Conventions Essay

“Sometimes, working within constraints produces the most interesting work” (Branston and Stafford) How have you used real media conventions to produce interesting or effective coursework productions?

I do agree with what Branston and Stafford said because when I was constructing my project for both AS and A2 productions I had a limited amount of resources which made constraints for my production. This enabled me to get used to the software and the number of effects but also find new options in the software to add to my product. On the other hand, I disagree with this statement because if I had more freedom in the making of my production I would have been able to use alternate programs with possibly more opportunities in how to improve my production.

In my thriller I pretty much stuck to all of the conventions to make a good thriller film. Consistently in my thriller I made use of a dark, shadowy atmosphere, a conventions used in many thriller productions. Not only did this fit into the idea of the thriller but it played a big part which went well with the music of the thriller. I made eerie music on external music software called Cakewalk; this software has a number of features which let me produce a soundtrack which followed along well with the thriller film. I have developed my understanding for adding a music track into iMovie and adapting it to my shots which were filmed. It is different in my A2 production because I have had to use the technique of lip synching which was not needed in my thriller. The precision clipping tool was what I used to get it as accurate as possible. Once I had all the shots in place, it was a lot easier than I expected to match the music to visuals.

In my music video I matched the lyrics to the visuals, for example: In the chorus of my song one of the lyrics is ‘Is it my imagination or a trick of the light.’ When ‘a trick of the light’ is said it plays the same performance shots but I changed the effect to make it look like the light had changed. This effect worked well on the colourful flashing lights which I used in the making of my music video. It changed the contrast of the picture to make it work better. In my AS production, thriller, it wasn’t possible to match lyrics to visuals, but I did change the brightness and contrast of my shots to make them appear darker than they really were. This was the edge that I needed for the shots in my thriller, it made them just that bit darker and contrast a lot better. Because this was a pretty much a silent film, the dark brightness and high contrast was needed to involve the audience. This is what I wanted to achieve with the effects in my music video, it made the audience feel like it was happening to them as well.

I certainly do think that from my AS production to my A2 production, I have definitely made use of the features of the software and the camera settings to produce a better, more professional product. Throughout the production of my A2 music video production, I definitely made took more risks in ways to improve the product. One of the risks I used most was to not follow all of the conventions as much as I did in the AS thriller production, this was because I understood better how I could improve them and also explain why I changed them in that way.

Post Production Essay

“The post-production process can be the most important part of the filming process.”

How important has the post-production stage been in your foundation and advanced portfolios and how have your skills developed over these two years?

Throughout both of my productions I used post-production which helped a great deal to manipulate my filming making them look more professional. For AS, which was my first production I created a thriller opening and for A2, second production, I created a music video along with two ancillary tasks which used a star image motif which connected them together.

Eisenstein believed that editing was ‘the foundation of art’ and by this he meant that there is a relationship amongst multiple shots. He also created two types of montages which were ‘dialectical montages’ and ‘intellectual montages’. ‘Dialectical montages’ were abrupt and didn’t run smoothly which is the sort of effect which is used in the film ‘Seven’. I didn’t use montages like this in either of my productions because it didn’t suit what I was trying to portray to the audience. I would have liked to have made my thriller abrupt but the opening was more of a silent thriller which worked well. Although in the making of my music video, I did use Eisenstein’s theory of ‘intellectual montages’ which is editing to suggest ideas. I used this is the chorus of the song using the ‘dream’ effect which matched the lyrics of ‘a trick of the light’.

In my thriller opening production I adjusted the levels for brightness and contrast to make it more mysterious. This editing effect was used for the benefit of the audience and to make them feel like they were interpreting what the protagonist was experiencing throughout the opening. I used a basic software package which was available to me, this was iMovie and in the menu for changing the brightness and contrast, there were additional settings for changing the colours of the shot.

Another editing effect I used in my thriller opening was a cut to black right at the end, this made a prompt ending and fitted well to the protagonist screaming when the title of the thriller comes up on the screen just after the cut to black. The black, blank screen was to correspond with the darkness of the shots.

