In our lesson (Thursday 18th December 2008) we done a brainstorm on different types of thriller genres e.g. supernatural (sixth sense), psychological thriller (the shining) , murderous passion (what lies beneath), spy/action (bond films) etc. the brain storm helped us with the next part of our lesson. And helped us to identify the different representations of a thriller film.
We had to watch 4 different clips and analyse how each clip creates suspense. We filled out a sheet to write down the key features which creates the suspense , which were the lighting, the use of camera (movement, angle, distance), the music (sound, effects, soundtrack), editing and the setting and location. The sheet was really helpful to us because it was easier to identify the key components which makes a great thriller film/ clip. The first clip we watched was an extract scene from The Shining, the scene used was the bit where Danny was riding his bicycle through the corridors and stopping at room ‘237’, there is definitely suspense in this short scene due to mainly the camera shots and sound effects, firstly there’s a tracking shot of Danny riding his bicycle and slow scary music at the same time (non-diagetic) the use of the corridors make the audience anxious on what’s around the corner and we have the same vulnerability as Danny because the camera shot is behind the boy and on the same level as him. And we had to fill out the sheet for each clip analyse and focus on each of the techniques used (what lies beneath, 28 days later and collateral) after analysing each clip, our homework set was to choose a clip and analyse how suspense is created within the clip and blog it and post it . I chose what lies beneath .
Wednesday 31 December 2008
Sunday 28 December 2008
Let 'Em Play God, Alfred Hitchcock
In our second to last lesson before the Christmas break we were given a sheet about Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (KBE), born August 13th 1899 in Leytonstone, London and died April 29th 1980 in Bel Air, Los Angeles (aged 80years old).
He wrote an article about what suspense really is, and how to create it. His article called ‘Thrills, Suspense, the Audience’.
In this article Sir Alfred talks about how every maker of mystery movies aims at getting the audience on the edge of their seats. He says the ingredient to keep them there is suspense.
He says suspense is created when you let the audience play God and if the audience does not know whether a character is a hero or villain they will not know whether to cheer or weep. He says if the audience have been told all the secrets that the character do not know, “they’ll work like the devil for you because they know what fate is facing the poor actors”. That is what he describes as “Playing God”.
For 17 years Sir Alfred had been making pictures described alternately as thrillers, dark mysteries and chillers; he opposes puzzling the audience and does not believe that this is the essence of suspense. He demonstrates this from movies he has made such as ‘Rope’.
He believes that if he succeeds in what he tries to do (create suspense) whilst making movies he will have the audience at such a pitch that they want to shout every time something is about to happen. Sir Alfred also believes that when characters are unbelievable you never get real suspense, only surprise. He also believes that for suspense to be created you do not need things such as shadows, dull weather, stormy weather and creaky doors; he used his movie ‘Rope’ to prove this point.
As Sir Alfred became more and more interested in developing his suspense techniques he made up his mind to shoot these type of stories exclusively; this conclusion came by the time he had made ‘Secret Agent’, ‘Sabotage’, and ‘The 39 Steps’.
He wrote an article about what suspense really is, and how to create it. His article called ‘Thrills, Suspense, the Audience’.
In this article Sir Alfred talks about how every maker of mystery movies aims at getting the audience on the edge of their seats. He says the ingredient to keep them there is suspense.
He says suspense is created when you let the audience play God and if the audience does not know whether a character is a hero or villain they will not know whether to cheer or weep. He says if the audience have been told all the secrets that the character do not know, “they’ll work like the devil for you because they know what fate is facing the poor actors”. That is what he describes as “Playing God”.
For 17 years Sir Alfred had been making pictures described alternately as thrillers, dark mysteries and chillers; he opposes puzzling the audience and does not believe that this is the essence of suspense. He demonstrates this from movies he has made such as ‘Rope’.
He believes that if he succeeds in what he tries to do (create suspense) whilst making movies he will have the audience at such a pitch that they want to shout every time something is about to happen. Sir Alfred also believes that when characters are unbelievable you never get real suspense, only surprise. He also believes that for suspense to be created you do not need things such as shadows, dull weather, stormy weather and creaky doors; he used his movie ‘Rope’ to prove this point.
