Friday 30 November 2012

Editing Techniques and Shots.

Editing is the stage in the film-making process that sound and images are organised into an overall narrative.

Continuity Editing is the most common type, it's aim is to create reality and time moving forward, this technique does not draw attention to the editing process and does not stand out of place in the film. The camera has to apply the 180 degree rule to make sure there is continuity in the film, the camera must chose which side they are going to film on and stay at that side they cannot pass the line as it will not naturally continue as characters will appear to have moved opposite places. The only time the camera can break the 180 degree line is when the camera does not cute and continues filming round the scene showing the audience that the camera is moving.

Cross Cutting is an editing technique of alternating or interweaving one action scence, sequence or event with another. This is commonly used when two different people are in two different locations being shown on screen one after each other which shows their parallel actions that are taking place at the same time. This technique builds up tension or suspense in chasing scenes. The most famous example is Godfather of cross-cutting occurs when Michael Corleone stands up at his nephew's baptism. While he is vowing to renounce Satan all the rival mafia bosses are getting offed, we presume, under Michael Corleone's orders. These two scenes are interwoven, contrasting Michael's supposed religious devotion with his ruthless killing of several men (and one mistress).

Freeze Frame is a technique that we may use. This technique is done to allow the audience's attention to only be on one specific person or event. This is a freeze frame from the film "Goodfellas" It stops in mid-action to allow all the audience's attention to focus on this action and the one character. Some films apply this technique in film endings as it is a good way to finish a film, like for example in 'Against All Odds'. It ends with a freeze-frame which shows the emotion in that conclusion.

Using different shots depends in the way you use your camera, we have made a short video on how to set up and put away a tripod without damaging the tripod or the camera before and after filming.

Tuesday 27 November 2012

Methods of Marketing

Below are some videos that are linked to the above slides.

TRAILERS

CAST INTERVIEWS

BEHIND THE SCENES DOCUMENTARIES/ADDITIONAL FOOTAGE

TV ADVERTS

TV Adverts like the ones I have picked out below usually build up suspense and momentum by capturing particularly exciting, explosive, or emotional moments in the plot. This is intended to intrigue the audience into wanting to watch the film when it comes out.

Monday 26 November 2012

Research into different types of Editing

Editing is the stage in the film-making process that sound and images are organised into an overall narrative.

Monday 19 November 2012

List of difficult shots

Pulling focus - this shot could be difficult because we want to shift the focus from the character in the foreground, to the prop (mobile phone) in the background. This is not an easy shot, and will take plenty of practise. Below is an example of the kind of end result we are aiming for:

Quick shots - At one point in the film, the main character drops her phone, picks it up, puts it in her pocket and then the second character takes it out. We need to film this so that the action is quick and very smooth. Again this might take some practise, though we may be able to achieve this in the editing process. Below is an example of fast and slow editing:

CU of prop - twice in our film the main character looks at some texts on her phone. This might be difficult for us to do because quite often the CU shot can look blurred and out of focus, or maybe because of the light from the phone, the shot can look too bright. In order for us to be able to do this easily we will practise using CUs of a mobile phone, and may have to adjust the lighting or focus to make sure the shot is of as good a quality as every other shot.

There are a few 'Tricky Shots' that we are going to shoot in our film, one of the most important shots is filming the female character Jodie taking the main characters phone without the audience seeing this action taking place. We also need to think about when we re-shoot the scene from the opposite angle, what angel would be best to capture the theft taking place. For example deciding which pocket would be easiest to put the phone in and take it away such as a coat or jean pocket or if it would be easier for her to put it in her bag. Todays lesson we are going to take practise shots of different places the phone could be put in and easily taken out, also we are going to try different shots that we could use such as close up, canted angle, over the shoulder.

This is our finished and edited video of practising difficult shots.

Sound and Sound Effects Research

There are three purpose's to why sound effects are added to films.

Simulating reality to the audience.
To create an illusion.
To set the mood of the scene or type of film to the audience.

Creating reality to the audience allows objects to become real and make scenes that are set up seem real. For example, in film's props are often fake but given the right sound effect to match when filming, it appears to the audience that it is real. An example of a film that uses this is The Grinch, He smashes a fake bottle and eats it. It appears real because the actual sound of a real bottle smashing that has been imported added at the same time of the actor doing the action makes it real. Click here to watch the scene

Sound creates illusion to the audience because it allows the audience to hear what is happening even if they don't see it. An illusion often created is the sound of someone opening the door shutting it off camera then the character walking on to the scene. The sound effects of a car driving and parking, a door shutting, keys jangling, footsteps and the sound of a door opening and shutting creates the illusion to the audience that someone has drove their car onto the drive, parked up and walked into the room where they are filming without the need of proof of actually seeing this with their own eyes.

Sound is also used to set the scene, this is usually used in Horror or Thriller type films which creates suspense to the audience as the music makes them tense as they are aware the dark music is going to lead to something bad happening. The famous film using this successfully is Jaws. They could be shooting an innocent scene in the water, such as children playing ball games in the water, once the famous theme tune plays, the audience instantly know that the shark is coming and about to attack which effects the audience, this is unrestricted range which creates alot of tension because the audience know that there is going to be an attack but the characters are completely unaware of it.

We are going to add synchronous sound effects to our film to make them more effective and add the sense of realism to the audience. We are going to use a mixture of methods to get the sounds that we want, we are going to record some sounds ourselves using a H4 pocket-size Multi-Track Audio Recorder, we will then import them onto our film.

We are also going to find sounds from non-copyright websites. This is an example of one of the website i found the sound of 'footsteps'. This sound is perfect one particular scene- 'going upstairs and entering her room'. The only disadvantage with using the internet is that there are limited sounds as there are many that do not apply to our film. I have downloaded the one most suitable for our film and will apply to our film when editing.

Here is a list of Copyright free music/sound effects websites that i have searched on and have been found useful sounds for our film:

www.freesound.org

www.jamendo.com

www.freemusicarchive.org

www.proudmusiclibrary.com

We would like background music in our introduction when our character is writing the title and have been using the internet to find some music that fit what we would like.
One of our idea's of the type of music to use in the introduction is something previously used in the film Twilight, The New Moon. It is simple but shows the tone of the film to the audience right at the start. We want to use background music to add emotion and rhythm to our film, which enables the audience to understand the tone and mood of our film which allows them to already have an emotional attitude towards our story.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

Copyright Laws

What is Copyright?

Copyright gives the creators of some types of media rights to control how they're used and distributed. This means whatever content the author created cannot be used or published by anyone else without the consent of the author. The length of copyright protection may vary from country to country, but it usually lasts for the life of the author plus 50 to 100 years.

Many different types of content can be protected by copyright. Examples include books, poems, plays, songs, films, and artwork. In modern times, copyright protection has been extended to websites and other online content. Therefore, any original content published on the Web is protected by copyright law. This is important in the digital age we live in, since large amounts of content can be easily copied and pasted.

Click here to see the definition

Copyright law

Limitations imposed by copyright
When you buy software, for example, copyright law forbids you from: giving a copy to a friend making a copy and then selling it using the sotware on a network (unless the licence allows it) renting the software without the permission of the copyright holder