- Character - Girl, around age 18, looking slightly scruffy and messed up. She has no idea who she is except for the fact that she can not speak and communicates through writing. Name idea: Ariadne Russo? Accent however, evident in her voice over (or thoughts), giving the audience a clue as to where she's from. She may not realise her accent? As she has never spoken.
- There has been an off screen inciting incident - pressure ball theory leading to her breaking. No parents, has suffered some kind emotional trauma that made her forget and stop speaking. See's a person that stirs her memories whilst she is following the blank map, and she feels as if something will happen to him? They may have been involved in another incident that caused her trauma, and in some respects, amnesia and caused him to disappear.
- He knows who she is, he is the only vague memory she has and she doesn't truly know him. She has the map but doesn't know where it came from (but it really came from him). A single number on the map stirs this feeble memory, a number that relates to how many days she knew him. Perhaps he wrote them down? A house number or maybe coordinates for a place?
- Setting outside a train station (changed due to restraints on filming), still retains the idea crowds and urban setting that contrasts to her personality, yet is also a little gritty. She is waiting, debating whether or not to board the train to her next destination
- Guys names: Liam? Isaac?
- The last line spoken of the film would be said by the main protagonist (Ariadne?) who has not uttered a single word throughout the entire film. She says the boys name.
The sky is everywhere and it begins at your feet...
12 February 2013
Main Task Narrative Ideas
Inglorious: On creating enigma and credits
Inglorius Bastards, a film directed by Quentin Tarantino, begins as many older films conventionally did - with the credits. Even just this staement here and that fact that they are set to older music imeadiately establishes the idea that the film will not be set modern day, establishing setting and even the tone of the film in the first minute. The visuals play a key aspect here, working well with the soundtrack as it develops.
The screen is entirely black and white for the credited opening, white font on a black background. The font itself is reflective of the mood of the film, with the names of the principle actors being written in it first in a clear, serif style. When the main title of the film is introduced in a different, scripted font, the music bulids to a small crescenedo, drawing the audiences attention to it. It then returns to the normal font, continuing on with the credit roll on the quieter moments of the music. The actors are listed of in an order of importance and also of fame, with only a new star being singles out by another musical crescendo. Throughout all this, the audience is constantly left wondering when the main narrative will begin, creating a sense of enigma.
But what is enigma? A dictionary definition: A person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling, or difficult to understand or a riddle or paradox. In filmic terms, enigma is the way in which you keep your audience hooked. There is enough mystery in the scene or indeed film to keep them questioning and wanting to know the answers. This film succesfully does by using the plain opening credits simply as a way of increasing anticipation. The audience gradually grows to want the credits to be gone and the narative to start. It also poses the question of how the setting and actors introduced will fit into the story and if the credits have reflected the film well enough. When the film does eventually reach the screen, the audience is presented with mainly long shots of typical everyday actions of the characters they are seeing - the hanging of washing, the choopping of wood. Instantly, the setting and time framing a fully established, and the sound of the constantly chopping wood builds some kind of suspense, mimicking the sound of a heartbeart.
The opening scene of Inglorius Bastards (2009)
Warm Bodies: On extensive voice over and book adaptations
After seeing the film Warm Bodies, I thought that it's style of opening was one that could be very interesting to look at and so I decided to include it as one of my studied film openings. The premise of this film, based on the amazing novel by Isaac Marion, explores the life of a zombie, known simply as "R" the only remaining fragment of his real name. Therefore, in the novel, a great deal of the first few chapters are purely introverted thoughts coming from R's narration. This could have been a disaster to translate to screen, but the clever use of voice over provides a witty and strangely thought provoking introduction to the unusual film.
One of the things I find most interesting about this particular use of voice over is the way in which it captures the idea of immediate thought, rather than reminiscence or indeed explanation. This could have easily appeared too descriptive or monotonous, but the dialogues constant switching between mild humour and serious thought kept me hooked throughout the entire beginning. The images on screen also reflect everything that is being said by R, or contrast to it respectively. An example of this is when we see the abandoned airport transformed by a flashback in time to see living people at Christmas. Whilst R is thinking of what it was like when everyone could communicate, the people in the flashback are doing the exact opposite: everyone is in their own world influenced by technology, interaction at its minimum. In this scene, the audience is already presented with this strange contrast of ideas and what the idea of connecting with people really means. Is it as R believes it, present and physical, or as we perceive it, through long distance connectivity? However, whilst posing these deep conundrums, the lighthearted, gentle music in the background lightens the mood, completely contrasting again to the dark lighting and miserable, destroyed mise en scene. It also connotes to me some kind of innocence or even naivety, similar to that in Forrest Gump, yet here it is far more subtle and presented in a less 'childish' way.
