Music Choice for the Opening of the film

The Music tht I have chosen for the opening of the film will be the well known classic song by Huey Lewis and the News. The Power of Love. While this may seem perculiar due to the dating of the song. I still think that the beat is perfectly sound and just upbeat enough to express the characters mood.

Appropriate music for the Opening section of the film and that of the End Titles

In the opening section of the film I would like to use something smooth yet punchy. I would also like it to be more of an instrumental focus than a vocal one. For the ending scenes I want it to be a little bit more powerful and solid in terms of the beat to give it a strong finish. As of now I cannot think of a good example but I will be sure to update my blog should I discover it.

Basic description of the concept for the Continuity project

The concept of the short film is a rather simple one, It simply follows one particular portion of an individuals life in a rather upbeat manner accompanied by rather upbeat music and ending with a nice smooth title.
In the story we follow one particular character to start with and this eventually evolves into a dialogue between two characters. The scene follows the following events:

Firstly, we open to a black screen with a voice over of someone being rung on a telephone, the tone is distinguishable and is clearly identified as a phone. It is then picked up and answered by the main protagonist of the story. From what can be interpreted from his line of the phone, he has recently been employed into a job that he very much hoped to get. for a brief second things go quiet and then we quickly cut into a scene of someone walking down a corridor from the level of their feet from the side, then from the back, finally ending on the right hand. Each of these are done to music with cuts at recurring intervals. After the hand shot the walking is timed to allow the protagonist to walk through a set of double doors into another hallway while the camera stays behind the double doors.

This starts a change of view as we cut to a shot of a man from over the shoulder while he is writing in a book. From the angle a door can be seen clearly and the first man from earlier walks into the room with a sense of "Swagger"

"Well Well Well, Were awful cheery today" Says the sitting man, From the point of view of the camera which is placed behind a seat that the first man sits in while still allowing an over the shoulder shot.

Just before he sits down the camera switches back to the point of view of the sitting man. Just in time to see him sitting down.

"Yep, as of today I am officially employed." He states rather smugly, all the while the camera remains in its position.

Cutting back to the second man. "You dont think you're letting this go to your head, just a little."

Just Before the sentence ends the camera switches back to allow the first man to say "Not, Even, Slightly, If you'll excuse me, I need to go celebrate" He begins to get up when this sentence begins and the camera pans slightly up with him.

The camera cuts back to the sitting man shaking his head saying "Honestly" In an amused tone. The camera shows the first man beginning to walk away but quickly he is verbally stopped by the sitting man.

Quickly the camera, now elevated to the First mans position shows the sitting man stating "His majesty could'nt loan me a Five could he"

Camera Cuts back, "I dont see why not." States the first man as he recieves his wallet from his pocket and pulls out a note.

The camera starts on the sitting man leaning up for the note, then cuts to first man letting go of the note. "Cheers man" says the sitting man, whom the camera rests on. The First man simply nods and walks off. As the first man walks away the camera is now placed at the other end of the room and follows him. The voice over states "Life is good", Music begins to rise into the scene and as soons as he adjusts his jacket, Him having walked closer to the camera, the scene ends and cuts to a title screen with the credits. On the title screen the music is made much more noticeable.

House M.D. Season 2 Episode 24 "No Reason". An interesting editing example.

Among my peers it is no secret that I am a monumental fan of the hit series House M.D. The show itself may follow its own sense of cliché now and again with the repeating theme of finding a problem, thinking they have fixed the problem, accidentally made it worse, finding out something interesting about the person, House will then have an idea come to him from something random (such as a Taiwanese disease seen from a woman’s thong), and they'll be cured. But it isn’t the repetitive story arc that I would like to talk about.

Editing is something that up to this point the show had been pretty straight forward with, a bit more rapid for tension and smoother for resolutions, but in the Season 2 Finale, there is a fun editing ploy used to tell the story.

Simply put, at the start of the episode Dr House finds himself in a predicament where he has been shot in the neck and the abdomen. He wakes up the next morning fine and dandy in a hospital bed, the only difference being that people won’t question what he says anymore, and he is always correct, House ends up confronting his boss Dr Cuddey to see what’s going on and why on his chart his surgery included the chemical Epinephrine, given its ability to put patients into comas for short periods. She says that it was to help with the pain and will also help to heal his thigh muscles according to a German study. House is adamant that this was a failure on the part of the surgeon. As the episode goes on weird occurrences begin to come into play, such as treating a patient, then talking to his wife, only to find he is in fact a widow, his wife died years ago. Eventually House begins walking around again, helping one particular patient who is literally exploding (Rather Gruesome). It is then that he comes across a great marvel, while talking to Dr Wilson, his conversation moves from his room to a stairwell. House has no recollection of moving to the stairs and it is simply context that causes him to move from place to place. *Spoiler* Because of this House determines that he is in fact in a coma and consequentially dissects a patient with a large machine designed for surgery.

