end of second year

It's the end of my second year. I didn't get to finish my film in time, and I'm beating myself up for that. You know what I really can't stand? When people try to be polite by saying "It's so good!" or "It looks finished to me". I don't know. I guess I'm just used to Filmie people. One of the requirements for the assignment was grading in Da Vinci Resolve. Every time I imported my film into the software, something would go wrong. I must have spent like a day and a half just trying to get Da Vinci to what it was supposed to do. Clips would be in the wrong place at at the wrong part of the raw footage. Say I had a clip called Audi, a clip called Cheeseburger, and a clip called Grafield, sitting in that order in Premiere. When I imported the footage into Da Vinci, it would do it's weird voodoo shit so it's order would end up being "Cheeseburger - Audi - Grafield". Not only that, but it would be the wrong parts of the clips, so it would actually end up like "CAMERA SPEED, SOUND SPEED che -  hey, have I got the infliction on the correct words in this sentence? And the laugh, are you happy with that? I can try another... *several more conversations later* alright should we get rolling? Time's a ticking... - afield.. CUT. Sweet guys that was awesome! But hmmm I think we shall go for another take, just for sound, yeap.". It's frikken annoying. I got some of the other Filmies from various years to see what they could do but they couldn't figure it out either. Bother bother. I eventually gave up, after spending so much time I realised that it had actually cut into edit time for the other elements of my film. I didn't get to finish the special effects in my film. I didn't even get time for the sound edit. Film was due at 1, and I was still working on it at 12:30, dedicating that last 30 minutes to render, export, and submit. It was in there with 10 minutes to go. I'm so gutted that I didn't get to do everything that was required. But what can you do. I'm going to pick it back up later on at some point, just as a project of my own. If only that one was the one being marked and not the one I had to submit.

Flicks was great. It's pretty neat seeing the animations and films that people have been creating. Congrats to Dan who's film was chosen out of my class, and Virat's.

past few weeks

Hello beautiful readers. How are you this afternoon?

I've been particularly busy this past few weeks, and I do apologise, it slipped my mind to blog. So much stuff has happened! Shoots and assignments and what not.

Arjun's shoot is a massive one. It had been scheduled to take up two whole weeks. Me and Jin were asked to be the art department. It's a fun job, and it's great to hear that Arjun was blown away with the set dressing we did. But I must be honest. I do wish that he was a bit more communicative with us. We didn't really get much notice of what he wanted prop wise, and he didn't really say what rooms were being shot and when, which would have been helpful for the day to day shoots, so we could have brought in just what we needed when. We poured over the script and created a list of what we thought the film would have. Perhaps we didn't need to put as much detail as we did into each characters stuff, but hey. Even though it's probably not seen in the film, Cindy has cheap knock off cologne in his bedroom, while Wong's bedroom is filled with video game memorabilia. Being on set was hectic! As we are students, we each have our own individual commitments to keep, and crew and cast were coming and going at all hours. At some point I was the make up artist (I've never put make up on another person in my life) and the light switcher on and offer, bringer herer, stand by iter. Runner. Bedroom tidier. Everything. Hah haaaaaa. The most fun I had was when I was standing in front of a light with a red gel put on it. I was waving a flag back and forth in front of it for a few hours, trying to create a convincing  ambulance light. So whenever you see the particular episode with the ambulance light, that is me doing that. I'm still not sure if he has anymore shoot days actually. I don't really know when shooting was, either.

Brogan's shoot was pretty nice. She's making a music video, I star in it. It's interesting to watch from the other side. Watching them all go about their crew roles while I just sit in front of the camera and look pretty. Which I really hope I do. She has this idea of having a bunch of girls lip syching to a song, with their faces all dolled up, and looking really emotional. The song we were lip syching is by one of the music students, and it's about hurt, lying, all that stuff. I really got into the song actually. It surprised me, I was not expecting myself to be so affected by it. I guess wanting to give a decent performance for the video made me bring out subconscious pains of recent horrible things. I ended up in that middle bit of inbetween not crying, and crying. It's quite trippy really. At one point I was so focused on something I really can't remember (all I can bring up in my brain from that particular bit of the shoot is blank and numb feelings) that I sort of forgot that there were people and a camera around watching me. Or not watching me. I told them to turn around at some point. Unknowingly, I zoned out and went into my shell a little bit. My eyes were open, but the world around me was blank and nothing. The music was loud, but I could barely hear it, and my lips were barely moving in time to the song. I felt like I was just a ball of hurt and pain and grief and loss. I don't know how I was still sitting upright. I couldn't feel my body. I don't know what happened. I don't know if that will ever happen again. I was drawing on things that I had wanted to forget, but can't, and that's the most emotion I've ever expressed when thinking about them, even if it was unwilling. But I guess it was good for me to let it not be so hidden away. I don't know. It was a fun shoot. Afterwards we got our picture taken looking all pretty. When Virat's finished editing it, I'm going to make it my Facebook profile picture. I look pretty. Not that I'm not always pretty. It was just a good photo. But Anna did a great job with my eyes. I like eyeshadow. Best of Luck to Miss Brogan for the edit. I can't wait to see it!!!! :D

