Hopefully Portfolio

Client Project One! Planning lenses for initial Thursday shoot

2013-10-30T08:21:00.001-07:00

It might be a boring post, but hey, it has pictures!

Source: click here to visit page

Really want to make this effect, with a blurred background.

Booking out a Canon 7D, an Canon EF-S 60mm macro lens

and a Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens to grab something like this:

Source: click here to visit page

The plan is to shoot in Nottingham, on location, with

Rachel Man and Jing Fan as "those amazing people who agreed to help".

Equipment:

Canon 7D

Canon EF-S 60mm macro lens

Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens

Zoom H4N Portable Sound Recorder

Clip-On Mic

Photo Tripod

RT! Controversial findings

2013-10-29T05:40:00.001-07:00

So it seems that, even if I am right about YouTube and Online media domination in our region - Europe, TV advertisement and popularity grow bigger in other regions. Interesting - have to look into this! yay :)

Source: Nielsen - Global Adview Pulse Lite - Q2 2013 as seen on 30 Oct 2013

www.nielsen.com - pretty interesting source!

RT! & C3P! YouTube Creator Academy - Maximise Your Channel - 100%

2013-10-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

I'll just brag a bit :)

RT! & C3P! Silly Shorts - working on an intro/outro for the new channel.

2013-10-21T17:35:00.001-07:00

So I've been wandering for a while - creating a new YouTube Channel (which is a pain, or was, at least) and committing to regular posting there, or, trying to create content for my existing channel, but completely overhauling it from its initial goals. Which is no good. Luckily, now we have our Research Project on the way, and with me taking up a topic of content creation for YouTube - making a new channel would work best for me, my research, its artefacts and so on. Without further ado - "Silly Shorts" intro/outro evolution.

Any thoughts?! :)

CONTEXT 3 Portfolio! Inspiration One

2013-10-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

I thought it was just about time to document my inspirations. I will start with the One I found recently, but I think I am getting moved by it. A bit. Like a tree by a truck. But I love it. I never thought that this kind of film, person, life, would resonate with me so much, but "hey!".

Casey Neistat

I will never remember his name and I won't ever forget his videos.

RT! InVideo Programming on YouTube

2013-10-15T03:56:00.000-07:00

So here is an interesting thing I've learned today! InVideo Programming is an awesome feature on YouTube that lets you watermark your videos with your channel logo and suggest something like your latest video on vids across your whole channel.

YouTube InVideo Programming

http://savvysexysocial.com/

Researching Things! YouTube Space and Creators Academy

2013-10-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

Starting a year with a bang! I always wanted to make something recognizable on YouTube, but I never thought that this platform will grow so big and would actually envelop me in a full-year research project! But here we are!
The initial idea was to figure out what makes a video popular on YouTube, however now I see the picture is a lot bigger!
This week I have enrolled in a 3 week YouTube Creator Academy and found this breathtaking tour of their YouTube Creator Space! People, who where sceptical about that being serious - think again... And they say they've got one in London!

Visit Creator Academy

Happy Birthday to Half of my Life

2012-07-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

...actually a fourth, or maybe a third, but anyway, "Mažasis Genijus" is now eleven and it has been with me a while.
"Mažasis Genijus" is a company I worked for for about 5 years. Yes, It might sound weird, as you don't usually do that, right? "Microsoft" has been a part of our life's for a very long time, in some cases it has always been there (which is scary, by the way), but we don't actually celebrate a Happy Microsoft Day every year!
For me "Mažasis Genijus" is special, as it introduced me to definitions of respect, goal, fellowship, responsibility, dependability and friendship. It was the firs place I was acknowledged as a part of a team, as a partner and as a film maker. It was a place where I met many incredible people, many of them became my friends.
It isn't fair, however, to make this company solely responsible for the best times of my life. The people that brought it to life, gathered so many others around them and are still holding the flag, they are my heroes and friends, and partly, family. However, I am sure they would't mind being summarized into one proud name called "Mažasis Genijus" .

I made this clip for them.

P.s. "Su Gimtadieniu" on the cake means "With Birthday", or "Happy Birthday" in Lithuanian.

www.mgenijus.lt

Ed.

Year One Passed

2012-07-13T06:47:00.000-07:00

And so, Year one is officially passed. I am not familiar with UK's evaluation system, so I am not really sure if I am very excited about my results, however, I met our lecturer Deborah the other day and she said 66.8 is quite a good mark. So I guess I should be excited. Either way, what I know, is that I will be really excited when these marks bring other results, like a proper job, for example. So, onward, to 70% and beyond!

Actual Portfolio

2012-06-16T08:41:00.000-07:00

Just opened up a Tumblr blog with an actual portfolio of my work. Will try to keep it clean with only relevant stuff. Also made a new (wanna-be permanent) logo for my works. I'm keeping "fakeshock studio" as it might be mildly known, however I'm still leaving the "edk" thing as my personal sign. Yay ^^

Click the New Logo to jump to the Portfolio Page (Opens in a new Tab)

Thanks for your time,
Ed.

Interesting Stuff

2012-05-31T17:03:00.000-07:00

Alright, so two crazy things happened today that I am really excited about and wanted to tell you all! First, I woke up this morning, grabbed my phone, started checking the new subscriptions I got, and what I discovered was that I one of my videos was featured on an awesome channel I just love - Vsauce2.