By using the sharp cuts from scene to scene, coupled with the fact that House is literally being thrown scene to scene, we can understand his confusion greatly, His entire existence at this point is based on context and what his mind believes happens next in the "Story" regardless of House being aware of the situation.

*Ultimate Spoiler Warning* House is still in the coma after all. He asked for the Epinephrine but couldn’t remember.

Starting the Continuity Project

The new term has begun and with it is a new project, for this project I will be required to focus on the areas of:

 

· Shot/Reverse Shot
· Action Matching
· The 180° Rule

Hopefully this won’t be as much of a disaster as last years in which we took a comedic turn that didn't fit, wasn't funny and potentially ruined the piece. Here’s hoping that this year’s piece will be helped by my experiences in the past.

Key Points for this Piece include shooting the following scenes:

 

· Opening a door with action match
· Conversing with dialogue in a Shot/Reverse shot

 

Lack of posts for a week

While I thought that a trip to Cumbria would have been a relaxing getaway to work on a few blogs in the woods with a nice cup of tea. North West England's Broadband and Wi-fi Capabilities have much to be desired and I struggled even getting a phone signal in most areas let alone 3G. I have now set my clocks forward back 20 years in the North East and I can now easily work again. Apologies for the Inconvenience.

The effect of Different Areas when Shooting

I thought it could be interesting to write a short entry about the effects of different areas and when they work and don't.

To start with lets looks at outside areas. The three main areas that come to mind for me are: 1. The Street 2. The Woodland areas 3. Open Plains.

Starting with the street, I think that one of two things can be produced by shooting in the street. Should a character be walking alongside people and essentially blur into them, it shows some form of integration with society, in a visual and mental sense, the character has strong bonds and connections to the area and the people they stand with. Even if the audience couldn't see the main character, that would serve as the purpose, he would more likely be ground in as a more common everyday here. Kind of like the audience.

Yet there can be another way to shoot on the street, we can potentially isolate the character as well. One way of doing this would be to give them a strong feature, something that couldn't be ignored like a bright colour or a dark one by contrast. By doing this we can do the opposite of integration, we can show how a character doesn't fit into society. Because of some defining feature or reason he doesn't belong which can in turn give him or her a more interesting edge.

Moving onto the Woodlands. Woodland areas undoubtedly make for interesting shooting locations, In the daytime the bright greens and lush lands come through beautifully, in a lot of cases sunshine spots can come through the treeline and make for dramatic opening shots. Even in the winter, the lush green can be replaced with a pure white to give a pure sense. The lush greens with the sunlight can make for any number of happy situations, a father taking his son hiking or two lovers on a stroll. In the winter the pure white can be used to show the purity of a character and then change the weather to reflect how it is sullied. However, Beauty is but one half of a visual coin.










When day turns to night in the forest, the mood quickly turns grim. Many shadows are cast and the tops of trees overhang on the land, blocking moonlight wherever it can. The sharp pointed branches arch this way and swirl sinisterly. The trees themselves block the visual line of what we can see and so we can use this to trick the audience. "Are we really alone out here" Spouts one nerve wracked individual alone in the dark. "I have no i..." A character is quickly silenced. In the dark no one can see where he has gone, while the killer hides nearby skulking behind these silent barriers. Tense, yes?. I like to think this is why many horror films enjoy taking place in these areas, most also incorporate a POV shot to heighten the blindness in the dark and general turbulence of the characters being, both visual and physical.













Open Plains usually serve one purpose, or at least one that works superbly, Open fields can be seen at the start of many movies and most often in TV dramas. But for movies they serve as a method of smoothly starting the film on a high note with something calm, relaxing and visually beautiful. As if what is to follow serves only to intensify this beauty, it doesnt even need to show the characters, it really just has to be near to somewhere that is an important location for the main characters if not only one. The downside of Plains is that they dont make very good shooting areas for long time purposes, the lack of infrastructure removes the chance of an interesting encounter, rain can shift the land to a muddy mess in short moments and isolation reduces the social factors of character intereraction. Essentially the Open plain is like a good starter to a meal, on its own it can be wonderfull, any excess is pointless.