The brief wanted us to create a short film, using time lapse editing, that had to be made with consideration for it having a commercial application - for an advertisment.
I played around with quite a few ideas - I considered filming parts of the Welsh countryside, with the sky forming a large part of each frame to capture the changing light and clouds, with a view to it being an advertisment for the Welsh Tourist Board. I also thought about filming a series of sunsets and sunrises, as maybe the basis for a range of paint colours, for a DIY chain. However, after chatting with Simon, 'changing skies' and 'moving clouds' seems to be a very common solution to this brief, so I decided to look around for something a bit different.
A family trip to Chester Zoo was coming up, so I decided to look at creating an advertisement for the zoo, using the time lapse technique. Camera charged and at the ready, off we set - on the greyest, most miserable rainy day imaginable:(
I'd planned the ad to start with a close up of the main entrance of the zoo, pulling out to show streams of people entering - we arrived, and the whole of the main entrance was shrouded in scaffolding and boards ! I shot instead a section of streams of cars entering the zoo and a shot of one of the posters that you see as you approach - not happy with it, but on the spot, it was the best I could come up with!
Inside, it just wasn't working. Very few visitors in the actual zoo - not surprising, considering the miserable weather - and none of them looking particularly happy. A lot of the animals were inside, away from the cold, and filming inside was hampered by glass viewing windows that invariably created problems with reflections. And again, several sections of the zoo were undergoing maintenance, which made it hard to present the place looking in any way attractive.
I got some nice footage of the elephants - though I realised some nifty cutting would be necessary as several times, as I noticed later, an elephant in the background was either relieving itself, or as in one sequence at least, the large bull was demonstrating very obviously that it had designs on one of the females ! Pleased as well with some footage of the penguins swimming underwater - I manged to get an angle on that, that didn't show reflections of myself filming. Shots of the inside of the tropical house were difficult, due to shy creatures, sleeping and immobile snakes and lizards, and the fine mesh material that is used on some of the enclosures. Got a great sequence, though, of a very bored baboon, who spent several minutes, licking the window at the front of its enclosure - then polished the glass, vigourously, with its hands.
Several walkways around the zoo are made of wooden decking, raised off the ground - few people as there were, every time someone walked by, the boards bounced and it looked like I'd shot the footage that I'd obtained whilst standing on it, whilst perched on a trampoline - despite the tripod!
Once home, I reviewed the footage - I actually felt I had some decent sections - the elephants (once edited), the Baboon, penguins, some of the fish and other Aquarium creatures, some footage from the monorail (though for the most parts, due to the weather, the animal enclosures I'd shot from it appeared to be empty) - oh, a there had been a party of school kids, about 11 to 14 years old, that I had filmed - but on looking over that, although the quality was good and there was certainly a lot of - er - action - I ended up feeling that if I used it, it would merely give any audience the impression that the zoo had started an enclosure for captive Chavs !
At this point, I was considering starting over, anyway, when fate took a hand - PC decided to have a tantrum, and nearly every bit of footage I'd shot was 'corrupted' - and I'd already formatted the cards I'd used ! However, I did learn a lot, from the experience of filming - not least, to actually try and check out the location, and the weather report - BEFORE turning up with the camera!
Back to the drawing board - eldest daughter due home from uni, for the start of the Christmas holidays, and all 3 kids were planning to get the Christmas tree and decorations up. So, I started playing with the idea of filming Christmas preparations, with the notion of the commercial aspect being an advertisment for some sort of Superstore, where you could buy everything you needed for it to 'Look a lot like Christmas' - all under one roof.
I filmed over the weekend and shot a lot of sequences - the kids putting up the tree, my youngest putting out Christmas cards, me baking mince pies and wrapping presents, my two daughters decorating the window with Christmas stickers, a slow burning Christmas candle and a snow globe - and the kids even insisted that the poor dog got in on the act, and dressed him in a Santa jacket, for me to film him !
The longest part of the editing process was actually uploading the footage I'd shot - over a weekend, I'd amassed several hours worth. Once it was uploaded, was really pleased with what I had - and very glad that none of the accompanying sound would be used, when I heard some of the names the kids had called each other, whilst decorating the tree . I edited together different sections, then using the notes from the lesson Simon had given us, speeded up the film - a few little cuts and adjustments, and it fitted the music - the original version of the song 'Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas' - and I was really pleased with the results, considering that to my surprise, the editing, once the footage was uploaded, took less than 2 hours .
It was at this point that I discovered that a fellow student had had virtually the same idea as myself - I can't imagine what the expressions on mine and Andy's faces must have been like when we both discovered that we had filmed around a Christmas theme - and both had footage of candles burning, tree decorating - and had even chosen the same piece of music. It was way too late for either of us to start again, so all we could do is agree that 'Great minds think alike' - and carry on !
Overall, I actually like the piece of film I came up with - I felt it captured Christmas preparations in a way that an audience would relate too, that there were enough sequences to demonstrate the variety of goods that the 'fictious' store was offering, and this was one of the film projects that, for the most part, that was fun to edit, and where I had no problems at all with the actual technique I had to master. There was a 'glitch' due to the mac at the end, which caused me some panic, as (old news this) all our techs were at the CCI (again) - but once I got hold of Simon, he very quickly sorted the problem that was stopping me converting the film to quicktime - and it was done . Part of the reson that I really liked the finished film is also down to the fact that its a nice bit of our 'family Christmas', presented in a different way, for me to keep and look back on .
So - here it is - 'Its Begining to look a lot Like Christmas' - Time Lapse stylee .
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