Editing Suite: Day 4

Throughout the editing process we realised that as soon as we made slight changes to a clip within the timeline, a lot of time was spent rendering each change in a video.


Once we had finished our focus on green screen, we then decided we wanted our studios to look more interactive, to achieve this we included youtube videos in the introduction and entertainment studios. The clips needed to be in topic with what the presenter was saying therefore, research was carried out to find the best possible clips. We had also included a movie trailer within the actual story of the show. I learnt that layering clips and other items within the timeline allowed us to achieve more and edit the studio around a little more. 


Our target audience for the show is focused around young adults/ university students of 18-25. The music tones included in the programme needed to be upbeat and lively, after narrowing down our selections to two choices per section, we played both songs whilst playing the video in the background to see which choice worked better and decided on:


Kraftwerk - Dentaku (News)
Goldfrapp - Ooh La La (Fashion)
Fatboy Slim - Weapon Of Choice (Bloopers)

Here is a print screen image of the movie trailer being included in the timeline for the show.

When we were coming to finishing this project, we realised it was more like Lorraine (part of Daybreak) rather than This Morning. Lorraine is more contemporary and has a wider target audience.  

Editing Suite: Day 3

Green Screen Fashion Section:

This proved to be the most difficult part of green screen editing as there was movement involved in the takes and editing around the green was a little bit more difficult. Softening the edges and the saturation were challenging withe the movement going on in the takes and when we managed to eliminate the green the image would become pixelated . 

When cropping the first layer (the moving image) we needed to pay extra attention to where to cut exactly. This needed to be very particular as the model is walking towards the camera therefore, the size of the model gets a little bigger as she gets to the front and stands.

We were originally going to have a voice over narration of the outfits presented by the models and have the focus on the outfit whilst on the screen, however we decided against that nearer the time as the shot looked rather empty. So we added the presenters to the shot on the opposite side; it seemed easier to watch as there was a form of interaction between the presenters and the models. 

Editing Suite: Day 2

After we had logged and captured all the takes we filmed, we decided to focus on getting the order we wanted the clips to appear in. Originally we had created a structure we wanted the show to go with however, when we were putting the show together, we realised the structure didn't work as well as we had hoped due to a few obstacles and mistakes we made whilst filming. When we came to edit 'Summer Shape Up with Mr Fit' we had found out that some of the footage had been lost, therefore we lost the introduction we had with a presenter which made it complicated to then have a presenter at the end of the exercise. We managed to overcome this issue by inserting an introduction page.

After we had finalised the timeline and order of which we wanted the show to go in, we had an idea to add bloopers and outtakes in, so we had to cut the youtube clips as much as we could in order to be able to fit roughly around a minute of footage. Due to none of us in the group having much knowledge or skills with Final Cut Pro, editing the clips took much longer than we had anticipated however we cut the cooking tips to roughly around a minute from three. This allowed us to gain skills and learn functions with the programme. The weather section which we had also managed to get from youtube took longer and more patience with editing because the presenter speaks extremely fast, so getting the right time and point to cut was challenging. This was also cut down to roughly fifty seconds. 

After all this was done, we began editing the green screen, we used youtube tutorials to learn how to use specific tools like chroma keyer as well as motion and filters where the videos explained in great detail what each function enabled us to do. We also managed to get some help from our tutors and technicians. I found the green screen rather easy to operate on Final Cut Pro and enjoyed the whole process; it may have been very time consuming and I found that it was one step forwards two steps back, however it got me to practice using the software lots. 

This is a print screen image of the first attempt at using green screen with the introduction. This particular shot is the clip of the entertainment introduction of Carys introducing new movies coming out. The main problems with this particular take we had experienced were the shadows between Carys' legs. 

After we used the motion and filter tools to crop as much of green screen out as possible, we then proceeded to use Chroma Keyer to eliminate the green and stick the studio background into the shot. 

When the introduction section was edited and we were happy with it, we decided to watch it back, coming to a conclusion that the studio looks a little plain with just the presenters standing there, so we had decided to include youtube clips which related to the script the presenters were reading out. So an example, where Bradley (male presenter) is talking about music at Reading Festival, we have clips of bands and the actual festival playing. 

This image shows the attempts at trying to perfect the size we wanted the presenters to be for the given studio. Where he should stand etc. The actual image has a little green illumination itself, where the lights from outside are on, so we needed to make sure that as much as green was cut out as possible from around our presenters.

Reading Material

Some of the reading material I am going through to help me with my work on this project and get inspirations from...

David Bordwell/ Kristin Thomspon (2010). Film Art, An Introduction. New York: McGraw Hill. 193-213.

Bernard Clark (2002). Reality TV: How Real is Real.  The Box of Tricks. Abingdon: Hodder & Stoughton.

Editing Suite: Day 1.

