Prelim Task Part 2

In the second part of of our prelim project we had to edit the footage that we shot in the studio the week before. We used adobe premier to edit our footage beginning with a wide shot establishing the location and the characters and their positioning within it. We then cut to a mid shot 'B' walking in and confronting 'A'. We lengthened the shot duration on 'A' giving her more screen time allowing the audience to associate themselves and sympathise with her more than with 'B'.

Whilst we were editing, one our teachers stopped us and reminded us that we should be editing the narrative and meaning of the film not just putting the shots that 'look cool' in. We then started to spend more time looking at a variety of shots before we edited them in to see which one would serve the narrative best and also suit the characters more. We wanted person 'B' to seem inferior to 'A' so we experimented with our high angle shots trying to see which shot would convey this to the
audience most.

One of the issues that we had was with our actresses and the lines they had to recite. As, we didn't have a lot of time, the actresses had to learn their lines very quickly and unfortunately we had to cut some shots early because they forgot lines. We decided to write the lines on a piece of paper and stick it to the wall behind person 'B' so that she could read the liens if she forgot them. However, when we were editing we noticed that you can see her eyes moving on and off the paper trying to remember her lines and we didn't want the audience to notice because to would distract from the realism we were meant to be creating. We managed to find some shots where she doesn't look at the paper at all so we used them but we often had to cut them slightly earlier than we wanted. If we had the chance to repeat the task then I would hope to give the actresses their scripts earlier and filmed more shots rather than having to rush.

Another issue that we had when editing was that we forgot the most important rule of all whilst editing, to save. Half way through our editing, the computer crashed resting in the loss of some of our work. When we got our computer back and running we realised that luckily we hadn't lost too much but it opened our eyes to the importance of editing because we could have lost all our work and if that happens with our thriller then it might have bad consequences.

Something that I really enjoyed with the editing was experimenting with shot durations and how that can effect how the audience perceive characters. In one edit we showed a lot more or person 'A' making her seem dominant and subconsciously causing the audience to associate themselves with her more than 'B'. In our other edit, we added a lot of reaction shots of person 'B' allowing the audience to sympathise with her more than 'A' and made 'A' seem like the antagonist. It was interesting to see that the person with the most screen time always seemed more important.

One of the conventions of thriller as a genre is fast paced editing so when it comes to creating our thriller we will have to make quite fast and short cuts to ensure that we acknowledge the typical elements within thrillers. In the prelim task, the scene was quite slow paced even though the scene was quite tense, so it may also be interesting to play around with shot duration and see if longer shots and occasional slow paced editing creates more tension than the typical past pace of thrillers.

When filming our prelim task I felt quite limited because we had to priorities the shots on the starboard leaving us less time to experiment with different shot types. When filming our thriller it will be different because we don't have the safety of a pre made story board, we'll have to create it ourselves allowing us to have the freedom to experiment with a range of shots. I think the editing for the thriller will be a lot harder than the prelim task because we will have to consolidate a soundtrack and other sound into it and overall it will be a lot longer. Every shot will have to be selected specifically to justify the codes and conventions of the thriller genre and will also have to create an idea as to what the entire film narrative would be. It will be hard but one thing that the prelim task showed me was that as a group we know everything we need to and are ready to try something more challenging.

Prelim Task Part 1

At the beginning of the lesson, we were put into groups of four and assigned a filming space. I was put in a group with Harry Gale, Daisy Jelley and Harriet Goodall and we filmed our prelim project in the filming studio. We were given a camera, a tripod, a storyboard and one hour to film a scene between two people, ‘A’ and ‘B’ where ‘A’ is demanding ‘B’ to do something. The first thing we did was give our actresses copies of the script which they had to learn very quickly. As soon as we could be set up our camera and tripod for our first shot, the wide shot. Before filming however, we did a few run throughs of the dialogue and made sure that we put markers on the floor of the set to ensure that

