C… to be changed before the photo is edited, we changed the colour settings to give the colour seen below.

The next job was to fix the rotation issue, as seen in the original image the photo is not at a square angle , there are several ways that this would be corrected, one way it could be corrected is by manually rotating the image by using free transform, (CTRL + T), this would be a longer process and there is a small chance it wouldn't be completely accurate; the way we done this is by using the crop straighten tool, we done this by holding left click over the crop tool to bring up the options for crop and selected the crop straighten tool, the way this tool works is by making you select each corner of the image, it then automatically straightens the image for you, this is a lot quicker than doing it manually.

The next task we had was to change the colour of the girls hat from pink to green to do this we used the colour replacement tool, this tool allows you to change the colour of a selected item, we had to select a certain shade of green using the RGB scale, once the colour is selected you have to manually paint the selected section you wish to change the colour of.

We then had to remove some of the grafitti from the wall and change it back to bricks, to do this we used the clone stamp tool, the way in which this works is in two different steps, firstly you have to select an area in which you want it to clone, then using a paintbrush you go over the area you want and it replaces it with the section you selected for cloning. One issue that you may get from using the clone stamp tool is the new cloned are may look slightly false and it stands out from the other sections, to fix this we used the spot healing tool, this blended the new cloned are into the existing are making it look more realistic.

to finish the image we exported it in JPEG and saved it.

ident lesson 6

For this lesson we had to use the puppet tools for the first time, there are three tools within the puppet tool section, this is the puppet pin tool, the puppet overlap tool and the puppet starch tool. All of these tolls combine to rig a character/ object read for animation.

The first step we had to do was import the background from the folder, we then had to import the banana and the character seen in the thumbnail of the video.
The first job was to use the puppet pin tool to rig the character, the 'pins' were places on the joint in which movement would be animated, because this was our first time using the puppet tool we only placed pins on basic joint, this included, head, torso, arm, hand, foot, knee and leg. Our job was to rig the character, once we done this we moved on to the next tool, the puppet overlap tool tells after effects which body part moves in front/ behind the other, for example, we used the overlap on the right side of the characters body so that his right hand would swing in front of it, and his left hand would swing behind because we didn't add the overlap to the left side; this gave the illusion of real hand movement when the character was going to be walking. We also added the overlap tool to the left leg so it would cross in front of the right leg, again this would make the walking action seem slightly more realistic.
The final tool we used was the puppet starch tool, this tool freezes a part of the body when it comes to animating, we froze the head and part of the torso, we done this to make the movement of the character look more realistic.
Now the character was completely rigged we had to animate it, the first job was to rename the deform pins so we would know what we was animating, (left leg, right leg... ), we then selected all of the key frames at 00:00:00:00 and moved 7 frames forward to 00:00:00:07, this would be one movement, we then changed the position of each joint to make it look like the character had moved forward one step, once we had done this we copy and pasted, ( CTRL+ C, CTRL+ V) the key frame to make it look like the character was constantly walking on the spot. Now we had the animation of the character walking we had to key frame the position of the overall character to make it look like he was walking forward.
The final step of the animation was to add the animation of the character slipping over the banana, to do this we key framed the rotation of the character and then key framed the characters position so he fell out of shot, that was then the end of the sequence, we then rendered the project and exported it.

Films for Film advertising essay research

For my film advertising essay i am going to choose two or three films to analyse. As this is about film advertising  i am going to look at things like, marketing, merchandise, interactive marketing and so on.

The first film that i am going to use is called, Untraceable, this film is about a website where people can watch live broadcasts of people being killed, the more viewers on the website, the faster the people die. The reason i am using this is because of the interactive marketing, the company made a replica of the website 'kill with me' for the public and fans to use this created an effect and mood fir the audience prior to watching the feature.

For the second film i am going to look at space jam, this film was released in 1996 and was about the loony tunes and a basketball team collaborate to win games, this film exceeded for interactive marketing , a whole website was designed for the film, this included, links to basketball games, info about the film, flash games and much more, and this was the 'new' thing as the internet wasn't as popular in the late 90's.

