Forrest Gump

Another film opening we studied was Forrest Gump. We studied this film so that we could understand how enigma is created in an opening, and how important it is to the film, and to learn what a McGuffin is. In this film the McGuffin is the feather that the camera follows during the opening.

The opening starts with a shot of dark/grey sky and follows a feather as it descends. The credits appear over the falling feather and there is quite music, which gradually gets louder. The camera pans down to show the city still following the feather and the credits continue to show over the feather. As the feather falls further the camera pans down more to show a street and cars, the music continues throughout and sounds of cars driving can be heard. The camera keeps following the feather until it stops on someones shoe, the audience don't know who this character is. The music quietens as the camera pans up to show a man picking up the feather and the man putting the feather away in a book in his suitcase. There is more focus on the mans hands and book when he puts the feather in the book. After the camera pans back up to show the mans face, the music stops and a bus stops next to the man on the bench.

There is a 1981 advert on the side of the bus, showing the audience the time period that the film is set in and the cars that are parked on the side of the road or driving past are old fashioned, reinforcing the time period.

Inglorious Basterds

We studied the opening 3 minutes of Inglorious Basterds in one of our lessons.
We have been looking at the opening 2/3 minutes of various films, to help our understanding of how a film opening is created and what is included in it.

The first seconds of the opening shows the production company logos, for example the Universal and the Weinstein logo during this there is no music, but it fades in after when a black screen appears.

The credits appear on the black screen in yellow writing, the main leads in the film are shown first then the people guest starring after in white writing. The colour and font change shows the difference between the actors who play the main characters and then other secondary characters. During the credits the music builds, this creates some tension as it will cause the audience to become suspicious.
The music slowly fades out after the credits have finished.

There is a long shot of a field/hill with a barn in the middle, this create enigma as the audience don't know when or where they are at first. After the first shot, there is a second long shot of a man cutting wood, which then cuts to a lady hanging washing, this is the first time any characters are introduced. A rumbling sound can be heard along with wood being cut, but there is no music. The shot changes to a low angle of the man who is cutting the wood and a woman saying "Papa", the next scene shows a car driving down a lane and dramatic music starts, this creates enigma because the music is used to help create tension. There is close up of the mans face and then a wide shot of a woman running into the distance to collect water, the classical music continues during this. The last shot shows the woman returning and a close up of the man who looks sad, the audience can understand that he looks sad as he puts his head in his hands.

This creates enigma as the audience don't know why the man looks upset or why the woman suddenly ran off to get water when they see a car driving down the lane. And the music used creates tension and suspicion.

Shot, Reverse Shot

Shot, reverse shot is used to show a conversation between two characters. There are two shots used to create it, the first is a shot of the first character then that shot is reversed to show the character they are speaking to.

Our group didn't fully understand the requirements and how to create a shot, reverse shot when we first started, so ended up doing a few shots until we fully understood and did it right.

The best way to create 'shot, reverse shot' is to film the whole scene you are doing from one angle, so from one of the people's perspective or over their shoulder and do the exact same but so that the camera is filming the other person. You need to film a master shot, which is the whole scene again but filming both characters interacting with each other in the conversation instead of the focus being on one of them. By filming all three of these shots there is a wider range of choice for editing. It is also easier to edit as you can pick and choose when and where you want to cut to a different point of view.

This shot helps to show the audience the conversation that is happening between two characters.
Shot, reverse shot was used in pulp fiction in and scene between a man and a woman talking, we had to recreate this scene.
By recreating the scene we learned how to create this particular shot and the best way to film it to give you options when editing.

Skyfall - Film Opening Deconstruction

In class we analysed the opening of the film 'Skyfall', directed by Shawn Mendes.

The film clip ‘Skyfall - Opening Scene: Train Fight’ by Sam Mendes, represents gender in a stereotypical way to some degree and it is a fast paced action film.

