My film role is the Producer.
Producer - I would be a good producer because when I want to get something done, I want to get something done. I could keep my group on task and get things done.
Director - I have a really creative mind and eye, but I have issues actually executing my creative ideas. It is almost too stressful for me.
Cinematographer - Let's face it, I really don't know my way around a camera properly enough to be able to be a good cinematographer.
Editor - Again, I don't know my way around the editing software we use. I could learn, but it would take time to be really good at it.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Monday, September 29, 2014
Story & Plot
Stories have always been a big part of my life. Everything I've ever been interested in has something to do with a story. I love and adore stories. Of course, now I know that plot is just as important as the ever loved story.
Story is emotion. Story is why things happen and how things happen. It makes you feel, it brings you into the world of the novel, or movie, or painting, or whatever.
Plot, on the other the hand, is what is exactly happening. No, it doesn't have the emotion, but it has value. It is the series events within the story. Everyone thinks that plot is boring, maybe even pointless. However, plot is just the opposite. It is completely and utterly necessary.
You can't have plot without story and you can't have story without plot. If you just give someone the plot, they'll probably just say "Ok?" or "Cool" or something along those lines. You won't get much of a reaction. If you just give someone a story, they'll say something along the lines of "Ok, well what happens next?" Give them both, and you have an audience.
Story is emotion. Story is why things happen and how things happen. It makes you feel, it brings you into the world of the novel, or movie, or painting, or whatever.
Plot, on the other the hand, is what is exactly happening. No, it doesn't have the emotion, but it has value. It is the series events within the story. Everyone thinks that plot is boring, maybe even pointless. However, plot is just the opposite. It is completely and utterly necessary.
You can't have plot without story and you can't have story without plot. If you just give someone the plot, they'll probably just say "Ok?" or "Cool" or something along those lines. You won't get much of a reaction. If you just give someone a story, they'll say something along the lines of "Ok, well what happens next?" Give them both, and you have an audience.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Codecs
Codecs. What are they?
First off, Codec stands for compressor/decompressor. Compressing to make a file smaller and decompressing it to work with, edit, and display the file.
Some companies own certain Codecs and you have to get licensed, while some Codecs are not owned by a company, so they are free for use. Certain computers don't have a codec code and are unable to play that codec or compress a certain codec.
There is a difference between a codec and a container. A codec is a "h.264", "prores", or "DNxHD", which are files. A container is a type of file that contains a codec; ".mov", ".wmv", ".avi".
There are different types of codecs. They are as follows:
1) Capture Codec - what your camera is reading; can go from a low bit rate to raw, or the absence of codec.
2) Edit Codec - taking the capture codec and turning it into this in order to edit the footage.
3) Delivery Codec - export edit codec out into this; file that you put out for display.
AND/OR
4) Archival Codec - copy of the finished project.
Now, what is Bit Depth?
Bit depth is used in codecs for editing and rendering. It also involves the number of values you have between dark and light.
An example of a low bit depth is 8-bit. Remember the old Super Mario games? The first ones to come out? That is 8-bit. This means there are 2 to the 8th power, 256, possibilities of values for each of the three channels - red, blue, and green.
With 10 bit, there are 2 to the 10th power, 1024, possibilities for the three channels. As you can see, there is a large difference between 8-bit and 10-bit. The deeper the bit depth, the better.
Next subject? Chroma Subsampling.
Chroma subsampling is throwing away some color, or chroma, data in your image.
Examples are 4:4:4 (no chroma subsampling), 4:2:2 (some chroma subsampling), and 4:2:0 (a lot of chroma subsampling).
In 4:2:0, say we have four pixels. We are going to take away the color sampling of three of those pixels and only use the color sampling of the remaining pixel, which would give its color to the other pixels. The brightness is still there, but the color is throw out.
In 4:2:2, with the same situation, two of the pixels would lose their color sampling while the other kept theirs and gave them to the uncolored pixels, essentially throwing away half of the values.
In 4:4:4, all pixels keep their own color sampling.
Next, Spatial Compression.
This is when the pixels in an image are all the same color or close to the same color. This recognizes that a chunk of the image you are using is all one color, or similar in color. Spatial compression usually occurs in low contrast areas of an image. Normally, this goes undetected and is very rarely noticeable. Certain codecs have a limit on how much spatial compression is allowed and other don't.
Now, Temporal Compression, or, Inter-Frame Compression.
This is compressing something over time, going in-between frames. This is referred to as Long-GOP, GOP standing for Group Of Pictures. In this, the whole frame is stored and then the differences in that frame and the next frame are calculated, and then the only the differences in the next frame are stored, and so on and so forth.
The downside, however, is only the differences are stored. You would have to back several frames to remember the differences and what is in the background, since that information is no longer being stored. This codec is great for storing information, but very bad for editing information.
Another downside is that, with temporal compression, is that it will throw out small differences if it deems them unimportant to save room.
All-I means there is no temporal compression.
What is the difference between Lossless Compression and Lossy Compression?
Lossy is when you lose, or carefully throw away, data or information. Many codecs use lossy over lossless.
Lossless isn't used very much in video codecs. This is when carefully go through the data of the image in numbers or colors. This is usually used for zip files or compressed files; ".zip" or ".rar". You don't lose anything.
Lastly, what is Bit Rate?
Bit rate is how much data the codec uses. The most common notation is "bits per second" with either kilobits (kbps or kb/s) or megabits (mbps or mb/s).
Now, don't confuse bit and byte. One byte is 8-bits. Byte is represented with a B and bit is represented by a b.
TA-DAA!!
CODECS!!!
First off, Codec stands for compressor/decompressor. Compressing to make a file smaller and decompressing it to work with, edit, and display the file.
