Another thing we learned about today was about how you can capture interesting photos through rather unique angles that you don’t normally see. Sometimes turning the camera around and being creative with photography can actually make an improvement on your skills.

Today we learned about few different photography techniques. The first one is taken using thePhi Grid technique which is meant to be taken like it has three sections (in this case) including the grass, the trees and the sky.

The second picture is meant using the Fibonacii technique which means it’s taken in such a way that your eyes move from a focal point of focus to the rest of the image. This one didn’t quite turn out how it was supposed to because the sign at the front of the building was meant to be the part which grabbed the viewer’s attention and it really fails at this because it looks really dull.

 

We’ve been given a choice of a number of things to do a film on. One of the options was to make a trailer. I’m choosing to do a horror trailer about a childhood nightmare character I used to have called ‘Scudder’. Today we heard a presentation about film production and all the planning hat has to go into it such as the sound, the the script, the music, the cast and everything else.

I watched some other film trailers to get ideas for my trailer. I hope to start working on the script for it by next week. We have three weeks to get it finished. Fingers crossed it will be possible to get it all done by then.

Today we learned about two types of lighting.

High key lighting and low key lighting. High key lighting is what we learned about first. That’s the method of pictures with bright lighting. We went to the camera studio and they put down a white screen with big lights focussing on the subject. We all had a go at using the camera in this studio.

Low key lighting is the opposite. This is the method of much darker imagery. They got out a black screen with a lower lighting system. This method can be used for horror films/pictures or anything that’s meant to feature darkness. We also practiced using a camera to take pictures in this dark setting. I used to a fair amount of photography but this a side to it that I haven’t had much experience in.  I enjoyed using these photographic techniques.

Here is a picture I took in the dark key lighting. I’m quite happy with how this picture turned out.

Here is another one I took that I’m not so happy with how it turned out. The way it’s chopped irritates me a lot and I’m sure that wasn’t my intention when I captured it. I didn’t even believe this was my photo when it was imported to the computer. I can’t believe I took one where his forehead is chopped. I feel like I must have moved the camera to the wrong place when I took this. I will say though that the picture quality and lighting is still top notch. It’s just in the wrong position. 

Below is a picture I took with the low key lighting. Overall I’m very satisfied with this picture, aside from one single flaw. You can see some of the wires on the side which is annoying. This could easily be edited out but it would be better to avoid that in the first place.

That flaw isn’t there in there in the picture below which makes it look much better. However, I do think the first one is a better picture, aside from the wires. In the second one they’re not smiling and it has a very ‘second photo’ look to it somehow.

Below you can see a video that explains (in greater detail) what the main differences between high key lighting and low key lighting really are.

 

Today we worked with Photoshop. We went out to Wrexham taking pictures (with an aim to use the IOS settings) and we then went back to the classroom and edited the pictures using Photoshop.

Below you can see a Picture of a shop that I edited using Photoshop. The exposure was altered and I pasted a cloudy sky picture into it.

 

We saw all the adverts that we had made (that I mentioned in earlier posts). I definitely enjoyed seeing everyone’s. Our group was given some feedback for the advert that you can read below.

Criteria/Content	Tick	Comments
Have they successfully used editing techniques to enhance the advert?		Yes and have used a lot of technical skills such as animations to help sell their product
What do you think the strengths are of the advert?		Good camera angles, good voice overs and oov shots
What constructive feedback can you suggest that would improve this advert?		Make it longer and include more facts about the crisps or include more of a narrative to create a story around the product

 

Is the product that is being advertised clear in the commercial?		It is shown a lot to reveal the brand identity
Who is the target audience for the commercial, do you think the advert successfully appeals to the target audience, if so how have they done this?		The target audience are people possibly looking for a healthy snack or college students due to the location
What form is the advert, how has this been made evident?		It is about crisps and this is made evident through the crisps flying across the screen

 

Today we were given the task of walking around Wrexham and taking pictures of the most ugly or grotty looking parts of the town. I enjoyed doing this activity. We then went around the desks and gave feedback on each person’s photos. Below I will show the photos along with some of the pieces of feedback for the first four.

 

“Phone box advertising a fast food branch shows reality on how a lot of people rely on fast junk food instead of cooking for themselves”.

“Good idea to use shops with newspapers on windows”.

“Good idea to include smashed glass”.

“I like how you used closed stores to show the negative side of Wrexham. I also like the different angles used”.

You can see more pictures below

In my previous blog post I mentioned that I started working on an advert with a team from my college course. Today, I edited the footage and voice over in the attempt of making it into an advert. My team worked on editing it, but I actually worked on my own, putting my own edit together which I think worked better for me personally because it gave me the chance to work on the editing software myself with the necessary assistance when needed. Editing footage isn’t something I’m entirely new to. However, I never used ‘Adobe Premiere’ before today; aside from a free rubbish app version of it for the phone (which was really nothing like this software).

I normally use iMovie, so working with something new would take some getting used to. I certainly didn’t find working with a new software easy. I found it quite confusing to get my head around it so I had to ask for help quite a bit. However, I did enjoy working on it a lot and I liked seeing what this software had to offer. There was a point when it was break time and believe it or not: I had no desire to take a break. I just wanted to continue working on the advert because I am quite the perfectionist over certain things, but I did reluctantly take a break which may not been a bad thing to be honest.

Once the break had finished: I got back to work and started to look for a soundtrack to use for the advert. I looked up pieces of music from creativecommons.org. I did struggle to find one that I felt would fit with the advert but eventually I found one that I thought would work okay.

The last thing I had to do was add title slides to the video which was rather difficult a complicated to do. Eventually one of the other students emailed a tutorial to me which helped a lot. Next week, we will all get the chance to see the different films all the students worked on. This will be exciting to see.

Thank you for reading.

Today we had a session of making our own advert in the form of film. My group was given a packet of Walkers Sweet Chilli cracker crisps. We aimed to create our own advert for these Walkers, thinking about the best ways to promote them. We decided to include footage of the crisps on screen as well as shots of them being bought from a snack machine and as a shot of them being eaten and enjoyed by a happy customer. We also recorded a voice over. We decided it was important to bring up both facts and positive use of emotive language. It was mentioned that the crisps are extremely tasty, but are 30% less fat and they’re also great for vegetarians. Combining these two elements makes for a very useful way to advertise the product.

I got the chance to be in the film. I was playing the part of the man who enjoyed eating the crisps. I learned to think about how important it is to always make sure you hold your film prop (in this case the crisps) in a way that’s clear for the camera to be able to capture it, but not in a way that looks fake. It’s important for it to look natural and not too forced. I enjoyed taking part in the film. My group hasn’t started editing it yet so all we have so far are the bits of video footage and the voice over that two of my team-mates recorded. We ended up using both the professional sound system recording and an iPhone as backup. The sound quality of the iPhone was surprisingly very good indeed, possibly even better than the voice recording system. I can’t wait for the film to get edited together.

Making this advert was a really fun activity that I enjoyed doing a lot. Being a film director used to be my dream job when I was young. I haven’t been on this course for long but it’s already helped me to get a feeling for what it feels like to take part in professional film making and I feel like I will learn a lot from it. So far, I am actually loving the course, but before I started it I was really scared and anxious about it. This is the first time I’ve ever gone full-time at a mainstream classroom so it was a big change for me but I’m enjoying it and am hoping I will learn a lot of useful skills from it.