use of sound in a short film analysis

Sound is something that we didn’t really think about on our first short film, Fleshers, and for that it didn’t come out as well as it could have, so when it came to editing the most recent short film War Wife, I put a lot more focus on the sound, to make sure that it was top quality sound wise.

One of the first things that I had to do concerning sound was look for suitable music to go along with the visuals. I looked through a variety or websites until I came across http://incompetech.com/ which had a variety of great music that was free and of good quality, so once I went through the resources on that, I picked the best music and put that on the video.

The other thing that I had to do sound wise was audio effects. Some of the audio effects we had recorded whilst we were on set, for example the knocking on the door, but there were some missing, so I had to create them afterwards. I used garageband to record the sounds, such as the roller on the wall and the paint clashing with the brush in the bucket. I had to do them a few times until the timing was right and the sounds fitted what the visuals would have sounded like, but eventually I got them right.

I also had to download a few sounds, one example being background noise for the shot where we are looking into the house through the kitchen window. Without that sound, the scene would have been ruined, but with it there, you don’t really notice it because it is such a normal sound for us to here.

Overall, I think the sound on this production has been a lot better than it was on the first one, we all know how to do it better, and can produce sounds that fit the visuals better.

researching camera shots research

When we have to film our short film, we each have to edit it individually, so that they all have the same or similar narrative, but don’t all look like carbon copies of each other. To do this, my group has come up with different shots that we each want to do, so that our edits can look different to each other.

My favourite directors are Christopher Nolan and Steven Speilberg, so I decided to look back at some of their work to see what kind of shots they used, that I could think about using in my edit.

The first thing that I looked at in terms of Nolan’s directing style is the new trailer for The Dark Knight Rises.

I especially liked the use of tracking shots, such as the shot when Joseph Gordon Levitt is backing into a door, and the shot of Bane walking into the football stadium. I especially like the fact that Bane is silhouetted, so that you can’t see his features but you know who he is, and where he is. I would like to use this style of shot in my edit, I think that you get a lot more from the shot then you would do on a face forward shot.

I also liked some of the shots used in the fight scene, where the characters faces are close up, cut to a far away shot, so that you can see both the events of the fights and the emotions of the character. In my edit, I would like to have a lot of close ups of the character, due to the nature of what she is going through in the story.

I like how Christopher Nolan lets his audience see what is going on from a far, as well as seeing what is going on close up with the actors. I think that adds a new dimension to what the narrative is telling you, you get to see a bit extra of what is going on with the characters whilst events are happening all around them.

I then went on to look at Steven Speilbergs work, particularly his work on War Horse.

There is one scene in War Horse where Joey the horse is running through the trenches, being tracked by the camera as he goes. I liked this shot in particular, as again you get to follow the character and their emotions, as well as see what is going on around the scene. I also like the match cut that Speilberg uses in the film, and i would like to replicate that or something like it in my edit. I think it’s a more interesting way of cutting from one scene to another, and creates a link for the audience that they wouldn’t be able to get otherwise.

161 reflection.

For 161mc, we had three different tasks that we had to do, creating a logo for ourselves, using recycled media to create a new narrative and to create a modern fairytale. This module was different to those that had gone before, where we had to create something that is more film based, but it proved to be an interesting change of work, and helped to develop skills that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise.

The branding task proved to be the easiest one for me, as I had previous experience with photoshop, and knew how to use it, where as some of the people on the course hadn’t used it before. I did some research into various logos, and found a style that I liked, and replicated that within my own logo. Fabrice helped me to create various drafts of the logo, instead of just sticking to the original design, which was helpful in making the logo the best that it could be. He gave me tips on how to make the logo look better, which I followed and used to create a better design. The development shown throughout the various logos shows that the logo has evolved throughout the different stages of discussing it, and hopefully has gotten better. I’m happy with the logo, I think it represents me well and looks the part too.

The recycled media task seemed to be a lot more challenging at first, but once I came up with the idea of using our cabinet of curiosities character alongside our Fleshers short film, and combining them by creating a family link between Mitch, our cabinet character and one of the victims in Fleshers. The hardest part of this project was thinking of the narrative, but once I’d got that out the way, I could just work on Prezi and make the presentation. The project proved useful in learning how to use Prezi, which I will be using in the future for any other presentations. It was interesting to use a new way of telling a narrative, that wasn’t just the conventional way of making a film, that we’ve been doing this year.

The modern fairytale task seemed to be the opposite of the recycled media at first, I thought it would be easy to do and I wouldn’t have a problem doing it, but thinking of the narrative actually proved harder that I thought it would do. I researched various fairytales, wanting to look past the ones that everyone knows like Snow White etc, and look for something that was a bit different. I settled on ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’ as it was the fairytale that I thought would work the best being translated into a modern setting. I then thought of the narrative for this story, that fitted the mould of the original story, but was also set in modern times. I’m happy with the end result, I think the narrative works well and it is still recognisable as a variation on ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’.

