Cinematography
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| My Animation |
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| Disneys Animation |
One feature of our film that appeals to me Is the animated title sequence of the logo I created. What I like about this logo is its professionalism and dramatic opening it creates to our film drawing the audience’s attention and making our film very distinctive and unique. To help stick with the conventions of our films genre I tried to include elements of the genre into the animation. To achieve this the animation was synchronised to a fairy-tale-style piece of music. With every beat of the music the logo cube can be seen bouncing along the ground in perfect time in the style of rhythmic editing. When researching the genre of our film one recurring theme kept coming up on all of the sites I visited this theme was magic and was something I believed would be quite easy to incorporate into my animation. To incorporate the magic feel I took inspiration from Disney’s animation that appears before all of there films. In the animation a flash of light can bee seen arching over the main text on the logo, similarly in our films animation I added a flash of light just as the music finishes.
Many shots are used in our film that
are continues with conventional media conventions. One of these such shots is
the establishing shot used right at the begging of the film. In an opening sequence the conventions state
that the audience should be, Introduced to the lead character, set the scene
for the film and finally hint at the plot. Our film is some what successful at
doing this as In this scene the camera is well positioned to feature both the
face of the lead character, and her surroundings providing the setting and
character introduction, whiles a voice over narrative from the character provides
the plot. however there are issues with this shot that I believe should be
changed. Ideally if I had been filming this scene I would have like to have
used a pull focus from the phone screen to Becky’s face adding more visual
interest into the scene and would remove the problem of the fact that the whole
shot is focused on entirely the wrong place.
Another area where the focus was wrong in our
film is when the lead character is brushing her teeth. In this shot a close up of
tooth past being applied to a toothbrush is shown however the person who was
filming at the time failed to notice that the camera was completely out of
focus and created a major error that could not be corrected in the post
production stage of our film, If we had more time as the producer I would have
like to have re-shot this scene and removed the errors before the film was
finalized and released.
One convention
of the fairy-tale genre is that usually there are specific characters that fit
into specific examples such as the role of the prince, fairy-godmother and
princess. Vladimir Propp: Spheres of action is a good theory of
narrative to use to analyze this fact. Although our film does not necessarily
follow this narrative theory In our film there are definite characters that fit
this convention witch can bee seen in the table bellow.
The Hero
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ella
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The Villan
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James, Jessie,
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The Doner
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Chez
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The helper
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nicole
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The princess
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Seth
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The Farther
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mum
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The Dispatcher
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mum
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The False Hero
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nicole
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To help emphasize these roles in our
film we have used cinematography techniques based on the information we learned
from last year. Examples of this are the eye line match
shot in which Ella is on the bench an looks up to Seth & in the bullying scene
in which Jessie and James are framed as if they are being looked at. The way that
the characters are framed either low or high angled shows that one is more
important, holds more power over the other and is therefore more likely to be
influenced by these characters actions.
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| High Angle of bullies |
It is not just
people that are shown to be more important in our film objects too are also emphasised
to show their significance to our plot. Sticking with typical conventions of
how close ups can show important detail we decided to include extreme close ups
of a knife and a phone. In the case of the phone the close up highlights
importance of photo being viewed and shows the stalker/obsessive characteristics
of one of our character. The scene is also framed at a funny angle to highlight
the dodgy character and show something’s not right. One prop that has lots of
close ups in our production is the knife. This is because it is perhaps the
most important prop in our entire production. The first appearance of the knife
is on a kitchen top. Here the knife is shown in focus with a blurred chez in
the background. The framing of this shot subtly hits to the events to come
later in the film and the connection between the knife and chez. The second appearance of the knife comes just
before Ella is stabbed. In this close up the knife can be seen being removed from
Chezes pocket before the camera follows its actions as it is brought up to
chest level. The motion of this scene helps emphasize the threat of the object
shown and signifies that it will be hugely influential in the next couple of
seconds. The final appearance of the knife is after it falls to the floor once Ella
has been stabbed, Our group chose to include this shot as it shows exactly that
the knife is what has caused the injury to Ella with the fake blood tying the
wound and knife together.
In the terms of cinematography we did
not always obey conventions of conitnuey, editing and filming particularly well
and there are several issues that should have been fixed before we edited and
distributed our film. The first issue that i have with our film is that when
the knife is picked up of the kitchen top the Long shot framing means that this
detail could be easily looked over and may not register with the audience. To
make this scene better we should have included a match on action to a close up
of the knife being removed. A second example of an error in our film is that
180 degree rule is broken at one point leaving the viewer confused and makes
our film look unprofessional.
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| Broken 180 degree rule |
A second
shot that makes our film look unprofessional and should have been re-shot is
when Ella pushes James away. Not only is this shot badly framed but it is also extremely
blurred due to the fast panning motion of the camera.
Not only is the camera work blurred at
some points but our production is also let down by shaky handheld camera that
is in the wrong place. The scenes that feature this are the ones based in Seth’s
house where a tripod was not used at any stage of the filming. If i had been
present at the time that this filming took place i would've ensured that a
tripod was used as i know the poor results hand held camera work can produce.
EDITING
Editing is a
very important part in maintaining continuity in our film with a bad cut
transforming what would be a good match on action into a terrible looking
transition. One role i was responsible for in the editing stage of our film was
the titles in which i tried to reflect typical Fairy-tale conventions. To do
this i made the transitions look like the turning pages of a book, Originally
the colouring of text was white and a different more fairy tale looking font
however Becky wanted to reflect the work of Quentin Tarantino who like us bases
his films on challenging the typical conventions. This resulted in a more simplified
yellow text.
