Key Shot Types - Continuity

Continuity editing in filming is extremely important. Not only does it reflect on the professionalism and thought process of the film itself, but it allows the audience to easily grasp the narrative, mise en scene and character intentions without feeling disorientated or confused. There are three main techniques that are used throughout and religiously in filming:

MATCH ON ACTION
The match on action technique consists of two shots which simple give the illusion of a continuous single shot. It is very clever and commonly used widely across television and films. One shot cuts into another shot finishing the action of the first shot. The viewer is so used to this, that they often don't even realise that it has happened. 

SHOT REVERSE SHOT
This is used most frequently during a conversation between two people. The camera switches from behind one person shoulder (an over the shoulder shot), to the opposite person's shoulder. Emotion can often be captured through this technique as the person listening to the dialogue has their facial expressions on show.

THE 180 DEGREE RULE
This is an important rule all camera operators should follow. It consists of an imaginary horizontal line of which the camera should abide by. Particularly during Shot Reverse Shot/Over the shoulder shots, the camera must stay on the correct side of the line (correct shoulder) to prevent the audience getting confused of the mise en scene and character's viewpoint. 

What Is Suspense?

Suspense- "A state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen."

 Suspense is they key element that many film producers integrate into their products to cause the audience left hanging and intrigued as to what is going to happen next. It allows producers to capture the viewer's full attention and force them to become gripped to the film they're watching. It is the precise goal that the film makers have intended; to make people want to watch it more, it attracts it's consumers. Suspense is commonly used in horror genre films as it's main intention is to build tension, scare and unease the audience.

Horror Film Sub-Genre's

The genre horror has many sub-genre's integrated within it. Below are just a few of the many categories that the genre is divided in to and an example of films that have been created.

Analysis of "....." Opening

NEEDS DOING

Analyse opening of a horror film, use movie maker to produce a voiceover?

Questionnaire Results and Audience Research Analysis

Conventions Of Horror Film Openings

NEEDS DOING

Making of Our Institution Logo Animation

The following print screens and annotations explain how we achieved our institution logo title. We put together a brainstorm of ideas among the group of what colours, sounds, mise-en-scene and vibe we wanted the titles to ascertain. Rhys McEvoy in our group is very talented with using graphic software programmes and produced the following as a first draft idea:

It was made using Adobe After Effects CS4 and Sony Vegas Pro 11 for the music. We were all really impressed with Rhys' efforts in bringing together our ideas and producing this logo animation. The sound is really similar to a lot of insitution titles such as 20th Century Fox and really looks like a professional animation. The revolving cubes look really effective and look like you are searching for a film to watch amongst thousands of screens put together. We reconsidered some more ideas and Rhys took on board all of our comments and reconfigured the graphics to produce the following:


This is our final insitution logo animation. After researching many other institutions we decided we all really liked Lionsgate's idea of making their insitution logo titles into a horror theme. We felt it was really effective in preparing the audience for a scary film and so we wanted to portray a spooky feel to ours. This is better than the first draft as the music is much more unsettling. The sound is of a lower key and slower tempo which makes the audience feel uneasy. The screams sound effects added is a conventional sound of death and danger and really adds to the scary mood. We initially all said we wanted our logo to include sketchy effects of a broken video camcorder and this was achieved by adding the flickering logo changing colour to black and white at the end.

So how was it actually made? Below are a few screenshots of the compilation of the whole animation.

Lastly the sound effects were added. We wanted to go with the theme of children in our film as viewers see them as innocent and vulnerable and so as a result of seeing young people hurt, victimized or even subverted to being the villain, the audience are more emotionally affected by it. So to conform to this we decided to add children screaming as non-diegetic sound effects to spook the viewer and comply with the horror genre of our institution titles. Soft strings from an orchestra play faintly in the background as this sound is conventionally heard in horror films to make the audience feel uneasy. Sketchy, eerie sounds are also added onto the logo itself which sound like mechanical glitches add a 'home video', paranormal effect to the animation. 

Institution Research

LIONSGATE

Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation or known as “Lionsgate” is an entertainment company founded in 1997 in Vancouver. From data as of 2012, it is the most commercially successful film and television distribution company in North America. Lionsgate are also the sixth most profitable movie studio earning a huge revenue of $1.6 billion. The company is associated with 9 other subsidiaries and is divided into four categories; Lionsgate Films, Lionsgate Home Entertainment, Lionsgate Music & Publishing and Lionsgate Television.

Below are some of Lionsgates films: 

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Lionsgate have two different types of logos. One is their regular well known logo (top) and the other is their logo used in horror films (bottom). Both are really good but I think the horror logo is really effective due to the sound and colours used. 

