In my preliminary task, my group wanted to show the narrative of the sequence in an interesting way that was easy to understand.
It starts out with my character (seen from outside) going into the room where Millie's character is already waiting - indicating that perhaps the pair had decided at an earlier time to meet in such a place.
Once within, the dialogue immediately begins - thus denoting the urgency of the situation, and the diegetic, almost pleonastic noise of the door closing sounds perfectly in sync with its corresponding action on screen.
Whilst starting with an over-the-shoulder shot of Millie, we see the struggle on her face as she internally fights with herself as to what she should do (What the subject matter is? We'll never know). As her expressions were really helpful for the sake of the audience understanding the plot, we decided to have a close-up of her face.
From there we go into a side shot, making sure to obey to the 180 degree rule.
Throughout the sequence, we chose to do a number of conventional conversationalist shots so that the audience could receive a sense of verisimilitude - and so the next shot is one of myself replying to her rather dismissive comments.
An interesting shot we chose to do next was that of my character's feet as I walked away. We thought that in a sense this added to the enigmatic nature of the scene, as well as the fact that it provided a fluid transition of my character getting from his conversational spot and to the door. In our opinion, it was much more interesting than simply having a wide-shot of my character leaving.
We then have a close-up of my face as I say the line, "...I won't wait for you." Whilst my face isn't entirely in the shot [in retrospect we should have assured that it was before moving on when filming], it does nevertheless add to the drama and suspense created in the scene. Why does the character care so much?
As my character turns and leaves, the cuts are clean and simple yet successfully create a fluid transition between the shots.
Once again, the diegetic sound of the door closing serves to add an almost eerie, suspenseful atmosphere to the scene, and the fact that we chose to see the door come to a close added to the drama - the pause in dialogue allowing the audience to absorb the narrative.
The scene finishes with Millie's character left alone in the room where she bites her nails nervously to denote an awkwardness to the audience - as if they are now watching something that they perhaps shouldn't be seeing.
An important thing for us was to make our preliminary task fluid and without any cuts that looked out of place. For the majority of the sequence, I think we successfully achieved such.
In the first few edits, we simply put too many unnecessary shots in the sequence in attempt to show off - the end result being very 'clunky' and 'choppy' - but by taking some of these away, I think our final product [shown below] is far better off.
I also think that that throughout the sequence we had a lot of variety in our shots without any of them being too quirky or confusing - this as such helped us to achieve our aim of making the prelim interesting yet understandable.
In general, the task has seriously helped me with understanding the basics behind making a short film and I now feel very comfortable with both shooting and editing. I am also very pleased with the high standard outcome of the process.
With these new skills, I look forward to filming some longer and more complicated sequences in the future.
In this week's studio lesson we filmed our preliminary task, the purpose of which to prepare us for our thriller sequences later on in the year. It was a very useful session as it allowed us to practise with the equipment we will be using a lot in the upcoming months, as well as the methods which will come into exercise upon starting to film our coursework.
At the start of the lesson we were shown our storyboards, and given a list of shots which must be included within the task: a wide shot, over-the-shoulder shot of character A, close-up of character B, over-the-shoulder shot of character B, and close-up of character A. Should we complete which, we would be allowed to spend the rest of the lesson filming more cinematic and interesting shots of our own devising to add into the sequence.
Within our group of three, we assigned out the roles of two actors and a cameraman, with each of us helping to direct and suggest our ideas to the rest of the group, and given our efficiency, we managed to get all the compulsory work done in a sensible time-frame, leaving us the rest of the session for our own shots.
Personally, my favourite shot that we filmed was from outside the classroom in which we were filming our prelim - getting to see character A walk into the classroom and confront character B before walking back out again. Having done so many indoor shots, I thought the contrast made this take really stand out and gave a whole new perspective to a scene which we had already run through countless amounts of times.
I also found the close-up shots particularly effective as they managed to capture a lot of detail and expression that weren't perhaps quite so obvious in the original wide shot.
Starting to think about possible ideas regarding my thriller opening sequence, I have come up with three potential ideas which I think would be effective opening sequences:
A woman stands alone in a poorly lit kitchen, (pleonastically) chopping some kind of meat. She is garbed in an outfit which clearly identifies her as a housewife, and beside her is a tin tray lined with un-cooked pastry. As she slices, the diegetic sound of 1950's doo-wop music plays, but as the song comes to a close, the sound of static can be heard instead, creating suspense. The pleonastic sound of a phone ringing sounds out, and the woman looks up from her chopping hesitantly but does not move. After a while, the phone stops ringing (although the static sound continues) and so she continues slicing until a few moments later when once again the phone begins to ring out pleonastically. For a second she holds out the bloodied knife threateningly, her expression stern, before she places it down slowly beside her pie and ventures off into the next-door room (presumably where the phone is). Whilst absent from the room, we hear her muffled conversation - it’s the wrong number - and see as a swarm of flies pleonastically buzz around some unidentified object just out of shot; combined with the static and possibly some non-diegetic themed music, the sounds make the scene quite unnerving. The phone call shortly ends and the woman returns into the kitchen, patting down her apron. With a light sigh and almost manic smirk, she places the meat onto the pastry and starts folding it into a pie. The radio finally finds signal, and the sound of jolly 1950's doo-wop music returns, although this time it adds a contrapuntal element to the scene. As we see her making her pie, the unidentified object from before comes into sight in the background: it’s a dead body covered in some plastic tarpaulin, flies buzzing by its head.
