Editing

Editing is a crucial part of film language. It helps to structure the narrative and link scenes/events together. Editing also helps the film to follow a logical order or time span, however some films distort this, for example flashbacks.

The most common form of editing is a cut. This is where one camera shot moves instantly to another.
Examples of some cuts are-

• Eye-line Match- This is a part of continuity editing, where we see a character look in a particular direction then the next cut gives a shot of what they see.
•  Jump Cut- This is an unusual edit pattern. It is where a few frames have been removed from a continuous action giving a jerky, unnatural feel to the action. It can be seen in BBC Three's Being Human.
• Parallel editing- This is where you run two or more sequences of action that are happening at the same time and we cross cut between them.
• Cutaway- A cut away from the main action to a scene of related action somewhere else.

Transitions between scenes other than cuts include:

• Dissolve- Where the image appears gradually to break into particles, leaving the next shot to emerge from behind.
• Crossfade- Where the current shot fades out at the same rate as the next shot fades in. An example of this is in the BBC TV show Sherlock, shown below. This is perhaps used to show that time has passed, or they are now at a new location. 

•  Fade Out- The current shot fades- usually to black.

Superimposition is where two or more pieces of film are blended so that they appear at the same time. This can be achieved by blue or green screen techniques where an actor is filmed against a background of consistent blue or green.  This colour can then be digitally extracted and the film of the person layered onto another piece of film so the person appears against a different background.

Editing is also used to determine the duration of a shot. For example a short shot duration can convey action or emergency, whereas a longer shot duration can suggest intimacy or intensity within the narrative.

Split screen is where the frame is split into sections so that the audience can see events happening at the same time. A good example of this is the American TV series 24, seen to the right. Here we can see how the split screen technique is used to show the reactions of four different people at the same time.  

Titles

As titles are very important in an opening sequence, as a group, we decided to analyse where titles occurred so that we could get an idea of where to put the titles in our opening sequence. We decided to take a look at The Conjuring (2013) as our genre for our opening sequence is psychological thriller/horror.

 Here's the link to the title sequence- http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-conjuring/

We created a timeline of where the titles appeared-

What we found interesting was that the director (James Wan) came up first which is very unusual as normally the director is shown last. As a group we liked the idea of having the name of the film last so that is stuck in the audiences mind. 

Opening Sequence Analysis

To help create a good opening sequence for our main task, we have to look and study other opening sequences and see what makes them good. Our group (Katie, Joel and me) decided to look at the 2009 film adaptation of the book Coraline by Neil Gaimen, starring Dakota Fanning. 

Here's the opening sequence-

Our Analysis

• The music creates quite an eerie effect with the soft music and repetitive nature, making it seem quite creepy
• The focus on certain elements throughout the scene such as the buttons show that they are going to be an important aspect of the film.

• It contains titles, which is a general convention of opening sequences. 
• The treatment added the opening sequence during the post-production stage, is a green murky effect which adds to the coldness and slightly odd nature of the film.
• The mechanical hands shaping and creating the doll act as almost a god-like figure. 

Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-scene literally means to put in scene. It refers to whatever you can see in the shot. 

CLAMPS is an easy acronym to remember when talking about mise-en-scene. C stands for costume. L stands for lighting, A is for actors, M is for movement, P for props and S stands for settings. There is also sound and editing to consider plus camera movement and shots, but for now we in class are focusing on CLAMPS. These six things are important because it gives the film or television programme realism, making it easier to watch. It can also reveal things about the characters or give a representation of topics, such as gender.
For class we were told to find a clip from a T.V. drama and analyse it for CLAMPS. I chose a clip from Grey's Anatomy starring Ellen Pompeo and Katherine Heigl, among others.

 Here's it is -

Costume-  Meredith is wearing scrubs, which shows she's either a doctor or a nurse. Alex is in quite formal wear, suggesting maybe he was at a formal event. Izzie is wearing typical patient wear, showing she is ill, but the bandanna she's wearing suggests her hair has fallen out, which is usually associated with cancer. This can be seen in the screenshot below- 

Lighting- The lighting is very artificial, very much like the bright unnatural lights of a hospital, but it's also quite dark representing the sadness surrounding the death of George. 

Actors- Izzie is crying, showing that she was probably quite close to George. When Meredith tells the lady to go, it shows that the lady is probably not one of their friends or part of their social group, as they are not consoling her. Alex turns away in this clip, possibly representing something of his character, that maybe he runs away from situations.

Movement- The movement in this scene is quite slow, helping to show the emotion.

Props- The medical equipment helps give it authenticity. The wheelchair and the drip for Izzie, show again that she is ill. 

Setting- A hospital shown from medical equipment, and costumes such as props. 

Thanks for reading :)

Camera Movement

A couple of days ago, in class we looked at different type of camera movements. They range from the pan movement, which is where the camera moves horizontally from left to right, to the tilt movement, which is where you move the camera angle vertically. 

My Analysis

During this clip from Remember Me (2010) starring Robert Pattinson and Pierce Brosnan there are some different camera movements. The first is a pan right so the audience can see who is entering the door. The effect of sweeping the camera this way means that everybody's eyes are focused on Caroline (Ruby Jerins) entering the room, showing she is going to be a important part of the clip.
 At around 0.15 seconds the camera peds down. The pedestal shot is where the camera moves up or down vertically. The effect of this is that our eyes follow Tyler (Pattinson) down, so we can see how every other person in the class is starring as Caroline, telling us that an event has possibly happened between Caroline and the other girls.
At 0.45 seconds and onwards the camera crabs left to right following Tyler and his actions. This is effective as the audience really gets his swaying emotions as we are following him, also it makes it feel as though you are actually in the scene, as the eyes of one of the girls watching him.

Here's the clip-

For more information on camera movement, watch the clip below :)

Thanks for reading :)