ii. Planning & Research

Project : "Welcome to Nexus Science"

Knowing that the product I will be creating is a video, I decided that I should begin my research by educating myself about the several different types of shots that my video may incorporate, as well as the reason behind why a cinematographer may utilise that shot.

Pre-production : Types of Shots

• Extreme Wide Shot - View is very far from the subject. Used to establish the scene.
• Close up - A shot that keeps only the face full in the frame. Conveys the facial expressions of the subject in frame.
• Aerial Shot - Often used to establish a (usually exotic) location.
• Medium Shot - One of the most used shots in videos.
• Long/Wide Shot - Depicts an entire character or object.
• Handheld Shot - Camera operator holds the camera to create a jerky, immediate, feel.
• Low Angle Shot - A shot looking up at a character or subject often making them look bigger in the frame. It can make everyone look heroic and/or dominant.
• High Angle Shot - A shot looking down at a character or subject, making them look small and insignificant.
• Over-the-Shoulder Shot - A shot where the camera is positioned behind one person’s shoulder, usually during conversation. It implies a connection between the speakers.
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Pre-production : Promotional Video Research

Afterwards, I decided that it would be a good idea to research on some tips to create a good promotional video, as it would contribute to my product being of a higher quality.

Here are the tips that I have compiled:

1. Nail down a strong idea - I should not settle for something bland and generic. Make sure the video is something that will actually engage and interest my audience.
2. Be realistic with my concept - I should know what the limits of my capabilities and skills are. I should challenge them, and seek to improve, but I shouldn’t want to set my video in an exotic beach when realistically the location I have available to me is the school grounds.
3. Short and sweet - I should aim to create a video that doesn’t drag; that gets to the point very quickly; and sticks in the mind of the audience - like “Hey! This is Science in Nexus!”.
4. Avoid on-screen text - Videos are meant to be watched. Not read.
5. Know my audience - I should know what is appropriate for my audience. I shouldn’t aim to produce something that would not appeal to my audience (e.g. showing The Conjuring to a 4 year-old).
6. Don’t forget the script - Things go much smoother when I know what I want my actors to say. This will help propel the ‘narrative’ of my video, as I’ll have everything all laid out.
7. Storyboard - Before I begin shooting my video, I should already have it done. In my head. I should know what every shot should look like. This will speed up the production process and not waste people’s time - which is especially important if I ask teachers to be in it.

Pre-production : Audience

Once I had gotten a general idea of what I should do in my product, I then wanted to elaborate on my fifth point, really narrowing down how the audience I will be targeting will influence the video that I will produce. To do that, first I had to clearly identify my audience.

Audience : As the final destination of my video will be on a future webpage hosting the details of Nexus International School's Science Department, the audience for my video will be very broad. It will include parents wanting to know what the Science Department is about (some of whom will be looking to send their children to become part of the Nexus community), children from the ages of 4-18 considering the school for their education, and teachers wanting to know more about the school. Additionally, current Nexus learners may want to visit the site for information concerning Nexus' Science Department.

Once my target audience was suitably identified, I considered how my product would be influenced by them, coming up with a list of what my product should and shouldn't do.

My product should be :

• Age-appropriate - Obviously, since children are part of my target audience, my video cannot include things such as vulgar language, violence, and sexual innuendo. In short, it will have to be clean. Also, since adults - parents - are included in my audience as well, I will have to make sure that my product portrays the Science Department in a positive light.
• Short and sweet - Elaborating on one of the tips above, long videos tend to drag. If I were to create one of that nature (say, longer than four minutes), I will lose the attention of my viewer, thereby proving counter-productive to the end goal of persuading them to have a positive impression of the Nexus Science Department. Ideally, my end product will only last around 2 - 3 minutes; enough time to engage the audience and convey a concept.
• Professional - Above all, my product will have to be of a sound, high quality, which is most applicable to the production value aspect of my product. These days, viewers instinctually think of crudely made videos as amateurish. If I want to persuade the viewers that the Nexus Science Department is great, my video will have to be great also.

Pre-production : Screenplay

Though some would argue it not at all compulsory, I wanted all the production aspects (pre, during, and post) of my product to be of a high standard. Following that line of thinking, instead of simply writing a script in Google Docs (or Word) using something like a size-12 arial font, I decided to research all the conventions of a screenplay. In doing this, I will then be able to create a screenplay for my product in the form of a professionally-made document.

