PRE PRODUCTION
The first thing I did was talk to my client (as on the "Communication With End User" page). This was so I had a firm idea of the type of film - in terms of style and content - that I'd be expected to make. Having this in mind, I set myself a number of criteria with which to gauge the success of my film by - as on the "Success Criteria" page.
Once I had completed this, I proceeded to send it to my client, wanting his feedback on the criteria that I had set for myself. His reply was of much use to me - not only did he add his own points, he amended the ones that I had set myself. In addition, he sent me a separate document detailing in specific some scenarios that he wanted me to have in the film.
Before I began filming for my client, I knew I had to create a storyboard. This was so that I had a complete plan of my product before the actual filming of it, which would make the production process a lot easier. To do this, I began drawing out the shots I would take on Post-It Notes, making sure to number them and write a short description of each for good measure. Additionally, for some, I used a different coloured pen to indicate the motion that would take place during the shot, and for others, I noted down “CUT TO:” in the top left hand corner, showing a change of scene.
During this time-consuming process, I found the list of scenarios my client had sent me to be very useful, as I wasn’t left wondering how to approach the task I had been set. With it, I was able to sketch out roughly how I would shoot each of those scenarios. From this, it would frequently become much easier for me to develop the rough sketch that I had done, adding shots that I thought would complement the original shot well and deciding on transitions suitable to each scenario.
Having done this, I then proceeded to create a Google Doc of all the shots I had composed. This was so that I did not have to continually flick through the many notes that I had drawn to remind myself of the way I wanted the shot to be taken - the doc, with sentences such as "CUT TO: CU of pipette dropping liquid." would serve as enough of a reminder for me, as I would remember the way I had drawn the shot on my storyboard. Effectively, this is my shot list.
Another part of the pre-production of the video was the process of planning the location for each scenario. Obviously I knew that much of the video would be shot within Nexus’ Science Department and its labs - as that would be where most of learning science at Nexus would take place - but, as per my client’s requests, I deemed it would be necessary to include out-of-classroom activities, so I planned for some of my shots to be out of classroom, such as the one of my friend on the field. I will include shots of the Aquarium in Kuala Lumpur, as off-site trips are in itself an aspect of learning science at Nexus. As I could not myself attend the trip, I asked one of the teachers going on the trip to record a few shots of what the learners would do there.
There really wasn’t a need for me to schedule my shoots. Operating by myself, I knew I had the freedom to get a few shots of the film whenever I had a few moments to spare. Besides that, the majority of my shooting would take place during my weekly IT lessons, where I would ask my teacher for permission to film in the science department. After that I would ask science teachers politely if I could film their classes, trying my best not to interrupt the learners’ learning.
Before filming, I also needed to figure out how to efficiently use the gear I would be using. As I would be mostly shooting run-and-gun - as in, with not much setting up on the location other than telling my actors(if I had any) what to do - I needed to be able to manually control the setting of the camera I would be using quickly. Though I had not previously used my Canon 700D to a great amount, I found that it was a fairly easy camera to learn how to use - with it set on Manual, I would be able to control the way the shot looked by adjusting either the ISO, the shutter speed, or the aperture. Luckily, coupled with my camera, I would be using a fast Sigma 17-50mm f2.8 DC EX OS HSM lens and a Canon 50mm f1.8 STM lens, which would ensure that my shots would never be underlit - I could simply open the aperture up to let in more light if need be.
Practicing with the camera before production of my film, I quickly realised that the autofocus system in the camera was shaky and soft at times. Though it would not be that much of a problem, I tried my best to become proficient at manually focussing the lens to focus on a moving object. The autofocusing motor was loud and could clearly be heard within shots, and the sound quality of the in-body microphone was bad, so I made a mental note to avoid having on-site audio within the film. If I had to have audio, I would borrow a Rode Videomic Pro from the school, turning the gain of the in-body audio down to 0db and that of the microphone to 20db, as the audio drivers of the microphone was far superior to that of the camera.
Since the video would ultimately be used for commercial needs, I knew that the music behind it had to be original, so copyright issues would not arise. To this aim, and before production began, I enlisted the help of my friend Stephen to score the film, asking him politely and suggesting that it could be used as his project also. On a side note, I knew that whatever he produced would be of a good quality, and more than adequate to be used to represent Science at Nexus.
So with much of the pre-production phase sorted out, I duly began the production process - essentially where the filming of the video would begin.
PRODUCTION
Production, all in all, was pretty straightforward. During my weekly IT lessons, I would ask permission to head to the science department, where, after asking teachers for permission, I would film classes during their regular science lessons. However, soon after attempting to go this route, I discovered that during the time slot where my IT lesson was held, there were very few lessons in session - a problem that needed to be overcome.
