AS Media Studies: November 2009

Monday 30 November 2009

It’s the mood of a grand awakening, a morning in the vast vista of landscape sweeping by, and the titles are like luminescent blue spirits rising upwards into the sky suggesting that the strong landscape itself releases the supernatural. This film was great in that it presents horror within a framework of daylight, brightly lit sets, natural pastoral settings, and daydream dazes. Two of the pieces “horror” music used in the film (Penderecki) were even titled: De Natura Sonoris 1 and De Natura Sonoris 2 and also “The Awakening of Jakob”. The font is almost scientific in it’s simple clarity, and fits Kubrick’s style of movie. He always has this clinical study of situations and settings, as if a very formal “alien” intelligence is observing with no emotion to color the view.

This title sequence also fits with the ingredient of the Native American burial ground dialogue, hinting again at the Indian theme of supposed forces of supernatural completely tied in with the natural.

Mise en scene (from MediaKnowAll.com)

The things in the scene - these are literally the things put in the picture for you to look at. All or some may be significant, but nothing is accidental - remember, this is not reality, it is a re-presentation of it. This will include actors (think about the use of stars), set (think about the input of the designer, especially the use of colour), costume, lighting. You should consider how the mise-en-scène reflect the production values of the movie. Location is an important aspect of mise-en-scène: why was that particular location chosen, and what advantages/restrictions would you associate with filming there?

Sound - from MediaKnowAll.com

Sound
NEVER forget that the piece you are preparing is an audio-visual production. Note that audio comes before visual. It is absolutely vital that you get the sound right for your video - without good sound, your work will look amateurish and sloppy. A slick soundtrack can often hide the cracks in your images. Therefore you need to plan your sound just as carefully as you plan your images.

If your audience is viewing your work via YouTube, the image might be reduced to a couple of inches wide, but the sound will be as big and powerful as their computer speakers - get that to work in your favour, not against you. Video produced for handheld mobile devices needs excellent sound to enhance the storytelling, as images are so small. Sound can help you keep your audience's attention.

There are several different sorts of sound that you can use. Using computer editing software, you can layer them in, adjust volume and sync images to particular sounds. Use 'J-cuts', where you lay in a couple of seconds of sound from one clip over the end of the one before, thus leading the audience into the visuals. Some sound you will record using your camera, other sound will come from other sources. Be inventive!

Sound Recorded With Your Camera

Recording sound on a film setRoom Noise and Ambient Sound
You will learn very quickly that, with a video camera, there is no such thing as silence. If you are filming indoors your camera will pick up what is known as 'room noise' - the hum created by electrical appliances (especially air conditioning units!), the buzz of fluorescent lights, the echo of sound waves bouncing off the walls (big rooms sound very different to little rooms), the noises of a building as it creaks gently around you. Professional sound recordists will always record two minutes of so of room noise (with no one talking or moving) as it can come in very useful for patching up a soundtrack. Room noise is deadened by soft furnishing, so if you are seeking to minimize harsh sounds, film in a room with carpets, curtains and lots of soft cushions! You will need to take up the volume to compensate, however.

Outside there is also a lot of background noise, or ambient sound - passing traffic, birdsong, wind, nearby or distant people, aircraft, reversing trucks, squawking sirens - a whole cacophony of sounds that you cannot control. This is the noise of everyday life, and without it images begin to look very odd indeed. You therefore need to record it to add meaning to your filmed sequences, but you need to take care that it is not too loud and that it does not drown out any vital dialogue or voice over. You have some control over volume levels when editing, but it is better to capture your sound effectively at source. It is also worth capturing around two minutes of ambient sound outside as, again, you may need to patch up your soundtrack.

Dialogue, or Spoken To Camera sound

There is a microphone on the front of your camera. Most home video cameras come with an omnidirectional microphone which basically records all the sounds that are present in front of the camera. This means that you must ensure that the dialogue you are trying to capture is much much louder than any background noise. More sophisticated models will also have an external mic jack where you can plug in a more powerful, directional microphone.

Recording human voices is perhaps the most diffculty-fraught area of working in video. Digital video cameras are reasonably good at coping with indoor levels of lighting, however, they are not good at recording sound and this is something you have to work around creatively, especially when interviewing a subject.
NB - zooming the camera in on a subject does NOT also zoom the microphone.