*my video is featured at 3:57*

Then, I went on my Twitter and got this lovely message -

ryan_connolly Ryan Connolly

@EdgarKazak

Excellent job man. You have a great way of expressing yourself. I'm honored to be mentioned in your video! Well done.

It wouldn't be the biggest deal, if Ryan Connolly didn't just happen to be one of the practitioners I was talking about in my Visual Essay!

*of course it happened after I have sent him my video with a slight hope he might see it,

but he did, I'm really happy, and that, again, made me believe more into the net and its open media*

Well, that is it. Thanks guys)

Visual Essay for End of Year 2012

2012-05-25T06:57:00.001-07:00

Virtual Environments - a huge post for a my huge Secret Lair

2012-05-11T17:05:00.000-07:00

Looking back at the three projects by the end of DP2, I have to admit, that, probably, Virtual Environments one was the most enjoyable in both execution and result. And that is fairly strange, considering my next years’ chosen pathway, which is Moving Image.

The whole thing started a while back, when, at the beginning of the module, we were introduced to the goal we will have to achieve in each pathway. Knowing the briefs instantly made me think about what I wanted to make for all three of them. Of course that did not last long, as we dived into our current projects. However Virtual Environments never left my mind completely, as I expected it to be the biggest challenge, because everything there was completely new to me. I started picking up influences from the world around me and by the time it was time to crack on working, I realized, that the picture was already there, all I had to do is give it a shape.

The first unnoticeable influence came from my gaming experience earlier this year as I was playing the newest “Assassin’s Creed” game. The hero of that game, a stealthy assassin, was a very appealing figure, not only because I followed his life through all his installments, but also because of his character and how well developed he really was. From that moment I knew that my Superhero would not be an all powerful being, but a stealthy freedom fighter, who’s only superpowers would be his will to survive and his irresistible charisma. Little did I know that his made up personality would grow into a story with a fully developed past and a complicated, but intriguing future.

Other things kept building up and soon a side project I have been making for my girlfriend turned to one of the main focuses in my Virtual Environment. The “sort of” London Underground train I was building for her (yes, maybe building a train from scratch for my first 3D model was a bit too ambitious, but the result turned out to be pretty nice, so I guess that was a good call) got me into thinking about the place I wanted my hero to be in. An abandoned underground station came to mind as a great place for a stealthy character running from someone to hide. I started researching the usual layout of service rooms that appear in an ordinary underground, and it turned out that most of the service constructions underground consist of 1 big room with whatever in it. This posed a challenge, as our brief stated that we needed to create 4 rooms and to connect them in some way. To keep things realistic, I tried working my way around one available room and the idea of separating it with lights into, at least, 4 different sections struck me. It felt like a goldmine, and after some experiments I stuck with it. Creating environments in those sections caused quite a mix of emotions. I was building an average hideout with some over the top things, like 5 big widescreen monitors, as every superhero should have, but it all felt very basic and uninteresting, even thought I was very happy with the models themselves. I started adding things like books and ashtrays to populate the area when the whole image slid into place. Somehow, through these manipulations, my hero started to develop his deeper personality. He became a smoker, thus rendering him a stressed out person under a lot of pressure. I highlighted that by turning one of the ashtrays upside down and adding a shattered texture to one of the monitors, as if he threw it into the screen. Taking to the account the characters position, his environment and his looks (I was working on them too, that is how his armor and weapons got to the middle of the lair in the first place. No guns, just swords) I added specific books to his place of study. They were all strictly revolutionary or historical. That is how the background of the story slowly formed.

Speaking of a story, the last page to it was added through the characters appearance. His back was covered in glowing tubes shaped as a double-sided letter “Q”. At first it was just a decorative element, but as I started thinking about its practical use, I realized it had a huge potential. It evolved into a logo and I placed it around the environment as if stating that this was the official place of some organization, adding a huge chunk to the story, which now looked like this:

“In the future (in our future, for the character it is past) information is a “weapon” which, by the people in power, is considered too dangerous. The once mighty World Wide Web is gone, schools are being monitored and censored, knowledge flow is reduced to minimum and learning anything beyond your assigned duties is considered a highest offence and is punishable by death. Whole nations were drawn into slavery, and those who escaped that fate are either dead or brainwashed by the “flow”. Centuries have past in this state and there is less hope with every year.”

The “flow” is the liquid that passes through our hero’s body armor and weapons, and was created a few hundred years ago by the company that used this symbol as its logo.

The “flow” is an information storage device of a very high capacity. It also can transfer information with incredible speeds, using liquids molecules. When this system was invented it opened new possibilities. It could almost make people “smarter” by increasing the storage capacity and the process speed of their brain. It could also transfer commands to computers in objects with astonishing speed, reducing reaction times, even in the melee weapons, practically uniting the weapon and its user. This potential seemed either too dangerous or too revolutionary to not to seize it. It fell into powerful and greedy hands. The device was used to “brainwash” people into submission, basically replacing their memories with the ones that have been created by the new masters, overflowing the victims brain, until it cannot tell the difference between his own memories and someone else’s. With this overflow of knowledge in certain levels of hierarchy, the information flow to the whole planet was stopped, basically putting people to slaves. The people of the organization that was responsible for the “flow” were traced down and killed. Some of them escaped this fate and established bunkers where they hid knowledge and the “flow” for future generations to find. It seems that our hero found just that.