our actresses stand in the same places in each shot for continuity and to make sure they'll be where we want them to be in the frame of each different angle we did. The last thing we did before rolling was focus the camera by zooming in, focusing and then zooming out. Before every shot we made sure we utilised the ‘standby’, ‘roll camera’, ‘camera rolling’, ‘action’ and ‘cut’ rules that we learnt in our camera workshops. This helped everyone get focused before and made sure we got every shot we needed efficiently as well as making sure we got everything we wanted out of the shots by not starting the scene too early and missing out dialogue and cutting too early. We filmed for just under an hour and experimented with a variety of shots such as wide angles, over the shoulder shots, two shots, close ups, extreme close ups and high angles, doing as many shots as we could would allow us more flexibility when editing and would allow us to experiment with a range of shots not just the ones required.

I think the main problem we had was at the beginning with focusing the camera. We ran

the scene a couple of times before filming so that we knew where to put our markers as well as to allow the actresses to practise. However, the girl playing ‘A’ kept walking to different places making it hard to decide where to put the marker. Eventually we decided the best place to mark her so that she was well lit and focused before filming.

If I was able to do the task again, I would have wanted to spend more time on the shots that weren't required, the more experimental shots like the high angle. We wanted person ‘A’ to seem inferior to ‘B’ by using a high angle but because we didn't have a lot of time we were limited. I would have also liked to have given the actresses their scripts earlier to allow them to learn their lines quicker and under less pressure because of the time restraint. One of our actresses struggled so we ended up writing her lines on a piece of paper and hanging on the wall above ‘B’s’ head. This was a slight issue because it would mean that in some of the shots, you could see her eyes flocking from the script back to the actress which was very unnatural. However, the close ups were the last shots that we did and were the shots where this would have caused a problem but because we

did them last, our actress had managed to learn her lines so she didn't need the script anymore. Overall, I think the shoot went well, we set the camera up correctly and made sure we were happy with the brightness and other settings on the camera so that in post-production we wouldn't have to edit it.

When it comes to filming our thriller, I will definitely make sure that the actors get given their scripts before the filming to make it seem as naturalistic as possible. I would also consider the location more as the location that we had for filming this short scene was fine but it may not be suitable for other narratives.

Notes: Thriller

Thriller Hybrids:

Action Thrillers:

Are films packed with action and get you on the edge of your seat, they aim to keep you entertained with pyrotechnics, tense story lines and a either a twist or cliff-hanger.

Romantic Thrillers: 

Are films that provide moments of uncomfortable suspense and a heightened feelings of anxiety alongside moments of delight and pleasure.

Comedic Thrillers: 

Are films that are often considered 'easier' to watch then other thriller hybrids mainly because the comedic element lightens the narrative and distracts from the suspense going the audience breaks.

Science Fiction Thrillers: 

Are films that play with the action element associated with science fiction films but are a lot more immersive as suspense is utilized a lot to create more jeopardy for the characters putting the audience on edge.

Thriller sub genres:

Crime/Spy/Espionage  Thrillers: 

Use a criminal or a catastrophic event to create tension as well as involving a complex investigation that constructs plot twists and surprises for the audience keeping them on edge.

Disaster Thrillers:

Presents a world jeopardizing event that typically only a small group of people van stop.The film would follow the progress of the group and see how the world is nearly destroyed. The pace would increase as the films progresses. 

Forensic Thriller:

Similar to crime thrillers, forensic thrillers follow the actions of a criminal or a criminal act. all the time trying to identify the criminal.

Political Thriller:

Often take real political events and bring them to life on screen,. The jeopardy for the characters is often very high as it is usually those in high status positions who's lives are put in danger. This sub genre is quite similar to disaster thrillers because the threatening of those i power could lead to global catastrophic i.e nuclear war.

Psychological Thriller

Plays around with the audiences emotions and tries to disturb them and use suspense and tension to make them very paranoid. 

Survivalist Thriller

Usually explores the idea of isolation making the audience very paranoid and defensive. Audience member s often develop a strong connection with the character as they feel very empathetic and scared for them. 