Conventions of a screenplay include :

• Text & font - 12 Point Courier. Every word.
• Slug lines - Each scene is headed by a slug line. These describe the location, whether it is exterior or interior, and whether it is night or day. (e.g. EXT. ROOFTOP TERRACE – DAY)
• Action lines - These come directly after slug lines. Action lines explain in visual terms what happens in the scene. (e.g. JEFF picks up the book)
• Character - A character is first introduced in an action line. The first time a character is mentioned, their name is entirely capitalised (see above).
• Dialogue - Dialogue is what the character actually says. Sharp and well-written dialogue between characters is often what interests us.
• Voice over - A common element of a screenplay when a character speaks but is not on screen.
• Dialogue directions - Shows how a character speaks, and written in parentheses below a character's name. (e.g. JEFF (approving))
• Spacing and margins - Since there is a lot to write about spacing and margins, I have copied and pasted what I found on it below this. I will not be attributing too much importance to this aspect of the screenplay I will be creating. 

From (https://stirlingcts.wordpress.com/audiovideo-projects/pre-production/2-screenplay-adaptation-assignment/screenwriting-conventions/)

   "The left side of your script should have about 1 ½” of margin. The right side of the script should have ½” to 1″ of margin. The top and bottom margins of your script should be 1″. Sluglines and Action (Descriptive) Headings are on the left side of the page attached to the margin. Note that after the Scene # the Slugline is indented by 1 TAB.  Also remember to put the Scene # at the end of the line. Dialogue should be spaced 2 TABS from the left margin, and should not exceed 4.5 inches from the left margin. This will require you to either hit ENTER when a line hits 4.5 inches or create a special MACRO on Word. Character’s names should be 5 TAB positions from the left margin. Parentheticals or Dialogue Directions should be 3 TAB positions from the left margin."

Production : Sound

Since I realised the importance of sound in my end product (especially as I will probably end up filming some interviews - in which case nobody wants to get distracted by poor-quality audio) I decided to carry out some research as to how to get good-quality sound. Realistically speaking, I will have to ask to borrow some sound-recording equipment from Nexus' IT department, but it will not hurt at all to have an understanding of sound during production.

Some tips include:

• Do not use the in-camera microphone - At best, the microphone sitting inside my DSLR is only sufficient. Not terrible, but the sound it captures is definitely not what I want my product to sound like. Of course, if there are scenes that I know in my mind will not require any sound, then I will not have to use any external audio-recording equipment.
• Know which microphone to use - To record high-quality location sound the right type of microphone must be used: ultra-directional for external locations, directional (shorter) for interiors, and non-directional for cramped interiors. For interviews, lapel mics are the ideal thing.
• Bring a friend - During production, I will be heavily focused on what the product will look like. Luckily, the one focusing on what it sounds like will be a friend of mine, so we can both concentrate on each aspect of the product. He will most likely either be carrying a boom mic, or listening to the captured sound of a lapel microphone (small one attached to a collar or such).
• Record ambient sound - There will be times in editing when there will be no sound. Instead of it being completely silent, which is unnatural and uncomfortable for the audience to sit through, it is advisable to capture one whole minute of ambient sound - the natural sound of the location. Effectively, this is "filler" sound.
• Acoustics - Before production begins, it is always best to go to the location I will be filming in and monitor the acoustics of the location. If it is too echoey, it may be a problem.
• Shooting outside - If I am shooting outside, and want to capture clean sound without the disturbances of the wind, it is best to attach a wind-sock to the microphone. This will ensure that high-quality sound is captured outside. With this in mind, I figure it would be best to ensure that the parts of my product that will contain sound are filmed indoors.
• Shoot several takes - Both the sound guy and I might miss something in one take or another. To ensure that we have what we need, it is best that we make the actors repeat the scene more than once.

Production : Lighting

Since I want my product to be of a professional quality, one thing I had to understand was the aspect of lighting. Lighting can :

• Control the mood of your video
• Direct the eye of the viewer where you want it to go
• Emphasize and de-emphasize elements within the frame
• Add texture and color
• Make people look beautiful, ugly, sinister, or angelic

I also had to know how to properly light an interview since I would probably decide to use them in my product.

From http://www.reelmarketer.com/lighting-101-basic-lighting-setup-for-video-shoot/

THE BASIC LIGHTING SETUP

No matter what type of light you use, most shoots will require three-point lighting, and it’s just what it sounds like – three lights strategically placed to reveal the dimensions of your subject that are often hidden in a plain photo or video.

