Final Production Beginning

Over the weekend we will be taking pictures of the sets in which we will be filming and will also possibly be doing some filming ready for the final editing. The sets we are planning to use are:
-A kitchen in one of our houses

-The living room (For the first major event)

-Dark street/alley ways/ under street lamps

-Possibly also under felixstowe pier

Update: Planning for final production

Over the next three weeks, we will begin filming and editing our short sequence, in this time we will be doing a recce of the areas in which we are going to film and a health and safety check for any dangers. Also mood boards of ideas and conventions of thrillers will be made ready for the final production.

Movie opening evaluation: Se7en

Recently, we were asked to analyse the beginning of the thriller film se7en. In order to do this we focused on the four main areas in movies. Below is the analysis we came up with.

Sound:
Within the opening of the movie, there is an emphasis upon the dietetic sound in the room where Morgan Freeman's character is. The sound includes the sirens of emergency vehicles typical in the busy American cities. Also the key rail in his apartment where he lives. In transition from this sequence to the sequence where detective Somerset meets with detective Mills sounds like a gun click, this may foreground and forebode future events of the movie to the audience. The ambient car sounds return when Somerset and Mills are working on the first crime scene, following the hugely emphasised steps of Mills running up the stairs in order to show his youth, arrogance and easy going nature. Can also show his flaws as a professional. The dialogue between the detectives follows the  lexical field of homicide (murder) and outlines further the course of the film and their duties.
This section is followed by the title sequence in which some of the sounds in the sound track seem similar to screams which represent and evoke fear among the audience. The sound track also represents a very bass filled beat which can represent a heart beat and the fragility of life itself. The tempo an pitch of the music increases as the  images on the screen become more intense. At the very end of the opening credits and title sequence, the only lyrics of the track are played at the start of the main segment of the film and are "you're coming closer to god" which clearly represents the factor of religion often visited in the film.

Camera angles and movements:
At the beginning of the movie, there is a still medium shot placing the people present in the environment and setting the scene for the audience. This is followed by a close up of Morgan Freeman tying his tie upon his detective uniform, and the camera shot slowly moves up so that there is a close up of his face in order to show his expression at the time. Another close up follows this but is of the character's work related objects lying neatly upon the table, showing they can possibly be of some importance to the movie as it progresses. There is a use of shot/reverse shot within the conversation between Mills and Somerset. This not only allows the audience to place the characters in their surroundings but also allows them to see the facial expressions upon both detectives' faces. When the two begin walking back to the precinct, there is a use of a low camera angle in order to make them appear to the audience larger than them and also shows importance. The camera tracks the two and matches their movement before a long shot in the bedroom. A close up of Somerset's glasses emphasises his intellect and systematic way of thinking throughout the film before a similar shot of his metronome slowly pans out to create tension and meaning of the metronome. Within the title sequence, there is little in the way of camera angles and shots except that they are almost all disoriented and grainy. Also, nowhere within the sequence is the head or face of the character present, this adds tension among the audience as the ominous and illusive character's identity is wanted by them.

Mise-en-scene:
Within the opening, there is a part in which the personal life of Somerset is illustrated, something that is rarely seen from this character is his personal life and feelings. The emphasis upon his uniform and his work related objects all being perfectly organised and applied perfectly show his attention to detail and prove he may be of great use in the investigations. It is clear that the two detectives wear very stereotypically detective clothes in order to illustrate their role in the movie and the community. The juxtaposition between Somerset and Mills' facial expressions outlines the difference in experience within their roles. Inside the first crime scene, the blood upon the blinds shows the violence no doubt soon to present itself to the audience. When walking, Brad Pitt's character is seen having his hands in his pockets, which can show either laziness, youth, inexperience or complacency with the crimes that surround him.
Finally, in the title sequence, there are many shots of who the audience believe to be the killer, without ever seeing his face. He is seen to be making many notes, selecting many images and many words sand sections from books, this really outlines the sick and systematic way in which he works. The most disturbing of all of these clips is the one where he is seen to be cutting the skin from his fingertips, showing that he removes his traces through destroying his fingerprints, not only making himself untraceable but almost removing his entire existence. It shows also that he may take pride in what he does, that he may think that what he is doing is right, even though the audience know that it is completely sick and morally wrong, no matter what he might think.

Editing:
The start fades in from black to the pre-credits opening scene, and quickly cuts to the important work relayed objects on Somerset's table. Lots of quick cuts are used in this segment in order to outline the confusing nature of the film. These cuts go to the murder scene, where we see the bloody blinds and the dead body. The same idea of quick cuts is used in the title sequence as well but the cuts are in fact a lot quicker and more shaky in order to further emphasise the confusion here and possibly allows the audience a peek into the mind of the killer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YV2_TcCoE

Evaluation Essay

Here is the essay that i wrote in response to the evaluation of the preliminary task production.

Preliminary Task: Continuity Task Evaluation

The task was to create, film and edit a short sequence of a character opening a door, walking across the room, sitting down and exchanging a few lines of dialogue with another character. In order to achieve this an understanding of the following: match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule is needed.

