Month: March 2019

Production

“That’s not a brief summary at all, but okay.”

Taylor Moore
me trying to come up with the meaning for an establishing shot

These are our ideas and thoughts for what our title sequence is meant to turn out like, and why we chose certain cinematographic aspects over others.

Mise-en-scene:


Costuming: white and innocent for victim, lighter colors for male detective, darker colors for female detective
Props: pieces of evidence to show murder, police tape to show crime scene, newspaper to provoke conflict
Decor: bedroom and vulnerable feel, office for a working feel
Setting: bedroom and office
Hair and makeup: victim made to look dead, detectives made to look official
Lighting: dark for evidence, normally lit for office scene
Blocking: victim looks powerless, female detective has somewhat little power over male detective
Framing: open for both evidence and office scene

Cinematography-


Establishing shot: door in evidence, newspaper for graphic match in office
Close ups: evidence to show entirety and vulnerability, close up of newspaper to show conflict
Mid-shot: shows conversation between two detectives
POV Shot: from drawer to show less power
Over the shoulder: between two detectives
High angle and low angles: during the conversation to promote power between female and male detective
Canted angle: tilted on male detective to show that he’s in the wrong
Pan: across crime scene to show it
Pedaling shot: across evidence to show all of it
Handheld: show nervousness of person observing evidence
Center framing: to keep the audience’s attention on the middle of the action

Editing-


Cuts: lots of cuts to show the movement of one scene to the next
Pacing: slow throughout most of it to provide easy story-telling
Graphic match: between newspaper and door, then between drawer in multiple areas
Continuity: purposefully kept
180-degree system: kept well
Shot-reverse shot: conversation from detectives
Dissolve: between evidence
Fade: fade to black at end of each scene

Sound-


Diegetic: dialogue, door, ambient sound
Non-diegetic: soundtrack for evidence
Offscreen: office sounds
Onscreen: dialogue, door
Synchronous: purposefully kept
Ambient sound: printer, phone ringing, small conversation
Incidental music: music during title card

Production

“…I forgot our newspaper.”

Taylor Moore

Re-shooting was a huge success! At least I like to think it was. With enough time to get all of our shots in and being able to redo certain shots with experimenting with angles and movement was really helpful. Our setting was better as well since it actually reflects a sort of office and detective feel we are really going for.

However, this isn’t a project with Taylor if she didn’t forget something.

I had made a nice looking newspaper with an article and everything, and I left it at home. That’s a neck. I don’t even know how I left it cause I spent a good hour on it too. But it actually worked out for the better since the newspaper is now black and white and hints towards the fact that it’s an older time period, even though we kind of ditched that idea but it still reverts back to it as well. We also made the newspaper better since the back of it was obviously not our “newspaper” and the pieces of paper I used were a completely different color than the front.

To create this newspaper, I first printed a picture of the screenshot that we needed, the bloody hand print, and sized that well enough to fit a reasonable newspaper sized picture. Then I printed the heading along the lines of a murder at the Moore Manor. I made sure this was big, but not bigger than the name of the newspaper (Wolff Daily). I created a small article to fit on the left side of the picture just to give some context, but also to make it look more like a newspaper since I’m not a newspaper manufacturer. I covered up the rest of the exposed newspaper space with scrap pieces of white paper. Once this was finished, we covered the backside of the newspaper with a different newspaper as well that was still the same color. We were recording our scene and noticed the extreme discoloration of the whiteness of our paper compared to the newspaper when Tommy grabbed the newspaper. It wasn’t appealing at all to say the least, so easily making that change was a good idea.

The amount of blank white on the newspaper wasn’t completely intentional, but it brought more attention to the picture and the headings as well, so it worked out well in the end. Our printer also didn’t have any color toner, so it just happened to be black and white but that gave the idea of an older sort of time period which works well for 1990’s. It also had a few more features than my old newspaper had, so making this one made things easier for us in the longrun. All things happen for a reason I guess.

Experiencing this loss of a prop made me realize how difficult it can be on an actual set if a prop is lost or something goes wrong that isn’t supposed to and suddenly filming is delayed. Thank goodness I’m not actually spending $10,000 on all of this. I would cry.

Reflections

Reflection- Week 6

Taylor Moore

Wow this week went way better than last that’s for sure.

