Show-reel

Here is a show-reel of the work that I have completed in this assignment.

The following clips come from In The First, In The Third, More Soon, Kuleshov effect and Metronomy - She Wants.

Show-reel

Evaluation

 Evaluate how you have grown and developed as a practitioner, during this first assignment? 

  I think that I have grown a lot more confident as a practitioner. I feel as though after this assignment that I have become a lot more confident when using the equipment. I feel as though I can work Premier Pro to the best of my ability. I think I am also more confident with using sound now as well.

 What two things were you most proud of?

  I think the thing I am most proud of is our class one shot. I think this because due to the lack of time we had we all worked really well together in order to get a really great production. The reason for it's success was because the entire class put in a lot of effort and hard work into it therefore it turned out great.

 What two things do you think you could improve in the future?

  I think the one thing I could do with improving is editing, I think that I am working on improving it at the moment though. i think that it could do with some more improvements because it isn't as good as it could be. the way in which I am going to improve it is by keeping on doing my won edits therefore with practice I will become better at them.

Write down some future targets you would like to achieve. 

  I think that I would just like to improve on what I am doing now and learn to work more on my own and do individual projects. 

The Coffee Cup

The Coffee Cup is based on the conversation between Tom Waits and Iggy Pop in a coffee shop. This happened in the short film Coffee and Cigarettes - Somewhere in California. This was filmed in 1993 by director Jim Jarmusch it was shot in North California. Later on this would be part of three short films called Coffee and Cigarettes this would be the third installment out of eleven all of which were shot in black and white. Tom had filmed something the day before and was very tired and was also late to this day of filming because there was a car crash on his way to work therefore he wasn't in a very good mood. He threw the script onto the table and said to Iggy 'Do you think this is funny?' as he wasn't impressed with it. However Jim Jarmusch decided to pull Tom aside and discuss with him he came back in a better mood but Jim wanted to keep some of that mood in the character. Therefore his character turned up late to the coffee shop saying that he had been in a car crash on his way there. 

This is what our theme for this week was based on.

In our scenario we had to make sure that we came up with a quote for our short film ours was 'Once Upon a Blind Date' It included my colleagues Olivia Searle, Jade Popham, Katie Patrick and myself filming a blind date scene in The Caffeine Club. The things that we had to make sure happened in our scene was that there was two people sitting together and having a shared experience. We also had to make sure that it was around 5 minutes long, with a wild track in the background. 

This is our risk assessment to showed that we had everything

 prepared in order to film in The Caffeine Club. 

SYNOPSIS : 

First time blind dating, first time meeting and twiddling thumbs. After being match made, showing the awkward mishaps between two social rejects with very high standards. “Is that a 6 pack? I think not.” Images can be deceiving.  

Myself and Olivia took turns in filming it, I decided to film everything that was on the tripod while Olivia filmed everything that was hand held because she had more of a steady hand. This was the first time that I had done the main filming. I think that it turned out very well and I was really happy with the material that I had filmed. 

SHOT LIST :

1. Mid shot of man waiting.
2. Close up of him fiddling with hands and something on table.
3. Extreme close up of him biting lips.
4. Female date walks in looking around  for male date mid shot .
5. Awkward eye contact as they are the only ones in cafe.
6. Close up of females face with a over exaggerated disappointed look on her face with voice over.
7. Mid shot of her sitting down at table.
8. Quick shots flipping from both characters looking at each other and then the floor or table.
9. Mid shot of male character going to say something but nervously stoping.
10. Passing over table a punch of flowers. 
11. Female character looking unhappy and declining flowers wide long shot.
12. Mid shot of female character sneezing and wiping nose.
13. Awkward eye contact. 
14. Both fiddling quick shots. 
15. Girl looking at time close up of phone. 
16. Extreme close up of hands tapping.
17. Man goes toilet.
18. Girl runs out. 
19. Long shot thinking back to the date.      

Our idea was that Jade would play the man and she would waiting for Katie to arrive. Jade's character would be really creepy with Katie's thinking that the man was a topless model. His mood would be that he was impatient and nervous. Therefore when she arrived there would be lots of awkward eye contact. There would then be disappointed looks from the girl because she imagined that he would look a lot different. It   would then be filled with lots of awkward silent moments with music softly playing in the background as an ambiance  The next idea was that the man would bring some flowers and she would respond saying that she was allergic to them. However we changed this idea and decided to get Jade's character to order a burger for Katie's character only for her to respond saying that she is a veterinarian  Jade's character then shouted at Katie's saying that he couldn't be with someone who was a vegetarian. He then storms out to the toilet and then Katie's character makes a run for it. In the final scene Jade's character returns to see that she has left, to which he starts shouting and thinks back to the start of the date.

This was our three part storyboard. 

