For mine and Yasmin's Main Task Pitch Presentation, we created a Power Point and a small speech to go with it. Below the speech notes and the questions and feedback form our Pitch Presentation is the Power Point.
Pitch Presentation Speech Notes
Brief: Our fiction film genre will be horror, we aim to put our titles in the live action of our our sequence.
Moodboard: We want our film to be a psychological horror based in a gloomy setting, for example, expansive fields. The idea is to portray a isolated, trapped sense as the movie will present a female protagonist who is in a lonely and confused trance.
Locations: These are some examples of 'gloomy' settings that we are thinking about - rural British areas; in the countryside. British countryside and weather has connotations of rain and fog which will be a naturally occurring pathetic fallacy, and set the tense and isolated atmosphere of our film sequence.
Characters: Young woman as protagonist. During the sequence the main focus will be on her to portray the idea that the whole film is about events that have happened to her.
Treatment: Dark, dim, grayscale filters and treatment - perhaps with soft focus on the setting to begin with to create a false sense of security, and then go into harder focused shots to further show the sinister location and theme.
Sound: We want to use a range of different sounds. For example, in the first few shots where we establish the setting, we would like to incorporate string instruments to create a sense of uncertainty. There will also be a voiceover for the main characters thoughts, and a heartbeat to show that the main character is tense - the heartbeat will also make the audience tense and build excitement.
Storyboard: About a woman who became mentally captured by something which causes her to have a split personality. When she is her alternate self she commits horrible crimes that she later has no recollection of.
Pitch Presentation Questions and Feedback
Why did you choose that setting, and where will you actually film it? Wales is renowned for being rainy, foggy and misty and so it seemed like an appropriately gloomy setting. Dartmoor was an equally appropriate setting as it's expansive moors are misty, isolated and seemingly everlasting. However, realistically, we will be filming at the Stonesfield Common as it is a nearby location, and has the appropriate space, fields and atmosphere.
Will your film sequence just show/include one character? Yes, but originally we thought that we would incorporate more characters into her life before she ended up alone and bloodied in a field - however, we found that it would leave the audience in more suspense if the sequence ended saying '10 hours earlier'.
What has happened to the woman in your film? When we first see her she has somehow combined her split personalities and so her body moves without her consent making her commit crimes and murders whilst the voiceover lets the audience know that she does mean to do what she is doing - she is trapped inside herself due to a horrible event.
We were told that we had a good Pitch Presentation, and that; our moodboard was good, the amount of writing on the slides we had was good because we did not read off of the slides, and our preparation was good because we also has a speech and were ready to answer questions in detail.
Brief - Film the opening sequence of a new fiction film, including titles and soundtrack to last approximately two minutes.
I understand that I will not be creating and filming a whole story, but just the opening sequence of one. I will have to include the setting of the story, main characters, main props/objects, and introduce the theme of the story whilst making the film-genre clear. I will try to achieve this through researching and watching films of the appropriate film-genres, planning and storyboarding my own film opening, and then trialling different ways of filming my opening. This means that the that the story-line of the film will be a slight mystery because instead of having an entire, long film, you only get the first two minutes of it - meaning that we are not supposed to give away a whole plot, but introduce one that people would want to know more about. We will have to hook our audience.
Myself and my classmate Yasmin will be working on the Main Task together. We also created our Preliminary Task together, after finishing this we realise that we need to focus more on sound, as our Preliminary Task only included dialogue, ambient sound, and Foley sound - all of which was recorded as we filmed the piece. We did try to add in some music, and make one shot slow motion (the hair-drying shot when Jak is day-dreaming about Natalie), but this was difficult and we could not get it perfected within the time-frame we had, so we left the film as it was. Therefore, in our Main Task we will endeavour to add more sound techniques into our film sequence.
I also understand that the opening sequences in films includes at least a few opening credits, so we will have to add these post-production, after we have filmed the scenes of the piece. Yasmin and I would also like to improve further from our Preliminary Task by adding more editing techniques to this film sequence, so that it is more professional and more engaging to our audience. In addition, we will have to think carefully about our target audience, as we are planning to make our piece a horror; therefore - unless it is a light, slapstick-comedy horror - it will not be for a children/family audience.
Before we actually start filming our Main Task, we will need to; plan our storyboard, decide on a location/some locations, decide on our actors/actresses, decided on the props we want to use, decide on our costumes, decide on who is going to be the Director and who is going to be the Camerawoman for each set of shots, and also gather all of the appropriate camera equipment.
