I'm done

I'm all set to hand in the dissertation.

I broke through the wall and I now have my structure, i've referenced everything and it's all good to go.

I feel like I can see more colours but I can't watch TV or Films normally now, I pickup on slight changes in colour and bad exposures.

Suppose it comes with the territory.

Hopefully it is a good read, I know I've put a lot of effort into it.

Oh dear.

10th March.

I've hit a creative wall. I can't write anymore.

I want to write a lot of things but to make it coherent, that's what is difficult at the moment.

May take a break for a week and just read up more on my books.

Got my mark back off Mark...

A- !

I'm very happy. The feedback was very helpful, i'm writing in a good style apparently and getting my point across well.

I know how to structure the rest of the dissertation now as the work I handed in for the formative was a tester for this.

This week i'm going to (hopefully) get the answers back to some questions I emailed Steff at Framestore, get them down on paper and then start finishing this dissertation.

I've been reading about and watching so many films and the other day I just stared at a rainbow for a good 10 mins - think all this colour is going to my head. That may be something to write about though...

This week I'm going to watch:

Formative Day!

So it's 23rd February and I've got to hand in my dissertation for a formative assessment by the end of today.

That's alright.

I've written just over 2000 words and put brief points of how I want to continue, hopefully Mark will like what he reads...

I'm going to go on a film fest this week while Mark is marking my work - I intend to watch all of this from a colourists point of view:

Second Tutorial

So for this 2nd Tutorial I had come to it with a sense of structure, what I wanted to talk about and how many words I wanted on each section roughly.

Again I went through it with Mark and he was happy with my progress and also gave me the idea of grading a part of a film in a few different ways and asking people what they felt emotionally when viewing it.

We also discussed why do we have to grade things? Are we so bored with what our eyes see normally that we have to jazz it up a bit? I'll talk about this in the dissertation.

Overall it went well again. For the next tutorial I want some words down on paper and everything set out right, title page, chapters etc.

I've been reading the book I ordered, and I have ordered another two:

These two should help me with technical know how. I'm also watching some more films like Taxi Driver and 300...

First Dissertation Tutorial

The first dissertation tutorial I had was pretty helpful, Mark Ingham is a very supportive lecturer and really helped me push my dissertation in the right direction. I finally have a lead question refined down..

Why is colour grading important?

Before the tutorial I wasnt too sure whether my area was a bit too broad as I could talk a lot about colour but keeping it relevent would be the issue. Mark believed this question to be good and recommended that I stick with it.

I've ordered a book today - If it's purple someones gonna die: The power of color in visual storytelling by Patti Bellantoni.

This should help me learn a lot more about colour in cinema.

I'm going to set a structure this coming week, lay down what I want to get out of each chapter. I need to start re-watching some films from a colourists point of view. I think i'll start with The Wizard of Oz...

Summer! and a few other things..

So, 1st post!

My dissertation is going to be about colour grading. Why? I love colour and colour grading.

This is going to be all about what I did over summer, research I started doing for it etc. etc.

From June to September I was on a 3 month internship at post production house Framestore. Here I worked in the MCR Room helping digi in footage and prepping suites with artwork. This is where I met James Long who helped me get to grips with the technology and different encoding procedures. I also got to meet the company's three Colourists, one of whom - Steffan Perry - let me regularly sit in with him while he was working on jobs. I got to ask him a lot of questions and I learnt a LOT from him. I asked if he was willing to help me on my dissertation when I got down to writing it, by answering some questions and he said of course. Result.

I also got to play on the baselight they have at Framestore.

While I was at Framestore I was working on little projects for other people, where I was the colourist so I didn't get rusty and still made sure I was trying out new techniques.

By the end of summer I knew I would definitely be sticking to learning colour throughout the third year. All of which is going to help with the dissertation. Now I need to plan what books to get...

www.framestore.com