This module has proved challenging, mainly because of having to think of new narratives and new ways of doing things, but i’ve enjoyed pushing skills that I already had in things like photoshop further, and getting used to new forms of media has also been interesting. This module has given me a different view on the media, and the way that it can be presented to an audience, and the impact that has.

161- recycled media

This is the link to my Prezi using recycled media.

http://prezi.com/ceyqa9pruxnl/mitch-ollis/

This used the media that we made earlier, Fleshers, and the character that we made in the cabinet of curiosities, Mitch Ollis.

I used Prezi for this, as it was the easiest form of media to make a new narrative out of, as you can use a variety of different forms to make the whole new narrative. I used various forms of media, such as Facebook to show conversations between characters, YouTube, and text to show the narrative.

161-modern fairytale.

This is the link to my modern fairytale, ‘The Boy Who Cried Lies.’

http://prezi.com/8wiypz1cwinq/the-boy-who-cried-lies/

It’s a modern take on ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’, with some of the ideas in the original store being changed to fit a modern audience and setting. I used GoAnimate for the cartoons, but wanted it to look more like a comic book, rather than an animation, because the animation that the website created was really basic, and I think that it looks better in a comic book form, it’s more accessible.

I decided to use prezi because I think it symbolises one of the more modern ways to tell a story, with moving image which has changed from the way that people used to tell stories verbally.

I photoshopped the cartoon characters into the real life background of Coventry City Centre, and the male cartoon of Terry into a hospital bed, creating different layers so that he was under the covers and facing the right way.

final logo.

I wanted a simple logo that got across everything that I would be making, film, photography. I didn’t want to call it a name that didn’t have anything to do with me, like the name of a certain plant etc,  so I’ve decided to call it simply Luke Cutts Media.

After discussing it with Fabrice, we thought that the outline was a bit busy, and that there were a few too many objects surrounding the central lettering. We also decided that some of the objects, which I had just drawn on photoshop and not based on an existing image, didn’t look very good, they looked a bit simple and basically a bit amateur, so I did some research into different types of them, like the film reel at the bottom. I also decided to get rid of some of the objects, like the VHS tape at the bottom, which doesn’t really have a relevance in modern day . I decided to make the logo just one block colour so that it doesn’t distract from the name and the objects around the outside. If the colour was a mixture, I think it would be too over the top and distracting.

This logo had a completely opposite reaction for me than the first one, I personally think that it looks to empty, and whereas the first logo seemed to have some sort of flow within the images, this one seems to be a bit one sided to the right hand side, so that you’re focused more n that side, and not the left. I do like the fact that the images are more realistic, and they look more like what they’re supposed to do. When looking at the two logos next to each other, I decided to design a hybrid version of them, so that the two logos have elements of both.

This is the final logo:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I like my final logo, I think the images work well, and they math my initial idea of wanting to show what types of media I will be both using and creating. You can tell what all the objects are, and I think that the colour works well too. I’m happy with the overall design, and plan on using it more in the future.

 

editing ‘War Wife’. reflection

We finished filming for our short film, which we have chosen to call War Wife, a few weeks ago, and since then i’ve been editing it on final cut, which has been pretty good. I’ve had to teach myself a few things, as it’s the different version than Uni has, but it’s nothing a quick google can’t fix.

I already knew what order I wanted the clips to be in, so that they would be different to the other edits that my group are working on, so it was just a case of going through the various footage that we had filmed, to find the useable clips and the clips that would fit the narrative I was trying to tell.

I picked all the good clips and imported them into Final Cut, and started work. I wanted the first shot to be something simple, that reflected what the story was going to be about, but also wasn’t something that would feature in the film again, so that it could just be remembered as being the opening credits shot. I chose a shot of two wine glasses, as it represented the couple that were the focus of the narrative of the film, and also showed that they were in love, due to the romantic connotations of the clip.

I like the text that I used for the title, I think it’s simple yet classic, something that people would recognise as a romantic font.

It was simple enough to cut the clips into order so that they worked best for the narrative, but there were a few snags that I came across. Some of the shots, though they seemed to work well at the time, were actually the wrong way round, so I had to find a way to flip them so that they flowed with the rest of the clips, and there was no continuity errors. The clip in particular was this one:

I needed it to be flipped over (this is where the handy google machine came in) and I got to flip it round so that they were facing the right way.

I had to flip a couple of other clips round, but once I knew how to do it, they were no problem.

