Brainstorms and Influences

Marnie

Having looked at many Alfred Hitchcock's films and his renowned method of producing, directing and editing, one film that particularly stood out and inspired us was Marnie - a 1964 psychological thriller. The film stars Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery.

The YouTube link below (watch from 02:00 - 02:30) shows a classic and effective opening scene of Marnie part:1 where the camera focuses on her bag whilst tracking her movement gradually and every know and again pausing as Marnie's figure goes further towards the platform. This use of camerawork reveals a character to the audience without actually showing themselves leaving it to the viewers imagination, it effortlessly becomes scary.




Psycho
Another film that inspired me was 'Psycho', 1960 American thriller/horror film directed by Hitchcock. The film features one of the most famous scenes in cinema history, the murder of Janet Leigh's character in the shower.

This scene runs for 3 minutes and has a staggering 50 cuts. Most of the shots are extreme close-ups, except for the medium shots in the shower directly before and directly after the murder. The mixture of shots with the short duration between each cuts makes the scene feel longer, more uncontrolled, erratic and illusory. I believe this clip is one on the most chilling and effective scenes of all time, due to the build up of suspense and compelling eerie music.

Preliminary Task

Editing Preliminary task

After finally filming our preliminary task at school, it was time for editing. In lesson we looked at the famous Alfred Hitchcock who was an English filmmaker and producer who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. I knew I would relate back to his works at some point during my thriller sequence as "his flair was for narrative, cruelly withholding crucial information (from his characters and from us) and engaging the emotions of the audience like no one else"

As all of the equipment was new to me I realised I would have to play around with it first, to fully understand all of the buttons and learn how to use and take advantage of all the cool effects- which i will hopefully use in my thriller. There were lots of different features within the 'Adobe Premier' programme as well as the 'Editing Keyboard', which we later used to our advantage as it proved to be a much quicker way of editing. Short-cuts such as the letter 'C' was to cut out a part of the film that we wanted.
Continuity editing was crucial in the preliminary task as it would help show the uninterrupted flow of action in a story. There is no attention brought to the fact that there's editing taking place. This gives the film a more realistic feel and makes it more believable. However when it came to the editing transitions, there were many to choose from, such as;
-straight cuts

-fade outs
-dip/to/black
-crop cut
-dissolves
-wipe cuts
-jump cuts
-reaction shots
-matched cuts
-motivated cuts
-cutaway shots

A technique that we used when filming the preliminary task was waiting five seconds before and after the action in each shot as it easily allowed us to cut each shot without removing any important action or dialogue. When filming the thriller, I will use this technique as it makes the editing process a lot easier.

Team Work & Filming

After learning how to use the camera and understanding my assignment, it was time to organise myself into a group and begin to set specific tasks for each person.
I was in a group with three other people, Talia, Yaakov & Zack. We decided as a group that Talia and I would film and Zack and Yaakov would act. We quickly then wrote up a script and once organised we began to film.

Problems;
We found that luck was not on our side when trying to get a reliable camera and blank tape that worked properly and had not been tampered with. After trying twice to film all our necessary shots and realising only afterwards that it had not actually been recording properly, we began to feel slightly frustrated with ourselves and the equipment. However, I learnt from this that when dealing with very technical equipment, it is very likely that something can go wrong. After all it was just a process of trial and error.

Camera work

Having only had experience using digital photo cameras, I was eager to get started and learn how to use a very technical digital video camcorder. My teacher gave us an instruction manual and once I read through it, I began to understand quite quickly how to use it as it wasnt as complicated I thought it would be.

There are many different formats which the camera must be set on in order to film in a certain way:

1. Firstly make sure you have inserted a power source. -Slide the 'EJECT' button across to release the cover -Load or unload the cassette -Press the 'PUSH' mark on the compartment until it clicks -Click the cover back into place.
   
2. I adjusted the 'white balance'. I found that we got better results by setting the white balance manually esspeacially in places lit by certain types of fluorescent or mercury vapour lights.
   
3. Optical zoom lense. The camera has two zoom controls from either the side grip or the camera handle. Turn the zoom control towards 'W' to zoom out to wide-angle, and turn towards 'T' to zoom in to telephoto.
4. Basic recording. -Simply turn to POWER dial -Press the start/stop button to begin recording -Press the start/stop button again to pause recording.
   
5. Using the STANDBY button. As long as the POWER dial is set to a recording program, you can use the STANDBY button to tirn the camera on & off. This makes it easy to save battery power, & prevents accidental operation of the start/stop button. -Press and hold the STANDBY button for a few moments to enter/leave stanby mode. When the camera enters standby mode, ENTERING POWER STANDBY is shown in the viewfinder.
   

Introduction to the 'Preliminary Task'

Today I set up my blog which will enable me to record and evaluate the progress of my work.

My first exercise is a continuity task which has to involve a number of different things;

• filming
• editing
• character opening a door
• crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character
• S/he then exchange couple of lines of dialogue

This task should demonstrate a variety of different shots;

1. Match on Action - cut from one shot to another view that matches the action and pace of the first shot. This creates an impression of continuity despite the fact that you might have filmed the shots weeks apart. If a character begins an action in the first shot and completes it in the next, a visual 'bridge' is created that acts to disguise the cut from on to the other.
   
2. Shot/Reverse shot - when two characters are in conversation, film one character looking off screen to where the other character is imagined to be, and vice-versa. Ensure that one character faces left and the other faces right., so you can edit between a character talking and a character listening.
   
   
3. 180-degree rule - when using a variety of shots for point of view and switching between the characters it is essential that all shots are filmed from the same side of the line. If you cross the line when filming, the characters will appear to exchange places and continuity will be lost