At the start of the clip, the audience is shown the train with a man on top. Continuous drumming replaces dialogue, which resembles the sound of a heartbeat and creates tension within the scene. The drums foreshadow that this is an important scene as the audience await the forthcoming action with anticipation . The sense of tension is also heightened by the director’s addition of the sound of the train along with the drums. The camera reveals two men fighting on top of the train; a long shot has been used so the audience can see where the men are. The scenery is colourful, suggesting they are in the countryside and it is light, this could make the audience feel hope for the characters that one will win the fight. Both men are wearing suits to symbolise their power and authority and music is also used to raise the suspense when there is a crescendo as the action intensifies. The audience is shown that one of the men has already been injured but continues to fight on, the blood is made the focal point of the shot. This creates a sense that he is ‘manly’ and is not affected by an injury. The scene is male dominated and depicts the idea that men are stereotypically stronger than women, as the two men fist fight whilst the woman helping has to use a gun to make any impact.

The director uses a panning shot from the car to the train to create a split focus, however the two men on top of the train are the main focus. A set of close up shots are used to show a choking device and a metal chain. These both are a focal point and this displays them as being very important and key objects in the scene. The scene changes from light to dark as the two men go through a tunnel on the train, the darkness connotes danger and mystery. The audience doesn’t know what the men are fighting over and don’t know who is going to win, the high angle shot of them fighting also creates mystery as there is no way of identifying who is winning the fight.

The clip then introduces the audience to a new character by panning up from a speaker to her face. This depicts power and that this women has more power and authority over the two men on the train. Her power juxtaposes the power the men have on the train, the women has more power than the men as she calls the ‘shots’, she is able to influence everyone around her, suggesting she is the leader.She also has an element of mystery to her at the start as the audience is only shown a short clip of her. The director has used a number of different shots to establish the power and mystery, such as a low angle shot which automatically tells the audience she is of higher status. The girl is also introduced, but she is made to seem weaker as she has a gun to help her fight, it also implies that she has very little power. The gun suggests that she could not beat an opponent in a fist fight so needs something else, which connates that she is weaker. The girl is being given commands from the other lady and she must follow them.

A high brow shot is used when the two men are fighting. It looks down on one of the men, this portrays the man in the grey suit as having more power and is winning the fight. The scene pace changes at this point as it becomes faster, the pace quickens as the lady is making her decision on what to do. The director does this by changing from shot to shot so the audience see glimpses of the lady in the office and the two men on the train. This change of pace creates tension for the audience. The location can add to the tension, as the men are fighting and the music is climaxing the audience can see another tunnel, this implies that someone is reaching the end, one will win and one will lose.

The scene changes again once the decision is made and one of the men is shot. The music stops completely and there is a small echo of the gunshot. When the music stops it connotes the loss of life and sadness, and the echo symbolises the ending of someone and they leave their last mark. The blood on the man’s shoulder - at the beginning of the clip - could have been foreshadowing him being shot at the end of the clip. As the man falls the the camera is looking down at him. This makes the audience feel a loss of hope and portrays the man as losing all the power he once had.

In conclusion, the clip ‘Skyfall - Opening Scene: Train Fight’ represents gender in a stereotypical way as men have more power, but also show that women can have higher authority.

Media Skills

I have gained a range of new technical media skills, during our preliminary task.

Camera
The preliminary task was a great chance to just experiment with all the equipment and have a go with everything. During filming, I had a chance to try filming at different angles and we used a panning shot. During filming I learnt how to blur and focus, in one of our shots we started with our character in focus, but as they walk away they become blurred.


I learnt how to create depth within a frame, in one of our shots we positioned certain objects in specific places to show at least 3 different layers. We used a fan to create another layer in this frame.

Another media skill I developed was how the whole process of filming editing works, how you need to have a storyboard, shot list, location and cast. These are all very important components which help start the filming process. 

Editing
It was a new experience using Final Cut Pro, and there were a lot of things to do and understand before jumping into editing. I learnt that there is an order in which you edit. First you need to convert your footage using MPEG streamclip, and there are certain settings to get the best quality of video. Then you start to edit, there are many tools such as razor blade, which is used to cut bits of footage. 