1. The first is the main light, or “key” light, placed to one side, and facing the talent. This light is often behind the interviewer off camera in video shoots containing dialogue, mitigating nose shadows and rendering a more flattering angle of the subject when s/he looks in that direction.
2. The next is a smaller fill light, opposite and symmetrical to the key. With just the key light, you might notice the other side of the talent is dark or too modelLed; this smaller light “fills in” the otherwise dim areas of the scene, creating the right amount of depth with a smaller amount of light. If needed, both this light and the main light can be softened with inflammable boxes and fabrics fashioned against the bulb. Make sure they’re inflammable, or lighting won’t be your most pressing problem…
3. The back light is the final point of the setup. Sometimes called a “rim” light, this third lamp hovers behind the subject, allowing him/her to pop from the background and appear less glued to whatever they’re in front of.

LIGHT QUALITY

Light quality refers to how soft or hard a light source is. Hard lights create hard-edged shadows, and soft lights create soft-edged shadows. Generally speaking, people usually look best under a soft light. The larger the light source, the softer the light.

Post-production : Editing/Rendering/Web Platform

Now on to the nitty-gritty, put-your-head-down-and-just-grind-it-out kind of stuff. I will be using Final Cut Pro X for this project, which I have been using for the past two years ever since I shifted from a Windows ecosystem to a Mac one. Accordingly, there aren't many things that I don't know how to do on FCP, so I won't have to do much research on actual editing skills. 

What I need to research, however, is how I'm going to output my product from FCP. To do that, I'll need to find out the best method of rendering, which shouldn't vary regardless of the platform I choose to upload it to - either Youtube or Vimeo.

• Codec: From COmpression-DECompression, this is method by which the video is encoded.
• Encoder: The program which compresses video data into a particular codec. Some encoders give better results than others.
• ProRes: A common intermediate codec, used for editing and for creating master files for archiving. Avid’s DNxHD is similar.
• H.264: The most common codec in use today for delivery, and also widely used as a capture codec.
• Container: A file format that holds a movie encoded with a codec. Common containers (which might contain data encoded with H.264 or some other codec) include QuickTime Movie (.mov), MPEG-4 (.mp4).
• Data rate: Usually expressed in Mbps, or Megabits per second, this defines the amount of data which is used to display the video. Higher data rates generally give better quality.

(According to MacProVideo.com)

Most of FCP X’s export presets output an H.264 video suitable for uploading, though you can export a ProRes file, XDCAM or other codecs too. Usually, H.264 gives the best results for a fairly small data rate (15–20 Mbps) so all you need to do is choose Share > Apple Devices, then under Settings, change Apple Devices to Computer for a file you can pass to every video sharing service and play on Macs and PCs. Two notes here: Faster Encode will be much, much faster than Higher Quality, and is unlikely to be much (or any) worse in quality.

No matter how you encode your video, it’s going to be compressed again for the web, even for the highest quality they offer. At Vimeo and YouTube, your 1080p file will be crunched to around 4–4.5Mbps for the video component—much less than the 15-20Mbps you probably sent them.

VIMEO

First, you can optionally enable 1080p playback on a per-video basis. The downside of this is that 720p playback is then disabled, and some slower computers can have issues with 1080p playback. Still, for the best quality, it’s a good option if the majority of your audience can play back 1080p files. Secondly, if you allow it, Vimeo members can choose to download the original file that you uploaded, for far better quality than they’d see through the site normally. That means that your original 15–20Mbps file can be shared.

YOUTUBE

While it used to be the case that YouTube used lower data rates than Vimeo, they’re now almost the same—slightly higher for 720p files, and slightly lower for 1080p files. However, YouTube’s compression simply isn’t as clean as Vimeo’s, and there’s a slight gamma shift in their final video too.

Post-production : Final Cut Pro vs. iMovie

PRODUCT RESEARCH

Obviously, the best and quickest way for me to learn on what to do and what not to do on my project would be to analyse similar existing examples.

EARTH AND SPACE SCIENCE PROMOTIONAL VIDEO

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWy86B1PDms)

• Resolution - The first thing that hit me before I even started the video was that the highest resolution Youtube offered for the video was 480p - odd, since it was uploaded in 2014. I want my product to be able to be viewed at the highest resolution available to me - 1080p. 
• Music - The backtrack of the video is simply Radical Face's "Welcome Home". Of course, since the music was not specifically made for the video, it will not suit it entirely. However, the music effectively conveyed the tone of the video - a cheery optimism. Hopefully, with my product, I hope to have it scored by one of my friends, so that it can fit the video appropriately.
• Interview Lighting - The interview by itself was very well-done, in my book. I guessed that they used a key light and a soft fill light to flatter the subject. A close look at the back on the right makes me think that the sun was used as a back light. Unfortunately, the flickering of the projector-image behind the subject is distracting - so I'll make sure that isn't the case in my product.