This was a huge idea, and I tried to place every single hint right where it belonged to make this at least somewhat noticeable. As my tutors told me at the end of my presentation – I succeeded. I think the whole project was a big success, well, for me. I loved every single bit of it, and even though sometimes I felt like I was going to break down, I came out empowered.

The video is at the top of the page and if you have already watched it you can run through it again and try to spot all the hints that were there for you.

Thank you and enjoy.

Ed.

Long Live Interactive

2012-05-10T12:15:00.001-07:00

It was a while since the interactive project was finished and I have been up doing all sorts of other things, from laying round reading books to working my sweat out on the 3D environments project, and now, when I have a my mind off those things I turn my head back to my interactive project and some unfinished business we still have left. The next sentences are going to put a start to my DP2 Interactive self evaluation.
The project in whole began and carried on very slowly, as if there was all the time in the world to make it. I really like the chilled out and sincere tutors we had on this module, they made me feel safe about my coding skills, which, if honestly, are next to nothing.
I tried to do my best to create my own custom layout and make the whole thing interesting, accessible and informative. I spent many days just figuring out the style I want everything to be in. At first, I had everything round up to the 80’s Miami style like the one you can see in “Starsky & Hutch” films, but soon the idea became obsolete, because, as my tutors suggested, it was too bright and old-fashioned, and it did not represent me the way I am. I wanted to disagree, but there was really no time for quarrel, and I did not start making the backgrounds or anything, so there really was nothing to lose. It had to go and I stuck with the modernistic “the less the better” approach. The only things that Miami has left was the neon tubes on my logo and a few flashy images.
When I finally go to the technical part of the website, I found myself in a weird situation, as I was almost completely unaware of how the Adobe Dreamweaver works and even with all the tutorials the things I had been planning to create were just too advanced. After a many days of struggling I had to give up another array of ideas I had in favor of something more basic but practical. I also had to scrap the code I wrote myself, as it had too many loose ends and was tough to navigate, so I took the template we were provided.
It was a disaster for me. Almost all of my ideas were gone and I had less than a week to build the website. I realized that I spent too much time on “fighting the windmills”, never actually thinking that things might just go wrong at any moment. Luckily, with me I had enough ideas to last a few more websites, so I just jumped into it.
A few sleepless nights just before the presentation and the website was done. I looked simple but attractive enough for me to feel respect for my work and the notion that I have actually done something that I like.
Nothing in this project went smoothly for me and the presentation was not an exception. I dedicated all my time to making the website and the Project Book the best I could, and I completely neglected the presentation. That was a huge mistake on my part, and when I came to do my presentation, the tutors were nice enough to present my work through my project book. I made my best effort to presenting it that way and it would have gone well, if only the next thing did not happen. For an unknown reason the computers we showed our presentations on could not open the archive I had put my files into. Even when my friend sent me all the files a few time through the email the whole thing just did not work. I was devastated, but I did not stop me from submitting my work to the drop box on the same day, so at least that helped.
Either way, this project was a good lesson to me, as I know now that you just cannot leave important things hanging, and always have a backup for your projects, whatever you are doing. From that time I returned to this project only now, tweaked it a little bit, now I am ready to show you the final result. Here are the screenshots of my finished and slightly modified website, enjoy.

Cheers, Ed.

Ideas for Interactive

2012-02-27T16:17:00.000-08:00

For some reason I am having a hard time understanding the technical issues with my wannabe-website, as, in fact, one does not yet exist :D God, I don't make sense... But here is a bit of a research on the design part of the assignment.
As I am, quite certainly, going to choose the Moving Image pathway for the following two years of study, I figured that my Portfolio Webpage would have to feature an easy interface that would quickly lead people to the films I make, their promotional and still shots, and other relevant information I have chosen these two websites as my main inspiration. Behold - RockstarGames & Chanel:

the backgrounds in this image are mixed from 4
of many backgrounds the website features

Both feature a great way of showing off their projects, their current works, main focuses, and, in Rockstars case, a social aspect. Having a distinctive style also helps with "selling the feel". As Chanel has some dynamic image change and a very conservative feel, Rockstar goes further, actually showing the concept art of their games as a background. In Rockstars website the background changes almost every time you refresh the page. In the top picture I actually mixed 4 different backgrounds, the mono-background images are below.

this is how the website looks with one of the backgrounds

I like the way Chanel keeps the most focus on its products, basically with no menus coming in the way, yet before Rockstar shows their projects in detail, they do an astonishing job showing of their best of their many titles. The following images show a brilliant video section of Rockstars website and its amazing feature that makes watching videos a great experience.

when the LIGHTS options is pressed the whole screen is
being covered in black, unlike on this shot, as I wanted to show the contrast

The video viewing is enhanced by two options that are as white squares on the black background. LIGHTS and 720 are two great options, one of which enables and HD mode for the video and the other one dims the website so that the content can be viewed with no distractions.

