PRODUCTION

 PRODUCTION

MY VIDEO :

First and foremost my production was incredibly different this year compared to other projects. I was limited on what I could do and I think for me I found that difficult as I always like to challenge myself and try to be creative.

Linking back to my research and ideas I spoke about how I could utilise being at home and being creative. A lot of people wanted to do game shows but I wanted to think differently. There was nothing wrong with doing a game show however I wanted something that I could challenge myself. 

I started by ordering the box that I wanted to use. I wanted a box that I knew was from Japan and that would have the general sweets that sit in a super-market in Japan. This is because I wanted it to be as good as possible. However, I had an issue with this as it was not going to come until early March. It had already been dispatched so I couldn't cancel it and I had to order another box located in England but stated it had Japanese sweets. I was set on using this box until the day I was going to film, a box landed at my front door stating it was from Ochai in Japan. This was clearly great news as I now knew I had sweets that were from Japan.

The development of the production had to be done relatively swiftly as I didn't want sweets to be sitting in a box for days and then taste pretty vile. 

To start off with I had to decide which cameras I was going to use. I had the Fuji Film XT-200 so I knew I was going to use this alongside my mini boom mic by Rhodes. I then planned to use my sisters iPhone 12 alongside my iPhone 11. I knew the iPhones had good cameras so I could use this and then when it came to editing ill match the videos with the boom mic. 

THE START OF BUILDING MY SET

After conducting heavy amounts of research I was ready to go and get the planning underway. I did a bit of location scouting to really get an idea of where we could film that could have good lighting but also lighting that can be altered. My first idea was to film in the study room however I came to the conclusion that it would be too dark to film in the study as the lighting was limited. 

*white boxes are where I was planning the cameras to be.

As well as deciding that the study would be too dark to film in I also thought it would be too close up and it would make the audience unsettled.

The location I decided next was to be the one we filmed in, my bedroom. It was a nice spacious room that I believed would be perfect for filming. Also, it had broadened the choice of how I wanted the lighting to be. Linking back to my research and planning. I spoke about how I wanted a shot above me. I did try this however because I included two people , it wouldn't have worked in my opinion.

Lighting was something that I was set on getting right before planning. I knew that I wasn't able to get studio lights so I wanted to try things out.

START OF FILMING

When it came to the day of shooting I had everything in place. First and foremost I changed the quality of the iPhones to their highest quality which is 4k at 60 fps. This was applicable on both the 12 and the 11. 

For the camera, I wanted it to be in the middle of the room and looking central towards the bed. to get the perfect shot I had to use a chair and a stack of books to get it to a normal height where it made the audience feel comfortable and almost talking to them. 

After the first camera was set up I would then attach the Rhodes boom mic. My plan was to use the boom mic sound pick up on all three cameras because the iPhone audio was poor. 

I then placed the iPhone cameras in the place where I wanted them. 

I didn't have a shot of my other camera as it was my own phone, however, it was placed on the window-ledge. I wanted a variety of different shots and I believed this would be a suitable choice for the camera placements. 

I spoke about how I wanted the lighting right and this is when we had certain issues. First of all, we tried out different ways of using the lights. I wanted to use these two lamps I had because I thought this could work and make it well lit. Linking back to my research, Joe Sugg who is a vlogger/ reviewer used two lamps in his background shots. 

I believed that it looked too dark so I went for a brighter look by opening the blinds and turning on the main lights. However, when opening the curtains I realised that the lights were reflecting on the two posters. 

We needed to change this because it was picking up on the camera and I found it quite annoying in the background. To sort this we fixed it by taping the blind to the wall and also stuffing socks in the top of the blind. Despite it being a unique method of blocking the sun, it worked well and fixed the issue. 

After being creative here was the final outlook of the glare on the poster :

Although this may not any better. The angle the camera was placed at, meant that it wasn't appearing on the shot.

PROCESS OF FILMING

I spoke about in my research how I wanted it to be a raw reaction and a lot of YouTubers improvise this. This is where I had to come into that technique and almost improvise that we hadn't already seen the sweets.

I wanted multiple shots when it came to talking about the sweets so it was more engaging for the audience. After initially opening the box and seeing the top of it I cut the video to then take the box to the white box so we could close-ups of each sweet. 

The bottom sheet was quite screwed up so we actually tried to iron it out. Even though we would be acting that as we dug deeper into the box we wouldn't know what to expect, I was adding in more content for the audience.

