Discussion of appropriate technical competencies: Part 2

Holding a shot steady- An important part of film making is making sure that the camera is steady and the camera movement is smooth, using a tripod allows you to get steady shot of what you are filming, when making a film it is important to avoid jerkey movements as this can put the auidence off the film although this only depends on what type of film your making.
There are many different ways of holding a shot steady one way is to use a tripod with a panning arm, the further away you stand from the arm the smoother the movement will be.

You can get smooth camera movements without using a tripod but again the technique needs to be correct.

http://www.jiscdigitalmedia.ac.uk/movingimages/advice/basic-guide-to-shooting-video/


In our opening-

• We were able to get steady shots by using the tripod when we were filming scenes from outside Hayley's house.

Editing

Straight Cuts- One shot moves instantaneously to the next wihout attracting the audiences attention, this helps retain reality and is the most common and invisible form of transition.


Jump Cuts- This is a cut in film editing where two sequential shots of the same subject are taken from camera positions that vary slightly. This makes the character in the shots appear to have jumped position.



Cross-cutting- This is an editing technique that is most often used to establish action that is occuring at the same time in two different locations.
An example of this can be seen here: http://www.tcf.ua.edu/Classes/Jbutler/T112/Lonedale2/index.htm


Fast-cutting- This is an editing technique which is several consecutive shots of a brief duration, this type of editing can be used to convey a lot of information very quickly often conveying chaos.


Slow-cutting- This is an editing technique where shots are used of long duration.



Used varied shot transitions

Dissolve- A dissolve is a gradual transition from one image to another.

Fade Out- This is when a image gradually darkens.

Wipe- This is a gradual transition form one image to another, where one image is replaced by another by a distinct edge that forms a shape.

Using sound with images

Contrapuntal sound- This is where sound does not fit the image, such as a happy family on the beach and a sad song is playing.

Parallel Sound- This is where the sound fit the image, such as a happy family on the beach and an upbeat song is playing.

My Thriller Montage

Discussion of appropriate technical competencies

Using a variety of shot distances

Mid-shots- These enable us to see more of the body and the set, but still be close enough to see facial expressions. Below you can see examples of mid-shots from Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca and The Birds.



Close-Ups- These show the expression and the emotion of a character in detail. Below you can see examples of close-ups from Robert Schwentke's Flighplan and Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie.

Extreme Close-Up- This is a very tight shot menaing that only a small part of the shot is the main focus. Below you can see examples from Alfred Hitchcock's Pyscho and Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

Long Shots- These show us the complete setting and where the action is or will be taking place.


Extreme Long Shot- These show us the complete setting and where the action is or will be taking place.






Mise-En-Scene

Mise-en-Scéne is a French term meaning 'what is put into the scene or frame'. Mise-en-Scene includes things such as:

Settings & Props- Setting is important as this is where the action will be taking place, it can also be used to manipulate the audience by building certain expectations. A prop is anything that is used or held by an actor for the use in furthering the story line or plot.
In our opening-

• A Bathroom
• Bath
  
• Bedroom
• Bed
• Hayley's House
• Hayley's Garden
  

Costume & Make-Up- Costume is important as it can be an instant indicator to the audience of what a character's personality or job etc. is. Make-up is important as it is used to highlight facial features.
In our opening-

• Towel
• Pyjamas
  

Facial Expressions & Body Language- Thses are very important when it comes to making a film good facial expression and body lanuguage can help convey certain emotions to the audience and good facial and body language can makie a character more interesting to the audience.
In our opening-

• Hayley uses a number of different facial expressions and different types of body movemnets to help create the effect that she is being traumatised by her past.
  

Lighting & Colour- Lighting is important as it make a particular scene look realistic or make it look more dramatic, the lighting for our opening scene was quite dark to give the opening scene darker feel.

Finished Opening Sequence of Our Thriller

This is the finished opening sequence 2 mins of our thriller, after a whole day of filming and just under a week of editing and this is the final product and I hope you enjoy it.

Editing Friday 26th March - Wednesday 31st March

The editing for our Thriller was done by myself and began on Friday 26th March, this was the day after all the filming had been finished. The first thing we did was to upload all the footage that we had onto iMovie then from every clip we had imported we had to cut out all the extra clips inbetween, which included footage of an Elvis impersonator.

We then began editing the clips in the order that we wanted them to appear, we started with the shots that were taken outside of the house and Hayley's sister, after this we began editing the part of the open

ing with Hayley in the bath, then the ending with Hayley seeing her sister, falling onto her bed and the flashbacks. After the each scene had been edited to flow with the next we began including transitions and effects to make the flow of the film even better, cross-dissovles were used to show short passages of time without having to show them to the audience and fades were used to show both the starting and the ending of the opening sequence.

We used a black and white effect on all of our flashback shot to show the audience that they have gone back to the past.

After we had completed the editing we went through the opening sequence with our teachers to see what they thought of it and what things they think should be included, they told us what they liked and disliked about the sequence and also what transitions and effects should be added and taken away.

Changes to Animatic video

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Changes made to our Animatic

As our thriller must be a minimum of 2 mins long when filming began we added a few more scenes and shots into the middle of the storyboard.

Instead of starting the beginning of the film going ny going straight to Hayley being in the bath we deceide to have some shots from outside Hayley's house and also a few shots of Hayley's sister outside. The scenes of Hayley in the bath we have left the same as on the storyboard but after Hayley gets out of the bath we added in the next scene where Hayley and her sister are staring at each other, we decided to add this scene to make it seem as if Hayley has seen a ghost of her past she then we then also have shots of Hayley walking past her sister and a few of a picture of death. The storyboard then goes back to how it was planned with Hayley falling back onto the bed and having another flashback.

We decided to add this section in the middle of the opening as sit would make the opening longer and it would also make it mire dramatic to try and get the audience to ask questions such as, "Who is that girl?", "Why is she seeing her?". By adding these scenes in we have also added three Thriller conventions, tension, mystery and suspense.