Task 1 unit 16 Understand the development and principles of editing

This essay will attempt to further my understand of the development and principles of editing. In order to do so we will be looking at multiple aspects of the editing world. These include a brief history of the development of editing, convention & techniques, the purpose of editing etc. This will also provide a basic video tutorial on how to use premier pro CC along with some further exercises to help new users become accustomed to some of the additional features in the program. Note some of this will be covered in the video blog.

History
The hisory of editing is a long and engulfing tale, so in order to decrease the size of this essay I will summarised what I have researched in order to make things easier and far less boring. Though it was the Lumiere brothers who invented cinematography in 1895 it was Edwin S Porter who really introduced the idea of editing. He stated that filming does not have to be just a single image to count as the entire movie. He came up with the idea of cutting to different scenes to establish a different story in multiple locations. He proved the effectivness of his theory in 1901 in his movie "Terrible Teddy, The Grizzly King". It was later in 1908 that a Mr D.W. Griffith realised that you could implament the same cutting technique, but within the same scene. He used this effect in his movie "For Love of Gold", which portrayed the first continuity cut in recorded history. Griffith later discovered that he could use effects such as pace of editing and camera angles to manipulate the emotions of the audience alowing them to feel more involved. he put these effects to the test in his film "The ClansMan" in 1915, which included a number of effects such as still shots, panning shots, iris effects etc. In 1920 Lev Kulshove had developed a mental phenomenom that took into account the audiences perspective. He did this by taking two shots and putting them into a sequence, which would force the audience to look at the cenario in a certain way. I shall provide an example.
The first picture is the face of a man the second picture is a plate of food. By looking at these two images in this sequence you would normally assume that the man is hungry, however if we were to replace the second image (the plate of food) with a woman lying on a bed we could replace the current feeling with lust instead of hunger i.e. the man is hungry for food or he a lustful for the woman. The effect was named after himself and was hence forth known as the Kulshove effect. I believe this covers most of the important history of editing.

Conventions
There are a few conventions in the word of filming. One of the most important conventions would be the "180 Degree Line". This states that there is an imaginary line drawn between two subjects witch the camera is not allowed to cross during a cut. A example of this would be when two people are having a conversation. The camera must remain on one side of the line otherwise the viewer tends to become confused. If the camera man wishes to cross the line he must show the crossing on film instead of simly cutting during the edit.
Video example for further understanding
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bba7raSvvRo

The rule of thirds- This is the idea that everything on screen has a specific place. These places are devided into 3 main location. The middle of the screen, the left of the screen and ofcourse the right of the screen. In order to picture this you would have to draw two verticle and horrizontal lines equadistant from the centre and sides of the screen. This then creates grid lines to help visualise the position of everything on screen. This is used to prevent there from being so much empty space in most shots, unless of course this is what the producer wishes to show the audience.
Video example for further understanding
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSSOZxLnNyc

The final fundamental convention is the use of transitions. There are a number of transitions that can be used i.e. the cut away, cross cut, dissolve, blur etc. It is very important for editors to know how to use them. Usually everytime a transition is used it is to symbolise something about the scene or situation. Fast pace cut aways will usually signify a high energy action type scenario or a dissolve transition will signify a flash back of some sort. The idea is that every transition has its own properties and effects the audience in a number of ways in terms of their perspective on the matter.

Techniques
This part of the essay will give examples of a few editing techniques that are often seen in many films or tv shows.
Muliple points of view- This is when the editor uses multiple perspectives via camera angles to achieve the desired effect. The effect usually depends on what the scene is trying to portray in terms of emotions. Examples being the back and forth cuting during a conversation i.e. switching between the person talking and person responding.
Cross cutting- This is when the viewer is shown instances of what is happening in different locations at the same time. These different events are usually related in some way and eventually converge at one point. A good example of this would be in the "Batman, the Dark Knight" film when Batman was racing to save Harvey Dent. You had cuts between Batman on his motor bike and Harvey being tied up as well as a number of other events that are happening at the same time. Here is the video to clarify what I mean
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aJMo8sE2Pc      
  
Finally I come back to the transitions. Both of the effects listed above use the cutaways transition, however there are number of other transitions that are used to signify certain events. As mentioned earlier a blur transition would be used to signify a flash back or story telling sequence. Another one would be the slow dissolve, which is usually used to signify that a long period of time has passed since the last scene.

