This is a screenshot of my Bins in Premiere Pro for my Film Studies piece "want", i imported all of my records into premiere pro and placed them into 4 bins so that access to the clips would be quick and concise, rather than searching my SD card looking for one particular clip.
The bins are labelled as
Joe Footage (all recorded footage of subject one)
AJ Footage (all recorded footage of subject two)
Misc Footage (footage that was not of the subjects, essentially filler footage)
Alternative colours (the reversed colours shots of subject one and two, there are only a couple of these shots, so rather than them be lost in the subject folders, i placed them in there own)
A shot reverse shot (or more commonly known as a counter shot) is a editing technique typically used when a character within the frame is talking or looking at something or someone out side of the frame, the edit will then show the parallel of the other character or object, looking back at the first subject. From this the viewer will assume that the two are looking at each other.
180 degree rule -
The 180 degree rule is a cinematography guide that explains how two characters in one scene should always maintain the same left right visual relationship to each other. Doing so means that the audience won't become disorientated by the space of the scene. If the camera were to pass over this invisible axis, it becomes a reverse angle.
30 degree rule -
The thirty degree rule is a cinematography guideline which states that the camera should move by a minimum of 30 degrees between successive shots of the same subject, failing to do so could potentially make the edit appear as a jump cut, which would confuse and disorientate the audience.
Cut in -
A cut in shot is the interruption of a continuous filmed shot by inserting a view of something else. Following this the scene would usually be followed by a cut back to the original shot. The cut in is typically only on screen for 2-3 seconds, but this can vary due to the films stylistic choices.
Cross cutting/ Parallel editing
Cross- cutting is an editing technique used in film to establish action that is happening at the same time, but outside of the current scene. During a cross cut away from one scene to another, this suggests that the two actions are happening at the same time, just in different spaces.
Establishing shot
An establishing shot is a shot that typically sets the location, time, and setting of a scene by showing important figures and objects. It is generally a long or extreme long shot at the beginning of a scene and gives more weight to a scene of films atmosphere.
Match on action
Match on action is a film editing choice where the film cuts from one shot to another view of the first shots action.
Kuleshov effect
The Kuleshov effect is a mental effect originally demonstrated by Lev Kuleshov, he explains how viewers derive different emotional responses from two sequential shots rather than a single shot in isolation.
An example of how i have organised my footage and audio for my Promotional video is within the communal HNC One Drive account. Following our return from Bistol, we all unloaded our footage onto this One Drive so that we will all have access to everything we recorded. I reviewed each piece of footage within the folder and titled it so that i would know what each clip when it came to use them. This proved invaluable when machining my Promotional video, as without these labels i would have potentially spent hours going over every clip.
My promotional video proved to be quite challenging, shot types, colour grading, camera techniques and lighting varied across the clips due to the fact that the entire HNC contributed to this piece. For example, one persons aperture might be slightly higher than it needed to be, on its own this wouldn't necessarily be an issue, but directly after it there might be a clip where the aperture is higher than it needed to be. This creates a contrast in quality that is hard not to notice, whilst this is a flaw in the work it would prove to be very hard to fix, each location required its own camera settings, its own lighting settings and so on.The only way i could imagine this being fixed if i were to recreate the piece would be if a small group of people filmed everything, rather than a large group which assisted me in this piece.
The fact that this piece was cut to music also raises issues with its quality, due to the fact that the music within the video is fairly fast paced, with rapid, consistent beats upon which i used as a template for my editing, the final piece could perhaps be to rapid for viewers, the audience only has a few seconds or two to interpret and appreciate the images they are seeing. whilst this is an issue, i believe that this is still true to my original plan for the video.The rapid pace and the frantic editing only justifies my idea of representing the fast pace, grimy and essentially human aspect of Bristol and our time there.
Another issue with the final piece is the inclusion of the vox pop, specifically the transition into it, i reduced the volume of the music slowly so it blended into the audio of the vox pop, I lowered the audio about a second to quickly, resulting in an obvious disconnect between the music and the audio if the vox pop. If i were to re-do this piece id extend the transition to about half a second longer, so the transition from both audios is smoother.
After showing the piece to the client he was pleased with the final piece, but also highlighted some issues within that he would like to be corrected. He explained that whilst the song did give the piece a certain energy and vibrancy, it could potentially turn off some potential HNC applicants due to its more chaotic and intimidating music. Whilst i can clearly see how this would impact with HNC applicants, i believe that this song still fits perfectly, and is an accurate representation of my time at Bristol.
