Artswork Summary

The final submission deadline is approaching, and everything is now in order and ready to hand in.

This year I have worked on various different projects, including my own personal project all covering a range of topics. Each project has given me the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills – allowing me to work upon both my strengths and weaknesses.

When I first joined this year I lacked confidence in my technical abilities, but by attending the different workshop ran at Artswork Media, I have been able to develop these different skills and then put them into practice during the group projects.

Strengths

This year I feel I have really developed strengths in my directing skills, early on during a lighting workshop I took on the role of director, but my directing skills were a little weak – mainly because of my confidence in asking people what to do. However with time and more experience my confidence and directing skills improved, as I was able to put them to practice during my own three four shoots and during the Vanessa and Virginia group project.

Throughout this year I think I have been organised in my project management, especially with my personal project, I have been organised in finding and sourcing contributors and locations, keeping the production folder up to date, but I also believe group projects have been managed well. We did encounter a few problems, with completing the second Wells project due to Ali’s leave from work. However Adam and I continued planning throughout the year – originally planning to base the second film on The Choristers, but this film’s topic changed when Ali asked for an appeal on The Jesse Window, which is what we delivered.

My producing skills have defiantly improved this year, which I think reflects within my personal project and in group projects. I have gained experience in working with clients and contributors, my researching skills have improved and I think at some point in the future I would aim towards working within a producer role, and I think I would like to work in producing journalistic pieces, such as documentaries, current affair programmes and news reports/features.

Weaknesses

For me the weaker areas have been the more technical areas, such as camera operating, sound recording and editing. However the workshops and support of group members have given me confidence in my abilities to operate the software and equipment.

Reflecting back for me the editing workshops have been the most beneficial as they have giving me a better understanding of how Final Cut, Motion and DVD studio work – allowing me to apply these skills and understandings to my own personal project as well as Vanessa and Virginia and Wells.

This year I think I have taken some key roles within the group project, co-leading on two Wells and Vanessa and Virginia but I have also worked on a couple of team member’s personal projects. My thoughts on these projects are documented in previous blog entries.

To conclude I think spending my final year at Artswork Media has been a worthwhile experience for myself, I have worked with some good team members all bringing a variety of different skills to the team. It has been a positive learning environment to work with.

Group Work Update

On Wednesday, Sam and I had another meeting with the Vanessa and Virginia team; at this meeting we got to meet the two technicians who will be touring with the show. At the meeting we presented them with all the material we had created, unfortunately due to a few technical problems we couldn't show them the clips on a big screen we had to watch them via a laptop - which didn't provide them with the full effect but at least they all got to see them.

The majority of the clips they seemed to like, however there was one they were uncertain about this was the large swaying colourful plant clip. The reason they were unsure about the clip was because they felt it made the actresses look like 'borrowers'. I could see their point, it did make the actresses look extremely small within a garden.

Another issue which was discussed was the order of the clips, Beth felt some of the clips were in the wrong place and she wanted to re-organise them. We said this would be fine as we would provide each clip as an individual file, that way they can place them in any order they like; plus the technicians would have control over how long each clip stays on the screen - allowing time for the actresses to say their lines each night, as it's extremely likely timings will change from show to show.

Beth and Emma seemed happy with this and asked for us to send them a c.d with all the files so they can have their own meeting to discuss the shows development and progress.

Another meeting has been arranged for Wednesday 26th May to discuss any possible changes or alterations that need to be made, this meeting will be held at Paintworks.

Now for Wells update.

On Thursday Adam and I made a start on the second Wells film - An appeal video for the Jesse Window.

We began by listening back to Val's interview, selecting the best and most relevant parts to use within the film. Once these were selected we began tidying them up removing the long pauses, "erms" and "arrs", ect. Then we placed the clips in order of how we think they should appear.

We then selected the best take of the Dean doing his piece to camera.

All the dialogue is now selected and almost in place, we are just waiting on the music Ali is providing then we can tidy the edit up, and continue with the picture edit - placing the photographs in place.

Adam has also e-mailed Ali about finding some recent Cathedral facts to include within the first Well's film.

Wells Project - Film 2.

On Thursday, Adam and I met up with Ali at Wells to discuss the second film. Ali decided that it would be a good idea and beneficial to the Cathedral to have an appeal video for the Jesses Window on the Cathedral’s website.

We spent the day at Wells talking about the film’s requirements, the music and photographs she has and wants included.

During the course of the day we did film a few shots of the Jesse window, although due to its location it is extremely hard to get a variety of interesting shots. We went up into the very small organ room, which is located high up, which helped us get a different angle on the window. The rest of the shots were filmed from below.

To show the window’s detail within the film, we are going to have to use photographs Ali has provided, as it is impossible to get any detailed images using the camera.

On the Thursday evening Adam and I waited for the outside light to give a slight glow on the Cathedral building – although the lighting didn’t change a great deal, so we made a decision to adjust the shot in post production.

On the Friday Ali had arranged for two contributors to do interviews and pieces to camera about the Jesse Window. Friday was an early start both of us we left Weston at 7.30am to head over to Wells to get set-up ready for the first interview with a lady called Val at 10am.

