AVID SESSION II

For our second session of Avid I was grateful I had stopped editing at a good point in the process as it meant I could pick up where I left off. I decided today that I would start working on the credits etc. I did this because I knew it would be something quite time consuming and I thought this was a good chance to complete it with lots of time to spare so I am happy with it. I started out writing down on a piece of paper the order the credits had to come in and what people's roles were in studio shoot. Then I set about making the credits. I am someone who is very selective about fonts, so I did spend quite a while selecting the font I wanted. I knew that I wanted a very clean and minimalist font as whilst the credits come up, I have some B roll footage playing in the background.

Once I had selected my font, typed everyone's names and roles out and selected how long I wanted them to appear on the screen for I felt content with the credits. With this all nicely finished, I went back to editing the bulk of the film. I continued where I left off from the first session and kept building on top of that edit. I felt like I was making good progress. Although lots of the rushes were too shaky or unusable I felt I did well in making an edit with what I had and it still making sense. I had to adjust some clips to be longer or shorter as I was cutting in between them but paying close attention to your edit means that you get smoother transitions and it looks sleek and well put together. This took up the rest of the day as I wanted to get the sequence looking perfect and that I was happy with the order of the clips and things. I felt that this was a good place to stop in the edit. All the sequence complete, now just ready for colour correction and adjusting some audio.

Title Sequence

Title Layering 

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

AVID SESSION I

After studio shoot had wrapped up, it was time to edit. We had some complications on set with the Ninja blade not capturing our footage in the Avid codec. So very very kindly Victoria trans-coded it for us, so it would be all ready for editing on Monday. On Monday morning, we all went into the avid room, logged onto the Nexis with our group log in. Then all of our rushes were mounted and we just need to go into Avid to start. Victoria helped us with setting up ready to edit. As these were shared rushes between the two groups we had to first select all of the rushes then duplicate them, so if we trimmed and effected a clip it wouldn't actually damage the original clip. Once this was all done which didn't take long, I decided to go through the rushes and colour label them if they were worth using or not. As I was going through the rushes colour labelling them, I also renamed them so I could quickly and easily what scene and take it was, or if it was B roll. This took a good few hours as there was so much footage to get through. After I had completed that task, I decided to look at the shooting script and storyboards to familiarise myself with the order again. Although you were allowed to make an edit however you wanted, I wanted to try and do one in order of the story. I started to select my clips for the beginning that I wanted, trimming them down and making sure the audio was okay. I then went about cutting the same scene with different lighting together to make it a little more interesting, I had only done about 45 seconds before the end of the day approached, I felt this was a good place to stop as the more I stare at my work the more I criticise it.

Edit Coming Along

Colour Coded Takes, Scenes and Bad Footage

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

DANCE FILM RESEARCH AND INSPIRATION

With the beginning of a new term, there comes lots of exciting new projects for us to create. This term we are learning about dance film and then through research, produce one. Rosie set us a task after showing us some of the oldest forms of dance film, to go and find some of our own that were inspiring to us. So I did some research into dance films, as I have some dance background I had a small understanding on what a dance film is like and how the camera was part of the choreography too.

One film that came into my head was a dance called SHIFT choreographed by Ela Orlarte. This is a favourite of mine, as last year when it was released my old dance teacher sent me a link to it thinking that the movement was right up my street. I instantly fell in love with it. It is a piece with three women, who through movement document the struggles of friendship and how to support each other. One of the dancers is called Kameron Jonson, who is a beautiful dancer, who is seemingly separate from the other two (Tiffany Krause and Ellen Vierse) , moves in a way to try to connect with the other dancers. As the piece continues the other two dancers interact more with Jonson and show their bond with her. You see them handle her, and in a sense guide her as she slowly becomes a part of them too. As the piece comes to an end you see the two dancers freeze in position, signifying the end of the dance, yet Johnson carries on creating subtle movements with her body, perhaps displaying that she is still slightly separate from the two. This is one of my favourite pieces as I adore the movement and grace the dancers hold.

My next piece that I was inspired by, was a music video that George showed me in class, as I am interested in one take films. The music video is called Demons by Joji and shows a person dressed in a monster costume dancing in an empty swimming pool. Not once does the camera cut and I am interested in that style and how you can capture a whole dance without a cut. At the beginning he is chained to a pole in the middle of the pool by his ankle, and shows very little movement. Sometimes slightly raising his arm or leg, or getting out of his chair. But as the film progresses you see the dancer's movement open up more and and he starts to move more, with a heavy body, around the space. He moves in a very heavy manor and all his movements are very functional to being a person. However I really enjoy the camera work throughout the whole piece.

joji - demons

I hope you enjoy. Thank you.

MAPS AND NETWORKS INSTALLATION

After completing the videos for maps and networks, we then had to set up our installation after Christmas. On the first day of coming back to uni, as a class we walked up and down the corridor with Rosie deciding where everyone's work would go. Danielle and I were unable to get The Box in the quad as it was currently occupied with other work. So we got to work thinking where we would want our twin screen. We decided the alcove near the beginning of the corridor would be excellent for us.

The next day we came into uni and learned how to drill the brackets into the walls, The technician Tom was very kind and helped us all day with the brackets, making sure they were secure and straight. I measured out the wall and the screens, and worked out exactly where I wanted them to go so they would be central. Once the brackets were up, we could mount our two TV screens. This was a bit fiddly but we did it in the end. We were fortunate in our work being near a power supply, so we just plugged them into the mains. To make sure the cables weren't tidy, we had to attach this stuff called trunking that was essentially a plastic tube you could feed wires through and it would look tidy and nice. So we set about finding some trunking and got that all attached

On Wednesday Danielle went to go and source materials to dress the alcove we had chosen. We had talked previously about what we wanted it to look like, we decided dressing it like a bedroom felt appropriate and that would make it link in with the film, and of course have lots of red.

Thursday came around quickly and Danielle had sourced some pretty red netting to hang around our display to look like a bedroom. We decided to bring in spare bed sheets, cushions, and things you would typically find in a girls bedroom, like underwear, fake nails, makeup etc. We stapled the red netting around the ends of the alcove with a staple gun, then set to work on securing all the sheets and things spread across the bed. We printed off pictures about feminism and girl bands to make the room feel it had someone living there. This took nearly all day as we wanted it perfect.

As the week drew to a close, on Friday we were all finished with our installation so we just took lots of photos of it because we are so proud. I am super happy the way it turned out and looked. We had mixed feedback on our work from students passing by and watching it, but if art doesn't create conversation and differing opinions than is it good art? I am happy at how it looks and how well we managed to set the scene alongside our screens.

I hope you enjoy. Thank you