Deep and Shallow Focus

Deep and Shallow Focus are part of the composition of a shot. They both are used to create different effects in a film.

Deep focus is where the whole image is in focus -

Here is a example taken from the film 500 Days of

Summer, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Here all of the shot is in focus.

However Shallow focus is the opposite. One object or part of the shot will be in focus whilst the other is not. Typically its used to emphasise one part of the image over the other. Below again is an example from 500

Days of Summer. It shows Summer (Deschanel) in focus, whilst Tom (Gordon-Levitt) and the background are out of focus to emphasised Summer and her actions.

 

I wanted to look at deep and shallow focus because I was thinking about how we might be able to use them in our opening sequence, perhaps to emphasize important parts of the scene.

Todays Minutes

In our lesson today we made some critical decisions about our Main Task, before we start filming tomorrow. Some things we have decided to add in include :

1. A ticking clock. We had the idea of using a music box to provide the source of our sound, but before that we are thinking of adding a ticking clock sound, and with every other tick the shot changes to different locations in the room, preferably more creepy things, such as china dolls. After the music starts were going to make our movement more move and flowing so that it creates the sense that the monster is dancing to the music.  
2. We have decided what to film for the nightmare. We will have our actor (Katie) in a dark room alone with several whispers surrounding her.
3. We had a discussion about titles. In a previous blog I talked about the importance of titles and how they can add or detract from an opening sequence. Today we finalised what our titles would be and the order in which they appear.

Minutes from our previous meeting can be seen on Joel's blog - http://joelurner.blogspot.co.uk/

 

We looked at some other students AS Main Task Opening Sequences and noticed how titles were incorporated into theirs. A good example of how titles are used was in this opening sequence called Inner Evil-    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLsiGGF9DPc

I particularly liked how the titles faded in and out, as I felt it fitted well the genre of this piece -

 

I liked how they were simple so that they did not detract from the piece. For our scene we don't want to use white as the colour for our titles as we feel it would stand out too much against our dark setting.

Scenes to Inspire

 In class we were told to choose a clip that showed what we loved about film. For my clip I chose the film Now You See Me (2013) directed by Louis Leterrier. Below is the clip-

I chose this because it has what I love about film. Not only was this film visually spectacular, it also made me think. It made me question what was going. This is what I love about film: It's ability to make you capture your emotions. It's the same reason I like to read; the ability to take you on a journey, whether visual or in your mind. It can make you forget what's going on and just focus on the magic of film. 

In particular, with this scene, I like the on-screen tension with the actors. They really become their actors, which I find makes a film. It's the same with Heath Ledger and Christian Bale in The Dark Knight. Both actors bounce-off each other creating movie scenes that you will remember.  

 

Things that I can apply to our own opening sequence are very clean cuts and shot transitions. This makes the action run more smoothly and therefore is easier to watch.

Practicing Camera Work

Quite a while ago we had a task to re-create a film clip, focusing of getting the right camera shots and movement. Our group decided to re-create the ending clip from Insidious. Here's the clip-

 

We created storyboards for this scene-

 In my next post I will upload our version of the clip :)

 



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.  

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. 

Storyboarding

Storyboarding a scene is where you create a series of rough sketches outlining the scene you want to create. They should include some basic information, such as what type of shot you want to shoot, for example a long shot or a close up, but also the duration of the shot, so you know how long to shoot the scene for. 

Storyboarding is an essential part of the pre-production planning as you can refer to it when you're out filming your scene,saving time, but also making filming much easier as you have a visual representation of the shot you want to create. 

Here's an example of a simple storyboard template-

Sound

Sound is very important in film and TV programmes. It is 50% of your film experience.

Diegetic Sound is sound whose source is visible on the screen, such as dialogue, whereas Non-Diegetic Sound is sound that comes from nothing within the field of vision and has been added on afterwards.

Other sound definitions include-

Sound Motif- A sound associated with a character or with a place, e.g humming of machinery associated with a factory. A character may have a particular musical figure that plays when they appear.

Direct Address- This is when a narrator or character speaks directly to the audience, not to characters within the scene.  This technique means the characters interacts with their audience. 

Here's an example of this taken from the popular TV show Miranda, starring Miranda Hart-

 Here Miranda directly speaks to the camera and also turns to looks at the camera, making it more comical.

Score- This is music composed, arranged and played specifically for the production.

Incidental Music- This is non-diegetic music that accompanies events or changes of scenes.

Themes- This is music that always accompanies a particular programme or even a particular character and suits its mood. 

Voice-over- This is where a voice from the outside the scene gives the audience information. Often the voice tells us the story and may be a character within the story. In TV programme Desperate Housewives, a character is the narrator even though she is not alive. 

Sound Bridge- This is where the sound, either non-diegetic or diegetic, continues across one or more transitions or cuts. 

Thanks for reading :)

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 :)

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds applies to the composition of a shot. The frame is split into 9 equal sections.

Like this -

This acts as a reference point which then acts as a guide for framing the shot. 

Points of interest should occur 1/3 or 2/3 of the way up or across the frame, not directly in the centre. This is because the eye does not automatically go to the centre of the screen, so if something is in the centre it makes it look strange to the audience.

Here's an example-

This is taken from The Vow (2012) starring Rachel McAdams (above) and Channing Tatum. In this shot we can see how the rule of thirds is used as she is not directly in the centre, making the shot feel more natural.

180 Degree Rule

The 180 Degree Rule is where the camera remains on one side of an imaginary line that divides the characters. If the camera crosses the line it can become confusing for the audience as it makes it look as though the characters are swapping places. If the camera does cross the imaginary line it will be for a specific purpose. 

This image gives a good representation of the 180 degree rule.  

The basic idea is that the camera should always film on one side of the line of vision so that the two characters are always on the same side of the frame, making the scene continuous. 

It is often used in car chase scenes. If the car leaves on the right side of the frame, in the next shot it should be on the left side. This all adds to the continuity of the scene.