My Prelim

Editing my prelim

EDITING MY PRELIM
Today I learnt how to edit my prelim. I was taught how to cut pieces of each section to put together all the desired clips to make my prelim the best it could be.
Initially, we looked through all my clips and chose the ones which we thought would be useful and put them in the log bin then the ones we thought were not going to be useful we put in the rush bin. Once we had decided which clips were going to be used, we began to take chunks out of them and put them into my final clip. Originally we followed the sheet on which angles would be shown in which areas, but at the end we changed this because we decided to make Elina seem like the good character so we gave her more stage time which would ultimately make her the more desirable character. Once this was done we decided to sort out any continuity problems. As expected the leaf blower was a problem to the sound and this situation needed to be fixed so we took an audio section from a 30 second clip and copied it across the whole prelim in order to have a constant sound of the leaf blower, this way we were able to fix the continuity problem, thus improving the quality of our prelim.
Overall I found it very interesting learning how to edit footage and I look forward to editing footage for my thriller.

Genre two

Genre, Audiences and Institutions

Why genre is relevant component for:

Audiences: Genre allows the audience to know what type of film they are going to see, plus everyone has a favourite genre of film, so if the genre is labelled then people are more likely to enjoy the films they choose to see. It also gives an expectation to the film, for an example during a horror when someone is going into the woods you expect something bad to happen, but in a romance you would expect something romantic to happen, these expectations make the film more satisfying for the audience.

Production companies:  The production company can use genre to give the an idea of what actor they desire for each role and what qualifications they will potentially need. It also gives them a recipe to follow, so if they are making an action film, then can look at other films of the genre to get an idea of what to include in their movie.

Distribution companies: This gives these companies a clearer idea of who they are advertising to, so for an animated film they will target kids, or for a horror they will target teens as there is a usually a fan base for each genre making them easier to target. It also helps them communicate to the audience, making the story line of the movie easier to understand so people are more encouraged to see it.

Genre one

Genre is a type (of film in this case)
These are a whole lot of film genres:

• Comedy - The Hangover

• Horror - Insidious

 

And many others...

• Thriller
• Documentary
• Sci Fi
• Action/Adventure
• Drama
• Western
• Romantic
• Musical

Films within a particular genre have things they share like their characters, the events and the mes en scene. But with thrillers, things tend to be a bit different, there isn't a 'typical thriller'. For an example, the supernatural thriller Paranormal Activity and psychological thriller Shutter Island are two very different films, although the belong to the same genre.

The characters in Paranormal Activity are a modern day family who are being intruded by demons set in a family home, whereas the characters in Shutter Island are 40s detectives who are unwinding a mystery set in a mental asylum. But, there are similarities in these thrillers, as there are in all thrillers, there is always something or someone imposing a threat, then there is always somebody under that threat, then there is always someone trying to stop that threat. Referring back to Paranormal Activity, there are the demons imposing the threat, then the family are under this threat, and the family are also trying to stop it, likewise with Shutter Island the lead character is both under the threat, and he is the threat, as he is imposing a threat on himself, then there are the psychiatrists who are trying to stop the threat.

            Although the thriller genre as a whole is extremely varied, as opposed the romantic films which always seem to have the same story line, within the thriller genre there are several subgenres, within which there will be a high degree of similarity. In political/conspiracy thrillers, the characters involved will usually be business men/women, deprived people, MPs and terrorists and the settings will usually be locations of political importance or banks. In supernatural thrillers the characters typically are unusual animal/people, fantastical creatures, demons/spirits, ghosts or vampires and the settings will be an abnormal place, like the moon, deep in the woods or a new world completely. Lastly with crime thrillers the characters are commonly police, robbers or chavs/gangsters and the settings are the streets of cities or prisons.

For an example, these are two crime thrillers which you can see the similarities between the two of them:

Instantly you can see that these to crime thrillers are similar. The characters are both a male in about his thirties, the look very alike, both white a good looking, they have similar events, due to both of them holding a gun you can see that both films are going to be action packed with violence and aggression.

There are many subgenres of thrillers:

• Supernatural
• Crime
• Political
• Action
• Disaster
• Erotic
• Legal
• Medical
• Religious
• Spy

A supernatural thriller interests me the most for my thriller as I feel it can be made into anything you want it to be, and the public are so unfamiliar with supernatural creatures so it automatically becomes more interesting for them. Also an action thriller seems interesting as they are constantly filled with intense excitement, which again will be more interesting for the audience.

Filming our Prelim

                  

PRELIM

Today I filmed a prelim along with my group who consisted of Rebecca, Elina and Ned. I contributed as an actress in most of it, but I was also involved in some filming when it came to doing close ups of other people. While I was doing some filming I learnt that it is really essential to zoom in and focus in order to make the quality of the shot was the best it could be, I also was doing a close up shot of Rebecca tied up on a chair and I decided to film from her feet and slowly move up to her head, I was able to get this shot really smooth, steady and even, but I did it too slowly, so the shot would have got boring when being viwed. I learnt that it is very important to focus in each shot of background noises in order to avoid continuity problems. Overall filming went well, although we did realise half way through that a leaf blower was sometimes making a sound and sometimes not which would create a continuity problem. Also I found it hard to regain the same posture I would have had in a previous shot, so again this would reveal itself as another continuity problem.

