My Name Is John - Day 4 Shoot

Here is was the last day of filming, it only feels like we have been filming for a week, or wait that because we have. This is one of the quickest shooting schedule that i have every been apart of and congratulations to my director for pulling this off. Today's shoot was only once scene, though like usual we started of with a problem with actors as we where hoping to have 3 friends in this scene, but we only managed to get two so one of them got some extra lines. Going into this scene i thought that sound was going to be a nightmare as i new that i would be filming in a busy pub, but it was actually quite empty, this was probably down to the early time that we arrived, though as the shooting went on my audio did get gradually worst especially when a load couple sat down just around the corner, luckily we had moved onto cut away's at this point so there was really no need for sound. when listening to my sound back when i got home i have noticed that there is a small ting every now and then, i currently don't have the visuals, but im guessing one of our actors has a ring on that is tapping onto the glass. There isn't really much more to talk about this day of filming it went well and we only had once scene to film, if i had anything to say it would be that the scene drags on a bit but not sure what i can do about this at the moment until i get into the editing suite.

My Name Is John - Day 3 Shoot

This was an interesting shoot as not only was it the last shooting day with our main character, meaning we had to make sure we had everything we needed from him, but we also didn't have our main cinematographer. Luckily another student came along to be our camera operator. We had two scenes scheduled for today, one being the magic show and the other was a quick scene in an alley. We started with the magic show. the location that my director had managed to get was great it really fit the narrative story we where going for. Unfortunately we had a problem with extras as none had showed up, but we had hope and did the scene with out actors first, this scene was just a quick pre show interview with John. Originally the director had wanted john sat down talking to the camera, but once i noticed there was a mirror i suggested we had john talking to the camera through the mirror, both my director and stand in cinematographer liked the idea and this is the shot we went with. The room was small meaning sound was very easy to record and because it was so much of a close up i could get the microphone right next to john to get the best sound. The most difficult scene to record sound for was the next shot s in this shot we had john dropping a bowling ball onto the floor, but because of the room size i was recording sound from the next room through a space in the door. this meant that i did not no when the bowling ball was going to be dropped, which did result in a few moment of being deafened by the noise. This was easily worked out by getting john to drop the bowing ball on an exact word every take this meant i had enough time to turn the gain on the ZoomH6 way down so that the noise didn't peak on the microphone, this didn't work the best as the nose was still very load but i will have to see what i can do with in in post production. Once we had finished this scene we went onto recording the show unfortunately we had still had no extras show up. Luckily we had my directors mother on shoot and she went out to gather some people, she managed to bring back three people, once we added the bartender who was there and egure to help and my director and her mother to the shot we had what looked like an audience. the show scene itself was fine to shoot though i was a bit annoyed as i was hoping to get a lot more of the show filmed than we did as i wanted to have a montage of the audience gradually liking the show more and more as it went on, but john was very much refusing to do any of his show other than what was on the script, we did manage to get some small clips but i would be very surprised if i could get anything from them. we did also get some cut aways form the audience, i told the director that i needed a mixture of bard and happy for what i was trying to do, this was before i learnt that john wasn't going to give me what i wanted. The last shot that we needed from this scene was two members of the audience leaving the show walking past john. Sound for this scene was a nightmare as i had to have the gain quit low because on the other side of the door was a main road, but the actor where suppose to be whispering, so we had to work at finding a nice level where it still appeared that they where whistling but the microphone would still pick them up. The only thing left then was to get a group photo for the Facebook page of the location.

