Siyu's work Blog

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COMPOSITION: Filling the Frame

Some basic ideas of positioning objects and characters inside the frame. This short article explains terms includes “Lead Room” “Rule of Thirds” and some of the “rule breaking” frame compositions such as “ Static Composition” and “ Dynamic Composition”. More terms and way of composition appears when I started searching from one, somehow they relate or reflect with each other.

To achieve different composition, it is not just about girding or dividing the frame into sections that illustrates the best proportion, or the interaction between the character and spacing, it also includes interacts with camera angles as well. In some cases the composition can be achieved much easier with certain camera angles applied to the scene. These are some of the things I’ve never considered much before that would definitely be helpful for my future projects involves frame composition.

There’s also some explain page on the widely used term “ Mise-en-scène”.

http://www.elementsofcinema.com/directing/mise-en-scene-in-films/

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FILM PRODUCTION TECHNIQUE (FPT): CREATING THE ACCOMPLISHED IMAGE, 6e, is aimed at the basic production course taken by radio/tv/film majors. FPT, 6e, delivers a technical and aesthetic introduction to media production that couples video production techniques with strong emphasis on incorporating motion picture film into a project's workflow. The text serves as a primer for all students, but is especially valuable to those students with limited background in the field of media production. FPT, 6e explores cutting-edge technologies as well as traditional Hollywood techniques, covering lighting, cameras, editing, crew organization, and the production process. It also lays out the basic, conventional approach to scene structure in a straightforward and methodical manner.Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

Second day of GDCT, started getting my hands on some research about the knowledge of Camera angles and movements, etc. Read through some basic ideas about camera angles using the book link provided as a reference for the wiki page of Camera angle.

It links to the monograph “ Film Production Technique: Creating the Accomplished Image”, the part introduce camera angles is from page 8 to 10. The section briefly explained the term and provides a few forms of camera angles that are widely used in productions.

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Project Statement for Mediated Performance

When I told the lecture about merging this paper with the other elective paper (sound, image and space) in the beginning of the semester, I've been told one thing I need to be really careful was the outcome in the end might be pretty similar or even the same, how am I going to separate and declare different themes from the outcome. I was a little bit worried about this point because the other elective paper was already in cooperation with the studio paper, which means I was having three papers working across each other and I need to be able to descript which part of the outcome represents what project.

Our original idea was to create a camera obscura environment, either set up a live obscura space or using recorded camera obscura footage project onto the wall. The advantage about the first idea was it will be live, there is going to have so many possibilities, no one knows what will come inside the shot the next second because what’s been projected is exactly what’s happening outside; and the advantage for the second idea is we will be able to have more choices of image location, unlike the first idea where the audience can only experience the view outside that single location, what we are presenting are different views we have taken with the self-made camera obscura box. Also we will have more control over the quality, content and colour of the image.

All three projects are having relationship with the camera obscura theory, the work I have done through the whole semester was to keep working on developing this idea with these project themes but at the same time maintaining clear boundaries between what I want to achieve for each of them. Camera obscura idea was originally the base idea for “sound, image and space”, when I decided to have it work with studio Animation paper, I was thinking to create an animated clip that could interact with the obscura image in some way, so at that time the idea for Mediated Performance was the design of involvement of a performer in the interaction work. The performer would lead the audience through the whole video, and hopefully will have some help for audience to better understand the idea of the video.

We create the video for animation using stop motion, the focal point in that video was to present the working process of an artist while he’s trying to set up a camera obscura space and interact with different objects he’s got around him, it’s all about the action and steps the artist take while creating his work. The video I have created for mediated performance is also using the scene of camera obscura footage, also in the same environment as the animation video. It may be similar stuff when you look at it, but what I want to present in this video is the changing of the visual when the object was placed in front of the footage. Which means for mediated performance I wanted the video to focus on the footage instead of the artist, that’s why I have left around six minutes in the beginning of the video time without the artist just to let the audience to take a better look at the interaction and effects objects created with the obscura footage.

The last thing is the audio of the clip, while I was creating this video, I have considered finding a soundtrack that suits it, because while we are shooting the footage, the camera recorded the environment sound as well, so it contains the sound of us chatting, people shouting, car moving and all kinds of environment. Since I have recorded this performing inside interactive suite, at the first I thought it’s not suitable to use the original track, but in the end when I couldn’t find any satisfied soundtrack and tried adding original clip sound to it, it surprised me that the original sound kind gives the video another layer, because people hears the actual sound but sees flat images, it’s another kind of illusion that adds to the video.

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Different types of materials used for Mediated Performance video.

After finished part of the shooting for mediated performance using the materials from last time's set up. I started look into different types and textures of materials that I think could be used in the video. All of them are things around us that has special textures, colours and shapes that could be interesting to interact with the camera box image.

From last time's shooting, I was quite surprised by the quality of the video and the huge illusional visual effects the work brought to me by setting up different materials in front of the projected video. Amazed by how one object (such as a table) placed in front of the video would create fabulous illusion of depth of field, makes the video more 3D. That's why I wanted to bring in more stuff to expand the possibilities of what can different types of materials do to create more interesting visuals from the clip.

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Test on the use of the projector and the possibility of the environment. Since we are using the projector in matter of fading the camera obscura setting, it was working really similar as the pin hole environment, apart from I have more control over the video, I could easily change the size, the clearness of the visual, also I could adjust the location of the projector to have the video interact with what has been provided by the environment. Like the environment in the video, it's a corner of a room that creates an angle that shows a quite interesting image when I slide the visual through. It shows how the actual environment setting could have great effect on the flat image.

