Completed Prelim Task

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n0aWEIxNdY&feature=youtu.be

The Actual Coursework Task!

 Video

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Both preliminary and main tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum four members to a group.

Prelim Task: Editing

After we finished filming our footage for our prelim task, we went to the editing suite to start post production. We first were taught how to use the editing program, Adobe Premiere, to cut our footage together and make it flow smoothly from one shot to another. We learnt how to choose when we wanted a shot to start/end by pressing 'i' on the keyboard when we wanted the shot to start and 'o' when we wanted it to cut, standing for 'in' and 'out'. We started with a shot of one of the actors walking through the door and then cut to a shot of her walking towards the other actor. Even though we filmed the shot walking through the door in a different part of the room and after we had filmed the next scene, it still looked like she was walking in as we edited it into the beginning of the scene.


We were careful to put our cuts in the right places and fit them in with the dialogue to ensure the whole scene flowed together and held continuity. We did this by watching through each shot and cutting and pasting in at the same points of dialogue. It was really helpful having shot each scene with the full script as it meant we could reuse shots and had a lot of freedom as to what our final product would look like.


We worked in a group of three rather than a one or two, which proved more difficult for me as it slowed the whole process down. However, we all had a go at editing and helped each other out, putting all our knowledge together giving us a nice final outcome.

Kyle Cooper: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Title Sequence

I love this title sequence because it really effectively evokes a 60s atmosphere and is beautifully colored and animated. Coopers graphic design skills are truly flaunted in this sequence and the results are really fun to watch. 

The animated silhouette style is very reminiscent of Saul Bass' work, a nod to the 50s film noire genre and a tribute to Bass' iconic style. The limited color palette of red, black and white really gives us a sense of the crime/thriller genre without even telling us anything about the story. 

As the sequence is animated we don't meet any of the characters, yet are still drawn in by the story created by the animation. In many ways the audience is more intrigued to continue watching as the opening makes you want to meet the characters and see the location of the film.

http://youtu.be/X5GvytClDx4

NOT FINISHED

Kyle Cooper

                                              

Kyle Cooper (born July 1962) is an American opening title sequence designer who is credited with directing over 150 title sequences including a The Mummy and Se7en. He gained an MFA in graphic design from Yale School of Art before co-founding the creative agency Imaginary Forces in 1996. In 2003 he founded Prologue Films, which is responsible for creating title sequences for The Incredible Hulk and The Walking Dead. Kyle has been nominated for five Emmy Awards and won an Emmy for his work on the 81st Academy Awards. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kf2yk1x-Fis

Prelim Task: Shooting

We started our prelim task in a group of 3, with 2 people acting and one of us filming and directing. I was the joint director/cameraman in our group and shot the footage for our prelim task on the Sony FS100. We were given a storyboard with some dialogue and a variety of different shots on it and I recreated these by directing the actors in my group. For each shot we did, we ran the whole scene, so that when we edit it we can have a variety of options for cutting together shots. 

We first shot our medium shot, which gives an audience a sense of a story and has a conversational feel. I did this by setting up the camera relatively far away from my actors and getting them to hit marks laid out with tape to ensure they were both in the shot. Next I filmed an over the shoulder shot of both of the actors, which gives a sense of the actors point of view and adds realism, as you are seeing exactly what the character sees. I did this by placing the camera behind each actor from a slightly higher angle to get the best framing. After this I did close ups of the actors faces. These shots were my favorite as they have a very personal feel and can make the actor look very vulnerable or very powerful depending on their facial expression and the mood of the piece. I did this by zooming in the camera and making sure I was very finely focused, as close ups are not very forgiving if they're not in focus. 

After filming all the shots we were required to film, we decided to film some extra shots to make our final product more interesting. I got my actor to walk through a door and out of the frame and then back through to make the audience think she was entering and leaving the room through a door even though she wasn't. I really enjoyed filming and directing our piece and feel that I learned valuable skills to help me in filming my thriller.

Se7en (1995): Opening Analysis

Se7en opens with a series of short clips of a pair of worn down male hands cutting and writing on photos and sheets of text.

The prominent colors in this sequence are red and black. These are considered warning colors in nature, and therefore we know early on that this film is going to be a thriller/horror. The color red is shown when you see the hands placing photos in liquid, suggesting that this person is developing photos for some reason. 

There is a lot of shocking and disturbing imagery in this opening, such as the person cutting off their own skin with a razor blade and sorting old photos of children and family. These actions suggest that the owner of the pair of hands may not be mentally stable and is possibly a serial killer or psycho. 

The fact that we only see hands and no face gives a strong sense of mystery and suspense. The identity of the man is kept secret for the entire opening, so we anticipate who they are and want to keep watching so that we can find out. The lighting of the clips is low key and this adds to the mysterious nature of the opening. We associate darkness with the unknown and the dangerous, so this is effective in building tension.

The opening is made up of lots of short scenes played after each other. The short length of them makes the whole atmosphere very tense as you don't get to really see what's going on. The scenes are joined together with straight cuts, cross fades and a fade to black. The cross fades make the sequence seamless and make it feel eerie as the scenes overlay each other. This overlays effect is disturbing in some ways and looks almost ghostly.

At some points nearer the end of the sequence, we see scribbles and indesice characters flash up over the clips. This makes the footage look disjointed and broken. The scribbles are white, which gives a strong contrast over the darkness of the clips themselves, emphasizing this darkness. 

Everything in this sequence is shown very close up and there are no long or mid shots whatsoever. This allows an audience to focus on the objects themselves, such as the razor blade, and makes them think about why the objects shown are being shown. These close ups are very suspenseful as we can't see the whole frame and therefore come up with our own conclusions on what is going on.

All the clips are filmed with a mounted, still camera. This makes an audience feel very observant, as though you're actually a part of the scene itself. It doesn't allow for any distraction from the imagery we're being shown.

The music in the scene is very disjointed sounding, making you feel uncomfortable from the start. This music is paired with screams, which are ominous and fit with the horror genre. These screams tell us that the hands in the sequence probably belong to a killer, as they make you think of a woman being murdered. There's no dialogue in this opening, making the whole thing more mysterious and tense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k2gsEI34CE