Corey's shoot was interesting. He's also making a music video. I'm not sure what the song is about. But the music video is frikken out of it man. Totes hilar. Ahhh, sorry. I meant totally hilarious. I am also starring in that. I dressed up in my onesie and danced. Well. That's what I was meant to be doing. On the day of the shoot I turned up in the lounge with Devil Burger, all ready to chill for a bit and tuck into my lunch. Hey, Corey, hey Mose. What? You want me to play a band member now? As well as a onesie dancer? Ok... When do you want me? NOW?? Ahhh.. Alright. So yes in that instance I scored the role of the guitarist. I didn't actually know I was going to be the guitarist at that time. I was really hoping I could be the bassist. But Elle called dibs. So I chose the guitar. The instruments where made of cardboard, and still wet from when Brogan painted them. But I think it's an awesome idea, and really gives it a certain feel. The afternoon before, I showed Brogan and Corey a music video that really pulls off the cardboard instrument theme. I'd like to think that maybe, just a little, even the teensiest, tinyest, chance that I gave them even a small inkling to run with the cardbaord. Haha. So yes Me, Ella and Bex from BAMA were all rocking out on cardboard guitars, basses, and rubbish bin drums. Was rly fun. Then it was time for the onesies to dance!! There was me, Ella, Cody, random chick number 1, random chick number 2, and random dude who I am certain I should know the name of and am pretty sure he's like a first yr filmie or something idk, all dancing around in our onesies in the bit between the stage and the chairs. I kept jumping into the chair arms. It hurt. It was pretty interesting watching Corey etc run back and forth with the camera on the dolly. We also shot in that carpark behind the main campus. I couldn't find a bathroom and really needed to pee. But whatever. We did some dancing and pointing at Cody and Diana and running around Diana. I chucked two chips and Cody and one at a seagull. It looked like it's going to be a really awesome looking music video. Can't wait. Good job, Corey. I really want to be on The Student Handbook one time. Just saying.

Dan's shoot was more what I'm used to, but still different. He asked me to take some behind the scenes photos for him on set. So I charged up my camera, and turned up, and got underway snapping at everything. I think I ended up with about 270 photos over 2 days. It was greeeeeaaaat. I got some really awesome photos of which I'm rly happy with!!! The shoots went a bit long but that's to be expected in the Filmie world. He's got more to shoot this week but I don't know if I'm going to be there.

My comic, Chino the Cat, is currently being digitally inked. I've finished about 3 pages worth of backgrounds. It's really hard finding time to do everything, and I was really, really hoping to have started earlier than what I did but I seriously had no spare time for it. I really hope that I can finish it before it's due in 7 days time. It's just as important to me as The Cat Kids is. I can't give up any more time for shoots. I need to focus on my own projects from now on. I will be so sad if I don't end up finishing it. Geez. BUT what I have done so far looks awesome, in my brain. So I'm happy. I can tell that I'm spending the next week staying at my computer until 11pm everyday :E

In my PrePro, we are in the process of getting our greenscreen shoots underway. Three of us are using our classtime tomorrow to shoot our stuff in the green screen room. It's not much, we each have to film a clip about 10 seconds long. I'm yet to shoot the background for it though. I'm thinking I shall do that tomorrow morning. Just get a random clip of the scenery. This paper is actually quite interesting, and Vaughn's always great to have as a tutor. Always makes sure we understand everything, and goes over stuff endlessly until we have it memorised. Tomorrow is going to be interesting, I'm going to make someone rub an eggplant on someone else.

My editing of The Cat Kids isn't getting really far. Again, it's an issue of time. If only there were more hours in the day. I'm neeaarrllly finished synching up the audio with the video. Some files are missing so I'm going to hunt those down when I next get on it. Then I can put together a rough edit, show Patrick, then do whatever else I need. Chuck the special effects, the ADR, the soundtrack in. THE SOUNDTRACK??! Ahhh I'm running out of time. Pete asked if he could make it. I really like that idea, but I just hope he would get enough time. And I have to colour grade it! I HATE COLOUR 'GRADING'. Isn't it more colour correcting what we have to do with the BMC?? I'm not wanting to put any fancy tones on the film. Just make the colours look like what they're supposed to look like. Blues blues and reds red. I don't know the software. Guess I'll have to learn that.

GEN200. hahahahahahahaha don't make me laugh. I literally had no idea what the heck we were supposed to be talking about in our presentations until Karl randomly came in and explained it to everyone. I have no idea why we weren't told all that before. I don't understand why they would just tell us to make a presentation and not tell us how we were supposed to present. Literally, wtf. It's such a shame that I can't resubmit my presentation, seriously it's pissing me off. I might be able to get a better grade but because of the lack of tutorship in that ridiculous paper I have to get less than what I could get. I understand now what I'm presenting, but when I was writing the powerpoint, I didn't. The Lectures are confusing as well. They don't line up with the Tutorials. Like, we got told to go out and survey people in the lecture. Then in the tutorial we get told not to do that?? My god. No wonder a lot of us don't understand that paper. I say ditch the whole paper altogether. I don't understand why we need it, we are in a creative school, we don't need all this statistical crud. We need to express ourselves via film, via music, via theatre, via painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, via art. Not via learning about some guys giving people electric shocks, or via giving presentations. Not via just saying what we are going to create. We need to create.