                    Our group was very prepared as we knew from yesterday what our story line would be and what we would require for the sequence. I also think that our group worked really well together, we didn't spend ages arguing over what we wanted out scene to be like, and we all used each others ideas to improve the quality of the clip. We chose to film our prelim outside which, in hindsight, was an error as outdoors it is a lot more difficult to control continuity, but being outdoors did make our film more effective, and it was more appropriate for the genre of our film. We didn't use many props, just a chair and some tape to attach Rebecca to the chair, this make the prelim seem scarier and thrilling. 
                    I feel that our film may have been over complicated, the story line became a bit too intense and complex and this made the film worse not better, so next time I think we should make the film simple. I also think filming the sequence inside would have been of benefit to us as it would have given us more filming time, improving the quality of the clip. Another think I regret not doing was taking pictures, Lastly, I feel that learning our lines would have been a benefit as we wasted about 10 shots getting our lines wrong.
                    I think that after editing our prelim will look good, although we may have a fair few of continuity problems, but we did do our best to get as many shots done while the leaf blower was not on and we also really tired to focus on standing in the same places every time we did a shot.

Se7en & comments

I found Se7en a really intresting clip to analyse, it gave me a few ideas for what I would like to include for my thriller, such as the dark-natured elements of it, because I felt that was what really made this a good thriller.

Se7en powerpoint analysis

This is an analysis of the thriller Se7en which I thought was a very effective title sequence as it gave you a brief idea of what the story may involve but it doesnt actually give away any events of the story.

How to film a sequence

Today I learnt how to film a sequence, a sequence is a series of shots played one after another which gives the illusion that it is continuous motion. There a three different types of shot - wide, close-up and medium.
When filming a sequence:
1) Film the whole sequence in a wide shot, this is so you can pick up all the information in the shot.
2) Then film a medium shot, this is usually the waist up on a person and it will pick up more detail.
3) Then film a close up, this is to get the fine detail and focus on one particular aspect of a person or object.

When you are about to film a shot the director will say 'stand by' this will signal the camera man to go to his camera. Then the director will say 'roll camera' this alerts the camera to begin recording. After the director is satisfied he will shout 'cut' the camera man will stop filiming, but he must not before he is told to.

One key thing I learn was to never watch the footage back on the shoot or delete footage, as it wastes precious, expensive studio time and every piece of footage could have a few seconds of useful material.

From this workshop I learnt that it is vital to keep the sequence simple, as we over-complicated our one and the results were not as successful as we hoped. We also learnt to assign a continuity person as when the continuity is out it makes the whole sequence look bad.

180° Rule

• Also known as 'crossing the line'.
• This is a rule that says you can only film a 180° circumfrance around the point of intrest.
• This means that one object is always on the left, and one is always on the right.
• If you go over 180° the objects would be opposite sides and would make no sense

Rule of Thirds

• Initially you split the screen into thirds horizontally and vertically.
• There a four spots where the lines intersect, these are the hot spots.
• By filling each hotspot you can make for an intresting shot.

Submerged Video

Submerged powerpoint analysis

This is a powerpoint of my analysis of a thriller which was made last year by Hurtwood students, I found this really intresting as it gave a good idea of how my thriller may turn out.

Camera Workshop

I learnt how to use a camera for the first time.
Initially we learnt how to put up the tripod, by lifting it from the centre we were able to keep the three legs the same length. Once we had done that we also had to make the mounting plate be at a certain level, we could control this by unscrewing the hinge below the mounting plate and adjusting the plate until the spirit level was in the centre of the circle. We then tightened up the hinge and were ready to place the camera on top.
To place the camera on we had to hold down a button to allowed the camera to slide on, we then twsited the centre colum lock and the camera was securly in place. Once we re-adjusted the triop we were ready to beging shooting.
We started off by learning how to focus the shot, we did this by zooming close in to the object of intrest and then ensuring it was is best focus by twisting the first nossle. Once we were sure te focus what the best it could be we would zoom back out again. This was to ensure the quality of the footage was at its best. Secondly we learnt how to do a white balance, we did this by zooming into a white piece of paper and the pressing the white balance button this would then adjust the lighting to make it more natural, we did this so that the camera can measure the colour of the lighting and adjust the colours togive an accurate look to the footage, not red or blue.
I really enjoyed learing how to use the camera and look forward to putting my skills to use in the future, but because it was my first try at using a camera there was a lot of information to take in and at times it got confusing, but hopfully I've understood the basics!
This was the camera we used:
The Sony NX5 digital HD camera

                                                                                                  
                                                                                                    

My first blog

Hello, this is my first ever blog. My name is Camilla Mills and I am about to turn 17. I'm from London and I have lived there all my life. I really enjoy films, many different genres as well but my favourites are horrors and comedys. I have always found paranormal films really scary so I think I may try and do something like that for my thriller, so I will be including things about demons and spirits. I am really looking forward to making my thriller.