Shi eld - Finished film and evaluation

The end result 

Directors cut - 

My cut- 

Shield  - Fashion film evaluation

Video evaluation

I feel like this video is more simplistic than we first planned it to be, how ever  due to the fact I was the only person filming and we only had a few hours to film it in with a lot of changes happening on set it am ok with that. It is a fashion film so the main focus was to be on the clothes and if it was more complicated and quirky then the clothes might have gotten lost in the style of the film or trying to focus on the clothes with something more complex would have lost the directors intentions to promote self defence. I feel like my cut of the film flowed a lot nicer than then directors cut as the music was a lot faster and the cuts a lot sharper making it seem more powerful. I feel like the director got to invested in having the soundtrack they wanted and wasn’t focusing on how the over appearance of the film looked, for example as her version was cut to the song the text had to move with it which was too fast for people to read. How ever as this was her film and project I had to do that version for her other wise it would compromise her university work.  I feel like some of the over all framing of the film was bad, the models facial expression were not that good  and the movements did not look the powerful. However there was a lot of things to try on concentrate on like the what the director wanted, the self defence teachers constantly getting in the way, sorting the lighting, making sure the model didn’t fall out of frame so I could mask it. So trying to keep on track of all these things whilst trying to listen to a director who doesn’t understand filming was a very challenging thing to keep on track of. I think the over all look of the film is not that bad tho, its out put is for a student blog so there for dose not matter that much about the low quality and occasional bad framing as it still gets the message of fashion and self defence across. 

Working for a client

Im not sure if I call Christina a client as she is because she contacted me for help, but isn’t because she directed it.  However in each scenario I learnt new skills in how to work to somebody else’s brief.  Over all the experience was fun, I was exciting to work with someone else other than dfsa friend. It gave me knew skills in preparing documents and pitches of ideas to share with someone through the process of what I was planning to do. It taught me how to manage and communicate with a team member who I can not be in close contact with all the time and how to develop some body else idea into a film. The film was a fun concept as I haven’t worked with either fashion or self defence so it was interesting trying to work out what skills we had learnt that were similar to approach the filming style. The main difficulty I had working with Christina as I was not just making her film but she wanted to direct it meant it was hard to convay what would and wouldn’t work for film, there for id have to film one thing one time to keep her happy and then do it again a way that I knew I could edit it together.  It was also hard to get everything she wanted to incorporate into  on film one film as she didn’t understand the filming process. If I was to do this project again I would take full control and direct the film too as it would have been easier to be like this is my plan this is how im doing it are you happy ok now let me get on with it, than have to keep explain to her no we cant do this for XYZ.

Self shooting evaluation

This was the first time I had shoot a formal project on my own so for it I had to learn a lot of new skills or at least develop ones that I hadn’t done before. I think the main thing I had learnt from this project is I actually have all the skills to film on my own all ready so I should stop being so scare/ reliant on other people to help me film.  I was given a cannon 5D on the day which I had never used before and along side this being the first project I had done camera work on I managed to set up all the setting and sort out the lighting with out even questioning what I am doing. If I was to do the project again I would stop being so worried and questioning if what I was doing was correct or worked for the director and spend more time focusing making sure the framing and shutter speeds  or elements I thought let the film down this time were correct. All thought we had a limited time in the studio it is better to spend a little extra time setting up to get it right in one time but I kind of panicked because I was doing it on my own and for a client  that I forgot to do that.

Over all I think my version of the film is simple, short but effective. For her version I had to cut it and edit it her way as she was the director so there wasn’t much le way for me to make improvements to that how ever she did give me permission to submit my version of the film as part of my portfolio as I felt it was the stronger one.  It was interesting to work with someone to create something and would be fun to do again and this project has given me new skill or at least developed ones I thought I didn’t have.

