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.