Second Analysis By Ross Ewing

I’m looking at the film “The usual suspects” were, lighting and camera work and sound are used as a combination to put the audience in a mystified state
We start of with the first shot, a fade in from black and then strait to action with the dramatic light of the close up matches, to reflect the opening sequence that it’s going to get, right into dramatic action, which it does. Were then introduced to the first figure of the film how is alone and surrounded by darkness and fire, his expressions show that his rather resentful and down.
Were then presented with un-restricted narration, we see a barrel leaking liquid after seeing a lighted match and cigarette were lead down a path were we expect some form of fire of explosion, then we begin a sequence of shots were again we are lead to the next dramatic shot, so all the time we are being lead form scene to scene but in this case by the fire, and then a tilt to follow the falling water were we find the next character. Then a cut to the first character were his movement depicts a tension between the characters, we then follow the second character down the stairs with another tilt down were we see his feet central with really sharp tinny sound of the foot steps to build up the tension of when the two characters will meet ?. The second character is still set out of shot, so that the misery still lingers over his identity. Once again at this point we are shown un-restricted narration were we are shown the weapon and the character and we expect what coming. Then the gun is raised with a point of view were the gun is aimed at the camera, and then we get long establishing shots of the location, to show the echo and the emptiness of the area. We then are again shown the barrel of flammable liquid, so we can tell what’s coming.
So as an audience we are constantly in control and understand and can predict what is going to happen.
Sound is very clean and crisp you can hear the match sparks the water dripping the footsteps, it’s all very menacing. The sound is also covered by the music that is violence the pace changes as the mood that is felt by the audience. As the second character walks down and we here the mystifying tone of the soundtrack as the identity of the character is masked by the dark the silhouettes him. We also hear the dialogue between the two characters the tone is the low and the conversation is short this would reflect on the personality and how we feel towards them from the camera work and sound that is presented with the mystifying second character we as the audience are supposed to feel badly towards him, he remains in the dark and the music suggests the dramatic feeling towards him. Where as the first character we are presented with we feel differently towards, the sound doesn’t start with him so we are left with the parallel sound which is actually there or what the audience is supposed to think that’s there. This makes us feel neutral towards him we are left with no sound to guide us towards our feelings of him. Although the reckless action he undergoes makes us feel rather sourly to him.
So to conclude throughout this film we are lead to each scene by the camera work to gain certain feelings towards each character, the lighting and sound just help towards our own conclusion of our feeling to the film and people in it.
by Ross Ewing

Music BRAINSTORM!!!

today jack and I are mind mapping ideas for the soundtrack!
the ideas are attached in our pictures!!!!!
Jack is taking our piece to a meeting with sound editor Rory Muldoon where they will try out a few ideas and pieces and manipulate these to fit them to our footage.
Hollie and Jack
xx

Soundtrack

for the soundtrack to our piece we are hoping to once again use a friends band who will let us use a sample of their music... as before we used jack's friends band Ollypollypuddingandpie we are hoping that they may be able to help us as they mentioned when doing the music for our preliminary exercise that they would be happy to help out in the final piece.
Hollie x

update 24th of march

in today's lesson we searched for the font we wish to use for our opening credits and then made a small .gif we can upload to give a stop motion feel to our credits,

-jack storer

foley sounds

this lesson we have started putting the foley sounds we recorded onto our film. we also are using some sounds from the college software 'garage band' although we are trying to use this as little as possible to make our thriller opening our own.

-jack storer and arran

Feedback from Andrew

I have made these points elsewhere, however, this will allow you to all see them.

You have a good product. The only improvements would be to have a greater variety of shots in the long walks. They are very long and could benefit from more varierty of perspective - 3 shots rather than one. YThis also applies to where he takwews down the poster and when he is walking to the property.

Train - see if you can get the train to stop centre frame - speak to Andy.

In some ways you are a bit guilty of having raced ahead and "finished" when there were/are still improvements that you could make.

Have you recorded your sound and edited this now?

I am just a little concerned that you are spending alot of time "on line" when you could still be improoving your product.

rough cut

today Arron and Ross put our raw footage together to create a very basic version of our final video and then compressed it to a small .mov file and published it to you tube and then embedded it to our blog, SO IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEE THE BEGINNING OF OUR FILM THEN HEAD ON TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE AND CLICK PLAY !!
from Ross and Arron :D

touching up the colour?

we produced two versions of our film to create one rough cut that showed the natural colour we get when we filmed and another rough cut where we tampered with the colour to creat a darker image, we then got a group of 8 people to watch each version of our rough cuts.

