Title sequence media notes

Suckerpunch-
It starts with a dark stage, hard light is use to put shadows on the curtains of the stage, this gives out an eerie feel to the beginning. The curtains then open to reveal a dimly lit stage set of a room; the only real light is on a girl sitting on the bed, could it be signifying her importance within the film? There is lightening sound effects in the background which could possibly be showing the tragedy or sadness of the moment. There is also quite a lot of narration in the background at this point, the words are spoken very softly and there is a lot of pronunciation, it is almost like a narrator for a play.

Shallow depth is also used at many points so that we are able to concentrate on one thing that is significant at the time; it also swaps to deep depth so we are then able to focus on something else. The rule of thirds is also used at a few points, so we know who is important at the time. Echoing sound effects have also been used so that there is a certain amount of emphasis put onto something, when one of the characters is screaming or crying, echoing has been used almost to slow down and elongate the characters pain.

Soft light has been used at a few different points, when the dead mother is shown soft light has been used to give her a peaceful and naturalistic look. It has also been used on one of the female characters, by using this effect it almost gives her an angelic ‘doll’ like look.

A high angled shot is then used to show the amount of people, but the lack of colour in this clip. It is also raining, which adds to the feeling of grief and gloom. The only colour that is seen is a rose, which is then dropped into a grave, almost like this is symbolising the last good thing in life for the characters.

There is then a low angle shot being shot from within the grave, looking down is a male character, the fact we are looking up on him gives him a sense of power and authority. As he begins to shovel dirt into the grave it is like we are being buried.

There is a hard light and close up on a gun, could this possibly be symbolising what will happen in future events? Liquor is thrown into the fire, when this is done the fire rises and gets bigger, perhaps this is to show the rage and anger the character is feeling. There is then a focus on one of the female characters and the male character in the background is unfocused, making him look almost distorted.

Shows the knob of a door and zooms through the lock to show the female characters eye, it then zooms into her eye reflecting and showing up what she can see. There is then a shallow depth on the character, so it is unfocused and we are unable to see her facial features. Then it changes to deep depth and hard light and refocuses as the character points the gun.

There is then more echoing on the female character crying, by doing this it has made her sound almost like an animal in pain or ghost like. Like before there is a close up on the gun as it is being dropped on the floor, there is not much lighting showing the darkness of this clip. Voices are heard but they are muffled, like we are hearing through the characters ears and she is not paying attention. The title is written out in raindrops, almost highlighting the sadness of the film?

V for Vendetta-

Starts off with a black screen and a narration of ‘remember remember the 5^th of November’’ poem, this could symbolise that the 5^th of November has something to do with the film. There is then a close up on the characters face, by doing this we are able to see the concentration on his face and the force he is putting into moving the kart.

There is a lot of hard light used around this part, this has meant we are able to see more detail within the characters face but also there is a lot of shadow making it harder to see the surroundings so we concentrate on the character.

The music then gets louder and there is a bang as a door is slammed open and people carrying fire torches are seen, the fire could be to show the anger or importance of this clip? Soft and artificial light is then used, it shows the almost look of innocence on the man’s face as he begins to realize what he has done.

Naturalistic light is used in the next clip and also soft light is used once again, this means that there is a lot of natural shading on the characters at this point. The entire crowd are in coloured clothing, one woman is standing all in black, and this could be to show that she is mourning something or someone?

Echoing is then used as the character is hung, it shocks you into realizing the drama of this certain clip and maybe symbolizes the rest of the film will be just as dramatic? 

Friday 30th September 2011

Yesterday our lesson began with us learning how to edit using the macs, it was difficult at first but by the end of the lesson I understood how to cut down clips, fit the clips together and could use the basics of the program on a whole. Last week we began planning and shooting our preliminary task, this involved writing the dialogue , finding the perfect place to shoot and drawing out the story board. When doing the story board it was important to consider different camera shots such as a long shot or a close up, so we had to consider before hand what shots we would use which was interesting as everyone had different idea's about what would work.


We started filming last week but unfortunately ran out of time, but yesterday when we looked back on our footage from last weeks we could see that we had made a few mistakes (such as not using the rule of threes...at all!) and also there was a few malfunctions with clothing, so in the end we decided within our group it would be better for us to start our filming again.


When we went to start filming yesterday, we noticed that where we started to film last week was occupied so we had to re think about where to film, in the end I gave an idea of where we should film and the group agreed that would work well for film and we were right as the lighting was perfect.


This time we made sure that we used the rule of threes, and we managed to incorporate it much better than we had done the week before. We had a few problems with the location such as people walking out in front of the camera and every so often there was quite a large amount of background noise, but in the end we managed to get all the footage that we needed. There was one shot that we did a lot of experimenting with and in the end it turned out to be one of the best shots as it was a long shot and also had the rule of threes and the lighting was also perfect, so this shot proved that experimenting can be worth while.


Once we had gotten all our footage we went back and uploaded it all onto the macs and started to edit it together, we struggled abit at first as it was our first time properly editing clips together and it was quite difficult to find the exact spot of which to fit them all together, but we managed to fit them all together perfectly  and it turned out looking great.


But sadly it was not as good as we thought, this is because someone pointed out that within our dialogue we had not used the 180 degree rule. So with each line of dialogue we swapped the over the shoulder shot, so the first person had the camera on one side of their shoulder and then the second person would have it on their other should. We were all devastated we had made such a simple mistake, but we all still felt extremely proud of how well the video on a whole had turned out in the end.


This task was extremely fun and extremely challenging, I loved getting the chance to experiment with different shots we had been learning about over the past few weeks and also trying out different lighting and locations was interesting as we all got a chance share our ideas. I also learnt the importance of the rule of threes and the 180 degree rule and how they can effect the outcome of videos.