Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on the 13th August 1899 and departed on 29th April 1980. He was an English film director.He was born in Leytonstone,London. He was very focused on psychological thrillers such as Psycho.
Hitchcock is successful due to the way he focuses and puts his attention on every single detail. Even if he did not write the screenplay he still particpated and was fully involved with giving visual feedback and preferances.
North By Northwest
The Birds
Both movie trailers portray the idea of Alfred Hitchcock being the "Master of Suspense" this was known as his trademark. No one else could be as experienced as Hitchcock when capturing the suspense of various settings. The use of shots and the way the shots are combined to compliment each other is truly remarkable. The use of flashing shots and fading suggests a very eerie atmosphere. The continuity of various shots are incredibly clean and fluent.
Both films are successful as they have there own particular story line and Hitchcocks uses shots which compliment the storyline successfully. Below are some memorable moments and successful shots in the film The Birds.
the birds
The last scene of The Birds is the most thrilling scene as this really helps the audience understand the meaning and importance of the birds.
Sunday 31 October 2010
Friday 29 October 2010
Juno
Below is a re-creation of the film opening of Juno.
Rough Cut
As you can see in this footage that there are several errors. One thing that is very noticable is the way that the music carries on playing whilst the footage is finished, when doing my final cut I will focus on muting the audio so that it looks like a cleaner oiece of footage.
Another error which I have noticed is that you can here the director shouting the word action while footage is taking place. In the final cut I will be sure to fade this out to create a cleaner cut.
The good thing about this cut is that it uses most of the shots used in the actual footage such as low angle shots, Point of view shot, tracking etc.
One error that automatically caught m eye was the fact that the character was laughing whilst doing one of the shots, in the future I will be sure to retake the scene until we get it correct. For the final cut, I will consider cartoonising the entire footage to hide this.
In the final cut I will add the titles which are shown in the film.
Final Cut
Monday 18 October 2010
Preliminary Exercise
The purpose of the Preliminary Exercise was to demonstrate continuity by filming and editing a character opening a door. We had to illustrate the shots and techniques that we had learnt in lesson time, such as the 180 degree rule and the shot reverse shot.
Our group came up with the idea for the script by simply listing all ideas and concepts that were suggested by my group. We decided to create a very straight forward dialogue of an eerie masculin voice calling out the characters name continously. We decided how we were going to structure our order of shots as well as where we were going to shoot and how. We allocated roles to everyone in out group so that everyone had a job to do.
I believe that our planning and storyboarding was not very organised as we did not fill our shot lists out in a correct fashion which meant when we came to post-production we were quite unorganised. I believe if we had created a clear shot schedule then our planning would have been more efficient and organised.
Below is our shot list:
Shot 1) Establishing shot of Omar opening the door and walking into the shot.(eye-level)
Shot 2) A Long shot of Omar walking towards the camera.(eye-level)
Shot 3) High angle long shot
Shot 4) Low angle establishing shot as Omar walks into the shot.
Shot 5) Mid shot of Omar attempting to open the door from outside the room.
Shot 6) Mid shot as the door opens from inside the room.
Shot 7) Close-up, Reaction shot of the expression on Omars face.
As our planning was not as efficient as we expected, we had some difficulties when shooting as we were unsure what order to shoot in which made it difficult to keep a clean and organised shoot. This delayed our shoot for 15 minutes, other than that the shoot was quite efficient.
Screen Grabs Demonstrating the Techniques Shown in the Brief
Wednesday 13 October 2010
Subgenre Exercise
Man on the Run
The "man on the run" is a subgenre of a thriller, where a character ussually male, finds themselves hounded by a deadly enemy or the federal agents for most of the film. The character has to escape from his enemy in a cunning and creative method before eventually confronting the rival.
Examples
My Plot of a Man on the Run:
We were asked to create our own plot of a man on the run sub-genre, it was based on a spoof.
A 21-23 year old man is illustrated as walking down a long, darkened alley way in a rush. He is presented in a dark pair of jeans, a grey shirt and a pinstripe blazer; he has a large holdall thrown over his left shoulder. He is in trouble as a rival has kidnapped his girlfriend and the only way he can pay ransom is to rob a bank. As he approaches from behind the alley way, he begins to pick up his pace and is seen running towards a towering building. He smashes the window on the ground floor, breaking into the building. When he enters inside he strolls through the lobby heading straight in the direction of a newly installed volt. Surprisingly, he manages to break through the security systems and ID test and robs a significant amount of money. However, when withdrawing the money, a silent alarm is triggered which automatically alerts the police. Within minutes the character trying to make an escape is captured and arrested for breaking an entry and stealing money from a bank. In jail, the man contemplates about the different scenarios whereby he could make an escape. Unfortunately all of his ideas fail to see him escape from jail. The male quickly decides that there is only one definite and realistic way to break out of jail, by removing the toilet from its holdall and squeezing down the sewage drain pipe placed underneath. From here, we see him slide all the way through the sewage pipe, amongst all the dirt and waste from the toilets above. Within seconds, he is seen making a run from the prison out into the unknown.
