As of yet we have yet to decide solidly on our movie genre, but a lot of the more prominant ideas that have been thrown about have been for an action/thriller style with a possible hint of comic book/supernatural aspects. If we decide to include the latter, then our audience would no doubt expect a darker style production from the likes of Sin City or Daredevil. However, if we decide on going for just pure action/thriller, then our audience would expect a fast paced, high intensity opening and trailer that would include a lot of dynamic and ambitious camera angles and techniques, which would make the audience thirst to see more of the movie.
Either way, we hope to make our opening and trailer as fast paced and exciting for our audience as possible, and try to almost decieve them of our non exhistant budget by making it seem as professionally done as possible. It will no doubt be our most ambitious task to date.
Monday 26 January 2009
Great Openings/Trailers to movies.
Although our group haven't completely decided on a movie genre, a lot of the ideas thrown around have been action/thriller and maybe a comic book/supernatural element. So here are some examples based on these concepts:
Mortal Kombat Opening (watch from 0.40 on)
Lord Of The Rings Opening
Sin City Trailer
Daredevil Trailer
Cliffhanger Opening
Terminator 2 Opening
Mortal Kombat Opening (watch from 0.40 on)
Lord Of The Rings Opening
Sin City Trailer
Daredevil Trailer
Cliffhanger Opening
Terminator 2 Opening
Tuesday 20 January 2009
Preliminary Continuity Task Evaluation.
For our preliminary project, my group and I were given the task to draw up a storyboard and a script, then record and edit a scene to give the impression of complete continuity. In doing this we had to record a conversation between two characters, including one of the character’s entering, one of the characters exiting, and as many relevant camera angles as possible, including reaction shots and an eye-line match. We then were to edit it to give the impression of constant continuity, and evaluate the experience.
We chose our actors, former drama students Aidan Bannon and Laura McCrory, and told them what they were to do while we filmed. This required a lot of patience on the part of both the actors and the directors, as it was very time consuming having to record, stop and re-record constantly, as we tried to get in as many shots as possible, trying to stick with the original plan of the storyboard, while also coming up with the odd new idea, as we found out that some shots looked better on paper than on camera. The actors were very good and dedicated, learning their scripts in a heartbeat and asking their teachers to get out of class so as to help us record, but they quickly found out that a media studies project is very different than a drama project. At first they thought that what they did was most important, and their lines were essential, but they were soon to find, as we shot a seemingly irrelevant ‘walking through the door’ in about five different ways, that the camera work was the primary focus, not the people in the camera. And as such they gained a deeper understanding for all the overlooked detail that goes in to the ‘other side’ of the camera, as did we. We had no idea how long a seemingly simple preliminary exercise would take. At the beginning, we pretty much expected it to take no longer than 15 or 20 minutes to record the whole thing, especially since we already had a storyboard drawn up showing us what we were to record. But because every little detail was of vital importance, we found ourselves having to spend a lot more time on the recording than we anticipated. Complications such as first years seeing the cameras and interrupting our work asking ‘Are you doing a survey??’ or going ‘Record us! Record us!’ arose. We then had to completely re-record our project after half finishing it, because the classroom we were using had to be used for class and we wanted to complete the filming as soon as possible.
So we relocated our project to the school library, and this time around it was a lot easier, as both the actors and directors knew exactly what to do. We finished recording after a combined one and a half periods (40 minutes) working on it, not a bad time considering, but certainly a lot longer than we expected. We recorded much of the exercise at least twice, giving us various examples of certain parts so as we had a variety of shots to choose from depending on what looked best, and we recorded the main conversation constantly with two cameras, which they re-did multiple times either because of mistakes or just to try things a different way, which turned out to be the best thing as we were able to later mix everything up so that we had the best of everything.
When we finally finished the recording, we thought that the worst was behind us..... Little did we know how complex editing a continuity task would be! This was undoubtably the learning curve of the entire exercise. We thought that once all the footage was collected, only minor touches would need to be added and then we would be finished, but we soon realised the extent of the difficulty in making every detail seem completely fluent. Simple things such as changing the camera angles of a walking person from the front of them to the back had to be PERFECTLY timed so it wouldn’t look like they skipped a step or were slightly further forward than before the camera change, and such. So more complex aspects such as fluently fitting in the numerous camera angles for walking through the door (such as eyeline match, close up shot, behind angle, long shot, pan angle) took a considerable amount of time to perfect, as we often had to continually go back to it after spotting something that didn’t look right, then work out how we were going to edit it to get it right even if it meant having to cut out a shot which we, at first, thought would look good.
Then the conversation itself took an extensive amount of time. We soon realised that it was a stroke of luck that we thought about recording it from two different camera angles at the same time, as it turned out to be essential in making the conversation look believable. At first we thought we only needed to change the angle every now and gain, but this presented a problem in itself, when the times where it wasn’t changed and the person whose back was to the camera was speaking, it began to look more out of place than at first. So we had to eventually change the camera angle to the face of each person, every time they talked, which made the product look more complete. However, in doing so we had to search every take of the conversation and carefully pick out the best bits and put them together to give the best looking finished result. However, during the course of all of this we discovered another problem. The light and sound of one of the cameras was different than the other one, giving a very amateurish feel to the footage when you saw the cameras constantly changing back and forth, with different settings for each one. As a result, we had to concentrate on one camera, and spend a good deal of time trying to make it as alike to the other camera as possible, editing the lighting on IMovie and the sound on Garageband (one of the most difficult challenges of the entire project.) After spending about a week and a half’s worth of pure editing, we finally settled on the decision that we could not do any more to the product to improve it, and we ended up with our completed preliminary task.
