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Editing Style Review-kekexili

Kekexili is my favorite movie. I was totally shocked when first seeing it in high school. The desert, snow mountains, quicksand and sand storm brought me into a really natural world. I've never seen such a fabulous scene. Also, the slaughters of Tibeton antelope was another shocking point. I felt angry about the poachers and touched about the moutain patrol members. They contribute their youth, love and even lives to save those lovely creatures.

The fight between patrol members and poachers, between human beings and natures help this movie reach its top. I love this film, love feeling the heartquake.

The next few paras are reviews of its editing style required by Toula. Actually Kekexili is a film with simple editings as i think it doesnt need any stunning effects. Its nature is its beauty.

Kekexili (Mountain Patrol) is a Chinese film depicting the fight between a group of volunteer patrollers and poachers over the protection of Tibetan antelopes in the Chinese largest animal reserve-Kekexili. Large amounts of rare animals are living in this virgin place covered with desert. However, the slaughters of Tibetan antelopes break the peace of this land.

The film starts with one patrol member’s execution by poachers. Before execution, the member witnesses the death of an antelope. Scenes switch from the wide shot of poacher shooting the antelope to close-up of antelope struggling. There is no acrobatic editing here. Everything happens fast but naturally. The antelope’s unawareness of death and the poacher’s cruelty coherently express the severe situation of Kekexili- Tibetan antelopes are slaughtered every year. The moving scene to patrol member adheres to the principles of continuity, maintaining the looking direction to the antelope. Although the scene is close-up of member’s face. It can be figured out that his eyesight is kept on the struggling antelope. Despair and numbness is the messages delivered from his eyesight when he sees antelope being skinned.

The sudden killing of patrol member happens when a poacher is trying to release him. The spattering blood on beside poacher indirectly but obviously indicates his death. However, the scene remains at the wide shot of dead patrol member and beside poacher while other poachers are talking about skinning the antelope.

The simple editing style of Kekexili matches the movie theme. It is a natural place. There are no limitations of people’s behaviors, even killing. Antelopes there have total freedom but also high danger as they will face unexpected death every second.

Project Making Nine-Shooting B (2)

We did it~!

Yes, we did it. We finished our shooting in Wollongong...2 hours train trip from Central..hoho..good on us!!! Thanks for everybody, Arya especially!

Actually it was really surprising for us to hear from the Wollongong Beaten Park that we got the permission to shoot on their running track. We did hesitate at the very beginning cos it was indeed far away from Sydney. With such expensive camera gear, we worried and couldn't decided. But other places refused or ignored our requiring again. We had to go there without any choice.

Alright. Let's make it a trip. A short trip...just with a camera, tripod and accessories. We could have a nice trip, can't we?~:)

We set out from Central station on Sunday (2/12/07) 9:40 am and arrived at North Woll'g around 11:15 am. Sunshine gave us a warm welcome after a 2-hour trip. Everyone was excited about arrival and enjoying the fresh air.

Finding the way through Beaten Park took half hour. Camera and tripod became heavier and heavier during the process. Finally, we saw the running track...right in front of us!!!
Cheers...we found it!!! (It's true that we'v spend almost 2 weeks searching it...and now it's right there!! So real..so..exciting!)

Excitements motivated us to begin shooting...
Overview of running track...pan L to R...Pan R to L...beauty of the playground was recorded in our tape...
Emily running on track...tracking from CR to CL...
During this shot...weather seemed to change..shower seemed to come...we were scared..but prayed..don't shower..thank you!!!
Emily taking the baton...close up...
I personally quite liked this shot..it brought me there..where a person truely passed his life to the other...to fulfil his life goals...i was touched...honestly...
Emily running towards camera...

2 and half an hours later...we packed everything...we were gonna leave for Sydney...
Hunger and tireness brought us back from shooting...
They also sent us on train...sleeping..zzzzzzzz.....

5pm..we arrived at Sydney...hu.........
WE DID IT....