After a spot of lunch we moved onto our next and final scene of the day, this scene was set in an alley and has to have been one of the most inconstant places for recording sound, because there always seemed to be something going on whether this was birds making load noises, cars going past or the car wash place across the road. for this reason i tole my director to just keep getting takes and i would let there no when we got one that was usable. This only took ten takes before we got the one that sounded good not great but i was never going to get great. The scene itself was filmed very weirdly as me and the cinematographer didn't really think it was filmed in a mockumentrey style, bu our director liked the shot so we went with it. We surprisingly managed to get this scene done early meaning we had time to get a pick up shot that was recommended to us of john walking into the self help group building and as the building was only 2 seconds away from where we where filming it made sense to get it. My director had made a poster for the self help group, i feel like this poster could of been better as it was only a peice of white paper with "Self Help Group Today" on it and i feel like we could have had like a time and maybe a room number to make it look a bit better, but we worked with what we had and got the shot.

My Name Is John - Day 2 Shoot

Day 2 of shooting My Name is John wasn't as easy as the first shoot, as the night before shooting we had a huge snow fall, meaning many of the major roads where rather closed or had huge traffic jams. this meant we had to change our original plans as we had arranged for me to go and pick up the crew from hartlepool, but the snow made this impossible, so the crew ended up getting the train down to middlesbrough so i could get them easier. Luckily most of the roads that i needed to use to get to the location of filming where clear. meaning though we arrived slightly later than planed we did arrive at least. the location itself was suppose to be a corner shop, though after our director had some difficulty finding a location we ended up filming at a car sales shop that had a small shop attached to it. This in the bigger picture was probably better as it meant we had more room to work with. Actually filming went very quickly as my director and cinematographer decided to just go with a static two shot, they did try and get a shot that panned between the two actors but we all agreed that it really didn't work.

Recording sound was quite easy again i used a boom pole, and got in a location behind the actual till itself. I did have a problem with the till making noise as every time someone came to get petrol the till would make a beeping noise. Though after a few takes we got one that only had one noise in it. We decided that this was going to be the best we could get. I also thought i was going to have a huge problem with music that was coming from the speakers as i was unsure how easy that was going to be to turn off, luckily once we asked the guy behind the till it turned out he controlled the radio meaning he could turn it of there and then. Once we had finished getting this scene i got some atoms from the shop and even recorded some noises of the till operator scanning so i could use them later in the edit. We then headed outside to get two extra shots for this scene. One was very simple and just had John walking towards the shop with the name of the shop in the background for this shot i couldn't really s=record his foot prints without getting into shot, so i waited until we had the shot and then made him do it again so i could record the foot prints. The final shot we needed was of john leaving the shop, again this was an easy shot, and i am very pleased with the audio i managed to record especially saying we where right next to a busy road.

After this shoot we headed back to hartlepool to get the next scene filmed, this was the first and last scene of the film. It was meat to be set in a self help group, but i don't really think we managed to get this across as well as we where hoping for. We had a room for where we wanted to film but after moving some of the furniture around we decided that the room was just two big and was going to look to empty on camera, so we moved into the room next door that was much smaller, i think this helped a lot as it made the scene much more claustrophobic. We where also hoping to get some older actors for the scene, but all we could manage to get was one level 4 and three level 6's one of which was brave enough to do the speaking line in the scene. Sound for this scene was simple i couldn't have the boom that long because of the size of the room, but i personally don't think i really needed it. I did have t lock open a door on the corridor just outside the room however as the microphone was picking up the door every time someone walked through it.

My Name Is John - Day 1 Shoot

This was the first day shooting My Name Is John, this was incredibly short notice based on the fact that our actor had a very small window of time to shoot the film. This was a easy shoot for me as it was in my kitchen we had planned that i would go and pick up most of the crew from the train station and others that lived in middlesbrough would make there own way there, but once i had got the crew back to my house, our DOP rang to say that he also needed a lift, so i left the crew to set up and went to get him. Once i arrived back the crew had set up and the actors had arrived. We where filming in my kitchen and conservatory it was a bit cold as it was late winter. I recorded all of my sound using a boom pole i was originally going to use a mic stand but the scene required the actors to get up from the interview and go into the kitchen meaning i needed to follow them with the microphone. to do this i placed the microphone through an arch way that i have in between the kitchen and conservatory.

