AS Media Studies

Sunday, 6 March 2016

Edit decisions

EDIT DECISIONS

Bars at the top and bottom of the screen

The decision to place black bars at the top and bottom of the screen was a conscious one group decision toimprove the opening. The bars helped make the opening look more professional, giving it a widescreen style feel while at the same time it helped cover up some unfavourable parts of certain shots without having to refilm footage.

Surprise cut at the bat swing

During the opening, when Joan swings the bat we decided to cut to black early before a titl fades in. This decision was made in order to make the scene seem more ruthless. It causes the viewer to believe something much worse may happen because they didn't get to see it all. The cut also is an amazing dramatic effect which would catch the audience off-guard and throw them off balance a little which was one of our aims with this opening.

Fades into titles

Another decision we made was to make the the titles fade in between shots instead of appear somewhere in the shots. We preferred this transition effect as it made it easier to intercut between the scenes of Joan, and the scenes of the Russian spy seamlessly. It also suited the mysterious nature of the narrative of the opening and looked quite professional.

Intercutting between the interrogation and Russian spy

The decision to intercut between both the scenes of Joan and the interrogation, and the Russian spy in the park is to keep the audience asking questions. Rather than place one scene after the other, we decided to cut in between the two. The use of intercutting here places the idea in the audience's head that the two scenes are related, making use of the enigma code, producing questions in viewer's heads as to how they are related. This keeps the audience engaged and interested in the film.

Saturation change on certain shot

On certain shots in the opening we altered the way shots looked by adding a filter or changing the brightness or saturation of a shot. There is one shot in particular which is much more undersaturated than other shots to the point where it looks washed out. This was done to replicate the feelings of the hostage, who was on the brink of passing out.

Distortion on the title card

On the very last few frames, the animated title card begins to form but after a few seconds the title and music distorts simultaneously. This initial sleek and cool title suggests that the film will be a slick spy film however, the distortions and weird sounds signal the viewer that it might have a lot themes of a thriller in that the film is actually a spy thriller. This will draw in viewers as they will wonder what's in store for them for the rest of the film.

Thursday, 3 March 2016

Music Matters

I created this video in order to experiment with how music will change how our Thriller opening is seen. By changing the song I turned this thriller into more of an action film.

Rough cut

Psst! Hey, I got you a early release rough cut of our film.

I think the footage we filmed in this is very good and more or less complete. I felt that the lighting in the rough cut was really effective. The majority of the scenes have good lighting, complimenting each shot very well. The outdoor lighting uses natural sunlight, we chose to film at a more gloomy cloudy day in order to achieve an low key mysterious lighting effect, we further amplified this with post editing by using a hard light effect. The indoor shots make use of a spotlight which was useful to manipulate in order to create mystery and to focus more on the victim. The indoor scene also does not back light, the reason we did this was to make the location seem more ominous and threatening.

We used a variety of camera angles like for example the wide opening shot that transitioned to the over the shoulder shot, the shots used also served a purpose, in the case of the two intro shots it was to create an isolated and mysterious feeling, this is because over the shoulder shots normally convey the idea of being followed. We used quite a few close up scenes of our brilliant actor who we taught was emotive enough to convey the worried and panic sense we wanted to set for the character.We did a lot of over the shoulder shots of Joanna and avoided showing too much of her face in order to keep her character more mysterious, we also had high angle shots of Joanna to make her seem more dominant and in control. Also, Joanna lowering herself to the level of the hostage intimidatingly saying say, "Time's ticking", was both a literally and metaphorical representation of Joanna lowering herself down which creates an comfortableness which added to her intimidation .

The audio in this rough cut is not the best, it's not terrible but it's mediocrity is more present due to the higher standards of the camera work and lights. For the non-diegetic sound in the rough cut we used a consistent of a eerie background track which we choose to make the viewer feel uncomfortable and emersed in this enigmatic themed opening.The diegetic sounds, the dialogue primarily, added to the tense atmosphere but due to bad audio recording does not work as well. We had one of our actors (The man in blue suit) speak in Russian as we felt this added suspense and riddle to the film.

Moving forward we will add bars to the top and bottom of the opening throughout it to make it appear more like a thriller like movie. This technique is often applied in blockbuster films and is often associated with professional suspense filled thrillers. The title card of the film will be changed to fit more with the film theme and narrative, it will also be shortened because they are too long and break up the pace of the opening.

We need feedback! In order to improve our opening, if you could take this this survey to give your thoughts on our opening, we would be very grateful. Thank you!

Behind the scenes

Behind the scenes looking at the well awaited movie.

logo

Production logo's are a thing. Companies have logo's in order to show consumers what they do, making people judge the book by the cover. Here I take a look at logo's in order to help me create my own logo.

Perhaps the most recognizable production logo, the paramount logo is very successful as it is very "filmic" and simple. it utilizes vintage looking footage in order to show the viewer something about there companies history. From this logo we can learn that our logo should in some way reference to our film company to portray what kind of company we are.

Again a very well known production logo, the Walt Disney logo uses a very traditional and family friendly font and also a castle in there logo which is must likely a reference to the things Disney are most known for, family friendly content (the font) and Disney land (the castle). Fromm Disney we learn that we can make references to things that relate to our company from simple things like font and images.

My logo design