Exploration of Transition Footage

Exploration of Transition Footage

This video documents my transition footage exploration as I play around with depth of field in my garden. The transition footage will be featured in my final product as this breaks up the video and gives the audience alternative frames to look at.

The test footage was incredibly successful and I have improved the way in which I filmed the transitions. I toyed around with the ISO and the Aperture so that I wouldn't have any noise in the clips. The footage came out crisp and sharp, and the blur and depth of field proves incredibly effective. I mentioned before that I would include slow motion editing over the footage, but for the transitions, I won't as this may detract from the clarity of the footage and could affect the effectiveness of the frames.

The first clip of the fence and the tree worked up until the point it reached the leaves - I wanted to see how well it would work if I had a nice depth of field but then blur it out at the end. It didn't prove as effective as I wanted it to be, so I filmed the same area again, but this time, letting the crispness of the leaves and the tree become apparent. The second time I filmed worked extremely well and I will test it out in Final Cut to see how editing the footage in different ways affect the meaning and interpretation. Moving on to the flower transitions, the second time I filmed worked well and the footage retained it's clarity and sharpness. However, the final time I filmed, I wanted to see how well the footage worked with me pushing the swinging flower basket and capturing depth of field. It proved ineffective and the footage looked messy as I was considering many different variables (i.e. the movement of the basket and controlling the focus and depth of field) - and I ultimately neglected the steadiness of the camera. Despite this, it was a useful exploratory risk that I took as I now know which footage and frames work best. 

I also asked friends and family which footage worked better and they all agreed that the second flower footage worked best, as well as the second fence and tree footage.