We had a meeting with our lecturer on Wednesday 6th May at 4pm. We were on time, we waited outside the door for her to signal our entry. We were asked more questions than we could ask. She saw our footage and some still photographs. At that point we had both captured footage with only one tape outstanding; the one that was shot on the weekend. The 15 minutes was up in a flash and we had no choice but to exit.
After the meeting, we were able to bombard Stephan Noreiga (Photoshop teacher at SBCS) on the steps of the compound (hahahaa), he was able to clear up a few mind boggling principles in After Effects for me, and promised to give us some tutorials. There were a couple of other things carded for that week, but some issues outside of school impeded the process a bit, so the only thing that got accomplished on that weekend was sourcing some Adobe tutorials and researching some elements of design.
On Tuesday 12th May, St Bernard Marcelle and I met at GIS (Government Information Service) to go through and select the archival footage we needed for the documentary. Karlene stayed at school capturing footage we shot over the weekend. It went good, the GIS footage got me very excited and to top it all off, he found some pastries and made me a cup of tea ;) he's so considerate. We were done at approximately 8pm (hence the reason I was hungry). The footage then had to be captured on the following day at the school. Karlene and I also used that time for a production meeting. On Thursday there was something work related to address, so I didn't stay in school, but I dropped by the school or a few minutes, Karlene and I met to finalize plans for the weekend and got a chance to ask Ricardo some questions pertaining to the instruments we would like to hear in the WHT soundtrack.
On Friday 15th May, Karlene's mom dropped off the car for me, so that I could go to Champs Fleur campus to get some work done. I intended to get a couple of hours sleep before going, but I never did. Nevertheless, I got to school at around 9pm and started capturing the main interviews and organizing each of them into bins. (Did I mention that each time Karlene opened up our project it took hours upon hours to conform and index? So we decided to recapture since it may have been because tapes were captured in entirety and captured into different projects). I don't know why I thought that I would have been able to work on other things on my list... like fix the writing on the parchment paper, remove the white background from the parchment paper and add images to the wall... but capturing and 'bin-arizing' as Karlene would say, took the whole night into the next morning and I was only able to capture 4 tapes. The mistake I made was to save the captured tapes on the C drive of one of the computers while my external drive was in use, rendering and exporting the opening montage that I had been working on previously. Before I left, I saved a copy of the project to my hard drive.
I left Champs Fleur Campus for my bed on Saturday morning. Both Karlene and I returned on Saturday afternoon to encounter a series of editing issues.
At about 9:30 that night Ricardo picked us up to take us to the studio with Brian Morris so we could get our soundtrack out of the way. It was the highlight of the day!
Well, on Monday 18th May, my body was literally shaking. I decided to go home and get some rest. I got home after 6pm and took my laptop to bed and sourced some photos and worked on the logo for a bit before falling asleep with laptop on stomach.
The next day Karlene and I headed to Champs Fleur. Her task was to work on the rough and mine to cut the archive footage into the bits and pieces that we would need to build the wall that we were going to play it on; build the Photoshop walls that were going to be used in both the opening and the archive footage, capture all the Patwa dialogue so that we can get the translation and if I had time, I wanted to work on promo items, I was excited to develop some of the ideas I had.
Karlene and I had a chance to discuss how we were going to divide our work.
Karlene - colour correction on the edit (Karlene started this); audio; music and sound.
Rhian - effects and transitions on the edit; lower thirds and other titles and text for the edit; credits; subtitles (we were both insisting that the other does this for different reasons, but Karlene didn't feel like she could do it especially with the edit (which can be a burden considering that we were off to a late start, so it was decided that I would); flyers; call cards; cartoon effect for GIS footage; poster; dvd jacket; dvd stamp; and I would attend the Encore class.
We left the school on Wednesday in time for our meeting with Ms Sampson. Prior to leaving the school, we tried rendering the project, but it wouldn't work, so we left early to go to POS to render before our meeting. It still hadn't rendered. I had gotten most of the things that I had set out to do except that I got stuck with After Effects on the wall, I just could not get it to work, so I never did get to working on the promotional items.
