Rough Cut Feedback

Now that the rough cut is finished we had the rest of the class look at our video and give us some feedback and advice. letting us know what they thought was good and the areas that would need improving. The overall conclusion of the group was that the shots used for instruments were good, everything seemed synced to the music (especially the drums), and the video flowed well but it was deemed that improvements would be needed since the class did pick up on a few:

• The lighting was pointed out by many people as being varied throughout the video and this needs to be corrected. the focus for our problem was how our lighting was not powerful enough for most shots, also the light coming through the window was sometimes too bright, obscuring the rest of the shot. Hopefully when we next film the natural lighting will be slightly less, if not we will have to edit the contrast of our shots.

• Another problem that was pointed out was how the singer didn't look into the camera alot and therefore didn't connect with the audience as much as the reviewer's liked. This will be easy to correct when rerecording and we'll have to replace some of the singers shot with this in mind.
  

• The opening of our rough cut was described as being 'jolty', we thought best that we re-film with a bigger and more interesting stained glass window in the church of which we saw in our photos of our first visit.
  

• We realised afterward that there were parts of the video where the signer or instruments fell out of sync with the music. So we thought best to sort this out after our second filming since we planned on getting new instrument shots.
  

With this feedback me and my group are happy with the results but understand that we have missed/lacked some aspects of which still needs improving or fixing. We are re-filming in the church again on the 5th of February, we plan on doing the following:

1. Re film the opening using the bigger stained glass window and less jolting
2. Re film singer shots we liked from the rough cut with better lighting
3. Film more shots of singer looking at camera
4. Film a close up of lips with the line ‘all my secrets away’
5. Film more varied shots of strings and fingers
6. Create more energy in chorus
7. Film faster cello shots so they look correct to the audience

Rough Cut

Secrets - Rough Cut from Jamie WGSB on Vimeo.

Rough Cut Editing Process

Now that my group had footage, we began to edit and sync it with the song, Secrets - One Republic. We used Final Cut Express on an Apple iMac8,1 Model to do this. I had to import the footage from the clips into the FinalCut database, this is when my group named each clip so we could tell which sections of footage were which, Then we moved them into the viewer and started to place clips into the timeline, but before we did this my group found that we need to lock the audio bar so that the music did not split.

We thought best for us to go chronologically through the video whilst using the animatic we made as our guide (as we had been doing when recording). The animatic was opened up along side out FinalCut project so that we could look at and adapt specific cuts and effects that we had used within our animatic.

With the beginning of the video we had previously planned that we wanted long drawn out, slow shots and slow transition effects to reflect the calmness of the music instead of using what we had done with the rest of the video, Straight Cuts.

You can see from the picture opposite the way we had to drag the fade effect into the space between two clips and then lengthen the fade so that it overlapped both clips it was between. The only other effect other than a fade that we used in the video was an additive dissolve, which gave the transition a glow as two clips overlapped each other.

When attempting to place the clip into the timeline of our project, we had to mark an input and output point on the clip we was watching in viewer for the few seconds of which we wanted to include. This gave us the ability to drag small clips of our original footage and then sync the song with our video easily.

After that process and my group had the clip that we wanted; we'd had to lock the first layer of video (V1) and insert the clip i wanted on to the above track (V2). This allowed us to get our timings where we wanted them and drop it into the track with ease.

One thing me and my group had trouble with was the lip syncing between our singer and the song itself. it took a lot of time and patience to get the video to match exactly to what you hear. Sometimes the clips were a fraction of a second out and this was very noticeable on the video. This is why we had our group constantly checking what we'd done.

Once we had gotten the timeline in to the right order, we had to edit the contrast and colouring of some shots, due to how the lighting slowly changed in the course of our recording, this was particularly difficult to do on Final Cut and the result meant that we would need to re-film some of our shots.

Equipment List

For our recording me and my group brought a lot of equipment to help us. We used:

• Sony Handycam DCR-HC62E

*Standard Definition video recording on affordable DV tape
*1 megapixel CCD sensor
*Carl Zeiss Vario-Tessar lens with 25x optical zoom / 2000x digital zoom
*Super SteadyShot for improved still image and video *stability, especially in low light
*1 megapixel still image recording onto removable Memory Stick
*2.7” Wide LCD touchscreen
*Wide colour viewfinder
*Start / Stop and Zoom buttons on LCD screen frame
*Up to 10 hrs
*STAMINA continuous shooting time (with optional battery)
*DV (i.LINK) connection (in/out) for video editing with connected PC

• Hand-held Inspection Lamp

*Used as adjustable spot light
*Good use for lighting up close up shots.

