Shail Vasa
Media Exploration blog : Chakra
Experimental Film
Media Exploration
Jini introduced us to the moving image part of the media exploration module. We are asked to create an experimental film working in groups, the theme of the module is Transformation. We started discussing transformation concepts and ideas during our Monday sessions, she asked us that we all talk and discuss among ourselves about film idea we have and start making groups if we find any common interest.
And Jini also took us through film history during those lessons, it was quite amazing to see how film were made back then and a I got a lot inspiration and ideas during that
I found some this work really interesting:
Kenneth Anger: Fireworks (1947)
Andy Warhol:Sleep (1963)
Sarah Pucill: You be Mother (1990)
Mohau Modisakeng: Inzilo
Initial Research on Chakras
Chakras are the various focal points in the subtle body used in a variety of ancient meditation practices.
There are seven main chakras in our body or it could be called as seven energy points.
Chakra is a part of the esoteric medieval era theories about physiology and psychic centers that emerged across Indian traditions. The theory posited that human life simultaneously exists in two parallel dimensions, one "physical body" and other "psychological, emotional, mind, non-physical" it is called the "subtle body" This subtle body is energy, while the physical body is mass. The psyche or mind plane corresponds to and interacts with the body plane, and the theory posits that the body and the mind mutually affect each other.
Each Chakra has a specific symbol and color assigned to it.
22/02/2019
Group Meeting Log
We all met up in Covent Garden and set down in a pub nearby, we shared all our ideas and research.
Discussed some of the important points in our concept, and how we are planning to portray it through the lens.
We all were pretty sure that we want to focus more on the colors and the natural elements in our film cause in our research about chakras colors and elements were common in all our research but the problem was chakras as a topic was too big and we were not able to finalize how we are going to show transformation using which method of chakra practice, so after a long discussion we all agreed that we need narrow this topic down. We ended our meeting there at that point It was a balance of fun and productive meeting.
This is a video which I watched before the meeting during my research I really liked it and got a very good understanding of chakras and their relation with the natural elements from it, so during our metting, I shared it with everyone on through our WhatsApp group chat.
The Illuminated Chakras - A Visionary Voyage Into Your Inner Worlds
2004 - Spiritual Film
Director: Anodea Judith
16 mm film Workshops
16 mm introduction was really interesting, I always wanted to shoot with film cameras and learn how it works and how you put the role in and everything I was really excited about this workshop.
Learned a lot of stuff:
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We got to learn how to do focus pulling.
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How to use the light meter.
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Two different types of film Tungsten film and Daylight film
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Tungsten film is used for a studio setup, mostly Indore
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CTB Color Temperature Gel Blue
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CTO Color Temperature Gel Orange
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Found out how film is processed and what push process does and what pull process does.
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Use of the grey card.
It was really nice to work with it.
26/02/2019
Group Meeting
We had this meeting in university next to the halls outside the cafe, we sat on the bench. Because it was such good weather outside,
Tanya had a new idea with her she said what if we have multiscreen and we deconstructing the landscape
into multiple screens and have an element that interacts within the screens. I really liked the idea, we discussed on the number of screens and the formation of the screen and also surround sound.
As the discussion was getting really intense i suggested we create a rough structure so it helps us all in thinking further. So We wrote down the outline of how the movie is going to look like. which is:
black -> flickering -> fire/landscape -> water -> earth -> air -> white
we also agreed that there will be a human form in the film which won't be identifiable
Then we divided the roles for the production
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Aryan: Assistant director/ production design
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Tanya: Director
(Most of us agreed that Tanya should be the director cause she is the one who came up with the concept of this film and knew the most about it between us)
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Tom: Dop
(Tom asked to be a DOP and he really wanted to do it so I didn't mention to the group that I wanted that role I took a back step cause he seemed really confident and technically said it first So..:)
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Joseph: Assistant Camera/ Actor
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Shail: Editor/ Gaffer/ Drone operator
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Suzanne: Producer/ Sound
01/03/2019
Meeting before water color experiments
We planned the water experiments and what colors we are going to use in water Tanya & Suzanne brought the materials for the shoot - colors, spray, fishbowl, bath bombs, etc.
And Tanya also explained to us her storyboard by drawing on the board.
Editing experiment with green screen & time-lapse
When I and Tanya talked about the shots for the film and we were imagining how it will look after editing that's when we thought if we try and create an example for everybody in the group to watch then it would help us plan the shots much better.
