#jagnart

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Summative Evaluation

This is my final summative evaluation for my part 3 project, Nettles.

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Post Production | Personal Edit

Here is my Personal edit of the film. There is no sound.

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Post Production | Rough Edit

Here is the first rough edit of the film.

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Visual vs. Practical Effects

It has become clear that many of the shots for this film will require special effects in order to make them as convincing as possible. Things like bullet hits, explosions, fire and any other war and battle elements that are required for a war film will need to be added in a safe and practical way. I have done research into the different techniques of adding these effects, and it comes down to two possible methods - Visual effects, or practical effects.

Terminology

The terminology for visual/practical/special/live effects can change a lot depending on who talks about them, but for this project I am referring to visual effects as effect produced digitally in post-production, and practical effect as effects produced live in the shot.

Below is a video that compares both visual and practical effects, but focuses on a bullet impacts on the ground. (Here special refers to digitally created effects and visual refers to live, in camera effects)

Although both methods seem to produce convincing results, I feel this project will benefit most from using digitally created, visual effect, as this method is more affordable and much safer, especially when it come to effects like explosions and bullet hits. 

Despite visual effect seeming to be the most beneficial choice, there may be specific shots that benefit more from the alternative method. Things like rubble or dirt flying through the air can be captured quickly and easily on camera, and would save a lot of time in post production, as to crate the same effect digitally would require hours of editing and manipulation.

Michal and I decided to use practical effects for the leg caught in barbed wire shots, as it should be fairly easy to construct a fake leg and impale barbed wire onto it, but as we have a number of shots that have the impaled leg in, it would take a very long time to build one digitally and position it over the actors leg for every shot it appears in.

Using visual effects for these shots would limit our freedom when it came to filming that scene, mainly because its much harder to imagine where/what state the leg will be in, so our actors may struggle to give their most convincing performance, but also, knowing that every shot we take will require hours later in post-production, will restrict the amount of shots we can realistically take and still have enough time to add the effect to later. With the practical effects prop leg, we can actually see and react to it, as well as film it as much as we like without having to fill in for the lack of effect later.  

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A collaboration - Project Nettles

I was discussing possible starting points for a film with my good friend Mike, and it didn't take long for us to reach the conclusion that we should work together for this project, and produce a film based on a poem we studied a few years ago. We were both familiar with the poem, and it fitted well with our project proposals, so that was when we decided to make this project a collaboration. The title of the poem is 'Nettles', and so I have titled this project the same.   

The plan for this project now is to collaborate with a friend to produce a short film based around the poem 'Nettles' by Vernon Scannell. Together we will establish a narrative for the film and both take on specific production roles to focus our individual work around.

My Role(s)

My main role will be as director, as this will best suit my intentions for the project and allow me to have enough control over the work to have significant input. I will have a lot of influence over all the production decisions. However, there are plenty of different areas involved in film production, so we have divided out the more specific roles that remain between us.

I have taken the following roles:

Director [Main Role]

Editor

Concept Artist

Sound design

Lighting

Casting

Visual Effects

The main purpose of a director is to direct and organise the creative vision of a film. As director I must make sure the film's true intentions are realised and make it from pre-production to the final film. I shall apply my knowledge of film and passed experiences in filmmaking to ensure the creative success of the film I set out to produce is met. 

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Project Proposal

We are exposed to an increasing number of text, images, noises and new stimuli every day of our lives, but we rarely take the time to stop and appreciate what has come our way. I find it fascinating that we can live amongst so much information but fail to retain and use most of it. For my part 3 project, I want to catch a piece of information or stimulus, and use it to construct the narrative of a film. I want to take something from the format of sound, image or text, analyse and deconstruct it, and then use what I gather to form the narrative and storyline for a short film. I am excited to see what concepts I can create from perhaps a basic or mundane starting point, and hope to engage fully enough with what it has to offer me so that I can appreciate it in a new light, and draw new inspirations and ideas  from it that others can also appreciate. How can something be converted into a film? What story would it tell? Could anything possess narrative? These are a few questions I am eager to answer through the film making process.  I intend to research film directors who have produced work with similar concepts in mind, as well as gather imagery from a wide range of sources, such as libraries, drawing, photos and the internet. I will also look into camera techniques that create unique effects, one point perspective for example.                 

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I discovered another video by Everynone called 'Symmetry'. I really admire how they have divided the video and use footage of opposites on either side. Its such a simple idea, but is done so well that I couldn't resist trying it out for myself, so I used it as inspiration for my Berlin documentary project. I have already gathered footage of 'split frames' as I wanted footage that reflected Berlins history. The Berlin wall literally divided the city, and so because of this, I decided to find ways I could capture divided frames.

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During my stay in Berlin, I documented various aspects of my visit by filming them. I am currently working on the footage I gathered, and editing together certain parts in different ways. I shall post these experiments soon, but here is a video I produced with my friend Mike. Not all the footage in this is my own, but we edited it together to create this short documentary of our stay. I enjoy using the video medium to capture events and memories, as I find it is the best way to share an experience in a way that reflects how I experienced it.