Story-Telling Unit: Script Surgery

SCRIPT SURGERY

(Monday 24th October)

Following my script tutorial with Simon, I have made the following changes to my script and story:

•  Deleted any unnecessary detail in stage directions – i.e. only write about what you can picture in your frame, not what you want the audience to think / assume (more concise, saves room for extra material within the 10 pages.

Weighty paragraph with unnecessary information, the audience can be left
to work out what she is assuming.

Cut down considerably, less to be confused with, more straight to the point.

•    The ending – although my previous ending finished on a cliff-hanger, it seemed to be underwhelming. Instead of this quick and simple ending, I now have more of a twist as it is revealed that the body isn’t actually a corpse. All 3 characters walk away unharmed, making the story more about my main characters and leaving them both in a sense of dark irony.

Old End

New End

Story-Telling Unit: Editing Workshop

WORKSHOP 3

(Friday 21st October)

In our final editing workshop, we looked more closely into different shortcuts, including the Slip and Slide tools.

A slip edit changes the timing, but not the length of a clip.  The footage will roll forward or backwards in the clips current duration.  In this way, it doesn’t affect the other clips in the Sequence like a Ripple Edit does.

The slide edit actually slides a clip up or down within your timeline. Like slip, it doesn’t affect the other clips in sequence.

Putting these tools and everything we've learned over the past few weeks, this is my trailer for Zero to Hero.

The Final Edit:

Contextual Studies: Sound

SOUND

(Thursday 20th November)

“When words fail, music speaks.”

Hans Christian Andersen

Sound is a vital tool in all moving image story-telling, functioning to provide the audience with:

• An aural narrative (dialogue, voicerover)
• Ambience (mood, atmosphere, sfx)
• Emotional or intellectual resonance (music, soundtrack)

These uses of sound can be broken into categories of diegetic (can be heard by characters within the scene), or non-diegetic (cannot be heard). As seen in this clip, for example:

·         Diegetic sfx of alarms, phone, smashing glass – heighten drama, affecting the audience’s perception of the scene

·         Non-diegetic soundtrack (except in scenes with Moriarty) is used externally to its source,  connecting the scenes and enhancing the action by  creating a sting with the on-screen action

·         Ambience of road / city sounds - completes a realistic scene, simulating reality

·         Dialogue between characters / scenes is extended across locations, showing the scale of the problem and the power of the culprit

Story-Telling Unit: Camera Workshop / Location Shoot

WORKSHOP 4
(Wednesday 19th October)

Today we had our first shoot on location at the studios, in which we created a simple short film in groups of 3-4. The main point of the shoot was not so much focused on story-telling (though clearly that is always important), but more on teamwork. Despite a slightly challenging start, Callum, Sonia and I worked well as a team – with Sonia starring, Callum as Director of Photography and me as Director / Sound Operator.

The Final Edit:

Story-Telling Unit: Idea Development

IDEA DEVELOPMENT

(Monday 17th October)

After still struggling to formulate a solid story, Simon and I discussed several different ideas and directions my story could follow in my tutorial:

This has inspired me to rethink my story, after seemingly looking too far into making it "clever" and ultimately reaching a Dead End (pun not intended). Preparing to write my script this week for our tutorials on Monday, I have come up with a rough storyline:

• Two strangers (male and female) meet after discovering a dead body in a car park (possibly a class divide? completely contrasting personalities/lifestyles) attempts to call the police but no signal.
• The female instantly assumes the male has murdered the unidentified man (stand-off dynamic) and ultimately refuses to get any help as she doesn't want him to run.
• Knowing that he is in danger of investigation when police arrive, the man suggests that they both run but the female is disgusted (conflict).
• When blue flashing lights appear on the main road outside, the female goes to guide them in.
• She returns to see the man escaping, but doesn't go to stop him - leaving him to slip away into the early morning.

I have therefore got rid of the idea of an assassin, and instead left this as a mystery for the audience to think about themselves, but focused more on the conflict between the two personalities of the living characters in the story. However, I have kept the idea of a confined space, as not only does this keep things simple production-wise, but also enhances the idea of a stand-off.

Story-Telling Unit: Editing Workshop

WORKSHOP 2

(Friday 14th October)

Today's workshop focused more on the art of storytelling in a drama sense, as opposed to last week's more documentary style project. This therefore meant that we had to consider new aspects of our editing including audio dialogue, matching action to different shots and keeping the pace of our scene.

