VSP PROJECT 2 - SHOOTING PRACTICE & EDITING

23.10.2025 / 23.11.2025 Week 4 - Week 8

Dave Christian Moniaga / 0385630

Video and Sound Production / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

Project 2: Shooting Practice & Editing

Feedback
Reflection

Lectures

Week 4:

Before going into production a movie would go through a development process, where a screenwriter / producer puts together an idea into a package that has goo sell-ability.

They would also need to finance the movie through pre-sales, loans, investments, and even the filmmaker's own money.

The Stages of Film Production:

Pre-Production

The planning / preparation stage of a movie such as; writing the script, budgeting, storyboards, casting actors, scouting locations, designing sets & costumes, and hiring crew members.

Production

The team will work together to set up necessary steps before filming (lighting, camera, makeup, costume).
Capturing all of the needed footage for the film using the plans from pre-production.
It is important to note that managing a big team with complex schedule is logistically and physically challenging

Post-Production

The footage goes through a few editing stages; cutting & arranging scenes, adding music & sound effects, color grading, and visual effects.
This process requires attention to detail & keen eye for storytelling.

After post-production, the film now will be marketed to the public. The movie would also need to secure distribution through major studios, multiple firms, film festivals, and even the internet

Quiz:

In a production team, there are many important roles that make up a filmmaking process. They each have a set of responsibilities that are essential to the success of the production. Here are some the most important ones:

Producer

The person responsible at managing the logistics and financial of production. They coordinate schedule, location, crew, and ensure everything is completed on time and within the budget

Director

Oversees the production on shooting & assembly. They ensure their creative vision is realized and works closely with the cast and crew; direct scenes and creative decisions for the look and feel of the film.

Screenwriter

Through dialogue and the script, they shape the sequence of events in film, and ensure the story transitions in a logical and interesting way.

Production Designer

The head of the art department. They are responsible for the visual design of the film; sets, location, and costume. They work with the director and cinematographer to create a cohesive and immersive visual world.

Art Director

They work alongside production designer and are responsible for the film's settings: buildings, landscapes & interiors. They are also responsible for acquiring props & decorating the set.

Costume Designer

AS the name suggests, the costumes are important at conveying the film's theme, time period, & the character who wear them.

Cinematographer

DOP/DP is responsible for capturing the visual aesthetic of film/video. They must pay attention on choosing the right lighting, camera, and lenses for each scene.

Editor

They organize & arrange the footages into a continuous sequence, choosing from hundreds of feet of film. They work with the sound designer to shape pacing, tone, & structure of the film.

Sound Designer

Is responsible for the audio aspects of film; dialogues, sound effects, and music. They work with the director and editor to ensure sound is seamlessly integrated.

Actors

Portrays the characters as they work closely with the director and cinematographer.

There are many other roles such as grips, gaffers, make up artists, stunt coordinators, and so on.

I noticed that with so many roles in the production of a film, the responsibility and the roles tend to blend based on the production budget and quality. Many of these articles including the explanation written by the lecturer have slight variation and can even confuse people, especially during the quiz section.

Roles like production designer with the art director, or even the visual aesthetics of a director and a cinematographer.

Quiz:

Week 5:

Mise en scène is a French word translating "setting / placing on stage", it refers to the visual arrangement and presentation on a scene. All the elements that we see on screen in / front of the camera and how they are organized to have meaning, emotion, and narrative for the audience.

These elements include:

Setting & Location: This involves the time period which is the era the story is set and physical space where the environment takes place.
Props & Object: Items used by the character and they can symbolize themes, characterization, and advance the plot.
Costumes & Makeup: The wardrobe can reflect a character's personality, psychological state, social status, occupation, and the world they inhabit.
Lighting: light and shadow can create mood, guide audience's focus, and highlight elements. (high contrast create dramatic atmosphere)
Composition & Framing: The way elements are arranged, including camera angles / the positioning of actors.
Performance & Acting: Movements, expressions, and interactions that convey emotions including subtext.
Color: The selection of colors used in costumes, sets, and lighting. It serves to create a mood or emotions, a vital means of artistic expression.
Camera Placement: The way a camera is placed, where it is, and what it captures is important to give the desired effect for the viewers.
Spatial Relationships: arrangement between characters and objects, it can indicate conflict, intimacy, or hierarchy.
Blocking: organizes action, where the actors stand and where the audience's eyes are directed. It adds detail to what is happening in the scene.