Chino the Cat pencils

My god I'm soooooo busy! Here I am in my dressing gown and slippers rushing to finish drawing my comic's pencils for the hand in today. I've got the story in mind, I just need to draw it. I was planning to do some last night, but I got home way late because of film meetings and what not. Oh well. I only need to draw two pages, two cover designs, photocopy some stuff, and write a bio all in 2 hours. EASY.

The Cat Kids shoot day two

Yesterday was the last day of filming for The Cat Kids, and I'm pretty happy with it. Went mostly smoothly, except for when it rained, and the boom mic was picking the sound up. It went away after a few minutes though. Ugh. Rain. The bane of my problems. We had Corey and Tyler on this shoot, being Gaffers. I was quite surprised at how organised and on to it they were. Not entirely sure what else to say.

Chopping up an ear only to find that it's red on the inside. Very funny, Jay Jays. I must have spent at least $140 on just props for my film.

Tash being a cat

Glueing the ear bit onto the rest of the headband so Joffrey can bite it off.

Grrrrrreow!

"You shout, and you lose an ear!"

meow

omnomnomnom

The Cat Kids shoot day one

Hi, I'm tired. Hi Tired, I'm Leif.

A conversation between me and one of my actors would go something like this.

I don't really know how Patrick wants us to write up our blogs now, seeing as what I was doing is apparently "wrong" (a stark contrast to what literally everyone else who reads them says, they say they love them, and the flow of my writing, and it's so funny, and awesome, and so me. Hmm. Listen to the audience, or listen to the tutor.)

Today was my first shoot day of my short film/web series The Cat Kids. A very interesting day. Yeah, I do things a little differently to other Filmies. I don't care. I do what works for me. 9am call time for cast, they were in Make Up until about 12. Didn't go as smoothly as we would have wanted, but we got their in the end, and I'm very happy with what Anna brought to the film's look. She did a great job. A+ to Anna. Started shooting a little while after that, with my way of taking lines and giving them specific shots. There wasn't many shots that required more than one line so I had about 30 shots to shoot today. I don't make shots complicated by worrying about the little iddy bitty things in it. I frame, expose, shoot, and if it looks good, I'll move on to the next one. If something's off, I go again. For example, I have one shot where I'm in a car that's tracking alongside a couple of actors running down the street. It's very hard to drive a car and keep in time with running actors, because you have to go quite slow, and in a manual it's even harder. I think I got that shot about 10 times. But Rachel's brilliant at driving, so I'm quite happy with it. A+ to Rachel. I did get some very smooth running tracking footage for a couple of seconds that will most likely end up in the film. A+ to my actors for running back and forth so many times, haha. And for being awesome today in general! Tash and Maria and Pete and Tim, you should all be quite happy because you all nailed what I was after. It's quite interesting watching them figure out back story by themselves, just by being the character.

Not everything was peachy today, though. At some point it started to rain, causing me to FREAK DA MUK OUT, ahhh by golly what a nightmare. I do. not. like that kind of stress, Me and Brogan are trying to think of what to do and I'm just soooooo intent on shooting today's scenes TODAY, I REALLY do not want to change the schedule because it's crafted so meticulously, and changing it up would just be horrendous, due different cast and crew members availability. I'm trying so hard to not burst into tears, I just couldn't handle it. I don't know why I'm so emotional these past few months, jeez. SO we came to an agreement that, yes, we have no other option but to shoot Sunday's scene this afternoon, no matter the consequences.We were just about to round everyone up and relocate when the sun came back out. JEEZ. And it didn't rain for the rest of the day! So happy. A+ to Brogan for being the 1st AD, grip, runner, art dept., set mum and literally everything under the sky, haha. You rock. Yeah. It's hard to find available Filmies when it's the end of the year. Did you hear about the craziness I had when trying to sort out a gaff crew? Matt and Cody are on Adam's shoot (which also takes place this weekend), so I asked Corey and Tyler, after Corey mentioned not being on anyone's shoots, and they need the experience. Talking about this to Patrick and I think we both got a bit confused because something to do with not being certified on something, and then Patrick decided Matt and Cody would be on my shoot and Corey and Tyler would be their little Gaff bunnies (but Matt and Cody are on Adam's so whaaaaaat?) and it's just really crazy and I don't know what happened but I had to ask M and C to help but of course I didn't get any reply until I either found them in person or P made them, and they just said what I knew they would, and then it was back to what I had originally planned with Corey and Tyler being the Gaffers so they can fill in their requirement of being on a year 2 shoot, and to gain some experience points. MY GOD. WHAT WAS ALL THE FUSS ABOUT THEN. Ahhh. So anyway, A+ to Arjun for being awesome on sound and pointing out all the noises. He's a cool guy to have around. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone tomorrow for day two, where we can have some fun biting off ears etc. mwahaha. 

