Reflective Analysis

When it came to making a music video my ideas changed a few times before I settled on what I wanted to do and started planning. At first I had decided to create a music video for a local band but decided against this due to my timescale. After this I decided to produce a video for 'The Boredom is The Reason I Started Swimming, It's Also The Reason I Started Sinking' by The Front Bottoms, with the idea of a guy travelling the world whilst in some scenes a busker can be seen playing the song. I decided against this song and settled on 'Maps' by the same band and decided to combine the idea of the guy travelling and the busker by making them the same person so that it was actually the busker traveling. I settled on this idea as I felt this would be achievable within my time frame and I was only relying on two other people, which meant not as much could have gone wrong.

After I had decided on the song and the general ideas for the song, I got to work on planning specific shots and put together a shot/edit decision list, which included details of location, the shot type, camera angle and movement, shot length, a shot description and which lyric or part of the song that the shot would correspond to, this can be found here: http://kechncjakobmorrison.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/shotedit-decision-list.html
To accompany this, I also created a visual mood board and a still images music video, I believe these helped me piece together what the music video would look like in my head and I used this alongside the shot/edit decision list when I was filming, this way I could keep on top of the work I had already done and see what needed to be done, these can be found here: http://kechncjakobmorrison.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/visual-mood-board.html

When it came to actually filming, it went incredibly well and the majority of shots were done in one take, the performance shots were the hardest to film as the timing had to be perfect, I had my subject play alongside the actual song so that when it came to editing it would be easier to match the audio and the visuals. I feel like all of the shots I decided on were relevant and did a good job of illustrating the lyrics of the song whilst at the same time fitting with the band's image. The Front Bottoms take a very laissez-faire approach when it comes to their music and specifically promotion of themselves including their music videos, the majority of their videos are purely performance and are usually just them playing in their living room or garage, their own music video for the song 'Maps' is just the two band members travelling and messing about with each other, The Front Bottoms emanate the idea that they music because they like doing it, they don't care how good they are or how famous they get, they are doing this because it is what they want to do. I tried to replicate this love for music above all else by having the audience see a conflict between the busker and his girlfriend, within these few shots and a few lines we realise the busker is leaving a lot behind to pursue his dream, he has no guarantee that things will turn out well for him and yet he goes on this journey regardless.

After I had gathered all my footage, I got to work on editing, this task was a lot easier than usual as I had something specific to edit to, I knew exactly where I wanted certain pieces of footage and roughly how long each shot needed to be. I did find however that some of the dialogue within the visuals did not match up with the audio, I tried changing the timing of the visuals but could not match them up perfectly, to draw attention away from this I decided to include subtitles where the lyrics are being spoken on screen.

The subtitles I settled on were danish, and I used a very typical font with a yellow colouring, I felt they were aesthetically pleasing and very reminiscent of the french new wave. I also feel I could only get away with this because of the song and band that I had chosen to represent in the video, the song is called Maps and is all about his travelling plans so to use foreign language subtitles fits within the theme of the song, and as previously mentioned The Front Bottoms are a very playful band and I could definitely see them doing something similar themselves. One of my favourite techniques I used during the editing process was the double exposure, due to the fact that my lyrics and visuals are closely linked I wanted to do something to amplify the fact that there are multiple layers of lyrics.

Overall, I am very pleased with my final product, I put a lot of time and effort into research, analysis and planning and I think this can be seen in the final music video. If I had more time I would have added in some more shots, such as a cut in during the first shot just so the shot doesn't feel as long, I tried to deter from this by having the title still be on screen, in Danish, when this shot starts. There is also another long take of the busker travelling on the train and if I had more time I would have included some point of view shots from the busker or him on different forms of transport. I think the inclusion of just a few more shots would have made the video so much tighter but the sometimes slow feel of the video can be seen as amplifying the journey of the busker, he has a long way to go before he makes anything of himself and these shots do a good job of amplifying that. If I were to do this project again I would probably choose a more upbeat song as this would have made me gather more shots and the music video could appear so much smoother but for the song chosen I am very happy with the video produced.

