Coursework

Technology

When I was making my music magazine last year, the first thing I had to do was take photographs of my model of which I planned to edit and then add to my music magazine; writing about them. Due to my alternative appearance and interesting clothing I used myself as the model. It was essential to make sure the lighting was to its greatest potential to insure the best quality images. The lights used for this were made by Interfit. The Canon EOS 550D,which were linked up to the lights, allowed for the quality to come out looking good enough to pass as images that you'd find within a genuine magazine. used a to take pictures of myself. When I was happy with my pictures, I used Photoshop to edit them. I used the magic rubber tool to edit out the background, and the refine edges tool to soften the edges of the images so they don’t look as jagged as they did before. This was the first time I ever used Photoshop, but I soon got the hang of it.

By using a font I found on dafont.com, I used the colour tool in Photoshop to alter the colours, to make the font look more like a logo, and to incorporate the colours I wanted to use as a running colour scheme for my magazine; green and black. After this was done, I used InDesign to create my magazine. Like my peers, I was new to using InDesign. The program used made setting out and creating the magazine a lot easier than I had previously imagined it to be. I began by adding in a suitable image of myself that looked best for my cover, and when I was happy I adjusted its position till I was happy with it, and then I added in my logo above it. By using another font that I found on dafont.com I was able to create a headline on the front cover. After this I created text boxes informing the reader of what would be featuring in the magazine, as well as adding in small things to make the magazine cover look more authentic, like a barcode, a price tag etc.

When I came to creating the actual article, I started by creating a headline and a subheading at the top of the page using the same font that I used for the headline on the front of the magazine, which I coloured green and put within a black box that stretched along the top of the page, with black drips dripping down from it, of which I created in Photoshop.  I pasted my article onto my blank double page spread and by using the span column tool, which allowed for columns to be made so that the article was clearly that of a magazine rather than just a text, so I used the split 3 tool to break the text up into three columns to give it a more authentic look. After this I selected an image of myself that looked suitable for my article and placed it into the document, then resized it to the size that worked best for the article. After this, I read over the article for the most suitable quote to use as a pull out quote and when I had found it, I copied and pasted it into a text box, made it larger, and changed its colour. By using text wrap on the text, I was able to fit the text around the image and the pull quote which not only was essential for actually being able to read the article, but also made it look more like a genuine article.                                                                                     

This year, my short film required a lot more editing than my magazine did. I began working on my short film by recording creating the audio track for it. The audio began with me working with Craig, the actor who played the protagonist Marshal Mallow, to make sure that the entire narration was perfect for how we wanted it. This took a couple of recordings as there were certain things we both didn't like with the original; for example some parts he spoke without enough enthusiasm and it meant that the joke wasn't delivered as well as it could have been. As Craig lives right near Heathrow, this meant that we had to record the audio after midnight when the planes had stopped flying. Then, by using WavePad Sound Editor, I was able to remove any unwanted sounds, such as breathing, coughing, unwanted crackle etc. I then cut up the audio into a few different sections, to distinguish each scene or shot.

After finding suitable copy-right free music, most of which came from Kevin MacLeod (The ones I used were 'The Devil Rides Tonight' (Which I used for the main title and the montage scene), 'I Knew That Guy' (Which was used for the section where Mallow was in his office alone for the beginning), and 'Black Stockings' (Which was used for Lotta's theme.)) These songs were also cut to size within the edit. I also used 'We're in the Money-The Gold Diggers Song' from the movie 'Top Hat', however I adjusted the speed and pitch to make it more comical, as well as only using a small section of it.

I then had to find suitable sound effects. The Diagetic Sound Effects had to be sourced, edited, and slotted in to match the footage. These included a DC3 propeller plane, which had to appear to be coming closer, louder, then moving away as it circled the globe of the One Rehearsal Ident  sequence. Then there was the electrical short of the "neon sign with a nervous tick", which was a single, short spark sound effect, with I copied and arithmetically looped, to form the continuous sound throughout the office sections.  This had to rise in volume when Mallow, the camera, and the audience's ear, were closer to the window. Then there was the creaking wooden door, which similarly had to be louder when Lotta opened the door, as the camera was closer, than it was when she closed it during the two-shot. There were also various sound effects like a match being struck and the sound of Marshal's leg hitting the chest of drawers which were added in as the footage looked bare without it. Finally, there was the freight train sound, with added doppler effect, and the specific sound of a gun being fired. All of the sound effects in the entire film were added in.