Along with this, many of the camera angles used are quite static and focus slowly on the mindless shuffling of the zombies and R, reflecting I think, the lack of life in them. This is juxtaposed next to the faster, sweeping movement of the camera as it circles into the living flashback, connoting the idea of busy, flowing life. The colours used in this scene are also far brighter than the dull greys scene on the zombie ridden airport, similar to the warm lighting.
Addressing the subject of works of literature being adapted into film is quite tricky. Often, much of the book is sacrificed in its transition to screen and for obvious reasons. However, sometimes this does effectively narrow the storyline completely, as smaller back stories not key to the main narrative are cut. I think in some adaptations, this can be a downfall of the film - some of the charm that fills the book is removed for the purposes of fast past storyline to keep the audiences attention. It always falls into the hands of the script writers, deciding what to include and what to miss out, as many a time, smaller key moments have been cut to fit in those of pure action (an example of this is the Destruction of the Burrow scene in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) that are sometimes invented for the film. In the case of Warm Bodies, they have captured the feel of the novel nearly perfectly. Director Jonathan Levine, although lightening its mood, has kept the story exact to the sentiments shared by Isaac Marion in the novel, with the exception of the latter part of the film where the storyline changes. Of course, as a reader who enjoyed the novel immensely, I would have liked to see some of the character development worked on. But of course, the scope of the film will not often include all that the writers deem to be unnecessary. But, in the case of this film, I think the filmmakers have produced something that is one of the most faithful representations of (non-Young Adult) literature I have seen in a while.
One of the things I find most interesting about this particular use of voice over is the way in which it captures the idea of immediate thought, rather than reminiscence or indeed explanation. This could have easily appeared too descriptive or monotonous, but the dialogues constant switching between mild humour and serious thought kept me hooked throughout the entire beginning. The images on screen also reflect everything that is being said by R, or contrast to it respectively. An example of this is when we see the abandoned airport transformed by a flashback in time to see living people at Christmas. Whilst R is thinking of what it was like when everyone could communicate, the people in the flashback are doing the exact opposite: everyone is in their own world influenced by technology, interaction at its minimum. In this scene, the audience is already presented with this strange contrast of ideas and what the idea of connecting with people really means. Is it as R believes it, present and physical, or as we perceive it, through long distance connectivity? However, whilst posing these deep conundrums, the lighthearted, gentle music in the background lightens the mood, completely contrasting again to the dark lighting and miserable, destroyed mise en scene. It also connotes to me some kind of innocence or even naivety, similar to that in Forrest Gump, yet here it is far more subtle and presented in a less 'childish' way.
Along with this, many of the camera angles used are quite static and focus slowly on the mindless shuffling of the zombies and R, reflecting I think, the lack of life in them. This is juxtaposed next to the faster, sweeping movement of the camera as it circles into the living flashback, connoting the idea of busy, flowing life. The colours used in this scene are also far brighter than the dull greys scene on the zombie ridden airport, similar to the warm lighting.
Addressing the subject of works of literature being adapted into film is quite tricky. Often, much of the book is sacrificed in its transition to screen and for obvious reasons. However, sometimes this does effectively narrow the storyline completely, as smaller back stories not key to the main narrative are cut. I think in some adaptations, this can be a downfall of the film - some of the charm that fills the book is removed for the purposes of fast past storyline to keep the audiences attention. It always falls into the hands of the script writers, deciding what to include and what to miss out, as many a time, smaller key moments have been cut to fit in those of pure action (an example of this is the Destruction of the Burrow scene in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) that are sometimes invented for the film. In the case of Warm Bodies, they have captured the feel of the novel nearly perfectly. Director Jonathan Levine, although lightening its mood, has kept the story exact to the sentiments shared by Isaac Marion in the novel, with the exception of the latter part of the film where the storyline changes. Of course, as a reader who enjoyed the novel immensely, I would have liked to see some of the character development worked on. But of course, the scope of the film will not often include all that the writers deem to be unnecessary. But, in the case of this film, I think the filmmakers have produced something that is one of the most faithful representations of (non-Young Adult) literature I have seen in a while.
