MY LAST POST .......(for little while)

I have finished this section of my blog and we will be doing other work for a while. Dont worry though, will be coming back soon :)

Prelim Task: Video

Prelim Task: Evaluation

1) Who did you work with? and how did you
manage the tasks between yourselfs?


I worked with Nico Socratous and Jeng Au. Our planning and development was done as a group, with each of us jus filling in some written, for example Jeng wrote down the script and i filled in the technical for the storyboard. The two actors in the sequence were Nico and Myself, naturally this meant that jeng did the majority of the camera work, but when one of us wasnt in a shot we made sure that we shared out practical roles so that we all had a chance to Direct, Film or do Sound.


2) How did you plan your sequence? What
processes did you use? What theories did you try and take into account?


First of we brainstormed, which led us to an initial idea of it being serious/borderline thriller. Then Nico and myself spoke it through as if it was a real conversation, in order to get ideas for natural sounding lines. We then wrote down a script and made various adjustments as we went along.We then drew up a rough story board which was altered during the process. Our next step was to block through the movement, after this we blocked through as many possible different shots we could take. Our main priority was to block through a master shot that was natural. We then wrote down a shot list of all the shots we needed. Our main priority was to achieve narrative flow and continuity, whilst including all the shots like shot reverse shot match on action and keeping to the 180 degree rule.


3) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it? 

• Camera - Canon Legria HV40 - We mainly used this on the tripod, but had a few handheld shots, we had all the standard auto settings on and used the zoom aswell
• Boom Mic - We decided to use a boom mic as we were getting noise from the camera on our shot gun mic, also it meant the sound could be louder and clearer even if the camera was far away. we had to use the boom like a stand sometimes, because when two of us were acting we only have one person on a camera so we set the mic up like a stand
• Tripod - used it to keep the camera steady, loosen for pan and tilts. we could change the height to get different view points
• Edit suites - Adobe Premier Pro CS3, we had to capture and cut our shots. We used razor and arrow tools. I added a title and some fades, I also had to cut and time some sound, as some sound clips were no suitable.

4) What factors did you have to take into account when Planning, Shooting and Editing?


Planning: when planning we had to ensure the we kept to the brief. We also had to make sure that with the stuff we had planned, we could achieve and finish it in a reasonably short time period. Another main concern was that we had planned sufficiently, so that when it came to shooting and editing, it should all run reasonably smoothly.

Shooting: We had to make sure that framing was appropriate and aesthetically pleasing. We had to film for editing, in other words, shooting a shot in a way that made it easiest to edit, rather than shooting some shots then getting into post-production and then having to spend ages getting a cut right because you  didn't leave enough roll on for example. We also had to check the sound was working, we had a problem with this because our first mic just wasn't working at all.
Editing: When capturing you have to make sure that you leave enough roll on to cut clips precisely. Also when capturing you have to watch each clip back, because some times we had "recording errors" which meant it didn't capture the clip. You have to make sure shots don't linger too long. Our main concern when editing was to achieve continuity and narrative flow, we had to avoid continuity errors as much as possible.


5) How successful was your sequence? What worked well,and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?

I would say my piece was fairly successful, I believe that I fully achieved continuity and narrative flow. There were one or two continuity prop/actor errors, but to avoid this next time, we will check the whole set and actors previous positions before every shot and match them with chronologically previous shots.

It would have been helpful if we had planned quicker and more thoroughly to allow more time for production and post production as our group felt a bit rushed for time.

One of our best shots was one where my character slides a photo across a table and the camera pans with it, it looks really good because it is very smooth and framed pretty much perfectly.

We made sure that during dialogue shots we kept to the 180 and 30 degree rule.

Our lighting was quite dark, but because we had the camera on auto settings it tried to balance it and all our colours came out very dull.


Another successful shot was the match on action of Nico hitting the table on the way out of the room.


In the future I would really like to try some SFX with Adobe After Effects or something along that line as being able to do some graphical effects can come in very useful even if those effects are jus used to repair or change a clip very slightly.

6) What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your coursework?


I learnt that planning is one of the most important things to do thoroughly. this means making sure the tiny details and all the ins and outs of your plan are as foolproof as you can possibly make them, so that in the situation where a problem does occur, you have the most organised way to deal/ work around it. Also planning properly in advance make everything easier, it means having to make less desicions as they were all made previously with good judgement rather than in the heat of the moment pressure desicions where you might not be thinking straight or about everything else and it could cause more problems.


I have also learnt if you want to have certain lighting that isnt just regular main and fill or natural light, you need to have time to play around with lights until you are happy. It is also a good idea to know what you can do in post production before you start because it might be easier, for example, to shoot in the day but put a filter on in editing to make it look like the evening.

Prelim Task: Evidence 2

This is a more updated piece of evidence, it is the storyboard with the technical details written in.
Link to Evidence Documents on Scribd

Prelim Task: Evidence

There are three pages of evidence here, the storyboard is just a sample.Link to Evidence on Scribd

Opening Sequence Genre Analysis

The film clip I am going to analyse is from 'The Dark Knight'

1) Identify the genre.
The genre is Action and Adventure


2) Who are the main characters?