I am very happy with the final result of our task. In my opinion, our hard work has payed off, as we now have a very well done example of continuity. In this task I have learned just how much work goes in to a seemingly simple task of making a fluent piece of footage, and that precision and perfection in the camera work is as, if not more important than what the camera is recording, and I now truly understand the extent of the work that must go in to the editing of a piece of footage. This task has made me a lot more confident both with a camera, and also in my editing skills with aspects such as IMovie and Garageband, and it has prepared me for my coursework with new found technical and time management skills.
By Chris Mohan.
We chose our actors, former drama students Aidan Bannon and Laura McCrory, and told them what they were to do while we filmed. This required a lot of patience on the part of both the actors and the directors, as it was very time consuming having to record, stop and re-record constantly, as we tried to get in as many shots as possible, trying to stick with the original plan of the storyboard, while also coming up with the odd new idea, as we found out that some shots looked better on paper than on camera. The actors were very good and dedicated, learning their scripts in a heartbeat and asking their teachers to get out of class so as to help us record, but they quickly found out that a media studies project is very different than a drama project. At first they thought that what they did was most important, and their lines were essential, but they were soon to find, as we shot a seemingly irrelevant ‘walking through the door’ in about five different ways, that the camera work was the primary focus, not the people in the camera. And as such they gained a deeper understanding for all the overlooked detail that goes in to the ‘other side’ of the camera, as did we. We had no idea how long a seemingly simple preliminary exercise would take. At the beginning, we pretty much expected it to take no longer than 15 or 20 minutes to record the whole thing, especially since we already had a storyboard drawn up showing us what we were to record. But because every little detail was of vital importance, we found ourselves having to spend a lot more time on the recording than we anticipated. Complications such as first years seeing the cameras and interrupting our work asking ‘Are you doing a survey??’ or going ‘Record us! Record us!’ arose. We then had to completely re-record our project after half finishing it, because the classroom we were using had to be used for class and we wanted to complete the filming as soon as possible.
So we relocated our project to the school library, and this time around it was a lot easier, as both the actors and directors knew exactly what to do. We finished recording after a combined one and a half periods (40 minutes) working on it, not a bad time considering, but certainly a lot longer than we expected. We recorded much of the exercise at least twice, giving us various examples of certain parts so as we had a variety of shots to choose from depending on what looked best, and we recorded the main conversation constantly with two cameras, which they re-did multiple times either because of mistakes or just to try things a different way, which turned out to be the best thing as we were able to later mix everything up so that we had the best of everything.
When we finally finished the recording, we thought that the worst was behind us..... Little did we know how complex editing a continuity task would be! This was undoubtably the learning curve of the entire exercise. We thought that once all the footage was collected, only minor touches would need to be added and then we would be finished, but we soon realised the extent of the difficulty in making every detail seem completely fluent. Simple things such as changing the camera angles of a walking person from the front of them to the back had to be PERFECTLY timed so it wouldn’t look like they skipped a step or were slightly further forward than before the camera change, and such. So more complex aspects such as fluently fitting in the numerous camera angles for walking through the door (such as eyeline match, close up shot, behind angle, long shot, pan angle) took a considerable amount of time to perfect, as we often had to continually go back to it after spotting something that didn’t look right, then work out how we were going to edit it to get it right even if it meant having to cut out a shot which we, at first, thought would look good.
Then the conversation itself took an extensive amount of time. We soon realised that it was a stroke of luck that we thought about recording it from two different camera angles at the same time, as it turned out to be essential in making the conversation look believable. At first we thought we only needed to change the angle every now and gain, but this presented a problem in itself, when the times where it wasn’t changed and the person whose back was to the camera was speaking, it began to look more out of place than at first. So we had to eventually change the camera angle to the face of each person, every time they talked, which made the product look more complete. However, in doing so we had to search every take of the conversation and carefully pick out the best bits and put them together to give the best looking finished result. However, during the course of all of this we discovered another problem. The light and sound of one of the cameras was different than the other one, giving a very amateurish feel to the footage when you saw the cameras constantly changing back and forth, with different settings for each one. As a result, we had to concentrate on one camera, and spend a good deal of time trying to make it as alike to the other camera as possible, editing the lighting on IMovie and the sound on Garageband (one of the most difficult challenges of the entire project.) After spending about a week and a half’s worth of pure editing, we finally settled on the decision that we could not do any more to the product to improve it, and we ended up with our completed preliminary task.
I am very happy with the final result of our task. In my opinion, our hard work has payed off, as we now have a very well done example of continuity. In this task I have learned just how much work goes in to a seemingly simple task of making a fluent piece of footage, and that precision and perfection in the camera work is as, if not more important than what the camera is recording, and I now truly understand the extent of the work that must go in to the editing of a piece of footage. This task has made me a lot more confident both with a camera, and also in my editing skills with aspects such as IMovie and Garageband, and it has prepared me for my coursework with new found technical and time management skills.
By Chris Mohan.
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