Our planning was a very important process of this project because it was our first time as a group filming out of college therefore we needed to make sure that we had a basic idea that we were going to follow. I think that this storyboard was very important because it helped us a lot even though a couple of things got changed. 

 Once Upon a Blind Date

The editing process for this was quite difficult because I had to rearrange the order of the clips in order for them to make sense. I then had to make sure that I cut them down as some of them were very long. The music was very hard to work with in this video because the music in The Caffeine Club kept changing, therefore I had to turn the backing noise completely down to make it sound like there was just a beat in the background. I found this incredibly difficult but I think it worked well in the end because in the final cut of it you cannot hear the music changing which was the main idea that I had. I then had to make sure that our quote 'Once Upon a Blind Date' only lasted for 3 seconds. Finally I edited it all to black and white to make it look like a montage to Coffee and Cigarettes with it fading to black for five seconds at the end. 

This is my edit decision list, it's what I went through while editing. It shows each the timing, what happens and who is in each of the scenes. This was quite complex to complete because it was hard to record each of them as there is so many of them. Although I think that the edit shot list is a really good idea because in the end it a quick way of seeing what is happening in each individual shots. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_and_Cigarettes:_Somewhere_in_California - 9th December 2013

In The Third

During this process I noticed a lot of differences between first and third perspectives. I think that it was a lot harder to shoot in first person than it was to shoot in third. The main difference I think that there is, is the fact that in third person it's coming from an outsiders perspective instead of the person the scene involves. In the third person perspective you don't feel as connected because it is as though you are just watching and doesn't involve the audience in any way. As the audience isn't aware of an additional feelings.

I think the biggest difference from first person to third person in our video, is the fact that in the first person perspective, the interviewer has to take control of the interview as it is from their perspective. While in the third person perspective nobody takes control as that is the point of third person, there is no lead. In some respects I think that this made it harder for me as the interviewer as we had to make it flow so it was more like a conversation than a structured interview.

We didn't actually change a lot, we had to change the location because it was impossible to do where we did it before. Although I think that the location affected the quality of the video a lot. For our third person perspective interview we filmed in the ceramics room which made the sound echo therefore we had to use the sound from the camera and not the video recorder like we originally planned. Also we weren't the only ones using the ceramics room, with there being other people in the room it meant we could hear people in the background. I felt like this was very inconvenient because of the amount of noise they were making as we asked for silent while we filmed.

I don't think that we had to change our story that differently, we had to ask some different questions and got different responses. The reason for this was because the environment that we were filming in was different. this is because in this interview it was more of a friendlier atmosphere than the last where it was structured and I had to follow the questions to make it look like this. Although in our second one there wasn't any plan to follow because of the changing perspective.

In The Third

We used similar types of shots they were mainly medium shots, close ups, extreme close ups, long shots and two shots. The reason why we used these types of shots was because these are the types of shots that are usually used therefore we thought that it was important. Although in this perspective my colleague Lauren Walke used a lot more extreme close ups on my other colleague Olivia Searle because in this type of interview the 'celebrity' is more important therefore we filmed more of her. I think that these shots were the correct ones to use and I'm happy how the filming came out because all the shots worked well together.

This was our shot list. 

I think that in this video the way that I edited it was a lot different to the way I edited the first video. In this video I left on the actual sound from the camera, while in the first perspective I took the sound from the voice recorder. However for this video the sound was very poor therefore I had to use the original sound as though it wasn't 100% clear it was a lot better than had I taken the sound from recorder. Editing the actual footage was a lot different as well, the reason for this is because we had videoed from two different angles asking the same questions therefore I cut both of the shots to make it look as though I put the shots together and there was more than one camera, the way that I did this was through video transition. I feel that this worked well with the third person perspective as it made it look as though there were two cameras.

Storyboard for in the third. 

When people looked at my work they could tell the difference between the first and third perspective, saying which one was which. They felt as though the camera angels were good and the the video transitions on the editing worked well. However the thing that is to be improved is the audio. I agree with this as the audio was my least favourite part of our video.

Script Writing master class.

On Wednesday I walked into college for a script writing master class.

Tim started typing, not saying a word to us. We had to watch what he was typing. He made a script up on the spot. He just did a funny script involving most of us. It was in idea that involved a magic button.

He said to us to either follow his idea and reword it or come up with something on our own. I decided that I would come up with something different but with similar circumstances. To start with I spoke about what would happened when I walked into the classroom this morning and then I decided to adapt it.

I added the ideas of teenagers coming into the classroom and singing and dancing on the table as I thought that it would be funny. I also added that we had a dance off in the middle of the classroom.

I thought that this script was really fun to write as it was something that I hadn't had much experience with before hand. Next time I would like to write a more in depth script but I think to start with that this script was good just as a one off. I think this script would be good if it was adapted.