Shild- Music and problems

After emailing the bands management i was told to send them a finished copy of the film before they would decided if we were allowed to use the music in our project. I explained we are students and the project will not be profited from and only screened with in the university they still said that we had to pay £600 for the rights to the music. After telling the director this i suggested that we go with the one that has copyright free music made for us as it was just better. However she still insisted that the one she wanted to use was the bands song but was not going to pay for the music.  I  said that i would rather use the copyright free one but as that is what she wanted i could not argue against it.  So i have sent her the one she had requested but taken my name as producer away from it as i do not agree with just using the music with out permission. We have agreed that for my portfolio i am allowed to use what ever version of the film i prefer.  So although i am submitting both films to be assessed the one i will use in my show reel will be copyright free.

Sheild - After Effects

Learning After Effects

After effects is something that i only vaguely understand i learnt the basics of key framing and masking in 1st year but other than that i don't really know what im doing with it. So for this project it is something else that i am having to do for the first time and learn new skills. Al though what i am doing is not that complex or challenging for someone to create it is still useful to have a project to practice the skills on. Whilst i was looking for editor jobs online for exit velocity alot of them not only asked you to know how to edit but to be able to do basic after effects too. So this project is a simple way to start learning the basics again. 

Masking out the lights was a pretty easy task as the camera was stationary so i only had to make a new solid the same colour as the back ground and cut a whole out where the movement was, fathering and changing the shape to what suited best. Despite trying my hardest to keep the models in farm so i have something to cut around some times they moved out of place. This meant that i had to cut a shape layer around the body part of the background and key frame it so it moved with the model. 

As this was my first time doing this some of the shots are a bit badly masked and if i had more time to sit down and do them frame by frame too look the best they could,  but as the video is only for a student project shown on the internet and the cuts are rather quick one or two little masking problems isnt that noticeable. 

To make the statistics was pretty simple too,  but at first i was a little confused. I knew i had to make a layer for each thing i wanted to move then key frame its position and how i wanted to move it, but i could quite work out how to hide it when i didn't want it to be on screen. I covered it up with a white solid mask but then there was just a big grey square on the screen, after a while of clicking buttons i remember that i could use the track matt to make both the square and text invisible when i wanted it to be. 

Over all the after effects want that hard to do it was more remembering what i had learnt and  time consuiming trying to match the movements of the text. The after effects on the directors version of the film i thought wasnt that great, she wanted to include way to may facts, they moved to fast because of how the cuts went together and they were generally just to much to read and drew your attention away from the film. So in my version of the film i decided to just put 2/3 at the end to give more of an impact. 

Sheild - Second edit

Re edit and colour correction

As we were unsure  of if we had permission yet to use the song christina wanted to do for her version of the film, i decided to do my own edit of the film to a song composed for our film by a musician at ACM in guildford. This song had a similar style to the one she sugested but was a lot punchier and fast paced meaning the movements could be cut alot quicker, 

I decided to make this version alot shorter than christina wanted as i felt that more than 1 min 30 made the film very repetitive and dull to watch. I also used more of the best shots rather than trying to incorporate all of the movements and clothing into it as sugested before. As the song was much punchier i could play around with the editing to make it more fast pace making the movements looks more forcefull rather than in the longer version where it looks like she is just pushing some guys around. 

Here is the rough cut of my version of the film: 

It is not too different to the first version it just feels a lot smoother too me. 

After showing it too the director she still insisted that the song she wanted was the only song we should use however not knowing if we were allowed to use the music  i decided to colour correct and mask both version of the film just incase. 

Colour correct isn't something ive paid a great deal to in the past as there is normally someone in our class who is more interested in doing colour correct and can do it better. For this project christina was unsure if she wanted it black and white or colour so i first tried to adjust some of the colours to get rid of the green tone that the footage had for her to make a decision.

I first adjust the brightness and crontrast to try and separate the model from the back ground as much as possible. I then used the secondary colour correction tool to select colours i did not want to see or want as vibrant  and turn the saturation down on it. i then went back to the HSL to re ajust the highlights and midtones. 

