Front Pages: Boris Johnson and the Supreme Court
Yesterday the Supreme Court ruled that Boris Johnson’s prorogation of Parliament was unlawful, this is how the press reacted:
As you can expect, The Sun, Mail & Daily Express came out in support of Johnson
Front Pages: Boris Johnson in Luxembourg
This is how the British papers reported on the latest embarrassment in British politics. This time, Boris Johnson backed down from a press conference because of protestors. This came the day after he likened himself and the country to the Incredible Hulk and a week after he called Corbyn a chicken.
Several publications like the Mail & the Mirror didn’t mention it at all. The Times & The Express tried to portray Johnson as the victim. The sun, went with a small line on the front cover and instead went with a disgusting invasion of privacy as their front page, to draw attention away from Johnson. The other publications all went with the same moment which was Xavier Bettel pointing to the empty podium where Johnson should’ve been.
Front Pages: Johnson Loses Control
Front Pages: The Day Democracy Died
Front Pages: Boris Johnson Becomes Prime Minister
The imagery from England’s Cricket World Cup Victory
15th of July 2019 is a day that will live long in the memory of British sport. The prestigious Wimbledon Championship saw Novak Djokovic beat Roger Federer in the longest-ever Wimbledon final. Lewis Hamilton became the record winner at Silverstone with his 6th Grand Prix, beating the record held by Jim Clark and Alain Prost. However, there was another sport which stole the front pages of the national press. It was the England Cricket men’s team winning the Cricket World Cup on the very last ball of the super over. I’ve decided to take a look over the photography that was used by the press, which was image did the press use to tell the story? The Daily Telegraph and the Metro dedicated the entire front page to this story. The I, The Independent, FT, Daily Express, The Star, The Guardian & Daily Mail had the story as the main headlines. The Sun [my thoughts on them are known] came out with a fantastic front cover to tell the story, as captured by their staff photographer Dickie Pelham. I feel the Guardian had a very strong image as well, it showed the batting hero of Ben Stokes and the bowling hero of Jofra Archer. This was shot by Gareth Copley-Jones of Getty Images, who is the official photographer for the ECB. One front cover I don’t particulay like is the one of the Daily Mail, they went with a long shot of Ben Stokes being kissed and I feel it doesn’t really tell the story that well.
So there are some strong front covers but there is one publication that made me write this blog post. It is the front cover of the Times. They are the only publication that didn’t include an image on the front cover, they went with the tennis. Instead, they included the cricket on a fantastic wrap around.
As a composition, it is fantastic, Jos Buttler fills the frame on the front cover, middle of the frame leaving loads of room for the type. It is the exact moment. However, my problem with this image is that it isn’t a still photograph in the conventional sense. It is a screen grab from national television. So in a technical sense, it isn’t as good. But as regards to capturing the moment, it is better than any piece of photography can do. A pitch-side photographer couldn’t capture anything like this, there isn’t anywhere in the stands that would get an angle like this. Pitch-side, the background wouldn’t work with the type, even cropped in with a 400mm 2.8. The image simply wouldn’t be as strong, as regards to working with the typeface.
So, we’ve got an image that works brilliantly, however in the bigger picture, it does make me seriously think that sports photography is seriously under threat at being replaced by screengrabs from television. All sectors of photography are but it was thought that fast-paced sports photography, wasn’t under threat of this. However, it does seem that it actually is under-threat.
I think I might do a post similar to this in the future, there are some big events coming up which will see different publications go with different imagery. New Prime Minsiter, a potential General Election/No Confidence Vote, Britian Leaving the EU, Rugby World Cup, Protests etc. and seeing on how picture desk/picture editor is a role I’m giving strong consideration towards, this type of observation would probably prove to be beneficial.
Music Video Evaluation
Overall, am I happy with my submission, no. Did I challenge myself, yes. Did I try my utmost, I think I did, but it still doesn’t feel like enough.
This was my first time undertaking a production on this scale. It was definitley a massive jump from making a 30-second video. There was a lot more pre-production to be done, especially in the story-boarding department.
I feel that I have definitely challenged myself and this, in turn, has taught me a lot about Adobe Premiere. It was a bit of mental headache to work out when the candles would ignite, when they would flicker etc.
This task has taught me a lot about the vast organisational skills that are needed for a video production. Separating A & B Roll, shot lists, how to lay out Premiere etc.
The top is the initial timeline and the one underneath was the one that I did when the idea was tought out in my head. Yes, it could be even more organised but I feel it definitely progressed from the initial one.
Not only did I learn a lot about Premiere, but I also learned just how much-moving image manipulation can be done in Photoshop.
I’ll hold my hand up and admit, I thought I wasn’t going to enjoy this project at all when you consider everything that has been going on this year, I thought I’d be praying for it to be over, I guess I still am to a certain extent, but in a funny way I’ve actually enjoyed this brief and I really didn’t expect to say that
I learnt a new skill, which is audio syncing. Audio is a skill that photographers are repeatedly been asked to be good at.