Quiz:

Week 6:

Color Theory can be explained as two things:

scientific principle explaining about how color hues and saturation are created
creative discipline about how color achieves emotional effect in visual art

The types of color theory can be explained through the color wheel, color context, and color harmony.

The color wheel have been used since the 18th century. Newton argued that colors were divided into original (ROYGBIV) and compounded.

Fig 1.1 The color wheel in Sir Isaac Newton Opticks (1704)

Color theorists created color schemes from the color wheel for artists to use, for example:

Analogous
Triadic
Monochromatic
Complementary
Tetradic

Fig 1.2 Color schemes in the color wheel

Color is a huge part in visual storytelling and certain directors are known use a specific type of color style.

Color correction is the process of correcting/fixing in a video to make it look how it should, as natural as possible. Color grading is the process of editing colors in a video to give them a stylistic look.

Fig 1.3 Color graded vs Color corrected

The process of color correction:

Normalize the footage
Fix saturation
Fix brightness and contrast
Set your new white balance
Check for the skin tone color

The relationship between color saturation and color brightness plays an important role in color correction. An ideal video setting is a flat footage and undersaturated, the opposite of this would risk valuable information to be lost (footage is oversaturated/too dark/too bright).

Fig 1.4 Before correction (top), After correction (below)

Color grading comes after color correction, where it can convey a visual tone or mood to heighten the narrative.

LUT (look-up table) are cheat sheets in camera that can give a footage specific grade / look. They are timesaving and powerful, but not recommended for beginners.

The process of color grading:

Normalize the folate
Correct the colors
Choose desired look & style
Make color adjustments
Double check for skin tones & vectorscope

Fig 1.5 Before grading (top), After grading (below)

The application of color correction & color grading falls on the filmmaker / video editor to understand what the client wants and needs. Here are some programs for video editing: Adobe Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Blackmagic Davinci Resolve, Magic Bullet Colorist, and Fylm.ai.

Quiz:

DISCLAMER! All answers were marked as false as the quiz was made without any correct answers put inside them.

Week 7 Exercise: Color Correction

Fig 2.1 Waveform type to Luma (luminosity)

Try not to touch 0 or 100, the importance of shooting in the right way so you can still control it later during editing.

shooting in log files can help at managing this issue

Fig 2.2 Comparison View

Fig 2.3 Basic Correction to adjust light & color

Fig 2.4 Color wheel adjustment / matching

Fig 2.5 Matching based on Luma & RGB

Adjustment Layer to edit the theme and style to the overall video

Fig 2.6 Adjustment Layer on top of all the clips

Instructions

Project 2 (Exercise): Lalin

As a continuation from week 2's trimming exercise, I will be using the color correction technique taught in week 7 through Mr. Kannan's lecture and through this video to color correct the Lalin video that we have trimmed.

As there are two main location in the video clip, The color correction will have to match based on the location and not based on their order.

Although all of scene 1 takes place in the same location, some of the shots are taken in a different angle, some with having outside light coming in and some without. This means I will be adjusting also based on the shot angles.

Fig 3.1 Scene 1, camera not directed towards light

Fig 3.2 Scene 1, camera directed towards light

In scene 2, since Lalin is wearing a white mask for most of the shots, it was pretty easy to color correct by using the white balance eyedropper tool on the mask.

Fig 3.3 White balance color correction

Based on my week 8 feedback, most of my highlights are too high and too bright. I would need to bring it at least around 90 and below. I also need to focus on my contrast levels and make sure each shot connects to the next shot in terms of their color temperature.

Following the feedback, I used the storyboard as a guide to place the the chat bubbles and sound effects.

Fig 3.4 Chat bubbles used in the scene

I also added a Cross Dissolve transition effect to the text bubbles to make it disappear more smoothly when moving to another scene.