7 of the people said that the edited colour gave a better atmosphere. aswell as a couple of students mentiuoning that the edited colour helped ourwork step away from the normal 'this is a college film' style peice.

1 of the candidates said that the colour was too dark in places.....

we as a group have decided that this landslide of result suggest we should use the edited colour although we will have to go through and edit each shot separately to give a more fluid feel and carry along the narrative as well as continuity.

we will perfect this edit and then carry the same test out with another group of people

-Jack Arran and Hollie

Foley sound recording

today during our lunch and media period our group went on a Foley hunt for the important sounds that were required for our thriller sequence, we managed to get many station sounds and of the trains were as the others were harder to obtain we got the gate sound, but we had to repeat and repeat so that we had a sufficient amount to choose from if one didn't sound quite right. we also got (footsteps, rustling and doors closing) at this point we are converting them and then will sift through the audio to get the required sounds that we wanted. our whole group attended this and we all tried our hand at recording and we all enjoyed our searching time :D
Ross

Foley/ sound effects

Today over the lunch hour and during our media lesson time... our group are going off site to get Foley sounds for our opening sequence
yay us!
Hollie x
Ross
Arran
Jack

Titles

we have decided to call our film MISSING as it is simple and gets to the point of the film.
we have decided that our main title, the name of the film, will be separate on a black screen as will the names of the two main actors... they will flicker up in a distorted font to create the feeling of enigma.
The rest of the titles, such as the name of the producers ect will be incorporated into the film and will in a more normal font so that it is easy to read on the textured backgrounds.
HollieX

PS Ross is planning to make us an animation for the title sequence, where it will look as though some one has scribbled out the screen to black.... we think this will work quite well if we can pull it off as it will give an eerie atmosphere and create enigma in the minds of the viewers!!!

Foley and editing

This week, 9th - 13th of March our class time has been given over to us to edit our footage, I have currently booked our computer for all of our lessons this week, however,we are planning on using one of our editing lessons to collect Foley sound effect for our editing process. for example, we need to collect the sounds of a train passing by, a train door opening, footsteps on tarmac ground and some one climbing over a metal gate. we can produce all of these sound effects relativity easily in the surrounding areas of the college and we think it will be a very effective way of making the sound of the sequence more realistic.
Hollie X
Arran
Ross
Jack

Rushes

On Friday the 6th of March we handed in our rushes to Andrew Mann. Although, we still have roughly two more shots to do as they did not work on the day of shooting due to the weather, we are confident that we have sufficient footage to be evaluated and are currently awaiting feedback on our shots and overall progress.
Hollie
X

The Orphanage Credits!

The Orphanage credits,
The title sequence of the film is set in its own mini narrative. it is separate from the rest of the film, however, it's imagery and theme is significant to the rest of the movie and this create enigma within the audience as they wonder as to why these images are important for the later story.
The title sequence shows deep cracks in a wall. The camera's movement appears to fly through the cracks while twisting and turning. This gives quite a fast paced and dizzying effect to the sequence and creates suspense as the viewer is hurtled over the decaying wall. The cracking of the wall may also be significant as it may suggest the decay of a relationship or life style of the children who are involved. The cracks could also suggest the foiling of a plan as perhaps there is something wrong with it. The lighting and dark colouring of this shot suggest that some thing sinister has happened to the children. The cracks may have something to do with the common phrase ‘the cracks are beginning to show’ which again suggests the truth about something will appear as perhaps a plan will fall apart.
The next shot is the shadow of two children’s hands reaching out across the decaying walls. As there are two hands, the viewer can tell that there is more than one child involved; the shadows create an eerie feeling in the viewer as the shadows may suggest that the children are forgotten and left alone in the dark for long periods of time. The hands are reaching out to each other in the shot but can never touch each other. This suggests that some thing is holding them back and keeping them in a place they do not like and also suggest that the children may suffer some type of abuse and isolation.
There are also lots of shots of children’s hands pealing back layers of wall paper to reveal the titles. This may represent the pealing back of layers to uncover hidden secrets. The style of the wall paper is also very interesting as it is a very old vintage style that it not very child friendly. This may suggest that wherever the children are they are not looked after appropriately or perhaps the person they are with does not like children or know how to care for them.
The colour of the wall paper is a black and white design on top, however, as the children’s hands rip it away it uncovers a red coloured wallpaper of the same design underneath this may suggest a change in time or perhaps an ‘old to new’ style which may suggest that the children’s life has changed dramatically. The change in colour from a dark to light could suggest that the children are ripping down the dark wall paper as it represents a dark and unhappy time in their lives and they may be ripping it down as they are trying to get back to a happier time in their lives, which is represented by the lighter colour of the wall paper underneath.
In conclusion, I think this style of opening credit is really effective. Many films use the separate form of titling in a mini narrative and this one works very effectively as it raises so many questions in the minds of the viewer. It reveals subtle information about the main themes of the film which can only be confirmed by watching the entire film. It creates suspense and enigma as the viewer is unsure what will happen to the children and what situation they are in.