Hey, here are some photos :D

Chino the Cat

Today I am working on my comic.

At the moment I'm going over the 2H pencil sketches with a 6B, so that everything will show up easier when I get to a lightbox and trace everything onto more paper, so that I can add further changes without drawing all over the one page. Eventually I'll trace them onto more paper to be submitted on Tuesday. Throughout my drawing classes, I've learnt a lot, such as what a human form looks like, I can use that to realisticly draw people. But my comic is centered on a cat, a cartoon. Something that was mentioned by Karl, and then mentioned again on my Pokemon Art Acadamy 3DS game, is having a heavy outline, with smaller lines for the inside details. I think I shall apply that to my comic. Another thing I have to think about it style. Originally I was just going to have a very basic drawings, block colour, etc. But after getting to the stage on Pokemon Art Acadamy where you start drawing not blocks of colour on shapes, I wondered about if I could perhaps use the same style for my comic. It will certainly add a layer of interestingness. I like the way the tone is done, the shadows, the "hatching", whatever it's called.

Cat Kids Auditions

This weekend I held my auditions for my end of year film project, The Cat Kids. I put up posters advertising it in various different locations, where many people would see it. I heard a lot of talk about it, but not many people came. Two people. That's all. The guy gave a really good performance of Leif, his personality matches the character well. I'm still deciding if the auditioner for Poisen fits the character well enough. I still need to find a Joffrey. Murphy's Law if we decide to wrap up the auditions early, someone will come along and want to audition. I brought in my comic assignment to work on while we wait, anyway. So it's not a complete waste of time.

:)

fun times

Hey readers and Patrick.

Today was a Filmie day. I shot the interviews for my documentary. If you don't know already, my documentary is about SIT student's study lives and their outside lives. In my opinion, I got some really awesome content that would make for a really awesome documentary, some of the stuff said was really ripping, as I hoped it would be. R.A.T.D, much...... Anyway. I am quite impressed and proud of myself for this afternoon, and very happy with my interviewees. As always, things went wrong, but as always, they got resolved in the end and it went smoothly. I always forget that on Thursdays, the gear room isn't open until 1pm, so instead of finishing my class at 12 and going straight to the gear room, I had to wait until 1. Which isn't all that bad, it gave me a chance to eat some lunch. I had to push back the schedule that my interviewees where coming in, but they didn't seem to mind. After I got all the gear I was issuing out, I lugged it all down to the photography studio. The first person I was going to interview was somewhat nervous to be in my documentary, but nonetheless, she really wanted to get her opinion on stuff out there. All of the interviewees in my documentary are silhouetted, it was Miss Head's idea, as she didn't really wanted to be able to be recognised. The rest of my interviewees were quite happy for the audience to know who they were (yes, I had more than two), but they rather liked the silhouette thing going on, and they wanted to be portrayed as that.

I've never used a silhouette set up before, much less seen one in action, and I've barely read anything on silhouetting (really only about 5 minutes worth on some website I found on google a few days ago). After a small while of playing around, I managed to pull of something that I'm really quite ecstatic with. From having just a guess to actually getting it right, I'm so happy with it!! I had two lights for this. I put a prolight sitting behind the subject, facing towards them, to give them a bit of a halo around their outline, and another light hitting the wall behind them, so they would pop out of the background. I thought about sticking a third light to hit the wall on the other side, but I rather liked the gradient that was going with the blue colour of the background, so I kept it as that. You may have noticed that I keep on referring to "I". Me. I had noone else to help me set up, apart from Anna who helped my lug everything to the studio, and put up stands for me. Of which I'm very grateful for. Anyway. After she left, I did everything else by myself. I asked my classmates beforehand if they were able, but literally they were all busy. Four of them had a class, one was working, and the other said he had to go do stuff for his own documentary. I didn't mind so much though, I really needed the experience with lighting, and sound is really easy to use. I have not used the Sony EX1s since the start of the year, so there was a few minutes of remembering how to use it, but it's pretty easy, after all it's a movie camera, and they all have pretty much the same features and how to use them. Sound levels. white balancing, exposure, yadda yadda yadda. The thing I found the hardest when I was using the camera was trying the headphone jack. It's in a really weird location. Anyway. I went to go hit record, but it wouldn't let me record. This is the second time that something's happened where I couldn't record. The first time was that some setting buried way deep in the menu had been changed. This time was there there was no card in the camera. What? There were no cards in the bag either. I ran up and found Chris (after shuffling into Patrick's 1st year class that some of my darling beloved 2nd year students are retaking are in, and freaking him out, asking if he's seen Chris and saying that there were no cards with the camera. Did you guys even get a full five minute break?). Chris gave me some cards. I don't really know if I'm supposed to ask for cards when issuing that camera, or he simply forgot to put them in. It doesn't really matter anyway, everyone makes mistakes. Ran back down, and started recording my interviewees. They were really helpful, and I even scored an extra interview, simply because Dan had turned up and seemed interested in answering the questions I had. I wasn't going to say no if he wanted to be interviewed. Some of the things he said were really great in regards to my topic, and hopefully I can use some of his interview. (If Patrick lets me. Because I know he said no classmates. But what he said is bang on for what I wanted in regards to interviewees answers. The other two weren't classmates though). It was a really great afternoon, with some awesome lighting going on. I had too much fun, mostly over the content I was capturing, and how everyone looked secretive and badass. After everyone left I was really silly and wanted to have a new profile picture, so I pressed record and filmed myself doing weird hand shapes in the camera and stuff, haha. Hey now, you gotta have a little silly fun every now and then :)

