Friday, 3 March 2017

RUN - Main task draft 1


This is our first published draft of our main task. there are still things we need to add in to it and a few things we need to edit out. From this we can gain more feedback and improve on a lot more of the main task.
Sound, lighting and editing research
Sound
Diegetic: sound that is heard on and off of the screen such as characters voices. Originated from the word Diegesis which is also to do with film and media.
Non-diegetic: sounds that aren’t made whilst filming but are added in for extra effect.
Synchronous sound: sound that is matched to scenes recording in a movie e.g. the sound of footsteps to someone walking.
Asynchronous sound: match the action being performed but aren’t in perfect sync such as background music to create tension within a scene.
Crescendo: the build-up of sound to suggest that something is about to happen.
Diminuendo: When the sound dies down to suggest the threat or important scene is over.
Sforzando: a short, sharp, loud noise to emphasis shock or fear.
Lighting
Three point lighting: consists of 3 types of lighting – key, fill and backlight. Key aims directly at subject, fill is a little softer and placed opposite the key light, back shines behind the subject or object for extra effect.
Fill light: to reduce the contrast in a film – to make shadows lighter or darker.
Key light: is two parts low and high key. High key is usually used in comedies, and musicals to enhance the sense of liveliness, low key lighting is often used in horrors and thrillers to portray a shadow effect.
Top lighting: when the upper areas of the subject/ object are lit up.
Under lighting: when the light is directly under the key focus such as a persons face.
Editing
Continuity editing: cutting shots to tell the story in a continuous flow.
Montage: giving information in a compressed form
Fade: the shot fades into a black screen when the next scene appears
Cross fade: the current shot flows straight into the next
Shot reverse shot: when two people are having a conversation and it goes from person 1, to 2 to 1 again
Eye line match: when the character is looking at something and the next shot looks at exactly what they were looking at.
Cross cutting: when two scenes are happening at the same place maybe from different points of view and the camera switches between them both.
Pace: 3 types slow which suggests it’s calm, and short clips. Medium – normal and comfortable, fast – intensity, thrill or excitement.
Straight cutting: to show realism in conversations
Wipe: often showing new day or location
Flash: to show flash backs or flash forwards
Black and white effect: often used in memory or passing
Blur: to show un-clarity or confusion




Wednesday, 15 February 2017

HOW AND WHY WE CHOSE ACTION FOR OUR MAIN TASK.

To begin with, we struggled to find a genre that we all agreed on that wouldn't be too complicated to produce. As we couldn't make a collective decision, we decided to write all of our personal choices and we put them in a hat, shuffled them around and got a different member of the class to pull a bit of paper out. The paper that was chosen said action.

When we discussed ideas for an action film and we realised that doing an action gives us a lot of opportunities to make our Main Task individual from others.

Thursday, 9 February 2017

This is each member of our group thinking of a name for our company. The one we have chosen is 'RunAway Productions'


Tuesday, 7 February 2017

Effects in Movies

What effects sound creates...
Sound creates tension and thrill to viewers.  The use of sound adds emphasis to loud noises or scenes that the audience may be on the edge of their seat for. Tension is created when a scene is slowly building up to be more exciting or scary, the use of sound alongside things such as slow or fast past shots/scenes shows to us (the audience) that something scary is about to happen. Sound can be diegetic, non-diegetic, asynchronous and synchronous. There are many more examples and forms of sound but these are the simplest and most basic to talk about to people who don’t study media for example. Sound is there to add to the movie or whatever is being filmed, similar to the effects of colour for example without this it would be boring because having sound enables us to hear conversations, music added for tension as well as sound effects for extra emphasis.

What effects pace creates...
Pace is the speed of something. This is often used in shots and characters movements. If something big is about to happen in an action movie, the pace of the shots picks up, the characters may start running, panicking or reacting fast this is a change in their pace. The effects of this create excitement or fear for us the audience when watching as we don’t know what is about to happen. Some people are on the edge of their seat in situations like this depending on the effects and intensity. Pace can also change to slow. This often represents something negative or sad. When a character acts in slow pace or the movie stops for a second and slows down this shows death or a serious incident. The producers do this to put an effect on the audience and enable us to take it in as well as trying to get us to really feel a characters point of view. Often they may show the person dying or in pain really slowly from their point of view but everything going on around them really fast. This effect helps up to deeply understand what is going on. Pace can be fast, normal or slow. Fast and slow are there to create effects on the audience when something important is happening within the movie.

What effects camera movements, angles and shots create...
Camera movements consist of Pan, Tilt, track, Steadicam, handheld and crane. These are a few examples of the different ones yet they all do different things. These play a big role because if they weren’t there the movies wouldn’t be as creative nor to as high of quality and standard. They enable us to psychically see the movie moving and if not the camera would stay on the same scene throughout which would be boring. Camera movements capture things such as flying, driving, walking, falling and everyday other movements. These affect the movies ability to be extensive and shoot scenes such as superheroes flying and falling for example. With camera movements films have been able to extend what they can film and share with the rest of the world especially with a crane tool for example. This captures heavy movement and shots other cameras wouldn’t be able to get to.
Camera angles: these show us characters in different lights. If a camera is held at a low angle it shows a person in a strong and powerful way but if the camera is at a low angle it shows the character as weak and submissive. These make movies better as it helps us the audience get a clearer and better understanding of the movie and character. There are 4 main angles the audience should be aware, low, high, point of view and canted. Point of view gives us the scene from the characters perspective whilst canted shows the movie in a more dynamic composition. This is a strong point to movies as it gives it the creativity and as I mentioned it shows us the audience the characters in different lights giving us a clearer understanding.
Camera shots: these are the different ways the camera is positioned to give us a different view of the movie, the main shots are close up, extreme close up, long shot, wide, extreme wide, point of view, mid, birds eye view, over the shoulder, and low angle. The shots such as extreme close up show us something in close detail such as someone’s eyes and what we can connote from seeing their eyes in a close shot. Extreme wide shot shows the setting which benefits the audience to understand where the movie is taking place. This often used in the establishing shot which sets the setting to the audience like I mentioned. An over the shoulder shot is used to show conversations between characters, it is usually used alongside a shot reverse shot scene where the camera flips between two characters which are having some form of dialogue to show the conversation from both points of view.