Shooting Our Film

Last weekend, we re-shot our office scene that was absolutely awful from our first rough cut, so that was a success. We had a lot more time to get ourselves organized and get all of the shots that we need, and even get a little experimental with some of our shots and getting out of our comfort zone. For example, the drawer shot from when Becca takes the newspaper out of it. We had thought of that shot almost on the spot since we wanted variety and wanted to see how it might’ve looked in editing and it turned out pretty great. It also made for a lot better continuity than we originally had since our first session was so rushed and overall just awful in general. Seeing the time-frame some directors have to work with is really tough and I’m glad that I don’t have to deal with an actual budget with real money, I think I would cry. But I can definitely understand the struggle of time constraints.

Struggles

My *amazing* newspaper

While shooting went well, that didn’t change the fact that we definitely struggled in some parts of it. The most prominent thing, our newspaper, literally the most important prop, I left at home. While I go more into detail on how I miraculously recreated this, I really learned that forgetting a prop or making it incorrectly can really ruin the meaning and tone of the sequence if not implemented correctly. Some other struggles we might have in the future is the recording of the dialogue. I haven’t listened to all of it yet, but I hope it sounds okay and can be synced correctly with the certain shots and other ambient sound in the back. Plus, taping the singular airpod to the inside of Tommy’s collar wasn’t exactly easy as it kept falling out. Hiding those sorts of things proved to be pretty difficult. We also had some trouble with blocking and putting the camera in the correct place for the sort of angles we want, but it didn’t hinder too much of our shooting. Becca was also taller than Sitara, so getting any shot from over her shoulder was difficult for Sitara, but not completely impossible.

Accomplishments

Becca (right), Sitara (middle), and me (left) with our visitor badges

We did end up having an amazing rough cut in the end, thank goodness. We also got a lot of work done plus good blog posts out of this weekend and last week when we planned for the re-shooting of our office scene. I’m busy the next few weekends, so the fact that we got everything done this weekend was really good for me and Sitara both. I also managed to recreate our newspaper and even something better with the supplies there. The black and white aspects of the newspaper creates a feeling of old-fasion and not completely modern (despite the setting but it’s fine), so it still nearly follows our proposal from before.

Post-Production, Research

“Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer…?”

Taylor Moore

I figured analyzing more than one opening purely on editing in our genre would help me out a bit more in the long run. A little more analyses never hurt anyone… that I know of. Zodiac is a crime, drama, and mystery film; three of our four genres we classified our film under! Analyzing it should be a goof thing for me, who’s gonna be editing everything anyway.

The extract creates a meaning of lot going on within a big city and having to get a lot done at once through the use of ellipses and crosscutting throughout the extract. The majority of the ellipses used are towards the beginning of the extract. The first one we see is a shot of the dad and son leaving the bathroom and it cuts to them climbing into a car. This shows the passage of time from leaving their house and getting into the car, which could be seen as quite fast paced since the sequence of them actually leaving their house was not shown. The next few are when the car is driving then it cuts to the dad and son standing outside of his school, then it cuts to the dad sitting in his car, then cuts to him outside of work. These ellipses convey the same message of time passing and almost a rushed scenario to get to work. Following these ellipses, the audience is shown cross cutting between the dad and a mail cart. For example, the scene cuts to him walking to the elevator, then cuts to the mail truck driving and arriving to its destination outside of the building. This continues all throughout until the end of the sequence, of course with the two figures continuing to move to their destination; the dad to his work space and the mail cart to the mail room. With the consistent switching between these two subjects throughout the extract, it shows a lot going on at one time and how much actually needs to get done.

Production, Research

“Seven is a drama mystery… oh that’s our genre.”

Taylor Moore

I decided to do a little more research on another movie to see what sort of editing techniques would fit best with the genre we want. I looked into the movie Seven , which is a drama, crime, and mystery film. This perfectly fits the feel we want for our film, so using the editing techniques they have will be beneficial when I get to the editing portion of our film. My media instructor insisted that I look into it, and I feel I have to listen to him sometimes, ergo, this analysis of the opening sequence opening.

The first thing that catches my eye is the fast paced editing the editors implements into this opening. We really don’t want a fast paced sort of opening, since we wanted that Cozy Mystery type of feeling. Something cozy wouldn’t particularly fast. They used a lot of inserts and cutaways, and arguably jumpcuts. Ellipses were used I believe, but since the audience doesn’t really know what’s going on, it can’t really be determined what’s happening or what time period this is taking place in. It could also involve forms of parallel editing or crosscutting, but again the audience doesn’t know for sure. This could arguably be the goal of a mystery film to confuse the audience or lead them astray, but it’s annoying to analyze cause I have no idea what’s going on. If Cambridge puts this opening on the exam I’m gonna cry.