MixPad to mix the various clips and create the complete soundtrack - tracks including the Voice Over, Main Theme Music, Incidental Music, Foreground Sound Effects, Ambient Background Sound Effects, and the In-Camera Recorded Dialogue. All of these specific effects had to be precisely placed, and balanced for sound in with all of the other layers, so as to be audible, without overshadowing anything important.

The Background Ambient Sound Effects Track was dedicated to the sound of traffic outside Mallow's office.  For this, I had to source the sounds of a variety of different car horns and engines from the era (1930s/1940s), together with police sirens, trams, bicycles, and  such like, and layer them to create a realistic soundscape.  No two vehicles are repeated, yet the sound runs throughout. Like the neon sign, the traffic ambiance has to rise in volume when Mallow is at the window, and also when his office door is open.

Finally, the dialogue, recorded on the camera mic, had to be extracted, run through WavePad to convert it to mono and add the 'old fashioned' sound, then dropped into this soundtrack as the final track of the five, but precisely, so that the background music of Lotta's Theme exactly matched that playing was already playing as a separate track, so that the later could be faded out without any noticeable jump in the sound.

From here, all I had to do was to match the audio file with the video. However, while editing the footage I noticed that the transition the dialogue in each shot would sound odd; and sometimes the dialogue would over lap when I was trying to make the audio continue from one clip to another; so in Adobe Premier Pro I used the 'Constant Gain' tool to make the transition a lot smoother as this made the audio fade seamlessly over each other. After this, the error was almost completely unnoticeable.

Editing the visuals was a much easier process after I had the soundtrack. As the camera's mic was only needed for the dialogue scene, most of the filming was done in a music video-esque style. What I mean by this is that we played the audio out loud while filming so that the actors knew what to do at certain points. This made it incredibly easy for me to match the footage to the soundtrack as the actors were perfect in keeping in time with the soundtrack, so all I had to do was listen to the soundtrack left on the footage and put the footage inline with the actual soundtrack. Of course, this did not flow perfectly, but it did make the editing process significantly easier.

I used Adobe Premier Pro to edit the visuals for my video. As I filmed my movie in 'mono' and created the effects myself by lowering the amount of light the camera picked up on the actual Canon EOS 550D, I did not have to add any effects to make the film look Film Noir in post-production.

I used the 'Cross Dissolve' effect to fade the 'One Rehearsal Pictures' Ident in and out at the beginning from black, to black again. This helped to replicate and parody the 30's 'Universal Pictures' Ident. I also used this to fade between shot 3.1 and shot 3.2; the shot of Marshal Mallow lighting the cigarette and the shot of him knocking his knee against the chest of drawers. I did this for two reasons. 1) Fading is a very conventional method used in Film Noir so I felt that it was necessary for me to use it at least one during the actual footage rather than just the film's ident, and 2) shot 3.1 is significantly darker than shot 3.2 so to have it immediately cut from one to the other didn't look right, and was, to me, a clear movie error.

I used the 'Luma Waveform' to make the sure that the black surrounding the Globe in the 'One Rehearsal Pictures' ident was completely black as before the background was ever so slightly noticeable. I also did this to make the parts of the walls of the alley that, Lotta was walking down, that the light didn't touch darker, and the parts that the light did touch lighter. This made the contrast of light and dark greater, and conventionally Film Noir. This also lit up the rain more and made it more clear; light shining on the rain is also very conventionally Film Noir.

I used the 'Brightness and Contrast' tool to make the opening sequence darker, as before hand it was noticeable that I filmed a screen. I also did this to make the shot of Mallow running through the tunnel, in the Montage sequence, darker as this made emphasised the shadows greatly, making it a lot more conventionally Film Noir.