As Sir Alfred became more and more interested in developing his suspense techniques he made up his mind to shoot these type of stories exclusively; this conclusion came by the time he had made ‘Secret Agent’, ‘Sabotage’, and ‘The 39 Steps’.
28 Days Later Analysis
Over the Christmas holiday we were told to watch a clip of the movie we chose in class and analyse how suspense is created.
In the film 28 Days Later suspense was created in a variety of different ways which included the use of different camera techniques, for example the first shot that we get is at a slanted angle and we are looking at the main character through a glass wall, thereafter we hear this character say “hello” but the only response we hear is an echo of his voice; this shows that he may be alone and if he’s not we don’t know what is lurking around. In the second scene we see the rest of the hospital which looks as if a chaotic event had taken place, we know this from the mise en scene; chairs scattered across the floor, and telephones hanging of their hooks. All of this gets the audience thinking that an event has happened in which people have panicked. In the third scene we once again see the hospital looking very chaotic as there are cans of fizzy drink all over the floor and the vending machine looks as if it had been broken into. After this we get a shot of the main character peeping over a ledge and in the background we see very unattractive buildings, but these buildings also helped convey a sense of danger as they were bigger than the main character, thus making him appear smaller. After this we are shown an high angle shot of the hospital and can just about notice the main character in this shot, once again emphasising the main characters status as very low. In this part of the scene we are shown the man on a bridge where there are newspapers all over the floor but the camera quickly cuts to a very long shot showing a deserted Central London which as we know is very unusual, if not impossible. This added to the suspense as their was nobody around and anything could jump out at anytime. Later on we get a long shot of the main character walking, this shot is shown through a smashed window which once again conveys to us the audience previous unease and chaos. Starting from round about half way through this clip we start to his this non-diagetic, sad music. This sad music gradually gets louder as the scene goes on making us the audience think something is about to happen.
In the film 28 Days Later suspense was created in a variety of different ways which included the use of different camera techniques, for example the first shot that we get is at a slanted angle and we are looking at the main character through a glass wall, thereafter we hear this character say “hello” but the only response we hear is an echo of his voice; this shows that he may be alone and if he’s not we don’t know what is lurking around. In the second scene we see the rest of the hospital which looks as if a chaotic event had taken place, we know this from the mise en scene; chairs scattered across the floor, and telephones hanging of their hooks. All of this gets the audience thinking that an event has happened in which people have panicked. In the third scene we once again see the hospital looking very chaotic as there are cans of fizzy drink all over the floor and the vending machine looks as if it had been broken into. After this we get a shot of the main character peeping over a ledge and in the background we see very unattractive buildings, but these buildings also helped convey a sense of danger as they were bigger than the main character, thus making him appear smaller. After this we are shown an high angle shot of the hospital and can just about notice the main character in this shot, once again emphasising the main characters status as very low. In this part of the scene we are shown the man on a bridge where there are newspapers all over the floor but the camera quickly cuts to a very long shot showing a deserted Central London which as we know is very unusual, if not impossible. This added to the suspense as their was nobody around and anything could jump out at anytime. Later on we get a long shot of the main character walking, this shot is shown through a smashed window which once again conveys to us the audience previous unease and chaos. Starting from round about half way through this clip we start to his this non-diagetic, sad music. This sad music gradually gets louder as the scene goes on making us the audience think something is about to happen.
Four Thriller clips (Lesson before xmas)
In our last media lesson before we broke up for our Christmas holidays we watched four clips of four movies which included: 28 Days Later, The Shining, Collateral and What Lies Beneath.
Before we started watching these clips from each of these movies we made a brainstorm about what a thriller actually is and also the different types of thriller categories. Using the films that we watched as examples; The Shining was a supernatural thriller and Collateral was a political thriller.
Whilst watching each clip we had to fill in a table that we had been given prior to watching the clips of each film, in each section we had to write about the lighting, use of camera movement, angle, and distance, music, sound effects, and soundtrack, editing and the setting and location of each thriller.