Another thing I’ve noticed is the superimpositions and overlays upon all of the scenes together. They’re faded on top of one another to show multiple things happening at once. We don’t want exactly a sort of “overlay” but a dissolve from one piece of evidence to another to show a sort of mysterious aura surrounding the pieces of evidence and what might’ve really happened between the murderer and the victim. Though, it couldn’t hurt to try something along those lines with some superimpositions and overlays.

I also noticed the titles were pretty shaky and gave off more of a thriller vibe than the more mysterious vibe we are going for. They were appear on a completely black screen at the edge of the frame to draw the audiences attention to that part of the frame. We don’t want to go with something as creepy as that, but more as a simple addition to the opening sequence of mystery and confusion. They might just fade in and fade out within the scenes shown rather than have their own screens that way.

From seeing this opening, I’ve seen a few new techniques I can try when editing my final and making it the best that it can be. So all in all, I don’t know what my instructor was thinking when he said this opening was like my own but, it’s fine.

Pre-Production & Funding, Production

“I want it to be obvious that he’s sexist.”

Taylor Moore

Since we need to reshoot our office scene, we created a new script and story board. We wanted to make sure we had a good foundation and much better idea of what we wanted to do in case we again don’t have the time/resources we need. It’ll also help our actors out more since we want this to flow as naturally as possible. I have a feeling we’ll have a much better turn out for what we’re going for.

Our script/storyboard is as follows:

  • Dolly out on newspaper from black and door “graphic match”
  • Tilt to becca; rack focus from newspaper to her
  • Over-the-shoulder and rack focus to tommy taking the paper
  • Tilt in the same scene; he says, “what do you think you’re doing, detective?”
  • Over-the-shoulder from tommy of becca
    • She says “reading up on a case”
  • Over the shoulder shot-reverse-shot back to Tommy/midshot of tommy
    • He says “this is a case meant for real detectives, so why don’t you just go get your nails done or something
      • Pulls out money
    • Same time says “my treat” and throws it at her as he walks away
  • Mid/close-up of becca saying “ugh” as she rolls her eyes and turns away to find another newspaper
  • Close-up of newspaper as it’s blurry with becca in the back walking towards it as she picks it up
  • POV shot of becca picking up newspaper and seeing folder behind it, picks up folder
  • Close-up of her behind folders, puts them down as if to realize something and walks out

This here is our super professional storyboard that we made so we can actually visualize the shots we need. We will also be more familiar with our actual office setting, so we will be able to really move around a lot and see what we need to shoot and what angles would be the most appropriate for the tone and message we are going for. We really want to emphasize the oppression on the women detective during this time period, so the angles and dialogue is planned accordingly and well. If we have to reshoot anything after this, I will drop this course. I will be so done.

Pre-Production & Funding

“Why is the scene blue? We aren’t blueberries.”

Taylor Moore

We want our title sequence to feel like a mystery and look mysterious and dark. Hopefully we can get the right lighting (kind of lowkey), but if not we can fix that sort of thing in editing if anything.

These screenshots from Murder On The Orient Express is the sort of feel we wanted for the evidence portion (dark, blue hues, mysterious figures, etc.). The quality on the pictures is a little iffy, but it’s definitely what we want to go for. The blue hue gives off a mysterious yet calm feeling on the audience as they’re trying to figure out what’s going on and why it’s there in the first place. The dark color also compliments the lowkey lighting we want to go for as well, even if that will take a lot of editing. It will benefit the feeling we want to evoke in our audience.

The next scene we have is the conversation between the female lead and the male supporting actor. For this scene, we want an office type of setting with warm undertones. It’s not anything super special but it shows the office setting and the feelings surrounding the case as well. It mostly sets the scene for the detectives to start investigating and being able to easily have that interaction between one another. The picture isn’t exactly what we want (or what we can get either), but we want an office building of sorts with this sort of feel.

We take a lot of inspiration from Murder On the Orient Express from both films to shape the sequence of our own mystery movie. It’ll work a lot better for us if we got the lighting and the look we are going for.

Reflections

Reflection- Week 5

Taylor Moore

Five weeks in and my days are numbered with this project.

