Continuity and Non-Continuity

Continuity  Editing

Cutting shots to tella  story with narrative continuity, helping the viewer make sense of the action by implying spacial relationships and ensuring smooth flow from shot to shot.

Continuity Techniques

• Establishing shot (establishes the space in which action is to happen)
• The 180 degree rule (ensures that the same space is described in each shot)
• Shot/reverse shot
• Eyeline match (e.g. character looks off-screen, next shot shows us what they see)
• Match on action (character begins to move in one shot, we see continuation of the same moverment in the next shot)
• Realism (edit is invisible so action appears real, rather than constructed)

Non-Continuity

• Montage - giving information in compressed form
• Non-Continuity editing - continuity is broken and construction is more apparent. Meaning often created through juxtaposition and metaphor shot inserts
• Effect - being created to connote. Stretches reality usually to signify or give a metaphor for something

Editing a clip

What are we looking for when editing a clip?

• making sure its accurate and fluent
• Making sure it looks real so the audience believe it
• Make sure shots link together - sequence
• Transition
• Making sure everything fits together (sounds, shots etc.)

What are we looking for when analysing editing in a clip?

• Order of shots
• Juxtaposition
• Continuously
• Transitions
• Shot duration
• Pace and rhythm
• Special effects

Camera Shots

In today's lesson I learnt four new types of shots:

180 degree rule: The 180 degree rule ensures directional consistency from shot to shot, it may be used in conversation.

Rule of thirds (9 imaginary squares on the screen): the viewfinder screen is divided into thirds horizontally and vertically, when framing a shot, the camera person should consider these imaginary lines when placing characters in the right place.

Depth of field: The amount of distance between the nearest and furthest objects that appear.

Focus pull: Useful for directing the viewers attention. There are two people in the shot but only one character is in focus.

Making a Video

In class we watched a video made by some Australian production team. The video gave us some useful tips and advice on how to control our filming and production schedule.

It started off by telling us the different roles that are involved when producing a film:

- Executive producer: This person will create the filming schedule/timeline, control the budget and decide who fills what rolls.

- Writer: This person will take all the idea that were discussed and write a script for the production

- Director: This person is in charge of all the movement

- Production manager: This person keeps track of the production and makes sure everything is on track to stay in budget/in the deadline

- Storyboard Artist: This person draws and plans the shots in a cartoon strip style

- Camera operator: This person controls the camera and uses the storyboard as the outline and guide of what to film (this can sometime be the same person as the lighting director)

- Lighting Director: This person is in charge of the lighting on set when they start the filming process

- Sound Technician: This person will add sound to the production at the editing stage and may try and record different sounds on set to add at a later stage

- Talent: The talent will be the actors; these will either be auditioned or asked to partake by the executive producer

- Editor: This person will make sure the continuity etc is correct and produce the finished product.

 

They then gave us an outline of the three stages of creating a production.

 

Pre-Production

Scripting

Scene breakdown

Storyboard

Shot list

Casting

Location

Equipment

Catering

Hire of venue

Letting others (around the area) know you're filming

 

Shot list and shooting schedule:

Where

Time needed

Different camera angles

When

How long

 

Plan Ahead, Be Prepared!!

 

Production - The doing stage

Shooting the project

Time management (crucial)

Quality control (image, sound, performance)

Potential conflict between producers (limitations and directors creativity)

 

Post-Production -The finishing stage

Editing

-Rough-cute/off-line and final/on-line

Sound technician balances sounds

All elements combined during editing

Sound mix

British Film Insitute - 13th November

On the 13th November my media studies class went on a school trip to the British Film Institution (BFI) for a workshop on making film openings. It was a massive help for our AS media coursework as creating an opening sequence and titles will be our task. The day consisted of talks from Pete Fraser and Q&A sessions with Simon Frame and Joe Cornish.

Pete Fraser started the day talking about the investigation and research part of our coursework. He told us about 5 key features we should consider when planning:
- Genre
- Narrative (enigma)
- Character
- Atmosphere
- Setting

He then gave us some tips/steps to use when we start looking into making the film opening.
1. Start general, don't limit yourself to one genre or style of film
2. Then home in on one specific genre and look at other relevant film openings too.
3. Make sure the research you do is focused on your chosen genre and relevant

We watched a few opening sequences to films ('Catch me if you can', 'Dawn of the Dead', and 'Napoleon Dynamite'). Pete Fraser asked us to watch the openings and makes quick notes on the 5 key features. We then discussed it with the people around us and a few students shared their ideas with the rest of us.
Here are my notes on 'Dawn of the Dead':