Mise En Scene

The half-a-day challenge was to look at four different images and understand the scene. The Mise En Scene is important when understanding what is happening in the film and during the current scene. I think that their expressions, actions as well as what is in a scene tell a very important story, one in which the audience may have not looked into until carefully studying it. There are ten aspects to Mise En Scene there is set design, lightning, space, composition, costume, makeup and hair styles, acting, film stock, aspect ratio and character placement.

I think the theory behind this image is very interesting because there is a number of different scenarios that could be happening. However my theory of this scene is that they are in a relationship/secret relationship because she isn't wearing a ring. He is a rich business man and she is a housewife. I think that he has done something wrong such as saying that he would leave his wife but hasn't. I think that he then tries to shower her with gifts, for example. the jewellery that is on the table. However she rejects the jewellery because she doesn't want his money or material goods. I think all of this happens while she has prepared this evening with drink and food - the empty bottle of wine. However he doesn't seem to bothered because he is just reading the paper. This is why their expressions are anxious and stressed, she looks more stressed than he does therefore she is the one which is more anxious. 

However this is my theory I realise that there are many different scenarios that it could be such as he could be having an affair, or they are having a romantic meal and he is just coping her actions. I think that it is important to realise that there will be different theories due to others imaginations. 

This shot is split into three, there is the man, the women and then the props in the middle with the bottle of wine and the jewellery which is placed on this table. I think that in this shot the positioning of the props is very important. 

In this scene the characters are breaking the fourth wall this is because she is looking straight at the camera and therefore connecting with the audience. I think that in this image that she is talking to someone which is why she is looking straight into the camera, I think that maybe she is talking to the man of the house because she looks scared. She is wearing what it looks to be nightclothes and the man has told her to do something. She doesn't look particularly happy which suggests what she is being told doesn't make her too happy. I think by the condition that the clothing is in that she doesn't have much money and she might be a housewife or maid. The way that she holds her hands suggests that me that she is anxious and needs something to do with her hands and therefore she needs to somehow do something with them so it makes her looked less worried. Behind her there is a young boy cleaning this could be a young servant, I think this because he doesn't have very nice clothes on either which suggests that he works to earn his money. 

In the background of this shot you see a women sat down I think that the purpose of this is that she is women of the house and therefore is relaxing, compared to the other two in the scene she doesn't look as though she is doing anything. I think this is probably because she is rich and therefore doesn't work as she owns this house. She is dressed and is wearing a skirt I think that this suggests by her clothing that she is well off. I also think that her hair looks as though it has been styled compared to the women in the front who has nothing done. 

I think that the positioning of the characters in this shot is very important because this way you are able to see what each of the characters are doing, although in this scene they are probably only seen as backing characters they are still very important because it shows what they are doing when they are not the main character in the scene. 

This shot is split into three with three different scenarios happening the first one being the women at the front. the second being the boy in the middle tidying up the desk and finally in the back is the old women relaxing in the chair with her feet up. 

I think that this shot is interesting because there is only one character in it. The positioning of this character is very important because as she is the only person in this scene. The women is dressed in night clothing but by the look of it, it looks as though it could be silk because of the type of material it looks like. This suggests that she has quite a bit of money. Another reason why I think her/her family has quite a bit of money is because of the size of this room, it also looks white which suggests that they have a lot of money with the amount of accessories in the room, the big light, the massive mirror on the wall and the tall clock. 

I think that in this scene she has seen something that she doesn't like on the bed. This is because she is looking at it with a disgusting look and because the bed covers are pulled she doesn't want to touch it. Her hands are crossed therefore I think this could be where her father died, this was the bed that he died in. Therefore this is why her arms are crossed because she doesn't want to go anywhere near it. 

The reason why I think that this was her fathers bed is because of the amount there is a picture of a man and then of a women. I think that this suggests that this room holds some sort of memory. Therefore she is too scared to go near it as the bed hasn't actually been made, it looks as though someone left it or got removed from it and nobody decided to make it back. I think that this is surprising for the type of room that this is. I think that this bed would usually have been made as it looks as though it belongs to a rich family. 

This scene is again split into three, with the first part being the bed which is unmade. The second part of this scene is the women who is stood therefore with her arms crossed looking sad and upset. Finally the third part of this scene is the images and positioning of the props in the background. 

In this scene there is a man and a women. The women is in bed while the man is dressed up in a nice suit while holding a cigarette. I think that the man is just about to go to work and is leaving the women there. I don't necessarily think that this women is he wife and he could be having an affair with her. This is why she has made no effort to get out of bed because she has no children to attend to etc. Neither of them looking particularly happy therefore this could be because they are anxious about something. I think that maybe his wife could have found out about his affair and that is what they are talking about therefore they are stressed about whether what they are going to do. I think that the man doesn't know whether to leave his wife or not. 

