Gema's Film Blog: 2011

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Production Journal 5 - The Chase

The last part of producing our film was the editing part. The editing part was the most complicated part of the whole process, although I didn’t take such a huge part in it, I was in charge most of all of the sound rather than the effects and cutting scenes.

We had some trouble arranging the different scenes as we had to think in which order was the easier way that the audience understood what was going on in the film.

We also had some complications with choosing the songs as we had different moods along the film and we needed different types of music to represent these changes, and the different members of the team had different opinions and we had to choose songs which the whole group agreed with.

We like the final presentation of our film although we think we made a lot of mistakes but we are still learning and we are really excited for the next project.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

Production Journal 4 - The Chase

Today we did our final scene and we finally end shooting, we finished before we thought but we had to stay some days later at school to film. But we finished in the correct time so that we will also have enough time to edit and see if we are missing any important scene or if we have to reshoot anything which doesn’t links correctly with the chase.

My work as actress I think it was quite simple as most of the time I escaped from Deborah and I didn’t need to show much body language or facial expressions, so it was quite simple. By the other hand, the job of lighting and camera where much complex as we used different tones and types of light for the different scenarios we used, for example in the hallway we used a really strong white light as we had to emphasize the change of environment and the contrast from passing from the black room to this bright hallway, which result really good indeed. Also we used natural lighting such in the pool scenario and in the field, as they were outside settings it was difficult to try and put a type of lighting in such a wide area due that our equipment of lighting is for small areas.

The camera movements were not as complicated as we thought they were going to be, we used a tripod most of the time and when we filmed without one we always used a really steady point of view. We really had simple camera movements but the difficult part was practicing and noticing the correct movement for the scene and to try and think of the audience point of view so that the film catches their attention.

Next activity session we will start selecting all the videos we are going to use for each scene and then we will start editing and we also have to start thinking about the non diagetic and diagetic sounds we are going to use and make sure the timing follows the visual part as well. I think the editing will be the most challenging part of the whole project and probably the most interesting as it is the time when all the mistakes are fixed.

The mistake we made in the project was that Deborah´s uniform changes through the movie as one day she confused of uniform and we didn’t had time to shoot the scene in another day, we will try to make it the less noticeable possible but it will be very difficult as we can’t cut and shots because all of them are really important for the film.

Production Journal 3 - The Chase

Today we started filming the movie and it wasn't as difficult as we thought it would be. We started with the establishing shot and then with the first scene which me, as an actress though the acting part was really natural and it didn’t required much skills.

The challenge was the camera part as we have to use different camera angle and camera movements which we had never done before and we had to practice a lot to make sure the shots were perfect and that they followed our storyboard.

At the end of the activity we were really happy because we got better results than what we expected, we got really nice camera movements that would make the audience connect more with the plot and with what was happening and it approached to how they would look at it in real life, I believe.

We are properly following our plan and we think we will be able to do one or two scenes per activity session so we will finish in time, although the editing part will be a challenge because we will have to make sure the portals look really good and natural.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Production Journal 2 - The Chase Project

Today we had the formal interview. We presented our project and storyboard with all the camera angles, different rolls, and equipment to Mr Dunn, Mr Keller, and Sr Sandro Calderon. We still have to present them the schedule of our time plan of when and where are we going to film.

I think they liked our project as we had the storyboard done correctly showing everything we were required, although we still have to make the portals more marked and recognizable. But apart from that our project is OK.

After we were done with the interview we start to make the time schedule of when and where we were going to do each scene, this is very important because we need to be really organized in order to have the whole project done for the exact due date, already edited.

Next session we are planning to start, so we need all our costumes and equipment ready for next week.

Production Journal 1 - The Chase Project

In the first session of this project we had an introduction of what we were supposed to do, we saw different chases from other IB students to see the different portals they had and what is the idea of using this technique. After watching the different projects we had time to decide our groups and start planning our ideas, portals, and to start creating the storyboard as next session we have to present the storyboard as formal movie planners in a real case interview to Mr Dunn, Mr Keller and Sr. Sandro Calderon.

