Story-telling | Story-boards and Trailers (19th October 2016)

Story-boards are very useful across productions to help to visualise how the action in a story unfolds before shooting and during post-production.  Today's lecture with Simon went through different types of story-boarding and how they can be used for different purposes.

Most story-boards concentrate on key frames; the key moments that tell the story.  Story-boards do not need to be diagrammatic or works of art, they simply need to act as a guideline across the production for how the story unfolds.

Story-boards can be used throughout the production process:

• Conception: to convey the concept without having to shoot any material.
• Pre-production: where story-boards are used most, to use as a basis for how to deliver the production.
• Production: to use as a guide to set up shots on the day.
• Post-production: to speed up the editing process by depicting the initial vision to the editor and director.

More modern productions which rely on heavy action may use pre-visuals, which can depict basic animations to give a very basic feel of how the production will look.

Later on, we also looked at trailers, which act as the visual pitch for the story for the audience.  Trailers should aim to show what the story is (but not the plot), when it will be screened, and who it is aimed at.

We also each created a trailer for SOFT, by Simon Ellis, which we looked at a few weeks ago:

I chose to create a tense feeling in my trailer by constantly switching between the father, son and the mobile footage of the gang.  I felt this also worked to create parallels between the father's attack and the son's attack, and also allows for the audience to see a contrast between the two about whether or not to fight, which is the focal point of the film itself.

I ended the trailer with the line "Dad... Are you scared?" as I feel this is the most important theme of the film - whether or not the father has the courage to defend his home and son.

Contextual Studies | Camerawork (13th October 2016)

In our contextual studies lecture today, we focused on the use of camerawork, or cinematography, in television and film.  We began by looking at shots, and different types of shot, and how they can be used to convey different meanings.

Louis described shots as the basic building blocks of visual grammar, the visual equivalent to sentence structure: if shots are words, mis en scène is meaning and editing is the narrative structure.

Different types of shot, and what they are traditionally used for:

• Wide - establishes the setting, and conveys context.
• Medium - characters dominate the frame; emphasises personal relationships.
• Close-up - face or specific object dominates the frame; conveys intimacy and emotion.
• Extreme Close-up - selected part of character or object fills the frame; conveys heightened emotion, dramatic tension, or a reveal.
• High-angle/Overhead/Birds-eye - Diminishes the character or subject in frame, emphasising isolation.
• Low Angle - Emphasises a character or subject's dominance in a frame.
• Dutch Tilt/Angle - Disorienting; creates psychological tension.
• Slow/Fast Motion - Alters audiences perpetual or emotional response to dramatic action

Example of a wide shot from the Channel 4 series, Utopia

Angled shots are a common feature of expressionism, particularly classic German Expressionist films of 1920s/30s.  They present the world from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for dramatic effect - Expressionist artists sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality.

"The size of the image is important to the emotion, particularly when you're using that image to have the audience identify with it"

- Alfred Hitchcock

Example of the rule of thirds in photoraphy

We also learned of the 'rule of third', which is where the subject of the shot is placed at the point of aesthetic interest.  It is derived from the 'Golden Mean', where Classical concepts of nature's balance and harmony are reflected in art.

"Never, never use a shot without clear dramatic purpose"

- Alfred Hitchcock

We also looked how the camera's movement can affect what is conveyed in a shot.  Why would we want to move the camera?

• To heighten action or emotion.
• To convey objective or subjective viewpoints.
• Refocus the audience's attention.
• Explore or change the setting/environment.

"I believe in using camera movement when it helps tell the story more effectively... I think one of the first essentials of the moving camera is that the eye should not be aware of it"

- Alfred Hitchcock

As we did with shots, we looked at the different forms of camera movements:

• Pan, tilt, and zoom
• Handheld
• Steadicam
• Dolly/Crane

Visual style in moving pictures, according to Bordwell, can be denotative, expressive, decorative and symbolic, depending on the subject of the film and what tone the director is trying to convey through the use of the camera.

