Professional Practise - Secondary Goal - Post 8

The last week has absolutely flown by. On the one hand, I have been quite proud of the way I have been very focused on the important and very urgent tasks in front of me. On the other hand, I am still quite seriously behind where I should currently be on my to-do list, and it's making me very anxious.

One issue I had this week was energy levels, and this took a serious toll on my ability to work efficiently and keep on task. I came down with a cold late last week, and although I've overcome it now, I've been battling to keep my energy levels up the whole time. I don't know why, but it has been incredibly difficult to get out of bed this week, and also incredibly difficult to stay awake in the evenings, so I have been going to bed early. It must be my immune system struggling, or life catching up to me, or something. I think it's probably also got something to do with the difficulty of the work I am tackling at the moment, especially my documentary work and critical film assignment. The first few steps in any major undertaking such as these are always incredibly difficult for me, and always very slow as well. I haven't had trouble keeping up with other tasks that are well underway as they have become routine. It's just the difficult ones that are exhausting!

Another obstacle has been distraction. When I'm tired, it's very easy to submit to simple distractions, such as hanging out with my boyfriend when I could be researching online. I only did it very little, but it does make a difference in a week where I have been extremely busy.

One way that I can tackle my energy level problem next week is to eat better. This week I had a lot of classes and was going to industry talks and seminars in the evenings, so I ended up eating take-away food every day. I think the high fat content of the food makes me sluggish, and next week I look forward to getting back to eating breakfast every morning, and cooking fresh food for myself, so that I will be less sluggish. Hopefully the improved energy levels will also help me tackle distractions!

Professional Practise - Main Goal - Post 9

I can't say that delegating appropriately or respecting the boundaries between mine and others' roles has really been a big part of my life this week.

I did do some sound post on my TVC with Michael this week, but no challenges of this kind arose. I have no knowledge of sound post, so there was no question of me stepping in and taking over in any way, and there was never any question of what Michael's task was, so I never had to do any delegating.

I did have my TVC feedback session today, but neither of these issues were touched on. My professional practise was addressed, but the thing that came out of it was that I need to be more charming and likeable, which is a separate issue.

As for the next week, I will be needing to focus much more on preparation for the trip to Beijing, which will definitely require strong delegation skills on my behalf. I am too stressed and time poor to do everything myself, so I need to think carefully about what tasks I can ask my team mates to do.

TVC - post 13

Post-sound:

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The post-sound schedule was extremely rushed, as I knew it would be. Poor Michael had two TVCs to do, and a very short amount of time to do them in, plus I was scheduled for classes all week except for Monday, so it was difficult to get time with him. We were able to meet on Tuesday at lunchtime for about 25 minutes (I think?) and then again on Thursday at lunch time for about the same amount of time, so I was very glad that Toetu and I had done so much work on sound already in editing. The time with Michael was really only enough to do some very small tweaks, and the TVC would have been disastrous if I had left the sound work until then.

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The great thing that came out of the post-sound work was what Michael called "cleaning it up a bit". I don't know enough about sound to know what that actually means in practise, but I can certainly here the results, and everything definitely sounded much cleaner and "brighter" as he said. It sounded far more professional once he had brought the voiceover out in particular.

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Screening:

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This morning we had our screening and feedback sessions, which are always very... challenging.

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The screening was a bit disappointing, as I had been so impressed with the results of the colour grade, and yet they did not show up in the screening. Everybody's TVCs looked quite dull. I really think they need to get a better projector and a proper projection screen for that room. How can we learn to make the best possible work when we can't even see the true results of what we are doing?

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Watching the final result on the big screen I also felt that the commercial was quite rushed and I really would have liked to stay on some shots longer. I would also like to have changed the end graphic too; I was going to tackle this previously, but after the colour correction I decided to let it slide, as I felt that the brighter colours now fit well with the end graphic. Watching it on the big screen though really revealed just how garish the graphic was, and that it was far too large for the frame as well.

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Feedback:

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Feedback can be painful, that's for sure.

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The feedback sessions always begin with an opening for the director and each of the HODs to comment on the final product. Usually I go into these things with a huge list of comments that I have about the process and product. This time I was really hoping not to talk too much as I didn't want to set the tone for what everyone else said about it, so I tried to keep my comments quite broad and minimal. Unfortunately, that's what everyone else did too, so I didn't learn much about what they really thought, as I had been hoping.

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Larry went first for the tutors, and congratulated us on the TVC, saying that it was much better than he had expected. He actually surprised me a lot by saying that he had expected it to be a disaster, which confused me because I had never gotten that impression from him beforehand. He also questioned our choice to defocus in the last shot as it could have really stitched us up in the edit. Although it did not affect us at all in the edit - what really stitched us up was the difficulty in getting Paradise's performance - he was right to point out that we had made an uninformed choice, rather than asking our tutors' opinions. He also then commented on Ben's negative attitude, and told him bluntly that if he had been producing the commercial for real he would have fired and replaced Ben for his comments during one of our pre-production meetings. While agree that his particular comments in the pre-production meeting were out of line, and that occasionally he was a bit negative, I also wanted to jump to his defence. Although it would have been way out of line if he were working with someone else, it was only very slightly out of line with me, because of the particular relationship and communication style that we had established betwen ourselves. I found it strangely ironic that there were so many comments about Ben being difficult to work with, and yet for me he was the easiest person to work with out of the whole team.

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Sima also commented that it had turned out better than she had expected, which didn't surprise me, and agreed that the end graphic was definitely too garish for the commercial. She also said that I had hit all of the beats well, but that the commercial was lacking in flair, which was a pretty fair assessment in my opinion. She also said that I needed to allow more room for play, to look for unexpected opportunities to shoot something extra that might be stunning. The really depressing thing about that is that I really really did want to do that, and it was something that I talked about all the way through the project with Ben and Lisa, that we needed to allow time on the day to simply shoot what we saw. But of all the things I planned, the time spent on play was the only thing I let go of on the day, despite the fact that everything was going well and we were ahead of time. Lisa and I had had a disagreement the night before, but we had such a good calm mood going on the day of the shoot that I didn't want to stress her out and destroy it. I was so happy with what we already had that I decided to let it go and relocate, and I really regretted it when the day was done. Sima has always pushed us to remember that as directors we have to be ready and willing to be a bit rebellious, as it is our arses and reputations on the line if we don't get what we need. I agree with that, but I am also trying not to be hard to work with, and the two things seem irreconcilable.

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Dan commented very briefly that he liked our shot choices and simple framing, although some shots could have been a bit more dynamic, and also agreed that he would encourage us to let accidents happen more too. He was beginning to discuss the city shot, and suggested that perhaps more contrast between the two locations could have been achieved with sound. Victor jumped in here, pointing out certain things and decisions that should have been made in sound post rather than editing. Although his comments about sound-post may be useful to carry forward, I felt they were pretty unfair for this project. Given how short the post-sound schedule was, and that my soundie was doing two commercials, and that we were only able to have two 25 minute meetings at lunch time, and that we had never ever done post-sound with anyone but editors before, I'm pretty sure his suggestions were completely impossible, and that the TVC would have been a complete disaster if I had done what he suggested. The amount of trial and error that Toetu and I went through to get the sound cut to the point it was was enormous. Michael and I had minutes to work together, not days. There was just enough time for him to clean up the dialogue and do some EQ and that was all; certainly no time for any creative input or trying out ideas. Fortunately I kept these things to myself, otherwise we'd still be in the session arguing about "what if".

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As the other tutors were speaking quite a lot and Toetu wasn't present, Glenn didn't have a chance to say very much. He did comment on the end graphic, but I've already addressed that.

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Eventually the discussion came back to Dan, asking Ben and I to make a comment on what we had learned in terms of professional practise that we could take forward to our next projects. I was pretty stumped for what to say, to be honest. I feel like so many of the comments and experiences we have a so contradictory that I feel hopelessly confused about it all. In my first year I could have spoken for ten minutes about what I could do better next time. Self-criticism is so easy when you are starting with nothing and have so much to learn. But now? Now I have two and a half years worth of experiences, feedback and self-criticism to look back on, and none of it seems to fit together.

