Evaluation of College Video first cut

Content

I think the content and mise en scene in my video is good, it shows a lot of the areas in creative media in interesting ways, I believe it makes the course look very interesting and could attract potential students. Although the second to last shot isn't very good and I should have shot it again, it pans to nothing, revealing nothing so it's pointless. This is less the ideal for the client because there is such a short amount of time to work with none of it should be wasted. Obviously my target audience was students in years 10 and 11 that are interested in this subject, that's why I used all the shots of the different equipment as well as the different work spaces, this is to give the target audience a taste of what the course is like, I also included the canted shot at the start to show the attractiveness of the college, I also like this shot because it shows the support beams on the ceiling which make the shot look nicer, which makes the college look cooler and more appealing to the target audience. I also really the crab shot that reveals the colleges logo in adobe premiere, I think this shot looks professional and clean.

Camerawork

I think for the most part the camera work was good for this video, it's creative, it uses creative shots and styles, making it look more professional which would make the client happy. Although a few shots are out of focus which I would make sure didn't happen if I were to do this again. This won't be good for a final version especially because it's a media subject, where you learn how to use cameras. There are a lot of moving shots iin my advert, this is to make it feel a bit more exciting, so there's always something interesting to look at. I really like this arc shot and the way it speeds up in the middle and slows down again, I think it helps the flow of the video, and it really fits in with the style of the advert. The crab shot to reveal the editing software is really good because it's quite slow so it's a bit of a mystery as to whats getting revealed. I think it's also good because it showcases the slider that I used

Editing

The editing was good for the most part although some parts of it were over exposed which I could have maybe fixed in post and the choice of music could have been more fitting I think. Although over all I believe my edit was good and represented the college in an appealing way. There were some shots that I had to use the warp stabiliser effect on because the shots weren't completely stable, this has worked out on most of the shots its been used on but there was one or two that distorted a bit. I didn't use any kind of effects.

Sound

Apart from the music there isn't any sound, this makes the whole video sound very good because there's no recordings that could have gone wrong, personally I think it would have been better to include a voice over from a teacher so they could explain what's happening and give some more insight into the subject, this could have made it seem a bit more professional.

Guide to preparing material for editing

First off you must use a local login instead of a network login, this means you'll only be able to access the files you create on this computer on this computer. This is important to do when editing video because the files will be large and won't be able to transfer over the network smoothly.

You will find the SD card slot on the back of most macs, once the SD card is inserted it will appear on the desktop. highlight all the files you want and drag them over to where you want to place them. Before doing this you should make a folder for your project, under the movies folder would be sensible.

With in this folder you should make other folders, one for the video, one for audio and one for graphics that you might create, your actual Premiere file should also e saved in this folder. You should drag and drop all of your video files into the video folder and all the sound you recorded into the audio folder.

 Once this is done if you just right click on the SD card and click eject the card will be ejected safely.

It's important to make sure the project is set up correctly before you start this. Make sure you set the file to save in the correct place, this is very important for file organisation to make sure you keep all of your files together. It's also important to make sure all of the scratch disks are set to the right locations, this makes sure that everything save to the right folder.

If you right click on the bin section in the bottom right hand corner of the screen there will be a drop down menu, click import and select all of the files you need to import. It's important to make bins to put all of the footage into, and to make sure that the bins mirror the folders in the project folder. If they're not it could get confusing. I also have a folder for music, which is where I imported my music into, it is very important to make sure the music you use in royalty free, it would be illegal if not, or if the source isn't credited properly, a good website for music to use in projects is incompetech, this website has many free to use songs, as long as you credit the website.

Under the footage bin I separated into days of shooting just to make it a little bit easier to navigate and find files that I need, although this isn't necessary, it does make it easier to locate things.

To create a title click file go to new and scroll down and click legacy title. a box will pop up for you to create and edit a title.

Video first cut

editing techniques

This post describes some of the editing techniqes i have used in premiere pro.

This technique is called live editing, this allows you to switch between different shots while the project plays. This method is a lot quicker than manually lining up the clips with the audio and cutting them. It's also very easy to use and set up.

This is the colour panel in adobe premiere, this allows you to colour correct different shot in the project. There's a lot that can be changed, it could look quite daunting to a new user but it's all very simple to use, after a few minutes of figuring it out it became very clear where everything is and how to use it all. Colour correction is useful to make shots of a project more appealing, for example, make some of the colours pop more 

This is the start of creating a multi-cam sequence, you have to select allt he clips you want but they have to have audio because the multi-cam sequence syncs all the audio from the cilps together, the main audio for the track also needs to be selected it sync it all together.

This is the next step to creating a multi-cam sequence, after selecting 'create new multi-cam sequence' this screen will pop up. From this screen you can change multiple things with the sequence, But generally you don't need to change anything

When the sequence is created this will be on the timeline. This is useful of you want to put a few extra clips in there to make it easier to edit in the future.

This is a different part of the colour panel, in this bit of the panel you can select certain parts of the shot, as you can see in this example, the part of the background  that used to be orange is now pink. This could be very useful to manipulate differnet colours in different shots.

This is the ripple tool in Adobe premiere. The ripple tool is when a shot is changed in length the other clips will move accordingly. This is very useful because the user won't have to move all the other clips manually.

The Roll edit toll is very similar to the ripple edit tool, so much so that some beginners wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the two. The difference is with the roll tool when then the length of a clip is change instead of everything chnging around it the clip next to it will extend to fit the timeline. This

tool is also very useful to get very precise things fit.