Project Making Nine-Shooting B

Fun and tireness are always together

Last week's shooting failed to meet our requirements. Then shooting will continue this weekend. Our schedule is filled with shooting in Faye's house and Wollongong Beaten Park.

Cos it's the 2nd time of taking the same shots, shooting went quite well. Although we did spend lots of time on finding the best angle, the whole process ended within 3 hours, from 4 pm to 7 pm. Actually, we found it difficult to shoot the scene of Emily opening the laptop and Amelia entering.

After discussion, Faye and I decided to shoot the Amelia entering in use of Emily's angle who's actually lying or twisting on bed because of sudden painfulness. So the frame will be a bit tilted and distorted. Several rehearsals helped us find out the angle and put it into practice. I think this shot took around 7 takes or more. I was doing the camera work actually in this shot. I found it quite hard to handle the camera as we wanted to suddenly zoom in when Amelia entering. Each time she entered, the position was different. So it was a bit tricky for me to exactly follow her track and do the exact zoom in. Luckily, practice makes going. This shot was finished after trials. I thought it would be good when playing on screen. However the results told me the truth. All other group members said it was over close-up when Amelia entering. The first shot was the best of all...*-*..~~~Anyway..i learned a lot of skills in shooting during this afternoon. And i believed that we did a good job!

(To be continued....)

Project Making Eight-Shooting A

When things got stuck, what should we do?

Sometimes things happen fast, same as our shooting.
Because of the little time, we decided to shoot from last Sunday, Nov. 25th. It was truly hurry for us to make it as we even hadn’t found right place to shoot. Funny, isn’t it?

But we were forced by time to do it. Then we started contacting places with running tracks. From Olympic Park to Eastern Garden, to Kingsgrove, to Hurstville….but we still failed to get a place to shoot before Saturday. Meanwhile we were trying to find places with hospital treatment bedrooms. Results turned out to be the same because university was on holiday. Gosh……
So we had to re-consider, changing hospital to home…was it possible? Yes, it was. Faye’s house was the best choice we had. Why not making it?

Shooting in Faye’s house was suddenly decided on Friday. We re-thought the storyboard, script and so on. Little changes may happen but it would be okay. Alright, we started making it- I am an organ donor, are you?

Sunday morning, Ardi, Arya, Jin and I were setting out to Town Hall bus station at 9 am. The upcoming Sydney XX Parade caused traffic blocking which scared us to lose our bus. Actually buses were running properly…god bless us….
We arrived at Faye’s house around 10 am and started breakfast…camera setting up…blah blah blah…

Then Jin (organizer) started making up for Emily (Played by Arya) who became ‘sicker’ and ‘sicker’ in the following 10 mins…

15 mins later...Emily was 'diagnosed' to be horribly sick...(Sb said she looked like Zombie...did she?)

Rehearsals started at 11 am..bringing lots of fun...Amelia (Emily's older sister, Jin)'s acting needed skills and feelings, she tried almost 10 times (Really thank you!) to actually be in the scene. It was Amelia who made the movie turned over into a hopeful feeling... She may be excited to cry...to be tripped...

Anyway, rehearsing time was fantastic, humorous and helpful...We tried to find out the best angle and the best acting.

Then formal shooting started, times after times... hours after hours...

We finished shooting at 5 pm...Hu....................................

Everybody turned out to be exhausted but happy, we spent a whole day shooting several scenes. But we did learn a lot. We learnt how to co-operate, how to judge the angles and how to keep the atmosphere......

Project Making IIV-Presenting Idea

We make what you want

Yes, week 5 is the week of presenting video idea in class. It is a chance for us to gain feedback from listeners whether our idea is nice or not. The outcome proves our assumption, we indeed get valuable suggestions from our listeners.
We are 'lucky' to be the last group presenting idea. The process was going well as everyone knew what he/she was responsible for. When explaining our ideas by displaying the storyboard, i could feel that our audience understand them but....
After presenting, we began the interaction time. We asked our audience whether they got what our video wanted to say or no. The answer was 'yes' which comforted us. But Blossom also said when Ardi describing the shot size, it was a bit unclear for her to actually shape the image in mind. This problem was able to be solved when our video comes out on screen.
However, the next few questions surprised us a bit.
Several audiences said we gave limited information about how to be an organ donor in our video which they were eager to know after watching the video.