The next day I finished work at 7:15pm, it was a long hectic day! It was particularly demanding because we are at a very busy period and I was taking a week vacation. Considering the circumstances, I thought I was lucky to have left that early. I then wanted to go home instead of school because of safety (having to walk through Woodbrook to get to school as opposed to taking a taxi on Wrightson Road to go home) and because I felt that by the time I got to the school and settled in, I would not have sufficient time to accomplish anything, but if I went home I'll be able to work on the items that needed to be printed. I called Karlene, but she preferred that we met in school. It worked out because I got there safely and was able to catch Ms Sampson in school and have her show me how to use a mic in Premiere to do a voice over to create subtitles. Karlene and I weren't in agreement with what should be done first. She wanted the items for the documentary done, while I felt that the items for the printers should be done first. The items for the documentary came first because it needed to be timed appropriately.
The following night was definately a Champs Fleur night. I got there around 10pm and went straight to work. I did the graphics for the lower thirds and the other text titles for the documentary and created cuts and sequences for the footage in Patwa. I got nowhere with After Effects. I desperately needed guidance, because I couldn't figure out what was going wrong.
Saturday was a productive After Effects day. I forgot the writing sequence for a bit and worked on the wall. I felt good. It wasn't complete, but it was looking up. Stephan told me he would take a look at what I may have been doing incorrectly on Sunday.
Sunday 24th May, was a productive voice over day. I met with Nnamdi at 2pm and we began the voice over session. I thought it would have taken approximately two or three hours, I had planned to meet with Stephan after, to see if he could help me to sort out the After Effects issues. So I filled in all the subtitles. The typing part was easy. The lining up part was really time consuming, particularly because I don't speak the language, but luckily there are some words that I was able to identify which help in the lining up of text and voice.
On Monday it was strictly After Effects for me. I really wanted to attend the Encore classes, but it was decided that it may not be the best thing to do right now as time was of the essence. Nevertheless, I added animated the photos on the wall and later that night Stephan came by to look at the writing sequence I was trying to create in After Effects. The problem that I was trying to use particles to turn text into sand that blows away, but the machines would need more RAM. As a matter of fact, the machine we were using kept cutting off. So I abandoned the sand idea, and it was for the best. I'm glad he came to take a look.
The cartoon effect was carded for Tuesday, but it was abandoned eventually as well, it wasn't working with the footage. I pulled some photos and did 85% of a poster.
Ofcourse Wednesday met us in school. The footage of people speaking Patwa had to be imported into the main project that Karlene was working on and the subtitles had to be included. This was frustrating, because we now had to use another machine to open up the subtitled sequences from my drive while filling in on another machine that had Karlene's drive. I was also able to add the lower thirds (I didn't like how it looked, so I showed it to Karlene who agreed and we took it out) I also added some of other chapter titles. We also had a meeting with Ms Sampson that day, so at around 4:15pm we headed off to POS, we also had to submit the opening montage and the edited piece that Karlene was working on. On Wednesday night we slept.
The next morning I was up bright and early. I wanted to finish the logo and the other printed pieces. Most importantly, I really wanted to do the Encore class as I felt we needed it, and if I had to use the software then I would need to at least have a fair understanding of what I was expected to do. Tutorials help, but that explanation you get in a classroom setting is priceless. (especially from dem Sampson lecturers). I finished the logo, designed the Encore menu and started a poster. Yippee! I felt good. This meant that everything else could be completed. Karlene and I kept missing each others calls that day. When I got to school, she had also started a poster. Communication barrier. She thought I needed help, but I thought that it was on my list, so I'm doing it while she will work on the edit. It was good, because hers was more of a movie type poster, while mine was more informative. The Encore class was understandable, so that was good. That night I started working on the dvd stamp.