With those things in mind I've made a few sketches of my vision. My first idea was to create something different to the standard model, placing everything in the middle of the screen and making it pop-up as pressed. It is a bit too ambitious and I am not convinced I could come up with the code that would make it pop out, but never the less here it is:

as a window (as VIDS here) is being
pressed it jumps out & covers the rest

The second idea is a bit more basic. It features the menu system from Chanel and a product showreel of Rockstar Games website. Maybe I could even get my hand on the LIGHTS and 720 options for my videos.

this is a bit of a variation of the previous FILMS page

Well, here they are. Now, to get some technical skills on Dreamweaver, as I am not even remotely sure how to do all of this. Quite unfortunate. But since this is mostly out of the way, I might crack on with the technical part.

Thanks for reading this far guys. Have a good, whatever the time...

National Media Museum & a bit about Visual Essay

2012-02-23T09:42:00.000-08:00

15/02/12

National Media Museum? MONKEYS! Well, also elephants, 3D, "Outposts" and a Dalek. That is what the National Media Museum in Bradford is all about. BOOM! Cute little baby monkey!
Alright, to be fare I did not expect anything particular out of this trip. A bit more, well, a lot more stuff to read I guess. The fact that we had to find 3 practitioners there now sounds even more unrealistic than before as the place had hardly any. With that said I definitely think it is still a great site to visit. I thought the place is great for what it was, probably, created for. It introduces people to the media industry without going into huge details. It hooks up young minds and just makes them want to be film makers, animators and/or TV producers. In fact there were a lot of children there when we visited and it made it quite stressful to get around and find what you need. I do love children though, and so, in order to make the most of our trip, some of us left the building for an hour, and, since we all were very hungry, we went to a restaurant, ate, returned, and what do you know, the place is pretty much free. Great. Unfortunately some time was lost and we had to make haste. That was the time I realized there were more things to consider looking at. Cinema research labs and TV booths where you could book an old TV program and watch it on your own or with a friend. Unfortunately it would take a lot of time so I had to pass. Either way, we've already been to the IMAX to see monkeys and elephants, and boy oh boy, was that great. And I took some 30 minutes to watch commercials on a small screen in the TV section. After all, one of the ideas for my VE was to do something with commercials.
The museum turned out to be a pretty interesting and engaging experience, but my job was to find some practitioners for my Visual Essay. I found three. Two were had interesting ideas I might use and the other one had an interesting visual style:

First it was Donovan Wylie, a photographer that had his own exhibition. There I found a video of him talking about the "Outposts" project (photographs & video are at the bottom, number 1). At the beginning of his talk Donovan talks of his fascination with the power of the visual aspect, how fortifications are built not to last in the fight, but to prevent from attacking (that's what I thought it was). I might not use him as a practitioner in my Visual Essay, but I'm certain I will use his idea as one of the bases for my project.

Second was Daniel Meadows, who also had an exhibition of his early works. I liked his visual style, the vibrant colors that were present in the pictures he made (the ones that were in color of course) (photographs are at the bottom, number 2). http://www.photobus.co.uk/?id=1 was his early project and attracted my attention. It seems that it was doing something for the people of his generation what the internet is doing for us today - a chance to express ourselves. I might be wrong, but I will look up his photographic style and his early project and maybe I will find something.

The third person that interested me was Bill Kroyer. He was quoted on the wall of the animation section next to a shot form "Tron" (1982). It stated - "If you can't make it good, make it loud and fast". As I found out Bill was actually in charge of the storyboard production (later I found out he was unofficially a visual effects animator) for "Tron" (1982). With that said I found our, in the same animation section, that the film was a commercial disaster. Quite weird as it was the first film with actual computer graphics and even had a sequel after "Tron: Legacy" (2010). Further more - I really liked both of them. Keeping that in mind I am interested if Kroyer was speaking ironically, because "Tron" (1982) is quite an action film, or was it something else. Still, for me, that is a great idea to base my VE on, as "loud and fast" movies are now all over the place and some of them are really good both in visuals and story, and everything else. So I am going to look forward into Bill Kroyer, as he was a Visual Effects Animator, Animator, Writer and Film director. I like his idea, and maybe I will go from there. (photographs are at the bottom, number 3).

I didn't learn a lot form the museum itself but it definitely gave my VE progress a push. I will start from there and we'll see where it goes.
Thank you for your time, Ed.

Moodboard for Interactive

2012-02-18T08:30:00.001-08:00

This is a so called "Moodboard" I created for my Interactive assignment. This collage represents the colors and fonts I like and prefer, the style that makes me comfortable and makes me feel like I want to feel, and how I want people to feel when they visit my Portfolio Website. Probably the main theme here is the colorful sunny warm feel of the 1980's Florida. This is a very nostalgic theme as it brings out pleasant memories to people of almost all ages. For ones its the time when they actually lived, for the others it is the movies as "Starsky & Hutch" and/or "Miamy Vice", and for my generation it is usually an epic video game, the favorite of many - "Grand Theft Auto Vice City", that made many young people to fall in love with 80's theme, style and music. Even if we forget the theme and just pay attention to the fonts, colors and style then we are still left with a warming feeling of a yellow and red morning sun and the cool, smooth ocean blue. Straight lines, silhouettes and a modesty in the number of colors used but no restrictions in the different types of the same color (if I make sense :D). There are also big bulky and curvy fonts with purple stripes all around. Awesome.

