Task 8

Task 8 - Transitions




Throughout this task i used many different and creative transitions to make my video stand out. The first transition i used is the whirlpool effect, this means that the clip used will spin around and fade out, after this i used the same technique again and faded the whirlpool into the next clip making it look very good. After i completed the whirlpool i used the black and white transition because we were going back in time, so this effect made it look very professional. The most simple editing effect we used was just cutting, but this can become confusing as every scene recorded needed to to be cut down and stuck to the next scene. The final transition i used was a simple fade put at the end of the video to make sure that the audience know that that is the end, but i also feel that this simple effect makes the video look very professional. Throughout the whole video we used many different shot variations and angles, this made the video look better as if we only used close ups or long shots the video would look very bland and boring, but the range of shots made the video more lively.

We also used many different camera techniques, one of these were following the action. this means that the camera was moving whilst the actors were moving so the action can continue for a longer period of time rather than pausing and changing the angle of the movements. We also used a technique called manipulation by using time and space, we did this by going back in time to remember where the actor had left his phone. This made the video short film look very professional and gave it a clean affect.


Different Editing techniques:

Straight Cut - This the most common transition which is used in the editing world, this effect is where a clip is cut and it moves onto the next scene without grabbing the audiences attention.

Dissolves - This effect is where one clip is fading one and then another fades in which gives the sense that one part of the film has ended and another has started. This can also be used if the film maker wants to show a connection between two people or two things.

Fades - This is a gradual darkening or lightening of an image until it becomes black or white. This can also be used to indicate the end of a scene.


Wipes - This effect is where one image is pushed off the screen by another image, this could be pushed left or right. It may also signal a movement between two different locations that need to be shown at the same time. An example of where this effect is used very often is in Star Wars.

Graphic Match - This is where one object or thing is transformed into another, an example of where this is used is in the film "Psycho", where the eye turns into a bathroom plug hole.

Following the Action - This is where the movement of the characters is followed, for example in our short film, it follows the movements to go and get the missing object, so as well as using cross-cutting we use this effect also.  Another example of where this effect is used is in the film "Mr and Mrs Smith".

Multiple points of View - This can be used when a character is looking at someone or something, so it will show the actor looking at the item which is off screen and it will them be cut and will show  the audience what the actor was looking at.

Shot Variation - This is where the shot is interrupted and the distance of the shot changes, the shot can be static or mobile but it must be one continuous motion. For example, the shot starts at a far distance and it ends at a close up. For example this effect is used many times in "The Matrix"

Manipulation of Diegetic Time and Space - This is where you can see time change at a point during the film, for example someone could get older within a few seconds by using this effect, an example of where this effect is used is in the film "The wizard of oz".

Another way of showing time travel is to simply speed up the film, which makes it look like time is going very fast, or even just use an effect called whirlpool which also gives a time travel effect.

Another example of where time is changing around the characters is Harry Potter.





This makes the film look very interesting and professional to the audience.

Task 7 - Speed of Editing

Task 7 - Speed of Editing

In a film each scene may last a matter of seconds or it could continue for minutes but the lengths of each sequence establishes the part of the film moving the action along.
The speed of editing will help to determine the mood of what is taking place on screen.

If the audience is to feel anxiety and suspense the editing will be quick, the scenes, shots will be changing frequently for example in an action sequence.
If a related mood is desired the scenes last longer and change less less frequently for example in a romantic comedy.

Never less a film need not have any editing. The film Russian Ark was filmed in one take, using a steadicam and digital camera. This required time and patients.

A trailer for a film needs to park in detail from throughout the film, therefore the editing will be very fast.
Scenes at the beginning of a film is very important as it starts to tell the story and it introduces us to the characters.
Cross cutting can be used very effectively to develop a sense of drama.

The death of Casey in the opening scene of Scream is made more dramatic by the cross cutting to her parents approaching and almost making it home in time to save her.



Cutaways

A cutaway is used to reveal details to the audience without detracting from the narrative or the action.





