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A note from one of the first lectures at UCA

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At the very beginning of this course we got encouraged to speak up about what we can do and what we are passionate about. From there we could find who we could learn more from and who had the same passions as ourselfes.

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We started our term with learning basics that is good to know going into film production.

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I tried to take as many notes as I could so I would have something to go back to when the practical learning started.

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Playing around with the camera to learn how to use it.

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After a few workshops we finally got to go out an try out the Canon XF305 HD Camera. I found it very useful because I learn better from doing something myself/using it than just sitting still being told how to do something.

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After having time to use the camera we made a little music video to show that we can manage using the camera with mics aswell. I was filming and directing and we had a lot of fun.

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Going to the Tate Modern in London was definitely very inspiring. I kept asking myself "how do someone come up with this?" and I got very inspired by how creative artists can be and to think outside the box. I want to be this creative as well.

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A picture I took to remember the settings I had.

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I want to be an editor and one thing I have not put much effort in before is colourgrading so that was definitely a challenge. When one of our assessments was editing shots from "The News" project I found Mostafa's workshop very helpful. He showed us how to deal with overexposure and general colourgrading. When I was editing my own shortfilm "Jimmy The Stalker" I found Youtube very helpful and learned how to use the Lumetriscopes to see how I am actually balancing out the colours and not just use the naked eye on the actual shot.

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The first notes I put down when I got the idea of what I wanted to do for my shortfilm.

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Making an individual shortfilm forced me into trying almost every single role in a film production. And I realised how nice it is to have a team to help out on different aspects of that process. It was a fun project and my friends helped out on the shooting day and I do think I would be very lost without their knowledge. Everything from connecting the boom to the camera to uploading the shots, they teached me alot. I planned to film the whole thing in one day and even though we only filmed from 15.00 to 20.00 I regretted not doing the shooting for two days instead. That is definitely something I will remember for next time - never underestimate the time it takes to shoot scenes.

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I did not put much effort into making this written like an actual script. I just wrote down what I thought would be useful to know and from memory I made it look like what I thought it should look like. I know now that this part of the production is just as important as the rest. And looking back at it with more knowledge about scriptwriting this is very cute.

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The result

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I really like drawing and painting and I have a dream about becoming and animator. When one of the hand-ins we had was making a movie poster I saw this as an opportunity to finally draw a little and this is a sketch of an already existing character called Kaneki Ken. I loved to draw him and it became my inspiration for the movie poster.

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I drew this in illustrator and I had some struggles. I tried to find solutions on Youtube but I wish I had a tutour to go to.

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I had a lot of fun making this but I spent too much time on it that I ended up having to use a background someone else drew and just draw in a few soldier silhouettes. I definitely want to be better at drawing digital.

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I am not a very good writer so the treatment at the beginning of 2023 was a challenge for me. Also I was not able to attend Mario's lectures before christmasbreak so again I had to use Youtube to learn the basics of scriptwriting and such. Gladys was also very helpful with her workshop going through each screenplay and also recommending a few Youtube videos that could be helpful. I realised that describing everything in a screenplay was difficult and finding out what details I have to include and what not. After this treatment I think I got a bigger understanding of what a screenplay is and the importance of it to actually visualize everything that is going on in a film. And the biggest challenge of it must be to write down everything you are visualizing as well as things you maybe have not thought about.

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At the workshop trying out the Black Magic G1

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I have been wanting to know how to use this camera, and after the group decided to use this for our next shortfilm it was very useful to have a workshop with it. So far I think this is my favourite, even though I am not that interested in cameras. After a tutorial and trying it out myself I now know how to set the settings correct and even some tricks to make it even better to use. For example hitting "Peak" and see some read lines who will show you what is in focus incase you find it hard to see, as the picture shows. Another trick is putting a white paper in front of the lens so the camera can help you set the whitebalance.

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Chris visited us and he told us about his carrier and how the industry works. He was also very curious about what we wanted and what our next shortfilm was. There is one thing I remember very well from this seminar and that was when he said "The industry needs someone who wants to burn the house down!" meaning that we should be encouraged to do something no one has done before, try out new things and walk our own way. I found that very inspiring. I want to burn the house down!

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Bruce Hill came to campus to talk about production design. He told us about the art department in the film industry and how he got there. He also gave us good advice on what is most important when you work in the art department. He brought his book "Create a scene" where you can learn basically everything you need in that part of the industry. From budgeting to techniques for setting up a film set. And everything in between. He is a Production Designer with 30 years experience, and it was very educating to listen to him.