I love it, to say the least, and I am very excited to see how the website is going to turn up.

Thanks for reading this, guys, have a great weekend, or whenever you are reading this,

"Clowning Around" edit by Edgar Kazak

2012-02-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

And here it is, the final project. The result. Check it out and tell me what you think.

The top version is a YouTube player and the bottom one is Vimeo.

Thank you for your time,
Ed

DP2 film project - entry three - The edit

2012-02-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

I started editing right away without deleting the footage I thought I will not net, as it proved in the end, even thought I checked the shots I thought I need it turned out that there were many other things to add, so I added as soon as the need came up. Thought this was not just a head-straight jump into action, I made some crucial data management regarding my folders and their lay-out. Those were not the only obstacles I have overcome. The next images show the highlights of my progress highlights:

Data management:

Problem detection & solving

1st draft project file, quite messy

Final project file, organised & easy to navigate

After Effects post-production

Final cuts:

The white highlight you can see in the second picture represent where I made the crucial cuts I made to the edit.

Font research:

Berlin Sans FB Demi
Giddyup Std

Century Gothic

Jokerman
Cooper Std Black
Kristen ITC

Curlz Mt

Rosewood Std Regul
Forte

Script MT Bold - this was eventually chosen.

Thank you for getting to this point,

Ed.

DP2 film project - entry two - On set

2012-02-16T16:38:00.000-08:00

These 3 days of filming were fast but, i must say, quite stressful. Not because of the crew or the equipment, but mostly because I felt that I'm failing to achieve the amount of quality I assumed I can achieve, and the lack of control over the situation drove me crazy. However, believe me, I think we did great.
First, the things that were redone, improved and had a result on, or just before the filming:

New storyboard:

Costume match:

Drawings by Jasmine Leung, Top picture -
http://tvlistings.zap2it.com/tv/dexters-laboratory/photo-gallery-detail/EP00176555/296553

Character Bios:

Karen – a young housewife with her husband Brian and three children. Karen is the only one who works in their family as Brian struggles to get some money now and then. Even thought she has not the best payed job in the world they seem to have everything they need. It is due to Karens parents who generously donate maney to their family. Karen was in a relationship with a character named Tommy but left him for Brian because, even thought she sometimes thinks he is useless, she likes him, and care for him. And they have got kids. Although sometimes Karen is a bit tricky to understand as she sees no crime in having an affair.

Brian – an unsuccessful, weak willed actor, father of three in a young age. Back in high school he had a friend called Tommy and both fancied a girl called Karen. Later Brian and Karen became a couple but after a month he found her in Tommy’s arms. Friendship ended, rivalry began. Karen switched sides a few more times as she liked Tommy’s confidence but at the same time Brian always cared for her… At least till she became pregnant when they were in the college. And then the wedding.

Tommy – a self-employed actor for kids parties. Cocky, does not care about anything or anyone. Likes to show that he is a powerful person, but when in an actual fight tends look for a compromise, because is afraid of being beat up.

The Policeman – smart looking guy. Maybe not going to be a high rank officer, but sure knows his way around women. He is sarcastic, into fun and one night stands are his specialty. Also very confident and wears a uniform – exactly what Karen was looking for. Just for a bit. While Brian gets his things together.

And now to filming days:

These days were fun, interesting and educating. As our tutors warned us many things were changed on the set, many shots were removed and lines added. We also required an extra day for our shoot but expecting that we had already booked the equipment for an extra day and our location was given to us for whole four days of testing and filming.

I got up early every morning and went to sleep late the following night as I was planning the next day. As a director I learned a lot on my mistakes, as I wasn’t prepared properly for the second shooting day without a proper shooting schedule and so that day turned out to be a stressful nightmare for my whole crew. However day three was fast and smooth as I had a whole schedule prepared the night before and even the fact that my assistant Phagun Shah and our “Sound guy” Nima Hedayati had to be late for the shoot we had no trouble shooting the scenes.

In terms of having an assistant director in such a small group there were a few things we had to overcome. We have managed to get two actors out of four but unfortunately our contact, who we got in touch with in order to get actor for our film had left us with no response after a few interactions. He also had other people who agreed to participate in the filming process but they were forced to quit at the last moment due to person issues. We had to improvise and I was chosen to play Brian - the main male character. I thought directing on its own would be a challenge and this seemed a bit unreal, but nevertheless, I decided to give it a go as we had no other options.

I had to split my focus in two so that I would not lose control of the situation and also keep the character I was playing as believable as I could get him. I kept on top of most of the things - the crew, actors, location. Assistant director kept control of breaks and sometimes I the shooting process, and saying “it’s a rap” in the end of every shooting day. In fact Phagun took over the filming of the second day as it was a bit of a mess and I had to keep my focus on the actors and my own acting as my assistant took care of the camera, silence on set and the schedule. Off course every time she had a hard time with the misbehaving crew or her own nerves (yes, day two was a nightmare) I took full control of the situation.

The most important things I learned on those days as a Director were that keep your management up-to-date, keep your crew happy and warm (as long as you are not paying them :D) and It is always better to stop, think, and, even if everyone else around you are whining, be The Director, say - “ok, now everyone is going home and we are reshooting this tomorrow” – because there is no need to have bad footage and unhappy crew.

