Well I got to uni this morning to check my exported movie and the sound is completely in sync. I don't understand why though because I thought the movie was a slightly different cut!!?? Anyway, i am glad it fits. The only problem I have now is the quality of the film. It looks all pixelated, like a watercolour painting. Nick says it is best to use an uncompressed film when you put it into AE so I am now exporting the film again as a FCP movie with no compression to see if I can bring it in to replace the movie being used.
I have now tried to do the above to no avail. It seems that the effects are on the movie in AE and when I put the new 1 in it loses them. The screen, however, may be the problem because the quality looks different on the 2 screens. I have taken the exported movie from AE upstairs to look at it and again it looks different so Ana and I have put it back into FCP to export as a compressed file. We then put it into dvd studio pro and put a simple play button on and set the film to go back to the start when it ends. I now have 2 dv copies and am in the process of burning 2 hdv copies, hoping the quality will be better. The compressor is taking ages to do these compared to the dv. I have chosen the 16:9 letterbox format for the screen size.
I sat and waited for ages whilst the compressor worked on the hd film. Nick came along and said we had done it wrong and even if I wanted a hd copy it could only be played through a computer. We tried again as Nick told us but again, after a long period, they came out as an audio and film separately. So i just left it. When i got home to test my dv versions (the quality was poor at uni) i was extremely pleased to find the quality was brilliant on my tv!!! I am so pleased and less stressed now. I want to buy some dvd-r disks as I burnt one onto a dvd+rw whih is less quality, then i can burm a few copies. Tomorrow i will get the cover done and start on my self-assessment! Pleased, proud i love my film!!
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
WHERE'S IT GONE?
Well I got to uni to check my exported movie, which was there but none of the effects, apart from the stage, were there. I couldn't find the AE version so I am not sure if it was saved. Everything that was done yesterday was gone! Great..
I decided to open up the version with all the effects and import the audio and conversion again (because i altered the end slightly) . I tried to put the text in and managed to get the first line in but have no clue how to blur it and fade in like David did. I had a brainwave luckily which seems obvious now.... I imported the exported movie and used the text from yesterday so i placed it in and shrank it so just the end was on. Nick helped me export it, he said it didn't need rendering again, but this time in hdv as the quality was rubbish on the qtime movie. He said it was best to have an hdv copy anyway and we can change it tomorrow to dvd for systems that won't play hd.
We did a few tests to check quality and it looked a bit better.
Tomorrow I will burn them off, hopefully the soundtrack fits properly, if not I may be able to move the conversion (the one Gary has done sound to) up over the top of the fcp we worked with for AE so that it's that version we see. I wish I had thought of that today but assumed the effects were on top of the footage. I think they are separate though so it should work.
I decided to open up the version with all the effects and import the audio and conversion again (because i altered the end slightly) . I tried to put the text in and managed to get the first line in but have no clue how to blur it and fade in like David did. I had a brainwave luckily which seems obvious now.... I imported the exported movie and used the text from yesterday so i placed it in and shrank it so just the end was on. Nick helped me export it, he said it didn't need rendering again, but this time in hdv as the quality was rubbish on the qtime movie. He said it was best to have an hdv copy anyway and we can change it tomorrow to dvd for systems that won't play hd.
We did a few tests to check quality and it looked a bit better.
Tomorrow I will burn them off, hopefully the soundtrack fits properly, if not I may be able to move the conversion (the one Gary has done sound to) up over the top of the fcp we worked with for AE so that it's that version we see. I wish I had thought of that today but assumed the effects were on top of the footage. I think they are separate though so it should work.
Monday, April 28, 2008
SOUND
The music that Gary has done for me fits with my theme and enhances it. We had discussed what I wanted prior to him working on it and he has picked that up brilliantly as well as adding his own personality. It's really interesting to see how someone else perceives your ideas and interprets them. The overall structure is how i wanted it, eg. I asked that the valium scene have a silence like in 2001 a space odyssey and he has got that as well as matching up the visuals. I wanted a Hitchcock drama for the titles and that has been done really well, but also he has got the 70's kids tv music in there, which was his interpretation of the film.
SENDING AUDIO
What a hassle! The movie was too big to send via a shared folder gary and I have so I had to zip it. I have never done this before so tried lots of different attempts which still didn't work! It was meant to convert and email so it said and i did email it....god knows where though. In the end Ian worked it out and zipped it into small files to send. We left it over night and still had to do the ones that wouldnt send. they worked so I have no idea what the problem was....stupid computers!
Gary has sent me the finished audio today, which I have imported into adobe AE with my film. We had to stretch the end of the film where I had changed last scene. David showed me how to do the credits and we created them to reflect the valium scene and effects I put on it. I have left it to render for 5 hrs. I hope the effects are still there, i just don't remember seeing some of them. I expect I will get to uni tomorrow and have to render it again. I hope the audio fits well too because i may have changed some other scenes slightly, therefore, the audio will be slightly off.
Gary has sent me the finished audio today, which I have imported into adobe AE with my film. We had to stretch the end of the film where I had changed last scene. David showed me how to do the credits and we created them to reflect the valium scene and effects I put on it. I have left it to render for 5 hrs. I hope the effects are still there, i just don't remember seeing some of them. I expect I will get to uni tomorrow and have to render it again. I hope the audio fits well too because i may have changed some other scenes slightly, therefore, the audio will be slightly off.
IMPORTING AUDIO
The final bit of audio has now been recorded. I tried to sing an accapella at the end (another Zombies track) but it was out of my range and sounded unbelievably bad! So i have opted for silence....a moment to contemplate poor Sindy's dilema and read the credits in peace!
I enjoyed putting the audio onto my track, it all came alive once the sound was there.
Yesterday I took the audio home and edited it in Logic but I edited it properly in final cut. I added fade ins and outs after i cut up each section so the room noise would be less noticeable. I placed each bit where I wanted it and to fit with the visuals. One clip in particular, where i am looking in the mirror, was placed exactly on a word so i blinked to fit with it.
The final scene was extended slightly to fit the audio better and also, it zooms out into the set, which I had planned to do before but decided not to. I think it refers to the reality/surreality of the film and Sindy's thoughts. It brings the audience back to the film and how she is just a doll on set that I have manipulated and used for my own thoughts.
I had a problem with the last scene not playing properly, it's done it before and makes it really hard to place the audio on. I had to guess it after the first bit had played so i hope it sounds ok. I changed the volume on most of the clips. My V.O had to be increased as other music played in the background and I faded between the 2 to make it sound good. The special effects worked well, they had to be turned up so they didn't just sound like background hiss. I think it's quite obvious now that they are Sindy moving.
I have exported the film and audio as a converted Qtime movie to send to gary. He needs the exact edit to work around for the sound he is doing. Once he has done the audio i can place it in and export it all from after effects.
I enjoyed putting the audio onto my track, it all came alive once the sound was there.
Yesterday I took the audio home and edited it in Logic but I edited it properly in final cut. I added fade ins and outs after i cut up each section so the room noise would be less noticeable. I placed each bit where I wanted it and to fit with the visuals. One clip in particular, where i am looking in the mirror, was placed exactly on a word so i blinked to fit with it.
The final scene was extended slightly to fit the audio better and also, it zooms out into the set, which I had planned to do before but decided not to. I think it refers to the reality/surreality of the film and Sindy's thoughts. It brings the audience back to the film and how she is just a doll on set that I have manipulated and used for my own thoughts.
I had a problem with the last scene not playing properly, it's done it before and makes it really hard to place the audio on. I had to guess it after the first bit had played so i hope it sounds ok. I changed the volume on most of the clips. My V.O had to be increased as other music played in the background and I faded between the 2 to make it sound good. The special effects worked well, they had to be turned up so they didn't just sound like background hiss. I think it's quite obvious now that they are Sindy moving.
I have exported the film and audio as a converted Qtime movie to send to gary. He needs the exact edit to work around for the sound he is doing. Once he has done the audio i can place it in and export it all from after effects.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
RECORDING AUDIO
Nicola operated the desk for me today at the conservatoire whilst I spoke my V.O into the mic. I needed to see the film so my timing would fit with the visual so had to record in the same room as opposed to the live room. The room sound was more prominent than it would have been but I couldn't do anything about that. I forgot my cd for a track I want to sing for the credits at the end and without it I would sing completely out of tune so I will record that on thursday.
We recorded into Logic Pro 8 rather than protools because it wouldnt open for some reason but Logic was fine. The mic was a condenser mic so Nic told me! I used a pop sheild for obvious reasons.
Firstly I recorded each scene in order by watching the film. It took a few goes for some of the longer scenes to get the timing right. I then did the sound effects. I ruffled a towel for the bed sheets noise, stroked my arm for the massage scene, messed with my hair for hair scene, tapped feet, smacked arm....all to help bring the film to life!
I tried to open the files in the lab but no sound came out. I think it's because the firewire wasnt plugged in because I got them home and opened them in Logic audio 5 and they were fine....apart from 2 files which were damaged. I can do them again on thursday. I worked out how to fade in/out for each clip and then bounced them. I wasnt sure whether to bounce as an aiff or wave so did both, also as 16 bit or 24 so i did both. I turned the volume up on the master fader so hopefully this wont be too loud. Because I don't know about audio I just have to experiment and see which is the best. I learnt final cut as i experimented so the same goes for any other software. Using Logic now seems so much easier than before, I still feel like I am a beginner but I must have some knowledge within me because it doesn't seem as hard.