So yes, I had my fun then got serious again. Inventoried everything I got out, and noticed I was missing the cards. Oh dear!! I found them in the end, in the camera bag... I must have zipped them up in there without realising. Anyway. I must go now, fellow human beings. Enjoy yourselves.

Old sports

Good evening, old sport. I feel as though I have to write about what I've been doing for the past few weeks. Originally I got the impression that these blogs are only for my 231 class (which is my main film class.) I find that I cannot possibly only write for that, as barely little can happen in only those classes for weeks at a time, while plenty happens in my other classes (such as pre-production, and other commitments).

I've been simultaneously working to put together my documentary on students' outside lives clashing with coursework, and getting my webseries The Cat Kids underway.

In PrePro class, we have learnt how to use Scenechronize, a website for film and tv production, which utilizes online software to reduce the amount of IRL paper when creating script breakdowns, stripboards, call sheets, etc.

So I've been doing all the things for that. I've also been working on a Director's Manifesto, outlining several different things from art to cast to tone and feel of my web series.

~

I've helped Mose with his auditions, I was the camera op, recording the auditionees. I've never really held auditions, or attended film auditions before, so it was interesting to see how they play out. I can take the elements from his and apply them to my own.

~

After a depressingly low point affecting my Hauora for the past few weeks, I think I'm finally bouncing back. Tonight I filmed some B-Roll for my documentary. I got some fancy camera focus pulling and some fancy bokeh effects going, so it all looks really pretty. I'm a bit worried about the exposure in this, and I really suck at da vinci colour correcting, and colour correcting and grading in general. I should probably reshoot. Yes, I think I will do that, actually.

I have no idea what I'm doing here

my arms hurt

oh boy do my arms hurt. ok so, today was another filmie day. Went to class at 9am, that finished at 11am, then that's when the fun kicked it. I printed off every script in my upcoming web series, The Cat Kids, and stapled them all together so I could read it all on one giant page and really focus of the overall plot.

 I wanted to fix up stuff and make another draft of them. It totally worked. I was able to concentrate on the story as a whole, which will really help when this is being watched by the audience and hopefully I get some laughs from little kiddens and adults alike. There's some really great one liners of which I've shoved in there. Oh, they're so dry, I freaking love it. SO I did that until like 2:30 then me and the Vman waddled on down with some film gear to the entrance to sit arcade, we set up, James Wilkinson walks past and says hi to us, and Ash B comes up and says hi, and Patrick walks past and judges us and continues of his way. Gabster turned up and I got some footage of her playing the guitar and singing a song, then that was done, and we wandered on back to the maclab and I offloaded footage and audio and did some more script work. then it was like 4:30 and I was hungry so I got some noodle canteen and I only ate the chicken bits out of number 17 because that's how I roll. If you want noodles, help yourself, it's in the fridge. ok so then it was tjugo past fem and I very carefully put the bee emm see in a backpack with a lens (not attached, nuuu) because I didn't want to carry that stupid heavy case you normally carry it in. I attached the bag to my back then the sound kit to my other arm and the tripod to another arm, then I was off, look out invercargill I'm a one womaned film maker person carrying all my gear like helloo I am a cat I demand you give me cat treats. said zylya. I filmed GabGab at Suzie Q's doing her thang. There was not much space and I was crammed in a corner and I don't think the manager liked me very much. Man I gave her enough warning that I was going to be there. Like. Two days notice. I don't know. All I did was stay out of the way and be not distracting. Gabbi is a pretty awesome muso, you should listen to her stuff. ok so I got about half an hour of that because I didn't want to leave. But I did and I waddled on back with all that gear to the maclab and offloaded da footage and it's like 42gb man. My everything hurts and I'm really tired so I'm just going to take a moment and listen to some nice, peaceful, trance music.

Peace out, home skillet biscuits.

Today

Today has been rather eventful. I went to GEN200 in the morning, and learnt about questionnaires. I then hung out with an SIT cat. Mreow.

