Thursday 18 December 2014

Creating pace

Creating pace usually happens by moving from longer takes to shorter takes,  from few cuts in a given stretch of film time to many cuts in a given stretch of film times.



Here is an example of a scene from the departed where it starts of with a few amount of cuts to several cuts when the more dramatic scene came on. In the beginning tension was building where the cuts were slow and not many of them but as soon as the body drops from the roof and the men start coming out the building the number of cuts tend to increase which makes the scene move at a quicker pace.

Combining shots into sequences

There are two reasons you combine shots into sequences, one can be for continuity, making the cuts seem like they're not there or the other could be to intellectually challenge the viewer, to make the audience think about why certain cuts have been made.




The clip above is an example of how combining shots into sequences is for continuity. In this clip you can't tell where the cuts are because you are focused on the action, the cuts have been made for continuity rather than to intellectually challenge the viewer.




This clip is an example of how combining shots into sequences is to intellectually challenge the viewer whats going on. So the audience will really have to think about what each shot means because there are some shots that don't quite fit the sequence but have been put there for a reason.



Shots of Kerensky are juxtaposed of a mechanical peacock which is an editorial technique which contrasts with continuity. After the Kerensky shot the peacock is shown which goes against the continuity of the Kerensky shot and makes the audience think why has the peacock been placed there.



In each of these sequences several shots are used and shots are assembled in different ways for different purposes, Sometimes shots are assembled to make the most of the production value sometimes they are assembled to excite and engage the audience, or they are put togeteher to challenge the audience intellectually. The resulting sequence preserves continutity and the effect is that both editorial technique and the cuts themselves become invisible and at other times we are acutely aware of the editing technique of the cuts, and of some sort of meaning being created through juxtaposition

Wednesday 17 December 2014

Shot Motivation



Shot motivation is when one shot motivates another shot. Action in one shot can imply another kind of action in a sub-sequence shot or call for it or demand it. When such action demands some sort of responsive action in  the sub sequence shot such a motivating force drives the narrative forward. An example of this is when you see the horses running towards the men and someone is firing shots at them but the audience doesn't know why or who. Many film makers hold much store in using shots to drive action and the wider narrative forward in this way with the action in one shot motivating the next shot as they see it as a crucial mechanism for keeping the viewer engaged in what is going on.





Here in this scene the guy is watching the rings video which is a haunted video and the ring in the video is walking forwards which motivates the audience to predict whats happening next. When the girl started walking out the TV this motivates the guy to move back to get away from the girl heading towards him.

Thursday 11 December 2014

Relationship to genre

In a dramatic scene we will start with 2 shots and move towards close ups. In action we get a wide variety of shots.



In action scenes a large variety of shots and cuts are needed to build tension to keep the audience entertained and in the loop. In this scene there are so many cuts in a small amount of time to keep everything at a fast pace when it needs to be. Chase scenes are normally the scenes that use a variety of shots and cuts. There are P.O.V shots, close ups persons level shot and so many more shots which keeps the audiences attention engaged and keep them on the edge of their seat. This also keeps the audience in the loop of whats going on and makes them feel like they haven't missed one moment of anything.







In the opening scene we have been introduced with a wide shot of a dark corridor with very little lighting which makes the audience feel tense and it increases suspense. The same take lasted for 50 seconds this creates stillness which makes the scene feel more eerie and unsettling. After the 50 second we cut to the next shot which is a medium shot of the nurse, we then hear a noise and we get cut to the nurses P.O.V of the door and then get cut back to her face to see her reaction and then we are back to the wide shot of the corridor, and in the distance we can see the police man leaving which builds tension because the nurse is all alone checking inside all the doors. This is all a delay to the horror scene shot to distract the audience but still letting them know that something is about to happen. Then out of nowhere the music increases and something exists the door after the nurse and we are being zoomed into the evil character which appears to be a statue with a knife in its hands going after the nurse pretty fast then straight after we get cut to a close up of the headless evil character with its hands up with no knife in his hands. The nurse hasn't been seen again after that cut so that suggests to the audience that he killed her.

There isn't much of a variety of shots or cuts used in this scene unlike the action film which included lots. The lack of shot variety and small use of cuts make the scene drag on for longer which gives the audience time to build the fear and tension inside of them and then as soon as the loud evil music plays the shot changed suddenly and cuts increased. This is used as a scare tactic.










Development of Drama




This clip starts off with a long shot of a child in a small closed up, dark corridor alone which makes the child appear vulnerable, he is waiting outside a room. The dad comes out the room and the camera focuses on him and he looks like he's got a grip of things, and he knows how to take care of his child which makes the audience establish normality in this family but the we hear the kid say 'when is mummy coming back' which makes the audience question what the child means by that. Camera mostly focuses on dad while child is in the back round trying to get his dads attention but dads distracted with trying to sort out the childs breakfast. When dad opens the fridge the door cuts the child out of the scene because he's really small which also makes him look more vulnerable.