I had a major problem with the levels in this scene as not only are there pots and load noises in the background of the scene that i needed to be aware of, but also the wife in this scene goes from quite talking to shouting. This was difficult as it was incredibly hard to hold the boom pole while also trying to adjust the gain, so i tried using the boom pole with one hand this was difficult but necessary in order to get the volume levels right.

Audio Tests

My Name is John has been rushed into production as our main actor is only available for a week before he goes on tour, so i thought before we started filming i would get some audio tests in to see what would be the best way to record audio on set. I tired out three different recording set ups these where, a basic microphone from the ZoomH6, radio microphones recorded through the ZoomH6 and finally a basic microphone coming straight from the camera. I tried two different tests with all three one was to see what the audio quality was like with a static interview style shot and the second was having the person move to see what the audio sounder like then.

ZoomH6 - Mic Stand 
In this test the microphone was plugged into the ZoomH6 it was a basic rode microphone and i used a three meter XLR Cable to connect the two. I had the microphone placed in a mic stand and i was sat down about a meter in front of the microphone, i did some audio tests as well as reading some of the script though i am not the best at reading so i really don't do it justice.

The audio quality of this test is great and there was really o reason that it shouldn't be as this is the set up that we have used for many of our previous films. One problem that i seem to be hearing is there might be a slight echo, but this will be mainly down to the studio where i recorded these.

ZoomH6 - Boom Pole
This was the second test i did using this layout but this time i got Ethan to walk back and forth while i followed him with the boom pole, i tried to stay about 1 meter away from him, as though there was a camera and i was staying out of shot. I had Ethan read apart of the script for this as well as this is probably the best thing to record as it will be what i am actually recording.

The audio on this test is again great quality though there is a problem with levels as i try and keep up with Ethan as he walks back and forth, as once he goes to turn he puts his back towards the microphone, which makes his voice a lot quieter. this is something that can be easily fixed on set, by just getting a feeling of how my actor is going to walk around so i no when to move the microphone.

 ZoomH6 - Radio Mics - Moving
In this test i had a Radio microphone on me as i walked around delivering lines from the script, the radio microphones are very easy to use you have the microphone plugged into a transmitter which in this case was attached to my jeans, and then the receiver is plugged into the ZoomH6. The microphone itself was clipped just onto my tshirt just under my chin.

The audio from this test is a little quit for my liking, this is because if i made the gain any higher you could hear the movement of my tshirt when i moved, even with the gain down you can still hear the shirt a little bit in the background. I don't think i will be using radio mics for moving shots.

 ZoomH6 - Radio Mics - Static
This was another test with the radio mics, but in this case i was sat down doing an interview style shot. This would be where i would mostly using radio mics if i am going to use them, as this removes the problem of trying to hide the microphone as it wouldn't stand out as a much in a interview.

This is much better audio than the last test with the radio mics, as there is no movement, though this may have been because i was trying to not move, though i feel like the actors will move a lot more in there interviews scenes. This means that i might just avoid using radio mics as i've gotten much better results using the other microphone.

Black Magic - Mic Stand
This is the first year with our black magic, and when we had a tech demo on them we where told that unlike last years cameras these ones had plug ins for XLR cables meaning that i could plug a microphone straight into the camera. This set up was the same as the very first one i did just the different fact the the mic was plugged into the camera.

There is no real difference between this audio and the audio recorded using the ZoomH6, so this may be a great way to record the interviews, a problem i do have though is that i have no control over the gain whist recording, this wouldn't be so much of a problem as i could adjust it in post production.

Black  Magic - Boom Pole
Again i got Ethan to walk back and forth while i recorded him with a boom pole.