Before we started watching these clips from each of these movies we made a brainstorm about what a thriller actually is and also the different types of thriller categories. Using the films that we watched as examples; The Shining was a supernatural thriller and Collateral was a political thriller.
Whilst watching each clip we had to fill in a table that we had been given prior to watching the clips of each film, in each section we had to write about the lighting, use of camera movement, angle, and distance, music, sound effects, and soundtrack, editing and the setting and location of each thriller.
Friday 19 December 2008
The shining
my last lesson with Mary on Monday 15th of December, we watched a thriller film called the shining which I’m quite familiar with and find that it is a perfect example to give us an idea on how to create a thriller film using different techniques. while watching the film we had to fill out a sheet which was about how the music, camera shots and editing created high levels of suspense and tension throughout the film. This film definitely keeps the viewers wondering and thinking what’s going to happen next?
The director gives us the advantage of knowing more information then the characters but the director still makes us ponder and confused about the ending which makes it more interesting and thrilling.
Within 5 minutes of the film we already have an idea of the aim the directors trying to target or do we? The viewer may think they know what’s going to happen but on the contrary the director tries to confuse them when the whole plot of the film is going the opposite direction of what the viewers were .thinking would happen, which gives them a pleasant shock . Firstly the introduction soundtrack is a heartbeat affect which links to the camera shot of a birds eye view following the car, it seems like there’s a predator which signifies that the viewers have more power then the characters about the dangers there going to face, and also this birds eye view shot establishes remoteness and isolation I could already feel the tension building up, which shows that they made a good choice showing us the of the neglection happening In this scene by using the heartbeat effect and BEV. As we see more into the film we notice that there are initial stones which gives a cabin fever “signal” to the audience where the plot is going , the fact that the audience know the story makes us more engaged to the film, were already waiting for him to go mad and kill which makes the audience continue watching the film.
furthermore I find that the hotel was a great location to pick, the scene wear Danny rides his bike in the corridor, the camera is on the same level as Danny and is following behind him (tracking shot) along the corridors, which creates great suspense because we don’t know what’s around the corner of these corners and the fact the camera shot is behind him makes us feel what he’s feeling. And also the close-up of the room number ’237’ signifies that danger is lurking around and something bad is going to happen. When Danny enters the maze it gives us the same suspense as the corridors (not knowing what’s around the corner) but this time the sound repetition which gets louder and louder and the anticipation grows because the audience are curious on what’s going to happen when the sound reaches its final and loudest tone . The tracking shot in the maze shows us the different representations of the characters for example Jack and his leg limp slows him down which creates suspense but Danny also creates suspense ‘coz he’s speeding up, showing that both characters might meet at the end of each corner and each time the music gets louder we expect that to happen.
Overall the film was a great thriller film and it really gave us ideas and different techniques that we should use for our thriller film to create the tension and suspense needed. This film showed me that it’s not only about the location , its about how each scene signifies a certain plot behind it and how the camera shots are used to represent the meaning and you need to add the effects, soundtrack etc to give that high level of suspense needed for a thriller film.
The director gives us the advantage of knowing more information then the characters but the director still makes us ponder and confused about the ending which makes it more interesting and thrilling.
Within 5 minutes of the film we already have an idea of the aim the directors trying to target or do we? The viewer may think they know what’s going to happen but on the contrary the director tries to confuse them when the whole plot of the film is going the opposite direction of what the viewers were .thinking would happen, which gives them a pleasant shock . Firstly the introduction soundtrack is a heartbeat affect which links to the camera shot of a birds eye view following the car, it seems like there’s a predator which signifies that the viewers have more power then the characters about the dangers there going to face, and also this birds eye view shot establishes remoteness and isolation I could already feel the tension building up, which shows that they made a good choice showing us the of the neglection happening In this scene by using the heartbeat effect and BEV. As we see more into the film we notice that there are initial stones which gives a cabin fever “signal” to the audience where the plot is going , the fact that the audience know the story makes us more engaged to the film, were already waiting for him to go mad and kill which makes the audience continue watching the film.
