THE LAST POST

TV2 has been one of my favorite subject for the semester and I'm serious. I know it's been giving me some hard time too, but overall it's quite enjoyable. Especially the moment when you heard a lot of people clapping vigorously over our self-made doco. It was just worth it.

For the first half of the semester, the course was pretty much okay because all we did is mainly sit in the class, develop ideas, and did some test run on the equipments. Some of the practices really help to understand the equipments but I just think we need more time on practicing. It was quite hard for me to regain memories of how to what from the previous TV1 course. Though, the dossier was very useful, that's why to be honest I gave up going to few last the lectures and decided to stick to the dossier instead.

The second half of the semester was full of editing time and counseling. The TV2 staff were very helpful within this period. Thank you Robin and Paul for the suggestions and critics, it helps really.

To put it simply, I think TV2 course is less tensed than TV1. We didn't have to worry about plots, or odd cutaways or else. However, I realized that without those kind of guidance it was pretty difficult especially on making decisions. I was in great contemplation for the last few weeks only to think about whether I should use subtitles or voice over. But thanks to the staff guidance, I could finally overcome my own dilemma.

I really wish I could do another TV course, I feel like I developed enough through TV1 and TV2 but I really want to do some more experiments on film-making.

Thank you Paul, Robin, Christine & Liam! It's been fun! :)

Screening!

DOCO IS DONE AND SUBMITTED! YAY!

I went to the screening. It's my first time to go to TV course screening because I didn't go to the last semester's one. Sad, I know.

Anyway, along the screening I enjoyed pretty much everything. All the TV2 students picked up some good stories and it's presented in such a good way.

Although one of them really caught me in awe, it's the Kaleidoscope. I heard rumors about a group who flew to Sydney with TV equipments just to interview 2-3 people there. For me, it sounds awful enough, I mean our group drove to Bundoora and it was quite a tiring journey.

Anyway, the doco was about synesthesia. Turns out one of the doco-maker is my classmate on the different subject.

The opening was very nice, very creative using those hanged colorful words.

The thing that impressed me the most is the use of graphic. Using graphics to explain what is synesthesia? Awesome! I was thinking how would they describe synesthesia to the people who is not synesthic. Using the smoke efects and stuff. It was awesome. Just, awesome. They inserted bits and bits of the making so people know how are those effects made. I think it's a good thing. Now we know how to make that kind of smoky effect by ourselves. It might be because of the theme of the doco itself but using a lot of color is rather catchy for me instead of a monoton black-and-white-themed doco. In short, they did a great job on how to explain and visualize what is synesthesia to the audience.

The source of information about synesthesia itself is pretty reliable since they interview both synesthic people and a professor from Sydney.

On the other note, I'm just glad that our doco's screening went smooth. Phew! :)

Editing, editing and editing. It's like I can't really live a day without a dose of doco editing. Yeah.

Last week was the rough cut screening. We got some good advices from the other group. Somehow I feel like it's not working anymore, our doco. Maybe I've had too much of it that it's getting... you know.

Anyway, we screwed up some parts of the video but luckily it's fixable. We're still on the process of figuring out what was Galuh trying to say at the second round of shooting because we didn't use any interpreters on that day. I think me and Albert will make good interpreters after we're done with this doco. Woot.

We did another round of shooting with Galuh. This time, it's less complicated. Maybe after all tons of emails and messages, Galuh seems to be quite open to us and it her get used to us.

At first she didn't support the idea of shooting at her house, she said her housemate will not approve either. It was quite disappointing, but when we came to the second shooting she said that we can shoot at her house but without coming in. Well, it's something we cannot say no at so after we're done with the cafe shooting, we went to her place.

It was raining... and I'm thankful for that because it was maybe one of the reasons why Galuh finally let us in to her house. Well not practically her house, only her room because she has this access to her house without having to go through the main front door where we would get caught by her housemate.

Finally, we decided to shoot inside her room. Which was pretty nice because the rain stopped and it was starting to get sunny so we get quite a nice lighting. YAY!

Other than the shooting, Galuh told us some stories about deaf people in Indonesia and the government. It was great to know about those kind of things, I personally thought that my own documentary idea really piqued my interest.

Finish for the day, that would be the last time we see Galuh... so far.

This is the biggest contemplation I've been dealing with through out the week:

Should we use subtitles? Or should we use voice over? Or should we use both? Or should we figure out a different way of making this thing understandable?