Our pre-production process was well planned. We employed good actors and briefed them in their character roles, we drafted a storyboard, and we came up with ideas of what shots to use, where to position them, what angle they would be at and if there would be any camera movement, and we decided on a location. Our location - E3 - was available at the time we were filming and so we filmed there as planned. This location enhanced the 'high-school romance' theme well, as it is a secondary school classroom. In addition, we informed Jak and Natalie (our actors) what they should wear and what props they should have, e.g. their school bag and a pencil case; as accurate mise-en-scene reinforces the illusion of a film.
The production section of our preliminary task was really good - our actors were punctual and we filmed each shot at least twice, and with buffers so as to gain enough from each shot without cutting any of them too short. Moreover, we had a props assistant (Brittany) who helped us with our hair-dryer shot (where Jak imagines Natalie smiling at him and her hair is blowing in an imaginary breeze) - this was helpful because it meant that I could concentrate on being the camera woman and Yasmin could focus on being the Director and so deciding the angle, position and length of the shot. As we filmed our scenes we kept a very good rule of thirds, and performed our frame-work well. We also kept to the 180 degree rule when filming the short piece of dialogue between Jak and Natalie.
However, when we were filming we wanted to do the part where Jak dreams about Natalie in slow motion, and have music playing, instead of the hair-dryer blowing, to enforce the idea of Jak's dramatic and comic feelings of love towards Natalie. We did film this shot in slow motion with a go-pro that was leant to us by one of our actors (Jak), however there were issues when uploading the shots and so instead we tried to make our normal shots from the school camera slow motion through editing but we did not have enough time to do so. As a result of this, next time we film we will allocate more time to our post-production to ensure that we have enough time for everything.
Yasmin and I filmed our preliminary task at school, in the English block, this meant that any ambient sound from other classes and students was kept in the film as all of the sound we had was all recorded at the time of the shots. This means that we did not present many skills in the way of sound production as we feel that we did not have enough time to do so properly. In our post-production process we focused on: stringing the shots together by using continuity editing; scene transitions, such as dissolves, overlaps and straight cuts; and, we focused on incorporating our title into the beginning of the sequence. To make our main task better than our preliminary task, we will improve on our sound producing skills - by adding in some sound in the post-production process, for example adding in a score.
Preliminary Task
For our Preliminary Task, Yasmin and I decided to create a short film that portrayed an awkward secondary school situation: in this case a boy is seen to be infatuated by a girl in his class, this feeling is unrequited. Both students are early for their class and so end up being forced to communicate - we tried to make this moment comic. Therefore the genre of our short piece would be a romantic comedy, aimed at a teenage audience as they may be able to relate to the situation or will find it humorous to see this situation filmed. However, the film is suitable for all ages. The film is called 'School meeting'.
We mostly focused on camera angles, camera composition, camera movement, and mise-en-scene. The areas of editing that we also concentrated on were shot transitions and continuity editing, (we have different dissolves and some straight cuts). We did not focus too much on sound, all of the dialogue, foley sound, and ambient sound was all recorded when filming the shots and so next time we will endeavour to add some sound post-production.
Foley and Sound Production in film – film information and questions
Jack Foley from Universal Studios
came up with the idea of watching the action and recording live sounds to go
with the pictures. When he came up with this idea, multi-track technology was
not invented and common yet – so all the sound was on one track. The questions I thought of after watching the film are: -
How did Jack Foley come up
with his revolutionary ideas?
How many Foley sounds were on the first ever Foley-sound track?
Is Foley sound usually synchronous?
How many people does it take to create a regular Foley sound track/tracks for a film these days?
For our Preliminary task myself and Yasmin decided to prepare ourselves well before filming, we did this by creating a storyboard, brainstorming ideas, and coming up with a short script for the dialogue.
Story: -
Location: School – an English room, E2 Setting: The English Room
There will be some slow motion shots, some
music, some sound effects – there will also be different camera shots, camera
angles, camera movements, and camera compositions
Props: Jak’s school bag, Jak’s books, Jak’s
stationary, Natalie’s school bag, Natalie’s books, Natalie’s stationary.
Equipment: camera, camera bag, tripod, go-pro,
computer, hairdryer, a pile of dictionaries as a stand.
Date of filming: 15/10/15
Plot: -
Two people, a boy and a girl, are early to their English
class. The boy fancies the girl; however the feeling seems to be unrequited.