Today, we have started on our editing. We managed to meet and talk about ideas after watching all the footage again. In today's session, we managed to log and capture all the footage ready for edits but also get the introduction for the show ready. 
We experienced some problems with the news/ traffic section; there were some clips we had to cut in between therefore the rough cut so far of this section is a little edgy. We agreed to leave it alone for now and think about ideas on how to approach it to smooth out the jump cuts. Shannen suggested dissolves and fade ins/outs as a way out, or perhaps a move of the section to another part of the show, this would mean going against our show structure but would allow us to get the problem solved. The next step is to get a first cut of the whole show with correct takes and put them in order we think will be best but also, begin on adding the virtual studios and Google images as our backgrounds. 
We are using Final Cut Pro Studio 7 software to edit our project on.

Ideas for 'Mr. Fit, Summer Shape Up'

The idea for 'Mr. Fit, Summer Shape Up' is a short 2 minute clip with a fitness instructor giving tips on how to get fit and healthy for the summer season.

Due to a last minute cancel from one of our actors, we have managed to find a personal fitness trainer who does it professionally. We have arranged to film this section on Saturday morning with a new face added to the show. Because Carys will not be able to do this presenting as it isn't local, we managed to find substitute presenter for this section only. It doesn't necessarily have to a problem, as it will give the show more a variety, enable us to work with different personalities and try to add something new as well.

This is an idea suggesting the route we want to take with this.

Re - shoots

Whilst reviewing all the footage we have managed to gather up over the last couple of weeks, we have decided on  few re -shoots. Looking over some clips, I thought, in comparison to the rest of the footage, certain parts were poor quality, with sound level problems. 

To tackle this problem, we have managed to gather up our actors again and set up for a re-shoot. 

The interview between a journalist and a student with an opinion on the student fees going up starting September 2012. I am glad we have managed to recognise the problem and see through it to improve the quality of our work but also be able to use our skills we have gained over this module to put into work again and do a better job. 

During the shoots, I am going to run through the script a couple more times with the models than previously, we're going to take 'practice takes' following with a couple final takes for us to decide as a group on the best one. 

I believe it will also show a variety in our filming, this time I will step in behind the camera and play the role of director/ producer for a change. During previous takes, I did the interviewing, therefore this will also allow me to gather up skills on how to use the camera but also communicate with the actors and try and give them an idea of the vision I have personally for this particular section of the show.

Filming Details

I thought I would write about the filming process in some more in greater detail. 

Whilst filming in the green screen and due to the fact that we had one camera, in a way our shots were limited however because we are working on a morning TV programme, a master shot of one position made sense. 

We had used one camera and with that we focused on getting takes with close -ups, medium and group shots mainly. Those shots were the ones we had managed to recognise during our research time when looking at other programmes already made. 

The composition of the shots were the actors and the models were to be centre focus of the camera when walking towards. This was to fulfil the aim of 'live television' where our presenters would be talking to the audience through the camera, therefore a metaphorical 'eye contact' through the lens. 

Virtual Studio Ideas

Here are some ideas for our virtual studio background. There are different colours and layouts. Originally we would like to have a few standing backgrounds, a sitting one for the news section and perhaps a talk show. 


There is one fashion runway, which we'd like to use. The colours agree with our theme and the target audience we are aiming our final product at.

(fashion show runway)

References: 

• http://www.cg4tv.com/news-virtual-studio-set-for-two-anchors.html (accessed: 06/04/2012)
• http://www.anachronistic.co.uk/tip-details/23-free_virtual_studio.htm (accessed: 06/04/2012)
• http://hollywoodcenterstudios.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/create-network-quality-programming-with.html (accessed: 06/04/2012)
• http://www.bristolfilmstudios.com/virtual.html (fashion) (accessed: 06/04/2012)
• http://www.virtualset.com/platforms/Globecaster/Products/AnimSet-Studio80-C.htm (accessed: 06/04/2012)
• http://vtknowledge.com/ (accessed: 06/04/2012)
• http://www.google.co.uk/imgres? (accessed: 06/04/2012)
• http://www.cg4tv.com/ (accessed: 06/04/2012)

Introduction Script

This is the introduction script, Sophie and Shannen have worked on it to make it short and to the point. It has been re-read and edited, this is the final draft we have used whilst filming. 

Music Soundtrack/ Background

Sophie, our sound supervisor has managed to find some music clips for the show. She has so far found the background music for the fashion show as well as the News Headlines intro.
The music for the fashion show is, Lady Gaga - Beautiful, Dirty Rich and the news headlines music intro is Kraftwerk - Dentaku (The Mix)

Cooking Tips Suggestions

Our director Shannen, has managed to find some short clips of Gordon Ramsey with cooking tips, we had all gathered to watch these and came to a conclusion that we could edit and cut them so they're roughly around a minute long and include them in our show. This could be our 'celebrity guest' suggesting easy and quick ways to make student meals.