So last week wasn’t too eventful, but I felt like I didn’t get a lot done when I should’ve, even though our rough cut was done and we couldn’t shoot anything else, so I mostly felt like I wasted last week. I did end up getting a location that I wasn’t able to use anyway because of some other complications that’s making me kind of irritated, but that’s whatever. We now have a shooting schedule down, and we are able to actually have the time to be able to get the shots we need.

me @ myself

I feel like I have to manage my time better, since I have many other things going on at the same time and it’s just a lot at the moment, but once everything starts settling down, this project should be the least of my worries. It’s just a lot. Either way, I need to put more focus on this so it can be the best project it can be.

I also just want this to be over so I can edit it and make it look super cool and stuff, but that’ll have to wait. I can’t wait for that part though.

what does this even MEAN

Okay also WordPress hates me and suddenly won’t let me embed my rough cut so I might have to link it. I highly dislike this website.

Update- 3/5/19:

Suddenly, the YouTube video is working again and I didn’t even do anything to fix it. I have no words. What even is technology anymore.

Production

“I never want to watch this rough cut again.”

Taylor Moore
Me trying to find anything good in the rough cut

I was watching over my rough cut and set up a few questions for myself so I can reflect and improve on my next cut of the opening. I will also have a classmate of mine look over it and I’ll ask them a few questions to indicate if they can tell what my title sequence is about.

  1. How much continuity does the video have? Can it be improved anywhere and how?
    1. The continuity is alright in the beginning, but gets rough around the 1:30 mark. The conversation between the two detectives gets a little weird and rough because of the cuts and positioning of the camera. It didn’t flow as well as we wanted it to, but a re-shoot with some adjustments, it would be very beneficial.
  2. To what extent is the video readable within your chosen genre? Can you tell it’s a horror/thriller/comedy/coming-of-age etc.? How can this area be improved?
    1. I’m a bit subjective to my own film, but it does fit as well as we wanted, to my own eyes. To someone else, it could look a little different, but it shouldn’t be too far off from our own genre(s) that we picked. With some music and editing, our opening should easily fit the genre of mystery, not much with our actual footage might be able to fix that.
  3. To what extent is the video readable as a film opening? Can you understand that it’s an opening? Why or why not? What can you do to make it more readable?
    1. Again, I’m a bit subjective, but it introduces the characters, shows the struggles the detective is going to undergo, as we outlined in our proposal, shows the beginning of the plot, and doesn’t go into too much action or show the film as trailer-y as some other sequences have been. Also, adding our title and names of who did what are essential to a title sequence.

Next we consulted two students in our class, Ava Chandler and Kyler Dickerson, to watch our rough cut and give us some constructive criticism for our rough cut.

  • What is setting (time and place)? How can you tell?
    • present time because of the newspaper and authoritative looking office people
  • Who are the characters? How can you tell?
    • one who got murdered, lead detective and lower rank detective, main character is female detective
  • What is the movie going to be about? How can you tell?
    • about finding the truth of a murder, because its a detective scene
  • To what extent is it readable as a film opening?
    • felt like an opening to a tv show, started with murder
  • To what extent is it readable as a [insert genre] film?
    • yes very readable, dead woman, detectives, pretty much a crime thriller mystery drama
  • Overall, how might the clarity of meaning in the video be improved?
    • call her a detective to make it more clear that she is

This will be pretty helpful considering we were a little shaky on what we wanted for our rough cut. Once we improve some audio parts and some continuity errors, we will be alright.

Production

“If he can’t do the 15th, he’s fired.”

Taylor Moore

So, planning our reshoots after seeing our rough cut was definitely in order because of how… awful it was. That’s the nicest way to say it anyway.

So, instead of our school building (and instead of having half an hour to shoot), we will be at our local city hall for about two hours. First, the city hall looks much more like the office we were going for. We only settled for the school because that as the only thing we could get in the time frame we were given. It’s also a lot more spacious so we will be able to roam around more and possibly have more angles to work with. Having this plan and also being able to finally reshoot will give us the best possible location we can get. We can’t get pictures of city hall unless we actually went there, so there aren’t any pictures quite available yet. Though, I imagine it looks how we want to for the type of location we’re going for.

Edit- 3-4-19: Okay so apparently I have other priorities to attend to that day, so now we are shooting the 9th at my mom’s work office, so hopefully that could work in a way. I’ve seen some of it and will provide pictures when I get the chance to, so it will be a good place to shoot. It is an office setting, so we also achieve the office-y feel we want for our title sequence. Having so many plans change is kind of irritating, but you gotta do what you gotta do. #mediaismylifeatm And even planning out our shot-by-shot has given us a lot of leeway with what we want to shoot this coming weekend.