Evaluation for my Final product.

After all the hard work of staying up all night waiting for the fill to render and export, and the awful time filming in the wind and rain, fighting with an umbrella, and trying not to get the equipment wet, AND looking like a weird person crouching and crawling the streets by my home, Its FINALLY DONE.
Overall, I've definitely enjoyed creating this, even though there have been a lot of set backs with quality and weather and the lack of skills i have within editing and technology, which seems to hate me recently.

The presentation however, to my relief was alight, I'm not a huge fan of speaking publicly, even though it was in front of two people, I tend to get distracted by well nothing, and lose were i am. However, I went in with no nerves whatsoever. In fact I think I did talk an awful a lot.
One thing I got form the feedback of the presentation though is that I need to start being to negatively critical about my work, as the majority of the points on my Prezi and speech were amount what went wrong, and what i didn't like about it, and what i could have done differently.

Which is actually quite a shame as I do in fact love what i have produced. I am a bit of a perfectionist, and I have possibily too many ideas, and that could probably be my downfall when it comes to projects like this.

My Prezi for example, I do spend a lot of time with presentation, and how it looks, as If i have that right, I feel like I can relax and focus more on what I'm talking about.

Here's my Prezi.

Looking back at my presentation, I want to fully evaluate my overall product and presentation.

During the editing, I did decide to use a programme that i was comforable with, although its not something i have the best skills in, as I'm not a huge fan of filming and editng. Although I did, after all my research into tutorials and looking at other films people had created on Youtube, it really did inspire me to be a lot more creative, and too push myself to do things, I'd normally stray from.

I know its only the beginning of what I'd like to accomplish later on, however, looking into different alements in Premiere and After Effects I'm more encouraged to keep experimented with lighting, and colour grading, and working with other filters and presents.

Another thing was the equipment. I'd used a Canon 600d, purely due to the fact it allowed me to accomplish the desired affects i wanted for the overall look of my film, which featured a lot of shallow depth of field shots, and long exposure shots(which was a nightmare) which i do not think i could have succesfully done to the quality i;d wanted on a Sony Z1. Also because it was much more compact and lightweight for the low angle shots and POV tracking shots i did. It was great to get to develop my photography and filming skills, because I wanted to approach the film with an open and creative mind.

I wanted shots that looks visually captivated, which due to the weather, however annoying it was, it allowed me to shoot ome beautiful shots of the rain.

For exaple, these two are my favorite within the film..

With the weather being so bad it was difficult to get the majority of original shots I wanted, however, I think the rain actually created a nice tone to the film. With the music, it was as if it captured the lonely feeling of a cat, on this dull night, however, with some scenes it captured the beauty of the small things we often overlook.

When it came down to editing the film, I did enjoy experimenting with the Light leaks too which are featured during it. I think the colour grading as seen in the two images above, though it being quite unnatural, the natural hue of the lighting from the street lamps when filming was actually quite a warm orange colour, so I only added a purple gradient to the clips. The colour sort of adds to the mysterious and mystical tone it has in my opinion.
It took about 2/3 full evenings to get most of the filming done, I was limited, due to it being night during the film, however the weather did contribute to the problem a lot, but i compromised!

If i did develop it more, which i would love to do, I think the problem being is that some of the POV shots of the cat wondering around, would be better suited with a still framed clips, as it wouldn't be too much for the viewer to look at so they could concentrate on the one frame, as I feel that the jittery clips of 'the cat walking' ruins some frames.

Another element would be the sound. During the first development stages of my idea I really wanted to incorporate ambient sounds as well as the 'Nocturne' track music to enhance what was happening in some major parts of the sequence. As the story involved being able to hear distant sounds like a cat would. However, when i t came to it, the sound quality just wasn't very good with the camera i had used, as well as the rain being extremely loud it dulled out the sound of the leaves blowing in the wind, and cars in the background, which was a real shame as i Think the sounds would have improved the story, and the audience would have maybe understood more of what was going on. So I did just decided to use the music track, which does however creates the tone I wanted which was the mystery of a cats journey of a night.

