Post 11: Media Language - Lighting 1 (Shape & Texture)

Lighting is a huge part within any production of a film. We learnt about Film Noir and that lighting is just one way in which we can create a style for our short film.

Film Noir

Film Noir is a cinematic term, a term that describes stylish Hollywood crime dramas in America in the early 1940s to the late 1950s. It can be associated with a low-key black and white visual style exploring themes such as fear, mistrust, paranoia and despair.
Examples of classic film noir features films are:
Double Indemnity (1944), the Maltese Falcon (1941) and Touch of Evil (1958).
 

Lighting can be used to create effects throughout a film, and this happened a lot in the film noir era. When using lighting in a black and white film the effects that it causes can be very important, along with the shadows it is creating. There are two different ways to describe shadows, they are cast and attached.

Cast shadows = when a person is partially illuminated due to an object in the way of the light source, for example a door casting a shadow on an intruder

Attached shadows = when an object or persons features result in partial illumination, for example when a person is wearing a hat that creates a shadow on their face

As mentioned before, lighting is one way we can create a style for our short film; it can help create effects on the characters that we want the audience to see. We watched the film Lolita which had a great use of using the lighting in order to create an effect on the main characters, as seen in the picture the character of Humbert has a much darker shade on him than the character of Lolita does. This could suggest that Lolita is more innocent and the victim, whereas Humbert could be quite mysterious, confined and secretive.

 

Other films that have used lighting in order to create effects can be seen below:

 Double Indemnity
In this photo there is a cast shadow on the man standing up, the noticeable lines across his body look to be coming from the blinds at the window. This can suggest that he is more important than the other character as the shadows of lines are enhancing his illumination that's grabbing the attention of the audience watching.
 Asphalt Jungle
In this photo the light source is obviously coming from the hanging light, this is creating some attached shadows on the men's faces, especially the man wearing the hat. This could highlight that he is a shifty character who is hiding something from the rest of the men sat around him. The darkness in this photo could also symbolise that these men are up to no good and possibly planning something dangerous or illegal.

Post 10: Script Feedback

The last step before the completion of our script was to get feedback from our target audience. This consisted of showing the script to people who would fit into our target audience and simply getting back their opinions and thoughts on the script itself. All of the feedback we received we discussed as a group to decide whether or not to make additional alterations.

Along with asking members of our target audience, we also managed to get some feedback from BBC script writer, Dudi Appleton.
Dudi Appleton IMDb  
INSERT FEEDBACK
His feedback was that generally the script we created was well written, however we just needed to work on the subtlety of the relationship between Alan and Sophie. Along with this he suggested that we try to change parts of the script in order to ensure the audience are always asking questions about what is going to happen next and where the storyline is heading.

Some feedback we received was positive, and some feedback gave us recommendations for alterations, for example our audience felt we needed to make sure the characters roles in the script matched their age and ability. This would mean going through the script again and making sure that all the dialogue and everything the actors do matches the characters they're playing. Another point in the feedback was the use of some of the words Alan used; the feedback suggested that the girls may not understand what he is saying. Therefore this was another part of the script we would need to alter.
Another piece of feedback we thoughts about a lot was that maybe one of the characters has to do something the audience are not going to expect. We thought about adding in something that would do this and we decided to go with Alan's voice over right at the very end of the film. We thought it would put a twist on the whole storyline that would leave the audience asking questions at the end of the film. 

We chose to act upon the majority of the feedback given as we felt this would lead to a stronger final piece. 

Post 9: Script Workshop 2

After a lot of discussion, removing parts, adding parts and changing parts of the script, my group and I have finally nearly finalised our script for our short feature film. But in order to get it to the near finished stage, we made a lot of changes from the very first draft we created. These changes will benefit the storyline and help in developing the characters and their relationships.

One main change we looked at was the use of language by the two young girls, Sophie and Paige. The dialogue they had in the script seemed too old and mature from how they would really speak to each other, therefore we had to change their dialogue in a lot of places. The reason for this change being that in a realistic conversation between the two young girls they wouldn't talk to each other the same way two adults would. By making the change, it will then become more believable to the target audience who'd watch the film.

Another point we decided to develop was that we wanted to get the point across that Alan is the sexual groomer, however we didn't want to give it away too easily therefore we had to be subtle with what Alan was doing. By being subtle we could give away sly hints about the relationship between Alan and Sophie, as seen in the picture below, making the audience want to think about what's going on rather than being too graphical and having a simple, short and possibly boring film.

Along with making Alan's character more subtle, we also wanted to add in the different stages of sexual grooming that groomers would do when targeting a victim. By doing this the audience will be able to witness the lengths sexual groomers go to in order to get their victims. For some of the audience it may also help if they have a similar situation going on in their own lives. In the script we wanted to get the point across that Alan believes he is innocent, and we managed to do this through the narrative both at the beginning and end of our film.

The script itself is now nearly completed the next stage for us is to get some audience feedback from our target audience and see if the script needs further improvement.

