Final Short Film

Here is our final edit of our promotional short film for Brighton Festival:

Emails

Amy was appointed in charge of communication with our client. 

Throughout this project we did have some trouble with responses from our client in good time.

Here are the copies of our emails to and from Lucy from Brighton Dome and Festival:

Working in Premiere Pro

Clea and I used Premiere Pro to composite all the elements of our short film together. 

We edited together our filmed clips, our background music (which we found on a creative commons free website), our recorded spoken quotes about Brighton Festival, and also the Brighton Dome and Festival branding logos.

For the clips which I was going to transfer my animation on to, we exported these clips separately with the spoken audio to match each one, so that file sizes could be kept to a minimum and expositing time could be as short as possible.

Using After Effects

As the animator in our team, I used After Effects to animate text and images over the clips to match up with the voice overs used in our promotional film for Brighton Festival.

I used the 'write on' tool to draw on top of our clips, using the colours of Brighton Festival (blue, yellow and pink) for the text. I also animated images to illustrate one of the quotes about the speakers friends coming to Brighton from Germany to enjoy the festival.

I feel that these vibrant letters and images stand out well on the dark backgrounds of Brighton at night, and that the way I animated them works well with both the words spoken and the background music of our short promotional film.

First cut

After spending a whole week animating in After Effects, I was able to complete the animated elements of our first cut of our final sequence for Brighton Festival.

However, with such a large file size containing the whole animation, it was taking an extremely long time for the whole file to render and export, and so for the first client viewing we had to present a lower quality version of our work.

Voice Overs

I took on the task to record the voice overs that would be used in our promotional film for Brighton Festival.

I booked out a recording booth for a couple of afternoons and was able to arrange for some of my friends to come in and help out with speaking our quotes to be recorded. I used Adobe Audition to record their voices.

I made sure to use a variety of different people with different voices in order to provide some diversity in the audio for our short film.

Animation Sample

After recently solving some of the IT problems I have been experiencing, I have been able to produce our first sample of work which has now been emailed to Lucy:

I myself am not completely happy with this sample, as it is clear that the camera quality is very low, there is no musical accompaniment, and the clip is still very short.

Problems

We have recently been unfortunate enough in our group to encounter some problems which have held us back with our project:

• George has left our group and will not be partaking in any production or post-production from here onwards

• Reliability of group members to classes and meetings has not been good, and so much of work done and key information received has fallen upon Clea and myself

• I have been having increasing problems with my IT account and so have been unable to even log in and access files, let alone animate

• Lighting and graininess of our shots have been quite an issue, and so re-shoots will have to take place

Hopefully some of these problems can be resolved within the very near future so that we will be able to continue with our project quickly. 

First Shoot

Our first proper shoot took place on Friday 13th March at 3am.

We chose this time to film as we knew that it would be likely for the streets of Brighton to be fairly quiet and empty.

Our outcome for this shoot was to capture various shots that would be good enough to use in our promotional film for Brighton Festival.

For this shoot, we created a professional call sheet:

Unfortunately, only George, Clea and I turned up to take part in this shoot, and so this highlighted a problem of working in a group, and addressing the issue of reliability.

Some other problems that we experienced during this shoot were:

• graininess of camera quality
• lighting and auto lighting
• camera memory - we had to cut our filming slightly short because the camera memory card was full up

Quotes

We have managed to collect some quotes about Brighton Festival from various people who have visited it previously.

We plan to use some of these quotes in our voice overs for our short film, and animate the key words used in the quotes within our shots.

Recce

Before our first shoot, Clea was able to do a recce of possible locations we may want to use in our short film.

Many locations do look visually appealing in daylight, however we also had to consider which would look best at night and what sort of lighting and shots we may need to use to enhance their appearance in the dark.

Budget

To complete our project in a way which was as professional as possible, we devised a production budget, which includes the cost which our production may require.

The total cost came to quite a lot of money, however this total is how much the production cost would have been if we did not have the equipment and software required provided to us by our university.

Critical Path

The next step of our project was to make a critical path, a useful tool in the planning and time keeping of our production.

Working in our group, we used Microsoft Excel to divide a critical path and map out the dates of each stage of production.

Animation Sample

For our pitch we though it appropriate to create and use an animation sample to give a clear idea on the style we wish to use, and how to incorporate this element in with our filming.

As the animator of our group it was my idea to use this.

Using Adobe After Effects, I was able to animate a heart with a 'hand drawn' effect onto the clip from our first test shoot.

One of the issues I faced when creating this animation was making the heart move as the two people walked forward, having to change its shape and position very often.
To make animating these sort of effects in our complete film, it would be useful to try and make both camera and participant movements as smooth and stead as possible.