(This will be made comic). She walks down a corridor then through the classroom
door. We will then cut to the boy’s face and the he will be in awe, we will
then cut back to the girl and she will be walking in slow motion and flicking
her hear – we will see her through his eyes. This will happen a few times. The
scene will then begin its dialogue with a shot on the boy’s love-struck face as
you heart the girl says ‘Hello…Hello?!’ and ask him where the rest of the class
is. There will then be small dialogue. The boy will then tap his pen on the
table in awkwardness, and the girl will look away in awkwardness. They will
then slowly turn their heads and look at each other and awkwardly smile, they
will then both turn their heads away. The camera will then pan out and up
showing them alone in the classroom and emphasising the awkwardness of the
situation.
Walking through the corridor
Going through the door
Entrance
Reaction
Dialogue
Awkwardness
Shots: -
1.Nat walking down the corridor. (Medium long
shot) (Eye level angle)
2. Nat walking past the glass. (Medium shot) (Eye
level shot)
3. Nat going through the door from the outside.
(Reverse shot) (Eye level shot)
4. Nat going through the door form the inside.
(Reverse shot) (Eye level shot)
5. Nat walking into the room. (Medium shot) (Eye
level shot)
6. Cut to Jak’s face. (Close-up) (High angle shot)
How ethnicity is
represented in the clip from Hotel Babylon
Mise-en-scene
The employees at the hotel are a multi-ethnic group. The
guests at the hotel are also a variety of ethnicities. For example, there is
one lady in an exquisite, native African dress. These guests and legal
employees contrast with the illegal immigrants the hotel is hiding.
Sound
·Dialogue – sometimes as a main diegetic sound
but sometimes as diegetic ambient sound
·Soundtrack
·Footsteps
·Hoover/Vacuum
·Falling things/Keys jangling
·Violence/Struggle
·Doors slamming
·Breathing
·Whimpering
·Kitchen equipment
Analytic paragraph
on sound, and how it represents ethnicity in the group
The powerful line of dialogue that the man, Adam, says
whilst helping the unwell woman, stuck with me after watching the clip. He
said: ‘I wasn’t always a cleaner’. This line suggests that his job used to be
medicinal, as he just showed extensive knowledge on diabetes and the human
body. This makes the audience wonder what would have caused this man to leave
such as respected profession to become a cleaner, which he obviously resents.
The fact that he is now a cleaner is stereotypical – it sticks to the
stereotype that a large proportion of immigrants are cleaners. Near the end of
the scene, the different ethnicities are shown through the ambient sound of the
different groups of illegal immigrants – each of with their own country-folk –
speaking their own language. The camera pans around the canteen showing the
amount of different ethnic groups that have come to work in the hotel, and to
seek sanctuary. The fact that the two black people – who have probably lost a
friend of theirs; Abraham – are silently and solemnly praying, perhaps for Abraham
or gratefully for themselves, this could show that different cultures also have
different religious practices and beliefs.
This is the first camera editing tasks that we did, we did it at
school. My partner for this project was Yasmin Lyons. We filmed a
scene at school – we were told that we had to be coming in different
directions and that there had to be a collision. We decided to perform a
high-five as our collision as it would be easier to film, rather than running
into each other.
We fulfilled the task on my phone, I then downloaded the film onto my laptop and
emailed it to myself – I then downloaded the file from my emails onto my school
computer, and we then downloaded the file onto MoviePlus. MoviePlus is the
school's editing software. Here we added an effect around the edge of our film,
and added a title page to inform our audience what the task was. Our film is
called 'School meeting'. The camera on my phone has a setting where you can
pause and stop and start the filming as you go along, so – for this task – we
did not need to edit lots of different shots together, however, I think we
will be doing that in our next task.
In addition, we also filmed another film on my phone - we filmed this one in the woods in Stonesfield - it is meant to be like a small thriller film. However, we still need to edit the scenes and shots in this video, but we have downloaded the first two clips in the film that are audience-ready. These shots show good angles, good continuity editing, and have appropriate audio.
Myself and Yasmin also created a film trailer on iMovie, on my iPod. We filmed this piece in the woods in Stonesfield to give it an eerie effect: the trailer is a horror movie trailer. We tried to capture different emotions and atmospheres by using a variety of camera shots and editing skills. Admittedly, iMovie provided a good ready-made template that helped us create the advert.