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We had a nanlite workshop before Christmas but it was nice to get to try out a few new lights. My favourite is the one you see in the picture, Litepanels Gemini 2x1 LED Soft Panel who is a LED light with millions of rgb coloursettings as well as whitecolours. It was pretty easy to use as well and a perfect toy for creative lighting. We also tried out Litepanels Studio X4 Bi-colour Lights and Nanlite Forza 60B LED. We learned a few facts as well as how to mount them and use them.

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In RG21 doing testshots for our memoriam scene.

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A good thing to do before the shooting day is to try out lighting and camera in the location. I think it makes the actual shooting day go smoother and we don't have to spend a lot of time figuring out things keeping the actors waiting. That also gives us time to change the shotlist if something does not work. I am the editor and DIT for this project and doing a few testshots made me start trying out the colorgrading. Another good thing that came out of this day was that my laptop was not able to read the usb card reader, and I am so glad we figured that out before the actual day. The solution was using the small SD cards that I can put straight into my laptop instead. Now uploading the material will not be an issue on the filming day.

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Filming day was a steep learning curve for me and here is why.
First thing is that everything usually takes longer than we think. There was a lot of tight rooms we had to film in and we were always behind schedule. It was very stressful but I think we did a good job trying to cut down the shots we needed and working quicker as a team, discussing solutions. I do think it would be very helpful doing testshots in this location beforehand.
Second thing is being a DIT and editor for the same project. I have everything under control when it comes to what material we have and I love it. I have notes on every take and what sound is useful and what's not. We recorded our sound on an extern recorder which was my worst nightmare but being the DIT helped me keeping track of what is what.
Third thing is being prepared for a long day and have access to food and water. I am very grateful we had money from our budget to buy snacks and food because it was very much needed through a whole day of filming. People from our team went and bought loads of water and snacks for us and it really helped with our focus and energy. I only brought 1 meal myself which was way to little.
Fourth thing is having a loyal and reliable crew. Some people from our team was never on time and when we were already behind schedule that did not help. It was also very embarrassing because our actors came on set and the makeup artists was 30 minutes away so they had to wait. Some people also just disappeared outside of breaktime.

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In our film project I was told we had a music composer that would make the music for our film. Unfortunately he backed out last minute and since I am the editor, I had to figure the music out myself. I thought it was going to be hard finding songs that does not have copyrights, but I found a very helpful website. Uppbeat had many great alternatives and in the end I had a hard time choosing one. Which is a luxury problem. It would probably be a better result with a song made for our film but I think I solved the problem we had with so little time, pretty well. And now I know where to look next time.

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I was very frustrated for a while with being the editor because our director would not respond to me. And making all the decisions alone was very scary. Also when you sit an edit for hours every day, you can become a little blind to what need improvements. Luckily the DOP wanted to help me out as much as he could, but his responses could take days. I learned that being alone in the post production is not efficient.

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I analysed a mise-en-scene from Little Women (2019). I found it very hard writing and analysis because writing essays is not my strongest side, especially in a 2nd language. I did find it very educating to analyse a single scene, and the more I watched, the more I learned, and saw the effort put into it. I put alot of weight towards the Production Design and it was eye-opening how much it does for the story and to make a mise-en-scene. It actually made me interested in working in the art department in the film industry. Which I have not been interested in before. I need to explore that part more in future projects.

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I made a profile on Fiverr. I need more experience and I think that would be a very effective way to get it. It will definitely be hard to get customers at first, but I will post some of my work on social media to give my profile more attention. I have an tiktok account with 19k followers, so hopefully that will come in handy and give it a kickstart. I must say it is a bit scary to take jobs, fearing I will fail to make the customer happy. But that is a big part of the learning experience I believe.

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Itv was visiting graphic design to help out with their work and give some advice. Even though I am not studying graphic design, I wanted to join to hear what they had to say. And advice from professionals is never wrong. They talked a little bit about how the tv shows under the coronation was quiet special. And that they had to do some  changes to the good morning show to make it seem more special than usual, and how they did it.
We then watched stings that the students made for the channel, so they could get feedback.
What I learned from that is what the tv channel consider professional, colors, fonts etc. How flow, context and contrasts is very important when you want to give a message for 6-10 seconds. And how you use colors and fonts to give a message together with illustration and animation.