Week Plan 17/12/2012

Hi folks,

It's the last week of college this week, just about time for a long awaited holiday. So heres a quick update on things.

My Graded Unit Planning Stage document has been marked and I have a one to one meeting to find out my mark and expected grade. Hopefully I don't have to remediate as I don't think I have the energy to re write something like that... I would still do it though.

Week Plan 17/12/2012

• Major Project Pitch - Tuesday 18th is the day for pitching major projects for my class. We have to present our film idea and discuss budgeting, treatment, technical requirements etc to get 'funding' to use to create our films. I have looked out to Prezi once again. This presentation can be viewed on here.
• Finish off any work which hasn't been completed yet. This will allow me to start 2013 with a clean sheet.
• Major Project: continue working on developing characters, continue searching for actors, continue developing VFX shots to be created in Post Production.

Cheers

iMac

Hi folks,

I have purchased a new iMac to use to edit and composite my major project and several other projects with!!! I find this information so important, that it deserved a post of its own.

The mac I have purchased is the 21.5 inch quad core i5 with a very powerful graphics card and a cool mouse. The screen is 5 mm thick?! where does the computer go?

Anyway, can't wait to begin using it for creative purposes. This kit is definitely a good start to my editing/VFX hub.

Cheers

Major project pitch

Hello again.
I have a new deadline to work to... on Tuesday 18th of December, I have to pitch to the class and my lecturer for funding my major project. So I have taken to prezi yet again to deliver this pitch. The only thing that needs work is the speaking bit.  Hopefully my very hefty budget will be taken relatively seriously...
This pitch is the last thing before the Christmas break. Excellent.
More updates to follow.
Cheers.

Week plan 11/12/12

Here's this weeks plan:
- complete design of presentation on prezi
- practice presentation.
- purchase iMac for better compositing.
- complete 2 shot breakdowns for presentation - I am currently working on a still image of princes street which I will take into after effects and composite into a disaster. The other will be handheld footage of Edinburgh from a different angle where I will do similar techniques, the only difference will be 2d motion tracking to keep the elements I include to the shot locked in place.
Anyway. That's all for just now. All this media will be broadcast on vimeo soon.
Cheers

Planning stage and Major Project update

Hi

After three weeks of typing, citing and referencing, my planning stage document for my graded unit is handed in. I found this exercise will be useful in the future. I intend on printing and binding this document as it will look good as part of a paperwork portfolio.

It's now time to move onto the next phase of the graded unit, major project and promotional material development stage.

For now its just a quick update on the delivery of my major project:

In short, I will be using a tapeless workflow for the following reasons:

- it is easier for capturing and ingestion onto an editing suite.
- most storage methods are SD cards and HDD drives, both of which store a large amount of data.

So that's one major decision out of the way.

I also have been in contact with potential crew for my major project, but nothing is set in stone until my finalised shooting schedule has been completed.

Many more updates to follow

Cheers
Mike.

Planning Stage Deadline and Week Update 04/12/2012

Hi,

With the deadline for the planning stage of my Graded Unit this Friday, I will be spending most of my time sorting out any problems with my document before I submit it. This excercise has been a difficult one, but I reckon will probably help me in the future...

Here is the week update:

• Complete Planning Stage Document.
• Write a Treatment for my Major Project to be filmed next year.
• Start designing logo ideas for the Sky Arts animation competition.
• Print Planning Stage Document to keep for further reference.

There will be more updates once I have completed this section of my Graded Unit.

Cheers
Mike

Brass project update and Week plan 25/11/2012

Hi,

This post is a bit late but here it goes...

I finished burning the iso file for the pure brass concert and handed on to my lecturer to burn the dvds and send them out to the client. It was a fun experience working on this, but one thing I have learned is don't take on more than one project at a time. This allows more focus to go into the project. Apart from that problem, it was good experience and would do it again.

Anyway...
Here's the plan for this week:

- I have completed my schedule and budget sections of the planning stage document. So I will spend the rest of this week completing the first draft, then fix any problems with it with the remaining time before the deadline

- I have began a working up some 'roughs' for the sky arts sting competition. So further work will go into developing my idea for this competition.

Well that's it for just now.

Cheers

Mike

Promotional Material - Sky Arts Comp

Hi,

Here's a quick one.
I was e-mailed about a competition with Sky Arts. The idea is to produce a 20 second animation with the word 'arts' being revealed or built in some way. It is a great way to get my experience of working to a brief and more promotional material to be on the website. Here's the link to the competition site: Sky Arts Competition.

I will be starting the designs over the weekend to get the ball rolling. Should be good fun to play with After Effects.

Cheers
Mike

Pre Production Pitch and Week Plan

Hi.

Here's the update:

Did my pre production pitch today. All went well and the feedback was great. So I now continue on to finish off my planning stage document and from then on, its the fun bit. My presentation can be found at Graded Unit 2 Planning Pitch.

