Final Opening Sequence - Question 6

Q6 -  What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

We were able to determine the difference between the hardware and software of our resources, with the hardware being associated with the complexity and hardness that was our actual equipment such as the Canon XHA1 camera, which is obviously the core of all the technologies/equipment used in capturing the desired live-action, the key elements for whatever issues we had to resolve with the camera were the positioning of the camera, the spirit levels etc and we, as a team, would put forward suggestions that contributed to rectifying the issues, what was essential was that it must always be on the ‘auto’ setting whilst filming as well as to never rewind the clips and look forwards in that we move onto the next shot or we do the mistakable shot once again, the desktop computers was where my experience and technical knowledge was at work, the tripods allowed us to adjust the height of the camera for shots at various angles and tracks (both tripods and tracks for support of camera), the latter enabling us to manipulate the types of camera shots and the software being associated with the computer-based programmes such as the video editing programme used, which was the Adobe Premiere Pro CS4, I’ve also had prior experience with video editing software of making and rendering videos for them to be uploading onto YouTube so I had a firm, fundamental comprehension about the editing techniques like fade, cropping and mixing music with the moving images, how they could be implemented and when was it best to integrate a particular video/audio effect and instantly when the editing role was vacant, I put myself forward as I felt my experience and knowledge could spun the group further and give us a slight advantage over the others but I acknowledged the fact that with not just my weaknesses but my strengths also that there was more I could learn.

Learning several filming and editing techniques and taking onboard advice from our teachers on how and when those techniques should be implemented was incredibly vital for both the Preliminary and Main Tasks, the following is the description of the filming and editing techniques and examples of where and why it was implemented into our opening sequence:

Filming Techniques

-          Rule of thirds – In regards to the frame being divided into nine imaginary sections likened to a tic-tac-toe board, which determines where the moving or still subject is positioned and serve as reference points for the idea framing of the subject, which the camera operator has full control of. Headroom refers to the amount of space between the top of the frame and the top of the subject (e.g. person’s head), during our Preliminary Task, what we as a group were able to spot was that too much headroom resulted in the subject looking lower and smaller in height and size respectively than it’s actual scale and insufficient headroom lead to extra emphasis on the upper body of the subject. Lookroom, commonly known as Leadroom, meanwhile refers to the amount of space visible in front of the subject. Retrospectively, having reviewed the rule of thirds, we realised that possibly leaving sufficient space in the direction the moving subject is looking in prevents the idea and interpretation of the subject going beyond the frame. A primary example of the rule of thirds being demonstrated in our opening sequence is when there are the medium close-up shots of characters Mitch and Donny discussing the plan, If I’m honest it can be said that we comprehended the rule of thirds naturally given that we know that what is in the centre of the frame is of high importance although studying and understanding the rule of thirds literally ensures that we are precise with where the subject is positioned.

-          180-degree rule – The 180-degree rule is the rule of line-crossing that involves maintaining the positioning of the camera within a 180 degree area that is dictated by an invisible line that is in the middle of the 360 of the camera. This rule was one of the most essential aspects that our teachers extensively covered prior to the filming of our Preliminary Task and made sure that we all had full comprehension of the 180-degree rule and that line should NEVER ever be crossed as crossing the invisible line means that the audience’s perspective is altered to one that is dumb-founded as the subject would look like it has suddenly jumped from one position to another so in that sense it would feel likened to a jump shot with the camera crossing the line. Once more, in the Main Task when Mitch and Donny expressing their dialogue in the office is one strong example of how to conduct the 180-degree rule correctly, it can be disputed that crossing the 180-degree rule is a formality in programmes, the majority would agree and that would seem the case however crossing the line is only an exception if the camera shots or in other words, the programmes are set in multiple locations. We put a lot of emphasis achieving the 180-degree rule in the Preliminary Task compared to the Main Task despite getting equal success in both tasks. Additionally, what is interesting is that the 180-degree rule is frequently broken in live sports coverage although it’s done to gain the best possible views of the action/event and is not an issue if the audience is used to it, perhaps the rule being broken is acknowledged when a graphic that states ‘reverse angle’ of the replay of a particular incident.