This audio wasn't as good for some reason when i listened to it back, this isnt really a big deal as i wouldn't like to be using a microphone that is plugged into the camera whilst doing moving shots as this is going to restrict my movement

Mockumenrtary Research - Modern Family

Modern family is the only american style mockumentary that i have looked at as i wanted to see if there where any major differences apart from the comedy. This is another show that i have only seen small portions of this show so decided to watch a few of the episodes from the first series to really get an idea of how this show is set out. Something that i was really surprised with was the fact that the show does not portray itself as a mockumentary the camera moves around a scene like the camera isn't there, the characters never actually acknowledge the camera in scenes and only talk to the camera during interview scenes. There are a few scenes though where some characters will give glances towards the cameras, these are normally strangers who are not apart of the family that the show follows, though there is the occasional glance by one of the main characters. This show is a lot different from other mockumentarys I've watched as this show is filmed much more like a sitcom where the camera will be placed wherever it is needed through out the scene even if the place that the camera is positioned is impossible because you see that place in the previous shot. This does give me hope as it means if it is necessary for our film we can do this however i think that the reason that this works in the show is because the cameras are still very much free flowing, which seems to be a important part of trying to make a mockumentary.

  This small scene show of what the interview parts of this show look like as well as what i meant when i said that some characters will occasionally look at the cameras. This clip also shows what i meant about the camera positioning making no sense as on the part where the parents are talking to there daughter on the stairs we get a camera shot from the top of the stairs looking down,but we can see from the previous shot that there isn't a camera on the stairs.

Mockumentary Research - Come Fly With Me

Come Fly With Me is an interesting take on the mockumenrty style of show as unlike others this show portrays itself much more like an actual documentary style. The show itself is set at London Stansted Airport and follows three fictional airlines and there employees. One thing that this show does that others don't, is that this show has a narrator, over the top this is something that the creators of this show Matt Lucas and David Williams have done before with the hit TV show Little Britain. This narration is one of the big details that gives this show a more professional look. The thing that makes this show so unique is that all of the main characters that the show follows are played by the same two people, who are rather in heavy make up or prosthetic. This show has a lot of scenes where the characters are directly talking to the camera or at least the camera crew, apart from that the camera and editing style is nothing we really haven't scene before, though something that i really like about the way this show works is that at the end of every episode the narrator will talk abut what happened to the characters on the show, this is only done with the non series regulars but it is a nice effect.

This clips here demonstrates the narration and the scenes where the the characters will talk to the camera crew in a interview like style.

Mockumentary Research - The Office UK

Another mockumentary that i looked into was The Office UK, i have never seen this show before, but have seen other work from the creator Ricky Gervais and have obviously heard of this show before from its great popularity in the UK. I decided to stick to the UK version only as this has much more of the comedy that we would be trying to match in My Name Is John. This show is now over a 15years old, but is still one of the biggest mockumentary style show. The Show itself follows a character called David Brent and his co workers in a paper company, from what i an see the show, never really explains, the reason behind the cameras, but i would say it is mainly a mockumentary based around following the main character, of David Brent as apart from the interview scenes David Brent, is the only character that looks at the camera. This is a nice effect as it means that the camera can be anywhere in the scene and as long as you have the main character looking at the camera, then you still have established that there is a camera there at all times. Again the comedy i this show is something that is vital for this show to work, but this might be again something hard to replicate. The scenes are normally laid out with a hand held camera you can see this by the fact that the camera is very free flowing, i get that this might be difficult to do i our film as our camera are very heavy and we really don't have the specialized equipment to do hand held correctly. The camera in the shots goes with a mixture of pans and straight cuts with even zooms in shots to give that mockumentary style. The last thing to talk about is the interview set up this is a very simple but effective shot, it is normally very close up, against a blank background, these shots are normally not very long and are just there to set up a character or the next scene, this is why i think that these interviews shots work.

 This quick scene here demonstrates a lot of the things that i have mentioned above, including the flowing camera, the fact that only David looks at the camera, and the use of pans in the show.

