Editing = Done!

Today I had the day off because of test block and I finished all of the editing that I needed to do in order to improve the aspects of my film that Mr Andrews suggested for me in his feedback. I covered the jump shot of Steve that was obvious and I made the argument of my Terms and Conditions/Privacy Policy point clearer by adding in quotations from both the Instagram and Facebook Privacy Policies that show what these companies do with the information that people volunteer. Here is one of the shots:

The text over the shot of someone using Instagram types onto the screen. I am really happy with how this turned out because originally, I was just going to replace the shot of the phone with a screen recording of the Privacy Policy and me highlighting the particular points. I also think that this links mine and Eliza's thirds quite well as she has shots which are quite similar to this in her third. 

However, I was not able to remove the hiss from the audio of the interview with Steve. I googled a number of way to remove it and I tried every method and it either didn't work or it made his dialogue have really bad quality - it was like we had recorded it on a laptop. So I just decided that it sounds better with the hiss rather than it being terrible quality. Also, I added some shots over the top of the narrator, as Mr Andrews suggested, however I don't think it looked very good, it was a bit too much, so I decided to just leave that part the way it was.

Tomorrow after our tests are done, we are meeting up as a group to record the narrator for the other two thirds which shouldn't take very long, and we will also combine the thirds together and match our audio levels.

Feedback, Progress & the Linking of the Thirds

Today after I had finished test block, I went and saw Mr Andrews for some feedback on my film before I hand in the final on Thursday during the test block period. There are a few things that need improving:

- Remove the hiss from the audio

- Make sure that the audio levels match with the rest of the film

- Cover any jump cuts

- Place some shots over the narrator

- Make the terms and conditions point clearer

- Make sure that the colour of my third matches the rest of the film

I am going to film some quick shots to place over the top of the narrator on Wednesday after my test and I will add them on top of my narrator, and I'm also going to Google how to remove the hiss from the audio so I can also do that on Wednesday. I will be adding in some shots highlighting points in the terms and conditions of various social media sites to emphasise the fact that people need to read it (e.g. posts people make that the company now owns, selling information to third parties, etc.) and I will place these over the top of when Steve is talking. I will also be adding in some background music - I have been looking and I can't find one that fits the documentary perfectly.

Another thing that will need to be done on Wednesday is recording the dialogue of Eliza and Ashlee's thirds as Eliza currently doesn't have a narrator (making it weird since I suddenly appear in the middle third) and Ashlee is using herself as the narrator, meaning that it doesn't match.

Eliza and I are working really well together and I feel like our thirds match quite well considering the colours, etc. The only thing that could be improved with the linking of our thirds is that she could move her point of people posting anything and everything online to the end of her third as this connects with my points more effectively, which I have suggested to her.  However, Ashlee has not really been working with the rest of our group very well and the first time Eliza and I saw her third was today when we handed it in and had to put the thirds together - which she was not there for. Her third really doesn't match Eliza and I's thirds because of the lack of colour correcting, types of shots, etc. and it doesn't really link effectively with ours. I understand that it's all of our fault, not just hers,  as we all haven't communicated well as a group, but it's really difficult to fix it now and link it all together as we only have until Wednesday. With the little time that we have left, I think that she could film some quick shots to place over the top of the interview, colour correct it to make it blue, then add in the dialogue which I will record for her to to make it more cohesive.

New Dialogue

Since the dialogue that the narrator was originally saying didn't match up with the content of the interview shots, I wrote some new dialogue for the different shots of the narrator throughout the film:

1. With the dramatic rise in popularity of social media, everyday more and more teenagers are becoming increasingly public with their lives online and are posting private information, such as photos and videos of themselves, information about where they live, their full name and their date of birth, making them an easy target for cyber criminals.

2. Voiceover: A recent study found that the majority of teenagers don’t believe that posting their personal information on social media is unsafe, and nearly half of the teenagers surveyed are not worried at all about others using their personal information in ways that they do not want.

3. Steve Hackett, partnership manager at Headspace Southport, discusses the dangers and the effects of posting personal information on social media.

4. However posting about our private lives on social media is not the only thing putting us in danger. How many times have you actually read the Terms and Conditions or the Privacy Policy when creating a new social media account?

5. In order to prevent the negative effects of social media in terms of lack of privacy, what do we, as teenagers, need to consider when deciding whether or not we should post private information on social media?

6. Therefore, next time you go to post private information about your life on social media, you may want to step back and think about the implications this may have on your life.

Filming = Done!

This afternoon, I finished filming all of the shots that I needed to add into the film meaning that all of my filming (for now) is completed! All that I have left to do is find background music that suits the film and create the Video Scribe files to place over the top of the statistics. I am going to get this finished by Monday so that I have time to receive feedback form Mr Andrews early next week, when he gets back from camp, and to make any adjustments before it is due during our test block period on Thursday.