First Day of Filming Part II

For the second part of filming on the day, we focused on the News Headlines. We had to make some small changes in the green room; setting up a table and chair covered in green cloth so it'd work in the post production process. With our technician's help, we adjusted the lights so they were centre focus of Carys presenting. 
The filming went very well and no troubles at all, we followed through with our pattern of taking a few takes for this part as we did with all the previous sections. Whilst reading the traffic section of the news, Carys improvised and cut some bits out, to keep it short yet to the point, we found this worked better than the original script and kept the take. 
This was the first time Carys did the presenting without our other presenter Bradley, therefore the pressure was on her, however she managed to do it perfectly, at the end of it all we were very happy with the takes we had taken, we all watched the clips back and agreed on the best ones. 


We have yet to film a couple more sections 'Mr Fit' being one of them, however this can be done easily as we want to change it a little bit and have this section filmed outside. 


For the cooking tips and weather we are going to rip these clips off YouTube, to show variety with the final product. We have found a few good choices and agreed to narrow them down and pick the best in the post production process.

First Day of Filming Part I

On Friday the 30th March was our first official day of filming. We started at 9 am and worked in the green screen throughout the morning until the afternoon.
We had planned a structure of filming prior to the day therefore everything went according to plan, our models turned up which meant we started no problem.


The night before shooting, our male model pulled out of the project stating he wasn't comfortable doing it. This left us at a short notice to find someone else, however i managed to find Dominic Bird to model for us without hesitation.
On the morning of filming, we had him model two outfits for us, one day and one night outfit. This went smoothly without any mis-haps.  We did four takes of Dominic walking down to ensure we had a choice when it came to post production.
We had a few problems with the green screen itself as we had to create a green floor for models/ presenters to stand on because as a group we had decided to use virtual studios and google images for the editing process to use as our studios.


Once we had the male model filming done, we moved onto the female model. Due to problems with finding a willing female to model for us, I stepped in a modelled two outfits as well, one for the day and a night outfit.


A couple of days before filming, we had decided to add another presenter, Bradley. We thought it would be interesting to have a male presenter as well as a female one. Carys managed to find a volunteer who was willing to help us out with the introduction, entertainment section and the fashion show.
Due to the last minute changes, on the day before we began filming, I tweaked the script a little and divided the script so Bradley would present the male clothes and Carys would present the female outfits. It looked great when we watched it back afterwards, we took a couple of takes for us to then be able to decide on the best one with editing. The technician which was helping us out with the equipment in the green screen room suggested that we could cut them out and place them anywhere we wanted them when editing, so their positioning on green screen didn't matter too much.
Another change which we had to be quick to make was the script for the male model clothes, as our model pulled out we weren't able to read the script which read a different outfit to the one our new model was able to provide for us.
Bradley was wonderful and was able to quickly learn the new outfits; we kept the shops and prices the same as we thought it didn't matter too much on the little details on prices.


After we finished filming the fashion show, we quickly moved onto filming the entertainment section, which went really well. The script was again divided into tow between Carys and Bradley.
Carys focused on the film section, introducing the new releases and Bradley presented the festivals and music. Because of time restrictions (1 minute entertainment update) I decided to take out a couple of things from the script in the film part, we avoided the Titanic re-release and the Lucky One with Zac Efron. Everyone in the group agreed that it'd be best to keep it shorter and more to the point. Carys suggested to keep the Beauty and the Beast 3D re-release for a bit of variety in the films presented.  

Male Model:

Female Model:

Here are some photographs I took to document the filming progress, Carys and Bradley filming the introduction, the entertainment section and the fashion show. 

The entertainment section took the quickest to film out of the three main parts we did. Our presenters split the script between the two. After the first take, they decided to improvise a little to make the show seem more real and relaxed whilst filming. They decided on a friendlier take with the introduction to the show. It looked like they enjoyed it more and it fit with the feel we wanted to achieve. I'm really pleased with how the filming went. As a pair f presenters, they looked as if they had been working on this show for years rather than hours, which worked in our favour. I believe the takes for this part will be the easiest to edit in the post production process. 

Entertainment News

This is a script I wrote for the one minute update on entertainment. Due to time restrictions, I decided to focus on upcoming festivals and new releases in the cinemas.
I looked at festivals such as; Creamfields, Reading/Leeds Festival, TomorrowLand. 


The films I decided to focus on where the mainly talked about. I thought of talking about films which were under the radar, using film festivals such as Sundance, Tribeca and Toronto by using their websites and looking at their new stuff, however this proved to be a lot more complicated and we thought our target audience wouldn't be able to relate.
As an alternative I used a website called FirstShowing (http://www.firstshowing.net/) to look for well heard of material to use when writing the script. 

Here are some trailers and music clips which are mentioned in the script.