In my music video I used many effects and I think the post-production stage of this production was the most important throughout both of my productions. It was also the main process of my music video. I shot a lot more footage than I intended to or than I needed. This made the editing process quite tense for me because I wanted to get the most amount of footage from a lot of my shots. Most of the shots I took were of the band performing the song and I only did this multiple times to make sure the timings were perfect and easily sync able during the editing stages.

Fast cut montage was the main editing effect which I used because it brought a whole new level of dynamics to my music video. I had to make sure all of the shots were in time with the song and cut on the beat. The hardest part for this section was at the beginning where the music cut on every beat to each member of the band. It was about 0.5 seconds for each shot apart from the drummer who was 0.2.

I used a few preset effects which were in a little menu on the timeline. I clicked on it and a palette of effects came up on screen. I used these to make some shots fit in with the lyric, for example in the chorus – ‘a trick of light’, I used the ‘dream’ effect and other various sections of the drummer when I used the ‘vignette’ effect which was to make the audience focus on that part of the shot.

Conventions

Thriller Conventions

• A build up to the action
• Creation of fear / apprehension / anticipation / unsettling feeling / confusion / doubt over a character
• Dark, shadowy atmosphere (use of light and dark images)
• Establishing mood and atmosphere throughout the film
• Delay in showing the face of a significant character, or the action of an important event by first showing the hand of the character for instance or a reaction of someone watching the event
• Creation of suspense using soundtrack music –eerie innocent music?
• Morally ambiguous central character – film noir (Seven)
• Murder encouraging a suspecting audience
• Realistic settings to create a sense of ‘the unusual’ occurring within a normal setting
• Flashbacks
• Hero(ine) in situation of threat or struggle
• Red Herrings (Hitchcock movies)
• Twists and unexpected turns (The Usual Suspects)
• Making and keeping the audience tense and on the edge of our seats.The thriller relies on an intricate plot in order to create fear and apprehension in the viewer.
• The hero(ine) of the thriller is seen in situations of threat/peril before the film's narrative is resolved.
• The female characters in a thriller are often objectified through a series of gazes.
• The thriller narrative contains a build up of suspense
• The thriller is often located within an ordinary situation where extraordinary things happen.
• The killer ensnares the victim in a set of intricate moves.
• The thriller narrative is usually centred on a crime (usually a murder).
• The hero(ine) of a thriller is fallible.
• The audience are often positioned as voyeurs.
• The thriller often includes themes of identity (mistaken identity / loss).
• There is often a theme of mirroring involved in a thriller.
• Labyrinths and mazes are often motifs; they may be actual or psychological.

Music Video Conventions
The video will either be one of the following types or will be a hybrid of:

• Performance
• Narrative (lyrics)
• A concept or idea
• There will be some reference to the ‘notion of looking.’
• There will be a relationship between music and visuals.
• There will be close-ups of the artist and/or star image motifs.
• There will be intertextual references within the video
• The video will contain clear genre characteristics.

Post Production Essay Task

"The post production stage can be the most important part of the filming process."
How important has the post production stage been in your foundation and advanced portfolios and how have you skills been developed over these two years?

Across the two productions I have created (a thriller opening for AS and music video at A2). I feel that the post production stage has been significant because this is when I finally saw my productions come together.

"Editing was the foundation of film art." was believed by Eisenstein who was a media theorist, by this he meant there are relationships between many shots and are two types of montages which can be used. Dialectical montage which is abrupt and jagged like in the film 'Seven', although these effects look really professional I didn't use this in my thriller opening because it didn't suit the sub genre I was looking for. I didn't use this in my music video either, although I did use fast cut montages which worked well with the tempo of the song and cutting on the beats. The second montage which Eisenstein created was called intellectual montage which is editing to suggest ideas. This was what I used through out my music video, some of the editing effects such as the 'dream' effect was put in the chorus section which matched with the lyrics to imply 'a trick of the light'. I didn't really use this in my thriller opening although because I had analysed other thrillers I had noticed that the lighting of the shots was darker, so I scaled down the brightness and contrast of some of the shots during editing if they were a little to light for the genre of my opening or if they stood out from the other shots.

