First Video

Reflective writing

Today I, Kim, Janice and Charlotte made lots of different videos from many different angles that show our skills which will be really useful and helpful for us in future media studies.

While recording all the videos we learned several rules, such as 180 degree rule. The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states those two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle.

Panning was one of the things we learned that day as well and I think we use it quite a lot actually because we had to show this on our video so it doesn’t look boring. Mounting the camera on a tripod, simply move the camera horizontally from left to right. Pan shots are used to show the viewer more of the scenery. This technique is also often used to show views from high places, such as overlooks. Pan shots should begin with a still shot, then pan, then finish with a still shot. You should practice panning at various speeds until you find the speed that works best for you.

Zooming was the hardest one I think because we could never find the right time when to stop zooming in or zooming out because it would either me to close or too far away but you get used to the technique after several recordings. Zooming is one camera move that most people are probably familiar with. It involves changing the focal length of the lens to make the subject appear closer or further away in the frame. Most video cameras today have built-in zoom features. Some have manual zooms as well, and many have several zoom speeds. Zooming is one of the most frequently-used camera moves and one of the most overused.

We didn’t really use any angles but we should’ve because we need to practice more for making the final video for our coursework. The main angle shot that we used was the eye-level shot which is the most useful one. Eye-level shots tend to be neutral. Much like the medium shot, an eye-level shot puts the viewer on equal footing with the subject being filmed. This has none of the diminishing or exaggerating qualities of the high- and low-angle shots.

As well as recording we did editing which was a little bit harder than the first part. In the editing we use lots of things that we learned with our teacher. But there weren’t a lot of new techniques used because this was our first editing

The other thing that we learned is the match on action. A match on action, a technique used in film editing, is a cut that connects two different views of the same action at the same moment in the movement. By carefully matching the movement across the two shots, filmmakers make it seem that the motion continues uninterrupted. For a real match on action, the action should begin in the first shot and end in the second shot. This was very useful on the editing part of our day. This was something new and interesting.

The hardest in the editing was the shot reverse-shot because Kim and Charlotte spoke really fast and it was really hard to catch the right moment to stop the video and cut it in the right place. Shot reverse-shot (or shot/counter shot) is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.

Deliverance Analysis

This scene is showing the difference between people that come from different parts of town. Group of people come from the city make fun of the people that live in the mountains.  The attitude to the place and people that live in the mountains is really bad and you would never want to face people like them but the people from the mountains mocking the people from the town by saying “you don’t know anything” which are a pretty offensive thing to say.

On the other side you get the situation of a man who is really nice in the scene which shows later on because when he starts playing the guitar the child who we don’t know about comes out and starts copying the sounds that the man who plays the guitar makes but on his banjo. No one pays attention to them until they properly get into the playing everyone start looking at them and smiling because it was such a happy moment but at the same time you get a man who still makes fun of that because the old man started dancing he turned around and laughed at him which made him look very stupid from my point of view.

When they stopped playing, the man that was playing the guitar asked the kid if he would like to play another song with him but the kid turned away for the reason that no one knows and then the man that makes fun of everyone says a very mean phrase “ give him a couple of bucks “. This shows that his attitude to these people is really bad.

So the outcome of this is that different classes of people have different opinions and the people from town have no respect to people from mountains. This doesn’t only happens in the movies, it happens in real life which I think shouldn’t be going on. All people should be respectful to each other.

Deliverance Dueling Banjo

The video for my Deliverance

Research

The Ring

This movie gave me an idea of the girl being lonely and then growing up and revenge on her parents and all other people.

Research

The Orphan

This movie gave me an idea of making the girl in my movie almost as crazy as this.

Research

Silent Hill

This movie is about a little girl who was taken by the devil and she became crazy and couldn’t talk the idea I took was a little girl and her going crazy and telling anyone anything of what happened to her.

Research

The Butterfly Effect

This film has flash backs and I’m going to use something like this in my start of the movie.

Research

Paranormal Activity

Some of the scenes are really good for me to use in my start of the movie.

Research

The Scream Trailer

This is one of the movies that inspired me to make my start of the movie. This is the movie that has bits that I’m planning to use in my start of the movie

Films Research

THe Ring

It sounded like just another urban legend--videotape filled with nightmarish images, leading to a phone call foretelling the viewer's death in exactly seven days. As a newspaper reporter, Rachel Keller was naturally skeptical of the story, until four teenagers all met with mysterious deaths exactly one week after watching just such a tape. Allowing her investigative curiosity to get the better of her, Rachel tracks down the video... and watches it. Now she has just seven days to unravel the mystery of the "Ring."

The SCREAm

One year after the death of Sidney Prescott's (Campbell) mother, two students turn up gutted. When a serial killer appears, Sidney begins to suspect whether her mother's death and the two new deaths are related. No one is safe, as the killer begins to pick everyone off one by one. Everyone's a suspect in this case.

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY

Katie and Micah are enjoying a happy and carefree existence. Their future looks promising until bizarre events begin to occur at night. In order to get to the bottom of things, Katie and Micah purchase a video camera to find out what happens at night while they sleep.

