Production/Post diary 06 - 11th May
06.05.14: Tuesday today I made my way into town to gather a few more homeless clips. Heading to the Leeds city centre train station. It was near the station on the Leeds city square that I found 'Rats' the busking flute player. I asked him if he would be interested in appearing on camera and he agreed willingly. Filming went smoothly as I recorded a 15 minute interview as well as establishing shots of Rats busking. The winds were quite strong at the time of the interview, with the audio peaking due to the gusts, if I had to shoot the interview again I would have asked Rats to move to a location sheltered from the wind. At the time I thought the interview would have flowed better in the area he had chosen to busk.Before I approached Rats me and my camera assistant scouted around the area for other homeless, whilst walking around the square I saw a homeless man sitting on the steps of Mill Hill Chapel. After talking to Rats we approached the stranger and asked him if he would be interested in appearing on camera for the documentary; which he positively accepted. I began setting up all the equipment for interview, tuning the camera settings, checking the audio levels and settings a composition. I then started recording the interview. The light for the interview process was frustratingly erratic. Intense rays of sun would burst through the trees inconsistently. This made it hard for me to conduct the interview at the same time as changing the camera settings. If I had stayed behind the camera for the interview I could have adjusted the camera; to the irregular waves of light breaking through the clouds. Nonetheless the interview with Duncan was a moving experience, as he revealed his tragic story behind the his downward spiral onto the streets. Thanks to Duncan I have footage that has bought a thought provoking and chilling story to the documentary.
After the interview with Duncan I moved on to NCP car-park by the bust station. I shot a time-lapse of the bus station and the busy dual carriage way from the top of the car-park. I thought the shot will metaphorically represent societies fast paced living. Through the constant movement and flow of the busses coming in and out of the station. Once that was finished I made my way up to college to render out the time-lapse and look over the clips from the day.
07.05.14: As I woke up at 7.00am I knew that today was going to be a very long day. A day that consisted of heavy post production work. I am well and truly in the thick of the crunch, which on the contrary to most people, I find rather enjoyable. Busy hands are happy hands and although I may dread the impeding workload; whilst in the crunch I find myself locking into a state of pure productivity. My mind is focused and hungry for the end goal, a perfectionist by nature I think of nothing else but how to better my production. This is partly why this year I have made it into college every day, even when unscheduled, so that I may brainstorm with fellow classmates. I have discovered that expressing my ideas and opinions orally really helps me develop in my creative process. This is why I have started editing this video solely in college, so that I may discuss what I have done with fellow class mates that are also in the same state of productivity, such as fellow filmmakers Luca Flailabrese and Thomas Bone Lija Jursins.
Today I received the music for the documentary as well as the still frames for the logo. Once putting the music into premiere it felt that I could now make real headway with organising the structure of the documentary. All the footage that I had been cutting up over the last couple of weeks were now falling into place, like the missing pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. After working 12 hours solidly I managed to piece together 15 minutes of footage, making up 75% of the documentary. Working right up to the very last minutes till the 9pm close at college. I felt disappointed with myself that I hadn't finished the rough cut for the final crit tomorrow. Nonetheless, I prepared my alarm for early in the morning, so that I could piece a few more scenes in the morning before rendering out the video for the crit.
Today I received the music for the documentary as well as the still frames for the logo. Once putting the music into premiere it felt that I could now make real headway with organising the structure of the documentary. All the footage that I had been cutting up over the last couple of weeks were now falling into place, like the missing pieces to a jigsaw puzzle. After working 12 hours solidly I managed to piece together 15 minutes of footage, making up 75% of the documentary. Working right up to the very last minutes till the 9pm close at college. I felt disappointed with myself that I hadn't finished the rough cut for the final crit tomorrow. Nonetheless, I prepared my alarm for early in the morning, so that I could piece a few more scenes in the morning before rendering out the video for the crit.
08.05.14: 8th of May, which means today is the final crit for FMP. A day that I have felt nervous about for a long time. After making my way into college and stitching together sections from 'The Real Junk Food Project' I exported the video and set up my work area for the crit.
The feedback I received from the class was amazing, and was shocked at the enthusiasm that I received from fellow classmates. The main theme that came through in the critique of my film is that the audio levels are unbalanced - especially towards the end with 'TRJFP' and 'Left Overs' clips. Other critiques to the production were on VFX elements that I can not start until I have colour graded the piece, such as adding name tags to the persons in question on the image track.
Today was a very informative day, being told that my film invoked tears from a fellow class mate has put me on high spirits about the production and it's potential of being entered into film festivals.
