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Coursework Development

Introduction

In my product development document, I will be going through my process of shooting and editing my two minutes film opening.

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Shooting

For shooting days, I planned that it would take four to five days but it ended up taking ten days. Most of the shooting days were during November but I did have to shoot once during December.

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All of the scenes used were all filmed at night around 7 to 9.30 pm as I wanted to use the kitchen light for better lighting.

Shooting the stove scene

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The first day of shooting, it was during the afternoon but the lighting was terrible and I ended up not using any of the videos I shot that day.

One of the shots taken during the first day of shooting

Based from my previous experience from the 20 seconds film project, I learnt that I should take my time filming and not rush it for a good quality of work. So, what I usually do is I would shoot only 3-5 scenes a day. Even though I made a shot list, I always tried filming with different angles and camera movements for each scene so if one of the shots do not work out, I always have other options to choose from.

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I also had to change some of the camera angles and movement from my shot list (in my research and planning) as I was shooting because some did not work out or were too hard to shoot.

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Below is the latest shot list that I used in my final video:

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Some of the issues I faced during shooting are finding the right time to shoot. During November and December of 2020, it rained quite often especially at night which could affect the audio especially since I wanted to use some of the original audio for the video. I also had difficulties with the sounds especially when my family members are around. For some of the scenes, I had to reshoot such as the texting scene as you could hear the sounds of my parents talking in the other room.

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Shooting for the film was quite difficult as expected but it was quite fun as I get to test and try out different camera movements and angles. I also got to know more about my actor (Saud Dayang)’s personality. Before this, I was not sure if he could cook or even had any experience in cooking which made me quite nervous at first especially since I did not really have a backup plan if filming with him does not work out. I also found out about his passion in filming. He admits that he does not really have any proper experience in filming as he is more into photography. But during filming, I realize he tends to analyze little details such as the position of the props and sometimes even gave me some ideas for camera movements and angles I could use for the video.

  • Editing

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For editing, I used the application Adobe Premiere Pro which was something very new to me.

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I had some help from my tutors and my friends on the basics on how to use the application. I also searched online on YouTube when there is something I do not know how to do. It was quite challenging at first as some video tutorial on YouTube used different Adobe Premiere Pro version so some works differently than the version I used. Slowly, I got the hang of using the application after a while. I also followed some photography Instagram accounts such as @shootguru that sometimes post tips and advice on using Adobe Premiere Pro.

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I first concentrate on choosing the right video to use as I did shoot some of the scenes more than once. I then start cutting and combining the video together. This helped me to go through and see if there is anything to fix and reshoot.

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I had difficulties in stabilizing two of these clips (as below) during filming; when the camera pedestals down when the character is cooking and the last ending scene as I filmed it in handheld mode. So, I added the effect warp stabilizer VFX to fix it.

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After I finished cutting and combining the clips along with the background music, I then focus on the graphic wording for the video. For this, I used the application Canva.com

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I only used Canva for the graphic wording ‘Magical Pictures Presents’, ‘A Film By Syahzani Afiqah’ and the movie title ‘Young Chef’. I have been using Canva for quite a while nowadays for school project and coursework so I did not have any difficulties in doing the graphic wording. The reason I used Canva is because Canva has a lot more fonts to choose from and there are different choices of animate. I chose most of the font that is cursive because it reminds me of the menus at restaurants. After creating the graphic wording on Canva, I download it and then imported into Adobe Premiere Pro.

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The reason I chose my production company name as ‘Magical Pictures’ is from my experience of creating and editing videos. When watching a film, as an audience, we cannot really see what happens in the process of filming and editing. To me, those processes are very important and it is where all the magic happens in order to create a good film.

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For the name of the actor (‘Saud Dayang’), I used the application Adobe Premiere Pro itself. For this, I just added the text by clicking on the ‘T’ (text). I then just adjust and find the right font size and theme font that is similar to the main title.

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I added presets on all of the clips as the lighting I used made the clips too bright. I used the presets from Adobe Premiere Pro; SL Clean Punch HDR (Canon 7D). As my target audiences are family, I wanted to make the video feel cozy. That is why I chose a preset with warm colors.

The clip shown on the left is the original clip without any presets edited while on the right is the edited clip along with the presets edited in

There are some things that I incorporated from my two-film opening research; Guardian of the Galaxy Volume 1 and 2 and Chef (2014) to my own film opening.

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Some of the things I incorporated from the movie Chef (2014) are starting the film with a cooking scene. As both characters; my character and also the main character from the movie Chef are both passionate in cooking, I decided to start my own film opening with a cooking scene too to help the audience understand the character’s personality and interest.

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The stove scene from the movie ‘Chef’

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One of the cooking scenes from the film ‘Chef’

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The stove scene from my film opening ‘Young Chef’

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One of the cooking scenes from my film opening ‘Young Chef’

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Chopping scene from the movie ‘Chef’

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Chopping scene from my film opening ‘Young Chef’

From the film opening of Guardian of the Galaxy, I incorporated the idea of introducing the main character doing something that they enjoy or in their own zone. In the opening of Guardian of the Galaxy Volume 1 and 2, both starts with one of the characters listening to music and dancing around, not aware what is happening around them as they are in their own zone.