When making my music video, my number one priority was to capture the meaning behind the original songs lyrics, the distrust and paranoia, the rising anxiety of social unrest of the individual. This piece was made with the disorientation of the audience in mind, the rapid succession of the images and clips are here to confuse those who watch it.
I wanted to contrast the society we are told to believe in, the utopian, clean, problem free society we see in mainstream media against what we actually live in, the almost dystopian, filthy, paranoia filled we inhabit. The lyrics of the original song speak of a man who has been awoken to the rising social tension around him, whilst not visible, he can sense it. This music video is a physical representation of what he sees.
As mentioned earlier, the video follows a compare and contrast formula, i show the world as shown to us, the impeccable politicians, cold and calculated in there image, against how the general populace sees them, precise and deliberate, surgical with there words and essentially, heartless. The piece is very literate with its metaphors, but for such a meaningful subject matter, i felt that this was the only way to represent it.
The video starts with a static shot of a Tv playing feedback of an old Vhs. This was filmed myself, the purpose of which was to show the foreshadowing of the video itself, how all of the clips shown after are products of the media, lies and exaggerations force-fed to us by the media to lull us into a state of complacency, this also gives the benefit more intellectual weight when i contrast the two versions of the clips against each other.
Every clip i use in this piece (excluding my own) was ripped and downloaded from youtube, this prove to be awkward to do however as every clip varied in quality, the more professional shots such as the speeches given by politicians are well shot and of high quality, whereas footage recorded on an individuals phone such as the grenfell fire video was recorded hastily and therefore, lacking in quality.
For every shot i showcase in my video i created a reverse for them, i manipulate the RGB tones and disrupt the placement of the multiple levels of colour of the video, the result of which produces this ethereal, corrupted visual effect, this was intended to be a representation of how the individual in my analysis of the lyrics see's the world, the distortion intended to be a visual representation of how the society around him refuses to see or even acknowledge the world around them. After this i went frame by frame of footage which clearly shows peoples face, and added Black lines across the eyes and mouth of the subjects, this was incredibly time inducing as every single frame had to be manipulated, i couldn't reuse the lines i used previously, as the individuals of the footage were constantly moving, meaning that the placement of the lines would have been altered. 5 seconds of footage would take 20 minutes to manipulate.
The lines over the eyes of people in the video was intended to be a representation of the individuals recognition of the world around him, anyone showcased in the media is presented as a two dimension individual, there motives and methods dont matter, only them and there actions. This works for both ways, a political figure is presented as a crusader for progress, no matter what there opinion, and a protester in the street is presented as a blight on society, a tool for destruction. I wanted to show the audience that we are all fighting for a cause, we may not agree with each other, we may fight each other, but at its essence, we fight, and we fight for ourselves.
At the halfway point in the music video my own recorded footage is shown, i filmed an abandoned industrial complex just outside of Nuneaton, in the 80's the complex was a hub of industrial might, now it means nothing, a once proud and defined building is now derelict. This was intended to be a visual metaphor for social unrest with our society, how issues and criticisms are spotlighted, then fade forever with no change being granted.
After the halfway point i begin to reverse the footage, i made sure that the cuts were ever so slightly off the beat of the music, this was in order to install paranoia with the audience, to make them feel the disruption to the established formula of the video, just as the individual in my analysis of the lyrics feels. I also begin to fade in tv static as the song progresses, subtlety at first, but then dramatically, and with great intensity. the reversal of the footage and the static of the tv as intended to be a metaphorical and technical representation of a supernova, how under great intensity, everything collapses upon itself. This is obviously a metaphor for how under social tension, at some point a boiling point is hit, upon which total and grand civil unrest, anarchy is met.
Due to the fact that my piece was so time intensive, i had very little time to make fine adjustments to my piece, the cuts on some sections are slightly off compared to the beats of the song, with more time i would have gone over these and altered them so they are set perfectly against the audio. The fact that i used found footage for the majority of my piece disrupted my own filming, no matter i tried i found that all my footage was violently different to the majority of the film, the contrast between found footage and own footage was blatant, and went against my ideas of blending the two seamlessly, with more time id record more footage and select footage which fit perfectly, rather than settling on footage that was only passable.
For my contextual studies final piece i wanted to create a short piece that highlighted the technical aspects that made the new wave moment so inspirational. focusing on camera techniques and editing rather than narrative and characters. It was my intention to accurately portray these techniques within a film of my creation, and explore how they all affect the film in there own way.