The stig ident

We had to create an Ident for Perry McCarthy (The original Stig), for my Ident i used a photoshopped picture of the 'black stig' and rigged it using the puppet tool in after effects, i then animated the picture to walk across the screen, then text appeared saying, 'Perry Mccarthy' 'The original stig', this was a fairly easy thing to using around 4 or 5 tools. We done this task to prepare ourselves for the real world, for example more experience in after effects/ getting some experience in making an Ident for a Client.

This is My Ident:

These are a few other ideas i had for other idents before i chose my final Ident to make.

I dent lesson 5

For this lesson we had to to a multiple layer animation, The first thing we had to do was drag in the files from Photoshop, these files are imported as folders that contain the individual layers, these can be manipulated in a separate composition.
The first thing we had to do was parent the foreground, leaves and skyline images to form an overall background; this means that they would all animate at the same time to give the illusion of being part of an overall background. We then had to key frame the background to make give the illusion of movement, ( we would eventually add a car, and the moving background would make the car look like it was moving).
The next stage of the animation was adding the bumble bee that briefly appeared at the beginning, we key framed the position of the bee then added the animation effect, 'motion blur', this gave the effect of fast movement.
The next step was changing the anchor point of the red car, this was because at the end of the sequence the car 'wheelies' out of the shot, do do this we used the anchor point tool, (shortcut: Y) and moved the anchor point to the back of the car, this means that where ever the point is when rotating it will rotate from that point.
The next stage was to add the drivers head to the car, to do this we dragged the .MOV file into a new composition and masked out a vector shape around the artists head, we then changed the toggle switches/modes to alpha matte for the shape layer.
To then import the artists head into the original composition we held down CTRL+ALT and dragged it in, we then used the parenting tool so that the head moved along with the red car.
The next step was to animate the red car to do this we key framed the position of the car to a certain point and then we had to change the rotation to give the illusion of the wheelie before the car leaves the shot. to finalize the movement of the car we added motion blur to make the driving animation look smoother.

The next job we had was to animate the background as the car was moving along, this included the other cars, the buildings and the radio wave effects on top of the buildings, to animate the cars we just key framed the opacity so they would appear at a certain time and then key framed the position, we then duplicated the key frames for the other cars. For the buildings we had to mask out separate buildings so they would fly up at different times, we then key framed the position. Finally we had to add the radio waves for the top of the building, to do this we made a new shape layer and then changed the time scale of the layer so it would appear at the right time, then we added the preset effect radio waves and changed the producer point to the tip of the building; finally we parented the shape layer of the radio waves with the building they added to.

the final stage of the animation was adding the pictures to the canvas at the end, this was simply adding the images and key framing the opacity so they appeared one after another, we then added a .MP3 file of piano music and looped it using time remapping.

Video podcast

I was unable to record footage of myself due to my SD card being with another member of our group for single camera drama 

I dent Lesson 4

For this lesson we had to learn how to add different colorization effects to video footage, firstly we had to drag the .MOV file into the composition, (the DJ), to give the cartoon look we added an effect called  Cartoon situated in the stylize folder, this wasn't the final effect we were going to use, we wanted an equal mix of  the cartoon and real look, to achieve this look we went to the effect settings and changed the Edge area and opacity, this gave it a better look.
Next we had to create the background to do this we used the shape tool, this creates simple shapes that can be manipulated, we made a polygon using the polygon tool, we then changed the amount of points to 6, this made a hexagon, we then changed the outer roundness to -500% this gave the effect of the circle with the banana looking shapes around the edges, to finalize the shape we filled it with a specific colour using the RGB scale and then changed the angle to give it a spiral effect, we then duplicated the layer and animated it to spin around whilst the DJ was playing, to do this we key framed the rotation. We then added in several stars and used the pucker tool on them and lowered the opacity of them to make them look like 'splatters'.
To finalize the project we cut the project to work space which means the composition length changes, we shortened the length of the composition to 5 seconds.
We then added text and an animation preset so the text appears gradually, then we added a rectangle shape and key framed the wriggle path to make it look like a sound wave moving up and down throughout the composition.