The dad tries to act like he knows what he's doing but everytime the dad does something unusual the camera will just focus on the child reaction. The child side wards glaces are crucial to the audience because it allows the audience to know that the dad is doing something wrong. The more wrong the dad does in these scenes the cuts become quicker and quicker which adds tension and creates drama.

The wrong doings of the dad seem to happen in a pattern, Activity by dad, reaction from son and defense by dad.




The opening scene starts of with the dads annoyance and the child is not in the shot but we know he's there because his hands and his toy airplane is in his dads face. Then the dad tells Billy to stop messing around and then we see the Billy in the shot. After he tells him to carry on eating his food they start to fall into a disagreement because Billy claims he doesn't like the food which irritates the dad even more. The technique shot reverse shot is used here to build tension as we see the irritation and antagonism growing. Billy continues to be challenging because he decides to disobey his dads orders, in each shot we see more frustration with the dad and more anger with the child. Each time the boy says or does something challenging we cut to the dad because the audience is interested in the dads reply. The drama is being developed through the reactions, and how the dad controls the situation.





Thursday 4 December 2014

Engaging the viewer

There are several ways of engaging the audience, one of the ways is making the audience question whats going on and giving them little hints about whats about to happen, making them feel unsettled and eerie because they know that somethings going to happen but the character doesn't know about it yet.



The editorial choices in the Godzilla extract result in an engaging opening sequence for the viewer. Engaging the viewer as much as possible is the editors job, this is done by the way he/she constructs the edit of the opening. If the viewers interest is lost at the beginning of the film its hard to get back. The opening scene uses an Arial shot which is a high production shot, we get a variety of them. This engages the audience because these are high angles we don't get the privilege to see.

We get to see a characters P.O.V which allows us to see everything the character is seeing, like we are his eyes. He looks down at an item in his hands which makes the audience curious because they don't know what the item is, so the audience will start questioning if the item is an important item, maybe its precious to the character. The character next to him glances at the item then turns her attention to him and then she gazes while shes deep in thought.

The woman character turns her head to look out the window and the audience gets her P.O.V. We see a wide shot of an area.

- high production value shot from her P.O.V
- Wide shot.
- We see hole in ground curious about what is going on
- We see thousand of personell hole is unusual because it looks different
- Swooping down and more things are being revealed to the audience
- Creating a puzzle with shots


- low angle of the helicopter moving
- engaged because we feel like we're going to find something new out
- medium shots of all characters
- engages to see what diaglog will happen
- Now we get all industry (find out whats going on)







- Sucession of these shots that builds suspence and secures our engagement
- From the helcopter to the explorer to the mysterious prop to the emotion surrounding it
- all of this taken place in a remote high status content.
- the viewer becomes an explorer as well with a puzzle to solve thats real engagment.



Storytelling

Visual storytelling is a method used to give the audience a picture in their mind about whats going on without explaining it to them literally. This is principally achieved through 2 techniques: the choice of shots; the way those shots are editing together

Here is an example of storytelling being shown through different shot variations and editing techniques: 


This car gives the audience the impression that its on a long journey with all the edits fading into the next shot of the car showing how the roads are getting emptier and emptier until the road is finally clear. There's no dialogue for a while, this is to let the audience guess whats going on before it gets told to them, This builds up the curiosity and makes the audience feel unsettled.

Later on a massive truck comes into the scene and the camera angles around the truck show how big the truck is in comparison to the small car, this makes the big truck look intimidating,

Apart from the voices coming from the cars radio, the only line of dialog spoken is by the protagonist (main character) to himself 'talk about pollution!' and yet, the shots are edited together in such a way that more meaning is conveyed than the discreet photographs themselves we feel the remoteness, we feel the isolation and we feel the menace this is editorial storytelling,

Thursday 27 November 2014

Analogue and Digital

Analogue

Analogue is a wave which is recorded or used in its original form. For example, in an analogue music and speech differ constantly in frequency and amplitude, just like how analogue signals can vary in frequency , amplitude or both. An example is FM and AM radio - Frequency Modulated radio and Amplitude Modulated radio. The diagram shows a typical oscilloscope trace of an analogue signal.