This is the end of the second part of our filming of "Clowning Around". Next thing - editing.

Thanks for reading this far,

DP2 film project - entry one - Pre-production

2012-01-31T17:44:00.000-08:00

It has been a few weeks since we were presented with the script on a film we were going to shoot and since then our group has done quite a lot of pre-production.
Without delay we started working on our project by assigning roles we wanted to have in the production of our short or the ones we thought suited some of the crew the best. And so, after a short discussion - our crew:

(positions colored like this became needed and were established on the filming days)

Alex - Producer
Phagun - Producer Assistant, Director's assistant
Edgar (me) - Director, Actor
Kamil - Director of Photography
Nima - Sound & Audio
Kieran - Lighting, Actor
Jasmine & Jing - Costumes, Makeup, Props, Camera Assistant

After we went on and started planing what is going to be done. All we knew was our own experience from DP1 and what we want to have as an end project.
We met the following tuesday and the guys started trimming the scipt to the size and content we needed. Unfortunately I couldn't help them at first because I had to solve some personal problems. When I turned up a few hours later there already was a a draft or a storyboard and shots we wanted and a fairly trimmed script. With that done I went to the Student Unions office and got a Drama Societies heads contacts so that we could find actors for our film. Unfortunately, even though we did contact them, talked on the phone even, they did not reply to our email and ignored our calls further on. The good side is, that so far, this was the only downfall we had. Later that day we paid a visit to a location Jing proposed as our filming site. She made a whole arrangement for us to come and see the place her friend rented. And I must say it was a great place, but unfortunately we needed something a bit different, more of a house than an apartment. At that point we realised we want something home-like and more of a blank canvas so we could put more of whatever we wanted there rather than removing everything that could be in our way. We decided that everyone who thinks he knows a place that would suit the cause will post photographs of it on our facebook.com group that we started to communicate and share our ideas.

Storyboard draft by Nima Hedayati, day TWO:

Location suggestions, day TWO:

Day three, which was wednesday (must say, work went fast the first week), to me, was a great example of determination shown by my frew. On the day before we were thinking that probably we've made enough progress already and, since we were still having a film lecture on thursday, we could make a little break. However, to my surprise, there were not many refusals after I've put through a thought that we should, in fact, not wait and meet up on our free day and maybe go even further. And so, wednesday, we were all a Phaguns place. Trimming, timing the sript, contacting the drama society, finding most of our costumes, bookijg tye equipment - all that was done in that one day. With this progress we thought we are going to start shooting in a few days. But on Friday lectures are plans have been heavily changed.

Script changes, day THREE:

Costumes, day THREE:

Friday was the day we knew that there were so many other "legal" things we had to do before we even start filming, such as: location visit and risk assesment on location, call sheets, storyboards and location release forms. By that point, just a week after we got the the assigment, we already have booked the equipment, planed a location visit and ect. The only thing we didn't have, and unfirtunately didn't have till the day of tge shoot itself. Everything else was there, but sinse we had so many documents to fill, the group decided to postpone the shooting till next weeks weekend, get everything signed, test the equipment and overall get everything right. The following next went a bit slower, with me developing a storyboard and cutting the script to scenes. Everyone was doing their research on their own and basically that was how the whole week went. With a little diversity as shooting days change (to Monday and Tuesday), and an exciting lighting tutorial on Fridays lecture. This is the first segment of the three-part coverage of our DP1 film project. Pre-production done, now - shooting...

To be continued...
Ed.

THRESHOLD CONCEPTS - interactivity

2012-01-26T20:53:00.000-08:00

Task1:
Write down all the elements you as a viewer need to enjoy a film?

I enjoy a sense of thrill and emersiveness very much.
Unlike many other viewers I don't enjoy open endings. Conclusion is crucial for a good film to be good. I can cope with it being slightly open so that you could guess the ending of some back-story. It is something like a conclusive ending but still giving you a bit to think about.
A character that I can relate to, or a believable one who could make me fell his emotions as my own.
Visuals are a very powerful tool so I expect a good movie having great visual style. Not the CGI or stunts, but the artistic style of it: distinctive colors, props, etc.
A story with twists and turns. Its hard to enjoy a story without a getting a thrill of whats going to happen next.

Task2:

Devise a plot that tries to introduce these elements through a series of scenes. Come up with

four scenes minimum

What storytelling techniques would you need to employ to get the sense of enjoyment if you can't

determine how the user experiences the scenes?

How much control do you retain? How much do you give away?

One of my old ideas. The film would be based in the first years of 2000's somewhere in Mid. or Eastern Europe when many lives have just been ruined and some just established by recessions and constant change of governments. People knew a lot about the worlds newest technologies but not many had them in their homes, so eye to eye interactions were the main method of communication. Sorry for saying this as if these parts of the Western World were in the dark ages at those times, but I just want you to imagine the grey-ish, brown-ish colors of the indoors and the bright green, blue and gold of the outdoors. Yet not in this first scene.

Scene one is a slow-motion scene of a young man falling. All you see is him and the sky. His face is pale and there is no emotion whatsoever. The voice-over, which is his voice, explains a situation as highly depressing and quite bad. He invites us to look onto some moments of his life to explain the whole falling situation.

