Year 10 Unit 1: Lesson 14 November 11 2011.

Today was the final editing and screening date for our documentaries. I felt that our group honestly needed more time to edit, we still needed to include subtitles, credits, transitions and our archival footage. Robert and I came in during break and edited from there on. Whilst Robert and I edited, Kazia worked on another computer to create the credits and titles. Because we weren't all together, we didn't all get each other's views on what to edit out. Our whole documentary became 10 minutes long because of this.


All the individual groups in this film class all decided on various issues they felt strongly about. It was very interesting to watch a wide variety of them and I was very excited to see all of them.


Max, Alfred and Andrew D: Social Media 
I really thought that this group captured the sound design very well. They attempted to set the scene just by using sound (the chat noises and effects of Facebook) and no visuals. This really provided a good sense of what they're documentary was about. However, they could've filmed the "aftermath" of the bloggers (that didn't go on Facebook for 5 days) and would they do the strike again.


Chun Ngai, Andrew N and Abraham: Hong Kong's Waste
During the beginning, the voiceover was playing over a time lapse of Hong Kong's roads. I felt that this was really cool how they managed to capture Hong Kong being a very busy city in such a simple and not in a distracting way. The shots that were filmed such as the (lady spitting into the trash bin) were very captivating as they also matched the voiceover's content. However, they could've included more interviews because they only managed to get it from 3 people's point of views. A little of it lacked content and I felt they could've further gone into location such as Hong Kong's wasteland, even though I knew they weren't allowed to.


Isabelle, Ariana and Allegra: The Inconvenient Equality
I felt that this was one of the strongest documentaries of the group. This was not because of the filming but because they had a very strong and clear argument. They knew what they wanted and this was conveyed through the film itself. They included various color contrasts such as making the interviews black and white and the domestic helper's footage colored. This helped enhance the equality that these people shared which really helped convince the audience through a clear argument.


Erik, Harry and Justin: Searching For Somalia
I felt that the included archival footage in the beginning really helped properly introduce the theme and subject to the audience. However, I felt that their documentary lacked content and that they could've interviewed more people. Also, they could've interviewed the actual Somalian refugees that came to our school. They chose to include themselves into the scene but they didn't look entirely interested in it, which I thought they should've just focused on the interviewee instead. 


Jessica, Jade and Sophia: Age
I really enjoyed watching this group's documentary. They presented a clear outline of their subject and theme by including many interviews of people from various age groups. Their archival footage was actually home videos which I thought was absolutely cool but they could've included who the people in the scenes were. The whole outline of the film definitely followed the idea of "age" itself, by showing young people at first, then venturing off towards older people. Their music was great and suited the emotion of the film. Overall I felt this group did a really fantastic job and their subject was conveyed clearly. 


Isabella, Kazia and Robert: Chung Yeung Festival
The feedback from Ms Rosati had us very satisfied. We were worried that she might've not enjoyed our film because of how long it was. It was very obvious we needed a lot of editing to finish, and there were way too many unnecessary clips. She did enjoy the color contrast between the archival footage and the actual footage. There were grainy clips contrasted against high defined clips which brought out the "time" of the festival. At first I thought our conclusion wasn't strong enough but towards the end I saw through the reactions of the audience, that we really did capture the subject and conveyed our point strongly. 


Overall, I felt that this unit was a great experience. I have learnt so many valuable lessons on film and hope to use them in the future. Working with my group was very pleasant and I felt we had good teamwork and strong communication, I hope to work together with them in the future again. This unit really helped me enhance more knowledge and understanding on documentaries and sound design. I can't wait for our next unit!

Year 10 Unit 1: Lesson 13 November 9 2011.

Today we had a very hectic session because we had to finish editing this by Friday. Kazia and I first started cutting and editing the clips until I got called for my turn to present. Personally, I thought I did pretty good on my presentation but I could work a bit more on my knowledge on "camera angles and techniques". While I was presenting, Robert and Kazia worked more on editing the footage. After I finished, I went into the music room to capture the news report video on Jing and it worked successfully. Robert also stayed after school to work on it. 


Overall, I think we are a little behind and I'm not sure if we are able to finish in time. Tomorrow all of us are coming over at break and lunch to edit and I'm hoping we can finish on time. 