So Tanya requested me to take some stock footages of the forest, bonfire, beach, time-lapses, and edit them and do the tests for the green screen as well.
So this is the experiments that I edited: due to the big size video files cant be uploaded here you can check all the experiments video using this link https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PW0CQWEpqt8B60H0ZnZxKCLlvg5lN7YK?usp=sharing
14/03/2019
Breakdown of story board
Today we had our breakdown meeting. We went through the storyboard scene by scene and made notes of the shot requirements and what equipment’s we would need, materials and the health & safety and the location for that scene all of this was broken down and because Tom our groups DOP couldn’t make it that day so Suzanne made notes for him.
We looked at the stock footages I edited.
Location Scout
For Location Scout we had three selected Location
Ruislip Lido
Stanmore Forest
Bentley Prior Hill
We took a lot of photos and videos, I flew my drone as well. Overall it was a good scout but we were still not absolutely happy with any of the location so kept them as backup location still decided to go to Lulworth Cove and find forest and flowers near that area.
I wasn't supposed to go for location scout when producer planned for it, it was just Suzanne Tanya Aryan and Tom cause budget wise she said we don’t have to waste everyone’s time and money we will only take whoever is most needed.
But I was free on that day and wanted to join them so I told them that I would join you guys and it turns out that, it’s good I did cause Tom didn’t show up he didn’t inform or picked our calls everyone tried to contact him to find out how far has he reached, but anyways so I ended up shutting videos for Tanya whenever she needed something recorded as backup option like yellow flowers.
On Monday we didn’t have class, so we could work on the production I edited the footages we recorded during location scout while others were during their own research and other stuff. Later that day when we set down and discussed which location did everyone think we should shoot at that Aryan mentioned a place near horror and hill so we decided to check it out cause it is really close from uni.
Lulworth cove shoot
We started our journey really early to avoid traffic and to get enough time to film there so we left from uni around 6:30 we all were really excited, were listening to music, grooving, laughing it was a nice road trip.
After two hours of drive, we reached our first location “Moors Valley Country Park and Forest”. We parked the car and first looked around to see what kind of location would be best for our shoot, We also went to the Information Centre where we found maps for the whole park which was nice. As we were sure where to shoot we got our equipment’s out of the car and walked to the location.
Tom & Joseph started setting up the camera’s while Suzanne and Aryan set up the sound. I was just taking some behind the scene pictures for our blogs and documentation.
After a little bit, Tanya asked me if I could shoot some close up shots of all the details in the forest so I started filming as well with my camera. When they were finished with the shots in the ground I put the Drone in the air and recorded some moving in shots and going upwards to the sky and the shots were coming out really good so Tanya kept directing me and we kept on trying to get new angles and smoother motions.
During this drone flight an unfortunate vent occurred my drone battery was a 20% and the device warned me that battery is low I need to land the drone but I was recording a shot so ignored it thought I could finish the shot and then land but as the battery dropped to 18% drone automatically went to “Returning Home Mode” (where it goes high in the sky first and then analysis the surrounding and comes back to the take-off position) As soon I realized this I quickly canceled the “Returning Home Mode” but the drone was too close to the tree as it went higher it got stuck in the trees. Everybody was shocked, then we threw some stones and thin branches upwards where the drone was stuck to get it down and after a lot of tries it finally worked we got it back and fortunately, no damage was caused to the drone.
Then we drove from Moors Valley to the hostel which we had booked. The hostel was really nice, but we only could check in at 5 pm. It was now at 3 pm. We saw that down that street there was a little restaurant. We didn't eat lunch yet, so we decided to eat and drink something there. We also needed to charge some batteries. We could do that there as well which was nice it really helped.
Then We went back to the hostel and they were open now, we all just left our stuff in the room and drove to Lulworth Cove. We packed all our equipment and started walking to the location. When we got there, it was so beautiful. Everyone was surprised by it. We also got really lucky with the weather, because the sun was shining the whole day and it was pretty warm.
We picked a spot to film the sunset from. But I kept on feeling like we should look for different angle cause the sunset point we were at was a little bit busy so I told Tanya that I am going to the other side of the lagoon, so we have more options and more shots. Suzanne decided to join me while Aryan, Tanya, Tom, and Joseph stayed at that spot, so they could film there.
