During the process of our main production task we split the key roles of management across our group as equally as possible. One role that I took on was 'Music Composer'. I worked along side Georgina Evans and collaboratively we planned, formulated and edited the music to fit our media product. I worked on 'Garage Band' as my sole use of technology, using the samples that they offer for free without copying any artists already existing music. We took inspiration form Alfred Hitchcock's Films and the music they used to put over Film Noir's opening sequences - highlighting elements that create the key codes and conventions of film noir thrillers and infusing them into our music piece. For example: a low base line to create a Jazzy atmosphere, automatically suggesting the period of our piece (50's). I wanted to incorporate the high pitch string violins, that add tension and a dramatic effect of danger in our music, this is common for thriller openings. One tool on 'Garage Band' that we used effectively in our final media product was the alternation of volume. By pin pointing exactly where the specific component of music is to increase/decrease in volume, I created a crescendo of sound that overlapped with the climax of action on the screen. Introducing different instruments helped to create a crescendo as well. The use of pauses in the music formed suspense and a sharp tone when dramatic effect was needed. I also had to cut music at certain points so that it would fit the action on screen - timing exactly when different transitions occurred. I wanted to create a theme of circular foreshadowing at the beginning and end of the opening sequence. The sequence starts with a young lady reflecting on past events, as the camera zooms into her eye we gain an insight of a flashback. The flash back ends and the camera zooms out of her eye again. Following this action, I used a low slow Jazz base line, for one bar to introduce the opening - I used the same one bar of slow Jazz base to conclude the opening as the screen fades to black. This reoccurring sound ties in with the name of the film 'Reminiscence'.
Georgina and I both decided that we would incorporate a Latin segment into the opening sequence, this would connote a seductive and dangerous mood in the opening; film noirs' commonly create a seductive nature in their openings. A wide range of film openings use an interlude as their music. This will include segments of songs or musical compounds that occur within the movie, the units of music that are in different scenes within the full movie collaboratively make an interlude. This is what we planned to archive with the 'Reminiscence' film opening. We used purely music as our audio and dismissed use of dialog. Furthermore, I was undertaking the role of 'Director' In the task. We all contributed at times. We used a tripod to create a high camera angle showing the character as being vulnerable. As director I had to think about where our actress would be situated and positioned in relation to the camera. I suggested that the actress avoided looking into the lens of the camera, although at certain points to stare directly at the camera to create a relationship between the character and the audience. During the filming process I handled the camera at times. It was very important to create a match on action sequence. Contribution both post and pre filming was planned between all of our group members. Here are some examples of music for thrillers. Some of the elements that I have pointed out can be found in our film production. I have listed two more modern film thrillers and a film noir, of which inspiration can be found. The Music from 'Vertigo' uses an array of classical instruments matching the Film Noir. The melody that resembles a simple scale of notes creates a hypnotic mood and tone. The High pitched violins illustrate a dangerous atmosphere. As the piano scale melody is broken by brass instruments ever so often, the audience grow tense, not knowing what to expect next. The iconic music from 'Jaws' displays how tension can be created and built up using a simplistic melody consisting of two notes. Previous to this segment of music, the film has no other background music - therefore when this piece is introduced into the film, the audience register that it is used for dramatic effect. As the music gradually crescendos and repeats the bars faster, the audience grow tense with the anticipation created, assuming that some bad event is being foreshadowed from the music itself. The music from 'Sin City' uses a low base to initially create a dark and intense atmosphere. Sharp sounds are echoed on top of the base and an audience gains an insight of the film having a grudge undertone to it. The music is later accompanied by a saxophone melody, creating a seductive and jazzy tone, indicating this theme for throughout the film. Some of the notes are sharp, making it almost hard to listen to. The intense build up of instruments creates a dramatic climax.
Within the opening sequence of 'No Country For Old Men' the editing seems of some significance- even though it is not easy to understand as to why we are being shown wide establishing shots of this landscape but at this point have to make the assumption it is of some importance. The editing is therefore used to capture the 'important bits' highlighting what we believe to be a relevant location in for this film. This way the audiences attention is focusing towards the preferred meanings that has been encoded in the shots. The pacing of how long is left to linger also embeds a tone to the feeling allowed for the audience to interpret. A scene quickly edited denotes action, violence, emergency etc, whereas a scene with slower edits usually has less connotations to do with fast paced action. However, after the slow cuts through the landscape, it then cuts to a police officer making an arrest, leading us to believe this slow opening with not many connotations, will lead to a faster edits and a more action-packed film.