Digital


Digital signals are a sequence of pulses consisting of just two states which are ON (1) or OFF (0). There are no numbers or values in between. DAB radio is Digital Audio Broadcast radio - it is transmitted as digital signals


How do analogue and digital relate to film? 
Film, as we know, can be a 'chemical' or digital process. When it is a chemical process a light sensetive silver halide emulsion coated on a film base is exposed to light in a camera. This creates a latended image which is made visable by emersing the film into a chemical solution which we refer to as a 'developer' a print can then be made by projecting the image from the film onto sensitized photographic paper and processing the paper through a number of chemical baths. Digital imaging does not require chemicals, digital images are captured using arrays of photo sensers and these images are then processed by specialised software, prints can be made through ink jet printers. In everyday speak people commonly refer to chemical photography as analogue to contrast it with the digital process, here, analogue is refering a signal whos output is propotional to the input. A good example for analogue in tradicional photography is a light meter where light falls on a photo cell which generates an electrical current moving a needle over a scale the more bright the light is the more the needle moves. Ironically, the sensor in a digital camera is also analogue: each one of the millions of pixels which constitute the sensor is a light sensetive photo cell generating a tiny electrical current which is responding to light/ the brighter the light the stronger the current. 

Film and video

notes:
early 50s videos
Beta tapes mainly used in tv
only big budget tv were shot on film
tv started to move onto video once available
digital videos started in the 70s first introduced commercially 1986
it led to Dv tapes large and small








The history of films started in 1890 with the new invention of the first ever motion picture camera and the establishment of the first film production companies and cinema's. The first films made of the 1890s were all under a minute until 1927, these motion pictures were produced without sound. In 1906 Mitchell and Kenyon filmed at a fairground, this also included to sound or colour.




Film is a chemical process which is used for analogue recording, copying, playback, broadcasting and display of moving visual and audio media on an item called celluloid. Celluloid is a transparent, flammable plastic made in sheets from camphor and nitrocellulose, it was used for making cinematographic films. In 1889, George Eastman made celluloid films commercially available.


The first celluloid film was a size 16mm which is pretty small but it was still good enough for cinema. Because of the size the films usually would come out grainy since it would have to be stretched out pretty far. As the quantity of film and film makers got bigger the demand for standardization grew. Between 1900 and 1910 film formats slowly became standardized and film stocks improved. Eastman increased the length of rolls to 200 feet. 35mm began to become very popular because of the popularity of Edison's and Lumière's cameras. 35mm is better quality because it has a bigger frame so to stretch it out you wouldn't lose as much quality as you would with the 16mm.


DV tapes were first used in ____. It is a format medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting and display of moving visual and audio media on magnetic tape.




















Video is an electronic medium used for analogue recording, copying, playback, broadcasting and display of moving visual and audio media on magnetic tape using an analogue video signal


Digital video is a type of digital recording system that works by recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display using a digital rather than an analogue video signal.


digital cinematography is the process of capturing motion pictures as digital video images as opposed to the historical use of motion picture film. Digital capture may happen on video tape, hard disks, flash memory, or other media which can record digital data through the use of a digital movie video camera or other digital video camera.























Thursday 20 November 2014

Manipulation of diegetic time and space

http://ashleighevers.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/manipulation-of-diegetic-time-and-space/
^ (Check website when you get home for more information)

What is diegesis:
Diegesis is a style of fiction story telling when the narrator tells the audience what the world is like in the characters life. The narrator could speak as a particular character or maybe the all knowing narrator who talks from "outside" in the form of commenting on the action or the characters.

Mimesis is a similar style of fiction story telling but instead of the narrator telling the audience what the world of the characters is like the narrator shows it instead through the characters acting the things they are trying to show the audience without actually telling them.

The reason diegetic not mimetic is used as a descriptor for the film world is that in film the film maker is seen as a narrator character using technical and performance elements (camera angle, point of view, gesture, cut..) to 'whisper' to the audience



Manipulation of diegetic time and space is an editing technique used to portray time unusually. Editorial techniques such as ellipsis and expansion of time manipulate the time as it is experienced by the audience. Flash backs, where the characters think back to the past and see images in their head from the past, are used to show the audience the interior images of their mind. At home what they are thinking about on the screen, or they could have flash forwards into the future where the characters are thinking about something that could possibly happen. It can also be used to show the environment or an object changing in a period of time, an example of this can be seen from a scene from the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban film in which Harry Potter and Hermione are able to visit the past using a certain object.


The video below is another example of manipulation of diegetic time and space. Here Indiana Jones partner was meant to pass him the whip so he can also jump over but he didn't and the door started to shut quite drastically fast but as Indiana struggled to jump over the camera was faced away from the door but it was on Indiana, then the scene cuts and shows the door still closing but the door hasn't closed as much as it should have in the time Indiana was struggling. After he manages to jump over the door still hasn't shut and he quickly slides underneath the door just in time.