-          Match-on-action – One shot of a person doing one thing would likely to provide boredom to the audience, so match-on-action involves different camera shots of one action that is precisely and smoothly conducted without any jump shots, I feel like it’s linked to continuity slightly in the sense that there’s the element of consistency engaging with it. This was another aspect discussed extensively with our teachers prior to the Preliminary Task that needed to also be implemented onto the Main Task as a simple feature because match-on-action alongside the 180-degree rule are two primary aspects that need to be achieved when making a film. Match-on-action is immaculately displayed in the Main Task when Mitch is entering the office, with two different shots of Mitch opening the door, the second shot displayed as Mitch puts his hand on the door handle. What we needed to be cautious regarding match-on-action is the precision when it came to editing the film and finding a fine line and committing to it via not implementing too much of a variation in camera shots of the sole action because if anything personally, it seems more boring having millions of shots of one action, than having just the one camera shot of one action.

-          Continuity – Continuity simply involves the positioning of the subjects, items and perhaps mise-en-scene elements such as costumes and props being consistent in every camera shot they feature in. Originally, we were meant to have a lot of props consisting of bags, phones, watches and blueprints, the three previous props referred in the dialogue between Mitch and Donny although they were scrapped due to the mass changes that are already explained, so honestly it’s very difficult to spot a evident demonstration of continuity other than the gloves that are placed on the workstation whilst Donny is frustratingly throwing his phone onto the workstation and later on shown in the opening sequence to remain on the workstation when both Mitch and Donny are in the office. Duration between the subject being shown again after the first occasion is something to contrast with the Preliminary Task, with the shorter duration between the 1^st and 2^nd appearance of the props such as the bag as my character went to sit down opposite Alex’s character and the 2^nd appearance of the bag whilst the characters are sharing dialogue, this is predominantly influenced by the limits of the Preliminary Task obviously given that multiple locations weren’t shown between the appearances unlike the Main Task. Continuity was one of our main strengths in our Preliminary Task but that’s not it, we didn’t stop there nor stood still, we looked at the mistakes the other groups made with in regards to continuity and match-on-action and took onboard feedback that was provided to the other groups as there were plenty of mistakes made that were relevant to continuity so it obviously became the core of a serious discussion and we ensured that it was a strength that we could build on for the Main Task.

-          Action/Reaction shot – Action/Reaction shots are pretty much self-explanatory, being that the shot of the action is succeeded by the shot of the subject’s (likely a living being) reaction. If it seems incomprehensive then this example will hopefully provide more clarity; a medium close-up shot of a man revealing to his daughter that she is going to have a baby sister, then a medium shot of the daughter is shown, with her facial expression reflecting astonishment, the latter acting as the reaction to the news. In the opening sequence, an action/reaction shot is displayed when a medium-close up of Mitch informing Donny of the slight issues in the plan is shown, then it cuts back to the two-shot to reveal the change of Donny’s demeanour and body language. Like the rule of thirds and framing, this is another concept that felt natural and clear to us, as if we had the prior knowledge of watching programmes and grown accustomed to being aware that – whatever is in the centre of the frame or camera is significant and that the reaction of the person to what they discovered being shown is a formality and would feel queer if the shot weren’t to show the person’s reaction. Making a particular shot too lengthy and resulting in multiple actions being shown can perplex the audience by a fair amount,  as they wouldn’t have a reasonable indication as to what exactly was the response or reaction, an example of this occurred with our Preliminary Task when a two-shot covered approximately 50% of the dialogue between my character and Alex’s character, coupled with the fact that the two-shot didn’t display my face properly so any potential reaction when Alex’s character responded to my character was deterred, this was all noticed as part of our feedback for the Preliminary Task, it was already spotted as a clear issue whilst editing and at that point it couldn’t be helped given that there weren’t any other shots that could substitute the two-shot so we had no other choice but to make do with the two-shot. This is where total/safety shots would’ve came in handy as it would’ve served as a backup in a situation where we had insufficient shots or the main shots were poorly taken by the camera operator. What was done for the Main Task to ensure that we didn’t run out of variation or options was that after the main camera shots for the opening sequence were captured, we made the most of our remaining time on our filming day by experimenting and trialling out new ideas via taking medium shots of work displays in the school and taking different camera shots to represent different scenarios to add that bit of flexibility, although admittedly the use total shot would’ve been more simpler but again arguably the opening sequence is captured in multiple locations so the difficulty of taking a total shot of the whole opening sequence would’ve been virtually impossible.

