The Dolly Zoom

The dolly zoom is commonly used by filmmakers to represent the sensation of vertigo, a "falling-away-from-oneself feeling" or a feeling of unreality, or to suggest that a character is undergoing a realisation that causes him or her to reassess everything he or she had previously believed. I think this will be useful for our thriller to show that there is something weird and unnatural going on.

Prelim - Feedback

After we published our prelim we asked our teacher to watch it and give us feedback on it. This would help us to identify our mistakes and to take the advice on board for the thriller opening.

Prelim - Evaluation

For our pre-lim, we decided to shoot our film based loosely around Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. Our film follows Deborah as she attends a counselling session with Dr Mullen (Cara). Whilst they engage in conversation, Deborah tells Dr Mullen about a stalker she's come across. A naive Dr Mullen undermines her ideas and tries to convince her differently but Deborah dismisses Dr Mullen's comfort. A nervous Dr Mullen then kills Deborah, stabbing her repetitively. Only then we find out Dr Mullen was the stalker. The film abruptly ends, shortly after.
For the film, I was the camera man. Though, this was extremely fun, it proved rather challenging. The 'office' used was rather small and it proved hard to film 'over the shoulders' shots due to the size of the tripod. I also failed to capture Deborah's eyes in the lower 3rd of the screen in one shot. But thanks to feedback from teacher, Dan. I feel adamant that none of these mistake'll happen again.
Because we didn't have much time to film, we lacked mise-en-scene in terms of costume; we weren't prepared. We tried using a wig to convey Deborah and her mental state, however, I feel this had no effect. Luckily, we were able to portray a doctor/patient relationship, using sound.
This film proved to be a success, overall. I believe the focal point for our film was dialogue. Though, we didn't incorporate non-diegetic sound. We thought it'd be better to capture the emotion and tension created in speech, as appose to using action, alone. Cara, Kellie and Deborah did the editing whilst I was absent from college. I thought they did a brilliant job in terms of changing shots and keeping continuity within the film. With that said, I can't wait to start the real thing!

Prelim - The Killer - Film

This is the opening for a film, The Killer - enjoy!

Prelim - Dr Mullen - Editing

During the editing process of our pre-lim, we decided to take screen grabs whilst we incorporated a title sequence in our film. After our Arlington Road task, we were rather enthusiastic about using text in our film using Final Cut Pro.

Using the small-screen on the left. We incorporated text into our opening.

Keeping continuity within our film. We used transitions to fade the titles.

The left screen displays the screen without text and the right screen is with text.

Prelim - Dr Mullen - Storyboard

Research - Health & Safety

Risk Assessment                         Kellie Ward 

Although completed, edited and distributed footage may look perfectly planned and easy flowing, much goes on in the making of it which could cause potential damage to equipment, and even more important - people.

 

Damaging equipment by setting it up incorrectly.

We had brief tutorial lessons based on how to set up equipment, but decided to do further research to ensure that the techniques came naturally to us.
In order for our equipment to remain safe, we must garuntee that we know how to set it up/use it properly. Our main equipment we will be using is...

 

JV camera & tripod

Firstly, the most basic step of knowledge is knowing the function of each part of the tripod.
                                                                                                    

 

 

                                                   
The 3 legs must all be set
at an equal length so that the                               
tripod doesn't topple over.
(You also want a straight angle
when filming)

                          We must slide the camera onto the

UV plate smoothly without forcing

 to prevent breakage of the metal clips

 in the side which keep the camera stable.

 

 

Bad weather conditions.
In the case of filming outdoors, the environment is both u
unpredictable and uncontrollable.

• Wet weather can cause significant long-term damage to electrical cameras &michrophones, therefore we will sensibly not make the decision to film outside in event of rain if we have no form of water-proof cover or professional protection for the equipment. Also, all members of our group must always be prepared to be on hand in an unexpected rain down-pour.
• Rain could also make members of our group to slip and fall over, resulting in injury and wasting valuable filming time.
• This is why we will definitely not be filming out in the wet.

Theft of equipment - There is always a risk of theft when filming amongst the public, however some conditions can increase the chance of this happening;

• Chaotic environment - easy for civillians to snatch expensive equipment discreetly amongst the crowd and run from the situation without being identified.
• Quiet environment - thefts will be more likely to target you if there is no standbyers witnessing, so we will not be going to any extremely deserted locations.
• Abandoning equipment - It's fair to say that most people are aware of the value/price of HD camera's and anyone would like to get their hands on them or the money, abandoning the equipment (even for 2 minutes) will make this easy for anyone.

Location -

• Awareness of every aspect of our filming environment must be recognised - e.g.