Creditless opening 4 mins of Warm Bodies (2013)
11 February 2013
Main Task Brainstorming
Whilst thinking of ideas that we are developing for our main task, our group decided to brainstorm a few of the ideas and develop them, particularly look at the conventions of both narrative and technique. We began to consider some key camera shots to emphasise the themes of the storyline we were thinking of, such as a focus on smaller aspects of the main characters appearance to increase the sense of enigma and contrast long shots with close shots to reference confusion. We were particularly concerned with the idea of creating enough mystery and suspense without confusing the audience, yet also had to be careful of showing the audience too much. From this, we moved on to the ideas of the McGuffin and voice overs. We had an idea of a non-labelled map, the McGuffin, which our main character would carry. This was symbolic of the girls state of mind and also presented a mystery that needed to be solved. The voice over was merely a spur of the moment idea which later on in development came to be a little more important.
Following this, we began to develop the character we had in mind, thinking of a key theme: isolation. This lead to us thinking of the kind of clothing she would wear, dark and earthy tones to reflect how she stands out from the crowds. She is a strange juxtaposition in a busy setting, and we thought the perfect setting for this would be the London underground, as it can appear to be very cinematic. The lighting is light but muffled, the trains create loud, passing sounds and the platforms are often busy.
However, this was put to rest a few days later as we enquired about filming on location in the Underground, and realised that the financial limitations of our production would make it quite impossible to film there. We began reworking some of our main ideas after this, and started drafting a synopsis and pitch for our idea...
5 February 2013
Forrest Gump: On the McGuffin and symbolism
So what is a McGuffin? A term coined by the great Alfred Hitchcock, it is a object of desire for a character in a film, a plot moving device that is often not incredibly important yet serves the purpose of developing the story. In some ways, this serves to create a sense of enigma around the object and by extension, the plot. The idea of the McGuffin is no more apparent than in the opening two minutes of the critically acclaimed Forrest Gump (1994), with the example of the feather.
The entire two minute opening focuses singularly on the feather and never once does it cut away from that. In fact, the shot is one continous tracking shot following the feather downwards, which draws importance to the item. It's symbolic visual meanings are also highly evident in this first scene - the white of the feather connotes to purity and in some respects innocence too. It also fits in well with the blue sky a white fluffy clouds in the background- a kind of aesthetically pleasing mise-en-scene.
We noted when watching the film that interestingly enough, the feather can be a metaphorical representation of the main protaganist and his journey throughout the film, shown through the movements of the feather to it's different locations and the way in which the camera follows it.
A brief overview of this; The feather begins up the heavens, maybe showing Forrest as a child with his head in the clouds and full of total innocence. Then as it begins to fall, the camera tracks down with it to see the city, a gentle fall into a reality that lacks the brightness and colour of the sky. It eventually lands on the shouder of a business man, possibly misleading the audience into thinking that he is the main charcter (also influenced because of the stereotypical character shown here.) Yet the wind slowly blows the feather down to the ground. We thought this may be symbolic of the constant overlooking of Forrest as a strong character and how he is a very unlikely hero. Onelast point to mention about this symbolism idea is the moment when the feather lands on the floor, nearly run over by a car before being lifted by it, perhaps referencing to the ups and downs of the main characters life and how he gets back up from the harsh downs. In a sense, the entire story is shown all through the movement of this one, small feather. Symbolism in it's broadest sense. Forrest himself final picks up the feather and slowly and carefully places it in a book, interestingly on page that puts the feather yet back against that background of blue sky.
The sound used in the opening is mainly diegetic sound; a soundtrack of a sweet, innocent sounding piano piece, reminiscent of the soft and light way the feather floats down to earth. This is all that can be heard until the feather reaches ground level, when quiet sounds of humanity begin to appear, such as cars and people. As for the way in which the camera angles and editing reflect this to create meaning, the using of the continuous slow tracking shot and no cuts to any other shots, making a very
slow feel that could be to symbolise the ambling blind nature of life.
The entire two minute opening focuses singularly on the feather and never once does it cut away from that. In fact, the shot is one continous tracking shot following the feather downwards, which draws importance to the item. It's symbolic visual meanings are also highly evident in this first scene - the white of the feather connotes to purity and in some respects innocence too. It also fits in well with the blue sky a white fluffy clouds in the background- a kind of aesthetically pleasing mise-en-scene.
We noted when watching the film that interestingly enough, the feather can be a metaphorical representation of the main protaganist and his journey throughout the film, shown through the movements of the feather to it's different locations and the way in which the camera follows it.