TWISTED PICTURES

Twisted Pictures is also an American production company. The institution are mostly well known for producing films of the horror genre. They formed after a successful box office sale of the first “Saw” film in 2004 which lead to a distribution deal with Lionsgate. Twisted Pictures have also recently developed from filmography into television similar to Lionsgate.  This autumn they broadcasted the new comedy show “Anger Management” on Comedy Central starring the well-known actor Charlie Sheen. The company have produced films other than the Saw series such as Dead Silence, The Tortured and Texas Chainsaw 3D.

Below is the Twisted Pictures logo. The graphics are really effective and well constructed. The horror theme is portrayed instantly through the black background, sketchy font and barbed wire wrapping the letters. 

Conventions Of Film Openings In General

Below is a video of myself explaining the common conventions of film openings. I scripted what I was going to say, filmed myself reading my notes and then edited the shots together using Windows Movie Maker. Below the video is a copy of the notes I made.

Final Film Planning

Final Film Brainstorm Mindmap Video 

This is a video showing a mindmap I created when thinking of the name and institution name for our final film.  Doing a mindmap helped us branch out lots of different ideas that linked together to lead us to our final ideas.  In conjunction with using the mindmap, we also searched thesaurus' online to find more sophisticated synonyms of words as we wanted a professional, memorable, unique name. 

This is a spider diagram of further development ideas we all thought about together in class. Here we were trying to put down ideas to trigger our minds into thinking of a narrative for our final film. Although we don't plan to use all of the ideas below and we will probably adapt and change them for when we construct our actual narrative, it still gives us ideas and things to work from.

Below is a voice recording of our group discussing an idea for the narrative of our final film. From here we hope to develop the narrative and plan what and how we are going to do our final film opening sequence. We spoke about the shot types we could use, the sub-genre's and themes running throughout, characters, costumes, props and location. This was a really productive lesson and I feel the film will progress instantly from here. I'm really excited to continue the rest of the planning and complete the shooting of our film.

                                   

This sketch (right) was drawn by Jake Hayes in our group. After the discussion above, we wanted to get some ideas down on paper so we could visualize it more. The sketch shows the camera at a low angle on the ground, a wide angle revealing the road and the main character in the background. Our initial idea is that the dice are thrown along the road towards the camera and finish just in front. Here we thought about changing the depth of field (focus) between the dice faces and also between the dice and the dark figure (main character) in the back ground. I really like this effect when I have witnessed it in other films, it's really professional and captures the audiences attention. A tilt shot is then used along with zooming out to reveal the character and the surrounding ghostly estate- this is the establishing shot to set a base location for the audience to relate to.

We then used Photoshop to convert the sketch into an animated version. This gives us a good insight into what our first shot could or will look like and gives us a base to begin from with our narrative.

This is a small moodboard I created themed around our final film ideas. (*None of these images are my own, they are all taken from Google.) We chose as a group to use red dice as these are more distinct and also red symbolises death, blood and danger. The pictures of the young girls show previous films and television series featuring this type of character. All of these girls I feel have been effective in scaring the audience. Children and young girls in particular are thought of as innocent, girly and friendly in reality so to have them represented in a different light in a film elevates the scariness and surprise element. The image of the diary represents the paper the main character will have which includes the answers to his dice 'game' whereby he follows dares resulting from the number shown on the dice. The pictures of the empty streets and empty room signify the estate we will be filming on and the theme of anomalous. The Lionsgate logo featured is the institution along with our own company "Unprecedented Pictures" we hope to show in our opening credits.

Preliminary Task: "Is It Done?"

IS IT DONE?

This is our original storyboard which we used to base our preliminary task titled "Is It Done" on. To view, click the arrow pointing to the right to switch between slides and if desired, view in full screen. 

As you will see we made a few changes as we filmed. One significant change was from the knife to a gun. We decided to use a gun instead for health and safety reasons as we were filming in a school area. Secondly, the gun was readily available from our drama props department and resulted in the short film looking effective as it got the horror theme and point across well.

Here are some images of us during the process of filming. To view, click the arrow pointing to the right to switch between slides and if desired, view in full screen. 

This is our final video for our preliminary task. 

We were really pleased with the outcome of our preliminary task. We successfully showed a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character. The two characters then exchanged dialogue and the character then left the room. Along with these specifications we also had to include a match on action shot, shot reverse shot and follow the 180-degree rule. Using these shot types and the brief we had to follow, helped us understand how to plan, direct, construct and edit a film and I believe it will really help us to improve and master filming techniques in our final film. Although we accidentally broke the 180-degree rule, we corrected this through post-editing by flipping the shot. This ensured the continuity of the sequence was smooth and the audience didn't get confused.