Paramore - Decode

Foo Fighters - Best Of You

The trailers mentioned in the script:

Hunger Games

The Lucky One 

Titanic 3D

Festivals

References:

http://www.crackerjack.fr/  TomorrowLand (accessed: 04/04/2012)

http://midnightmixtape.co.uk/2012/02/28/reading-leeds-line-up-leaks/ Reading Festival (accessed: 04/04/2012)

http://www.musicfestivaljunkies.com/europe-festivals/creamfields-festival/ Creamfields Festival (accessed: 04/04/2012)

http://www.youtube.com/  Band Videos (accessed: 04/04/2012)

http://www.firstshowing.net/ First Showing Website (accessed: 04/04/2012)

News Headlines Script (1st draft)

This is a first draft of the script for the news headlines. I decided to focus on the increase of tuition fees, so students would be able to relate to it. I think the script is reasonably good length, it takes around two and a half minutes to read out, therefore after all necessary changes are done it will be the right length of three minutes when we begin shooting.

Words of Advice

Yesterday I helped out at the university with chatting to prospective students. I was able to speak to some third year film students who gave me some great advice on how to approach working in a new group. 


I was advised to sit down with my group and allocate every member with a title; producer, director, editing and sound. I believe this will be able to help us with planning and organising ourselves on the days of shooting and with planning the flow of the project we are working on.
Within the next week, I am going to suggest this to the rest of the team, this should be able to enable us to work to the best of our ability.


The responsibilities:


Producer: location spotting, script, casting, actors present on days of shooting, costume, equipment hire
Director: camera control, actor set up, editing
Editor: editing all footage, keeping a log book whilst shooting on location and making notes of best takes
Sound: music choice, sound levels, sound editing, soundtrack

Script Writing: Fashion Section

For each section, as a group we have decided to split the roles of the work load we have to do. I am responsible for writing up the script for the fashion section. For inspiration I have looked at morning shows, such as Lorraine to gather up ideas for how to structure this section alone. The final decision is to have two male and female models to present an outfit each, a casual (every day) outfit as well as a 'night out' one. 


We have started looking for two males and females who would be willing to help us out and model the clothes. 


This is the first draft of the script, the rest of the group and myself will look over it separately and as a group to decide whether it needs anymore work on it and how to improve it. I believe this will help me improve my script writing skills as well as strengthen our group to enable us to work together at our best.

These videos are where I got the inspiration from for the script. I watched a couple of videos of Mark Heyes to get a feel of what would work well on a morning TV programme.

I had a look at high street shops, which different age groups would be able to relate to and found that by looking into trends for Spring/Summer 2012, writing the script would be a lot easier.

Storyboarding & Structure

  

                                First draft of an idea for a structure of the morning show. 

                             

                             Beginning of a potential structure storyboard.

British and American Shows Research

To expand my research into entertainment shows, I've focused on a few shows for each category in both, United States and United Kingdom.

                                                                  U.S.A:             

                      

                                                            Chat Shows                     

                                           Jimmy Kimmel    

              

David Letterman

                                                            

                                                                                                      

                                                                        U.K

                                                               Chat Shows

                                                         Jonathan Ross

Alan Carr: Chatty Man

U.S.A:

Cooking Show

Paula Deen: Regis and Kelly

                                                                          U.K:

                                                                Cooking Show

                                      Gino D'Acampo: This Morning

Instead of having long section on cooking, 2 minute tips 'QuickBite' would substitute having a guest come in and a cook a particular meal.

The chat shows are for the entertainment section, the format in which would be ideal to carry out the interviews in, with one host and perhaps no audience. More like an interview.

Actor Research

Whilst researching the ideas to go into the programme, I wanted to expand the research a little further and create an actor post where potential presenters could be looked at.


                                                             Julia Richardson

                                               (Film Critic: Entertainment Section)

In the entertainment section, the film/ theatre part would include a film debate between two film critics, where their opinions clash. Julia is a film student with creative writing, therefore it would be good to be able to use someone who has ideas on how a film critic writes reviews and sees films as a whole.

Taking a similar idea from a show 'This Morning' with 'Matt Johnson in the Hub' where audiences are able to contact the show via social networking sites such as, Facebook or Twitter comments. 

                                                   

                                         

                                                                  Katie Dia

                                                            (main presenter)

The idea is to have one male and one female presenter, with main news and introducing the main show. Katie has agreed to do a test shooting and see if it goes well and all to plan, if successful she is willing to help with the project and be one of main presenters. 


                                                                Oscar Dunbar
                                                           (guest star interview)

                        
The guest star interview focuses on a film star which is interviewed by one of the main TV presenters, whilst they promote the release of their new film. This idea is based around the Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey shows in the U.S.A.

Ellen DeGeneres

 

Oprah Winfrey Show

References:
Video Clips, www.YouTube.com (accessed 8/03/2012)