Maps - The Front Bottoms

Shot/Edit Decision List

Reflective Analysis

Originally I was planning a short promotional video for a local band but having contacted the band, I felt that they were too relaxed about the concept and as such making a promotional video for them would be far too hard to organise especially to a strict deadline. I decided to then ask one of the trip coordinators for the creative arts trip if they were looking for a promotional video and thankfully they were. I received my brief and discussed in person some of my initial ideas with the client, these ideas were well received and so I started on planning my video. This was probably the weakest part of my promotional video, I didn't organise myself very well and initial planning only really consisted of me location scouting and determining that I needed plenty of shots with students engaging in the activities the trip provided. One of the points raised by my client was that she wanted the video to be from a student perspective, because of this I felt that thorough planning was not needed as what I would normally film or photograph is a student perspective.

When filming I made sure that I shot a variety of items such as location shots, panning shots in galleries, tracking shots of students and plenty of shots of students either interacting with one another, taking pictures of exhibits or discussing artwork they had just seen. The shots produced were a variety and I felt this allowed the audience to get more of a feel of the surroundings, hand held tracking shots were used very effectively in the video as I feel they make the audience feel almost as if they were there in the galleries in Madrid with me. Placing the audience member into my shoes on the trip is the best way to encourage people to go. One thing I did feel I was lacking in were establishing shots, Madrid is absolutely stunning and although I feel I did manage to capture some of it's beauty, a few more location/establishing shots would have really brought the video to life. Due to the fact that I was doing a promotional video for the Creative Arts trip to Madrid, all of my filming, minus interviews, was done whilst in Madrid, and as such meant that they only had one chance to get the footage I needed. This made me more organised whilst I was actually on the trip and after reviewing my footage from the first day I found that I needed more shots of student engagement and could focus less on scenery and artwork. When back in the UK I decided to shoot some interviews with students who had gone on the trip, I contacted both an Art and a Photography to show the different subjects that could lead you to this kind of experience. I originally intended on having 4 interviews, the extra two being with an Art Foundation student and a Creative Media Production student, unfortunately I didn't have time to get these two interviews but in editing I spaced out the interviews I did get so that absence of the other two interviews wasn't noticed as much. The questions I asked in the interview were very simple as I just wanted to know what their favourite part of the trip was and how they've benefited from the experience. These two me were the most important things in determining whether the trip was good in terms of student engagement and if it did actually benefit their work.

When it came to choosing music for my promotional video I had to make sure that I chose something that was royalty free for legal reasons and also suited the production piece, the music I went for was 'Brazilian Samba' by BenSound, which I was legally able to use as long as I credited BenSound in my final production piece. The song was very uplifting and fast paced which gave me something to edit to, the cuts in my video are very quick and precise to match the rhythm of the music, and even though its technically a Brazilian piece of music, the song still suits the lively, happy go lucky atmosphere of Madrid. It was after selecting my music that I felt more comfortable editing, I needed something to edit to and the fast up-beat 'Brazilian Samba' was perfect for this. I feel I did a good job of editing in time with the music and just with editing in general, this was probably due to the fact that editing is where I am most organised, making sure that the relevant footage is in the right folders making it far easier for me to locate footage that I need and that I know I can use.

After completing a first draft of my video, I watched it with my client to gain some initial feedback. One key point raised was that they're wasn't enough student engagement in the video, as I had filmed in Madrid it was practically impossible to reshoot and so instead I spoke with another student who had also been on the trip and she was happy for me to use some of her footage. This made the video a much more student lead video and I think this was key in meeting my client's brief, the main thing they wanted from this video was that it was from a student's persecutive and how the student's engage with the activities on the trip. Using the feedback I altered my video and when it was completed, I again sat and watched it through with my client and she picked up on the alterations that I had made and seemed happy with the finished product.