We then decided we wanted to have a discussion on what we thought went well in our preliminary shoot and what went wrong of which we could improve on. Below is a short evaluation of our group discussing the preliminary task and what things we want to adjust for our final film. Having an open discussion like this enabled us to share our thoughts and ideas amongst the group and come to conclusions on future improvements.

Horror Film Questionnaire

We constructed this questionnaire in order to create our film tailored specifically to our target audience. The answers we receive we help us in deciding the BBFC rating, a sub-genre to focus on, what to include in our opening, main character preferences, sound and setting preferences. We may also decide to subvert from these conclusions as we want to create a unique film which grasps our viewer's attention. 

Analysing 9 points of the opening of "Breakfast At Tiffany's"

Horror Film Genre Conventions

The horror genre itself has role to provoke a response; emotional, psychological or physical of an individual to react with fear. Horror films often deal with the viewer’s nightmares, fears, terror of the unknown and insecurities. In order to make a horror film successful in scaring their audience, they usually follow a set of guidelines known as the codes and conventions which are explained below.

CHARACTERS
Characters which often feature in horror films can be fantasy characters such as aliens, ghosts, spiritual figures, werewolves, vampires and many more.
Other characters include:
Hero/villain: most horrors include a hero whom has to defeat an evil character, the villain. The narrative develops with these two characters as they both fight for or against eachother for something. The majority of films often end with good beating evil however some films choose to subvert this and make the evil character unbeatable to surprise the audience.
Helper: most commonly known as a sidekick. Both the good and evil sides are likely to have one or more or even a community of sidekicks who help them defeat the opposition.
Princess: many horror films feature a female character of some sort. She is usually attractive and a figure whom the audience aspire or are appealed to. They can sometimes play the hero (or the villain) or even be the victim whom the hero and villain are fighting over.

NARRATIVE
Hero Vs Villain, mission or quest, deaths, curses, young children, possessive characters, good defeats evil, side-kicks and police officers involved, set in an isolated place, involves intrusion of an evil force, event or person into everyday life (disruption of the equilibrium).

THEMES
Good Vs Evil, revenge/grude, nightmares, hallucinations, visions, insanity, possessed, religion/belief, supernatural, gore, deaths, torture, violence, suicide and spiritual horror. 

SHOT TYPES
High angle: this is used to make the subject look inferior and insignificant (e.g. a parent shouting at their child)
Low angle: this is used to make the surroundings look distorted in size and make the audience feel like they are small.
Close-up: this is used to convey emotions such as anger in a horror film
Point Of View: a very commonly used shot to make the audience feel as though they are taking part in the action. They feel involved and as a result, scared.
Hand held Camera: to create jerky action shots to make the audience feel uneasy,
Jump Cuts: these transitions are used to make the tempo of the action appear faster and make the audience feel scared.

PROPS
Weaponry: knives, guns, axes, chainsaws, firearms, sharp/heavy/blunt objects. Weapons can be stereotypical to a character too to make the audience remember them in sequels.
Make- up: dramatic, blood stained, cuts, bruises and open wounds.
Costumes: every day natural clothing for the goodies and dishevelled, ripped, blood stained clothing for the evil.

SETTING
Derelict or abandoned buildings, graveyards, churches, forests, hospitals, cellars, basements, roofs, castles, historical and isolated areas. 

LIGHTING AND COLOURS
Low key lighting: allows dark shadows to form and spook the viewer and also create a dark, gloomy atmosphere to compy with the horror genre
Back lighting: to form a silhouette of a person or object which scares both the on-screen characters and the audience. It makes the figure look evil, superior and sinister as their identity is masked and hidden.
The lighting is often expressive and unrealistic.
Colours: reds are often used as they represent blood, evil and danger and black is often used as it represents death, evil and darkness.

SOUND
Non-diegetic: sounds such as a narrator explaining the story or music playing whilst the hero is walking down the street.
Diegetic: natural sounds in the shot such as footsteps, dialogue and background noise
Sound effects: horror films use many sound effects as they are necessary to create a scary atmosphere such as heartbeat sounds, violence, stabbings, gunshots, wind, screams and creaks. They are effective in making the audience feel uneasy as it makes the scene feel more realistic.
Crescendo: this effect is often used in horror films to build a climax in a scene which creates tension.

SUBGENRE'S
Supernatural, sci-fi, psychological, slashers, fantasy, gore, comedy, true stories, animal, zombies, werewolves 

Preliminary Task PLAN

The Shining Opening Sequence Analysis

This is my analysis of The Shining's opening sequence. You may need to pause the video at times to read the annotations as the text duration can be quite short and difficult to read in time.