After roughly adjusting the colours to make the less green and de saturated i sent them back tot he director to see if she wanted me to continue colour correcting them, how ever she could not decided still if they were to be black and white or not. I decided to take the decision to just do the film in black and white as  it would have taken me a week to perfect all the colours to a way they she  could have wanted to then change her mind and want black and white.  Black and white too me 20 minitues to complete, didnt really effect the look of the film, and made masking alot easier for me. So from an editor with no time to spare perspective it made alot more scenes rather than faffing around going back and forth making small changes and have to change them all any way.

shield - The start of the edit.

The first Cut. 

So the main reason i got into this project was to increases the amount of editing work i have in my portfolio as over the past 3 years i have been kind of pushed into the producing corner, despite coming to university with the intetions of becoming an editor.  So i got started on the first edit of the film on the train home from shooting. 

I decided to edit the film in avid as i find it easier to use than other video editing software. The first edit of this project took alot longer than i expected, as despite it only being 2 minutes long, it had a lot of cuts and shots to choose between  meaning the 2 minitue film took 2 days to edit, which seemed like a long time to me to say out 5 minitue dance film only took 1.  The main purpouse of this cut was to play around with different editing styles and effects so both me and Christina could see what shots would look best and how that enhanced  the film.  Being avid certified editing this project was not an intention for me to learn new technical skills but more to focus on the different creative way and edit can effect the mood of a film.  All though i am editing several projects this year i felt like this project gave me more options to play around as an editor than other. 

The film has what i see 3 main sections of editing, the simple begning, the experimental middle and the punchy action sequence end. 

In the first section of the film i kept things simple playing the movements straight through the cutting to the next one. All though this hightened the movements and self defenceness of the film i felt like it was boring so stuck a load of statisics over the top to make it more interesting. 

As the music changed i decided to play around  with the speed of the clips themslef as well as how they were cut together and wacked a load of effects on them, i feel like this is the best section of the film as it is the most interesting, how ever wouldnt work for the whole film is it is enhanced by the music.

When then music went back to normal i decided to try and ecoporate the 2 editing styles together, i feel this was alot more interesting than the start how ever due to how fast the clips are meant i would not be able to do it for the whole length puerly for how much useable footage we have.

After talking it through with christina along side some other small changes we both decided that the end was alot more impactful than the beging, therfore i am going to swap the 2 sections around to make the story more interesting at the start to watch then provide more information as it gets to the end.  

I think that once these changes have been made and the masking and corrections is done there are a lot of nice shots and funky editing that make this project really interesting to watch. 

Shield- Filming days

Filming fun and surprises. 

This project was both exciting and scary at the same time, as it is the first thing i have done with out the help or at least someone else from our class being there. The group group of girls i was working with were really nice and we all got on really well witch was great  how ever i was kind of scary for me someone who prefers to be just doing the paper work or editing to lead a group of people who have no idea about the filming making process and keep it all on track.  There were times that it was a bit frustrating being the only one who studies film working on the project as i would very quitely be like no we cant do that because it falls out of the frame and the edit wont work , and have like 10 blank faces be like ive no idea what you jsut said and then have to give them a crash course on how the framing effects the masking i am going to do in after effects. However everyone on the team was really professional and focused meaning they all stuck to there role and worked really hard on them, so trusted me in what i was saying ( again also really scary because part of me was like i have no idea what im doing im just hitting record ). 

Working with a team of people who are on the same level as professional as you but in there own feilds, made the process so much easier and fun to do, as it was very straight forward of whos doing what and why. Having a small amount of time and alot to cram in there were times that i slipped up and forgot to adjust the lighting or hit record to late, but thats to be expected when your the only person crewing a film. 