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The response I came out with was that maybe I need to talk less so that I don't overwhelm people, and I should wait for others to talk more. It was all I could think of!

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Sima actually came out in support of being a control freak; she said that that is what she is like, and that it is necessary, but that the difference is that she can get away with it, and that I need to learn to charm people and relate to them as friends. I was greatful for the tiny bit of affirmation; that it's okay to double-check and want to stay in control. But now I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a black hole or something. I have absolutely no idea how to tackle the next stage, because in this case the answer is not 'work harder'.

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I'm at uni, for god's sake; the crew are my friends. How the fuck do I learn to charm people???

Professional Practise - Secondary Goal - Post 7

Using effective problem-solving techniques.

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Well my theory in adopting this as a goal was that I had a problem, and therefore I needed to use effective problem-solving techniques. I didn't really think about this very clearly though before I lay it down. What are problem-solving techniques when editing and the problem is a creative one? I can only think of one technique - trial and error. I suppose consultation with people you trust could be considered another one. Any others? Umm... Well in some instances it would be a case of re-shooting material. This technique is not available to me this time though. I can't think of any more.

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Well, I definitely used plenty of trial and error; that's for sure. Toetu and I spent a great deal of time on our edit, considering the piece is only thirty seconds long, trying out different options to try to get more out of the TVC. There were plenty of errors in our trials, but we have steadily made small improvements, and the TVC appears much better now than in earlier edits.

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I probably could have used consultation with trusted advisors a lot more to be honest, when I think back on it. I showed my TVC to some other students quite recently, and they were very helpful. I had been concerned about my graphic; it was not sitting right with me but I just wasn't sure how I wanted to change it. I had put off making a decision about it by telling myself it would probably look less bright and gaudy once everything had been colour corrected (which it does look much better, I have to say). Honestly though, I shouldn't have put off responding to that niggling feeling, as it is now too late. Two students whose opinions I trust watched my TVC and immediately said to me, "you need to change your graphic." It was as simple as having people confirm my fears, and then straight away I was all-systems-go designing a new graphic. Unfortunately, it came too late; when I went to school to meet Toetu yesterday we discovered that Glenn had already outputted the TVCs for the grade, and it was too late to make any changes. If I had swallowed my pride more quickly (it's hard to show people a piece you're not happy with!) and asked more people's opinions sooner then I would have been able to solve the problem.

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Today I made a to-do list for the next month, until I depart for China. It is long. Very long. So long it makes me feel ill to look at, and ashamed and angry with myself that I have let things get to out of control. With that in mind, my goal for the whole of next month is to maintain my motivation and commitment to the tasks at hand and manage my time accordingly so that I can knock every single item off that list on time.

Professional Practise - Main Goal - Post 8

In many ways, our ability to conform to our own roles without encroaching on the roles of others is shaped by how our colleagues perform in their own roles. For directing students in particular, we are always told in feedback sessions that we are responsible for the end product, no matter what, and that we must double-check everything and leave nothing to chance. We won't always have the luxury of working with people who fulfill our every need and are the epitomy of professionalism, technical skill, and creativity. So what do we do in such a situation? Is there a limit to how much respect we pay to the boundaries between ours and others roles when others are not coming to the party? My instinctive answer to that is to say, 'Stuff the respect. Do what needs to be done to give the project what it needs.' But does everyone see it that way? I'm not sure that even I can fully stand by that statement, especially when no one's being paid. What do you do when your colleague is trying to come to the party but simply doesn't have the technical skill to deliver? It's hardly fair to overstep the boundaries when someone is giving you everything they've got.

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I have found myself in this predicament and haven't known what to do. I could see it coming, and had plenty of patience stored up in readiness, but while this solves the problem of potential personality conflict, it does not solve the problem of giving the project what it needs. I have found myself trying to subtly overstep the mark, provide gentle tips and guidance, or secretly plug the gaps. I must sound incredibly arrogant making the claim that I know how to do someone else's job better than they can do their own, but I'm not trying to make the claim overall and I'm not saying I don't need the person. There are just certain technical abilities that I possess that another does not. Anyway, these sneaky methods are not the way I like to work, and I have not been enjoying it. So I can't say I've been doing well with the respecting boundaries goal lately, but then I may have reached the limit of its application.