Post 8: Script Workshop 1

For this year's coursework in Media Studies, we are making a short feature film. We've decided to develop our AS opening sequence and follow on with the fictional storyline of sexual grooming. The reason for this being we feel as a group that our opening sequence was good and by exploring sexual grooming in a little more depth we'll be able to create a great short feature film.

The picture above shows several parts of the first script we drafted together, along with some annotations made in order to make it better. When we created the very first drafted script, we had made many mistakes and errors, which was inevitable.

However, we all sat around together and discussed where we want the storyline to go, what we want to happen and pretty much everything to do with what our film was going to be about. After we had discussed the basics, we decided to delegate parts of the script for each one of us to write. After writing it we would bring it all back together and discuss the good points, the bad points and anything that needed changing or adding. By delegating up the script, we were all able to contribute our different ideas.

A key point in the discussions was the characters; we needed to get the right aged characters in a situation that could be believable to our target audience. We decided on two school girls and one of these girls' dads, Sophie, Paige and Alan. We wanted to create questions in the audiences' minds to keep them guessing throughout the film about what may happen next and keep them engaged, making it less and less apparent that Alan is a groomer right up until the end.

Overall the process of getting our ideas together and creating the very first script, which can be a difficult thing to do, went well and we all showed just how well we worked in a team together.

Post 7: Researching Short Films and their use of Editing

I decided to do an analysis on a short film in order to analyse their use of editing. The main reason for this being that I can develop a better understanding of the use of editing techniques that other short film makers use.

The short film I decided to analyse was:
The View by Neil Neenan

The View is a short film about how different people may interpret a view and the different types of activities that can happen in a place such as the view that is used in the short film.

The use of editing in The View is quite interesting, as throughout the short film, hard cuts are frequently used as seen in the images below:

As the short film progresses, we as the audience, see people come and go one after the other to and from the view. The first people being an old couple, where the man asks the women to marry him, these people are then followed by a much younger couple who end up splitting up from each other. The younger man leaves his bottle on the floor which is then picked up by the next person who looks like a working, middle aged male. He then throws his phone as it rings possibly due to simply not wanting to answer it, the phone is then a part of the next persons experience when at the view point. He is a man who is obviously on his stag due, handcuffed to the bench trying to reach the phone when it rings. The final people to visit the view point are people who look to be mother and son simply sitting down and looking at the view.
All of these stories of different people are edited together by flowing one after the other, with possibly items that connect them such as the bottle or the phone. It's almost as though the realistic time period of these different people going to the view point throughout the days has been condensed down into a shorter period that continuously flows from one to the next.


I found this short film on the following website:
BBC Film Network

The link below goes directly to the short film, The View:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/films/p00kvk62

Post 6: Media Language - Editing

Editing is a huge part of media language, in fact editing is a huge part of anything to do with film making. It’s important that my group and I are able to edit to the best of our ability so that when the time comes to edit our film together we can do so with ease.

Editing is simply the process of going through captured footage and connecting it together in order to produce a scene that helps in creating a film.


Edwin Porter
Edwin Porter was an American born in 1870, and he was an early film pioneer. His most famous films were Life of an American Fireman and The Great Train Robbery, after his death he was remembered for being an important figure in motion picture history. In both of the films mentioned above Porter helped develop the concept of continuity editing. Continuity is continuous action shown in a sequence. The Great Train Robbery used editing techniques, techniques that had not been used before and therefore seen first in this film, such as parallel editing, jump/cross cuts and pan shots.

Montage

A montage is an editing technique that shows a series of short shots, they can be juxtaposed and used for condensing a time period into several shots that can relate and help to tell the story by conveying a lot of information in a relatively short period. A montage can also be defined as a series of seemingly unrelated shots that the audience must work to connect.

In our short film we aim to use a montage whilst Alan is watching the girls in their swimming gala. In this montage we hope to condense the information of some time that Alan and Sophie spent together, which can hopefully show the audience how close they are and possibly even how their relationship is developing. We can used more than one montage in our film, others possibly being scenes that help develop the relationship of Alan and Sophie a lot more, helping in highlighting just how close they are becoming.

Kuleshov Effect

The Kuleshov Effect is a film editing (montage) effect, first demonstrated in the 1910s and 1920s by Russian filmmaker Lev Kuleshov.

As shown in the picture above, the Kuleshov effect puts the picture of a man‘s face alongside various other pictures in order to create a mood and expression on the persons face, giving the audience an idea of what that person is feeling. Within our film we can use the Kuleshov effect to a certain extent when filming a montage for Alan in the swimming pool. His facial expression followed by different shots can help the audience in understanding how Alan is feeling and whether or not he is happy with the way Sophie and his relationship is progressing or not.

 

 

New French Wave

The New French Wave was a blanket term for a group of French film makers in the 1950s and 1960s, in other words it was an artistic movement in French cinemas by young vibrant film makers that abandoned traditional techniques. The new approach of the New French Wave meant that film makers could become more creative and flexible when producing films.

Some of the filming techniques within the new French Wave were natural lighting, the sharp contrast between black and white, alternative framing and the release of the camera from the tripod.

The YouTube link below leads to a pictoral video showing examples of some of the films released in the New French Wave period:

FRENCH NEW WAVE VIDEO