The filming was going really well until I decided that I would just check up on the camera and that's when i noticed my camera decided to stop filming. As It was an eating food review; my heart sunk because it's irreplaceable footage as it's raw.  I looked back at the footage and noticed that the far-right camera was actually not in the greatest of positions, so I changed it to higher up. This may seem like I am trying to add in more shots. But I just didn't like where the camera was originally, looking back I should've done test runs. this is something that I need to work on. 

ORIGINAL SHOT FOR THE FIRST 6 MINUTES

SHOT AFTER CAMERA FAILURE 

THE EDITING PROCESS 

After we filmed the project I was now prepared to edit the video. The first hurdle that hit me was that video sizes for the iPhone were too big. Because I had put the phones to it's highest quality, 20 minutes of footage equal to approximately 15GB of footage.  I couldn't get it from my iPhone to my laptop in any way whatsoever.  One thing I think I noticed when reviewing the footage was that my main camera was quite dark compared to the iPhones. This made it seem really unprofessional and quite annoying. 

What I did was actually compress the videos from an app on the iPhones. It was a compressor that reduced the size of the video by lowering the frame rate slightly.

First things first, I wanted to choose the right audio to play in the background that fitted with the mood I was trying to convey. 

I went for Loyle Carner- Ottolenghi because its a really chilled song that could be repeatedly played throughout the video and not distract the viewer.

My plan was to edit the whole video with the main camera and then add in the iPhone shots. I did this and started with an intro. I wanted to make my own intro however my laptop was really struggling with combing the codes. So I went with an adobe intro and then put my own text in. I thought this was a really good intro for a youtube inspired video.

All I had to do , was add in the text and it would create a really cool multi-flow of graphics.

One thing I think I noticed when reviewing the footage was that my main camera was quite dark compared to the iPhones. This made it seem really unprofessional and quite annoying.

There was quite a lot of unnecessary footage that needed cutting down. This became a problem later on when trying to add on the other footage because I wanted to combine all footage with the one audio feed. It was incredibly time-consuming. Matching all three footage with a boom mic was what I wanted to do. However, when I wanted to match the audio with the footage i had to make sure it was spot on. At certain times it wasn't however to help me I would use time rulers to help me find where that footage needs to be. It was rather complicated however it did help me match the audio with the iPhones footage. 

I spoke about how there was a lot of footage to cut and that then meant a lot of transitions. To keep with the youtube vlogger/reviewer theme. I added in a simple tv glitch that was really quick and that really worked well this the speed and style of the video. 

 

This helped me cut down the videos a lot without making it really confusing to the viewer about whats going on. 

One thing I spoke about is that I wanted to review every sweet on its, taste, texture and looks. To add to this idea I added in graphics on what we rated out of 10. I felt like this would be a really cool touch and juts enhance the video slightly. 

This graphic would appear on every sweet we reviewed and it was so simple. I spoke about how my laptop was struggling to create graphics so I couldn't make this one as well. Therefore I had to use the adobe market and use a graphic from there and then make it into what I need to make it into. 

I spoke about how my camera stopped recording earlier on in the production page. Despite still having footage on the other two cameras I just didn't like the audio quality that iPhones had and also it would've looked weird not having shots on the main camera. I didn't just cut out the part when the camera cut out and carry on, I made it part of the video. I wanted to stick to the youtube theme so I thought this would be a good idea to actually include it and have it in the video.

Personally, I thought it would actually better top include it instead of just pretending it never happened.

The use of the lightbox was really good as I thought it just added a slight touch to the video. I slowed down the shots by changing the duration when clicking on the video file when it's on the timeline. Then I changed the speed to longer, therefore making it slower. A lightbox has translucent sides that diffuses light coming from multiple sources. This allows for even, nearly shadow-less lighting against a simple, solid background. Although I didn't use the two lamps for lights in the video, they came to good use when using the lightbox. At the time I wasn't fussed about how the sweets looked in the lightbox whereas now I wish I took more time to get the shots really nice and clean. Personally, I feel like I didn't use the lightbox to its full potential and just saw it as a way to have an easy background.

To keep it not looking really glitchy and almost stop motion like, I changed the time interpolation to frame blending instead of frame sample. This just smoothens the slow-motion video and enhances the motion better.

The editing phase of the project was very much all the same throughout the video. My cameras also decided to not film the outro and that was very frustrating as I felt like the video ended incredibly abruptly. I had to cut it at a part where it didn't just finish when I was talking, I then added in a shot of the box of sweets itself I took in the lightbox. 

Overall the production definitely surprised me, I found it incredibly difficult editing the multi-cam piece and i had many hurdles in the way. I am pleased with how the video went and i am glad i went with this idea, however, I wish I would've been more innovative and added in more content in the video such as translations of what the sweets are.