Importance Of Media In My Life

Analyse The Variety and Importance Of The Media In Your Life

Without the media, for me, communication with my friends, family and the public would be non-existent. I use it from the moment I wake up until I go to sleep at night. Although being a teenager and being expeted to always be using the latest technology (new media), I still often use various old media forms such as reading books, magazines and newspapers.

The public communicate with me via newspapers, posters, adverts, leaflets and television which are all examples of old media. The majority of the above medias are for educational and entertainment purposes.

For social purposes, I communicate with my friends and family via the following media: mobile phone, social networking sites (Twitter and Facebook), the Internet in general and occasionally e-mailing. These media are important in my life as I need them to communicate freely, instantly and wherever I am. They are not only key for social reasons, but for safety reasons such as keeping in contact with my parents. I think that communication amongst the world and also friends and family would suffer immensely without the tools of media.

Analysing 9 Points of the opening credits of "The Happening"

Camera Movements

TRACKING SHOT-  A tracking shot is a shot in which the camera is mounted on a camera dolly; a mobile platform which steadily travels along a rail to create a smooth movement. In this shot the camera follows the character or an object (e.g. vehicle.) It can also be known as a dolly shot. Depending on the speed of the tracking, this shot can have different connotations:

• a sense of dreaming, hallucinations or trance if the tracking is extremely slow
• chaotic, tense and jumpy scenes if the tracking is extremely fast (e.g. car chase)

TILT SHOT-  A tilt shot is when the camera tilts up or down, rotating on an axis. A downward tilt shot can be used to give a sense of inferiority or weakness such as an adult looking down at a small child. On the other hand, an upward tilt shot can give the opposite effect and signifies superiority and the sense of height and power. A popular scene is a tilt shot from the base of a tall building to the top, to represent the sheer size of it. They can also be used in conjunction with a point of view shot, where one character is looking another character or object up and down.

ZOOM -  A zoom shot is as obvious as its name states, it simply uses the focal length on the camera to zoom in and out of a shot. They simulate tracking shots and are often used if the necessary equipment isn't available (e.g. dolly). However, zoom shots can be tricky to achieve unless you have an extremely good, most likely- expensive, camera which can effectively zoom in smoothly. If the zoom is jerky this will make the shot look unprofessional and unclear for the audience to follow. Zooming in isolates and focuses on a person or object whereas zooming out places that person or object in a wider context and the location can be seen clearly.

ARC SHOT-  An arc shot is the movement of the camera in a full or semi-circle around an object or character. An arc shot is used to add drama to a film sequence and increases the intensity of the narrative. They are known to be greatly effective when filming a moving object, although a complicated shot, it holds the audience's attention.

CRANE SHOT-  A crane shot is when a camera is suspended by a crane or a jib which moves electronically (usually). They are used when the camera needs to be a few feet higher than usual. An obvious use is when they want to view the actors or scenery from above or move up and away from them (which is a common way to end a scene or film). There are two types of crane shots:

• Rise up- camera rises vertically
• Fall down- camera moves vertically downward

PANNING SHOT-  This is the movement of the camera from left to right in a fixed position which follows character movement, e.g. somebody walking or running. It is a very common shot used and can be successful if done on a smooth track to avoid any jerky movements. It can easily capture the audience's attention and leads them through the narrative or scenery thoroughly. 

Camera Shot Types

When a film is made, directors will often plan a scene to use a collaboration of shot types in order to hold the viewers attention. The audience would quickly lose interest if only one type of shot was used therefore directors aim to employ as many shot types as possible throughout the film. Not only do shot types ensure the mise en scene is explored thoroughly, they also add depth to emotions and events involved in the narrative of the film. For example, close ups of a knife in a horror film show the audience how sharp and dangerous the weapon is and that a violent attack is about to take place. It has an immediate and effective output just from the shot type.

Walking around the school site, we were instucted to take photographs of the many different shot types that people in the film industry use. In doing so we understood how the framing, composition and surroundings all work together to create a variety of shots which can be fitted together to explain a narrative in depth. Using the camera on my phone, I photographed various classmates and places in the school area. Afterwards I edited the photos into black and white and adjusted the settings to represent a horror theme. Note: a few pictures have been taken or sourced elsewhere than from the school area.

CLOSE-UP

In close-ups, the subject dominates the majority of the frame allowing very little background to be shown. They are more dramatic than a mid or long shot in conveying emotions. In reality we are likely to only allow people we really trust to get this close to our faces: parents, children, partners usually, so this is a fairly intimate shot. In a horror film this shot could be used to make the audience feel uneasy due to the magnification and detailed focus of the person or object.