It was also reinforcecd by Toula that she had the same feeling. She wanted to know more about organ donor register within the video. So she said why we didn't make it a documentary.

Actually we'd ever thought about making a documentary where interviews of organ donors and tertiary students dominant. However, it was figured out that in this case the video would lose its interest towards our target audience. The length of documentary may also bore them.
More important is, based on our survey questionnaire, tertiary students's awareness of organ donation was the main problem. That's why we wanna make a video which mainly aimes to motivate or encourage them to be an organ donors rather than teaching them how to be an organ donor.
And another point is, the process of being organ donor will specifically published/introduced on the website of our campaign.

After explaining to Toula and classmates, they had a clearer idea. But they still wanted to directly see some hints of registration in the video.
Therefore, we may try to improve our video, maybe this kinda information will be added after our video. Anyway, it's still in discussion and consideration.

Project Making IV-Improving Idea

Audiences are always listeners...

Finally, we worked out our video idea. Cheers!
As a writer, i mainly did work on synopsis while others doing storyboard or script.
I first discussed the one sentence synopsis with members, outcome was not satisfied.

When life met the end, Emily received her life gift and decided to pass it on...

It sounded more or less confused..but on the other hand, it had some secrets which were expected to attract our audiences to actually see our video..
wut is the life gift?how did she receive it? etc...
So...in this case it was okay...
but we hoped to get feedback from Toula~~~

In addtion, i wrote down my own synopsis which worked well for me...^-^

Life is a relay match, you can pass it on, like what he did...

YEAH...it is my way of thinking..i dun know whether it is proper or not..anyway..i like it..

Project Making V-Developing Idea

Sometimes, simple is good.

The current task of our group is deciding the video idea which triggered different opinions in last discussion. We agreed to ask Toula for help. Toula's feedback on both ideas were similar, ideas were a bit abstract, especially Faye's idea. As our video is set up as an advertising, we have to make our audience understood our content and intention within several mins. But from Faye's storyboard, Toula worried it was over abstract and passive for audience.
Overall, Toula strongly agreed the idea of Relay Match, but, she suggested us to work out some more detail and clear ideas about video. If we still couldn't decide on one video script before next week's presentation, we were welcomed to display both ideas to our audience and gain feedback from them.

After communication with Toula, our group immediately hold a meeting discussing solutions of video idea. We aimed to try to make only one video idea before next as it would be heavy work for all of us to accomplish two scripts, treatments and storyboards. Then, we started analysing disadvantages and advantages of both Ardi and Faye's ideas while trying to mix them together in one video.

Firstly, we came up with an idea that Ardi's video could be shown first as a documentary for the whole video project, then Faye's video could be used as a subsdiary advertising about organ donation. In this case, both ideas could be included in the video.
However, this idea was given up after discussions as it required relatively high techniques which was beyond our ability.

Secondly, we started combining two ideas together.
Faye's idea-keep the relay match, main character-boy and girl
Ardi's idea-organ recipient survived after organ donor's donation after death
Following this model, several ideas were tested...but outcome was poor...

After several trials and improvements, a rough version which seems to be nice came out-
The whole video is about telling a 'real' experience of organ donation by a successful organ recipient who restared her life 5 years ago because of organ transplantation from an anoymous organ donor.

So the benefits and importance of organ donation can be displayed or conveyed to our audiences through their communication with the story teller even it was not 'true'.

Since the rough idea was approved, details about each scene were discussed by us one by one.

