Create a kaleidoscope effect for my short film

Continue to editing my short film and haven’t finish.

Today I made a kaleidoscope effects with After Effects. I used some clips which was shot in the garden, so that the images through colorful flowers make the pictures looks more fantasy, like the girl’s vivid world. I also used some fantastic electronic piano music to match these images, to make that feel in the dream, not the real world. But the quality of the music which I download from the internet is not very good, maybe I will change another music with good qualities and also match for these clipts, if I can find. 

One clips for my short film

Created one clips for the white wall which is changed to red, pink, yellow in my short film.

At first, I use camera shot one original white wall in a room. And then used after effects changed the colour through the white wall, and add some spot light and some hearts to make it more fantasy, feel like in a dream.

Film: Robot and Frank

Director:Jake Schreier (2012)

Today I watched film “robot and frank”. It tells a story about an old man frank and a robot.

Some part was moved me.

Robot said to frank, don't forget, I'm not a real person, I’m only a highly simulation robot, formatted my memory, you can continue to you the next list.

Frank pushed robot's back button, then memory formatted, and the robot fall in frank's arms, they like two old friends will soon farewell embrace.

This film tells a nearly future story, the colour in the film is much muted. I can feel the smooth and relax, sometimes a little boring through this film. If you want to relax, I think this is a nice film, not many actions, not many conflict, it looks just a real life.

Reference: Robot and Frank, 2012. [Film]. USA: Dog Run Pictures, Park Pictures. [Directed by Jake Schreier.]

Reflection in the process of doing my short film

The more you prepared in Pre-production phase, the more convenient you will get in post-production phase.

Film is a synthesis of various parts of aspects, each part play an important role in each field, such as in Pre-production phase, prepare for costumes, props, lighting. In the Production phase of enforcement for shooting, actor's performance, monitoring and guidance of the directors, sound record, sound effects. And the post-production phase for the special effects, layer composition, color correction and so on. These different parts need to get together and pull to the same direction to get a good result, it is the effect of one plus one is greater than two. however, if any part is missing, or insufficient done, It will ruin the film，or many other areas needed to use a lot of time and money to cover the shortage for the film.

Editing for my short film

Today I started to edit my short film. I used two cameras to shooting it, so some colors in different camera are not the same, even though both of the cameras were adjusted the white balance before. So I need to correct the color at the end of the editing phase. Another problem was the sound record. It has some noise like machine noise is ringing all the time. I need to find some ways to solve it.

Today I just edit one part of the short film. The scene is in the living room and has many dialogues in this part, so I need to change different shot during the actress talk – use close up to express character’s mood, use full shot to show the scene.

Shooting for my short film

Last week, I finished my shooting work for my short film. Because the actress's time was very limited, so I only have one day to shoot it. Thanks for god the weather on that day was very good, it haven't rain and had a nice sunshine. Make this short film is really a challenge for me.

First is the prepare work, I need to book the green screen room in school, contact with actress, cameramen, arrange the time, borrow cameras, tripod, sound recorder, props, the place we shoot, and so on. I also need to consider which place is fit for the screenplay, what custom is suit for the actress. So, I went to the Wollaton park, in order to find some nice place where have many flowers in the garden. But when I get here, there have nothing, so I had to change my plan to the arboretum park. I am very lucky to find a nice place with some beautiful flowers there. I also asked my actress bring some clothes which have no green color on it, because I need to shoot one scene in the green screen room.

During the shooting time, communication is another challenge for me, I need to direct the little into the story and tell her how to act. I also need to communicate with the cameramen what kind of picture I need, consider with the composition of a picture, the camera Angle and the image scale.

Thankful with my friends and classmates’ help, I was finished shooting, even though some clips haven’t achieved what I expected before. I will edit it next week.

Reflective: DSLR Tutorial

ND filter needs in bright daylight situations. In the sunny daytime, sometimes the image in the camera is extreme over exposed. If we don’t want to lose a nice depth of field, we have to change the shutter speed to get the image darker. But the image is getting to smooth. When we use ND filter at the bright daylight situation, we can set the iso, shutter speed and aperture to get the good look images what we want.

Film: Chasing Ice

A few days ago，I watched a documentary film - chasing ice. At beginning I just see the poster in Broadway, it was so beautiful and I was attracted by that piece of blue ice, very transparent, the feeling does not have any impurity.

The documentary film tells us a story of a global warming. The group workers put cameras in Iceland and other places in the world and they installation of the cameras to record the process of melting glaciers. During I watch this film, I was deeply shocked by cinematographers. They are not afraid of bad environment and not afraid of the danger in glacier. They go into glacier deeply in order to take a nice picture, so that the audience can see such beautiful scenery. To arouse public concern the problem of global warming, in order to protect the environment. In the filming process, they also use a large number of tools and technology equipment, especially in lighting part. They put the light in the back side of the ice, to make the ice brighter at night. And then take a picture in front of ice, it can come out photos with shining bright iceberg. 

Reference: Chasing Ice, 2012. [Film]. USA: Diamond Docs, Exposure Production, Exposure. [Directed by Jeff Orlowski.]