For the interview we need to have our storyboard planned including all the different camera angles, settings, number of scenes, and the list of what member of the group is doing what. We should also start to get our schedule done of what days we are going to film, where and what will we use.

We have decided that our director is going to be Oscar, I am going to be the actress being chased (victim), Deborah is going to be the actress chasing the victim, Cristina is going to be the blamed one of all the chase/problem, and finally Yoko is going to be the camera director with Cristina as an assistant as well.

Analysing the Hitchcock's Documentary.

Scene 1:

· First a woman turning around and screaming because she sees a dead body.

· Train in a railway coming out of a tunel. (footage of film of Hitchcock))

Scene 2:

· 2 women running in a beach watching something we don’t know and putting a frightening face. (footage of another film of Hitchcock)

o He make the audience feel what he wanted them to feel.

Scene 3:

· A scared woman in a train (footage in the train)

Scene 4:

· Still photo of Hitchcock

Scene 5:

· Archive footage of a particular area in London and in the time they are talking about to explain the historical footage.

Scene 6:

· Still photo

Scene 7:

· Still photo of somewhere in London where Hitchcock is from

Scene 8:

· still photo of his father

Scene 9:

· Another still photo of his father as well

Scene 10:

· Still photo of some children probably at the same time he was a child.

Scene 11:

· Archive footage showing how his work was

Scene 12:

· Sill photo of Hitchcock and the man is talking and then it changes to the man talking, they have blurred the photo.

Scene 13:

· Archive footage of a building, park and important places of London for Hitchock

Scene 14:

· Date and name shown in one of the footage of his first film (subtitles)

· As long as someone is talking you can have a long footage playing.

Scene 15:

· The cover of a film (3rd film maybe) blue tone.

· Always had crime and sex as a theme (subtitles).

· Then it goes sepia.

· When they talk about someone the photo of that person is shown.

· He always has the man in a run and a mistaken killer.

· Un-naturalistic makeup.

· Lots of shadows.

· Imaginative and inventive his techniques are.

· He appears in the first 10 minutes so the audience don’t spend the rest of the movie looking for him, and he appears in the background (signature)

Scene 16:

· Footage of one of his movie, many movies

Scene 17:

· Still photo with his wife, and then it shows another one of a similar flat where he lived the photo starts moving up.

Scene 18:

· Showing a film projector with a blue background (color established for the documentary)

Scene19:

· Lots of still photos

Scene 20:

· Blue background again

Scene 21:

· Locations stillphotosand then the credits of a movie which shoes us how they where in those days.

Scene 22:

· Footage of one of his films with sound included

Scene 23:

· Another introduction to one of the themes he had with a footage of his movies... the idea of strangers, people with different accents

· When you introduce a new reporter you have to put the names above.

· Another stylistic technique: we have points of views of characters

· Recreation show a cup of tea and then a wall with a cup falling and breaking

· Innocent people, a child and a dog killed.

· Always had typical Hitchcock hero, the innocent man

· Mystery and Sense of justice

· CONTROL

Film Authorship : the director as auteur

1. Watch this clip of a typical Hollywood director in action

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxA47OuE7i4

2. What does a film director do?

– what’s his or her role?

He is the decider of everything
Tells the actors what to do
He gives the shape to the film
Creates the sujet
He works directly with the cast.
He decides the genre

What does he NOT do?

He doesn’t writes doesn’t film or does the sound
He doesn’t makes the makeup

3. From what you’ve learned about the film-making process so far from class work and the practical activity -- What’s your view of the film-making process and the role of the director?

He is the most modern (up to date) worker in the process of the film maker but at the same time he is the more lazy of them all. He is the most sublime person as well. At the end the audience will identify and put all down to the intelligence and creativity of the director.

4. Read the quote by renowned American film critic Andrew Sarris on the screen:

5. What does this quote say about the role of the director? And what does it say about the industry in which he works?

6. So how important is the director and why? Let’s look at some examples:

(20-minute task) Split into groups of three to look at three of the directors we have looked at so far: Alfred Hitchcock (North by NorthWest, Psycho), Quentin Tarrantino (Pulp Fiction), Steven Spielberg (Jaws, Jurassic Park, ET)

Answer the following questions in your group:

Spingbelrg

What is distinctive about this director? – What raises him or her above the crowd?

