Will's Wise Words of Wisdom

"i see my friends kicking in the front seat, sitting in the back seat, gotta make my ,mind up which seat can i take???? - the words of Rebecca Black

[willkettell]

Here is the my final edit of my experimental project Flip Reverse. After meeting with my module tutor yesterday we looked at the previous edit and upon reflection it seemed that a few of the scenes did not fit in with the feel of the film so I got rid of them and after moving the music about a bit I have the final edit. I am really pleased with this film as I think it shows off my ever improving filmmaking skills and I have really found an interest in experimenting in the ways I film and produce my projects which is something I will be taking into account when it comes to producing my projects for my final year. I have worked really hard on this project and I personally feel that is one of my best pieces of work I have produced so far in my time at university. Here is Flip Reverse. Enjoy

[willkettell]

This is another edit of my experimental project Flip Reverse. So unlike the other previous edits I have added a main title and credits on to the video. I have again shortened some of the scenes down as I feel that they are still too long and upon looking at this again I still think that I need to shorten some of the videos even more because they are still too long. I will also some more cross dissolves and transitions in my piece because I feel by adding these it makes the piece different and is a break from seeing scene after scene of the same thing. I have also speed up one of the shots in the video which I had not done in the previous edits and I feel that it really suits the piece and I may add some more of these speed up shots into my final piece. This is a almost finished version of my video so the final edit will be something similar to this video although there will be more effects added and possibly some of the scenes altered to make the flow smoother. I may also change the title of the video to Beyond The Sea because I feel this title suits the feel of the video more than Flip Reverse.

[willkettell]

Here is another edit of my experimental project Flip Reverse. I was unsure as to wither the dancey backing track I already have would work on the video and after some feedback on FaceBook I decided to try a different piece of music to go with the video. I have chosen to use a slower acoustic guitar track for this video and I am undecided on wither I think this works as well with the dance track. Although the soft beats of the song fit in well with the slow motion of the images I still feel that this piece of music makes my work not experimental enough and as the whole purpose of this module is to experiment with the work and I feel that if I used this track instead of my original one it would make the video safe and predictable. I will uploading another post later of a near finished version of my project.

[willkettell]

Here is the second edit of my experimental project Flip Reverse. Not much has changed from the previous edit expect I have cut some of the scenes smaller because I felt that they were dragging on to long and disrupting the pace and the feel of the piece. I also changed the music a bit and the start is slightly different because the video is blank for a few moments before the visuals appear. I have done this because it allows the audience to be surprised when the visuals show and if I had just started off with the visuals and the music together at the beginning then it would not be such a surprise to the audience as they know what to expect. I still want to do some more editing to this as I need to add titles and credits and I also still feel that some of the shots are still too long so I may cut down some of the scenes even more. I also may use a slower acoustic music track instead of the dancey one I already have because the slower track may work better with the slow visuals. I will be posting shortly with another new edit with the slower music and shorter scenes. 

[willkettell]

Here is the first edit of my experimental project. As I have explained before this a video of various shots of the seafront of Exmouth Beach and it's surrounding areas. I did not use the time lapse technique in this video as I had originally intended to because of time restraints and also because when I did a trail of time lapse it did not work out to well on my camera. This is just a rough edit and I will be including titles in the next edit session and I will also cut down some of the video's length's because I feel they are too long and tend to disrupt the moody feel I have for this project. There will be more to come but this is the very first edit of my project. 