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| Tarantino Credits |
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| Our Titles |
Other editing affects that we included
in our film include elliptical editing that helps remove any unnecessary time that
would extend the length of our film and make it boring. A perfect example of
this is the Opening sequence that shows our lead character getting ready in a
morning. In real time this sequence could take anything from 15 minutes to two
hours depending on the person however in our film we have cut it down so it
only takes around 20 seconds of film time. Included in this sequence is along
with jump cuts is a graphic match witch also shows the passage of time in one
shot Ella can be seen brushing her teeth and then in the next her hair. This
shot works as we have made sure we shot the positioning of the two mirrors and
character as identical as possible. By placing the images next to one another below you can see how similar the shots are.
The 180 degree rule is one typical
convention of continuity that we have tried to remain true to whilst producing
our film. What this rule helps do is create a spatial relationship between a character/Characters
and there surroundings. When editing we had to make sure that we only included scenes
that followed this rule where possible. A good example of this is the bench
scene at the beginning of our film. At
no point in this sequence is the 180 degree rule broken despite various editing
techniques such as shot reverse show and match on actions being used. The
images below show the match on action of my character sitting down. By i
In our film we have made good use of
colour effects and fades to show the differences between the mood and time of
each of the shots. The scenes for example that involve my character all feature
a subtle sepia tone over the top this reflects that my character is a warm
friendly one who in contrast the bullies who are shown with a cool blue filter
over the top. The blue filter on the bullying scene is not only just to reflect
that these are nasty characters but to also show that this is an unhappy memory
that ella is looking back on. One issue that i have with this flashback is the type
of transition that is used. normally typical conventions for a flashback include
a fade or a wipe however this shot features neither and a jump cut is used.
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| good use of colour filter |
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| poor use of colour filter |
The most major errors in our film come from continuity errors in our film that have occurred due to editing ideally these errors should have been removed and re-shot however we ran out of time at the end of the project. Simple errors such as the latch on the door in seths house that is one minuet open and the next closed is not that noticeable however the scene in with Chez is pushed over onto the floor and then is suddenly stood up again is very noticeable. James entering the room somewhat breaks up the
fast-paced edited sequence and shots of chez however it is still very much noticeable.
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| Chez on floor one minuet |
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| And stood up the next |
Mis-en-scene
In our film we have included an inter-textual
reference to the film forest Gump, this is significant as like our character Forrest
is a rather lonely character who has suffered similar problems in his life to
our character such as bullying .
An important part of continuity and
conventions in film is the costumes we chose to use in our film. A characters appearance is the first thing
that comes across to the audience even before they speak which is why getting
the costumes right is important. The easiest character to relate this point to
is chez. When he is first introduced to the audience chez
bumps is way into my character in an rather unfriendly, hostile and cold manor
who doesn’t really care about his surroundings. This unfriendliness is
reflected in the characters costume in which chez is always covered up in a
green hoodie that hides his face. Not
only does this hood prevent light from hitting the characters face making him
look dark and unfriendly but it also frames his face and shows he is going to
be a key figure. To make sure these points are shown in all of chez’s scenes we
have used continuity and kept his costume constant throughout in comparison to
the other characters who change their costumes based on the scene.
Some of the other characters in our
film that have distinctive costumes is the bullies. When deciding on what
theses characters should wear we established that dark colours and make up
would work best as this would reflect the personalities best. Comparing these consumes
to my character and Becky’s who tend to wear more neutral bright colours to
show the more friendlier figures
Sound
In addition to everything i have spoken about in this evaluation question there are also the following sound points that i have considered too.
1.
Non-diegetic voiceover is clear and well
balanced.
2.
Diegetic sound of door squeaking is too loud in
comparison to the voiceover.
3.
Music finishes as the voiceover ends, the door
closes, and the screen goes black. Good synchronisation.
4.
The dramatic change in music and bright,
clashing hoody show he is a contrasting character to the scenario shown so far.
5.
Music is synchronised with the ending of the
flashback to show this significant scene is over.
6.
Accented regional pronunciation of the word
“there” is not ideal if the character hopes to appeal to a wider audience.
7.
The tone of the sound changes between shots,
subliminally breaking continuity.
8.
Gentle piano music starts as Ella’s Mum starts
to build her confidence. Matches the warm sepia tone and emphasises the
relevance of the dialogue.
9.
When the hug ensues, diegetic sound of paper
should not be present
10.
Music builds as there is a knock on the door and
Chez goes to his door. It is not made clear that there are two
different doors involved.
11.
Phone conversation cuts between two characters,
with overlapping sound to make the cuts less obvious. The sound is also
filtered at points to make it sound as though it is from the phone call. This
is hearing what the character would hear, making the audience feel more
involved rather than simply observing the entire scene.
12.
Just after Seth reveals to Ella that he likes
her, music begins to play again. From this, the audience may recall the same
style of music being used every time Chez is present. This means they should
begin to anticipate his arrival, building tension in the scene.
13.
The dialogue and sound in this scene is a bit
too ‘bland’. It is supposed to be a high-drama, highly intense scene leading up
to the climax of the film, but lacks the intensity needed to work with the
action.
14.
EPOV The
reverberation on the vocals sounds like it is in a dream sequence, or Ella is
losing focus
15.
The quote that Ella’s Mum gave to her is
repeated at the end, tying the whole film together at the end
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