Hey Everyone! The first quarter of the school year is now over, which also means that so are our first quarter projects. That's right! Our projects were due this past Friday. If you'd like to know more about our project, you can read the first project update here or go to my projects page here. For this week's constructed response, I will be telling you my thoughts on our project. Unfortunately, this blog was done after we turned it in, since last week was very busy. I feel alright about our project because we met the deadline and covered our timeline with lots of b-roll, however, we had audio issues.
First off, we met the deadline, which was good. The day before, on Thursday, we posted our rough cut and asked Mr. M for feedback. My original goal was to get the first draft done the week before it was due, but that didn't happen. It is always good to have some revision time before the day it's due, to show Mr. M multiple cuts, to revise it and make it the best video it can be. I think we cut this too close to the deadline, and next quarter we should work on getting a rough done sooner. Throughout this quarter, I think Kirra and I did a good job staying on track, and not falling behind. We didn't really procrastinate, and we got things done on time. This was very important, and crucial to the success of our project because by waiting and delaying your work, you'll be rushing at the last minute, trying to crank out a video that may not be your best effort. Our video met the deadline, and was turned in on time, which I think is good.
Another reason why I'm feeling alright about our project is because we covered our timeline with lots of b-roll. Though, there are sometimes where you don't want to fully cover your story, and maybe that is a technique you used to convey emotion or control the pacing. A common problem that we all are stumbled with, is that we don't shoot enough b-roll. Kirra and I ran into this problem, so we went back to Hanalei and shot some more. We made sure that we shot in different angles and compositions, but most importantly, in sequences. I cannot stress enough how essential this is. I learned last year that when you're shooting, not only do you have to think like a photographer and worry about your production value, but you also need to think like an editor. If you shoot random shots, then when you're editing, you have to worry about dealing with those random shots. You have to worry about continuity, and if you're even going to have enough b-roll. So when you're out shooting b-roll, make sure you shoot them in sequences. Get different angles, get wides, mediums, close-ups, and extra close-ups, and think as if you're editing. Get the person's face. Shoot close-ups, show emotion, show their action. Pretend as if you're the audience, you want to know what they're doing, how they're feeling, and you want to know overall what's happening. You won't be able to portray and match the soundbyte if you have random shots everywhere, compared to if you have one long sequence showing the action in different angles and compositions. If you'd like to know more about sequencing, I wrote a blog about it a while back, here. I think the b-roll Kirra and I shot were good, and helped to tell the story.
Despite our b-roll and meeting the deadline, our project had some audio issues. When in the interviewing process, we didn't really think about the logistics too much. We had it scheduled, and knew what we were going to say, except when we got there, we realized it was very loud. The audio issue that we had was that we had background noise. All throughout editing, I tried messing with the background noise removal option that Final Cut Pro X offers, but it was very difficult. I had a hard time telling apart if a clip sounded too electronic, or if it had too much noise in the background. As Mr. M said, you can get away with bad visuals if you have a great story, but you can't get away with bad audio. At the start of editing, when we had our whole timeline set out, according to our script, it was way too long. The maximum duration is 3 minutes, but a good duration to have is 2 minutes, 30 seconds. It was 5 minutes! I managed to cut out a lot from the sound bytes, and I had to cut out the "Uh's" and the pauses in their sound bytes. Yes, it made the duration to 3 minutes, however, it made the pacing really fast for an emotional story, and it was very noticeable that there were jump cuts in the audio. To minimize this was a very tedious process. I had detach the audio from each clip, and extend it a little to overlap so that it transitions smoothly. I also had to fix each one to get it at the correct dB level, between -6 and 0. We had audio issues with our project, which wasn't very good.
In conclusion, I feel alright about our project because we made the deadline, had good b-roll, but had audio issues. Kudos to everyone for their hard work this quarter, I'm looking forward to seeing your projects! Well, that is it for this week's constructed response! Thanks for reading! Have a great and safe fall break everyone! Bye!
First off, we met the deadline, which was good. The day before, on Thursday, we posted our rough cut and asked Mr. M for feedback. My original goal was to get the first draft done the week before it was due, but that didn't happen. It is always good to have some revision time before the day it's due, to show Mr. M multiple cuts, to revise it and make it the best video it can be. I think we cut this too close to the deadline, and next quarter we should work on getting a rough done sooner. Throughout this quarter, I think Kirra and I did a good job staying on track, and not falling behind. We didn't really procrastinate, and we got things done on time. This was very important, and crucial to the success of our project because by waiting and delaying your work, you'll be rushing at the last minute, trying to crank out a video that may not be your best effort. Our video met the deadline, and was turned in on time, which I think is good.
Another reason why I'm feeling alright about our project is because we covered our timeline with lots of b-roll. Though, there are sometimes where you don't want to fully cover your story, and maybe that is a technique you used to convey emotion or control the pacing. A common problem that we all are stumbled with, is that we don't shoot enough b-roll. Kirra and I ran into this problem, so we went back to Hanalei and shot some more. We made sure that we shot in different angles and compositions, but most importantly, in sequences. I cannot stress enough how essential this is. I learned last year that when you're shooting, not only do you have to think like a photographer and worry about your production value, but you also need to think like an editor. If you shoot random shots, then when you're editing, you have to worry about dealing with those random shots. You have to worry about continuity, and if you're even going to have enough b-roll. So when you're out shooting b-roll, make sure you shoot them in sequences. Get different angles, get wides, mediums, close-ups, and extra close-ups, and think as if you're editing. Get the person's face. Shoot close-ups, show emotion, show their action. Pretend as if you're the audience, you want to know what they're doing, how they're feeling, and you want to know overall what's happening. You won't be able to portray and match the soundbyte if you have random shots everywhere, compared to if you have one long sequence showing the action in different angles and compositions. If you'd like to know more about sequencing, I wrote a blog about it a while back, here. I think the b-roll Kirra and I shot were good, and helped to tell the story.
Despite our b-roll and meeting the deadline, our project had some audio issues. When in the interviewing process, we didn't really think about the logistics too much. We had it scheduled, and knew what we were going to say, except when we got there, we realized it was very loud. The audio issue that we had was that we had background noise. All throughout editing, I tried messing with the background noise removal option that Final Cut Pro X offers, but it was very difficult. I had a hard time telling apart if a clip sounded too electronic, or if it had too much noise in the background. As Mr. M said, you can get away with bad visuals if you have a great story, but you can't get away with bad audio. At the start of editing, when we had our whole timeline set out, according to our script, it was way too long. The maximum duration is 3 minutes, but a good duration to have is 2 minutes, 30 seconds. It was 5 minutes! I managed to cut out a lot from the sound bytes, and I had to cut out the "Uh's" and the pauses in their sound bytes. Yes, it made the duration to 3 minutes, however, it made the pacing really fast for an emotional story, and it was very noticeable that there were jump cuts in the audio. To minimize this was a very tedious process. I had detach the audio from each clip, and extend it a little to overlap so that it transitions smoothly. I also had to fix each one to get it at the correct dB level, between -6 and 0. We had audio issues with our project, which wasn't very good.
In conclusion, I feel alright about our project because we made the deadline, had good b-roll, but had audio issues. Kudos to everyone for their hard work this quarter, I'm looking forward to seeing your projects! Well, that is it for this week's constructed response! Thanks for reading! Have a great and safe fall break everyone! Bye!
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