reflection video 2 from Lushi Wu on Vimeo.
Reflection video2
October 21st, 2010Prod participation
October 13th, 2010In week one I’ve already set up some criteria in order to access if I’m consistently involving in the class/projects or not. I would say that I was doing not bad during the semester for this class. Basic things like classes attended, assignments handed in on time and learned from the class are done. I’ve attended most of the workshops and reflect on what I’ve learned from them, such as the Time-lapse workshop and the stop-motion workshop. Apart from the workshops, I focused a lot on the reflection of my own work as well as thoughts about other people’s videos.
In this case, the process of receiving feedbacks and making changes is my main activity that most influenced me as a learner this semester. This process occurs from our version of video, then receiving the feedbacks from class and the finally adjusted video. The process of learning from feedbacks starts from the first sketch till the final presentation of the second video. In the first sketch presentation, I started to think critically towards the feedback from the peers. Especially for the first sketch to the first video, I have rethought and considered the opinions from the class and keep adjusting our ideas. When it comes to the second sketch we could explain our ideas better in related to both the video and the poem. At this stage, we have more decisions over the peer’s opinions since this time everyone has a different taste towards the sketch. Then, we need to decide what is the best to express our concept rather than fitting other’s tastes. As a learner, I keep changing myself to a better position, adjusting my study path and absorbing critiques. In the second video, we made more decisions regarding to what we want and how we want to express ourselves. I think I’m more confident due to the process of getting feedbacks, realising problems and tackling problems. The other activity that influenced me most should be dealing with chaos and changes. During shootings and decision making, there are a lot of sudden changes and chaos. I have to make decisions fast, organised schedules nicely and able to think of back up plans quickly. In our decision process, we always keep challenging our ideas and change to a totally different idea. In this time I need to adjust all the plans that associated with the first idea to a brand new schedule. I would say this is the most difficult part for me since the changes of minds and decisions always happened in a second and I have to re-organise everything. Even though, this is a good experience for me since the media industry itself always changes. This activity builds up my confidence in working under pressure, under deadline and adapting quickly to new stuffs.
Overall, this course is the first one that made me so enthusiastic about the assignments and tasks. I would say it is the most participated course I’ve ever had in university due to the frequent production making. I also had a lot of time in reflecting my works, not only by words but in action. This is obvious when I looked back to the sketches and the final videos. There are continuing improvements and challenges in my works as well as my learning path.
Video sketch 3 choice 2
October 13th, 201011st
October 8th, 2010I was sick and didn’t attend the Canon 5D workshop this week, but I found some notes about it from Liyana’s blog.
* don’t use above 800(ISO) in dark if u dont want noise in your footage.
* canon has the noise reduction feature.. for shooting night
* fix zoom lense (prime lenses)- eg.50mm
* lenses- know how far you are going to shoot. different looks come from different lenses.
* light testing- ISO, do quick test, try different ISO and aperture to se which one looks the nicest and image quality.
* shutter- how fast your shutter closes, 16 -60 per second.(rolling shutter)
* when shooting with fluorescent light be careful because the lights are always flickering.- try different settings and look at your test in your laptop.
* there are video profiles in the cameras. menu> picture styles; monochrome, portrait, nuetral etc.
* weights and hand away from camera to stabilize shots. take image stabilization off when doing video.
* frame tear- can’t really handle very fast movements.
* zoom in function on camera- zooms the live view function.
* sound- plugin mixer and mixer to mic because the canon 5D is not really good for sound without external mics.
* use filters for depth of feel look- have epiture wider open use filters to take out light and give u depth of feelPost production:
* canon 5D will automatically use H264 compression. get it out of file format before going into final cut.
* 5d to RGB- software(new), MPEG stream clip(software)- capture footage to apple proRess 422HQ (HD).Tips:
* dont point it towards the sun
* while changing lense- make sure clean, environment clean. keep body facing down so dust dont get in.
* lense shifting when focus. photographic lenses will distort when changing focus.
* 15 minutes limit for video. doesn’t matter how big memory cards are.
* sandisk have recovery software- if crash take card out and dont shoot over it.
* exposure pulls- going from light to dark or dark to light- 5D not very good.
