Thursday, 27 April 2017
Wednesday, 26 April 2017
"The Godfather" Film Analysis by William Haines
Analysing the first 5 or so minutes of The Godfather (1972). The film starts off with a very slow opening title sequence. The first 20 seconds is dedicated to the Paramount logo. After that, it goes dark for an extended period of time, eventually soft music played on a brass instrument, possibly a trumpet or trombone. At around 48 seconds into the runtime of the movie, text appears saying "Paramount Pictures Presents" After it ends there is more darkness, than around about 57 seconds, the name of the movie 'The Godfather' accompanied by 'Maria Puzo' appears on the screen. Keep in mind that music still accompanies the title sequence. The text uses a fade transition, the text fades in and fades out away slowly.
The music, the slow pacing, long title sequence and long transitions join together to create a calm atmosphere.
Suddenly, a voice starts talking at around 1:17. It made me jump when I first heard it. Especially seeing as you don't know what to expect due to the long drawn out title sequence. Then about 2 seconds later. At around about 1:19. The man who is talking appears in the centre of the frame. He fades in slowly. Low key lighting lights up his face as well as High key lighting in some places. The light casts heavy and soft shadows. His eyes are in the shadow. The light has a warm feeling due to the orange-ish tint. His forehead is lit up with a fairly powerful light, while the lower portions of his face are dark. Perhaps his forehead is a defining feature of his character? Or perhaps the light is artificial and is concentrated downwards from an above light. It would make sense at to why the rest of the room is fairly dark.
The camera slowly moves away from the man, we can assume it was either a zoom or a literal pan. The man talks up until 2:49. At around 2:40 you can just about see a character to the left of the frame. The characters are talking over a table and the camera is placed behind the blurred out man, with this evidence we can assume it was definitely a zoom out and not a pan out. The new character is out of focus. A shallow depth of focus. At around 2:52 of the movie, a man hands the character that was talking a drink. He is off screen and only his arm his showed, which probably means that the third character is not important. At around about 3:46, the second characters name is revealed.
At around 4:05, a man comes in and whispers to Corleone. Then at 4:07 the face of the Mafia leader is shown. He doesn't seem very happy. This shots lasts until 4:17 before Corleone finally speaks again. Which leads to an awkward silence. For the rest of the 5th minute the film uses long shots, and for the last 30 seconds it only uses the same shot which is focused on Corleone. Like I said about the title sequence. The pacing is incredibly slow, shots last more than 10 seconds at least. Dialogue is slow, especially with the Mafia leader. Everything is calm, which is reinforced with the Mafia Leaders soft voice typical of a Mafia member.
Unlike our film, it doesn't contain any action at all, it is paced slowly and does not use jumpcuts.
The music, the slow pacing, long title sequence and long transitions join together to create a calm atmosphere.
Suddenly, a voice starts talking at around 1:17. It made me jump when I first heard it. Especially seeing as you don't know what to expect due to the long drawn out title sequence. Then about 2 seconds later. At around about 1:19. The man who is talking appears in the centre of the frame. He fades in slowly. Low key lighting lights up his face as well as High key lighting in some places. The light casts heavy and soft shadows. His eyes are in the shadow. The light has a warm feeling due to the orange-ish tint. His forehead is lit up with a fairly powerful light, while the lower portions of his face are dark. Perhaps his forehead is a defining feature of his character? Or perhaps the light is artificial and is concentrated downwards from an above light. It would make sense at to why the rest of the room is fairly dark.
At around 4:05, a man comes in and whispers to Corleone. Then at 4:07 the face of the Mafia leader is shown. He doesn't seem very happy. This shots lasts until 4:17 before Corleone finally speaks again. Which leads to an awkward silence. For the rest of the 5th minute the film uses long shots, and for the last 30 seconds it only uses the same shot which is focused on Corleone. Like I said about the title sequence. The pacing is incredibly slow, shots last more than 10 seconds at least. Dialogue is slow, especially with the Mafia leader. Everything is calm, which is reinforced with the Mafia Leaders soft voice typical of a Mafia member.
Unlike our film, it doesn't contain any action at all, it is paced slowly and does not use jumpcuts.
Post-production Questionnaire
Post-production Questionnaire
1.
What is your age?
12 – 14 [
] 15 – 17 [ ] 18 – 21 [ ] 21 – 49 [ ] 50+ [ ]
2.
Briefly describe what you thought of our film? (Storyline,
acting, editing etc.)
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
3.
Based on your previous thoughts on the film what would you change
if you could? (Leave blank if not applicable)
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
4.