On the bed there is a pot, I think that maybe that this pot is to put he used cigarettes in. Although I'm not sure as to why it is actually on the bed. I think that he put it on the bed as he was leaving. I think that this shows that he hasn't actually been in the bed with her all night and just came to see her in the morning. I think that the women looks a lot younger than the man this suggests that they probably aren't married. 

I think that the positioning of the props in the background is very important because this is definitely not the main bedroom because there are tables and records behind them, therefore this is why I think that he is having an affair. These are in the room because this is in the spare room and she is the maid. I think that this women is living with them as the maid but actually the man is having an affair with her. 

Finally, the scene like the others is split into three with it being, the man holding the cigarette and sitting on the bed looking concerned and worried, the women who is sitting up in the bed looking anxious and the props in the background which play a very important part in this. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_sc%C3%A8ne - 20th November 

In The First

Having scenes in the first person is very common in films. I think that one of the most famous ones is the scene in Spider Man 3 where Peter Parker 'Thinks He's Cool'. This scene makes his super powers to be made out to be rather idiotic. He is walking down the high street thinking that he looks cool and but instead he is getting getting odd and rather offended looks from every women he passes. This affects the audiences view point because it makes the audience feel as though they are actually that character. I think in this particular scene the audience feels embarrassed to be him because they realise it is ridiculous what he is doing. 

I think that in these scenes it gets the audiences heart racing because it feels strange to be in the position where it feels like you are actually involved in the film and not just watching it. The audience is viewing it as though it is them walking down the street. The impact this has is that in first person feels like they are being involved in something that they shouldn't be because it feels a bit intimate. I think it is a bit strange that we feel intimate with the other characters as all they are doing is walking down the street. 

This type of scene gives us an insight into the character as it feels as though we know more than we should. I think this is interesting because then we feel as though it's no longer about the character in the film, it's about somebody we know. This is the reason why we care so much for this character, it is as though we have a relationship with this character which is why we continue to watch because we have an attachment to them. This is why we want to see what the outcome to them is. I think that this is the way that the director captivates the audience. 

In The First

Our production was slightly different to what we normally do, this is because for this task we decided to do it as an interview. We decided on doing an interview as we thought that it would be something a little different and fun. The idea was that I would interview my colleague Olivia who would be the celebrity. The way in which the audience would be transported into our heads was through the thoughts of them. This is because the interviewer would be forceful and Olivia thinking 'it's none of your business' while actually smiling and pretending that everything is alright. Without this dialogue I think that the audience would get a more friendlier perspective of her than they actually get. This is the same at the end with me as I say 'that was interesting' which also shows a different and more sarcastic perceptive that the audience wouldn't have gotten without it.

                      

  

I think that filming in first person is a lot harder than people think because we need to make sure that the perspective is always in the first. The way we did this was through my other colleague Lauren changing between mine and Olivia's perspective to make sure that we got it. I think by changing this it took a very long time but I think that it worked well as we achieved what we wanted to, the first perspective. I think that it is a lot harder purely because you are limited as to what you can see, this is a big reason why our filming took us quite a long time as we had to check that everything was right and nothing looked out of place. I think that when watching it back the audience would get the true feelings of both the interviewer and the interviewee, this is because of the monologue in our heads, this is because without this the audience wouldn't get any inside thought they would just get what we would be saying.

  

Therefore I think for this particular task it was good to do an interview because the audience does feel involved in the situation. This wouldn't feel as personal in third person because we wouldn't get any actual feelings.

http://m.totalfilm.com/features/10-coolest-first-person-movie-scenes-sponsored-by-call-of-duty-ghosts#next - 20th November 2013

More Soon - Evaluation

Describe your two filmed shots. What emotions did you try to convey, and if you
used an object, explain what significance it had?

The two ideas that I shot were terror and worry. The reason why I used the first emotion terror was because I thought that it would be fun to film, I think that this expression was more fun to shoot than a cheesy smile. I also used it because a lot of people were doing something similar so by using terror it was something that was a little bit different. In my second shot I decided to use worry the reason for this was because I was using my object which was my notebook which I had got given from my friends when I left school  I decided to look worried which is ironic because that was kind of how I was feeling when I read it back made it look very serious and real.

How did you approach the editing of this video? Did you have any aims, either
creatively, or simply to get to grips with the editing process?

I feel as though I did a very creatively. I measured all of the clips and made sure that all of them lasted at least 10 seconds. This is because in the Drugs video each of the clips also lasted for 10 seconds. The reasons why I wanted it to be similar is because it was a homage to the previous video.

How did you select the clips you ultimately used? Was it favoritism, or did you think
about what were the ‘right’ clips to use? Did you use every clip? In all points explain
why.

I cut out a lot of the clips and the clips that I did use I used to a certain reason. I wanted to have a mix of serious and cheesy shoots. I think that this was important in order for it not all to be the same. The order of the shoots was important because I had to make sure that there weren't too many cheesy ones after another.

