Leanne Stone
Year1 FMP
Weekly Evaluations
Week one: Week commencing 22nd February 2021
This week I got through making most of my Pitch presentation and was able to make my website for my Year 1 FMP. I started the main idea for my FMP, exploring how I would go about doing my project. I think the website and pitch creation went quite well as not only was I able to present it well but also explore my ideas further when creating these. I like how my idea has developed and the simplicity but effectiveness of my website design. I would have liked to get a little bit ahead with this this week and start watching films and shows to begin my research task. My priorities moving forward are to start my research and expand on my ideas so I know exactly what I need to do as right now I only have a general Idea. This will be done through articles and films etc. My main concern right now is that I will try and give myself a too bigger goal for what I want to create, this meaning I get each effect done but not to the professional standard that I want to create. To tackle this over the next week I will consider the effects that I want to do and how much time each of these effects will take to execute in a professional way. I'll spend my time creating a good plan so I can be ambitious whilst still having enough time to create an Industry standard project, and write-up reflectively.
Week two: Week commencing 1st March 2021
This week started with me finishing and refining my FMP pitch, updating it as I thought about more ideas that I could talk about. I did my Pitch on the Friday and throughout the week, along with filling in my Pitch Proposal document and making a reference list and GANTT chart, I was watching short films and looking at cinematography in some of the biggest Marvel films. The weekend, I made and sent out a survey to a few people I knew were interested in my Genre to find out more about, but also a couple to those who are not. I am proud of my pitch, as I feel it encapsulated my ideas and thoughts for my FMP very well. I am also happy with my survey as I feel I found out more influences I can review and what attracts an audience most to characters and films. This week I would have liked to have had the survey results written up and evaluated on and also reviewing some films on my contextual thinking tab, however I can start this the coming week. The biggest thing I have learnt this week is about making a good survey, when first starting my survey making, I struggled figuring what I wanted to find out from my audience exactly. However after getting it back I feel I now know which questions were more useful and therefore will be able to make a better survey in the future, I may even try another for this film. I feel my priorities moving forward for this week are to get a clearer idea on what will make my film reach the professional standard where people will want to watch it. My concerns surrounding this is that I may spend too long fixating on the kind of research I need to do in order to get the best results, therefore I will review my GANTT chart, refreshing myself on any important pieces of research, and by writing down the specific concerns I have, figuring out how I can resolve these and get my film moving along.
Week three: Week commencing 8th March 2021
This week I pushed ahead of my research, doing 15 pieces of primary research and sending off another piece of primary research that I wanted to do after looking at my secondary research. I extended some of the ideas from my pitch on the contextual thinking tab also, and most important developed a very clear, yet ambitious idea for my film. This was crucial to start understanding how I would pull my film off. I am very happy with how my secondary research went as I feel I covered most of the bases I could, and it really helped me to come up with many ideas and strategy's for my film. I would have liked to get some more primary research done this week however think I need to reach out to some smaller practitioners if I want to get a quicker interview opportunity or maybe review one of the interviews with practitioners we have had on zoom. I also did struggle a little of thinking of more primary research I could do, and therefore need to think about this this week. However I still learnt a lot this week about the qualities of a good film. I have been looking at the relationship between characters in films and studying about the connection they have being down to what they know about each other before unordinary things start happening to them. I have also found out new ways to plan, record but also more about the effects the pandemic has had on teens, which is something I want to comment on when thinking about my film narrative. My priorities moving forward are to firstly get my primary research expanded and written up on my tab and then to do some experimental research. I think that even if these experiments don't come out as well as I hope for, it will be a good indication of any improvements or changes I need to make to make my film feel realistic. My concern is that I won't have time to develop this look I am going for, therefore I want to get my primary and secondary research done as soon as possible so I can then spend as much time as needed on the experimental side of my research.
Week four: Week commencing 15th March 2021
This week I have contributed more towards my primary research. I have also set up and found everything I want/ need to do with regards to my experimental research, I have completed a couple of pieces of this already the biggest being the superhero landing which I was quite happy with the result on.
I feel my superhero landing went quite well, and beginning the foley experiments as getting started on that would have been the hardest part.