Discuss in relation to:

Mise en scene and Mise-en-shot

Key structures of narrative (cause/effect logic, key narrative devices, ordering of events)

Narration (omniscient/restricted, voice-overs)

Themes (subject matter)

Dialogue

Sound (diagetic and non-diagetic)

Any other distinctive qualities in their films

What are your conclusions?

What makes this director special?

- He is known as the master of the sounds and effects. He is really interested in the unknown and his films are really uses emotions to get the audience really emotional usually sad emotions through the relationship connections he introduces in his movies.

How would you relate the role of the director to people working in other areas of the visual arts, literature or music?

He has to have the final decision and the final check of all of the areas. He has to decide and criticize his own decisions and has to make sure everything fixes and have different meanings to play with the audience minds. He also changes something of the script so that they fix in with the actors he has so that the audience can relate the different personalities, also he might change the language depending on the historical context he is doing the movie on. And in general all of the areas need to change depending on the genre the director decides to do. He main audience group is really big, he is very popular with the people

7. In Europe in the 1950s– some film critics came up with a word to describe this ‘special’-type of director:

They called him or her an (fill in the word here)

This is the title that some FRENCH film critics led by Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard in the 1950s started to use to label certain film directors including Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles (Citizen Kane).

It became known as “(fill in 2 words here)”.

Definition: (Auteur policy) assigns a director the title of artist rather than technician. Auteur critics study the (style) and (themes) of a director’s films and assign them status of artist or auteur – if they show (consistency) of style and theme.

Those who don’t show these qualities are called (metteurs-on-scenes) and are seen as technicians not artists.

8. What are auteur critics saying is the role of the auteur/director in a film?

What areas of the film-making process is he responsible for according to the auteur policy?

It is a very important person which is above of all the others. He is the final decision maker. They make the key choices they decide how everything (all the areas) are visualized in the film.

KEY QUOTE: “The auteur policy values the personality of a director precisely because of the barriers to its expression. It is as if a few brave spirits had managed to overcome the gravitational pull of the mass of movies.” (American Cinema)

Example of an auteur?

Andrew Sarris – American film critic. Responsible of bringing the idea of the auteur from

france

to EEUU

Genre Study

What is it?

Category
To study a film as a genre involves grouping together a large body of films according to characteristics that they all share
There are two different approaches to identify these characteristics, de descriptive approach (describing the attributes of the film, mood, setting, and theme and then you put all together into a genre), and the functional approach (what a film is design to do: define the function and purpose of the film).

Genre study vs. Auteursim:

Contrast between two approaches
Genre study is all about thinking the characteristics which make a particular film fit into a group as many other.
Auteursim is all about thinking what makes a particular film different from any other according to who directed it.

Why study films according to genre

Makes sense to films (breaks down different types of movies)
Compare particular characteristics of films
Helps us to trace and understand social development and how it has changed over years
Satisfaction of expectations as you already know what the theme of the movie will be depending on the particular genre it has.

Problems with the descriptive approach to genre study

Boundaries between film genres are fuzzy – some films are hard to categorize.
Overtime genres develop(change)
The function of the same film can often be read in different ways
Different interpretations
Who define the genres? Film critics, the film industry, or movie goers.

Criticism of genre study

Artificial and contrived

Examples of main genres:

Action
Adventure
Comedy
Crime and gangster
Drama
Epical
Fantasy
Horror
Musicals
Science fiction
Thrillers
War
Westerns

*There are also sub-genres which are inside a genre itself.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Key elements of documentary scripts - An introduction

Visual Elements Definition:

1. Montage

Process of combining a number of small shots and weaving them together to communicate a large amount of information QUICKLY
Can portray the past life of individual character of film, covering childhood, adolescence young adulthood and middle age in a matter of seconds.

2. Talking heads

Common feature of documentaries.
Either interviews of people on camera or people talking directly to the audience on camera or both
Documentary is non fiction, so the idea of people talking to camera, or a filmmaker behind the cameras is acceptable
Talking heads usually expert, etc.