Scene two is a prequel to scene one and shows him arguing with his single mom on very high tones and what it tells us that he is being oppressed with no good reason. She blames him with everything there is to blame.

Scene three is him explaining something to his friend very persuasively, but the lad will not listen. There might be a back-plot to this story because you can shift the last two scene and the following one around, maybe making it all interactive, putting some explanations that are presented in a form of the first scene.

Scene four would be of him and his girlfriend talking, trying to figure things out but it obviously doesn't work out and she leaves. Again, this can be turned into an interactive experience because all these people could be presented as his last resort, the last ones he could trust. The main thing is that however you change their place, there is no way you can affect the main plot, which is...

Scene five is him making a conclusion of everything that we saw and basically ending his own life by falling to his death... But thats what the viewer thinks. He is not actually a pushed around emo kid. The next image we see is the water and a body that drops in it. We can see someone swimming to the sunlight and then we see him on the surface smiling. All those people are around him, in appropriate places of course (like his Mom and his girlfriend both with him in the lake all wearing clothes is a bit less believable.)

Scene six is when he explains his views on the world. He says that (depending on what happened in the prequels) he is being forgiving or the people are forgiving him... blah blah, he understood the meaning of life. Something like that... Sunshine, love and credits.

I do love happy endings.

As of directors control, this would be a movie a person creates for himself (if its interactive) but there surely would be a central path to always refer to.

Thank you for reading this far, have a great day,

Cheers.

Ed.

P.s. Sorry for the layout, Bloggers' been buggy lately.

Narrative and Authenticity

2012-01-19T19:57:00.000-08:00

As most of the discussions, in which many participants are Doctors or Professors who speak their own "language", this one, for me, had little or no consensus.
The talk went mostly about the authenticity and how can one achieve or measure it. The points were that narrators telling their stories often lie to make their story more attractive or suitable for the audience. Others called it adaptation to the situation, your surroundings in your present because you cannot fully relate to the experiences you had in the past, just because it is the past, and now the situation is different. One very interesting point stated that in religion, or how it was said, culture, repetition is a key element, thus repeating your story from time to time changes your feel of it, changes its narrative, because you yourself have changed. And that is not lying.
Changing of one and not being able to sum up your own narrative, as see your whole authentic self, would be, kind of, impossible, because for that you will have to die and look back on your own life, were the only ideas that came to some conclusion.
I liked the idea that said - being authentic, does not mean being different form others. All began with the discussion of notion of culture that actually shaped us and gave us words to express our narrative in the first place, thus, already, giving us all the same base to start with, then went to the idea that we often chose the same paths, and then again many end up with their own thoughts, ideas and feelings, all of it excludes lying, and turns it into referring to someones' experiences as our own. But is it a lie if people actually had same, or very similar experience?
There were many interesting ideas in this discussion, and to many of them I can relate. In fact, all of those I can relate to I have already described earlier. I guess you remember only something similar to your own thoughts. I do believe most of the people in this world are authentic and the stories they tell too. Unfortunately all of them tend to catch a noticeable amount of foreign influence, but some just are better of putting them through as their own (with no intention whatsoever), though we all are in danger of changing our stories according to the audience. When speaking about stories changing from time to time, I think, it is a normal process of growing, rethinking and reacting to the present situation, and does not damage your authenticity in any way.

P.S.
I have to say, I am writing this just after hearing this discussion, and this is a hell of a job remembering everything, but, yeah... here we go. Thanks for reading this far,
Cheers,
Ed.

Superhero School - Animation

2011-12-07T22:42:00.001-08:00

   Superhero School is a 30-seconds animation I've made. Enjoy


This animation was born as an idea the very moment I heard that we are going to have to use still images for our animation project and put them into, what had to seem as, 3D space. The pictures were made without my presence, but it didn't effect my ambitions much. I knew I wanted to do something like this and I carried on.
I've done some After Effects animations using still images before, here is a playlist of some examples:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF8D7FE1105D3F241&feature=plcp

In this animation I wanted to do something new, and I set out to do limb animation to make some movements more believable. The firs time you see it in the video at 00:04 and you can clearly see how girls arms and legs move as if she is trying to balance her self upon falling. This is an enhanced version and I've made a draft some time ago to show people where I want things to be in the Master edit. Here is the Draft version:



Funny, but the biggest struggle in this animation I had was with the soundtrack.(http://ccmixter.org/files/wired/91)
I wanted it to be spot on, but it just wouldn't fit. And I had to use it, it was part of the assignment. So I've made some tweaks to it, changing to a faster speed and a lower pitch, adding some effects on Adobe Soundbooth, to make it "spicier" and here it was, a version I thought might work. Adding some addional sound clips did the job nicely,
The other thing was the background for the last scene. It was hard to compile everything I needed for it to look at least good. A lot of work in Adobe Photoshop. Custom signs for the school on the walls and gates to sell the look of an expensive, sort of X-men themed, mansion.
I had a lot of fun working on this one, and put a lot of effort to make it look as it looks. I would go back and fix some timing issues and work more on some VFX for them to look crispier. But overall I'm very pleased with the result, and, judging from the feedback I got, so are the viewers.

Thank you very much for reading all this,
Ed.

