Photography project - ''passengers''

Passengers

Noticing people, their behaviour and reactions is the core element in this photography project. Capturing surface, which is human facial expressions in this case, tells us their individual stories as well as tendencies of life in the city. Apathy, exhaustion, anonymity, alienation and detachment... Public transport is where these things come across very vividly. Place where time gets distorted, people get carried away with their own matters, even though the environment is always changing and unstable. It is as if every person there creates his/her own tiny private space. This is a collection of personal moments in public. Real, spontaneous or still emotions of a human being in the routine of the city. 

Many students use HDSLR Cameras for filming their projects. My college ‘Ieva Austinskaite’ who studies BA Photography course at Middlesex University, asked for help in producing short clip for her final project ‘Passengers’ I decide to test my new “Canon 5D Mark iii” camera to this project. Lancester in his book ‘Dslr cinema – crafting the film look with large sensor video cameras’ covers the cinematographer’s toolkit, which provides the cinematic look, the ‘film look’. This book describes benefits and designs the possibilities of using DSLR’s cameras. From my point of view as a low budget filmmaker, I found this technology as the best choice because this camera has good data rate, processing power, and capability to perform more uncompressed media capture. During the process of filming ‘Passengers’, our main object was to capture personal emotions of people during their trip in the public transport, which was quite challenging. In order to shot this this short clip it was necessary to use long lens and fast blocking shots. “Blocking is where, when, and how subjects are placed and move in the composition, whether working with actor or characters in a documentary. How they are placed, when they move, where they move from, and where they go are dependent on the story” Lancaster, (2013: 9). During this project we faced few main problems. One of them was the choice of the tripod. With long lens is essential to have really stable tripod, because during the filming with 200mm lens even a small touch of the tripod would make big differences in postproduction. As a result, even the stabilizer effect would not save the footage – it becomes really shaky and hardly fixable. This project involved Timing, pacing and rhythm. The rhythm making process depends on duration and the placement of the shot. In Post – production I was editing in three different windows (Fig.1) Moreover, three different timelines were required as well as specific locations of shots as a result of different duration of each of them. “Timing is the attribute of rhythm that arises as en editor determines when cuts and shots occur. There are three aspects of timing to be considered when discussing rhythm in film editing: choosing the frame, choosing duration and choosing the placement of the shot. “Karen (2009: 44).

                      

 

(Fig.1)

 

   

Karen, P. (2009) Cutting Rhythms: Shaping the Film Edit. Amsterdam: Focal/Elsevier

Lancaster, K. (2013) DSLR Cinema. Crafting the Film Look with Large Sensor Video Cameras. 2nd, Rev. Ed. Oxford: Focal

Kickstarter - Making video presentation

Have your original Idea? What to share with the world? Need funding to make it reality? Join the 'Kicktarter' All these questions our team tried to answer as soon as our idea had been approved by tutors. Kickstarter was one first main concern by spreading idea with friends, family, colleges, charity organizations and even world. 'Kickstarter' is a crowd funding platform witch allows to help bring creative project to life. Nowadays more and more people joining fundraising companies, organizing events to increase the budget for their projects such us films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, video games and even food related projects. Moreover people who back kickstarter projects are offered rewards and specials experiences in exchange for their support. It allows to create community around your work. The fundraising website requires few main thing such us video, publishing idea, presentation and organizing with right audience, even they are necessary but by achieving all these thing allows to collect fund more faster. Organizing Kickstarter project I was responsible to film short and powerful video to attract more audience and fans.. Location and right equipment for filming is very important to get video faster for web project. The 80% of the video create more strongly success. The video contain two people, Director (Omran Baluch) and Producer (Natarin Srinuruk). The direct speech in from of the camera makes the audience fell more interact with the presenter. The short clips inserted from short documentary of Hasmok Mehta shows the feels, emotions, how is difficult to live being visual impaired. For Kickstarter video I used DSRL camera and separate sound recorder. From this experience I learned the impact of audience and video and how it creates the influence to viewer.

Images from production.

The link to Kickaster project:

Kickstarter - Project Blindia

Blindia - Challenges in the life of a Blind (Logo Typography)

One of the main steps in independent film making is creating the film Title. Creating the Title requires technical skills such us choice of the line length, line space, size, typeface, adjusting the space between pair and group letters and design. In our Final project I was interested in typography and how it would have helped me to create presentable film title. Typography itself is the art and technique used in order to create language visible. In order to make professional titles instead of the basic ones, many things have to be avoided, such as distinct text styles which includes bevel, emboss, glow and drooping shadows. As much as you keep it simple it will look more powerful. Moreover it suppose to be dominant enough to support film concept. The main goal is to establish title that links well the video subject matter. During the final project development I decided to create few examples and test them - which of them would suit the most as a film title.