The film opens with a static close up of an individual lighting a cigarette, i wanted the very first shot of my film to be a perfect representation of the New Wave, and the subtlest most stylistic option for me atleast was to have this smoking shot, in essentially every New Wave film we see characters drenched in cigarette smoke, most notably Godard's film "Breathless", in which the protagonist is constantly smoking, almost to comical effect. by incorporating this i hoped t set the tone of the film instantly, a love letter to the French New Wave.
After this i incorporated rapid successive jump cuts of the subject driving her car, in the context of the New Wave, jump cuts were not only used to represent the passing of time, but also as a tool to criticise the mainstream, jump cuts were used throughout conversations and scenes that normaly would never feature jump cuts. for my film i saw rapid jumpiest in unusual scenes as a ,method of not only demonstration and representing time, but also as a tool to to connect the audience to the protagonist, the passage of time not only shows the audience the degradation of the protagonist, but emotionally connects the two due to said degradation.
During this scene i spliced shots of the road the individual drove on in-between the footage of her driving, this was done to give a sense of location to the film, and to brake up the repetition of the film. showing footage of the location we filmed in also gives us the added benefit of showing the audience the environment the protagonist lives in, giving a more in depth look at the protagonist without resorting to hefty exposition. This technique also stems from the French New Wave, the camera would almost linger on shots of the streets of Paris highlighting the environment the people live in, and how they have essentially became a product of said environment.
the next shot is of my subject walking through a car park, just like the previous scene i use jump cuts throughout the scene, to spend up the pace of the film and to further represent the passage of time. the camera has jagged movements never resting still for a moment. i chose to use a handheld camera rather than one on a steady rig or a dolly as it gives the audience the impression that they are simply a fly on the wall, an outside observer looking into the intimate and personal world of the subject. This is similar to how cameras were used in the New Wave. due to the cheapness and guerrilla filmmaking, expensive cameras used in hollywood films were unavailable yo the filmmakers of the new wave, so cheaper handheld cameras were used in there absence. There use of which provides a similar emotional response as to my film.
The following shot is a static close of the subjects face as she walks around a shopping centre, the camera in this scene was suspended on a make shift dolly which she than proceed to push around the centre. I placed the camera this way to provide he audience with an unflinching view of the subject, as a method of expanding on the emotional connection between subject and audience. Similarly to the previous scene, the makeshift dolly is a further representation to guerrilla film making during the New Wave, limited budget meant that professional was almost impossible to come by, the Filmmakers would resort to makeshift tripods, dolly' and other equipment currently used today. the make shift dolly i used for this shot was again another way for me to use techniques used in the New Wave.
If i were to re-shoot or re-do this piece there are several changes and corrections that i would like to make, due to time restrictions i wasn't able to create a more fleshed out narrative, whilst i like the quaintness and intimate nature of my final piece, i feel that creating a story with motifs and dialogue using themes present throughout all New Wave films would have been a better choice in order to capture the essence of the New Wave.
another aspect that bothers is me is that some shots of the individual in the shopping centre are slightly out of focus, there is no explanation for why this is, i simply made a mistake with the focusing, if i had the choice i would go back and reshoot these scenes.
During some of the car journey scenes, we can see grain throughout the frame, due to filming at night i had to increase the ISO to make up for the loss of light, doing so resulted in heavy grain. if i were to reshoot i would have a light source in the car itself, providing more light for the lens meaning that i wouldn't have to increase the iso to make up for the loss of quality.
In conclusion i am happy with my final piece, i feel that it not only accuratly represents the essence of the New Wave, but also highlights and recreates environments and techniques that made the New Wave so.
Lack is a Avent Guarde short inspired by the unique aesthetics and visual narrative of 1962's La Jetee. The story explores lacan's theory of intrinsic lack within the individual through still images and use of abstract audio, resulting in a short that challenges the physical form of film itself and simultaneously, representing the Lack within us all.
editing technology, just like film itself has grown more advanced, precise and complex throughout its life, editing technology can be traced back to the start of film making itself, around 1890 along side the creation of the very first camera, the cinematograph, film around this time was essentialy one long take of a unremarkable subject, the context of the film itself was irrelevant for the audience, as the marvel of an animated photograph was enough to satisfy, it was only by accident that the very first primitive form of editing was discovered, a theatre owner by the name of Georges melies was filming a bus leaving a tunnel, however his camera jammed half way through the recording, when the camera began to roll again the bus had disappeared and was replaced by another automobile, upon developing the footage, he was shocked to see that the bus he was originally filming had instantly changed to the automobile instantly, this can be considered the first use of the jump cut, a cut in the film which there is an abrupt transition in the scene. after this revelation, that film could be more than a static uncut shot of raw footage, he began to develop more complex techniques in his editing, including fade in and fade outs, overlapping dissolves and stop motion photography. with these new techniques he began to push the medium of film from mundane single shots, into a narrative story telling vehicle. this can be considered the birth of film editing.