Eventually I decided that I needed to bring my camera in during my own science lessons, as the footage I garnered from the shoots before turned out to be inadequate. This began by emailing all three of my biology, chemistry and physics teachers and requesting permission to film my class in action, during our lessons. Without much of a hitch, they allowed me, and from this I was able to get shots that, whilst not entirely scripted and planned for during the storyboarding process, were genuine and true to learning science at Nexus.
That said, I did have some shots where it had to be planned. In these cases, I quickly learned that to direct my actors on what I wanted them to do, I had to be clear and concise, as well as patient with their enquiries. Examples of this include when I shot outside with my friend, asking him to repeatedly throw a tennis ball up in the air, and when I gave directions to one of my friends sitting on a beanbag.
Also, throughout the process of getting the shots I needed for my project, I would constantly have learners look questioningly at me and my camera, which clearly would break the continuity and immersion of my film. When this happened, I learned that I had to firmly reassure them that I wouldn’t be doing anything ‘funny’ with the footage of them, and that it would be used solely for the purposes of this project. Then, if they asked what I wanted them to do, I made sure not to pressure them, telling them, essentially, to go on with what they were doing at the time - before I pointed the camera towards their direction. Of course, there were some learners that covered their faces and would not be convinced by me. In these cases, there wasn’t much I could do.
Once I had finished principal photography (the fancy name for the shoots that I had scheduled and planned for), I thought that I was finished, but during post production - during the edit - I felt that I needed additional shots. At these moments, having not brought the main camera, I decided that using the camera in my iPhone would be acceptable, and knew that I could tweak the exposure and colour in post production to fit the look of the main camera. This was the case for the first initial shots of the video.
Additionally, for the video, my client specifically requested for there to be shots from a school trip to an aquarium. Again, being unable to attend the trip, he suggested for one of the teachers accompanying the learners to the aquarium to get some shots of it, for which I was grateful. I then proceeded to have a discussion with the teacher, telling him to be open to filming anything, as long it represented Science in Nexus.
During each and every shoot with the main camera, as I had no time to adjust the lighting of the location with proper lighting equipment, I learnt that the main thing I had to do was adjust the settings of the camera itself - so the effect would be internal rather than coming from outside influence. In regards to the aperture, I kept it fairly wide open, at f/2.8 to f/3.5, so that I could get the blurry bokeh background I desired, which would draw the eye greatly to the subject in focus. The ISO I kept fairly even throughout as well, at ISO 100 and ISO 200. This was so that I would avoid the shot becoming grainy due to the sensor becoming more sensitive - a drawback to increasing the ISO to above 1600. Finally, the shutter speed, I discovered, was the thing that I changed most. I could quickly change the look of the shot by using the roller knob at the top of the camera. This proved to be the most useful feature of the camera, as moving from location to location - even from a place in a location to one on the other side of it - would usually require me to change the lighting of the shot. Unfortunately, none of this was able to be done on the additional photography - the shoots where I used the iPhone - as it had little manual controls.
POST PRODUCTION
After pre production and production came post production, where the whole film would finally come into shape. However, post production actually started during the production phase, in the form of having to export the footage I shot onto my Macbook. This turned out to be fairly easy as my Macbook had an SD card slot and from there I could simply drag the day’s footage into a folder with the day’s date. Of course, I had to do this multiple times - as there were multiple shoots - and also decided to name some of my folders with the location that it was shot in, depending on how I thought it would be best organised for me to begin editing.
Afterwards, for each separate shoot, I managed my files by using tags - the red being the shots I decided would be used, the untagged being the shots I decided not to. Then I opened up this app called Automator and organised my files using a script that I had found online, making the process quick, easy, and useful.
Having organised my footage clearly, I proceeded to open up Final Cut Pro X - my choice editing software. From previous experience using FCPX, I knew that because of the age of my Macbook (and other things, such as its slow hard disk speed and its shortage of RAM), it tended to run slowly at times. So before I began editing the project, I first found online tutorials of how to optimise FCPX to run quicker, and followed them, noticing a notable subsequent change in its speed.
With all that sat aside, I began to edit - for a while, anyway. Immediately, I found that the process of splitting a clip - something essential to any editor’s workflow - was slightly contrived, so sought a way to rectify it. Fortunately this proved to not be much of an issue; I was able to rebind the shortcut of “Blading” a clip from being ‘command’ and ‘B’ to simply being ‘S’. This made the process of editing much more efficient, as I would hardly have to lift my hands from the keyboard.
Additionally, I found that to further remove the need to use the trackpad - which would slow down the editing process - I could use the ‘;’ and ‘’’ (apostrophe) keys to move the trackhead to the start and end of each clip, respectively. Then I could use the “I” key to select the whole clip, and delete it by pressing backspace. I was deeply satisfied by this discovery, as it sped up the editing process almost twice fold, and that I could use this trick not only for this project, but for any that come after it.