furthermore I find that the hotel was a great location to pick, the scene wear Danny rides his bike in the corridor, the camera is on the same level as Danny and is following behind him (tracking shot) along the corridors, which creates great suspense because we don’t know what’s around the corner of these corners and the fact the camera shot is behind him makes us feel what he’s feeling. And also the close-up of the room number ’237’ signifies that danger is lurking around and something bad is going to happen. When Danny enters the maze it gives us the same suspense as the corridors (not knowing what’s around the corner) but this time the sound repetition which gets louder and louder and the anticipation grows because the audience are curious on what’s going to happen when the sound reaches its final and loudest tone . The tracking shot in the maze shows us the different representations of the characters for example Jack and his leg limp slows him down which creates suspense but Danny also creates suspense ‘coz he’s speeding up, showing that both characters might meet at the end of each corner and each time the music gets louder we expect that to happen.
Overall the film was a great thriller film and it really gave us ideas and different techniques that we should use for our thriller film to create the tension and suspense needed. This film showed me that it’s not only about the location , its about how each scene signifies a certain plot behind it and how the camera shots are used to represent the meaning and you need to add the effects, soundtrack etc to give that high level of suspense needed for a thriller film.
Wednesday 17 December 2008
The Shining - Henok Isak
In our lesson (Monday 15th December 2008), we watched a thrilling film from the director of Alfred Hitchcock called The Shining. This film was to give us an idea of how the director creates suspense in his film and who better than Hitchcock can portray this. Hitchcock has been named as the king when it comes to creating suspense and this is portrayed in the film. Not to mention that he also directed the classic film, Psycho. This film keeps the audiences on their toes throughout the film and plays clever mind tricks on the viewers allowing them to think they know what is happening, but they really have no idea.
One thing that fascinated me was the way the sound played a huge role in creating suspense. The sound is a vital element of Hitchcock’s production as it allows the audience to identify when something vital or gruesome is about to happen. In my opinion, the sound choice was perfect for the film. The sound made the audience forget that the film had limited characters and limited settings because of how powerful it was to the audience.
At the beginning of the lesson, I was not to keen on watching the Shining because it was not the type of film I like or would watch but by the end of the film my opinion completely changed. We were given a worksheet to write down three suspenseful moments in the film and within 20 minutes, I had already completed the sheet. This shows how suspenseful the film was.
The start was even gave me chills as we saw the birds-eye view shot of the mountains giving the sense of being lost and with the sound added it gave that creepy clam sound which built up tension. The sound usually becomes effective during the evil spiritual presence of the father and his extraordinary gifted son who has visions of the future and the past. Throughout the film, we began to be familiar with the kettle sound of when the water boils and the effect of it getting louder and louder as close ups were made which could perhaps illustrate that the audience are going into the characters head the sense of confusion portrays this sound allowing it to be full of suspense. Another common sound was the powerful thumping of the heart which was also effective in creating suspense as it allowed the audience to recognise what kind of mood was wet in the scene what kind of atmosphere was being portrayed.
I noticed that scenes with just one character was very effective in creating suspense and I saw this on many occasions in the film, such as the child receiving a tennis ball from someone who appeared to disappear and the father going into the supposedly haunted room 237. This shows that a simple film with a couple of characters and a hotel could be such a thrilling film and that my group doesn’t need various characters and incredible settings to make a just a thrilling film.
I have learnt a lot from this film about to thrill the audience from using clever suspenseful techniques and this allowed me to have a clearer image of how I am going to construct my group’s thriller and use some of the tactics I have learnt from Hitchcock’s film. This will enable my group to realise how sound is really effective in creating suspense in thrillers and take into consideration that we need to use editing time more effectively as we never had enough time to finish off the sound in our practice newspaper thriller.
One thing that fascinated me was the way the sound played a huge role in creating suspense. The sound is a vital element of Hitchcock’s production as it allows the audience to identify when something vital or gruesome is about to happen. In my opinion, the sound choice was perfect for the film. The sound made the audience forget that the film had limited characters and limited settings because of how powerful it was to the audience.
