In this essay I will be looking at the evaluation of my film extract that I have made in my group called 'Final Dreams' we looked at the fantasy genre and found that we gained inspiration from films like ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and a darker film like ‘Donnie Darko’. I will look at the elements that help to provoke a response from the audience using the micro-elements. My role in this project was as the editor this role involves changing or ‘editing’ the shots to make them look better and also to rearranging them into the right order.
Our film extract covers the sub-genre of teen-fantasy, this changes the way that the story develops, the extract then fits into the familiar characteristics of its sub-genre. The micro-elements that this genre effects the most is the camerawork, mise-en-scene and editing. Starting with camerawork; this is effects the way that the director and cameraman may shoot the scene and which angles are taken for example using a shot like the shot below which uses the rule of thirds; this is used to make a better shot because you can divide the shot up (like the green lines)
Shot of 'Final Dreams'
The second element that is effected is mise-en-scene, what the characters wear; fantasy tends to have weird and abnormal clothing with unnatural backdrops, but with ours we started off in more normal clothing but as there is a transition near the end where our main character falls into another world and she goes from wearing coloured clothes to black and white clothing which works well because it make clear that something has happened between the two shots.
Being the editor made me take a big part in the narrative of the story because I was that put the final order of the story, which meant that I had control over that part. Probably the most effected of the elements is editing this is because you can use filters a lot more to show that something is happening. I achieved my editing using a program called 'Final Cut Express' which is a top quality program that is mainly used by amateur-pro filmers and is a great home editing software.
'Final Cut Express' Screenshot
The other members also had a big role in the development of the narrative take for example the sound; this sets a musical timeline that we then fitted the video to. So our sound man changed the narrative without really knowing it because as I edited I was fitting clip to the music which then changed the order of the footage. The soundtrack also helped to make sure that film fitted into the sub-genre by using the right soundtrack that held suspense while toying with the audience on what may happen next The cameraman developed the way that everything that was shot and so I could only make the extract with what I was given but I had a lot of footage to experiment with. I did work closely with our director to try and see if we could improve on what we had, this worked well because she gave me ideas and I then improved them with my own little twist.
Are group gave ourselves a very good and simple plan that we all followed to achieve our end target we tended to stick to what we were planning to do that lesson and there wasn't really any real problems that accord, because we worked quickly and were efficient so we finished ahead of the deadline.
I wanted the audience to want to get to know our main character and feel sorry for her at the end because she was lead into a different place where she is all alone, on all of the shots I upped the contrast; this gave a bold effect to the picture. And with our spirit character, I wanted the audience to see this person as strange and not really from this world so I added a higher contrast to the shots while darkening the brightness to make it different from our female character. I also added audio filters to the sounds, I added echo to make the movements of the male more unnatural.
The only feedback we got from the video so far was that some of our shots could have been in a different order, but we thought that they looked really good as they were but apart from this comment there wasn’t much to say about it apart from the fact it came off really well and fitted into the genre really well and left you wanting to know what happened.
Really my technical skill helped me to achieve a high standard of editing because I have worked on many other projects like this one I was able to take my knowledge from them and import that into this project. As a person I am really creative and I love to stretch my abilities and I found I could do the editing really easily there wasn’t any boundaries that I got stuck on either.
Good use of angles sloppy panning good use of close up
Mise-en-scene
good when she changes clothes guy was well dressed and mysterious not noticeable that she fell into a new world good use of setting and shots good costumes
Editing good panning mental people? very good editing liked double vision
Sound
Trippy soundtrack good use of dreany voice filter nice use of Diagetic sound (birds) little bit linear (only piano tunes)
we have completed a second rough draft of our film, we also have agreed that there are still several improvements to be made before the final cut. We added a piece of footage to replace one of the less refined shots at the beginning and it now looks much better. We are currently working towards our final cut for the deadline.
Unfortunately, due to weather circumstances, we have missed a weeks worth of lessons, due to the college being closed,and students not being able to get to college. to catch up, we will work on editing for our final cut, and blog and everything else at the same time.
The sound is a bit rough at the moment but for the final cut we will voice over most of the piece. The music works particularly well in this extract. We also wanted to add some more establishing shots and exchange one of them as it's a bit shaky. Some of the piece may have more effects added in, mainly to the audio.
the rough cut is nearly finished, we are just checking it through to see where we can add the new clips that Tim got, at the moment we are converting the new clips
We have sorted out our schedule for this sunday. Our filming will take place on sunday and we will be using a location of Tim's, Most of today has been spent figuring out how to get to there and when. We will be needing actors from outside the class, Lloyd has been in charge of them but if they can't make it Vonnie will attempt to find someone, and if that fails Tim can get someone from his village.