The camera angles that were needed to be present in the production were as those above. Within the storyboards all of these were incorporated and were then followed closely by the actual production. Match on action is when within one shot an action can be seen taking place but then in another shot the same action is continued however from a different angles, this is to prevent the use of an entire sequence of movement and also to move the scene forward in time. A shot/ reverse shot most generally when a shot is taken from over the shoulder of one character who is speaking to another, the same shot is then replicated but from the exact opposite, so over the other character’s shoulder. A shot/ reverse shot must comply by the 180 degree rule as each character must stay on the same side of the scree throughout the scene in order to avoid confusion amongst the audience.the only exception is if the audience can physically see the shot moving past the previous 180 degrees and going to the opposite. It was these shots that were imbedded within the storyboard and the production.

The use of diegetic sound (natural sound) within the sequence, such as the sound of the door shutting and the footsteps of the male character walking across the room creates a sense of reality in the scene as these are sounds which are heard by all almost on a day-to-day basis. The non-diegetic sounds that were edited into the sequence were the soundtrack created on the program garageband. The soundtrack, unfortunately did not match the scene, this was done deliberately as the scene and the dialogue exchanged was not of a nature to which an appropriate soundtrack could be created. Other non-diegetic sounds that would be useful to be edited in to the sequence include the typical diegetic sounds that would be heard within an empty classroom where the sequence was filmed. This would not include much, and there were no diegetic examples present of these (such as computer sounds) on filming.

The mise-en-scene used in the production was that, with the resources that were available, the set on which filming took place was in a classroom. The classroom was picked in order to look similar to an office, where the storyboard represented the scene. Despite this, the spoken pieces made by the characters in the production did not very well match the set on which it was based. Also, unfortunately, after having filmed and started the editing process, there was the problem that the tri-pod for the camera was left in shot when the camera was being used by hand. This is a problem that shall be avoided in the final production. The costumes of the characters were also very basic and casual (as it was filmed on a normal college day) and did not match the set appropriately either.

The initial experience with the program final cut pro was quite a successful despite the trouble with the transitions as the clips did not have enough room to work with at either end in order for the transitions to work successfully. The addition of music made from garageband was also successful even though the music that was created was complete;y disjointed from the piece. This was deliberate as, because the speech and movement of the sequence was not of any particular definable genre the music could not be matched exactly.

During the filming part of the task, team work was very effective as one person was using the camera and the other two were on the camera. However, when editing the two people that were on the camera left the lesson group to do a different subject and I was left to edit alone. Despite this, the editing was not a complete disaster. Altogether, I think that the teamwork could have done with a bit of work as the other members had left.

In conclusion, I believe above everything else, the preliminary task, for me was a stepping stone and a learning curve for the final production. The use of mise-en-scene (particularly the tri-pod situation) will be though out a lot more in the final piece. Along with the use of lighting and costume, editing and other aspects will be improved with practice and ready for the final production. By this time also, I shall be in a group again and this will help greatly as all of the weight will not be on myself. 

Thriller Research

Today in the lesson, we spent some time researching the conventions of the thriller genre in more detail. We have done some work on these before, but this is just to broaden our understanding ready for our final production..the opening sequence of a thriller movie. We analysed the opening sequence of the film se7en which we will be watching in full next lesson. We basically picked up on the details of the basic sections of the film, the sound, the camera angles, the mise-en-scene and the editing. I am looking forward to watching this film in full next week as it is said to be one of the best thriller films of the generation.

Evaluation

Last lesson we spent some time on evaluating our preliminary task. This involved getting an almost story board like set of sheets set up with stills from the production and then annotating them. This was used as the planning for the essay of evaluation we were to do later. This was finished off at home. I will upload these both soon as they will be useful to include on the blog as another improvement and stepping stone for the final piece.

Finishing the practise

On Friday I (alone now due to the other two members leaving) attempted to finish off the practise production. I added more transition effects to the production and that didn't really go all that well. It was all practise, that's true, and good practise however with no one to confer with I was stuck with doing it all myself. The addition of effects was unsuccessful as they were not evenly dispatched and the effects towards the end of the sequence they seemed too unrealistic. Then I used the program GarageBand to create a soundtrack. As the short production lacked genre, purpose and meaningful dialogue, there was not a lot on the program that fitted with the sequence so deliberately I added some music that was completely disjointed from the sequence. This was a result again of the learning curve idea. This means that when the final production comes to be, in will be well prepared.

Practise production

Last week at Suffolk one we made a practise production, in order to get to grips with the camera usage, the techiques used in filming (like shot/reverse shot and the 180' rule). The production was a simple one, a persona walking through a door, sitting down and exchanging a few lines of dialogue with another persona. And then we got to grips with the program final cut pro for the editing process. Clearly some more work needs to be done here. The way we filmed I think worked quite well as we didn't break the 180' rule and we used all 3 techniques (shot/reverse shot, 180' rule and match on action) however the match on action is less noticeable. The one issue we now face with filming is the fact that in 2 of the shots we have left the tripod for the camera behind on of the personas. All problems will be avoided when the final production is in the making and I shall make new posts as and when appropriate.

First Blog

This is the first post made on my AS Media Production blog, soon to be followed by more as production progresses, to be updated regularly or when new information is obtained.