Finally, there were many shots where I had to change the speed of the footage. The obvious one is the sped up shot of Mallow tidying his office, but I also had to change the speed of footage at various other points. For example, in the scene where Mallow is describing the way Lotta's looks, the camera zooms into her eyes when the narrator (Mallow) says "Her eyes were the kind of green that would make envy jealous..." the actress looks up towards the camera as the word "eyes" are said, as well as lifting up her eyebrows when the word "money" is mentioned. However despite the timing of this matching perfectly with the audio, the actress reacts by opening her mouth in shock before the narrator says "As for her breasts". I got around this issue by cutting the footage into two halves, the first half was from the beginning of Mallow's description of Lotta's appearance up until the description of her lips, and the second was from the end of the descriptions of her lips up until the end of the description of her breasts. For the latter, I slowed down the frame rate ever so slightly so that the actress reaction was in time with the audio, but not too much so that it is noticeably slower. The result was unnoticeable as the footage looked the same speed as before, despite the timing now being a few seconds slower.

Creativity

I began the course with a preliminary task; to create a cover and a contents page for a school magazine. The quality of which was very poor, as I had a weak prior knowledge of the layout and content of a magazine. The magazine was very bland and generic, and I have always seem the breaking of conventions as being more artistic than to make a generic magazine so for my genuine music magazine piece I decided to make a Gothic Rock magazine for two reason. The first being that it was a less generic genre than pop or rock, due to it being more specific, and secondly because of my appearance and Camdon-esque clothing I was able to dress up like a Goth Rock artist. As the genre was Gothic Rock, I decided to go onto dafont.com and find a selection of different horror-esque fonts, of which I tried out with the magazine's title "Nocturne", and from them decided on the one that best looked like a logo for a Gothic Rock Magazine. From that, I used the colour tool in Photoshop to alter the colours, to make the font look more like a logo, and to incorporate the colours I wanted to use as a running colour scheme for my magazine; green and black. After this was done, I used InDesign to create my magazine. Like my peers, I was new to using InDesign. The program used made setting out and creating the magazine a lot easier than I had previously imagined it to be. I began by adding in a suitable image of myself that looked best for my cover, and when I was happy I adjusted its position till I was happy with it, and then I added in my logo above it. By using another font that I found on dafont.com I was able to create a headline on the front cover. After this I created text boxes informing the reader of what would be featuring in the magazine, as well as adding in small things to make the magazine cover look more authentic, like a barcode, a price tag etc.

When I came to creating the actual article, I started by creating a headline and a subheading at the top of the page using the same font that I used for the headline on the front of the magazine, which I coloured green and put within a black box that stretched along the top of the page, with black drips dripping down from it, of which I created in Photoshop.  I pasted my article onto my blank double page spread and by using the span column tool, which allowed for columns to be made so that the article was clearly that of a magazine rather than just a text, so I used the split 3 tool to break the text up into three columns to give it a more authentic look. After this I selected an image of myself that looked suitable for my article and placed it into the document, then resized it to the size that worked best for the article. After this, I read over the article for the most suitable quote to use as a pull out quote and when I had found it, I copied and pasted it into a text box, made it larger, and changed its colour. By using text wrap on the text, I was able to fit the text around the image and the pull quote which not only was essential for actually being able to read the article, but also made it look more like a genuine article.                                                                                     

