Film Openings- Inglorius Bastards (CLIP)

Deconstruction of Film Openings- MCGUFFIN FG

Film Openings

As part of our research we deconstructed openings of particular films to understand the conventions of films that the audience expects to see and view as correct.

FORREST GUMP- MGUFFIN

Forrest Gump is a 1994 American epic romantic-comedy-drama film based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Winston Groom. The film was directed by Robert Zemeckis and starred Tom Hanks, as the protagonist. The story depicts several decades in the life of Forrest Gump.

The chronological order is presented below...

 Conventionally, Forrest Gump makes use of a McGuffin to create enigma for the audience. A McGuffin acts as a motivator or catalyst that influences the protagonist to pursue. The feather in Forrest Gump is the McGuffin and the directors make use of this device in the opening. A long tracking shot is used as the feather gracefully falls in accompaniment with the slow and graceful music evoking positive light hearted emotions from the audience. It can be said that the opening immediately makes a connection with protagonists personality which is slow witted and naïve but goodhearted, therefore the opening song and feather could symbolise aspects of the protagonist. Following on as the tracking shot moves further down the location and time period is cleverly established through the white building cars, and people. The character is established by the McGuffin as it finally lands at the feet of Nathan Bedford Forrest (Tom Hanks) after dodging many people, denoting to the audience that this is the protagonist/most important character- a pan up shot is used before we see the face. To establish the time period further a wide shot of a bus smoothly enters communicate 1981 to the audience. Thus this opening conforms to conventions of a film by:

• establishing the character with the aid of the McGuffin which also creates enigma.
• establishing the time/location  (America) by the bus/cars and buildings.
• The mood this creates to the audience is light-hearted and positive which matches the genre of the film which is a romantic-comedy film.
• The McGuffin will drive the narrative on, Questions go through the audiences mind such as who is this character? Why is he on his own? The director provides little information intriguing the audience to watch the film.



 

 

 

 

Film Opening- Forrest Gump (CLIP)

This film utilizes a Mc Guffin and as part of our research I used the opening of this film to understand and deconstruct conventional film openings...

Final Cut- Prelim Task

Post Production- Prelim Task

Convert Footage (RAW Footage into Final Format)

To enable editing on Final Cut Pro, we first had to convert the footage into a format best suited to Final Cut Pro. Using MPEG Steamclip software we converted our footage to "Apple Pro Res 422 LT" format maintain the quality of our footage.
DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Batch List
2. Add Files
3. Locate Original Footage (Select Footage and Folder)
4. Click to Batch and Export to QuickTime, OK
5. Select Destination Folder
6. Compression Type Apple Pro Res 422LT (reduces size of files)
7. Quality Type 100% and Sound to AUTO 48kh, DeInterlace the video
8. Batch (4 Settings)
9. GO!

The Interface/Editing

To begin with we explored Final Cut Pro and tried to understand how to operate certain functions like cutting an unwanted parts of the clip using the razor and adding sound. As we added our clips and began the process of selecting the parts we wanted we soon realised a major problem with our footage…we had NO SOUND. This was due to our mistakes during the Production Shooting phase with our microphone. To overcome this we decided that since we had no sound for the dialogue we could include subtitles to communicate meaning digitally rather than sound. Thus using our editing and film making skills, we edited our footage with Match on Action in mind and making sure specific shot types were used effectively; such as Shot Reverse Shot and the Establishing Shot throughout. This took us time but we managed to make to sequence flow well with specific cuts expanding and shrinking screen time through our editing. After finishing adding all the subtitles of the Dialogues between the protagonists we decided that we needed some kind of music that would create the correct atmosphere for our Opening film. The music needed to incorporate the building of tension as our film was a Thriller (Crime). This was hard to find and we search to find the appropriate music and finally through YouTube we selected "How you like me now..?" We were happy with our choice and converted the MP4 footage to MP3 and added the music in with our footage adjusting the settings of sound to make it quieter in certain places for effect and tension. And in the end added a tension builder sound that increased in volume dramatically ending the digital piece. The song that we chose added life to our Film and it worked well as the ending of our piece. The main problems we encountered were with adding dialogues and the sound. Finishing the final touches by letterboxing our footage we were pleased with the outcome.