The next few hours involved waiting around in Downtown campus lounge, reading a book and eating a pizza and chatting to various people and having Bone Cultist outfits from Bones of Essimer shoved on me.

hi

Anyway. At about 2:40pm Me and V headed on down to set up for my documentary. I decided to use the Raw Gallery as I could utilize the sun coming in from the windows and wouldn't have to have so many lights. My subject turned up about at about 10 past three, and I set her up with a lapel. I put one on myself too, of which I was all excited to because I felt real fancy like a tv reporter or something.

wee look at me I'm so pro

We ran through the interview a few times, and I believe I got a decent amount of footage to use from the Black Magic camera. I love that thing man. If SIT ever wants to just randomly get rid of it for free, I'll have it. We wrapped the shoot and I headed up to the MacLab to offload footage and audio. 

While that was doing that, I went and watched Lana shooting her interview, mostly because I wanted to hear what Lenon had to say, hehe. It was very interesting and the set up looked very nice compared to my bean bags, prolight, window, lapels and BMC, haha

I ended up sticking around until the end. We put stuff away and then I wandered on back again to the MacLab. I chucked my footage into Da Vinci Resolve because I wanted to see if I could remember what Ash M taught us about colour correcting and grading. I sort of did. I fiddled around with the light and the colour anyway just as a test and I think it looks pretty awesome. I see what people mean of the colours coming out of the flat image of the BMC. Such incredible very wow.

Virat's doco shoot

Yesterday afternoon we shot Virat's interview. It didn't take long, barely an hour. He has someone from the Tourism amd Hotel Managment course. Quite an interesting fellow. Me and V fiddled around with the lighting setup and framing of the subject for a few minutes, then it was on to the interview. I asked him a few questions, to which he happily answered. Cut. Reframe. Redo. This happened a few times, in order to get a variety of different angles. When Vdawg was happy with what he had, we went up to the secret computer lab, and V shot the subject as if he were giving a presentation to a class. I pretended to be a student, so did some random that was already in the room, and Dan. I printed off some talent release forms which everybody signed, then that was it. Pretty chill. I learned how to work a lapel mic.

Meow

So seeing as there's a phone app means I can be real cool and update blogs wherever. I am sitting in a cafe drinking an ice chocolate, by myself because nobody hearts me. My current project invloves making a "Personal Profile Film". It's pretty much just a short little documentary profiling someone about their life and their course. Patrick ran over the details about which courses we were going to use on Monday. The courses that would be assigned to use were (from memory, I could be wrong): Music, Fashion, BAMA, Film, Animation. So nearly all piped up about what course we would like to interview, of course I really wanted to interview the Bama kids, because I find them to be immensly interesting people, who are extremely skilled at what they do, and they deserve a little bit of recognition for what they do simply around campus, and I thought that this would be a wonderful way for that to happen. I was really hoping to interview either Kayla or Johnny. BUT SUDDENLY. Patrick does a Patrick and switches the courses on us, after a brief discussion about what one each wanted. It was perfect. Everyone wanted to do one that noone else did. But noooOOOOoooo Dr Evil loves playing his little games. HA HA cue Kimberley packing a poo. So now we were interviewing Music, Fashion, Cooking and Nursing, and we drew them out of Dan's beanie, because Mr Couper wasn't there. Lana got Fashion, Dan got either cooking or nursing, Virat got either nursing or cooking, and I got music. Ok. Great. I don't know anyone in the music course. Did that include the Soundies, I wondered, as I know one of them slightly, maybe I could interview them at the same time as ruining my life ahem what? I asked Patar and he says no. Ok then. Tuesday I put a thing out advertising for someone in the BCM course to be the 'star of a new documentary'. Thursday I found sometime to interview the person who came foward. They actually sound pretty interesting, and I'm really looking forward to putting together this documentary with them. I have plans to make it like the All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace documentary, but that might be a bit intense so perhaps not, haha. Seeing as they are a music student, I'm really wanting to use their own music for the soundtrack. I think it would be great.

This ice chocolate isn't that nice, really.

THERE'S AN APP

Ok so I'm walking to The Warehouse wondering if there's a Blogger smartphone app, when I decide to go and find out of there is. There is!! So now I can update my blog allll the time about my course and not have to worry about finding a computer to do so. I'm addicted to my phone. I always have it with me. I hardly ever have a computer with me when I want to blog. This will come in so much handiness. Hey, Patrick, you should make a very exaggerared point in class one time that there is a smartphone Blogger app and that there should be no excuses for not updating their blogs. YOU'RE WELCOME CLASS :D HAHAHAHAHA I am cruel.

woooooo the last week of semester!! Tuesday

Today is Tuesday, but not for much longer. It's 10:45pm, and the campus closes at 11pm, let's see if I can cover all of my topics before I get kicked out.

Today I filmed my film. One of my actors did a no show, which is really annoying, because now, some shots are going to have a middle aged man playing jack, and the rest of them are a young woman playing jack. Bothersome. We got all my film shot though which is great. Had an issue with the Zoom sound recorder running out of juice on the second to last shot so that is also bothersome. wrapped at about 3:30 and headed to SIT. Offloaded everything and started editing. Just finished syncing up my audio and video now. I do not know how I'm getting home.