After a few weeks we finally got to arrange a shooting schedule with Galuh. We were shooting at La Trobe University which is located in Bundoora. Luckily, Jerry got a ride so transportation is not a big deal for us.

Arriving at La Trobe, it was our first time there, we were lost and had no idea where to go with all the heavy equipments. We were close from getting fine ticket but thanks to Rizky who's acting is a genius we know that we had to buy a parking ticket.

So we met Galuh at the library and she introduced us to one of her friends who is also a deaf. We were planning to take some footage on the library but apparently we had problems with permission issue.

Finish with the footage, we went to the back side of the Agora or the center of the university, and did a quite long interview with the help of two interpreters and Galuh's husband. We did the interview with 2 different cameras (PD170 & Z7). We kinda regret our decisions, we should've used 2 Z7s instead. To make it worse, the one in PD 170 is the main angle of the interview and it is out of focus from the first question to the last. Thank God, we re-did the few last questions!

Observational Exercise

What's it like to be surrounded by heaps of hi-tech equipments on such a quite basement?

Me and Diane went underground observing the life of the techs guys, or guy, doing their things dealing with all sorts of electronic devices. Waiting for students to come picking up or dropping off the gear. Working on technical faulty on the devices.

Techs Observational Exercise from Aliqa Sendyalaras on Vimeo.

After several developments we've made...

We suddenly couldn't get into contacts with Galuh. No emails replied, so I texted her asking if she read my emails yet. Apparently she was hospitalized for almost a week. I didn't dare to ask any further so I apologized and let her have her time to rest. I'm so lost now because we haven't got any chance to meet Galuh directly and our communication so far are by emails.

Apparently one of the crew from the documentary project that Galuh's working on currently is a friend of mine. So I asked my friend several things and tips, what and how did they do the documentary, interview and other technical things. I guess there wouldn't be any big differences, fortunately I have a whole different concept with his documentary project so that's great, yes?

Anyway, our group is a 4 now that we have Rizky on board! Well, the merrier the better, I guess?

Finally!

We got in touch with Galuh, our main character for the documentary.

She seems very pleased with the idea of our documentary and fully supports what we are doing. She said that using motion media is much more effective than writing articles in appealing the audience. She's also helping with some inputs for the documentary. Apparently she has done several media recording before, I think she knows way better than us about making a documentary. She's currently on a documentary project as well and she said she's going to show us the finished product.

We've also developed some technical things that we're going to use for our documentary. Such as: using voice over to elaborate some information about deafness at the start of the video and also we're thinking of using subtitles when it comes to interviews with Galuh. Also, we want this documentary to be more casual with less formal sitting-in-front-of-the-camera interviews.

Well that's it for now. More ideas to come!

The documentary group are finally settled!

It's gonna be me, Albert and Jerry till the very end and we're working on my idea on deafness. I'm still contemplating if it's a good thing or not. Because after I went through TV1 one thing that I found out was I think I'm not really a director kind of person. I think I'm better with equipments like camera or even sound. But, you'll never know until you try, right? So hopefully I'll make a good one. One thing for sure, I'll definitely need some helps from the team members!

I think we're on the right track, we've done the draft treatment and sent it to Robin and Paul. Hope to hear some feedback soon!

Well...

So many things happened over the weeks yet I couldn't find a perfect time to write it on the blog. Where should we start... Hmmm...

Oh! My doco statement, I guess? Here it goes:

"While most people communicate easily with language of words, some of them rely most of their communication activities on the language of sign. If you think that learning the sign language for the deaf-mutes is equal to the way we learn our ABCs, then you are wrong.

This documentary will dig deeper into the world of sign language. The learning process, the various kind of sign languages that apparently differ in every countries and also how the sign language education is still left behind in several countries."

I finally decided to brought up the deafness topic that I brought up on my last post. I seriously think that it'll be like stirring and inspirational kind of thing. But the more I work on it, apparently it's going to be a challenging one. Such a stickler for perfection here. Well, I'll do my best.

The World of Sign Language

I recently went to a seminar where several scholars present and discuss about their studies and interests here in Melbourne.

One of the scholars who piqued my interest the most was an Indonesian woman who is a deaf-mute. She presented her stories by using sign language with an interpreter by her side. She basically talked about sign language.

Some of the interesting points were how sign language are different in every country. That is just like how we, who mother tongue language are not English, try to learn English. In fact, it's even more difficult since it's not as common as how English can be used in several or most of the countries in the world. Every time they commute, they will have to adapt to the local "language".