1.         Stairs where we will film in Cara's house could result in people/equipment falling.
2.         Pets (a cat) may intefere with the more technical parts of the equipment such as buttons on the camera, and mess up internal systems. These pets could also cause the most common form of damage - the toppling over of equipment.
3. As we will also be filming closely to water sinks, filming requires extra attention with no contact of the water and camera.
4. If it is necessary for a scene to be filmed in a busy place, we must be aware that the equipment and our group may get bumped and barged from time to time and cause unwanted harm.



Research & Practice - Introduction to soundtrack

Introduction to soundtrack & Foley Sound.     Kellie Ward

What is a soundtrack?


What is foley sound?
Foley sounds are recreated sound effects using practical objects and body parts, which are recorded seperately and added to synchonising visuals post-production during editing.

As you may have seen from previous blog posts, we were given blank video files consisting of no audio - of which we had to add our own man-made foley sounds that we believed suited movements, and non-diegetic music to accompany and set the mood. 

Click this link to visit our clip - Arlington road - Foley sounds blog

 

Research - Examples of film openings

Analysis of film openings                    Kellie Ward

 

 

 

Trainspotting

 

Research - Watching a thriller film

Kellie Ward

Viewed thriller using some/most conventions of a thriller movie.

Health & Safety - Risk Assessment

There are many risks that we have to consider before going on to film. We have to think about the environment that we will be filming in, and how it may possibly affect us negatively.

Here are some risks that we may have to face during filming:
Animals/ I have two cats in my house, one has a very unpredictable nature and vicious temperament. She could attack and harm someone whilst filming.
Robbery/ We will be walking through central London with very expensive equiptment. This could make us a target for potential theives who may be willing to do whatever it takes to obtain our equiptment; this may include harming us.
Electrocution/ Our film opening involves water, which combined with electrical equiptment can be deadly. We need to take care to not leave the equiptment around water and take care when we are filming with water.
Chemicals/ We will be filming a scene in a science lab at college that has lots of chemicals, gasses and solutions in it. We need to take care in this environment and make sure that we do not touch any potentially dangerous things.
Stairs/ There are quite a lot of stairs in my house so we must take care when walking up and down them as we could easily trip; especially with the large, heavy equiptment we will be carrying.

Film Location

Health & Safety - Equiptment

As we are using expensive, professional equiptment to film with, we need to make sure that we take every precaution in ensuring we don't damage or lose any of it. We also need to make sure that we do not harm ourselves or others while using the equiptment, as much of it is heavy and could be dangerous.

Here are some points we put together to ensure that nothing goes wrong:
1/ Make sure to always carry equiptment properly
2/ Never leave equiptment unattended
3/ Do not carry the tripod while the camera is on it
4/ Take care when moving equiptment, make sure not to hit anyone
5/ Do not carry equiptment if it is too heavy, do not strain
6/ Treat equiptment with care, do not be rough with it

Let's hope that this doesn't happen to us ^

Title sequences and their conventional order...

There is a typical conventional order of titles occurring in majority of films, these are:

          

    

1. Production Company opening
2. Production Company title
3. Distribution Company title
4. Director/Writer
5. Actor 1 (Lead)
6. Actor 2 (Lead)
7. Film Title
8. Actor 3
9. Actor 4
10. Casting
11. Costume
12. Music/Music supervisor

 

 

 

 



 

Clearly, the list is ordered in a hierarchical way, putting the most important at the beginning (e.g. the star actors) The reason that this specific sequence exists is

 

To prove that more than most famous movies safely obide by this order of titles, here are 2 different openings...

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo title sequence

 

 

1. Production & Distribution companies



2. Producer & Production company

 3. Director



4. Actor 1 (Lead)



 5. Actor 2 (Lead)


6. Film title

7. Actor 3

 8. Actor 4

9. Casting

10. Costume

11. Sound & Music

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, this conventional order is not a necessity, and movies may present their opening titles in any order or form they wish. A contrasting example which creates individuality from it's titles is hit movie The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

 

Research & Practise - Health & Safety (Risk Assessment)

Seeing as I've delegated the task of camera-man to myself in my group, I thought it might be wise to look further into health and safety. Though we looked as stuff such as: 

• To expand the tripod
• How to connect a camera onto the tripod, correctly
• Operate the lens protector, etc

But I thought health and safety on cameras alone is inadequate, especially if we want to film without the thought of someone getting hurt and being unable to film for the duration of our filming time. I looked at a video on YouTube that lists all the possible health and safety risks in the workplace. I've applied all possible scenarios to Cara's house, the place we plan to film. 

Equipment Health and Safety

Health and Safety Tutorial

In the health and safety tutorial we learnt how to use a tripod and the video camera above (JVC GY-HM100) in a safe way using the following steps:

• How to put the battery into the camera
• How to put the memory cards into the camera
• How to unlock the legs of the tripod and how to check if it's straight or not
• How to slide the camera onto the tripod and how to lock it
• How to take the camera back off the tripod
• How to close the tripod

Arlington Road Title Sequence

Conventional Order of Titles

 

There is a conventional order of how titles appear on screen, that most films follow.

This is the order:

Production company ident

Distribution company ident

Distribution company title

Production company title

Actor #1 (Main)

Actor #2 (Main)

Film title

Other actors

Casting

Costume

Music

Editor

Production designer

Director of photography

Executive producer

Writer

Director
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here is a film opening sequence that follows the conventional order of titles, and is done in a way which I feel is extremely creative and interesting:

 

The Fugitive

The Fugitive is an American thriller film made in 1993. It stars Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones. It was directed by Andrew Davis, produced by Anne and Arnold Kopelson, and distributed by Warner Bros.

I feel that watching this triller was quite beneficial to me in gaining ideas for my own thriller opening. The main element that I found a particularly interesting element of the film was the way that the suspense was built the whole way through. This is something that I feel should happen in our work, although it will obviously have to be condensed to just an opening.

The opening of The Fugitive is a narrative opening. Narrative openings typically set the scene, introduce characters and their situations. The Fugitive gets off to a fast start, throwing the viewer in at the deep end. The action begins straight away which is effective for a thriller film because it keeps the viewer hooked from the very start and gives them no temptation to stop watching due to boredom. It allows them to get into it straight away and also leaves no wonder about what the film may be about, or if they'll like it or not. It almost forces the viewer into watching it. This is something that my group needs to achieve in our film opening; we need to hook the viewers and make it fats-paced and interesting.

Title sequence

Title Sequence

Every film has a title sequence and this is the conventional order:

Production companies ident
Production company title
Distribution company title
Actor 1 (Lead)
Actor 2 (Lead)
Film Title
Actor 3
Actor 4
Casting
Costume
Music supervisor
Music by
Edited by
Production designer
Director of photography
Executive producer
Written by
Directed by

However, not all title sequences follow this order. For example I, Robot (2004)

 

Production Company

Film Title

Production Company

As we can see from the pictures above, 'I, Robot' only had the film title and two production companies in their opening title sequence. Also in this opening the three laws for robots are introduced to us in the same way as the title sequence which I think is a very good way to get the audience's attention since the opening title sequence is something most people dont pay attention to.

Analysis of Previous Student's Film Opening

I watched some videos of previous student's film openings to gain some ideas. One I found particularly interesting was 'Inside'.

In terms of sound, I like the subtle but gripping sound they have throughout the opening. However, I think there should've been a wider range of sounds, and definitely some diagetic sounds as there was only one (the phone ringing). It made the piece a bit boring as there was not much noticeable variation in sound the constant sound made it drag out.

The camera work is very good, there are lots of different shots, like close-ups, wide shots and over-the-shoulder shots.

The mise en scene works well, there didn't really need to be a large amount of props or an outstanding wardrobe for this piece, and what they did have worked for them and went towards making the piece believable to the audience.

I think that overall, it is a good opening sequence. It was gripping and intriging, it made me want to watch a continuation. It lacked a bit of creativity and originality, but what they did was done to a high standard with little room for improvement. This standard is something that I hope my group manage to achieve in our film opening sequence.

The 180 Degree Rule

Keeping the 180 degree rule

The 180 degree rule states that a camera should be placed somewhere inside 180 degrees on a particular side of the invisible line of a shot containing two or more people filmed in a sequence. If the camera crosses the line, it disorients/confuses the audience because it makes it look like the people have switched places.

Two characters in a scene should maintain the same left-right relationship to one another. If the camera passes over the line, it is called jumping the line or crossing the line.

Filming tips

Filming Tips

I was researching tips on how to make your film look professional and I came across this video which I think is really helpful because even though I know some of these rules, the video reminded me to use them in filming our thriller opening.

Research - Student film opening (Stroke)

Kellie Ward

Of all the film openings on the student hall of fame, this one struck me the most, it did what any opening is supposed to do and stuck in my head. It made me sit on the edge of my seat, and gave me great insight on how to make a suspenseful and successful start to a film!

Stroke 

The elements that made it enjoyable were...

Sound & music set a tense, finger biting mood perfectly because of its non-continuity and deep tone. The starting and stopping made it suspenseful, so it would successfully make the audience expect something to happen, and them let them down deliberately so that they continued watching (cliffhanger).

Mise en scene is another element which made this a good opening. Firstly, the lighting is very dimmed, which gives a supernatural and depressing feel to it, suggesting that something is about to happen. Moreover, the main prop; red paint gives connotations of blood, giving hints to the rest of the film, and also standing out compared to every other aspect of mise en scene which is black and white.

Camera worked well with intimately introducing the main character by firstly using an extreme close up panning down his face to show his separate features explicitly and create emphasis.