I set up the Black Magic at some point to do a timelapse, something that I've been wanting to do ever since SIT got the camera, and have been eagerly awaiting the day that I could have it out under my name. Here is the video. I like how you can see the clock whizzing around, haha. It was really yellow because I forgot to colour balance to the room, so I did a colour correct on it. All good.

I must leave SIT now, it is getting close to 11pm. Mr Onions just walked to steps into the class and then walked back out. I'm the only one left here. Yay for me.

I HAVE SO MUCH WORK TO DO OH MY GOD

:)

I'll write another blog with funnies from my shoot and a more detailed experience later

Ice Cream with Jack

This morning was my designated morning for shooting. I'll be straight up, things didn't work out, and I'm disappointed about that. I'm very tired right now just fyi, so meow and stuff. Hey Patrick. Whaddup g? Chur. You missed out on cake today, it was very nice cake. Just ask my classmates. Perhaps I shall bring some more in for our last class of the semester. 

I woke up at 6:30 am to finish off making an ice cream cart for my film. It was really only tying a piece of board I had painted last night on it. I loaded it up with ice cream containers and everything else you would think would come with ice cream carts and was happy with it. Seeing as this is simply a cinematography exercise, I'm not really spending a great deal trying to find props that are realistic. I couldn't find anybody to help transport the gear from my house to shoot location so I pretty much just piled everything onto the dolly and wheeled the blimmin thing there.

Good thing I live only a few minutes walk away from where I was shooting.

After a few times where the ice cream cart literally tipped over, I finally got to set. We found that park workers were cutting down trees right next to where I wanted to film (the duck pond at queens park), so we decided to move. We ended up by the band rotunda. We started setting up gear, then realised that half the sound kit was missing, I am not used to using the Zaxcom so I thought that what I got from Gearman was all I needed. (shuddup. My brain wasn't working properly when I went to get my gear, ok). Soundie went and got the soundkit he had out from his house. In the meantime I blocked through and rehearsed with the actors. After about 40 minutes Soundie comes back, and continues setting up for his job. Only to realise "Oh shit! I've left the handle at home!" So off he goes again, to get the handle... It's really getting behind schedule at this point and I'm starting to worry a little, as the weather looks like it might start raining. We decide to shoot anyway, by just holding the microphone, while we wait for the handle. We get one shot done, which is a dolly shot, and I think it looks absolutely brilliant. Soundie comes back only to say he can't find the handle, which is a real pain in the butt. We get another dolly shot, a really tricky one this time. I want a dolly zoom, in one scene a character really turns angry, and I reckon that having the effect that dolly zooms give can really help play along with the emotion change. It wasn't working out too well, the actor was a bit uncomfortable having the camera as close to him as it was (it was the only lens that had a zoom function), and it was starting to rain, and we had like 4 people crowded around the camera and the dolly, Brogan's like right there pulling focus, I'm like right here zooming in and out, Cody's right there holding his jacket over the camera. I could SMELL them. Cody smells like a sheep. Brogan smells like a girl. Dan's like right over there pulling the dolly, and Sean's like right over there pushing the dolly, and I don't know where Arjun was. I couldn't smell them anyway. 

It's really miserable and intense and really starting to rain so after discussing with 1st AD we decide to wrap early. In the end I got two shots done, and I've barely filmed anything. Here's hoping for next Tuesday, that I can get more footage done.

I must acknowledge Brogan on her being a 1st AD. She did a brilliant job at it, and I would gladly have her as 1st AD on my film shoots.

~

After taking some props home to my house, I got back to SIT around lunch time, and went to my screenwriting class with Duncan Sarkies. I learn so much from him. We continued on with our stuff for "Jimmie Jasper goes to Gore". We're writing episodes, and the story is really funny and great. The first years did a great job creating the characters. After my class, I uploaded my footage and audio, then wandered on home, watched the last episode of Game of Thrones season 4 (AHHHHHHH). I ate sizzlers for tea, then went with my beloved best friend ever to the best supermarket ever. We took a ridiculously long time choosing ice cream, of which as soon as we left the supermarket's doors, we ripped open our tubs and licked it all the way back to where we live. om nom nomnomnllmlmolmhahomlh. Hahaha. I had ice cream all over my face. I love being a Kimberley. I took some photos of some cats and a dog and then decided to do some homework. I finished my story thing for screenwriting class, and then started writing up this blogpost.

meow

My brain hurts.

Hooooooookay. So. Shiz is getting pretty intense around here. I am going to be SO BUSY over the next two weeks.

I have to:

*pre-plan a short film
*shoot said short film
*edit said short film
*be a crew member on other peoples short films
*write 5 episodes of a web series
*redub ADR, Foley, and sound effects for a scene from another film
*create music for said another film
*design character roughs for a comic
*put together a showreel
*attempt to maintain this blog
*write an essay
*go to class
*sleep
*eat
*and every single day I have to travel an hour just to get to SIT and back to where I sleep

Should be FUN.

Noooooooo it won't be. Such stress very not happy Kimberley.