Did you attempt to place the clips into any kind or order, or position them in
specific places? Can you give examples of specific decisions you made?

I had to make sure that two of the people same people weren't in a row.an example of this was for their first shot I had Katie and then Lauren and for the second shot it was the same, therefore for their second shot I had to make sure that their shots weren't next to each other. I felt like the clips that I used were the right ones because it made sure that the video had the correct amount of cheese and terror.

Did you attempt to make the video footage ‘work’ with the music? If so, how? Did
you edit to the ‘beat’ of the music, or was it looser? Again provide examples?

I don't think that I edited it that well with the music and if I were to do it again then I would make sure that I look through all of the clips to see if there were anymore that would go better and more in time with the music. I think that it was mostly to the beat but not to the beat as much as I could of done it. In the future I think that I would spend more time making sure that it fits not to the beat in order for it to be improved.

Having watched someone else’s edit, what are over overall opinions of it? Both
positive and/or negative.

My colleague Darren thought that it was good because I was able to catch the different emotion to go well with the music. This is because I used a variety of different emotions and didn't just speak to the same ones throughout.

Highlight a ‘best bit’ that you think was edited particularly well. (Either it was in the
right place, or worked well with the music, or simply has ‘impact’.) Explain why you
chose this.

The highlight of it that he said was with Seth at the end where he puts his head in his hands to cover his face, he then tips his head down. This shows that it is ending because it's not showing the face like the rest of the video, this shows that this is the end, as it then slows down and dissolves into darkness.

Is there anything you would do differently, if you had edited it? Can you explain
your reasons for this?

Darren said that he didn't think that there was much to edit but if he were to do it again he would do it so a couple of the shoots go better with the music and move them so that they are more in time. But other than that he said that he wouldn't do anything differently because he liked the way that I edited it.

My edit of the video

More Soon

More Soon also known as London film maker and designer Carl Burgess. He started up the name in 2005 as a way of showing his developments and experiments. Although after a year or so of doing that he included more complete work and focused on creating more finished pieces. His name 'More Soon' is quite acceptable to start with because after he releases his first piece of work which isn't quite finished, it is very obvious that there is more to come from him.

Through his work he combines the digital, hi-tech, and modern world with human emotions and humour. He uses old videos and photography which to everyone else has no use but to him they are important because he loves the idea of  transformation and changing them into crazy music videos. Carl has a habitat for collecting archival photos which in the past have got him in quite a bit of trouble. Although very successful not all of his projects have gone to plan as he likes to experiment with different ideas such as flooding a photography studio.

He worked with Kenzo in their Fall 2012 video. Kenzo was born in Japan but moved to Paris in 1964. Kenzo is now a fashion house started in 1970 as Jungle Jap. Throughout this video you can see where his ideas shine through. The ultra high tech and modern emotions are shown throughout. This is the one factor that is seen in all of his work. I think that this is important because he has a constant theme which is used in all of his videos. This work was made with a lot of stock footage which Carl had collected and edited over the years. This way it meant that he was able to use actors without having a budget.I think that one of his most famous works is his Olympic piece this is because of how effect the audio is in it. The audio is very dark and has a low beat Carl likes the sound as it. 

 'Audio is a really important part of the finished piece it’s like the icing on the cake but I find the process of making music quite challenging so it is always something that I avoid until the rest of the project is done.'

Kap Bambino - Obsess is a very popular music video by More Soon. Kap Bambino is an electronic musical duo from Bordeaux, France. I like the concept of this video because it's very dark and serious. During this video we see a plain background which is either black. The people in the video are making some kind of emotion. They are either using scared, terror or happy emotion. There is either one or a couple of people in the shot. There is a number of different shots for each of the different people. I think that this video is a very simple idea that works really well because of all the different emotions that come together. In this music video everything seems real because it looks as though they are actually feeling their emotions instead of it just being on camera. The reason behind this video was that he wanted it to have 'no buildup, all the best bits straight away.' This shows the type of director that More Soon is because he was going against what is considered the norm in the directing world. The subject of this video was the people - the extras because they were the main focus. He left the actors in their own clothes to make it seem more genuine. 

Print Screen's from the video - Obsess. 

For Ratatat - Drugs the same music is used as for the Obsess music video, however this time the music video is a lot different. I think that this video has been Americanized the reason I think this is because of the people, they are either all dressed up smart or in suits. This shows that this is America because it's similar to the way they act. The background is white with a smoke effect in the background, the reason for this is to make it seem darker than it originally should be. This video is slightly more 'in your face' than the previous video because it doesn't feel as real because these people are posing for the camera. Also in this video their emotions don't feel as real as their faces look strange and fake as they smile. I think the reason that this is done is because it symbolizes America, they fact that they put on an act and in this case the act of the 'fake smiles'.