Notes: Genre

Genre: the style and category that a film falls into

Thriller: a genre characterised and defined by the moods the elicit, giving the audience a
             heightened feeling of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety.
             The aim for Thrillers is to keep the audience alert and on the edge of their seats.
             The protagonist in these films is set against a problem – an escape, a mission, or
              a mystery.

Sub Genre: a more specific genre that wouldn't work on its own without the main genre

Hybrid: when to main genres a fused together e.g. comedic horror

Connotation: things we associate with particular genres

Editing Workshop

The software that we use for our editing is Adobe Premiere which is a practical and applicable software rouse. However, like any software, one of the golden rules is to always make sure you save your work, mainly so that you don’t loose your footage and also so that you can access it from any computer in the editing studio. To save your work there is the normal way buy pressing file and save but you can also save by pressing the command (cmd) and ’s’ key on the keyboard.

There are some key terms when i comes to editing, these include footage, rushes, daily’s and timeline. The ‘footage’ in film is the action that you shot and will eventually cut and edit together to make your film. ‘Rushes’ or ‘daily’s’ are film production terms used to describe the raw footage from a day's shooting. ‘Timeline is the term is the interface which enables editors to see all their edited footage on the monitor.

The ‘cutting’ tool or ‘razor’ is the tool we use in editing to cut footage by specific frames so that no shot is longer or shorter than necessary. The short cut for the cutting tool is ‘command c’ on an Apple keyboard. After using a tool such as the razor, there is a short cut when going back to the default ‘arrow’ and that is by pressing ‘command v’.

In and out points are the points in which you begin and end a shot. When choosing your footage you can press ‘i’ for ‘in’ and you would have trimmed the beginning, to trim the end you press ‘o’ for ‘out’. After doing this, you would drag the footage onto the timeline.

When editing it is often quite hard to find the best frame in which to cut. To make it easier you can press ‘+’ to zoom in enabling you to be more precise. If you want to zoom out to see all the footage on the timeline you press ‘-‘. Another short cut is ‘command z’. This short cut allows you to undo mistakes very easily.

Editing Techniques

There are a variety of different editing styles and techniques which when it comes to creating an opening to a thriller, will be very useful to know and understand the connotations that come withe executing particular ones. Here are a few sample of the most common editing techniques:

Montage:

Montages are often used in television series at the beginning of an episode to remind the audience of the events that took place in the previous episode. They condense large amounts of information into short sequences allowing the audience to absorb all the necessary information but take a far shorter amount of time to do so. In films they're often used to show how time passes. I've chosen an example from Rocky IV when both Rocky and Drago are training for their fight against one another. Although this montage is particularly long, it condenses weeks of narrative into minutes.

(To view the most relevant part of the video please skip to 1:11)

Continuity

Continuity editing is often quite hard to notice because it's used to make the sequence seamless and allow the audience to follow through with the action with no disruptions. Continuity is usually most effective in dialogue.

(The best example of seamless continuity editing in between 0:44 to 1:38)


When learning about continuity editing, I found that seeing a visual example helped. The video below offers more examples with informative audio narration.

 


Parallel

Parallel editing is when there are two or more events happening at the same time. Small groups of shots from each event are placed in between one another in a way to usually increase the tension or disconcert the viewer. Bellow are two examples, one from American Snipper and another from The Godfather:

Transitions 

A transition is the way each shot flows into each other. There are many types of traditions such as straight cuts, fade outs, dissolves many more each of them used for different reasons to portray different connotations. When learning about various transitions I found an excellent video that sums them up in a clear and informative manner: 



Below is video from 'Girl, Interrupted' that presents a very interesting montage that uses dissolves between every shot. This combination suits the style of the film and its disturbing but somehow fluid nature.

