Chris Mungovan's Blog

Nine Stories High – Episode 5

chirsmungovan — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:42:36 +0000

It’s coming to the end of January which means that it’s time for another Episode of ‘Nine Stories High’ The Welsh National Opera’s Opera Soap Opera that I film with Minimal Media This month we are in Tesco. It was again a surreal experience, I find each one a surreal experience. Just as the first out of three performances I realise I’m filming a opera soap opera in the middle of a busy Tesco on a Saturday morning and I say to myself ‘ What am I doing this is just weird ‘. Even though it’s my fifth episode the feeling I get from when we start to move into position for the performance to begin does still not go away, I’m not sure it ever will through out this whole project, right up to the last one in May I’m sure I will still have the same feeling.

This month proved slightly challenging when trying to decide on positions to film from as the store is so regimented with the straight isles there not much variation you can do without getting in the way of the Singers or the customers, but even though part of the flash mob surprise gets ruined by the fact that there’s camera in the isles people are still not exactly sure what is going on and get surprised when the singing begins and surprised again when the performance is in full flow but someone from behind starts to sing and become part of the story.

This Tesco store in particular had an upstairs with a balcony of sorts so for the last performance I was positioned up there so I could capture some shot from there.

I know that I say this every time I do a post about an episode of ‘Nine Stories High’ but I really enjoy my time when I’m doing that work, It’s something different , can be challenging at times but still fun to do I look forward to the two days a month I do with them from the rehearsals to the performance it’s all a really good time.

(Episode 5 will be here when it is released)

The Making of A Music Video

chirsmungovan — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:52:06 +0000

I recently finished work on my Negotiated Study 1 (Neg 1) which was a music video for the band Portlights. I thought i’d do a blog post going into some of the details how how it all came together.

The video is made up of two main parts, a small narrative that runs throughout the video and some studio based work with the band on both a green screen and a plain black background.

The narrative that runs through it is about a guy and a girl, but the guy always just misses the girl making him unsure wether she is real or imaginary.

The name of the song is eclipse so when the band are on the green screen there is a eclipse happening in the background in the style of an old super 8 film projection. I wanted to try and keep that feel or similar throughout the whole video. Which I feel that I have done. I directed and produced the video with Nathan Stewart a student on the music technology course.

We spent one day in the television studio with the band and filmed on both a normal black background and on a green screen.
Most of the backgrounds I created in After Effects like the one that I have right at the beginning which is an old movie style countdown before the band start to play I have the audio that was taken straight from the cameras of what was going on at that moment before cutting to the audio track of the song as the band start to play.

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

Above you can see the differences between the raw footage and once the footage had been worked on in After effects adding the background and colouring the footage. One problem that did appear when we did a test shot of the green screen before actually starting was that the floor in the studio was reflecting the green screen meaning that when it came to keying the shot the floor went partially see through. So I had to make a decision on wether to try and light the floor as well which would take more time and we were already running behind schedule or I could try and compensate for it in after effects. I decided that I would make a reflection of what ever was going to be on the background on the floor to compensate for the floor being slightly see through and I’m glad I did because I quite like the way it looks.

A Problem I only came across when in post production was that on the green screen we shot in to the corner for the maximum floor space meaning the floor line is angled and not straight so meaning that if I put the background straight it would look odd and just wouldn’t fit with the shot. To solve this problem I but I split the background in half and angled them so they looked right. It’s only a small thing but with out it the shots on the green screen would not look right.

There were some changes that I made to the shots that were filmed for the narrative. The Narrative was filmed over a two week period depending when the actors were free.

The changes I made were only small but I think they help to up the production value of the music video.

The first change I made was that I got rid of some branding on the side of a vending machines and just made the whole side of the machine black.

Before

After

The second thing I did was change the sign on the front of the building I did this to again up the production value slightly as the music video is going to be the official music video for the band I didn’t want the video to give any specific locations that can be easily noticed. I wanted the video to of been able to happen any where really.

Before After

After

The third thing I did was I edited out some people from the back of a shot as I wanted the park to look empty. I achieved this by taking a still image from the shot and used photoshop to get rid of the people. I then put the shot back in to after effects and had it over the top of the video.

Before

After

One of the biggest parts of post production involved the train station scene. The shot was not filmed on any green screen at all which looking back on it filming it on green screen would of made it a lot easier in the edit stage but not using green screen didn’t make it impossible just very time consuming when editing it.

Original Shot

This is the original shot that I filmed at a train station I then had to mask around the the guy in the foreground so that only he was on one layer

Masked Layer

I then placed the masked layer over the top of the original clip meaning that I can put something in between and the guy would still be on top. The train in the video is not a real one it is a high quality picture of a full train that I have put in between the two layers

Train added in

Then to give the effect that the train is going past quite vast I put a motion blur on it.

Motion Blur

To then give the impression that the girl has disappeared i then placed footage of the empty train station underneath the masked layer to create the illusion that the girl has disappeared.

Disappeared

You can watch the video here:

Portlights : http://www.portlightsmusic.com/

Any Questions Fill This in

[contact-form]

Nine Stories High – Episode 4

chirsmungovan — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 15:39:18 +0000

It’s a cold December morning, it’s the day before christmas and everyone is doing there last minute christmas shopping and going about the their own business when a man dressed up as santa collecting for charity starts to sing. Now there’s nothing odd about that you might say but then to other people run in singing about mums with big bums is Debenhams and it starts to get odder and odder from there involving a ghost and an angel from M&S cheering up the depressed looking santa. This sounds like the very odd plot from a festive TV program that’s usually on around christmas and it is of sorts. It is in fact the plot to the Christmas Episode of ‘Nine Stories High’ which is the Welsh National Operas very own Soap Opera Opera performed every month on the streets or some where within the centre of Wrexham.