How is gender
represented through Mise-en-scene? (In the shown Primeval clip). 15/09/15
There are many ways in which gender is represented in the
Primeval clip we were shown. For example, gender was shown through the use of props,
lighting, appearance, costume, expression and setting
– (PLACES). The use of props in this clip we very unstereotypical. For
example, during the scene, where Cutter is being attacked by the sabretooth
tiger, the girl in the scene, Abbie, is driving a JCB digger. This is quite a stereotypically
manly and labouring action – therefore this is a strong statement to the
audience: Abbie is seen as an equal in this scene – she does just as much
manual labour as the men do. (Cutter is lifting sticks at the beginning of this
scene, and also jumping into and searching in muddy holes that have been dug in
the ground). Abbie also saves Cutter, when she is in the digger, by distracting
the aggressive sabretooth tiger, here she is the heroine – she saves the man;
this contrasts with traditional fairy-tale scenarios here the girl is the
damsel in distress who needs saving. However, Cutter does then run off into the
woods shouting to tempt the sabretooth tiger away from Abbe – he then uses his
belt as a zip wire harness – this was a spur-of-the-moment and resourceful
decision. This reminds us of a macho hero, such as Indiana Jones. His dramatic
saviour and zip-wire scene is then almost for nothing when the tiger catches up
with him – luckily, Abbie shoots at the tiger and frightens it off. This scene
shows Abbie with a large gun – she doesn’t seem afraid but determined. She
saves Cutter for a second time – however, he scene cuts straight back to Cutter
after her heroism to see if he is okay – Abbie gets no glory; saving people and
surviving as a team is seen as part of her job – however, it makes the audience
think…what is a man had saved a woman, would they have had a moment of glory
and praise or was it filmed like this to give them equal screening time?
Another example of props that has been used to express a
particular gender is when Connor picks up a spade/shovel in the barn to protect
her from the Farmer, who has a shotgun. This suggest perhaps Connor is not
allowed a gun – or that he doesn’t need a gun- however, Abbie, and Steven have guns, here Connor is a bit of an
outsider. Connor is a modern man – good with technology and wearing
controversial clothes and colours, e.g. pink – which over the last few decades
has been seen as a girl-oriented colour.
A way in which lighting presents gender is when Jenny needs
saving in the barn – the barn is dark and outside is light: so when Steven,
Abbie and Connor cometo her rescue they
are at the barn door – this shows them surrounded by light as they are her
saviours. The majority of saviours are men –however, Abbie is also one of her
saviours and in this scene we see the contrast in the two main women of the
show.
The first women we see is fairly appears fairly traditional
– she is dressed appropriately for her job – she wears outdoor trousers, shoes
and a gilet – however her top is a bright red and this colour is often
associated with females as it can portray passion, seduction, sex, or danger. She
does, however act very stereotypically womanly. She is emotional, angry, upset
and dramatic – she storms off. The focus is then on Steven, who is confused
about the situation – this suggest that he is emotionally numbed and doesn’t
understand what she’s going through; this can be seen as stereotypical of a
man’s emotional spectrum. This stereotype of a man is reinforced when Cutter is
dismissive of the woman’s dramatics and tells Steven to ‘let her go’. Abbie is
quite in this scene – this could be significant because she is a strong, punky,
modern woman and perhaps she also doesn’t quite understand what is wrong with
the other woman.
Abbie wears appropriate clothing for her job – she is out in
the field a lot, and works with animals, so she wears baggy, cropped,
khaki/camouflaged cargo trousers, a leather biker-style jacket, walking boots,
and dark eye-liner and eye-shadow. Her hair is also cropped. She is not
traditionally girly. Abbie’s costume and Jenny’s costume are a visual
indication of their differences in personalities and jobs. By this I mean that
Jenny obviously is said to having a desk job as she was not dressed correctly
for doing business in a dirty barn. Abbie on the other hand dresses for the
outdoors – and wears things that she is not afraid to get messy, and that also
allows for quick get-away/easy-movement. Jenny has neat and glossy hair, a
low-cut black dress - (black dresses are often associated as being sexual), she
also wears a long, expensive-looking, cream, ‘favourite’ coat of hers – this contrasts
with her black dress making her stand out, additionally she also wears
high-heels.She is made to look very
feminine and seductive. Her make-up reinforces this – her eyes are wide and
shimmery, and her eyelashes are made to look long – this is completely
different when compared to Abbie’s make-up. Abbie as a, to of eye make-up on
but she doesn’t make her eyelashes as prominent, she just uses a lot of
eyeliner to define her eyes – this could also be to show her focus. Moreover,
jenny wears a lot of oink, shiny lipstick – this brings the focus to her lips,
which is seductive –whereas Abbie’s focus is on her eyes, which is more casual
and normal because when you converse with someone you tend to look them in the eyes. Jenny’s character is
quite objectified in this scene, whereas Abbie is powerful. Jenny’s character’s
costume also evokes thought that she is of a higher statuses than the rest of
the team, e.g. Abbie Cutter, Steven and Connor, because she is in formal,
expensive clothing.
