AS Media Studies

Coursework

Match On Action

• When the editor cuts seamlessly from one view of an action to another view giving the impression of continuous time.

• It is an important element of continuity editing.

• I may use this when someone is walking towards a door and the camera will cut to a different angle as they go through the door.

180° Rule

• The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle. I will use this when using a two shot during the dialogue in my clip.

Sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180_degree_rule

Shot/Reverse Shot• Shot reverse shot is a film

technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other. This will be used in the dialogue of my clip.

Sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_reverse_shot

Preliminary Task• The first day we had the camera we

were supposed to be filming but were unsure about our script so we found our location for filming. We picked a stairway led up to by a long corridor as this would allow us to do a long shot at the start of the film. It also catered to our idea of using an aerial shot of movement up stairs. We also decided on our cast and script – we had originally storyboarded a script for this piece but it turned out to be impossible to implement in this task and will therefore be used for the main task instead. Also, our original actors for this piece had become unavailable so we had to change our cast on this day as well.

Preliminary Task Cont’d• The next day on which

we had the camera we filmed all of the shots we needed for our final film and while still getting used to the camera we filmed some fairly high quality shots and all the components of our film were complete. We managed to get this done moderately quickly baring in mind the number of shots needed for this task.

Preliminary Task Cont’d

• When we had finished our filming we uploaded our clips onto a computer and after that we began the editing which consisted of just highlighting the parts of our project we wanted and just dragging and dropping them into a new project. We did this fairly efficiently and therefore finished editing in around 30 minutes with a very seamless match on action completed.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxRGw0l-b18 this is the link to our piece

Main Task• We began our main task planning with

watching examples of what we are doing from real films like Halloween, Unknown and Stranger Than Fiction. From this I gained the knowledge POV can be used to good effect like in Halloween and that the introduction of a character can be done through narration like in Stranger Than Fiction. Also, it isn’t essential to have a lot shown about an actual character as shown in Unknown which shows barely anything about the main character but still effectively builds that character.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny3E_F_eAB0

• This is the beginning of Halloween which influenced us in the filming of our main task.

Main Task cont’d

• On the first day of brainstorming about the plot of our main task we decided as a group that we would do a story about a girl being followed home and stalked. This idea meant that we had to use a POV shot from the point of view of the stalker in the scene, running up to the girl and almost slamming the camera into her face but we need to ensure that the zoom is at a level where the camera still shows her whole face.

Main Task cont’d

• After we had brainstormed we started storyboarding the idea which we did by drawing it, saying the shot type, camera movement and saying the duration of the shot. This allowed us to know roughly how long we had left timewise for the remaining shots. We did this fairly well and managed to organise our clip to be just under 2 minutes long.

Main Task Storyboard• This is our storyboard for the main task – it shows all aspects of

each shot.

Risk Assessments

• There was only 1 real risk which was the presence of traffic on the road where we had to film the leg shots from. This was a danger to our camera man and to overcome this risk, I and our editor ensured that there was no traffic coming at the time of filming .

Filming• We begun filming and shot our

first shot which was an establishing shot of the park in which we were filming. There was an issue with wind on this shot because we were in such an open space that the sound of the wind was extremely loud. The second shot also encountered issues because it was a journey from the park to the protagonists friend’s car but none of our actors could drive so we had to implement a costume change in shot with the friend putting on a hoodie which belonged to our camera man on the way to the car.

Filming cont’d• Our next shot was the friend’s

car driving out of the park and the protagonist following on foot which would lead into a match on action but this shot had to be reshot several times because of the need to synchronise the car moving and the protagonist walking as well. This led to complications because the next shot was the stalker looking at the protagonist and the car leaving the park from behind a corner which was where the previous shot was filmed. This meant that it would be hard to make the car especially not just jump forward or back by quite a distance.

Filming cont’d• Later on in our project we

had to film our protagonist walking while having a phone call with her worried brother in the film and filming her side of the conversation was quite difficult because we had to film her from just below head height which is quite a difficult position to keep a steady shot from so this took a couple of takes.