Effects and Filters

To insert our text we went to the Viewer and clicked "A" and then Text Controls, selecting the appropriate font we inserted all the dialogues and posited them at the bottom of each clip. Since there was no sound we had to make sure that this correctly matched what the viewer was visibly seeing.

Another Effect we had to use to make sure our footage flowed was Fade In and Out. In Video Transitions we chose "Dissolve fade in and fade out". Initially we thought to expand screen time for match on action by slowing the motion down we later decided that it did not work so we left put Slow Motion options on our footage.

Exporting

Converting our film to QuickMovie to upload on YouTube.

Production- Prelim Task

Production

According to our booking we decided to shoot and prepared our setting which covering the walk to the dark room.

1) The opening scene was “tracking” Officer Gomez all the way to the “Interrogation” room so we filmed our tracking first from the outside. A potential problem was the weather that was slightly raining but fortunately it was light so we could continue to film.

2) Our extras were placed in the hall creating the typical office. This was also to sort of, mislead the audience that it was just a scene in a busy office they are watching, and then they would discover the Interrogation of the criminal “Selina”.  

A problem we encountered whilst shooting this tracking scene to the dark room was maintaining the focus of Officer Gomez and the extra’s; this was difficult to do, mainly because to track we had to use a wheel chair it was hard to maintain and adjust each time and effected the quality of this scene. But once we filmed this we found that the lack of focus in the beginning did not look bad but created a nice effect focusing on Officer Gomez as soon as she took her coat off.

3) We positioned our desk for “Selina” and “Officer Gomez” in the dark room and left equipment needed for the sequence in the interrogation. (Props used here:  Lamp-for the creative lighting, desk, chairs and a box recorder). Our lighting was important in the dark room.

4) Another problem we faced was we were very rushed to film quickly as the actors and certain members in our group had to leave early. Thus the quality suffered a little in some Close-Ups of the character, this is made evident by the lack of focus shot below. To overcome this we used other scenes from the different set-ups during editing afterwards.

When we filmed, we filmed the entire scene for each shot type, so that when it came to editing, it would be a lot easier for us to edit, making the process as lot shorter.

I have learnt that we should dedicate more time to shooting making sure all shots are in focus and make sure the actors are available for the whole shoot. Overall we were pleased with our shooting only to realise one major problem during editing…

Pre-Production Prelim Task

Prelim Task Pre-Production

Task: Our task was to construct a short sequence as a piece of moving image using the stimulus;

A character opens a door, crosses a room and sits down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.

The stimulus was not so specific so we had to be completely creative, we found it difficult to come up with scenes we could create.

Firstly to come up with our Production we brain stormed some Ideas; organising them into important categories. Our 4 Categories were Characters, Setting, Scenario and Scene. This enabled us to visualise the scenes that might occur and how we would portray it. Our group decided to create a police interrogation. This would involve a criminal “Selina” and the Police Officer which would “introduce” the audience to the Interrogation. Thus, we visualised our production through our brainstorm and started to make our Script.

Pic of Script...

Then we went on to Location Scout to understand our setting and what could be done in the spaces available. We discussed originally that we had to have a setting that portrayed an “interrogation”. It had to be dark and eliminate signs of being in a school. The Dark room was the best option we had and to create tension/suspense we experimented with the lighting; a swinging lamp would create this…

Fortunately in the dark room there was a red light available which we decided would enhance our scene further. We used props according to what was needed during Production so we didn’t plan that beforehand finding this way easier. We were thinking that music could be added in the editing process once we found appropriate sounds.

After Location Scouting we made the storyboards, making our sequence in order. The Storyboards can be seen below.

After which our Shot List was created.

We saw it most suitable to use actors that were not in our group so we could all organise and film the sequence together, only as extras we added ourselves in. Our Cast can be seen below...

Finally after completing the Pre-Production we booked our times for the camera’s and prepared for our Shooting!