Val’s interview went well, she was very knowledgeable on the Jesse window providing us with plenty of detailed and interesting content to use. Although during the interview we had to stop Val and ask her to repeat some of the information due to a buzzing or rustling from her clip mic.

The second contributor was the Cathedral Dean he did a piece to camera appealing for donations to help with the Jesse Window’s up keep. Due to his busy schedule we only had half an hour to get the material needed. This wasn’t a problem because we had already planned and organised the shot location the previous day.

That was the final shot of the day, all we need to do now is start the editing process on Monday.

Filming!

On Monday I helped Ved out with his shoot for his individual project, which was a scene from the first episode of a drama he has written called ‘Freshers Week’.

This was really good fun, it was great to see the actor and actresses from t

he casting session, which I helped out with on the Monday before portray the characters Ved had created. It was surprising to see the main character – Emma, who we were

unsure of in the casting session take on her role, I thought she did a really good job and made the character stand out.

During the day I helped out with various different roles and tasks but I probably spent most of my time, helping out with sound by taking on the role as boom operator. Although when we first started we did encounter a few technical problems with the sound equipment, for some unexplained reason we couldn’t get the Boom Mic to work, it wasn’t sending any sound levels to the camera. Not having any other Mics with us, we had to record the sound using the camera mic. At first t

he mic was struggling to pick up all the dialogue, however Sam had a an idea of placing the camera mic on the boom pole and holding that closer to the cast – which is what we did for the rest of the shoot.

Overall I thought the shoot went well, although I did think there were a few minor organisation issues with call times. Two of the actresses had the same call time as the other cast members but wasn’t being filmed until late afternoon. They spent quite a few hours sat around, looking a little bored. I personally think it would have been better to have given them a later call time, although looking on the positive side it did provide them with time to run through their lines. The other minor organisation issue I noticed was, when the other two actresses started filming their scenes, the rest of the cast were left hanging around waiting to complete one final shot. I think it would have been better to film the final shot before moving onto the next scene, allowing them to finish up and leave on time. I think this could have also caused a few problems with lighting as the set needed to re-lit due to the lights being moved to film the next scene.

Apart from them issues I though the day went really well, the location was brilliant, and the actors and actresses were all good and co-operative. Everyone worked well as a team, all helping out with various different roles and I think Ved did a great job in directing the shoot.

On the Tuesday afternoon, Adam, Tom and myself all went over to a primary school to film another part of Adam’s individual project, working along side the Avon and Wildlife Trust. The aim of the day was to film some primary school children taking part in a wildlife walk around their school grounds, which was run by the Avon and Wildlife Trust. The purpose of the film is to provide other people / schools with a taster of what the project / walk involves – teaching children to explore the different types of wildlife species. I took on the role of Still’s photographer and helping Tom out with the sound equipment and cables. As we were following the children around we needed to ensure they wouldn’t fall over any loose leads and wires from the boom mic.

The shoot went well, although I think additional material maybe needed at some point during the edit to establish the main points of the project – possibly using quotes from the children, teachers and Avon and Wildlife Staff.

Group Meeting and Vanessa and Virginia Update.

On Wednesday 24th March we all had a group meeting to discuss and organise a timetable for each of the group projects; scheduling days of work so everyone knew what projects they were working on and what needed to be done on each day. It was decided we would have all of the group projects completed by the 28th April, to allow us all time to focus on finishing and finalizing our individual projects. The majority of us have chosen to work through the Easter break in order to keep on top of the schedule and workload.
It was a good idea, to allocate certain dates to each project so we could work in small teams to get the production and post production completed, as everyone knew that on that day they were focused on developing that various project.

Last Monday I made a list of all the scenes we needed to make for the Vanessa and Virginia project, listing estimate timings for each one, this was done using the recorded read-through. Then on the Tuesday and Wednesday Sam, Tom, Chris and myself focused on creating and making some of the scenes. Sam and myself each brought in a variety of different props and materials to experiment with creating different affects. One of Beth’s requirements was she wanted the projection to look dream like. Baring this in mind we experimented with different materials in front of various shades of light. Below you will find a couple of examples we created.





Outside we all began experimenting with the exposure and colours to try and create this dream-like effect.
Another requirement Beth wanted was she wanted the production to be abstract and experimental so we played around with different lights, fabrics and textures to try and create these affects.
Below you will find an example.



We also created various images and scenes using Motion to create some different styles. Below is a clip I created using two colours from Vanessa Bell's paintings to represent Vanessa and Virginia's mother and father.



This week we are going to continue experimenting and creating other abstract images using paint, powders and liquids to create various textures, designs and affects.