For this plot you would use shots that emphasize the loneliness of the character. So you would use extreme close-ups as well as close-ups to add emphasis on every move of each character as the thriller is quite dramatic and exaggerates the actions taking place. You could use the over shoulder shot to create an eerie atmosphere. You would use tracking to follow the character and create a sense of what actions the character will do next. The lighting will create a shadowing effect to make the male look innocent which makes the audience feel sympathetic towards the character. I would add the match on action technique to demonstrate a cut between two shots where no time has passed. This is an important task as it shows fluency to the scene.
Films Relating to my Plot
The psychological thriller is a sub-genre of the wide ranging thriller genre, tis focuses on mystery, drama as well as the typical thriller genre. This sub-genre is related to the mind, it is mental rather than physical. Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their enemies, but are reliant on their mental resources. The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.
Psycho
Psycho is a psychological thriller created in 1960 directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Plot
Phoenix officeworker Marion Crane is fed up with the way life has treated her. She has to meet her lover Sam in lunch breaks and they cannot get married because Sam has to give most of his money away in alimony. One Friday Marion is trusted to bank $40,000 by her employer. Seeing the opportunity to take the money and start a new life, Marion leaves town and heads towards Sam's California store. Tired after the long drive and caught in a storm, she gets off the main highway and pulls into The Bates Motel. The motel is managed by a quiet young man called Norman who seems to be dominated by his mother.
Convent
The "man on the run" is a subgenre of a thriller, where a character ussually male, finds themselves hounded by a deadly enemy or the federal agents for most of the film. The character has to escape from his enemy in a cunning and creative method before eventually confronting the rival.
Examples
My Plot of a Man on the Run:
We were asked to create our own plot of a man on the run sub-genre, it was based on a spoof.
A 21-23 year old man is illustrated as walking down a long, darkened alley way in a rush. He is presented in a dark pair of jeans, a grey shirt and a pinstripe blazer; he has a large holdall thrown over his left shoulder. He is in trouble as a rival has kidnapped his girlfriend and the only way he can pay ransom is to rob a bank. As he approaches from behind the alley way, he begins to pick up his pace and is seen running towards a towering building. He smashes the window on the ground floor, breaking into the building. When he enters inside he strolls through the lobby heading straight in the direction of a newly installed volt. Surprisingly, he manages to break through the security systems and ID test and robs a significant amount of money. However, when withdrawing the money, a silent alarm is triggered which automatically alerts the police. Within minutes the character trying to make an escape is captured and arrested for breaking an entry and stealing money from a bank. In jail, the man contemplates about the different scenarios whereby he could make an escape. Unfortunately all of his ideas fail to see him escape from jail. The male quickly decides that there is only one definite and realistic way to break out of jail, by removing the toilet from its holdall and squeezing down the sewage drain pipe placed underneath. From here, we see him slide all the way through the sewage pipe, amongst all the dirt and waste from the toilets above. Within seconds, he is seen making a run from the prison out into the unknown.
For this plot you would use shots that emphasize the loneliness of the character. So you would use extreme close-ups as well as close-ups to add emphasis on every move of each character as the thriller is quite dramatic and exaggerates the actions taking place. You could use the over shoulder shot to create an eerie atmosphere. You would use tracking to follow the character and create a sense of what actions the character will do next. The lighting will create a shadowing effect to make the male look innocent which makes the audience feel sympathetic towards the character. I would add the match on action technique to demonstrate a cut between two shots where no time has passed. This is an important task as it shows fluency to the scene.
Films Relating to my Plot
Psychological Thriller
The psychological thriller is a sub-genre of the wide ranging thriller genre, tis focuses on mystery, drama as well as the typical thriller genre. This sub-genre is related to the mind, it is mental rather than physical. Characters are no longer reliant on physical strength to overcome their enemies, but are reliant on their mental resources. The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, either by playing deceptive games with the other or by merely trying to demolish the other's mental state.
Psycho
Psycho is a psychological thriller created in 1960 directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Plot
Phoenix officeworker Marion Crane is fed up with the way life has treated her. She has to meet her lover Sam in lunch breaks and they cannot get married because Sam has to give most of his money away in alimony. One Friday Marion is trusted to bank $40,000 by her employer. Seeing the opportunity to take the money and start a new life, Marion leaves town and heads towards Sam's California store. Tired after the long drive and caught in a storm, she gets off the main highway and pulls into The Bates Motel. The motel is managed by a quiet young man called Norman who seems to be dominated by his mother.
Convent
Wednesday 6 October 2010
The Birds Continuity
In this clip there are many different types of principles of continuity.The first bit of continuity is when the character opens the door and we see her going into the house from the outside and entering the house from the inside, this is because the camera angle was changed. Another continuity principal is when the camera tracks the character from behind as she is heading towards the corridor, the shot is then transformed into an eye level long shot so that the audience can understand and interpret the surroundings of the character. She then walks down to the last room. We see another example of continuity when the character exits the room the camera angle changes to a long shot, this is a reaction shot as we see the expression on her face.