The use of expression in this clip is good – it represents
gender well. For example, when Steven is confused about why the woman he was
talking is stroppy the camera has a close-up on his face and we see his
bewildered expression-we also see that
he doesn’t really care that much. This unfeeling expression contrasts with
Abbie’s determined, focused and fairly calm facial expressions both when she
distracts the sabretooth tiger from attacking Cutter, and when she shoots at
the tiger to stop it again from, injuring or killing, Cutter. Furthermore,
another expression than portrays the female gender in a certain way, is Jenny’s
expression when she is sprawled across the hay/straw on the barn floor –
fearing the large, dirty farmer-figure who is pointing a shot-gun at her. Here
she is the typical ‘damsel in distress’. The framer is also a stereotypical
farmer-figure.
At one point in the clip Cutter is almost emotionless, just
mildly shocked, when digging through the mud to find out more about the dead
body – this is a very grim and macho thing to do. This scene contrast with the
short scene of Connor, another man, who is helping to set a trap for the sabretooth
– he put a piece of meat over a hole in the ground that is covered in leaves
and twigs – he does this with caution and worriment – he doesn’t want to get
this wrong. This careful approach is very different to Cutter’s muddy, grubby,
hands-on approach which views Cutter as a stereotypical man, and Connor as a
more feminine and gentle man.
The setting of the clip is also significant because the
woods reflect the wild and natural nature of the aggressive sabretooth tiger –
the woods also creates and atmosphere of mystery and suspense. This is
increased when Cutter heroically runs of into the vegetation to distract the
creature’s attention. Here we as an audience fear a bit for Cutter. The
zip-wire in the middle of the woods does however state that the woods is part
of a family-friendly adventure place, and so adds to the danger of the escaped
sabretooth tiger.
In comparison, the setting of the barn reinforces Jenny’s
unsuitability for a ‘field’ job as she both doesn’t dress appropriately and she
doesn’t deal with the situation appropriately – she is smug to begin with, this
is ironic when the power in the scene shifts and her governmental threats
become useless against a physical prop – a shot-gun. A third setting, which we
only see for a short amount of time, is an open, grassy plain. Here Abbie,
Oliver, Steven and Connor are seen walking in a line – as equals – in slow
motion. This emphasises their importance. The suit that Oliver is wearing also
suggests that he has a higher-paid job and is above them in their line of work.
It also suggests that he has a desk job. However, the others’ casual/outdoor
wear shows that they are ‘field operatives’. Connor however is wearing a
waistcoat, a pick shirt, a pink scarf, and a trilby – this shows that he is
more feminine that the other men but does not mean that he is a homosexual.
Overall, there are lots of ways in which gender is
presented, using Mise-en-scene, in the Primeval clip that we watched. From my
personal experience I know that this can also be seen throughout the whole of
the Primeval series. I also think that it is good that the primeval crew have
included a strong, punky, modernised female character such as Abbie. I think
that since Abbie and Connor are both; clever, outdoorsy, kind, determined, and
modern people – that they would-make/make, a great couple.
The ‘Uses
and Gratifications’ Theory is a popular approach to understanding mass communication.
This theory focuses more on the consumer/audience instead of the actual message
itself by asking “what people do with the media” rather than “what the media
does to people”. The theory assumes that
we are not passive towards our intake of media – we take an active role in interpreting
the media. The theory also suggests that audiences are responsible for choosing
media to meet their needs, and fulfil specific gratifications. This theory also
implies that the media competes against different media sources for viewers’ gratification.
Semiotics –
used a lot by fashion brands and adverts. Semiotics comes from the Greek word ‘Semeion’,
which means sign. A sign is something that conveys meaning to someone. Some
signs we process naturally, effortlessly and without thinking about them. Reading
signs and processing them can make us behave differently, or persuade us – or influence
us – to do something. We all do semiotic study naturally, we come to judgements
based on the signs we are presented with – for example, clothing is a sign system;
how different people dress even if a group of people are equally knowledgeable
on a subject you hear them talk about and present in the same way, you will gather
interpretation of each o he people depending on how they are dressed, and try
to depict what sort of person they are.
One of the clips that we looked at in class the other day
was from the 1975 version of ‘Jaws’. We then analysed the editing in this
scene.