Straight after I finished filming, I also edited the rest of the film. I have made all of the shots a bit more blue to emphasise the negative tone more effectively and it is just a couple of seconds under the time limit of 3 minutes. The new shots of the narrator that I have taken aren't as good as the previous shots I had which is a bit disappointing, however, there was no way that I could have used them as they just didn't have the right dialogue for the interview. And this time I actually remembered to turn on the microphone, so I didn't have to record the audio separately and try to match it! :)

Adjustments Needed + Extra Shots

- Re-film narrator with dialogue more relevant to the interview in order to make it flow

- Close ups of someone typing on a keyboard, message chats, etc. plus extra filler shots to place over the top of the interview. Since I know what sections of the interview I am including, I need to make these shots more relevant

- Find background music that suits the documentary

- Create the Video Scribes

I will be re-filming everything that I need to this afternoon and I will edit them and add them into the documentary during tomorrow's lesson. I'm kind of glad that I have to change the dialogue because it means that I have to re-film the rest of the shots of the narrator (since they're all basically the same shot), meaning that the audio is going to match perfectly instead of having a voiceover that doesn't match 100%. I don't think filming will take too long as I know exactly what I need and most of the shots (the fillers) have a really short duration. 

Editing Progress

Today during class, I finished editing the shots that I have for my documentary so far. I had already finished editing all of the shots of the narrator and the shots of the electronics last week, so all I had to edit was the shots from the interview we did on Thursday. I do not need to get another interview as all of the points that I wanted to cover are in the interview from Thursday, plus the documentary would go over the time limit if I were to add in another one. This is a positive as I didn't think that Steve or Monica would be able to answer my questions to the extent that I wanted. The only things I need to do now are to create the Video Scribe animations to place over the top of the voiceover of the statistics, and to film a few more filler shots to place over the top of the interviews.

I will be filming these/creating these before the end of the week so that I am able to put my entire documentary together in order to show Mr Andrews for some feedback early next week. Compared to the last film assignment, I am doing quite well in terms of time management because with my last film, I was still filming just days before it was due and I edited the majority of it during the lesson we got during test block. Because of this, I have made sure that with this assignment, I edit along the way and film in advance to give me time before it is due to fix anything up.

Interviews - 16th March

During the lesson today, Steve Hackett, from Headspace, and Monica, who is the mother of a teenager who took her own life as a result of cyber bullying, joined us for an interview. We set up for the interview in the beginning of the lesson, with two cameras and two lights, and we positioned them the exact way that we wanted them so that all that we had to do when they joined us was test the audio levels. We originally scheduled our appointment for 12pm so that we would have plenty of time to set everything up, however, the interviewees rescheduled it for 12.30pm. This ended up being a good thing as it took us longer to set up with two cameras, then it had before with just one. This was because we had to position it correctly so that the power plugs in the wall could not be seen, or were less obvious. 

The interview went really well and we got some really good information from both interviewees. Steve had a more professional approach to the questions, and answered most of the questions providing both sides of the argument, however Monica had a very personal approach and just showed the negative effects, as she had been directly affected by the effects of social media in a very negative way. The interview with Monica was extremely emotional and to be honest, it was quite hard to film. However, for the purpose of the documentary, the emotion that was displayed is a good thing as it appeals to the emotions of the audience and is manipulative to convince the viewer of the argument that social media has a negative effect.

Shots of the Narrator = Completed!

This afternoon, I finished filming all of the shots of the narrator! All I need to do now is get my interviews sorted and filmed. I have edited the rest of the shots and put it all together, so I will show Mr Andrews next lesson (Thursday) for some feedback and to see where I need to improve. When shooting the narrator, I plugged in the external microphone to the camera, however, I forgot to turn it on! I had filmed a lot and I was very happy with the shots that I had taken, so I didn't exactly want to re-film it all again. I ended up edited all of the shots and recorded voice overs which are in time with the videos, but I might need to re-do them because of the quality of the microphone I used, but I will do that later on in the project as there are more important things that I need to do first, like my interviews.

Filming Progress

Yesterday afternoon, I re-filmed the close ups of the electronics at home and they look so much better than the previous shots. I filmed them with a plain black background instead of a random background, in order to contrast the dark background with the bright screen of the device. The darkness also emphasises the negative effects of social media. I wasn't happy at all with the shots I took before of the devices, especially because of the lighting and the fact that there wasn't enough of them anyway. I am much happier with the shots I took yesterday and I won't need to re-film them again. 

This afternoon, I will be filming the narrator scenes as I had too much work for other subjects to do yesterday afternoon so I didn't have enough time. I have decided that the shots of the narrator in front of the plain white wall did not look good, so I will have to decide where I am going to film in front of this afternoon. I have two options: in front of a plain black background as it looks more professional and has more meaning, or have someone in the background using a laptop or phone, as this also has meaning. This afternoon, I will be finishing all of the shots I need with the narrator and that will leave me with mostly just the interviews left to film (plus a few additional shots). I aim to have all of my shots edited and put together by the end of the week so that I'm able to show Mr Andrews for feedback. 

