Poster of the preliminary exercise

This is a poster I made for my preliminary video and also as an exercise to practise using Photoshop. Here in this poster I used 12 layers. The background was orange and the caution sign and the old paper texture given below were merged in with the background.

For the third, forth and fifth layers I used the photos of students. The photographs are shown below.

The picture of the flask was taken from here.

I erased the background from the photographs by using the magic selection tool and also the hand erasing tool. Then, I smudged the edges with the smudge tool so that the drawing looked more neat and natural. The opacity of the picture of the flask was reduced so that it would look more realistic. For the text, I used different layers. The fonts I used were Hobo STD, Tahoma and Verdana. From the blending options I used inner and outer glow option for the heading to give it more body and a stroke to all the text so that the captions stand out on the poster. The face of the Principal was taken from the video of the preliminary exercise.

Mainly blending was done here and the color compositions of the characters were brightened with +33 brightness and +5 contrast.

preliminary video - evaluation

  

The crazy Lab Assistant

Our preliminary video was shot inside our school and is 2 minutes and 45 seconds long. the first scene begins with two students working on their experiment. Here one student is wearing a lab coat and the other is not. This was a mistake on our side as we should have also bought in another lab coat. Though we chose these actors because they were available at that moment and the student without the lab coat did not have chemistry as a subject therefore she didn't have a lab coat. Our group member Fatmah played the assistant in this video. Using an actor from within the group has its advantage as he or she will be available at all times and also will go through many retakes without getting sick of it. Retakes were inevitable as we were using only one handy cam. This scene begins with Fatmah dropping the plastic glass and the sound of a crash. The crash sound was downloaded from the internet and then edited and adjusted in the video. The close up of the spilled flask was shown with zooming. The speed was increased in window movie maker by selecting the effect of speed up. The speed was increased to create a dramatic effect and also to disguise the movement of the camera. Tracking closer was more feasible, however, as the picture was getting blurred or we should have zoomed in only until the picture was clear. We will make note of that and avoid this mistake in our final exercise. The shots of the students and lab assistant are taken from the top of the chemistry lab table and from the other side of that same table because we wanted to bring the lab in view. We couldn't try other angles because the lab had bright windows without any blinds and a very bright light would have distorted our image.

  

The next scene unfolds in a principal's office. Since the dialogues for the principal were long therefore we had chosen someone to play the principal a day before the shoot and had handed her a copy of a script. To cover the uniform and show a figure of dominance we used a gown worn by the members of students council in our school. The scene starts with the principal pretending to read a complaint sheet. Fatmah enters and sits down. We have experimented with high angle shots of the principal and also an over the shoulder shot of the principal has also been taken. 

We couldn't repeat the same for Fatmah as there wasn't much room behind principal's desk and so we were only restricted with reverse shots. Many shots taken had not been used such as Fatmah's low angle shot from the left as the lighting was bad and Fatmah's face seemed covered in shadow. In edit we just used a high angle shot from left and panning when Fatmah left the room crying in the end. Most of the shots of the principal have been used in our final cut. Reverses shot are taken to show continuity in the conversation. Panning was also used when the lab assistant enters the room. we used the school career counselor's office because  it was almost arranged like a real principals office. Here not much of props were used besides the files and pencil available on the table. All the shots shot in the office were taken in two days.On the first day we took shot the principals dialogues then on the second day we shot the lab assistants’ part therefore there was a huge difference between the two shots in the lights and the colour composition of both shots

The shots of the principal had perfect light and white balance and the shots of the lab assistant were too dull and dim and there was too much red mid tone in it. Where the walls were suppose to appear off white they are tainted with red and too much shadow. these shots were improved to some extent using Premiere where I used the effect of colour balance and reduced red composition to -14 and increased blue and green to 30. and also added more light and contrast to the picture so now it is appearing like this. the sharpness and lights are not as good as they are in the principals shot but at least better than the original shots of the lab assistant. we will make note of taking extra care of lights in our final video.   

Later on further editing, I reduced the green mid tone to 20. in the picture above, only the mid tones of the video clip was changed. At first I felt that highlight and shadow were not significant, later I found out the picture quality actually improved and neglecting shadow and highlight was a big mistake. I added three effects to the video clip, brightness and contrast, color balance and lighting effect. in lighting effect light type was directional and white light was used.  

Also there was a difference in the volume levels which was later adjusted on Premiere by right clicking on the video or audio clip and selecting audio gain. There was too much background noise while shooting in the lab so actors had to speak louder than they did in the office. Here the principal was at a point shown angry and over powering and here we should have taken a high angle shot of the principal to emphasize her dominance by making her appear tall. There are some scenes where we have used different video clips but the audio track is still the same this you will see in the last and in the beginning as well when you will hear a student blaming her teacher while you will see the zooming shot of the flask. This has been done by unlinking the audio and video clip and editing the video part only. This you will see in the end when we hear principal looking at her sharply and we can hear lab assistant crying. the shot of the lab assistant crying is taken from a top angle from the right side. there is another shot of the lab assistant crying and getting up and walking out of the room. 

