Today I hung up my photography onto the wall and I was generally pleased with the way it looked. I have had several issues with printing sizes for my photography so i've had to secure my photos using lots of glue. I decided to hang my photos on the wall using double sided tape because I did not want to use a nail which would've ruined the frames of my work. Generally I am happy with my final photo's, however I feel that if I was to improve I would definitely incorporate some sort of lighting onto the photo's to make my piece look more interesting. In addition to this I would've perhaps made each photo A3 rather than A4 size because I feel as if some of the writing on the photo's is a bit small, meaning it might be difficult to see what the writing says.

When I screened the rough cut to Lauren, she suggested editing the audio to decrease the amount of fuzz we were getting from the clips. We experimented and tweaked the audio to get the sound we wanted using 'Parametric Equaliser', which I used to lower the higher frequencies slightly to decrease the high pitch microphone fuzzing. This seem to sound better when we listened to it back. I also changed the overlay of grain to a different vintage looking effect, which gave the film a better feel and gave it an interesting texture. When looking at the effect, we agreed it would be best to use this. We also decided on an ending that would suit the film best, which would for the last clip to glitch out and cut to black, due to their being glitching at the start, means that glitching at the end blends in with the theme of the film and fits with the beginning. After this I send Lauren the final film and overall we are happy with the way it looks.

Overall the unit, 'Reflections' as a whole has been a fun experience where we have been required to produce professional pieces of work. I feel my work has improved and developed through advice and support given to us by Rosie throughout the editing process, the development of our film idea through tutorials, many workshops, for example the creative writing task and screenings, looking into Experimental film and the development of our photography through tutorials. In addition to this, Leah, who helped me learn more about Experimental Film, the ways in which to approach our work and by setting us tasks to get us thinking creatively (re-appropriation film and further reading tasks). In addition to this Anne was very helpful through group tutorials and class workshops to do with Lighting and film. I generally feel I have worked hard during this unit and I feel that the work I have produced is certainly to a higher standard compared to when I started the course.

The screening of our film was successful and I was happy that we received some positive comments on the piece. I feel that we successfully conveyed the message we intended on doing so at the start of the project.

Originally I intended on using photo frames to display my work that had different shapes and designs to match the mood of the images, however I found it virtually impossible after looking around different arts and crafts shops and I eventually came across some plain frames, with a cardboard frame around the edge. This was partly similar to the idea I had in my previous post, where the photo had an interesting border to it. I found this a good opportunity to colour and design these frames the way I wanted to, to suit the mood of the images. I decided I would do a smashed glass design frame for 'DANGER', a cute, childish design for 'FUN', a hypnotic, confusing design for 'NIGHTMARE', a scary, horror-style design for 'FEAR' and a vortex-style design for 'TIME'. I felt this came out well, however the images didn't come out to the size and quality I wanted, however I tried to make them look the best I could and I feel they came out well overall.

For the frame I found images from the internet that would match the theme of each individual photo. Instead of finding a plain photo to put as the border I decided to look into textures and other ways of representing a certain mood and feeling to each individual photo. For example I found a time vortex for my 'TIME' photo because I felt it matched the theme of time well. In addition to this I found a cute, childish photo for the frame of 'FUN' and so forth for each photo. Here's a few of the images I used for the frames:

'FUN' frame

'TIME' frame

So far I have organised all of the clips into the order we wanted them to be, however I have had problems with the clips I have received, for example a lot are filmed from iPhone's, meaning the resolution is completely different to the resolution of our film, meaning some resizing and cropping has had to be done. In addition to this, in after effects I organised each introduction into its on composition so I wouldn't get the introductions mixed up.

Over Skype conversations we decided on the glitch we want for the introduction, ending and credits. I used a website called 'http://www.laptopnoise.com/freeglitch.htm'  to get the glitch sound I wanted. The website had hundreds of glitch sounds, so there was a lot to work with.

We also decided on a piece of music from Audionetwork.com, which I used for my previous documentary piece. I find they have a great variety of sounds. We decided on a track called 'Yarrow', which has a mellow, nostalgic sound to it, which is what we want.

When my film was screened my film I was generally happy with the outcome and it played the way I wanted to on the three screens. I spend a lot of time when editing and it took several hours to achieve the texts on the screen, due to the phone moving. It also took a long time deciding what footage was used and what wasn't used and what needed to be cut down. If I was to do the project again I would film additional footage to make my film seem a bit more logical and easy to understand, and I also would make the text font bigger because it would make more sense if the viewer could see what was being said.

                                                         Several screenshots from my film.

Finished Piece

Today we screened the sound I created. Sadly when listening to the piece I felt as if it was too quiet and you couldn't hear a lot of the running, especially with the part when the 2nd person ran towards the horn. I am overall pleased with my piece, however if I was to change anything I would make the levels of the footsteps higher and I would perhaps record more sound and make the footsteps sound more realistic, but due to the high levels of wind, the sounds of the footsteps had to be changed so that there was no wind, by reducing the level of bass within the clips.