[willkettell]

Experimental: The Research Part 4

Here is the fourth part of research for my experimental project. Because my piece has the beach and it's surrounding areas as it's backdrop I thought it would be important to see how it has been used in other forms of media. Nowadays music videos use a variety of different locations for the video to be set in but beaches have been a prime location. Even though I have researched a few beach themed music videos there is one that really sticks out and in my mind is the best video because it uses some of the techniques that I will be using in my own project. The video is for the song Pure Shores by the girl group All Saints and as the title suggests it is set in a beach like location and is also a song from the soundtrack of a film called The Beach which is again beach themed in it's narrative. What I particularly like about this video is the fact that some of the scenes in the video have been slowed down and edited which is something that I am using in my own project which. This effect really complements the moody and haunting feel of the music and this video really helps me with my own project because it inspires me to be able to come up with an original interpretation of an idea that has already been done and it also shows me that an idea like mine has been tried before so the project I am doing will be something that people may have seen before which is good because sometimes doing an out of the box idea does not always connect with the audience and by mirroring something that people may have already seen at least allows the audience to understand the concept of the piece.

Here are the links to the Pure Shores video and other beach themed videos that have helped me with my own project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJxG2wBmqLA (All Saints - Pure Shores)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3W6yf6c-FA (Duran Duran - Rio)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SeIJmciN8mo (Nicki Minaj - Starships)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_8ydghbGSg (Demi Lovato - Skyscraper)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9YHg07NLLc (Peter Andre - Mysterious Girl)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEhy-RXkNo0 (Rihanna - Man Down)

[willkettell]

Experimental: Research 3

Hey i'm back with a new update on my experimental project. So I went to Exmouth yesterday to film all the shots I needed (I will go into more detail about that in a later post) and it went really well although I ended up not doing the time lapse because I didn't have the right facilities on my camera to do this properly and also when I tried to do it earlier it didn't turn out correct on my camera screen. So in this part of the research I will be sharing some pictures of the beach and surrounding areas to show what kind of landscapes I will be using for my final piece. These images have inspired me because it shows me what can be done with these landscapes and also how these landscapes look when they have been shown in a large context. Even though I am not doing photographs for my final piece I still want to be able to see how my location choice has been used in other forms of media so I can see how they can appeal to the audiences. These pictures are all from Exmouth which the place where I shot my footage and shows what kind of scenery I was shooting.

[willkettell]

Experimental: The Research Part 2

Here is the second part of my research for my experimental project. After looking at other artist's who have done time lapses I decided that I would next look into time lapse's that have the beach as the setting because that is where my project will be set at and it would prove interesting to see what other people have done who are using the same narrative and themes that I have chosen. I decided to use the beach as my setting because there are so many places to go to film and you can capture a vast amount of different sceneries and also I think that the way that the waves crash and the sand moves in the wind will look really good slowed down in the editing. From viewing these time lapse videos it has allowed me to first of all see what else has been done and it also shows me that no one has really mixed slow footage in with time lapse which is what I want to do and so my project should be original and different to the other videos that are already available. Most of the videos I found on YouTube featured sunsets in their time lapses which is something I will not be including in my own project because of time restraints and also I feel that it would disrupt the moody feel I want the final piece to have.

Here are the links to the best YouTube beach inspired time lapse videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJbBnAAQI_A

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDnplbRsY8Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89y9phgG9yc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPVmoywA6XU

[willkettell]

Experimental: The Research Part 1

So here is the first part of the research for my experimental module.

When I came up with the idea to incorporate time lapse into my project I needed to see what else had been done in order to see what the time lapse should look like and whilst I was on YouTube i found the video artist's channel (http://www.youtube.com/user/webiocosm?feature=watch) which has lots of time lapse videos on there. Although I am unable to produce anything near these videos, because of the time restraints, these videos will help me with my own project because it first of all shows me what else has been done which will then allow me to come up with something more original. The artist's decaying fruit video (which is something I have tried to do in photograph form) are exceptionally good and the backing track to this particular video is also very dancey which is what my video will be like so it is great to know that what I want to do for my own project is not completely out of the box.