Story-telling + Workshop | Crossing the Line + Cameras 3 (12th October 2016)

After learning about the 180° rule, it was time to put this into practice, and so after being given a script about the subject, we were tasked with shooting the conversational piece, taking this rule into consideration - this was also our first time shooting with a boom microphone.

This was our first shoot involving the boom mic, and it was interesting to see how much the direction the mic is facing affects what we can hear when mixing, since I am not used to using directional microphones.  As we were in groups, each producing our own video, we were limited by time, but this also meant we could each try being behind the camera and operating the boom mic, which I was responsible for on most of the shoots.

Here is what I produced, with the help of Jacob with the boom mic, and Katie and Jason acting:

We were limited by the amount of time we had, so this isn't exactly my best work, but it was good practice for taking the 180° rule into consideration when planning shots.  This was also useful in that it was our first experience in using the boom microphones, since we were working on a conversational piece.

Workshop | Editing 3 + 'Fairly Legal' (14th October 2016)

Today's editing workshop focused on editing a drama piece from the show, Fairly Legal, using multiple shots of the same conversation, and our task was to edit sequence them in such a way that the dialogue between the two characters made sense, and so that we could convey more meaning than just through what is said.  This involved learning and practicing some of the trimming tools Premiere has to offer, as well as touching upon colour correction.

Here is the sequence I put together:

I thoroughly enjoyed editing this piece, as there was so much I could do depending on which shots I used, and how long I stayed on each character in a shot.  The edit that was used on Fairly Legal cut between shots a lot faster, but I opted to drag out close up shots with silence, so to add a level of emotion to what was being said - for example, when the female character is talking about her late father, the silence between the two characters creates a sense of shared grief, despite the overall piece seeming relatively light-hearted.

Story-telling | Beginning, Middles, and Endings + Moments (10th October 2016)

The primary focus of today's lecture with Steve Coombes was 'moments', the memorable parts of a moving picture which stand out, and can act as a turning point in the plot which should keep the audience captivated.  I'll start this post with my one of my favourite moments from my favourite TV show, Game of Thrones, in which one of the central characters, Jon Snow, comes face to face with a White Walker - mysterious icy creatures from north of 'The Wall':

First off, the cinematography in this is fantastic - the sequence where Jon is running to the hut, then Wun Wun the Giant bursting through it all in the same shot is very satisfying to watch.  We also have the big reveal that Valyrian Steel works against White Walkers, unlike conventional weapons, which is going to play a key part later on in the series.

Back to the lecture, we went through the three main parts of a moving picture: beginnings, middles, and endings.  Here is what I took away from the session:

• Do not bridge between acts with "and then", but rather "therefore", and "but", or else the story is boring and linear.
• Dramatic ironies come from "buts" - dramatic irony s when the audience knows more about the characters than the characters do.
• The minimum number of moments in a story should come in the form of the beginning, middle, and ending.
• The opening should be on a 'need-to-know' basis to entice intrigue toward the rest of the story.
• This can be to setup a conflict, or show a character's subconscious.
• The middle should materially change the story, so the story your audience thinks they are watching gains a new significance as they see it in a different light - a turning point.
• The ending is your punchline, and should have a satisfying payoff.
• Count your moments.
• Avoid a 'double bump on the head', which is where the main cause for conflict can be switched on or off without any real effort.
• Moments are the most important part of your script; if your audience starts to pay attention to the full plot, they may start to dislike it, but moments can save you from this.

Later on, we also had a quick look at the 180° rule with Simon.  This is where the characters must stick to their side of the screen in a scene, or else the camerawork seems disjointed.  Where you position the camera is where you position the audience, so it is important that each character in a scene sticks to the side of the screen they were in during the previous shot.

You can get away with breaking this rule if we see the camera moving, or we see the character moving to the other side of the screen in one shot.  Breaking the rule can also work if you wish to create a disoriented feel to the scene which can cause the audience to question their expectation of what is going to happen in the film.