I would have liked to achieve more when looking at my experimental research. I was unable to do this as the experiments took longer than I originally thought they would. This will mean I need to think less about perfection in these experiments and more about figuring out what is needing to be done for my FMP.
This week I feel I learnt how to act independently when working in After Effects. Most of my work has been through following tutorials, this week I followed a tutorial that left a lot of room for my own adjustments and my work turned out better than it has before. I feel more confident in doing my own thing now.
I feel this week went somewhat well, it made me realise that time is a struggle as what I want to achieve is quite ambitious. My key concerns are getting everything thoroughly planned in hopes to record during easter, when my actors will all be free. This means that this week I need to get ahead on the experimental research and figure out the main ideas for my film, hopefully plan a little and start to get those who will be helping me on board with what I am planning to do. I need a lot of focus and drive this week to achieve this.
Week four: Week commencing 21st March 2021
This week, I focused on getting the experimental research I had planned to do so far done and I managed to do so. This included camera, after effects and sound experiments. I think this went well as I now have a much clearer idea of what I will actually be doing when filming and in post-production. I would have liked to start properly planning at least a little however I didn't manage to start this. I learnt a lot this week about skills in after effects, I even feel this week I have learnt how to confidently and independently work with minimal guidance from tutorials and websites. I feel my priorities moving forward are to get planning done for whatever I will need for filming. This is because my actors will all have more days off in the Easter holiday so it will be more convenient to film then. My concern is that this may be to little time to plan thoroughly and I want to make sure I have planned a lot here. To help this, I will get started planning as soon as possible and focus on the plan for what I need when filming first. I feel it has been a productive week overall.
Easter Holidays: 29th March - 11th April
In these two weeks, I have done a lot about towards my FMP. I started this week by finishing off my experimental research in the first few days. I feel I was busy with other things as well during these holidays and therefore started my planning a little later then I would have hoped. However, I managed to get all of the planning I wanted to do or thought would help before filming, before the end of the second week of the holiday. Due to this, I could complete what I wanted to by the end of the week, which was getting my filming done. I had three recording sessions, this was Friday night, Saturday morning and Sunday during the day. This means most of my filming is done, I was also able to record the dialogue and speech for my main characters which I was very happy with.
With regards to how the footage came out I am unsure if it was well, as I haven't had time to view it yet. However, filming was quicker then I thought it would be. This was good as I had a lot of shots planned and having this done puts me ahead of my schedule which is useful as I have been very ambitious. A lot of the shots were not executed as expected, and I feel the acting may down play what my vison was a little however these are smaller issues. I also feel the experimental research that I finished went well as I knew a lot of what to do when filming. I also feel the planning was quite in depth and everything I did was useful for knowing more about the theoretical and practical effects in this film.
The only thing I would have liked to also have done this week was the writing up behind my film. I feel I may have to think harder about certain details now I'll be writing about it next week. This is the only thing I didn't achieve however it was an added bonus therefore it doesn't cause a problem.
This week was my first week of feeling as I worked completely independently, this is because I used no tutorials and even regarding planning it was completely what I thought I needed. I have a learnt a lot from this. With regards to planning, I have learnt a lot about the smaller details. For example when feeling a little lost about what I needed to plan, a simple, quick mind-map really helped in singling out the particular things in this film. I also feel working with actors and other people was a challenge I didn't massively expect to have. I found portraying my visons harder than I thought it would be and therefore had to learn a lot about how to give people the same vison I have. I also found I had quite a few problem solving tasks, that included quick thinking while filming. This was new for me to think quickly about solutions to problems, however I feel I tackled this quite well.
I do not feel I have any major issues moving forward. My only concern is that I will be doing video editing next which includes challenges and scenes I haven't tackled before. For this I may have to look into tutorials in Premiere, however I do want to work as independently as possible and just play around with the filters and colour correction within Premiere.
Week five: Week commencing 12th April 2021
This week I managed to get up to date with writing up about my experience with production so far. This took a while as there was a lot I had done but not written up about. I also collected my footage together and made my first rough video edit. This was a clean cut of all the original footage arranged in the state I want them to run in, this would help me in knowing where I have to go next and creating that original file for my film.
