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.
Thursday 18 December 2014
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
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.
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.
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
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,
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,
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