• Sound - The sound during the interview segments of the video is pretty bad, all things considered. It makes me think that the sound was recorded from the on-camera microphone - which highlights the need for me to use external, higher quality microphones. Additionally, the transition of the music between the non-interview segments and the interview segments is sort of jarring, as the difference between the volumes is heavily apparent. 
• Camera - Overall, I really liked the camerawork that went into this video. Being one of the strong points, it's a shame that the latter parts of the video was dedicated to 3d animations rather than more of that attractive camera work. Also, though I thought the depth of field in the video (as a result of opening the camera's aperture/T-stop wide open) gave a pleasing aesthetic to it, I did think it was a bit much. With my video, I probably will not open the aperture as wide as this video did, so I can still give an "artsy" look to my product without it being over-the-top.

• I particularly liked the dolly moves within the first few shots, where (for example) the camera gently moves forward in the first, and moves laterally in the second. If I can get a dolly, I'll hope to pull off similar shots in my product. 
• Student Interviews - In the video, there were also interviews with the students. I may include this in my product as it will allow members of my audience to identify with these characters - thereby making it resonate more with them. 

NEXUS INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL LEARNERS' STORIES

(http://nexus.edu.my/)

I chose to analyse this particular video because it was one made specifically for the Nexus website - which would host my product as well. This way, I could see what would be expected of my video in terms of quality. I could analyse the director's approach to their target audience, which would help me as my target audience would be very similar.

• Resolution - Across all of the "Learners' Stories", one thing that was kept consistent was the resolution. It was kept at 720p, which I assume was a limitation on the platform that was used - JWPlayer - rather than actual limitations on the production side. Whilst pleasing (and better than the Earth and Science video), I'll hope to produce something in 1080p - the highest resolution available to me.
• Text - While successful in getting information across, I couldn't help but feel that it was somewhat not as well-thought-out and as of high a quality as the majority of the video itself. It didn't seem "professional".

• Camera - Similar to the Earth and Science video, I really liked the depth of field in many of the shots. The director achieved this by opening up the aperture on the camera, and I hope to utilise it in my product as well. 

• Composition - Many of the shots used were very well-composed, and thus quite attractive to the eye of the audience. This was achieved through careful deliberation on the director's side.

• Sound - The sound for each of the videos was of a very high quality, which makes me assume that great care was taken and much importance was placed in the capturing of clean, high quality audio. A boom mic or a lapel mic was most probably used - I'll hope to use them as well, if need be.
• Lighting - The lighting in every shot seemed to be well-thought out, used to draw out specific emotions within the audience. I especially liked the backlit shots in Ashley's video, as it gave off a very "majestic" and "wondrous" vibe.

• Story - Most importantly, there was a story in every video, which allowed audiences of every age to identify with the learners. This made them (and us, the audience) understand and relate with every learner, which made the message that they sent even stronger.

JASPER PLACE HIGH SCHOOL PROMO VIDEO

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPjjFvbjdEI)

The final video I analysed was one with the purpose of promoting "Jasper Place High School". Located in west end Edmonton, Alberta, it is a public Canadian high school. Again, I chose this video because it had the same target audience as my product would, and also that it sought to promote the school. From this, I could analyse what they did in consideration of their audience, and what I should do and not do in my product.

• Resolution - Right off the bat, it was 720p. I've already explained what this means to me in the above two examples.
• Sound - As with the second video, the sound in the video was of a high-quality, making me think that they definitely used lapel and/or boom mics.
• Camera - Since many of the interviews with the students were shot hand-held, it gave the shots a more intimate feel, which would resonate more with the audience. Again, the depth of field in most of the shots was very attractive - and not over the top. Also, many of the dolly shots moving laterally were well-thought out, without being distracting.

• Lighting - Though most of the shots felt like no lighting was used other than what was already there, all in all, the lighting throughout was of a good quality. 

• Music - Though the music was simply Imagine Dragons' "Roots", I felt that it was well chosen for the video, serving to enhance the message that each student spoke of.
• Student Interviews - Another strong point of the video was the many interviews that were conducted with students of the school. This allowed large parts of the audience to identify with the speaker in the video, making it more persuasive since "If he/she likes it there, why won't I?". Since all three videos includes student interviews, I'm of a mind to incorporate it in my product as well.

• Length - The only downside to the video was the overall length of it. At 7 minutes and 40 seconds, while it was very well-made, audiences would gradually lose interest throughout the course of it. This underlines the fact that my product should be short and sweet - no longer than 3 minutes, preferably.