Here are a few links to what I think are the best videos on the channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyMtcDOikHo&list=UUFx4cHhLoO4USXfwx_fn6vg&index=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0fyfMKnwhw&list=UUFx4cHhLoO4USXfwx_fn6vg&index=6

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0En-_BVbGc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0xPt_jCFtU&list=UUFx4cHhLoO4USXfwx_fn6vg&index=18

[willkettell]

Experimental: The Idea

Hello everyone this is my online workbook of my experimental idea. Throughout these blog entries I will be writing and showing how my project is going. This first blog will be all about the ideas I had for this project and the final idea I will be working with.

So when this module started at the end of last year I did not have a clue what I wanted to do for it but once the module leader told us that the dance students would be interested in collaborating with some of us I knew that this would be something I would be interesting in doing. So I decided after much thought that I would film a ballet style dance but then slow it down in the edit to half it's speed and have a very fast paced dance track playing along side it to contrast the slowness of the visuals. I managed to get someone to make the music for me and it sounds really good and I made a test video using clips from YouTube and a song on my computer to show what I wanted to create but unfortunately I left it too late to get in contact with the dance students and by the time I did get in touch with them they were already involved in other projects which sadly meant they would be unavailable to work with me. So I then decided to try and see if I could get anyone outside of the university to help me but I got no luck so I have had to go back to the drawing board and come up with a brand new idea which I now also have to complete within a two week period.

Because I was so fixated with doing my original idea I did not have a back up in case my idea failed so I found it hard to come up with a new idea but I have finally come up with a project which I feel will still be as good as the one I had originally intended to do. So I thought I still wanted to use slow motion in my final piece and mix it with time lapse (which is a video technique where you take pictures every five or ten seconds for a period of time to create a slow motion feel that looks like it has been happening over time) and put these to together to make a video whilst still using the music that had been previously created for me. So on thursday I will be going to Exmouth (which is a costal town in the south west of Devon) and will be taking pictures and videos of the sea coming in and the sand dunes (hopefully the weather will be windy which will be perfect for this as it will add to the moody effect that I want this piece of work to have) and then I will edit them down and condense the pictures down to be faster and slow the footage down to make it slower and will play around until I have the piece of work that I need and that works.

This is the beginning of my project and I will be updating more and more about the experinces I have had on this project over the next few weeks.

[willkettell]

This is the interview that I had to reshoot for my documentary. I chose to reshoot this because it made the overall look of the film out of sync and was too dark and you could not see the interviewee's face properly. Unfortunately the sister I used for the original interview was unavailable so I had to use my other sister. As you can see from the footage the quality is much better and it fits in the documentary better.

[willkettell]

So here is the final version of my documentary. After weeks of interviewing, researching and baking loads of cakes it is finally finished. I am really pleased with how this turned out and when I showed them they seemed to like it which is always a bonus!!!!!! There are a few issues with sound and unexpected noises in the background but apart from that I am very happy with what I have produced and feel that this is a very professional piece of work and I have thoroughly enjoyed this module and I may continue to make more documentaries in the future. 

[willkettell]

Here is the interviews from my baking documentary. I decided to make a film of just these interviews to show what questions I asked and for the audience to see the interviews in full without any editing done. The first two interviews went really well and I think the framing and footage is really good but the last interview was shot at a different time of the day and as you can see it's too dark and grainy (and that's after I lightened it up in the edit) so I was unable to use it and re shot a new interview with a different person so I added this onto this movie because you wouldn't have seen this interview before because it's been cut from the final edit.

[willkettell]

This is the first edit of my documentary. It's not finished but I am currently working on a finalised version because there were some issues with one of the interviews being too dark and when I tried to brighten it up but it looked to grainy and upon watching it back with my tutor we decided that it looked too different to anything else I had shot and also I had the questions both written and spoken and it was too much to focus on so I have removed the written questions out so it makes it look more professional. I will post a video with all the interviews on here later so you can see what the interviews were like.

[willkettell]

Documentary Research Part 2

So here is the final piece of research for my documentary project. As all my other sources were internet based and so it sometimes means that it is not always reliable because you do not know if the information given is correct so I decided to look among my very vast collection of cookery books at home to get the last little bit of research needed.