I think the video produced does a good job of giving the audience a feel for what the Creative Arts trip can be like and I think this is down to the fact that a student produced it, the target audience are students and it was key to get across to them the benefits of such a trip. Watching the video through, I am grateful that I got the opportunity to go on such a trip and as shown from the interviews other students were just as happy to go on the trip. Overall, I am very happy with my promotional video, I just wish I'd been more organised in my planning so that I got more interviews and more student engagement on the trip but I still believe it is effective in 'highlighting the creative arts faculty and the student engagement in the trip' and it also 'demonstrates how rewarding and enriching trips abroad are for students and the multiple activities that take place' which is what my client was looking for, according to their design brief. After completing the video I watched it through with a few fellow students and some of them made comment about how they wish they'd been able to go and others saying that they would definitely try to go on a trip like it in the near future. A few students I watched it with said that they could see the educational benefits on the trip but were worried that they might not get much freedom to explore and as such wouldn't enjoy the social side of the trip much, I could have asked questions about this in the interviews so that students could hear directly from students on the trip that the social side of the trip is just as good as the educational, or also included more footage of students engaging with one another rather than just the activities and artwork. Obviously the only way for sure to know whether this promotional video has succeeded in it's job is to compare numbers from this year's trip to next year' trip, for this data I'd have to wait another 7/8 months to find out, so students already saying they wished they'd gone and that others are hoping to go on the trip next year is the best indicator I can ask for.

Feedback

After watching the first draft for the promotional video my clint gave me some short feedback to try and help me improve my video. These were some of the points raised:

• The first shot is too long and as such can seem a little dull at times, something more dynamic that captures an audience's attention.
• The shot before the interviews was not necessary.
• The interviews would be better off being dispersed throughout the video coupled with shots that show location that the students are talking about.
• The music also needs to be quitter whilst students are speaking as at one points it is hard to pick up what they are saying.
• More shots of the students actually engaging in activities such as photography or drawing should be used.
• Titles should also be used to show who students are and the different locations and activities students engaged in whilst on the trip.

After watching the final video, I asked my client to fill out a short questionnaire to gain an understanding of what my client thought of my finished video.

Client Feedback Form

Please answer the following questions using numbers 1-5 (5 being excellent, 3 being average and 1 being poor)

How happy are you with the final product?	4
How happy are you with our response to the brief?	4
Would you agree that communication between you and me, the production team, was prompt, clear and concise?	Yes 5
How close is the final product to your expectations?	4
Any further comments: The final film shows how fun, engaging and most importantly how much of an impact the Creative Arts annual trip abroad has on the students work, to potential new students, as well as a good reflection for those that went, which is it’s main purpose. The interviews add a student voice and reflects on the impact of the trip on the students work, this as a result fulfils part of my original brief. It is also filmed to a high quality; the sound quality particularly is outstanding. You have been resourceful in gathering student work and images to add into the film too which highlights the range of activities we did on the trip, such as the night photography task. Again another big positive. Overall a good promotional video that delivers with quality footage on nearly all aspects of the original video brief. A very pleasing outcome. Well done and thank you for your hard work. Improvements that would have benefitted the final production of the video are as follows: ·      The use of font for the subtitles isn’t in keeping with the college branding. ·      The subtitles for the students interviews could have been better designed, such as those used in the Art show video last year that were shown to you. ·      More footage of a range of students, especially at the galleries engaging in the exhibitions. ·      There could have been footage included of Amber Jesson’s Madrid inspired art work too. ·      The beginning of the video could have been more dynamic if a larger range of footage was filmed overall.

Creative Arts Trip Madrid 2016

This is my completed promotional video for the Creative Arts trip at King Edward VI College, this year, the trip took us to Madrid.

Reflective Analysis

Heads or Tails is a short film that follows a young man through three similar yet very different days of his life, determined by the flip of a coin. If the coin lands on heads he follows his super-ego, he over thinks situations and if it lands on tails he follows his instinct and animalistic desires, or the coin is not there to flip and he must become the ego. I feel the coin idea was a good way of determining which aspect of his psyche that the young man follows and feel that the 'heads' and 'tails' of the coin can be attributed perfectly to the two different extremes. The idea behind this film was to narrate it as if the main character was telling you a story of his day and the audience is left to imagine his day, this explains the time jumps between the shots and how short a day is in the life of the young man. As such I used a non-diegetic voice over to tell the stories and no diegetic sound made it into the final film in the slightest, I feel this made it easier to convey the young man's troubles, as opposed to seeing what he's doing and being left to make your own mind up about the situation, the voice over gives all the exposition you could ask for.

