Today we experimented with different lighting setup's to create different effects. We used a red head light, a reflector and then two light stands with diffuser and reflector umbrellas attached. We also used coloured gels to add colour to the lighting.
Thursday 30 January 2014
Monday 27 January 2014
Ettie Greenwood's analysis of the opening of the thriller film: The Usual Suspects
Mise en Scene:
The mise en scene of the piece helps to connote a serious tone, and fits the genre of thriller well.
Firstly, the lighting is dark and uses low key lighting with a high contrast. This makes the sequence feel serious and dark. The audience cannot see much of the background and setting which makes them focus on the main events (the characters).
However, the props that the audience can see use iconography to connote a thriller genre: Both the antagonist and the protagonist characters are seen to be smoking a cigarette. As this was very common in that period, but is also used to represent manliness.
Desaturated colour is also used throughout to give the sequence a serious tone and to make the piece feel nervy (the audience can not see much in the frame). This contributes to the restricted narration.
Finally, the clothes (costume) that the characters wear seems to be plain and dark. Especially the male with the gun who wears a black cloak- this helps with the idea of restricted narration as the cloak covers most of his body and face creating suspense.
Camerawork:
In The Usual Suspects, the camera work reveals and hides the events in the sequence.
At first, there is a tilt up to reveal a man in a cloak, this is a revealing shot. However the tilt up stops just before the mans head comes into frame. This creates restricted narration as the audience is unable to fully understand who this character is.
Restricted narration is continued throughout to create enigma and suspense. The antagonist's face is never revealed which engages the audience in the film as they question who the character is. This makes them continue on watching, therefore making the sequence a successful opening.
The tilt up at the start creates a high angle shot of the antagonist which connotes authority and a sense of power. This later proves to be true as this character shoots the other man.
Close up's are also used towards the end of the sequence to display the protagonists facial expressions so the audience can denote his feelings (unusually relaxed). Therefore when the antagonist pulls out the gun and shoots this may come to a surprise to the reader- what thrillers aim to do.
A focus pull is also used throughout two shots to surprise the viewer of the presence of the gun: Slit framing of the antagonist is used where the protagonist is in focus at first, where the antagonist pulls out an object but as this is out of focus, the audience cannot tell what this object is. But then a cut is used and the next shot shows the antagonist in focus holding a gun. This focus change helps to create enigma when the gun is out of focus and reveals what it is when in focus.
Editing
After the gun shot, parallel editing is used to display the sound of the gun shot echoing around different locations. Each location gets further and further away which connotes how the shooting was an important event (a few shots are dedicated to this). It also reveals to the audience where the shooting was taken place -on a ship-, therefore making it an establishing shot. The ship also seems to be empty therefore making te audience question why the men were on the boat at night alone. Also as this event happens at the start of the film, the shooting foreshadows an oncoming event which may deal with the consequences of it.
Cuts are used throughout the sequence to quickly change to the next shot and to make the editing almost unnoticeable. This makes it less distracting and allows the piece to achieve maximum continuity. However nearer the end of the sequence, the editing frequency gets higher due to the growing action in the piece. This helps to build tension as before the shots were long and slow.
Sound
The non-diegetic music soundtrack helps to build tension in the piece by slowly increasing the tempo and volume as the action builds. This adds a more dramatic effect to the sequence and helps the audience to realise the building plot-line.
The music also parallel to the sequence, as when the man drops his cigarette on the oil, the music suddenly builds crescendo and a crashing noise is heard. This helps to create a more dramatic effect.
However, the dialogue (diegetic sound) has a very slow pace and the characters speak in a low and serious tone. This connotes that the sequence is dramatic and serious, but also foreshadows that the protagonist knows about is upcoming death.
The police sirens at the end are also an example of diegetic sound which highlights the importance of the event, and possibly the shock of it to other people.
The mise en scene of the piece helps to connote a serious tone, and fits the genre of thriller well.
Firstly, the lighting is dark and uses low key lighting with a high contrast. This makes the sequence feel serious and dark. The audience cannot see much of the background and setting which makes them focus on the main events (the characters).
However, the props that the audience can see use iconography to connote a thriller genre: Both the antagonist and the protagonist characters are seen to be smoking a cigarette. As this was very common in that period, but is also used to represent manliness.