EXTREME CLOSE-UP

As the name clearly suggests, this shot is an extreme close up of a person or object. The shot does exactly what it says; shows a small detail of certain relevance which could be otherwise missed in a long shot. The main focus fills the whole frame and is normally used for dramatic effect. It is often used in horror films to make the audience feel uncomfortable as for example, you're unlikely to get so close to somebodies face as shown in the picture (left) in real life.

MID-SHOT

A mid-shot is when you can only see a figure from the waist up. It is appropriate when the subject is speaking without any dramatic emotions. It works well when the intention of the shot is to deliver information, for example news reporters are often filmed from this distance. As well as being a comfortable, neutral shot, it allows room in the frame for hand gestures and movement. This would be used in perhaps calmer scenes in a horror film when emotions and intensity do not need to be exaggerated. Furthermore it could be used when the villain and hero are having a conversation, as in reality this is how much of the other person you would see if you were actually talking to them.

LONG SHOT

A long shot displays the character/s from head to toe in the entire frame and plenty of detail of the background is also shown. It is a very commonly used simple shot to show the audience to know what is going on, who is involved in the scene and the area surrounding them. They are unlikely to be used in emotive scenes or intense situations as they lack detail. It usually exhibits the mise en scene as a "life size" view for the audience watching the film in a cinema for example.

POINT OF VIEW

A point of view shot is when the camera acts as a pair of eyes and makes the audience feel as though they are in character mode and are really there in the scene. It is often used in horror films to guide the audience as to what a character is up to or in a chase scene from the victims point of view. It is used to make the audience feel involved, scared and unsettled. An effective and popular shot that directors frequently decide to use.

OVER THE SHOULDER

Over the shoulder shots show the subject from behind the shoulder of another character, almost as if you were peering over somebody. Sometimes a subject is not shown and just the shoulder view can be seen (e.g. left picture). In horror films this could be used to show the monster or ghost spirit peering over the victims shoulder, following them down the road perhaps. Other types of scenes this shot is used for is when two people are having a conversation. The camera cuts continuously to behind each persons shoulder.

ESTABLISHING SHOT

Usually the first shot of a new scene and is designed to inform the audience of the location. It is also useful in scenes where the action is very spread out. For example, in a horror film a fight between goodies and baddies, the shot can show the scale of the action and fight taking place. The establishing shot is frequently used at the very start of the film or the very start of a new location; helping the audience to keep on track what is happening.

LOW ANGLE

Low angle shots can be used for all sorts of reasons. They increase height and could be used to make the object superior to the audience and make them sense fear and insecurity as they are being dominated by a larger, bigger character. This shot has the ability to make somebody look powerful. Low angle shots can also increase the size of buildings and sometimes distort the overall image to the audience which directors occasionally do for effect. In a horror film this could be used collaborated with a point of view shot; showing the victim on the ground looking up at the superior villain. It adds variety to the scene and keeps the audience interested.

HIGH ANGLE

Obviously, the high angle is the opposite of low angle and has different effects upon the audience. The camera is elevated above the scene using a crane, or a cameraman on a high chair or structure to give a general overview of the characters and surroundings. High angles make the subject appear smaller and represent being less significant or vulnerable. They are effectively used in horror films to make a victim look scared, significantly small or less powerful as opposed to the villain. Alternatively this could be subverted if the hero overturns the villain and wins against him in a fight.

BIRDS EYE

Birds eye view shot otherwise known as aerial, is a shot from above looking directly below at a vertical angle as opposed to a slight diagonal angle like a high angle shot. These are usually shot from a helicopter with a suspended camera. In a horror film, birds eye view shots are typically used to follow a chase for instance and is effective in including both the characters and scenery in it. This shot puts the audience in a godlike position, looking down on the action and people can be made to look insignificant, almost ant-like.

WORMS EYE

The worms eye shot is typically the opposite of the previous birds eye shot. It does exactly what it says, as if you are a worm and looking around and above you from the ground; this is the type of view you'd have (left). Worms eye shot is a more extreme version of a low angle shot and usually would involve the camera man or camera being positioned on the ground facing upwards. These types of shots make the subject appear more intimidating, looming and powerful.

CANTED

This is a technical term for a 'titled' angle shot. The camera is titled to one side and distorts the orientation of the subject/scene. It disorientates the horizon level that the audience are used to seeing. It is a very popular shot type in horror movies as it suggests imbalance and instability; making the audience feel nauseous or unsteady/uneasy.