Okay so today, I went to my Audio class. I did not do audio classwork. I forgot my headphones, and my flatmate best friend ever wouldn't do me a solid and go grab them for me. She was at the pub with her classmates. Dan turned up at lunchtime, apparently. Not surprised. I went to buy spray paint at lunchtime. Anyway. I planned props and actors during my morning session of audio class instead of actually doing audio. In that class I have to redub The Matrix and it's really fun using Protools. I wasn't doing that. I was freaking out. I think I have all my actors sorted now though. A fun sounding fellow that Lana knows and because everybody I ask cannot act when I'm shooting, a fellow filmie (THAT IS NOT MY CLASSMATE, PATRICK) said he would act the other character. In the afternoon we had Duncan Sarkies teaching us about structuring, I found that extremely helpful and plan to apply that to my web series scripts WHENEVER I FIND TIME TO WRITE THEM GEEZ. Then he left and we had our audio class again of which I did not do any classwork even though I REALLY HAVE TO I MEAN IT'S DUE ON THE 21ST. I worked on my short film. Then I waddled home because my stomach was in knots and sulked on my bed a bit before saying hi to all the animals and people who live in my house. Why does Chevy hate me? Is it because I took her out of her cage and shoved her in a cats face one day? Weird bird... I ate tea and watched a bit of Game of Thrones (which was the most epic episode ever, phwahhh, Jon Snow, heeeehhh), watched about 5 minutes of The Hungover Games that my house was watching, then went over my script and finalized the shots types and storyboards. I may or may not have been a bit too mean talking back to one of my favouritest teachers ever that I had at secondary school. I said my head hurts. He told me to get over it. I told him to get over the hill with a million steps by durie hill tower. Hahaha he's really fat. Why can't my tutor be like mr davis. mr davis is cool. my tutor is just weird. remember when I took a picture of mr davis and he told me to delete it? I told him I deleted it but I did not. hahahaha he calls me a rockstar and thinks I'm the next peter jackson. PFFFFT like hell I am. And well here I am now putting something on this blog at 11:46pm so I don't fail this blog assignment. I don't want to fail ANYTHING i will literally do something extremely drastic. I don't even agree with the marks I'm getting, I can't wait until the holidays when I can hug my precious cat and mum and friends. I just need a break. It's only the end of semester 1...

I really hope no classes clash with my elective drawing class next semester. That would be PANTS.

POWDERED SUGAAAA

HEY PEOPLE I JUST ATE A MUFFIN IT WAS YUMMY

ANYWAY I WAS ON FACEBOOK AND SOMEONE POSTED A CAT VIDEO WHERE THE CAT WAS GOING HEY. AND THEN CANON POSTED A VIDEO ABOUT BOKEH SO I CLICKED IT AND WATCHED IT AND WAS THOROUGHLY INTERESTED IN IT. I LEARNT ABOUT BOKEH LAST TERM AND WAS LIKE OH YEAH IT'S THE THINGY WHERE YOU MAKE THE BACKGROUND BLURRY. BUT THEN I WATCHED THIS VIDEO AND FOUND OUT THAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY MAKE LIGHTS TURN INTO SHAPES. SO I WAS ALL LIKE FAK YEAH I WANNA DO THIS SO I CUT OUT SOME SHAPES IN SOME CARD AND PUT IT OVER A LENS AND TOOK SOME PHOTOS OF STREETLIGHTS AND WHAT NOT. LOOK I'M UPDATING MY BLOG PATRICK.


HERE'S SOME CUTOUTS I DID

HERE'S A CUT OUT ATTACHED TO MY CAMERA

HERE'S A PICTURE I TOOK WITH IT ON

HERE'S ANOTHER

HERE'S ANOTHER

WE LOVE SUBWAY

IT TOOK ME A WHILE TO GET IT TO WORK BUT I GOT THERE IN THE END. YOU NEED YOUR ISO SET TO 800+ AND YOUR FSTOP AS SMALLER NUMBER AS POSSIBLE. THE SMALLEST FSTOP NUMBER ON MY CAMERA IS 5.0 SO I USED THAT. THE WHOLE THING WITH THE BIGGEST FSTOP BEING THE LITTLIST NUMBER CONFUSES THE FAK OUT OF MY BRAIN LIKE OMG I'VE HAD IT TAUGHT TO ME SO MANY TIMES BUT I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND PATRICK WHY YOU KNOW TEACH IN KIMBERLEY LANGUAGE I MIGHT LEARN STUFF YAY. I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE RECOMMENDED SHUTTER SPEED IS BUT I JUST HAD IT ON WHATEVER. AND YOU USE A LENS BETWEEN 50MM AND 55MM. LOLOL I'M GIGGLING AT THE FACT THAT IN ONE PHOTO MY LENS WAS AT 51MM. ANYWAY ONLY THE HEART CUTOUT WORKED BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW WHY THE REST DIDN'T WORKED. MIGHT HAVE BEEN TOO BIG BRO. YEAH G. GHOST RIDERS IN THE SKY