Workshop | Editing 2 + 'Delicious Peace' (7th October 2016)

We had another look at editing today, this time we were getting to grips with using shortcuts and hotkeys to speed up the editing process.  We were given some footage to work with where we also had to arrange the clips in such a way that we could understand who these people were and what they did.  Here is what I came up with:



I opted to tell this story in a non-linear fashion, by introducing the coffee before the people and location before ending with the notion that their relationship is formed through peace, which I felt was a fitting end to the clip.  The reference edit, on the other hand, introduced us to the location, and the people before telling us of the importance of coffee to them and the global economy which does work as a documentary piece, but I felt my way created more sense of mystery - by introducing the coffee first and then being posed the question of why this is important, we have a small level of suspense as to who is behind it, and thus I introduced the characters last.

I chose to cut the clips along with the dialogue to improve the flow of the clips.  I also chose to introduce the backing track during the introduction to give a subtle hint as to what was to come later on as the community was introduced.

Story-telling + Workshop | The Chair + Cameras 2 (5th October 2016)

Today we were given a short project in which we had to shoot a short piece focusing on someone walking up to a chair and sitting on it.  Whilst this was a very simple premise, the main focus of the task was to practice framing, and to experiment with using different shots to cover a scene, rather than just sticking with one.

I chose to shoot my entire film without the tripod, so it was all handheld - this was just so I had a lot more control of the camera and the movement shots fit together better with the stationary shots.  One or two of the wide shots are slightly out of focus unfortunately, this is probably down to my eyesight not being good enough to see on the camera display, but next time I will definitely need to spend a little more time ensuring my shots are in focus before filming.  I also altered the exposure slightly, which I don't think made much noticeable difference in the film.

I opted to open my film with a shot of the lighting equipment in the ceiling of the studios to establish the scene, then pan across to the door so I could introduce Jason who is entering the studio to find the chair.  I then experimented with close ups of Jason's face and travelling shots of his feet and the back of his head as he is walking.  I switched between these closeups with medium and wide shots, and tried my best to keep to the 180° rule (may have slipped up slightly in a shot or two).

I tried to add a bit more detail than just 'Jason sits on a chair', so I captured shots of him entering the studio, looking around trying to find the chair, walking toward the chair, checking if anyone else was using the chair before finally sitting in the chair.  I also repeated the motif of panning up toward the studio lighting in the final shot to give the film a cyclical feel.

Here is what I came up with:

Slightly random point, but we spoke about shutter speed and frame rates, and we touched upon NTSC and PAL outputs which seemed confusing initially, but stumbled upon an interesting video on YouTube this evening by standupmaths which clarified some of the history behind why the US uses NTSC, and Europe uses PAL:

Workshop | Editing 1: The Basics (3rd October 2016)

Editing is what got me hooked on the idea of studying TV production, so I was eager to give Adobe Premiere a try, as most of my editing experience comes from hours and hours toying away at Sony Vegas.  I had used Premiere a few times before, but I had never got to the rendering/exporting stage.  I purchased an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription a few weeks ago however this was my first proper hands-on experience in using the software.

I think I got the hang of it pretty quickly; not quite ready to edit any feature films yet, but my experience with Sony Vegas helped as I saw a number of similarities between the two different programs.  We were given sample footage with a voiceover, some ambient noises and a piece of music that we could use to edit as we saw fit.

This was also my first time editing on a Mac, as I am used to working on PC, although I feel I will stick with using PC as there were some minor differences that bugged me quite a lot with Mac; I spent about 15 minutes trying to work out how to copy my finished clip to my hard drive, for example (I gave up in the end).

This is what I put together:

The sequencing of the clip was tricky considering I wasn't involved in the filming, so I didn't know the context of what I was editing.  However, I arranged them so it began with a few establishing shots, and timed the entrance of the central character with the start of his monologue.  I also added a small title, with a dissolve transition to create a calm, sombre feel to it.  The rest of the footage did not rely on transitions; jumping from one shot to another worked well in my opinion, and adding anything would detract from the man speaking.  I toyed with some colour correction on the clips, but left it as it was, as I felt I would not be able to make much of a difference, as I liked the warm lighting in the raw footage.