Vonnie has some elements of clothes that will work with anybody so costumes is sorted and Tim has a top hat and waistcoat for the male character. Because the lighting may change we may have some lighting equipment to help. Because Vonnie is the camera person it's her job to bring it on sunday.
1. Black Screen -hear a girl humming a tune title appears 2. close up girl- humming tune profile image of girls face 3. Wide shot slow pan- trees, wind rustling, girl humming 4. Medium shot over shoulder- girl humming, view from behind 5. wide shot- park rides move slowly creaking slightly 6. long shot- hows girl sitting on roof, looks cold, uncaring still humming 7.close up of girls eyes- girl blinks several times 8. POV of girl- shows edge of roof, music starts 9. close up of girls eyes- last blink is distorted, camera moves quickly 10. Long POV shot- man appears at roof edge 11. close up profile shot- expression unchanged, long lasting shot 12. close up of man panning- man smiles, hat covers right eye 13. close up of man -he speaks and face is a bit more visible 14. close up slow pan- girls expression blank but seemingly confused, man speaks 15. Long shot, slow pan- music quiet but gets louder, man speaks 16. close up of girl- she looks away sad, nearly nodding 17. Medium shot, long of man- excited, he speaks, energetic 18. medium shot of man- voice becomes distorted 19. close up of mans hand- quick shot 20.close up of girl- stares at hand for while than gets up 21. close up- hand reaches for his, camera cuts before they touch 22. medium long shot- man disappears, girl moves hand back confused, music loud 23. close up of girls feet- she walks to edge of roof 24. high angle from ground- she looks down 25. long shot from side- as above 26. high angle POV- showing ground 27. close up of feet- jumps 28. extreme face close up- falls 29. close up of girl hitting ground safely- (costume/location change) 30. V. long shot of girl- girl confused looks round
we intend to book the camera for the following dates: 22/01/09 - 25/01/09 Rough cut deadline: Thursday 29th January Final cut deadline: Thursday 5th of February
The clip that I chose to look over is the trail for Sin City (2005) I chose this because of the editing factors that are involved in it.
As you can see the Editor Robert Rodriguez has given the film a comic book feel to the footage due to the strong black and white contrasts and also the little hints of color; for example the yellow blood on the fingers this strange blood color explodes out at you compared with the greyscale background.
This style looks like it has been influenced by the Film Noir genre of the 50's; Noir also used deep contrast and a lot of use of lighting and shadows, much the same as Sin City does. Another Film that Robert Rodriguez has worked on as the Editor is the Classic... From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) where Robert also Directed the film.
This was one of his earliest editing jobs having only done 5 main films before that. This is more of a characteristical action genre film with a twist that the real story changes half way through.
For our mood board we used images that were dark and some that were strange and surreal. There are some pictures of the northern lights as they are a naturally strange occurance. Most of the pictures are characters reminiscent of the mad hatter, as this is a character similar to a character in our film idea, there is a significance of the hat in the film so there were quite a few hats. The girl on the roof is similar to a shot that could be done in a part of the film. There were also some shots from Donnie darko and pans labyrinth (inspirations for the film) and quite a few evil looking women from other films.
The music is slow and meant to be creepy to fit the mood of the film and images.
Initial ideas: The story starts with a young girl with apparent mental health problems. The girl follows a man she thinks she sees in her mind and starts to retreat into this fantasy world more and more, however as the film goes on the line between fantasy and reality becomes thinner until it becomes obvious that there was never fantasy only reality. Because of this the girl turns more insane and ends with her in a prison imagining her family in a normal setting as it once was. The film is focusing on fantasy and reality and how people can never understand what is real and what isn't. The scene that we could do would be the beginning which shows the first switches between reality and fantasy when she goes to wonderland or possibly the end where she is sitting in a prison alone.
The main character: Young and female, between 15 and 20. She lives in an ordinary home. A male character refers to her as 'rabbit'
Inspirations: Donnie Darko - Surreal events Pans labyrinth - strong influence Alice in wonderland - white rabbit type figure, wonderland Kubla khan (poem) - poem that doesn't make sense, creepy
In this group of 4 we have, Adam, Lloyd, Vonnie and Tim each of us have a separate role, these are:
Lloyd- Editor
Adam- Sound Executive
Vonnie- Camera Work and Visual Arts
Tim- Director
Lloyd: I want to bring the knowledge that I have picked up over the years, using Final Cut and other programs to this project and also the skills I have used in past projects
Adam: As sound executive, I intend to bring my unique taste in music to this project, I also believe that music is one of the most important features of the film, and hence listen closely to music in films, with this I should be able to look at the film we made and create a piece that fits the scene.