Originally, I thought of mounting it on foam board like my last piece of work, however I thought id try something different and look into other ways of displaying my work. I decided to look into frames and frames to match the picture, however I found a website which showed interesting ways of framing photos. I looked at this website :'http://www.crookedbrains.net/2012/04/creative-photo-frames-picture-frames.html' which gave a number of interesting frame designs. One I particularly liked was this one:

I like that the colours blend well with the image, which is what I want to do with my frame. I want the image or texture to blend in with my photos. 

So far we have put the clips into Adobe Premiere Pro and we have organised them in a way that will save time when it comes to moving them around into the right position. Lauren and Shahid worked closely with Thomas to ensure we got a professional looking introduction that would introduce the film. The biggest set back we've had so far is that we have found it difficult to lengthen the film, so we needed people to give us additional footage to support the large chunks of audio we had. So far we have completed almost a minute of the film, which we are all pleased with. We've decided to add a filter of some sort to the donated footage to give it an old feel to it.  I am currently experimenting with filters and I found a filter in which I feel would give the donated footage an old feel.

    Title sequence

    Dust particle effect

    Glitching end credits

     Example of the donated videos behind the footage from their interview.

I found an interesting site that had several pictures of ways to mount my work on a wall: 'https://www.pinterest.com/sendmail2angela/creative-ways-to-display-photos/'  I have thought about mounting the photo's within frames that represent the photo, for instance 'Fun' would be inside a childish frame or have a childish border around the image on a piece of paper.

The editing process has been a long and tiring process. I have decided not to try and make each clip in time with each other as it is almost impossible to do so. I feel as if I have improved drastically with using After Effects and I feel as if my piece is coming together. Here are some screenshots of my work so far, near completion.

 
    Screen 1 timeline

 
    Screen 2 timeline

    Screen 3 timeline

Green Screen Examples

Flashing alarm clock phone

Using CC Power Pin to get a more accurate positioning of the image

To evaluate on my work, I feel that Simon's After Effects tutorials and various other tutorials online really helped me try and get the hang of After Effects. I would say I can use After Effects to a reasonable standard however I am going to continue to experiment with it and see what I can do. The 3 screen film has been a challenging project however it has made me think more about time management and the way in which I go about filming, editing etc with the time frame I give myself. 

When narrowing down my photo's, I decided to get advice from Rosie and see what she thought of my photo's. Within the tutorial we had, she likes my photo's however two were quite similar and had the same background, so I had 4 photo's I liked. I then decided to go out and shoot several more photo's and see what I could get. I got some interesting results and I looked at all my photo's together and narrowed it down to these final 5 photo's:

Photo 1

Photo 2

Photo 3

Photo 4

Photo 5

When I put all of my footage together it sadly did not equal the full 60 seconds for each. Since a re-shoot was out of the question due to timing with the people involved in my film, I decided the best thing to do would be to film some additional scenes. I decided to film a bus sequence where I look around the bus, 2 being calm and still and one moving left to right frantically, suggesting he is worrying because he is in a rush. The second piece of additional footage I recorded was of a clock on the wall, in which every clip I had before in the kitchen, Thomas had looked up at the clock. This would help lengthen out my film to 60 seconds and help the person viewing the film understand it more.

Screenshots of the additional videos 

I decided to take my work to Simon for further comments and see what he thought of my updated piece. He liked the fact that all the screen's now play at the same time, however he felt there was something missing in the piece and that I needed to perhaps film additional footage or think of ways to lengthy out my work. I am going to take simon's advice on board and see if I an film any additional footage to improve my piece.

For my sound I recorded some bassy sounds in the sound studio using an electric fan that gave off an interesting sound. I then went out at 1:00am with Julia to record the running up the hill sounds and breathing sounds. I then found foley sound of footsteps for when the people step into this big red object. 

The feedback I got originally allowed me to go and experiment some more. I decided I wanted the plot of the sound to be that a man is on a walk, sees the red horn and runs towards it. He stops, breathes heavily due to the distance he had run and then steps inside. In addition to this, after the man stops breathing heavily we then go to a different pair or footsteps, of a woman walking. She too does the same and stops and breathes when she arrives at the top. They both decide to walk into the object together, producing an loud echoey footstep sound. 

The editing process itself took quite a while because in each recording of the footsteps and running, the level of the sounds of the nature would change from loud to quiet, so I had to mix the sounds of nature in evenly so it didn't dip at different points. In addition to this I had trouble with reducing the amount of wind, however from the lesson's we had with Joe, I used the Parametric Equaliser tool and reduced the lower frequencies, which seemed to do the trick. 

                                                                  The Audition tracks.

To evaluate I feel pleased with the sound that I produced, and through Joe's useful lessons on sound and editing, I was able to produce a piece that I feel is experimental. If I was to do the project again I would give allow myself more time to collect a bigger variation of sounds and I would definitely record a few more takes of the running up the hill due to the wind being such a difficult feature of my sound to remove. I also feel as if I have learnt a lot about the importance of sound and I have improved drastically when it comes to using microphones and the techniques that can be used. 

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After today's meeting with Rosie, I decided to go out this evening and take some more pictures. From the photo's I had, I decided to scrap the photo that read 'Home' due to the background being the same as my 'Danger' photo. I decided to experiment a bit more with the dark and minimal light. I feel some of the photo's came out great and there are a couple that i'm happy with. These are the results of today's shoot with two versions of each: