The Personal Blog of Dr Banksy*.

My short-running, long-taking segment of rotoscope animation is finally finished. It's taken two weeks to make just over five seconds of film, but the results are definitely worth the self-destruction . And now we turn to the inevitable editing process. It's a chore. Final Cut Pro is not bad at all - as previously noted, files types can be a tricky bunch, but when you know what files will mix (or rather, when your course tutor does), everything finally fits into place. Which means that the scrap of rotoscoping is in its rightful place at the start of the film - just what one needs to captivate a documentary audience (I hope). But since a five-second documentary obviously wouldn't impress for very long, I've been kept busy adding in the real-life footage and sound to bulk out the final piece. I took multiple attempts at recording myself playing little snippets ( love that word ) of a guitar riff, with each take featuring a different camera position on the fretboard. The ...

Apologies for the delay. This post has taken a while to write because my work is taking a while to do. I've been trying to use Adobe Flash to create a rotoscoped version of a short guitar clip that I found on YouTube (credit to Ben Tanen for some great work, I can't thank you enough). It's being a challenge to say the least. First of all, I had trouble getting the video into Flash in the first place. After using an online converter to switch the video into .mp4 format, I tried to use Adobe Media Encoder to change the mp4 file into a .flv file (Flash video). It just so happens that the .flv file format is becoming obsolete. As is Flash itself. Great. However, thanks to some help from my friendly neighbourhood technician, the file was transferred into Flash in some manner (I didn't ask, I was too grateful to mind). Then I started the rotoscoping process - painstakingly tracing over each shape in each frame of the video to create the distinctive style. You may be wonderin...

An introduction to sound recording devices today. Depending on the context of the recording required, a different piece of recording equipment should be used. A boom microphone should be used in a crowd or any location which requires assistance with microphone usage. Sound recorders can also be used. An Edirol is a handheld recording device used for personal recording, with side-placed microphones which are ideal for interview recordings. The sound levels should be checked before any recording takes place. Headphones should also be worn so that an accurate perception of what the recording sounds like as it is saved to the memory card can be obtained. Some microphones (like a Zoom microphone) have fluffers which resist picking up popping and wind noise. They are therefore ideal for radio work and outdoor use, because the don't require the use of a wind shield. If a boom microphone is required in windy weather, a wind shield can be applied to reduce the recording of wind noise. A sma...

Today we received a seminar on the fundamentals of every documentary, which was described as "dry" by our tutor herself. Still, best to write it all down, right? Right? With a documentary, there are multiple ways of telling a story via addressing the audience in different ways. What medium is the documentary presented in? Who is the target audience? According to Bill Nichols , there are six main types of documentary. Expository documentaries are a traditional approach, with voiceover commentary explaining what is being shown on the screen - narration. Examples of this are wildlife documentaries. Observational documentaries are "fly-on-the-wall". They appear to have been filmed in real time and the filmmaker is not visible. There is no voiceover. Examples of observational documentaries are reality shows. Interactive (or participatory) documentaries feature subject responding to direct questioning. The filmmaker may be edited in or out, and statements might be taken o...