My main contribution to our opening title was the mise en scene. I found my costume which had to be of a certain 1940s style. This was an important part, as if we did not have the correct look it would ruin the whole mood of the work. We had chosen the 1940s, as that was when most film noir films were made and we wanted to show our research into that period of time. The costume itself was a flowered knee length dress, and black lace up mid heel shoes. The dress and shoes were in dark colours as our final product would be black and white, and we needed them to come out on the film clearly. The character was meant to look quite sophisticated and feminine and the costume reflected this. Originally, I was just going to wear the dress and shoes, but because it was so cold, I had to wear my purple coat, which fortunately turned out to be of the right period look. The makeup had to be quite minimal with bright red lipstick and the hair was a simple 1940s flick, this gave it the complete 40s look.
The setting of the forest meant we could not control the lighting conditions, but as it was a cloudy murky day, it made our shots look very atmospheric and scary. The inside of Ge’s house was where we did all the inside shots and we chose an old fashioned looking arm chair. We then moved it against a brick wall to cover hide the obvious Christmas decorations in the background. The background also was in our favour because it had no particular style, meaning it fitted into our time period. When it came to putting the final product together, I chose the font for the opening titles, as the original one was not so interesting and did not fit the theme. The font we finally picked was Bordeaux Roman bold Ltd as it fitted it perfectly. Throughout the process of creating the our production, the key jobs were split, in order for it to be done as well as possible.
My main contribution to the task was the editing of our opening sequence 'Reminiscience'. In order to create the best possible opening, I worked alongside Ariadne Terizakis, since our collabortive skills created a faster pace and also better ideas. The opening sequence was formulated on the professional software 'Final Cut Pro', where I edited, cut and transitions from the wide use of tools on the software . Having previously used Final Cut Pro for a rather short length of time on our preliminary task; Ariadne and I knew the very basics, such as cutting and the tools. However, in order to reflect how we saw the Film noir Directors work- Alfred Hitchcock, we felt to include strong, effective and obvious transitions- which I believe was found rather difficult since the cuts between each little scene needed to flow, although we eventually found a way to reflect Hitchcock and have a flowing effect. The opening sequence of Reminiscence is somewhat a flashback as to which we see the characters memories as we zoomed towards her eye, to eventually come back out of her eye- but when we come back out of the eye, we had to take the first shot of Sarah and reverse it so we are almost leaving her flash backs. This also created some real struggles since we did not know if that was even possible to do on the Software, but fortunately we used the help book and also online and found that it was completely doable and therefore made a circular feel to the opening sequence. Obviously, as our genre of film is 'Film noir' we needed to turn the sequence into black and white, which we believed best to do at the end of the editing, just in case any small or possibly large problems occurred whilst attempting this. Luckily once again we searched about, and looked for the obvious to eventually come across the filter options. It was a rather long process creating a suitable and effective opening sequence (especially for a film noir) since there is many aspects to consider when it comes to the visuals, therefore I feel Ariadne and I did a rather good job, since it appears esthetically pleasing. We believed it would be a rather tricky process to create what we wanted to fir our description, which it was- yet fortunately I eventually became rather used to it and could successfully get on with it each lesson. For our production I contributed by doing the camera work. We had been taught many different types of camera angles and the ones that we incorporated into our film were:
I also contributed by adding the text onto the final edited piece. I did this by using final cut pro. I had to write the text then drag it onto the video and select the superimpose box to make sure that the text came up over the video. This was quite difficult as it became quite tedious if it didn't always work however I managed to overcome the obstacles. 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. |
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