The main characters at the moment are the masked robbers and the man who tries to fight back. Once all the clowns have killed each other there is one remaining, this is probably the second biggest character in the whole film. He is called the Joker. He is the main villain behind everything bad in this film


3) How has narrative been constructed?


Narrative has been constructed by having all the different parts of the plan that happen at the same time being being cross cut or cross edited to show that these various tasks are happening simultaneously. Also as of yet, we have not any hero, we have only seen evil.


4) What is the key iconography and how does it signify the genre?

•  A bank robbery for starters is a key point in a lot of A&A films
• The robbers are wearing masks
• They have a specialised man on the team for each job, like disabling the alarm
• Sliding from one building to the other on a pipeline
• They all have guns

5) Identify the audience pleasures/expectations.

• Get a pleasure from trying to work out why all the robbers are killing each other
• After seeing that the Joker planned for them all to kill each other so he could have all the money the audience expects him to be a twisted and cruel person.
• Also, having seen how the plan all fitted together perfectly, the audience will expect more, bigger and more complex crimes

Continuity Clip analysis

I will be analysing a clip from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

The clip starts off with an establishing tilt of the building, this helps to start narrative flow so the audience know where the action is taking place. This is followed by what starts as a long shot with the car moving into space, but then turns into a pan as the car drives pass, this creates the effect that makes the audience feel like a person/bystander on the pavement witnessing this as he drives past. We then see his his reckless driving swerving from side to side and then we get a reaction shot of two men looking at what appears to be awful driving. He then makes a very smooth hand brake turn/ hand brake park. We then have a very big jump in framing from the whole car to his head and shoulders, but it works because when he says "like a glove" it gives him a cocky bigheaded demeanour. going from the parking of the car to his dialogue is a shot reverse shot, used effectively to jump to the most important information, the dialogue.

Barthes Codes Analysis

I will be analysing the opening sequence from Wall-E

Hermeneutic Code (Enigma)

• Flying through "ghost planet"
• Looks like a post apocalyptic earth
• Little cockroach still alive

Proairetic code (Action)

• No real action takes place
• He compresses a metal cube, then takes it to a big pile
• Cockroach pops out and follows him

 Connotative [or Semic] code

• Audience could assume that maybe due to human behaviour of littering and wasting energy and releasing CO2 emissions that we destroyed the earth and made ourselves extinct, connotations such as:
• Cockroach surviving always been the animal that can survive
• Absolute wasteland
• Robot clearing it up

Cultural or referential code

• Very tall skyscrapers, would normally make us think, bust town centre lots of people, very fast pace
• We also see everything is rusted which as we know is a process that takes time
• We know its set in the future because robots to that level have not been created or commercialised yet
  

Symbolic code (and Binary Opposites)

• The Opposites Wall-E and the Cockroach, there relationship will grow to be very important to the story line.
• As we fly to the planet we see wind powered electrical generators, these are almost opposite to Wall-E in the way that they are both trying to achieve the same goal, but the generators have been around since humans inhabited that planet.

Continuity Clip analysis

The clip starts off with an establishing tilt of the building, this helps to start narrative flow so the audience know where the action is taking place. This is followed by what starts as a long shot with the car moving into space, but then turns into a pan as the car drives pass, this creates the effect that makes the audience feel like a person/bystander on the pavement witnessing this as he drives past. We then see his his reckless driving swerving from side to side and then we get a reaction shot of two men looking at what appears to be awful driving. He then makes a very smooth hand brake turn/ hand brake park. We then have a very big jump in framing from the whole car to his head and shoulders, but it works because when he says "like a glove" it gives him a cocky bigheaded demeanour.

Film Poster Analysis

I have chosen the film 'Stomp the Yard' for poste analysis.

Genre Conventions of Dance Action/Drama

• Firstly and most obvious in the foreground, the main figure in a one handed freeze
• The foreground and background shots are both action shots. They are both caught in the pose of a dance move.
• Having the foreground image as a silhouette in a dance pose is quite typical, another example of this was Michael Jacksons 'This is it'
• The background looks like two dance crews having a dance battle with an audience in the background. In other words it shows there will be a competition, which is very typical of dance films.
• The font of the words 'STOMP THE YARD' almost looks slightly dirty, the 'S' is definitely a slight dirty grey next to other letters

Connotations/Denotations/Iconography

• The flood lights and the fact that the whole image is slightly blue tinted gives the mise-en-scene an underground feel.
• Also the graffiti at the top give a sense of urban underground
• As I pointed out before the silhouette of the dance pose is quite an iconographic feature for dance films
• The lighting overall is quite dark which could connote that the film itself might have some darker themes (which it does)
• There is also a subtle cliche in the image, which is effectively 'light at the end of the tunnel', which almost is a rough narrative of the film
• The very grainy and blurry, almost scratched effect of the poster again gives the poster a feeling of having 'come from the streets' or 'downtown'