Notes on Documentaries + Progress

Today in class, we got a few tips on how to make our documentary more efficient and less like A Current Affair and more like a documentary.

- Documentary = more formal and authoritative

- You can make a documentary fun

- Cover up jump cuts with shots over the top, such as shots of the interviewer nodding

- Jump cuts to prove point more efficiently and to cover up when the interviewee stumbles

After school this afternoon, I am going to re-film the narrator shots as after looking through the shots I took of myself, I realised most of them were out of focus. This time I am going to ask someone at home to help me film by checking that all of the shots that I take of myself are in focus, etc. I am also going to film some more close ups of electronics.

On another note, we booked another interview for Thursday at 12pm with Steve from Headspace. We made it 12pm this time so that we have 20 minutes to set up for the interview before he arrived, giving us plenty of time to organise everything. This interview is for Eliza's third, however, a few questions from my third that relate to his role are going to be added in.

Filming the Narrator pt. 2

I filmed the narrator scenes again, this time at home and using myself as the narrator. It was much easier as I already knew all of the lines I had to say, so I didn't stumble on anything and I could keep eye contact with the camera for the entire duration of the shot, which I had originally planned. However after looking through these shots during the lesson, I realised that the majority of them were out of focus, so I will need to re-film them and get someone from home to help me make sure that they are in focus. I really need to work faster with my filming and I plan to have everything (except maybe the interviews) finished by next week so that I have time to show Mr Andrews my progress, get some feedback and re-film what I have to fix up. I am not going to leave it to the last minute last time, where we were editing basically the whole film during our test block time; I am going to have everything edited beforehand and leave that hour to edit anything minor that Mr Andrews asks me to fix, and to complete my evaluation.

Filming the Narrator

Today during class time, I filmed some of the narration scenes of my third of the documentary. This time, I went and got all of the equipment I needed straight away, to minimise the time I needed to set up so that I could film a lot during the lesson. Ashlee agreed to being the narrator so that we could film during class time, however, I feel like all of the footage I took this lesson was not valuable at all. I couldn't get the background I wanted as there was no one sitting at the tables in the middle floor of Jennifer Reeves (my original plan was to have the narrator standing in front of a group of people using social media on electronic devices), so we decided we would film in front of a blank wall. We went down to the cafeteria and did this, however it was hard for Ashlee to read the dialogue that I needed without looking back at the words. That, alongside the fact that in every shot at least one word was stumbled, meant that none of the shots were able to be used. This is really disappointing and it is a major set back. I decided that I would film myself as the narrator against a blank wall at home to see if these shots looked better. I think it is easier that I film myself (even though it's harder to get the right angle, lighting camera position, etc. when filming myself rather than another person), because I know what dialogue I have to say nearly off by heart so it means that I can have full eye contact like a planned and not stumble on any words.

During the lesson tomorrow, I plan to sort through these shots and edit what I have, as well as seeing if they are suitable. If they are not suitable, I will film on the weekend at home in front of a different background in order to make it suit the documentary better. I don't like using a plain wall as there is no meaning behind it, so I'm probably going to have to re-shoot this footage later on anyway.

Interview with Mark Pearson

Today we had our interview with Professor Mark Pearson from Griffith University for Ashlee's third of the documentary. We got a lot of useful information from him that will be very valuable for our documentary and we will be able to cut down to get some important and necessary information. He spoke a little bit on privacy so I may add some of his interview into my third too, however, it just depends on how my interviews go.

I am getting really stressed about my interviews as I have emailed all of my planned interviewees, plus backups and I still haven't heard a response from one single person. I'm going to research more credible figures to email if I do not hear a response from anyone this week and email them in the hope that they are okay with taking part in the documentary.

Setting up for the interview today was really stressful. We were told three minutes before morning tea ended that we were supposed to have Mark fill out a number of forms from Visiter's Reception and because he hadn't, we were unable to film in the Meeting Room which was booked, and had to film in the classroom with Mr Andrews present. We were then unable to set anything up before the lesson which he came in as we had a maths test beforehand, so we had to take time away from the lesson to set up the camera and the lights, as well as to position the desk, etc. This was difficult as we already had an idea of exactly what we were going to do to set up, which would have made it so much quicker and easier. However, we finally set it up and completed the successful interview.

Next time we have an interview with someone outside of school, we will definitely give ourselves a lot more time to set up than we did today. We should have asked to meet him at 12:00, giving us plenty of time to set everything up, rather than when the lesson started.

Next week, we will be filming the rest of our documentary and will be putting together a rough edit to show Mr Andrews.