A brief overview of this; The feather begins up the heavens, maybe showing Forrest as a child with his head in the clouds and full of total innocence. Then as it begins to fall, the camera tracks down with it to see the city, a gentle fall into a reality that lacks the brightness and colour of the sky. It eventually lands on the shouder of a business man, possibly misleading the audience into thinking that he is the main charcter (also influenced because of the stereotypical character shown here.) Yet the wind slowly blows the feather down to the ground. We thought this may be symbolic of the constant overlooking of Forrest as a strong character and how he is a very unlikely hero. Onelast point to mention about this symbolism idea is the moment when the feather lands on the floor, nearly run over by a car before being lifted by it, perhaps referencing to the ups and downs of the main characters life and how he gets back up from the harsh downs. In a sense, the entire story is shown all through the movement of this one, small feather. Symbolism in it's broadest sense. Forrest himself final picks up the feather and slowly and carefully places it in a book, interestingly on page that puts the feather yet back against that background of blue sky.
The sound used in the opening is mainly diegetic sound; a soundtrack of a sweet, innocent sounding piano piece, reminiscent of the soft and light way the feather floats down to earth. This is all that can be heard until the feather reaches ground level, when quiet sounds of humanity begin to appear, such as cars and people. As for the way in which the camera angles and editing reflect this to create meaning, the using of the continuous slow tracking shot and no cuts to any other shots, making a very
slow feel that could be to symbolise the ambling blind nature of life.
1 February 2013
An Inspiring Director: Hayao Miyazaki
In 2001, an innovative Japanese animated film was released from a relatively unknown Japanese animation company named Studio Ghibli that was the first of its kind to win an academy award for best animated feature film in 2003. The films name was Spirited Away and it's director and creator was Hayao Miyazaki.
As one half of the founders of the now world renowned Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki has been compared to many American animation directors, even Walt Disney himself. Despite this, his style is one of the most unique, intricate and beautiful creations I have seen. Miyazaki goes to great lengths to create his perfect vision by undertaking many of the tasks himself in the early stages of development; screen writing, directing, storyboarding, character developing and most importantly, the narrative. When you watch a Miyazaki animation, it is quite possible to get lost in the world, enveloped in fantasy and real life likenesses alike. He fills the screen with breathtaking and often whimsical visions of magic and strife.
Some of his stand out films for me include:
As one half of the founders of the now world renowned Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki has been compared to many American animation directors, even Walt Disney himself. Despite this, his style is one of the most unique, intricate and beautiful creations I have seen. Miyazaki goes to great lengths to create his perfect vision by undertaking many of the tasks himself in the early stages of development; screen writing, directing, storyboarding, character developing and most importantly, the narrative. When you watch a Miyazaki animation, it is quite possible to get lost in the world, enveloped in fantasy and real life likenesses alike. He fills the screen with breathtaking and often whimsical visions of magic and strife.
Some of his stand out films for me include:
- The aforementioned Spirited Away
- Kiki's Delivery Service
- Laputa: Castle in the Sky
- and Howl's Moving Castle
14 January 2013
Preliminary Task Reflection
Primarily, the first thing that has to be mentioned about my experience with this task is that it has made me appreciate just how much work really goes into every single part of film making. Because of this, I now have a better informed and more realistic view of time frames for making just 2 minutes of film and therefore feel far more prepared for creating our final piece which will hopefully be of a high quality when we improve upon the things that didn't work well and apply the new techniques will learnt.
When we began to think about the task and start drafting a storyboard for shots, I think it's safe to say that we all thought it would be a lot simpler to produce the 2 minute clip than it resulted in being. Because of this, whilst we we're coming up with a lot of ideas, they were not very structured and this resulted in us becoming rather confused when it came to the initial filming. However, I also think it allowed us to be a little more impulsive when filming to develop better shots that fitted to the style we were trying to create. So in terms of this, I think that one of the key aspects I myself learnt here was that planning can only take you so far - plan too much, and it can limit on the spot creativity. But that does not be that planning should be neglected all together.
At the start of filming, we began to make some crucial decisions that drastically affected what we produced - the location and the actors. Of course, we were limited to creating the film on the school grounds, which didn't fit too well with our genre. To improve this, we focused on the weather in the location we were shooting, taking into account the idea of pathetic fallacy. Filming only on overcast, rainy days fitted the mood of an action film far better than we could achieve for the location and so we relied on this to improve the setting. Luckily, it rained every single day of shooting!
