Reflection on the course – Sound and Image

This semester has been a great learning experience. I think I’ve achieved a lot during it. The most important thing I’ve learnt is that when working on a production, there will be unexpected problems and troubles. You have to remain patient and make quick on the spot decisions because time is the most important thing. When working in a group, make sure everyone is comfortable, have good communication and rapport with them so everything goes smoothly. Also, everyone makes mistakes and they’re a part of our learning experience. This was some of the stuff I learnt from Sound and Image and CMWP courses. Met some great people. My groups in both the courses were great and easy to work with. In these two courses, I made two short documentaries, an abstract film, some scenes from a drama, and also learnt the various forms and uses of social media and how it has become such an important part of our lives. My camera skills got better. I had no clue about audio earlier and I got to learn a lot this semester. Pretty much the same goes for lighting. Also, thanks to sound and image course, I now have a very organized project file while editing when I mark my footage, make separate sequences and bins.

One more thing I learnt this semester was that you should always experiment with new stuff and take up challenges in life. That’s what I did when I took the Illusion for life course which is an animation course. I had done literally no animation in my life before this. My tutor, Helmut was very supportive and he encourage me a lot. I decided to stick to stop motion animation because I find them the most interesting. He liked my overall work a lot and my final project got great appreciation from the jury. So I basically developed a new love for stop motion animations.

In the end, I would like to thank all my tutors, Patrick, Louise and Helmut for being really nice and supportive and always encouraging me to do better.

Colour Grade

Note: The first screenshot in each sequence is the orignal footage.

This is one of the abstract shots we took for our documentary somewhere near Lygon street. What I wanted was an outdoor shot which showed some buildings with lots of light and a mysterious look at the same time. For the first variation, I used the Luma corrector and changed the brightness and contrast in master and some similar changes in highlights and midtones. It kind of made the whole thing more red and warmer on the warmer side. For the second variation, I tried RGB curves. Decreased the whites, reds and greens and increased the blues a bit. This was the kind of feel I wanted for this clip. For the third variation, I used three way colour corrector over the second variation and played around with the midtones and highlights which made the whole thing appear more prominent while keeping the feel of the second variation. So the third variation was pretty much the result I wanted.

This is Elizabeth’s interview for the documentary. Her interview was not well lit for some reason and a little underexposed compared to others. It also looked a little flat. I realized this only after I saw the footage in the computer. First thing I did was to play around with the brightness and contrast option. It didn’t do much. Just made the footage more brighter. After that I tried using the three way colour corrector. To be honest, I’m not a fan of this effect for some reason. Maybe it’s because I’m not that good at using it, but the result of using it did not work that well here as you can see in the second. For the last and final variation, I used the RGB curves and all I did was change increased the whites a little bit and to my surprise, her face looks lit up and quite similar to the other interviews.

This clip was not a part of my documentary but actually a part of another assignment in which we had to make a short abstract film. I’m discussing about this since it was the first time I tried colour grading this semester by myself and we had not been taught about it yet. It was quite rainy that day but the sun came out for around 5 minutes while we were shooting and I quickly decided to shoot a couple of silhouettes. This is one of them. As you can see in the original clip is quite bland and it was really cloudy so the light was not that good either. I wanted something strong, vibrant and dramatic. First thing I tried was to decrease the brightness as much as possible and increase the contrast a bit to make it a proper silhouette first since in the orignal clip you can still see Cameron clearly. For the second variation, I increased the contrast using Luma corrector over the first variation and in the third variation I used RGB curves on the second variaton and decreased the whites. It gives a very dramatic effect to the clip. In the end I used the second variation because it looked the best and it was not too over the top.

Documentary in a Day

The documentary on HOME was our last project for the Sound and Image course and the one which was the lengthiest and most challenging one. I think we spent over a month working on it. Also I can relate to this documentary a lot being away from home currently and missing it like anything so it was kind of special to me. The film basically had three components, vox pops, interviews and abstract footage, and each of them were shot separately, one after the other during our class timings. We worked in two groups of four since there were only eight people in our tutorial group. My group consisted of myself, Anurit, Cameron and Megan. It was a pleasure working with these guys.

 

Vox pops

Recording vox pops was our first task. We rehearsed with all the equipment and different techniques to be nice and polite to people amongst ourselves first in the class. As a part of pre production, we decided upon our location, which was the Alumini Courtyard at RMIT City Campus and we came up with several questions which were to be asked. It was only on the day of the shoot that we decided our roles. I was the interviewer, Megan was on camera, Anurit was doing sound and Cameron was approaching people and convincing them to answer a few questions for us about home. It was just one hour before sunset and we got nice and even sunlight and the location was great as well. We found a few people over there who were willing to answer our questions. After the vox pops, we recorded a bit of atmosphere sound. The whole thing went quite well, or at least that’s what we thought at the moment. Later when I checked the footage, I saw that the framing of most of the vox pops was not correct. They did not have look room, instead there was negative space on the other side of the frame. I guess Megan was not really sure about the framing for vox pops but that’s alright. She realized her mistake later and it’s all a part of a learning process. We got good content with good audio so we were happy.

