Digital Filmmaking - Week 16



26/10/2019


 I spent the afternoon yesterday tracking down my actors to sign release forms. Andy was easy because he is my flatmate, but Dillon was a different story. He replied to my message on Facebook and basically said for me to come to him. He was working at the Dominoes' at South City until 5pm and so I had to take a bus there and it was my first time on the city bus in Invercargill, as well as my first time to explore South City.



I tried to rotoscope out the branding in the interior dairy scene on After Effects through a linked video clip on Premiere, but I soon came to realise that it would be too time-consuming and I needed that time to work on the colour grading (Resolve) and sound mixing (ProTools).



Hannah, L., Krieger, K. M., O'Connor, R., Pascal, A., & Speilberg, S. (2017). The post [Motion picture] United States: Dreamworks Pictures



Last night, I watched The Post on Netflix.

 It's a political drama with a fast enough pace that you feel in among with the action. Meryl Streep's performance was very solid and the story is clearly thematic - democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, censorship, and feminism.
Colour grading on Resolve

 I started by creating nodes for the original and then for my first step in colour grading, which is adjusting the luma. Adjusting the luma has been tricky with this establishing shot because taking it down to mid-levels with the brightness dial on the first set of the colour wheels (Gamma, Offset, Gain, Lift) like we did in class tutorial with this tutorial makes the image look underexposed.


I tried the same with the other set of colour wheels, but it produced a worse result


It wasn't working the way by referring to the luma graph, so I decided to do it the old fashioned way, which is to experiment with the tools until I get a look that I like and suits the scene. Having tinge of yellow from the offset wheel made a more clinical, forecast weather look like I had been aiming for.


I tried the auto correction, but it was too blue than I wanted it to be and so I preferred the look that I produced manually from previously.


I saved the colouring as a memory to see what would happen if I duplicate the same colouring to the next shot, but it had really bad results when loading the colour memory. It was clear that I needed to start from scratch with this shot. 


I did however just did it the old fashioned way with this shot like the previous shot


This time I saved and copied the colouring as memory, it worked well into the next shot. Potentially because it was shot in the same spot.



Despite being fine on Premiere, the following shot was smaller and I have no idea why


I'm tired out from doing colour grading at this point and it's only been an hour of doing it. I'm going rest my mind from this for a while.
Colour grade



I copied over the grade from the last shot to this shot and looks good, but it could better, so I'm going to do further improvements to the grade in this shot



27/10/2019


 I worked on the tiles and credits on After Effects and finalised a poster design on InDesign for the Think & Create Facebook. It was time-consuming because the end credits were a scrolling one, which made it a challenge set for me to make the timing consistent with the speed of scrolling credits going up


I included the graded footage inside text for the poster. I didn't include myself in a producer credit because I thought it was too self-indigent and didn't want to give myself too much credit on the poster, but I did give myself a producer credit at the end of the ending credits.

 I also collated together the snapshots taken from Resolve into a PDF.


ProTools

 I converted my Premiere project into an OMF, a format for it all to be placed into a ProTools session. I got the file into its session with no issue, but there was still audio sent there that I didn't want and the same happened with the video. I came to realise that I needed to export it again and I did, but removed all the audio away from the Timeline in Premiere and exported another OMF just in case.


I did play back the video with the mixing board up to see how the sound rates in dbs.


When I got myself into sound mixing on ProTools, I got extra lost. I didn't fully understand what the dials did when compressing and why I needed to use any of them asides from gain. In this case, why do I need to do stuff with gain since you can just do that with adjusting the volume and yet you do the volume well after the compression.

 *I also had to divide the dialogue into their own duplicate track because there were audio clips that were loud and full of wind. I couldn't anything about the wind and I couldn't keep it all consistent in just one or two racks without it going over too high in dbs and I couldn't increase the gain on sound that was too quiet because it would create noise on the sound.

 I went into EQing, but I was more lost with using that than the compression since there was way more dials in the EQ-7 window. I also couldn't remember from that ProTools session with Patrick, whether if one track comes with two tracks, if it matters which track I get rid of (left or right). I don't know for certain in this situation.

 Working with ProTools has been extra challenging and difficult, and I don't know if I'm going in the right direction.



I found some royalty free music to include in my short film and then place it into my sound mix on ProTools and from there, I was able to mix together the volumes to levels where you get a a balance of them all.

Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Dark Times" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Music from https://filmmusic.io
"Right Behind You" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)

https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4286-right-behind-you/

28/10/2019

I sent out a courtesy email to my location providers and one of my actors (I don't know the other
actor's email, plus he is my flatmate. I sent the email out to Nathan Gill (ICC), Paul Watts (SIT
Accommodation), Dillon Kirton (actor), Claire Brown (SIT Cafe), and cc'd to Patrick as instructed in the
course outline.


I received automatic replies from both Nathan Gill and Paul Watts, informing me that they are either on annual leave or away because of Labour weekend.
I worked on the title and credits again on After Effects to include the music and sfx in the right legal
format (Creative Commons). I also figured out how to make a smoother motion with the scrolling
credits, which was done by having only two keyframes spanning a minute and twenty seconds.

 My producer credit was placed well down close to the end of the ending credits like a
documentary because I didn't want to be too vain or self-indulgent with my own credits.

 I had the tile and credits graphics exported as DNxHD, so that it wouldn't be as compressed or
lose quality like if I had exported it into a H.264 video format. However, I did export it into a
H.264 MP4 video file just in case there were problems with Premiere and the DNxHD video file.
I went onto my ProTools session one more time to make sure that I can do all I can with making the
soundtrack at the right audio levels. It wasn't precise to where it was needed to be, but I got it to
the closest to the target audio levels that I could. I managed to then bounce the soundtrack into a
wav audio file to put into Premiere.


In Premiere, I had the bounced soundtrack scanned with the loudness radar. It took a couple of times
until I managed to get it to a level where it didn't go over 24KLPS like it was requested by Patrick.





I had the final cut rendering its DNxHD file and it was like watching wallpaper dry and so I went away
for a break, only for disaster to happen. I had so many things on my mind that I forgot to bring the key to
the editing suite with me and it was locked from the outside. I was locked out and it was two hours until
the deadline. I was pretty screwed.

 I came across Chris Popham and he tried to help me, but found no success in getting access to the
editing suite. The bad thing about the deadline and my situation being today is that it's Labour Day,
so nearly all the staff were off-campus. Chris Macdonald and the cleaners from Facilities usually
have the key, but were off work because of today being Labour Day.

 I tried to email, text, and call Patrick to inform about my situation, but to no success. The same
happened with Chris Popham trying to contact Chris MacDonald. I was so stressed about this, but
I managed to get hold of Kathryn. She didn't have a key to the editing suite, but she assured me
that Patrick would likely give me an extension for another day and I wouldn't be penalised.

 I did everything in my power to try and get myself back inside the editing suite, in order to meet the
looming deadline.

Chris Popham never heard back from Chris Macdonald before my deadline. I did receive a reply
to my text message to Patrick and he informed me that only the files encoded or written before the
deadline would be accepted. We will be meeting up in the student lounge early tomorrow morning
for him to let me back inside the editing suite.

 Let's hope things go better tomorrow with Patrick and that he will be understandable.

29/10/2019

I waited for Patrick this morning in the student lounge, but Chris Macdonald let me inside the editing
suite before Patrick arrived. I talked to Patrick when he arrived, but wasn't as understanding as I was
expecting or like Kathryn. I might be penalised for missing the deadline, but Patrick will be consulting
with Kathryn concerning my final grade.

It's just hope my final mark for this assessment ultimately goes well and that I pass the year and
not be punished for something that was beyond the control, considering that never in my years of
study have I missed a deadline (with the exception of getting extensions).
Patrick warned me to backup my work in future, but in my case, I had been so busy with getting this
assessment and others completed, I wouldn't had been able to do so on a daily basis.
I do however aim to backup my work once a week. I'm only human after all.

 Patrick did give me an extension for until 5pm to submit the legal documents concerning my short
film onto Blackboard.

 I submitted all the require files onto the Y drive dropbox shortly after the talk with Patrick. Even though
it wouldn't likely be accepted, but I also rendered the MP4 file of my short film and included into my
dropbox submission. I also managed to submit the legal documents into Blackboard today.

 I had the poster for my short film put up on the Think & Create Facebook. I did fix a typo beforehand
('Janette Rust' was credited as 'Janette Rush').

30/10/2019

I finally received a response from Nathan Gill concerning my courtesy email

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