Whilst shooting, we were highly conscious of applying the conventions of our genre to the way in which we produced the piece, as I mentioned in an earlier blog post. The aspects that we included were things such as shaky cam, short shot lengths and mise en scene that reflected the theme of the film. We switched roles constantly to give everyone a chance to get a feel for the camera, which I think will be good to know for our main task. If anything, things we could have improved upon were our time management, which would have enabled us to finish getting the shots we needed far quicker, and more importantly, our continuity. Mainly due to filming on site at school, we had to switch rooms for filming twice and on both days the lighting was consistently different. There were other, smaller inconsistencies but these were easier to miss.
When we began to think about the task and start drafting a storyboard for shots, I think it's safe to say that we all thought it would be a lot simpler to produce the 2 minute clip than it resulted in being. Because of this, whilst we we're coming up with a lot of ideas, they were not very structured and this resulted in us becoming rather confused when it came to the initial filming. However, I also think it allowed us to be a little more impulsive when filming to develop better shots that fitted to the style we were trying to create. So in terms of this, I think that one of the key aspects I myself learnt here was that planning can only take you so far - plan too much, and it can limit on the spot creativity. But that does not be that planning should be neglected all together.
At the start of filming, we began to make some crucial decisions that drastically affected what we produced - the location and the actors. Of course, we were limited to creating the film on the school grounds, which didn't fit too well with our genre. To improve this, we focused on the weather in the location we were shooting, taking into account the idea of pathetic fallacy. Filming only on overcast, rainy days fitted the mood of an action film far better than we could achieve for the location and so we relied on this to improve the setting. Luckily, it rained every single day of shooting!
Whilst shooting, we were highly conscious of applying the conventions of our genre to the way in which we produced the piece, as I mentioned in an earlier blog post. The aspects that we included were things such as shaky cam, short shot lengths and mise en scene that reflected the theme of the film. We switched roles constantly to give everyone a chance to get a feel for the camera, which I think will be good to know for our main task. If anything, things we could have improved upon were our time management, which would have enabled us to finish getting the shots we needed far quicker, and more importantly, our continuity. Mainly due to filming on site at school, we had to switch rooms for filming twice and on both days the lighting was consistently different. There were other, smaller inconsistencies but these were easier to miss.
2 January 2013
Creating a Genre - "Action" Sequence
When first approaching our given genre of Action, we were, it had to be said, a little daunted. Many of the obvious features of action films happen to be big, exuberant chases or even explosions and the thought of us being able to produce something anything near to that style was quite unbelievable.
It was only after we began to research the conventions of the genre that we realised it contained a lot of signature techniques.
Creating a genre, we found, is more than just creating a narrative that has action elements. The style of shots, audio, acting, editing... it all adds to make a genre.
Knowing this, we moved on to researching typical conventions of the action genre in all aspects of it and then looked at examples of how they have been used in the past.
Narrative Conventions:
Technical Conventions:
The hardest aspects of capturing our genre proved to be the location, continuity and character looks, mainly due to our limited resources within school. Whoever, a positive aspect that came from this happened to be the weather, as it rained constantly on our shooting days, giving the lighting in our shots a dark tone.
It was only after we began to research the conventions of the genre that we realised it contained a lot of signature techniques.
Creating a genre, we found, is more than just creating a narrative that has action elements. The style of shots, audio, acting, editing... it all adds to make a genre.
Knowing this, we moved on to researching typical conventions of the action genre in all aspects of it and then looked at examples of how they have been used in the past.
Narrative Conventions:
- Stereotypical, sometimes 2D characters - Hero, 'Damsel-in-distress', Villain etc..
- Chases or similar high action sequences.
- Frequent use of tension building.
- Some crossovers with the Thriller and Crime genres.
- Spying and espionage a common feature.
- Strong motives for the characters action that often represent a virtue, in the case of a hero.
- Use of gadgets and weapons can often be central to the plot.
- Drastic consequences of characters actions. (For example, the hero must save the world from destruction in an extreme case.)
- Often set in urban areas.
Technical Conventions:
- Fast paced editing style in high action scenes.
- Lengthier shots used to draw emphasis to specific props or plot points in dialogue.
- Shaky cam is used frequently, possibly to emulate the action of running.
- Tension building music is almost always used and other tracks used, for example, in chase scenes, usually feels very grand or epic in scale.
- Use of special effects for things such as explosions.
- Quite a mixture between very long and very short shots, again building tension or aiding narrative points.
- Point of view shots used in spy situations.
- Shot/reverse shot used heavily in dialogue.
- Dark, yet often saturated colours.