That is very fascinating. I mean, there are probably thousand ways to just say "Thank You" or "Hello".

Another point was sign language education is not fully spread in several countries, especially in developing countries. For example is her home country, Indonesia. The education of sign language in Indonesia is very undeveloped.

I assume it's happening mostly in the rural area where even normal schools are undeveloped. My question is, how do they communicate with the people around them? But in that case, maybe THEY create their own sign language and that is how several different sign languages occur.

There are a lot of questions and assumptions going on my head in regards to the world of sign language. It'll be great if I have the chance to meet her once more.

TV2

It's started! TV2. I'm as excited as a TV student can be. Especially with documentary, even though it'll might be harder to make but it's less attached to scripts - which is good. Now am going to work hard on developing my ideas.

Wish me luck! :D

FINISHED!

I guess this would be my last post for the semester!

Here's the end of TV1 subject!

I feel like I've mentioned these things before but all phase; pre-production, shooting and post-production aka editing were nothing but fun stuff! Well, maybe not all that fun, but I'm trying to just convert all the hard times into a memorable and useful learning process as we got through it together by ourselves and of course by some help from Paul & Christine.

Throughout the editing process, thanks to David who helped the most on arranging editing time, we got to do our editing as efficient and fast as ever. We have our own arrangement on editing and we did 12 hours of editing in a week with ease. I kind of felt bad because I had to leave early and I thought I couldn't be there for the final editing but apparently we finished on time or rather way earlier than the submission date. I think this is the earliest assignment I've ever submitted!

It's such a pity that I have to miss the screening as I have to go back to Indonesia as soon as possible due to family matters. I hope the screening is going to be great! It was such a pleasure to have Ruby, David and Laura in the team, thanks a lot guys, for everything. Also for Paul, Christine and The Techs for all the guidance throughout the semester.

Happy holiday, people! Au revoir!

Reflection on Lenny

I haven't got the chance to talk about our Lenny which is posted on David's blog.

To be honest I still had a few problems when shooting Lenny. I thought I'm going to do great with the equipments, apparently not. I think I was still a bit off when it comes to adjusting white balance and exposure and as the result, it turns out a bit over-exposed. Despite the fact that our Lenny concept was kind of like a Bond movie which set is day time with heaps of sunlight. I figured that it's not as simple as turning up the exposure or the white balance. Also, from watching the other group's version really gave me ideas that I could apply to the real filming. Things like, color theme or camera-panning.

However, filming Lenny was such a great practice because I learned a lot of things that I apparently did not know or aware of about the camera and the techniques. I think, because of Lenny, I gained a lot more confidence for the real shooting, which is done now as you can read from my previous post. :)

Shooting done!

This is a terribly late post because actually we finished our shooting 2 weeks ago. However, one of the biggest challenges for the final project is done and done and I am so glad it went well!

A few days before D-day I was actually still a bit worried about going through the shooting. I was ready with the gear and I felt like I'm doing great during the practices, but somehow as the day was getting nearer I got all the nerves that I should not have. What if I screwed the white balance? Or the exposure? Or the focus? Those kind of questions were lingering on my mind that I could not have a proper sleep yet I have to wake up early to assist our super group's shooting.

On the first day I was assisting the other group. I'm really glad we had this super group because we were kinda learning from each other. I was the camera assistant for Renee. It was kinda hard at first but we got used to it pretty fast. For example, Renee would set the white balance and stuff and we'd check it again together so we knew what to do and how to do things related to the camera.

Second day was the day of our group's shooting. I was still a bit nervous but because I went through the real shooting the other day, I was pretty confident and excited about the shooting. Apparently we had less shot so we finished earlier. There was a small problem with the camera, I suddenly could not set the exposure manually and the white balance was totally over exposed. Thank God for super groups, we all examined the camera and apparently it was set to automatic. I do not really know how, maybe I slipped my hands, but then the camera was back to normal. There were also minor problems with the lighting but I think we handled it good. In the end, that day was very exhausting yet fun!

And now... it's time for some post-production fun!

Another Lenny!

Our group have finally decided on the "How Did That Make You Feel?" by Julian Dan. We like how absurd it is and we think it is going to be very challenging but We are really excited and looking forward to work on it!