Tips for good interview sound

•Interview your subject in a quiet place (obvious, but often not done). Ensure that they sit as still as possible and are not fiddling with pens, paper etc that could cause unwanted noises.
•Point the camera directly at them and place it as close as possible to them.
•Plug a set of headphones into the camera to check what IT is recording, not what YOU are hearing.
•Phrase your questions so that they should be obvious within the answers - your audience do not want to hear a disembodied voice answering questions, they want to hear the interviewee talking in as natural and flowing a way as possible. Think of your questions as prompts to get the interviewee to talk.
Remember that you will be cutting back and forth to your b-roll images, and that you can layer your interviewee's comments over different footage. You must prioritise getting good sound. If your interviewee stammers or stumbles over something, or if there is some unavoidable background noise (eg a telephone ringing) wait until the disturbance is over and roll the camera again.

Voice Over
The most efficient way to record a voice over is to find somewhere absolutely quiet (ie with very little room noise - see above) and speak directly into the camera microphone. You can record your own voice overs, or get someone else to act as the "voice" - think carefully about the gender, age and status of your "voice" - all of them will have implications for the meaning of your text.

TIP: Get into bed to record your voiceover - a duvet can deaden all outside noise. Be careful not to wriggle around as rustling sheets are a dead giveaway that you have used this technique.

Sound From Other Sources

Sound Effects
Sometimes you just have to fake it. Even when working with documentaries, you may need to heighten realism by adding in sound effects at a crucial moment. You can download free sound effects from the following sites, or check out some Sound FX CDs.

•StoneWashed
•Partners in Rhyme
•A1 Free Sound Effects

Music
Music can totally change the mood of an audio visual piece. Music can make an audience scared, tearful, happy, aware of the seriousness of the situation, or just want to dance! Choose your music carefully - you should aim for relatively short extracts of one song. Think about the mood of that music, its pace (you will have to edit to keep up) and whether it is appropriate to your images. If your music has lyrics it should match the meaning of your images.

Photo: Michelle SarratUse the fade controls to raise and lower the volume of your music - keep it right down if people are talking. It's best to do your sound mix after your picture edit is final, and, always, use headphones when attempting to set levels. Sometimes subtle background music can be more effective than a pumping beat at the top of the mix (unless you're working on a music video). Think carefully about the in and out points of music. You can use a "J-cut" to bring music in a few seconds before images, to prepare the audience, mood-wise, for what they are about to see.

Try different tracks against some of your footage to see what the effect is. You can transfer a .WAV, .AVI, or .MOV sound file into your computer editing software, but not all of them accept MP3s (which are of lesser quality anyway). Remember, in the real world, there are copyright considerations and your production team would have to pay the holder of the publishing rights to a song; these are often prohibitively expensive, especially for well known songs.

Camera Angles - from MediaKnowAll.com

Camera Angles
Camera angles and movements combine to create a sequence of images, just as words, word order and punctuation combine to make the meaning of a sentence. You need a straightforward set of key terms to describe them.

Describing Shots
When describing camera angles, or creating them yourself, you have to think about three important factors

— The FRAMING or the LENGTH of shot
— The ANGLE of the shot
— If there is any MOVEMENT involved

When describing different cinematic shots, different terms are used to indicate the amount of subject matter contained within a frame, how far away the camera is from the subject, and the perspective of the viewer. Each different shot has a different purpose and effect. A change between two different shots is called a CUT.

Framing or Shot Length

1 . Extreme long shot
This can be taken from as much as a quarter of a mile away, and is generally used as a scene-setting, establishing shot. It normally shows an EXTERIOR, eg the outside of a building, or a landscape, and is often used to show scenes of thrilling action eg in a war film or disaster movie. There will be very little detail visible in the shot, it's meant to give a general impression rather than specific information.

The extreme long shot on the left is taken from a distance, but denotes a precise location - it might even connote all of the entertainment industry if used as the opening shot in a news story.

2. Long Shot
This is the most difficult to categorise precisely, but is generally one which shows the image as approximately "life" size ie corresponding to the real distance between the audience and the screen in a cinema (the figure of a man would appear as six feet tall). This category includes the FULL SHOT showing the entire human body, with the head near the top of the frame and the feet near the bottom. While the focus is on characters, plenty of background detail still emerges: we can tell the coffins on the right are in a Western-style setting, for instance.

