Photoshop

With Minor out of the way, I am focusing on getting the wedding photos edited. A lot of them were quite noisy so I looked into how to get rid of it and it was life changing. Since I took pictures in RAW format it was a lot easier too. The CR2 menu comes up automatically on photoshop so it was quite easy exploring through the options and the "noise reduction" tool.

Before

After

There's also a few lights that are over exposed, some sadly too far gone where it just darkens the white. Some I could save such as this one below. The phone was very overexposed, so I used the Adjustment Brush and made a new correction and brought the exposure down.

Less overexposed

I also experimented with the spot healing tool for a spot someone had, but most importantly on this picture. It's not very flattering at first so I was hoping this button would smooth out the bones. After time it did! And I am very happy with the results.

Before

After

Instructional Video Final Version

Final version of my instructional video (didn't have time to put credits on it, so I've just put them in the description. I'll probably come back to it later and make some)

Presentation Evaluation

Today we presented our Minor projects in front of the other levels (but we were watching a live stream next door). It was a bit of a weird set up with some technical dificulties (and two being shown in the studio, so they couldn't be shown live). 

The presentation went well, I think I finished slightly early, but I said quite a lot (maybe a bit too fast!). The props also looked good in the studio as an exhibition, I feel this was an original and innovative way to present. I went in the day before to make sure everything was set up and working, and also on the day for any last minute preps (had to buy some pegs for the gels so it was a good thing I went in the day before!) I’m very glad it worked out and looked good. I did want some audience participation and for people to pick out their favourite prop, the strongest emotional one, and if they look and feel different compared to how I filmed them. I only got a few responses, but I guess from the silence that people agreed with what I said in the presentation.

Not The Perfect Cheesecake/Conclusion

My export turned out a bit off center which is annoying (but at least it's in sync, it wasn't the first time I exported!) but I don't have time to change it, so I will just have to live with it. I also don't have time to cut out some of the pauses so it's about 20 seconds over my 5 minutes (I'm sure this is fine). The Kinetic Typography is also not perfect (as covered before, the end transitions don't match the start ones). Some of the visuals do not match the voice over (such as the bunny) which could not be fixed as I didn't know the shadows on the bunny would not work. The survey is also not perfect, and some of them disagree with my original aims, so I can use this as part of my Primary research in my presentation and say what went wrong and how I could improve it. 

Overall, my research is probably the strongest part of the module, with an essay to back up what I have learnt. I have put a lot of effort into the module, so it's a shame some things did not work and I didn't have time to correct them (e.g. the off center render). 

Future Benefits

My Minor project can be relevant to any project as it focuses on props, lighting, camera. I have a more fine tuned and perfectionist mind set when it comes to mise-en-scene (I'm literally analysing every scene in a film now. My current favourite is this one from Baby Driver) which will help in the industry if I decide to get a job in the art department or as a cinematographer as I can see what works in frame, how to compose it and the science and history behind it. I have developed my skills in the Black Magic cameras in time for Final Major and also helped out on some projects (which also included the Black Magic) to include in my showreel, which will be useful in the industry and one of the most important things for a job. I also did an essay to further enhance my terminology and a mindset to spot mise en scene and how to improve it. A lot of work went into my Minor and the research and I hope it shows. 

I have also enhanced my editing skills, especially on After Effects and Davinci, which will be useful if I decide to edit as a job, and hopefully edit a Final Major (in a perfect world, I'd love to camera and edit). I'd like to look at Premiere Pro as it can also be used in the industry (will probably do this in my own time during Christmas and as part of my professional studies). 

After Effects

I like to think I have mastered After Effects after my Minor. I have done a full blog post focused on Kinetic Typography as that was one of my main features of the video (blog post is here). I have also made shapes and grids, and cried over rendering errors. I will talk about each in this blog post.

The kinetic typography took about 5 days to complete and 292 layers of text. I spent way too much time on this which I regret, and even more time trying to export it. I've had every error message under the sun; no disk space, no special characters, and just plain "error". 

Same Beth

My After Effects experience has been mostly negative and time consuming and doesn't look very impressive (could have probably done the normal writing in less than a day on movie maker or powerpoint). I'm also a bit angry that the beginning transitions are different to the end (that comes up word by word). I spent a lot of time on it and I wanted it to be perfect, but I will just have to live with it, as I am not rendering it again this close to the deadline. 

I made my own rule of thirds grid in After Effects too, which was essentially drawing and duplicating lines with the pen tool. I also added pictures of colour wheels and historians (royalty free!) and made sure they were of a high quality and made the backgrounds transparent on photoshop (which is fairly straightforward using the lasso tool). 

Davinci Edit

Today I have been focusing on colour correcting, boosting the audio and replacing the shaky bunny videos with still images, which I have done on Davinci. I didn't want to use a lot of editing software as I don't have time to export each one for the job it's designed to do (and I don't want to loose image quality). I have only used Davinci once before (briefly) for my Visual Culture. I asked Google and Jamie for some of the basics of adding nodes and also how to take a screengrab to match up the colours.

Right click on main image, then take still.

I also had to split my clips up as I imported my whole edit (it didn't like my typography edit for some reason, so I just used the one without, then I will export the After Effects one again) to colour correct each scene. It wasn't hugely time consuming and was a bit of a relief after the huge errors I've had with After Effects. I still need to cut out some of the pauses, but I will probably do that after the presentation, if I have time (got to prioritise!) 

When I was colour correcting the blue shirt/green banana, the colours kind of blended together, so I used parallel nodes to isolate the colours of the blue shirt (and bring out the blue) and the skin colour (and make it more pink). 

Parallel nodes