Recently in our media lessons we started practicing editing. I was paired with Oscar from my coursework group and he was very experienced with editing as he did it last year. We were given the task to use Adobe Premiere Pro to edit a past video so that we could practice for when we edit our own video.
We had to look at the finished video and try and make our video as similar to that as we possibly could, which meant cutting the video, adding titles, and adding diagetic and non diagetic sound. I found this quite hard as I had never used this software before so I didn't know how to use any of the tools or what anything was, however Oscar did so it was really helpful having him to help me and explain what everything was and how to use the software properly.
I found cutting the video quite easy as it was obvious where everything had to be cut. I will be able to cut our video successfully as it wasn't very hard and it was easy to remember how to do it.
Adding in the titles was also a lot easier than I thought as it was the same every time and we just had to add the titles where they were on the original video.
Adding the non diagetic sound, the music was slightly harder because it had to be in an exact place and it was quite hard to do this, I found it hard to remember how to get it in the right place so I will probably need more practice before edit our own film.
The diagetic sound was the noise of a mobile phone and it was at a certain time; this was slightly easier than the other sound but I still struggled so I may also need more practice.
Strenghs of my finished video:
the timing was good and was exactly the same as the original
the cuts were clean and smooth, there wasn't any black in between cuts
the music was at the right time and so was the sound effects
the titles were at the right time
Weaknesses:
the fonts weren't the same, we used serif when the font was sans serif
After our lesson on storyboarding we had to make our own storyboard based on the title 'Terror in the Night'. We were given a sheet which we had to design the story and draw out the different shots and then write about the sound and camera angles used in the shots.
I found this really helpful as I hadn't ever storyboarded before so it gave me good practice for when my group start making our storyboard; I made my storyboard with Oscar which is good because we are in the same coursework group so we both learned a lot and will be able to use our new skills in our own work.
As we are now moving on with our planning, we have to start storyboarding.This is something which I haven't done before and didn't really understand how to do; so I found yesterday's lesson very helpful as I learned how to storyboard and why it was important.
I found it helpful and interesting to learn why storyboarding was important:
it's pitching an idea to someone and helping them actually visualise what youintend to create rather than just imagining it from descriptions.
it links the planning and filming process together
we can visualiselinks between the shots,graphics and action
timings, continuity and pace
helps you gain technical awareness and understanding
revise narrative sequencing
it's a chance to make last minute decisions and make any changes
We also watched a video in the lesson of the director of 'The Sixth Sense' talking about storyboarding and how it helps him; I saw shots of his storyboards for the films which have helped me as I now know what they look like and how they should be designed. From watching this video I gained more of an understanding about storyboards. They allow you to think ahead and plan things which might be hard to film at one time; they stop people who watch the film from getting wrong interperetations if the shots are misleading and haven't been planned. It saves time on set as the shots are pre planned; making films easier as well as saving money as it literally doesn't require anything except drawing, whereas some directors choose to plan it on a computer which costs a lot of money.
Now that we've decided on the majoirty of our planning for what's happening; we need to strart planning timing and the different shots, we have started making our storyboard which has come from the shot list which we created last lesson.
I also need to write up the full narrative on my blog and blog my research and some of the brainstorms which we've been creating in class.
So far I think that our planning is going well, we've got everything that needs to be done so far and I think that our ideas are successful so far.
Today we planned our whole opening sequence and started creating our shot list.
We decided that instead of having a radio broadcast it should be a television broadcast, so the film begins with a shot of the television broadcast and then jump cuts to a shot of the protagonist, then jump cuts to a shot of the polaroid pictures with the titles handwritten on the pictures. We thought that this wa sa good idea as it gives us an oppertunity to use some complicated editing as well as establishing the settings and creating an ambiguous tone.
What's happening in our opening sequence:
The film begins in black and white; with a shot of the televison denoting the broadcast from a priest or a Bishop; the non diagetic dialouge continues however there's a jump cut to an over the shoulder shot of the protagonist watching the TV, there's then a cut to the polaroid pictures focusing on a man and a woman, however there are other pictures around but aren't in focus; the pictures are denoting the titles for the film. This then repeats a few times, changing picture and name every time. There is then a shot of the protagonists child playing in another room near where the protagonist is; he then walks to a door and there's a close up of the door handle and the protagonists hands with will be dirty or have blood on. It then cuts to the man on the other side of the door walking down a hallway; colour is then introduced to the scene as he walks down the hallway, then denoting a door with a close up of a lock. The protagonist then walks into the room where the people who are being torutred have been, they aren't in focus and the protagonists face hasn't been shown yet.
This is the idea we have at the moment however we may have to change some things depending on the location we film it at as we may not be able to find soemwhere with a basement. We decided to start planning some of the mise en scene; lighting, makeup, costumes and the location, as well as this we have started to think about actors who could play the parts.
Characters: male protagonist- religious man, appear to look innocent (not sinister), young man in between 20-30 woman- young woman, in her late teens (18), heavy makeup and provocative clothing, torure victim man- young man, (18-25) small, weak, torure victim young child (in between 5-10 years old) protagonists son
Location: family home, fairly wealth, quite large house, living room connected to another room where the child plays. dark, empty room (basement?) space for 3 characters and desk. coridoor leading from living room/stairs to basement.
