Tuesday, December 10th - Ken Burns and Story

Please watch this video featuring Ken Burns describing 'story'.

Play Video Here

Your upcoming documentary project is not an MMJ news story, neither is it a PSA, it is a story deeply rooted in a complex and important topic. Your job is to find a unique story to tell about the topic 'Poverty in America'.

Please answer the following blogspot questions:

1. What does Ken Burns mean by 1 + 1 =  3?
2. What is an emotional truth according to Burns?
3. How does he make 'the dead' come to life in his work, specifically how does he do this with Photography and Audio?
4. Where might you find a story about Poverty in America?
5. How do you dig to find the Poverty in American story where 1 + 1 = 3?
6. What kind of person would make an interesting character to build story around? (ie., what about poverty from a child's perspective, or the perspective of a parent, a sister, a social worker, policeman, clergy, non-profit agency worker, historical figure, city counsel member, non-profit foundation worker). 
7. What conflicts might you find, what inciting incidents? (ie., a child who goes to school but has just lost their home, a parent coping with bills that cannot be paid, a child is too hungry to do homework, a worker who has been laid off due to corporate downsizing)
8. What are your initial thoughts about poverty in America? What message do you think you want to convey in the story you will tell through your documentary?

Introduction to Documentary

Blogspot Question:
Discuss your familiarity with the documentary genre by describing the most interesting documentary you have ever watched. How did the documentary inform your point of view? What made it credible or believable?

Monday Agenda:

• Polling/discussion around documentary genre
• Documentary 'Defined' by Academy of Motion Arts & Pictures, Videomaker
• Ken Burns-why should we study his films?
• Civil War Documentary, 8 media elements. Watch 15 min and log what you see.

Log by time and describe:

1. Photography-what does he do with photos that makes the visual more appealing (be specific, more than, 'he moves them', what specifically do you see at times, how are they moved)
2. Newsreels/Archive Footage
3. Interviews-with who, how does he tell you who is being interviewed?
4. Audio-music, narration, sounds, be specific-what do you hear? Is the music of a certain timeframe, or more contemporary? What instruments do you hear in the music?

Tuesday: 

Complete watching Civil War, Episode 1. 

Thursday:

Preparing for your documentary

Mood Board and Storyboards

Today you will upload the planning stages of your production worth either 20/10 points in your grade, depending on your project.

For poets, the key pieces are your story/mood board and a detailed shot sheet. Please upload everything here in this folder. To move your work to this folder in google, simply copy your file, and then 'move' your file to the designated folder (the link provided in this paragraph). Double check to make sure your file is there by the end of class). Make sure you are logged in.

Again, see link here for an example of a mood storyboard. I expect your storyboard to have images in boxes, narrative audio and camera instruction clearly identified. Each box should also have a duration that is derived from your audio narration. When complete, share with me and everyone in your group.
You may share at cleather@lgsuhsd.org

Mood board-elicits a certain emotion through visual style

Mood board, aggregated pictures describing potential shots

For Icons the key pieces are your media component list and evidence of your share folder.

If you look back on your project descriptions from this blogspot you will see that the storyboard (for Poets) does not require any drawing in the google draw tool itself. This was an option given to students who wanted to try drawing, using the pen stylus and tablet. Some students who wanted to experiment and push boundaries and had some artistic background demonstrated some success with drawing with the drawing tool. However, the project is fine with just images from Google representing shots and moods you would like to establish for your piece. It is also very convenient for sharing and making comments. Two very successful examples include Torrens/Lee/Davey project, and Chen/Lee/Aggrawal projects. In both cases groups tried drawing and sourcing imagery. The most impressive part of the Chen/Lee/Agrawal board is the collaboration that occurs in the comments section where the group discusses roles, challenges, how many After Effects shots, etc.

Most important was how the collection of images and assemblage in the mood storyboard allowed the group to begin a discussion around the kind of shots desired, the kind of look and emotion desired for their piece. That is exactly what a mood board should do, as seen in the Torrens/Lee/Davey outcome at class end.

What I have asked from you is a mood storyboard. The concept of mood board requires a collage like approach to creating a storyboard. If anything it frees you up from drawing and allows you to source images on the web to use as reference points.

Mood boards are heavily used in industry these days and very much a part of the visual performing arts curriculum at the college level-well worth understanding. Once you see the benefit, you will appreciate in a sense how they make the storyboard process easier for people who do not like to draw, and provide flexibility to those designing the production.

Vancouver is a hotbed of production activity. The link here describes the active use of a mood board in a production by university students at the Vancouver Film School. This school is a feeder to the multitude of production, gaming and design companies in Vancouver, Seattle and more.