This year, my short film required a lot more in terms of creativity than my magazine was. Instead of being unconventional like I was with the magazine, this year I decided to parody as many conventions of Film Noir as I could fit into my short film. I decided to parody the 1930's-40's Universal ident by purchasing a globe and having the words "A One Rehearsal Picture" on the side of it, with a model plane stuck to the side of it; the same plane model that the universal logo used. I attached some white thread to the globe which acted as a pulling system and due to the harsh lighting, on camera the thread was almost invisible. I scripted a scene where the fem fatale's silhouette is projected against a glass panel outside of the detectives office, however I did not have a door that could even slightly resemble one so I bought a cheap door, painted it dark brown and cut out a panel to leave a gap large enough to fit in a window. I was unable to find a cheap enough window that had frosted glass, so I decided to get a large piece of tracing paper with the words "Marshal Mallow Private Dick Investigator" written on it. When the tracing paper was stuck over the hole in the door and was lit from behind it looked just like glass, and in fact made the silhouette project against the paper and become crisp rather than blurred, of which the glass would have probably created. Instead of creating the films titles in post-production, I decided to take a still from some spare footage I had that never made the final cut, and I superimposed the titles and the credits over the top of it and then filmed the computer screen. This is an old fashioned cinema technique, apart from they would have filmed an image with clear titles over it rather then a computer screen. This gave the text a glow which was common of the titles in Film Noir. 

Research and Planning

I began the course with a preliminary task; to create a cover and a contents page for a school magazine. The quality of which was very poor, as I had a weak prior knowledge of the layout and content of a magazine. So, when I came to actually creating my music magazine a lot of planning and research had to go into it before creating it to insure that I could make a product that appears as authentic as I was capable of creating. This began with me picking a suitable genre for my magazine; of which I picked Gothic Rock as it was more original. I researched music magazines of similar genres, such as Metal Hammer and Kerrang! in terms of the layout of the magazine, it's content as well as the general tone of the magazines; which is often quite comical. After this I created a proposal for my magazine as well as deciding on it's target audience. This was the groundworks of how the magazine would look, what the tone of it would be like, and what the magazine would contain. I looked up music magazine names and the fonts and styles that have been used to make their logos and decided to call mine 'Nocturne' using a Horror-esque font to portray the genre of the magazine, but before I came to the decision of which font to use I made various different versions using different fonts and then picked the best. My magazines base colours, it's layout and even certain things added in such as black drips dripping down the page were all directly taken from a specific magazine issue of Metal Hammer that I bought that was focused heavily on Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie: Two contempory artists of the Genre in which I based my own magazine. After this was done, it was time for me to take my photographs of my model of which I planned to edit and then add to my music magazine; writing about them. Due to my alternative appearance and interesting clothing I used myself as the model. It was essential to make sure the lighting was to its greatest potential to insure the best quality images. After this, I created the article. This consisted of an interview between a made up spokesperson for the magazine and the magazines main artist, Nessah Vendetta. 

This year, after deciding that short film was the best thing for me to do, and deciding that I wanted to replicate the cinematic style of Film Noir, I began planning for my coursework by researching the history of short films, and the genre of film noir, what influenced film noir as a genre, film noir directors, the theory behind film noir and conventions of Film Noir. After this, I created an initial plan for what I wanted to do, deciding on a basic story that I was to later flesh out ans script, and also deciding that I would not only replicate Film Noir, but parody it and create a comedy. After this I researched short film companies as well as international short film festivals to get more of a knowledge of short film it's self rather than just the genre I was going to replicate. Therefore, I also looked up short films online for influence and inspiration to help flesh out my film in terms of camera techniques. By looking at where some of these short film makers found their music, I stumbled across the royalty free music of Kevin McLeod who happened to create scores for Film Noir which were perfect for my short film. I also looked at previous Haydon students short films to get a general idea as to what I was capable of creating as I was sure that I'd either under of over estimate my own potential. I also looked into film noir film posters specifically rather than just film posters as whole as they're very stylistic and distinctive to the genre, so I wanted to then replicate it by Photoshopping stills taken from the film to look as if they were painted as well as finding the right fonts for it as well as the right layout of the text. In terms of the film magazine, I looked at generic ones rather than specific ones as the style of film magazines tends to be more simplistic then that of music or fashion. 