During our video we had to create pace, so we decided to keep it simple and make it in our school. We started the film by recording both of us at each end of the film walking through the gate and entering the school. We then filmed each characters movements to the end one at a time, from the gate to the final meeting. To build pace we had to do our own edit, which means there will be 4 different versions of the film. But to create pace i started with a long scene at the start and slowly making the scenes shorter and then added tans music over the scenes to make it really dramatic. In our video we also used cross cutting, this involved it flipping between the two ators and building the tension, this is because each scene gets quicker and quicker and makes the viewer want to know who will reach the target first.

An example of a trailer which uses many different editing techniques, one of these are cross cutting.

Throughout this trailer there are a total of 37 cuts in only 35 seconds, which makes the audience feel really involved with this trailer and they will want to see more. Unlike the Russian ark film which has no cuts throughout the entire film, this trailer is filled with action and many different scenes.

Task 6 - Non Continuity

Task 6 Non Continuity:

Jump Cut -

French new wave filmmakers such as Jean luc Godard and Francois Truffaut pushed the limits of editing techniques during the late 1950's and throughout the 1960's.
French new wave films and the non-narrative films of the 1960's used carefree editing style and did not conform to the traditional editing etiquette of hollywood films.

French new wave editing often are attention to its self by lack of continuity, its self reflexive nature (reminding the audience that they are watching a film) and by the over use of jump cuts or the insertion of material not often related to any narrative. An example of a non-narrative film is "A bout de Souffle"





During the scenes in the film A bout de soufflé there are many mistakes when they are in the dear, the first mistake is where they transport from one place in the city to another, i can see this because the change in surrounding objects. The second big mistake is where the women randomly appears with a mirror which she didn't have before.





During the film The shining, many mistakes are made, mainly the rule  weak of the 180 degree rule. This may be done to try and show the audience that the main character is confused or it may just be a mistake.

During the trailer of The Hunger Games one main mistake is used which also breaks the 180 degree rule, this is made in the bedroom scene where she is exploring her new surroundings. 

This is done to make it look like the character is confused of her surroundings. SO this rule break could have been put into the film purposely to create a sense of confusion by the character.

Task 5 - Continuity Editing

During our film we created for continuity editing, we made some errors these included breaking the 180 degree rule, but as we realised we then put it onto final cut and managed to rotate the recording so this made it look like the rule wasn't broken. When recording we also didn't realise that the window was letting in light and made the character look very dark, so if we did this scene again we would shut the blind. But i believe that the overall outcome was very good as the edit was very smooth and there were no acting errors.


Continuity editing is a  continuous style of editing which allows the film to flow smoothly.
In continuity editing it has 4 main rules, these include: eye-line match, the 180 degree rule, match on action and the reverse shot. Using these rules makes the edit seem as the film is constantly moving and it can run smoothly. Continuity editing was developed by many American and European editors, one of these is D.W. Griffiths. He made The birth of a Nation and Intolerance.

Eye-line match - This links two shots together

This can be seen if a character look at something if screen, and it will then show the audience what they are looking at, this allows the audience to experience what the character is feeling.
We used in our film as the 2nd actor asked where a book is, we then cut the clip and showed an image of the book he was looking for.This worked well for us as there were no mistakes made and it looked very professional.



180 degree rule - This is the basic guideline that allows people to see where the character is in the scene, if this rule is broke then it will make it look as the character has moved from their original position. In our scene we made the mistake of breaking this rule and to overcome this we had to cut the clip and then rotate the scene so it seemed like the rule wasn't broke. After rotating the clip i believe it didn't look very well, but this is due to that i know what the building looks like and when he enters the door changes position, but if someone who did not know what the school was like from inside they wouldn't notice.

Below is another example of a 180 degree rule break.

Match on Action - This helps link two shots together,
Start action in shot one, then it will be cut and then onto the final action.
Below is an example of how match on action can be used in a scene. In our film we used this technique when the first actor walked through the door, and then walked towards the second actor who is the teacher. This made the film look very good and well prepared.


