Last Day

Today was my last day, for now, working with the Global People Project. The directors are very happy with my progress in terms of the amount and quality of the work I have produced.

Throughout my work experience, I have learnt both new and old skills and knowledge from the tasks I have completed in terms of being a competent junior edit assistant and am very happy with the outcome of all the work I have completed.

Learning how to use CatDV and how to Twitter schedule will be particularly useful and are specialist skills that I can add to my CV. The practice at completing projects from sound-syncing to the fine cut in Avid Media Composer have also greatly increased my skill and knowledge on the software which will improve my C.V. I have really enjoyed working with them and they want to give me a good reference for any future jobs I apply for.

The directors are happy, when I have more time, for me to return to do more work on this exciting and versatile project and it has been great to be a part of it.

CatDv Logging

Today I was given the job of using a media categorisation and management software called CatDv to sort out various sounds from Africa and the Middle East, a lengthy but highly important and useful task.

Whilst out on shoot, many different sounds had been recorded. Some of these were specific sounds, for example interviews with participants or the sound recordist had named them at the beginning of the track. For these, I could easily place the sound and recognise what they were. These sounds were the quickest for me to work my way through and label with keywords.

Other sounds were miscellaneous and quite often very ambiguous. With these harder to recognise sounds, I first tried using the date they were uploaded to work out where the sounds were recorded and use information from the film clipping I had previously completed to try to work out what they were.

This worked for some of the tracks, however for others I had to try to listen and name them as what they possibly could be, for example "thunderstorm" or "motorcycle passing". Unfortunately, for some of the tracks I was unable to do so and I kept a list of these to discuss with the director at the end of the day.

I found it very insightful to use CatDv for media logging and organising as it has many useful features including location, date and keywords. By using CatDv you can store a lot of media but still be able to find what you are looking for easily.

This would come in particular use while editing footage you have never seen before for a tight deadline or if you needed alternative sound for your footage. As this is the aspect of the television industry I am most interested in pursuing, I would definitely consider using CatDv in my own projects whilst I also feel that being able to use my knowledge of the system will aid me in obtaining media management jobs over other candidates.

Overall, I found this exercise very interesting and feel it will be of use to me in the future. I also learnt that the sooner media is entered and logged the better, especially in the case of sound, as some of the tracks were so hard to work out as to what they were, that even the director himself couldn't work them out and therefore they would not be able to be used as part of the project.

Twitter Schedule

Today I have been assisting the projects' social networking campaign on Twitter. I have found this a very useful exercise as, until today, I have been relatively unfamiliar with the concept of the site. I now, however, have an understanding of how it can be used as a publicity tool to keep twitter users updated about projects or businesses.

The Global People Project uses scheduled tweets in order to keep followers interested and excited about the project, as well as informing them of their future plans for the material. I have been using short clips of answers and photographs from the projects' vast archive, followed by #globalpeopleproject, and also a relevant hash-tag to the subject of the quote or video, in order to allow people to find the posts, which will post periodically for the next year.

le bonheur est un état d'esprit! #bonheur http://t.co/ARyWTcm2tl
— GlobalPeopleProject (@global_people) February 15, 2015

I also assisted by doing the same for Facebook which I was more familiar with, although I didn't know how it could be used by an organisation.

Post by Global People Project.

I also learnt that posting at specific times in the day (early morning, lunchtime and early evening) ensure maximum people have a chance to view the tweets as these times are roughly when people are not at work or are having a break and will probably check their Twitter feed. As this project is global, I also varied the scheduled posting times to suit places like America and Australia, as these have large populations, as well as using times to suit people in England. 

I think today will come in useful for my own future projects; using social media to generate interest and support. I already knew how Facebook worked to do this but now I have the additional option of using Twitter to reach thousands of people worldwide.

Answer Compilation Sequences

Over the past two weeks, I have been editing a compilation of the best answers from the USA interviews based on different themes on Avid Media Composer. The three sequences I have made are based on the answers to the questions: 'What does love mean to you?'; 'What makes you happy?'; 'What are you scared of?'. These are the three questions me and the director agreed on as having the most interesting range and most engaging answers for a viewer from a comprehensive logged and translated transcript of each interview.

