First Screening!

This week has been a big push with the edit of the swimming Documentary 'Fighting Chance'
The entire team have been working to get the story right, concise and ultimately within three minutes!

Thursday afternoon was the first screening with guest lecture Jeremy Gibson present to give us some of his vast experience and feedback.
The film was received well and the few suggestions made were very useful and will be work on early next week before hand in.

It was great to finally see it on the big screen and to have the chance to appraise it as a final piece. When you edit something it is easy to focus on the points your working on and you need to take a step back. After the last two days working on colour grading and sound in Pro Tools It was nice to stand back and view the hard work in the context of the final edit.

For more information on Jeremy Gibson please look at his production company - sevenstones media
http://www.sevenstonesmedia.com/index.htm

And we're done!

Today was our final shoot on the swimming doc we have been making over the last few weeks.

I have learned a great deal on the documentary, not only about sound, camera and producing but also about swimming and how it can be a life skill but more importantly the effects it can have on people in all walks of life.

The sound recording has been challenging, working in swimming pools with a lot of echo and reverberation to try to deal with was at times very hard. To try and overcome some of the sound issues I have used personal mic's where possible and EQ'd the sound in Pro Tools.
The production side has been equally challenging with the various permissions needed to be able to film this type of documentary.

As the shoot has progressed I have heard many different peoples opinions about swimming and it has made me more aware of why we are making a doc on this subject. This has only fueled me further to make this the best that we possible can and to look into editing into a longer piece that could be used by swimming authorities.

AVID

Week by week I have been doing the AVID tutorials to learn how to use the editing software correctly, Avid unlike Final cut pro or Premiere doesn't really have a compatible system that makes it easy to switch between so it has been a frustrating, at times, and steep learning curve!

Below is the last link to output settings which is a great help for exporting all your hard work....

http://www.avid.com/US/avid-tv/MC5BuildingtheFinalOutput?elq_mid=4064&elq_cid=6845073

The Hardest Interview Yet

The short documentary that we are making at the moment really hinged on a contributor that had first hand experience of what the repercussion of not being able to swim could be.

On Sunday we interviewed Julie Sammels who lost her brother and mother to drowning on a Cornish beach 27 years ago. We had a difficult task on our hands as we had very little experience of interviewing somebody who had been through such a traumatic time in their life.

Thankfully the interview went very well and full credit goes to Alice for being very patient and caring in the way she asked the questions.
The sound went well and was understandably easier than in the swimming pool environment but still challenging. Visually we didnt want to use personal mic's so rifle mic's were used, Julie's voice was very quiet and due to the emotion of recalling her experience it was just something I had to work with.
 I also had to concentrate on not getting the boom pole in shot!

Swimming pool shoot!

One of the key parts to our 3 minute wonder we are shooting is the starting sequence, it features a swimmer shooting of the blocks and swimming quickly down the pool with multiple shot angles.
Today was filming day but we only had one hour to film the entire scene, the pressure was on! To help the situation it was decided that I would take on some of the filming and do the crane/jib work whilst Michaela filmed underwater.

Below are some screen shots of the results.

The filming of this was an incredible learning curve and I had to react quickly to the situation, I had practised with the equipment within a studio but nothing prepares you for working in a humid pool side location and trying to follow a semi- professional swimmer. 

Jibs, Cranes and Wolly Dolly's

The 3 minute wonder im working on as Producer and sound engineer is based around swimming education within the United Kingdom, I came up with an opening sequence that has a very visual content and will lead up to the opening titles and hopefully suck the audience in.

Problem is it requires the use of multiple camera angles and the ability to follow a professional swimmer in a pool.

No pressure then!

To help us achieve this Michaela (camera) and myself, booked out the Jibs and cranes and practised in the television studio on saturday. Working through the shot lists and recreating swimmers by pushing ourselves along on a chair!

The JVC 700 Attached to the jib, this was the final setup that we decided to use for the filming in the coming weeks.

If you look closely in the screen of the JVC you can see myself on the chair pretending to be a swimmer!

AVID!

Every week I continue to work on AVID to build a better understanding of this editing platform.
Its beginning to come together and the website has proved to be a valuable resource for tips and tricks to get the best out of the software.

Below is a couple more useful links for editing regarding camera shake and motion freeze!

http://www.avid.com/US/avid-tv/MC5StabilizingShakyFootage?elq_mid=4062&elq_cid=6845073


http://www.avid.com/US/avid-tv/MC5CreatingFreezeFramesMotionClips?elq_mid=4062&elq_cid=6845073

I will be continuing to post these through the coming weeks so please check them out!