When watching the clip form Jaws – the shark attack on a beach
scene – there are a lot of effective shots used. For example, the shot where
the man is talking to the Chief, and the we see the man from the Chief’s point
of view, except that the Chief isn’t really looking at the man he is looking at
a girl in the sea in the background – we know this because the man is to the
right of the screen and there is an almost foggy effect around him, indicating that
he Chief is in a sort of haze and is not interested in him button the girl who
is screaming. The girl and the children are all screaming with laughter – this screaming,
foreshadows the screaming of fear when the shark attacks the young boy. The
fact that we can’t quite see Jaws, the shark, when he attacks creates an atmosphere
of fear and mystery – we cannot see what is attacking the boy, therefore we
cannot solve the problem and we don’t know how to stop it from killing. Just
before the shark does attack the boy there is creepy music that builds tension
and gets louder as the boy is about to be attacked. The calm music on the beach
– that I think is from someone’s radio in the shot rather than the soundtrack of
the film – although it was probably added in later anyway – and he innocent singing
of nursery rhymes by the toddler on the beach, contrast with the deep, and
quickening sound of the soundtrack when Jaws is about to attack. The shot where
the Chief realises that Jaws is attacking someone in the sea – and hat his kids
are down there – the camera zooms in on his frightened, anxious and alarmed
face. The camera is focused on his face but as it zooms in the background seems
to warp – this is very effective as it suggests that the only thing that needs
to be focused on is the shark attack, the rest of the world is a blur – the situation
is sudden and panicking. This zoom-in shot was most probably a dolly shot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW23RsUTb2Y
Another scene that we analysed at school was the scene in ‘Shaun
of the Dead’ where Shaun gets ready for work. Here there are six quick shots
strung together to show that he got ready for work but to compress the amount
of time that he got ready. These close-up shots also add to the comedy of the
film. We first see Shaun unzip his fly, then we see him flush the toilet, we
then we see the toilet water flushing, then we see him brushing his teeth, then
we see him washing his hands, and then finally we see him place his name-badge
on his shirt. This series of close-up shots aren’t still shots, they slightly
zoom-in on each action, this is adds to the comedy of the film, and emphasises
what Shaun is doing. The audio at this part of the scene increases in volume - this emphasises the actions Shaun is performing by allowing us to clearly hear the things; such as toilets flushing.
In class, after learning a bit about the history of editing,
we looked at a few clips from films and analysed the sort of editing skills
that were used.
For example, one of the clips we looked at was an
interrogation scene from ‘L.A. Confidential’. This scene’s first shot has a
duration of about 20 seconds, where the camera follows the two detectives down
a corridor. This shows that we as the audience are following these two men’s
action – probably throughout the whole film. This first shot is quite long compared
to the others, it has quite a slow pace – this is done so that is purposefully
contrasts with the fast tempo of the actual interrogation part of the scene.
For example, when the lawyer’s head is dunked in the toilet and then brought
back up it cuts from the ‘bad cop’ detective’s face as he dunks the lawyer’s
head in the toilet, and then it cuts to the lawyer’s head being brought out of
the toilet so that we see his reaction and hear any desperate dialogue that he
has to say. This happens a couple of times. The short length of the shots that are
strung together speeds up the scene, the soundtrack in this part of the scene
is very upbeat and tense which supports the action, and the speed, of scene.
Another effective shot is the establishing shot that is used, several items,
when the lawyer is being dangled over the building. These shots are effective
because they let the audience know how high up they are and that gives us an
understanding go how frightened the lawyer must be at being held over the edge
of a window on such as high building. The fear I his voice and the petrified
look on his face reinforces the terror of the situation he is in: he knows that
if he is dropped then he will fall to his death.
A scene of my own choice, which I analysed, is the Hunger
Games scene where the Games begin. This scene has a very fast tempo which is supported
by the quick, beating soundtrack. The scene however begins slowly, as the clock
counts down the seconds until the game begins – this builds tension as the
audience knows that something terrible is about to happen because the games are
filled with people dying. However, the quick, beating music doesn’t begin as
soon as the countdown ends a high pitch buzzing sport of sound starts first,
and this indicates that Katniss is in a haze, she is confused. Whilst this noise
is going on, the scene cuts to the other competitors either running away,
grabbing supplies, killings someone, or being killed. The music begins its fast
past when Katniss snaps into focus when she sees people running for the woods
with supplies: she realises that she should do the same if she wants to live.