Something else that i’ve had to do during the editing of this video, is colour correction. During the scenes where our Wife is alone and waiting on news of her army husband, I wanted the colours to be quite depressing, a lot of blues and blacks, as a metaphor for the way that she was feeling. Whilst filming, we had a strong light on the scene, knowing that we would have to each edit the colours in post production. Also, the ability to each change the lighting and colouring so drastically meant that each of our edits would look even more different from each others. The original shot looked like this:

and with a bit of colour correction later:

I think this works well for the scene, and for what i’m trying to get across with the visuals. You as the audience can tell that she is depressed and lonely, just by the help of the colouring. I think you as the audience understand that she is depressed, without having to have it actually said to you, partly because of the way the shot is formed, and also by the colour correction of the shot.

During the dream sequence, I chose to do various fades between shots of the couple on the sofa, and them painting. My reasoning for this was that it emphasises the fact that it is a dream, as most real life situations would use just a simple cut between shots, but the fade shows that this is not the present, and that it isn’t happening for real. Also, the idea of a fade is more related to romance and the idea of begin in love, which is why I think it works well when trying to get the relationship of the characters across to the audience.  Once she has woken up, I used more cut shots than in the dream sequence, showing that we are know in the real world and that she has just woken up from a dream. I have used fades in this scene too, but for a different reason, to show the passage of time. I halved the speed of the clips in this section so that the audience could understand that she’s been sat like that for a long time, and that she has therefore been depressed for a long time.

One shot I cropped and zoomed in on, just because I felt that the sequence of the Wife staring out the window needed something else added to it before the army officer came knocking at the door. I think the zoomed shot works well in really hammering home the way that she was feeling, and the fact that the character is meant to be depressed. You really get the impression that she is on her own, and that she has no one in the world that she can really talk to. This shot also contrasts the earlier shots of her with her husband, juxtaposing the closeness that they had in the dream sequence, with the loneliness that she feels now that he has gone.

Once I had the clips in order how I wanted them, I had to watch it through a couple of times to see where needed a bit more help sound wise. I also had to find suitable pieces of music that were royalty free so I could use them, but also fitted the scene. I had to record some sounds after initial filming, like the sound of her painting the wall with a roller, and the sound of just general outside noise when she is looking out the kitchen window. When you’re watching the film passively, you don’t really notice them there, but when they weren’t there, it was really obvious that something was missing. I also had to add in the sound of the door knocking, which we had recorded on the day.  I found two pieces of music after a long search on incompetech.com, which has various different pieces of music that fit various genres and emotions, so I shall definitely be using this site again.

One scene doesn’t have any music, when she first wakes up. I didn’t want music to carry on from the dream into the real world, as that would confuse the audience, but the sudden stop in music really jolts the audience into realising that something has changed, and that she has just woken up from a dream. The lack of non diegetic sound also helps the audience to focus on the character, and the emotions she is portraying.

I had a pretty problem free edit, there was nothing that I couldn’t do without the help of google, but my only problem came when I was exporting the footage so I could upload it to Vimeo, when the footage was just freezing whenever I went to play it outside of Final Cut. I had to play around with the settings a bit and eventually I managed to get a working copy, after a good few attempts.

There’s nothing that I would really want to change about the edit, I like the overall production, I think it all works well together. This experience has taught me to if anything, film more so that you have a lot more options. More so in terms of sound, as in make sure I record everything on set, even the sounds of things that you wouldn’t think important, like background noise from outside, or the noise of a roller painting a wall, which was a pain to have to search around for in post production. I really enjoyed editing this short film, I liked seeing the film come together as I worked on it, and being able to change things if I didn’t like them, or to just change the way that the narrative is headed just by changing a few shots, or the sounds that accompany them.

War Wife short film. evaluation

This is the final edit for my groups short film ‘War Wife’.

Overall, i’m happy with the end result. This has been the first time that i’ve edited whole short film, in fact it’s the first time that i’ve edited anything really, so I think that the edit shows how much i’ve progressed using Final Cut. When I arrived at Uni, I didn’t know how to even use Final Cut, so i’m glad that i’ve managed to produce something like this throughout my time there.

I don’t think that the edit is perfect, there are a few things that I would’ve liked, such as some extra shots that I didn’t think of doing when we were shooting, but I don’t think it matters much, as the film still works without them. Some of the shots that I would’ve liked more was a few more shots focusing on the little things in the house, like two pairs of keys that represent the relationship between the two characters, or other little things that are in a family environment, fridge magnets, calendar posts, little notes left around the house. I think that would’ve made the film seem more realistic, and make it more believable that the couple were actually together. It would’ve also been something that the audience could relate to, but like I said, I don’t think that the edit is let down by the lack of those shots.