Presentation Styles and Fonts

In order for our pitch presentation to look as professional as possible, we decided to tailor the overall look and style to that of Brighton Dome and Brighon Festival.

To do this we decided to use a simple colour scheme of black, white and blue, and to incorporate the Brighton Dome and Brighton Festival logos into each slide, in large on the opening and closing slides, but also smaller in the top left corner on each other slide, to identify that our pitch and project was tailored for this organization and that we were working for them.

We also chose to use the fonts of Brighton Dome and Brighton Festival, Bell MT and Futura, through our presentation, to give an organized and professional style, and again to tie in with our clients and their brief.

Examples of our presentation slides (above) in relation to the style and branding of Brighton Dome and Brighton Festival, examples of their websites (below).

Fifth Meeting Minutes

Fifth Meeting Minutes

Date: 6/3/2015

Present: Jamie Wyatt, Clea Hauser, George Overington (Minute taker), Mia Blakeny

Absent: Amy Horner

Aim:

-Sort out Critical Path, Shoot Sheet and Call Sheet for upcoming class

-Organize Filming day

-Book equipment

We met in the editing workshop and discussed when would be the best time to film for the major filming session. After some scheduling discussion, we decided that 3:00am on Friday 13^th May. The equipment was books for said date and then we turned our attention to the Critical path, of which we then sorted out and used within the class later in the day.

Results:

-Filming day was organized for Friday 13^th of March 2015 at 3:00am

-Critical Path was made

-Equipment was booked for filming day

Meeting With Lucy

Earlier today we had a meeting with Lucy from Brighton Festival to discuss our project and receive some more feedback from our pitch and ideas.

This meeting and feedback resulted in some changes and progression to our project idea:

• to use animation as the main focus point of our video
• to use testimonials instead of a poem as the voice over, still using animation to highlight key words and phrases
• to use a royalty free acoustic soundtrack to accompany our film

Test Shoot

Our test shoot took place on 1st March at 7pm.

Our outcome for this shoot was just to test our ideas within the dark environment, and highlight any issues or problems we may need to change before shooting the footage to use in our film.

For this shoot, we created a professional call sheet:

Some problems that we encountered during this shoot were:

• grainy-ness of camera quality, which resulted in less attention to detail
• lighting, and what sort of lighting would be best to use for different shots
• locations, and which settings would provide interesting shots

At the end of this shoot we also had a group meeting to discuss these issues and our next steps in our project.

Fourth Meeting Minutes

Fourth meeting minutes

Date: 1/3/2015 at 6pm

Present: Jamie Wyatt, Clea Hauser, Geroge Overington (minute taker), Mia Blakeny, Amy Horner

Aim:

-Film test footage to practice for real filming and to demonstrate idea

-Define and refine film narrative and overall structure more

-Set the foundations to draft a storyboard

-Re-address things said on Friday

-Practice with equipment

We went out into Brighton and filmed around the city, primarily to see how the lighting would work. The street lighting works fine, and in parts that are to dark, the LED multi panel light works well to, we managed to get some test footage and then regroup back at the Brighton station where we then discussed how to make our idea simpler and adhere to Lucy’s feedback and also to make sure that it is manageable for us. After Jamie’s early departure, we eventually decided on removing the human element from our film and focus of the poem, the shot of Brighton and the animation in our film, and will be discussing this with Lucy on Tuesday

Result

-Test footage acquired

-Equipment experience is more varied

-More refined and decisive film structure

-Storyboard idea is now viable to be applied to drawn draft

-Animation editing scheduled for Wednesday (4^th March)

-Further decisions on discussion points for meeting with Lucy (3^rd March)

Third Meeting Minutes

Industry Projects

Third meeting minutes

Date: 27/2/15 at 4pm - 6pm

Present: George Overington, Mia Blakeney, Jamie Wyatt, Clea Hauser (second minute taker)

Abstentees: Amy Horner (minute taker)

Our Aims:

-    Review pitch feedback

-    Finalise idea based on pitch feedback

-    Arrange to make a storyboard

-    Test shoot scheduling

Discussion:

-    Reviewing the feedback we decided it would be best to cut down and simplify the idea

-    Sole focus should be art, not relationships

-    Coming up with two scenarios.

-    Scenario 1: Cut down idea to feature animation symbolising poem

-    Scenario 2: Cut down subjects due to not representing ‘art’

-    Main focus on the poem in both scenarios

Result:

-    Two scenarios for idea to go over with Lucy

-    Arrange to meet Lucy with rough storyboards

-    Test shoot arranged at 6pm on 01/03/15

Actions:

-    Clea to create Call Sheet (must be done after storyboard is finalised) by 5/3/15

-    All to contribute to Critical Path by 5/3/15

-    Amy to arrange a time to meet Lucy for storyboarding by 5/3/15