At the beginning of the lesson, I was not to keen on watching the Shining because it was not the type of film I like or would watch but by the end of the film my opinion completely changed. We were given a worksheet to write down three suspenseful moments in the film and within 20 minutes, I had already completed the sheet. This shows how suspenseful the film was.
The start was even gave me chills as we saw the birds-eye view shot of the mountains giving the sense of being lost and with the sound added it gave that creepy clam sound which built up tension. The sound usually becomes effective during the evil spiritual presence of the father and his extraordinary gifted son who has visions of the future and the past. Throughout the film, we began to be familiar with the kettle sound of when the water boils and the effect of it getting louder and louder as close ups were made which could perhaps illustrate that the audience are going into the characters head the sense of confusion portrays this sound allowing it to be full of suspense. Another common sound was the powerful thumping of the heart which was also effective in creating suspense as it allowed the audience to recognise what kind of mood was wet in the scene what kind of atmosphere was being portrayed.
I noticed that scenes with just one character was very effective in creating suspense and I saw this on many occasions in the film, such as the child receiving a tennis ball from someone who appeared to disappear and the father going into the supposedly haunted room 237. This shows that a simple film with a couple of characters and a hotel could be such a thrilling film and that my group doesn’t need various characters and incredible settings to make a just a thrilling film.
I have learnt a lot from this film about to thrill the audience from using clever suspenseful techniques and this allowed me to have a clearer image of how I am going to construct my group’s thriller and use some of the tactics I have learnt from Hitchcock’s film. This will enable my group to realise how sound is really effective in creating suspense in thrillers and take into consideration that we need to use editing time more effectively as we never had enough time to finish off the sound in our practice newspaper thriller.
Monday 15 December 2008
The Shining
In today’s lesson (Monday 15th December 2008) we watched a very suspenseful thriller called The Shining. We watched The Shining to give us an idea of what makes a great or good thriller, and the answer was simple; a lot of suspenseful moments. In my personal opinion I though The Shinning was great at keeping viewers on the edge of their seats at all times and creating suspense through a variety of different methods. The main way in which tension and suspense was created in The Shining was through the soundtrack and background noise. During the lesson we were all told to make notes of three suspenseful moments whilst watching The Shining, and I must say that nearly the whole of the movie had tension and suspense carried out from the beginning all the way through to the end. The first moment that created suspense was straight in the very beginning at the credits, in the background behind the credit’s their was a car travelling amongst the dark hills in the distance, and the fact that this was a birds eye view really conveyed to us a sense of isolation, remoteness of the location and loneliness. As we are shown the scenery in the opening credits there is a beat that is representative of a kettle that is boiling water and at the same time a faint beating sound that represents a heart pounding; both of these noises gradually get louder and louder. The second suspenseful moment that I picked out was when we were shown a close up of a type writer and in the background a thumping sound which I initially though was something violent occurring but as the camera panned out away from the type writer the thumping sound got louder and louder and we then found out it was just Jack playing with a tennis ball (throwing and catching the tennis ball). The fourth and final moment was when Danny was being chased by Jack through the maze, as Danny was running the camera was following him and turning the corners with him, this made us very uneasy as we did not know what or who was around the corner.
the shining
in my personal view, the film was very thrilling and exciting but what must be pointed out was the way the director created extraordinary suspense.
the shinning
In my personal opinion i thought The Shining was absolutely fantastic at create suspense. This was done through
Sunday 14 December 2008
Newspaper Thriller
A few lessons back, we were all put into groups to create a thriller where the storyboard sequence had to relate to a newspaper. My group consisted of four members, Ola, Henok, Selma and I (Sevin). We were firstly assessed to create a brief storyboard of our ideas and thriller sequence. To create our storyboard, we took pictures of what we were going to film. We took pictures of each scene for our storyboard with the digital cameras we were given. When using the digital camera we took pictures from different angles and shots; close ups, wide shots, over the shoulder shots etc. Also in our first lesson to creating a thriller, we were given an introduction into how to use the Final Cut Pro software to create our thrillers on the Macs. In this introduction we were shown how to insert clips, soundtracks on the timeline, cutting in between shots, pasting in relevent clips together.
