In My 8 shot journey Andrew was the actor whilst I was the camera man/director. In the first shot we see Andrew sitting at a table in the atrium of the college having a drink of his water, this is obviously a break time. In the second shot we have Andrew looking at his phone realising he is late. Shot three he leaves the table and goes through the double doors. In shot four he goes down the corridor and around the corner, shot five we carry on from him going round the corner to where he will scan his card which brings us to shot 6 which is an extreme close up of the card being scanned. In Shot 7 after scanning his card we see his coming through the doors and into the film studio. Shot 8 is the final shot and we see him come through the door and go to his seat sitting down with only a few seconds to spare. Overall I am very happy with how my 8 Shot journey went and if i changed it i would this time remember to remove the sound as i forgot so i do apologize that there is sound as there isnt meant to be any.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Cinematography laws - Do's and Don'ts
Directors plan every frame, shot and sequence. Some terms are:-
- Frames
- Shots
- Sequences
- Scenes
- Movies and Programmes
- FRAME- is a single cell of a film. In film making 24 frames make up a second. So real time film is 24 frames per second (fps). In video if you wish to shoot real time you will need to shoot 25 fps.
- SHOT- a shot is a continuous strip of motion picture film, created of a series of frames, that runs for an uninterupted period of time.
- SCENE- is a part of the action that happens in a single location. As soon as the location changes it is the start of the new scene.
- SEQUENCE- is a series of scees which form a distinct narrative unit, usually connected either by a location or a unit or passage of time. They can also follow a narrative and usually have a beginning a middle and an end of some description.
- A MOVIE (FILM) OR PROGRAMME- are an entire bodies of work. They are created through series's of shots, frames, scenes and sequences.
Shot Sizes
They are a variety of shot sizes form extreme close up (ecu) to a very long shot/wide shot (vls). Different shots serve a different purpose and can be used to show the viewer the desired information. Generally when filming you start away from the action (ls) and then gradually move closer (cu) drawing the viewer into the scene and the action. A vls is a very good shot for establishing where you are and what maybe going on. Shot sizes communicate infomation, emotion and details of the intended meaning of the director. To establish a location or setting it is best to use a wide shot so the viewer can drink in all the general information. As there is a lot of information, it needs to be on screen for a while. If the communication or highlight something of the intrest to the viewer shuch as an important prop or character emotion they are likely to use a close up. These need less time on screen as there is less to take in.
Rule of thirds
The rule of thirds is a fundimental rule of compostition that objects placed off centre are more interesting to look at. A grid is imagned over the frame (like naughts and crosses) and generally the eyes are on the top line (eye line) the horizon on the bottom (horizon line) and the subject on either of the two horizontal lines. The sweet spots are where the lines intersect and where you want to place the subject. Consider looking/moving space.
180° Line Rule: line of action
An imaginary line you must not cross or the action is inconsistent when you cut together the edit.
Position 1: Camera below the line action is moving from right to left in the shot.
Position 2: Camera above the line action is moving from left to right in the shot.
If you edit from 1-2 then the action makes no sense as the subject changes direction. You must always film the action form one-side of the 180° degree line or your action will not edit properly and the movement in the shot will simply not work. The only exception is if you cross the line during a shot by moving the camera accross the line during a tracking type shot.
Camera Angle
High angle shots make the subject of the shot seem weak and inferior. Low angle shots make the shubject seem strong and powerful and viewer feels inferior. Canted angle or Dutch tilt shots make the fram seem awkward and mysterious as we do not see the world this way.
Camera Height
As human beings we generally see the world at eye level standing up or sitting down. If we shoot the camera at eye level it is used to how we see the world so it is comfortable, anything else is uncomfortable and feels weird.
Using lines can add drama and make your shots more dynamic and had the viewers eye within the shot. Diagonal lines add intrest and energy to your shots, Curved lines make things seem graceful. Shallow focus is when certain subjects are in focus and other elements are not and you have a small depth of field. It draws attention to what is in focus. You can use this to effect to pull focus. Deep focus is when everything in the shot is in focus and you have a large depth of field. It makes everything in the frane seem important as it is all in focus and sharp. Action planes are the foreground, middle ground, and background. The best and most interesting shots incorperate all of these or at least two.
Film/Tv Conventions
Continuety of travel: If your subjesct enters the shot camera left and exits right thus must continue. Only if your subject changes direction in the shot and enters the camera left and leaves the camera left. Works both ways.
Edit points: When shooting consider your edit points in your head a good way to go is to let your subject completly leave the frame and then completly enter again in the next shot.
Cut ins/aways: These are shots that can help with continuety and also add to the action.
Compression of Time: Film editing is all compression adn manipulation of time generally to compress (montage) but can elongate (slo-mo).
Short Film Checklist
You should always keep it simple as if its too complicated then people will not understand it.
Always keep it highly visual as most short films dont have any speech in them.
Not too many characters as you dont have long enough to introduce too many characters.
Not many locations if you keep swaping locations people will become confused, just use one and keep it simple.
Use Humour/Fantasy as they can usualy be short and still work really well.
Always end on one big climax as you dont want to confuse the audience.
Anti Narrative it doesnt have to be in a confentional sequence.
And Finally avoid cliches as they are not original, try and come up with your own individual ideas.
Monday, 19 October 2009
Jingles Evaluation
The task that was given was to create three jingles that were suitable to be used on the radio station SNC Live, which is the college’s own radio station. To do this we were using the programme ADOBE Sound booth on the apple imacs, this programme was okay but has got a few “teething problems” and has a tendency to freeze or come up with unexpected errors meaning you have to shut down the programme and end up loosing all your work, meaning you have to start again. The three different jingles that we had to produce were a show promotion, a news jingle and a station ident. Out of the three jingles the one which I found hardest was the news jingle because it was fairly hard to get it to fit with a target audience and still sound good, the one which I found easiest was the station ident as it was able to fit with any music and still sound fairly good, the show promotion was also fairly easy for the same reason.
For the news jingle I got a song off the internet of a site called www.soundsnap.com I was able to get this sound by using a link and recording it straight from the speakers to the microphone via the linking cable, this worked really well meaning that I got no background noise. I was also able to get a mans voice saying news off the same site, using the same method. I then copied this and changed the pitch on one of them so that it was higher and sounded completely different, and then put these with the track so that they played over and over again. This was effective as people said that it was hypnotic in a good way, and it meant that you definitely knew what was coming up next.
For the station ident I got some music off YouTube and again used the link to record it. I then recorded myself saying SNC Live and put this playing with the track simultaneously the only trouble with recording myself was that we had to record using the built in microphone and the background noise was very bad as it picked up everything that was going on, luckily when it was playing with the music you couldn’t hear any of the background noise so it sounded fairly good in the headphones that I was using whilst creating all of my jingles, although it did sound very different in the speakers when played to the class.
For the show promotion again I used YouTube for my background track and this time I also used www.soundsnap.com to get some various voice over’s rather than recording my own voice and running the risk of getting in all of the background noise. Again to get this tracks I used a link and again it worked really well. Then I put the voice over’s that I had got in various places in the track and it sounded very professional and very good I was very happy at how it had came out. This reflected with what people said as they all thought it was excellent and all said that it worked really well.
Over all I thought that my jingles worked well and did what they were supposed to do and could be used on the radio if needed. If I did it again I would have a different way to record my voice as the background noise was very loud and I did have to record two or three times to get it so that I was happy with how it sounded. Also I may have used a different programme or made sure that the many teething problems within the programme had been sorted, so that I didn’t have to start over again, which happened once.