In both of my productions I used the same editing software, iMovie which was on an Apple Mac. This software is quite basic but was really all I needed for both of my productions. In my first production, which was my thriller opening (AS) I had a draft storyboard which had basic indications of what I wanted to achieve in the editing process. This was very helpful, but because I wasn't sewn down to a completed final storyboard, I didn't have limitations which I did in my music video. The limitations for my music video weren't bad because at least then I could follow it precisely and not go off into a different effect which wouldn't look quite as good. If I had used an exact storyboard during the editing process I think the effects which I would have used would have been more precise and look a lot more professional. On the other hand, not having a final storyboard allowed some freedom as I had not used this software package before and could explore different effects to see if they fitting my thriller.

In my second production which was my music video (A2) I did have limitations for what effects to use because of my final storyboard, but this doesn't mean I didn't have a chance to explore the effects. Before I was drawing up my story and whilst I was doing my storyboard I browsed through effects I could use and also uncovered a hidden drag and drop menu which wasn't enabled as a default. This was helpful whilst editing my music video together because there were a few more features which I played around with. I was originally going to use a green screen effect because it looked very effective when I was browsing the effects. Then I found that a green screen was actually needed which was a lot of money and out of my budget. So alternatively I found some green fabric which I was potentially going to use, but in the end, that idea wasn't going to work because there was no way of hanging it up during the filming process whilst keeping it static.

My star image motif which I used throughout my music video and ancillary task was the idea of cardboard boxes. This was very effective and fitting in well as boxes were all over the warehouse to imply a toy factory. A jack in the box, was my other star image motif which was equally effective, it also fitted with the name of the song which was also 'Jack in the Box'. To portray my star image motif from the beginning of my music video right through to the end, I used the song which is played when a jack in the box is wound up - Pop Goes The Weasel. I added this to the beginning along with a black screen which was to get my audience wondering what was going to happen next in the music video. I ended with the jack in the box popping up to the remainder of the music. This effect worked brilliantly and I am very proud of it.

                                                          

Post Production

Definition: The editing stage, where material is manipulated using software and transformed into a finished media product.

To achieve Level 3 or above you must comment and reflect on ‘media concepts’. 

EISENSTEIN
Eisenstein believed that editing was: ‘the foundation of film art’ 
For Eisenstein, meaning in cinema lay not in the individual shot but only in the relationships among shots established by editing. 
He created an editing style that he called "dialectical montage" that was abrupt and jagged and did not aim for smooth continuity. 
The jaggedness of Eisenstein's editing can create a sense of emotional and physical violence , but he also aimed to use editing to suggest ideas, a style he termed "intellectual montage." 
One of his films concludes with three shots of statues of stone lions edited to look like a single lion rising up and roaring, embodying the idea of the wrath of the people and the voice of the revolution. 

Homework: Answer the question below for next lesson using youre own critical reflections across AS and A2. 
- Remember to discuss specific editing effects, the connotations of each editing effect and whether each was uuccessful. 
- Aim for 6 seperate points in your answer and exaplin whether you were more experimental and adventurous in your editing of the AS production compared to the A2 production.

Exam Question: “The post-production process can be the most important part of the filming process”. How important has the post-production stage been in your foundation and advanced portfolios and how have your skills developed over these two years? 

Useful terminology:
Word bank:
To suggest…
To give the commutation of….
To signify …
To symbolise…
To show…

Overlap:
Fade / Wipe / Wash in/out/ Cross dissolve
Fast / Slow motion effects
Superimpose
Fast cut montage effects
Split Screen
Colourisation – be specific

Cut - A cut is when you go from one shot to another in a video without using any time of transition, such as a fade or wipe.

Dissolve - A dissolve is when one scene of your video slowly disappears into another scene. Most video editors will allow you to decide how long you want a dissolve to take, allowing you to lengthen or shorten the length of the transition based on how you want your finished video to look.


Fade - A fade is very similar to a dissolve, but instead of transitioning between two different scenes, a fade transitions between the scene and blank or black screen. 

In/Out Point - Every video editing program will ask you to set in and out points on clips you want to use in your final product. The in point is simply where the video will start, and the out point is where it will end.

