Editing part 2

Today Tuesday we finished our editing in the preliminary task and we did a lot of things that made the scene look really good. We continued what we did the first lesson and was choosing which shots angles we were going to use and also ask the question why we should use that kind of shot and so on. We decided that we wanted the audience to side with the girls in the scene so in some of the sequence you could see her facial expressions while the other character was talking. To make our scene stand out more we also did a lot of different close-ups on small details that matters to the outcome of the story and effect audience. 

When we finished with the basic as editing different sequences and getting everything together we started playing around with the sound and sound effects. This was used in the same way as editing the picture sequences and we also added some small sound effect and blur in the background. We didn’t have the time to do any bigger changes in sound or sound effects but we got to know how it all work and our finished piece became what we had expected and we were all satisfied. 

When you are adding sound effects and playing around with sound you are creating a new bin called sound/sound bin. In this bin you will add sound effects from a program called final sound editing. In this program you can find all different kind of sound effects and what we wanted to do but didn’t have time to do was to make as if they were in a normal environment with people around them.

Prelim task video:

Editing part 1

I told you all bout the preliminary task we did on Friday so today Tuesday we were starting with the editing part of the shots.

So we learned that we save all of our files into something called a rush bin and this is where we keep all of our original files in case something would go wrong. So we look through the rush bin to decide what kinds of shots we needed and which ones that was useless which was a lot of fun. When you have chosen your different shots you want for the editing part you put them in a file called log bin if I don’t remind myself wrong. So then you move one taking you scenes/files from the log bin into the editing system.

The movie editing program we used where from apple and we also did all of our work on Mac. The program was a lot easier then I interrupted, I will try to describe how it looked like and also post a picture. We had two different screens one for viewing the original clip and one for watching the scenes we edited together so that you easier can see how the final result will be.

When we started using the files/scenes from the log bin we had to decide in which order we want the scenes to be and how we will cut them. Also when cutting together the different scenes it was important to also match the sound whit the image which wasn’t hard.. It was a lot of work and we did not get done during the one hour lesson.

We will continue editing this or next week so that our task will be a finished piece and of course I will update you.

All for now

Link: How you use the apple final cut program and introduction

Preliminary task

Hi everyone this Friday we did our preliminary task and we did a lot of filming and working with different techniques.  My group, Sophia, Richard, Courtney and I did all the different shots in one hour and teen minutes. This time it was much easier to understand what Adam (our teacher) had been talking about regarding the 180 degree rule, shoulder shot, wide shot and all that kind of things.

How the scene looks like:

1. Person B walks into a room coming trough a door
2. We then see person B waiting in the room for person A.
3. Dialogue takes place between the two
4. Person A then leaves the room and leaves person B.

The scene we were going to shot were about 4 minutes long and with different angles such as wide shot, shoulder shot, close-ups and pan shots. But when we were filming we as a group we could decide which kinds of techniques we wanted to use and decide in what way we wanted the viewers to be affected.

We did all the shots in wide shot seeing the actors whole body and face, to have a finished piece if time would run out. After that we did all the different shoulder shots so that we could get a better “view” in to the conversation that’s going on in the scene, this allows the viewer to feel like they are participating more in the conversation.  This went really well and we had the 180 degree role in the back of our minds all the time when we moved the camera. Later on we did the close-ups on details and facial expressions which contribute to more information and consumptions that the viewer can pick up from the scene.

The task was just to do these different shots and get it right (we also learned the film language better when we now where forced to use it, I mean like; standby, standing by, roll it, rolling and action). So editing and putting together the pieces was not a part of the task right now or today.

I think this task gave us big advantages of understanding the basics and it was a lot of fun doing it.

All for today

(Below is the pictures of the storyboarding)
                 

Starting on preliminary task

Today we started doing our introduction for our preliminary task, because we were suppose to be done with it for Friday. So we were split in to three groups and we were given a place to shoot our scene just to see how the camera works and so on. The scene we were supposed to do was a mixture between different types of shoots such as, long shoot, shoot from shoulder and close-up. 

Our teacher told us that we were suppose to shoot the whole scene in a long shot to begin with so that we have a finished piece and then you do the whole thing using the technique to shot behind the shoulder (shoulder shot). Last you do the close-up scenes and all the other details and extrem close ups.

Me and my group accidently broke the 180 degree rule and it was first then that i realiced how the 180 really works. It was also easier to realice how you use the camera and how to make different angles look good. So this was just the introduction to the task but we will do the real thing on Friday so we will see how it goes but I learned a lot today.

My favorite scene

Hi, I forgot to tell you about when i did my presentation about my favorite scene in a movie. I choose the departed, it is probably not the best film I watched but its good and not a film you figure out immediately while watching it. I’m posting a part of my script where I’m talking about the scene between, 00.25 until 00.40. I hope you enjoy and I will post the YouTube link as well.
The departed final scene

"A cut takes place and now there’s a new angle of the camera but it still a long shot showing the whole body of the actor and surrounding but at the same time the camera just broke the 180 degree role but not something you immediately notice. But now you are actually looking through the characters eyes by the way the camera is used. By Collins body language you can see that he’s surprised, you can see that he’s scanning the person that’s in front of him and realizes that it’s not something good. You seconds later get at a medium close-up on Dingnam to realize that he’s got a gun and protection clothes on which immediately lead us to the conclusion that he’s there to kill. The two characters is looking each other in the eyes which could mean pleading for your life or in Dingnams case it looks like he’s really furious and serious"

Horror, thriller and suspense films

The two past days we have watched opening scenes from films like Halloween, Friday 13^th and Don’t Look Now. We discussed what a thriller should include and what kind of varieties of suspense-thrillers there are. I’m going to post some of the links for the openings scenes. One of my favourit opening scenes was the beginning of Halloween (the first one) it is completely shoot in “pov” and the music and lightning is really good and has a really good build up of tension.

Thrillers are known to create different kinds of emotions such as, intense excitement, anticipation, expectation, anxiety and nerve racking tension. But to create these kinds of emotions a thriller has to include some criteria’s like, suspense, build up of tension, great sound elements and much more. To also be able to differentiate a thriller from a horror, a thriller is often less gore then a horror and reflects reality better. A thriller is often also quite clever and well-constructed and in a thriller the main point is often that an escape seems impossible and life itself is threatened, how ever it could be very difficult to tell if the film is a horror or a thriller.

The kind of different varieties of suspense-thriller we discussed was genres such as,
- action and adventure
- sci-fi
- crime-caper
- western
- film noir
- even romantic or comedy
So then this also gives you a perspective of how many different kind of thriller there are out there and how many different ideas you can come up to make a thriller.

Link: Opening scene Don't look now
What I like about the opening scene in Dont look now is that its really well filmed and edited. There's also a lot to comment in this movie thanks to the importance of every shot in the opeing scene and has a crusial mening to the film.