The hardest aspects of capturing our genre proved to be the location, continuity and character looks, mainly due to our limited resources within school. Whoever, a positive aspect that came from this happened to be the weather, as it rained constantly on our shooting days, giving the lighting in our shots a dark tone.
Representation: Conventions of the Anime genre
Anime, or Japanese animation, refers to a particular style of productions that are created in Japan. They come in many formats, such as graphic novels, video games, film and television series and often have rather unique attributes, particularly in their art style. Many anime productions have seen a surge in popularity in Western areas of the world, which could be attributed to successful televisions series such as the infamous adoptions of Nintendo's gaming series Pokemon, and the critically acclaimed film company Studio Ghibli. This has also led to American companies and others like them into creating Anime-inspired TV series such as W.I.T.C.H.
Anime television series have noticeable characteristics that are seen across the whole genre. The conventions can more often than not include:
Anime television series have noticeable characteristics that are seen across the whole genre. The conventions can more often than not include:
- Colourful graphics
- Action filled plots
- Story lines that focus or fantastical or futuristic themes
- Exaggerated personalities
- Sometimes over the top art design of characters (such as over emphasised features)
- Light hearted or comical story lines
- Exaggerated voice acting
- Occasional unrealistic backgrounds (such as block colours often used in fight scenes)
- Interestingly, many have focuses or the elements or nature in some way
- Magic or some variation of power is often seen.
- Japanese influenced soundtracks and theme songs
18 December 2012
"Action" Post Production Journal
Editing Hour 1
In this first hour, we began by importing the clips that we had into Final Cut Pro. As we had filmed a great variety of clips (and admittedly more than was needed) this took quite a long time and so when it came to the initial placing of clips in the timeline, we began with the first establishing shots, showing the characters and location. When knew from a research on the conventions of the action genre that we wanted to achieve a relatively fast and tension building editing pace and so this became the driving force behind many of our decisions. In total, we used roughly 4 separate shots to achieve the opening sequence before our main character even enters the building, and split these up to produce the quick editing pace. We also began to think about match-ona-action and, in particular, continuity as we had to match the footstep shots to the point of view shots in the sense of location and timing. As we had not yet filmed some of the protagonists dialogue at this point, we continued to add some of the antagonists lines of dialogue, placing markers at key narrative points for shots we would add later.
Editing Hour 2
At this point, we decided to place most of the clips that we had on our timeline in order to see what we had and what we needed. It became evident when we did this that, along with needing to film dialogue, we also needed several other small scenes to improve the flow of the sequence and continuity. This also got us to consider the best way for us to set out the clips to convey the narrative in an interesting way whilst also presenting the action genre effectively. Also, this second hour gave our group a greater chance to familiarise ourselves with the different tools used on final cut pro and began linking up singular scenes, such as the flasback sequence, to which we added effects to distuinguish it from present day events in our piece.
Editing Hours 3-6
We spent a greater length of time editing here to perfect and refine what scenes we had already began to edit. In particular, we added very effective music to the start of the sequence. Interestingly, to increase it's effectiveness, we matched the main protaganists footsteps to the beats of the music, which drew more attention to them and created more of an atmosphere. Along with this, we added some transitional effects to a number of the video clips, such as a fade from black to the establishing shot and an over exposed falsh to the start of the flashback sequence.
It was after this fact that we realised that, upon capturing our footage from tape, the opening few seconds of several of our clips had been excluded and therefore we could not use them. This meant that we had to maually find the clips that needed to be recaptured and try it again before we once again had all the clips we needed.
Making a list of the shots that we needed and any others that we might think of at the time, we then went to refilm what we needed.
Editing Hours 7-8
After finally reimporting all of our clips, our first priority was to fill in the gaps we had left in the narrative. And so we added in both characters remaining dialogue and the filling in shots, such as the images of the clock and our antaganists introduction. We then worked on getting the pacing right, paying particular attention to areas where conventions of our genre would be most evident. For example, in some slower scenes, we added more cuts between various shots to up the pace. One of our final tasks was getting to grips with how to use audio in Final Cut Pro; this meant editing some we had and imposting some we didn't. After a long while of looking at audio effects, we managed to edit the voice over section from the boss enough for it to appear as we wanted. We then hunted around for the right music tracks for the flashback sequence and to build tension in the final confrontation between the two main characters. Inserting this turned out to be relatively simple and we added some fading effects such as Chroma Key on other sounds.