3. Colour Symbolism

Language of colour, a nice touch of colour is used to represent an emotion, is also a linking element, a theme, or a mood.
You can manipulate you audience with colours, but you cant overuse de colours because it might distract the audience.
Colour symbolism

4. Textures

Giving old footage a grey colour, if it is old so the audience understands the difference of time.

5. Lines

They add another dimension.
Emphasises the character’s importance, or are used to make a point.
Some columns bathed in dark lighting so that only the layers are shown implies and dark or negative power
To demonstrate different social classes

Sound Elements Definition:

1. Narrative commentary / Voice over

The narrator telling the story, the voice of the authority
Narration is sound-track commentary that accompanies a visual image
It is better to have just one narrator; many narrators might get the audience confused.

2. Talking heads

Speech element of talking heads, of interviews, is important element of soundtrack
Effective way to communicate information
In some documentaries, filmmakers discard narration in favour of talking heads for more credibility.

3. Music

Enhances moments and create moods and cultural flavour in documentary.
Background music appeals on emotional level with audience and increases level of empathy with events on screen
Used to establish geographical location and introduce the concept

4. Ambiance sound

Traditionally refered to as “noise”
Now a days you notice it enourmously, it has a high importance in the texture and dimensions created through out the film
However, as sound is technology developed, its importance has grown.
Essential to the creation of a location atmosphere.

5. Sound effects

Any sound that is not speech, music or ambiance.
Is injected to the soundtrack
Can be natural sounds or distorted sound of microphone feedback
It might be used to create ambiance

6. Silence

Used for the audience to have a moment of reflection, concentrate
Creates tension, or emphasises something important
It is important because maybe in a part of the film the audience get tired of the music and a silence moment will relax the and make the concentrate really clearly in what is happening.
If it is too long there is a risk of loosing attention from the audience.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Narrative techniques

Technique	Description	Effect	Example from a film
1. Exposition	Fills in the back of the characters and their situations	Shows interest in the characters and want to see what happens next	At the beginning when it is shown when Andy’s mother is watching all the films she has about how has Andy grown and it shows him playing with all his toys.
2. Dangling cause	Information or actions that leads to no effect of resolution until much later in the film	- You can retain your interest so you watch the film until the end - Allows the story to be told in different levels	Potato’s head eye. As he misses one of his eyes and afterwards with it they discover that in reality Andy’s intention wasn’t to throw them away.
3. Obstacle	Stands in the way of the characters reaching their goal	- Makes it more interesting/dramatic - With no obstacle nothing interest will happen / leave social norms	Lotso he was a bear which was the leader of all the toys in the kindergarten.
4. Deadline	A time limit placed on a protagonist to accomplish a goal	- Increases tension - Makes film more goal orientated	The day in which Andy goes to college.
5. Dialogue hook	Creates a link between two consecutive scenes	- Allows the scenes to have a continuity - To have sense between scenes	Andy’s mother’s car going to the kindergarten from her house, and the hook is her car arriving to the kindergarten.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Festival de cannels

About the festival:

• Founded in 1946

• Takes place around 11 to 22 May each year.

• It greet artists and professionals from around the world

• The enthusiasm of the press at the announcement of the selection on April 14th, the arrival of the greatest filmmakers, actors and other film artists, the massive return of professionals, film-buffs, and a vibrant Film Market

• The president is Jacob Gilles

• The first edition of the Festival was originally set to be held in Cannes in 1939 under the presidency of Louis Lumière. However, it was not until over a year after the war ended that it finally took place, on 20 September 1946.

• It rapidly gained international reputation

• Awarded for the first time in 1955 to the film Marty directed by Delbert Mann , it was awarded to the best film In Competition until then

• Producers are the ones who have a higher number of attendance

• Before 1972, the films that competed in the selection were chosen by their country of origin. From 1972 onwards, however, the Festival asserted its independence by choosing the films that would feature in the Official Selection for itself.

• In 1932 was the first competitive international film festival in Venice

• Sell films on basis or their artistic qualities, to represent each country and to show different traditions or different point of views the different countries have.

How many films are in the competition: