Video and Sound Production - Lectures and Exercises

30.8.2023 - 30.11.2023 / Week 01 - Week 14
Tan Zhao Yi / 0363285
Video and Sound Production / Bachelor of Design (Honours) in Creative Media
Lectures and Exercises


LIST

Lectures 

Exercise


LECTURES

Lecture 1: Module Briefing
Video and Sound Production is a time-based project: Pre-production, Production, Post Production.

1. Pre-production (preparation)
  • Idea development
  • Story
  • Storyboard
  • Visual References
  • Location/ Props
2. Production
  • Lighting
  • Costume
  • Principal Shooting
3. Post Production
  • Offline Editing
  • Online Editing
  • Audio Editing
Lecture 2: Framing and Storyboard
Cinematography
  • Motion picture/Film/Video is made up of many shots.
  • Each shot requires placing the camera in the best position for that particular moment in the narrative.
  • Shot is continuous view shot by one camera without interruption.
  • Sequence is a series of scenes, or shots, complete in itself.
  • Scene defines the place or setting where the action is laid.
  • A scene may consist of series of shots or sequences depicting a continuous event.

Shot Sizes
1. Extreme wide shot - A broad view of the surroundings around the character (geographical location)
2. Wide shot - Entire object in immediate surroundings.
3. Medium wide shot - Usually cut off across the legs.
4. Medium shot - Shot from the person waist up.
5. Medium close-up shot - Shot from approximately midway between waist and shoulders to forehead.
6. Close-up shot - Details of an object.
7. Extreme close-up shot - Focus on important detail to increase the drama / impact on a situation / allow viewers to see necessary information more clearly.
8. Over the shoulder shot - Shot behind the shoulder of another person.
9. Low angle wide shot - Shot in which the camera is tilted upward to view the subject.
10. 3/4 angling medium close-up shot - Subject is turned 45º to camera.
11. Eye-level medium wide shot - Eye-level angle is films from the eye-level of an average height observer / subject's eye-level.
Lecture 3: Storytelling in Film
Story: What happened?
Plot: Why and how it happens?

Story 3-Act Structure
What is the Three Act Structure - Diagram
Plot point 1
  • Turns the story to new direction
  • Sets up Act 2
  • Raises the stakes
Plot point 2

  • Protagonist's quest reaches critical mass
  • Possible solution is presented
  • Biggest cliffhanger: will the protagonist win or lose?
Act 1: Beginning / Setup
  • Introduces the world, main characters, and establish the dramatic situation
  • Leads to plot point 1
Act 2: Middle / Confrontation
  • Develop complication
  • Leads to climax (plot point 2)
Act 3: End / Resolution
  • Ending of climax
  • Answer to all obstacles
Film Sound
Sound Elements: Speech, Sound Effect, Music
  • Speech: One of the most important tools for understanding the story of the film.
    • Dialogue: Conversation between characters in movie.
    • Voice Over: The voice of an unseen narrator speaking.
  • Sound Effect
    • Ambience: Audio refers to the background noise present at a given scene or a location.
    • Hard or "cut" effects: Almost every sound we hear at the movies that isn't dialogue or music is a sound effect. 
  • Music: to enhance the dramatic narrative and the emotional impact.
Dubbing: Automated Dialog Replacement (ADR), is the process of re-recording dialogue after the filming process to improve audio quality or reflect dialogue changes.

Foley: A sound effects technique for synchronous effects or live effects.
Lecture 4: Mis En Scene
  • composition, set design, lighting, costumes, depth of space, meanings etc. that appears on the screen
1. Composition: The deliberate selection of frames and camera angles that make up a shot.
2. Set Design: Everything the audience sees within a particular scene.
3. Lighting: Tool that conveys mood most clearly. - High-key lighting vs Low-key lighting
4. Costumes: One of the most useful tools in communicating a character’s thoughts and journey.
5. Props: An object with a function serves to drive the narrative or become a motif to underscore the themes of the film. 
6. Depth of Space: The distances between objects, people, and scenery, influenced by their placement along with camera location and lens choice.

Lecture 5: Color Correction

Colour Correction: The process of adjusting each clip in a video to ensure a consistent look. It involves making whites appear truly white, blacks genuinely black, and maintaining even colour balance throughout.

  • RGB: 
    • A colour model where red, green, and blue light are combined in different ways to create a wide range of colours.
    • Sensing, representation, and display of images in electronic systems.

Tutorials

1. Select Colour Panel.
2. Select Lumetri scope: RGB Parade, Waveform, Vectorscope.
3. Decide Luminosity Value.
4. See only highlight, midtone, shadow:


5. Adjust Basic Correction: Exposure, Highlight, Shadow
6. Right click and select Display Mode → Comparison View to see Before & After
7. Refer to waveform during adjustment.
8. Use the 1st adjusted clip as reference to work on the rest. 