Editing Techniques – Post-Production

- Crossfades – Referred to as Additive Dissolve and Cross Dissolve in the Adobe Premiere Pro  CS4 video editing software, crossfades are a type of fade that involve shots gradually transitioning to the next shots. In our Main Task, the main purpose for the crossfades being implementing where they were, such as the first and final shots, was to present the opening sequence with a sense of time passing by and the locations changing as well as determining the pace of the opening sequence with it’s fluent, stimulating and consistent feel.

Crossfade transition from one shot [Left] to the other [Right]

- Titles – Predominantly consisted of the cast and crew that played a part in making and producing the film, for the titles we placed extra emphasis in ensuring that they stood out from the other titles that were on the other films, we wanted to give our film it’s own persona, make it different from the usual in other words via making the titles as basic as possible ironically by making the font of the titles bold and the colour of them just completely white, although there was the manipulation of the opacity for the majority of the titles, the titles were a symbol of the film in that it didn’t require anything extraordinary or complex whether it’s how the titles or the other video effects appeared, they just focus on simplicity.

- Cropping + Mixing sound with images - The decision to add cropping, which is reducing the height and width of the screen, was centred around my experience and basic knowledge of using video editing software, cropping being my favourite, if not one of my favourite video effects when making videos as it added that dynamic feel to the videos and I felt it did the same with our film, arguably it also added a suspenseful feel to our film as well as contributed to the element of simplicity demonstrated. Furthermore, finding the ideal soundtrack for the film proved ultimately to be one of a challenge, like mentioned earlier on me, Alex and Hannah had different views of the feeling the storyline of the film produced, whilst Hannah went with upbeat and engaging, I opted for suspenseful and mysterious [Soundtrack] with Alex stuck in the middle, after a reasonably long debate, we opted to go with Hannah’s view in the upbeat, engaging and ‘grooving’ soundtrack according to it. What was crucial for us was that the sound was embedded within the film effectively, how we achieved was that the soundtrack was the dominant audio up until Mitch enters the office and rendezvous with Donny, when the soundtrack decreases in volume (thanks to opacity!) so that the dialogue, now the dominant audio, between Mitch and Donny can be heard. Once finish, the soundtrack becomes the dominant audio once more. For the final product, the auditory row in which held ‘background noise’, which was still dominated by the soundtrack, was meant to be muted, with the dialogue put in a separate to the ‘background noise’ so that it isn’t hindered by the mute however changes were made to the audio whilst I wasn’t present and so it resulted in the ‘background noise’ having a small presence or in other words, the background noise was no longer muted, which on my behalf was a slight disappointment as it seemed to decrease the maturity of the film.

- Assembly Edit – Assembly Edit is the first stage of video editing, coming before deleting unnecessary footage and putting all the required footage together, it involves putting all the footage into a particular order, unlike the Preliminary Task, we needed to be more sharper and rapid for the Main Task in regards to editing the film and that came with extra responsibility in the form of a continuity sheet which proves beneficial if there’s the commitment and dedication to it in terms of putting in the details of the successful and unsuccessful shots such as the costumes and props involved, the weather conditions, the amount of takes for a particular shot etc. Fortunately, I was responsible for continuity during filming and so the sheet was filled out to the best of my competence however I had to catch up on some small details during our breaks and discussions about what camera shots were going to be filmed next. The continuity sheet serves a main purpose of speeding up editing in post-production.

Where, when and how the editing techniques were implemented primarily hinged on the following:

-  How comfortable the shots involved were?

-  Does the use of a particular technique make sense with the scenario or camera shots?

-  What purpose do the techniques serve?
-  Does it aid with the progression of the storyline?

The primary lessons that I learnt while using the technology and equipment are to NEVER carry the tripod with the camera still attached to it, make sure that the technology and equipment is not isolated from the group and that there is always someone guarding them in case one of the group members has to leave and arguably the most vital lesson is to ensure that the Lacie drive used to save our film and various footage is taken out after the computer is shutdown for scrupulous reasons.