Graded Unit 2 Proposal

I recently completed the Proposal for my second year Graded Unit. This is our major project for the year that brings together all our learning and gives us our grade for the course.

The project will be another film, focusing around the time lapse technique. Following on from how well my last film was received I wanted to take all the stuff I learnt and have another go. All going well it will be completed for early May 2011. At the moment it's called "The Night".

Also if you haven't watched it yet, here's my first film:

Meadows Elms ENG

Here's my latest Electronic News Gathering Report. It covers the story of what is to happen to a group of diseased Elm trees in Edinburgh's Meadows area. Directed, Filmed & edited by me with a big thank you to Jamie Palmer for Presenting and Bob Hollinsworth for doing sound. Also a big thank you to Tom Cooper for being so helpful.



Also here's a low resolution copy of an ENG that I did camera for. This was filmed on the much smaller Sony HV-A1E camera. It's easier to carry around than the usual JVC GYHD-110 but not quite as much fun!

UPDATE: Edinburgh University Settlement Charity

UPDATE: Very excited to see this report is referred to on the Guardian Website & and linked on the Edinburgh Inspiring Capital Website. Exciting to see it doing so well!

Here's an ENG report on the Edinburgh University Settlement Charity which recently went bankrupt. I was Camera Operator for this report. It was a fun day and the Forest provided lots of opportunity to gather some nice GV's and interview footage.




Others involved were: Robert Motyka-Director & Edit, Ben Glasgow-Sound & Jamie Palmer-Presenter.

ENG: Health Inequalities

Here's my first ever Electronic News Gathering piece. It was filmed around Edinburgh for assessment in the ENG element of my course. I chose the subject, wrote the script in conjunction with the presenter & filmed & directed the piece. It was a time limited assessment. More to follow!

EDINBURGH: I finally caught it!

I finally managed to catch my film on the BBC Big Screen, which was pretty awesome! Here's a few shots!

Getting To Grips With New Kit

Over the summer I managed to get hold of a Canon 550D, an increasingly popular camera. I spent an afternoon down at the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh getting to grips with the camera and have posted the results below. It shows up a few technical issues, mainly aliasing, which can be seen in the roof of the Victorian Palm house and across a bench in a later shot. It's a learning process though and i'm very much enjoying experimenting. In the mean time, take a look!

EDINBURGH: Update

Well, a good few months have passed and I have to say I'm really pleased with how my Graded Unit film has been received. Not only did I get a good grade but Edinburgh has been shown at various college events as well as on the BBC Big Screen, on Lothian Road, in Edinburgh. The film has also had around fifteen new musical scores written for it by Students at Stevenson College. I was amazed by the quality of all of these and surprised by how much they added to the film. Hopefully I'll be able to add a few to my Youtube page in the coming months.

In the mean time it's back to college, Graded Unit 2 isn't far away!

EDINBURGH: Award Winning!!

I'm very pleased to announce that "Edinburgh" won the "Best Film - Audience Award" at the Filmhouse Show this week. It's great that my first film has received such a positive response and I owe a huge big thank you to all those that voted for me. 


It was also very nice to see a photo I took earlier in the year used in the program for the evening:

EDINBURGH: Online now!

Be sure and watch in HD (click the 720p option in the bottom right of the player). I hope you like it!

GRADED UNIT: Developing Stage Complete & Update

I'm pleased to say the Developing Stage of my Graded Unit is now complete. Edinburgh has been submitted to my College along with all the relevant paper work. Today I received  a licence to use the quote I had originally hoped to use at the start of the film, which I'm very pleased about. Hopefully that means I can upload Edinburgh to my YouTube page real soon. 

I'm now on to the Evaluation Stage where I've to produce a essay evaluating my performance in making Edinburgh. I'm also hoping to enter the film into a few competitions..

More news soon!

GRADED UNIT: Online soon!

The Graded Unit Development Stage is due for submission at the end of this week and so far (touch wood) things are on track. "Edinburgh" itself is complete. I was hoping to use a quote at the beginning of the film but obtaining permission for it is proving difficult and potentially costly so I may have to replace it in the final version. The DVD is complete and now in it's 3rd version, I'm testing it on different DVD players to ensure compatibility. I've had good feedback from my client and I'm now looking forward to uploading Edinburgh to various websites, which will happening within the next week!

Now... better finish that paperwork

GRADED UNIT: Production Stage Update

There’s now just under two weeks to go until hand in of the Production Stage of my Graded Unit. For me that means I have to have a completed edit of “Edinburgh”, presented on DVD as an FLV file for upload to Stevenson TV, along with a DVD video disk version, with menus and extra features. 