Shot reverse shot - This is basically one character then reverse shot of another character, this allows the audience to connect with the characters and to see both characters interacting at different times. This also helps create pace. We used this technique in our scene when the first and second actor were communicating, we done this by putting the camera behind both actors when they both spoke about the missing book. I think this worked very well as it looked very clean and professional like it would in an actual film. 

Task 4 - Montage

Task 4 - Montage

The term montage has a slight different meaning when referred to in the following three context

French film:

Practice montage has its literal french meaning assembly, installation and simply identifies editing

Soviet:

Montage was a method of juxtaposing shots to derive new meaning that did not exist in earlier shot alone.

Lev Kuleshov: Kuleshov was among the very first to theorise about the relatively young medium of the cinema in the 1920's. He argued that the editing editing a film is like constructing a building brick-by-brick the building is elected. He did an experiment that proves this point. He took an old film clip of a head shot of noted russian actor and inter-cut the shot with different images. When he showed these shots, audiences thought he was great, this technique is now known as montage.


Sergei Eisenstein:

Sergei was briefly a student of kuleshov's, but he went his own way because he had his own idea of a montage. By contrasting shots Eisenstein tried to provoke associates in the viewer, which were introduced by shocks. An example of a film Eisenstein made is Strike, in this film the workers are treated like cattle.

Hollywood:

In hollywood cinema a montage sequence is a short segment in a film which narrative information is presented in a condensed fashion. An example of a hollywood film is Rocky.

Hollywood


The montage we created involved us putting the camera in different positions whilst we played football, i think the montage went well with the syncing and cutting and i am very happy with the outcome. But i think we could have moved the camera around a little more to make the montage more interesting. I also believe the song we used to put over the footage was very good as it was synced very well, but i still fell if we had more time we could have added more syncs into the edit and made it much better. Throughout the montage we built up the pace, we did this to show that the longer the montage went on for the better the characters got, so at the start of the montage we put all the bad atempts we had and then built it up to the best attempts.



Soviet


For the soviet montage we filmed various different actions and movements. It didn't really take us very long to create but i believe if we had more time that the outcome would have been much better, but i think that the overall video was successful. I also like this montage as it is very simple with hardly no editing which gives it an old fashion affect. The point we were trying to make in this montage was the characters feelings. So we put flashbacks of what the character wanted to do which was break stuff and do stupid things, this was because were trying to make the viewers feel that the actor was angry.

Task 3 - Analogue and Digital Editing

Analogue and Digital Editing

Analogue editing is the cutting together of pieces of film. Originally films were made up of images printed on to acetate negatives. These are then spliced together to create a reel of film. These images are then played through a projector at 24 frames per second, which makes the images appear to be moving.


The Moviola

Before the widespread use of non-linear editing, editing was done with an initial copy of the film, this meant if one mistake was made the whole film would be destroyed. Each film was made by hand by cutting and pasting together pieces of film using a splicer and and threading the film on a machine with a viewer such as a moviola.













Video Editing

Before digital technology became available, magnetic tapes were in place to store information. These are known today as video tapes. Most video editing has been suspended by digital editing which is much faster and a lot cheaper.

Digital Editing

Digital media is a form of electronic media where data is stored, (as apposed to analogues) from. Digital editing is the use of computers which are able to manipulate this digital data. Digital cinema uses bits and bytes (strings of 1s and 0s) to record, transmit and reply images instead of chemicals on film.  This whole process is electronic so there is no printing or splicing involved in the whole process.

Digital editing is a very effective method which allows you to access any frame in a digital video clip regardless of the sequence in the film. The freedom to access any frame and use a cut-and-paste method which is very similar to cutting and pasting film. Digital editing allows you do add many effects to your clip such as transmissions and other effects that cannot be achieved with linear editing.

Examples of modern day editing softwares are Adobe after effects and final cut.

Task 2 - Developing Editing Techniques

In-Camera editing is a easy and simple way of creating a short film. It only requires a camera, in-camera editing is good because it takes less time to make and it can look very unique. It is also very good for someone who has no experience of editing before as it is very easy to learn the camera's functions. But In-Camera editing also has down sides,  to make your film perfect it requires practice and you only get one chance to get it right or the film will have mistakes in.