Also, I managed to get a lot of backlogged work done today. I finished the majority of the VFX for 'Prisoner', I completely underestimated how long this would take me to composite, however the job is just about done... I have completed the Pure Brass Concert edit ready for output, now the problem is I require export the file as an image (.iso file) so that multiple copies of a DVD can be authored. Another problem is that I wanted to export it in full Blu Ray res, So it's exporting now and estimated at 2 days. Great. More updates to follow on this.

Now, here's my week plan:

Complete estimated budget for planning stage.
Collate all paperwork for side projects ('Prisoner', 'Green Screen Shoot' Pure Brass Concert).
Produce an .iso file for the Pure Brass Project (Final Output)

And thats it for now.

Cheers
Mike

VES

hi folks.

Just a quick post about a good bit of vfx advice. I bought a book called the visual effects handbook of vfx. I bought this book for thirty pounds. Seems steep, but it was written by 88 successful vfx gurus in their specialism and published by VES (the Visual Effects Society. VES is a non profit organisation which provides help for vfx professionals all over the world. Heres the link if you want to check it out

http://www.visualeffectssociety.com/

That's all from me.

Mike

Update on client work and week plan

Hi folks.

First of all, an update on client work:

I have completed converting the footage into SD proxies. I have started an assembly edit for the first half of the gig. Mostly everything gas went well except a glitch in the audio and a slight syncing issue. These problems will be dealt with and shouldn't cause too much harm. I have estimated that this project will be finished, colour corrected (a possible colour grade) and author a dvd by the end of this week. Updates to follow...

As for my week plan:

The footage for the 'prisoner' project must be completed by Thursday afternoon to be passed onto the editor. This job should only take around 3 hours (I hope).

Pre production pitch - the deadline for my promotional materials pitch is next Monday and I have completed the design of the presentation. Just need to practice it now.

Come up with a design brief for my website - lucky for me, my sister is a professional web developer, so she has kindly accepted the job of coding a website for me. So I will meet with her on saturday and discuss website designs I have come up with.

So another busy week. However all these tasks should be completed by the end of this week...

Cheers
Mike

Client work

Hi folks.
Todays post is about work experience. I have recently been part of a crew filming a brass band concert. The main role I assigned myself was to be the editor. I spoke to a member of the band after the concert and he asked for a dvd and a version of the concert to be played on their website. So post production work has begun and I have used this workflow:

- down convert all full HD footage into SD quicktime files (to be used as proxies)
- edit the program on Adobe Premier Pro (syncing all video tracks to the master audio)
- when the edit is complete, I will replace the standard def proxies with the full HD versions.
- then add colour correction
- to finish off, author a dvd with a dvd menu on Adobe Encore.

I enjoyed the concert. Was quite surprised how modern and jazzy it was.
Here's hoping everything goes well...
The finished product will be linked to my website and vimeo channel as soon as it is complete.

More posts soon
Cheers
Mike

Graded unit 2- Stage 1

Hi folks.
Another post. So here it goes.
After my graded unit class today at college, I have realised there is a large planning stage document that needs to be submitted along with my presentation. So from now on, to manage my time, I am writing weekly plans down to keep myself on track. This will be a post every Monday.

Week beginning 5th Nov:

• Write contents page for planning stage document- this will allow me to keep everything organised so I don't waffle.
• My green screen reel is to be completed before my next shoot on Thursday morning.
• In addition, paperwork is to be completed for the green screen shoot. The paperwork will include a budget, schedule etc. This will add to my pre production paperwork.
• Production meeting- this is to be held at around 12 to 1. The script has been passed around and a rough storyboard and shot list can be drawn up. Also we will discuss all other business at this meeting.
• Begin a Pre Production Schedule for my Promotional Material - This will take some time to sort out, so I'm tackling it first. 
• Continue preparing pre production speech on 'Prezi'.

Well that's the plan for this week. There will be further posts on each item as I complete them.

Until next time
Mike

Pre Production Pitch

Hello again.

As in my previous post, I have a presentation to show to my lecturers. The pitch will include all the methods I intend to use to promote myself and become more employable to the Post Production world. So, I have began work on a presentation using 'Prezi' Presenting software. If you haven't checked it out, its really cool http://prezi.com/index/.

When I began thinking about ways to promote myself, I thought of the following things:

• A Showreel: Containing all my best bits of work in a short video at a length of 1 min 30s to 2 mins. The thing is... I don't have enough content, yet. So I have began organising side projects with my colleagues to get more material to put into a Showreel. 
• Major Project: As in my previous posts, I am working on a disaster movie set in Edinburgh. This film will be completed in May next year and (if I think it's good enough) submit it to a film festival. 
• A Vimeo channel: I have just created a vimeo account to publish my work to. Honestly,I don't know how I haven't got an account before. It's really useful for finding other creatives who are doing the same thing (see the competition). So I will be posting all of my work, side projects, shot breakdowns on this page. 
• CV: I have been adding and updating my CV constantly to make it better in order to make myself more employable. I am looking for work experience in all areas of the country to try and get more experience in the creative industries. 
• And finally, a website: This will be linking all the above together in one convenient place. It will have an embedded video box on the site which will be linked to my Vimeo channel (which will hold my Major Project ad Showreel), my CV, with cool shapes and colour schemes to make it awesome. 