TVC - post 12

Well, the colour grade at Digipost happened today. Everyone was stoked to discover that we each had thirty minutes to work with the grader, rather than the 15 or 20 minutes we had been expecting.

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It was really interesting watching the grader work on everyone's TVCs. He was certainly far more sensitive to the subtleties of colour and light than I am, as one would expect from someone whose occupation it is to twist and tweak such things every day. I was really pleasantly surprised by the beauty he was able to bring out in shots that would otherwise have looked plain or dark etc. It was also great as far as revealing the capabilities and limitations of the technology available. Although I did not get a chance to ask why, I was surprised to find that he was only able to use oval shaped windows on the image to adjust specific areas of colour, rather than, say, rectangles. I can't think why this would be, but I should ask someone if I get a chance. I was also surprised to find that colour can't be simply injected into an image, like using the paint bucket tool on Paint. I had thought that if a shot were still then the grader may be able to put in a fill in a given area, like in a graphics program, but it seems not. Once again, there was no time to ask why this was the case. At the end of the session I asked the grader if he had any tips for us to get the most out of the grading experience when shooting in the future. He said to simply expose everything correctly, nice and flat, and then the grader will have everything they need to get the most out of the colours.

TVC - post 11

My, how time flies!!!

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My last post about editing the TVC was very hopeful. There's something lovely and exciting and hopeful about the initial rough cut of a project. ll the problems are blatantly obvious, but the individual disparate shots begin to be shaped into a story for the first time ever. Every hiccup in the cut is part of its beauty. "It's fine, it's only a rough cut. Imagine what it will be like when we've trimmed it all properly and got a good sound mix on there!"

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From the rough cut of my TVC it has mostly been downhill. All of the loveable issues of the rough cut have shown themselves to be much much more difficult to solve than first thought, and a good sound mix has been an elusive beast, and very difficult to tame.

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Unfortunately Sima said no to cutting out the city part of the ad and we ended up spending a huge chunk of our editing time trying different options for the transition from city to forest. Finally we have a transition that is far less jarring than any others we tried, but I still don't feel that it totally works for the ad. We've also spent a lot of time playing with different music options, and the placement of the music within the ad. The mood of the voiceover has been tricky too; the voiceover as it was written was too long for the ad, and has to be very rushed to squish it all in. We've cut out some phrases and played around with the timing, and have managed to improve it greatly, however I would rather take it out completely as I think it is a pure distraction from the images, which tell us everything we need to know anyway. The problem with this is that the structure of the end dialogue (which begins with the word "so") is slightly jarring without the voiceover, and I would also have to run the idea past Sima, as it is quite a big departure from the scripted ad. Fortunately I do have some more time in post-sound to work with Michael and make it work. I think I might end up trying to cut out almost all of the voiceover, and leave only a phrase or two, possibly with an echo effect added.

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The other issue at the moment is the graphic at the end of the ad. I had wanted to include a fern frond in the logo for "Life Cycle", however I couldn't find one that had already been simply drawn, only actual photographs, and I'm not skilled enough with my graphic software to draw one myself from scratch. I tried various effects on the best photograph I found to try use the frond in my logo, and then tried to incorporate it into the text as the "C" for "Cycle", however in order to match the look of the text to the look of the frond I gave it a three-dimensional illusion look, and made it quite bright. Sadly, the effect of this was to make the logo look quite gaudy; much like a heading I might have used for a school project five years ago. It simply looked terribly unfashionable and did not match the simple elegance of the other imagery. Anyway, I was too slow to replace it. I prepared some new graphics (much simpler, more elegant) last night and went in to meet Toetu today to put it in, only to discover that Glenn had already done outputs ready for colour grading at Digipost tomorrow. Noooooo!!!!! I was so disappointed. Fortunately it is probably solvable. After the colour grade we will put it back into Avid, rewrite over the last shot and graphic, and use the graded shot from the previous copy as a reference to colour grade the final shot in the Avid. It's a bit of a mission but it will be worth it to save face!!!