P.S. Here is a clip of the very first animation I've made a few years ago. Lots of Photoshop and a little AE animation:

"The Shoe Case" or "Shoe Done It"

2011-12-07T20:06:00.001-08:00

Here we go. My edit of our "Shoe Done it" film project is here. Ladies and gentlemen -
Funky music, vivid colours and some computer graphics - this is "The Shoe Case"

This creation started in a group of six people and the agreement on the choice of the genre we wanted to shoot in was achieve fairly quickly. The genre of Comedy was interesting, challenging and unique, in comparison with the choice other groups have made.
The story had to have a girl that lost a shoe and a police officer. We decided to introduce two detectives and curve the story around them. That was how Detectives Cole and Kopowski were born. Although I had ideas of my own and even wrote a script featuring other characters and a slightly different story ( this is the script http://edgarkazaksecond.blogspot.com/2011/11/little-red-robin-hood-or-shoe-done-it.html) we chose to stick with the 70's, 80's "Good Cop, Bad Cop" style. We also had some other things to be included in the film:

1. An interview with a witness in a location in or near the Arboretum
2. An establishing shot, a long shot, a mid-shot and a close- up shot of the interviewee.
3. A range of appropriate shots for the flashback.
4. A flashback, depicting what the witness saw.
5. A graphic showing the interviewees name
6. A graphic showing a map showing the location of the witness and the scene.

We had a rough storyline, just a glimpse of what we had to do. That was because we decided to shoot the film with an improvisational manner. That, in my opinion, happened because we didn't have a leading person, or a consensus on what exactly we want to do. Everyone wanted something of their own in the film. I had my own thoughts and introduced some storyboards and script additions and/or alterations, too. Luckily for us, comedy is a fairly flexible genre and we had a fair material to work with in the end. Unfortunately, due to a hectic timetable and "not planned out" shooting days we missed a lot of opportunities to capture good shots and camera angles. This was and stays my biggest concern. I wish I had been more persuasive in terms of pushing my own ideas forward and more demanding in terms of keeping the team up to pace. After all we all were responsible, and my fault was that I couldn't provide the right explanation of things I had to say. This was a good lesson for me.
Although the filming experience didn't live up to my expectations (I did't really get a chance to do any technical things, but that was generally because I was always one the other side of the camera. ) I was really looking forward to editing the film. I did a whole bunch of editing in the past years so I was aware of the fact that no matter how bad the material is (our material turned out to be way better than I expected, and here I am very thankful to Kalab Khaliq, Jasmine Leung & Kamil Manysiak. I should have had more faith in my team. Sorry.), you can edit it into a great video. The pieces fell together quite well and the core script worked pretty good. The biggest challenge, however, turned out to be turning it into the 70's, 80's themed film. The right music, colours and fonts were crucial. Here is the video that sums up all my research and choices:

The music I used:
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/435837
and
http://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/411826
was a great addition to the film and really gave it a great 70's and 80's feel. I tried to do the same with the visual portion of the film and I was successful in the most part. Though not everything was achieved. I failed to implement the transactions popular in those days. Although the classic "CUT" was pretty helpful, the other, "fancy" transactions just didn't fit for me, and I abandoned the idea. The colour correction nearly suffered the same fate, but I found a way around the problems and was very happy about it. I thought that correcting colour in Adobe Premiere was a very tough thing to do because it had less control. But the problem was that when I tried to do it in After Effects, it was even less controllable, thanks to the live convertion to Premiers sequence line. I had to turn the editing program off and try to do edit the colours in After Effects separately, but it would include a lot of transferring and rendering, so this option soon became obsolete. Everything was close to falling apart, nut I discovered that CS5 version of Premiere had a great feature - layer blending (previous versions like 0.7 and CS3 didn't have this option). And so I added a Ramp effect, added some funky purple and orange, reduced opacity to 34% and turned on the Overlay and it was done. I used the same technique for the title and credits backgrounds, only without blending and with some animation to the key frames, so that colours would switch places.
My last concern was that we didn't add a "graphic showing a map showing the location of the witness and the scene" in our film. Here I did something I've tried before once, but it was still high tech. Here is the clip I made before showing a compilation of completely different scenes in one. Here is the guy entering the room. He isn't actually entering a room but a dark corridor and from outside the house. The other shot is him entering a room with the girl but from a poorly lit corridor. The goal was to combine it together so that it looks like he is entering a room from outside the house. It uses a lot of AE motion tracking, layering, masking and colour correction:

I used the same techniques on "The Shoe Case" and inserted a map of Arboretum with a red "X" on it onto the wall of Detective Kopowskis office. You can see it 00:08 and appears again in 03:34.
After that the film was done and I was more then happy with it, and still am. A classy soundtrack, colours, some cheeky edit to spice up the comedy and here we go, a nice short film about shoe theft.
In the future I would definitely try to make most of the pre-production and try to be more involved into the filming from behind the camera. I would love to do that. I like this edit but there are some "bugs" to fix, such as fast cuts of music and the titles that appear too early. Also some colour correction where the map is inserted to make it more believable. Some cuts in the video were too jumpy ( the main concern of people giving me feedback) and I am sure I can fix that. But overall I like what I see, and I hope it will continue being an enjoyable thing to watch.

Thank you for reading this far,
Ed.