The book is called Baking Made Easy by model turned chef Lorraine Pascale who has a specialised area within baking. The book is very easy to follow and has simple and easy recipes that anyone no matter how skilled they are they can do it at home. The main reason why I found this book to be a very good research source was because the author gives stories about certain recipes and tells the readers about any mishaps that have happened while trying to create the recipe which really let's the audience feel at home and feel like they can identify with the author and that mistakes happen and it can happen to people who are professional chefs. This source also really allowed me to get a feel for what is already available on the shelves and what people are reading.

This is a fantastic book not only to research on but to bake from as all the recipes are easy to follow and these personal anecdotes really make you feel that nothing is too scary and can be achieved just as long as you follow the instructions provided

[willkettell]

Documentary Test 1

So here is the first look at my documentary for Univertsity. As I have said before it is about Home baking and this just a little video with no sound that I am thinking of using as the introduction for my final edit. Because I want to use music and a voice over to go over the tops of these clips I have not decided not to use any sound for the moment but once I have written the voiceover and chosen the music this will be more polished but here is what I have come up with so far. I have also done two interviews and have edited them down but I have one more interview to get and once I have that and have edited it I will post a video of all the interviews I have done.

[willkettell]

Documentary Research (So Far)

For my newest media arts module I have to produce a documentary of a subject of my choice and it had to be something that I enjoyed. So after various ideas about what I wanted to do I finally decided to doing a documentary about home baking as baking is something I do regularly in my spare time and I really enjoy doing it and it has also become popular in recent years thanks to chefs like Lorraine Pascale and television programmes like The Great British Bake Off and it would be good to produce something that the subject matter is very much relevant to what people are doing nowadays. In order to get some background information and make sure that my idea was strong enough to make a documentary out of it I needed to do some research and I am going to now go through a little bit about the research I have already done and what has inspired me in making sure that my documentary will be the best it can be. 

So to start of my research I decided to first of all look to see if there are any personal websites or blogs that belong to people that have a passion in baking. I had a look on the Bakers Association Website (links for all material will be posted below) and the website provided me a great amount of information about how baking can be used by the masses and how baking is also a great educational tool for people to learn about and not just a hobby that you do in your spare time. I also looked at a blog called Happy Home Baking about an ordinary home baker who shares her recipes and experiences with baking on the internet for people to comment on and get ideas and inspiration on how they could improve their own baking. These websites gave me a very good idea about what audience I want my documentary to be aimed at and with the Happy Baking Blog is showed me how there is a big community out there of people who enjoy baking and feel happy enough to share their experiences with other people.

I also did a little background research on the television programme The Great British Bake Off which is the programme that inspired me to chose this subject matter for my documentary. Even though this won't give me much research in terms of how my documentary should work or look like it it does however gives me a very prime example of an pre existing show that is already popular with audience members and has really brought baking back into the forefront of people's minds and made baking fashionable again.

The current last two pieces of research I have found deal with the history of baking and how baking is enjoyed. There is an page on the television chef Delia Smith website that really proved interesting to read because she explains that people really enjoy baking and feel a sense of pride of being able to produce something that not only looks good but tastes good as well. I also found a very detailed history of baking from the Joy of Baking which goes into extreme detail about how all our favourite cakes, biscuits, breads and pies originated and how they have adapted over time. This was very useful as normally when you go to look for history of baking you would normally only find a brief summary about the subject but with this website it gave you a very detailed information on everything and anything to do with baking which for me was brilliant because it gave an real insight into how so many loved food was created and the reasons as to why it was created and this gives me the background information that I truly need to justify why I chose baking as the subject of my documentary. 

Links:

www.homebaking.org/index.html

happyhomebaking.blogspot.co.uk

www.deliaonline.com/how-to-cook/baking/delia-on-the-joys-of-home-baking.html

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b013pgnm

www.joyofbaking.com/History.html