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.