This presentation will be filmed so I will possibly get a copy of the footage, so I can post this to my vimeo channel, for further self promotion.

I will have more in depth posts about each aspects of my self promotion as I start working on them. 

Until next time

Mike

Recent work

Here's the news:

I have started compositing the green screen footage shot last Thursday and adding a background with some effects etc. During this, I have noticed that some of the shots were shot incorrectly (wrong perspective, shot type). So for next time... plan the shots I intend to film.
The reel is close to being completed and exported for monday 5th November.

Anyway I have arranged to do another green screen shoot with a bigger crew of my class mates. We have all positions sorted including a writer who will write a 60 second script, lighting operator, production assistant, sound, 2 camera ops and a 2 people working on the Post Production including myself. This shoot will take place on Thursday 8th of November. In order to get the best experience for everybody, we have tried to get people who were interested to take on the role they wish to persue professionally. Hopefully this works...

With my first pre production deadline coming up on the 19th, I have almost completed my pitch outline. I will be using the presenting medium, Prezi. Once I have finished the planning document, I will be sorting out my pitch.

Major Project: I have received a story outline from my writer. I will look over this, find out what I like and suggest changes (if any), then I will have a meeting with him today to dicuss the story.

Plans for the future: I have started the saving for an imac to give me the perfect tool to finish my major project next year. I have also added to this list trapcode particular, a particle system plugin for after effects. This plugin is essential to the VFX of my major project as I feel After Effects pre installed plugins just aren't enough.

Well that's all from me just now.

Until next time.

Next Step: VFX

A quick update on my recent activity:

I have spoke to a writer about the scriptwriting part of my Major Project, I have sent him an email with all the details about my film I have so far. I will meet with the writer on Monday to discuss the film further.

I have made a major decision with the VFX side of my film: to cut out the third dimension. After a lot of research into 3D modelling, particle systems, rendering for After Effects and Compositing, I found that applying 3D models into my composites would be too time consuming and complex to complete within the time constraints. I have made a compromise to use the excellent 3D functionality of After Effects and Photoshop.

I have spent yesterday compositing a meteor flying through the air in After Effect, using a particle system plugin called Trapcode Particular. The entire composite took around 3 hours including rendering, which gave me an insight into how much time it would take to create a shot similar to this for my final project.

Plan for next week:

• Finish Post Production for the Green Screen Shoot filmed recently.
• Produce a test reel from the Green Screen Shoot to add to my collection of material.
• Produce an estimated budget for both VFX tests and Green Screen Shoot.

Well that's the plan...

Until next time

Mike

The Green Screen Shoot

Hi,

Another day, more work to do. Here's an update on yesterday:

I scheduled a green screen shoot yesterday with one of my colleagues. This exercise was to get some test shots which I could composite in After Effects to prepare me for my final project next May. On the shoot, I managed to get my colleague to pretend an explosion hit him and he fell back onto a crash mat...This was hilarious to watch, but it may sell the effect. During the shoot, I found that there were couple problems which became apparent very quickly:

• We didn't have enough lights: when we arrived at the location, we had 3 Gulliver (300w) lights. We started lighting the green screen as evenly as possible. But when we lit the green screen as evenly as we could (which was not an easy task), once the subject entered the scene, he was completely underexposed in the camera. We needed more lights...
• We had no 'tough spun': when lighting the green screen, we found that 'hotspots' appeared on the wall, which would be a nightmare to key out in post. So we spoke to a lecturer who was able to provide us with 'tough spun' to diffuse the harsh light on the wall, lighting the green screen evenly.

Overall, this was a fun shoot and I will produce a test reel which will be on my Vimeo, Youtube, Facebook and so on. 

Cheers

Mike

An intro

Hi, I'm Mike Struthers and I am a student studying TV production at Edinburgh College. I'm now in my second year and its a much more challenging course than last year. This year there is one massive project (Graded Unit) which consists of Major Project (which will be a ten minute short film, either factual or non factual), a showreel, and any further promotional material that would be of use to a potential employer... Tough gig.

My strategy plan:

• To come up with a film idea
• To write a decent script
• Incorporate all my skills that I would use in my desired job 
• Collate a series of my best shots into a Show Reel 
• Produce a Website that will host everything all in the one place
• Regularly update social networks with my professional activity
• Produce a strong CV and Cover letter to send out to all employees that might employ me.

As I write this post, I am researching cool VFX shots that I could learn to do and incorporate into a short film next year.

As for the writing of a script part... I would ideally like to employ a writer to help me create a script and decent story.

In the mean time, there is a potential work experience opportunity with '20/20' Productions based in Edinburgh. Over this weekend I will have drafted my second draft of my CV and completed a Covering Letter to show when the meeting takes place on Monday afternoon.

Well that's the plan for now...

Cheers
Mike