On Friday 29th May, the dvd stamp was completed and sent to be pressed. I collected it on Friday afternoon. I had intentions of working on the other items that had to be sent to print, but decided not to. The printers assured me that I can get it on Monday, so I went to Champs Fleur campus and completed the bele, stick-fighting, jab-jab, jab-molasie, pierrot grenade and dame lorraine walls for the edit and I fixed the wall and writing sequence of the opening montage. For some reason I could not get to view the movies. I left on Saturday morning, I got two hours sleep and headed out to attend to a work related matter.
Saturday 30th May. Time drawing near, I worked on the poster, flyers and did a long draft for this blog :) Couldn't find an end so I didn't post. It became really hard to blog since so much time was spent using school computers that we couldn't blog from. The next day Karlene and I went to Champs Fleur, she worked on the edit and I completed all the walls and rendered them and I edited the extra pieces for the dvd: the patwa piece and the Q&A. Ms Sampson came by to help us sort out the problems we were experiencing with the machines. I left Karlene there at 2am as I had work the next morning.
On Monday night we went back to Champs Fleur. Karlene got there before me. I did the credits and researched comment cards. I think they are really important for the report that we have to submit and they needed to give us accurate information, but not be too lengthy for viewers. I added the new lower thirds to the documentary, changed some of the titles. Then went back to drafting a comment card.
On Tuesday night, it was crazy, the machine never stopped choking. At one point I was able to work on the edit adding the video walls and tweeking the edit while Karlene sourced various sounds. Navid and Kyron helped us out a bit. Navid came and sorted out some audio editing issues we had. And while I was rending the entire piece a few seconds at a time (it was the only way it could be done) Kyron was there to press Ctrl S and Enter while I slept on myself. Thanks guys. Navid also sorted things out with Encore and showed me a neat short cut. All in all we made it and I will be sleeping tonight for the first time in I don't know how long.
After the meeting, we were able to bombard Stephan Noreiga (Photoshop teacher at SBCS) on the steps of the compound (hahahaa), he was able to clear up a few mind boggling principles in After Effects for me, and promised to give us some tutorials. There were a couple of other things carded for that week, but some issues outside of school impeded the process a bit, so the only thing that got accomplished on that weekend was sourcing some Adobe tutorials and researching some elements of design.
On Tuesday 12th May, St Bernard Marcelle and I met at GIS (Government Information Service) to go through and select the archival footage we needed for the documentary. Karlene stayed at school capturing footage we shot over the weekend. It went good, the GIS footage got me very excited and to top it all off, he found some pastries and made me a cup of tea ;) he's so considerate. We were done at approximately 8pm (hence the reason I was hungry). The footage then had to be captured on the following day at the school. Karlene and I also used that time for a production meeting. On Thursday there was something work related to address, so I didn't stay in school, but I dropped by the school or a few minutes, Karlene and I met to finalize plans for the weekend and got a chance to ask Ricardo some questions pertaining to the instruments we would like to hear in the WHT soundtrack.
On Friday 15th May, Karlene's mom dropped off the car for me, so that I could go to Champs Fleur campus to get some work done. I intended to get a couple of hours sleep before going, but I never did. Nevertheless, I got to school at around 9pm and started capturing the main interviews and organizing each of them into bins. (Did I mention that each time Karlene opened up our project it took hours upon hours to conform and index? So we decided to recapture since it may have been because tapes were captured in entirety and captured into different projects). I don't know why I thought that I would have been able to work on other things on my list... like fix the writing on the parchment paper, remove the white background from the parchment paper and add images to the wall... but capturing and 'bin-arizing' as Karlene would say, took the whole night into the next morning and I was only able to capture 4 tapes. The mistake I made was to save the captured tapes on the C drive of one of the computers while my external drive was in use, rendering and exporting the opening montage that I had been working on previously. Before I left, I saved a copy of the project to my hard drive.
I left Champs Fleur Campus for my bed on Saturday morning. Both Karlene and I returned on Saturday afternoon to encounter a series of editing issues.