In the beggining we see the chracter knock on the door of a mysterious house, this makes the audience feel curious of what was about to happen next. When the viewers see that the door is open this could make them intrigued as to why it is unlocked. When the character sees the meesy room she is horrified, this makes the viewer think that someone might have broke into the house. The bloody feet suggests that there is a deade person in the room, this person was murdered. The viewers may think of the reason why the character was murdered. The audience feel a sense of disgust and are horrified to see a man with eyes dug out of ones face. This creates a very eerie atmosphere. The women then runs out terrified and speechless this makes the audience almost feel the characters fear.
The best bit for me was when the women enters the house. This is because the angle of her opening the door from the outside and entering from the inside is particularly fascinating and i would definitely consider trying this out so that I can have practice on the continuity of opening the door. I like the way that the editing is extremely clear when the camera angles change.
In the beggining we see the chracter knock on the door of a mysterious house, this makes the audience feel curious of what was about to happen next. When the viewers see that the door is open this could make them intrigued as to why it is unlocked. When the character sees the meesy room she is horrified, this makes the viewer think that someone might have broke into the house. The bloody feet suggests that there is a deade person in the room, this person was murdered. The viewers may think of the reason why the character was murdered. The audience feel a sense of disgust and are horrified to see a man with eyes dug out of ones face. This creates a very eerie atmosphere. The women then runs out terrified and speechless this makes the audience almost feel the characters fear.
The best bit for me was when the women enters the house. This is because the angle of her opening the door from the outside and entering from the inside is particularly fascinating and i would definitely consider trying this out so that I can have practice on the continuity of opening the door. I like the way that the editing is extremely clear when the camera angles change.
Continuity Exercise
Continuity is how fluent or clean a sequence is considering pre-production and post-production.
This is a short film clip which presents the application of continuity and how it changes before production and after production. We were asked to include a small amount of dialogue. In the shoot we learnt how to shoot basic tasks such as opening a door and learning how to capture the shots of a conversation between two people. We created a rought cut as well as a final edit.
Rough Cut
If we had to improve the sequence I would clean up the ending as it is quite blurred as well as a sudden stop which seems unfinished and unprofessionally shot. I would also reshoot the sequence from different angles without stopping the clips so that there are a variety of angles included in the sequence and the clips would flow exceptionally well.
This activity taught me how to shoot and edit the basic activities using final cut express. I learnt that you should always shoot you equence in different angoles and you should let the shoot flow so that the editing process would be easy to refine and clean up. I also learnt that you should move along with the camera when a character is moving, this is so that you do not loose the character in your shot. This activity helped me practice how to edit shots perfectly so that it uses continuity.
Compared to THE ACCIDENT this task was very successful, as the accident lacked continuity throughout. This pre-production was more organised as we actually thought clearly about the type of shots that we were going to include, the order of taking the shots and the way we were going to link the shots together. The production was very efficient as we knew exactl what shots we were going to use and the order of the shots, this helped incredibly this meant that we did not have to take that many takes of each shot. Post-production was very easy as we simply had to just clean up a few mishaps to make the sequence flow. Realisticly, the successfulness of the pre-production strongly influenced during and post-production.
shotssss
This is a short film clip which presents the application of continuity and how it changes before production and after production. We were asked to include a small amount of dialogue. In the shoot we learnt how to shoot basic tasks such as opening a door and learning how to capture the shots of a conversation between two people. We created a rought cut as well as a final edit.
Rough Cut
Final Cut
The aim of this activity was to practice shooting and editing basic actions to seem continuous. In this case we had to encapture a character opening a door in our shoot. We had to consider the different shot types we were going to use, the location of the shoot, the order of shooting and the diting of the exercise. This activity would help us when creating our coursework in the future.
Our finished sequence was quite successful as it flowed continuously without any problems. The editing when the character is near the door was fluent. The camera moves very clean and smooth when it follows the character. The shot types selected were appropriate for the shoot; for example, when a character is walking the shot is long and it paces with the character, and when both characters are having a conversation there is a variety of shots such as face to face shot, the over shoulder shot and the close up shots. The shoot was reasonably efficient as we shot all our clips very quickly however, there was some background noise which caused a few distractions and this disturbed our shoot.
If we had to improve the sequence I would clean up the ending as it is quite blurred as well as a sudden stop which seems unfinished and unprofessionally shot. I would also reshoot the sequence from different angles without stopping the clips so that there are a variety of angles included in the sequence and the clips would flow exceptionally well.
This activity taught me how to shoot and edit the basic activities using final cut express. I learnt that you should always shoot you equence in different angoles and you should let the shoot flow so that the editing process would be easy to refine and clean up. I also learnt that you should move along with the camera when a character is moving, this is so that you do not loose the character in your shot. This activity helped me practice how to edit shots perfectly so that it uses continuity.
Compared to THE ACCIDENT this task was very successful, as the accident lacked continuity throughout. This pre-production was more organised as we actually thought clearly about the type of shots that we were going to include, the order of taking the shots and the way we were going to link the shots together. The production was very efficient as we knew exactl what shots we were going to use and the order of the shots, this helped incredibly this meant that we did not have to take that many takes of each shot. Post-production was very easy as we simply had to just clean up a few mishaps to make the sequence flow. Realisticly, the successfulness of the pre-production strongly influenced during and post-production.
shotssss
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