The butterfly effect

A young man blocks out harmful memories of significant events of his life. As he grows up, he finds a way to remember these lost memories and a supernatural way to alter his life.

Silent hill 

The eerie and deserted ghost town of Silent Hill draws a young mother desperate to find a cure for her only child's illness. Unable to accept the doctor's diagnosis that her daughter should be permanently institutionalized for psychiatric care, Rose flees with her child, heading for the abandoned town in search of answers -- and ignoring the protests of her husband. It's soon clear this place is unlike anywhere she's ever been. It's smothered by fog, inhabited by a variety of strange beings and periodically overcome by a living "darkness" that literally transforms everything it touches. As Rose begins to learn the history of the strange town, she realizes that her daughter is just a pawn in a larger game.

The orphan

A husband and wife who recently lost their baby adopt a 9-year-old girl who is not nearly as innocent as she claims to be.

The Art of the Title

Summery

A story about sex and violence and it is a effect on a child. A women forever mentally scared. She just wants her dolls back.

Quotes

• You don’t have to over complicate  things to start with
•  Usually I come up with the types first, that carries  the weight of the character…
• It needs to be something that wipes you off your feet

And these are my 3 main approaches  for my opening scene

Fonts

BlairMdITC TT-Medium

Copperplate Gothic Light

Edwardian Script ITC

Engravers mt

Perpetua titling mt

Modern No. 20

Research

The ring

The Orphan

 Silent Hill

These are three main movies I’ve looked at and chose what exactly I want to do in my opening scene. Three of these movies are about small girls wanting something very badly and trying to get it by harming people.

Camera techniques: Distance and Angle

XLS – extreme long shot is used to show a large amount of landscape around the characters. This is also known as an establishing shot. It is when the camera is at its furthest distance from the subject which expresses the back ground and if you’ve got an extreme long shot you can tell more about the picture.

LS – In photography, film and video, a long shot typically shows the entire object or human figure and is usually intended to place it in some relation to its surroundings. It is now common to refer to a long shot as a "wide shot" because it often requires the use of a wide-angle lens. When a long shot is used to set up a location and its participants in film and video, it is called an establishing shot.

 MLS – medium long shot is a camera shot from a medium distance which is a shot of the person from the knees up or the waist up is a close-up shot. In other texts, these partial views are called medium shots. (For example, in Europe a medium shot is framed from the waist up). It is mainly used for a scene when you can see what kind of expressions they are using.

MS – medium shot in photography, film, or videotape production, shot where the subject and background share equal dominance in the picture. A medium shot of an individual will take in the body from the knees or waist up.

MCU – medium close up shot Half-way between a mid shot and a close-up. Usually covers the subject's head and shoulders. The settings can steel be seen. The lower frame line passes through the chest of the character.

CU – close up, these are used in many ways, for many reasons. Close-ups are often used as cutaways from a more distant shot to show detail, such as characters' emotions, or some intricate activity with their hands. Close cuts to characters' faces are used far more often in television than in movies; they are especially common in soap operas. For a director to deliberately avoid close-ups may create in the audience an emotional distance from the subject matter.

BCU – big close up is a very intimate shot. Great in dramatic moments when the actor is showing their facial expressions. You can see the look of concentration in a shot that is "full face". Sometimes used for interviews - especially when things are getting personal.

XCU – extreme close up is when a very small objects or areas or small portions of large objects can be photographed with an extreme close up shot (ECU), so their images are magnified on the screen. Small machine parts, such as calibrations on a ruler or a match at the end of a cigarette, can be very effective when shown on a full screen in an ECU. Do not forget, you must change camera angles between shots within a shot sequence.

Low angle shot - is a shot from a camera positioned low on the vertical axis, anywhere below the eye line, looking up. These shots make a character look so much bigger than the actual size.

The eye level shot of course, you know is at eye level. It is a very neutral shot. If you just video tape in advance or something, whether you are on a tripod or if your hand held, you know let's say you are doing a wedding or something else. Well you are going to be at eye levels, it's very neutral, just kind of document what's going on. Of course if somebody is sitting down you know the tripod is going to be lower at their eye level so the eye level is according to whether they are sitting or standing. It doesn't matter it's still an eye level shot.

High angle shot is usually when the camera is located above the eye line. With this type of angle, the camera looks down on the subject and the point of focus often get "swallowed up" by the setting. High angle shots also make the figure or object seem vulnerable or powerless.

Canted angle shot It’s when sometimes the camera is tilted (ie is not placed horizontal to floor level), to suggest imbalance, transition and instability (very popular in horror movies). This technique is used to suggest POINT-OF-View shots (ie when the camera becomes the 'eyes' of one particular character, seeing what they see — a hand held camera is often used for this.

Worm's eye view - camera is very close to the ground, tilted up. This is a very dramatic version of the low angle shot.

Bird’s eye view shows a scene from directly overhead, a very unnatural and strange angle. Familiar objects viewed from this angle might seem totally unrecognizable at first (umbrellas in a crowd, dancers' legs).This shot does, however, put the audience in a godlike position, looking down on the action. People can be made to look insignificant, antlike, part of a wider scheme of things. Hitchcock (and his admirers, like Brian de Palma) is fond of this style of shot.