(Please skip to 1:30 to see the montage)

Sound Analysis

In this scene from Memento, diegetic ambient sound is used to create suspense. As the main character, Leonard Shelby, enters the building, we hear his footsteps slowing down with the intervals between them increasing in each step. This pattern in his footsteps almost resembles the pattern in which we breath, so when he suddenly stops it almost makes the audience hold their breathe. This would make heighten the suspense and anticipation for the audience.

The non diegetic soundtrack is parallel to the narrative in the scene. We only hear it when suspense is being built. When Leonard reads the caption of the photo saying 'kill him', we hear a high, minor key chord crescendoing. This would create anticipation for the audience but might also be used to display Shelby's emotions and/or understanding of the narrative in the scene. It is clear that he doesn't know what he's doing due to memory problems, the sound used could suggest that he is realising the truth.

Throughout the extract, there are several moments where the diegetic sound has been enhanced, making pleonastic. Moments like these include: when Leonard punches Teddy, loading and shot from the gun, all of which are very violent. The use of these shots conveys an idea that these actions were quite spontaneous and not necessarily in the a nature of the character. By enhancing these sounds, an element of surprise is introduced creating a bigger impact as the audience wouldn't necessarily expect it.


The non-diegetic voice over, from our main character, is used to inform the audience about both the character(s) and the scenes narrative. The voice over alone provides information about the entire narrative and allows the audience to anticipate the coming events just because of a few seconds of voice over. The fact that our main character is

talking to himself, could connote that he is either mentally unstable or insecure. This provides the audience with enough information to understand the character but not give too much away so there is still some room for individual interpretation. 

The diegetic sounds used like grunting and panting is used to depict character status and create tension. It is mainly Teddy who we hear grunting and panting in fear as Leonard attacks me. This vocal struggle depicts Teddy to be quite a weak character when amongst Leonard and also quite morally strong as he refuses to let Leonard pursue his intentions for longer than expected. 

Textual Analysis: Film Poster

In this poster, character positing is used to establish who our main characters are. Chris Pratt, the character in the middle, is likely to be our main protagonist due to his placement in the centre of the poster making him an unique selling point. His strong stance suggest that his is the leader of the group and isn’t easily overcome. The positioning of the four other protagonists around him portrays a sense of unity between them and determination to protect one another.

The facial expressions of the characters are quite stern and aggressive which could suggest that the characters are angry or vengeful. This could create an interesting enigma for the audience because you don't usually see the protagonists of an action adventure superhero film be seen negatively or vindictive.

Chris Pratt’s costume isn’t stereotypical of a Marvel heroes’. Instead of having a slick and practical suit like most heroes, his costume is a lot less ostentatious. His long red leather jacket and jeans makes him seem a lot more relaxed and almost . However, this less cliché look could seem more relatable to the target audience and they might enjoy seeing a more realistic, non conventional hero.

The costume that the woman at the front, Zoe Saldana, is wearing is slick and rather revealing. Similarly to Chris Pratt’s costume, her costume and stance go against the stereotypes of women in action adventure or science fiction. Women are often seen as the ‘damsel in distress’ and always need a man to protect them but the poster clearly indicates that that is not the case in these circumstances. Her going against female stereotypes would no doubt appeal to women but her costume and stance could be seen as some what sexually appealing therefore attracting a larger audience. 

Near the bottom of the poster it says in a bold gold font, “From the studio that brought you the Avengers”. Avengers was extremely successful and had a huge target audience. This statement would allow the audience to almost predict what the film was going to be like an distantly be able to identify whether they’d find it appealing for not. The colour gold has connotations of compassion, courage and wisdom, all of which we hope to see within our protagonists.

The setting clearly establishes that the film is going to fall into the genres of science fiction and action adventure. This is evident through the use of images like planets and stars in the background and their props. All the characters have some sort of weapon, none of which seem like they belong in our time. By establishing the genre, the studio would have been able to target the types of things that science fiction fans enjoy seeing and use it to their advantage. The props and backdrop would have helped them to achieve this. 