I began by making an assembly for each topic of all the answers I thought best answered the question, as well as considering if they had a big contrast compared with the others selected and if they had been answered in different ways (sometimes the question had been interpreted differently during the interview and interviewees had gone off on a tangent but it was still relevant).

I then moved on to making a rough cut of the answers for each topic, organising them in terms of answers flowing smoothly to display changes in opinion whilst varying the places and gender of the interviewees to ensure an interesting viewing experience.

Finally, I did a fine cut to tidy up the edit, clipping off dead frames at the end of clips and adding subtitles to clips with accents that were challenging to understand or from interviewees that had answered in a language other than English (as instructed by the director).

I had some difficulty with sound differences in each clip, however the director informed me that he would be adding a composed track to each compilation at a later date to solve this.

The compilations will be used during presentations to companies involved in the making of the feature film and will assist in displaying the concept of bringing different ideas from different people and places together into one feature-length portrayal.

Transcribing

My task today was to transcribe all the answers to the questions asked whilst filming. This was to prepare me for an upcoming task of making interesting answer compilation sequences.

To do this, I created an excel spreadsheet with three columns. One was for the question asked, the second was for the answer and the third was for my opinion as to whether it was an answer that should be used in answer compilation sequences and a brief summary of why.

This was a relatively straight forward task, however I ran into some difficulty translating some of the stronger American accents. To work out what was being said, I listened to each clip at least three times to check I had transcribed the answer word for word. If this was not possible, I highlighted the row in yellow and checked with the director towards the end of the day and he was able work out what was being said for me.

This task will be highly useful in my upcoming editing task as I now have a clear list of the answers I want to use for the compilation clips I am going to create next week. It was quite a long task but it has shown me all the footage available for me to work with, so in the long run it will save me time when I come to editing the clips together.

Sub-Clipping

Following the sound-syncing I completed last week, I have been working on sub-clipping interviews into separate answers for the USA section of the project today. I did this using Avid Media Composer. This involved using my initiative to choose suitable places to end each answer and to choose which was best for use when two recordings of the same answer were present.

This task also involved me organising the sub-clips by naming each file 01-20 to enable the editor and director to easily identify which answer corresponds to which question.

I also had quite a few issues with missing footage or sound on this task. To resolve this, I, again, kept a record of all the issues and spent time towards the end of the day with the director finding missing footage and working out ways around it, for example using the camera with the good sound for the visual track as well, and visa versa.

I have found this exercise very useful in terms of advancing my knowledge and speed on using Avid and in learning a new skill, sub-clipping, which will come in useful if I decide to pursue a career in post-production, especially in documentary making.

Sound-Sync

I have been working on sound-syncing clips from areas in the USA today. During filming, two cameras from different angles were used; one for better picture quality and one for the purpose of recording better sound.

My job today has involved me using Avid Media Composer to line up both clips so that the clip with the better picture is joined up perfectly with the audio track from the camera with the better audio. To achieve this, I used the waveform setting on both clips to line up their audio tracks and then when completed, disabled the audio and visual track that was no longer needed.

When problems were encountered, for example if some of the clips were missing, I kept a very detailed chart of issues to enable the director to review this at his own leisure, rather than informing him straight away and disrupting him when he was busy. I found this system has worked very well and have been complimented for my simple yet effective use of initiative.

Global People Project

Following a successful stint from March-August 2014, I have managed to gain further work experience with the Global People Project one-two times a week. The project focuses on asking people from all ethnicity, race, age and locations around the world the same 20 questions in order to see how these various people answer in different ways.

Post by Global People Project.

Post by Global People Project.

Post by Global People Project.

The aim is to eventually make a feature length film of the responses and to keep updating the thought map, a trans-media documentary, on the organisation's website, globalpeopleproject.org.

I will mainly be assisting with the media management of footage and sound, as well as editing compilations of answers as a junior edit assistant on avid media composer software. As this is an ongoing project, I have been told I will able to assist on a range of tasks in the post-production area and also be part of a functioning office environment.

This is brilliant work experience both in terms of references and skills for my C.V. and has shown me the importance of networking as I secured this work experience through another contact I had previously worked with and who recommended me by word of mouth.