The opening sequence of the film shows the young man before he has flipped a coin and we just see him asleep, when he wakes, everything is slightly out of focus and the title is shown and as the camera focuses, we see that the young man is staring directly at you, breaking the fourth wall, ready to tell you his story of 'Heads or Tails?'

Even the fonts used for the title are significant in showing what the coin toss means, 'Heads' is written in italics and appears very professional, this is similar to the appearance of the Super-ego, wearing a shirt and tie. This is in comparison to the font used for 'Tails', which looks like it has been quickly scribbled down with no effort, this shows the laissez-faire approach to the Id. This is emphasised by the Id's random t-shirt, interestingly this t-shirt actually has the following logo on, a key characteristic of the Id is their following of their primal instincts, this includes his sexual desires, rather than actually show this on screen, a small visual representation that not many people will pick up, works perfectly, as if this is a part of the young man's troubles but he does not wish to divulge on this and instead gives you a small clue as to another one of the desires he has.

The key difference between the three characters visually is what top they are wearing. I used the same framing and slightly high angle when showing the clothes for the day, I felt this made it easier to compare the three different outfits between personas and as such, showed in a more simple way that is the same young man we are seeing.

Day one follows the young man as if he were purely following his Id because the coin has landed on tails. He wakes, gets dressed into a random t-shirt and starts drinking and smoking, he doesn't go to college, he takes people's weed and doesn't care about the consequences of his actions. The Id's day comes to an end when he passes out due to how much he has drank. I wanted to get across the idea that the Id is constantly drinking and smoking, as well as the line of dialogue "Obviously, I'm already smoking and drinking, I will be for the rest of the day", I also made sure that the Id is always seen with either a bottle or cigarette in his hands. To further stress this point, the Id can be seen dropping his finished cigarette but in the next shot he is already smoking again. The end of the Id's day is out of focus to give the impression that the Id's memory of the events is a little hazy due to the fact that he is highly intoxicated as seen by his staggering home and dropping his beer bottle. Similarly with the cigarette trick of replacing it straight away, the shot following him dropping his beer has him holding a beer again. I believe day one does a good job of portraying the Freud'd Id in that the character only follows his instinct and primal drives.

Day two follows the young man when the coin has landed on heads and so he were purely follows his Super-ego. He wears a shirt and tie as apposed to the random t-shirt, I believe this is a good way of visually showing the difference between the two extremes, one very relaxed and the other very precise. He prepares for college and makes his bed, which are very anal-retentive things to do. On his way to college he is offered weed by the same lads as seen before, he points out the future problems of such an action. He then attends college stressing that it will have consequences on his future, this dialogue displays perfectly the notion of the super-ego, he is concerned with consequences. The super-ego goes has the same opportunities as the Id yet decides to take the path that will have the best outcome for his future rather than giving in to his primal desires. In certain shots, the super-ego can be seen actively disliking some things the Id was perfectly fine with such as shaking his head as he walks past the smoker because of this, I think day two does a good job of representing Freud's super-ego.

Day three follows the young man when he can not find his coin and therefore must use aspects from both the id and the super-ego, this is the ego. Again he has the same opportunities as the Id and super-ego and essentially decides to do a mixture of the two. He attempts to make his bed but feels like it won't be that much of a problem if he doesn't and decides to leave college early but notes that it's only the once and he'll have to catch up at some point. I think was a brilliant example of how Freud believed the human psyche to work, we have desires presented by he Id, in this case wanting to leave college, and we rationalise those desires with our super-ego, the conclusion being that he can leave college early as long as he catches up so that it won't have bad consequences. Again he is presented with an opportunity to smoke weed and this time decides to have a little bit but comments that he wont do it much so that it does not have an adverse affect on his body. The same can be said of both drinking and smoking, he says that he'll do it but with moderation, he only has one cigarette and one beer. I also linked the smoking and beer back to the super-ego, he explicitly says he'll just have the one beer, this is due to him thinking that "even one episode of binge drinking can harm your health" and whilst smoking he notes that he "can afford to lose 9 minutes of my [his] life but I [he] won't be making a habit out of it." I believe the ego was represented well by the third day and felt like he was a good balance between the Id and super-ego, just as Freud believed it to be.