In this first hour, we began by importing the clips that we had into Final Cut Pro. As we had filmed a great variety of clips (and admittedly more than was needed) this took quite a long time and so when it came to the initial placing of clips in the timeline, we began with the first establishing shots, showing the characters and location. When knew from a research on the conventions of the action genre that we wanted to achieve a relatively fast and tension building editing pace and so this became the driving force behind many of our decisions. In total, we used roughly 4 separate shots to achieve the opening sequence before our main character even enters the building, and split these up to produce the quick editing pace. We also began to think about match-ona-action and, in particular, continuity as we had to match the footstep shots to the point of view shots in the sense of location and timing. As we had not yet filmed some of the protagonists dialogue at this point, we continued to add some of the antagonists lines of dialogue, placing markers at key narrative points for shots we would add later.
Editing Hour 2
At this point, we decided to place most of the clips that we had on our timeline in order to see what we had and what we needed. It became evident when we did this that, along with needing to film dialogue, we also needed several other small scenes to improve the flow of the sequence and continuity. This also got us to consider the best way for us to set out the clips to convey the narrative in an interesting way whilst also presenting the action genre effectively. Also, this second hour gave our group a greater chance to familiarise ourselves with the different tools used on final cut pro and began linking up singular scenes, such as the flasback sequence, to which we added effects to distuinguish it from present day events in our piece.
Editing Hours 3-6
We spent a greater length of time editing here to perfect and refine what scenes we had already began to edit. In particular, we added very effective music to the start of the sequence. Interestingly, to increase it's effectiveness, we matched the main protaganists footsteps to the beats of the music, which drew more attention to them and created more of an atmosphere. Along with this, we added some transitional effects to a number of the video clips, such as a fade from black to the establishing shot and an over exposed falsh to the start of the flashback sequence.
It was after this fact that we realised that, upon capturing our footage from tape, the opening few seconds of several of our clips had been excluded and therefore we could not use them. This meant that we had to maually find the clips that needed to be recaptured and try it again before we once again had all the clips we needed.
Making a list of the shots that we needed and any others that we might think of at the time, we then went to refilm what we needed.
Editing Hours 7-8
After finally reimporting all of our clips, our first priority was to fill in the gaps we had left in the narrative. And so we added in both characters remaining dialogue and the filling in shots, such as the images of the clock and our antaganists introduction. We then worked on getting the pacing right, paying particular attention to areas where conventions of our genre would be most evident. For example, in some slower scenes, we added more cuts between various shots to up the pace. One of our final tasks was getting to grips with how to use audio in Final Cut Pro; this meant editing some we had and imposting some we didn't. After a long while of looking at audio effects, we managed to edit the voice over section from the boss enough for it to appear as we wanted. We then hunted around for the right music tracks for the flashback sequence and to build tension in the final confrontation between the two main characters. Inserting this turned out to be relatively simple and we added some fading effects such as Chroma Key on other sounds.
14 December 2012
"The Awesomest Action Movie Ever!" - Preliminary Task
Creating the genre of action and using match on action, continuity and a script entitled "Pop Goes".
Representation: British TV Dramas...
...
Looking at this clip from Hollyoaks, a teen drama, representation is apparent for most of the characters.
Firstly, in reference to age, all of the characters are represented as being in their mid to late 20's, possibly 30's, which can be said to be shown through the clothes that they are wearing and the fact that they are wearing and their location, which happens to be nightclub. Along with this, one of the main female characters (Cheryl) dances to an Eighties song, also giving another indication to the characters age. They also behave in a slightly more reserved way, which distinguishes them from their younger counterparts.
The way in which gender is represented is relatively apparent. The women in the clip are 'made-up' for a night out, with full makeup and dresses on, suggesting that they are quite feminine. This is also shown through their discussion of gossipy topics. The males are comparatively a little less defined, however, they still fit into various stereotypes, especially in the suits that a few of them wear.
Looking at ethnicity, there are no specific ethnic minorities represented in the clip. However, when you consider regional identity, there are many different accents seen in the short clip. It can heard from the way they speak that most of the charecters have a Manchester accent, and comparatively only three characters can easiloy by identified by accent to be from Ireland, though this is not shown in any other way.
The audience can also see a clear definition between the able bodied and disabled characters, as all of the able bodied characters are standing, making the disparities even more noticable. Also, several light references to the disabled characters situation are made in the dialogue.
4 December 2012
Expanding and Shrinking Time Through Editing
During the editing process, various effects can be created by the editor through various cuts, transitions and other techniques that add to the film or possibly create meaning. This can be done in different ways; either in real time or through expanding or shrinking time.