That was a manipulation of time because they kept cutting the scene to give Indiana more time to struggle to try get over but still manage to get through the door in time. In effect, what the editor has done is not cut forward to where the door would have lowered to in real time when he cuts back to the door but instead he cuts to a point in the doors tedractory earlier than its real times decent which elongates the fall of the door



Wednesday 19 November 2014

Shot Variation

What is it?
Shot Variation is used in filming to make a sequence of images using movement. Some of the types of shots used are wide shot, long shots and medium shot. A wide shot is generally used at the start of a sequence to set the tone of the scene and to introduce us to the location and let the audience understand the concept of the scene. Long shots are used to enable the audience to focus on a certain character, this is commonly used to introduce the main characters. A medium shot are primarily used in dialogue scenes or action scenes to let the audience follow the narrative.


Shot variation is used a lot in action films when a fast paced scene is being shot. In addition to a high number of cuts in a short space of film time the variation of shots and dynamism also help to fasten the pace of the scene.

Here is an example of a fast paced action scene that uses a variation of shots.

This particular scene needed the shot variation along with the cuts because it is meant to be a fast paced scene, this is where the scene gets more intense and dramatic for the audience and the shot variation and cuts made help keep the audience at the edge of their seat.
3 shots rather than one are used to pan across the racing cars making the movement more dynamic.
several shots are used to establish the yellow car and its driver rather than just one again increasing dynamism and pace.




The video below is an example of when a variety of shots aren't needed. This is meant to be a slow paced scene because the characters find out something they find fascinating which the audience don't know about yet so the keeps the scene very still and keeps the tension which helps the audience stay curious and when they find out what the characters are looking at it makes it more dramatic for them.

These two scenes contrast strongly with one another
shot variation and increase in the number of cuts in scene time together make the action chase scene on the highway in transformers dynamic and fast paced. Whereas the relative lack of shot variation in the Jurassic park scene and longer takes builds a sense of gradualism. The gradualism of the amazing spectical dawning in the consciousness of first one archaeologist and then his partner. The gradualism of the brachiosaures

Thursday 13 November 2014

Multiple points of view

What is it:
Multiple points of view (MPOV) is when a number of different camera angels used to film a single event. The difference between 'following the action' and 'multiple points of view' is in the latter we are usually following that single event. This helps the audience see a bigger picture and helps them understand fully what is going on and it also makes it more dynamic to watch. This method could also be used to trick the audience into thinking something completely different to what was actually happening. Without seeing the whole picture it gives us different impressions.

Here are some examples


In this example I think that MPOV is used here to show all the different things this individual is doing and to make it more interesting for the audience to watch.



This example shows us everything this person is doing so the audience doesn't miss out on anything that does happen. This is also to make sure if anything interesting happens, it is shot on camera.


 This example shows how at different angles can change the audiences views completely. It shows us 3 examples of how at different angles can give us different opinions.

Following The Action

What is it: 
The phrasal term 'Follow The Action' is where where the filmmaker follows all the movements that the character is making when they move from location to location. There will normally be more than one camera shooting the action in the various locations. This provides the editor with a range of footage to choose from when the entire sequence is being put together. The editor will  switch between camera angels depending what the actor/subject is doing. This effect usually gives more depth to what you are watching instead of just watching one camera action all the way through.The shot variation enables the editor to combine shots to conserve continuity. The audience feel like they are seeing all the action that is happening all at once which makes it more exciting to watch.The different shots could be panning, over the shoulder, close ups, mid shots and establishing shots.

Here are some examples of follow the action shots:



Wednesday 5 November 2014

In Camera Editing

What is it: 
The phrase 'In-camera editing' refers to the process of editing a sequence inside the camera
 after shooting by pausing the recording between shots at precise points so that no cutting is required afterwards. The cinematographer shoots the sequences in a certain way instead. So there is no editing after shooting because it would have already been done while shooting.
The whole process takes a lot of planning so that everything is in order and organised when it comes to shooting and presenting it.


Pros:
The technique is good because it reduces the cost of the production. When the cost of film was a significant fraction of the budget, film makes would use this technique to maximize the film usage.
Another thing is technique is good for will be saving time, even though you might take longer to plan the film, once you have finished shooting there is nothing else to do but present it.
This technique is also useful to those who's editing skills are not as good as their shooting skills.

Cons:
This technique involves a lot of multi tasking since you are doing two things at once

How to do it: 
In camera editing is not really editing at all, instead it refers to the process of shooting your film sequentially so that each shot is in order, and at whatever the length you finished shooting will be the length of your finished film.




Learning intentions

For this unit my three learning intentions will be to understand the development and principles of editing, the purposes of editing and the conventions and techniques of editing. These 3 targets will help me complete this unit. This unit will help me understand the moving image post production process, this will also teach me how my work can affect the final outcome of a production.