The feedback I received from the class was amazing, and was shocked at the enthusiasm that I received from fellow classmates. The main theme that came through in the critique of my film is that the audio levels are unbalanced - especially towards the end with 'TRJFP' and 'Left Overs' clips. Other critiques to the production were on VFX elements that I can not start until I have colour graded the piece, such as adding name tags to the persons in question on the image track.
Today was a very informative day, being told that my film invoked tears from a fellow class mate has put me on high spirits about the production and it's potential of being entered into film festivals.
09.05.14: After yesterdays successful crit I made my way into college to continue with the editing process. Towards the end of the day I went down to the AV suite to book equipment out for the weekend shoot.
10.05.14: After showing my rough cut at the final crit to my tutor Annabeth, it became clear that I had not thought my title sequence through enough. Despite the fact that the spatial shots I recorded around Leeds looked smart. The footage did not set the viewer up for the context and connotations presented in the documentary. I wanted the audience to to really feel what it was like living on the streets. Annabeth suggested shooting street shots from an extremely low angle as though the camera was from the perspective of the homeless sitting on the street. I liked the idea and wanted to put it into practice as soon as possible.
Today I made my way into town since it was Saturday, the busiest retail day of the week - giving me the opportunity to capture large crowd shots. On the way into town the heavens opened, and rain came gushing down. I feared that this erratic downpour would scare of the shoppers traveling into town, however we continued to make our way toward the briggate. It was around the city centre that I managed to capture some good crowd shots from a extremely low angle. I could not use the tripod for these shots for it was too high. I had to use free hand which tested my steadiness and nerves, nonetheless I managed to record some great crowd shots of silhouetted shoppers. In the end the rain made for some great clios, as crows huddled under arcades to hide from the downpour. Which contrasted well against the bouncing light of the sodden streets.
The only problem I faced whilst recording was the fact that Matt Burton did not have any SD cards left when I came to him to book out the equipment. I thought using my 16gb card would be a suitable substitute. However, when I tried recording in 1080p 25fps the camera notified me with an error message 'Movie recording has stopped automatically'. Straight away I knew that this error was caused by the card having a slow write speed. As the footage from the camera was too big to buffer onto the card. I changed the settings to 720p 50fps, despite the fact that I could now only record for 20 seconds or so, I felt this was enough time for the type of shots I needed. Since I was only recording b-roll footage over the talking head of the interviews and quick snippets for the title sequence.
Although I encountered minor problems with filming today I was very happy with the footage captured. I managed to get some great locations for the title sequence and b-roll for Duncan and James. Including perspectives of where they both sleep at night. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with this documentary, I just need to push through for these last couple of clips as well as making sure everything is air tight in post production.
Today I made my way into town since it was Saturday, the busiest retail day of the week - giving me the opportunity to capture large crowd shots. On the way into town the heavens opened, and rain came gushing down. I feared that this erratic downpour would scare of the shoppers traveling into town, however we continued to make our way toward the briggate. It was around the city centre that I managed to capture some good crowd shots from a extremely low angle. I could not use the tripod for these shots for it was too high. I had to use free hand which tested my steadiness and nerves, nonetheless I managed to record some great crowd shots of silhouetted shoppers. In the end the rain made for some great clios, as crows huddled under arcades to hide from the downpour. Which contrasted well against the bouncing light of the sodden streets.
The only problem I faced whilst recording was the fact that Matt Burton did not have any SD cards left when I came to him to book out the equipment. I thought using my 16gb card would be a suitable substitute. However, when I tried recording in 1080p 25fps the camera notified me with an error message 'Movie recording has stopped automatically'. Straight away I knew that this error was caused by the card having a slow write speed. As the footage from the camera was too big to buffer onto the card. I changed the settings to 720p 50fps, despite the fact that I could now only record for 20 seconds or so, I felt this was enough time for the type of shots I needed. Since I was only recording b-roll footage over the talking head of the interviews and quick snippets for the title sequence.Although I encountered minor problems with filming today I was very happy with the footage captured. I managed to get some great locations for the title sequence and b-roll for Duncan and James. Including perspectives of where they both sleep at night. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with this documentary, I just need to push through for these last couple of clips as well as making sure everything is air tight in post production.
11.05.14: Today I woke up at 4.45 to make my way into town to shoot. I wanted to capture the streets of Leeds town centre in the early hours of the morning. I wanted to shoot an empty town centre to emphasise the lonely life of the homeless. Similarly to the shoot yesterday I recorded footage from an extremely low angle, as if it were from the perspective of an individual on the streets.
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