Thursday I am recording the rest of Vo and song then I will put it into final cut and get the timing right. I will then send a copy to Gary so he has the right length and intervals to work with.
We recorded into Logic Pro 8 rather than protools because it wouldnt open for some reason but Logic was fine. The mic was a condenser mic so Nic told me! I used a pop sheild for obvious reasons.
Firstly I recorded each scene in order by watching the film. It took a few goes for some of the longer scenes to get the timing right. I then did the sound effects. I ruffled a towel for the bed sheets noise, stroked my arm for the massage scene, messed with my hair for hair scene, tapped feet, smacked arm....all to help bring the film to life!
I tried to open the files in the lab but no sound came out. I think it's because the firewire wasnt plugged in because I got them home and opened them in Logic audio 5 and they were fine....apart from 2 files which were damaged. I can do them again on thursday. I worked out how to fade in/out for each clip and then bounced them. I wasnt sure whether to bounce as an aiff or wave so did both, also as 16 bit or 24 so i did both. I turned the volume up on the master fader so hopefully this wont be too loud. Because I don't know about audio I just have to experiment and see which is the best. I learnt final cut as i experimented so the same goes for any other software. Using Logic now seems so much easier than before, I still feel like I am a beginner but I must have some knowledge within me because it doesn't seem as hard.
Thursday I am recording the rest of Vo and song then I will put it into final cut and get the timing right. I will then send a copy to Gary so he has the right length and intervals to work with.
Monday, April 21, 2008
AE cont...
David and I created thin black bars to put throughout the top and bottom of the whole film, using a solid. We added 3 mins extra onto the end so i can insert the text for the credits.
With the dream sequence, after re-applying the whirlpool effect to the edges, it still wasn't how i wanted it to look. So David suggested a radial blur and I adjusted the strength of it so it was just on the edges. It looks so much better now.
For the 'mirror' scene I had placed a frame on the lens during filming to create a mirror frame but it didn't really look that good so we googled frames and found one to put in it's place.
It has now been adjusted in photoshop to look black. The perspective of this scene was originally going to have the audience viewing the back of sindy's head looking in mirror to see my face looking out at camera. I filmed just Sindy and I looking at camera, one at a time and merging into each other. Now the mirror frame is there, you either view it as sindy in the mirror or the audience are looking in the mirror and seeing sindy look back.
The lighting on pole scene was lowered a bit to make the blue screening less obvious. I had to re-apply it to every frame because David had previously changed the light so it flashed every other frame.
Now i have to write the credits in word to copy over into AE, record sound tomorrow, DVD authoring and art for the cover and burn dvd. I need to write my self-assessment form too.
With the dream sequence, after re-applying the whirlpool effect to the edges, it still wasn't how i wanted it to look. So David suggested a radial blur and I adjusted the strength of it so it was just on the edges. It looks so much better now.
For the 'mirror' scene I had placed a frame on the lens during filming to create a mirror frame but it didn't really look that good so we googled frames and found one to put in it's place.
It has now been adjusted in photoshop to look black. The perspective of this scene was originally going to have the audience viewing the back of sindy's head looking in mirror to see my face looking out at camera. I filmed just Sindy and I looking at camera, one at a time and merging into each other. Now the mirror frame is there, you either view it as sindy in the mirror or the audience are looking in the mirror and seeing sindy look back.
The lighting on pole scene was lowered a bit to make the blue screening less obvious. I had to re-apply it to every frame because David had previously changed the light so it flashed every other frame.
Now i have to write the credits in word to copy over into AE, record sound tomorrow, DVD authoring and art for the cover and burn dvd. I need to write my self-assessment form too.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
AFTER EFFECTS
The picture above is a stage David and I found on google. This is the background for the pole dance scene. It is now red with flashing lights and Sindy is on the top with her pole! David operated all the buttons as I don't know how to use AE yet so I have been telling him what sort of effects I want and he has been doing them really well!There is probably quite a lot I need to do to my film in AE, I was going to play around at home but my quick time movie won't play in AE on my computer...I don't know why, maybe it's because of FCP, perhaps it needs to be compressed??
Gary just sent me a sample of the dream sequence..it's sounding good, I asked him to make it a bit more discordant. He has overlayed my voice and made it deeper on 1 sample, just where it needed it! It just needs to be a bit more sinister then I will be completely satisfied! I am looking fwd to recording the sound effects and VO in the studio next tues.