Unfortunately on our second lesson of filming and creating the newspaper thriller, Selma and I were not present due to a religious celebration. However, bearing in mind having two group members absent, pur other two group members; Henok and Ola did a great job filming the shots on their own. As our two other group members had successfully taken all the shots needed for our thriller, when Selma and I (Sevin) returned, we got straight on with editing the shots using Final Cut Pro, putting the shots in their appropriate orders, cutting out irrelevent shots i.e if a shot was too long.
Constructing the thriller was considerably time consuming, especially that two members were absent at one of the most important time. We were racing against time. We had minimal time left but we managed to successfully complete editing the shots by combining all the group memebers' ideas and creating a great thriller sequence.
Selecting the soundtrack for the thriller was the most challenging, difficult and time consuming to choose from. We were trying to find the perfect sound effects which related to the scenes and created the best tension and atmosphere of the shots, as the tension of everything relied on the sound. Fortunately we found the correct sounds for the majority of clips, however, we were unable to fully attach all the sound effects to our thriller because we had run out of time.
Althought all our group members are pleased with the outcome of this thriller, despite falling slightly behind on the soundtrack, we know that if we didn't have group members missing and a bit more time to work on it, we definitely could have created something even better.
Unfortunately on our second lesson of filming and creating the newspaper thriller, Selma and I were not present due to a religious celebration. However, bearing in mind having two group members absent, pur other two group members; Henok and Ola did a great job filming the shots on their own. As our two other group members had successfully taken all the shots needed for our thriller, when Selma and I (Sevin) returned, we got straight on with editing the shots using Final Cut Pro, putting the shots in their appropriate orders, cutting out irrelevent shots i.e if a shot was too long.
Constructing the thriller was considerably time consuming, especially that two members were absent at one of the most important time. We were racing against time. We had minimal time left but we managed to successfully complete editing the shots by combining all the group memebers' ideas and creating a great thriller sequence.
Selecting the soundtrack for the thriller was the most challenging, difficult and time consuming to choose from. We were trying to find the perfect sound effects which related to the scenes and created the best tension and atmosphere of the shots, as the tension of everything relied on the sound. Fortunately we found the correct sounds for the majority of clips, however, we were unable to fully attach all the sound effects to our thriller because we had run out of time.
Althought all our group members are pleased with the outcome of this thriller, despite falling slightly behind on the soundtrack, we know that if we didn't have group members missing and a bit more time to work on it, we definitely could have created something even better.
newspaper thriller
In Our Lessons we had to prepare for a thriller clip. Firstly we were put into groups my group members were ola sevin and henok. we started with a storyboard of how our thriller would be so it was basically a preparation/plan before we did the real thing, we took digital cameras and took pictures of ola reading a newspaper on a chair and henok snooping around near the door, we were only able to take 12 shots so we tried to do a lot of different angles and camera shots to show what the storylines about by having close ups of the facial expressions, over the shoulder shot to show what he's reading etc. after we finished taking the pictures we printed them out and checked them to see if the shots were right.
The next lesson we were starting our thriller clip but me and shevin weren't able to do it that day due to religious reasons, so our other two members of the group had to do the work, they did a great job on getting the shots and as soon as me and sevin came back to the lesson we started on the editing with them. we used Macs computers for our editing, firstly we had to choose our first shot and cut some of the shots and join it together we had a lot of different ideas from the group so it was much easier to create the clips. our first shot was ola reading a newspaper with a happy expression on his face and then a close up of the newspaper he was reading, a over the shoulder shot to show us that someone was looking at ola near the door, a panning shot from the feet following up to henoks waist, another shot of ola(close up), then a long shot of henok walking towards ola, the camera goes back to ola trying to get away (hand held camera to show his movement and struggle) and lastly a medium shot of olas chair spinning around. after the editing we had to add the music which was kind of difficult because there was little time and so many to choose from, we werent able to complete all of the soundtrack for our clip but what we did so far was put joyful music when the camera was on olas happy face but then creepy music when the camera was on henok to show fear and danger which in contrast with the happy music and then the camera went back on ola and it went back to joyful music indicating that ola is not aware of the danger he is in which raises tension. we then added the soundtrack to the clip and saved it to the hard drive.
