AICE Media Studies

Sound effect in the edit page      Sound effects are an important part of this opening sequence. First, I had to acquire the audio files for these sound effects. I decided that it would be best to record the sound effects myself. One of the sound effects is a knife falling on the floor. I used my phone to record in my kitchen and dropped a knife some distance away. This is because in the film the sound source is in a separate room from the subject, so I wanted to make it sound like the knife was distant. In a similar manner, I recorded the sound of me knocking on a window from the exterior, while my phone was inside. I had already recorded the sound of the microwave going off on set. I then, similarly to how I uploaded the footage, plugged in my phone to my computer and transferred the files onto it. I then uploaded the videos into the media pool in Resolve.      First, I had to convert these videos into audio files. I did this by dragging the videos into t...

     Shot with zoom blur effect Simple visual effects can add a lot to the quality of a film. To add visual effects, I simply opened the effects sub-menu on the edit page. I will not be using the fusion page for these effects, since I will not be making any custom effects for this project. I instead used a combination of the default effects that I could find in the menu, and adjusted the parameters of each of the effects to my liking. To apply an effect, I simply drag the effect from the sub-menu onto a shot in the editing interface. I then open the inspector and navigate to the effects tab on the shot. From there I am able to enable/disable effects, as well as configure the settings for each. One effect that I used was the camera shake effect. As things start to get increasingly paranormal, I used a subtle screen shake to emphasize the unstable nature of the scene. The screen shake isn’t particularly noticeable when first viewing the film, but it adds a lot to the tensio...

      Fusion page in DaVinci Resolve      Using titles in Davinci Resolve is something I have never done before, so I did some research before starting. I naturally turned to YouTube and picked up the basics rather quickly. However, I felt that 2d titles on a screen would be quite plain, so I tried to challenge myself to create 3 dimensional titles that are fixed within space. To see if such a thing is even possible using Resolve, I did some research and found that it is indeed possible using the fusion tab in resolve. Fusion in Resolve is a node based vfx tool, which means the image is passed through a series of nodes before reaching the output. The main node that I would use is called the planar tracker. To use this, I first had to attach the node to the input. I then had to draw a rectangle on the surface I would like to track from a reference frame I set; the surface that is being tracked can be almost anything. I just had to make sure that the rectangl...

     Color tab in Davinci Resolve      The next thing I did was to color grade all the shots, using the color tab in DaVinci Resolve. I had to watch a YouTube tutorial on how to use the color tab in DaVinci Resolve, as I had forgotten some things since the music video project. I also did research on suspense color grades in order to get a sense for how I would like the opening sequence to look like. Once I found a reference image I was happy with, I pulled it up on my second monitor and opened Resolve. First, I had to do some basic color corrections. I went through each shot and adjusted the white balance, contrast, and saturation. Although I tried to get the white balance right during the filming process, a few of the shots had the white balance too warm, so I had to correct for that. I wanted the color to change throughout the opening sequence to emphasize the strangeness of what is going to the audience. I therefore chose to keep the first couple of shot...

           I was the editor for this project. As soon as I got home from filming, I began transferring the footage onto my external SSD. Having refined the technique from previous projects, I was able to do this successfully on my first try despite its finicky nature. I plugged in my phone via USB cable to my computer, and copy-pasted the files into a folder on my SSD. This process took around 20 minutes, due to the large file size of the footage. The editing program I decided to use was DaVinci Resolve. This was because I had a very good experience with it for the music video project, as it has a whole suite of features available for free. A professional editing software, audio editor, and color editor all built into one application. I created a new project and configured the settings. These settings remained mostly unchanged from the music video, 1080p resolution at 24fps. I then transferred all the footage into the media pool, and organized it all i...

          I filmed many of the shots, however the majority were filmed by Nirmala. The shots I filmed were the kitchen scene, and some of the outside shots. I provided input throughout the filming process and helped by holding the adjustable lamps I had brought. Whenever Nirmala was filming, I was always looking at the iPad to provide feedback as well as remotely adjusting exposure, etc. Using the iPad for this purpose proved quite practical, especially when the camera was placed in an awkward position (as shown in image). This significantly streamlined the filming process. We never had to use the tripod I had brought, since the shots were stable enough using the camera app’s stabilization feature. Also, the fact that the tripod was broken made it quite difficult to work with, so we decided to simply not use it. I made sure to plug in my phone into my power bank any time we took a quick break, just to make sure the battery wouldn’t run out. I suggested to m...

     For filming, we decided to film at Nirmala’s house on the 9th of February. We fortunately did not have conflicting schedules, and everyone was able to show up as planned. I had suggested we start filming at around 3pm to ensure that we would have enough sunlight.  I managed all things regarding configuring technology that we used, including my phone as the camera. I made sure that the proper settings were used for the camera and set up the wireless control via the iPad. I adjusted the exposure, white balance, and focus for each of the shots. I did this because I had prior experience using the app for the music video project. This process proved time consuming, as it required multiple button presses for each shot. However, I felt that the resulting footage was worth the effort. I was the one that had to deal with technical difficulties with the technology we had used. For instance, we originally planned to connect iPad to the camera via a hotspot on my phone (the...

Filming Preparations I took numerous steps in preparing for the filming date. First, I had to reconfigure some of the settings in my camera application. I made sure to that the resolution was 1080p, and that I was using the proper codec. Since my phone was running low on storage, I had to delete the footage from my previous projects and also delete some applications that I haven’t really used. This is because the codec I decided to use, apple prores422HQ, takes up significant storage. The main reason I decided to reuse this codec was because, despite its size, it has very good image quality and editing performance. I also decided that I would use my iPad as a way to remote control and monitor the camera. After some research, I learned how to pair an iPad to a recording device via local Wi-Fi. This allows another person to be able to monitor and adjust settings, while the other is physically holding the camera. This makes it easier to make adjustments and monitor the camera, since the s...