 

 

Abstract footage

This was another very important part of the documentary. In vox pop and interview based documentaries, you need some b-roll or abstract footage to put in between to make your overall film more visually appealing and interesting. You cannot base your documentary on just visuals of people speaking. We were given the task to shoot abstract footage on our Wednesday tutorial which starts at 5.30 pm. When we got out to shoot, it was almost dark already. We went to the Carlton area near Lygon street and took some shots of houses, buildings, people walking and families etc. After a few minutes it started raining so we had to go inside and stop filming. We filmed the rest of the abstract footage during the day on our intensive class after we got done with our interviews. We took shots in the city, around the State Library, Melbourne Central and around RMIT. We even shot a short time lapse.

 

Interviews

Recording interviews was the most complicated and time consuming task for this documentary so we were supposed to do it at our intensive class. We decided upon the questions beforehand and we practised interview recording in class with basic lighting and audio. When we arrived in the morning, we found out that two groups would work together to make the shoot quicker. We worked with the other group in our tutorial which consisted of Liang, Alex, Elizabeth and Abdullah. For our documentary, we were supposed to interview the members of the other group and vice versa. Unfortunately, Anurit and Megan from our group were unable to come due to some reasons. So we basically had only two members in our group, which meant that the other group would only have two interviews. We then decided to work together as one group and have the option to use all the interviews amongst ourselves so we basically merged our questions and ideas. We chose a room on the 3rd floor of building 9 which had good lighting and a good view of the city through the window. We thought lighting would not be a problem, but it turned out to be the biggest problem. We were trying to use the window in the background for the nice view but because of the sunlight, the subject appeared quite dark even with proper lighting. We then spent around half an hour moving around the lights, changing the intensity, moving around the subject and what not. We finally did achieve what we wanted and the lighting looked perfect. We then set up the audio and frame again and started recording. Once everything was set up properly, it did not take much time. We switched around roles after every interview and we got some really interesting content since most of us were from different countries. The audio was very clear. Overall, a very fun and tiring day but it was worth it.

 

Editing

After the shoot, we were supposed to edit all the stuff and make it into a short documentary. Edit is my favourite part of any production. I started off editing in the editing suites at uni. I had only cut up the vox pops but then the time of the tutorial ended and it was also that last one. So after that, we were supposed to find time ourselves and edit our documentaries. I, for some reason cannot sit in the editing suite for too long and also I had assignments for other courses to do as well, so I copied the footage into my external hard drive and decided to edit it at home. This way I could edit it whenever I wanted to and I won’t have to book an editing suite.

So first up, I cut up all the interviews and vox pops and got all the important content on different sequences. Then I made a sequence for rough cut and started shaping up the documentary by putting up the vox pops and interviews. I made sure not to make it a drag and not to be too repetitive. I started off by some footage of people describing home, then telling the difference between a house and a home, then describing the phrase home is where the heart is, what do they miss about their home and if they consider Melbourne their home or not. I mixed up the interviews and vox pops to make it interesting. After that I put abstract footage after little intervals on top of the whole film to give it a nice visual appeal. Then I made a sequence for final cut. In this I shortened the film to around 3:30 and adjust the audio to bring everything at one level. Added background music. After that I duplicated this sequence and renamed it to colour. I used 3 way colour corrector and RGB curves for colour grading. Didn’t have to do that much. Just gave the film a neutral feel and adjust the overexposed shots a bit. I think the overall product was quite good and the film shaped up to be better than I expected.

Forbidden Lies

The first time I watched this video, I thought most of the sound effects in this were over the top and quite bad. After watching several times, I have come to the conclusion that it is supposed to be this way and they have given a certain theme to it. Most of the sounds seem to foley.