The next lesson we were starting our thriller clip but me and shevin weren't able to do it that day due to religious reasons, so our other two members of the group had to do the work, they did a great job on getting the shots and as soon as me and sevin came back to the lesson we started on the editing with them. we used Macs computers for our editing, firstly we had to choose our first shot and cut some of the shots and join it together we had a lot of different ideas from the group so it was much easier to create the clips. our first shot was ola reading a newspaper with a happy expression on his face and then a close up of the newspaper he was reading, a over the shoulder shot to show us that someone was looking at ola near the door, a panning shot from the feet following up to henoks waist, another shot of ola(close up), then a long shot of henok walking towards ola, the camera goes back to ola trying to get away (hand held camera to show his movement and struggle) and lastly a medium shot of olas chair spinning around. after the editing we had to add the music which was kind of difficult because there was little time and so many to choose from, we werent able to complete all of the soundtrack for our clip but what we did so far was put joyful music when the camera was on olas happy face but then creepy music when the camera was on henok to show fear and danger which in contrast with the happy music and then the camera went back on ola and it went back to joyful music indicating that ola is not aware of the danger he is in which raises tension. we then added the soundtrack to the clip and saved it to the hard drive.
Newspaper Thriller
Throughout the past few media lessons we have been getting ready to make our final thriller openings; a thriller is designed to excite the reader, viewer, or audience through action and most importantly suspense. In the first lesson we had to prepare a storyboard by either sketching what would happen in each scene or using a digital camera and taking the pictures. My group which consisted of four members including myself, were: Henok, Sevin, Selma, and myself Ola, we all agreed to use the digital camera to get the images for our storyboards as this would makes sure the images were clear, concise and also enable us to interpret what was happening in each scene and the type of camera angles which would be best for each scene. Whilst using the digital cameras we took pictures from different camera angles for example, over the shoulder shots, high angle shots, low angle shots and close ups; this helped give us a good impression of what these shots would look like once we started filming. Also in this first lesson we were given an introduction into how to use the Final Cut Pro software on the Macs, we were shown how to put clips together along the timeline, how to add a soundtrack, adding in and out points to video clips in order to cut certain bits out that may not be needed etc…
In the second lesson we were shown by Mickey (media technician) how to insert the tapes into the camcorder, the main buttons to remember, buttons to use and not to use, how to set up the tripod and more, how to insert the battery etc.. This was done through a presentation that Mickey had kindly put together showing us what to do and how to do it, after watching the presentation we tried it ourselves and were assessed by a member of staff.
After we had all been shown how to use the cameras and all the other equipment we were able to go off and do some filming. Though this is the part were my group had a slight problem as two of our members were not present due to a religious festival. At first I though this would have meant we would fall behind the other groups by far but I was wrong, me and my other group member (Henok) decided to do all the filming with some help from Mickey we were on our way, after we had finished the filming we then went on to start the editing. As we were editing we found out that it was more time consuming than we had thought, the editing carried on through to the next lesson where we had the rest of our group members back and ready to work. Me and Henok briefed them on what we had done in the previous lesson and we got straight down to editing. With the different ideas of our other group members we were all delighted with the end result and finally we started the soundtrack creation and editing. At first we all found the creation of the soundtrack rather difficult and hard to get to grips with, it was quite difficult to find appropriate soundtracks to put together and this inevitably consumed a lot of time thus leading to us not being able to complete the soundtrack for the last half of our thriller. After this we had to convert the video into an MP4 format and finally upload the video unto www.blogger.com
In the second lesson we were shown by Mickey (media technician) how to insert the tapes into the camcorder, the main buttons to remember, buttons to use and not to use, how to set up the tripod and more, how to insert the battery etc.. This was done through a presentation that Mickey had kindly put together showing us what to do and how to do it, after watching the presentation we tried it ourselves and were assessed by a member of staff.
