Our preliminary task went really well as we got to try out different ways and techniques of using the camera. I have enjoyed making our preliminary task and we used a basic idea for the whole thing. We were inspired by a previous scene that we had studied for tv drama were one person clearly dominated the scene and the other person was kind of intimidated. We took that idea and just changed it around a bit.
When usin the camera we often used zooms to get real expressions to add impact. We often used close ups and angled shotsfor the same reason. we got all the shots we needed and the preliminary task in the end was a success.
Ihtink we need to work on more camera shots though the preliminary task didn't need many. I thinked we worked well on the effects of the camera and the different attributes of it.
I enjoyed using the camera and it was fun to film the scene overall.
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Kung-Fu Panda Opening
For research, we watched through the introduction to Kung-Fu Panda. We found it to be a good example of a children's film introduction. There are a few important elements which explain a little about the film to us before it begins. The introduction of Kung-Fu Panda was the influence for our children's film introduction.
First of all, the introduction helps us understand that the genre is a family film. The characters are cartoons, and they all have over exaggerated movements, and some are rather 'slap-stick'. Usually, this suggests that the film is trying to appeal to children because it keeps their concentration. The idea of this heroic panda, going around and helping those in need by defeating evil villains is good for a Children's film, because it shows that these evil acts are bad, and makes it easier for children to determine who is right and wrong in the scene. (Also that if they try to do anything bad, a panda might come at them.)
The sounds also suggest that it is a family/children's film. There is a voice-over going along with the introduction to explain what's happening. The voice-over is humorous, and telling the story of this heroic panda in a way that would appear to children and adults alike. The general use of comical words and slang in this 'serious' scene also add to the appeal. The music used in this scene represents China, and gives away a Kung-Fu element to further set the scene for the rest of the film.
At the end of this cartoon introduction, the clip is interrupted with 'real' voices, outside of this dream world of this main character, and he is woken up; it is now very clear that this panda dreams of becoming this heroic figure of his imagination, and therefore sets the plot for the rest of film.
Dominic Noble's Analysis
We recently shot our preliminary task, a video to practice different aspects of creating a video, and I am pleased with the results. The idea for our video was simple, it is a conversation between two people, one whom has the most power over the conversation. If we wanted this to work, we had to have a threatening character as well as a victim. We had different ideas about how we should do this, e.g. we were thinking of filming a normal conversation between two people where the power is on the same level; and although this task was meant to be simple and plain, we felt that a normal conversation would have the viewer becoming bored very quickly. Because of this, a conversation with a power struggle seemed to be the best option.
The 'victim', so to speak, was played by Stephen, and the character was meant to be portrayed as continuing with his normal daily routine; this was shown by his casual position as he sat alone reading a newspaper. The threatening character was played by myself, and we put him in to make the scene more exiting, and to give it a plot. There is little in the way of character development, but you can see instantly which character has the power in the scene.
Because we wanted to keep this short clip simple and basic, we chose to put most of our efforts on one of the most noticeable factors, camera work. From the very start, the camera is at a low angle towards Stephen, showing that he is perhaps the victim. When I walk in, we had very low shots of me, and then as I drew closer to Stephen, the camera moved up; this shows that my character is not noticed by Stephen until I get to a close distance. The reason we did that is because we wanted to show that Stephen was relaxed and unaware of the environment around him whilst reading the newspaper, but that is interrupted as I sit down opposite him. Throughout most of the conversation, we have high angles on both of the characters, this is to show that they are having a fierce fight for power over the conversation. We also use close ups to show tension and expression in the clip, the first instance of it is when there is a close up of Stephen's reaction shot. It zooms in on his squinting eyes to show his serious glare at the other character. The second time we use it is to once again to show a certain seriousness with me, as I glare back at him in the next clip. There is also a tilted shot of me giving a threatening message, and it shows a slight bit of insanity. My personal favourite shot that we used is the long shot at the end of the clip, where I storm off; we used this to show both of us in the ending clip, and to show my expressive body movements of anger as I storm off.
Although our range of editing isn't extremely wide, we still put as much effort as we could into it. We start with an establishing shot of Stephen sitting at a table, reading a newspaper, this sets the location of the scene. Then we have the shot of me walking over to him, we used quick transitions for this and for the rest of the scene to make it feel more tense and fast pace, it also keeps a flow going. The main shots of the conversation are counter-shots, switching between the two of us; and for this we strictly followed the 180° rule by only keeping it on one side of the wall (Not that we could film through the wall). At the end of the film, as my character walked away, the tension dropped; this is why we did a slow fade out into the credits.
As for sound, we couldn't use any music, but the dialogue was thought of before we started. Some of the script had to be changed to make sense, but we mainly stuck to the plans for it. For my character, I used a more menacing voice to suit the tension and threatening aura my character was giving off. Stephen used a rather serious voice, which suits the conversation about 'business'.
In general, I believe the task went well, and we encounter little or no problems with the filming or equipment, apart from people walking past the camera during out long shot at the end; so we had to take multiple shoots of that one shot, in the end it came to 5. The editing was straight forward and we both put ideas into it.