Expanding time - When you expand time in a film, you are increasing the duration of the footage you have. Although it is relatively rare to many films, it is often used for high action, fast paced shots in which you want to increase tension or draw the audiences eye to minor details.
There are various ways in which this can be achieved though the most common of these would be slow motion filming, in which the speed of the shot is simply drastically reduced.
Other techniques that can be used include the repetition of the same same shot from many different angles or time remapping, a technique which see's the the editor smoothly decreasing (or increasing in other cases) the speed of the shot at various moments, such as in numerous fight scenes in The Matrix.
Shrinking time - This is far more commonly used when compared to time expansion. When you shrink time, you are basically compressing the space of time in which an event happens to make it shorter than real time. There are many ways in which this can be achieved, some of which include:
Time Lapse editing, where filmakers simply speed up the footage they have by a considerable ammount. A good example of this would be in building construction videos, such as the creation of The Hogwarts Castle Model for the Harry Potter film series...
Time remapping can also be used again, but in a contrasting way, meaning film is instead intermitently sped up.
Another technique key to shrinking time in editing is the use of shots. For example, the editor may choose to use only a certain ammount of shots overall that represent an event, rather than documenting each and every part of it. This effectively cuts down the time that the sequence lasts and makes it quicker than real time.
Finally, cutaways can be used in order to represent aspects of the sequence, such as a dip to black or even B-roll footage. They simply exist to create understanding. This could mean that the audience is able to understand what is occuring in the scene but with a lot less shots.
Real Time - Literally as it is stated, real time means keeping a number of shots in a sequence that are parallel to a sequence that would happen in real life. This mostly means that the time taken in the filmic world is the same taken in the normal world for it to run. This is often used in dialogue scenes as the speed of the conversation takes place at a normal rate.
Along with this, the principal of match on action is frequently used beside real time in films, though it is not essential. Match on action basically means that each shot follows on exactly from where the previous one left off, so for example shot 1 may be of a ball in someones hands and shot 2 may follow from this by showing the ball moving towards another person.
Match on action is not essential however, as is shown by shrinking and expanding time; jump cutting to the ball landing in another persons hands after the shot of it stationary previuosly would be an example of this as we as an audience did not see that the actions matched- we simply assume from the second shot that the ball was thrown.
Expanding time - When you expand time in a film, you are increasing the duration of the footage you have. Although it is relatively rare to many films, it is often used for high action, fast paced shots in which you want to increase tension or draw the audiences eye to minor details.
There are various ways in which this can be achieved though the most common of these would be slow motion filming, in which the speed of the shot is simply drastically reduced.
Other techniques that can be used include the repetition of the same same shot from many different angles or time remapping, a technique which see's the the editor smoothly decreasing (or increasing in other cases) the speed of the shot at various moments, such as in numerous fight scenes in The Matrix.
Shrinking time - This is far more commonly used when compared to time expansion. When you shrink time, you are basically compressing the space of time in which an event happens to make it shorter than real time. There are many ways in which this can be achieved, some of which include:
Time Lapse editing, where filmakers simply speed up the footage they have by a considerable ammount. A good example of this would be in building construction videos, such as the creation of The Hogwarts Castle Model for the Harry Potter film series...
Time remapping can also be used again, but in a contrasting way, meaning film is instead intermitently sped up.
Another technique key to shrinking time in editing is the use of shots. For example, the editor may choose to use only a certain ammount of shots overall that represent an event, rather than documenting each and every part of it. This effectively cuts down the time that the sequence lasts and makes it quicker than real time.
Finally, cutaways can be used in order to represent aspects of the sequence, such as a dip to black or even B-roll footage. They simply exist to create understanding. This could mean that the audience is able to understand what is occuring in the scene but with a lot less shots.
Real Time - Literally as it is stated, real time means keeping a number of shots in a sequence that are parallel to a sequence that would happen in real life. This mostly means that the time taken in the filmic world is the same taken in the normal world for it to run. This is often used in dialogue scenes as the speed of the conversation takes place at a normal rate.
Along with this, the principal of match on action is frequently used beside real time in films, though it is not essential. Match on action basically means that each shot follows on exactly from where the previous one left off, so for example shot 1 may be of a ball in someones hands and shot 2 may follow from this by showing the ball moving towards another person.
Match on action is not essential however, as is shown by shrinking and expanding time; jump cutting to the ball landing in another persons hands after the shot of it stationary previuosly would be an example of this as we as an audience did not see that the actions matched- we simply assume from the second shot that the ball was thrown.
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