The shooting took three days given our class timings and availability of resources. An acknowledgement to Schanza Khan for acting as a principal for us. We had to do several retakes and all the actors were patient during the shooting. 

Preliminary shooting Final day

We shot the third and the remaining scenes in the counselors office. This time the shots taken were of the lab assistant. We used reverse shots and low angle shots of the lab assistant along with a close of her face when the lab assistant broke into tears. Low angle shots at the end were taken to represent the lab assistant as small and helpless.

List of props and location

List of props and locations used in the preliminary exercise


Props used:
Conical flask: unbroken
Conical flask (already broken)
Plastic bottle
Lab coats (for the assistant and students)
White scarf to wear on top of the head
Gown (gowns are not worn by the principal but they shore an air of superiority)
Files and papers feigned as complaint sheets


Location of the shooting
School chemistry lab.1st floor
A level Career Counselor's office (ground office)


Things needed to produce a preliminary video (hardware and software)


Handy cam
Tripod
Adobe premiere

Editing of the first part

Here is how I edited the first part of the video. This part is approximately 40 seconds long. Here the lab assistant is also shown observing the flask and then we show her clumsily dropping the flask. A close up of the broken flask is shown here.the movie file exported off Premiere was too heavy (157 MB) so to upload it here I first converted it to an MP4 format. The lab assistant here is a member of our group, Fatmah and the students are our friends Abeera and Afia. An acknowledgement to them for acting in our video.

Script of the preliminary exercise

Script: A Crazy Lab Assistant

The scene begins in the school laboratory. Two students are busy completing their chemistry project. During that time lab assistant was looking in a conical flask filled with a deep blue liquid, confused trying to figure out what it was. Clumsily the bottle slips from her hand and it crashed down to the ground. The crash startles the students and they turn around to find that their experimental liquid was spilled on the ground

ABEERA: Oh my god! Miss you broke it!

LAB ASSISTANT: (scared but quickly recovering) what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here!

ABEERA: I was supposed to use that as my project!

LAB ASSISTANT: you shouldn’t be here (getting angrier) just leave the room! Go now!

Both students leave the room. The next scene unfolds in the principal reading a complaint sheet on his seat with his back towards the door. There is a knock on the door.

PRINCIPAL (without looking) come in.

LAB ASISTANT enters the room looking unconcerned. Principal turns around and faces the lab assistant

PRINCIPAL: have a seat (lab assistant sits down)

PRINCIPAL: I see you haven’t been performing your duties well. I have a whole bunch of complaints against you. Do you know how many people have complained against you? (a pause during which she looks in her file) you haven’t been performing your duties right, you have been leaving up chemicals lying around like that, you haven’t been cleaning up after that and you have been leaving the students early and they are not doing their job right! What do you have to say about that?

LAB ASSISTANT: (unconcerned) Listen I am sorry, and I don’t even remember breaking anything before than today, so please forget it. (Rolls her eyes)

PRINCIPAL: I don’t know what to do with you now miss, you haven’t been doing your job right. I don’t have enough money to run this place on my own you know. I need people like you and you are not doing your job right. I think I will have to fire you for that.

LAB ASSISTANT: (sitting up straighter) listen, don’t fire me (voice quavering) I borrowed some money from my boyfriend and I have to pay him back and I have a sick brother I need this job to pay all the bill and I cannot afford it (returning to her unconcerned attitude) I mean, you cannot fire me

PRINCIPAL: (getting angry with her non committal attitude) oh spare me that lament Marianne! I don’t care what your boyfriend does! I want you to do your job right! Do you get that!

LAB ASSISTANT: (sobers up with principals outburst and her expression becomes helpless) listen I have a sick brother at home and he has leukemia. And.. I need money for his sickness and I cannot afford this and ah.. Please don’t fire me and… and I need this job (her eyes fill up with tears) and.. (her voice wavers) please don’t do this..(Lab assistant burst into tears. Lab assistant still exasperate and annoyed waits for her to stop crying while the lab assistant cries even harder as the minutes past by. The scene ends with assistant crying hysterically

Preliminary shooting 2nd day

we took different shots of principal and the lab assistant. here lab assistant walks in a room, sits down and they both exchange few dialogues. the room we used for shooting was of career councellor so we got the original setup of a principals office. the principal was given a black gown so that her superiority can be enhanced and we projected lab assistant as small and helpless when she had to stand and walk out of a room. for now we just experimented high angle, panning and reverse shots.