This is the drag tool, it allows you to quickly look across the timeline, although you can't interact with anything else while in this mode, which can be a good thing if you don't want to accidentally chagne anything on the timeline.

These are video markers that you can easily line up video clips to, this is very good for editing music videos because it makes it easy to edit to the beat. This could be useful for other types of editing although would be most affective with a syncing video to audio.

This is the fade tool, it can be used on the timeline, it's very easy to use and there's lots of creative potential, just creating a simple fade in and fade out could hugely change the feel and the implication of the shot.

This is the slice tool, it can be used to cut clips of audio and video on the timeline, this can be useful to cut parts out of the middle of clips.

Analysis of continuity task

The first shot of the video is a close up, which is also a eyeline match shot with the cigarette stuff. The lighting could have been better in this shot, as the exposure wasn't quite right.

The next shot is another close up of the cigarette stuff, matching the last shots eyeline. This shot is focused on the lighter but I think it would have been better if it was focused on the pouch of tobacco.

The shot next was an over the shoulder shot of the guy looking at the tobacco, this shot wasn't great because the camera isn't focused very well and the camera should be higher so more is visible. This shot is also a match on action to the next shot.

The next shot is a medium shot of the guy reaching for the tobacco. this shot actually breaks the 80 degree rules, which breaks continuity.

The next shot is an over the shoulder shot, which was shot better than the last over the shoulder shot, this one is higher, which means you can actually see what he's doing.

Next it cross cuts to a long shot of someone walking down the corridor. The cross cut suggests simultaneity. This shot could have been more in focus, we tried to focus on the man but because they were moving it was difficult.

 It cuts back to the guy rolling a cigarette, which is part of the cross cut, which suggests the man in the  corridor is walking at the sometime as the guy is rolling a cigarette. For this shot we should have 4used a tripod because the camera movement is a bit shaky. This shot is also a bit too long, it feels like it drags on a bit.

the next shot cuts back the an in the corridor coming up to the door. Again we had a bit of a problem focusing this shot because the main subject was moving. This is also a long shot because all of the subjects body is in the shot.

the next shot is a match on action of him opening the door. The shot changes just as he goes to open the door handle. There is also quickly another match on action of him opening the door. As he opens the door it cuts to a shot of inside the room he's coming into.

the next shot is a long/ establishing shot, typically an establishing shot would be at the start of a video to establish where everything. Although  We decided not to have one at the start of our video because we didn't think it was necessary. Although this shot establishes where the door is relative to the guy rolling the cigarette. The focus is a bit off in this shot because it was difficult to find a shot to focus on and be able to have both subjects in focus.

the next shot is the start of a shot reverse shot sequence. This shot positions the guy at the right of the screen looking off to the left, where the next shot the man is on the left side of the screen looking off right. This suggests they're looking at each other. I like how these shots look because there isn't any confusion about where either of them are facing.

The final shot goes back to a wide shot showing where they are relative to each other, to make sure there isn't any confusion about where they are standing, again we had some issues correctly focusing this shot. Typically it would fade out can have a credit sequence, we left this out because of time retrains. the same of the a title card and a fade up, we would have added it but we just didn't have enough time.

The continuty system

The 180 degree rule is a rule typically used when filming conversations between people on camera. The rule is that there is a line that the camera can't cross or it would break continuity which would confuse the audience. For example:

Shot reverse shot is commonly used filming conversations or eyeline match shots. This rule is when you have two different camera shooting the same thing and they are the same amount of degrees from the axis of action.

 An establishing shot is a shot that establishes the scene, tis shot is usually at the start of a scene, although it isn't always at the start of the shot, for example if the director wants to covey mystery they may have a few close ups before an establishing shot. In some cases there won't be an establishing shot at all, this is most common in mystery/ horror genres.

An eyeline match shot is a type of shot that establishes that two people are making eye contact with each other. although it doesn't need to be two people it could be someone looking at something. this shot is similar to the shot reverse shot.

A match on action shot is when the shot changes in the middle of a actor doing something. This is useful to either transfer into a differnet room (if the actor is opening a door) or just to make it look more interesting.

My First Premiere Pro editing exercise

My First Premiere Pro editing exercise

Learning to use a camera

Although I learnt most of my camera skills last year there were a few new things I learnt this year, for example how to configure the iso and shutter speed correctly. I also learnt how to use auto focus properly. I also learnt how to get a shallow depth of field by adjusting the iso.

We also learnt about the exposure triangle (aperture, iso and shutter speed) and how to correctly expose a shot.

After we got familiar with the camera and how to use it we went out and shot some footage, none of the shots we filmed were complex in any way, they were all quite basic, this was because we were focusing more on the editing side of things. After we finished filming all the shots we had to we imported them onto a mac and organised then into folders to make editing easier. Also when we created the adobe premiere file we created different bins to put the different types of files into. This helped a lot for us to keep everything sorted and tidy. It is very important to do this when editing.

Then we chose which shots we were going to use in our video, we cut them down to the bits we wanted and put them on the timeline, after  this we added some transitions to the video. We sound a royalty free song to use on the video (we still had to credit the composer). It was very easy to add the music to the timeline, it was very similar to adding video, Cutting it to the length we wanted it to be and added to the timeline.` After the video was finished we added a title screen and some scrolling credits at the end.


After the video was fulling completed we exported it in 1080p in a format compatible with YouTube.