After watching many films, especially this one, its encouraged me to want to learn more about editing and effects, because as of know i'm only in the beginning stages of creating something as complex and visually stunning as this pieces. I especially like how you know, at the point of the colour burst she has gone into a dream, which i tried to create using a light burst. So I think if i was developing my film, I would use graphics to accompany the idea of something happening so the audience is more aware of the narrative and also gets them intrigued.

My experience in making this whole project has definitely given me a lot of confidence in myself to come out of my comfort zone and try new things, and work with technology i don't normally use, as its evident, that when i put my mind to it, I can produce a great product. I've also learn that I should definitely not leave things till the last minute, as things can go wrong, luckily with this i was able to compromise and had no issue with contributors pulling out or being unavailable for the times i had to film.

Here's my final product! Which I'm incredibly pleased with, after watching it a hundred times over...

Developement into media Artifact

I have started looking into films on Vimeo and Youtube which use split screens and the Triptych style. Its become quite popular recently with a new feature called Split Screen X for Final Cut Pro X, which easily allows users to create this layout, as well as using diagonal cropping, unlike in After Effects and Premiere Pro which have to be done manually using a cropping tool and other features which i'll be researching tutorials later in the week.

I loved the diagonal cut and wanted to include that into my film, rather than the typical rectangular shapes i would have normally used as I didn't want it to be too repetitive and ordinary. As instead of just 3 screens I want to experiment with numerous clips playing on one screen, and interchanging the layout throughout.

Looking back I remembered I'd seen a music video which used the same split-screen effect -Hey There Delilah- which I'd used as inspiration in the mini brief when i did my Autumn Triptych.

However looking back at it, the colour and tone is what I liked most about it, as its quite dull and saturated, which I prefer to sharp strong contrasted colours as it connects with the tones of the music, which is exactly what I want for my film.

******UPDATE******

So I've just downloaded a free Trial of Adobe Premier Pro CC, and i love the layout compared to the norm. I also chose this instead of After Effects or Final Cut as I know the basic tools and effect i need to edit my film, especially within the time limit we have.

I have just watched some tutorials on Youtube about different cinematic effects and colour grading, and I'm in the middle of experimenting now.

I've noticed a lot of the footage i have already captured have quite different colour tones to them, as in some clips I have used the orange filter clip in the LED light, and then some parts i had to use natural lighting, and candle light to get the correct affect i wanted as a silhouette of my cat against the outside window, and then ECU's of my eye, and a slug outside.
For example below, the two shots are extremely good quality and the colour is quite contrasted and normal, whereas, the two images below it have a lower quality as there it no source of filter light.

Due to the different qualities and different lighting I will have to experiment with using colour grading, adding noise/blue, and saturation and contrasting for each different clip to have the same consistent look and tone too them.

Colour Grading - I'm using the Fast balancing colour tool and changed the hues of the clips to give it more a a purple gradient. I've had to adjust the contrast and saturations to all the different clips as a lot of them are very dark, some extremely in focus and sharp. 

In some cases (EYES CU above) I had to add noise and a blur to it, to try and make them all similar

Adding Colour Leaks- I LOVEE these light leaks. I've been having a lot of fun experimenting with these and So far i have added a couple of them to the clips one where the cat opens his eyes, just to create a notion that something has happened, and a starting point, as you will to the film. and then I will use it during the end of the film, as well as superimposing the clips changing the opacity and blend modes. Again just experimenting, because I love the idea of using the blend modes to overlap different clips, especially out of focus lights.

Knowing I wanted to use diagonal cropping, I watched a 10 minute long tutorial in German to try and understand how to do this, It was difficult, but I think i've sort of grasped it.
I added the Eight-point Garbage matte effect onto the panel, and after to fiddly and very time consuming effort with figuring out which angle is where I've finally succeeded in creating a diagonal crop, though it doesn't actually have the little white frame between the two clips, which i did originally want, but i think i'm far too irritated by this effect alone to even try and change it again! Here's the overall look, which i love!