I think this form of titles are really effective, I have been researching mini narrative titles and my favourite is still the opening to ‘The silence of the lambs’ (which you can watch on our blog) I like this because it is so effective at raising questions in the viewers as well as revealing snippets of information about the film. I like the fact that the mini narratives are often distorted slightly to create enigma in the viewer, like in the titles of the film ‘Old Boy’ the distorted clocks in the opening create questions as to what is happening and also conceal vital information about the film which can only be found out by watching the entire film.

I would love to be able to do something like this in our opening credits; however, I am unsure whether I would be able to recreate something as professional in the amount of time given. Our opening sequence can only be two minutes long and so we would not be able to establish the story and create a mini narrative in the amount of time we have been given. So we will have to rethink this idea!!!
Hollie
XXXXXXXXXXXX

Roles...

instead of handing out roles for each of us to carry out we have collectively helped in every aspect of the planning , filming and editing process
we have done this so that every one has a fair chance at getting to experience all the different jobs involved with film making and although Jack has been the actor throughout most of our filming the rest of us have all done aspects of lighting, camera operating, directing ect
we think this has worked well as it stops anyone feeling as though they have the worst job or the most difficult
Hollie
xxx

The Orphanage credits,
the credits start with the incessant antics, of young children playing in the garden, which follows onto a scarecrow, which seems like it could be significant later on in the movie. we then follow to a contrasting scene were the lighting is dark and Erie which could represent a dark deed, reelecting on the phone call, from this we are now presented with the "OPENING CREDITS" , we are shown deep cracks were the camera fly's into the cracks in the fall and then show small children's hands reflecting the film (there's more than one child), which are pealing back the layers maybe uncovering secrets hidden beneath the layers and the crack representing the saying "the cracks are starting to show" so the film could be about uncovering hidden secrets and the cracks showing as the film goes on. the reference of the wallpaper style makes a statement of an old with a distinct pattern. the colors go from black and white to a redish color showing a shift of time from old to new, .......
plus i think the way the wallpaper is pealed back to show the credits is really cool :D
peace out Ross .......

Thursday the 5th
our group have come together to edited and evaluated and work on building on our editing so wile Jack, Hollie, and Arran edited i have been blogging and evaluating what our blog needs and is missing....
for now we need to do...
group roles ? .....
film credits ? ........ The Orphanage, or Vertigo
so lets work on that guys
peace out Ross .....................

starting to edit

Tuesday the 3rd i began to pice together the footage the Arron and Jack had previously put onto MAC3, the clips i transferred to final cut pro to try and put a more technical advantage to our disposable so wile editing cropping and cutting, i began to learn to use the new software, which now i feel comfortable using now, with the first set of filming i placed in the correct order, and length. we now need to evaluate whats there and work on that and put onto the pc what was filmed yesterday and begin the second phase of editing, :D yay the end is beginning to become visible.
From Ross.........

Filming Take 2

today we did some more of our filming for our final piece
Arran, Jack and I went to Balcombe station where we were allowed to film. we still have not heard back from Haywards heath or Wiversfield station and assume that they will not allow us to film there.
Balcombe station worked really well as it was small and deserted which is just what we needed.
However, we did encounter some problems with our piece, such as it started to hail quite badly during filming so we had to stop for a length of time... also our tracking shots are going to have to be re-thought as the ground was so bumpy that the shots have not turned out well at all.
It was a good day of filming though and we now only need to do a few more shots of the shack to complete our rushes and to start the editing process.
From
Hollie x
Arran
Jack