Stanton Drew Shoot 2

On Tuesday 23rd March, I had organised to re-shoot at Stanton Drew but this time with a different contributor. Tom, Adam and Rob all helped out as crewmembers taking on roles of camera operator and sound recordists.
When we first arrived we made our way over to the Stone Circles to get ourselves organised, and have all the equipment set up ready for when Leon (contributor) arrived.
We began testing the sound equipment to get the correct sound levels when Tom noticed a slight buzzing sound; after talking with Rob they decided to remove the sound mixer as this seemed to be causing the annoying buzz. The sound was then set-up to be recorded straight into the camera.










































Once Leon arrived we were ready to start filming, however that’s when the weather decided to take a change for the worse and began raining. After waiting for a short while, the rain did die down, but there was still a slight shower I decided to carry on with the shoot, holding an umbrella over the camera to try and avoid any water going on the camera and lens. Although at times some shots were unusable due to this problem.
Once all the stone circles shots were filmed, we moved into The Druids Arms Pub where I got a few more takes of Leon telling the story of The Stanton Drew Dancers.
Leon was a fantastic contributor, he defiantly knew his stuff on Stanton Drew and was very confident in telling the story to camera – he had real character.



It was just a shame the weather was not as lovely as the previous Stanton Drew shoot, but then again the contributor, content and sound was a lot better so I guess it’s swings and roundabouts.
Adam, Tom and Rob were all really helpful on both shoots, all helping out with different problems that occurred, everyone was really organised and overall I was happy with the way the shoot went.

Stanton Drew Shoot 1

After speaking to Gordon about my project he agreed to contribute what he knew about the myth of the Stanton Drew Stone Circles. After getting permission from the local Stanton Drew farmer (who owns the land) it was arranged with Gordon I would meet him at the Stone Circles on Tuesday 16th March where he would tell the local story to camera.

I organised a small crew again to help out with the shoot. Adam took on the role as camera operator, Rob and Tom both helped out as sound recordists and Sam took the role as stills photographer.

When we arrived it was a beautiful day to film, the weather was gorgeous. However when we first began setting the equipment up, we came across a technical problem with the camera – the picture was all grainy. We tried to resolve this problem but were having great difficulty; but Adam rang Dani and managed to resolve the problem over the phone.
Below is an example of what the picture looked like, before the problem was resolved.



We finally got started with the shoot, and began filming Gordon telling the story. Gordon had brought along a local poem / song about Stanton Drew, which he read to camera however he read from the piece of paper – although this wasn’t ideal. I thought I could use the poem as a voice-over replacing the visuals with different shots of Stanton Drew and the Stone Circles.
Due to other commitments Gordon could only say with us for a couple of hours so the shoot was quite short, and I was a little concerned and disappointed with the amount of content we managed to film, but felt I had enough to create a small feature for my documentary; however I did think we had shot some great cut aways of the stones, church, signs, etc.

The following day I went into Artswork and began capturing my material when I discovered that the majority of the material shot was unusable due to distorted sound. Unsure of why this was, I asked Dani he seemed shocked at the quality of the sound and told me that the levels would have been too high on the camera causing this problem. At the shoot, all the sound was set-up to go through the mixer, and on the day Tom, Rob and myself all thought the sound, sounded fine.
It was later discovered that the distorted sound was down to a technical problem with the clip Mic.

Due to these problem I was unable to use any of the material shot and needed to rearrange another shoot, to re-film everything.
I then received a phone call from Tom, who had a friend - Leon that was very knowledgeable about Stanton Drew and it’s local myths. After speaking to Leon, he agreed he would be a contributor for my film and would tell the myth to camera. It was arranged I would re-shoot on the 23rd March.

Stanton Drew Update

On Tuesday Sam and I headed over to Stanton Drew to follow up some leads in regards to finding a local contributor to participate within my documentary.
A previous Artswork Media student had given me the name of a local landlady, who was very helpful during his personal project. I decided I would visit Stanton Drew to complete a recce and talk to her about the possibility of using her pub – The Druids Arms to film in and find out whether either herself or one of her regulars would be willing to volunteer to tell the Stanton Drew story to camera for me at some point.

On our arrival (after taking a few wrong turns) we found ‘The Druids Arms Pub’, I noticed on the wall the previous landlady Trish had left and the pub was now being ran by someone else. The new landlord came across very cheerful and friendly so I asked him whether he would be interested or knew of someone that would be willing to help me. He informed me that recently they have discovered Stanton Drew’s Stone Circles are around 10000 years older than Stonehenge and therefore the Stanton Drew story has been confirmed a myth. He told me that he wasn’t sure about the story, but one lady in the village might be able to help me so he took my number and said he would get in contact after speaking with her.

Moving on from the pub Sam and I visited the Stone Circles, where I took the opportunity to take a few pictures and make some notes in order to complete a recce.













Feeling a little disappointed with the result of not finding a contributor we decided to visit the village church, to see if I could find anyone there who would be able to help me, unfortunately there wasn’t; however I did managed to find the Stanton Drew Parish magazine, which listed all the local contacts of different groups and associations.



Reading through the magazine I found a small piece on the Stone Circles with a name and number to contact for further information on the latest report. I followed this lead and managed to speak to a lady called Elizabeth. After explaining my project to her she told me to ring back tomorrow and I would be able to speak to her husband who would possibly help me, either by contributing himself or putting me in contact with someone else.

Hopefully I will get to speak to Gordon (Elizabeth’s husband) and I will be able to feature the story within my documentary as originally planned.