I’ve now completed a rough edit of “Edinburgh” and hope to have this approved by the client this coming Tuesday. I’m testing an early version of the DVD too, complete with extra features. I’m playing it on different TV’s and DVD players to see if any issues arise. So far I  have noted a need to darken the background on one of the menus to increase the clarity of the text. I am also still waiting on permission to use a quote at the start of the film. If I don’t get this soon I think I’ll write a quote with similar meaning myself. In the meantime, I’ve plenty of paperwork to be getting on with. Ooh before I go, here’s a screen shot from the current opening scenes.

GRADED UNIT: Filming complete (Almost)

So, I thought it was about time I added another short update on how things are going. Filming of the footage is now complete apart from one scene.. Possibly two if I get the time. It has been a time consuming process gathering the shots, transferring them to the computer (see picture) and rendering them into video footage. Overall i'm pleased with the results and looking forward to editing them into the final film.

I've enjoyed visiting some pretty places whilst capturing the footage and luckily the weather has been on my side. Without giving too much away about the locations I've used, here's a few "behind the scenes" shots!

I plan to begin the edit next week. I have received a licence for the music I wish to use but am not having quite so much success gaining permission to use a short quote at the beginning of the film, so I'll need to wait and see how that turns out. The first draft of the edit should be complete around the 23rd April so expect further news around then!

GRADED UNIT: Planning Stage Complete & Teaser

Yesterday was submission day for the planning stage of my Graded unit. My work has been handed in and I now have a good idea of the filming schedule, the locations I'll be using and the storyboard. It's now a case of waiting for a few location permits and making sure I can work the equipment well on filming days (the last time I attempted a test shoot I lost ALL my footage due to a formatting error).

In the mean time, here's a teaser of what's to come.. Be sure and watch in HD for the best quality.

GRADED UNIT: Planning stage review.

With two and a half weeks to go until submission of the planning stage of my Graded Unit, things are busy, but going well. Following ongoing location reccies I have been in contact with various organisations, including Film Focus and Edinburgh Council, gaining permission to film at certain locations around the city. I hope to commence this is in April once my planning work has been approved by my course leaders. I have also been in touch with a representative of Stevenson.tv with a view to showing the final film on their website. 

On the technical front I have obtained an intervalometer to allow me take photographs at timed intervals and I’m beginning to practice with this and a D-SLR camera to find the best ways to use it. I have also been looking at how to maintain the utmost image quality from camera to final output and am investigating new ways to merge the images into a movie file. This involves the use of different software including Toon Boom & Adobe Premiere Pro. Here’s a short montage of my work so far:

GRADED UNIT: Proposal

Along with other course work and projects, I am currently working on my Graded Unit. We were initially introduced to this section of the course in January 2010 and were required to hand in Draft Proposals of ideas on the 16th of February 2010. I handed in three proposals. After discussing these with my tutors and colleagues a decision was made to go with the proposal of a short time lapse film called “Edinburgh”. 

I will research the techniques and methods of creating time lapse movies and then shoot, animate, edit and author the project to DVD. 

I hope to contact the relevant authorities and gather time lapse scenes from various locations around Edinburgh, both inside and outside the city. I hope that the end product will be 3 to 5 minutes in length and roughly follow a 24hr period of real time. I intend the music to be provided by moby gratis (link) or students from Stevenson’s Music Department. As well as being authored to DVD I hope that the final film will also be uploaded to the Stevenson TV website (link).

I have already begun experimenting with equipment and begun to gather test time lapse footage. I hope to upload an example of this soon. 

SOLUS: A great little 3 minute film

Here's a film made by a friend at college. I was lucky enough to get the chance to do the camera work for it too.

What's Happening?

Last Saturday night, some colleagues and I began the process of making a music video. This is a really exciting project that is independent of my college work. The initial shoot was of the band performing live, and we'll now move on to film them specificallyfor the video. Our company is Dog Biscuit Media (check out the logo!), and the band is called Death Trap City. They're exceptionally talented and you can check out their work here.

New Photos & A Beautiful Video.

I've updated my Fickr account with some new photos. You can see them by clicking here. Also, whilst you're here, check out this time lapse of Dubai that I came across. It's called Sky and it's stunning. I think I may use this as inspiration for my Graded Unit.


Sky from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

PROJECTIONS...

Just a quick update to add something that interests me. Thanks to Robert for pointing this out. I love these visuals, below is a copy of the projections as they looked on the night, and of the source footage. Very, very, lovely stuff:





SOURCE FOOTAGE
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The Pyramid from BARTEK Videokidz on Vimeo.