After we had all been shown how to use the cameras and all the other equipment we were able to go off and do some filming. Though this is the part were my group had a slight problem as two of our members were not present due to a religious festival. At first I though this would have meant we would fall behind the other groups by far but I was wrong, me and my other group member (Henok) decided to do all the filming with some help from Mickey we were on our way, after we had finished the filming we then went on to start the editing. As we were editing we found out that it was more time consuming than we had thought, the editing carried on through to the next lesson where we had the rest of our group members back and ready to work. Me and Henok briefed them on what we had done in the previous lesson and we got straight down to editing. With the different ideas of our other group members we were all delighted with the end result and finally we started the soundtrack creation and editing. At first we all found the creation of the soundtrack rather difficult and hard to get to grips with, it was quite difficult to find appropriate soundtracks to put together and this inevitably consumed a lot of time thus leading to us not being able to complete the soundtrack for the last half of our thriller. After this we had to convert the video into an MP4 format and finally upload the video unto www.blogger.com
Newspaper Thriller
Over the last couple of lessons we have been split into groups to create a thriller. Our first task was to create a short storyboard for a thriller sequence which had to include and relate to a newspaper. First we planned what would happen in this short thriller and how the newspaper would relate to the storyline. We did this by creating a storyboard and taking pictures to show what would happen and what camera shots would be used in this clip. After we done this we were ready to film.
The next lesson the class watched a video of instructions of how to use the video camera and equipment. This tutorial was useful as it showed us everything we needed to know to start filming. Unfortunately, it was the day of eid so some of my group members were absent leaving myself and another member of my group to film all by ourselves. This became difficult at times because we were both the actors and made it hard for both of us to appear in the same camera shot but we were able to manage. We explored a range of camera shots and took as much footage as we needed. However time did not let us take most of our last shots.
Editing was harder than expected and caused confusion of which shots to use but became good at the end. We managed to use a range of camera shots to create particular feelings in the scene. This was very time consuming and left us with a short time to add music in the clip. By this time it was the next lesson so we were able to gain back our group members and this enabled up to speed up the process of editing. Also the other members brought new ideas of how the editing would come and as soon as we finished in it we were pleased with our production.
Lastly we had to add music to our clip and this took a lot of time because we wanted to find suitable sound what would create tension in the thriller scene. Most of the music was very sort of happy positive vibe music so we had to put the right sounds to relate to the mood of the camera shot. Our production is uploaded on the blog but the music editing was not finished because we ran out of time. We learned that we needed to speed up the process of editing and production and this should be easier in the future as we are now familiar with the camera equipment and editing software.
The next lesson the class watched a video of instructions of how to use the video camera and equipment. This tutorial was useful as it showed us everything we needed to know to start filming. Unfortunately, it was the day of eid so some of my group members were absent leaving myself and another member of my group to film all by ourselves. This became difficult at times because we were both the actors and made it hard for both of us to appear in the same camera shot but we were able to manage. We explored a range of camera shots and took as much footage as we needed. However time did not let us take most of our last shots.
Editing was harder than expected and caused confusion of which shots to use but became good at the end. We managed to use a range of camera shots to create particular feelings in the scene. This was very time consuming and left us with a short time to add music in the clip. By this time it was the next lesson so we were able to gain back our group members and this enabled up to speed up the process of editing. Also the other members brought new ideas of how the editing would come and as soon as we finished in it we were pleased with our production.
Lastly we had to add music to our clip and this took a lot of time because we wanted to find suitable sound what would create tension in the thriller scene. Most of the music was very sort of happy positive vibe music so we had to put the right sounds to relate to the mood of the camera shot. Our production is uploaded on the blog but the music editing was not finished because we ran out of time. We learned that we needed to speed up the process of editing and production and this should be easier in the future as we are now familiar with the camera equipment and editing software.
Friday 12 December 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)