Opening Sequence Analysis

Mission impossible: Ghost Protocol is an action film, premiered in 2011, that opens with an establishing shot of a prison in Moscow where our protagonist, Ethan Hunt is being held. This shot helps inform the audience where the action is taking place and gives an insight as to what the prison is like. The fact that the opening sequence is set in a Russian

prison rather than a prison in another country such as America where our protagonist is from, suggests that the character is undercover and or in danger. The shot also establishes how securer the prison is suggesting that the type of criminals our protagonist is with are very dangerous and also gives the audience an insight as to the scale of his crime. 

 Another shot used was an over the shoulder shot of the ‘Captain’ of the guards. The camera looks over his shoulder, onto a computer screen where we see that nearly all the

cell doors are being opened without authority and the prisoners are escaping. This shot would make the audience feel a lot more immersed in the action as they are seeing it from a perspective much like the character is as well as seeing their emotions which also gives them an insight as to how much damage is being caused. 


A close up is used when establishing the emotions of one of our protagonist’s overly cautious friends. Bogdan as Ethan tries to convince him to leave. These close ups provide quite a comedic moment in-between all the chaos that is going on around them. It also allows us to see that Ethan is trustworthy as Bogdan agrees to follow him through the mayhem and to their freedom. 

Towards the end of the sequence, a tracking shot is used as our protagonist is trying to run through the prison whilst struggling to avoid the fights going on around him and dragging a friend through with him. This shot exposes the audience to the amount of chaos being caused by all the fighting going on. The shot also suggests that there has been a bad relationship growing between the guards and the prisoners as there is a lot of tension and violence shared between them. It is almost like the status has been reversed and because there are so many more prisoners than guards.

Django is a Western film, produced in 2012, that opens with a long shot. This shot establishes the hot, desert location that the opening sequence is set. This shot suggests that the anyone we see in the next few shots will have been travelling for a long time in excruciating temperatures. This shots soon pans to the right and turns into a mid long shot

where we see a line of black men with scars across their backs, likely inflicted by a whip, led by someone on a horse. This could suggest that the men whom we see walking are either in trouble or, due to the era and location it's set in, they're being put for sale as slaves by the man on the horse who's likely in charge. The shot also allows us to see that the men are stumbling suggesting that they have been walking for a long time and that the man on the horse shares not pity for them.
Another shot used was a close up tracking shot of our main character, Django that starts with a deep depth of field and eventually changes to have a shallow depth of field. When in a deep depth of field, we can see Django but our main focus is on the rocks to his left, establishing location and time frame because we can see that the light has dimmed since the opening long shot. When the depth of field changes, we see the detail in Django's face

giving the audience an insight as to what he's thinking and feeling. By using this shot the audience can already being piecing together the story and anticipating the outcome.

A panning long shot is then used to establish how time has passed as the lighting has dimmed significantly since the close up. After panning, the camera zooms through a parting between some rocks to create an extra long shot of the men. In this shot, we see a lot more greenery which suggests that they're nearing the edge of the desert suggesting they are near their destination. The extra long shot presents the characters to be very small compared to their surroundings again suggesting that they've been walking for a very long time.
Towards the end of the sequence, there is a point of view shot from Dr Shultz as he approaches the slave traders and the slaves. This shot establishes that Dr Shultz is either the protagonist or at least a character whom the audience will find appealing mainly because you don't usually have a point of view shot from the antagonist because audience members don't want to associate themselves with them. 

Barefoot In The Park is 1967 American romantic comedy. The opening sequence is very different to Django or Mission Impossible because they have a variety of shots throughout whereas in 'Barefoot In The Park', the opening sequence is made of a couple of close ups and five mid long tracking shots, all of which follow a horse and carriage with a young couple kissing in the convertible carriage. These shots allow the occurring events to seem like they're  continuous and go uninterrupted, similarly to how the young lovers were probably feeling. These shots do establish a location of a park within a city but it is not

clear where exactly where. I believe this is because in 1967 they didn't have as advanced technology as we do and would have had limited options making some shots next to impossible for them.