Media Projects

Friday 22 June 2012

Editing

What is editing?
Editing is arranging, revising, and preparing a written, audio, or video material for final production, usually by a party (called an editor) other than the creator of the material. The objectives of editing include detection and removal of factual, grammatical, and typographical errors, clarification of obscure passages, elimination of parts not suitable for the targeted audience, and proper sequencing to achieve a smooth, unbroken flow of narrative.

What is Elliptical editing?
It is a shot transitions that omit parts of an event, causing an ellipsis in plot and story duration. There is a difference between the “natural” story time and narrative, plot or screen time. Essentially recording natural time would require filming every movement in real time. If a woman leaves her house after receiving a phone call. If this sequence was recorded in natural time it would require at least 30 minutes. This would include collecting her keys, her handbag, putting her shoes on, going to the toilet, walking to the door, opening it, locking it and walking to her destination. Instead of showing all this extended action in natural time the director can cut out all of the ‘unnecessary’ action and reduce 30 minutes into 1 minute. A simple cut, fade or dissolve [All indicating different amounts of time passes] can facilitate the movement in natural time. Instead of the long sequence we could be shown the end of the phone call, a cut to her placing her shoes on then a cut to her walking down a highstreet into a block of flats. Three simple cuts reduce the screen time but, one logically accepts, retains natural times’ affects on the temporal environment of the screen world and the characters’ involved- in essence if it was twelve at her leaving then it should be half twelve at her arrival at the flat. This simple and basic technique allows narratives to span large spatial and temporal distances without the need to follow dull action. This editing technique could transform a boring home movie of forty minutes length watching a whale performing tricks into a snappy interesting scene of a few minutes; the manipulation of time, through elliptical editing, is central to the movement of a narrative.

Why are long shots used?
Long shots are usually used to give audience idea of the settings or to show a full action of a body movement and its surroundings. For example, long shot could be used to show a deer in a huge field or a car crush scenario.

What is ‘non-diagetic sound’?
It is a sound, such as mood music or a narrator's commentary, represented as coming from a source outside the space of the narrative.
They are basically sounds that are added in the editing process.
It can be any noise which is not naturally in the clip. An example, is often, in most films, music is added for a certain effect, this music is non-diegetic sound.

How do we know she is bending down to pick up the ring? (what shots are used and why?)
Firstly, there is a close up shot upon her facial expression(looking down) which tells us that she sees something in the angle of down. Then there is another shot of a close up which reveals that the object she was looking at was ring.

Overhead establishing shot – what does this achieve?
The overhead establish shot will give an idea to audience of the surrounding around the character and also what it is that the character might be looking at. It helps to drag the audience into the story of the character.

What is Shot-Reverse-Shot?
It is two or more shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a conversation situation. In continuity editing, characters in one framing usually look left, in the other framing, right. Over-the-shoulder framings are common in shot/reverse-shot editing.

What is Eye-line matching?
It is the cut obeying the axis of action principle, in which the first shot shows a person looking off in one direction and the second shows a nearby space containing what he or she sees. If the person looks left, the following shot should imply that the looker is off-screen right.

Why do we cut to the other members of the group?
To simply show the reactions of the all characters included in the scene, their direction of looking and facial expressions which might lead to telling us their emotions.

What is a wipe?
A wipe is a transition from one shot to another, where a moving line or pattern reveals the new shot.

What is the effect of using quick cuts?
The impact of using the effect of quick cuts is that it often confuses the audience but can also in swift way show some details in scenario that there is no point in showing too long.

How can editing build tension and pace?
By cutting into different shots and going quite fast. The tension might be created by confusing the audience by cutting into scenes and shots extremely quickly just catching the action of the characters and their facial expressions.

What is crosscutting?
Cross-cutting is editing that alternates shots of two or more lines of action occurring in different places, usually simultaneously.

What are reaction shots?
Reaction shots usually concentrates on the facial expressions of characters which includes the close up shot to show their reactions and emotions.