Genre: Zombie Horror
Narrative:
Character: only an introductory, no central character introduced yet. More about what it is and who it affects. Shows people who are clearly from a different cultural backgrounds to show what's happening is on a global scale.
Atmosphere: quick cut editing so that we can't see exactly what is going on, it doesn't tell the whole story in the opening. Shows news report in the opening, nothing good ever gets on the news, shows something bad has happened. The song used in the opening was 'Rapture' by Johnny Cash, the song juxt opposes the opening as it sounds like a happy song but the clearly isn't going to be a joyful one. The lyrics are about the religious end of the world, this foreshadows the film.
Setting: There was different global settings in the opening, this shows it is a film about the whole world however, it showed the white house many times suggesting it is mainly focussed in America.

Although the Q&A sessions were VERY interesting they weren't completely relevant to us because they were more about the filming as a whole and they were on a much larger scale (bigger budget, more actors, more equipment etc.)

The last session was again run by Pete Fraser. This session was purely about our opening sequences and was very valuable to us. We watched previous work submitted by candidates and Pete gave us a quick analysis on them and told us what level they were and why. He also gave us some helpful tips about our titles:
- The directors name should always go last
- We shouldn't use the word 'starring'
- Don't include our candidate number next to our names
- Try not to show all our title at the same time, spread them throughout the opening

He also told us about the 6 most common openings and 6 common problem often sound with openings.

1. Saw (a victim tied up in a shed)
2. Scream (a hooded stalker)
3. Se7en
4. Lock, Stock (gangsters)
5. Waking up
6. Flashbacks or Flash forwards

- Making the opening too much like a trailer or short film
- Not including enough titles
- poor sound or lighting
- poorly directed actors
- Making the storyline too complicated or confusing
- Doing one of the most common openings badly

Finally, Pete gave us details about our opening sequences and the marking, He told us about 9 main steps we need to think about when filming our opening sequences.

Task: To film the opening, with titles, of a new, fiction film.
The sequence should be up to two minutes long. 20 marks will be awarded for research and planning, 60 marks for the construction and 20 marks for the evaluation.

Step 1: Take Stock Build up your skills

• Build up your research
• Build up your planning
• Allow time to shoot and edit
• Keep evidence throughout the task

Step 2: Set up a blog

• Post anything you do on your blog

Step 3: Build up skills

• Learn from your preliminary task
• Use a range of camera angles and skills

Step 4: Investigate

• What do film openings look like
• Look at a range of genres
• Look at other students work

Step 5: Brainstorm Ideas

• Pitches
• Mood board treatments
• Feedback
• Be realistic

Step 6: Planning

• The more planning, the less problems
• Experiment
• Examples of props, costumes, shots etc.
• Storyboard (use post it notes)
• Logistics

Step 7: The shoot

• People, places, props, costume
• Rehearsing, directing
• Equipment and jobs on the day
• Keeping a record of the process

Step 8: Editing

• Everyone have a go
• Screen grabs
• Audio and titles
• Foley (the art of putting sound in sync with movement)
• Rough cut deadline and peer feedback

·  The big picture before the final details

Mise-en-scene

Mise-en-scene is everything in the shot and scene. It is used to create a feeling of "realism" about the plot to the audience, this therefore makes it believeable for the audience. It makes the characters seem real, helps the audience to understand who is who in the scene and it creates representations of different groups.

Mise-en-scene is made up of six different elements: CLAMPS

C - Costume
L - Lighting
A - Actors
M - Movement
P - Props
S - Setting

Mise-en-scene links to realism, there are several steps to what makes up realism, the first level of realism means selecting the right actors, props, objects, locations, voices of the actors and diagetic sounds (noises on set).

The second level of realism means how the drama is filmed. This will be done by the use of lighting, camera shots, non-diagetic sound and editing.

Finally, the third level of realism is the finished "product" on television this is when the actual TV Drama is viewed by the audience and then the opinions of the Drama, for example is believeable.

Denotation - The first and simple of an image.
Connotation - a meaning attributal to an image beyond the obvious denotational level.

Different genres of TV Dramas:

• Romance
• Soap Opera
• Murder Mystery
• Tragedy
• Science Fiction
• Action
• Comedy
• Period Drama

Media Representation

Media means being in the middle or beneath things people and places you see on television or in film are representations of a real person or event if it is a documentary or imagined in a particular way if it is fictional like a feature film or TV Drama.

Representation

• Age
• Disability
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Regional Identity
• Sexuality
• Social Class