When I was using 5D for the time-lapse, I sort of play around it and knew some basic settings before taking the images. Before using 5D, the techs had taught me some basic stuff about shooting large quantity of images. Things like adjusting the aperture and ISO to a lower level can minimized the size of image so that the storage won’t finish so quickly. One of the issues I have when I was using 5D is the shuttle speed. I was experiencing different shuttle speed and check which one suits me. But in fact I couldn’t manage it since the test shots are not changing a lot, at least I didn’t notice any changes. When I was shooting for the second video, we wanted to capture the car lights in front of Flinders Station at night. At that time, I was very confusing about the numbers of shuttle speed and don’t know which one is capturing more light and which one is not. I saw some pretty images playing with shuttle speed before, but most of them are stills and I’m not sure about it with time-lapse. Another issue is the pre-set image size. I always confused if it’s already in 16:9 or I need to crop it into the size I want at the end. According to the tips above, I also have problem with the compression and quality with the images and wonder they belong to Pal or HD. Apparently, I need to put more time on technical aspects and play around the equipments more often. Then I can handle technologies in a better level.
Self assessment
October 7th, 2010• Contribution and collaboration
Throughout the process of organizing, delivering and publishing the seminar event, my main responsibilities are supporting the group members to reach the topic. The structure of our groups is, everyone thought of a topic that fits into the category of online media then work on the topic. At the beginning, I was supposed to work on the topic of online animation. I was looking for studios that produce online animation videos and ask the producers to talk with us. Although, in the second group meeting, it seems that there are too many topics and my topic was deleted. In this case, I joined the online marketing group and re-started my research. In my perspective, within teamwork you can’t always hold on your own opinions but to compromise properly. Since the group has decided which is the best to fit in, I should try to support others rather than sticking to the details. I prefer to be a supporter rather than a leader in the group. Since our group is full of leaders, they need me as a supporter to make sure the tasks are finished fluently. This is my strategy towards collaboration and group work. When other group members asked me questions about the topics, how to do it better and what is the next step. I always try to provide the best answer for them and help them through organizing.
• Proactive Learning
During the seminar preparation, I learned a lot from other group members. For example, how they find contacts, where they find information and their ways to solve problems. From what I observed, most of the contacts they found are either from friends or online contents that they always keep an eye on. Like Chris, he knew some people who are doing game application and have knowledge about it then he approach to them and ask for help. Many group members had posted links and articles on our Facebook page; I kept checking them out and make sure I’m up-to-date. Likewise, I started to look at blogs and other websites in order to find more information. This is sort of a new way in approaching to the method of finding information. I used to rely heavily on Google but now I found out that browsing personal blogs or user-generating-content websites include much useful information as well.
• Participation
I attended most of the seminars, group meetings and of course the event. Though, I did miss a few classes due to some personal reasons. I tried to catch up with the group members as well as what had been discussed within the class as much as I can. I tried to engage with the talking and decision makings if possible. But seems that our group members always have a plan in their mind and don’t need any advises. When it comes to the decision-makings for the group, I always listen and give out feedbacks actively. As for the allocating tasks, I tried my best to finish it, I prepared whatever is needed for the seminar day; I did my shooting as required and keep helping out with catering, organizing and wrapping up.
• Connections & intersections
The value of the seminar series is huge, through the process of finding contacts, organizing and researching, we can to know more about the industry we want to attend. Likewise, you have an opportunity to meet with variety of industry professionals, let them recognized you and a good chance to present yourself to them. Also, through the seminar we get to know the tips before going in to the industry, what should we do and what can we do in order to get a job as well as what should we prepare for our career future. I have discovered that if I would be more active and step out further, I could have more chance in promoting myself as well as building up my personal network. The other thing I found through the seminar is the revealing of information about industry. Before I couldn’t find any companies that located in Melbourne and doing what I think suits me. Then I found a few companies and studios that I’m interested at through the seminar of Melbourne hub. During the process of organizing the seminar, I learned variety of aspects that I might use in the future. Things like organizing procedure, being professional at details, allocating different tasks to capable person, coordinate with other people and committee and appropriate manners while being in a socializing environment.
Changing idea
October 7th, 2010
a simpler story of a woman who loves corpse and collect women corpses as barbie dolls.
Draft story board of the video 3
October 6th, 2010
Draft story board of the video 3
October 5th, 2010