Editing became quite easy as we used it more, I became more familiar with the tools. The process of editing became more effective, because I had better knowledge and more experience I could work faster, for example sequencing was easier.
However, sequencing could have been made easier if we had a bigger range of shots.

I mainly helped with sound editing, we had to find some music that we felt would fit with the film, then download it and import it into Final Cut Pro. We could then adjust the volume of the music and cut it into where we wanted it. 
When the music was added we found that we had to adjust the volume of some of our clips.

The Bourne Identity

In class we analysed The Bourne Identity.

The film starts with the production company logo and the sound of thunder, rain and wind are heard over the top, they start quietly and increase in volume slowly. Soft orchestral music starts to play and increases in volume and the production company logo changes to a black screen, which then cuts to a storm, a lightning silhouette can be seen. The scene changes to a wide shot of men on a ship playing cards, the audience can hear them speaking but enigma is created because they are speaking in a foreign language. The violins from the music play throughout these scenes and help to create suspicion and tension. There is another shot showing the ocean and storm, the music depth increases, which quickly cuts back to the card game, the focus of the shot is on the card game and the man speaking to the rest of the crew. The scene once again changes to show the ocean, there is lightning and a silhouette is shown in the water again, but looking up at the person in the sea. The next shot shows a man stumbling along the ship up to the bow, with storm noises continuing around him, the music picks up pace, creating tension. As the camera angle changes the shot of the man changes to a silhouette of him walking and the boat, this can create an element of mystery. There is a close up of the man, showing his reaction when he sees the man floating in the sea, during this scene the music picks up pace to signify that something is about to happen. A shot shows the man in the sea from underneath him, the it cuts to a black screen and the title of the film. After the title, the next scene a high shot looking down on the men in the ship pulling the man out of the sea, the music is faster and sounds of the men struggling are heard over the music. There are fast jump cuts showing the crew and the man, suggesting something bad has happened. The last shot in the 2 minute of the opening is the crew trying to look after the man from the sea.

Preliminary Task Anaylsis

During pre-production and production we chose the camera angle, framing, music and other components to portray the film the way wanted to.

At the start of our film we used a long shot, looking down a corridor. This shot made the corridor feel longer. The camera was in the centre of the corridor and the character Baz walked down the middle, this made the character the focal point in the shot. We also blurred the background to make Baz the focal point in the shot. 
During editing we used jump cuts to create the feeling of time passing.

We use upbeat music at the beginning and ending of our short film, we used it to create a happy feeling. Without music the film became a bit dark and it was just silence, so the music makes it more light hearted which is what we wanted.

Baz was wearing a coat during our first few shots of him, as the script told us that he had come in from outside, and we wanted to portray it as being colder, like someone had just come in from outside.

Our piece is set in the modern day, we showed this using the location, clothing and other features. The school corridor and the desk, illustrate a modern day school as it looks new and clean.

However, we were tasked with including a typewriter in our film, we had thought about changing the time era, but we found it too difficult with the amount of time we had, so stuck with what we could do. This meant that the typewriter juxtaposes the new and modern feel we were trying to capture. 

Our next shot was a high angle shot looking down at Baz and then a close up of his hand. We sped up the footage to make it look as though Baz was in a rush, as the script portrayed him as being in a rush.
So far in our short film we hadn't show Baz's face, this is because we want to create some mystery towards who he was. We didn't know much about the character except that he was in a rush, so by not showing his face alludes to the mystery about him.

We did two different shots of a clock, one close up and the other a close up panning down shot. We included both in our final piece, however we sped up the first close up shot to again illustrate time passing, then the second shot was slower meaning the audience would be able to actually see what time it was.

A panning shot was used to reveal the receptionist, Anna, this shot represents the way the receptionist looks up at the person standing infant of her. It is from a high angle so the shot shows the audience how Baz is looking down at Anna. The receptionist wore a shirt, as it is formal and is what people wear in a working environment. The costumes needed to fit with the environment the film was set in, it is also stereotypical for women to wear blouses in the work place.