I also tweaked the audio using Adobe Audition - I liked how I could simply right-click the audio track in Premiere, edit in Audition, and it would simply appear in my project with the changes I made.  This would have saved me a lot of time in the past, where I had to render specific snippets of audio in Vegas, edit using Audacity, then export it, and paste it back into Vegas.  I used this to remove some background noise, such as the cameraman talking, and group of people laughing which I felt would have distracted us from the monologue.  I also added some silence at the end of the clip to give gravitas to the final line.

Overall, I enjoyed working with industry-standard software for a change, and I was glad that it didn't feel too different from what I am used to.

Story-telling | Dialogue and Characters (3rd October 2016)

We had our second lecture today with screenwriter, Steve Coombes, in which we had a look at the dos and don'ts of writing dialogue and characters.  There was a lot of valuable information to take in because dialogue is of course important in screenwriting.

Here are the 'dos' of writing dialogue:

• Be aware of different peoples' dialect and accent; each character needs a different 'wrinkle' in their voice.  Make notes in the script to help actors know how to deliver these lines.
• Every sentence should either move the story forward, or develop the character, or else the dialogue can just seem like speech which can be dull.
• Similar to the last point, you must aim to get the essence of natural, but not completely natural, so the dialogue is believable, but not boring.
• Not everything has to be said through dialogue - in the same way as we discussed previously, in which you should show and not tell - you can use facial expressions, mannerisms, and body movements.
• People talk in contradictions; the things that matter most to a person tend to be the hardest thing to talk about, so you must consider what they are thinking about, and what they cannot say.  For example, Steve showed us 10 CC's The Things We Do For Love and compared it with I'm Not In Love, and I'm Not In Love came across as more believable, as the lyrics suggest that he is, in fact, in love which comes across as more powerful than stating the truth.

• Different characters will use expletives differently, relating back to their accent and dialect.  People also speak and swear in rhythm; good dialogue reflects the rhythm of their life.

Leading on from the 'dos' of writing dialogue, we also went through the 'don'ts' of it:

• Don't state the obvious; this makes the dialogue tedious and boring.
• In a similar vein to the previous point, don't make the dialogue too 'on the nose' - characters rarely say exactly what they feel, so the dialogue should challenge the viewer to scope out what they are thinking.
• Don't make dialogue too formal, again relating to getting a character's dialect right.  You should also avoid being too grammatical with dialogue.
• Overusing a character's name in dialogue can get annoying.
• Don't make dialogue too real; the essence of natural, not natural.  Therefore you should avoid giving a character more than three lines, as realistically, a conversation is short and snappy, not filled with monologues.
• Don't give away information through dialogue - show not tell again.
• Dialogue should not be about what it appears to be about - make use of metaphors.

We then focused on characters, and for this, we looked at three archetypal characters: the monster, the existential hero, and the single man/woman.  'The Monster' is driven by anger, and they can reveal themselves through this anger.  'The Existential Hero' doesn't quite know who they are; they are wearing a veil of ignorance and must work out who they are through the duration of the screenplay.  'The Single Man/Woman' is more complex; their conflict revolves around what sort of relationship they should be in, how they address these issues, and what choices they make as a result of this.

We also took a number of notes from Steve's advice on characters:

• You should know your characters at least as much as, or in the same way as you know your friends - you should know their flaws, which leads onto the next point...
• Characters need flaws; when characters are morally perfect, like Jesus or Superman, they have little to no room for development and thus make for uninteresting characters - most characters are failures, and so they should fall short of themselves to make for interesting story-telling.
• Characters tend to be more interesting when they are little people trying to be bigger than they are; for example, rich people looking down on the poor may struggle to relate to the audience.
• It is good when characters have a 'tell'; when they give themselves away without intention to give away.
• Drama is when the point of sympathy with the characters is constantly switching, so the internal conflict of the characters is vital.
• Give all characters equal right.
• A backstory describes your character from an external point of view, so it is bestnot to draw too much attention to this; you should focus on what they will do, rather than what they have done, which may not be relevant to the story.
• You must know what keeps a character tense.
• All characters should have a big 'but' - the contradiction is what makes them interesting.