Scriptwriting Workshop

Yesterday we took part in a scriptwriting workshop, which was run by Doug Chamberlin. Doug is a professional scriptwriter and has worked on many projects writing for both T.V and film, one of his well-known projects is Toy Story 2.
The workshop began with Doug introducing himself giving us a brief outline of his background and experiences as well as him finding out a little bit about each of us, our interests and what we do at Artswork Media.

Once the introductions were over, we moved on to discussing good and bad sitcoms, looking at their premise. In this discussion Doug read out some sitcom premises and we had to decide whether they were funny or not. From his short exercise we discovered that the more successfully sitcoms such as Friends, Father Ted, Fawlty Towers all had simple premises that didn’t come across as funny; more of the unsuccessful sitcoms that may have ran for only a few episodes or possible one season had a suggestive funny element to their premise such as My Mother the Car.
What we learnt from this exercise was a sitcom premise doesn’t have to be funny it’s just to provide an outline of what the programme is about. The comedy elements slowly develop within the re-writes and with the character developments.

The second exercise was to list things, which can differentiate different characters within a sitcom. Some example we came up with:
- Gender
- Age
- Race
- Morals
- Religion
- Height
- Weight
- Hair Colour
- Type A / Type B
- Relationship Status
- Fashion Sense
- Class
- Regional Background

We then discussed the three types of humor different characters can portray. These were:
- Machine
- Child
- Animal.



Using these exercises we began planning and brainstorming for our own sitcom.
First we all needed to decide on a location of where our sitcom would be set.
After brainstorming, it was decided our sitcom would be set in a Theme Park.
Keeping this location in mind we had to work together and decide on what job roles would be available to use within a theme park. For example:
- Ticket Officer
- Car park Attendant
- Ride Operator
- Snack Bar Girl
- Manager
- Cleaner
- Maintenance Guy
- Cartoon Character
- Security Officer

We then discussed what characteristics and personality traits would work well with each character, using the examples from the first exercise.




We decided that we would have a paranoid ticket officer, an old car park attendant, young manager, beautiful and smart snack bar girl, lazy security woman and a posh cleaner who is on patrol, the cartoon character’s identity would remain a mystery.
Having decided these first draft character traits we discussed possible situations that could happen within an episode of the sitcom. One main idea everyone seemed to be drawn to was the idea of the electricity being cut off and the problems and disruptions it would cause to the theme park and between the different staff members.



After that exercise the workshop came to a close. But I found the whole workshop to be very interesting and fun to take part in. It has provided me with a greater insight of how sitcoms start of as very simple, unfunny ideas that can develop into something very comical, just by taking the time to develop the characters, stories and the key thing is to keep re-writing.

Vanessa and Virginia Shoot - Read Through

On Wednesday 10th February the studio was set up for us to film a read though of the ‘Vanessa and Virginia’ script. A green screen was set-up for Emma and Sarah to stand in front of whilst reading the script. This was done so we could edit in different images during the editing stages to see whether the images and techniques we had been working on would work well and would look right within the play and performance.








One of the main aims of the shoot was to get an idea of how long the actual play will take in order for us to work out timings for the different images we are going to create for the backdrop.



During the shoot I took on the role of Sound Recordist, where I had to monitor the sound levels. To be honest I was a little nervous about doing this role, as I haven’t had much experience in using the sound equipment before. However Dani and Tom explained exactly what I had to do and I seemed o.k. with it. To begin with they showed me the sound mixer which I was using up until it completely decided it wasn’t go to work any longer and went dead. We then discovered the batteries had died, and to save time and messing around it was decided we would record straight into the camera. Once all the leads were in place and we were ready to start shooting again my role was to ensure that each of Emma and Sarah’s microphone levels didn’t peak. Listening through the headphones everything sounded fine, levels were fine until about half way though the reading when Emma’s clip mic decided to also stop working. Alerting Dani to the problem, he decided it would be best to keep sarah’s mic running but capture the rest of the sound through the boom mic. I don’t think we encountered any further technical problems after this and were able to complete the shoot.














Overall I think the shoot went well it provided us with a greater understanding of the length of the play and scene timings, all things, which will defiantly help us when creating the required backdrop.

Film Posters

As a way of promoting our work we do at Artswork Media, Nic has asked if we could all create some posters for some of our ongoing projects.
Below are two posters, which I have created using Photoshop. The first one has been designed to support one of the three, three-minutes films for the Wells Cathedral Project. The second is to support one of my individual stories for my personal project ‘Myths, Legends and Hauntings of Somerset’.
The images featured on each poster are stills from some footage we have filmed over the last few months.

Vanessa and Virginia Meeting.

Last Wednesday (3-2-2010) we all met up at Paintworks to get all our presentation material together, ensure we had everything exported in the correct formats and Chris imported all our material into the computer programme Arkaos.
We then all headed over to Bath Spa’s Newton Park Campus, where we met up with Nic, Emma and the two actresses who will be playing Vanessa and Virginia – Kitty and Sarah.
When we first arrived the room needed to be prepped for our presentation. Dani had brought along his projector, this was then connected to the laptop and using Arkaos Chris projected our material onto the back wall.
To begin with we showed everyone each clip once or twice and after all the material had been viewed we had a brief discussion of what stood out to Emma, Kitty and Sarah and what parts they liked, what they wasn’t too sure about and why.
During the meeting Dani made some notes, which he kindly e-mailed to everyone.
These can be viewed below.