I think my video edit went well, as I was able to properly assess and look at where I stood in making my film. Whilst not yet perfect, I was very happy with some of the timings I was able to create and how I was able to use scenes from different parts of my movie to create a different atmosphere. I feel the dramatic, fast pace was good, but there are some parts I need to try and extend usage of my footage to slow down the pace for a more emotional feel.
Although happy with what I have done, I would have liked to start actually editing my footage. There are quite a few scenes such as the flash-forward where I need to edit the original footage in premiere to give a darker background, or more dramatic effect. Preferably I would have liked to start experimenting with this.
I feel this week has taught me a lot about other things to do whilst filming that will greatly help the editing process. When editing my footage together I ran into lots of little problems with things such as focus and lighting, that interrupt and stand out in certain shots. However recording more footage on set and capturing as many shots as possible would greatly help this. I found myself turning to shots I thought I wouldn't use to help avoid these technical difficulties. I wasn't always able to do this, however will think about recording more shots on set when I film for another film in the future.
I feel my priorities moving forward are getting the original video edits in Premiere done. This includes the sped-up scenes and also the scenes I want to darken to make more dramatic. My overall plan is to focus on solidifying anything that is done outside of After effects, such as perfecting the timing and footage placement in my film before moving on to the VFX. My only concern here is that I haven't done much work on colour and actually filtering and manipulating footage in Premiere, however I feel watching tutorials and mainly just playing around with the settings I have previously learnt will eventually get me to where I wanna be.
Week six: Week commencing April 19th 2021
During this week I have got a head start on refining my video edit before I jump into heavy VFX with After effects. This included minor effects such as the phone dropping, the flash-forward and the speed-up scenes. This is my first proper rough cut of my film. Overall my actions this week have meant I will feel less pressured when it comes to after having done all the VFX shots as these little pieces of special effects will be done. This has given my project a better feel for what it will eventually be like. Everything I have been doing the past week has been quite new to me. I never really have thought about how to actually portray a sped-up piece of footage, or how to darken my scenes. I think the problems I faced this week were not in the practical work but in the logistics, actually knowing how I want to portray and present something before diving in and trying to sort out the effect, this result in lots of playing around with different ideas, which was in turn quite time consuming. My main method for getting over these problems was to simply use my own mind and what I had learnt, I want this project to be driven by me and portray what I have learnt, I also feel doing this independently is the best way for me to keep learning. Therefore there was a lot of messing around with different settings and numbers, seeing what genuinley works best visually. For example, I didn't know how to do the speed-up, so I experimented with the clock fading in and also it travelling across the scene, eventually deciding I like the fade better. In the last week, I have learnt a lot about the importance of a good colour in film, whilst this seems obvious, I did not take into account how using so many different colours throughout, with things such as the colour of a room, would effect the overall feel I was going for. Research is constantly inspiring me throughout this process however the key piece this week was the scene from The Force Awakens as it helped when visualising how to do the flash-forward. Looking at my new updated GANTT chart, I would say I am on track as I have just finished the bulk of video editing that I wanted to finish, now moving on to the VFX side of my film, this means next week I will jumping into After effects and creating my bigger effects, such as the energy ball, the arm, and the superhero landing etc. For this I will simply need After effects and maybe a few tutorials if I get stuck doing anything, I tend to struggle with focus so I feel to make sure I get this done efficiently I should have set times I can complete these things without other distractions.
Week seven: Week commencing April 26th 2021
During the past week I have been focusing on the visual effects. I have started work on things I was unsure on how to put across, this includes the lighting at the start of the night scene and what the portal is going to look like. This isn't as much as I would have hoped to get done however I have been invested in other commitments outside of college. Doing this has started to bring my film together, it has started making more visual sense. The problems I have faced have been with the programmes themselves. I have struggled trying to make the light effect look realistic with the feather in the mask, this was extremely time consuming as I kept going back over and checking it. I feel this is partly to do with me trying to find shortcuts in what I was doing. This was a very precise shot therefore I was able to solve it once I looked careful, comparing each frame to one another, this gave a smoother transition and in turn meant I had little room for error. This week, after looking into light, I have discovered ways I could've or can use a physical light (such as the strobe I had) to make creating the blue light in post more realistic, as when walking into the light now, you cannot see my characters skin reacting to the light, this would be very difficult to create in post. My main influence of research here was the experimental research I did on the portal and saw in the game, Portal 2. This meant I knew exactly what I wanted the portal to look like and best of all, how to create the effect. According to my GANTT chart, I am on track, however I feel I am running short on time to do the visual effects therefore over the next week I want to be doing a lot of visuals and catching up with what I feel I should already have completed. For this I will just need After effects, as I feel now I've got the effects I was more unsure on how to do out of the way, I can tackle the things I have practiced before. With regards to using my time effectively, I think I will need to give myself deadlines as I tend to be a perfectionist and check things over and over again, this is good however causes for a massive amount of time spent on one thing.