Audience Pleasures

• Seeing an impressive dance move/pose, which they probably would not see often or have maybe not seen at all
• Maybe a relation to the poster if people dance or if they feel like they 'come from the streets'
• Or the opposite of above for people who are neither, its like an escapism into the world of underground dance
• I also feel that the poster gives off an impression of passion and aggression which can be fasinating for audiences

Image and Shot Type Analysis for Genre

This photograph is a foreground ECU (Extreme Close-Up) and in the background it is a MS (Mid Shot). I had a low apeture which gave the photo a shallow DOP (Depth Of Field). The genre I was trying to portray in this hsot was thriller/crime scene action. The idea of the shot is that the Anna Cardy (foreground), the protagonist is directly addressing the camera. This makes her seem agressive (in a good way) like she is keen on solving some sort of mystery. The idea of the mystery comes from the fact that Jeng Au (background) is blurred, which connotes that the protagonist doesnt know who she is and enigmatic. This shot is almost a reverse over the shoulder shot. I wanted to have her eye in focus because it acts as a sharp focus point. I also used the rules of thirds, with Anna's eye being on the first/second third divider and Jeng being on the second/third third divider going from left to right. I decided not to give the audience any idea of setting or time period.

I think this shot worked well and showed the genre codes and conventions of thriller/crime well. If I were to retake the shot I would frame it closer into the eye, to have a really sharp piercing effect. I would also maybe leave some space for text if it were to be editied into a poster or opening title. I would also use artificial lighting but have the whole image darker. I would probably use a 300watt strobe light with a honeycomb/candlelight grid probably a 30 degree one. I would also use an orange tinted fill light to illuminate the background character.

Practise Continuity Sequence

 Describe the sequence you planned to create and identify the 6 shots you used.


We planned to make a continuity sequence whereby a boy running down a corridor attempts to run out the door, but fails to do so and its the glass door as it is locked. 
Our six shots were:

• Long Shot, with a pan
• Long Shot-Medium-Closeup-Medium, 180 degree tilt and 180 degree twist
• Medium Long Shot
• Medium Shot
• Medium Long Shot 
• Medium Shot

 In order to create a sequence that made sense, what did you actually have to do during production?

We had to make sure our piece had a good narrative flow. We also made our story simple as it would have been very hard to have a complex story line, 6 shots and try to have the audience in complete understanding first time. We made sure that we didn't have any jumping camera distances. Timing was very important because if the timing is out for a particular action, it can come across as a purposeful fail at that action.

 What was your specific contribution to the activity?

I was the actor and stunt artist for the film. I also came up with some of the original ideas for the storyline and had input in to shot types, timing, camera movement etc

 Does your sequence work? ie does it make sense?

I believe a first time viewer watching the sequence would fully grasp the narrative. Our only 'failed' part of the sequence was the 5th shot which due to on camera timing errors does not flow, but overall yes, I believe the sequence does work.

 What improvements could you make?

Apart from making shot 5 longer and timing it right with the last shot, i would only make one change. I would have liked to take a shot from indoors of me about to turn into the door so that when we have the shot from the outside (of me slamming into the door) we would get a match-on-action/ shot-reverse-shot effect. This would help the viewer be spatially aware of where the character is.

Opening Sequence Research

Functions of Opening Sequence

• Recap Stars of film
• Set Audience Expectation
• Create mood/atmosphere for opening of film or to set a subconscious mood for main action of film
• Give an idea of location/setting
• Create character and plot enigma and introduce film genre/characters

Conventions

• Graphics
• Titles
• Establishing shots/ enigma creating shots (hard to understand shots, until key later on in film explains them)
• Music

Dawn Of The Dead, The Walking Dead and Zombieland, Differences and Similarities

• All include zombies in the title sequence to set audience expectation of a zombie film
• Only Zombieland has narration, this is to give a more comic/instructional effect
• The Walking Dead is all graphics, fully computer generated titles, maybe to give the audience the feel that this is not a realist film but a story to be observed from the outside
• Dawn Of The Dead however gives a "Blair witch project" feel, in that the footage is from people within the story i.e a news reporter being attacked by a zombie
• The pace of The Walking Dead and Zombieland are quite similar, they both have reasonably long time spanning shots, so the audience can look at all the details. On the other hand, Dawn Of The Dead is very fast pace and quick cut editing, this is to give the audience the same disorientation and feeling things happening quickly without warning that the characters within the film would have.
• The Walking Dead and Dawn Of The Dead use the colour red extensively to the point where a lot of the shots have a red hue and background, whereas in Zombieland the colour red is used for blood and titles, but to give the titles a modern feel, the picture is very high quality and rather than getting an overall blur of red, you get a variation of lots of very sharp colours.

Homework comments BLK

Raef, your blog should be fully up to date, so I can read your homework and assess your progress. Please sort this out immediately to avoid a referral. I will check again before Monday's lesson. I am expecting to see a blog with all the agreed design features, plus your photo and reflections post.