We decided on using a high angle shot, looking down on the receptionist, Anna and a low angle shot looking up at the character Baz. We wanted to create a stereotypical image of how receptionist are looked down on, or how they work under other people. The high angle, portrays this as the audience looks down at her and it makes her seem inferior.
The low angle shot has the opposite affect, as it alludes the idea that Baz has more power and authority over Anna.

There were things we did right and others that we did wrong. For the main task, I will avoid leaving doing the storyboard and shot list as I now understand how vital they are for filming. I will also try to avoid over complicating things such as casting and finding a location, as we put to much pressure on ourselves and didn't think about how much time we had, so we ended up wasting so of our time.
Things I would try to do again in the main task would be how in our group we brainstormed a lot and were bouncing ideas off of one another. I believe that we were quite creative for our first task and that was because we combined all of ideas together.

Preliminary Task - Final Cut

Final cut of our preliminary task, 'Pop Goes'.

Post Production (Editing) Reflection - Preliminary Task

Once we had finished all our filming we needed to edit it all together. For the editing we used Final Cut Pro.

Converting
Before editing we had to convert all of the footage we had filmed into a different format so we could edit it on Final Cut Pro. To do this we used a programme called, MPEG streamclip, we needed to change the format to 'Apple Pro Res 422 LT'. It took a while for all the footage to convert, but once it had we could start editing it all together.

When we first opened Final Cut Pro, we found it a bit confusing as there were different screens and other buttons. But we eventually got to grips with the basic tools and understood what each of the separate parts of the interface were for. For example, one of the screens shows you your edited film. 

It was my first time using Final Cut Pro, but I have had some experience with other editing softwares, I think this gave me a small advantage as I was able to understand the basics quotes quickly. I unfortunately, missed out on most of the editing so only did some final parts and finishing touches.

It was a bit confusing editing when you have multiple layers, and how if you insert a clip over the top of another that one is the one shown, but with practise it became easier to edit. Sound was also confusing to work with due to the layers, we would play a clip but sound may overlap or bit the wrong sound clip, but also with practise it became easier.

We had a go at using some of the different features, such as speeding up one of our clips of a clock, we wanted to show time passing. We had to look around the interface a bit before figuring it out but it worked well a portrayed what we wanted it to.
Editing - Music
The hardest part of putting music into the background of our film was actually finding some that we thought worked. We spent a while looking around youtube searching acoustic music, until I found a piece called 'I Wonder Why' by Robot Orchestra. At first we were uncertain about whether the music would fit as is is upbeat and light hearted, so we found a few other pieces of music, so that we could experiment with different bits and see which worked best.

Exporting
The final part of our preliminary task was converting the video to QuickTime player, so that the film could be uploaded to youtube.

Pre-Production Reflection - Preliminary Task

We were given the task of creating the sequence of a film in which the following had to happen; a character open a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character, with when she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.

We were given a script called 'Pop Goes' to work from, written by Mr Wall which was based on the sequence we were previously given. In our production teams we were then tasked with using the script and making it into a short film. Having a script gave us some boundaires, but it also allowed is to explore a bit, with camera equipment and learning how to create meaning through shots.
To turn the script into a film we as a production team, storyboarded, shot listed and looked for a location.

We left making our storyboard and shortlist quite late, as we had started it at the very beginning, but we just jumped into filming. We realised that having a shot list and storyboard are very important, as we began to lose track of what we were filming, so we went back and finished both before continuing to film.
We each took turns in different roles such as directing, this allowed us to experience the different roles that go into creating a short film.

Finding a location and casting people for our short film, were some of the harder tasks but also important. As a group, as we also left it late to discus these components and overcomplicated it. We initially want to set our film in a courtyard and in a business looking location (we never had a final decision). However it would have been to difficult to shoot outside of school as we were busy or lived far away. So we decided to have our locations around the school, this way we could shot in during the day.
When deciding our cast we wanted to get a boy to play the character of Baz as in the script it is a man and a women. This was also to difficult as we were shooting in school and during school time and it would be to hard to film with someone else with the short amount of time we had.  This meant that we decided to just use people in our team to play the characters of Baz and Anna.