Reflective Report
(Rick) Zijing Yang
S322445
Collaborative Media Project
Master of Media
Review this semester, I’ve made a documentary and short film, and finished two commercials about LGBTI workplace and CALD with my collaborative media project group mates. My technique skills and working process had been improved a lot trough those works.
LGBTI&CALD
Commercial for LGBTI workplace & culture are the first project that I’ve been involved in this semester. Our group chose CALD and workplace as the topic we aimed, and I’m the camera operator for this production team. I’ve chosen the position as camera operator because of I have some practical skill and working experience about cinematography and lighting before, so I was quite confident about my position.
During the preproduction, producer and director set up few meetings for make interview questions, draw storyboard and determine the cinematography style. I’ve just given some suggestions about the storyboard. Then drawled the flow lighting plan based on that. As a camera operator, I was trying get familiar with the camera and lights I going to filming with on the field. But I don’t actually have any chance to hands on the SNOY Z7 that was the camera has been used for interview. So I just found the user menu for this camera online, and have a read about that. Dedo light is one of the most frequency used light in my career, I’ve drawled few a rough flow plan for interview lighting set up. Scouting location is a necessary step for preproduction even I’ve been told we will film in the studio.
All I’ve done above for those reasons, firstly to limit the possibility of technique problems. If any technique problems happened on the filming day, then I think that will be still manageable for me, because of I know about the gears. Secondly, increase the working efficiency on the field. Because of I’m familiar about the gears, and have all the paperwork such as storyboard and flow plan, and then I can set lighting and camera right and faster.
However, I faced the problems that were not what I expected on the day for filming. Production management is the main issue we’ve on the day. Most of our group members went to wrong location and waited for the call. So our group was late in the morning, James and other classmates set up the camera and lighting in a black backdrop studio. So I went to help set up lighting and camera in other studio. Because of none of classmates have the experience about lighting set up and free. Then I’ve toke all the gaffer works, and set lighting with 2 kits of Dedo lights. That was a classic tree points lighting for interview shot. However, the lighting for other studio was setup with 2 of 800w tungsten lights, and the backdrop was black. Different backdrops and lighting resources caused two totally different looks of interview shots. I’ve tried to match up lighting, because the facts proved that only made it worse. Unperfected preproduction is the one of reasons caused that issue, and we didn’t expect doing the different interview at the same time with different setup.
Assume I going to filming any similar project in the future. I might ask producer or superior an especially schedule of filming day to make sure everything is under control. And make the production closer to industry standard in next time. I’ve to co-operative with other group because some of them don’t have enough crew to filming, or we filming the same interviewee but different questions together. So I can’t check setup of some shots that filmed in other studio. It caused a bit problem to postproduction, such as white balance for Rowena’s shot is not correct, Jamie’s shot is quite over exposure. Fortunately I fixed them with 3-way color correction easily in post. We can see almost all the problems of production we have that caused by issues of preproduction. A longer and detail preproduction will make the production process easier and better.
Postproduction takes our weeks. Although some of my group mates have been Adobe Premiere workshop before. But seems like they don’t actually confident to be editor for this production. So I became editor for group in during postproduction. Because there was a lot of content for interview, so my group mates have picked different interview shot to edit themselves, then we’ve got the content that we want to use in rough cut. My group mates helped me a lot about editing interview content, they did the paper editing based on rough cut, and then I know what and where exactly director want to change. Our sound editor was looking for the legal free sound resources online that saved me a lot of time for background music. Director and producer also helped with B-roll, they found me some useful cutaway shots and photos. Personally, I’m not really motivational about postproduction works, such as editing, color grading and visual effects making. Because of I’m slow of understanding of editing while working with computer. But collative works make it easier and efficiency.
Always have plan B is the good idea about filmmaking. I’ve learned something more trough this production, such as execution is more important than plan. Execution is the way to measure the professional level of the production team. Filmmakers will have to face different problems for every single production. Good preparation and back up plan are quite necessary and professional, but all of them have to be executed by crews. Trust the people who you are working with, and solute problems with you teammates are much better than working along.
The Pillowman
The short I’ve made during this semester called The Pillowman（2015）. It’s based on Martin McDonagh’s novel of the same name. The original story is composited by many different small and dark stories. I’ve adapted two of them, Writer and Writer’s Sister and A Little Jesus. The original set of Writer and Writer’s Sister is in 19th England, and I’ve change the set from 19th England to 1970 China while the Culture Revolution is destroying the tradition and societies. The reason for this adaption is marketing propose, Because of my target audience is in China mainland, so I think this kind of adaption can attracts more audience and resonate with them.
Original story doesn’t have so many connections with the history background, so adapting work is not really hard as I expected before. Most of the works are just change characters’ dialogue and the tone to make them talk like people who living in 1970 China.