When it came to editing, I found that once I had both backing music and a voice over to work with the editing became a lot easier and I now had set timings for each of the clips, there was a lot of similar shots used for the three different days and just a lot of footage in general so I found sorting them into their respective days. When editing my film, I decided to make the best use of sequences in premiere pro and so edited the id, ego and super-ego separately before bringing them together in one sequence to make 'Heads or Tails?'

Overall, I think my short film does a good job of demonstrating Freud's theory of the psyche, separating the id, super-ego and ego but putting them through the same situations allows a perfect comparison between the three and allows you to see how each would act in a given situation. If I had more time and better actors at my disposal, I would have also included an extra situation involving a female, to show the different approaches each would take but for what I've produced I believe it is an accurate representation and I'm very pleased with the final piece.

Heads or Tails?

This is the latest short film I have done for my coursework. The film uses Freudian psychology and explores the id, ego and superego as shown through the three different days the subject lives. 

Development of Editing Technology

The purpose of editing is to piece together shots, sequences and scenes to create a final piece that both makes sense and has an emotional impact. The first forms of editing were very basic and consisted of the editor physically cutting and glueing parts of the film together, this was a very long and tedious task but important nonetheless and formed the foundation of editing techniques. 1924 saw the birth of the Moviola, the introduction of this machinery allowed for a much precise and generally easier form of editing. The Moviola also brought about edge numbering which allowed audio and video to be edited as one.

Next came flatbed edit suites, brought about by Steenbeck, known for a history of film editing, viewing and controlling tables since the early 50's. It was 1953 that saw the birth of the first Steenbeck flatbed 16mm 4 plate, the ST200. This was seen as new media at the time mainly du to the fact that included optical sound and playback of 16mm perforated magnetic tape. The ST100, a 4plate 35mm editor, soon followed in 1954. Soon the first editor with back projection on a ground class came about, the 35mm ST400, followed by the ST500 switchable for standard and Cinemascope.

Meanwhile live television editing, beginning in the 40's, led to kinescope recordings. This was basically a camera recording a video screen of a live broadcast, unfortunately this had many issues like banding and ghosting.

The next big step came about in 1956 when Ampex released the first 2" quadruplex video tape. Editing this was similar to editing films, the tape had to be developed using iron filings in a toxic, carcinogenic carbon tetrachloride solution. This was done so that a magnetic band could be seen on the film through a microscope, this helped for precision cutting. Unfortunately the audio and video could not be done at the same time as they were several inches apart in the machine, to counter this the video was cut and the missing sound was added back in the correct place.

In linear editing it has been argued that you spend more time waiting for tapes to cue rather than actually making edits. Linear editors aren't flexible and can be a hassle if you wish to re-edit a piece of film, this new edit must be on top of an old edit if you wish to o back and alter a previous edit. This can be a major problem if your new scene is longer or shorter than the old one, it can either run into the next scene or some of the old shot could still be visible.

The next big step came about in 1971, with the introduction of the CMX 600, even though only 6 were ever made, they paved the way for non-linear editing. The Avid 1 soon followed in 1989 and the main problem now was storage. It wasn't until 1993 that Avid increased the amount of storage available, releasing a 7 terabyte system. The success of this could be seen in 1997 when Walter Murch won an oscar for best editing for The English patient, he edited the film using an Avid.
Non linear systems require two main things, computer power and data storage. Non linear editing is far less time consuming and everyone knows that time is money. The ability to work in a more complex way with both video and audio can only be seen as a positive thing. Digital technology was also a huge help when it came to special effects. Forrest Gump (1994) made great use of this by using a digitalised set of images reconstituted frame by frame to remove Gary Sinise's legs from each frame.

