week 14

yeaaah! we finished the editing) we were struggling against a lot of nero-vision software problems) *we decided to use nero on school computers, because our own computers are not that powerful*
of course, we have a lot of things we would like to change if we have time... e.g. we shot several scenes in the same room in two days, and the light is different.. and it was impossible to re-shoot, because Itamar was not available anymore.

but still, we put a lot of efforts into it and we like the result, although it may be done not on that professional level, on which other groups have done this task)

week 13

shooting is almost done, tomorrow we will spend a couple of hours for the last shots,
lights turned to be extremely useful, but still I feel that the whole atmosphere is not the one I imagined....
hopefully we can fix it with effects and music
but if we had time, I would re-shoot the whole film...

week 12

the thing what we were afraid of happened...
we were wating for our main actor, but it seems like he is lost or something happened to him - he doesn't answer e mails or pick up phone
so now, we are working on plan B, meaning just looking for a suitable person to be our main character...

week 11

seems like Itamar (our movie star) is not available this weekend, and this Satyrday we will spend on these big and small prepartion (creating red room, thinking about costumes, drawing pictures, etc), other actors are already found, part of the music is written and recorded (by my friend)))
we hope Itamar will agree to be in our film, otherwise we will panic :)

week 10

camera mic is pretty awful, and I am thinking of recording all the conversations separately and then matching them to the film itself, although it will cause additional troubles and very time consuming, I think we should at least try
also, we are going to use another software, maybe adobe or sony product, I will check them and choose the most suitable.
the film itself is from that "dark, mysterious" area, a bit david-lynch-ish) eg. the scene with the red room *got inspired from Twin peaks red corridor and rooms with the dwarf"
there is no so many talking in the film (which may be good, camera mic will not spoil the film that much), but instead they are different kinds - we have a monologue, dialogue and have dialogue (when one person is talking to himself, the other one sees it and replies , but the first one does not know or hear it)
for example in the Mulholland drive there are not so many talking as well, but instead a lot of close ups, so we can read the emotions and thoughts, instead of hearing them directly from a person.
of course we will have to work hard to get something that can be understood by viewers and not being just a set of strange mysterious shots :) (because there is an explanation for the whole story, the problem is - how to deliver that explanation to the viewer)

week 9

we got into the group - Meerim, Anna, Adel and me, we are quite different and have various tastes in everything, including movie genres)
but still I think there will be some common "rules" for any story we may choose, for example:
no more night scenes, even if we have the lightning equipment, there is no way to plug it in when we are in the middle of a street)
and of course arrange everything before starting to shoot (especially decorations, or costumes, etc)

week 8

yes, we have done it in time))) i learnt a lot during this project) first of all - plan your time and second - make sure actors are willing to work, not to play!! we had different problems with our main actor, he was playing up, that is why some shots were taken 4-5 times)) but we have a lot of funny ones)))
our movie turned out to be 5.20 min, and we decided not to cut the scenes smaller, because such an "action" movie, where events go very fast, is impossible to put in a shorter time frame...) so, i hope this decision is not that bad)

week 7

shooting shooting shooting)
never thought that day-time shots wwould be so hard to get done)
we used Meerim's brother as a main character, but then we realised that if we take just a guy for a "dad" it won't be so believable (unless we find another guy from Kirgiztan older than Meerim's brother), so I suddenly remembered one of my favourite tv program, where two men play all the roles and it's just incredible)
so, we decided to explore a field of make-up for films=) can't say that Kuba (brother) became really a "dad", but still it is something=) *we looked at Meerim's father photo and tried to figure out what parts of the face are darker, sharper shades, etc*
it also complicated the scenes where we have boy and dad together, we did the dinner shooting, shownig eg mam, boy and just father's hands eating) and then vice versa)

but i guess the most unforgetable moment all three of us will remember is how we got caught by the police while shooting a scene where a boy is making graffiti)) He was not actually making it, just pretending, but still he pressed the cap a couple of times and policemen discovered fresh paint) but everything ends well, next time we will think before we do smth like this)

*i'm not really sure we can finish in time, we still have some shots to be done and editing, which is problematic because of all the reports, assignment deadlines and midterms coming up next week :(

week 6

during the process of making the storyboard, we did not have any serious arguments, so after Meerim indicated the conditions, additional materials and things for the shots, i started to draw pictures for the each of the shots. (well, after making the 34 or 35th picture i was pretty tired and it seemed to me that similar shots, following each other do not need a lot of pictures, it is just too obvious, so that is why i skipped some of them ^_^)

here are some of them:

week 5

i wrote down the movie shot by shot with several important remarks, so Meerim will have to review it and add the necessary conditions and description of the shots, after that i am going to draw the pictures for the shots to complete the storyboard

