PRELIMINARY EXERCISES

SHOT TYPES

I have researched the different camera angles and shot types by going over Daniel Chandler's website 'The Grammar of Television and Film'. When practicing the different shot types I used my iPhone, here are some examples : 

Close-up (CU) - A picture which shows a fairly small part of the scene, such as a character's face, in great detail so that it fills the screen.

Point-of-view shot (POV) - A shot made from a camera position close to the line of sight of a performer

Medium shots - Medium Shot or Mid-Shot (MS). In such a shot the subject or actor and its setting occupy roughly equal areas in the frame.

Long shot (LS) - Shot which shows all or most of a fairly large subject and usually much of the surroundings

Low Level :

High Level/Birds Eye : 

Canted Angle shot : 

Tilted/Canted angle shots are used in films that want to create suspense, it is used to create the sense of unease in the viewer. 

Close up : 

Close ups show emotions of the person, it also shows details of the object/person. 

Mid – shot : 

A mid shots help to show emotion/reactions. A mid shot is to show facial expression as well as showing their physical stance

continuity exercise

PRODUCTION PRACTICE: TITLE SEQUENCE "A WHOLE WORLD IN A TABLE TOP"

Our brief was to create a title sequence using only a table top and props with a small part of live action at the end of it , using the soundtrack of Emily Barkers Nostalgia; and add in titles. 

I watched the title sequence of Delicatessen (1991, Jean-Pierre Jeunet) and study how its inventive camerawork tells a story at sets the theme. As a group we used this title sequence as inspiration to create and original title sequence by setting up the mise-en-scene using a table covered in a black cloth and using props to place on the table to create a story sequence. We used the soundtrack Nostalgia by Emily Barker (the Wallander theme tune). We started off our title sequences by filming the tabletop scenes. The props we chose included old pictures, some of a couple and some of a man that looked like he was fighting in the war, as well old written letters, and alcohol and what looks like lines of drugs. We chose these props because we thought it could create a story line of Nostalgia reflecting the title, a girl who has struggled with the change of the loss of her significant other because he has gone off to fight in the war, as a result of this change she has turned to alcohol and drugs. We also then went on to film the live action part of the title sequence, this shows the young women walking around holding her bottle of prosecco and then approaching another person holding a large sum of money while being handed drugs and cigarettes. 

Our filming turned out to be extremely successful and worked out really well, we placed the objects very carefully on the table, so they made sense and created a story within themselves. However it wasn’t always easy to film we found a couple of issues along the way, such as when filming the table top part we struggled to keep a smooth transition from each object, as well as it was difficult to make sure that we always only had the black cloth and objects in the shot and would sometimes go over the table to where we would see the floor and peoples feet, this ruined the effect of the title sequence, meaning it took multiple shots to make sure this hadn’t happened and to maintain the effect. When filming the live action, we had a similar problem with making sure we didn’t get people in the background and making sure we didn’t have modern objects ruining the aesthetic. We managed to fix these problems as a group as while Evie was filming, I would follow her and watch the screen to make sure that no other objects would be in the frame and if so would tell her. 

We edited the title sequence using iMovie on the iMac, we cut the song so that it started at about 8 seconds so it would fit well with our title sequence. We also made sure we put the names of each individual person in relevant shots for example, when the hand comes into the shot looking at the photo we put ‘Leila Saville’ as she was the one who did this part and it seemed relevant to put it there. For the live action we did a tracking shot following the girl holding the bottle as we thought it seemed effective and created suspense to where she was going. We also did an over the shoulder shot for the drug deal as it makes the audience focus on the objects rather than the surroundings. We made sure that our title sequence lasted about 1 minute as an opening has to be very short and we are practicing for when we do our final production. 

We named our production company Moontale Studios and our film title is ‘Saudade’ , the meaning of this is from a Portuguese word which means being nostalgic, experiencing the presence of absence, longing for someone or something that you remember lovingly but know you can never experience it again. We thought this fit really well with our film as it reflects the storyline quite well and is a bit different to anything we had heard before. 

SUADADE

To Kill a Mockingbird 

While researching film openings on scoopit! I discovered the opening of the famous book and movie To Kill and Mockingbird. The opening of this film instantly caught my attention as I started to see comparison between that opening and my opening of Suadade that I did with my group. I found that the props used were very simplistic and house held props quite like the ones we used in Suadade. The camera angles and shot types were also very similar to the ones we used.