The music loudens when Katniss falls because we assume that someone will try to
kill her – they do, twice. Luckily, she escapes and so the volume of the music decreases
a bit, slightly lowering the intensity of the scene again. The soundtrack
loudens again when Katniss crashes into another competitor in the woods – however,
neither of them want to kill each other, this so clearly showin the big close-ups, showing their fearful
expressions. The music then dies-down again when Katniss and the other girl run
off in different directions. This scene ends dramatically. It ends with shots of
the dead competitors – dead children and teenagers – lying bloodied and sprawled
on the floor in their dying positons. The editor and director did this to show
the horrific nature of the games – this has an effect on the audience because to
them the games are made even more gruesome through the trivialising of the
young, violent deaths. (The deaths are trivialised in the film because the
actual Hunger Games are shown to be like a special ‘Reality TV Show’). The last
shot is close up of a big close-up of a dead girl, whose eyes are open but
lifeless. This is a powerful last shot because we associate open eyes with
being awake and alive, however this last shot defies this.
Animatograph – George Melies, who saw the first
screening of a film, and who was a professional magician, saw much more
potential for films than them simply being animated photographs. Owned and
operated a Theatre. He attempted to by a cinematographe form the Lumiere’s but
they refused as they saw him as potential competition. Unfazed by this Melies,
who had also been a mechanic, he bought an English made projector, called an animatograph,
for less money. He reversed the mechanics on this projector and made a camera.
Melies shot and showed his own films. Whilst filming one of his films in 1896, Melies
accidentally invented the ‘jump cut’. Melies put this to work in his films –
using the ‘jump cut’ to create disappearing and reappearing effects. Melies
also invented the ‘Fade in and Fade Out’, ‘Overlapping Dissolves’, and ‘Stop
Motion Photography’. Melies started to tell actual stories through his films.
Melies made about 500 films.
Primitive cinema and Animatograph work are like
tableaux - they are done all from the same angle/a-fixed-positon, as if you
were watching a play.
Beyond the tableau to the birth of the
edit…
Beyond the tableau – Edwin S. Porter set up the
first Edison projector – (Edison as in Thomas Edison) – in Koster and Bial’s
Music Hall, in April 1896. He became head of production for the Edison Skylight
Studio, New York, in 1901. For the next five year’s he served as Edison’s go-to
Director and Camera-man. Porter was inspired by Melies and tried his hand at a narrative
story told through film – and in 1903 his film ‘Life of an American Fireman’
was produced. At this time temporal overlaps were very common. In 1903 Porter’s
next film, ‘The Great Train Robbery’, sees Porter cut straight between scenes
without using fades or dissolves, and without letting the scene reach it’s
logical end – it only shows you what you need to see. Here Porter is very
decisive in his cuts. This shows how Directors were seeing the ability to
compress time in favour of impact over reality. Porter was beginning to form a new
cinematic language. Through Porter’s pieces we begin to the see that the most
basic unit of cinema was not the scene as Melies contemporaries thought, but
the shot. Meaning not just how things are arranged not he screen but how the
shots are arranged in time.
In 1908, just before leaving Edison to start
his own production company, Porter hired a young actor fill the lead part in ‘Rescued
from an Eagle’s Nest’. This would end up being the ‘first break’ of a forty
year long career for David W. Griffith.
D. W. Griffith’s stage-name was Lawrence
Griffith. (One of Griffith’s inspirations
was Charles Dickens). Griffith’s plays and poems that he wrote were not brilliant,
however he started to write scenarios for films and became good at it. He sent
one of his movie production scenarios to Porter, however it was rejected for
having to man scenes, but Griffith did get hired for an acting job in ‘Rescued
from an Eagle’s Nest’. Griffith then found a positon at ‘Biograph’, a production
company struggling with debt but looking to find Directors. Under a contract
for ‘Biograph’ Griffith made over 450 films for them between 1908 and 1911,
pushing cinema out of the primitive tableau mentality and into the multi-shot-medium
that we would now recognise.
One of Griffith’s first inventions was the ‘cut-in’.
Griffith also used alternating shot lengths and multiple camera set-ups to
create a scene through continuity editing.
Continuity Editing – Cutting style that
maintains a continuous sense of space and time.
180° Rule – Griffith, as well as his contemporaries,
discovered that if you kept the camera on one side of the axis of action, you
can avoid continuity problems of confusing geography, when cutting from one angle
to another.
Griffith’s next
invention in editing was ‘Inter-cutting’, or ‘Cross-cutting’: which is basically
cutting between shots in different scenes in parallel action. (Griffith first
put this to use in ‘After Many years’, in 1908).
Griffith also began
to build up the tempo of his cuts to get to his cinematic climaxes.
Many contemporary film makers copied Griffith’s style.
However, Griffith’s and some other contemporary film makers, brought about; ‘the
Establishing Shot’, ‘Reverse Shots’, ‘Matching Eye-lines’, and ‘Cutting on Action’.