My short film shooting plan

Shooting plan

画面 Images	文本 Script	音乐 Music	备注
EXT. ON THE ROAD. DAY
大全景（小女孩蹦蹦跳跳走在路上） 特写（欢快的脚步） 特写（笑脸） 全（看路边的树）	A LITTLE GIRL is hopping, jumping and walking on the road with a big smile on her face. sometime, she look at the trees beside the road。	轻快的音乐	大全一遍 全一遍 局部抓特写 路边风景反打
近景	She use her hands form a hole and looking out through it.		近景一遍 全脸特写一遍（笑容） 眼睛特写（带手通过洞）
特写（眼睛）	小女孩向里看
特写（灿烂的笑容）	笑容（从不笑到笑）
正面俯拍全景——特写	Sometimes she looks at the blue sky and white clouds.		全景一遍 特写一遍 蓝天、云反打（镜头带手）
INT. LIVING ROOM. DAY
正面全	The Little Girl runs into the room. “Mom!!! Mom!!!” The little girl run out of the room.		全一遍（跑过镜头） 全一遍（跑出门）
大全（交代房间） 从厨房摇到客厅	The Little Girl's MOTHER comes out from the kitchen. The little girl pull her mother to sit down on sofa。“Come and see! I can see a colorful world through my hands!”		大全一遍（跟着人物调度摇镜头） 中景一遍（两人） 近景一遍（妈妈） 近景一遍（女儿） 特写一遍（妈妈通过女儿手看）
中景（坐下开始接）	The little shows the hole which is made by her hands to her mother.
	“Can you see it! the window become bigger! look at this side, the white wall become colorful.”
	The little girl's mother looking through the hole that made by her daughter's hands“What? What did you say? There is nothing, just the white wall。”“You can't see it? It's impossible.”
中——特	The little girl put her hands back and narrow her eyes, put the hole towards the white wall again. She look through the hole carefully.		中景一遍（两人） 特写一遍（女儿） 大特一边（眯着眼镜看）
特写	“Yeah, it is real, I can see the white wall become red, er, now it become pink. now it is yellow! It's amazing, why you can't see it?”		特写一遍（女儿专注的看，边看边说） （画面渐渐放大）
两人中景	The little girl shows the hole in front of her mother's eyes gain. “Look, look carefully.”		中景一遍（两人） 大特写一遍（女儿好奇的问） 特写一遍（妈妈） 特写一遍（女儿）
特写	“Does the white wall changed?”
两人中景	The little girl's mother pushes the little girl's hands gently. Smile at her daughter, then she stand and walk to the table.
全景	She takes the camera on the table and then she take a picture in front of the white wall, turn to look at the little girl. Show the picture to her daughter.		全景一遍 中景一遍（两人） 特写拿相机镜头 特写相机里的照片 近景一遍（妈妈） 近景一遍（女儿）
近景	“My dear, camera will not lie to us, isn't it? See? The white wall hasn’t change. There is no colorful wall.”
近景	The little girl twitched her mouth, frowned, nod her head gently. She did not seem pleased. “No, I believe I can see it. I'm sure I saw it! I'll go outside to see my world!” The little girl run out of the room.
EXT. IN THE PARK. DAY
大全景	The little girl run to the park. She is looking through the hole that made by her hands. sometimes she is looking at the leaves on the tree, sometimes she is looking at the flowers beside the road.		全景一遍 近景一遍 通过手的空镜头 （花、树、蓝天、草地）
特写	Her smile has turn back to her face gradually.		特写一遍（女儿）
近景	She open her arms, take a deep breath and feel this world.		近景一遍
全景	She circled and smiled happily.		全身全景（俯拍女儿）
脸部特写	开心的大笑		特写一遍
			全景（拍一段空景）
Green screen room
大全景	开心的大笑，深呼吸，转圈 The world around her begins to become vivid and colorful.		大全景
近景	The little girl is hopping, jumping and laughing in this world.		近景（小跑一圈，表现欢乐）
特写	The little girl was shocked, she is looking back to the distance,		女孩回头特写 眼部特写
近景	The bell continue to ringing. She looking at all directions nervously.		近景（小女孩四处张望） 全景（小女孩四处张望）
全景	The colorful world begin to lose color, become true appearance. The bell rang again.
INT. BEDROOM. DAY
近景 特写眼睛	The little girl open her eyes and she see the white ceiling.		近景一遍 特写一遍（猛然睁开眼睛呆呆的看着天花板） 天花板反打镜头
手部特写	And then she turn off alarm clock.		特写（关闹钟）
近景	It was a dream, she seems a little disappoint. After a while, she turned around her eyes and sit up.		近景一遍 特写一遍（转眼珠）
正面近景	sit up. She use her hands form a hole and looking out through it.		近景一遍 手部特写一遍
全景反打镜头	The room become colorful again.		全景一遍（反打）
全景（3/4侧面）	She was shocked and get out of the bed immediately. Run to the living room.		全景一遍（3/4侧面小女孩跑出镜头）
INT. LIVING ROOM. DAY
全景	The little girl come to the living room		全景
特写	and take the camera on the desk.		手部特写拿相机
中景	Then, she put the camera to the white wall and take a picture through the hole which is make by her hand.		中景 特写
脸部特写（小女孩）	She find the white wall on the picture become colorful as well.		近景 特写
特写	相机上的照片		照片特写
			实拍特写（跟照片一样角度）