This is an example

 
 This is an example







This is original image 





Very rarely two different words blend in together as in original images ( Blind and India). Original title "Blindia" for some viewers might get offensive because of the name itself. In my experience of creating logo, sometimes it might be corrected or even changed, before sending the film to a festival or broadcast channel (e.g. on The Community Channel).

Barbican - be inspired

Transformer

The Barbican is one of the largest Europe's multi-arts and conference venue presenting a diverse range of art, theatre, music, film, dance and creative learning events. Transformer is a new way in digital revolution made by Usman Haque. How can technology help you make sense of yourself and people around you? Have you ever imagine being inside the action game? "Transformer" allows to you be one of the players or team member for few minutes. This new game gives you an opportunity to wear 'Techno-suit' of lights, sensors and actuators that measure their movement and power the techno-suit light. The light power gets dimmer when the player increases his movement in the field and expends more energy, but it can be charged with other players' help. In this case the player needs to decide on his role in the game by playing solo, or form a team to share their energy, keep the lights on and win the game. The real battle begins in the dark and in order to win the game players have to collect tokens. The winner is the one with the most points. 

BVE 2014 - The essential broadcast and production technology event

"BVE brings your target market to you" 

During the final project me and our group decided to take the one day trip to BVE (The essential broadcast and production technology event) that happens in London every year for a duration of three days. Being a student is a very good chance to explore and be inspired by more than 300 different companies. This event offers products or services for production, post production or broadcast professionals and it is the place to meet current and future customers. Moreover, UK has the largest production, post production and content creation communities. Let's do not forget that BVE is free to attend for all those studying or actively employed in the broadcast and production industries. During the visit I was inspired by new products such us Canon Cine Lenses, Adobe Cloud system. The main purposes of this visit was to explore more deeply some specific departments such as "BECTU" which offers benefits and services for freelancers of members' union. "StartinTV.com" and "Film&TVPRO" provide job opportunities in TV and Film industries and help to promote personal talent.

Before the start of filming our short final film the BVE was a perfect place to look more closely at equipment and get professional advises for our specific use. One of the most important decisions we needed to make was a choice of lenses for filming landscapes. We knew that we will be using Canon cameras for filming documentary in India. We went to "Canon" department and tested a few lenses which would fit the best our requirements in the production. With professional help we decided to rent Canon 16-35 mm lens for wide angle shots. The image below explains the narrow and wide angle lens.

Final project team in BVE 2014 (The essential broadcast and production technology event)

This is the link for Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L II USM Lens Review

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GV4V8I5p-8

There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Pitching and developing idea for short documentary exercise 

A life in the Day of a Hasmok Mehta

To come up with a good idea is hard enough but presenting it to others is even more harder. Pitching is a task of bringing an idea of something and make it real. Showing good performance in the pitch requires detailed preparation and inspiration. To do so you need to be creative, present evidence and interest of the subject. The pitch demands to be confident. Whole team put effort to research various methods to achieve the best film results.

In this project Hasmok Mehta is a visual impaired person but carefully illustrating his senses. Moreover, the idea developing of this particular subjects is very sensitive, it needs to be learnt how to get it around next to the person who is blind. In this experience I understand that "a job must be done", for example filming visual impaired person from long distance and in the same time you see how the main actor is losing sense in the location, as a human you want to help him and show right direction but at the same time you must get that shot. 

"Think small, local and short. Developing your skills on fragments allows you to inquire in-depth and avoids the discouragement that come from overload." M. Rabiger  

A life in the Day of a Hasmok Mehta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkiSiRNSLwE

Reflections and thoughts on Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining"

Stanley Kubrick used colours as symbols as they created a very strong impact on film's  atmosphere and emotions experienced by the viewer.

Red is the most dominant colour in "The Shining" and is seen in all the main scenes. Using red colour builds up feelings of danger, evokes anxiety and naturally indicates violence and hate - a horrific experience for a viewer created by masterful colour and lighting.

Red colour in the film shows aggression and power. Stanley Kubrick's sets are well lit and it creates dramatic effects combined with vividly coloured sets. For example this scene shows an extremely bright colours and sets a calm yet scary atmosphere - it shows the power of colours effect on emotions.

I learned that in order to create a powerful horror atmosphere I would not necessary need to use the typical dark shots but but do the opposite - created intense atmosphere showing character's inner mind's tension and insanity - horror of the mind. 

Dark red colour is used in actors costumes and sets, it sends the audience a clear message about film's main character's intentions - murder. In the screenshot below we see red colour in interior and actors' outfit.

These examples prove me how using colour helps to define film's characters, themes. Nothing is an accident but a precise planned visual storytelling.

Blue colour is also important in the film and indicates moments of loneliness, coldness.

Blue and red gives a contrast for different shots and sets up a completely different atmosphere.