By 1911, Griffith was ready to pursue bigger and more
ambitious projects. He left ‘Biograph’ and became more adventurous with his
filming. After a bit Griffith struck out on his own. In 1914/1915 Griffith made
and showed an independent film that was cinema’s most expensive film to date,
and the world’s first blockbuster: ‘The Birth of a Nation’. A major hit, but
condemned as racist even during it’s time – because of the pro-views on the Klu
Klux Klan. This film was a combination of all of Griffith’s cinematic techniques.
Censorship boards requested alterations and many states actually banded the
film, as riots broke out in places such as Boston. Griffith couldn’t understand
his charges of racism and saw this as an attack on him personally; he responded
by publishing a pamphlet, ‘The Rise and Fall of Free Speech in America’. In
this publication he defended his film and his right to make it, against what he
though was intolerance. In 1916, he created another film called ‘Intolerance’ that
intercut four separate narratives, and cost 2.5 million dollars to produce.
This sunk most of the profit from ‘The Birth of a Nation’, which costed less to
produce. Intolerance did not make enough at the box office. Griffith went on to
Director 26 more features and died still in debt from ‘Intolerance’. Griffith
was/is a controversial figure.
Soviet film makers studied and picked apart Griffith’s
editing style and developed a new style of editing. This theory was the Montage
theory.
Montage Theory – Using juxtaposing images by editing. During the 1920s, the pioneering
Russian film directors and theorists Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov created, demonstrated and used this
theory in their work.
Analysing the
camera shots, editing and tempo of the car chase scene from Bourne Supremacy, and a fight scene in Merlin
This scene is overall, a very fast tempo scene, it slows down
at one point, after the police officers call for back-up, because we see the
Mercedes Benz undercover police cars drive out of a different area and join the
car chase. This is slower to allow the audience to understand where these cars
are coming from, why they are coming, and who they are
representing/transporting. However, the fast tempo quickly returns – the rate
at which the shots change usually gets faster when Bourne does a swift gear
change. The editing in the scene is amazing – it switches from an outside view
of the chase to an inside view of the car and Bourne’s expressions, to get an
understanding of who he is extremely resourceful, an excellent driver, but he
is still nervous. The editor has also managed to string about 100 shots into
one scene, that is easy to follow and engaging to watch, that only lasts a few
minutes. We also see that Bourne is shot – he has a gaping wound in his
shoulder which he pours alcohol on at the beginning of the scene before the car
chase picks up the pace.
The music in this
scene is very upbeat and fast tempo as well – this adds emphasis to the speedy
car chase. Fast scenes usually indicate a quick get-away, urgency, desperation,
and a fear/anxiety of capture.
We understand that
during this scene, Bourne’s adrenaline must be very high.
I have also analysed the camera shots, editing and tempo of
a scene of my own choice. The scene I have chosen is the fight scene in the
market, episode 1 of Season 1 of BBC’s Merlin.
In this scene there is quite a lot of dialogue as well as
action. This slows the pace of the action down – this insinuates the fight is
not serious and is more of a play-fight than one where they intend to seriously
injure each other. However, the pace of this scene – because it’s a fight, and
because there is some running and hiding – is quite fast, as a faster tempo creates
a sense of desperation and urgency and so builds excitement.
As soon as Arthur takes the first swipe at Merlin, with his
mace/flail, an upbeat, yet historical sounding music begins – this signals that
the fight has begun. (The music does not sound like there it uses any
electrical instruments – this is relevant because Merlin is set many centuries
ago when electric technology did not exist). The music however changes at the
end of the scene when Merlin is beaten by Arthur, because Gaius distracts his
attention. The music changes to a more mysterious music because Arthur tells
his men to ‘let [Merlin] go’ and we as the audience do not quite understand
this decision as we presumed Arthur would punish Merlin for his behaviour. Arthur
then says; ‘There’s something about Merlin, I can’t quite put my finger on it’ –
which emphasises the mysterious melody of the music.
Within this scene there are a lot of camera shots used – however,
due to the active nature of the fight they are usually moving shots – this implies
that camera shooting methods such as the use of a ‘dolly’. A few of the camera
shots are also wobbling around and shot from behind a table – the camera almost
mirrors where Merlin runs and hides from Arthur.
Furthermore, this scene of Merlin uses several cut-away
shots. For example, we see Arthur aim and lean forward swinging his mace at
Merlin, and then we see merlin jump back out of the way as he is almost hit by
the mace.
Moreover, in Merlin there are a lot of sound effects - such as smashing eggs when Arthur hits them - these sounds have most probably been added after the scene was filmed and edited into the scene at the right moment. The majority of sound in films and TV is added during the editing process.