Mockumentary Research - Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous

As i am going to be doing a mockumentry i thought i was best to look into different examples. One of the most recent mockumentrys i have watched is a show called Zach Stone is Gonna Be Famous, this show follows a high school kid who has just graduated and has spent his entire life savings on a camera crew to film his life before famous, the problem is he has no talent. The thing i love about his show the the indie comedy that this show has, this is not something that i can add any help with as this more the writers position. The show uses two camera and cuts between the two never cutter away to a camera that is not established, this is something that i think we could really replicate though we do only have one camera operator on our crew so this may be a problem. Another thing that i really like is that the camera crew is constantly referenced and shown in shots along with being interacted with by the characters. I would really like to see this being done in My Name is John, though i can see it being difficult to do as our camera operator really doesn't like being scene on camera. the sound on this TV show is recorded using a boom pole but not the one that is being used by the fictional sound operator that is usually brought in front of camera. as you can see from the behind the scenes video i have posted below there is an actual film crew filming the show and actor are brought on the show to play the fictional camera crew. there is nothing really important about the editing, but i do think the editing benefits from the two camera shoots as it allows the editor to cut to reaction shots or cutaways normally for comedic effect.

A small scene showing how this show uses its two cameras, having the actor look at both is a great way of showing the audience that both camera are actually there on set.

The behind the scene video showing how the show as really shot.

Films - Afterlife

Afterlife is a film that still confuses me at this point as though i do believe the director has an idea on what she wants the film to be, she is having trouble portraying this to the rest of the crew. She has scenes planned out in her head, as she has been able to describe to me one of the scenes that she wants visual erects in this being she wants the main actor standing holding an mirror and a butterfly to fly out of the mirror and fly towards the screen. At this moment there is no script but i believe that the narrative is that a little girl is in a hospital and is the verge of life and death and we follow her as she goes through several dream sequences. some of these will include visual effects and green screen work. At the moment though i will work on my butterfly animation and see what kind of work she has for me as the film develops more.

Films - My Name is John

My Name is John is the film that i will be doing the role of sound operator and editor for, the film is i a mocumenty style and follows the life of a magician called john archer, but the thing is john is addicted to being a magician, so the film follows him as he goes to a recovery class, we also have interviews with his wife and friends, to see what kind of impact he is having on there life. There is not yet a script for this film, though from what i can gather the director is wanting the fact that he is a magician to be a revel at the end and for the film to mainly be a question of what he is addicted to , so she wanted him to be buying cigarettes and alcohol at a shop to insinuate that these are what he is addicted to , she also mentioned him buying cards to maybe suggest the fact that he has a gambling addiction. I am very excited about this film and think with the correct script it could look great, some worries that i do have, which i raised to the director where the fact that i don't really want the film to come across as we are making fun of addiction, but again this all depends on what the script in laid out like. Another problem i saw with creating this film was trying to stick to one camera angel for most of the film so that it has more of a documentary style as if we start to cut to much around the scene it is going to look to cinematic, but overall i am excited to get started on filming and then editing.

Job Roles - Visual Effects

This was a role that i did expect to get as not only did i say in my pitch that i had worked with visual effects and animation, but on the films that was pitched mentioned wanting animation in the film. I am very pleased with this role, as this means that i have three job roles for this module, which can only be a benefit, if i manage to pull all three of them off . For this role in particular i am required to create a butterfly animation, that is hopefully going to go on top of a live action shot, there is also some green screen effects that i have been asked to do. The green screen work is nothing that i haven't done before so this should be easy, but the butterfly animation is going to be something new for me as unlike my minor project this butterfly is going to have to be a 3D animation over a live video, apart from that the idea of putting it into the live scene is something i experimented with in my minor project.

Researching this role is very difficult as visual effects is a very broad term, as in the industry visual effects cover everything from films like chicken run to the amazing CGI in films like Avatar. Though from looking into the role to see if i could find a role that was close to what i am doing i noticed that colour grading/correction is something that is listed visual effects, where in university this role is normally given to the editor, but maybe this is more colour grading fully CGI scenes so that the match with a scene that is not CGI.