The following two videos served as inspiration behind the above idea:
Within a dimly lit room, a pale woman lays upon some sort of bed, feebly stirring. As she tries to distinguish her surroundings, we see a number of threatening-looking items such as bear traps and torture weapons. Upon sighting a row of what look like fire-pokers, her eyes widen and she suddenly becomes aware that her wrists and ankles have been strapped to the bed by leather binders. Panicking but unable to speak, we hear her worried murmurs as a dark shape steps forward towards her, his footsteps echoing upon the stone floor. The sound of water trickles in the background, signalling that the room is underground. As the male figure comes into the light, we see he is wearing a surgeon’s outfit, his face masked. The woman panics, unsuccessfully trying to strain away from him as he takes out a syringe and taps the end of it.
Set in a small village in 1920’s rural Russia during the era of War Communism (when cannibalism was a national crisis), a young boy sets out to fetch a bucket of water from the local well; his clothes are shabby and clearly hand-me-downs, suggesting of his poor upbringing. As he makes his way over to the well, something lurks from within the tree-line of a nearby forest, eyeing up the child. Whilst filling up his bucket of water, the young boy notices a poster regarding missing children. Tension is created via the sounds of cutting and raking from farmers in a close-by field, as well as from the sloshing of water from within the well, the sound of wind whistling through the nearby trees, and the boy as he pulls up the rope which his bucket is attached to. Something startles the boy and he spins round where a couple of dirty, sinister-looking old people stand, watching; they smile to him and the woman outstretches his hand. The boy looks towards them hesitantly, and then glances back to the poster for missing children, dropping the bucket in fear.
During this week's studio lesson we went up to the editing suite where we were taught how to edit our film from the previous week's session into fluid, interesting and creative sequences.
The programme we used was Adobe Premiere, an editing software which will later become very familiar to us as we begin to make our Preliminary Task and Thriller sequences.
The first thing we learnt about the software is that each 'folder' is named a 'bin'; this is due to the fact that when the film industry first started, rolls of footage would originally have been kept in bins, and since then, the name has stuck. Similarly, the rolls of footage themselves were nicknamed 'rashers', and alike with the term 'bin', the name is still in use - meaning that all of our footage is referred to as rashers.
We were taught an important tip during the session, that our original footage should always remain sacred. This meant that should we want to edit or fiddle around with one of our rashers, we should first copy it, and then play with the copy, as to ensure that no original footage is perhaps unintentionally lost.
We were also advised that when we move camera angles and shots, we should do so during an action to make the transition as seamless as possible. For example, mid-wave or as someone is sitting down.
On the software, the left screen shows us what rasher we have chosen to edit, and the right screen shows us what our sequence looks like. The coloured strips below show how each rasher falls into place within our sequence, as well as the accompanying audio.
To the left of the screenshot, we can see all of our bins and the rashers within.
I found the lesson highly effective as it gave me a basic understanding of editing, which is obviously incredibly useful due to the fact this it is a tool I will be learning more and more about as the year goes on. I feel a lot more comfortable with how to navigate myself around Adobe Premiere's layout, and the odd tips here and there to teach us good practise early on will no doubt come in useful as we start to venture into the realm of making our Thriller sequences and Preliminary Tasks.
Within each genre of film, there are a number of subcategories, or, more specifically, sub-genres.
For example, a Pre-teen Comedy is a sub-genre of Comedy, just like how Film Noir is a sub-genre of Crime. In these cases, Crime and Comedy are the 'umbrellas' in which a number of sub-genres, such as Film Noir and Pre-teen Comedies, fall under.
In terms of the Thriller genre, there are a plethora of sub-genres within. For example:
Action Thriller - This genre is predominantly a thriller, but with a number of action iconography throughout, such as guns, explosions, and amazing set pieces. These films often feature a race-against-the-clock theme, lots of gritty violence, and often, although not always, a clear antagonist. Though they may involve elements of other genres/sub-genres, the two key aspects to these films are suspense and violence. As an example, a film of this sub-genre would be the 2006 film, 'Snakes on a Plane'.
Comedy Thriller - Films of this sub-genre combine elements of humour and suspense to create an amalgamation of the genres of comedy and thriller. An example of this would be 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' (2005).
Crime Thriller- Films of this genre tend to include serial killers, murders, robberies, chases, shootouts, heists and double-crosses. They are regularly high in tension and suspense (as per expected of the thriller genre) and usually focus on the life and events of a crime or criminal. ‘Silence of the Lambs’, made in 1991, is a good example of this type of genre.