Digital editing was the future, it was easier to copy, easier to sync and resistant to noise and in 1990 New trek released the first 'Video Toaster' on the Omega system. It had limited linear editing capabilities but it brought video production to schools, production shops and some small television studios. It had numerous effects and even had lightweight 3D. Five years later saw the birth of DVD optical disks, they used a new type of compression, MPEG-2. A year later, the first US public HD broadcast was aired, the process for this involved sending 35mm film through a telecine, which essentially scanned the film and made a digital copy. This can then be manipulated in a computer using special effects and compositing, once complete, the optical writer would place the video images back onto film.

From here the editing world didn't look back, Chris Watts revolutionised the DI process with Pleasantville in 1998, this was the first time the majority of a new feature film was scanned, processed and recorded digitally. But it wasn't until 4 years later with the release of Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones that we had the first motion picture to be shot purely on digital. In the late 2000s it became possible to shoot purely on digital and edit online, using the original full quality files.

The Graduate Scene Analysis

The Graduate Scene Analysis from Jakob Morrison on Vimeo.

This is a brief analysis of the opening scene from Mike Nichols' The Graduate

Evaluation

When it came to starting my New Wave film, I wrote up an initial design brief which can be found here http://kechncjakobmorrison.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/new-wave-brief.html The subject matter didn't particularly matter for my new wave film, it was mainly the locations, so for this I planned ahead and had a look at some places to film in Birmingham and Manchester, my planning for this can be found here http://kechncjakobmorrison.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/new-wave-planning.html

When deciding what to actually produce as part of my new wave film, my contextual study of the American new wave was a big influence on me especially Easy Rider with it's use of jump cuts and drug use.

The Graduate and Midnight cowboy also inspired me to include transportation within my new wave film as they both use buses to show that the characters are moving on with their lives, because of this I decided to use footage on a bus journey at the start of my film, about half way through and at the very end. I decided these journey's such happen at different times of the day and as such the footage from the start of the film was shot in the morning, the footage from the middle of the film was shot in the afternoon and the footage used at the end of the film was shot at night.

My final piece produced was a statement on the idea that the majority of the youth in today's society is more interested in what they know and not particularly expanding their horizons. The idea from this came about from the general feeling of Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, he does not know what he wants to do with his future but he doesn't just want to rush into it and as such spends the majority of the film doing absolutely nothing just as the subjects do in my film. The idea behind layering images of art galleries and other established locations over the top of my main footage was to get across the idea that even though the subjects do not particularly want to progress with their lives there is this overwhelming sense that they must do something important with their lives. I felt like art galleries and museums were the perfect locations for this due to the fact they are literally monuments to people's life work. I have also included a few images that are visible for a few frames that include phrases such as 'random movement', 'little things mean a lot' and 'do not open' The idea behind this is that they are passing thoughts of the youth today, or at least myself. The film is very much a reflection of my life and the general feelings felt by the 1960's youth of America, they wanted their future to be different but didn't know how to go about this. The film attempts to depict my outlook on life in that as much as I want myself to be known to the world, symbolised by the art galleries, I am unsure of how to do this, as shown by the words 'random movement' I feel as if anything I do with my life will be a random stab in the dark.

Having done my initial camera and lighting tests I had better knowledge of ISO, aperture and shutter speed, I tried to incorporate this into my new wave film as much as possible but I intended for the majority of my filming to be done with natural lighting and so the majority of the time I only needed to adjust my aperture slightly each time just to make sure the footage produced was neither over or under exposed. The majority of filming done used a hand held camera, this is a common technique used within new wave films and I also felt that it would work well within established locations, it is meant to symbolise the idea that to become a well-known person I would have to take a much more hands on approach. This is opposed by the shots within the bedroom, the majority of the filming here was done by a static camera and I tended to just set up the camera and let it record, this was to symbolise the laissez-faire approach I have to life in general. The editing is jumpy and erratic as early new wave films were but it also has somewhat of a deeper meaning. The film is really a reflection of what's going on in my head, I can never really focus on one thing and my mind is constantly switching between ideas, I constantly worry that I will make nothing of my life but at the same time take no action against this.