Job Roles - Editing

Editing is another of the roles i have been given for FMP and again i am really glad about this as it was another job role that had said i wanted in my pitch. I have edited several times in the past with it being my final role now for all three years at university, Though this time i have been given a slight challenge as for this module i will be editing a mockumentry, which is a style of film that i have never touched on before, so to get ready for this i will be looking into different mocumentries to see what kind of editing style they have. As even though i think that a lot of the mocumentry style is going to come from the style of my cinematographer and director i am interested to see what i can do as an editor to really give the film a mocumentry style look.

The role of editor is nothing new to me so i am confident on what the role requires me to do, basically i will be in charge of all post production work, this includes visual's, audio(the fact that i am sound means i can incorporate this into both of my roles), graphics and music, I will do all of these things under the watchful eye of my director, though personally i like to be left along why i do my edit and then show my director once i am finished so that they can give me advice o what they like r what they believe needs changing, though this year i am working with a new director so i am unsure on what impact she is going to want over the edit. I will be editing on AVID as it is not only a industry standard software, but also a software that i have vast knowledge in as ive been using it over the three years of university.

Job Roles - Sound Operator

Sound operator is one of the roles i have been given for FMP i am very pleased with this as it was one of the roles that i had pitched for, i will be doing this role along side my editing role for the same film. This is great as it means i get to work my my audio more in post production, which has been something lacking from previous films, all so for this role i will be doing audio tests, to determine the best way of me recording sound, to do this i will be trying out different locations for the mic along with different recording devices. Trying to research the role of sound operator is a difficult thing as, there really isn't such a thing as sound operator in the business, but instead the role we are given in uni in a mixture of many different profession job roles including,

Sound Recordist - this is the closest to the the role of sound operator, as it involves recording sound along side the camera, usually on set, whether this is a real set inside a studio or a outside location. With this role the sound recordist rarely ever gets to work with the sound he has recorded post production, but then again this role is also the combination of two other roles these being:

Boom Operator - In this role the operator is in charge of the boom, which is a long extendable metal pole normally between 3 - 9 feet long, with a microphone or even microphones on the end. The role of boom operator requires not only good upper body strength as boom poles especially professional ones can be quite heavy, especially after holding them above your head for 20 mins. This is why a boom operator also requires great endurance as they will be required to hold the boom up for however the long the shot takes to film. As for me performing this role, a lot of the script seems to be interviews so for these i will probably have a mic stand set up, but for other scenes i will be practicing with the boom to get the audio as smooth as possible.

Production Sound Mixer - This is the role that will work along side the boom operator to mix any audio that the boom operator is picking up, this role is normally done live on location and is mixed as it is recorded by the boom operator, This role and the boom operator role is something that i will have to balance by myself as sound operator, sometimes choosing if the boom location is more important for good audio or if live mixing is best.

Sound Designer - This role is also something that plays a part in the role of sound operator especially for me as i will also be working with my sound post production, and that is the primary role of a sound designer, other roles include recording or creating and post production sounds, whether these are just small sounds to bring a scene together or full on action sequences the sound designer will create them all or at the least over see the recording/creation of them all.

FMP - Pitch

This is the pitch i used to demonstrate what role/roles i was wanting to do for Fmp, i went with editor as i have done this role in the past and am very confident with my ability to edit, the second role i wanted was a sound role this was preferably on the same film as i have always had a problem with sound, on the previous films that i have done. I used my third slide to show what my plan was for the module, this was to do tests and research for the pre production stage, with production being mainly focused on sound recording and then post production being a mix of the two. I then showed some examples of previous work that i have done, these where my two second year final films and my first year final film. To finish of my pitch i added some pluses to what i can bring to a film, these where the knowledge that i had learnt about 2D animation in my minor project, some special effect work that i have dome in the past, and also the fact that i have a car, which is good for anyone wanting to film in far locations or with lots of equipment or cast. At the end i asked if there where any questions, one question i got was which of the films from the one that had already been pitched would i be up for editing, to answer this i went with jacks film as he was a director that i had worked with in the past and we have made some great films together.