 Fast Company: The video is funny but at the same time almost painful to watch---was that the original intent?

Carl Burgess: Yeah, I edited it that way on purpose. A lot of my work mainly focuses on one subject and more often than not has some kind of humor.
At first I edited it like you would a normal music video, fast cuts, everything on the beat but I quickly realized that they lost impact when shown in this way. It's the long cuts, the drawn out smiles and the obvious direction that's the interesting bit.

Ratatat - Drugs Music Video. 

http://vimeo.com/13177086 -13th November

http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/carl-burgess-for-kenzo -13th November
https://www.kenzo.com/en/blog/carl-burgess-thomas-traum-marble-punch_5962/ -13th November
http://motionographer.com/2008/03/26/more-soon-now/ -13th November
http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/2628-more-soon -13th November
http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/nicer-tuesdays-write-up -13th November
http://www.itsnicethat.com/articles/carl-burgess-obsess -13th November
http://www.eatcake.co.uk/Kap-Bambino-Obsess -13th November
http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662128/carl-burgess-director-of-the-years-creepiest-coolest-music-video -13th November 

Technicolour Yawn

I really enjoyed doing Technicolour Yawn I think that this was because it was something different to what we usually do. Technicolour Yawn is an euphemistic expression for an uncommonly colourful and forceful bout of projectile vomit. We did this by working in groups with one person in the group making it look like they were about to be sick, we had to take footage from their front and side view.

To edit it we had to use Photoshop which to begin with I found quite difficult because before this I had never used Photoshop before. We used a cool function called 'Onion Skinning' which basically gave us the outline of what we did in the previous clip so that we knew we were still doing similar things. I used the paint tool to get different colours and patterns to make it look like 'colourful vomit.' I started off with smaller lines and colours as I wanted to eventually build it up to make sure it looked ok.

The 'Onion Skinning' function. 

It took a very long time because one clip of footage worked out to only be about 0.25 seconds therefore we had to spend a few hours to get any sort of 'vomit.' This was hard because we had to work out what we were going to do in each of the clip because they had to be similar but not exactly the same. I found this fun because it was a chance to experiment with Photoshop and try out different things and see if they worked.

I did it in three different parts with it starting off being really small, then getting slightly bigger and finally in the last couple of clips the 'vomit' took up the entire screen. Coming up with different ideas was fun, I had to make sure that the colours were bright so that they could be seen on the screen as Jade has very dark hair and some of the colours would have gone unnoticed against her hair else.

My video

After I edited it on Photoshop I went back onto Premiere Pro and slowed it down, the reason for this was so that it would have lasted longer as it was only about 7 seconds long but I slowed it down by 30% to make sure that it lasted for just over 30 seconds. Also on Premiere Pro I kept the same backing noises that we had the reason I did this was so that the sounds sounded real and not too animated. I think that this worked well and I liked the way in which it turned out.

This shows her front and side profile. 

The Collision

Lev Kuleshov was a Russian director born on January 1st 1899. He was most famous for his editing technique which is known as the 'Kuleshov effect.' He wasn't the first to use such editing technique as ones such as 'crosscutting' had been used in Hollywood before him. He was the first one that used it in Soviet Russia.

When we began to compare the typically American, typically European, and typically Russian films, we noticed that they were distinctly different from one another in their construction. We noticed that in a particular sequence of a Russian film there were, say, ten to fifteen splices, ten to fifteen different set-ups. In the European film there might be twenty to thirty such set-ups, while in the American film there would be from eighty, sometimes upward to a hundred, separate shots. The American films took first place in eliciting reactions from the audience; European films took second; and the Russian films, third. We became particularly intrigued by this, but in the beginning we did not understand it. - Lev Kuleshov

In this quote Kuleshov states how the Russian films are a lot different from other Europeans ones and American ones. This is because of the way that they are set up to the shot is a lot differently and the process they go through is different.

The original work for the 'Kuleshov effect' 

The Kuleshov effect 

The effect is a documented part of film-making where by putting a film together, using three different situations but only using one reaction which is the same each time. The audience praised the acting for showing hunger, grief and lust not knowing that the reaction is the exact same each time. The reaction shots were to a dead women, a women on a recliner and a plate of soup; three entirely different situations. By using this editing technique it creates a meaning that the audience wouldn't have thought of before, which is a way of constructing the sentences. This way the audience doesn't realise that their reaction is in their own mind they just think it's down to the actors subtly not realising that they are being affected by the same reaction in the scene. The impact of Kuleshov's work was the audience not understanding that they are being manipulated and tricked as the emotion in the scene is heightened in a number of different ways even though the expression never changes.

All art is emotion, and that the task of the filmmaker is to use the tools of his medium to manipulate the audience’s emotional experience - Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock here states that it is all in the eye of the filmmaker the reason why the audience feels certain emotions is because it is the way the filmmaker plays them to believe or not believe something. Therefore tricking and playing with the audiences emotion. 