I’ve been working on Nine Stories High for 4 months now meaning I have done all 4 Episodes up to date and with everyone I still think how strange what we are doing is. This month the episode was filmed in Eagles Meadow down near the cinema and on both levels that are there meaning that the action progressed from one level to another and not only did we have 5 opera singers to film we also had a choir to film who were part of this episode. All in all we had 5 maned cameras capturing what happened over the 3 performances, where we usually have 3 manned and one static camera. After the first performance you start to get the idea of where the performers are going to be standing as it’s very difficult to rehearse with the amount of space your going to have where ever the performance is going to be so the first one is usually see what happens and capture it as best as you can which isn’t usually to hard but it’s good to see how the performers move in the space.

I really like working on Nine Stories High it’s lots of fun to do and it’s definitely changed my pre-conceptions that I had about opera. Which is the aim of the WNO’s project to try and introduce people to opera and show them it doesn’t have to be for posh people in the theatre and that it can happen quite literally anywhere.

(Episode 4 Will appear here when it is released )

Nine Stories High Episode 3 – One Last Drink

chirsmungovan — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 01:22:29 +0000

On Saturday 26th November episode 3 of Nine Stories High was performed live in the Elihu Yale Weatherspoons in Wrexham. So far i think it’s the best one we’ve done in terms of filming it as we’d learnt from the first two operas and were able to put what we’d learnt into this one. It was also very well receivedy the audience who were the customers of the pub. I was unsure as to how it would be recived to begin with as it seemed quite odd to take opera in to a pub, but I guess that’s what the WNO is trying to do take opera in to place where is wouldn’t normally be .

Episode 3

I was on camera for this using a cannon 7D getting the wide shots.

For more information go to

http://www.facebook.com/streetsongs

Filmed and Edited by

http://www.minimalmedia.co.uk

Nine Stories High – Episode 2

chirsmungovan — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 17:28:25 +0000

Today and yesterday were days spent with the Welsh National Opera going to the rehearsals and filming the second episode of Nine Stories High Wrexham’s own Soap Opera. This month’s episode took place in Debenhams perfume and make up department in Eagles Meadow. This time I was on a camera. I felt slightly more under pressure being on a camera because I wanted to make sure it looked right and get good shots but with out getting in the way of everything. This did involve me running round the Perfume Counters abit. I think this one was more challenging because of the tight space of the location. It wasn’t as wide and as open as last month meaning there are things like shop fixtures and fittings that disable you from getting the shots you want. I’m really looking forward to how it comes out.

BBC News Article about the second episode http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-east-wales-15511881

I can be seen in the background of this photo on camera.

For More Information Go To : http://www.facebook.com/streetsongs

Nine Stories High – Episode One

chirsmungovan — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 22:04:05 +0000

In the past few weeks I started doing some work experience for Minimal Media a new company based within the north wales area. One of the first jobs I worked on for them was for the Welsh National Opera who are doing a 9 month project called ‘Nine Stories High‘ which is a 5 minute opera soap opera style flash mob on the streets of Wrexham and is created using stories from the people of Wrexham. Which is part of a larger project called Wrexham Street Songs.

Each episode will be available to view online a few days after each performance. Each performance takes place on the last Saturday of every month some where within Wrexham.

My first day, the day before the performance, we went to a rehearsal within Wrexham museum and also went down to the location with the cast, directors and producers of Nine Stories High so we had a clear idea of where we were working. In the rehearsal we did some sound recording to test as an opera is something we’ve not recorded before and also we were using some brand new equipment.

The next day was the day of the performance we were on location for half 9 so we could set up and be ready for a 10′clock start with 3 performances between 10am and 12pm.

The idea to begin with was for us to film it discreetly so a try not to bee seen but it soon became apparent that in a big open space it’s quite difficult to hide. It was especially difficult to go unnoticed during the first performance due to the presence of welsh channel S4C covering it. It was difficult to hide as you can see from this screen shot from S4C new where I’m right in the middle holding a boom pole.

I’m very much looking forward to the next episode and the next 9 months of work with the WNO as it’s a different experience to work on something like this.

BBC News video about it.

Behind The Scene – The Rest

chirsmungovan — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 14:34:31 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted anything really. That’s mainly because I’m not a uni, but I’ve got the rest of the behind the scenes for Glyndwr Resonance to post so I thought I’d post all 4 episodes here in one post so they are all in one place.

Episode One

Episode Two

Episode Three

Episode 4

Behind The Scenes Episode 1

chirsmungovan — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 21:43:26 +0000

Glyndwr Resonance finally released the first episode of their behind the scenes after reaching their target of 100 fans on their facebook.

for more information go to http://www.glyndwrresonance.co.uk

Glyndwr Resonance Behind The Scenes Trailer

chirsmungovan — Sun, 10 Jul 2011 22:50:32 +0000

Over the past week I’ve been editing together the Behind The scenes for Glyndwr Resonance, I’m very close to finishing them now.

I’ve created a trailer for it. I thought I’d be a bit clever and try to recreate the real trailer for glyndwr resonance but out of the footage that I had filmed for behind the scenes. I’ve done this and think it works surprisingly well. I used the exact same audio from the real trailer for it.

Behind The Scenes Trailer

Real Trailer

For More Information Go To: http://www.glyndwrresonance.co.uk

Protected: Hosting Facebook images

chirsmungovan — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 17:27:09 +0000

This post is password protected. You must visit the website and enter the password to continue reading.