Fig 3.5 Cross Dissolve effect

As there are many options that can be used in the phone notification mp3 file that was provided, I chose two distinct ones. One for when a message pops up and another in the instance when character "Nut" leaves the scene in one of the shots.

Fig 3.6 Final editing timeline

An adjustment layer was added at the end just to adjust the color slightly to make it have a colder temperature, making it fit more closely to the overall sad mood of the scene.

Here is the final video uploaded to youtube:

Project 2: Production Shoot

In this project, we are tasked to recreate a scene from Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) , specifically from the scenes presented in this storyboard guide:

I was chosen by the lecturer as one of the Directors that will lead a group to do a production shoot of the scenes that need to be recreated. I was also tasked to bring the group members together to help assign them to their chosen roles, here is a list of the crew:

CREW LIST

Producer : Mariyam Maaiya Ibrahim Director
Director : Dave Christian Moniaga
Assist. D. 1 : Lim Jia Yu
Assist. D. 2 : Naomi Jerry
D.O.P. : Caitlin Lung Su Ying
Assist. Camera : Gan Xin Ru
Lighting Crew 1 : Low Xin Er
Lighting Crew 2 : Wong Kaiyi
Art Director : Miao Xinjun
Location Sound : Sun Zijing
Boom Operator : Ayah Zaher Abdullah Al Harmally
Main actors :

- Muhammad Baihaqi Desya
- Ahmed Saneeh

Extra : Teoh Kai Yin, Iman Humairaa Binti Sharol Razi

Fig 4.1 Group photo

From the day of the shoot, we gathered a lot of the shots and audio to start editing. As this part of the project requires us to work individually, we have given each other freedom to choose whichever shots or audio we want to take.

Here is all of the footage that I have chosen, there are some repeating shots done with different techniques:

Fig 4.2 Chosen footage for editing

I started by matching all of the videos and audios together using the synchronize method from this tutorial video. Though this method isn't always foolproof as I would need to manually sync some of them.

Fig 4.3 Audio Time Units

For smoother scrolling and editing when matching audio, I would enable the audio time units and disable snap. As some of the audio we used still had background noise, I chose to apply a Denoise filter and adjust it enough until it sounds clear and clean.

Fig 4.4 Denoise audio effect

Aside from that, to create a more engaging and exciting shot for the fight scene, I manually created keyframes which synced with the movement on punches.

Fig 4.5 Manual camera shake to enhance punch effect

For the background music, I chose this royalty free background music from youtube which evokes a feeling of suspense and action, fitting to my original idea of the teaser.

Since the background music I chose was too long for the maximum time limit of the teaser, I had to manually cut and combine the music in a seamless way using the Constant Power audio transition. I think it did the job well enough.

Fig 4.6 Constant Power transition between music clips

A teaser trailer isn't complete without captions, with that I created a few texts that included a fake producing studio, the movie's title, and taglines. The black background was added using a blac

Fig 4.7 Some of the captions used for the teaser

Once I have all of the video and audio edited, I nested some of the segmented clips of the same video so that I am able to color correct it later on. During the color correction process, I used a comparison view from scene to scene to make sure each shot connects with each other.

Fig 4.8 Combining segmented clips into Nested Sequence

Fig 4.9 Color correction by using comparison view

To give a more cinematic and movie look, I also added a crop to my adjustment layer to make a 21:9 ratio video, enhancing the effect.

Fig 4.10 Creating a cinematic look using Crop in Adjustment Layer

Due to some of the shots taken with a not so suitable lighting, I felt that some scenes still felt a bit too bright. So to give more depth, I added a vignette to scenes that looked to bright. I was also making sure that the values of the blacks still never reach zero.

Fig 4.11 Vignette in brighter scenes for enhanced depth

As an extra few touches to the color, I also added another adjustment layer on top of everything to give a colder color mood to the teaser.

Fig 4.12 Final adjustment for a colder color mood

Finalizing my upload to youtube, I also made a very quick thumbnail making sure to use the best shot as the visual.

Fig 4.13 Youtube thumbnail made in Photoshop

Here is the final teaser trailer on youtube:

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Dave Christian Moniaga (0385630)