As part of this process, Fergus introduced us to several shortcut tools in Premiere:

• Track Select Tool - Selects all clips on one track for simple selection
• Ripple Edit Tool - A tool used to shorten / lengthen a clip without affecting other clips
• Rolling Edit Tool - Used to change a clip's in and out points without changing the sequence length
• Razor Tool - Used to split clips precisely

My Finished Edit:

Contextual Studies: Editing

EDITING
Thursday 13th October

Editing is the construction of a narrative, combining all cinematic elements (camera, sound, mise-en-scene) to form a completed story. The four basic elements of editing are as follows:

• Spatial - different space/locations and how the editor manipulates them (cross-cutting)
• Temporal - the manipulation of time within the film (ellipses, montages, fades)
• Rhythmic - changed duration of shots, or cutting rhythms (accents, beats tempo)
• Graphic - relationship between what can be seen in different camera shots (graphic match cut)

Continuity Editing

In this clip from Donnie Darko (2001), we can see many editing techniques commonly used in film and TV to keep the flow of action continuous, including:

The 180 Degree Rule

The camera never passes behind the 3 characters in the scene, allowing the
spatial positions within the frame to remain constant

Eyeline Match shot

As Donnie looks offscreen, his eyeline matches the following camera shot of his
view looking at Frank

Shot-Reverse-Shot

As the characters have a conversation, a shot reverse shot technique is used -
filming the same scene from reverse angles

Match On Action

Frank begins to take his mask off as Donnie watches on, only to be continuously completed in the next shot

Documentary

In modern documentary, editing can take different forms depending on the desired effect and genre of the piece, for example:

• Evidentary / Expositional editing -  explicit meaning of edits is reinforced by narration or dialogue. Shots are often illustrative, and usually maintain some visual continuity
• Dynamic Editing - modern narrative style dominated by jump cuts and other elliptical edits that often ignores classical visual continuity

In evidentiary editing, expositional images “...illustrate, illuminate, evoke, or act in counterpoint to what is said…[we] take our cue from the commentary and understand the images as evidence or demonstration…” 

Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary (2001)

Story-Telling Unit: Camera Workshop / Crossing The Line

WORKSHOP 3

(Wednesday 12th October)

Today’s objective was to plan and film a scene based on the 180˚ rule. Obviously, within this we were required to employ this rule, demonstrating our understanding of it and how we would use it in our final films.

Although I am satisfied with my final edit, I do feel as though I didn’t really plan it enough and therefore ran out of time when shooting to take the extra shots I wanted to. However, it did turn out better than expected in the edit, using tools picked up from our sessions with Fergus – including the roll edit, transform, colour and slip and slide tools.

The Final Edit:

Story-Telling Unit: Screenwriting

MOMENTS, BEGINNINGS, MIDDLES AND ENDINGS
(Monday 10th October)

• Plot - What happens
• Story - The significance of what happens

Within a screenplay, twists and turns are needed within the plot in order to make a story interesting and engaging. In this clip, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Barker explain their writing process, and how the simple words ‘therefore’ and ‘but’ can be important storytelling tools.

Stories should not be = EVENT – THEN – EVENT – AND THEN

Stories should be = EVENT – THEREFORE – EVENT – BUT - EVENT

A story also needs significant and memorable moments to make an effective screenplay. These need to be memorable points that YOU believe in.

CROSSING THE LINE

The 180˚ Rule is a technique used by filmmakers when positioning their audience within a scene. A hypothetical line is drawn across the action, allowing the camera to be positioned in an invisible arc on one side of this line, not crossing it. By using this rule, for example in conversation with two characters, the characters stay on their retrospective sides of the screen – avoiding confusion and disorientation for an audience.

For example:

However, this rule can be broken through moving shots, such as tracking and panning. Some directors choose to intentionally break this rule in order to convey a feeling of disorientation, or a change of perspective. For example, in The Shinning (1980), Stanley Kubrick crosses the line while Johnny is hallucinating in order to disorientate and confuse the viewer – emphasising the character’s decent into madness:

Contextual Studies: Camera

CAMERA
Thursday 6th October

"The screen is a magic medium. It has such power that it can retain interest as it conveys emotions and moods that no other art form can hope to tackle."