The lecture was on shot construction. How we must pay attention on colour, frame, angle, viewpoint – objective, subjective and POV, “area of shot” or shot size, movement, focal length and depth of field. Paul told us a cool tips: Always put the cameras only on one side of a 180 degrees line, so it there won't be any confusion caused when we're shooting, for example, 2 people having a conversation face-to-face.

We are doing another version of Lenny shooting next Wednesday and our group have come with an awesome theme and shot list. I hope it's going to be a pretty smooth filming. In a lighter note, I think I'm getting used with setting up the camera although I was still kinda feel giddy but all is well. Actors are booked and box is found!

Camera ready? Action!

This week's tutorial activity was finally getting our own hands on the equipments such as the sound equipments and the camera equipments. I didn't know that when we are using the equipments, there are a lot of small details that we have to be careful about.

The first equipment we were using was the sound equipments. We learned how to install the parts and how to basically record good quality sounds by stabilizing the sound level so it's got to be on the zero level.

The second equipment was the camera equipment, including the tripod as well. First thing first, rather than being helpful, Paul told us to just let one person to set up the tripod. That way, only person who knows and have to make sure that the tripod clamps/knobs/locks are tighten, every one of them. Next, we had to put the camera above it, make sure that it's locked well and you should never let your hands off the camera. With the camera on it, adjust the tripod level. Done with the tripod level, we attached the camera battery and voila! Camera ready.

The first thing we did with the camera was to locate every buttons and functions on the camera. Zoom in and out. Playing with the white balance, with Paul as our talented actor. So basically that's what everybody had to try. After that, we should just take off the equipments and put it in the right place and order.

Remember: safety first. Should use shoes that covers our toes next time! Well, noted.

Group Work: DP

This is such a fail because I've just discovered there's a reflection guide on the RMIT TV blog. I think I missed this. Which makes this entry a little bit late.

Anyway, on week 3 we were formed into groups for our last assessment, the short film. I got the Director of Photography position, which is the one I wanted. I am so thrilled because I've been always fascinated by cinematography works, especially the good ones. I joined a cinematography club when I was in high school, even though it was for a pretty short time, it was still a great experience. Moreover, after cinematography, I'm getting interested in photography up till now.

What's the job of Director of Photography?

They are the head of the camera department and it is their job to capture the photographic impression of the directors' vision

More on DP descriptions here!

One of the DPs that I like is Bruno Delbonnel who was the DP of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie (2009). Actually I'm a fan of Harry Potter and have been reading the books and watching the saga but from all of the Harry Potter movies released, I like the Half-Blood Prince the most, in technical way. I mean, the cinematography was just awesome! Bruno Delbonnel definitely went with a whole different way on depicting the world of Harry Potter.

Long story short, I'm so excited for the final project!

Clown Train

I realized I haven't made an entry for the Clown Train review.

I re-watched the Clown Train by Jaime Donnely on YouTube with my headphones so I can hear the sound even better. Actually I really like this type of films or short films. The psychological, horror kind of genre really piqued my interest. I like the cinematography techniques and works in the film but not really on the sounding. In my opinion, there several moments where the sound is not balanced or not well-focused. Like in one scene, the sound is only focused on the Clown's sound, but not really on the man's sound which make the man sound a bit lower than the Clown's sound. However, I really like the use of the sound effects and also the background sounds. Not forgetting the great actors and set. I can't believe that they actually shoot it at the Australian Railway History Museum! Great choice on that!

In a nut shell, I really like the concept of the film and I think it really deserve the award for the Best Film at RMIT Student Film Ceremony Award 2009!

Lenny Project

FINISHED MY LENNY PROJECT!

It's been a while since I get my hands on movie editing. For Spring/Summer 2008 course I only used iMovie. This is my first time playing with Final Cut Pro. I reckon it's a bit more complicated than iMovie but it can do much more things than iMovie. Believe it or not, I'm really looking forward to dig out some more functions on Final Cut Pro. This is getting exciting! And thank God for that.

Anyway here's my Lenny looking good. I tried to play with the voice over, but I think I should do more of it instead of only having a few bits of video cut which made the audio unstable. Sometimes it's loud, sometimes it's soft or even too soft. Well, noted!

Aliqa loves Lenny!

Special thanks to Albert for uploading my Lenny project to his YouTube, since I don't have an account there. :)

Synopsis

Okay, I totally forgot to blog about my synopsis. Anyway, here goes mine...