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Setting up for Final Mediated performance shooting.

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Projector image and visual interaction experiment

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Projector and final video setting test

Setting up the space for final video shooting, using the projector as in replacement for realtime camera obscura light source so it would be easier for us to work with. If we are working with a proper camera obscura setting, it would be hard for us to control the time, the light that works with the video, the visual outside would be changing all the time, we have no control of what image it will be showing because everything is on live. 

Working with the projector and the pre-recorded camera box video has given a chance to plan out the whole process and better control of the image, so everything could be going under our script. But for the final installation, I think it would be better to have a actual camera obsucra space set up to have the audience to experience the CO visual as much as possible.

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Final storyline update for the Animation video (camera obscura)

Finally decided on the theme for the presentation video. We have spent last few weeks on discussing about the idea for the final presenting video, mean reason is because we wanted to add methods from different perspectives into the video to achieve the outcome that can be viewed in different project sides. 

The involvement of the camera obscura box in this video would be the footage that displays as the background on the wall through the whole video, it will be the base of the video, everything happens on top of that would be working in cooperation with the visuals showing in the video. Since we have taken footage from many different locations which means we probably will be having separate themes from different scene, but at the same time they are linked in some way.

After few times of discussion, we decided it would be best to have the theme related to the camera obsucra box theory. Because this best explains why the background footage is changing all the time. Moving the box around also changes the visual of the footage that's been captured. 

So for the video, we are considered to have the character working as an artist that is setting the space for camera obscura room, as the visual started to show on the wall the artist also started to work around with the visual and the environment around it to achieve his artistic requirements..........

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Editing Raw Video Data

After the clip shooting, I took a closer look at our outcome, every clips remains a nice, cool expression though the content and the colours. We didn't use the method of Time-Lapse for our film shooting, so all the clips are in their normal display speed, I kind want to using editing techs to re-adjust the video speed, colour correction and size of the video if it's necessary. This means I would have much more space to play around with different editing methods to achieve a wider range of outcome, these video pieces will be edited and then play again in the shots of our installation video that involves other types of shooting method such as stop motion.

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Camera Box footage shooting

Finally everything seems ready for the final camera obscura film shooting, we have chosen serval locations around Auckland central, includes streets, traffic, natural view, we have also considered the idea of different viewing angles, small offset of perspective between the angle leads to pretty interesting difference between the environments through the camera hole.

Also the weather on that day was a bit tricky as well, it was partly cloudy but also sunny, which provides us quite a large lighting range for our clips. We didn't add any external light source while we were shooting because we wanted the raw clips to be as natural as possible, although the clips may look quite different in brightness and colour, but it would be another interesting thing to analyse for our final video editing.

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NEW BOX AND TIME LAPSE TEST FILMING

Testing out on the new box with upgraded functions and proper tripod. It really saved me a lot energy to keep an eye on the box at anytime. I was able to sit back and just leave the box sitting there to record a time-lapse clip. I was expecting the box would be really stable in the beginning of the recording, but the weather of that day had shown me other issue about the box. 

It was a sunny day, but was also windy at the same time. The idea of time-lapse is to play a long period of recording in a very short amount of time, it's similar to fast forward, but time-lapse looks more smooth than fast forwarding a footage, I was testing time-lapse function that comes with my phone, windy weather definitely helps the look of time-lapse video, because it makes everything move, have a bit of action, also makes the cloud in the sky moves slightly faster, these movement works really well with the playing speed of time-lapse video, but I wasn't recording this with an ordinary camera, although the box now is sitting on a tripod, but it still has a small gap between the screw point and the tripod itself, which means every time when it's windy, although the box isn't as shaky as before, but was still quite a effect on the quality of the recorded image. 

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Camera box update

Making Tripod for more stable recording environment and better visual quality. it's for both outfit and visual quality purposes. From the previous tests we have done for the camera, they were either indoor tests (which we had access to tables or plinth that would help us to have a better control of the image.) For those outdoor tests, we were doing it with one person holding the box and the other one holding the camera, the stability of our hands wasn't anywhere near what we are expecting, that's when I've got the idea that for our project, I would have to make a proper tripod for the camera box. It would help us taking much better images, also would help to smoothly turn the camera around 360 degrees.

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Box update

Finally decided on doing some updates to the box, basically it's fixing different sections in the box, making new parts that would help with the quality of the image and makes the box more handy. The current box we are using has the tracing paper sticks on the sides of the box walls with only a few pieces of blue tack, the reason I use blue tack is because I want the paper to be adjustable, to be able to move forward and backwards, using blue tack makes the paper more flexible but at the same time pretty loose as well, which means a small shake or twist to the box would off set its position or bend the paper; the magnifier I choose to use was also standing on itself, only rely on a small clip to clamp the bottom of the box and its also not really stable as well. 

The previous footage testing were all done under this kind situation, until now we are satisfied with the quality of the image, I think it is time to make some updates to the box so we don't need to keep open  up the box and adjust the position of the objects all the time. 

The whole process was based on the idea of making each of the object tidy and stable, but try to keep the flexibility at the same time, so I made a little frame for the tracing paper, it has reasonable depth so the frame can stand on its own, also the width was made just fit inside the box so it remains tight but can be pulled out by hand. Same idea was applied to remaking the magnifier part as well, using bendable wire to make a stand for the magnifier so it can be moved around, but still use the blue tack to control the movement and the angle of the magnifier.

Now the box is lighter and more stable, which means we could save a lot of time when we are out shooting the footage for later on projects requirements.