• Toshiba laptop

• JBL Ipod Dock

• A Samsung WB600 Camera

This Samsung Smart Camera had great quality and is comparable to professional cameras due to its functions and hardware:

* 12 megapixel
* 15x optical zoom lens.
* Wide angle view (24mm)
* USB connection
* Smart Auto 2.0 (Where it automatically recognises the scene your in and adjusts to it)
* Face detection
* Beauty Shot
* Scene selection (If you have a specific scene in mind)
* Dual IS (Stabilization increased)

• Cable Reel Extension Lead

* Four plug sockets
* 1M Cable

Shooting Schedule

With our plans for filming, we base it around when our band members are free, of which we worked out was mostly Sundays. So with this knowledge we know to ask the church if they are free on Sundays and so far they have been very helpful when working with us and for that we are thankful. So far our schedule is the following:

Our First Rough Cut Recording

On the right you will see a checklist that me and my group used to identify what we used to make sure we had all the equipment needed on the day of filming as well as to insure that we would keep everything from getting lost.

When we arrived the group started setting up the equipment right away whilst i was greeted by Reverend Martin, he told us that a trusted ex-warden would be available to help us at any time whilst he does some odd jobs around the church. Luckily, the warden was able to help us Light up the church and set up the equipment.

We set our selves up in a placement that had the most space and windows, which gave us a nice amount of natural lighting.

Our first priority within our filming was getting shots of Dan, the lead singer and the band as a whole. The main reason for this was due to how Dan would be leaving earlier than the rest of our group. So my group chose to focus on the instruments individually after he leaves us.

Each member of the group took it upon themselves to find a role to take. Jamie lead the filming and was mostly working with the camera, Elliot was making sure the lighting worked with our piece as well as checked on the mise-en-scene. I was working on the violin and double checked shots, told Jamie how we could shoot certain shots, kept in contact with warden and associate with him for assistance.

Next we made sure the band knew what they was doing so we showed them the animatic and set up our ipod music system so that the band members could play in time with the song.

When we started filming, we understood that the singer would be leaving earlier than the rest of the so we thought the logical thing would be to start with him, so we took a variety of close up and medium shots of the lead singer. we also started taking long-shots of the band as a whole. After the singer left we took close-ups onto the instruments and concentrated on them.

But as a whole we allowed the band to play through the song twice whilst my group continually filmed the band. This gave us a variety of shots over a small space of time and we didn't need to keep repeating certain lines. the main idea behind this was because the beats,chords and progression of the song was all in all very similar and so it allowed editing to become much more easier when we look back, after this we only went over certain things that would not be constant, such as the violin little part mid chorus and the singer in general.

As the natural light became dimmer we needed to rely more upon our own lighting source. So we asked the warden who was checking up on us if eh could help. He happily let us use a more powerful light bulbs and these helped us get a nice glow on instruments such as the cello and violin. We knew from the day of filming that we would need to schedule another day to record the lead singer since when looking at some parts afterwards it became clear that we needed the singer to look more into the camera.

The Band Members

Since things with our last recording, which went wrong, we needed new members due to some of teh regulars not being able to help us anymore, main cause begin school and work. So now we have a few changes;

• Mike
The Drummer

• Dan
The singer and now newly appointed guitarist.

• Olly
The Cellist

Alfie

The Newly Appointed Violist

Risk Assessment

The Holy Trinity Church

Once we secured a placement at 'The Holy Trinity Church' we was able to look around and choose where we wished to record our video, and asked the reverend some lingering questions that my group might of had. For example, we asked if we were allowed to move anything, where the exits are, light switches and other things.

Reverend Martin worked happily along side us and notified us that if there are any more questions or any problems that we should speak with the church wardens found in the cafe next door. I then asked him about any thing he wished to know. like 'St Michael's and all angels

church' he was mainly interested in the song and what it is about and if it had any blasphemy within the lyrics.

We took some photos of our recording area and the rest of the church to help give us an understanding of the area.

Here we noted the location for our church where we will be filming the music video. The church is accessible for everyone in the group and we will all be able to make it there easily.

Talking To Holy Trinity Church

As mentioned before, me and my group were planning on recording within a church called 'St. Michael's and All Angels Church' on the 30th of December. However, a few days prior to our shoot the vicar told us that the church would be under construction from the beginning of the new year and we would be unable to film in there again. In the end this meant that we had to change church and location.

So i went ahead and contacted a church called 'The Holy Trinity Church' within Dartford and to our delight they allowed us to film there within 15th January.

Once we go this church Jamie understood that we should look into risk assessment and so we started working on that and gettign our abnd together before deadline.