Desaturated colour is also used throughout to give the sequence a serious tone and to make the piece feel nervy (the audience can not see much in the frame). This contributes to the restricted narration.
Finally, the clothes (costume) that the characters wear seems to be plain and dark. Especially the male with the gun who wears a black cloak- this helps with the idea of restricted narration as the cloak covers most of his body and face creating suspense.
Camerawork:
In The Usual Suspects, the camera work reveals and hides the events in the sequence.
At first, there is a tilt up to reveal a man in a cloak, this is a revealing shot. However the tilt up stops just before the mans head comes into frame. This creates restricted narration as the audience is unable to fully understand who this character is.
Restricted narration is continued throughout to create enigma and suspense. The antagonist's face is never revealed which engages the audience in the film as they question who the character is. This makes them continue on watching, therefore making the sequence a successful opening.
The tilt up at the start creates a high angle shot of the antagonist which connotes authority and a sense of power. This later proves to be true as this character shoots the other man.
Close up's are also used towards the end of the sequence to display the protagonists facial expressions so the audience can denote his feelings (unusually relaxed). Therefore when the antagonist pulls out the gun and shoots this may come to a surprise to the reader- what thrillers aim to do.
A focus pull is also used throughout two shots to surprise the viewer of the presence of the gun: Slit framing of the antagonist is used where the protagonist is in focus at first, where the antagonist pulls out an object but as this is out of focus, the audience cannot tell what this object is. But then a cut is used and the next shot shows the antagonist in focus holding a gun. This focus change helps to create enigma when the gun is out of focus and reveals what it is when in focus.
Editing
After the gun shot, parallel editing is used to display the sound of the gun shot echoing around different locations. Each location gets further and further away which connotes how the shooting was an important event (a few shots are dedicated to this). It also reveals to the audience where the shooting was taken place -on a ship-, therefore making it an establishing shot. The ship also seems to be empty therefore making te audience question why the men were on the boat at night alone. Also as this event happens at the start of the film, the shooting foreshadows an oncoming event which may deal with the consequences of it.
Cuts are used throughout the sequence to quickly change to the next shot and to make the editing almost unnoticeable. This makes it less distracting and allows the piece to achieve maximum continuity. However nearer the end of the sequence, the editing frequency gets higher due to the growing action in the piece. This helps to build tension as before the shots were long and slow.
Sound
The non-diegetic music soundtrack helps to build tension in the piece by slowly increasing the tempo and volume as the action builds. This adds a more dramatic effect to the sequence and helps the audience to realise the building plot-line.
The music also parallel to the sequence, as when the man drops his cigarette on the oil, the music suddenly builds crescendo and a crashing noise is heard. This helps to create a more dramatic effect.
However, the dialogue (diegetic sound) has a very slow pace and the characters speak in a low and serious tone. This connotes that the sequence is dramatic and serious, but also foreshadows that the protagonist knows about is upcoming death.
The police sirens at the end are also an example of diegetic sound which highlights the importance of the event, and possibly the shock of it to other people.
Natalie Sergeant's analysis of the use of camera and mise en scene in the opening of the thriller film: The Usual Suspects
The Usual Suspects
In film techniques are used to allow the audience to understand what genre they are watching. These techniques include mise en scene, camerawork, editing and sound. I will analyse the sequence of the thriller opening, "The Usual Suspects" to explain how these techniques construct the visual style of a thriller.
Mise en scene
The first scene of the opening starts with the stroke of a match, which immediately grabs the audience's attention. This then carries on to a shot of the prop oil canisters that are leaking, from the two shots being connected together the audience is able to start to put the scene together even with such a small amount of information to know that something bad will occur. Both of these items are iconography to show the thriller genre as they create suspense of what will happen next to the character.
Throughout the opening low key lighting sets the dark, mysterious and tense mood of the sequence. Though when the first character drops the matches into the line of petrol and the camera tracks the flame round it gives the audience more information, that leads to further questions to be asked. This being that in the surrounding that was lit up a dead man is revealed. As the audience it provokes these further questions of what happened, how did this man die, did this character kill him? By having these questions unanswered it builds suspense in desiring to know just what has happened.