Make up: we will be getting an art student to help us with this as the male torture victim has burns on his torso, we will also need makeup for the protagonists hands and fake blood, the female victim will also need facial makeup and blood.
Sound: non diagetic: Charlee and Oscar will be making some original music to suit the tone of the film, some hymn music possibly. Diagetic: Dialouge, sounds of chains and doors slamming, noise coming from the TV.
Editing: quite slow paced in the beiginning, pace picks up when he walks downstairs into the basement, jump cuts from the pictures, to the TV to the protagonist, editing and sound parallel.
Today we started to talk more about our ideas and how we could develp the idea of a religious man who tortures people who have sinned. We all shared ideas and we agreed that we should include images of what the pople who are being tortured have actually done, we thought that it would be clever if the pictures were polaroid and the titles were shown on the polaroid pictures. We decided that in the beginning of the opening the man should be listening to a radio broadcast about a man who has been kidnapping people; however to the viewers it would be ambiguos as it isn't clear that he is the man being referred to until he goes downstairs to the basement.
After we decided to chance our whole idea and start brasinstorming ideas for a religious thriller, we decided that we would each do an aspect of researh in order to learn more about religious thrillers. We decided that: Charlee would research the codes and conventions, Oscar would research the history of title sequences I would look up and analyse the opening seuqences to some religious thrillers and Beth would look up some of the plots for religious thrillers. We started brainstorming ideas and talked about religious thrillers that we had all watched, we came up with the idea of a religious man toruring people who had sinned. We all agreed that this would be a good idea and would be different to anything seen before as religiuous thrillers are quite rare. The fact that relgious thrillers aren't made very often was a factor that we had to think about as it could effect the likeablity of the film; however we checked some of the ratings and how popular some current relgious thrillers were and the majoiorty of them were popular and had high ratings. After we decided that we liked the idea of a religious torturer, we brainstormed all of the ideas and anything that we thought we could include. We came up with the idea of the protagonist living in a family home, perhaps with a family member in the scene at some point, then going downstairs or outside into a garage or a basement, where he is keeping two people hostage. We talked about how long each scene would take and what we would need for the planning and the making of the film. I think that this is a good idea so far, we just need to work on the plot and think about how all of our ideas will fit together.
If we continue with the idea of a religious thriller then we will need to do more research on this as none of us have researched or analysed religious thrillers so far in our research.
This week my group and I have started the planning stage for our film, we've been having discussions about what sub genre or hybrid genre we think our film should be and we've discussed all of the ideas that we've come up with. At first we came up with the idea of a crime-thriller with some phycological elements, we recorded out conversation and came uo with several different ideas of what we could include if we did do this particular sub genre. We also discussed other aslects such as the filming and what the style of the film would be like, we all agreed that we liked the particular stlings of films like Sin City and how it was very arty and clever in the way it had been animated. We kept with this idea and based mire ideas around this, we also talked about having a hand-held camera and having some of the film on this, as if from the aspect of the protagonist. We brainstormed and talked about ideas for the crime thriller, however after further discussions we decided that we wanted to do something more original as the ideas that we were coming up with we're very clice. As we ended our discussion we started thinking of more ideas and came up with the possible idea of a religious thriller, we will be continuing to discuss this idea. I think that our planning is going well so far, I'm happy with our decision to not continue planning for a crime thriller as this is something that wont be original and I think that we should do something unusual and not expected, I think that we should go down the unconventional route and go for some unexpected ideas but still keep the main elements of the conventions for whatever sub genre or hybrid that we choose. I'm think that our ideas about camera and editing are good ideas and will hopefully be useful to us further on in our planning, but for now we need to make a definite decision on our genre and then work from there with the planning.
So far as an A Level media student I feel as though I have added a lot more to my knowledge of what I already learned in media GCSE; I feel a lot more confident with the technical language used when I'm writing, for example I feel a lot more confident when including semiotics in my essays however I do think that this is my main weakness as I often find the technical language confusing as the words and definitions are very similar. Ive also learned a lot about camera and the different camera angles used in films and television shows and the reasons why they are used and how it affects the audience. Something which I'm still not very confident with is sound, before A Level media I didn't know much about sound in media texts and how or why it's used, I'm beginning to learn more about it however I do need to look back on my notes on sound, or research more about it. Something else who I didn't know much about before A Level Media was editing. In GCSE we didn't learn much about editing as the majority of our work was writing and text based, whereas most of the work we are doing now is on film and TV, I've learned about different types of editing for example how quick editing cuts are used in action and fighting scenes to create fast fast pace and make it seem more dramatic. Although I have been learning more I still feel like I need to develop on my knowledge of editing, and obviously I will be leaning more when it comes to editing our title sequences as I haven't yet had any experience of editing myself. I was already fairly familiar with mise en scene from GCSE media and my research for the title sequences has helped me learn a lot more about mise en scene and the codes and conventions. My research has also taught me a lot about genre, sub genres and hybrid genre, I wasn't confiident with genre at all before we learned about it, but now I am and I can tell which genre most films are and the sub genre/hybrid genre, is has also taught me about the codes and conventions in each genre of film. My targets will be to revise semiotics- specifically work on indexical signs and signifiers. I also think that I need to learn some more about sound and editing. I need to be more detailed in my writing, and be less descriptive and instead emphasise the technical aspects.