The hardest part of the filming process was the model learning the movements, as this was very time consuming, and difficult for her to do. With her learning new moves, having to look pretty and focus on the camera position it was a lot for the model to take in so my main focus became making she was ok and not over worked, having to focus on the movements meant at times her facial expression was not as good as it could have been, but i thought that was ok rather than having a trainee model have to do movements over and over and over again in hopes to get the best face as this would have tired her out.


After one day of filming with the model on the own , the krav maga instructor instead that the model would have an easier time if there was someone for her to fight against so on the second day of filming suddenly brought along 3 men for the model to fight against. This was a bit of a surprise at first as it would change the look of the film, making it more focused on self defience rather than fashion, but this is something Christina was ok with as it made it easier for the model to work.  With the film now suddenly having a focus more on the defence than the fashion and 4 krav maga instructors there making sure each movement was 100% acurate to the way they were tought ( as they insited if it was not done correctly it would not be as impactful ) it became at lot more difficult to film. How ever i stuck to what i knew and the plan of shots, but kept the focus and framing mostly on the model to keep the fashion edge still in it, filming shots both my way and the instructors way to keep everyone happy, after all theres not such thing as too much footage. 

( the model and instructors) 

Over all the filming days were quite relaxed and laid back it, it i was lovely to work with a focused group of people. In general was just interesting to do something with a different team of people in a different way than what i was used to. 

shield - Pre Production and Planning.

How to produce a fashion film ? 

 As Christina had never produced a film before we decide that she should take on the role of creative director, having a say in what it looks like, who the models are, how the edit looks. Leaving me as the kind of director but i call myself more a videographer  as i wasn't essentially directing the model more my main focus was getting all of the pre production work done correctly and the shot types and camera set ups. 

Although a simplistic studio based film the pre production work at first stumped me as we did not have time to see what the movements of outfits were going to look like until on the day. This meant i had no idea how they would cut or look together.. how ever working this way is similar to something we had done before... DANCE FILM.  Despite not liking the idea of dance video at the being of second year the skills we learnt from it and fun we  had making it have actually made it the most useful unit to me.  Like in our anxiety dance project we had no idea what the movements were going to be therefor we had to break it down into what we did know would happen and what we wanted to see. 

I know that were was going to be one model and 4/5 different outfits, there fore when creating the shot list and schedule all i had to do was film it like we filmed the dance project. Put on out fit 1 do all the un known movements and some statics from  a wide shot, the a wide from the different angels, then mid etc etc.  Simple. After sending the rough plan to Christina for approval i then went on to battle the music. 

Christina wanted to use this song for the project : 

Which is all well and nice in theory, it sounds good, works well with the style... but is very much copyrighted. After a lot of google searching and emailing various people i managed to track down the bands management how ever they said they wouldn't agree to use being able to use the music until they had seen the finished film. In one sense this is great as we could get to use it but in the other it means i have to film and edit it and do all the after effects on it spending it weeks to get it finished for them to then turn round and say no we can not use it. 

Despite this christina still wanted to use this as the sound track for the film.  However, knowing all the problems that could come along with using copyrighted music ( i could argue the right of fair use as the film is none profitable and were only sampling a small section of the song, but that again is alot of hassle) i decided to collaborate even more and got in contact with my good old friend, the student at the music college in guildford. 

For our second year dance film we managed to get a really great soundtrack from a student at that university and i decided to try again. A lot of people were put off by the fact the we was not paying them to create music, which is understandable, but one guy said he would create something for us as he just likes making this style of music. 

This is a great back up as it means we will have copy right free music, how ever not having the song we wanted in the first place could change the mood of the piece and i would have to re edit and re make the whole film in a short time to match his song after wards, piling a lot of work back on to me. 

Hopefully we get the song Christina likes, if not hopefully the musician can create something really similar so i only have to ripple trim a few clips.  