So then I began to edit. Using the shortcuts that I had learned, as well as mostly gut instinct in regards to the length of each clip, I went through every folder that I had created - and every shot that I had taken - and selected bits and pieces from each one of them, putting them together as the first rough cut of my product. (Parenthetically, I quickly discovered that the most efficient way of selecting the parts of the clips I would use was to skim over each clip once it had been placed in the browser. Skimming over it made it play in the Viewer window - from there I simply set a start and end point of selection by clicking once on the clip, dragging the yellow rectangular box to where I wanted the selection to end, and dragging it into the editing timeline.)
Something to note is that I learned another shortcut in the process of post production - I was able to retime many clips at a time by pressing “control” and “D”. While on first glance the benefit of this may be puzzling, it quickly becomes apparent. Gauging the average length of each clip - around 1 second and 16 frames (the film itself was 24 frames per second, so 1.66s) - I found that an effective way of gauging the length of the whole film was to set each clip to that length, doing this by selecting many clips, pressing “control” and “D”, and typing “1” and “16”
Of course, this was temporary. Since I hadn’t received the music that would serve as the backing to my project, a rough cut of my product was the best that I could do. With the majority of the clips set at 1 second and 16 frames - the predicted average length of each clip - I could easily extend or shorten individual clips to fit my needs.
Shortly after, I received Stephen’s score. Now, I was able to produce a more complete version of the film, as I was able to edit directly with the music. With it, I adjusted the lengths of each clip to match the underarching rhythm of the piece - for example, the beginning of the video has shots that quickly cut from one to another, whilst when the music becomes a more regular faster tempo towards the middle of the video, the editing too becomes regular, with the clips cut to be around the same length. Another trick I used was to cut the clips in such a way so that the cut from one shot into another was ‘on’ a notable ‘beat’ of the music. Doing this I discovered helped to add a noticable rhythm to the piece, making the video more visually interesting to my intended audience. For instance, during the beginning of the film, I cut between shots by zooming into the image using the ‘transform’ tool, doing this on two strong beats of the music as a way of presenting the school and nexus science logo - something mundane and uninteresting - in a way that captivated the attention of the audience.
However, despite having finished a rough cut of the film, I felt that the music was not entirely what I wanted it to be. In specific, it thought that it was slightly too slow for the audience to be properly engaged, and that a higher tempo piece was necessary, to better fit the criteria that I had set myself. With this in mind I approached my composer, Stephen, gently persuading him to alter the score in a way that made it quicker, and also for it to have a stronger beat to it. To help him, I sent him a piece of music that was more of what I had in mind.
Working quickly, the second composition was sent to me within a short time frame - and this time, in my opinion, it was greatly more suitable to what I wanted the video to feel like. I adjusted the timing of the clips again, making it fit the underlying rhythm of the music, and ended up with the second cut of the film - a much more complete form of it, something I felt to be much closer to the final product.
After having edited the second version of the film, I had the feeling that the clips were arranged in such a way so that it was jumpy, and the sequence of it at times illogical and confusing. Puzzled, I soon figured out that this was because I had made the decision to intercut shots of different scenes together, with the intent to make the variety of ways that science was learnt at Nexus apparent to the audience. While to a point this was successful, it came to be jarring as well (if my scenes were labelled “A”, “B”, and “C”, they were cut together as ABCABCABC). Realising this, I adjusted the sequence of my clips so that it progressed from scene to scene, in a more logical sequence (now, the sequence was AAABBBCCC). The clips from each scene being grouped together, with the angles used varied enough to maintain interest, helped the continuity and coherence of my video. For each scene, the audience could formulate a small story within it, and be able to easier comprehend what was going on - something that the previous ABC sequence I had used failed to do.
To finish off the edit, for the clips that I deemed to be excessively shaky, I stabilised it in the “Inspector” window, adjusting it so that it looked best. Additionally, as I found some of the shots I had taken to be too orange (as I had not set the White Balance on the camera properly), or too under/overexposed (as I had not set the ISO/Aperture/Shutter Speed properly), I felt compelled to colour grade my footage. The reason I did this was that the overall look of the film would remain consistent, adding to its continuity. The viewing experience for my audience would not be dulled by a jarring transition from a shot neutral in colour to one with an overtly orange tinge.
Before & After
Finally, to finish off the video, I used the graphic that another of my peers, Johanna, had designed for Nexus Science, so that my audience would leave with a strong impression of what had been presented to them, and a way of bookmarking the video with a ‘professional’ touch. For the credits, I felt it necessary for the text to be understated, so as to not take anything away from the viewing experience the audience had just gone through. To this end, it simply reads “Film; Zhariff Hazali, Music; Stephen Ong, Graphics; Johanna Jarkulischova”.
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