Continuity Task 2 (BLK)

The sequence I used is from the cult comedy film 'Office Space', where one worker loses his sense of fear for getting fired from his job and says everything you're not supposed to say when being questioned about job work by the executives from the company you work for.

The sequence starts with an establishment shot to show the setting of the interior of an office room in which three men seat. Two of whom are questioning a man about his typical day at work. The camera arcs around to show a side profile of the men questioning and to end with a shot from their perspective facing the man for us to notice the distance between them and then to see their reactions to what he is saying.

Then the camera cuts to a face-on medium close up shot of the two men opposite the man being questioned, so the audience can now see how dumbfounded they are with what he is saying, showing us what the questioned man ,(Peter), is observing.

After some dialogue in which a medium close up of Peter and the two men are shown one after the other, the camera fades into the next shot to show a passing of time and the next shot is shot at angle to show the size of the room and how relaxed Peter looks in it compared to the other two men to show that he is enjoying this conversation and is confident about what he's been talking about. The camera arcs to show two men walking in the background behind the glass interior to give a sense of the atmosphere of the office building.

Then there are some more of the same medium close up dialogue shots from each character's perspective and the sequence ends with an over the shoulder shot from Peter's perspective as he gets up to shake hands with both men, so we can see how happy they are that he accepted his new job offer, and then he makes his exit out the camera's view and so from the meeting itself.

Art of the Title Activity Evaluation (DYM)

• Our film explores the troubled life of a violent school pupil, who became a serial killer. The opening is of the boy looking in the mirror and thinking back to his murder victims at his school.
• The film opening is set at the school, which we can tell from the shots of the boy in the toilets and on the sports field. The sepia filter was used to highlight the fact there were flashbacks to the murders he commited on other fellow school pupils, and the close up of the boy emphasised how distressed he became from performing these acts of violence.
• The title of the film ,'Etched', lets the audience realise the traumatic vividness of the disturbing memories that have followed him ever since and we also see who had been part of the production process in our group.
• There is an intriguing ambiguity to the character, for the audience can't truly understand why he would commit these murders, but are instantly shocked to the violent scenes that are present in the film opening, i.e. the victims lying underneath the boy holding a baseball bat. This was done to instantly grab the audiences attention and to try to work out who this boy really and why he would do what he did.
• In the opening we used a variety of different shots, e.g. an over the shoulder mirror shot, for this signified the horror genre of the film, and an extreme close up of the characters eyes for dramatic effect, as the shot is unsettling for the audience. Also we included a title card shot and included credits in some of the shots, because that is vital for the audience's understanding of the name of the film and the names of those who made it.
• I believe overall that our film opening was effective, for it was able of creating the audience reaction we wanted, but we should have used a greater variety of shot angles and increased the font of our titles.

Film Opening Analysis & AOTT Research (DYM)

• The Title sequence above was for 'The Avengers', a superhero, action film.
• The film takes place mostly around New York or on a massive, invisible aircraft carrier that the superhero team known as 'The Avengers' fly around on. The plot centres around The Avengers saving the world from disaster when Thor (a godlike member of the group) realises his evil brother Loki is attempting to become the king of the Earth by creating a gateway for an alien army invasion by using a dangerous, mysterious object called the Tesseract.  The film seems to go on for a period of three or four weeks.
• The sequence shows the different iconic items that each superhero member of the Avengers possesses showing us the connection between the different characters through their linkage in this superhero team. The character's items such as Captain America's shield and Iron Man's armoured costume appear to be quite damaged to show the aftermath of their fighting by the end of the film, to show the danger of their job and to perhaps symbolise the fact that the team at the start are broken and rusty just like their weapons, but by the end of the film they will be tight and ready for future action.
• Captain America's is first introduced by the showing of his symbolic shield, helmet and costume, Hawkeye's bow and arrows are then introduced to show his role to play in the Avengers,  Iron Man's armoured suit is then shown, then glasses of Bruce Banner the man who turns into Hulk are introduced, and after that Thor's hammer is shown. This introduces all the members of the team apart from Blackwidow who hasn't got a distinctive item to show for herself.
• We do not see why the different items are all damaged, so the audience is to wonder why they are in that state, what action th group will be involved in, and whether they will all work well together as superheroes.