- Premiere Pro wouldn't open on the computer that the project was stored on
- The project that was stored on my drive showed missing links and couldn't be used
- Ms Sampson guided us on what to do to get the computer started and to do the Save As to get the project on my drive, after which we were to transfer it to Karlene's drive from another computer as the one I used initially did not have the capacity to hold any additional files (we eventually had to delete the project from the computer's C drive)
- The project took forever to open on my drive
- When it opened and we attempted to transfer it to Karlene's drive, it took a few hours
- When Karlene was about to start working it got stuck
- Ms Sampson had to come over to sort us out. Turns out Karlene's drive did not have sufficient space and to top it off, we captured in the wrong HD mode
- Stephan came by to drop off the tutorials he promised us and I was able to figure out where and why I was stuck with the opening sequence
At about 9:30 that night Ricardo picked us up to take us to the studio with Brian Morris so we could get our soundtrack out of the way. It was the highlight of the day!
Well, on Monday 18th May, my body was literally shaking. I decided to go home and get some rest. I got home after 6pm and took my laptop to bed and sourced some photos and worked on the logo for a bit before falling asleep with laptop on stomach.
The next day Karlene and I headed to Champs Fleur. Her task was to work on the rough and mine to cut the archive footage into the bits and pieces that we would need to build the wall that we were going to play it on; build the Photoshop walls that were going to be used in both the opening and the archive footage, capture all the Patwa dialogue so that we can get the translation and if I had time, I wanted to work on promo items, I was excited to develop some of the ideas I had.
Karlene and I had a chance to discuss how we were going to divide our work.
Karlene - colour correction on the edit (Karlene started this); audio; music and sound.
Rhian - effects and transitions on the edit; lower thirds and other titles and text for the edit; credits; subtitles (we were both insisting that the other does this for different reasons, but Karlene didn't feel like she could do it especially with the edit (which can be a burden considering that we were off to a late start, so it was decided that I would); flyers; call cards; cartoon effect for GIS footage; poster; dvd jacket; dvd stamp; and I would attend the Encore class.
We left the school on Wednesday in time for our meeting with Ms Sampson. Prior to leaving the school, we tried rendering the project, but it wouldn't work, so we left early to go to POS to render before our meeting. It still hadn't rendered. I had gotten most of the things that I had set out to do except that I got stuck with After Effects on the wall, I just could not get it to work, so I never did get to working on the promotional items.
The next day I finished work at 7:15pm, it was a long hectic day! It was particularly demanding because we are at a very busy period and I was taking a week vacation. Considering the circumstances, I thought I was lucky to have left that early. I then wanted to go home instead of school because of safety (having to walk through Woodbrook to get to school as opposed to taking a taxi on Wrightson Road to go home) and because I felt that by the time I got to the school and settled in, I would not have sufficient time to accomplish anything, but if I went home I'll be able to work on the items that needed to be printed. I called Karlene, but she preferred that we met in school. It worked out because I got there safely and was able to catch Ms Sampson in school and have her show me how to use a mic in Premiere to do a voice over to create subtitles. Karlene and I weren't in agreement with what should be done first. She wanted the items for the documentary done, while I felt that the items for the printers should be done first. The items for the documentary came first because it needed to be timed appropriately.
The following night was definately a Champs Fleur night. I got there around 10pm and went straight to work. I did the graphics for the lower thirds and the other text titles for the documentary and created cuts and sequences for the footage in Patwa. I got nowhere with After Effects. I desperately needed guidance, because I couldn't figure out what was going wrong.
Saturday was a productive After Effects day. I forgot the writing sequence for a bit and worked on the wall. I felt good. It wasn't complete, but it was looking up. Stephan told me he would take a look at what I may have been doing incorrectly on Sunday.
Sunday 24th May, was a productive voice over day. I met with Nnamdi at 2pm and we began the voice over session. I thought it would have taken approximately two or three hours, I had planned to meet with Stephan after, to see if he could help me to sort out the After Effects issues. So I filled in all the subtitles. The typing part was easy. The lining up part was really time consuming, particularly because I don't speak the language, but luckily there are some words that I was able to identify which help in the lining up of text and voice.