3. Medium Shot
Contains a figure from the knees/waist up and is normally used for dialogue scenes, or to show some detail of action. Variations on this include the TWO SHOT (containing two figures from the waist up) and the THREE SHOT (contains 3 figures...). NB. Any more than three figures and the shot tends to become a long shot. Background detail is minimal, probably because location has been established earlier in the scene - the audience already know where they are and now want to focus on dialogue and character interation. Another variation in this category is the OVER-THE-SHOULDER-SHOT, which positions the camera behind one figure, revealing the other figure, and part of the first figure's back, head and shoulder.

4. Close-Up
This shows very little background, and concentrates on either a face, or a specific detail of mise en scène. Everything else is just a blur in the background. This shot magnifies the object (think of how big it looks on a cinema screen) and shows the importance of things, be it words written on paper, or the expression on someone's face. The close-up takes us into the mind of a character. In reality, we only let people that we really trust get THAT close to our face - mothers, children and lovers, usually - so a close up of a face is a very intimate shot. A film-maker may use this to make us feel extra comfortable or extremely uncomfortable about a character, and usually uses a zoom lens in order to get the required framing.

5. Extreme Close-Up
As its name suggests, an extreme version of the close up, generally magnifying beyond what the human eye would experience in reality. An extreme close-up of a face, for instance, would show only the mouth or eyes, with no background detail whatsoever. This is a very artificial shot, and can be used for dramatic effect. The tight focus required means that extra care must be taken when setting up and lighting the shot - the slightest camera shake or error in focal length is very noticeable.

Camera Angles
The relationship between the camera and the object being photographed (ie the ANGLE) gives emotional information to an audience, and guides their judgment about the character or object in shot. The more extreme the angle (ie the further away it is from eye left), the more symbolic and heavily-loaded the shot.

1. The Bird's-Eye view
This shows a scene from directly overhead, a very unnatural and strange angle. Familiar objects viewed from this angle might seem totally unrecognisable at first (umbrellas in a crowd, dancers' legs). This shot does, however, put the audience in a godlike position, looking down on the action. People can be made to look insignificant, ant-like, part of a wider scheme of things. Hitchcock (and his admirers, like Brian de Palma) is fond of this style of shot.

A cameraman, raised above the action, gets a high angle shot2. High Angle
Not so extreme as a bird's eye view. The camera is elevated above the action using a crane to give a general overview. High angles make the object photographed seem smaller, and less significant (or scary). The object or character often gets swallowed up by their setting - they become part of a wider picture.

3. Eye Level
A fairly neutral shot; the camera is positioned as though it is a human actually observing a scene, so that eg actors' heads are on a level with the focus. The camera will be placed approximately five to six feet from the ground.

4. Low Angle
These increase height (useful for short actors like Tom Cruise or James McAvoy) and give a sense of speeded motion. Low angles help give a sense of confusion to a viewer, of powerlessness within the action of a scene. The background of a low angle shot will tend to be just sky or ceiling, the lack of detail about the setting adding to the disorientation of the viewer. The added height of the object may make it inspire fear and insecurity in the viewer, who is psychologically dominated by the figure on the screen.

5. Oblique/Canted Angle
Sometimes the camera is tilted (ie is not placed horizontal to floor level), to suggest imbalance, transition and instability (very popular in horror movies). This technique is used to suggest POINT-OF-View shots (ie when the camera becomes the 'eyes' of one particular character,seeing what they see — a hand held camera is often used for this.

Camera Movement
A director may choose to move action along by telling the story as a series of cuts, going from one shot to another, or they may decide to move the camera with the action. Moving the camera often takes a great deal of time, and makes the action seem slower, as it takes several second for a moving camera shot to be effective, when the same information may be placed on screen in a series of fast cuts. Not only must the style of movement be chosen, but the method of actually moving the camera must be selected too. There are seven basic methods:

1. Pans
A movement which scans a scene horizontally. The camera is placed on a tripod, which operates as a stationary axis point as the camera is turned, often to follow a moving object which is kept in the middle of the frame.