Psychological Thriller - In which (until the often violent resolution) the conflict between the main characters is mental and emotional, rather than physical. Characters, either by accident or their own curiousness, are dragged into a dangerous conflict or situation that they are not prepared to resolve, and are often not reliant on physical strength to overcome their brutish enemies, but rather their mental resources. The suspense created by psychological thrillers often comes from two or more characters preying upon one another's minds, as they try to demolish the other's mental state. The 2010 film ‘Black Swan’ fits into this particular sub-genre.
Supernatural Thriller - Films of this genre bring in an otherworldly elements (such as fantasy and/or the supernatural) mixed with tension, suspense and plot twists. An example of this would be ‘Horns’ (2014).
‘The Rains of Castamere’ is the ninth episode of the third season of ‘Game of Thrones’, directed by David Nutter, and aired on June 2nd 2013. I have chosen to analyse ‘The Red Wedding’ scene within the weekly instalment, which is effectively the climax to both the episode and season.
The clip opens with a sound-bridge of sad and melancholic music, diegetic in nature, played by a small musical ensemble from within the hall’s rafters. Whilst extremely brief, the music immediately establishes a sombre feeling to the scene before it is hastily silenced not seconds later by the diegetic dialogue of one of the characters. Within the newly created quiet, the pleonastic sound of wooden chairs being scraped across the floor and sat upon can be heard, as well as the drunken murmurs of some of the extras assembled within the hall.
As the speech progresses, the pleonastic sound of creaking wood and the ragged breaths of one of the primary characters as she begins to figure out what is going on occur, adding to the diegetic ambient effects of the scene. A non-diegetic composition also commences here, serving to intensify the tension and suspense that is gradually being created on screen; one starts to anticipate something sinister.
This is then followed by the diegetic, pleonastic sounds of chainmail rustling, the harsh, abrupt noise of a chair being pushed back, and the striking sound of a slap. The speech that was being executed comes to an end, and as one of the characters calls out to her son, the non-diegetic soundtrack begins to crescendo; this is then swiftly followed by the pleonastic sound of a knife being unsheathed.
The non-diegetic music becomes increasingly strident and the pleonastic sound of a dagger being plunged into a character’s stomach resonates on screen. The diegetic sound of a woman’s anguished screaming follows, as well as the pleonastic sound of arrows being fired.
The scene soon becomes a bloodbath, with the diegetic and pleonastic sounds of footsteps, groans, arrows firing, people being stabbed, tables collapsing, cutlery being knocked to the floor and people collapsing to the wooden ground sounding all over, all to the backdrop of a threatening non-diegetic bass being beaten in ritualistic, repetitive fashion, creating a very tense and dramatic atmosphere which then concludes in the form of the non-diegetic music serving to be a sound bridge into the next scene along which, in context, occurs just outside the hall in which ‘The Red Wedding’ is taking place.
In this new location, we immediately hear a horse whiney and then the pleonastic sounds of people’s breaths and running. The non-diegetic music comes to a silence, replaced instead by the diegetic sound of dialogue. In contrast to the previous scene, everything is a lot calmer and quieter… Or so one would think until once again the pleonastic sound of a dagger being un-sheathed and sliced into a man resonate onscreen. The non-diegetic music returns like before, and once again the scene turns into a bloodbath with the same diegetic and pleonastic sounds as heard in the earlier scene. Upon the non-diegetic music reaching its loudest point, it once again disparates, and instead the audience hears the pleonastic sound of men running past, their chainmail audibly heavy and clunky.
A dog moans out above the ambient noise of men talking and running, and a heavy bass noise is created by the diegetic sound of the dire-wolf beating against its kennel door. At this point, the none-diegetic music returns, not so much as dramatic as it was before, but sadder and slower. The pleonastic sound of chainmail clunking and men running returns, and as some soldiers surround the kennel, we hear the diegetic growl of the dire-wolf within, suggesting to us of his mistrust (and by extension our own) of what sinister scheme the soldiers are potentially about to execute.
The pleonastic sound of arrows flying sounds out, followed by the unmistakable and highly melancholic whimper of a dog being put down. The hints given to us in the few seconds of build up just moments previous were confirmed: the soldiers did commit something sinister. At this point the non-diegetic backing music immediately stops and is instead replaced by silence once more.
In conclusion, I think the sequence I have chosen is an effective use of sound, due to the fact that everything fits into place with the cinematography to create a very powerful and emotional scene. For example, the dialogue (whilst predominantly for the sake of the plot) contains lots of emotion and is very atmospheric when combined with the rest of the scene. Likewise, the vast amount of pleonastic sounds stress the physicality of the events and the violence that takes place within them. The ambient sounds set the scene, and the non-diegetic music creates both tension and suspense, causing us as the audience to anticipate whatever the approaching drama may be.