What is seamless editing?
Seamless editing is where you seem to know what you are doing with your editing, but the more and more you get deeply involved with the project you get less aware of what is happening.

What is a jump cut?

An elliptical cut that appears to be an interruption of a single shot. Either the figures seem to change instantly against a constant background, or the background changes instantly while the figures remain constant.

What is a flash back and what does it achieve?

Flash back usually is a scene that is supposed to create the effect of ''looking back to the past''. To create this effect the scene is usually editing in more blurry or vintage effect to make it clear to the audience that it is separate scenario from the current scene.

What do Editors do?

Film Editors assemble footage of feature films, television shows, documentaries, and industrials into a seamless end product. They manipulate plot, score, sound, and graphics to refine the overall story into a continuous and enjoyable whole. On some films, the film Editor is chosen before cast members and script doctors; people in Hollywood recognize that the skills of a good film Editor can save a middling film. In the same way directors use certain actors they appreciate over and over again, they also use film Editors they know and are comfortable with. Just as directors do, film Editors spend a long time perfecting and honing their craft. Like most industries, the film industry has embraced new technology. Assistant Editors must now have strong computer skills to work in the industry. While some Editors stay removed from the project during the filming process so as not to steer the director away from his or her concept of the film, many of them do visit the director on set while production is underway. Nevertheless, the majority of a film Editor’s work is done alone. Despite that solitude, interpersonal skills are just as important as endurance is in an Editor’s career.

Tuesday 19 June 2012

Alfred Hitchcock

With his full name, Sir Alfred Hitchcock was born in 1899 in London, England. He was both film director and producer, mostly known for making 'Notorious' (1946), 'Rear Window' (1954) 'Psycho'(1960) or 'The Birds' (1963).

His directing and editing style is really tense, dark but also humorous which creates his own ''Hitchcock'' style. His technique became so famous and known that when somebody mentions ''Hitchcock'' style of directing everyone knows what style it is. Alfred Hitchcock knew people watched his films to get the thrill feeling, and he created the scary images very effectively and also with combining of sound(sound effects,music), which was always being complimented by the audience and creators of films. He always made sure each emotion was captured on camera, which helped to get the real feeling for the audience and helped in overall creation of scary or emotional scene. Also one of famous Hitchcock's film technique is the camera movement- the camera follows the same direction as from the actors view which helps to get the audience into the real feeling of what is happening in the movie.

The importance in the technique Alfred Hitchcock created is that it changed and altogether alternated all movies since other film-makers got inspired by his successful style of creating and editing films. With his really morbid scary and dark style but also really humorous he really changed movie industry by breaking the ''law'' of only one genre of movie by combining thriller with a bit of comedy and by adding amazing soundtracks he really created masterpiece.

One of the key films was 'The Birds'(1963). The editing in this movie was quite extraordinary for the early age of film making. Alfred Hitchcock’s films often use editing to make the audience feel what the character feels in certain moments. In this scene from “The Birds,” a man is found dead in his house with his eyes plucked out. Without the editing, the suspense, initial shock, and thoughts following this scene would not be the same. The audience is shown each new “discovery” in the house just as the woman (Ms. Brenner) sees them. Then once the man is finally completely revealed the camera cuts to zoom in closer to his face three times to emphasize that his eyes are gone. This is most likely the image that one would remember after finding someone in that state. Just as we discussed in class, traumatic occurrencs leave us with vivid horrible images rather than a distinct account of what we saw. This is accomplished with the editing techniques used in this scene. The camera cuts to reveal the images to the audience at the same time they are revealed to the character.

As mentioned above, Alfred Hitchcock influenced even today's film making industry. There is a number of directors and editors of the most famous recent movies that watched Hitchcock' s work from the beginning and got influenced. For example Martin Scorsese(Goodfellas), Mark Goldblatt(The Terminator) or Eli Roth (The Hostel).