All of
them have a set amount of time for each name to appear
They
all show their main genre within this opening sequence. For example,
Terminator 2 is most likely going to be action shown through the use of
explosives within the beginning scene, as well as all of the fire in the
opening sequence.
They
all have a rather slow editing pace, this may be so that the audience are
able to read the text that appears on screen. Guardians of the Galaxy's and Terminator 2's title appears on screen at around the same time in to the opening sequence, towards the beginning. The pace of the music used in Guardians of the Galaxy and Reservoir dogs is quite upbeat
Those
set amounts of time for improvident names to appear vary from opening
sequence to opening sequence (refer to timelines)
Different
genres for every movie
Different
sorts of font to suit the style and genre of the film, for example Guardians
of the Galaxy uses a futuristic font to represent the time period it is set
in Reservoir dogs' title appears on screen at around the middle of the opening sequence, in relation to "Guardians of the Galaxy" and Terminator 2, this is further in. The music used in Terminator 2 is slow and atmospheric, as opposed to the music used in both of the other films being more upbeat.
Analysing the differences and similarities in these three film openings will help me define what is and isn't needed when creating a good film opening sequence (these are all critically acclaimed films, hence why i chose them). choosing the main similarities between films will help me find what brings an audience to the film at the very beginning and keeps them hooked, and analysing the main differences that make each film stand out in their own unique way may be able to help me see what helps the opening sequence becomes unique, without straying to far from a "template" and trying to "reinvent the wheel".
- A trailer can usually be recognised with how it uses clips from the whole film, as well as cut sound from some scenes throughout the film to help summarise the plot within a small amount of time.
- A trailer (like Gravity, for example) would try to reveal as little as possible about the film, but still intrigue the viewers.
- May have the companies associated with the production of the film come up quickly at the start, and then straight in to film footage. It may also have the name of the directors and the main actor of the cast read out by a booming voice, and will show credits of the film in quick flashes at the end after revealing the title.
1. Do you believe your piece of film demonstrates continuity well? If so why?
I think our film is smooth and easy to follow as it is always obvious where the actor is heading towards, because of this we found it easier making our match on action in the first scene where the actor (Chris) is heading towards the door. As an example, this shot was easy to follow because it had the actor walking in a linear angle towards the door, both of which were visible in the shot
When Chris is nearly at the door the camera change angle. We had to think about this shot carefully however, because the first time we done it we could see the cameraman's reflections in the door window, so we re-shot the scene and edited it in. This is a perfect example of the videos continuity as even before explanation and maybe just from a screenshot anyone could tell that the singular person in the frame is headed towards the doors at the end
2. Have you demonstrated match on action, shot reverse shot and the 180 degree rule? If so, why are these editing techniques helpful? We demonstrated all of these camera angles and techniques in our project. The match on action was there for effect and to emphasise the continuity of our film. However, in terms of helpfulness the 180 degree rule and a shot reverse shot is extremely important to use during scenes that involve dialogue as it makes it easier to follow, which is nearly always top priority when producing a project. the example of this is at 1:00, where Chris says something, and then the camera cuts to another shot of the same room along the same 180 degree line, the actor says something back, and then back on the same 180 degree line, the camera cuts and reverts back to the original shot. Without this rule, the film would look weird in the sense that the scene wouldn't feel like it's shot in the same area, even though it was. This is an example of how both the shot reverse shot and 180 degree rule work in unison, and how we used it in our video.
3. How do you feel your group worked together?
The group as a whole worked perfectly in my opinion. as i have said before on the blog each person in the group had their individual roles so we all felt comfortable with what we were contributing. there were no disputes as to how the film should be shot because we had already thought of everything beforehand, Joe done the camerawork, i done the base script, some acting, storyboard, area scouting, sound effect creation and helped with a little bit of the camera placements, and Chris found us a willing person to act for our project, editing as well as most of the acting, so everyone played their parts towards the final video which i was happy with.
4. If you were to film this piece again, is there anything you could improve on?
Towards the end in, the viewer is able to hear Chris say something which obviously isn't supposed to be there, so i would re shoot that if we had time, but we only realised the error when we were finished uploading. another thing i would improve was the camera movement when Chris walks past it, it's slower than he walks, so i found that pretty disorientating. other than that i think the rest of the film and editing was fine. what we could have done though to improve on the whole "crime-drama" aesthetic of our video is wait for a rainy day to come, and film then as it would have more dramatic effect. unfortunately for us, we couldn't do this because no rain was due to come at the time of filming. 5. Did you plan your film well, or could you improve on planning? If so why?
Planning is possibly the most important part of the process of making a film, if you don't think of the time when all the people in your shot are going to be free, the scene wont be completed or even filmed. luckily for us we were able to come together an hour each day for two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) to get the filming done quickly. in these two hours we made sure we didn't go off task until we had fulfilled what we needed to do for the day, so getting the filming done was actually much easier than expected as it only took us two hours in total. As for the room placement, we had to improvise as the room that i originally wanted to film in had already been taken by another group, but luckily and unexpectedly we found a better room for our filming. I don't think we could have improved our planning in any other ways
6. Did you use transitions in your piece, if yes, where did you use them and why?
The only transition we used was a cut as it looks more professional than other transitions and can make the film easier to follow. Our film is not meant to be fast paced editing so we didn't really need to use any other camera transition techniques other than cuts.
7. Have you learnt anything about the editing software whilst doing this exercise?
Not really, but i did get a good look at it at one point and I've done some editing in the past. this is mainly because Chris edited all in one night so there wasn't really a need for any further research in to how the editing software is used.
8. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this film?
I've done some editing in the past, but I've never used a camera like the one we used whilst filming. i got used to it after having to set it up as after it was all set up i knew where everything was. i only filmed the first opening scene of the video then Joe took over. Now i know how a camera fixes to a tripod, how to get the better shots with a camera, and where to place a camera in terms of size (which is usually dependant on the size of the tripod