"Meeting V and V - 3rd Feb 201

Feedback from Beth -

Fluid - not hard breaks - each evolves out of the next - some hook into the next scene.

Can you reverse the 3d piece?

Least keen on tertris - stear clear of the the paintings

Really loved the paint.
Really loved the water.

possibility of - Live Camera on canvas as she paints

Nic - could be much slower - dream is always slower.
Beth - more distracting to see to see something fast - but I like the idea [ the paint ]

Nic - what if the screen had bits that stuck out of the side of it.

Beth - you don't want to to have contestant change- if you have a still image but the intensity of the light changes.

Beth - Certainly wouldn't want furniture

Nic - you could have a colour patin program.

Beth - I like the ideas of characters having colours.

Actions -

1. Develop ideas further by next weds
2. Film actors read through next weds"

I thought the meeting went really well, I believe we presented a variety of different techniques to the client for her to decide what she feels would work and what she would prefer to avoid.

The following day Beth e-mailed her thoughts on the meeting below you will see an extract of her e-mail stating some of her likes and dislikes.

"

Here are my thoughts so far and I'm sure Emma will have even more when she meets you next week (hopefully).

1. I liked the idea of having colours for characters, but only if it is appropriate to the mood. I mean, the colours shouldn't turn into a disco of people.
2. I think it would be best if we view the scene transitions as 'transitions' and not breaks. That would mean that (unless we want to create a shock at a specific moment), the new or altering images should evolve slowly so that the audience does not notice the changes or are distracted by the changes.
3. I liked the 3D feeling, but as I said, it mustn't be a room with furniture etc, but just a space with depth.
4. I liked the subtle movements that you put on some of the more painterly animations.
5. I did like the water and the paint on glass, but I realise this is slightly different to the more painterly stuff and so I'm unsure as to whether the two styles will fuse, see what Emma thinks.
6. The dripping paint was also interesting, but it was one of the most obvious of the ideas as was the tetris. I think perhaps we should avoid using her paintings too obviously. Not least because we don't have any money to pay for them as yet.
7. As for the amazing technical side of things I cannot comment and just stand in awe. I have suggested that Emma brings a theatre techie with her so that you can discuss that side of things.
8. As I have said I am in the process of applying for funding. I intend to ask for the cost of the equipment and for £1000 to pay you guys. Fingers crossed.

You have certainly caught the spirit of the brief. You are creating a living work of art."


It was arranged that Kitty, Sarah and Emma (the director of the play) would come over to Paintworks next Wednesday (10-2-2010) to film a read through of the entire script, performed in the Endermol Studio Space.
This will then provide us with an understanding of the duration and timings of the play, which will help us when creating the required backdrop.

Wells Project Update

Over the past few weeks over various moments I have logged and captured the Wells Christmas Concert Tapes into Final Cut Pro. This morning I began editing the footage to create a picture rough cut – as the sound will be imported later from other sources.

As my main focus was on the picture, I tried to use the best possible shots we had filmed, but found this was fairly difficult at times as some of our footage from The West Front camera was of low quality due to the limited lighting we had in the evening. However other parts of the footage looked really effective, yet we didn’t storyboard these images but I made a decision to include them within the first picture rough cut to help include a variety of shots from various angles.



One shot both Adam and I were concerned about was the Time-Lapse (seeing the Cathedral light up with candlelight) because when the camera was set-up at some point during the filming, it got moved and we both thought this would ruin the shot. However when I was editing today I discovered that the shot was not ruined and was still usable.

Below you will see I have adjusted the speed of the shot; making it faster to create the time-lapse.
(This is still rough and needs some adjustments and is still in working progress, but it gives you an idea of the effect we are trying to create.)




At the moment the rough edit is just over four-minutes long, and our required brief is to produce a three-minute film so we need to make some alterations and adjustments to the length of the film. Overall the edit is coming along well.

Moving on from the Christmas Concert Edit, I have also been researching and planning for the next three-minute film; which Adam and I have chosen to base the film around The Choristers and possibly focusing on ‘A Day in the Life of a Chorister Boy’.

After some research I thought it might be a good idea to focus the film on a Girl Chorister, as they are a recent tradition to the Cathedrals. However after some discussion with Adam we decided it would probably be best to focus on a Boy Chorister, as it’s more traditional and less boys are showing interest in becoming a Chorister than the girls are, so this film could work slightly as a promotional video demonstrating what a Choristers role entails.

Below I have uploaded some copies of my notes and a first draft storyboard to document some of my ideas for the second film.










Before we can really move on from the planning process to the production stage we have to await Ali’s response to the idea, which means we have to await her return to Wells Cathedral as she has been working away – until then we will continue brainstorming and developing ideas.

Experimenting with Painting on Glass

A couple of Thursdays ago Dani ran a workshop on ‘Abstract Film-making’. In this workshop we looked at various pieces of work from different artists such as Hans Richter, Man Ray, Reiniger, Guy Sherwin etc; All using different techniques and approaches to experimental abstract filmmaking.

Two of the techniques I particularly liked were placing objects on film and painting on glass. I thought either of these techniques could work well as a backdrop for the Vanessa and Virginia project.

I decided to carry out some research into Painting on Glass, looking at various work online from other people to get some inspiration and ideas of how I could create some abstract images. Below are a few links to some videos which I looked at, which I thought had some good effects and designs in.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-xWvpLat00&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw00u6afIew&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tMDzFhVppQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLJoNMfpnto

Last Monday and Tuesday with the help of Ollie I experimented with creating abstract images using the technique of painting on glass. Before we began painting, we lit the glass table with two lights from above and one light below to create a white canvas effect and placed the video camera underneath the glass table.


























We then began experimenting with the paint, creating a couple of different effects using brush strokes and pouring the paint onto the glass. After a couple of goes, we captured our footage into Final Cut Pro, then imported it into Motion, where we began manipulating the images using different filters, masks, and mattes.






























As you can see from our first attempts, my hand, arm and the paintbrush appear within the image- this is something I wanted to try and get rid of.











We then experimented with using only black paint this was o.k. when we imported it into Motion but we still had problems with trying to remove my hand and arm. The other problem we encountered was the top of the paint bottle - this too was appearing in the image. Experimenting further we found the best way to remove my arm, hand, paintbrush and paint bottle from the image was to cover everything in white and use only green paint. Improvising with the materials we had, we wrapped my arm in white toilet roll, placed both a latex and white glove over my hand, covered the paint bottle in white paper and wrapped white tape around the paintbrushes.

We then experimented with different consistencies of paint, from thick to liquidly to try and create various abstract images from brush strokes to splashes of paint. Importing the footage into Motion, using effects of mattes, masks and various filters and behaviors we managed to achieve our goal of removing my arm and hand from the images. We did still have the small problem of trying to remove the paint bottle top from the image, but after more practice and experimenting we final managed to get rid of this by transferring the paint into another shaped bottle.

This is one of my favorite images we created, because I like the look of the brush strokes, the effect the noise (flickering parts) creates within the image. I personally think this could possibly work well within the water scene during the Vanessa and Virginia play.



Another one I particularly like is this one. What I like about this image is how the paint eventually fills the screen. – I feel this image could work well at the part where a violent image is seen.




As I mentioned above the best way to create the abstract images is to use green paint, and cover everything else in white. The background and paint colours can then be changed within Motion. If we decide to use this technique as part of the Vanessa and Virginia backdrop we could possibly think about using Vanessa Bell’s colours from her paintings.

I have exported the different images as QuickTime Movies to take with us to present to Beth at the next Vanessa and Virginia meeting.







I loved experimenting with this technique and I feel it could work really well within the Vanessa and Virginia Project.

Vanessa and Virginia - Motion Designs.

One of the group projects I am heavily involved in is 'Vanessa and Virginia', which Sam and myself are leading. ‘Vanessa and Virginia’ is a story about two sisters and their relationship written by Susan Sellers. Dr. Elizabeth Wright (our client) has adapted the novel into a stage production, which will be directed by Emma Gersh. Our brief is to create a backdrop for the set design in which the two actresses can interact with.

During the Vanessa and Virginia meeting on Thursday 14th January 2010 with Elizabeth (Beth) it was agreed that members of the Artswork Team would come up with some ideas to present to Beth at the next meeting on 3rd February 2010.
In the meeting Beth was very open to different ideas and suggestions, however she did say she would like the backdrop to be abstract, experimental and possibly dream like.

Taking her suggestions Sam and myself decided to create a couple of scene images using the computer programme ‘Motion’,As we had only had a brief introduction to the programme, we were unsure of how the programme worked and how we could create certain images and effects. Ollie showed us certain things we could do, and how we could manipulate certain images.

One of Sam and my ideas was to create different images using Vanessa Bell’s Paintings and the colours from them.

The first image we created was the opening scene, which is described as:

Childhood. I am lying on my back on the grass. Thoby is lying next to me, his warm
flank pressing into my side.

Using Photoshop we cut a cloud from one of Vanessa Bell’s Paintings, imported the image into motion, where we then enlarged the image, added a blur and animated it; getting the cloud to move from left to right as well as moving forward to eventually filling the entire screen.




After viewing this image, we decided to change the black edges to a green colour to
give the suggestion of the grass, as well as adding a light ray effect to create the
haloed in light idea.



Looking at both images, I personally feel the first one works best as it’s fairly simple, not to much action and less distraction for an audience. I feel the first image has more of a dream style effect seeing the blurred edges of the cloud. The second image has too much going on, and could become very distracting.


The second scene we chose to make is where Virginia enters the stream.

Here we used a pre-set Motion effect, which we manipulated using Vanessa Bell’s painting colours, added a grain to create a flickering effect, as well as added a speed behaviour to slow the image down.



I personally like this image, but am not sure whether it would work that well within the finished backdrop, as it could be a strange change going from created images, to film footage that has been manipulated. Although it does have a fantastic look and would suit the part of Virginia entering the water well.



These are just a couple of ideas Sam and myself have come up with to present to Beth at the next meeting, to find out whether we are heading in the right direction.