Editing for my new wave film was very sporadic and every cut used was a jump cut, the jump cuts enable a quick change of scenery, something the french new wave films were renowned for when they first arrived on the scene. At other times, I used jump cuts to show the same scene but characters in slightly different positions to show that although these people have lives and do activities from time to time, they aren't exactly very exciting and not really worthing of watching, a jump cut was used to fast forward through this group of people's lives. Due to the fact that I filmed a lot of footage for my new wave film when it came to editing I had a lot to sort through so I found sorting them at first into relevant folders as I had captured a lot of video as well as photography really helped.

After sorting through the file types, I then went through my footage and named them small signifier as to what happened in each shot, for example 'Book Band Practice' is footage of two of the people discussing their band and how band practice needs to rebooked, these titles made it far easier to edit my clips as just having a few words describing each shot was all I needed to know what i had filmed.

When filming my main challenge was that I felt I did not film at enough different established locations, I tried to overcome this by getting a lot of filming done at the locations I could visit such as the Manchester Art Gallery and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. I ended up having about 3 hours of footage for me to edit together to produce my final piece. this however was another one of the challenges I faced, I ended up filming far too much and didn't allow myself enough time to sift through the hours of footage to find specific shots that I wanted to use. If I was to improve upon my new wave film I would definitely plan my filming a lot better and shoot at more locations as I only used about 6 locations for filming. Also if I organised myself better and had better planning I would have had more time to watch through the footage and select key clips from my footage to use. As with all my work my organisation skills are what let me down and as such if I were to re-do my new wave film I would plan ahead in much more detail and I feel this would have allowed me to produce a much better film.

Basic Editing Techniques Video Essay

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Process

The final video produced is fairly effective in showing and explaining different editing techniques. I struggled with this to start with because I was unsure on how to replicate some editing techniques.

Problem Solving

Working within a group to record our original footage was probably the hardest part of the task mainly because we weren't a very organised team, to combat our team's lack of organisation I tried to plan ahead.

Justification of Decisions

This video was produced to show the basic editing techniques with a brief explanation for each shot. I have provided my own example as well as a cinematic example to show why such a technique might be used when.

Recommendations

I definitely would re-do shots that contain certain techniques such as the Kuleshov effect and the intellectual montage, these were difficult techniques to replicate and as such made sure that I found the best cinematic examples for these techniques.

Cinematic Examples:

Kill Bill Vol 2

Turbo Kid

Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Inception
Watchmen
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
Kuleshov Experiment
Mission Impossible
October
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Psycho
Apocalypse Now

About You Music Video

Process

The final video produced is pretty well made considering it was done in about four hairs, the point of this task was to show our skills when it comes to editing on the beat. I struggled at first but after properly thinking about it I got on with the task and thoroughly enjoyed it. Editing is one of my favourite aspects of media production and also what I am best at it in my personal opinion so this was definitely a task that allowed me to improve my skills.

Problem Solving

The hardest part of the task was getting my head round cutting precisely with the music but I decided to use what I know best and so focused on the numbers side of things. I figured out how much frames were in between each particular beat and from there figured out how many frames I need to cut out from my stock footage.

Justification of Decisions

This video was produced to show what kind of thing we can produce using basic on the beat editing. There is a crazy static background throughout the whole video, the second layer consists of the the spirals when the female vocals come in and the match when the vocals are dramatically slowed down. The third layer consisted of the green ink drops in water, these were used for the first time the secondary beat is introduced. Later when a new beat is introduced I have used the erratic sparks to display that the music has suddenly picked up in pace. On top of this the wolf is used for the dull drum beat with the spot dancing to the beat of the music reaching out on the snare and swelling on the dull drum beat. I also used an owl winking for the small beep that can be heard every so often.

