Week Five - New Brief, Rock Climbing (28/02/13)

In today's session, we started off speaking about the use of music in a film. Some of the information that we were given included:

• Always take time to listen to the music to make sure that it fits the scene
• Music can help with the pacing of the film
• It doesn't matter if you like the music or not, if it works with the piece, put it in
• Actively listen to music everyday, learn which type of music works with which scenes and the mood/tone of the films
• Music should be used in our next project, which is a documentary about a rock climber, and we should give the audience time to listen to the music

After that, we were introduced to the new brief, which is to create a documentary using the footage provided about a rock climber. Below I have include the brief we were given.

Once I had been given the brief, I was also given a rough cut of the documentary which was just over 8 minutes long, to use as a rough cut for our documentary. I reconnected the media which had gone offline and then also imported all of the footage that had been imported from the tapes and started to rename the footage. 

We were also given the original tapes with all of the footage on them to look through and see if there was any footage that hadn't been captured for us to use. Myself and Rhys Holland went through all of the tapes together quickly and couldn't find anything that wasn't already imported. I decided that I would go through all of the footage we had already been given myself and then look through the tapes properly once I had done that so it would be easier to notice if there was anything that I had missed.

Just before the end of the lesson we were given some questions to research into that we should included in our blog, these questions were:

• What is H.264?
• Watching something with the sound off?
• Who is David Lean?

Overall, I thought the session was very good and I am looking forward to getting the new brief underway and start the editing of it. 

Week Four - Rough Cut Feedback (21/02/12)

In today's session, we were showing our rough cuts of our film, Night Journey. To begin with, the main Mac in the room that was hooked up to the projector wasn't working correctly so we had discussions about the schedule for the next of the semester and also about choices for next year and the importance of our elective modules. I found all of this information very helpful and gave me more of an insight into the workload next year and what I may want to do.

Once the Mac was working correctly, we started looking at the rough cuts. Whilst other people were getting their feedback, I noted down parts of it that might come in useful in mine and Lewis' project. The feedback that I noted down was:

• NEVER loop an atmos track. Always make sure that you record enough so that you don't have to loop it and don't have to use the same piece twice. Looping the track can cause a clicking noise that can get very irritating
• Choose the music in films carefully, don't just choose it because it sounds good, make your choice based on characterisation and the tone of the scene/film
• Establish who the protagonist as early as you can
• Dream sequence
• Echo voices
• Possible blurry edges?
• Isolation
• Show the empty corridors and empty compartments to show the isolation of the two characters
• NEVER have more than one ending
• Pauses in the dialogue when using voiceover is esential, it gives the audience time to process what has been said

After watching various people's rough cuts, Lewis and myself showed ours. I was very happy with the positive feedback that we received which was:

• The voiceover at the beginning of the film was very strong and the timing was done well
• We had a great characterisation of the victim
• The dream sequence was a bit too sudden, consider slowly moving into the dream and maybe adding an effect to the footage to make it look like a dream
• The opening point-of-view shot was too busy, consider removing
• The opening sequence where we see the man standing at the platform was used well but consider extending the length of the shot
• The opening sequence possibly had too many different shots, consider removing a few and extending existing shots so the audience have time to breath and get to grips with what is happening
• The music at the beginning of the film works well. Watch through the film plenty of times to make sure all of the music works
• The crossfade from the corridor to the compartment following the script very strictly, consider changing it
• The point-of-view shot we used at the end when the three characters are looking in the cabin was too high to be from their point-of-view, change this shot to suit the height of the characters

I am very happy with the feedback that we received and I am looking forward to taking the feedback into account and getting on with the fine cut of the film.

Finishing the Rough Cut (20/02/13)

After sending the file back to Lewis for him to review the work I had done on it, he got on with editing the one minute that I left between the middle and end of the film. He thought it would be a good idea to use the footage of Amsterdam as if the victim was dreaming of having a walk in Amsterdam, which is one of the lines in the script that the victim says.

Before showing the dream sequence, Lewis added some voiceover that made it look like the victim was falling asleep. He used the piece of dialogue where the man says 'I won't sleep tonight' and then used the 'tonight' part twice afterwards, to make it look like he was loosing concentration and falling asleep. I thought this was a really nice touch to the piece and I think it works really well.

After that, we added the dream sequence, using lots of different shots of Amsterdam and a shot of a highway at night as the train went past to slowly bring the film out of the dream and back to reality, eventually showing the empty corridor on the train. During the dream sequence we used a music track that was happy and possibly the type of music that the victim would enjoy, to show that he is looking forward to walking around Amsterdam.