This is definitely the project where I have received the most criticism. It was very honest and constructive and it really made push myself to try and produce good work.
My final timeline actually came out of a massive panic. When I had a tutorial with Matt on Tuesday, he wanted me to add black video clips to flicker the candles on and off. With the timeline I had, the organisation was so poor that it would’ve been a very tough task. So I essentially blew my timeline up and started again from scratch. I feel this has led to a better video, just a shame it still doesn’t appeal to me.
As mentioned, I’m not happy at all with my end product. After doing nine edits, I still wasn’t to find a combination that I’m happy with. In the final edit, I’ve got one which works well but I feel it could work a lot better if I had more time and a lot more footage/locations to play with.
I think my initial research was very weak, I think I should’ve done a lot more and this would’ve helped me come up with a better idea
There are a few continuity errors in the B Roll. There are some shots where Josie has her sunglasses on her head and then in the next shot she doesn’t, or her phone miraculously appears out of nowhere on the table. Of course, if I left more time to record, this hopefully would not have happened.
In the pre-production stage, my concept did actually sound pretty intriguing. But then again things always sound great on paper. But on film, it was very boring. Another case of over-promising and under-delivering from myself.
I think this is more of a negative than a positive. I had to do nine edits before I got a video that I had the slightest bit of confidence in.
Even though I’m very happy with the shot I used of Hayden singing, I think I should’ve shot a lot more as I only got four shots of him and it could’ve very easily backfired down the line
I wasn’t able to keep up with the weekly journals for this task. I managed to do one for the first and second week, however, it started to feel like I was repeating myself with the blog posts I was writing in the first place.
How my music video progressed
Click here for a link to a playlist of how my music video progressed from the first to the final edit.
I am disappointed at the fact that I haven’t been able to produce a music video that I’m happy with. That is the price I’m going to have to pay for leaving it to the last minute.
Below is a quick summary of the progression:
Candle blowing to the camera, place holder footage for the time lapse
Shot all the footage but it was very boring and dull
Added B Roll but it’s still the same problem as the second draft. It focuses on something for too long. Locations need to change to keep it engaging
Better than draft three but it is now very repetitive
Different sequencing of shots. Added cross dissolves for when I’m cutting between location and studio
Definitely heading in the right direction as we are now showing a conversation between Hayden and Josie. Seeing on how there both dealing with the same situation.
Start playing with the flickering of the candles
Fine tune the candles, trying to get to the beat
Colour graded, tried to give a cool tone to the B roll to compliment the warm tone of the A Roll. However I wish I spent more time on that aspect as I don’t think it has come across.
I went back to the video and adjusted the brightness and contrast because I could see the black videos for when the candles flickered.
Fifth draft and tutorial with Matt
On Monday, I sent a third draft of my music video to Matt. I had added the B Roll which was vital for this video to have any suscess. We both agreed that this video was in a much better place but still had a long way to go before it was good.
When I sent the video to Matt, I also listed what I intended to do next
So, today, I went back to Matt with a fifth edit. I did have a fourth one but when showing it to classmates Lauren and Chiara, they felt I should add cross dissolves, rather than straight cutting between studio and location.
The first thing that Matt said was that he was envisioning cutting between Hayden singing and Josie’s narrative. Rather than the candle flickering and Josie’s narrative. This is something that I misunderstood whilst reading Matt’s message.
He also felt that I was still experiencing very similar problems that my second draft had. This is all about finding the middle ground. The A Roll is too long and boring, the B Roll is far too repetitive. We jump back to the same location around seven times and it just gets dull eventually.
Matt felt the other thing I have to do is play around with the sequencing of the candles, this could be another way of keeping the attention of the viewer. I asked what would be the best way to do, painting out in Photoshop or using After Effects. Matt felt there was a much easier way.
This was creating a black video in Premiere and sizing it to the size of the candle and simply copy and paste it on the timeline when I want the candle to disappear.
For this to be feasible, I had to address my timeline. It was in an absolute mess and it would’ve proved tricky to remember which layer represents which candle. So I blew my sequence up and started again.
The timeline on the top is what I had before Matt’s tutorial and the one underneath is what I assembled afterward. It wasn’t perfect but it was definitely in a better way and there was a slight chance of understanding it.
B Roll
On today and Sunday, I recorded the B roll for my music video.
On Sunday, I went up to London with my friend Josie who played the role of Hayden’s love interest in the video. Going about mundane tasks but constantly being distracted [thinking about Hayden] I think this shoot was relatively successful as it feels like I’ve got a lot of content. The only problem was that I forgot to zero out my camera in the morning and I shot half of the footage on a flash white balance. But this provided a nice colour scheme with Josie’s jacket, but was the opposite of what I wanted.
Today, I went to Greenwich to record more B roll to set the location, this shoot was a failure because there was virtually no movement and they felt more like photographs rather than video.
Ben Peters Digital Photography 