To create this short film we had to start by creating a storyboard, during the creation of this we had to decide who has in the film and who was behind the camera. Once we decided who was doing the acting we then had to decide who did what and where we did it.

Stair Scene 1: The first part to the film was me walking down the first set of stairs, this was very simple but looks very good as the camera was at a angle.
Stair Scene2: We then moved the camera down the stairs and changed the angle of the camera, this also made the film look very professional.

Door Scene: During the door scene, as the camera and the people filming couldn't see me and i couldn't see me Tony had to go next to the window and say go as i didn't know when the camera was rolling. But when we did do it, it was very good and there was no distractions throughout the scene.

Meeting scene: During the meeting scene there was a problem with communication between the camera  crew and the two people acting, but even though this was a problem we still managed to complete the scene and it was fairly good.

Chatting scene: During the chatting scene it went very smoothly but we didn't really have anything to talk about so we had to make it up as we went along,  But over all it went very well and no mistakes were made during the walking through the school.

Stair scene 3: On the 3rd set of stairs we had various of shots, long range and close ups. This made our scene look very professional, but the down side was that others who were filming on the same floor as us made a lot of noise and for a couple of seconds was heard in the scene, but filming wise it went very well.

Study room scene: During the study rook scene we had even more various camera angles, this included a very good close up on my hand opening the door with my school pass. And then me opening the door and Billy behind the door closing it after we entered, this looked very professional but we could see Billy's hand behind the door but overall it very very good.

Task 1 - Editing in early Cinema

Task one - Editing in early Cinema

Editing has changed and developed dramatically since the early 1900's, this is due to film editors such as Thomas Edison who invented the kinetoscope. This was made so that people could see moving pictures infront of their eyes, Thomas also invented the 35mm film strip which is still used today. Thomas Edison eventually invented a projector to play the film on.

Edison also worked with the Lumiere brothers, and they both produced short films that were one long, static, looked-down shot. Motion is the shot was at that was necessary to amuse an audience, so the first films simply showed activity such as traffic moving on the city street.
This can be seen in the film (sortie d'usine) in 1895 by the Lumiere brothers.

The Lumiere Brothers

George Melies: George Melies was a magician who had seen the films made by the Lumiere Brothers. Melies saw the possibilities o a novelty more than just motion its self. 

He acquired a camera, built a studio, wrote a script and designed sets and exploited camera tricks. 

Because of Melies editing became apart of nearly every film made after he created the vanishing lady

Soon after move film makers started to make
films, an example of one film maker is G.A. Smith. In 1899 G.A. Smith made (The kiss in the Tunnel). This film is said to mark the start of narrative editing (creating a story). Smith felt that some extra spice was called for in the popular (phantom ride) genre. He took advantage on a set of darkness as they went into the tunnel to splice (cut and then stick two pieces of film together.

G.A. Smith

Edwin S. Porter:  Edwin worked as an electrician before joining the film lab of Thomas Edison in the late 1890's. He and Edison worked together to make longer and more interesting films. 

Porter made the break through film life of an American fireman in 1903. 

The film was among the first that had a plot, action and even a close up of a hand pulling a fire alarm.

Porter discovered important aspects of motion picture language, that the screen image does not need show a complete person from head to toe.

The splicing together two shots creates in the viewers mind a contextual relationship. 

These were the key discoveries that made all narrative motion pictures and television possible. 

Porter is also know for producing the film (The Great Train Robbery)

The things which are good about the great train robbery is that the film is very long considering the lengths of some other films which are about 1 minute long, this shows that Porter spend a lot of time getting the film perfect 

Charles Pathe:  In 1907 Charles Pathe cheated the Film (The horse that bottled). Pathe introduces the first example of a technique known as parallel editing. (cutting between two story lines). 

Charles Pathe was a french pioneer of the film and recording industries. In 1894 Pathe created (Pathe records). 

D.W. Griffith: Griffith was a US film director, he was a early supporter of the power of editing. He made use of cross-cutting to show parallel actions in different locations. 

Griffith's work was highly regarded by many and greatly influenced the early film makers understanding of editing.