Stanley Kubrick

The art of cinematography, making up the basic structure of visual storytelling. Camera serves both the film-maker and audience in the following ways:

• Narrative - visual
• Aethsetics - frames the mise-en-scene
• Psychology - insight into character
• Analysis - a chance to look into the artists' vision

Basic elements of camera shots include:

• The framing, or length of the shot
• The angle
• The movement (if any)

Framing / Shot Length:

• Extreme long shot - taken from a very wide distance, usually used when establishing a setting or location, used to give a general impression rather than specific information
• Long shot - from a wide distance, this shot focuses on characters (making them appear "life" size), but with plenty of background detail
• Medium shot - A shot of a character from the waist up, usually used in dialogue scenes (variations includes 2-shot, over the shoulder shot)
• Close-up - This shot focuses on a single object, for example a face or detail of mise-en-scene. Can be used to show the audience the importance of specific objects within a narrative, or to intimately demonstrate emotion



Blade Runnner (1982)
Example of an extreme close-up

• Extreme Close-up - A tightly focused shot, magnifying beyond what the human eye would experience (e.g: on a face, only individual parts would be focused on)

Angles:

• Bird's eye view - a view of a scene from directly above, putting the audience in a God-like position, perhaps removing them from the narrative
• High Angle - An angle looking down on the action, at less of an extreme than the bird's-eye, making the object appear smaller or less significant
• Eye Level - a neutral position, so that the actor's heads are on a level with the audience
• Low Angle - the opposite of a high angle shot, the low angle is placed looking up at the action, perhaps making the viewer feel powerless and vulnerable, or in order to disorientate them



The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Canted shots were pioneered by expressionit films
of the 1920's-30's, seeking to express emotional meaning
rather than physical reality

• Canted Angle - an angle tilted slightly, suggesting instability and imbalance within a character or the narrative

Movement:

• Pan - a horizontal movement, usually from left to right, as the camera is turned from a fixed position to scan a scene
• Tilt - Similar to a Pan, but vertically
• Dolly Shots - The camera is placed on a moving vehicle and follows the action, otherwise known as tracking
• Hand-held Shots - the camera is held only by hand, allowing a jerky, ragged effect
• Crane Shots - a crane (or jib arm) is used to create shots moving the camera smoothly in all directions, aloft in the air - used to create more complex movements

Story-Telling Unit: Camera Workshop / The Chair

WORKSHOP 2

(Wednesday 5th October)

Our second camera workshop today had more of a story-telling focus, as Simon taught us about coverage. We looked at how many different angles can be covered within a fairly simple scene, for example getting out of a car, or this scene from The Shawshank Redemption (1994):

Which covers about 18 different perspectives.

Applying what we learnt in last week’s workshop about the technical uses of our cameras, we got into pairs and were assigned the task of creating a short sequence titled “The Chair.” In this, we had to cover our actor walking to and sitting down in a chair in as many different angles as possible.

The Final Edit:

Story-Telling Unit: Editing Workshop

WORKSHOP 1

(Friday 5th October)

In our first editing workshop, we each got to grips with the basics of Premiere Pro CC, using basic tools to edit together a series of Coffee Bean clips into a documentary-style advertisement.

After sorting all my clips into different bins and marking in and out points of what I wanted to use, I set my audio tack into a logical order, and built my visuals on top of that. My thought process was to start my advert off slowly, demonstrating the process in which the coffee is picked and made. Then, when my voice-over changed tone to talk about the people behind the process, I created an almost rewind-like sequence in which we see the process again backwards, but this time focusing on the workers – finishing on them all enjoying their own product.

The Final Edit:

Story-Telling Unit: Screenwriting

DIALOGUE AND CHARACTER

(Monday 3rd October)

Today’s workshop with Steve focused on the development of believable and interesting character and dialogue. In order to assist us with this, we were given a useful (yet rather daunting) list of “Dont's for Dialogue”, the most poignant rules including:

1.    Don’t state something obvious

2.    Contradictory dialogue is great – creates mystery and audience interest

3.    People talk in different ways (consider accents, slang etc.)

4.    Come in from funny angles

But above all, every sentence should;

1.    Move the story forward

2.    Develop the character

If the dialogue doesn’t achieve this, then it is not worth keeping.

With regards to character, Steve emphasised the use of BUTs within characters, and how contradictions within a character can make them immediately interesting. For example:

Chemistry teacher, BUT cooks meth.

As well as this, effective characters should also:

1.   Be faced with problems

2.   Have to make choices

3.   Be flawed in some way or another

To write effectively for our characters, we must know them as well as we know our friends - including their flaws and what makes them interesting.