Monday, April 14, 2008
SOUND
The prozac scene has been changed to valium as Gary told me that prozac didnt exist in the 1960's! Also the Cog. behavioral ther. is just behavioral therapy now because that too came later. Im not sure if pole dancing existed but that's tough because i can't change that! I need to get after effects to finish that so i can't do anything visually until that is ready.
Gary came over and i showed him my film without sound. He said it has a 1970's kid's tv show feel to it!! I think the beginning does, I wanted it to be like Bagpuss so I must be succeeding. We recorded a rough voice over in Logic, using a headset and mic i bought, so he could get an idea of the rhythm. I had to cut a few things out of the narration to get a better fit with my editing. I had written it before the film was made and Gary pointed out a few grammatic errors!
I went through each scene and told Gary ideas for the sound and gave him the scenes I wanted him to do sound for. The opening titles are going to be little 'pops' to fit with the animation. When 'tormenture' comes up I want a 'Hitchcock' thriller type of sound. Gary will do the dream sequence. I asked him to include paranoia, clumps of laughter and whispers, and weird sounds to reflect the surrealism of dreams.
I am doing sound effects such as bed sheets moving, stamping feet on bed and any sounds that will add to the reality of the film. I am recording V.O at conservatoire to get a good sound and quality.
Gary may do the contemporary dance scenes, I want drum beats for the Graham and experimental sounds for Cunningham. He is going to research these choreographers to get ideas....I also mentioned John Cage. The pole dance will have an existing track like I chose for the LSD scene. Maybe some Jefferson airplane...'plastic fantastic lover'!
The credits at the end will have me singing a Zombies song (Greg will hate it I expect) it's called 'The way I feel inside' and fits perfectly with my theme. I will just sing one verse in mono.
Gary came over and i showed him my film without sound. He said it has a 1970's kid's tv show feel to it!! I think the beginning does, I wanted it to be like Bagpuss so I must be succeeding. We recorded a rough voice over in Logic, using a headset and mic i bought, so he could get an idea of the rhythm. I had to cut a few things out of the narration to get a better fit with my editing. I had written it before the film was made and Gary pointed out a few grammatic errors!
I went through each scene and told Gary ideas for the sound and gave him the scenes I wanted him to do sound for. The opening titles are going to be little 'pops' to fit with the animation. When 'tormenture' comes up I want a 'Hitchcock' thriller type of sound. Gary will do the dream sequence. I asked him to include paranoia, clumps of laughter and whispers, and weird sounds to reflect the surrealism of dreams.
I am doing sound effects such as bed sheets moving, stamping feet on bed and any sounds that will add to the reality of the film. I am recording V.O at conservatoire to get a good sound and quality.
Gary may do the contemporary dance scenes, I want drum beats for the Graham and experimental sounds for Cunningham. He is going to research these choreographers to get ideas....I also mentioned John Cage. The pole dance will have an existing track like I chose for the LSD scene. Maybe some Jefferson airplane...'plastic fantastic lover'!
The credits at the end will have me singing a Zombies song (Greg will hate it I expect) it's called 'The way I feel inside' and fits perfectly with my theme. I will just sing one verse in mono.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
LAST VISUAL TOUCHES
Well now that everything is in FCP I now have to tweak, just to get transitions and effects looking good, as well as making sure the edits are as near to perfect as an amateur filmmaker can get! The dream sequence effects....whirlpool, was repeated on the edges so that there was no hard edge, it looks great.
The final clip of the movie was swapped around a bit. The first clip of it had some footage on that I didn't want to fade into so I put it at the end of the last clip and shuffled then a bit until they looked good. I placed a soft focus effect on the 'mirror' clips of me and Sindy as well as adjusting the contrast so they looked similar.
I have realised that you learn how to film more effectively through editing. You have to make sure you have more footage on the beginning and ends of clips so that you can add transitions. I never knew before (it seems obvious now) that you could not fade between 2 clips if you only had the footage that was there and you had not cut any off. So I had to cut off a few frames either side of the 2 clips to place the transition on. It reads 'insufficient content' when there is not enough footage or the transition shows up as really small and does nothing...that's when you realise.
So, the finishing touches have been added now. I chose to place a kaleidoscope effect on the prozac scene, going into the 60's club to reference the era. I imported a cd track from 'The Zombies' for the club scene. It is an instrumental and fits well with the dancing. I opened the track with i tunes at first and tried importing them from there into FCP but they wouldn't let you choose them. I then just dragged them from the cd onto the desk top and they were already an Aiff file so I could import them.