These two pictures are of two title seqences. The Avengers is the one at the top and Reservoir Dogs is the one below. They are both contrasting on the basis that the Reservoir Dogs title sequence introduces us to the characters of a group of gangsters, whereas the Avengers introduces us to the symbolic items owned by a team of superheros instead. The Reservoir dogs sequence also shows character relations between the group as they are walking down the road, but The Avengers sequence withhelds character relation's knowledge between the group from the audience. Also the Reservoir Dogs sequence is filmed in a basic, stop-start matter to upbeat music showing close up cuts of each member and The Avengers sequence does also show close ups of character symbols, but does so with a variety of extreme close ups and close ups with smooth camera movement drifting around a room. The individuality of both group's members are shown in both sequences, for the superhero's weapons and costumes are all entirely unique and different from one another in The Avengers, and it is clear despite the black and white suit uniform most characters have in the Reservoir Dogs sequence, each character has very contrasting personalities shown in the different close ups and the gaits from the crab shot and the mannerisms they display in the multiple close ups of the characters walking down the road, e.g. Mr White's character shown first shows a completely different personality to that of Mr Brown played by the director Quentin Tarantino, for Mr White seems very tense, up-right, reserved and serious, but Mr Brown looks bumbling, affable, jokey and relaxed. This individuality between characters in a unified group shows a strange uniqueness that bond the title sequences for both The Avengers and also Reservoir Dogs too.

Continuity Task 1 (BLK)

1) Our group was told, in our brief, to show an accident using just six shots, so we decided to use the resources around us and so created a short film of a girl walking into a lift, where another girl is waiting to move, then that same girl who walked into the lift, walks out by herself, where we can see the other girl, who was waiting for the lift to move, now lying on the floor either dead or in some pain. This was to intentionally make the audience question what happened in the lift and why it happened.

2) We tried to establish narrative flow through a wide shot at the start to introduce the characters of the girl in the lift and the other girl entering the lift, as well as conveying the setting of some of the building, and where the lift was in that space of the building. We also attempted showing the direction of the lift moving down to the bottom floor by filming the display of the lift on the bottom floor when the passengers were moving down. Then we filmed a close up of the girl who entered and exited the lift pressing the emergency button on her way out, so that we could see the exit smoothly whilst being able to realise the events that must have occurred in the lift during that journey down.

3) It is clear that we did not achieve full continuity when shooting these six shots. Fundamentally, this was due to the fact that the transitions didn't show much continuity throughout the multiple shots, as from shot one to shot two, the character entering the lift was further back then where she finished walking in the first shot. Then the shot of the lift display didn't successfully show the lift going down, for we used a close shot of the display that didn't allow the audience to see the context of where the lift was going and where it was, therefore making the audience question the direction of the lift, the height of the display, and whether there was someone watching the display or not. Also the shot of the girl character, who left the lift pressing the emergency button, didn't let us see which girl this actually was pressing the button at the time, and it was difficult to see that she was pressing the emergency button, for there was no noise that was created when she pressed it. At the end of the film when this girl left the lift her position in the last shot was further back again than where she left on the prior shot. However, there were some smooth components to the film, like the pan used to show the girl walking across when leaving the lift and the slick concept of showing her finger pressing the emergency although the position of the shot should have been after the shot of her leaving to give more context in the story we shot.

4) In order for more effective narrative flow in the story, we should have recorded some noises of scuffling when the lift was moving down to show the audience that there was some act of violence that happened in the lift to cause the girl who was waiting in the lift to be on the floor during the last shots of the doors opening. We should have also done a mastershot at the beginning to show where the lift was in the building and where they were going down to, for the audience to understand the positioning of everything including the characters and the lift's display on the ground floor. Also we should have edited the shots where the girl was entering and leaving the lift, so that the camera flowed with her positions when she was moving in and out. Another thing we should have done also was recording the noise of an alarm that would play from after she hit the emergency button in the lift, so that the audience could understand that she was in fact definitely pressing the emergency button.

My Film Still Analysis (BLK)

This shot is of a character that has got a rope around his neck due to being hung. We can tell the character is dead by the emotionless look on his face where the light shines. The dim lighting, made from a battery powered light pack, creates a sense of suspense and the half shadow on his face makes the character seem mysterious, for it only shows half of his personality. There is a shadow in the background that evokes tension due to the fact it may be a murderer or a detective at a crime scene. Therefore, due to the mood and emotion this shot creates for the audience; I can deduce this shot fits in the horror genre. As a group, we chose to use a medium close up for the shot, to show the close detail on the character's face, so that the audience could see his final feelings before he died in order to build a sense of sympathy for the character, and also to wonder about the circumstances of his death. In hindsight, we should have tried to make the lighting even dimmer, to make the still even more dark and tense to suit the horror genre, and we should have closed the curtain on the right as well. We should have also made the character have a frightened look on his face and have his head to be tilted downwards, so that the audience could have more sympathy for him over the fact he died very uncomfortably and so was probably murdered, which would make the photo seem more scary, making it more suited for the horror genre and creating a stronger emotional impact on the audience.