On Monday it was strictly After Effects for me. I really wanted to attend the Encore classes, but it was decided that it may not be the best thing to do right now as time was of the essence. Nevertheless, I added animated the photos on the wall and later that night Stephan came by to look at the writing sequence I was trying to create in After Effects. The problem that I was trying to use particles to turn text into sand that blows away, but the machines would need more RAM. As a matter of fact, the machine we were using kept cutting off. So I abandoned the sand idea, and it was for the best. I'm glad he came to take a look.
The cartoon effect was carded for Tuesday, but it was abandoned eventually as well, it wasn't working with the footage. I pulled some photos and did 85% of a poster.
Ofcourse Wednesday met us in school. The footage of people speaking Patwa had to be imported into the main project that Karlene was working on and the subtitles had to be included. This was frustrating, because we now had to use another machine to open up the subtitled sequences from my drive while filling in on another machine that had Karlene's drive. I was also able to add the lower thirds (I didn't like how it looked, so I showed it to Karlene who agreed and we took it out) I also added some of other chapter titles. We also had a meeting with Ms Sampson that day, so at around 4:15pm we headed off to POS, we also had to submit the opening montage and the edited piece that Karlene was working on. On Wednesday night we slept.
The next morning I was up bright and early. I wanted to finish the logo and the other printed pieces. Most importantly, I really wanted to do the Encore class as I felt we needed it, and if I had to use the software then I would need to at least have a fair understanding of what I was expected to do. Tutorials help, but that explanation you get in a classroom setting is priceless. (especially from dem Sampson lecturers). I finished the logo, designed the Encore menu and started a poster. Yippee! I felt good. This meant that everything else could be completed. Karlene and I kept missing each others calls that day. When I got to school, she had also started a poster. Communication barrier. She thought I needed help, but I thought that it was on my list, so I'm doing it while she will work on the edit. It was good, because hers was more of a movie type poster, while mine was more informative. The Encore class was understandable, so that was good. That night I started working on the dvd stamp.
On Friday 29th May, the dvd stamp was completed and sent to be pressed. I collected it on Friday afternoon. I had intentions of working on the other items that had to be sent to print, but decided not to. The printers assured me that I can get it on Monday, so I went to Champs Fleur campus and completed the bele, stick-fighting, jab-jab, jab-molasie, pierrot grenade and dame lorraine walls for the edit and I fixed the wall and writing sequence of the opening montage. For some reason I could not get to view the movies. I left on Saturday morning, I got two hours sleep and headed out to attend to a work related matter.
Saturday 30th May. Time drawing near, I worked on the poster, flyers and did a long draft for this blog :) Couldn't find an end so I didn't post. It became really hard to blog since so much time was spent using school computers that we couldn't blog from. The next day Karlene and I went to Champs Fleur, she worked on the edit and I completed all the walls and rendered them and I edited the extra pieces for the dvd: the patwa piece and the Q&A. Ms Sampson came by to help us sort out the problems we were experiencing with the machines. I left Karlene there at 2am as I had work the next morning.
On Monday night we went back to Champs Fleur. Karlene got there before me. I did the credits and researched comment cards. I think they are really important for the report that we have to submit and they needed to give us accurate information, but not be too lengthy for viewers. I added the new lower thirds to the documentary, changed some of the titles. Then went back to drafting a comment card.
On Tuesday night, it was crazy, the machine never stopped choking. At one point I was able to work on the edit adding the video walls and tweeking the edit while Karlene sourced various sounds. Navid and Kyron helped us out a bit. Navid came and sorted out some audio editing issues we had. And while I was rending the entire piece a few seconds at a time (it was the only way it could be done) Kyron was there to press Ctrl S and Enter while I slept on myself. Thanks guys. Navid also sorted things out with Encore and showed me a neat short cut. All in all we made it and I will be sleeping tonight for the first time in I don't know how long.
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