Sasha thought that her Mom’s second marriage night could never get any worse than anything. There she was, sitting in a madly large grand suite hotel room, wearing her silly pink bridesmaid’s gown, waiting for the wedding reception. She didn’t care if her soon-to-be father has 2 mansions or 3 horses or a private jet, she could and would never be able to approve him. It’s been 10 years since her father left, and Sasha had been happy enough just to live with her mother.

Just when Sasha walked into the elevator, a mysterious man tapped her shoulder. It was him; it was her long lost father. In contemplation between being nostalgic and traumatic, Sasha cried. Apparently her father came to tell the truth about her Mom, the reason behind the marriage and… her real father.

The point that I'm emphasizing in my synopsis is basically Sasha's point of view of the surroundings. I want the readers to know what Sasha feels. The loneliness that's growing inside her with the portrait of a large suite hotel room and how she feels about the marriage pictured through the silliness of her pink bridesmaid dress. It's not only about the dress, the whole idea of the marriage is stupid. She doesn't like it.

Anyway, I wanted to end my story ambiguously by letting Sasha's father to reveal the truth about him. That he's not her father and he's trying to do a bit of an inappropriate thing, like trying to molest Sasha. I will end it before that happens, of course. However, as Christine said, it would be better if the "revealing truth" is related to the marriage.

I am, and still, trying to think about an appalling truth that is not cliche but still interesting. Ended up with a quite complicated end and it's merely impossible to do through a short film, maybe a TV series would do, but yeah...

Christine led me to a better idea by using the idea of "the soon-to-be father is actually still/already have a family". But I can't come up with a good thing, it's still too cliche for me!

Shut it, sisters!

I adopted a blog related to photography which is Shutter Sisters

I haven’t track much about this blog since I’ve just started browsing through it. iTo put it simple, I think this blog is amazing. This blog is basically a community of some women photographers. They share their best shots and share what they feel about it and what are they playing with, such as focus, contrast & brightness.

Most of them are using SLR cameras which are pretty much the same type with my SLR camera and that inspired me to explore more tricks on playing with my camera. But they also use some more professional equipments. No wonder they get better shots with all those kits. They also use Polaroid cameras and the result is very interesting that now it moves me to buy a Polaroid camera.

Most of the entries are very original since they took the pictures themselves or they attached some pictures by somebody else. They add comments and personal thoughts that related to the photos.

One-liner

I've been running through several ideas and also been lurking for some great inspiration, but as people said, simple is the best. So I decided not to go for a complicated story line.

Anyway, the story that I'm using is one of my own-made story that I wrote on summer course 2 years ago. With several changes here and there, I decided to go dark but I am trying to keep it simple, still. I was contemplating about the sins that I'm going to focus on. Well, I guess the more often I think about the characters, I seems to have some enlightenments, thank God. I will probably start drafting before it slips out of my mind.

I reckon this one-liner would and should be the punch line for my screenwriting. I've read some of last year's one-liners. Some of them are really good! I really like some that made me curious about the complete story, not forgetting about the twist, which is very important in my opinion.

I think a good one-liner should give small hints about where the story is going but NOT a spoiler. That way, it makes the reader, in this case maybe me, intrigued and willing to read the rest of the story.

7 Deadly Sins

So! This is the pilot post for Film and TV 1 subject. Woot!

I used to use my RMIT student blog, but unfortunately I can't access it anymore, due to my own fault for not remembering the username. But I DO remember the password, this is unfair! Most people forget password, not username. Right?

Anyway, first week, first lecture, first tutorial. I knew it'd be interesting, that might be one of the reasons why I decided to take the subject. Ever since summer 2008, I feel like Film/TV have piqued my interest.

One of the major assignments was revealed and it's screenwriting. The theme is 7 deadly sins. When the line '7 Deadly Sins' came up, the first thing that came to my mind was of course; wrath, pride, gluttony, envy, lust, greed, sloth.

In the tutorial, we managed to pull out some examples of characters from each sins. Apparently, instead of creating or finding a character based on the literal meaning, there were a lot more of it that we can explore. Like, looking for an unexpected characters who looks normal on daily basis, but actually grasp the essence of those sins which made the characters a little bit more... different and mysterious.

For example, gluttony can be symbolized by a character of a drug-addict mother who's actually living a happy marriage life and raising her 2 kids. Why would she consumes drugs? And this might lead to a list of questions about the character.

I am now working on my one-liner. Crossing my fingers, hope I can belt out a good one!