Preliminary match cut task - Filming part 2, (Tue 20 Jan)

Today’s Lesson (Tuesday 20th January), We continued Editing our ‘Preliminary Match Cut Task’, this went well, we shortened the clips that needed shorting by cutting off un-necessary footage and made our match-cuts become apparent.
All in all I think we did a good job in completing our Task. We used a wide variety of features including, close-ups, medium shots, extreme close-ups, long shots, we shot from a variety of angles including high angel, low angel and eye level. We also used pans. We used a variety of shots to express the characters emotions, with close-ups and extreme close ups pushing it that further. We used a variety of camera angles effectively as we showed Ufuk, who in the film, has a higher status than me; to show this we had the camera at a high angle shot, looking down on me – making me look weak, whereas we had the camera on Ufuk at a low angle shot – presenting power.
We used pans and match-cut shots to show movement, using these along with the 180 degree rule, made the film all that more clearer to the audience and helped the film easily glide from one scene to another.

From this short filming experience, I have learnt how to use the editing software all that more effectively and am now looking forward to filming and editing our actual Thriller.

Preliminary match cut task - Filming. (Fri 16th Jan)

In today’s lesson (Friday 16th January) our task was to plan and shoot our ‘Preliminary Match Cut Task’. In doing this we were told to include three specific features which were: Match cuts, a shot/Reverse shot and to keep the 180 degree rule. In order to do this, we were given a storyboard and were to use this to plan out our task. It was on this storyboard where we drew rough sketches of each scene, wrote in the amount of seconds that each scene would take and wrote in any specific dialogue or special effects that were to be used. As a group we decided on a storyline and came to a decision on who was to play what, myself and Ufuk were the two on screen characters where as Karess was managing the camera.

We got given the location of ‘The Store room’ although we were quite unsure at first, we put together our ideas and in all it became the perfect location for us, as it was quiet, small, and had an office theme throughout – perfect. It took us about 30 minutes to complete all the filming; we repeated the same scene quite a few times in order for us to move the camera around from in front of the characters to behind , we done this, so when we were to start editing it would become a match cut. We used a tripod to shoot everything, as we were afraid handheld would have made it too un-easy and perhaps confusing to the audience. We also shot from several different angles and used the function ‘Zoom’ to include close-ups and medium shots of the characters; we used these to help express the characters emotions more fluently to the audience.

After filming we moved to the editing suite where we were to start editing our film clip. At first we split up each of the scenes one by one, we then placed them in order and named them, due to lack of time we saved our progress and decided to continue next lesson.

Analysing previous Thriller clips (Friday 9th January)

In Today’s lesson, (Friday 9th January) we watched several clips from the Thriller movies made last year by the previous AS Media students. The aim of this lesson was to receive ideas on how to construct our own Thriller movies, we were to recognise their mistakes and prevent them from appearing in out own. We were also given a sheet of paper and were told to jot down anything used in the clip that came under the title ‘Mise en scene’. This included the likes of, Costumes, location, props, lighting, special effects, characters and many more important features.

From watching the clips I learnt several things. I learnt that a key element into having a successful Thriller is to seduce the audience into long term commitment, to not give to much information away enabling the audience to want to keep watching in order to find out, what happens next? To keep them questioning and gripped to the screen.
Another thing I learnt was to use your camera shots effectively, an example of this would be an establishing shot, in order to make this shot effective, I would use it at the very beginning of the clip and would perhaps have it from a birds eye view, to show and tell the audience the location, where the following scene, if not the whole film, will be set.

In conclusion watching the past A level students clips was time well spent as I learnt a lot and can take these new skills and place them in to my own Thriller movie clip

Sound Editing. (Tuesday 6th January)

In today’s Lesson (Tuesday 6th January) we learnt about Sound Layers and how they were put together to make a scene more realistic, exciting and more importantly to attract the audience’s attention and keep them on the edge of their seat. To do this we were given four clips from the film “The Casino Royale 007”. Neither of the four contained sound as we had to do that our selves. At first we were given just a picture and had to imagine what might have been going on; sound wise. We had to place on the different sound layers, for example: I placed Dialogue in front of the two men stood there and I placed the sound of a truck reversing on the truck.

After doing so, we were given an actual scene from the movie, this however contained no sound. We had to add the sound landscape our selves, in order to make the clip more exciting and once again – realistic. As the scene contained lots of action and fast moving vehicles, I added loud fast paced music, as well as the sound effects of ‘skids’ from the tyres of the vehicles and grunting as the characters were in a fight. All in all I didn’t have any difficulties in managing the sound track and thoroughly enjoyed doing so.

preliminary Match Cut Task