Based on the script, we need find a place that looks like 1970 China to filming. We’ve found an old and suitable house to filming, but still need a bit work for set to match the looks of 1970 China. However, the art director unable to finds the suitable prop after browed some prop stories in Melbourne. The same reason as the props, custom became the other challenge for us. Consider of the budget and time, we’ve deiced purchase all the prop and custom from online stories of China. Then we’ve to deal with the low quality they have. I need to shot more carefully about camera angle, because of director won’t like to see any flaws of custom in camera. I think I’ll always have to deal with similar problem in my career, even one day if I’m working in industry. Maximizing the production value with minimum cost. Just don’t even thinking about give up in first place, good team communication can make it possible and easier.
In additional, I was the director of photography for this short film. Gaffer only has 2 of 1200w tungsten lights, and one of them was burned on the 1st day. This accident made me compressed camera coverage and shot list a lot, because we unable to filming day scenes in the night anymore. Finally I got enough shot on schedule. Although it’s not good as I’ve imaged before, I think nothing is perfect, the imperfect things make people progress. I’ll get the better preparation of equipment in next time, and meet gaffer few more times to make sure everything has its back up.
Director and me experienced about directing child to acts in front of camera in this production, which was so difficult. We’ve spent a lot of time to persuade their parents, and we thought it’s the hardest part. But the truth is send a fresh hand director to directs child’s act is harder. All the acts and lines of the child are random, and it made me changed camera coverage on the field. And the scene looks a bit over editing because of the child unable to finish his dialogue in one shot. Director tried everything to keep him in the right emotion. Directing child is such fun and impressive experience for filmmaking. I might talk to child before we filming a bit more to have better communication. Although I’m the director of photography, my duty is make sure lighting and camera co-operative and provide the image I want. But now I think communicate with actor is important as well. But I don’t think I’ve much chance to filming child shortly, because of my next project will be a boxing film, so I’ll try to avoid film any child in that production.
Overview, The Pillowman is one of the best productions I’ve made in 2015. I’m satisfied with the cinematography style and color. I’ve designed a lot of creative shots, but only have done some of them. As well as the LGBTI project, the execution is such important thing impact production filming. Professional crews and teamwork can less pain from basic problems.
Tamper Force with Mercy
Tamper Force with Mercy is a short documentary made by myself. According to Nichols, B (2001) ”… filmmaker to the story but attempts to construct truths that should be self-evident to anyone, the performative mode engages the filmmaker to the story but constructs subjective truths that are significant to the filmmaker him or herself.” So this documentary is the performative mode. It’s about a Chinese international student who trained Chinese martial arts and Japanese Aikido for years. I planed to make a fiction project in early of semester, but I have to change my plan because of busy internship filled my schedule. I knew Bruce, the protagonist of the documentary by chance. Then I think of make a documentary about him. The documentary is actually focus on his thoughts and goal of martial arts.
The production takes 3days to finish film. Everything is well planed and under control. The only problem is the interview. I shot interview on 2nd day, but Bruce is so shy in front of camera. I’ve reviewed interview shot, and they are unusable and stiff. Then I decided change the style of documentary, just use audio track of interview, and all image will be B-rolls. Then Bruce was more comfortable to be interviewed with out camera and lighting. Content of the second time interview is much better than last time. This experience tech me that make the interviewee comfortable is more important than camera and lighting.
On the other hand, I’ve used feature techniques to shot all the B-rolls. Although the lighting is not good as The Pillowman, but it just conforms the documentary style. This documentary shot on RED scarlet and SONY PMW FS7, using FS7 with Zeiss CP2 for most of shot. Because of one man crew filming with heavy equipment will drop the efficiency a lot. So I used RED for the first day shot only, then just using the lightweight FS7 for rest of days. But RED scarlet provides such great image quality. Solo production always taking so long to setup and shot. For this reason, I less the people involved in the documentary, then I’ve got more time to filming what I want. Assume I’m going to make another similar documentary, I’ll think about hire a professional gaffer and camera assistant to increase the production value and work efficiency.
Summary
In summary, I’ve learned about preproduction is the one of the most important parts of filmmaking whatever feature or documentary. Most of problems happened in production filming because of an unperfected preproduction. And every idea or plan needs to be done with production team’s execution. Otherwise, it’s just a idea or plan, can’t influence the final out come.
Reference:
Michelson, A. (Ed.) O’Brien, K. (Trans,) & Vertov, D. (1984). Kino-Eye: The Writings of Dziga Vertov. Berkeley & Los Angeles, California: University of California Press.
Nichols, B (2001). Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington & Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Rabiger M. Directing the documentary[M]. CRC Press, 2014.
Krevolin R W. How to adapt anything into a screenplay[M]. John Wiley & Sons, 2003.
Brown B. Motion picture and video lighting[M]. Taylor & Francis, 2008.
Rabiger M, Hurbis-Cherrier M. Directing: film techniques and aesthetics[M]. Taylor & Francis, 2013.