The expression never changes.

It is questionable whether the Kuleshov effect can actually control other people's feelings. As discussed by psychologists, people will bring their own opinions and emotions to what they see. The audiences will classify and mis-classify certain faces. This is because a neutral face can either look happy or sad with fear either about anger and confusion. 

The reactions weren't as diverse as Kuleshov thought they would have been with the audience realising that he was actually in love with the women and he didn't just lust over her. This is because at no times does the actor look bored with the audience as some audiences might need more context to understand the look that the actor is trying to give. The intense emotion that is a given shows no sign of being a negative emotion. Which makes the audience be able to give a more specific emotion once they are aware of the object. 

Documentaries take basically unrelated footage and juxtapose it in order to give the viewer the idea the filmmaker wants to convey. They take footage of birds snapping a twig. They take footage of a fawn raising his head. The two shots have nothing to do with each other. They were shot days or years, and miles, apart. And the filmmaker juxtaposes the images to give the viewer the idea of great alertness. The shots have nothing to do with each other. They are not a record of what the protagonist did. They are not a record of how the deer reacted to the bird. They’re basically uninflected images. But they give the viewer the idea of alertness to danger when they are juxtaposed. That’s good filmmaking. - On Directing Film by David Mamet 

Again like Hitchcock said, David Mamet says how the film maker does certain things in order to tell the story in the way that they want it to.

One of the most famous examples of the Kuleshov effect

 is in the video 'Hitchcock Loves Bikini's'

I think that this editing technique is a really clever one to use which in a way makes the audience think deeply about what they are watching, this is important because then the audience feels as though they are part of the storyline and the actor makes them feel involved. It's also exploiting the audience because they are making them believe that they must act a certain way when they react to the scene. Although this effect worked very well to start with in today's society it's harder to trick the audience now because they know the techniques well and how to deal with it. While during the late 1920's the Kuleshov effect become very popular with directors such as Sergei Eisenstein,Vsevolod Pudovkin and Dziga Vertov which featured in films such as  The Battleship Potemkin, October, Mother and The End of St. Petersburg.

Evalution of our Kuleshov Effect

In our film the shots we filmed were of money failing from air, a girl getting punched and a conversation between three of the actors pointing and laughing at the camera. We had an idea for each of the shots that they would have different perceptions. In the money shot we thought that the idea that the audience get would be that they would either think that they were going to steal the money because they desperately needed it or because it was their money. In the punching shot it was the idea that she did something wrong or that she person is a bully. Finally in the gossip shot they were laughing at the actor or the actor just wanted to know what they were laughing at. 

My edit of our view for the 'Kuleshov effect' 

The audience reaction to the actor was that in the first shot that the actor was going to steal the money because there was money there that could have just been grabbed. In the second shot the audience reaction was that she was emotionless because she just stood there and made me no reaction while someone was getting punched. In the final shot the audience reaction was that she was too scared to do anything and they saw her as a wimp. In each of these shots she is being perceived as a completely different person even though it's the same shot each time. This is down to the editing of how I made the actor come across in each of the different scenarios. 

http://www.openculture.com/2012/05/alfred_hitchcock_on_the_essential_filmmakers_tool_the_great_kuleshov_effect.html - 6th November

http://filmmakeriq.com/2011/04/hitchcock-and-kuleshov-effect/  - 6th November

http://io9.com/5960035/can-the-kuleshov-effect-really-control-your-perception-of-other-peoples-feelings - 6th November

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0474487/bio - 6th November

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KuleshovEffect - 6th November

http://kubrickfilms.tripod.com/id21.html - 6th November

The Swish Blog

In film there is a lot of different transitions that can be used. Transitions are important because they make the audience react differently to each of them as they are used as a way of passing time and making it feel like there has been a long time between each of the scenes. Another reason for using film transitions is to convey to the audience of a certain tone or mood. This is essentially important for when it comes to horror movies as they need a certain mood to scare the audience.

The most simple transition is a straight cut which is a where one scene ends and the second scene starts. This transition is important if the scene beforehand is just a filler scene. This type of transition doesn't have much of an effect on the audience because of how simple it is.

A very common transition that is used is the contrast cut where editing a juxtapose of two contrast subjects, for example in the first scene everything is really quiet while in the second scene there is a loud band, this makes for a very intense transition which can sometimes scare the audience, this can only be used through this type of transition and not a gradual transition. The most famous contrast cut is used in The Godfather - The Baptism Murders Scene in this scene the first shot is of the baptism that is taken place where it is all quiet and calm in the next moment the next scene is of the murder shot with loud sounds and bangs using guns.