Year 10 Unit 1: Lesson 12 November 3 2011.

Today we continued our editing while Ms Rosati conducted some of the private presentations. Basically, for the whole lesson, Kazia and I edited a decent beginning with good background "wild sound". We didn't delete any clips, in case we wanted to use the sound for "wild sound". Unless our voices were heard in the clip, we would delete it. Robert was looking on how to convert movie files into the right format compatible for Final Cut Pro. All in all, we kept switching editing roles so all of us had a thorough involvement in the process itself.

Year 10 Unit 1: Lesson 11 November 1 2011

Today we were granted an extension for our Criterion A presentation. Because of this, Ms Rosati taught us more on what a documentary is and what is Film Sound and the different types of it. Most of these were re-caps of last year's work especially with diegetic and non-diegetic sound. The one I really found interesting and captured my attention the most was the foley sound. This is the act of recreating sound effects but not using the actual thing. I remember when I was 11 and watching the Academy Awards, the group/movie that won the best sound was from their foley sound. I can't quite recall what movie it was but I also remember that there was one scene where they had people tracking through the forests and the sound was actually from foley artists stepping on salad and lettuce leaves. I realized that these tasks aren't as easy as they look because they have to acquire the right sound to put forward the right emotion. 


Then we learnt about the different types of documentaries such as poetic, expository, participatory, performative etc. I've learnt that not all documentaries fall into one exact theme, but can include many elements of it. 


Overall, I thought this lesson really helped me understand more about sound design and it made me think how we could incorporate it into our documentary. 

Year 10 Unit 1: Lesson 10 October 26 2011.

Today we continued on with what we weren't able to finish last lesson. Ms Rosati unfortunately couldn't attend class. My group started reviewing the rest of the footage that we weren't able to finish lass class, and decided what we wanted to convey in our documentary. After, we spent the rest of the lesson putting the footage in order on the timeline. When we filmed, the clips were all over the place and some in no relation to each other. While Robert was searching for more archival footage, Kazia and I started grouping the clips together. We separated the temple clips, the flower market clips, the butcher/meat market clips and the cemetery clips. Next lesson, we'll have to further separate the cemetery clips because most of them had different things occurring and needed to be sorted out. 

Year 10 Unit 1: Lesson 9 October 24 2011.

Today's lesson we were given the time to capture/import our footage. At the start of the lesson, Ms Rosati sat us all down and had each group discuss how their filming progress went. Most of the groups encountered a problem where one person didn't want to be interviewed. I learnt that it was good to actually film the person declining the request to be interviewed because it shows how people are scared or uninterested (in the group's case about domestic helpers).


The rest of the lesson was given to us to import and capture our footage into Final Cut Pro. One skill that I learnt which I hope to use in the future was converting clips (if filmed by a DSLR) into the right format that could be compatible to Final Cut Pro. I learnt how to import all the clips and convert them using MPEG Streamclip. Whilst Mr Chiang was explaining what to do, I thought it looked pretty complex but once I got to do it (also with a little help from my peers), it was easier than said. I learnt that it is always good to double check small details that you may miss out. We managed to get all our footage converted in time. Additionally, Kazia and Robert were looking for news archival footage while I was capturing. They managed to find a local news report with a lot of information about our festival, which was going to be very useful.


Ms Rosati came to talk to each group individually. When she came to ours, she had us explain our filming process. We told her about how our question backfired because a lot of people actually did come to the cemetery. She told us that we should review all our footage because now we do not know what exactly to convey and how the researchers in our group could find the right footage enough to project what we wanted it to. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to review all footage in order to decide what we were going to end up doing.


Overall, I enjoyed this lesson as I was particularly excited to edit. Our time spent was very productive and everyone in our group did what they were supposed to do. I hope all our footage is enough for the required amount of minutes. Now what we have to do next is review all the clips, and figure out what our message is and how we're going to convey it. Also, in addition to the research, we could find some suitable soundtracks to our clips.

Year 10 Unit 1: October 5; FILMING.