RichTeaV Photography

Having just begun our photography module, we've been asked to investigate photographers and their styles to help inspire and inform us ahead of creating our own collection of photos. Whilst I'm not sure which photographers I'm keen on just yet, I know I like the use of depth of field and perspective. I also like the techniques of HDR and Tilt-shift. Put simply HDR is a collection of several photos of the same scene, taken at different exposures and later merged together to create a photo with greater dynamic range, hence high dynamic range (HDR).  Here's one of my first attempts:

Tilt-shift can be achieved in a variety of ways: You can use specialist equipment that appears to be a swivelling lens, you can make your own swivelling lens out of some household equipment, or you can have a go at mimicking the effect in photoshop. Either way the goal is to end up with a real life scene looking toy like, or miniature. Here's my attempt followed by a video version taken at Disney.

Better versions of my photos are available on my Flickr page.

RichTeaV Gets a Marketing Department

I recently discovered a great little company called Moo, They do all sorts of cool stuff, but best of all you can create a book of 90 stickers for £4.99. It’s pretty simple to do and a fun thing to have. Prepare to get stuck!

I also came across QR (Quick Response) codes, they’re a kind of 2 dimensional barcode that was created back in 1994. Apparently they’re very popular in Japan. QR codes can be used as a kind of hyperlink to connect to a website, or provide you with a message or contact details. QR code generators are available free to use on the Internet and it’s easy to make your own. Here’s one for this very blog:

The software to read this image apparently comes as standard on some phones but can be downloaded for free to a computer or smart phone.  QR App, for example, is available free for the Iphone. Simply open the app and point your camera at the code. Go on, give it a go!

It's Not All Work, Work, Work

My interest in all things AV goes beyond  work and there’s some incredibly good acts out there that use visuals and sound to amazing effect. Here’s someone I’m a great fan of:

Here’s someone I’m very excited about seeing live, just down the road, next weekend:

Exciting Stuff

Via College i've had the opportunity to help out a very talented VJ and graphic designer, Robert Motyka.  Though he’s involved in many different projects I’ve been helping him set up and watching the process as he creates visuals for a monthly club at the GRV in Edinburgh.

 

It’s looking likely we’ll work together on some future projects both inside and outside of college, an exciting prospect, so watch this space!

Making The Most Of Things

As well as the experience I've gained within College, the people I've met have also opened up opportunities outside of Stevenson. In late 2009, I had the chance to be a runner on a music video shoot. This was a really valuable experience for me; getting to see how a shoot operates and the equipment used in the industry today. I helped rig and de-rig equipment, operate some equipment, make lunch and many other bits and pieces. Here’s the finished video:

Later in the year I was also an extra or, as josh would say, a band member when  Saatchi and Saatchi came to Edinburgh to Promote T-mobile and Josh's Band. This was the biggest production I’d seen so far with lots of extras and lots of crew. Again, watching how it all worked and how it came together was really informative. As well as that, If you’ve a keen eye and a good pause button I’m famous too!

The Story So Far

It's now February, and Semester Two of my Audiovisual HND has just begun... But, before we get to that, there's some catching up to do. I've already completed modules on Social Videography, Animation, Lighting, Camera Work, Editing, Sound Reinforcement, Multi-Media Computing and Audiovisual Technology. These were all great fun and there's a few things I can show you as a result. 

Our assessment for Camera Work, Sound Work and Editing was all rolled into a 3 min Project. We took turns to film, light, record sound or direct and edit. We were given little constraints, just that the project had to be precisely three minutes in length, be preceeded by clock and bars (i've removed these for YouTube) and it had to fit the the theme "All Change". Here's what I did when I was director/editor:

For the Animation Module, we were tasked with creating a short animation using a technique of our choosing. To meet the brief, the animation was to be a minimum of ten seconds In length but otherwise we were free to do as we wished. This was my first go at being an Animator, and here's what I did:

In addition to the two videos above, I created a Ten Minute Social Videography Project based around a Christmas show at a school for children with social, emotional and behavioural problems. This was intended as a personal record for the school and for those in the show and, as a result, i'm unable to post it online. I also did a short talk on Augmented Reality which I hope to put onto the blog in the future. Lastly, as other people on the course worked on their projects, I had an  opportunity to work as a cameraman and sound recordist. As these films become available, I'll post links on this blog, but for now I hope you enjoy my Vox Pop and Animation.

In The Beginning.

Hello! Welcome to my blog.

Pre 2009, my work life was spent developing a career in social care. However, a suspicion that it wasn't quite what I was looking for, or what I imagined I'd end up doing, was beginning to grow. I've always had an interest in computers, gaming, home audio equipment, display technology and photography. After some searching, I came across a great course right on my doorstep; Audiovisual Technology HND at Stevenson College. After visiting the College I was really keen on the course, and was later lucky enough to get a place. I've now begun the course and continue to enjoy it a great deal. This blog will help document the work I'm doing as I journey away from Social Care toward my audio visual future!