Also during the dream sequence, Lewis used the close up of the cannibal's mouth as he slowly grins and opens it but he slow it down and added a blur to it to show that the victim may have seen this from his eyes but drifts back to sleep.

After this, the rough edit was done and ready to show in the next seminar to get feedback and a provisional grade for it. Overall, I am very happy with it and I'm looking forward to seeing what Chris thinks to it and any feedback that we will receive. 

Rough Cut (19/02/12)

After leaving our rough cut the other day after starting to lose concentration on it, Lewis edited a bit more of the film after the lesson on Thursday (21st February). He pieced together the first 50 seconds of the film and then e-mailed the project file to me so I could get on with a bit of the editing myself before sending the file back to Lewis.

Once I opened the file, I looked at what Lewis had done with the edit so far and then tired to think of where we could take the film. Lewis had edited the opening sequence for the film, with a small montage of the train going along the tracks and the victim getting on the train, so our storyline was still to be established.

I had another look through the script and read all of the voiceovers that we had been provided with to use and decided that I wanted to keep the story the same, having the cannibal talk to the victim, however, I wanted to show that the victim had been eaten by the end of the film. Doing this was going to be difficult because there weren't actually any shots of the cannibal eating the victim.

After looking through all of the footage and planning which shots would look good for an end sequence, I came up with a way of showing that the cannibal was eating the victim without actually seeing it happen. First, I wanted to use a shot of any empty seat where the cannibal was originally sat, to show that he had moved, and then cut to a shot of the victim asleep, telling the audience that something was going to happen to the victim as he was helpless whilst sleeping. After that, I used a shot of the cannibal pouring salt onto the victims hand, to show that he was adding 'spices' to make him taste better and finally a shot of the cannibal's mouth slowly grinning and opening to show that he was about to eat the victim, before slowly fading to black during the actual eating.

Then I decided to fade in from black to a shot of the cannibal looking out of the window, as we could see him in the reflection. This was used to show that he was getting ready to leave the train, before cutting to a close up shot of the alarm chain broken as it had been pulled. In the same shot, the camera tilted down to show three characters coming and looking into the compartment where the two men were sat, before cutting to a shot showing the empty compartment, both men missing. I then cut back to the three characters looking puzzled at who pulled the alarm, before once again fading to black and fading back up from black to a shot of the cannibal walking away from the train and the reflection of the victim on the inside of the train. I wanted to use this reflection as a way of showing that the victim had been eaten and is now a ghost on the train, watching his murderer walk away happily.

After that, I decided that I wanted to introduce the majority of the three characters that appear at the end of the film early on in the film. When I looked through the footage earlier on, I noticed that there was only one shot of the man in the red robe throughout all of the footage. In the shot, the man asks the two passengers if either of them have a lighter, before leaving the compartment. I wanted to included this shot to show that the men weren't the only people on the train and so that at the end when we see this man, he wouldn't be a complete stranger. I included this shot shortly after a piece sequence of the two men in the compartment together where the victim was looking at the cannibal and then I cut to a two shot of the men looking at each other. The voiceover said "After 'That's how it is' he said nothing" and then I cut to a cutaway shot of the train running along the trains to show time passing and then after that shot I included the shot of the man in his robe.

I then cut back to the conversation between the two men, with the cannibal telling the man that he'll be asleep soon and then he'll do what he wants to with him, and then the victim wondering what the cannibal has in his suitcase. I then wanted to cut to a shot of the suitcase and the skull falling out and hitting the cannibal's foot to add a bit of shock to the film, showing that the cannibal carries around skulls with him of his victims, and the victim on the train's skull could be the next one in the cannibal's collection.

Following the part of the film with the skulls, I wanted to cut to another piece of conversation between the two men as the victim says that he isn't going to fall asleep and then the cannibal tells him that every falls into a deep sleep between three and four whilst he is casually pouring himself a drink of coffee and the victim is rubbing his eyes trying to stay awake. Then the cannibal tells the victim that they get shut into their compartments and nobody sees or hears anything, trying to worry the victim even more.

Because the cannibal tried to make the victim feel claustrophobic by telling him that they get shut into their compartments, I wanted to add a shot showing the victim trying to almost 'escape' the compartment by pulling back the curtain and looking outside, giving him a sense of freedom in the world outside of the compartment he was trapped in. Then I cut back to a shot of the cannibal offering him a cigarette before trying to close the curtains at the entrance of the room and the ticket man coming into the compartment to check both of the men on his list. This introduces the ticket man into the film as he will be seen at the end when the alarm is pulled. When the ticket man looks at the victim, I wanted to cut to a shot of the victim to show that he was starting to fall to sleep, and then cut back to the ticket man noting the victim down on his sheet and then leaving the room.