Shot Types Meaning

Shot Types Meaning

In our first few lessons of practical media we looked at camera angles and different aspects to look at when taking a photo- focus, depth, composition and framing. These important aspects reveal and communicate the meaning behind all the objects/emotions presented in each photo. Technical language involved in media studies was something we also considered and defined.

Technical terms, aspects of shots:

1.    Focus- in a photo an object may be in either sharp or soft focus.

2.    Depth- the distance between your subject and the lens.

3.    Composition- the way objects are positioned/composed in a shot. (We found that this links closely to framing).

4.    Framing- the positioning of the camera to produce the appropriate position for a desired meaning.

Activity: in groups we got given a famous photo of a scene and we had to try and recreate it. Ours was Indiana Jones looking at the idol. We had to keep depth, focus, framing, composition and meaning in mind whist recreating it. To recreate it we turned off all the lights creating a nice effect that also emphasised the expressions of the actor Mr Kerrigan (Indiana Jones) by placing the focus on him. We put a spotlight on the 'idol'.  

Our recreated image…

 

Shot Types

Shot Types

Learning different types of shots and the reasons why we use them. There are many more shots that could be included but these are the commonly in films.

Establishing/wide- Usually wide shot with a 35mm lens 

Indicates:

Location - Establishing shots may use famous landmarks to indicate the city where the action is taking place or has moved to, Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty to identify New York, the London Eye or the Elizabeth Tower (commonly referred to as Big Ben) to identify London the Eiffel Tower to identify Paris

Time - Sometimes the viewer is guided in his understanding of the action. For example, an exterior shot of the night then a cut back to the action inside portrays the conversation is occurring at night.
 

Relationship - An establishing shot might be a long shot of a room that shows all the characters from a particular scene. For example, a scene about a murder in a college lecture hall might begin with a shot that shows the entire room, including the lecturing professor and the students taking notes.
 

Establish a concept - For example, a shot of rain falling could be an establishing shot, followed by more and more detailed look at the rain with individual raindrops falling.

 A prime example of this can be seen in the TV show 'Friends' an establishing shot will be used to show they viewer the location which is Central Perk, before the cut to the action inside.

 

Close up- Show a lot of detail to the audience, such as characters' emotions, or some intricate activity with their hands. Major characters are often given a close-up when they are introduced as a way of indicating their importance.

Leading characters will have multiple close-ups. An example of a close up can be seen in the film “Jonny English” it depicts Jonny’s facial expression as soon as he gets hurt. Another example is from “Harry Potter” as Harry prepares for the final battle with Voldemort.

Extreme Close Up-The shot is so tight that only a detail of the subject, such as someone's eyes, can be seen. An extreme close up can be used to make an object appear larger than life. A prime example of a use of an extreme close up can be seen in 'Kill Bill Vol. II', where the mosquito can be seen on the skin of Black Mamba (Uma Therman).

Two shot- frame encompasses a view of

two people (the subjects).

The subjects do not have to be next to each other, and there are many common two-shots which have one subject in the foreground and the other subject in the background.

 It is often used to show conversation between two characters. The two shot can show harmony or disharmony depending on the scene.  It is usually filmed from the mid-chest up.

 

Over-the-Shoulder Shot- Occurs when the camera is placed behind the shoulder of the character. This makes the characters head and shoulders visible, ensuring the audience knows that they are there, but making sure the main focus is on the other character or object in the shot (most often the second character is the subject of interest).

In this way the characters are “married” into the frame. It can be used to suggest tension, intimacy, desire or hatred.

Point of view shot- Intended to represent the subjective view of the character (the subject).

The camera lens is physically placed at the eye level of the character whose point of view we are seeing. In this way the audience see’s what the character sees. Usually established by being positioned between a shot of a character looking at something, and a shot showing the character's reaction. POV provides the audience an exaggerated sense of intimacy with the character.

 

High Angle shot- occurs when the camera is placed above a subject with the lens pointing down. This makes the subject appear small and powerless/vulnerable.

Focus often gets "swallowed up" by the setting. (Dramatic or if there is someone at a high level that the character below is talking to).