Recommendations

To improve this video I would try and incorporate a narrative into it but for the task, I just wanted to produce a simple music video that displayed my skills and passion for editing and specifically music video production.

The Conversation

The Conversation from Jakob Morrison on Vimeo.

Process

The final video produced is pretty well made considering we had roughly four hours to plan, film and edit the piece. I believe it shows a mixture of the techniques we have learnt so far including lighting, focus, and editing skills. I struggled working in a group as we are all unorganised people and a mix of this really doesn't go down well with such a short time frame. However, we managed to save the final video through the editing which was definitely our biggest strength.

Problem Solving

Working within a group to record our original footage was probably the hardest part of the task mainly because we weren't a very organised team, to combat our team's lack of organisation I essentially took the helm and told the team to go out and reshoot certain shots whilst I started on the editing.

Justification of Decisions

This video was produced to show what kind of thing we can produce within four hours to work, it displays our skills so far and I think with slightly more time we could have shown off what we have learnt a lot more.

Recommendations

To improve this video I would add in some more shots so that it is more obvious what the narrative is actually about, I believe we have done a good job of capturing what we intended but I still feel like the audience wouldn't necessarily decode the preferred reading.

Cinematic Examples

Shot Reverse Shot

Shot reverse shot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other. [1]

180 Degree Rule

In film making, the 180 degree rule refers to the idea that there is a line that connects the characters and the camera must never cross this line. [2]

30 Degree Rule

The 30 degree rule is rule used in filmmaking with the purpose of creating continuity between different shots. When moving your camera between shots the camera should be moved a minimum of 25 to 30 degrees to avoid jarring transitions more simply known as jump cuts. Transitions like this help hide small continuity differences which is great for shooting with only 1 camera. [3]

Cut In

A cut in refers to a shot that cuts away from the main action to show some part of the subject in greater detail.

Crosscutting/ Parallel

Crosscutting is a technique where the camera will cute away from one piece of action to another usually to indicate that they are happening simultaneously.

Match On Action

Match on action is refers to editing techniques where the editor cuts from one shot to another shot but the action matches the first shot. [1]

Establishing Shot

An establishing shot sets up and establishes context for a scene by giving us a location or relationship between important figures and objects. [1]

Kuleshov Effect

The Kuleshov Effect is a mental phenomenon by which viewers gain more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots than from a single shot in isolation. [4]

Temporal Overlap

A temporal overlap is where a piece of action is shot, directly followed by the same action but from a different viewpoint.

Eisenstein Montage

Metric Montage

This is where the editing follows a specific number of frames, based purely on time, and then cutting to the next shot no matter what is happening within the image. [5]

Rhythmic Montage

Cutting is based on visual continuity from start to end, the content of the shot is a dominant element of the shot length. [5]

Tonal Montage

This kind of montage uses the emotional meaning of shots, rather than manipulating it's length or rhythm. This is done to gain an audience reaction more complex than that gained from a rhythmic or metric montage. [5]

Overtonal/Associational Montage

This kind of montage combines the techniques of a tonal, metric and rhythmic montage to combine the effect had on the audience for an even more abstract effect.

Intellectual Montage

This kind of montage combines shots to gain an intellectual meaning. The aim is to use few images but use images that are rich in cultural, symbolic and political history. Juxtaposing these images creates a much deeper intellectual meaning. [6]

[1] Editing Guide. Yale University. http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis/htmfiles/editing.htm#43199

[2] Proferes, Nicholas T. 2005. Film Directing Fundamentals. 2nd ed. Amsterdam. Focal Press.

[3] Light Film School http://lightsfilmschool.com/blog/the-30-degree-rule/128/

[4] Rusell, Michael, 2005. The Kuleshov Effect and the Death of the Auteurism http://www.forumjournal.org/article/view/547

[5] Eisenstein, Sergei. Taylor, Richard. 1999. The Eisenstein Reader. British Film Institute.

[6] Pudovkin, Vsevolod Illarionovich. 1949. Film Technique and Film Acting, The Cinema Writings of V. I. Pudovkin. New York. Bonanza Books