After I had finished that part of the scene, there was roughly a minute to fill in of the film. I thought I would now added the sound to the film and then send the project file to Lewis to see what he thought to the editing that I had done to the piece.

The sounds that I added were mainly sounds of the train as it was moving along the tracks, recorded from inside the train, to give it more of a realistic feeling with the actual atmosphere of a train. I added the voiceover as I added the visuals to the film earlier on because I came up with the ideas for the voiceovers as I was piecing together the visuals.

Overall, I am very happy with the rough cut so far and I'm looking forward to hearing what Lewis thinks to it and speaking through any ideas he has to fill in the extra minute we have available before the ending of the film.

Warm Bodies (2012) - Voiceover

Last Wednesday, I went to see Warm Bodies at the cinema. I went into this film with an open mind, hearing mixed opinions on it before I went to see it.

The film is about a population of zombies and the film is seen from their perspective. We learn all about them that they can’t remember their names and struggle to speak and communicate with each other. Towards the beginning, the protagonist, R, sees a girl who is human and he likes he saves her from the rest of the zombies and protects her. Throughout the film, R’s love for her grows and this love starts to bring him back to life and he becomes more human like. Over zombies see that he is becoming human again and they see the love between R and his girlfriend and they also begin to turn back to human, showing that love was the cure.

The element of the film that stood out to me was the use of the voice over throughout the film. Because zombies can’t talk and can only grunt, a voice over from R was used to tell the story. This is very comedic in places, for example, close to the beginning of the film, he tells us who is best friend is and that they sit together for hours on end every day and grunt at each other and have ‘almost conversations’ and then we see them try to talk to each other and look away because they are unable.

I thought the use of the voice over was very well done and helped to tell the story very well, and it became slightly less used towards the end of the film when R was becoming more human and able to speak again, but then again used in the final few scenes of the film whilst R was explaining his life as it is now.

Halloween (1978) Opening Sequence

Title: Halloween

Director: John Carpenter

Year: 1978

Running Time: 101 minutes 

I recently watched Halloween (1978) and thoroughly enjoyed the opening sequence to this film as it was so simple but very effective. The opening sequence consists of only two shots, a long point-of-view shot lasting about four minutes, and then a shot after that showing the person who's point-of-view we were seeing from.

The first shot starts outside a house and then goes over the a window, to show teenage boy and girl together in the living room and the teenage boy plays with a clown mask before they before head upstairs to the bedroom together and the living room light is turned off. Then we go back to the front of the house and look up at the bedroom window as the light is turned off. Before this happens, all of the sound used in the clip is just sound that you would expect to hear in this area, but once the bedroom light is turned off, some eerie musics starts to play all the way until the end of the sequence, getting more intense towards the end. 

Then we go to the back of the house and we go inside, picking up a knife from the kitchen, walking into the living room and seeing the teenage boy putting his t-shirt on as he comes downstairs and leaves the house. The camera hides in the living room, showing that the person who's point-of-view we are seeing them doesn't want to be seen. Once the teenage boy has left, we begin to head upstairs and we see the clown mask on the floor, and we pick it up and put it on. 

We then head into the bedroom and see the teenage girl sat brushing her hair and as we approach her, she turns around and says 'Michael!', telling us that the person's point-of-view we are seeing from is Michael. Michael then stabs the teenage girl several times and then heads downstairs and out of the front door, to be confronted by who appears to be his parents. 

The mask is taken off and we cut to the shot of Michael, slowly zooming out to reveal his parents at either side of him in shock as he is stood their holding a knife with blood all over it. 

I really like how simple this scene is, only having one cut in it, used to reveal who Michael is, and also the use of the eerie music helps to build the tension of the scene, getting more intense at the parts where there is going to be some action. 

Week Three

During this session, we were told that we would be introduced to the recently refurbished Super 8 cameras that we are able to book out from the stores. We were then told about a book that we should look at called, The Conversation by Michael Ondaatje.

After looking at the book mentioned above, we watched a film called A Million Feet of Film. This film is a short documentary, which shows the editing process and explains where some of the footage came from for the film Apocalypse Now.

Whilst watching this, we had to think about the use of the voice-over throughout the piece and also the editing styles.

During the film, we would see an interview with a person and they would be talking about a certain point in the film and then the visual would cut to an image of the clip that the interviewee is talking about and the voice-over would carry on throughout whilst they explained the clip.

Sometimes, they would also cut back to the interviewee. This would only be done if the interviewee were about to say something important and interesting. This is done to make sure the audience remembers the piece of information that is being told to them because if the image on screen and dialogue is coming from the interviewee, they will be fully concentrating on what the interviewee is talking about, rather than watching another clip.