Colour Grading: Enhances visuals for storytelling. After ensuring a natural look, you can use it to establish a new visual tone, increasing contrast, saturation, and adding new colours.

Tutorials

1. S curve adjustment: increase contrast
2. Adjust Temperature, Tint, Saturation  3. Apply complimentary colours (two colours): Teal & Orange


4. Colour wheels: Shadow to teal, Highlight and Midtone to Orange.

Lecture 6: Audio Editing - Sound Shaping with EQ

Frequency Range: Hertz (Hz)
Human hearing: 20Hz ~ 20000Hz

Dynamic Range: Decibels (dB): The threshold of human hearing is measured as 0dB SPL (sound pressure level) and the threshold of pain 130dB SPL.

Space
Mono sounds: recorded using single audio channel 
Stereo sounds: recorded using two audio channels

Tutorials

Phone Call Sound Effects
1. Create Multitrack session, name and save it. 2. Effect rack → Filter & EQ → Parametric Equaliser  3. Bring down bass, treble, raise mid range betweenc500Hz  to 2kHz. 

Muffled Sound Effects (wrapping by something)
1. Create new multitrack and apply Parametric Equaliser. 2. Remain bass, treble to the bottom, raise mid range to top.

Reverb Sound Effects (sound in space)
1. Create new multitrack and apply Parametric Equaliser
2. Apply Reverb.

  • Decay Time: Specifies how many milliseconds the reverb takes to decay 60 dB. Longer values give longer reverb tails.
  • Pre‑Delay Time: Specifies how many milliseconds reverb takes to build to its maximum amplitude.
  • Perception:Simulates irregularities in the environment
  • Dry: To add subtle spaciousness, set the Dry percentage higher; to achieve a special effect, set the Dry percentage lower. 
  • Wet: To add subtle spaciousness to a track, keep the Wet percentage lower than the Dry percentage.
Lecture 7: Stop Motion
Stop Motion is filmed one frame at a time.

Pre-production
  • Prepare storyboard.
  • Clock every shot.
  • Start collecting sound clips.
  • Prepare material and build puppets and background
Production
  • Set camera on tripod.
  • Use manual exposure and focus.
  • Shoot during the day but use manual lighting.
Post-production
  • Shooting Stop motion with DSLR
    • Select jpeg L/Fine
    • Resolution: 5K-6K 
    • DSLR photo default aspect ratio: 3:2. Change it to 16:9.
  • Shooting Stop motion with Phone 
    • Use app to export video for editing 

EXERCISES

Week 1
1. Video Editing Exercise
In week 1, we had a basic introduction to Adobe Premiere Pro. Our exercise was to arrange the video clips provided in the right order. The first set of video clips are of a Mints commercial and they are numbered accordingly so we just had to arrange them in sequence. 
Fig 1.1. Mints Video Clip
Fig 1.2. Arranging Mints Video Clips

While the second set of video clips are from a Doritos commercial, but they aren't numbered in order, so we have to watch the clips to find out the sequence.
Fig 1.3. Doritos Video Clip
Fig 1.4. Arranging Doritos Video Clips

Final Edited Video

Fig 1.5. Final Edited Video - Mints

Fig 1.6. Final Edited Video - Doritos

2. Three Favourite Stop Motion Video

A.
B.
C.
Week 2
1. Video Shooting Exercise
Shot size lecture refers to Project 1.
1. Low angle wide shot
2. Frontal medium close-up shot
3. Frontal medium shot
4. Extreme close-up shot
5. Side angle medium shot
6. 3/4 angling medium close-up shot 
7. Close-up shot
8. Eye-level medium wide shot

2. LALIN Editing Exercise
We were requested to download the footage given and edit them to a 35 seconds video sharp.
Fig 2.1. Footages

Final LALIN Video Outcome
Fig 2.2. LALIN
Week 3
1. 3-act Structure Exercise
Week 7
Audio Editing Exercise
We were introduced to Adobe Audition, and given a short audio to edit.

Fig 2.1. Adobe Audition
Week 9
Stop Motion Exercise - absent

Week 10
VFX Tutorial
We are to download the footages given to begin this tutorial in Adobe After Effect.
Fig Footages
Editing:
1. Import shots into AE.
2. Arrange the shots in Composition following the tutorial video.
3. Variations: Pre-compose Flick, Jumping shots in different compositions, hence the two shots both need masking.
4. Jumping shot: Use only the few frames that character floating in air. 
5. Jumping composition: Try time stretching to decide appropriate duration.  
6. To match size/shape with Bumping shot, apply Puppet tool to Jumping's composition, and add keyframes size/position.
7. Add adjustment layer to match colour for all layers.

Jumping shot Breakdown:
1. Make pre-com. Can use as short as one frame. 
2. Apply Rotobrush. 

Flick shot Breakdown:
1. Make pre-com. Crop and reposition the shot.
2. Apply Keylight.

Final VFX Video Outcome

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