Also the costuming that the second character matches the dark mysterious lighting as he is only wearing black clothing, so he blends into the surrounding almost becoming invisible. Also due to camerawork their is restricted narration to the character due to being unable to see his face. His clothing and lighting add to this mystery as we can make no judgment about this man except that he could be the antagonist due to how smartly he is dress compared to the other character.
Camerawork
Within then sequence restricted narration is use strongly and subdued, the first time we are introduced to restricted narration is our meeting of our second character in the opening, as mentioned before. The second time is more subdued as at the end of the opening we see an eye looking throw the rope. This enigma makes us wounder who this person is and what part they have with this story.
After the tracking of the flame building suspense slowly to what the audience will think is the explosion but is stopped by the antagonist when urinating on it.
To reveal this new character the camera uses a low angle to tilt up to show the figure in his act. This use show us he status and authority as we are not shown his identity building tension for what thrillers aim for.
Editing
To keep continuity cuts are used in the opening of the film so that it all moves in one continuations flow and not distracting as fading could loss the time frame being continued and the audience thinking a new scene had appeared. Though by using cuts more frequently near the end of the sequence tension is build due to more action happening so to act like a heart beating fast feeling from the fast cuts. Fast cuts are frequently used in thrillers to increase the audiences heart rate for what is about to happen next or be connected to the action happening.
When the antagonist is leaving after killing the other character, he drops a cigarette to re-ignite the petrol. In this shot it had been edited into slow motion this emphasis it falling and the result being the petrol re-ignited to put the audience back to the beginning in knowing what is going to happen next.
Sound
The non-diagetic music track being used only starts when we are introduced to the antagonist. The music track also acted along with the sequence when the antagonist load his gun the volume increase and so does the tempo to build the tension as to build us up to the event of the shot. Also when the cigarette is dropped the volume and tempo increase this is often used in thrillers as by increasing the volume and tempo it creates tension as we know something is going to happen but we may not see the final result such as this case where it fades to black after the explosion.
For diagetic sound there is dialogue between the antagonist and the protagonist. From the dialogue we can see a small connection between the two characters and from the tone of their voices we can sense that the protagonist is not happy to see the antagonist. This makes the audience question whats there relationship to each other.
In film techniques are used to allow the audience to understand what genre they are watching. These techniques include mise en scene, camerawork, editing and sound. I will analyse the sequence of the thriller opening, "The Usual Suspects" to explain how these techniques construct the visual style of a thriller.
Mise en scene
The first scene of the opening starts with the stroke of a match, which immediately grabs the audience's attention. This then carries on to a shot of the prop oil canisters that are leaking, from the two shots being connected together the audience is able to start to put the scene together even with such a small amount of information to know that something bad will occur. Both of these items are iconography to show the thriller genre as they create suspense of what will happen next to the character.
Throughout the opening low key lighting sets the dark, mysterious and tense mood of the sequence. Though when the first character drops the matches into the line of petrol and the camera tracks the flame round it gives the audience more information, that leads to further questions to be asked. This being that in the surrounding that was lit up a dead man is revealed. As the audience it provokes these further questions of what happened, how did this man die, did this character kill him? By having these questions unanswered it builds suspense in desiring to know just what has happened.
Also the costuming that the second character matches the dark mysterious lighting as he is only wearing black clothing, so he blends into the surrounding almost becoming invisible. Also due to camerawork their is restricted narration to the character due to being unable to see his face. His clothing and lighting add to this mystery as we can make no judgment about this man except that he could be the antagonist due to how smartly he is dress compared to the other character.
Camerawork
Within then sequence restricted narration is use strongly and subdued, the first time we are introduced to restricted narration is our meeting of our second character in the opening, as mentioned before. The second time is more subdued as at the end of the opening we see an eye looking throw the rope. This enigma makes us wounder who this person is and what part they have with this story.
After the tracking of the flame building suspense slowly to what the audience will think is the explosion but is stopped by the antagonist when urinating on it.To reveal this new character the camera uses a low angle to tilt up to show the figure in his act. This use show us he status and authority as we are not shown his identity building tension for what thrillers aim for.