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The reason I incorporated this idea is because I think it will give a good addition for the opening cooking scene as he is very passionate in cooking so he would be in his own zone.

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​One of the scenes in ‘Guardian of the Galaxy Volume 1’ where the character starts be in their own zone

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One of the scenes in my opening film ‘Young Chef’ where the character starts be in their own zone

Both Guardians of the Galaxy movies have an upbeat song playing in the opening. In the first movie of Guardians of the Galaxy, the song used was Come and Get Your Love by Redbone while the second movie used the song Mr. Blue Sky. Both of these songs have a very upbeat tune which can give a happy mood feeling to the audience watching. I incorporated that into my opening film too. I chose the song Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra, the same song used in the Guardian of the Galaxy Volume 2 as it matched well with the mood I wanted for my opening.

  • Sounds

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Some of the sounds used are diegetic sound and some were recorded separately (non-diegetic) on my phone which is Honor 8s and on my microphone Razer Seiren mini.

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I had to record some of the sounds separately as the original diegetic sound was not that clear and there was too much white noise happening in the background. The reason I recorded all of my non diegetic sound myself is because it was easier than searching online to get the right sound to use. As can be seen from the photo below, the green tabs are the ones that are recorded separately (non-diegetic).

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The blue tabs are the diegetic sound; recorded from the camera microphone itself.

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Recording non-diegetic sounds

For the first 60 seconds, most of the scenes are diegetic sound such as when the character took a container of uncooked spaghetti from the drawer until the scene where he sits down excited to eat the spaghetti. The typing sound towards the end of the video is also a diegetic sound.

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For the first part of the video before the graphic wording ‘A Film By Syahzani Afiqah’ pops up where the character took the recipe book and read through it, all the sounds are non-diegetic sound. Towards the end, after the character is done with cooking, most of sounds are also non-diegetic sound such as the music from the console, the eating sound, notification sound from the phone, the dialog ‘yes’ and the deep breathings. Recording the non-diegetic sound is not something new for me as I have recorded non-diegetic sound for my prelim exercise, 20 seconds video before so I found it quite easy for me but matching the audio to the clip took some time as it must fit well with the clip.

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I purposely chose the notification sound ‘microwave ping’ because it shows how passionate he is into cooking that even his phone sound notification is the sound of a microwave. I got the microwave sound from my phone (Honor 8s) ringtone sounds. I purposely used sound bridge on the phone sound notification to show that the character was unaware of the news he was about to get and to lead the audience to the next scene.

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For some of the scene such as when he puts down the book onto the table and opens it, I purposely made the sound to only come out from the right side of the headphones as he puts it down the book on the right side. I did this to create more ambient feels so the audience would feel as if they are in the scene.

For the background music, I end up choosing a different song from what I have planned. At first, I chose the song King of the Clouds by Panic! At the Disco or I Want it That Way by Backstreet Boys but after shooting some of the cooking scenes and putting them all together, I could not really envision those songs matching well with the clips. So, I end up chose the song Mr. Blue Sky by Electric Light Orchestra (1977 version) from their album ‘Out of the Blue’ because as the character is passionate in cooking, the song should fit in with his moods. I tried my best to match the beat of the song to some of the clips.  

I also added sad background music in the end to make the scene a bit more emotional. It took me a week to find the right background music to use that would fit in with the scene. The background music I end up using is a non-copyright ‘Sad Cinematic Background Music No Copyright - Pendant by Sam Marshall’ from YouTube.

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Album Cover of ‘Out of the Blue’ by Electric Light Orchestra

  • Raw Footage

Above is the raw footage of the clips I used for my videos

  • First Draft

My first draft is quite different from my final product. I was not satisfied with the scene, turning on the stove as it did not match the beat of the music. I think it is important for scenes to match with the beat of the music because it can help the audience to feel the rhythm and feel like they are part of the movie.

There was too much white noise from the beginning till the end and can barely hear the music from the game. The white noises also made it too obvious when the video is cut to the next scene. The lighting also made the video too bright.

The first draft however is not completely finished yet.

  • Second Draft

In my second draft, I fixed the mistakes in my first draft. I made sure the scene where the character turns on the stove match the beat of the music. As the song lyric goes ‘See how the sun shines brightly’, I wanted the stove scene end exactly after the lyric ‘sun shines’. I also made the next clip when he drops the uncooked spaghetti into the pan shorter and ends after the lyric ‘brightly’ to match the beat of the music.

There was also some issue where some of the non-diegetic sound only comes out from the right of the headphones.

I also reshoot the texting scene as the one before, there was too much going on and viewers would probably not be able to focus on what the text is all about.

  • Third Draft

In my third draft, I reshoot the texting part again as there were some grammar errors in my second draft. My actor was meant to type ‘I just got accepted at the University of Culinary Arts!’ but my actor forgot the word ‘got’. I was also not satisfied with the audio for this scene as you can hear my parents speaking in the other room which should not happen.

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The texting scene from the second draft had to be reshoot due to grammar errors

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