I dent lesson 3

For this lesson we had to learn how to manually create and animate text layers, in the previous lesson we had to use present text animation, so this included creating the key frames ourselves.
Firstly we had to drag the .MOV of the moving background on to the composition button, then we had to create the text using the character panel and then change the size of it as well, once the text was done we had to add a preset animation, in this case it was the text disappearing word by word, we then had to customize the animation using 'time reverse key frames', so that the text would appear at different times, when then key framed the scale of the text so it would get smaller after a certain time. We then had to parent the layers, parenting is when a layer is attached to another layer so that it matches its 'parents' exact movement, or key frame path.
We then had to import a Photoshop file .PSD, this was for the text, we made the text file in Photoshop then brought it into after effects to animate it, the .PSD file imports to after effects as a folder and contains each separate layer, these can be opened up in a separate composition for editing and then added back to the main composition. We then had to use a text animator group to animate separate layers of the directors name, this meant the middle part of her name would animate whilst the rest stayed the same.  The final thing we had to do was animate the car that comes on the screen, we had to  animate the layer along a non text path, this meant giving the illusion of the car dragging the text across the screen, we then had to key frame the path and add motion blur to the car to give the illusion of it moving fast, we then rendered and exported the file.

I Dent lesson 2

For this lesson we moved on to basic key framing and importing images/footage from other adobe programs, in this case we had to import an illustrator file (extension, .AI) into after effects and add text and a logo and then animate the composition. The first thing we had to do was make the image look more realistic, to achieve this we added drop shadow and emboss effects, this would make the image look more realistic. after we had to add a Text preset, a text preset is a set font of text and it has a unique animation, (the key framing is done automatically), in the one we used it was a fast swipe coming into focus as the text appeared.  We then had to pre compose the layers, pre composing is adding seperate layers of your choice to a new compostision, in our case we made a pre-comp to preview the animation of the text, we then had to render the composition for broadcasting quality (24fps).

Ident Lesson 1

Ident Lessons

For our first After effects tutorial lesson with oli we had to learn how to make a composition and edit composition settings, this is because making a composition is the first stage of any after effects project, we also had to learn about the arrangement of layers, because if you were to place a background layer at the top of the order then no other layers would be visible so it is important to know where layers should be situated, once we understood this we had to duplicate the layers and add a preset effect, we then had to rearrange the layers to make sure they were in the right order. We also had to add a title to the background, the first lesson was mainly getting an understand of the basics.

I dent pre-production

For my I dent i had two ideas/ routes in mind that i wanted to go down, either comedy or business/professional looking, and for my final I dent i managed to make a slightly comical I dent with a professional looking finish, my I dent can be viewed here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iurhs07x9Ls&feature=youtu.be or below

The intended audience for my Ident is 10-21, this wide range of ages is because i think there is comical aspects that appeal to all ages, the intended idea of my ident is to promote my production company to the audience as well as being comical, and i think the comical aspect is more appealing to an audience than a monotone plan Ident and acts as a better promotional tool.

This is my mind map, each section helped me mentally organise what theme and style i was going to choose for my i dent, it helped me because i was able to put all my ideas down and eventually cancel them down to one solid idea.


Below are my Ident designs, i have done three and chosen one of them to take to the next level of pre-production, drawn on the design is keyframe actions to visually give a better idea of what a fully animated version would look like.