Week eight: Week commencing May 3rd 2021
This week I have continued working on the visuals in my film. I started by completing the lighting effect with the energy ball and the blue light coming from it, I then did the superhero landing effect as I knew this alone would take a little while. Lastly I did the neon sign which I wasn't planning to do this week however found a tutorial for. Overall this week has gotten me up to speed on my visual effects, my project is now piecing together and just watching it now, I feel you have a good idea of what is actually going on now. The only slight problem I feel I had with the college network issue is that the Friday we are in I a, able to get a lot done as I do tend to struggle more focusing when doing all my work from home. Despite this I do feel I had been able to work effectively at home as I have everything I need here, however towards the end of the week I did become ill, therefore wasn't able to get started on the next effects that I wanted to do. Problems I have faced this week have been mainly just decision making, looking at what visuals actually will look best for my film. This included what things to include in the superhero landing as well as how to create the neon sign look. The biggest software issue I had was the double up of my character mask which I consulted a tutor and we were able to notice it was that my mask had been dragged forward in the timeline too far. This week I have learnt a lot about the simplicity of effects, it is not how much is going on in the scene but what is going on and if it fits correctly. I have learnt this through the superhero landing as I had background effects I tried but just didn't fit due to major colour grading issues or just a bad pace. In turn my film is better off without the effects rather than with them. This week my progress was largely influenced by research as if I hadn't had done this research this whole process would have taken a lot longer. Because of my research I was able to independently do the superhero landing which saved a lot of time and due to already creating what I believed to be the perfect energy ball I didn't have to recreate this which also would have been very time consuming. Based on my GANTT chart I am just behind schedule as I didn't anticipate the actual time the visuals would take. Because of this my plan for the next week is to get the visuals done and completed. This will give me just under a week to complete audio which I feel will be good for the time scale I have tried to manage this in. The resources I will be needing are the same as always and I feel there isn't necessarily a best way to think about time effectiveness other then not spending too long on every shot as there is still a lot of shots to go from here
Week nine: Week commencing May 10th 2021
During this week I have very nearly completed all of my visual effects. I have tightened up what I have already done, completed the stone effect and also done most of the lightning effect. This has greatly impacted the overall project, putting me in a great place where I have time to think about audio. Looking at these effects in my project now, the film makes a lot more sense, this makes it easier to see what I need to do. I was able to work very effectively from home as I have been working on creating less distractions for myself, I also find myself being able to sit down for a longer amount of time a little easier. I have faced many software problems. The biggest and most time consuming being the mocha tracking data export issue, this took up the most time in solving overall. I overcame this first by looking at video solutions and websites and then got help from my tutor who gave me contact info of an ex-student. With that we were able to find not a perfect fix but a good solution. This week I have learnt mostly about problem solving and all the different ways we can use to find a solution, this includes research, reaching out to someone, experimenting and more. My progress hasn't been influenced by research this week as a lot of it was independent work and problem solving or learning new ways to do things. This was a very beneficial week for me however. Based on my GANNT chart I am a little off track as my visuals should have been done however looking at it now I feel I am on track and will be able to achieve what I am aiming for right now. Next week the plan is to finish my effects on Monday and do the audio through the next few days. I feel the audio wont take as long to start and will need more of a focus when being refined. I have all the resources I need and feel I have learnt to use my time effectively more this week by eliminating distractions and taking breaks, therefore I feel good about the progress of this film.