Mood boards are a staple these days in the visual design process as applied to print, web, animation, video, etc. Having a really solid one in your portfolio would position you as a student who understands the most contemporary approaches to achieving strong visual imagery.

Tuesday-Nov 19th

Poets-please respond:

1. Describe the visual imagery of your poem? What will unify the look and mood of your poetic representation?
2. What is the most challenging aspect of your production? How will you meet the challenge?
3. Have you recorded the narrative of your poem yet in the way you would like it read, for timing and expressive mood? (if not, make this the first thing you do today, even as a scratch audio track using your iphones if necessary-you may do this quietly outside or in the audio room).
4. Send a message to the student in the other period telling them your plans for the day, and where to find anything they might need access to.

Icons-please respond:

1. What different kind of media are you using?
2. How are you maintaining continuity across all icons?
3. What are you using to introduce and conclude your media project?

Poets/Icons Monday

Class period for productions: 5 Blocks, 2 Mondays, Due Dec 5th, end of class

Poets:

Due the end of this week for credit/10 pts each:

1. Storyboard that details audio/narration, camerawork, duration. Please see here for example of what I am looking for. Your options for visuals are quite simple. You may source photos representing the mood of the shot you would like to create, or you may draw a picture. If you draw, you may use a pen stylus and work in Photoshop to create pictures. Then Save the Photoshop file as a jpg, or simply cut the picture out in Photoshop and paste it in the google drawing file.
2. Shot sheet, please use the template here as a guide. This is the format you should use.

Poet Blogspot response for Monday: please tell me your role in the project and when you plan to have video to edit. Who will be your editor? How many class periods will you reserve for editing a final piece? What about music and appropriate sound effects, what are your plans? Remember, music usage must fall within legal copyright limits (see me if you do not know). 

Icons:
Icon Folder Here

Due the end of this week for credit/10 pts each:

1. Content Folder that includes video, photos, text or snippets from the web screen captured for inclusion, audio. Please see here for link to shared drive-upload here.
2. Planning Guide please use the template here as a guide. This is the format you should use.

Icon Blogspot response for Monday: please tell me your role in the project and when you plan to have video to edit. Who will be your editor? How many class periods will you reserve for editing a final piece? What about music and appropriate sound effects, what are your plans? Remember, music usage must fall within legal copyright limits (see me if you do not know). 

Icon/Poets

Blogspot Question of the day: Read Cinematography: Theory and Practice pg. 38-41 (under production links on right side). When you have read the excerpt, look at this link which is an excerpt from Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards. Take any 3 shots (by timecode) and describe the concepts of visual organization, visual weight and visual tension apparent in your selected shots.

 ICONS:

Mozilla has released a new mashup tool called Popcorn Maker. Check it out here

Follow the tutorial here.

Popcorn Ted Talk (2012, Software Preview)

Classroom Assignment:
Please collaborate with others from your Icon groups and experiment with Popcorn as a tool for future projects. Icon groups could use Popcorn as a way to create a mashup that integrates not only multiple videos, but other media content as well including maps, websites, photographs, audio and more.

Icon groups may begin to gather content for your mashup right away.

POETS:

1. Filmmakers on poets projects will continue to look at the visuals capable with After Effects. Please look at the following tutorial and re-create a similar scene using 3D camera view and a simulated effects such as rain. Please check in with Mrs. L. when you have completed the tutorial and have applied that knowledge to a photo.
2. Please access this file on the google drive. This file is a drawing file that can be shared. It is the basis for the construction of a storyboard for your visual interpretation. When you have your poem selected, you will spread the lines, stanzas out over this storyboard and start to create visuals that will help tell the story. Before shooting video or gathering photos, it is important to record your narrative to obtain duration of lines and stanzas. This will allow you to create a storyboard with timecode ins/outs and set durations. 
3. Poets will create a detailed storyboard for their poem to be handed in by the end of the day Monday Nov 18th. Poets should also hand in a production plan that details a shot sheet that details location and schedule of production. Do backwards planning. Determine how much time you will need for the final edit and plan backwards to create a realistic production schedule.

By Friday you will narrow down your media assignment to the poem you will visually interpret. This week you will spend preparing for that visualization by learning more about what After Effects can do and if it might be a useful tool in the art of visualization.

Filmmaking and Animation as Art

When you make movies, shoot photos or create animations, you are engaging in art forms. How do you express art in your filmmaking or animation work?

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Please complete the following self assessment:
Map 2 Music Video Self Assessment