This is my First Ident idea, the design idea was a cat on a cheeseburger getting bigger on the screen, giving the viewer the illusion of the cat coming closer to them, the Ident was set in space as well, the purpose of this was to be a comical Ident that got peoples attention, the intent of this was to promote my production company using a comical twist. The reason i am not going to use this Ident is because the technicality of the ident is too basic for what i feel i am capable of and also because it is too plain and not intriguing enough to the audience; there isn't enough going on. The way that this would work technically is fairly simple, the image would work on a 2D axis, so X and Y, the scale would be keyframed so the image increased in size giving the illusion of the image coming closer to the viewer.

This is my second Ident design, this design adds another character, a cat on a taco, i felt that this design would be more pleasing to the eye as it had more of a structure and there was, (visually), more happening, aswell as the animation being slight more complex. The purpose of this Ident was to promote my production company as well as comical visuals. The intent of this Ident is to promote my production company using a comical approach to the marketing. The reason i am not going to use this Ident is because i feel there is still something missing that will give it the visual grab to audience i intent, the back ground is too plain as space and stars can be viewed as boring and easy to use. The way this idea would work is with key framing, the images would run along a 2D axis, the X and Y axis, they would be key framed on the position, this would make the images move, the plan is to make the images move past each other and the disappear, to make them disappear i would keyframe the opacity so it would slowly fade out.

This is my final Ident design, the design of this uses the same characters of the second design but adds a new background with two planets and a small moon, i feel that this completely fills the shot and gives it a visual satisfaction that will benefit the audience, the purpose of this Ident is to promote my production company and the intent of this is to visually draw the audience in whilst promoting my production compnay at the same time. This is going to be the idea i am going to take further because i feel that it is more complex and visually pleasing than the others. This idea would work on a 2D axis as well, there would be a lot of key framing, the first would be the position of the images being key framed so they moved, next would be key framing the opacity of the lasers that would appear from the images, ands then key framing the position of the lasers so they would move toward tone opposite image, the final job would be to fade in the explosion, i would achieve this by key framing the opacity, once the explosion is at its brightest i will keyframe the opacity of the images so it gives the illusion of them disappearing in the explosion.

This is my Storyboard for my Ident, i made 4 anamorphic story boards to represent the different stages of the Ident, Firstly the cat and dog fly in towards each others paths, secondly they stop and then shoot at each other, next the bullets collide and cause a full screen explosion in which the cat and dog dissapear, lastly the text of my production company fades in and then stays for around 4-5 seconds and then that is the end of my Ident.

This is the final drawing of my Ident before it goes into production, although the drawing seems basic it will give me and idea how to make my ident on after effects and will be a good reference point when making it. My plan for my ident is to have an animated background as well as animated characters, this will give the illusion of traveling through space. As an overall evaluation for my Ident i would say the reason i choose such a mix of genre and style is so that it would appeal to a wider variety of target audience, for example, there are aspects of my ident that would appeal to young children (5-10) and there are parts that would appeal to older children (10-17), i tried to add a comical aspect that would appeal to a wide variety of ages and comedy taste.
If there was anything i could change about my Ident it would be having more technical aspects to it, maybe adding a 3D camera move or changing the background layer to a 3D layer and animating it to give an even more realistic look of movement through space, i think in terms of animation on after effects i was fairly successful, i tried to push myself in all fields of after effects, for example, trying new methods, new tools and animating several key frames at once.

