Filmmaking Techniques

In this blog I looked again at filming techniques for research purposes. I did something similar in my previous blog where I looked at the kind of conventions that horror movies, and particulaly trailers use. The first video is a video of film techniques, where it showcases the  many of the camera shots, angles, and a bit of editing that I can implement in more own.


Initially it shows some of the obvious shots like long shots close up etc. But it also introduced me to much more complex camera shots that can be used for a range of reasons. One of the most interesting camera shots that saw is the practical extension shot. The shot essentially is like a close up of the face, whilst the background swirls around violently. This camera shot was used in the movie Kidulthood after the main character does something bad, and it helps show his crazed emotional state.


Focus techniques
Another interesting filming techniques that the video shows is focus techniques. These are shots that ultilise things like blurring of the camera lens, which can act as a fade or dissolve. It helpes to make objects or people stand out.

The link above is from a scene from casion royale where they have used focus techniques and focused the camera in several times in the scenes on objects and people etc. The clip  with bond is drinking a martini. The director has used a over the shoulder shot and blurred both the wine class and bond. But the villian hasnt been put out of focus. The effect of this is that it creates a eerie atmosphere. But also it helps to foreshaddow the danger the character is in. In the scene bond is in the process of being poisened. As soon as he realises this, the director has focused the camera on Bond's drink which is a quick and effective way of showing why and what has happened to him.

The beauty of focus technique camera shots is that it makes the cinematography more profound, and it sends message without the need for any dialogue. And this can be a very effective tool for a horror trailer.

The second video is similar to the first but has a narrator talking through the use of camera angles and the effect of them

Research movie trailers

For some research I decided to go onto apple.com/trailers and look at some trailers. Primiarily horror trailers because its the genre that Im most interested in, and because the easiest type of genre to film. For instance making a action trailer is almost completely out of the question because it would be very difficult to film and also very difficult to edit. For example in action films the actors don't actually punch each other they pretend too. Its only in the editing process when they add the sound effects of punches noises that makes it seem real.

The other genres avalible are things like comedy and thriller. #


I don't want to do a comedy becuase writing the script for it's difficult. As it would have to be extremely funny to be effective.



The last genre that I will be looking at now at also in future blogs is thrillers. Thrillers are hard to define, but they often contain suspense, tension and drama. These kind of themes are also similar to the horror genre.

The video I've decided to look at the a upcoming horror movie called " the woman in black" starring harry potter star Daniel Radcliff. The first thing to notice in the trailer is that the music is dark and hauting. This immediately sets the tone. Its also uses close up shots of objects like dolls etc which creates a sinister atmosphere.Also the cinematography is dark shades of grey.  This also adds to the dreary and spooky atmosphere.

Planning

I have finally been sent to start the planning process on creating my homework. The first thing I did was go on Getaheadocrmedia.com and look at other media blogs to see how previous A2 students have constructed there blogs.


What will I get out of it?
Well firstly it will give me a chance to look at blogs who acheived lower grades and blogs that did very well. This will allow me to see what exactly I have to do to get a level 4, which would give me a A/B grade.


Level 4 blog
The first thing I did was look at a level 4 media blog, primarily to look at how the person went about planning there work. Initially I looked at there story boards. The girl drew every single shot including camera angles aswell as stage directions. The beauty of using things like story boards is that when the time comes to filming the director, cinematographer and actors already have an idea on how the trailer is going to look. So essentially it makes the filming process much more easier and efficient.


What types of media did the person use?
Well on the level 4 A2 blog I looked at the forms of media she used to add depth to the planning stages of her coursework. She only used YouTube.com and facebook.  My teacher recommended using other things to make the blog more interactive as well giving the blog more depth. For example slide share.net and prezi.com. The advantage of using YouTube is that you can create video blogs in which you can talk with your  partner about your coursework and it shows the examiner that you have planned your work thoroughly.  For instance in all likelihood each group will have lots of deleted scenes. So the video blog offers a chance for a group to explain why they deleted the scenes and what effect this has had on the finished product.


Level 1
The next thing I did, was to look at a level 1 media blog. When looking through this blog to me it showed a good use of planning etc. However I think it lacked the interactivity of the level 4 blogs. For instance she used YouTube a lot but did't use other social media.