What effects editing creates…
Editing is the way a movie is made to make sense and understanding to the audience, because if they filmed all the shots in chronological order the production team would have to continuously move location back and forth whereas for example in Fast and furious 7 they film in America and Dubai therefore they film all the Dubai scenes in one block and all other scenes the same way. They then edit all the scenes in to an order. This is known as continuity editing. There are other types of editing but continuity is the main one everyone should be aware of. When a conversation is taking place in a movie they usually use straight cutting to show the realism of the conversation. Pace is also included as a part of editing but I used it on its own in this piece of work as I believe it is big enough role in a movie to talk about it on its own.

What effects lighting creates…
Lighting makes movies reflect there genre in a clearer way, as well as individual scenes. If a movie consists of low lighting throughout It suggests it’s scary and frightening which tells me that it is a horror or thriller of some sort and isn’t a fun or childish movie. If a movie features low and dark scenes only at certain points this tells me something bad is about to happen whether that be scary, sad or just negative I get that idea from low lighting in a movie. On the other hand high key lighting suggests it is fun, positive and not particularly scary. Comedies often have extreme high key lighting as well as musicals to suggest the positivity of this movie. Lighting can be detailed and effective, as well as sometimes be used in the same ways as camera shots and angles. What I mean by this is like when a movie uses an under light it is placed directly below a person’s face this is often used in horror movies for that extra effect or in chick flicks when the girls tell their confessions in truth or dare. Top lighting is the opposite, it is place above a character or object to light it up and show it even more clearly. 

What affects the setting plays…
The setting in a movie is the plan and location of a movie. If it is set in the past there is often low lighting, unclear scenes and dull colours to connote this. If it is set in the city it would be busy, high key lighting, and a lot of other things going on around the movie. The setting should be shown to the audience at the start of the movie to get that understanding. Big movies use famous areas that people often go to site see such as New York, London or Dubai.

Why it is good to create an effect on the audience…
It is good to create an effect on the audience because it can make them feel a certain way. If someone feels sad after watching a film people often begin to appreciate life, and how blessing it really is no matter how negatively we see it sometimes. If the audience leave feeling excited they would often want to see a sequel to this movie and cheered up appreciating the movie for making them feel this positive way. When left on a cliff hanger the audience feel impatient but this is good because usually there is a sequel coming and the audience will be eager to see it ASAP. Rarely people leave watching a movie feeling angry therefore this wouldn’t really be taken in to consideration.

Monday, 6 February 2017

OUR CHOSEN LOGO


This is the logo we have chosen for our company. We chose this as we felt it went best with the title of our opening title sequence and the name of our company. This will be put onto a program where i will then annotate it and add it in to the Main Task product.

Institution Idents




These are a few pencil drawings of some design ideas we had for our Production logo.

FINAL LOGO ANIMATION


This is our chosen logo design once it had been put onto a program that allowed me to animate it. Originally, the idea was that we wanted to make the man look like he was running but with time limits and deadlines the least i could do was make the text move. This is the FIRST DRAFT.


This is our final design. We chose this as when the writing was on the leg it was unclear when it came to adding it on to the main task opening title sequence.

Saturday, 21 January 2017

MAIN TASK UPDATE 2:

As a group, we have now finished filming and have started editing it all together. Whilst filming our main task there were only a few problems we faced; one being that we struggled finding enough time when we were all free. During the actual filming process, trying to figure out transitions and little fillers was quite hard because we had to imagine how it would all work together. moving the camera and tripod around our location was pretty difficult because it meant we kept having to re-focus the camera and set it up in the right position. As it was quite windy the camera kept going blurry mid shots which meant we had to restart quite a lot of the shots. We also used a car in our task and we wanted to film a particular shot in one road and as he was turning the car round, a woman came and parked in the space we needed and refused to move. 

What went well during our filming is that we were all on the ball and very focused which meant we got it done a lot quicker. The extra time then allowed us to film different shots that we could use as an alternative option if the original plan didn't work.


Here is a preview image of the group whilst we were filming.

VLOG UPDATE NO.2


Thursday, 12 January 2017

Our groups filming and editing schedule for the weeks we are at school.

Saturday, 7 January 2017

Character Casting and Justification


In our opening title sequence, we decide to have three main actors who play the antagonist and one minor who is the protagonist. There is also one final actor who has one shot within the scene.

The two main characters are female actors; we decided to have females playing the antagonists as it is something you wouldn’t stereotypically see in any film, especially not action. One of the female actors, who is myself, studies drama so I am used to being in front of the camera and it didn’t put me off being directed to do anything. Linking to this, we decided we wanted to use the countertype of the protagonist being a male as you wouldn’t expect the male to be hunted down by two females. We have done this as we believe it is quite original and we have used a flip story to make it that little bit more intriguing to watch.

The female character who only has one scene is also our film person for the majority of the sequence. This is because she studies photography and is familiar with the mechanics of the equipment and knows angles and shots that work well. However, we decided that it would be good if all of our group was involved in the opening sequence, but also because it then gave the rest of the group an opportunity to film.


Overall, we made the right decisions with what roles people play and everyone has an equal importance.