Also, there may be breaks in the voice-over during a clip being shown. This is to make sure that the audience would watch the clip and not have to concentrate on what is being said, so when the voice-over starts again, it would capture the audience’s attention straight away.

It was also mentioned about how to keep creatively at massive potential throughout an entire working day. This was done by making people do different jobs and keep swapping what they were doing, such as editors having a scene to do each, rather than doing the entire film. Also, regular breaks would help keep concentration and if you get stuck at a certain point of editing, you should get up and walk away from it for a few minutes and then come back to it and try again.

We also watched the opening scene of Hannah and Her Sisters. Whilst watching this, we were told to think about the use of the music and the voice-over. The first thing that I noticed about the music is that it started as the credits were rolling at the start of the film. When I heard the music, I thought that it could have been coming from a ball or a party. When the visuals came onto screen, we found out that it was at a house party.

The voice-over is very well done too because before the voice-over starts, on-screen we see the words ‘God, She’s Beautiful’ and then the voice-over starts with these exact words. The image on screen as he says this is a lady stood looking at the camera and then begins to walk around the house enjoying the party.

There is a part in the voice-over when the man says about the ladies neck, and when he says this, we see the lady walk past a man as he is looking at her neck, which tells me that this man is the man in the voice-over. Also, the voice-over stops when the camera comes to a stand-still and the man is at the side of the screen, which also tells me that he is the man in the voice-over.

Overall, I thought this opening scene established the characters very well and also gave me an idea of what the film was going to be about. I really liked way that there are not many cuts in the scene and the camera is either on tripod of handheld all of the time in long takes.

After watching this film, we got back into our pairs and started working on our rough cuts of Night Journey. After looking at the small rough cut that we had already put together, I wanted to move away from sticking directly to the script and add my own feel to the film as the footage that we had been given wouldn’t work as well as it should do if we had stuck to the script. 

Starting the Rough Cut (13/02/13)

After finishing creating the sub-clips from the visuals and audio we were given, it was time to start the rough cut.

To do this, myself and Lewis started off by looking through the script and seeing what order the visuals were supposed to go in. Since I cut up the narration, I had a very good idea of what the story would look like so I recommended to Lewis that he should have a read through the dialogue in the script to get to grips with what the story is supposed to be like.

We started off my opening the film with the clip of the cannibal walking away from the train and the narrator watching him leave. Then we did a small montage of the train travelling fast through the night, with very quick cuts to add pace to the piece and to show that the train was moving fast.

After that, we cut to a shot of the corridor and as the train jolts the camera falls into the cabin and then we cut to the cannibal lighting a cigarette and starring at the camera (as if it were from the narrator’s point of view).

After that, we cut to the shot of the cannibal with nobody either side of him and his suitcase above his head and it starts to open. Then we cut to a close up of the suitcase as a skull is revealed and falls out of the case. Then we cut to the shot of the cannibal’s feet as the skull rolls and hits his foot.

We didn’t stay long during the rough cut because we had spent roughly 5 hours cutting the sound files and getting them labeled up in a way that we thought would be most practical and we were getting annoyed with the rough cut due to the fact that we had been starring at the screen for a long time.

So we decided that it would be a good idea to leave it as it was and both go back to our houses and have a good read through the script and make sure that we had the story in our head ready for the next day when we could carry on with the rough cut feeling more refreshed and ready to edit. 

Cutting the Sound Files (13/02/13)

Today, myself and Lewis met up to start cutting up the sound clips that we had been for our project, Night Journey, and putting them into sub-clips.

I started off doing this by listening to the sound clips and then setting in and out points (using the I and O buttons my keyboard) every time a clip started and finished and also, most of the time there would be a lady telling me what each clip was after she had recorded it. After setting the in and out points, I would create a sub clip of the clip, using the shortcut Command + U. When it came to renaming the file, I would use the most sensible file name, normally calling it what the lady had told me it was and also adding some of my own information.

As I did with the video clips that I cut up, I created bins for the audio files to go in and labeled them:

• Audio rushes 1 subclips
• Audio rushes 2 subclips
•  Narration subclips

This helped me to keep the files organized so if I ever do need to go back to the original file, I will know which file is was from and where in the file is came from.

When it came to cutting up the narration clips, I used the script through to help me. I came up with a sensible file name to follow for all of the clips. The file name template I came up with was:

Narrator , P X (X = PAGE NUMBER), B X (X = Block Number), T X (X = Take Number)

This file name template would help me greatly when it comes to finding specific parts of the script because I know know the page number and then which block of text it was in the script so I can easily find that piece of dialogue in the clips.

Overall, I am happy with how we managed to cut all of the files down and create sub-clips with them and I am now ready to start the assembly of the project and the rough cut.