 

The video starts off with a short re enactment with a romantic song in the background. There is a constant chirping sound of birds during this part of the video along with tingling bell sound. There’s a couple of indoor shots in this part as well but the sound of bells and birds remains constant which appears to be funny. Then there’s a transition effect which is accompanied by a piano sound. Then there’s sound effects of a car. One thing that really bothered me was that there’s car sound in only two of the car shots. The first and the last one. The thing at which I really laughed out loud was the sound when Khouri throws her scarf into the air and it falls to the ground. It sounded way too artificial. The sound when she throws it into the air was too strong as if a someone has swung their sword in the air or something and when it falls to the ground it appears from the sound that something really heavy has fallen down. In the last shot of the scene, the woman is shown walking on a desert and suddenly there’s a loud thumping sound as if someone’s just clapped their hand on the table and she suddenly turns into sand. After that you can hear Rana Husseini’s voice and then it cuts to her interview. One thing I would like to mention for this part of the video is that almost all of the sound effects seem to be foley. Most of them sound very unrealistic and were obviously recorded separately, and some on the spot (for eg. the car sound). So in post production a lot of work was done on the audio.

 

Now coming over to the interview part, while Ms. Husseini is telling us how this book is not the truth, there is a closeup snap of the book cover with a cash register sound. She then continues speaking while putting down the book on the table which produces a decent and the probably the first accurate sound effect of the clip. Her interview is then overlayed with shots of her working and walking around her workplace and there’s a couple of exterior shots as well and also visuals of her past achievements. While all this is being shown, you can hear a low Muslim religious prayer in the background. I think it settles in well with the theme of the video. After that there’s an interview of Dr. Amal and the annoying bird chirping and bell sounds come back. Suddenly it cuts to footage of Norma Khouri inside a studio reading something and at the end of the sentence we hear a camera shutter sound effect possibly to highlight something not true or offensive. The video then switches between all the three women and then Khouri’s voice continues with the overlay of a map showing the Arabic countries with a disturbing sound effect of a heart beating. After this Ms. Husseini’s interview continues along with outdoor shots of the unisex salon with background sounds of people on the street which was obviously recorded during shooting. As soon as the closeup of the sign board of the salon is shown, there’s a weird sound, something like what a rattlesnake makes. After a few shots of Ms. Husseini talking on the phone, it cuts to Dr. Amal talking about the salon which again cuts to a series of quick images of the salon with a fun quirky background music. The music continues as the footage cuts to Ms. Husseini going into the book store and is then shown talking to the man inside. The dialogues seem to be dubbed. The re enactment appears again with sound effects of a 5 dinaar note and some coins which seem to be foley again. The coin noise seems to higlight the lie about the 5 dinaar note. There’s another re enactment scene with Khouri narrating and there’s several sounds of cigarette pack, a lighter. The video fast forwards and rewinds for a bit with an appropriate sound, like the ones in the VHS players back in the day and then then the ash tray disappears with a swish sound. All these were foley. There’s still fun music playing in the background. There’s a shot of the turning of the page of the book with sound and then there’s seveal outdoor shots of nightclubs. It then cuts to Dr. Amal’s interview who’s telling about Hyatt and the footage cuts to a series of images of the deconstruction of Hyatt with some weird noises as each part disappears. Towards there’s a ting sound with the shot of the music box. Ms. Hussaini is shown taking on the phone while sitting on the edge of the road while a couple of cars pass by with engine sounds. She then laughs as the music suddenly stops.

No Direction Home

At the start of the video, a young Bob Dylan is shown performing at some concert which basically sets up the whole film and tells us that this film is about Bob Dylan and his singing career. It starts with a shot from the back and then a closeup of his face and then a mid shot.

The song then suddenly cuts away to dry and isolated trees in a snow area and with this begins Bob Dylan’s narration. This is the point where you get curious as to why the mood of the film suddenly changed and what more is there to come. Credit to the editor for this.

 

From this point on wards Bob tells us how time is valuable and doesn’t stop for anyone. The story then goes into a flashback, and he starts telling the story of his childhood  and his family, with a picture of his house and some childhood pictures of himself  and the record that inspired him ‘Drifting too far away’ which is also playing in the background at this time.

 

He then proceeds to talk about his hometown and how it had changed over the years with visuals of it and Bob is shown in between giving an interview to someone with a great shot adjusted to rule of thirds. The rest of the clip oscillates between shots of Bob giving the interview and visuals of the place he grew up at and some problems faced by it. The visuals go very well with the narration and you get engrossed in it. This is one of the strengths of Scorcese. He makes movies which are strong on content and get you hooked from the word go.

 

The rest of the documentary, what I think, just judging by this clip, shows the story of Bob Dylan right from his childhood, to what inspired him and how he became a legendary musician while facing many struggles throughout his life. Also we get insights about Bob’s life, that he is just a normal human being like us and he has worked hard to get to the top and it was not an easy journey at all. Also we get to know about his family and relationships.

Introduction to Documentary

Introduction to Documentary by Bill Nichol teaches us the different modes and types of documentary and highlights important events in documentary history. One of the modes mentioned in his book is Participatory mode of documentary. This is the one that I’m interested in the most and I would like to talk about it.

