Pre-Production:
When set this task I wanted to come up with something that would be quite wholesome and moving, a video that would make people see the good in the world. My first idea was about nature but I wanted to stay based in Liverpool so I thought about poems of cities. I did lots of research and there wasn’t many poems where I thought I could get my motive across. Then I thought about what actually makes the city. The people. After more research I found a beautiful poem by Benjamin Zephaniah that spread the message of togetherness and being kind to each other.
Pinterest Mood board:
From looking at images of street photography online, I wanted to get some candid shots of people just getting on with their day to day lives. I wanted to capture the moment in its actual reality. From my Pinterest board I liked the shots of people on trains. From this I went to the train station and captured people through the windows of moving trains. This was difficult as I wasn’t allowed to use a tripod in the train station due to health and safety on the platforms so although I like my shots I do wish they could have been a bit studier.
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Shooting:
When shooting my film I used a number of locations so I could get a wide variety of people. Train stations, fields, houses, Liverpool city centre are just a few examples. I used the c100 camera and a number of lens in order to experiment and get a range of shots. I used the 14mm, 40mm and 90mm lens as well as a medium tripod. It was difficult to get these shots into focus sometimes as I am not used to the lens but I think with practice I could get some amazing shots with these lens. To record my sound I used the zoom h6.
Editing Soundscape:
The editing process was long as I had to edit two voices. I used a zoom to record my grandma and my boyfriend speaking the poem. I recorded them both speaking the whole poem and then decided during the editing stage who would speak which line. I thought the use of an older female voice and a younger male voice was a nice add to the poem as it is all about people and I wanted to represent diversity. Both Matt and my grandma said different lines of the poem and some lines even together to really emphasise the meaning of togetherness. While editing their voices and trimming out the bits I didn’t need, I used the music as a guide. The multitrack was helpful to see how everything fitted together. Although I didn’t want my music to be the main aspect of my video, it took a lot of time to edit it and find a song that suited my video well. During the parts where there was no dialogue, I turned the volume up on the bird noises in the background. I added the bird noises all the way through but you can really notice this during the non spoken parts. I did this as I wanted to add some aspect of nature into my video. I had some nice shots without any people in that I wanted to fit into the video while making sense. I did this to show the setting in which people spend their time in and to show the beauty of it such as my grandad in the fields at sunset, strangers walking by the docks and strangers rushing round the train station.
I used children laughing to represent the line about families and I used a sound on crowd cheering over a shot of my mum at a concert to show how surreal it is when people truly come together in that particular situation, through the power of music.
I am still very new to audition so I used the sfx pre-sets to help me out on the bird sound effects as well as the crowd cheers so it blended into the background well and didn’t seem like it was just added in. Each line of the poem was cut using the razor tool so I could spread the lines out an picture what I’d put in-between. I exported the soundscape onto premiere pro and then my next step after that was creating my title sequence
After Effects
Although the title sequence was only a few seconds long I had a lot of issues on the app that I had to research to figure out how to resolve. Eventually I was able to use key frames to change my opacity to create a fade in look. The main thing I liked about my title was the use of the trick matt and blending my background videos into my title. I thought this gave the video a nice aesthetic. I also used after effects to do the typography on my end credits scene. I used the same font as the title scene and kept it nice and simple as I liked the shot in the background so didn’t want the title to be the main focus. I used opacity key frames as well as position.
People Need People
Poem By Benjamin Zephaniah
Video By Amber Walker
A poetry video that shows how important people are. I wanted to create a wholesome happy video that spreads a nice message. This spreads the message of togetherness and being kind to each other.
Editing included a soundscape on audition, typography, and animations on after effects and masks, effects, and transitions on premiere.​
Premiere Pro
For my whole project I transferred my after effects and my audition work onto a premiere composition. I haven’t used premiere as much as I’ve used other apps so it was a struggle at first.
I used premiere to colour correct and expose some shots better as some shots were slightly under exposed. I also adjusted my saturation as well as numerous other setting to really make the colours pop in my shots as I felt like my video should be a colourful happy vibe.
I also used transitions such as fade to black when transitioning to other clips. I wanted to clips to flow as much as possible with the sound scape so I mostly used straight cuts. Premiere brought the whole thing together however I feel like I may of exported my video incorrectly as I felt like it reduced my quality overall.
