Film editor Masterclass/Talk

Blog update July 12th 2012 - 

In May Terry Rawlings gave a talk to a sell out audience at Signals. If you were there you may want to relive the day.  If you were not, this is your chance to see some of what you missed.  Use this link to see the first part of his talk.

https://vimeo.com/45239409

Sadly if you were not there you will still have missed the full talk and having a look at the 'Alien' shooting script he brought along.
Terry wanted everyone to know he really enjoyed meeting the enthusiastic audience and thought Signals was great.  You are welcome back any time Terry!

----------------

Original Blog:

Signal Media Arts Centre is honored and delighted to announce that Film Editor Terry Rawlings will be coming to Colchester to give a talk on Saturday the 19^th of May at the Signals Studio.

Terry Rawlings edited a number of great films in his long career both the UK and Hollywood, some of the best known are: Blade Runner, Alien, Alien 3, Watership Down, Goldeneye and Entrapment.

Terry Rawlings was nominated for an Oscar and a BAFTA for best Editing on the 1981 film Chariots of Fire (which is due to be re-released on the 13^th of July to Celebrate London 2012).

Chariots of Fire was one of five BAFTA nominations for Terry Rawlings, the other nominated films were; Alien, Blade Runner, Women in Love and Isadora. He is a member of Academy of Motion Pictures, which means he votes in the ‘Oscars,’ and in 2006 he received the prestigious American Cinema Editors Career Achievement Award.

This is an amazing and rare opportunity to hear from one of the great British craftsmen in cinema. Terry will be providing insights in to his career and methods. The talk will be in a small and informal environment where the audience will be able to ask questions about Terry’s career and work.

Terry Rawlings, A.C.E. began his work in the film industry in 1955. In 1957 he got his first editing job on with Town on Trial as a Second Assistant Sound Editor. From then he worked for several years as a Sound, Music and Dubbing Editor. During this time credits included The Great Gatsby, and The L-Shaped Room. In 1977 he had the opportunity to picture edit The Sentinel, that started a 27-year editing career.

A love of music can be seen though out Terry’s career; his choice of film work includes musicals The Phantom of the Opera and Yentl, as well as working with the most famous Vangelis film scores.

Terry Rawlings will be giving this rare talk about his career and experiences as an editor to a small audience at Signals, Colchester on the 19^th May at 3.00pm Signals will then be screening the original Alien at 5.00pm

This talk and screening comes just 2 weeks before Director Riddly Scott’s long awaited Alien prequel Prometheus, due for Cinema release on the 1^st June.

Tickets for Talk and Alien screening are £9.00 (only talk £6.00) and available from Signals Media Arts Centre www.signals.org, info@signals.org.uk or 01206 560255

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Rawlings

New film course

Calling Colchester Film Buffs

Signals Media Arts Centre is delighted to announce a new course for film lovers.

‘Introduction to film’ is a six-part film evening course where you can learn more about the history of film, each week students will be able to watch a great all-time classic of cinema and learn more about the film’s stars, director, context and genre.

Dr Lance Rickman will be leading the course, he teaches film studies at the University of Essex and the Open University and has a real passion for the subject. The course will begin in the silent era and travel though the musical, film noir and British cinema to come up to date. There will be lots of opportunities to discuss the films and ask questions.

The course will be informal and fun and will be great for budding critics or filmmakers and anyone who wants to know a bit more about the language of film.

‘Introduction to film’ starts on Tuesday 15^th May at 7.30 pm and will continue once a week for 6 weeks it will cost £50 for all 6 sessions including film screenings.

For more information or booking please call Signals 01206 560255 or email info@signals.org.uk

You can also book though our website (booking fee applies) www.signals.org.uk

Bollywood Colchester

Signals has come over all Bollywood this month. The colour and energy of a good Bollywood film is enough to get you through the dullest of February days.

On the Saturday the 25th of February we will be screening ‘Main Hoon Na’. This modern classic was the directorial debut of choreographer Farah Khan, the film was a great box office hit and won numerous awards.

The film was ground-breaking in many ways, it was among the first to look at the Indian Pakistan conflict and also presented strong female characters. Director Farah Khan help lead the way for a new generation of woman working behind the camera in Bollywood. http://nyti.ms/oyVJ7b

The film stars the ‘King of Bollywood’ Shahrukh Khan, who has made scores of films in his long career including ‘My Name is Khan’ in 2010, which became a international success and is the highest-grossing Bollywood film of all-time in the overseas market.

See Bollywood legend Shahrukh Khan interviewed last year for the BBC Asian Network here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00qp0tr

Before the film there will be a talk by Nina Ludgate who worked on the film as Effects Producer. She took a multi-camera array to Bollywood to create the frozen-arc effect that is seen in action movies and commercials around the world. Nina will be sharing her experiences of working in Mumbai and shedding some light on Bollywood production methods, as well as letting us know all about the films stars and Director.

Free screening of ‘Main Hoon Na’ on Saturday 25^th Feburary 2012 at 7.30 Signals Media Arts Centre. Call To book a place 01206 560255

Camera comparison

Signals has several different cameras for hire and we thought it might be useful to tell you a little bit more about them.