This essay has taught me a number of new techniques and refreshed my understanding of the basics and essentials of what to do when editing. It has also provided me with new ideas allowing me to think outside of "The Box" in a way of speaking.  

 

Claymation task 1 Fear the boxes

https://vimeo.com/120794448  - Video desu. Fear the Boxes

Video BITCH just the trailer, but I submit

graphic narrative evaluation

This is an evaluation that will re-assess what I did for my graphic narrative and what I took away from my production essay. It will highlight things such as my;

Narrative structure

Frame anchoring

Character representation

Use of color

and how the piece is affected by the lives we live today. Also I will be featuring some aspects of budget and health & safety. This is due to the fact that I failed to mention them in my production essay.

The narrative in my manga is mainly linear and follows the chronological order of the story line. Though there are some instances of flash backs or fantasy scenes that are occasionally unnecessary to the plot. Since it is a start up piece that is only the beginning of a larger idea the story does not tend to follow the life styles of characters other than the main protagonist. Along with this there are no real opposing characters just a single strand narrative that always or almost always involves the main protagonist. The theme and structure that it follows is fairy basic. There is a simple introduction, the main character is presented with a task, he conjures up some idea on how to deal with the matter and the story ends with him having either fail or succeed. My over all goal was to have him succeed, however I decided to add a slight plot twist to the end.

At the start I assumed frame anchoring would be the simples of tasks to achieve. By this I mean both the creation if the text as well as the placement of the text on the work piece. This later proved to be a very difficult task to accomplish, not in terms of script writing, but in terms of where to place the text. In order to do this I had to create rough drafts of the scenes to predetermine where all the text and speech bubbles went.

I took the examples of most school based manga pieces and structured my characters the way most manga writers decided to do this. This made the character, both male and female, seem rather girly in terms of body and facial structure. Of course personality portrayed through the narrative highlighted there gender along with the length of their hair and the size of their eyes. In terms of religion there was really on one character who has an obvious religion. This is represented through her clothing i.e. the head scarf. Other than this there are no other intentional religious representations. Race was difficult since the entire manga was in black and white. The only way I could portray the race of a character was through their hairy style.

I decided to use shading instead of coloring the actual manga firstly, because it was simply easier. Secondly, I personally believe the lack of color and representation of bright and dark spaces provides a better perception of depth without having to go into much detail. Thirdly and this is the most important point, I cannot color.

The piece itself is based on the daily lives of students at a college. This was a simple direction to take the manga, because I am a student who attends a college. Of course just a manga about people at college is fairly boring so I decided to use the things I would personally like to do and made it a little more eccentric than the original idea. i.e. I want to be able to eat in class, the main character will go on a round about quest to make it mandatory to eat in class.

The budget was fairly low, of course the prices for utilities differed depending on where they were bought. A number of supplies were bought at pound land on special offers i.e. 26 pencils for a pound or two erasers plus two sharpeners for a pound etc. However the quality was fairly poor. Some supplies that were bought from WHSmith were far more expensive, however the quality was far better and the products lasted far longer. At most I would say I spent 13 pounds on all these products. The only real health and safety issue to worry about was a lack of exercise and sleep due to the amount of drawing that was necessary. Seeing as how no toxic markers were used so there was no danger of inhaling toxic fumes and that is truly the only danger in drawing manga.

I believe this unit has taught me a few new skills such as teaching me how to draw along with a more creative view on potential creations. One thing it did re-teach me is the importance of pre-planning, which is essential when creating a graphic narrative. The use of hand drawn images have taught me some tricks that I could use during filming i.e. the creation of depth through lighting. Over all I believe this unit has been a great learning experience for me.

Group presentation and mood board

The Mood board

This is a collaboration of images that correspond with each others aid in terms of promotion. The browsers and devices help users interact with social networking sites.

Risk assessment, shot schedule, final meeting hours.