Project Making III-Brainstorming

Ideas can be improved through discussion

The latest group meeting ended 2 hours ago. It was nice, tough and helpful. We went through two different design of our project's video from Ardi and Faye. But when we actually deeply discussed it...problems came out...from the availability to the content...at last..we hadn't reached agreement on one idea...sign...However, it was really valuable to see those ideas and to see every group memeber trying their best. Now i'm gonna explain Ardi and Faye's ideas about video.

Ardi-
Characters: A-died in car accident
B,C,D-waiting for organs to survive
Location: Park

Storyline:
first half: A walks on the road, passes B, who needs a heart to live on; passes C, who needs a lung to live on; passes D, who needs a liver to survive- They all fade out of the screen-representing they all pass away.

Second half: A walks on the road, meeting B, hug B, they smile together, so with C and D. In the end, A happily fades out of the screen with B,C,D watching.

The end: White letters on black screen: Die for nothing or die for something?
You can choose one
Be an organ donor
Be a life saver.

This is the idea of Ardi’s video for organ donation campaign. He wanna say to target audience that you can make decisions between saving lives or let them go. He sets up the character who’s already dead and other three who are waiting for organs to live on and makes two different endings which four ppl die together and three ppl survive because of the dead’s organs. He wanna show the audience how important organ donation is. We can help save several lives through losing one dead life, why not doing it? It makes our lives more worthy, isn’t it?

For me, this is really a meaningful idea. But I think it blurs the differences between living donors and dead donors, and his story makes us feel encourage people to die to save lives…@_@

Faye
Characters: Girl and Boy
Location: Street, Church, Hospital, Running Track, University Campus.
Storyline:
Scene One: Street: girl and boy pass each other

Scene Two: Church: The girl prays and suddenly passes out
Scene Three: Hospital: Parents of the girl in coma are praying beside the sickbed.
Scene Four: Running track- the boy, in prepare for running, sets out when gun shooting. He is sweating while running.
Scene Five: Running track-the girl is waiting at the end of raceway.
Scene Six: University campus-the boy is filling up an organ donor registering form.
Scene Seven: Running track-the boy passes his baton to the girl. She starts running.
End: Boy and girl are happily chatting with each other on the racetrack.

Basically, Faye’s initial idea about RELAY RACE is fantastic! All of us agree with this point which totally express the key of organ donation-pass our lives on to others. However, when her script came out to us, things changed a bit. Several down points were found out of her video:
l Whole video needs four locations which cost time and money.
l The connection between relay race and girl’s story is a bit choppy. As an audience, it might be confused.
l (Personal viewpoint) The involvement of church may be not so match cos it brings some religious feelings.

Actually, our group failed to reach an agreement on idea of video. We decided to ask Toula for help the next day.

Even though we didn’t make the idea, it was really worthy to have this discussion which improved our cooperation and communication.

Project Making II-Butterfly Man

Making a video is making a story, which displays others what your heart wanna say......

Today's class was fantastic, from watching video to learning camera, everything seemed to be pretty fresh and funny to me. The most shocking and touching short film-Butterfly Man brought me overwhelming thinkings about a people's life as well as our own video product.

The synopsis i wrote for this movie was...
The story of a man and butterflies, who find his life blossoming from dancing like a butterfly...

Actually, this sentence is quite simple but meaningful to me. Coz it's my first time to see an aged gentleman so much addicted to butterfly. Also, it's my first time to see an aged gentleman dancing like a butterfly...when he dances, i can feel his passion, his young and his lover over butterflies...Butterfly, is his second life.

In addtion to the unique storyline, the beautiful camera work did impress most of my classmates. Different from many videos we've ever seen, this director used lots of distorted angles, lights and frameworks that bring us mystery and attractions.
When the director shot the university museum, objects in the screen were arranged as a triangle which reinforcing the antique atmosphere of this movie. It was a bit strange, but creative, i think.
When butterfly samples were shot close-up, the special blue light shocked me as it was so beautiful and incredible.

The video is not for the butterfly man, it is also for the butterflies. They are both shining in this film.