Post- Production

I began the course with a preliminary task; to create a cover and a contents page for a school magazine. The quality of which was very poor, as I had a weak prior knowledge of the layout and content of a magazine. So, when I came to actually creating my music magazine I made sure that my knowledge of magazines was more advanced so that when I came to actually producing my actual music magazine, it would look more authentic. I picked Gothic Rock as the genre that I was going to theme my music magazine as as it was more original than most other genres. When I was making my music magazine last year, the first thing I had to do was take photographs of my model of which I planned to edit and then add to my music magazine; writing about them. Due to my alternative appearance and interesting clothing I used myself as the model. After I had chosen what pictures I wnated, and had edited them, they were ready to be added to the magazine. 

But first I had to make a logo for my magazine. By using a font I found on dafont.com, I used the colour tool in Photoshop to alter the colours, to make the font look more like a logo, and to incorporate the colours I wanted to use as a running colour scheme for my magazine; green and black. After this was done, I used InDesign to create my magazine. Like my peers, I was new to using InDesign. The program used made setting out and creating the magazine a lot easier than I had previously imagined it to be. I began by adding in a suitable image of myself that looked best for my cover, and when I was happy I adjusted its position till I was happy with it, and then I added in my logo above it. By using another font that I found on dafont.com I was able to create a headline on the front cover. After this I created text boxes informing the reader of what would be featuring in the magazine, as well as adding in small things to make the magazine cover look more authentic, like a barcode, a price tag etc.

When I came to creating the actual article, I started by creating a headline and a subheading at the top of the page using the same font that I used for the headline on the front of the magazine, which I coloured green and put within a black box that stretched along the top of the page, with black drips dripping down from it, of which I created in Photoshop.  I pasted my article onto my blank double page spread and by using the span column tool, which allowed for columns to be made so that the article was clearly that of a magazine rather than just a text, so I used the split 3 tool to break the text up into three columns to give it a more authentic look. After this I selected an image of myself that looked suitable for my article and placed it into the document, then resized it to the size that worked best for the article. After this, I read over the article for the most suitable quote to use as a pull out quote and when I had found it, I copied and pasted it into a text box, made it larger, and changed its colour. By using text wrap on the text, I was able to fit the text around the image and the pull quote which not only was essential for actually being able to read the article, but also made it look more like a genuine article.                                                                                     

This year, my short film required a lot more work in terms of post production than my magazine did, however after the soundtrack was completed; which consisted of the music score, the narrations and sound effects, editing the visuals was a much easier process after I had the soundtrack. As the camera's mic was only needed for the dialogue scene, most of the filming was done in a music video-esque style. What I mean by this is that we played the audio out loud while filming so that the actors knew what to do at certain points. This made it incredibly easy for me to match the footage to the soundtrack as the actors were perfect in keeping in time with the soundtrack, so all I had to do was listen to the soundtrack left on the footage and put the footage inline with the actual soundtrack. Of course, this did not flow perfectly, but it did make the editing process significantly easier. I used Adobe Premier Pro to edit the visuals for my video. As I filmed my movie in 'mono' and created the effects myself by lowering the amount of light the camera picked up on the actual Canon EOS 550D, I did not have to add any effects to make the film look Film Noir in post-production.

I used the 'Cross Dissolve' effect to fade the 'One Rehearsal Pictures' Ident in and out at the beginning from black, to black again. This helped to replicate and parody the 30's 'Universal Pictures' Ident. I also used this to fade between shot 3.1 and shot 3.2; the shot of Marshal Mallow, the films protagonist, lighting the cigarette and the shot of him knocking his knee against the chest of drawers. I did this for two reasons. 1) Fading is a very conventional method used in Film Noir so I felt that it was necessary for me to use it at least one during the actual footage rather than just the film's ident, and 2) shot 3.1 is significantly darker than shot 3.2 so to have it immediately cut from one to the other didn't look right, and was, to me, a clear movie error.

I used the 'Luma Waveform' to make sure that the black surrounding the Globe in the 'One Rehearsal Pictures' ident was completely black as before the background was ever so slightly noticeable. I also did this to make the parts of the walls of the alley that, Lotta was walking down, that the light didn't touch darker, and the parts that the light did touch lighter. This made the contrast of light and dark greater, and conventionally Film Noir. This also lit up the rain more and made it more clear; light shining on the rain is also very conventionally Film Noir.