Would you pay to watch the film either in a cinema, on a
disc, or online?
Yes [ ] No [
]
5.
What genre do you think would be appropriate for our film?
Action [ ] Adventure [
] Sci-fi [ ] Romance [ ] Comedy [ ] Other [ ]
If ‘Other’ please specify:
________________________
6.
Any further comments on any aspects of the film?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
Evaluation Question 7 by William Haines
At the start of the year we made a preliminary video to showcase our understanding of continuity and framing as well as simple techniques like shot-reverse-shot (S-R-S). I feel that we have learnt a lot from the preliminary, as well as developing those skills and learning new skills afterwards. Our film sequence contains multiple S-R-S's to show emotion and reactions while the characters talk. Continuity is kept in quite a few scenes, our film was completely smooth, but it was too long and certain scenes were slow and boring, and didn't feel very intense, so we felt losing continuity in certain scenes and between shots for jump cuts to speed up action was a good choice.
We feel that we have gotten better at the editing process, I feel that I have cemented a strong grasp and understanding of editing. I have also gained a strong understanding of visual and special effects, which is something I haven't done before so it was a sharp learning curve. We also feel that we have gotten better at framing shots correctly and making use of the locations and lighting available to us.
"Overall, we are very happy with the progress we have made, we feel that we have learnt a lot over the months."
Saturday, 15 April 2017
Evaluation Question 7 by Jamie Sykes
Evaluation Question 7 - Looking back at your
preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it
to the full product?
The preliminary exercise was an
initial test to ensure we could meet the basic skills needed to be a filmmaker.
Since the preliminary exercise, we have developed the techniques we use when
filming scenes. We have diversified the types of shots we use in filming and
attempt a multitude of more advanced techniques.
Our brief for the preliminary
exercise was a continuity task where a character would open a door (match on
action), walk across the room, sit opposite another character, and have a short
conversation (shot-reverse-shot) all while the camera maintains the 180-degree
rule.
As you can see from the photos
below we met all the criteria and passed the preliminary exercise:
Having passed the preliminary exercise, we began work on our coursework project; to create a two-minute film opening sequence including the opening titles. The main take-away from the preliminary exercise was the importance of continuity in films and we ensured it was maintained throughout our two-minute opening sequence. The preliminary was also important as it taught us how to operate the technology we would have to use to create our opening sequence.
I would say, comparing the two
side by side, we have vastly improved the quality of our work. We did not stay
within parameters and instead experimented with different shots, such as the
use of handheld shots and first person shots in our film. We have also learnt
new editing techniques that create smooth and dynamic transitions between shots
instead of the simple cuts used in the preliminary task:
Friday, 14 April 2017
Evaluation Question 6 by Daniel Robb
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
The key decisions we made about technology during the production processes were that Premiere Pro should be the primary editing software along with further adobe products for visual flair such as After Effects and Photoshop. Reasons for choosing these products involved the superior quality and greatly renowned reputation that embodies Adobe products in a creative atmosphere. During pre production our choices to use Microsoft PowerPoint and Word enabled us to tackle the stages of planning such as questionnaires and research into genres (displayed earlier in the blog) at an efficient level whilst retaining the element of professionalism. Furthermore, learning about using the blog as a potential portfolio of our product proved to be an enlightening experience and inviggorated the creative atmosphere for producing an improved final product.
Upon Production, we learned through repeated use about how to configure the appropriate settings for our DV cameras and utilising a tripod for mounting the camera proved to be a success when we managed to achieve our intended shots on location.
The post production process quickly became the source of deciding whether our film would be perceived to the high standards we set. Learning about how to use Premiere Pro for editing and After Effects for visual flair e.g the muzzle flares was a highly engaging subject. The transitions and cuts were produced in Premiere Pro which were mostly successful due to the smooth nature they regained however the challenging aspects of this software principally derived from attempting to exclude the background noise on certain shots and incorporate an effective zoom in shot upon the head explosion effect. Furthermore, After Effects was used in order to recreate the muzzle flares on the guns and conclude with an aesthetically pleasing title sequence. Unfortunately, the title sequence was produced in a minimal amount of time therefore unable to be finished with the addition of some of my personal favourite effects including optical flares and volumetric lighting. However, despite the exclusion of these, the title sequence proved to be effective in developing the theme of grandeur in our end product.
Overall, I've learnt how to edit and recreate a well refined film using the Adobe suite of products and various other tools for production practices reinforced by the DV camera and tripod- establishing a deeper sense of gratitude for film making and its intricacy's regarding technologies used to construct a final product.
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