The lighting in the opening of 'No Country For Old Men' is a significant component, helping set the scene. The screen stars black with no footage, then as the narrative dialogue is heard on top, the setting (of what we assume is a dessert rock) appears. The lighting is dim as we see the sun raise in the horizon over the rock in blue, orange tones. As the establishing shot changes to yet another establishing shot, the sun appears stronger. The dim desert sun changes to a brighter yellow as the shots continue. In one shot, the sun is seen peering through the top of some dusty rocks creating a glare effect, this lighting helps us to understand just how desolate the setting is. The idea of watching the sun rise gradually compliments the idea that the story is about to unfold, the start of both the film and the day creates anticipation for the audience as they don't know what to expect. The lighting reaches full day light, and the natural lighting reflected on the desert's rocky ground creates a stillness. It is almost an eerie atmosphere as we scan the different locations, as if the audience is meant to try and see something, almost like a criminal stakeout. The warmth of the lighting parallels the idea that the desert is commonly associated with heat. In the fist scene where characters are introduced (a man in handcuffs being led by a Texas officer) we can see that the police siren lights are still flashing as the car is pulled up to the side of the road, adding emphasis to the status of the police force, reflecting what the narrative voice had previously described. At first, we are only aware of the narration, obviously a man with an American accent, rather gravelly in tone, he lets us know straight away that he is a Sheriff and tells of old time policemen and a past case. However, as you become attuned you then hear the background noise of wind, it is constant and obviously blowing in an open space. This is reinforced as the sun comes up and a bird is heard singing, the setting is in open country. Apart from these three sounds, it is absolutely quiet, this must be a long way from any buildings, there isn't even any sound of traffic, just a squeaky wind generator. The wind is always there but even the bird has stopped singing, it is just the narrator, but suddenly the sound of footsteps on a stony surface shows that there is at least one person around, the fact that there are two people is not obvious as their footsteps are synchronised perfectly as they walk to the car. The sound of the car door being opened is quite sudden and propels you into the story, then the metallic bell like tone of the strange canister being put into the front seat leaves us with a question, what is it? The car is started and revved up to a high speed straight away, the policeman obviously wants to get his prisoner back in a hurry. In order to create visual variety in our film opening we had to consider some interesting shots that are applicable to a film noir. We tried out a couple of ideas before actually filming on set in order to save time effectively, ruling out the camera angles or filming compositions that didn't work. We practiced using a dutch tilt as we had decided that it can be used to create a hypnotic or chaotic mood due to the tilted, unusual angle. We thought that perhaps it could be placed into our opening as a way of breaking up the long match on action sequences, as they can become quite repetitive. We hadn't used a dutch tilt in our preliminary and so this technique was new to us all, however we had observed how to film them on YouTube. Our dutch tilt can be found at 1:40 After researching the typical camera angles used in thrillers - Film noir thrillers to be concise, we decided that an extreme close up was necessary for our production. We first found this type of shot applied to Hitchcock's 'Vertigo' and so then we decided to practice replicating the shot style. Having concluded that the close up can be used to break down long sequences and express the characters vulnerability placing emphasis on her eyes, we filmed and edited it into our main task. Our Extreme close up can be found at 2:21 Issues that we found from practicing the shots were the poor quality of zoom in the cameras and the positioning of the tripod. Instead we simply overcame these by holding the camera closer to the actor's face to avoid poor zoom quality, and by placing the camera on the floor for stability rather than a tripod.
This is a picture of our group chat on Facebook, we used this to organise what we were going to do and when we were going to film. We decided when and where we were going to meet, what we were going to do and what we all needed to bring. Using technological convergence via Facebook apps on our smart phones we were able to communicate together as a group, contributing ideas equally. In effect our time management was more substantial.
For this story board, the music is just a random song that was on the software since we had not yet made our own composition for our opening sequence. The storyboard shown is almost a plan of how we imagined our sequence to look, therefore if we had made the music first it would not have matched the filming sequence. Timing would have been more difficult to keep in sync (the music next to motion).
Throughout the editing process we decided to change then name of our project from 'The Keyhole' to 'Reminiscence'. We did some extra research on Hitchcock & Film noir names, collectively we came to the conclusion that this would be a more stylistic and appropriate name. Some examples of film noir names are: 'psycho' 'Notorious'
A Forest setting is perfect for a film noir. The silhouettes of the tree branches create a shadow effect, commonly found in Film noirs in order to add mystery and dramatic effect. The secluded setting offers an immediate idea of danger to audiences. The great mass of the forest makes any character seem small and vulnerable, this adds to the character ideology of a feminine woman that is commonly found in film nor thrillers. A wide location shot can set the scene and setting and sun rays peering through the branches can create a picturesque effect... (Unfortunately there wasn't much sun on the December day that we filmed!) Nevertheless, the cloudy fog created an eerie atmosphere throughout the forest and the black and white effect enhanced this. This image or nature shot can be used to break up action sequences of match on action. A simple fade transition can lead to a short image of woodland to reiterate the fact that the character is swallowed in the forest. We used a tripod to film a pan around of the sky through the trees. The spiral effect method worked well with the idea of the character sharing a memory or a dream like effect, linking with the name of our production, 'Reminiscence'. The black and white effect creates dark and scary imagery of the trees. This modern day woodland setting replicates the research we gathered from vintage film noirs that also contain scenes of forest landscapes. As you can see from the comparison, the black and white shots connote a dark and gloomy atmosphere adding tension as it creates a tense atmosphere for the audience to watch. Once our footage was at the stage of editing, we added a black and white effect in order to follow the style of a film noir - automatically our sequence became darker and more intense... the typical codes and conventions included in film noir thrillers.
Our opening sequence does not consist of any dialogue as we believe actions speak louder than words, especially within a film noir, as it almost opens with some form of suspense.
The actions and emotions shown by the woman in the opening sequence will be enough along with, almost vintage, jazzy and scary music to create the perfect film noir opening sequence. This was a rough idea of what we were planning to do. At first we didn't know how to end it so we left it to when we were filming so we could see what looked best as an ending.
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