Today was our scheduled day for filming our documentary. Everything we did today was according to our pre-production planning last lesson. Yesterday we also did a final online conversation to make sure everything was prepared in relation to filming. We made sure that the questions were translated from English to Chinese for a smoother interview. We confirmed our meeting place, the locations we would film, and how much time we would spend there (including lunch). Therefore, we would immediately know what to do tomorrow without wasting anytime to stop and think. One main problem we had was that we weren’t able to borrow a microphone because of some issue. We were very worried since the whole topic was about Sound Design. However, my camera seemed to pick up a lot of clear quality sounds when I tested it the night before. Although we weren’t able to borrow a microphone, this didn’t stop us from filming the next day.

We met at the Shau-Kei Wan MTR station at 9:30 as planned. Once everyone was there, we headed to the first location on our plan, which was the market. Fortunately Kazia was able to bring her father to help us get more interviews. Also, Robert knew the whole district pretty well because he lived there. When we got to the market, we filmed some footage of people buying flowers and chicken/meat. However, a problem we faced was we realized a lot of the stall owners were very busy serving their customers; therefore they wouldn’t want us to interview them. We tried to wait until a stall had no incoming customers, and then we would approach and inquire. Through this method, we were able to film one interview from a friendly florist.

Around 10:15, we realized that there was nothing important to film anymore at the market because everyone was so busy. Therefore we decided to go to 2 nearby temples before the cemetery. Filming there was little bit difficult because we couldn't bring our cameras inside, and it was also disrespectful. However, we could secretly stand outside and film people inside. The problem we faced was that we couldn't use the tripod, as it captured a lot of attention, therefore we had to use free hand movement. I had to hang the camera around my neck and try to walk as smoothly as possible. Hopefully these clips will add an effect of "reality" to our documentary. 


We then headed to the Chai Wan's Cape Collision Cemetery on the mountain nearby. There, we unusually encountered a lot of people actually coming to pay their respects. We then realized that this sort of backfired our entire issue, but there were some solutions to showing the positive and negative sides. In the cemetery, I was able to film a whole lot of footage. I filmed footage of people climbing up the mountain road, people bowing down in front of the tombstones, people cleaning the tombstones and people burning offerings. Fortunately at times there were many graves where people came early and left the food, incense and offerings. This gave me the opportunity of secretly filming close-ups and get a better view of the whole situation. For the interviews, we thought it was disrespectful to approach someone while they were paying their respects to a loved one. Then, Robert encountered someone he knew at the cemetery, therefore earning us another interview. Also, someone else saw us filming and even offered to pose for us (such as pouring the Chinese wine, and showing us the fake money). Fortunately, she spoke reasonable English, and was able to answer the questions when we asked her. One obvious mistake was that she was standing against the light so there was a little snippet of just her silhouette. This helped us learn on how much light is important and how we should always check before filming.

We were at the cemetery from 11:45 to 1:15 on time. After taking a rest and reviewing all the footage we had, we decided that we didn’t need to go to the Peak. We felt that we had enough footage to support our issue because when we started, we noticed some traditions in Hong Kong are not changing.

Our documentary needed to show two sides to the issue, a positive side and a negative. Our positive side was showing that some traditions in Hong Kong still haven’t changed, and people are still coming to pay their respects in some order. They still follow some of the ancient traditions and cultures of the festival, such as the incense and the food offerings. Our negative side showed how people didn’t follow one tradition of the festival, which was hiking up the mountain. Instead, people preferred to wait in line for the bus to come and drive them back down. Hopefully, through our archival footage, we can compare the difference between people actually walking up a mountain, to people taking a bus.

When I re-watched the footage at home, I was very relieved to find out that the camera in fact did pick up a lot of the sound recorded. There was sometimes even too much of the sound, as there was a lot of our whispering in the background. Hopefully we can reduce the decibels or cover the clips with suitable soundtracks. 

Overall, I felt today was very productive and I’ve learnt how important pre-production is. I was really happy with our time management skills; we weren’t distracted and were very focused. Although this practically took up the whole day, I was assured that I wouldn’t have to film during the mid-term break. Even if we faced various problems, this helped us strengthen and improve our knowledge on better filming. I really hope that when we edit the footage, our documentary will convey the right message through all the camera angles, sounds, tones and editing techniques. Right now my next step is to find the right archival footage and soundtracks. 

This is the clipboard that held all our planning. From the locations, times and translated questions! Please click on the photo for a closer image. 

This is us at the end of all our shooting. It was a very productive day and I really loved working with my group!