A link to some of Vanessa Bell's artwork.

http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/searchresults.aspx?entry=vanessa%20Bell%20&searchtype=p#action=refine&entry=vanessa%20Bell%20&searchtype=p&sid=af91ddcb-70ec-4c3d-805f-05aac975ac8e

Wookey Hole Shoot

Thursday 28th January was an early start for a group of us, leaving my house at 7am I headed over to Taunton to collect Adam from the Train Station, we then carried on over to Wookey Hole, where we began setting up the camera (Sony Z7) and lights. Tom and Kate soon joined us and also began helping to set up the equipment.
I had organised job roles for each of us and told everyone in advance so they all knew what everyone was doing. Adam had the role of Camera Operator, Tom was the Sound Recordist, and Kate took on the role as Stills Photographer. My roles were to set-up the lighting and direct the shoot.






Over the past few months I have been corresponding with Gayle via e-mails and meetings to arrange everything I needed to get from the shoot, and timings that would fit around Wookey Hole’s busy schedule.
Gayle had confirmed we could film in the caves during the course of the morning, as we would have exclusive access to the cave chamber, without any intrusions from the public. This was fantastic because we were able to use their coloured lighting they have installed within the cave, plus our own lights, which I took as part of the equipment kit.
Gayle had also arranged Wookey Hole’s head tour guide, Mike to tell the story of ‘The Wookey Witch’ to camera for me.
Mike arrived at around 10.15am when everything was set –up and we were ready to begin filming. Tom fitted Mike with a mic and checked all the sound levels were being received, I adjusted the lighting slightly to light mike and Adam framed the shot…..and then filming began.


































I found with my Yeovil shot, I lacked a variety of camera angles and cutaways although I had some I didn’t have enough; so I wanted to ensure I had plenty of material during the Wookey Hole shoot. This meant filming a number of different takes from a variety of angles, although most of the story-telling was filmed down by the river due to the lighting conditions and beautiful scenery.
Once we had completed the story-telling shots with Mike, we then were giving time to get different shots and sound recordings from within the cave, such as ‘Hells Ladder’ which was lit with red flashing lights that added a cool effect to the shot. The Witch’s dog known as ‘Doogle’ and the stalagmite of the witch.
We then moved outside of the caves and filmed some footage of the Cave cliffs, and The Paper Mill.
After a busy morning, we all went for lunch in the ‘Wookey Inn’ where we discussed the morning events and talked about what I needed to get during the course of the afternoon.
After lunch we filmed some footage of ‘Wookey Village’ and got an amazing shot of a horse and rider passing by, which looked fantastic and added real character to the village.
The final shots we got of the day were landscape and country images. A variety of shots I can use within the full documentary to help piece everything together.
Overall I think the Wookey Witch shoot went a lot better than Yeovil, we got some brilliant footage, everyone worked well, all contributing shot ideas which I thought was really good and helpful, especially to get over people’s opinions.
I thought the crew all did a fantastic job; they were organised and professional with their job roles.

The Start of Molly the Tea Lady’s Edit.

Over the Christmas break I have been working on creating a rough cut for the story of ‘Molly the Tea Lady. Originally I was going to make a fifteen-twenty minute documentary containing various mysterious stories from around Somerset. However I have now decided I will edit each individual piece to make single units as well as feature them all within the documentary ‘Myths, Legends and Hauntings of Somerset’.
When I first began the edit, I was unsure of where to start because I had quite a bit of footage of Ros telling the story and her various encounters and I wasn’t sure what parts to include and what parts to leave out. I decided the best way to try and resolve this problem was to go through my transcript thoroughly – referring back to the footage marking down all good shots, and stories. Then numbering each shot I thought would be great to include and in what order. I found this helped me a great deal, by getting my edit going although I did find once I had engrossed myself within the rough cut I tended to forget about the transcript and my notes and just started moving, cutting and altering the material to what I thought looked and worked best.
As I mentioned in a previous blog entry I did have a feeling I may encounter a few issues with some of the footage we had filmed due to it being a little shaky and possibly unusable, this was the case for some of it – which was slightly frustrating, but I was able to overcome the problem and I did find although some of the visuals were shaky the sound was still fully useable.
During the edit, I realised that some of the additional and cut away shots were not always long enough for what I required, this is something I defiantly need to take into account when filming the next story.
I have now completed a first rough cut, which lasts five minutes, thirty nine seconds, which I personally feel is too long for this story. I originally planned to make each story about five-minutes but with ‘Molly the Tea Lady’ story I now feel it only needs to be around three-minutes. I know this will alter the duration of my full documentary but ‘Quality is better than Quantity’. Also I could possibly submit the completed short film of ‘Molly the Tea Lady’ into Channel 4’s ‘Three Minute Wonder’.

Filming of The Christmas Concert, Wells Cathedral

Yesterday Adam, Sam and myself all went over to Wells to film the Christmas Concert at Wells Cathedral for the first of the three, three minute films we are making for them. Adam had previously filmed the rehearsal on the Saturday, and our main aim on the Sunday was to capture some good shots that would showcase a taste of the Christmas Concert, where the cathedral is entirely lit by candles.