Filming cont’d

• We then had to take shots of the protagonist and the stalkers legs as they walked along the pavement which was quite dependant on the road traffic in the village where we filmed because these shots had to be taken from the road and therefore encountered a few problems which led to these shots being filmed several times.

Filming cont’d• Our last shot was extremely

problematic because we had to film the shot handheld and while running towards our protagonist and ending the shot with our victim turning around to face the camera and looking surprised. This took a lot of choreographing because often the zoom on the camera was too much and the scene ended with a poor shot which only showed part of her surprised face. Also, coordinating the camera’s stopping of movement and her reaction took a lot of takes to make acceptable.

Editing

• The editing of the main task begun with the basic cutting of the clips together which was fine until we reached the midpoint of our project when there were some serious problems caused by two shots of the car leaving the car park which seemed to make the car jump back by quite a large distance so therefore took a lot of editing to make sure that nothing jumped or the continuity would be ruined.

Editing cont’d

We also had the problem that on the phone call there was a problem of the actress’s head getting in the way of the shot so this needed to be refilmed. The other side of the phone call also needed refilming because it was very poorly lit. This would impact very badly on my final mark as Mise En Scene.

Editing cont’d

• When we had refilmed the parts which needed refilming we uploaded them and integrated them into our project but found that they were slightly brighter than our other shots. We therefore had to darken down these shots in IMovie.

Evidence of Time Management• 1st week: We planned our preliminary task but should

have made a storyboard. Later in the week we filmed all of the shots for our preliminary.

• 2nd week: Edited our main task entirely iin the week and begun storyboarding our Main Task.

• 3rd week: We finished off our storyboard completely, with duration, shot types and angle.

• 4th week: Having shot our film on the weekend, we edited the film including music.

• 5th week: Having found that we needed to reshoot a few shots we did this at the weekend.

• 6th week: We received feedback on our previous piece and later in the week edited our piece, including the new shots and were finished.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions

of real media products?• It uses the same sort of ideas

as a lot of horror movies with shots showing the villain just in shot but out of focus.

• It also uses Point of View shots fairly regularly which is partly in the style of films like Halloween.

• There are also shots of the characters leg’s as they move with increasing pace which is a convention of a lot of chase sequences from a variety of different genre of films.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

• It doesn’t really provide any particular representation of a social group because there is only a few lines of dialogue and it is through the medium of a phone call.

• This phone call only really represents the strength of the bonds between friends as the piece stays away from stereotypes.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?• It would have to be a small

independent British film company because the film is not a blockbuster by any means but because it shows the British country side and stars only British people.

• A possible company for this sort of production would be someone like Warp films.

British Actors

British Countryside

Who would be the audience for your media product?

• The audience would probably be more teenagers than anything else because they are generally more fans of horror than any other age group and because all of the actors are in their teens they can perhaps relate more to the people on screen.

• It would also be a more male audience as yet again they are more likely to watch horror. The actors in the film are in the target audience.

This is the kind of audience our film targets because they are in the demographics of male, teenaged and maybe would have the sort of hobbies of our film targets – the hobby of watching horror films.

How did you attract/ address your audience?

• We did this by making the opening scenes of the film fairly dark and mysterious which leaves the audience wanting to know more and specifically the end of our clip where the stalker crosses his victim’s name off of his list this leaves the film on a cliff hanger as it means that he will almost definitely attack more victims on his list.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of

constructing this product?• Despite these not being my

job I have learnt how to use cameras more sophisticatedly and also partly learnt about editing software.

• I have also used Youtube to look at previous coursework and what they have done.

• I have learnt more about lighting as well through my job as Mise En Scene.

• I learnt to use the zoom functions on the camera and also how to hold it steady during shots.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to

the full product?• I have learnt more about

continuity as while filming our preliminary task we only needed one day to film and it needed no control of continuity whereas the main task required control of many factors – lighting needed to be roughly controlled and actors had to wear the same clothes.

• I also learnt how to line up match on actions which we carried out quite well in both tasks.

Questionnaire

• We sent out a questionnaire and received feedback once we had finished our first attempt at our film. We screened our film and gave out the questionnaire. The evaluation of the responses is on the next page.

Evaluation of Feedback

Evaluation of Main Task