Cinematography : What am i doing 

So everything sounds well and good dosen't what am i learning from this project?  Well as the ONLY member of film crew on this project i actually have to do something i haven't actually done in the whole 3 years of being at university and thats hold the camera! Thats right in every project we've ever done ive not actually touched a camera. There for on this project all thought im not exactly learning something new i am doing something new.  With it being easter the day we film i couldnt get equiptment out of stores as i would not be able to return it from epsom in time, this meant i had to beg borrow and steal every bit of equiptment from my freinds. 

Using my cannon DSLR , lucys lenses, chalies steady cam, marcos tripod, and the studios lights i some how gathered together a decent film kit for what i needed.   The main thing for me to remember is that filming on a dslr requires me to not only just set the frame rate etc but i have to adjust the shutter speed iso and all those other things you would do like taking a photograph. I also had to keep an eye on the lighting continuity. But wait laura if you havent used a camera before how do you know how to do all of these things. Well again another thing we learn in 2nd year that has actually be really helpfull is the photography lesson. In there we learnt different lighting setups and how to program the camera to make them look the best. So all the stress and tears of second year have actually been really helpful in making what could have been a stressful project actually really easy. 

Shield - Creation and influences

Shield - A Fashion film : The creation of the idea. 

In late February a fashion student at UCA Epsom set out a chain email looking for assistance in creating a short fashion film to help promote women self defence and martial arts. Having just finished my dissertation and a week or so to spare before filming my main projects ( Debbie and Anxiety) i thought this project would be an interesting collaboration and great way to bulk up my showreel.

After emailing back and forth for a few days getting to know more about what Christina wanted to do with the project, i went to epsom to talk to her in person about the direction she wanted to go with. Christian had a lot of ideas and concepts that she wanted to try to incorporate with the project  but had never created a film before or knew about the pre production work that was needed for filming. After bouncing around ideas and looking at her inspiration, i took everything she had suggested away to research further into and come up with a plan.  This project was a very quick turn around for me as a i only had a few days to concentrate on it before filming Debbie and dance then shortly afterwards start filming this film so i had to be selective in what was and wasn't possible for both the storyline and my schedule. 

The initial ideas Cristina suggested. 

For this project Christina wanted to create a fashion film that also had a deeper meaning. She wanted it to look stylistic and minimilist like a traditional fashion film but also empower or show how women self defence is important.  For the main bulk of the film she wanted it to be studio based with the model preforming krav maga movements against a white background, swiftly edited to the beat of a song.  This was a great idea as it was simple, showed what she wanted to show whilst keeping the fashion at the front of the idea, as after all it is a fashion film. 

How ever she also suggested several other things like filming busy London train stations with the model preforming the movements in  or the use of feathers.

After going away to research on filming on location i decided that filming in London would be too much hassle than what it is worth for a few reasons : 

1. It would be expensive 
2. getting position from each place would take longer than we had 
3. crowd control and risk assessments would be more complected with the self defence movements in  a public location 

All the though the though and idea was a good concept with time and budget being a problem is suggested we stick to a simple studio based shoot.  I suggested that maybe to get more of the meaning across that instead of filming on location we put statistic and infographics of the top. This would still keep the video very clean and fashion focused like she suggested but also heighten the meaning of the film. 

Influences and research. 

Alongside research into the production of filming on location is have been watching a lot of fashion based films.  Some of the main influences for this project have been. 

These films are very simple to make and produce which i great for the time frame we have, but from the way they are edited and ascetically put together still remain interesting for the viewer. 

As christinas main output for this film was on blogs and social media i also looked at other films for insparation. Buzzfeed has been a large insparation for me during this project as they manage to produce short, intersting videos that explain some kind of meaning in a similar style to what we are planning. Buzzfeed has increased in populartiy of the last year or so and all though mostly making silly internet video showcases how simple online videos can be created to look professional and become viral. 

This video in particular has been used to influence the project as it shows how statistics along side fashion can make a video more interesting than just shooting a model in a plain room. 

and this video on womens fashion shows how simple yet effective a studio based film can be