Our First Ideas

Hello!

We have started thinking about our first preliminary Task! Here are our first ideas:

Our plot is preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse. We want the style to be like a documentary where we see conversations about preparing for the zombie apocalypse that will soon be taking place. We think this style will be good as it will enable us to do all needed shots and also show our skill by editing text over the footage.

Our first thoughts were to do it out of school as we thought it would be difficult doing it inside school, however we then changed our mind and decided that doing it inside school will be a lot easier. We had some difficulty thinking about how we will keep it serious inside a school but we came up with an idea to use the conference room. We will move all chairs and just have two at the opposite ends of the table.

The people who will be in this video are Ellie Bacon, Beth Parry and Chloe Hill. Ellie Bacon will feature as The Head Director of Health and Safety, she will be the main character and will be used for match on action shots when walking to a meeting. Beth Parry will be the Prime Minister of England’s sectary and will be having a meeting with Ellie. Chloe Hill will feature as the documentary reporter and will interview Ellie.

Settings used: Math stairs, Buckingham lay-by, Conference room, Staff corridors.

See you soon!

Match On Action Technique

Hello!

Another technique for you today; Match On Action! I hadn't heard of this technique before my lesson today, and the name didn't give away much for me! But it came quite naturally after learning about Shot Reverse Shot as they are very similar, which I struggled to see the difference of. 

Match On Action is an editing technique used in continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot. This creates the impression of a sense of continuity - the action carrying through creates a visual bridge which draws the viewer's attention away from slight cutting or continuity issues. It portrays a continuous sense of the same action rather than matching two separate things, it pulls the action together and gives it a flow.

As I said, I struggled to see the difference between this and Shot Reverse Shot. But, there is a big difference! In Shot Reverse Shot, you have to go from one shot, to another, back to first. With this shot, you go from one shot, to another, to another (NOT THE FIRST) all on a piece of action. So just replace Shot Reverse Shot's step three with just another shot from another angle and you've pretty much got the idea! 

I personally prefer the Match On Action Technique compared to Shot Reverse Shot and Over the Shoulder Shot after learning about it today. This is because I think it is more interesting. Although Shot Reverse Shot does have an effect, I think going back to the same shots over and over is less interesting than doing a range of completely different shots on one piece on action. I agree that Shot Reverse Shot is the best to use in conversations, but on any other piece of action, Match On Action wins my vote!

We then went away to create a short clip that contained both shot revers shot and match on action in, to practise the shots and ensure we knew the difference. I will attach my groups video here - Enjoy!

See you soon!

Shot Reverse Shot Technique

Hello!

A new day, a new lesson! Today's lesson was about a technique regularly used in filming; Shot Reverse Shot! I had heard of this shot before this lesson from studying Media at GCSE Level last year. However, we only touched on the technique at that level, so I was glad to take this understanding further today!

Shot reverse shot is a shot that views the action from the opposite side of the pervious shot, and then back again. There are three steps: 1. a shot of something (usually a person) 2. a shot of something else (usually another person that the first was speaking to) 3. back to the first shot! It is mostly used during a conversation between actors, giving the effect of looking from one actor to the other. It is a feature of the "classical" hollywood style of continuity editing.

Another thing we looked at was over the shoulder shots, which are often used along side shot reverse shot. Again, I had heard of this shot as I touched upon it at GCSE level, I know the technique but was not sure on the effect or purpose!

Over the shoulder shots are used in conversations, the camera will be angled over one character's shoulder, looking at the person being spoken to or speaking to the character who's shoulder is slightly in shot. This gives the effect of seeing a conversation clearly and also allowing the viewers to see the reaction of the character as the character (who owns the shoulder) says something to the other character.

This is a picture from a TV programme that helped me understand the two techniques!

We then went away and created a short clip that involved shot reverse shot to get some practice on it! Here is my groups video! 

See you soon!

Mise En Scene

Hello!

Today's learning topic was Mise En Scene! For those of you who do not know what this is, don't worry! Before my lesson today, I had absolutely no idea and actually panicked a little when my teacher said the three words as it made no sense to me at all! This is probably because is is a french saying meaning "in the scene" - The first thing I learnt!

Everything that we see in a film has a meaning, it is put there for a purpose! This all comes under Mies En Scene! It includes these elements: props, costume, hair, makeup, facial expressions, body language, lighting, colour and positioning.

After learning the basics, we went on to look at each element in more detail! I did this in a notepad and will now attach pictures of my work onto the blog so that you can learn a little more about each element!

I am now fully aware of what Mise En Scene is and have a particular interest in camera angles and colour values! I love to film and use a camera and so learning what all the different camera angles were really interested me! My personal favourite is the birds eye view. This is when the camera angle is above the scene, looking down (like a bird). I like this angle because I think it is much different to just a regular shot or some of the other shots such as eye-level and low angle which are all done on the ground, I think this angle is much more creative and eye-catching. I enjoyed looking at colour values as I also study English Literature A-Levels and we have recently looked at colour connotations which is included in this sector. For example, in a horror, the characters would wear black, dark colours and the colours in the shots would be very dark and dull to connote death and emptiness.






We were then set the task to put this knowledge to practise. We had to find pictures of a scene in a film or TV programme and annotate the Mise En Scene elements. I chose 5 Hollyoaks scenes - I will now attach a picture of one of these scenes with annotations so that you can see my understanding!






See you soon!

Continuity

Hello everyone - I have a blog post on my Continuity lesson for you today!

Before my continuity lesson, I knew very limited information on the topic, I knew the main concept which is to ensure every scene is the same and following on to create a flowing structure. However, I was not aware of all the hard work and time that actually goes in to this specific section of filming and editing.

Firstly we were taught a bit about continuity and what it involves. The first thing I learnt that I was not aware of is that there is actually a whole team of people that are hired specifically for continuity. When actors or actresses are hired for filming, it is more than likely that they can only do an hour or two a day/week. This means that the scene they are being filmed in will not be finished in the time interval that they are available for and so they will have to continue filming it the next time they are available. The continuity team's job is to make sure everything is exactly the same in the scene from one day to another day (these could be weeks apart). They do this by taking pictures of the exact positioning of all the props and people in the scene and also of how the people in the scene look, including their make-up, hair and costume. Then, it will all be packed away and changed to a different setting with different props another scene. When they then come back to the scene that they had not finished filming, they will have to look at the pictures and make sure everything is positioned and styled exactly the same. They will then have to edit the clips together to make it look like it was all filmed at once and nothing ever changed. This sounds tricky and time-consuming already but when you think about every scar and piece of hair that has to be put in the exact same place, the weather and lighting that has to be made to look exactly the same and how long this would take it really drives home the amount of effort that these people go through!

We were then shown a clip where a group of people had filmed a video making continuity mistakes to show what it looks like when continuity is not used. Our task was to go away and create our own. My group decided to make the story in the short film very simple, three girls sat at a table having a basic conversation. We then focused on our continuity mistakes. Our main idea was to start off with just one single bottle on the table and keep adding more and more items as the video went on, so items would appear at random on the table throughout the video. We then included some less obvious mistakes such as two people changing jackets or laptops and labels disappearing off of bottles and then some even less obvious mistakes such as the tap in the background suddenly coming on and a ring disappearing from a person's finger. I have attached our final piece to this blog so that you can view it - Enjoy!

See you soon!