Story-telling | Revised 25 Word Pitch + Screenplay Details

I have received feedback on my screenplay pitch and have decided to make some amendments which I felt better.  From my feedback, I could see that I needed to change the 25-word pitch itself so that it was more relevant to the expectations of the story, because the original pitch suggests that Will is a more sinister character than he is, and that Nick will undergo some sort of trauma during his encounter with him, when in fact, their encounter will serve as an eye-opener to Nick with regard to his mother's alcoholism.

I have also decided to rename Will to 'Derek', and to make his persona less threatening one, and a more damaged and cynical character, in a similar way that 'The Hound' in Game of Thrones is.  I have also polished the character descriptions and extra information so they are a little clearer in relation to the story itself.

Here is the updated version of my pitch and details of the screenplay:


The Way

As a teenager is struggling with his mother's alcoholism, an encounter with an unlikely ally changes his view of the situation.

Genre:

The prominent genre of The Way will be drama, but it will also draw on themes of social realism, as does Soft, which I will take inspiration from in this regard.

Main Characters:

Nick

• Nick: An introverted sixteen year old boy who suffers from anxiety and only confides in his closest friends.  He has a distant and troublesome relationship with his mother after his father passed away, which led her to develop a drinking problem.  He is very wary of getting in trouble at school, hence why his school uniform is immaculate and he carries all his school books with him to avoid not having the right books on the right days.

Derek

• Derek: A scraggly homeless man, aged between 20 and 35, who suffers from alcoholism.  He is a lonely man, and he tends to keep to himself, but always tries to do the right thing, even if it means putting himself in danger.  He turned to drink after losing his wife in a car accident.  Now he lives on the streets as everything he loved is gone and he drinks to detach himself from the reality that he has nothing to live for.

Secondary Characters:

Angela

• Angela: Nick's mother.  Like Derek, she also suffers from alcoholism as the result of losing her spouse, Nick's father.  Again, similarly to Derek, she drinks to detach herself from reality, but deep down, she loves her son, but the alcohol prevents her from being able to express this, and instead, she comes across as a neglectful mother, and pays little attention to Nick.

  

  The Gang

• Gang: Local hoodlums with no regard for other people's well-being.

Locations:

• The Way will begin outside Nick's school, and we will see parts of the surrounding neighbourhood, but the main location will be the alleyway that Derek sleeps in, as their meeting will be the focal point of the screenplay.

Source Material:

• I was inspired to choose this subject matter from my own experiences from having to walk home in the dark from school some nights.
• The inspiration for the neglectful mother does not come from my own experiences thankfully, but the loss of a parent is something that has affected a number of people I know, each of them responding with differently.  Drinking can act as a way to cope with drastic changes such as this, so I felt I could explore this in The Way.

Extra Information:

• The meeting in The Way will be the meeting between Nick and Derek, which will lead to Nick sympathising with his mother's drink problem, as there is a parallel between Derek and Angela in the sense that the have both lost someone and they both drink to deal with it.
• Nick will initially be angry with his mother, but seeing and talking to Derek will allow him to see things from his mother's perspective.
• In one scene, Nick will be attacked - this will come from one of my own experiences in which I had a rock thrown at my head, then mud shoved in my face whilst waiting outside my school - this will lead to the introduction of Derek, who steps in to defend Nick.
• The screenplay will explore Nick's anxiety and his frustration toward his mother, which will change by the end of the screenplay.  We will also see the internal conflict of Derek and Angela through their issues with drinking.