LIGHTING
When working with cameras, lighting is incredibly important. You can change the tone of the image depending on the type of lighting used, and how you use it.
The two types of lighting in photography are,
Available light, which are naturally occurring light sources, like the sun or moon.
Artificial light, which are light sources that are created for the purpose of the photo, like torches and lamps.
Documentary & Preparing for Progression Journal
Today we began working on our Preparation to Progression unit with Hannah, we were tasked into looking for a career we are interested in working in (media related) after we finish college - My intentions after college are to join the Royal Marines, however if I had to choose a job in media, it would be as a Cinematographer, a life long passion for me allowing me to be as creative as I want without compromising someone else's rules.
I find cinematography interesting because It allows me to be as creative as I want, I can dictate camera angles, lighting and how the camera captures the scene, I would have to work closely with the producer and director in order to pull of the films desired effect.
Today Mino tasked us to begin the research phase of of documentary project due in the October half term, we had to look into the 5 modes of documentary's and to identify what real world docs align with these modes.
Today was my first day back at college after being Ill for the past two weeks. Today Richard tasked us with borrowing a camera and going around Taunton and take some photos.
WE initially wandered around the high street and surrounding areas but couldn't find any inspiration,....
After getting back to the college I focused on trying to pin down a idea for my documentary, my first idea was looking inside the mind of a body builder and gym culture, and another was the fashion industry - I'm partial to the body building idea, as I go to a body building gym, and have been apart of that culture for some time.
I finally came up with a topic for my documentary today, I am going to delve into the work of body building and discuss influential body builders,
I also during my lesson with Hannah today I caught up on the work she tasked while I was ill and began looking into a career outside of my after college plans, in cinematography.
Today I started and finished my research phase of my doc. I started by looking into the Mr. Olympia contest and its gross acceptance of contestants using steroids in order to have a more interesting show, and for more money.
Also I delved into trenbolone, the most popular type of steroid taken by body building athletes to date, its positive effects on the body and also its negatives. A key point I made was about Ronnie Coleman and how his hardcore stance on bodybuilding and steroids almost killed him, leaving him partially paralysed.
Moreover I contacted a few popular influential figures in the industry, in the UK and American scene, to get their take on bodybuilding, and fitness. I've compiled a small list of questions to ask and are in talks about arranging a Zoom call with one of the influencers.
One of the influencers I've contacted have responded, Aaron Martin, and we've agreed to have our interview Wednesday 5th.
Today I started to test OBS and zoom to make sure everything is setup for my interview with Aaron - OBS has a lot of compatibility issues with MacOS, my first issue was OBS capturing my microphone from the left channel only but was an easy fix with the built in audio mixer. However the main issue I faced was the audio coming from zoom was playing through the microphone/aux channel as well as my microphone - my issue there is that I'm going to record my microphone externally with a boom microphone - as well as have the ability to be able to mix the audio separately not altogether. After an hour of troubleshooting I finally managed to get OBS to work, capturing desktop audio and mic audio separately, as well as separate tracks so I can edit them individually.
I also had an issue with zoom video quality before poor, lagging, and crashing randomly, so tested other conference platforms like Google Meets, which is much higher quality and preforms better.
This past week everything in my project has fell through, the one good thing that came out was that I reinterviewed Aaron Martin and everything was successful thankfully.
However two people I planned on interviewing have not gotten back to me - and the gym didn't want to do to the interview because of the nature of the questions - not wanting to make members who do use steroids feel shamed.
So I'm going to briefly change my plan for the doc, to focus on the effects the gym has on peoples mental health.
I'm going to film an interview with Callum in the film studio and ask him questions about his experiences with the fitness industry, how it has helped him, aided his mental health and his opinions on anabolic steroids.
Data Driven Audience:
I asked my peer, Callum what he enjoyed about the film making process, he told me his favourite part was editing, having complete control over the creative process, and make the project his own - He enjoys removing the fluff, creating a high quality piece of media as the end result.