I tried exporting the whole film as a movie file again to play on my pc but an error kept coming up. Nick changed the settings which then caused the film to be rendered again. It still wouldn't export it, saying error...disk space so I think the film is taking up a lot of room now! I just hope I can export it ok to put on to dvd.
Now I have to sort out the rest of the sound for the film. Friday I an meeting Gary to go back into Logic audio to do the dream sequence music. I need to book the studio to record the animation, which Nicola said she could be in the desk room as I am in the other speaking into the mic.
Now my essay is out of the way, the next month will be spent on the sound.
The final clip of the movie was swapped around a bit. The first clip of it had some footage on that I didn't want to fade into so I put it at the end of the last clip and shuffled then a bit until they looked good. I placed a soft focus effect on the 'mirror' clips of me and Sindy as well as adjusting the contrast so they looked similar.
I have realised that you learn how to film more effectively through editing. You have to make sure you have more footage on the beginning and ends of clips so that you can add transitions. I never knew before (it seems obvious now) that you could not fade between 2 clips if you only had the footage that was there and you had not cut any off. So I had to cut off a few frames either side of the 2 clips to place the transition on. It reads 'insufficient content' when there is not enough footage or the transition shows up as really small and does nothing...that's when you realise.
So, the finishing touches have been added now. I chose to place a kaleidoscope effect on the prozac scene, going into the 60's club to reference the era. I imported a cd track from 'The Zombies' for the club scene. It is an instrumental and fits well with the dancing. I opened the track with i tunes at first and tried importing them from there into FCP but they wouldn't let you choose them. I then just dragged them from the cd onto the desk top and they were already an Aiff file so I could import them.
I tried exporting the whole film as a movie file again to play on my pc but an error kept coming up. Nick changed the settings which then caused the film to be rendered again. It still wouldn't export it, saying error...disk space so I think the film is taking up a lot of room now! I just hope I can export it ok to put on to dvd.
Now I have to sort out the rest of the sound for the film. Friday I an meeting Gary to go back into Logic audio to do the dream sequence music. I need to book the studio to record the animation, which Nicola said she could be in the desk room as I am in the other speaking into the mic.
Now my essay is out of the way, the next month will be spent on the sound.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
FINISHED
Well the last of the filming has been done I think! I filmed 11 Sindys each holding a letter I had written on a piece of paper in fancy font to spell my name. The backdrop was a lovely piece of retro fabric. I filmed both in colour and black and white to see which looks best when editing.
Today I also made some outfits from paper and black bin bags to re-create Allen Jones' 'women as furniture' to include 'Hatstand' 'Table' and 'Chair' from 1969. This was firstly for my essay, to put into my picture book but I will use the pics maybe for the cover of the DVD.
I have been editing all of my footage and putting it in the correct order. The MAC was annoying me today because it said that there wasn't enough render space and to free up the disk! It still wasn't playing as well as it should so I will have to check it out to see my footage clearly. A few of the clips won't allow me to add transitions so I need to sort that too.
I put some nice kaleidoscope effects on a few of the clips: 3 on the prozac scene and 1 on the titles. I want to add some effects to the mirror scene where I am in it, it looks a bit raw at the moment. The pole dance needs a background, all of the sound has to be recorded too!
The longest job today was to change the clips where I had cropped them. I had to zoom them all to match and then crop the same so each clip ran smoothly into the next. I had to compromise with the chill out scene; I had cropped on the left by 10 but to zoom it in that much would lose a lot of the edges of the scene so I cropped to 5 and will have to put up with the bit of sindy stand in shot!
Today I also made some outfits from paper and black bin bags to re-create Allen Jones' 'women as furniture' to include 'Hatstand' 'Table' and 'Chair' from 1969. This was firstly for my essay, to put into my picture book but I will use the pics maybe for the cover of the DVD.
I have been editing all of my footage and putting it in the correct order. The MAC was annoying me today because it said that there wasn't enough render space and to free up the disk! It still wasn't playing as well as it should so I will have to check it out to see my footage clearly. A few of the clips won't allow me to add transitions so I need to sort that too. I put some nice kaleidoscope effects on a few of the clips: 3 on the prozac scene and 1 on the titles. I want to add some effects to the mirror scene where I am in it, it looks a bit raw at the moment. The pole dance needs a background, all of the sound has to be recorded too!
The longest job today was to change the clips where I had cropped them. I had to zoom them all to match and then crop the same so each clip ran smoothly into the next. I had to compromise with the chill out scene; I had cropped on the left by 10 but to zoom it in that much would lose a lot of the edges of the scene so I cropped to 5 and will have to put up with the bit of sindy stand in shot!
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