Two-man job!! (by Miko)

It's time for a blog update huh? This update won't have any pictures neither, but I'll make it up to you with a video, which is actually our second assignment at the education centre. The equipment we used for the film was Sony-A1 camera, tripod and small attachable boom-mike and for editing we used Premiere and that's it.

Our assignment was to make a shortfilm with some kind of story. It had to have a one or two twists. We had five days to complete our task. For three days we planned it carefully and went through our filming locations and tried to get actors, but the actor part turned out unsuccesful. We didn't get any actors, except for the antique shop owner who was really a great person! So the film was made by just the two of us!

We started filming at thursday noon and everything went really smoothly, we were on schedule until we realized that we forgot to recharge cameras batteries after last assignment. Well after we solved that problem we then shot a few chasing scenes at the city and then went to a forest which was our last location, but then it got too dark to film, so we decided to wake up early in the morning and go film the last shots before we go back to education centre. After getting the shots we got some breakfast from bakery nearby, got some stuff from the hostel and went to the bus stop. When we arrived at the education centre, we first met with the head of the camera team, that we will be joining next week. He was a really nice guy! After that we went to edit our material in the edit room.

I'm actually proud of how it turned out in the end. Actually our mentor didn't believe at first that we made it just with the two of us. Sounds are nothing to be a proud of though, but we would have needed a proper sound guy on our film to get the best sounds possible and more time at the edit room, but otherwise the film was very succesful in my opinion, but that's it for now. Sorry about the lack of blog updates, but we haven't had a lot to talk about, but when we start working with the camera crew, the updates will probably come almost daily. Anyways... enjoy the film!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TmnJxxCPPs&feature=youtu.be

First assignment (by Severi)

The first week in Ljubljana has been hectic. Or that’s what I would like to say. Actually it has been quite the opposite. We received the instructions for our assignment at education centre and we continued to work on it on a two day shooting - one day editing schedule. One the first day of shooting we started to work on our first idea, which was soon dropped as we started doubting its validity. It seemed too avant garde for the purpose. Instead of finishing the shots for it that day we decided to use the rest of the day thinking of a more solid idea. While pondering on the subject we might have enjoyed a beer or two, which might have had an effect on the final result.
On the second day of shooting we carried out our plans from the day before, even though we had a few setbacks. Finding actors in a foreign city can be an agonizing task. However, as we returned to our hostel late in the evening, we could be certain that we had all the material we needed in the editing room the next day. It tooks us a mere 3 hours to get the editing done on the piece (granted, it is only 1 minute long), and we received a few well chosen words of praise from our mentor. Where as he congratulated us on the good sense of continuity and framing, he did also remind us that what we had created was not short movie in on itself, but merely an event. This is mind we started to work on our second project, with which we should correct the mistakes we did in the first one. While we are still working on the second film, it would be foolish to say it is all we have been doing. The timetable for our second project is far more forgiving and we’ve easily managed to find time for exploring the city and enjoying our stay. So far I have no regrets.


Our first assignment (Sorry for bad quality. We had problems with exporting.)

Flight, Ljubljana and getting started (by Miko)

Good Evening!

First flight is behind me and now I've been to total of 4 different countries. Finland, Estonia, Germany and Slovenia. Wow... they keep stacking up don't they? Even though I don't think German counts, because I've been only to the airport of Frankfurt.

Photo taken from the airport of Frankfurt

My image on flying was way more exciting than it actually was. It was like one of those disappointing cool looking amusement park devices everyone's been to, but it was fun experience despite that and I can't deny the fact that view from the plane is cool even after seeing tons of those photos taken from the window of the plane, where you see one of the wings, sun and clouds.

Finally we arrived to Ljubljana after hours of travelling and waiting at the airports. We grabbed a taxi, which played same crappy hit songs I heard dozens of times in Finland, it took us to our hostel where we will be staying for next 6 weeks. First when we entered it had this Arabic theme to it, like in the Disney movie Aladdin, you know, the movie everyone has seen in their childhood or at least should have seen. At the reception window there was this owner, who gave us all the info we needed, from the hostel rules to bus timetables. Everyone so far has been really kind and customer service has been much better compared to Finland.

Staircase in the hostel Aladin

We threw our luggage into our hostel room and went out to explore the city. It was pretty interesting, but the most suprising thing was that the city was so quiet. We walked few kilometers until we got to the center and it was so quiet compared to the Finnish cities. After sometime we heard music in distance and went to investigate. We found out that at the square there was somekind of music performance. There were a lot of people watching it.

People at the square

Monday we arrived at the education center to get our first assignment from our coordinator. After we had done our contracts we then went with one of the mentors to get a cup of coffee and at the coffee we got our first assignment, which is to make a video about our impression of Ljubljana. Then our mentor showed us around in the SloRTV main building after that we went to have another cup of coffee, talked a little and then we started planning our project. We have this week to make our project and we will make our best to make it as good as possible. Now I'm out, thank you and good bye.

More than motivated! (by Miko)

Heyo!

I'm Miko and this is my first blog entry and this blog is about my and Severi's (my senior in the North-Karelia college) trip to a country named Slovenia. This blog will have a ton of pictures in the future posts, but for the first post you'll have to manage with reading my boring text-only post.

I'm leaving for Slovenia tomorrow morning with Severi. The thing is I've never been to a plane before, so that makes me kinda nervous. Actually I've never been anywhere farther to Finland than Estonia (Estonia is a country just next to Finland). How does this trip make me feel? Well... excited of course, little bit nervous, but most of all I'm more than motivated to go!

Now I'll go to sleep, or at least try to. Next post (which will probably be a little bit more interesting and varied) will appear in a near future. Thank you and good night!