A match cut is another one which is very common to filmmakers however this has a different reason, this transition is used to hide the transition from the audience this is because the character is covering the camera as they know the cut has happened but they are away of when this happened. Hiding it away from the audience makes them unaware of how it's been done. An example of this is in 'A Space Odyssey' in 2001 where the first shot is of a Gorilla throwing a bone while the second shot is of the bone up in the air.

Finally a fade in/out shot is used either at the start or the end. At the beginning of a film where it cuts to black usually before the title while the fade out occurs before the credits at the end of the scene. The reason why this is used is to highlight that the credits are soon to come. An example of using the fade in is in this opening sequence of 'Six Feet Under.' This is because although they fade to black many times during this sequence they also fade to white, which is something that is really different at unique.

For my version of the Swish blog. I worked with my colleagues Lauren Walke and Olivia Searle. The idea for it was that I would jump and then I would land in different parts of the building. It was quite hard to get the timing right. I think that the timing was the most important thing when it came to this project. The reason for this is because if the timing was off the whole thing would look odd. I think that we kept to a really simple idea that worked effectively because we could edit it to the way we wanted to. 

When it came to the editing all we I had to was cut and razor away some of the clips, the clips were all in order so the only thing that I had to do was make sure that the timing was ok. I think this was one of my most successful projects. It was a good idea to use a simple idea. In the background I used the song 'Jump' I used this because I think it would well with the idea of me jumping. 

Jump - Swish Blog

I really liked this project because although it was simple it worked really effectively. I think that if I were going to do it again I would jump in some other places and maybe do it outdoors so it looked like we had gone further than just in the college. I would try and keep some of the original wild track in it next time because I think that a video like this would look better with more original music than a song. Although the song does work well with the purpose of the video. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_transition -6th November

http://mentalfloss.com/article/21028/5-film-transitions-worth-knowing -6th November

http://www.avclub.com/articles/a-love-once-new-has-now-grown-old-24-memorable-cin,59719/ -6th November

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Zs61pakiIY -6th November

The Waiting Room

The Waiting Room is a project in which time has been distorted. This is where time is a ticking time bomb. This is mostly used in live TV or when something big is going to happen, eg. a fight off. The reason for this is because it is tension building as it adds to the drama. In live TV the most common time it is used is on the X Factor when Dermot is about the results of the winner. The tension is build up because of the pause in between him saying 'The winner of X Factor is' and the name of the act. In this pause the camera does a close up on the two acts and their judges and then an extreme wide angle of the audience and the whole stage. This shot is used to show the reaction of everybody in the room. In this part it seems as though it is going on forever because of the tension felt.

Little Mix announced the winner of X Factor 2011.

A lot of television programmes they use time lapse photography more than films. The most common type of television programme this is shown in is DIY programmes such as Grand Designs and DIY SOS this is to show over time how the house gets changed in the space of a one hour show. The time lapse shows the process quickly this way it feels as though real time has been sped up. Unlike when the scenes are slowed down time seems to be taking forever while in this time is going really fast because the scene is been shown over a quick period of time. Although this doesn't create any tension, it just saves the audience from becoming bored too quickly. 

The time affects the audience because the tension is building in the scenes that are drawn out and it feels as though the scenes are going on forever even though the scenes only last for a few seconds. While when time speeds up the scenes feel really short. 

For this project I worked with my colleagues Katie Patrick, Jade Popham and Jodi Smith. 

In our video we had to distort time, the way in which this was done was through conveying an atmosphere in which we had to build tension. The way in which we did it was through creating a story line that people will believe and be able to tell it. The way that this is able to be done is by creating a back story for the character. This is important so that it seems more believable. The actual back story wasn't very hard to create we decided to do something which is used almost every day. She sends a text message and is waiting for a reply however it is the importance of the text message as she has found out she is pregnant, only to find out that the number she has been texting has been cut off. 

This is our video

I think that the music in this video is very important, because at the start the music I decided to use is just one with people's voices talking in the background. I decided to use this because I thought it would show how she is in a everyday environment she is waiting for this text as though it is the most important thing in the world and could potentially change her life while everybody else is going about doing their everyday things. As the video goes on I added a heartbeat over the top, I decided to use a heartbeat because she is anxious and worried therefore the heartbeat shows that she has been waiting a while for this to happen, although in real time it hasn't actually been that long. Then at the end the music speeds up as she receives the text this is to build up the suspense. It is important for this because this is what the video has been building up to therefore it needs to come to some sort of climax. 

I think that in films one of the most important aspects is time and therefore I think that by slowing down time the audience gets the same feelings of anxiousness as the actor, this helps the audience to relate to the film. 

Practicing Funky Skills 

 

This was our practice over head plan. In this we had to measure out how far each of these would be away from each other. It took quite a long time to work out how far each camera and lights would be away. This was the first time we had to take everything into consideration. In think that this was important to do because in this we realised how much other things directors have to take into consideration. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fCimjFW4kA - First video used - little mix announced winners - 27th October 2013