I used the 'Brightness and Contrast' tool to make the opening sequence darker, as before hand it was noticeable that I filmed a screen. I also did this to make the shot of Mallow running through the tunnel, in the Montage sequence, darker as this made emphasised the shadows greatly, making it a lot more conventionally Film Noir.

Finally, there were many shots where I had to change the speed of the footage. The obvious one is the sped up shot of Mallow tidying his office, but I also had to change the speed of footage at various other points. For example, in the scene where Mallow is describing the way Lotta's looks, the camera zooms into her eyes when the narrator (Mallow) says "Her eyes were the kind of green that would make envy jealous..." the actress looks up towards the camera as the word "eyes" are said, as well as lifting up her eyebrows when the word "money" is mentioned. However despite the timing of this matching perfectly with the audio, the actress reacts by opening her mouth in shock before the narrator says "As for her breasts". I got around this issue by cutting the footage into two halves, the first half was from the beginning of Mallow's description of Lotta's appearance up until the description of her lips, and the second was from the end of the descriptions of her lips up until the end of the description of her breasts. For the latter, I slowed down the frame rate ever so slightly so that the actress reaction was in time with the audio, but not too much so that it is noticeably slower. The result was unnoticeable as the footage looked the same speed as before, despite the timing now being a few seconds slower.

Conventions

I began the course with a preliminary task; to create a cover and a contents page for a school magazine. The quality of which was very poor, as I had a weak prior knowledge of the layout and content of a magazine. So, when I came to actually creating my music magazine I had to come to terms with the conventions of music magazines; in particular rock magazines, before creating it to insure that I could make a product that appears as authentic as I was capable of creating. This began with me picking a suitable genre for my magazine; of which I picked Gothic Rock as it was more original. I researched music magazines of similar genres, such as Metal Hammer and Kerrang! in terms of the layout of the magazine, it's content as well as the general tone of the magazines; which is often quite comical. After this I created a proposal for my magazine as well as finding out which target audience is conventional amongst magazines of my magazine's genre. This was the groundworks of how the magazine would look, what the tone of it would be like, and what the magazine would contain. I looked up music magazine names and the fonts and styles that have been used to make their logos and decided to call mine 'Nocturne' using a Horror-esque font to portray the genre of the magazine, but before I came to the decision of which font to use I made various different versions using different fonts and then picked the best. My magazines base colours, it's layout and even certain things added in such as black drips dripping down the page were all directly taken from a specific magazine issue of Metal Hammer that I bought that was focused heavily on Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie: Two contempory artists of the Genre in which I based my own magazine. After this was done, it was time for me to take my photographs of my model of which I planned to edit and then add to my music magazine; writing about them. Due to my alternative appearance and interesting clothing, which are both conventional of Gothic Rock artists, I used myself as the model. It was essential to make sure the lighting was to its greatest potential to insure the best quality images. After this, I created the article. From reasing through various different magazines, I realised that an interview between a made up spokesperson for the magazine and the magazines main artist, Nessah Vendetta, was quite conventional.

This year, after deciding that short film was the best thing for me to do, and deciding that I wanted to replicate the cinematic style of Film Noir, I first had to research the history of short films, and the genre of film noir, what influenced film noir as a genre, film noir directors, the theory behind film noir but most importantly, as my short film is a parody of the conventions of Film Noir, I had to research into key tropes of Film Noir; such as the dialogue, the characters, certain shots and lighting. Music in Film Noir is very distinct from other genres, so when looking for royalty free music I stumbled across the music of Kevin McLeod who happened to create scores for Film Noir which were perfect for my short film. I also looked into film noir film posters specifically rather than just film posters as whole as they're very stylistic and distinctive to the genre, so I wanted to then replicate it by Photoshopping stills taken from the film to look as if they were painted as well as finding the right fonts for it as well as the right layout of the text. In terms of the film magazine, I looked at generic ones rather than specific ones as the style of film magazines tends to be more simplistic then that of music or fashion.