2. Tilts
A movement which scans a scene vertically, otherwise similar to a pan.

3. Dolly Shots
Sometimes called TRUCKING or TRACKING shots. The camera is placed on a moving vehicle and moves alongside the action, generally following a moving figure or object. Complicated dolly shots will involve a track being laid on set for the camera to follow, hence the name. The camera might be mounted on a car, a plane, or even a shopping trolley (good method for independent film-makers looking to save a few dollars). A dolly shot may be a good way of portraying movement, the journey of a character for instance, or for moving from a long shot to a close-up, gradually focusing the audience on a particular object or character.

4. Hand-held shots
The hand-held movie camera first saw widespread use during World War II, when news reporters took their windup Arriflexes and Eyemos into the heat of battle, producing some of the most arresting footage of the twentieth century. After the war, it took a while for commercially produced movies to catch up, and documentary makers led the way, demanding the production of smaller, lighter cameras that could be moved in and out of a scene with speed, producing a "fly-on-the-wall" effect.This aesthetic took a while to catch on with mainstream Hollywood, as it gives a jerky, ragged effect, totally at odds with the organised smoothness of a dolly shot. The Steadicam (a heavy contraption which is attached a camera to an operator by a harness. The camera is stabilized so it moves independently) was debuted in Marathon Man (1976), bringing a new smoothness to hand held camera movement and has been used to great effect in movies and TV shows ever since. No "walk and talk" sequence would be complete without one. Hand held cameras denote a certain kind of gritty realism, and they can make the audience feel as though they are part of a scene, rather than viewing it from a detached, frozen position.

A crane in use, following the path of a balloon floating into the sky5. Crane Shots
Basically, dolly-shots-in-the-air. A crane (or jib), is a large, heavy piece of equipment, but is a useful way of moving a camera - it can move up, down, left, right, swooping in on action or moving diagonally out of it. The camera operator and camera are counter-balanced by a heavy weight, and trust their safety to a skilled crane/jib operator.

6. Zoom Lenses
A zoom lens contains a mechanism that changes the magnification of an image. On a still camera, this means that the photographer can get a 'close up' shot while still being some distance from the subject. A video zoom lens can change the position of the audience, either very quickly (a smash zoom) or slowly, without moving the camera an inch, thus saving a lot of time and trouble. The drawbacks to zoom use include the fact that while a dolly shot involves a steady movement similar to the focusing change in the human eye, the zoom lens tends to be jerky (unless used very slowly) and to distort an image, making objects appear closer together than they really are. Zoom lenses are also drastically over-used by many directors (including those holding palmcorders), who try to give the impression of movement and excitement in a scene where it does not exist. Use with caution - and a tripod!

7. The Aerial Shot
An exciting variation of a crane shot, usually taken from a helicopter. This is often used at the beginning of a film, in order to establish setting and movement. A helicopter is like a particularly flexible sort of crane - it can go anywhere, keep up with anything, move in and out of a scene, and convey real drama and exhilaration — so long as you don't need to get too close to your actors or use location sound with the shots.

Camera Angles - from MediaKnowAll.com

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (Art of the Title)

With brassy nationalism and radioactive gaga the opening to director Sam Liu’s Superman/Batman: Public Enemies offers powerful equanimity of oppressed superpowers in this thinly veiled allegory of the republic for which it stands.

Erin Sarofsky, Founder and Creative Director of Sarofsky Corp.:

“We created the feature main title for the new animated movie “Superman/Batman: Public Enemies” for Warner Video and DC Animation that tips the hat to Saul Bass. The project is a 2:17 long animated piece that captures the spirit of classic 1960’s film titles. Bold and slightly abstract, the animated twists and turns are geometric references to the power of comic heroes as pop culture icons and a playful lead-in for the graphic novel-style drama to unfold.”

Casino Royale (Art of the Title)

Dirty Harry (Art of the Title)

The opening sequence and credits to Don Siegel’s “Dirty Harry” plays long, mean…and breathless? Cream-pie cool Clint Eastwood susses death and a devil atop skyscrapers to a tough Lalo Schifrin score. The soaring set piece sets your teeth on edge, the soft howl of wind an uncomfortable music, the framing tight and majestic. As the camera teeters on the executive producer credit you put your left arm around someone a little too tightly.

Aliens... (from The Art of the Title)

ALIENS

The sparse, soldiering snare drum opening to an almost digital yet organic titling, like the profile of some never before seen hive. The text, apparitional at first, seems to be gestating; the “I” blooms into a symbol of life and we are in the story with a masterful tilt down on the encroaching vessel. Fairly glorious.