Our cameras fall into two categories - camcorders and video DSLRs.

Our Sony camcorders will be familiar to most filmmakers and students and are very easy to use. They can be operated handheld or via a tripod and have standard sound recording features such as XLR mic inputs and headphone monitoring.

Our video DSLR cameras offer more cinematic potential but are trickier to master. Due to the larger image sensors they can produce wonderfully crisp HD video and enable the shallow depth of field that many filmmakers love to use.

The images below demonstrate the difference between the camera sensors when it comes to depth of field.

Sony Z1 camcorder - f5.6

Canon 5dMKII DSLR - f5.6

As you can see the Sony Z1 has a deep focus (bricks in far wall) whilst the Canon 5D is focusing all attention on the plant in the foreground. This ability is a great tool for filmmakers but comes with a downside - losing focus when the camera or subject is moving!

The other main difference between the camera sensors is about scale. The video DSLRs can be fitted with a wide variety of stills and cinema lenses whilst the Sony camcorders feature a fixed zoom lens. The camcorders have some useful features like ND filters (good for sunny days) and a long focal length (you would need a huge paparazzi lens to emulate this on the DSLR).

The images below show the difference in framing that can be achieved on the cameras at maximum width.

Sony Z1 camcorder at f5.6

Canon 5dMkII at f5.6

This may all be suggesting that the video DSLRs are superior and in many ways they are. The problem of sound monitoring can be overcome by recording sound separately using our digital audio recorder.

For ease of use and to ensure focus during event filming such as weddings we would still recommend our camcorders. If you want to be a bit more creative then try a video DSLR, we are open Monday to Friday if you want to try one out.

Time Report - Filming in the Set

Last week was very exciting here at Signals as we constructed an amazing futuristic TV Studio gallery in our workshop space! It's taken many weeks for the children at Perryfields Junior School to collect all sorts of recycled bits and bobs and turn them into wall panels and boards for our TV Show gallery. It took two days for the set to be put together and we think the final result looks fantastic!

Four children from the Time Report group were asked to come to Signals on Tues 17th Jan and film some of the last scenes for their film about a news show set in a space station 80 years in the future. The children were Jacob, who plays 'Trent', the ever-exasperated director, James, who plays 'Sparky' our trusty technician and Lewis, whose character 'Max' is our news anchorman. Jack (who is James' twin brother) was also asked to come along and be our camera op for the day and got some great close ups of Sparky tinkering around with the set.

Below are Lewis and Jack who were setting up where Trent the Director would be sitting. We used an old edit suite as the control panel which Trent uses to cue up different clips and adjust sound levels. The idea of using old equipment came from the children who decided that in the future, we will have run out of oil to make plastics. Therefore, all technology will have to be run on old machines that have been upgraded.

The children worked really hard to get all the shots done in time and we all had a lot of fun building and filming in the set. We only have two more sessions of Time Report now to:

• Film any last minute 'pick up shots',
• Record the sound for 'Bubbles' (the pike that lives in the filthy River Thames during the Industrial Revolution)
• Record the sound for the Seagull that lives on the rubbish tip.
• Put together an 'assembly edit' or 'rough cut'
• Complete post production on the green screen sequences, add VFX and SFX

So there's still a lot of work to do!

See you on Tuesday 24th Jan everyone!

Signals Christmas Time Lapse

Hello everyone,

We have a treat in store for you! On the 1st December, we put our Christmas decorations up in our studio and used two our two DSLR cameras to film the action. Paul recorded some lovely shots using the Canon 5D Mk II and our glide track, which are all available to hire. In post production, we sped everything up using the new Final Cut X editing software, and this is what we've come up with! Enjoy!

So a very Merry Christmas from all of us here at Signals and we wish you all the best for a Happy 2012!

Signals Team x

Green Screen Test

We recently completed our 8th session of Time Report with children from Perryfields Junior School and filming is now well underway! Last week we posted a video of Craig who is acting the part of the Weather Reporter in our futuristic TV news show. We've been using green screen technology to place the actors into different scenes. We do this by filming the scene against a large green screen and lighting the shot in such a way as to get rid of any shadows. We also have to gaffa tape the green screen so it's really taut, meaning no wrinkles or creases on the green fabric. In post production, we then take out the green background and replace it with video footage or a stock image so it looks like the actor is actually in that scene (though they haven't actually left the classroom!)

We've knocked up a very rough test using the green screen function in iMovie 11 so that you can see how the video we posted last week of Craig as the Weather Reporter might look in the final film (make sure you watch it in 720p). The new version of iMovie makes this so simple to do, we'll be training up our group of young filmmakers so they can do this themselves!

Cool? We think so!

We've also been filming the exterior scenes of the school where our roving Time Reporter Zara (played by Sofia) interviews a school child, Kurt (played by Kurt) about the earth's ecological problems in 2012. Remember, our film is set in 2092 so Zara's costume is made out of left over bits and bobs including a rather fetching hat made of carrier bags.