Real Time - Real time allows you to see effects that you added to your video immediately, without the need to wait to render the video. If a video editor touts that it allows you to do something in real time, it means that you will be able to see the effect immediately.

Rendering - The process where an effect is applied to video. Think of it like developing a picture from a film camera; rendering is what applies an effect such as a wipe or fade to a piece of video.

Time Code - Time code is the numerical address for a piece of video. Typically listed as hours : minutes : seconds : frames, each frame of your video essentially has its own time code to help you identify it.

Transition - A transition is what goes between two video clips in order to make moving between the two of them more visually appealing. Common transitions include dissolves and wipes.

Wipe - A wipe is a type of transition where one scene appears to be pushed of "wiped" off the screen by another.

Digital Technology

“Digital technology turns media consumers into producers”. In your experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?  [25 marks]


From my first project, the thriller opening to my music video I have continued to use iMovie. This is the basic Mac software which was available to me and after making my thriller opening I got to grips with it. During the post production stage of my thriller opening, I didn't use that many of the effects because they weren't really needed as I captured everything through straight forward filming. Although for my music video, I used a lot more of the features, before I started editing the actual music video, I looked around the iMovie software to see what was available. I used the effects menu, colourisation and a hidden menu which I found when you drag a film clip onto the storyboard, overlaying another film clip. This gave me more options to enhance my music video and make it look a lot more professional. I upgraded the camera which I used, because I wanted better quality and more features. So instead of using a mini DV camera, I used a HD camera which was a lot higher quality and did have more functions on it, for example there were a lot more settings in manual mode and was easier to focus on specific objects, which I did use while filming some of the shots.


Making ancillary tasks was new to me, as I hadn't made them for the previous project so I planned what I wanted to use and create before I started anything. I had thought through so many ideas before I finally decided on the perfect one for my website and digipak. During the making of my website, I used a program called 'GIMP' which is an image manipulation software. I created all the separate icons, buttons, backgrounds and animations on this and saved them as separate files and then used a program called Serif PagePlus to assemble the website using layers. 
The internet was a big part of my website construction, because I needed to find a way to upload my website on to the internet so that it worked with an address for the bands website, so I used a free hosting site called 'Angel Cities'. It wasn't the best hosting site because there were adverts at the top which did disjoin my background layer and make it slightly pixelated, but it was free and looked one of the most reliable hosting sites.
For my digipak which was my second ancillary task which I created, I used 'GIMP' again to create everything on it, the logo, background, text layers, jack in the boxes and all the textures. I created all the textures from scratch because I didn't want to fringe copyright during the making of it and I also wanted a challenge. I created the whole digipak on this software and assembled it on here. I had to get the dimensions correct otherwise when I made the individual layers which I later added to it, the sizing wouldn't be right and wouldn't fit on the digipak. They would also look pixelated if they were the wrong shape or size. 
For both my website and digipak, I used 'Photoshop Lightroom 3' which is used for colourisation on images. These images were from a band photoshoot which I did and they were on the inside of my digipak and at the bottom of my website. 


For all three of my projects I have used blogger to create an online diary of what I had been doing in my planning, editing and final stages of my projects. I have used some software on my blogs which is from the internet to help me present my posts in creative ways. For example I have used, 'SlideShare' which has helped me to present my powerpoint slideshows with ease, 'Wordle' which has helped me to create a list of words, but in an interesting way to show creativity. It isn't just a list of words it puts the words at different angles and in different colours. I have also used, 'Youtube' which has allowed me to upload music videos which I have analysed and adapted ideas from, I have uploaded some creative responses in my evaluation using 'Youtube' and finally I used it to embed my music video into my blog. I integrated pictures into my blog, but I didn't use website such as 'Flickr' or 'Imageshack', I saved the picture or copied the URL to Blogger's picture uploader feature to embed them where I wanted on my blog posts. 

Digital Technology Quotes

With the most primitive means the artist creates something which the most ingenious and efficient technology will never be able to create. (Kasimir Malevich) 

What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds. (Steve Jobs) 

The proper artistic response to digital technology is to embrace it as a new window on everything that's eternally human, and to use it with passion, wisdom, fearlessness and joy. (Ralph Lombreglia)