week 4

making small movies to experience the editing side of video production was pretty fun)) me and Meerim decided to shoot a comedy-like story of people coming out from a hole (which was quite big, so a person could fit there), we did not change camera's position, so it looked like a lot of people were scrambling out of some strange place undergroung with happy faces))
then we started to edit it, the "ghost" effect perfectly suited our shots, as we did not move the camera background stayed the same, but people were softly dissapearing and appearing with this effect)
so, i am looking forward to start shooting our first serious (or semi-serious) movie))

week 3

i am in group with Meerim and i think we have come up with sort of a drama story for our movie) and i feel like drama is very suitable for a silent movie, if you put some music as a soundtrack, that reflects people's emotions)
we are still working on it, the most difficult thing now is several night shots, but i think we will figure that out)

week 2

we really was put in a real life situation with all the unpredictable circumstances - rain, cold, disturbing elements (people walking here and there)
it was a luck we got Bob in our group, an experienced person in video production) he gave us a lot of tips about setting up the camera, varieties of possible angles, etc
i volunteered to be the person who do the actual shooting (of course Bob helped a lot also)), it was a new experience, due to everything looks different through the camera lens))
in the end, we have got really a nice result (also managed to put some music on background) and hopefully will keep it up next time)))

ps I really enjoyed when I forced Bob to play one scene three or four times in the rain to get the realistic shot )))

Video Production, week 1

I am very curious what is going to happen next week as we will have our first assignment. Cameras are just great, i guess we will manage to find out its' features right on the spot, rather than studying the manual at home without cameras :)
can't wait till next tuesday for the first movie to be done by us))

today work on the web project looked like several people doing smth and all others standing around them and watching the last detailes being finished)

i feel like the left side of the pages (the buttons area), in comparison with the rest space of the pages, is a bit heavy, so there is a lack of balance, because the buttons have patternand background plus logo, an the top area has very light image as a background

also, today i saw the final version of a lichteinstein girl, and her neck and back seem to be missing, the shoulder is more or less ok, but the back is cut

well, in general, the site is looking quite nice and th navigation is user friendly)

now it seems like i need to redesign all the buttons, so they wont look like traffic lights, but at least now i know the requirenments and generall design and size of the page, the titles for buttons, that leads to a concrete design, not just "creating buttons"

Wednesday 16 Apr

the work on the web site seems to go very well, our splash page will look exactly like Lichtenstein's work)

i am working on the button design now, after a short review, i decided to stay with round-shape glass-like design of three major L colors: red, yellow and blue/or green. also we found the font that totally suits the BAAM logo

April, 2nd

i'm in design team for creating the baam new web site) i think there will be a lot of arguing in the group, because everybody is having a different view on this project
nevertheless now we agreed on a mixture of lichtenstein and mondrian design scheme)

podcasts

podcasts lecture basically changed my view on this technology feature; i used to consider podcasts as saved pieces from radio news or shows, which were not so interested to me, as i prefer to listen radio online, due to it gives a complete different feeling than a already recorded "not live" piece; but now it seems to me that i can use it for various purposes, such as an audio blog, which is quite facinating and can be put into practice without any complicated devices - an online diary can be turn into a audio online diary, that is not really popular now, but may become soon

it seems that dreamweaver is getting more and more interesting, eg i do not need a special software to calculate the image area to make it multi-links, i just use image map
still it is difficult to find out how to make a list-menu and programme it to lead to different pages - the adobe help is not so clear
so now i can do a lot more things in dreamweaver, some of which do not have an equivalent in my html-coding knowledge

week4

dreamweaver is quite an easy prorgam to work with, at least while we are practicing simple things, so now i do not have to remember the html codes or always look them up in a "help" section; it saves a lot of time and simplifies the work - we can concentrate on the proper design and look of the page and do not care about our knowledge of the codes)

using lightroom for correcting images is still quite a controversial issue - operations we uses are best done in photoshop and do not require such actions as creating catalogs, etc

ms photo editor will be not suitable for our further work, because of the quality - i guess, we will need more professional editors (like photoshop and lighroom)

week 3, dreamweaver, lightroom

using lightroom for sizing the picture is not quite a convinient way, i would rather use photoshop for this purpose, because it can perform the same operation, show the end size of a picture, plus it includes a lot more functions for corrections (it is very rare when a picture goes on a web without any correction); but still lightroom is a good tool of converting pictures into different formats

dreamweaver has a very userfriendly interface and suitable for beginners, it will be really interesting and useful to find out its other functions on a higher level to be able to create something different from the giving schemes and unique from a desigh point of view

#1

how can the most efficient, easy-to-maintain and at the same time "beautiful" in artistic sense web site be described?

well, first of all, it is a color scheme that we are using - color of letters should not compromise with the backgroung color (remember color wheel), plus a web page with light/dark background and light/dark letters will be difficult to read; if you are using a picture on the background, do not choose a very bright, or filled with small details one, due to it will make the reading og the page harder. Do not forget about the font size and type - type should be appropriate for the topic (eg. you can not post political news with a Comic Sans 25pt =) )

text on the page should be divided into paragraphs; photos and pictures inserted in the middle of the text seems to be disturbing

to be continued...