I like the choice of music that is in the film, I think that they fit the mood of the scenes well, and that they get across the emotions of the characters well. Sound was probably one of the biggest problems that I faced on this project, purely because i’ve never done anything that really required that much attention to sound, and searching for actual sounds to include in the film was a pretty arduous task, but it’s paid off.

I am happy with the final edit, I don’t think there’s anything that I would desperately want to change, I’m happy with it’s current form, but like I said there were a few shots that I would’ve liked to include that we didn’t have, but they weren’t a massive part anyway, a few seconds. I definitely enjoyed the editing process, at first when I heard that we were going to be doing an individual edit, I thought that it was going to be a really long and boring task, but when it came down to it I really enjoyed it, I enjoyed learning things about Final Cut, sorting what shots I wanted, and sorting the whole film so that it looked and sounded it’s best, and was how I wanted it to be.

documentary progress.

Last week, I planned all of what we’re going to do for our documentary, the subject was decided on, questions, possible themes, sequences to include, storyboards where all sorted last week. So with that done, I was thinking that we would be able to film our subject, have the documentary sorted good and early so that we could focus on our other work, but it’s all gone a bit wrong really.

The person in our group who knows the subject, and who wanted to have them in the documentary a lot, hasn’t actually got in touch with her to arrange a filming date, despite the other two members of the group asking her pretty much everyday to do it. Finally tonight we actually made some progress and she said she is going to talk to her about it tonight, so hopefully we’ll be able to sort a filming day out before next friday, when it’s got to have been filmed by.

I’ve been looking into a possible back up, just in case this subject falls through, which is looking more and more likely. I again just need to see if the subject is actually going to do the documentary before finalising the other subject, but hopefully this will be sorted by tomorrow.

161 work.

Brand Logo.

I wanted a simple logo that got across everything that I would be making, film, photography. I didn’t want to call it a name that didn’t have anything to do with me, so I’ve decided to call it simply Luke Cutts Media.

It was decided that the outline was a bit busy, and seeing as this was just a first draft, I also decided to make some of the object look more realistic, such as the camera. I decided to make the logo just one block colour so that it doesn’t distract from the name and the objects around the outside. If the colour was a mixture, I think it would jus the too over the top and distracting.

I think i’m going to rotate the boom to the left and then I think it’s done. I like how some of the objects look more realistic than they did before, like the camera in the top left and the film reel bottom right. i think the logo gets in everything that I want to create, without being too subtle that it’s not obvious what types of media i’m going to be making. I’m happy with the overall design, I think it could be useful for future branding like letterheads or business cards.

 

 

Recycled Media.

For this project, I’ve focused on the character of Mitch Ollis that we used for the Cabinet of Curiosities, and one of the characters that died in the Fleshers video, as well as the killer. Because the character of Mitch is confused over his sexuality, I’ve made it that the boy who he has feelings for in the Cabinet of Curiosities project, the killer in Fleshers. The victim in Fleshers has been made into Mitch’s sister, creating a new narrative as well as re using material from previous projects.The two narratives, the sexual confusion between Mitch, his girlfriend Stacey and her brother, and the events of Fleshers, have been mixed so that the killer of Fleshers is the brother of Mitch’s girlfriend, Jamie Jenkins, living a second life that no one knows about. The media has a mixture of media, such as Facebook pages and video blogs, as well as phone calls and text. It reaches across various media platforms that have been used in previous projects to create a new narrative.

 

 Reworking a Fairytale.

For this project, I’m going to rework the fairytale of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’, as I think this would work well in a modern setting.The story i’ve come up with is a boy who constantly makes exxagerated remarks on facebook, twitter and in real life, about how he has done all these mad things, like killed a tiger in India etc. His friends get sick of him making stuff up, so dare him to do something to prove his worth. When he gets there, he chickens out, becoming the laughing stock of his friends.

the synopsis of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is:

A shepherd-boy, who watched a flock of sheep near a village, brought out the villagers three or four times by crying out, “Wolf! Wolf!” and when his neighbors came to help him, laughed at them for their pains.

The Wolf, however, did truly come at last. The Shepherd-boy, now really alarmed, shouted in an agony of terror: “Pray, do come and help me; the Wolf is killing the sheep”; but no one paid any heed to his cries, nor rendered any assistance. The Wolf, having no cause of fear, at his leisure lacerated or destroyed the whole flock.

There is no believing a liar, even when he speaks the truth.

I think this is one of the best fairytales to retell in a modern setting, as it has a universal central idea, that can be interpreted in any time period, with just a few changes to certain aspects, such as instead of shouting wolf, the boy can shout thief or murderer, something that is more relevant to modern audiences.