another historical event that could be considered the birth of cutting in editing would be the technique of photographer Eadward muybridge, who would take hundreds of photos of subjects in motion, whether it be a horse galloping, or a running man and layer the pictures next to each other to visualise various subjects in motion, he would then showcase these pictures in a device he created called the zoopratiscope, a machine that would spin and show each photo rapidly, giving the impression that it was a genuine moving image.
the process of editing would stay relatively primitive for the years to follow, until
a device called the moviola in 1924, a device that allowed film editors to view a film whilst editing it, created by iwan serruier. the moviola allowed individuals to study individual frames of a film reel in a cutting room, allowing an editor to precisely determine where the best cut-point might be. many high profile studios quickly picked up on the use of the moviola, and studios such as universal studios, warns brothers and charlie chaplin studios quickly adopted the moviola for its practicality and precision. the need for moviola products only increased as the application of sound, and larger film stock became more readily available, the need for portable editing equipment during world war two also expanded the use of moviola products.
moviola products were used for decades until the creation of flat bed suites around the 1970’s,
flatbed suites are a piece of editing equipment used to join film negatives and audio together on a single film reel. since the audio and film during this time was recorded separately, the editor must combine the two together to synchronise them, the editor will load the film reel onto a metal spinning plate, and the audio reel onto the plates magnetic counterpart. the editor must then find the exact point in both reel where the ‘clapperboard’ (the tool used to mark the beginning and end of a scene session) and conjoin them together. this then creates a single film reel in which the audio and film is perfectly synchronised, any further editing after this has now been dramatically simplified as the editor only has to locate one point to cut rather than two. from this point in history, the flatbed editing suites were used religiously by editors and film studios for its accuracy and precision, but during the 80’s and 90’s editing turned to the digital era, film reel was growing obsolete as digital editing allowed for more freedom and experimentation when editing. the very first digital editing tools was the Avid 1 media composer create in 1981, the avid 1 was a software tool designed on apples macintosh 2, the software played video as a motion jpeg codec, which was the primary video codec used during the 90’s, whilst the video quality wasn’t very high, the avid 1 made up for this with a focus on accessibility and ease of access, meaning that for the first time, editing and in turn film making could be brought to individuals interested in amateur film making and editing.
modern editing software has almost completely replaced the tradition flat bed suite or moviola, since a digital format allows for pin point precision cutting and accuracy, modern editing tools such as premier pro and final cut now allow for a wide range of digital effect to be added, along side colour and lighting correction, which result in a more professional and slick aesthetic, comparing this to the traditional film reel filming, the ability to alter the visuals themselves makes it obvious why there was such a drastic shift to digital editing.
film editing has come along way since its primitive origins in the 1980’s, with its static, mute visuals all the way to 2017.
or this 4 hour film challenge we were given a copy of another groups film plan, including a detailed story board and equipment list, our task was to effectively recreate the plan whilst still applying our own personalities to the film. for this film we worked in a large group of around nine people, whilst this proved challenging at times i believe we all benefited from the experience of working from a pre made plan and in a larger group.
for this particular 4 hour challenge we wanted to put our efforts into the technicality of the piece, rather than focussing on narrative and themes. to do this we resorted to working in the gym, this cavernous room gave us the flexibility to create the shots that we wanted, long wide shots which not only created a sense of isolation for these characters, but also as a way to establish the location of the film. by trading in narrative for an emphasis on technical work, we wanted to create a variety of shots, multiple angles on the same scenario would give multiple perspectives on the characters, high angle shots juxtaposed with low angles created a sense of mystery to the characters, allowing for a wider range of audience perceptions.we also wanted to experiment with more complex camera techniques, reverse dolly rooms, pull focus, tracking and panning, it was our belief that by littering our film with these shots, we could create a more in depth and professional film.