Some companies own certain Codecs and you have to get licensed, while some Codecs are not owned by a company, so they are free for use. Certain computers don't have a codec code and are unable to play that codec or compress a certain codec.
There is a difference between a codec and a container. A codec is a "h.264", "prores", or "DNxHD", which are files. A container is a type of file that contains a codec; ".mov", ".wmv", ".avi".
There are different types of codecs. They are as follows:
1) Capture Codec - what your camera is reading; can go from a low bit rate to raw, or the absence of codec.
2) Edit Codec - taking the capture codec and turning it into this in order to edit the footage.
3) Delivery Codec - export edit codec out into this; file that you put out for display.
AND/OR
4) Archival Codec - copy of the finished project.
Now, what is Bit Depth?
Bit depth is used in codecs for editing and rendering. It also involves the number of values you have between dark and light.
An example of a low bit depth is 8-bit. Remember the old Super Mario games? The first ones to come out? That is 8-bit. This means there are 2 to the 8th power, 256, possibilities of values for each of the three channels - red, blue, and green.
With 10 bit, there are 2 to the 10th power, 1024, possibilities for the three channels. As you can see, there is a large difference between 8-bit and 10-bit. The deeper the bit depth, the better.
Next subject? Chroma Subsampling.
Chroma subsampling is throwing away some color, or chroma, data in your image.
Examples are 4:4:4 (no chroma subsampling), 4:2:2 (some chroma subsampling), and 4:2:0 (a lot of chroma subsampling).
In 4:2:0, say we have four pixels. We are going to take away the color sampling of three of those pixels and only use the color sampling of the remaining pixel, which would give its color to the other pixels. The brightness is still there, but the color is throw out.
In 4:2:2, with the same situation, two of the pixels would lose their color sampling while the other kept theirs and gave them to the uncolored pixels, essentially throwing away half of the values.
In 4:4:4, all pixels keep their own color sampling.
Next, Spatial Compression.
This is when the pixels in an image are all the same color or close to the same color. This recognizes that a chunk of the image you are using is all one color, or similar in color. Spatial compression usually occurs in low contrast areas of an image. Normally, this goes undetected and is very rarely noticeable. Certain codecs have a limit on how much spatial compression is allowed and other don't.
Now, Temporal Compression, or, Inter-Frame Compression.
This is compressing something over time, going in-between frames. This is referred to as Long-GOP, GOP standing for Group Of Pictures. In this, the whole frame is stored and then the differences in that frame and the next frame are calculated, and then the only the differences in the next frame are stored, and so on and so forth.
The downside, however, is only the differences are stored. You would have to back several frames to remember the differences and what is in the background, since that information is no longer being stored. This codec is great for storing information, but very bad for editing information.
Another downside is that, with temporal compression, is that it will throw out small differences if it deems them unimportant to save room.
All-I means there is no temporal compression.
What is the difference between Lossless Compression and Lossy Compression?
Lossy is when you lose, or carefully throw away, data or information. Many codecs use lossy over lossless.
Lossless isn't used very much in video codecs. This is when carefully go through the data of the image in numbers or colors. This is usually used for zip files or compressed files; ".zip" or ".rar". You don't lose anything.
Lastly, what is Bit Rate?
Bit rate is how much data the codec uses. The most common notation is "bits per second" with either kilobits (kbps or kb/s) or megabits (mbps or mb/s).
Now, don't confuse bit and byte. One byte is 8-bits. Byte is represented with a B and bit is represented by a b.
TA-DAA!!
CODECS!!!
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
Camera Techniques
1) Whip Pan, Whip Cut - The camera moves swiftly from one area to another, sometimes changing sets.
2) Whip Zoom Look - Zooming in on a specific object, forcing the audiences' attention on that subject.
3) Search Up - The camera vertically scans that actor's body, revealing information about the character.
4) Back To Front - Something happens in the background of a scene, with the foreground out of focus. Then, slowly, the background becomes out of focus and the foreground becomes in focus.
5) Focus Out, Pass Out - A POV shot used to simulate a character passing out or falling asleep.
6) Focus Transition - Changing an image's brightness to create a transition, for example, fade to black.
7) Overexpose Fade, Underexpose Fade - Techniques having to do with the exposure of a shot. Overexpose gradually over exposes a shot while underexpose gradually under exposes a shot.
8) Ceiling Twist - The camera is pointed up at the ceiling, the sky, or something of interest that is above and the camera slowly rotates.
9) Shifting Angle - The camera is consistently moving and changing, trying to give the audience a dizzy feeling.
10) Sleepover - The actor is laying down, usually face up, and the camera is directly above them, giving a bird's eye view, all the while slowly rotating.
2) Whip Zoom Look - Zooming in on a specific object, forcing the audiences' attention on that subject.
3) Search Up - The camera vertically scans that actor's body, revealing information about the character.
4) Back To Front - Something happens in the background of a scene, with the foreground out of focus. Then, slowly, the background becomes out of focus and the foreground becomes in focus.
5) Focus Out, Pass Out - A POV shot used to simulate a character passing out or falling asleep.
6) Focus Transition - Changing an image's brightness to create a transition, for example, fade to black.
7) Overexpose Fade, Underexpose Fade - Techniques having to do with the exposure of a shot. Overexpose gradually over exposes a shot while underexpose gradually under exposes a shot.
8) Ceiling Twist - The camera is pointed up at the ceiling, the sky, or something of interest that is above and the camera slowly rotates.
9) Shifting Angle - The camera is consistently moving and changing, trying to give the audience a dizzy feeling.
10) Sleepover - The actor is laying down, usually face up, and the camera is directly above them, giving a bird's eye view, all the while slowly rotating.
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