Final class work

Week five is the final week for class tasks, next week the final project is due. This week we were introduced to effects. We were shown how to drag a desired effect onto the clip and tweak them to create the effect we want, including key frames to animate the parameters over time.

Our last job was to experiment with text generators and include one in our weekly task.

In my clip I used the luma key effect on a fish bowl clip so the fish were swimming on a background with a tree and fish prints. The text I used is a type writer effect.

Week 4 class work

This week we were introduced to motion tabs and key frames. We played around with the basic motions Scale, Rotation, Centre and Anchor point as well as attributes like Crop, Distort and Opacity.

Our task for this week was to layer nine clips into nine tracks and by using the above motions and attributes to minimise and move each clip in a way that shows all clips at the same time in a 3x3 grid.

I wanted to go a step further though and I made it so the middle one shrinks and the two sides, top and bottom change perspective creating a passageway effect.

I did have another version where each clip was aligned properly creating the grid effect but I lost it when my external HDD became corrupted so I rushed this one together.

Classroom Task 2

Week 3 tasks involved transitions and motion. Unfortunately Monday was a public holiday so we had no class that day. Although the class was rescheduled for Friday I already had a class to go to that day. I was able to do the tasks required in my own time and create the clip below.

This clip includes four shots, all from the same site as my other clip. There are three transitions in total, the first and last transitions were created as individual clips and merged together creating another transition (hard cut). The first transition is a cross dissolve with no fading out, this gives an an effect of time passing by. The third transition is also a cross dissolve but this time the clip fades to black between the shots.

Classroom Tasks

Each week we have been given a task to do in class so we can gradually learn how to edit film. The first week was spent searching for useable film stock (film that has been licensed under creative commons for editing by other people).

The second week was used to learn how the FCP interface worked (a little hard to do when your logon account is not up and running).

Tasks included basic editing using:

- The blade tool in the timeline

- In and out points in the viewer

- Subclips

As well as layering tracks

- Adding new tracks

- Adjusting opacity

Below is what I had put together during the second week.

Two shots have been used, both downloaded from the same site (Unable to remember at the moment but I will look for it and note it down on this blog). The first shot is a fish on a white background swimming across the screen. This I have made 50% opaque and copied three more times, staggering them as subclips every two seconds. It now looks as though there are four fish swimming across the screen following each other exactly, the first very transparent and each becoming more solid. Finally I added a clip of white smoke flowing from right to left on a black background. This was also made transparent. This was to give the effect of the fish swimming into the smoke.

New project idea

Last week a friend from Northern Editions (CDU's Printmaking Studio and Gallery) asked me to do a bit of filming for them. They had come into possession of a series of 'fish' etchings that were created in the earlier part of last century. With the help of local high school students, prints were made from these etchings that were later hung in the gardens surrounding the Norther Editions building.
Using one of the uni's HD camera's I have filmed the students hanging the prints as well as shots of the prints on their own. I figured this would give me the opportuntiy to help out a friend (as well as Northern Editions staff) and give me an awesome subject for my project.

NMD201 - Intermediate Studio

The second semester for this year sees me creating a short film in NMD201 - Intermediate Studio. The first half of the semester is going towards editing video in Final Cut Pro 6. After the mid semester break we will be working on creating a website.

In the beginning we were all tasked to select a theme to work on. I was thinking of playing with politics and old school cartoons, using cartoon footage with politics for sound. Although since deciding that topic I have come across a site with an interesting selection of video to choose from. All free for anyone to use.