critique
upon reflection both myself, my group, and the creators of the original script have identified several aspects that diminish the films impact, the first point that was raised was the fact the setting didn't necessarily fit with the songs themes and atmosphere
self summary
simmarily to our last film, we aimed to create an experimental short that completely disregarded the classical narrative structure. The only structure we had for this 4 hour film challenge was that it had to revolve around an 'unusual perspective", for me and my group, this was oddly hard to decipher. at first we thought of visual perspectives, and how we could experiment with technical aspects of a classic narrative to produce an unusual and visually challenging perspective, after a lot of discussion we came to the realisation that we couldn't effectively create this vision, we wanted to create a film that would utilise all our expertise effectively, and we didn't want to run the risk of creating a sub par film. we also discussed the prospect of exploring an unusual perspective through the use of narrative, this yielded more results, at first we discussed the possibility of a film that revolved around a single character, our brainstorming resulted in the idea that our short should revolve around a character who was suffering through psychosis, to effectively recreate a character who essentially suffered from a mental illness we planned certain shots and editing techniques to re create this. we used multiple fast jump cuts to represent the ever moving mentality of an individual suffering psychosis, how there mind never stays in the same place for once, our camera shots focussed on the movements, the subtle twitches and flaws our character makes. the audio we used is also worth discussion, we wanted to show our audience how these people suffering from psychosis suffer, to do this we looped guitar feedback from an amp alongside a constant heartbeat, the amp feedback was used to represent the intense mental pressure and disorientation the individuals who suffer from psychosis feel.
in conclusion i am thoroughly happy with our final piece, i feel that is not only accurately recreates an individual suffering from mental health, but at the same time it also recreates it on a technical level
peer review
upon critique, me and my group identified certain faults that were raised in our film, for example, our audio at a certain point was obviously looped, the pitch dipped and then raised back to its original state obviously. we could easily correct this by cutting the audio down by a second and moving it back to the point of the cut, this would have resulted in a piece of audio that was seamless. another fault that was raised was that out film seemed to have no narrative, who was this individual, why did he have a gun, why was there no ending, were all questions that were raised. we explained that our film was intended to have no narrative or no explanation, that it was intended to simply to be explanation or a recreation of individuals undergoing mental illness, however we can understand that the audience didn't understand what was happening, there is no narrative and there is no explanation, because that is by design
another critique that was brought up is the fact the light level changed across the film, this was due to the level of natural light and how it increased over time, there was no way we could have changed this, given more time and more advanced lighting equipment we could have compensated for they increase light by repeating the exact same lighting, but due to time and equipment restraints we could do neither.
in conclusion i am extremely happy with out final piece, i believe it entirely meets our initial plan of recreating a representation of mental health in an individual, not only thematically but also technically. however if we were to re shoot this piece, i would put more time into tho planning of the film, especially the time it was filmed, in order for a constant level of lighting to be present.
A short Noir experimental film depicting a investigator discovering the crime scene in which a woman discovered something unknown, our film shows uses of multiple pull focuses to confuse and disorientate, paired with quick violent jump cuts, rising non diegetic sound and low key lighting to create a narrative with depth, intrigue and a sinister atmosphere. a combination of static and moving camera angles such as a point of view shots and static wide mid shots creates a sense that the protagonist is both watching and being watched. the product of these techniques creates a viewing experience that fully absorbs the viewer.
self-review
upon re watching my 4 hour film challenge i have become aware of several errors and flaws that i could re shoot in order for my film to reach a higher quality of production. one of the most glaring problems within my film is the fact that a large section of the film is slightly out of focus, this was due to myself trying to overcompensate for the dark setting by raising the aperture of the camera, in turn this raised the brightness of the image at the expense of rendering the footage unfocused, to remedy this i would have to go back and re-shoot the footage with the aperture in a more suitable setting so that the footage remains high quality, i would then have to raise the overall brightness of the footage in post production.
another problem that was raised in the group evaluation of the films was that there didn't necessarily seem to be any narrative to my film, and if there was narrative then it was hard to uncover. whilst i can see that this would be considered a fairly huge problem for a film that relied heavily on its narrative, i wouldn't necessarily call this a fault within my film, my film was intended to be experimental, its purpose was to confuse and disorientate the viewer, and only upon multiple viewings can any narrative be discovered. another issue that was raised in the group evaluation was that the ending seemed some what blunt, that there was no narrative climax to the film, again this was intentional, during our pre production we realised that our film had slowly began to conform to genre cliche's, extreme close ups and tracking shots gave our film the impression of a generic horror film, it was our belief that with a un-climatic ending we would subvert these expectations. however i can see how the film had very little narrative climax to it, if we were to re-shoot these films i would certainly go back and potentially plan an ending that had more weight to it.
personally i fount that the time scale i had to work with in order to create this film was extremely short, time quickly caught up with us, meaning that we had to cut parts of the filming, the planning and the editing in order to make sure we had enough time to get the basic footage and editing complete. theres very little i could have done to change this as the 4 hour time limit was out of my control, however, next time we are presented a 4 hour challenge, i can plan ahead, focussing on quality of shots and editing over quantity of footage, this would therefore create an admittedly shorter film, but one that consists of slick visuals and aesthetics.