(Picture similar to the Concert's Lighting)

Although this was very beautiful and amazing to look at, it was extremely difficult to film the concert due to limited lighting and the positions we were located in (we were high up, looking over everything). Although I do think we managed to get a variety of good shots of the choir, candles and audience.
We all arrived at Wells at around half past three, met up and went across to the cathedral, where we got everything set up straight away ready to begin filming the Vergers lighting the candles.
Adam and myself had planned to create a time-lapse of the cathedral being lit, both of us thought this would be a great way to show people how wonderful the cathedral looks lit just by candlelight; but also to help show how this Christmas concert is different to the Christmas service. Adam set the camera up on the tripod and placed it on the West Front Balcony to capture this time-lapse, the plan was to leave the camera recording and not move it until all the candles were lit, and the whole cathedral glowed in candlelight. However I think the camera accidentally got moved, so I’m not sure how the time-lapse material will turn out. It will be extremely disappointing if it hasn’t worked to how we had both imagined because we were hoping to use this material has a transition from the rehearsal material to the Christmas Concert material.
We all arrived at Wells at around half past three, met up and went across to the cathedral, where we got everything set up straight away ready to begin filming the Vergers lighting the candles.
Once we had filmed some material of the Vergers and candles we all took a quick break, had some dinner and then got straight back to work, filming everyone entering the cathedral. We made the decision that we would only capture sound using the camera mics because of limited spacing, time and the fact we had to be really discreet and not seen by the public; most of the finished film will contain soundtrack material.
The only major thing that concerned me during the day / evening was the weather conditions it was very icy and I hate driving in it; so it took us a little longer to get there and back. But luckily everything that was being filmed was filmed inside so it didn’t affect the filming of the concert.


Overall I think everything went well, although we couldn’t get all the shots we had planned because of health and safety issues and lighting I believe we have enough to produce a strong finished short film. After the concert I spoke to Ali and she seemed really pleased with what we had managed to do and she understood that it would have been impossible to film the whole concert, getting a variety of different shots but she was pleased with what she had seen so far.

1st Filming Day

On Tuesday 8th December 2009 I completed my first filming day for my Individual film ‘The Myths, Legends and Hauntings of Somerset’. As the project is a small production, I arranged to take a small crew along with me to help out. Aleicia took on the role of Camera Operator, Tom was the Sound Recordist and I took on the role as director. I met Aleicia and Tom at Weston Train Station around 8.45am and we went on from there to Yeovil Junction Train Station arriving at around 10.15am. When we first arrived the café was fairly busy and Ros was a little tied up working. We took this opportunity to get everything checked and set –up. I did plan to use some extra lighting, but for some reason we had some lighting issues, the light we had taken didn’t seem stable, in the end I made the decision to abandon the light for health and safety reasons plus the camera picture looked well lit anyway.
Once we had Ros mic’d up and Tom had checked sound levels, we were ready to go. I had planned some questions in case Ros was stuck with what to say; however these weren’t really needed. I felt Ros told the story really well, and she was full of character and enthusiasm. We did a few takes of Ros telling the story stood behind the counter. During the first take Ros seemed o.k. but I knew she needed to be made comfortable so I decided to get Aleicia to film a conversation between Ros and myself discussing ‘Molly the Tea Lady’. I felt this take put her at ease and she seemed comfortable during the next few takes.





After filming Ros telling the story, we then worked though my shot list filming a variety of cut aways and additional material to use within my final edit, these included: establishing shots of Yeovil Junction, Trains passing through, clocks, basement, freezers, kitchen, tea, etc.




We ended up finishing around 2.30 – 3pm. Got everything packed up and made our way back to Weston.
The following morning I captured all my material onto the computer, making some logging notes of the footage to help during the editing stages. After looking back over the footage I was pleased with what we had filmed. I did have a few concerns as some of the camera footage was a little shaky (during the hand-held footage) some possibly unusable, which is a little disappointing but I wont know for sure until I get into the editing stage. However as Dani mentioned to me we are all still in the learning process and this will all come with experience.
Overall I think the filming day went well, I was pleased with how organised and helpful everyone was and I would like to take this opportunity to thank Aleicia and Tom for their support and help with the project. :-)

Making Progress

I wanted to make a start on my project’s production before the Christmas break, mainly to get everything rolling but also because it helps balance out the workload we will have in the New Year. Therefore I have arranged to film one of my ghost stories ‘Molly the Tea Lady’ on Tuesday 8th December 2009 at Yeovil Junction Train Station. I have spoken to Ros (storyteller) and she is happy for us to get there for around 10.15am. I have organised a small crew, Aleicia will be the camera operator, Tom will be the sound recordist and I will direct. The aim of the filming day is to

• Film Ros telling the story of Molly and her strange and unusual activities
• Film a train coming into the station
• Film an external shot of the café
• Establishing shot of the café
• People sat sipping from cups
• Shots of the basement (Freezers open and closed)

For this shoot I have booked out a SONY Z7 Camera, Sound Equipment and Lights.

Hopefully the shoot will be a success and I will have some footage for my documentary ‘The Myths, Legends and Hauntings of Somerset’.