Profile Project Progress

Over the past few weeks, my G.T. class has been working on a Profile Project (which is basically an interview) for Hiki No. We got to pick our groups and who we interviewed. My group decided to interview Jack Leonard, the head coach at Kauai Gymnastics Academy. We chose to interview him because our project is called "Elder Words of Wisdom", so since he is older than us and has influenced a ton of people throughout his career, we thought it would be interesting to learn about him and his coaching career. During the interview,  Coach Jack taught us to "train without regret to perform without doubt, and to never let yourself down, if you got second, you didn't lose first you won second". Keeping these Words of Wisdom in mind, Jack Leonard coached an Olympic gymnast and has helped other gymnasts reach for the stars. We interviewed him just before gymnastic class started on February 14 at the Kauai Gymnastics Academy. A few days after the interview, we shot the B-Rolls. We got footage of gymnasts doing flips of all sort, on the bars, floor, and balance beam. We also got some shots of Coach Jack spotting someone, same with the other coaches that were there. We got the B-Roll footage on February 26 at Kauai Gymnastics Academy. Finally, we had to do the voice overs, which was done by Mia Ricciardi (she's in my group).

Our B-Rolls and Voice overs were difficult to do. There were a lot of technical things we had to be aware of. When filming B-Rolls, we had to make sure there was no camera movement, which means that we couldn't pan on someone doing a trick. Also, we wanted to try to get natural sounds of the bars squeaking, someone making a thud on the beam or floor, etc. So, we couldn't really talk around the camera, which was hard because Gabby and I laugh at literally EVERYTHING! Mia was doing gymnastics so she couldn't help us with much of that. Another thing we had to be aware of is the focus of the camera, if the footage we got wasn't focused we couldn't use it. The voice-overs were also very technical, to do the voice-overs we had to use wireless microphones. Using the microphones, we had to make sure they were working properly, which means that they had to pickup only the person in the voice over's voice. we also had to make make sure the camera was working properly too. To have the camera pick up the person's voice, we had to make sure that the other part of the mic pack was "communicating" to the camera. Even though there was a lot of things we had to watch out for, I had a lot of fun doing it.

To work together better than we already are, we could communicate more, and let everyone help and do an equal amount of work. This means, we could've planned ahead for filming time. I had probably a day's notice to tell my mom about filming. Also, I felt that one person wasn't doing anything to help, while another was doing most of the work. We weren't communicating as much as we should've. Other than these few problems, I feel that my group worked together good! 

Other than the problems with my group, our video has some problems. For example, our audio could be improved by slowing down the voice-overs and using more natural sounds. Also, we could've got more sequencing; we had to use some final cut pro secrets to help get the sequence of some shots, but that just made the quality low definition. I think that if we fix these small problems our video will go from good to GREAT!

Composition Techniques

Composition techniques are a way photographers and filmers make their story interesting. They bring personality to the subject, and make it interesting for the viewer. There are about 14 composition techniques. The main four techniques are Rule of Thirds, Framing, Unusual Angles, and Leading Lines. Rule of Thirds is when the image is not centered and more off to the side, to use Rule of Thirds, cameras usually have 3 horizontal and vertical lines to help you position your subject/camera. Framing is using natural surroundings to give more meaning to your subject, this could include bushes, trees, or even a doorway. Unusual Angles allows you to see a picture or video from another point of view, like an ant’s point or a birds eye view, this technique gives a lot of personality to the image. Leading Lines are used to lure the viewers eyes to a deeper part of the image or the important subject of the image using lines from objects around us; these lines include roads, fences, branches, etc.

Three Shot Sequences

In filming, Filmer's use a technique called Three Shot Sequences. This technique gives interest to the viewer when watching the film while visually describing the action. It is what gives different shots of the subject. The different shots are: Wide, Medium, and Close-up/ Extreme Close-up. A wide shot is a view of the entire area the subject is in, showing the background, what is next to the subject, and the subject itself. Medium shots don't show as much as a wide shot, although  it still shows a little bit of what is happening around the subject. A close-up is basically just showing the subject from only the area that the action is occurring in. Extreme close-up's are just another way of showing a close-up, but more zoomed on the actual action; this gives the viewer more detail of the action, it lets the viewer feel what is happening. The Three Shot Sequence technique is used in pretty much every film. Below is an example of what Three Shot Sequencing looks like.

Practice Story Reflection

Throughout this past week, my Gifted and Talented class has been working on a practice interview story. We wrote a transcript, filmed what had to be filmed, and then edited it all together. Our interview was called "Gabby likes dancing" it was about how my classmate, Gabby Mahoney, started dancing and how she feels about it. To start this project, we filled out our transcript. The transcript had what the interviewee was going to say, what the narrator was going to say, and how we would film each part. I was the narrator, and Gabby was the interviewee.

After making the transcript, it was time to film. We had to film Gabby getting interviewed and the B-Rolls of the interview. To film the interview itself, we had to make sure that there was no eye contact with the camera, natural lighting, and clear audio; in my opinion, we did good with the no eye contact and natural lighting, but our audio could have been improved. The B-Rolls were a little more difficult to film because we had to think of something different to film (besides the interviewee) that matched what we were talking about in the interview. While filming the B-Rolls, we also had to add some sequencing, that was also difficult. 

Once we were done filming, it was finally the time to edit our clips together and create the perfect interview! Mia was in charge of the editing, since we used her computer and she wasn't actually in the interview. Even though Mia was in charge of the editing, we all helped out. First, we added the interview and edited out all of the bloopers. After, we got the interview on the storyboard, we overlapped some of the interview with the B-Rolls. Once we got all of the footage we filmed edited we added the narrator voice overs. We did turn in our Practice Story a few minutes late, but we turned in a satisfying film that I think our class will enjoy!