It was adventures and fun to walk along the beach side and find a path to climb the hill on the other side. I set my DSLR which I was using for taking pictures on interval settings so it would take a picture every 15 secs. While the camera was taking a time-lapse I set up the drone and took some shots of water, waves and while I was flying I got an idea of shooting a time-lapse using the drone but I never did this before so I went on YouTube and looked up videos on how to create a time-lapse using drone and set up my drone for taking photos at 3secs interval and flew it towards the sunset. This was super interesting I felt really good cause I was trying something new. I had to land drone twice and start again cause for the first try I flew and after a little bit realized that it had low battery and wouldn’t last as long as the sun sets and during the second try I accidentally came out of the drone’s Dji app which is used for controlling the drone and it stopped moving forward so had to start again.
This was the most beautiful sunset cause we were at a height and were next to a beach so the feeling was wonderful it worked for our film but also felt really good just being there.
We went back to the hostel, had our dinner, Joseph started backing up the cards after dinner, while everything was backing up we got something to drink and got ready to go to bed as well. Planned for next days shoot and decided we should leave at 5:30, so we had to get up at 4:30 again, because we needed the sunrise. Tom, Joseph, and Aryan went to sleep already. Tanya, Suzanne and I waited till the Backing up was finished. It was really late when we went to bed. But it was a great day and we had a wonderful time filming and bonding with each other.
Lulworth cove shoot Day 2
There was a drastic change in weather today it was a lot cloudy and it rained as well
I read Suzanne's blog for this day and it explains everything we went through this 2nd shoot day so I will link that in the here cause it explains in detail, don't think I should write the same things again. Click Here
Editing
I started my Edit job with sorting out the footages in folders the folders they created when they copied were arranged in day 1 day 2 order but for separate camera separate folder so it was quite difficult for me to do things quickly so I rearranged them all and put them in folders like wide fire shots, macro fire shots, water shots and etc.
Second stage was editing all the time-lapse photos we took of the sunset, brought them in the Lightroom because I could control the color and the composition even before putting it inside premier pro in Lightroom I could go through each and every image and take out bad picture like shaking ones from the sequence very quickly and efficiently.
After that, I started with the center screen, went through footages in order of the color so started with Red color edited the green screen energy rising scene first and as I started putting clips together on the timeline I decided that for now, I will just stick to image without the sound to make it quicker for me. During this stage, while I was editing the sunset portion of the film (orange color) Tanya came to check on how everything was going and after watching she had some suggestions, so we worked on that. And she also helped me in selecting the microscope shots and some macro shots which were gone go on side screens.
It took me a long time to finish this edit and I have to blame the camera operators for that cause the footage is didn’t look great and they were really shaky I had to spend a lot of time in going through shots sometimes even twice to find good bits somewhere even a small piece so I can slow it down and make it usable.
I don’t think its totally their fault they were overwhelmed by the location and got excited in taking shots but I guess I could have been avoided if they had done a little bit of research on the cameras they were going to use and the lenses cause most of Tom’s shoulder rig shots were
1. Out of focus
2. Shaky
Its because he was using canon 600d or 6d I am not sure which one but it didn’t have in built-in image stabilization and also the lens didn’t have image stabilization either
That’s why I had to slow down some the fire shots to 20% speed cause all the fire shots were recorded with shoulder rig by Tom and he did it really fast moving from one shot to another, that I could not find a clean shot so had to stabilize and slow it down to keep the pace of the film more meditative.
I hate the fact that even after me mentioning the whole film was still recorded on 25fps.
I mentioned to Tanya that we should record with the frame rate so I can slow it down by halting the frame rate and we would get nice slow shots and also it makes the shots smoother, Tanya agreed with my suggestion and addressed this to Tom and Joseph but and when I met Tanya after a couple of days she told me she had this conversation with them and they were saying footages will be jittery we should never shot at 50fps we should stick to 25fps. And honestly speaking I did not understand that why would they think footages will be jittery but I said to Tanya don’t I will mention this again during the shoot and try and explain them.
And I did bring it up at the start of the shot when we were in the forest and an argument started about that and I didn’t want to fight with them so I backed off cause I thought they are the DOP and Camera operators they should do what they feel right
But Tanya was really upset, and she said why don’t we just do both shot some footages with 25 and some with 50 so we can see how they look afterwards and get a closure
But when I started editing I seen there weren’t and footages recorded with 50fps and I felt really bad cause it’s a team project we are all grown up, we should just collaboratively work together and try and learn from each other not take it as an egoistic thing.
Anyways I am happy it didn’t affect the final result, just made me work harder to keep the film calm and more meditative.
But I am glad everyone liked it today when we presented it.