Further Risk Assessment

Hazard and risk	Potential injury or risk	Prevent	Who’s at risk	Who’s responsible
Wires	Tripping	Wire holders	People on and around set	Crew
Injury around location	Falling down stairs	Be cautious take lifts	On the go camera men	Crew
Interviews	Attacking	Bodyguards	Person being attacked	Crew
Flu season	Sick staff (not the good kind of sick)	Clean environment. Wear masks. Allergy tablets. Don’t come in if ill	Everyone	Sick person

The film locations we have chosen are very low risk meaning there are little issues to worry about.

Final meeting

14:38 START

14:40-14:47

14:38	START
14:40-14:47	Shot list for 23rd
14:47-15:03	Discussion of shot list and additional ideas
15:03-15:05	Listing of additional task
15:05-15:08	Division of labor with reconsiderations
15:08-15:14	Procrastination break
15:15	One member went home due to the flu
15:16-15:18	Reconsideration of job roles in case of worst case scenario
15:19-15:30	Script re-write plans incase of worst case scenario

Script risk assessment and editing styles were already discussed and organized in a previous meaning. We agreed to hold another smaller meeting the next day depending on if anyone called in sick or not.

23^rd/01/15

3^rd member was un-able to attend due to flu and called in sick. Presentation and minor adjustments of new script along with equipment check 13:32-13:34.

·      :-END.

Evaluation rise of social media

Throughout this evaluation you will be informed on the multiple aspects of the product that was made by me. Of course I will also label the technical aspects as well as framing, shots and quality. It will also answer these questions:

·      Was it what we proposed to do?

·      Were the findings accurate?

·      Was it fit for purpose?

·      What did your target audience think?

·      How does it appeal to your target audience?

It will also provide my own opinions on how things could have been done better.

In terms of technical aspects, during the edit I used a single sound track and a number of sound effects to symbolise certain motions. I attempted to add audience laughter in the background, however it was not as successful as I thought it would be. During filming there were a few issues. We could not achieve what was desired with a normal layout. In order to fix this we stacked tables on top of each other and raised the height of a tripod using a small conveyor that as originally used to move heavy objects.

Framing was fairly difficult. In order to achieve a properly framed shot that you would normally see on a game show we had to stack two desks on top of each other. We then had to find a step for the tripod in order to achieve a straight and levelled angle. The shot took multiple attempts due to the fact that it was difficult to keep the tripod and camera static throughout the shot attempts. Eventually we decided to use a different surface to place the tripod on. The image quality was extremely good. The shots were well focused and the framing was consistent throughout studio filming. On the go (while doing Vox pops) the framing was well established as the camera kept in mind multiple aspects, such as the rule of thirds. There over all filming was fairly still though there were some instances of minor shaking and shifts in focus resolution.  Other than this everything else went smoothly aside from the fact that some of the film footage for the Vox pops ended up corrupt. It just so happens that all this corrupt footage was of the males we had filmed that day.

Our original proposal was to compose a news channel that would focus on and present the task that was handed to us. The aim of this product was to feature the rise of social media. As a group we decided to compose a news channel that would show how social networking has effected this generation. In the end it turned out that the video was too long so in order to provide a product I created the episode and made a trailer to advertise the product. In the end both videos were presented as a whole.

The information we had gathered from a number of websites to conduct our research was accurate depending on the gender. When we asked people a number of questions for the Vox pops it turned out that more females complied with the data, however most males did not. There may be a number of issues that affected the data such as the male ego, the need for individuality or they were just truthful. The point is that the information was not 100% accurate, but was still correct most of the time.

If we refer to whether or not the video stuck to its original purpose I would say it did, however the trailer was nowhere near as accurate as the actual video. The trailer, in comparison to the video, is very vague in its attempts of delivering a message.

Though it was considered eccentric the target audience did state that the video was truthful to how the rise in social media has increased its users dependence on it. It reflects how this generation has become dependent on mainstream methods of communication and expression rather than being truly interactive with one another and meeting in person without being forced to.

Our target audience, based on a few comments, finds the product appealing in terms of it telling the truth about what is happening via social media, but in a comedic and eccentric ways. Some even believe that people may legitimately end up like Jess Taylor (character in video) if they are forced away from social media for too long.

In conclusion I believe that this unit has been a minor learning experience for me. I learned a few new facts from research into the topics, but overall the work was very repetitive as to what we did in previous units and has not really helped me in any way to better my future.