Editing
To keep continuity cuts are used in the opening of the film so that it all moves in one continuations flow and not distracting as fading could loss the time frame being continued and the audience thinking a new scene had appeared. Though by using cuts more frequently near the end of the sequence tension is build due to more action happening so to act like a heart beating fast feeling from the fast cuts. Fast cuts are frequently used in thrillers to increase the audiences heart rate for what is about to happen next or be connected to the action happening.
When the antagonist is leaving after killing the other character, he drops a cigarette to re-ignite the petrol. In this shot it had been edited into slow motion this emphasis it falling and the result being the petrol re-ignited to put the audience back to the beginning in knowing what is going to happen next.
Sound
The non-diagetic music track being used only starts when we are introduced to the antagonist. The music track also acted along with the sequence when the antagonist load his gun the volume increase and so does the tempo to build the tension as to build us up to the event of the shot. Also when the cigarette is dropped the volume and tempo increase this is often used in thrillers as by increasing the volume and tempo it creates tension as we know something is going to happen but we may not see the final result such as this case where it fades to black after the explosion.
For diagetic sound there is dialogue between the antagonist and the protagonist. From the dialogue we can see a small connection between the two characters and from the tone of their voices we can sense that the protagonist is not happy to see the antagonist. This makes the audience question whats there relationship to each other.
Friday 24 January 2014
Garageband Excersize - All Of Us
Here is the finished piece from our Garageband excersize. Here we had to put foleys that we had recorded ourselves (a man screaming), music sourced from copyright free websites and foleys from Garageband.
We made sure that all the foleys were layered and there were plenty of them to ensure that the piece sounded as realistic as possible.
We made sure that all the foleys were layered and there were plenty of them to ensure that the piece sounded as realistic as possible.
Here is the piece from 'The Shaun Of the Dead' that we added sound too:
Thursday 16 January 2014
Friday 10 January 2014
Clip Alteration - Ettie Greenwood
After we had reviewed our clips, and started filming, we discovered that we had left the post-it notes from our storyboard on the table in one shot and later removed it for the next. This affected the continuity of our piece as the setting was not the same, also the post-it notes looked untidy in the scene.
Therefore as a group we decided to film that shot again in the same location but without the post-it notes on the table. We then edited this into the existing footage to replace the Mistake.
In the future we should take more care in checking the setting around us before we film, and try not to move objects whilst filming. This enables that continuity can be achieved most effectively.
Here is the old clip WITH the post-it notes (mistake):
And here is the corrected scene without the post-it notes (correction):
Therefore as a group we decided to film that shot again in the same location but without the post-it notes on the table. We then edited this into the existing footage to replace the Mistake.
In the future we should take more care in checking the setting around us before we film, and try not to move objects whilst filming. This enables that continuity can be achieved most effectively.
Here is the old clip WITH the post-it notes (mistake):
And here is the corrected scene without the post-it notes (correction):
Thursday 9 January 2014
Story Board Time change - Olivia & Natalie
When editing the entire video we found that due to cuts and the amount of time used in each shot that changes have been made compared to the Story Board. In some shots we decided to have a continuous flow it would add to the effect of tension between the two characters so instead of having a shot last only a short time we extended it so the focus on the characters expressions is prolonged to create a tense and slightly awkward situation.
Updated - Natalie Sergeant
Another reason for this change is many because of the change of location. We originally had planned to use the hall as seen in previous post to a more enclosed area as seen in previous post. Due to this change is cause the amount of time needed from walking from the door to the table to be changed. As seen in the image to the left in our story board we had it set for the detective to take up to 4.0 seconds to travel from the door to the table, thought due to the change of location this cause it to go from 4.0 seconds to 1.0 seconds due to the table now being so close to the door.
Updated - Natalie Sergeant
Monday 6 January 2014
Risk Assessment- All Of Us
Here is our risk assessment; we considered all aspects that could affect our filming and took these into consideration during production.
Clip starts at 00:04...
Changed Location - Ettie Greenwood
We had to change the location for filming. This is because we could not a time when our desired location was available, apart from the time when we took photos of it. We however found an other location nearby and decided that this would be suitable. We think that the new location was better suited as it was a smaller enclosed space, and the lighting helped to give a more dramatic feel. In the future we should do more research about the location, and have a backup if needed.
Here are some images of the new location:
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