IDent Research

This is one of the more common ITV Idents it lasts for around 10 seconds. The design of this Ident is based around the colour yellow, this could be because the ITV logo is yellow, this could also be because the colour yellow is a neutral colour, there is also also builders absailing down the structure in sync, this is also a pleasing and relaxing sight for the viewer.
The purpose of this ident is to play before a TV show begins, it gives a voice over a chance to introduce the program and announce other programs that are going to be played after.
the intent of the Ident is to let the viewers know they're watching ITV and also to inform them of a change in program. There are technical aspects of this Ident that can be seen throughout. The first noticeable use of motion graphics is the workers on the scaffolding working in sync, this would've been achieved by duplicating a layer,(the stock footage of each asset would've been shot on a green screen, the background would've been removed via element on after effects and then they would've been rotascoped and then the final sequence would've been duplicated). There would be an alpha channel present in every rotascoped/green screened shot, an alpha channel is the transparent background of an image. This process is repeated several times throughout the sequence, there are several duplicated layers that are repeated, each of the layers is key framed in terms of position, each different layer is placed on a different part of the background layer, for example the abseiling workers are all of the same asset but they're duplicated and then keyframed in terms of position to give the illusion of there being several abseiling workers. The position key framing is done on the X,Y and Z axis. Throughout the sequence there is a slow camera pan that is zooming out, this camera move it artificial and would have been achieved in after effects, it could've been done two ways, the scale could've been keyframed, the starting keyframe would've been zoomed in and the second keyframe would be zoomed out, thus giving the illusion of a slow pan out. Or the camera move could've been achieved via a 3D camera in after effects, the 3d camera operates on the X,Y and Z layer. The ITV logo appears about half way through the Ident, this would've been achieved by key framing the opacity, this gives the illusion of the logo slowly fading into the shot.

All of channel 4's ident have some form of structure that comes together to make a 4, as the channel is called 'channel 4', this is the unique design of the channel 4 indents, the purpose of the ident is to break up the programs being shown and also to allow a new program to be introduced by a voice over, all of the channel 4 idents have different themes, for example, this ident pictured is themed around a city, there are others that include a southern American gas station and an industrial container site, all of these themes accommodate the likes of different audiences. The intent of the Ident is to inform the audience what program they're watching, and also to inform them of what program they're tuned into. There are a lot of technical aspects to this Ident. Firstly the floating structures that combine to create the shape of the 4 have been artificially added in. The artificial building segments would've been 3D modelled in a program such as cinema 4D or Maya and then added into after effects ready to be added into the composition. The shot starts with a POV shot from the back of the car, The footage is very stable and appears to have been stabilised in post-production, this would've been achieved using an effect called warp stabiliser, this removes camera shake from footage . There is also a 3D camera used throughout the sequence as there is a small camera pan during the shot. The floating buildings would have been formed into the 4 shape in a pre-composition and then added into the main composition. To add the floating buildings in to the sequence they would've been motion tracked onto the shot, ( After effects, track camera). There is slight movement of the buildings and this would have been achieved by key framing the position on the X,Y and Z axis. The floating buildings come together to create the 4 shape through perspective, they have been placed on separate layers so when the 3D camera is at a certain angle the 4 can be seen.

A majority of BBC ones Idents have a circle shape incorporated within its design, this could be because of the 'O' in one or because the design is intended to look rounded and smooth, the hippos swimming in a circle is very similar to another BBC one Ident, the bicycles in ring of death riding in a circle, there is a link in there theme of their idents, the theme of water can be seen as tranquil and relaxing to people as well. The purpose of this Ident is to break up the programs and to allow the next program scheduled in to be introduced, The intent of this I dent is to inform people of the channel they're watching and to allow a voice over to promote a show. A majority of this shot is CGI, The hippos would've been created in a 3D modelling program such as maya and then rigged ready for animation, rigging is where an image/3D model is given artificial joints so each once can be individually animated to give the illusion of realistic movement. The main consistency if shots would've been achieved by using a 3D camera, the composition is a 3D layer therefore the camera would've operated on the X,Y and Z axis. There are other aspects of the sequence that would've been CGI, for example the other fish, the reef and floor of the ocean. I am still undecided as to if the water is CGI or stock footage. At the end of the sequence the hippos form a circle and are constantly swimming in circles, this would've been achieved by duplicating a single layer, so one hippo swimming in a constant circle would've been created then this layer would've been duplicated and then the position of each individual layer would've been keyframed to give the illusion of there being several hippos. The BBC1 logo appears within the circle created by the hippos, the opacity of the logo would've been keyframed to make the logo slowly fade in . the BBC1 logo would've also been externally created/animated and then added into the composition.