In participatory mode, there is direct engagement between the filmmaker and the subjects, so basically you can see and hear the filmmaker and the becomes part of the events being recorded, unlike the observational mode. It is heavily reliant on the honesty of the filmmaker and we get a sense of how situations in the film are affected by his presence. Bill Nichol says: “The filmmaker steps out from behind the cloak of voice-over commentary, steps away from poetic meditation, steps down from a fly-on-the-wall perch, and becomes a social actor (almost) like any other. (Almost like any other because the filmmaker retains the camera, and with it, a certain degree of potential power and control over events.)”

This is the reason why the conversation between the filmmaker and the subject becomes an important part of the film. Michael Moore is very famous for his participatory style documentaries and I’m a huge fan of his.

The reasons why I like participatory mode of documentaries are as follows:

1. The filmmaker interacts and interviews his subjects rather than just observe them and gives you a feeling that ‘I speak with them for us’. I can actually relate more to these type of documentaries.
2. The filmmaker is basically one of the protagonists or the main actor in this and he basically shapes up the film. I actually love interacting with people and taking their opinions.
3. The participatory mode has come to embrace the audience as a subject as well in some cases through interactive websites and installations where the viewers get to choose from a range of possibilities. This mode basically has a great scope for the future.
4. The interactions of the filmmaker and the subjects makes the overall content very engaging. Honestly speaking, I’ve pretty much only seen Michael Moore’s films in this documentary genre and most of them have dose of humour in them as well because his interactions are so interesting. One of his most famous documentaries which I’m sure everyone has seen is Fahrenheit 9/11 which is actually the highest grossing documentary of all time. It’s about the effects of 9/11.
5. It gives you a certain perspective and vision of the filmmaker which is actually a good thing and you have your own unique identity.

 

 

 

Reflection of digital story

 

Our digital story is called Breaking barriers. It is a short interview based documentary which shows the issues faced by Chinese students when they come to Melbourne, like communication barrier, culture shock or just getting along with the local people. It is a light hearted film with a positive message. It is based on two interviews. One of a local student and the other one of a Chinese student. They both share their views and tell their experiences. In between the interviews, we’ve included some footage and pictures related to the topic.

 

To start off, we’re only two people in the group, Liang and I. It didn’t really matter because we had similar ideas for the digital story so decided to work together. So we had a couple of meetings before the proposal submission to come up with a proper storyline and structure for the film. At that time our topic was a little different. It was focusing on two Asian people and one local and the duration was around three minutes. Also our social media strategy was not very specific. When we got the feedback for the proposal, Jenny told us to make it simpler, shorter and come up with a better social media strategy. So we changed our topic a little bit (to what it is now) to make it more specific and that way we were able to cut down our duration as well and make our social media strategy better. The next step was to lock down our interviewees. Liang was a big help in this. One of her housemates was a local student and she had a Chinese friend who’s studying at RMIT. Both of them agreed to be interviewed. We wrote a set of questions we were going to ask them and sent it to them beforehand so they could prepare for it. We hired the equipment and were all ready for the shoot. This was our pre production.

 

We took Liang’s housemate Jess’s interview first. She’s studying bachelor of arts at Latrobe and she was quite confident in answering all the questions and her interactions with Chinese people. We shot it in her backyard. I was on camera. Liang did the audio. One issue we faced was the changing sunlight but we somehow went through it.

 

We shot Vincent’s interview the next day. He is Liang’s friend and from China. He was a little camera shy and was having a little trouble communicating and expressing himself in front of the camera. We had to take several retakes and the end result was good. He invited us to his apartment. The lighting was good. Liang and I did the same roles as the last interview. We copied the footage in Liang’s laptop and returned the equipment. For the b-roll footage we used our own dslr and mobile cameras and some footage of the city we had shot earlier.

 

 

For promotion, we made a Facebook page with some pictures and posts, since FB is a global platform. However, it is banned in China so uploaded the video on a Chinese video site called Tudeo as well since Chinese people are our main target. Apart from that we uploaded it on Youtube too.

 

 

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/breakingbarriersfilm/

Tuduo video link: http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/l3SsDIaj8Ck/

I edited the digital story. It did not take much time since it was supposed to be short and simple. The only trouble I had was to make sure its not repititive or a drag. It switches between both the subjects frequently and the things they are saying are related to each other. There is b-roll footage and pictures in between the interviews. For the rough cut, I only put in some pictures as b-roll and the interview cuts were not that crisp. I fixed that for the final cut and put a background music to give it a better feel. The name ‘Breaking barriers’ was actually finalized at the very end since we had several names in mind.