Assingment Breif 2 Task 3 - Continuity Video

Unit 16: Assignment Brief 2: Task 3: Editing Evidence

The first step to editing this task was to upload the images to the computer so that i was able to add them to my composition. I also done this so that i did not need to bring in the camera whenever I wanted to edited the footage and it would always be on the computer ready for use. Once I uploaded the footage onto the computer i then needed to arrange it so that i would easily be able to select the clip that i wanted without having to navigate through every piece of footage. To do this I created a new folder called trash which was where the footage that i would not be using to go so that it was not cluttering the area with the proper footage. However, I did not delete this footage as I may have made a mistake when selecting the clips so I would easily be able to find the other clips from the trash folder instead of uploading the footage again from the camera.

The next step in editing was to start putting the editing program and put in the first piece of footage that I was going to use for editing. The part of this clip as not needed as it was other attempts at filming the first shot we needed so was not needed and therefore was cropped using the crop tool. 

The next screen shots show the footage has been sliced from the original footage so that they are now two separate clips. After this is the part that i now longer want being selected and then deleted so that i was left with the part that I was going to use for the continuity task. 

I then had to repeat this process with the other clips so that I was left with the rough sequence without added sound or transitions. The next thing that i needed to do was to edit the audio as in its state The speech was barely audible. To do this I first needed to was to make the audio of the footage editable and to do this i needed to select the button that looks like mountains in the bottom left of the screen.

Once this was selected the audio line should go from blue to pink which means that it can now be changed. Because i wanted to increase the volume of the clip i would hover over the pink line that was going to be changed and then drag the line up as shown in the screenshot below.

After I done this to other clips that were too quite I then went about adding the music which would play underneath this task. After obtaining the music I imported it into final cut express, the editing software that I used. At first i was unable to import the music file as it was not supported in the program so i converted it using iTunes and after this went onto file -> import -> files.

Once I done this and then selected the file that I wanted it was then put into the section where all of the other files were kept and i placed it into the composition underneath the audio from the actual video.

However the audio clip was too long so I cropped it and lowered the volume so that i was still able to hear the speech in the clip. This file needed to be rendered before it would work so i needed to press cmd+R.

After inserting the audio and editing it so that it went with this task i then needed to add in a transition at the end to show that the clip was finished and also so that it was smooth and not an abrupt ending. To do this I first needed to select the edge of the clip in order for me to be able to add the transition. It would not work if I selected the whole clip as it would not know where to add the transition.

I then went to Effects -> Video Transition -> Dissolve and selected the transition that i wanted which was the addictive dissolve so that it would fade out to black. 

Once i had completed editing the video i then needed to export it by using the right setting to ensure the maximum quality of the video. For this i needed to was get onto the export settings which i done by going onto File -> Export -> Using Quicktime Conversion. After i done this a pop up window appeared to which i had to select options in order to change them.

After i clicked on options this menu popped up to which there were two menus, one for video and one for video. The first changes that i made to the settings were the video options. Editing the video enables me to change the quality of the video and the file type. Doing this will enable the video to be compatible with different websites and make the file size smaller.

Once i clicked on setting in the video menu this pop-up menu appeared which gave me more options to modify. The first thing i done was to change the file type and i done this by selecting the drop down menu bar next to "compression type. I then changed the file type from H.264 to MPEG-4 Video.

This then changed the options i was allowed to change such as how the video would be encoded and reordering frames. However for what i wanted to do this did not affect me. The next thing piece of information that i needed to complete was the quality of the video. In its current state it was normal and i changed it to best in order to get the most out of the video. 

 After i finished changing these settings i then clicked on ok and the previous pop-up menu appeared. From this i did not need to select a filter so the next stage was to change the size and a new menu come up.

This menu was to change the size of the video and the resolution. If this was not changed then no matter what i done to the other settings the video quality would be limited to 632x356. Once i clicked onto the dimension settings a large menu come onto the screen to which i had to select the correct dimension for the video to enable the best quality. Because we used a HD camera when recording i was able to select the HD quality for the video. I then did not need to change any of the other settings in this menu so clicked ok which, yet again, took me back to the the menu. I did not need to change the sound settings as they were good at their default. 

The last thing that i needed to do was to change the name of the file so that i could find it easily on the computer once it had rendered.

Once I pressed on save the video then started to export out into the settings that i selected in the previous screen shots.

Once the video had been exported i needed to download the video to tape and this was done by selecting File -> Print to Video which then resulted in a menu appearing to give a variety of options to insert.

I did not need to change any of these settings either so all i had to do was to choose ok and it then downloaded to the tape.

Unit 16: Assignment Brief 2: Task 1: Planning Process Evidence

 

Shooting Schedule

Day	Scene	Location	Equipment	Costumes	Props	Cast +Crew
1 1 1 1 1	Approaching the door Opening the door Walking through the door Close up of Jack Close up of Daniel Cole	Robert Clack Robert Clack Robert Clack Robert Clack Robert Clack	Camera & Tripod Camera & Tripod Camera & Tripod Camera & Tripod Camera and Tripod	School clothes School clothes School clothes School Clothes School Clothes	Nothing Nothing Nothing Nothing Nothing	Daniel Cole and Jack Fox Daniel Cole and Jack Fox Daniel Cole and Jack Fox Daniel Cole and Jack Fox Daniel Cole and Jack Fox

Unit 16: Assignment Brief 1: Task 3: Editing Key Conventions

Continuity is a key convention in editing, it allows a film to make complete sense or is able to cuase the audience to become confused and not understand the film. The way that continuity is created is by keeping the mise en scene the same throughout a scene and from shotto shot. the continuity also helps to make the time of a movie to appear real time with things happening and having a consequence. 

The montage is an important technique to use if the director wants a ast amount of time to go by but whilst still keeping a form of narrative and story telling to the audience. An example of this is in Rocky where it shows hime training and becoming bigger and better at boxing by adding clips together which are showing the illusion of time passing. Another type of montage is where two seperate clips are placed together and is then given a third meaning.

Jump cutting in a film is used to create the illusion of time passing and is usually done by cutting whilst either keeping the same speech/ conversation resuming or keeping the same background but changing the way a character looks. An example of jump cutting being used is in a bout de souffle.

 

Parallel editing can be used to create suspense and is when the shot changes to another location or person whilst keeping the illusion that both of the events are happening at the same time. I fhtere is a scene of a woman taking a shower and singing then this would most likely be a happy scene but if paralell editing is used to show some men in a van pull up outside the house wearing masks then the scene would chagne and the audience would scared and know that something bad is about to happen.

There are two ways that an audience is able to view a film and this is in three dimensions or two dimensions. In two dimensions there is a rule called the 180 degree rule and this is an importnat rule. This rule uses an imaginary line that cuts across the real world and is a place where the camera is not allowed to becuase it will cause the audience to be confused. The reason why the audience would get confused is becuase when the line is passed, objects that are on the right will then be shown to appear on the left which will cause would be ery likely to cause confusion.

Transtitions are the most important thing that a film can use and this is because there would only be one shot if no transitions were used. The most common transition is a cut and this is the most simple. The cut transition is an instant change from one shot to another. The next transition is a dissolve which can also be called a mix or crossfade and is a gradual change from one shot to the next by lowering the opacity of the previous shot and the next showing increasing it's opactiy. 

A fade is the next type of transition and is when the shot slowly goes into a single colour such as black or white. This is usually used as an end of a film or if someone is waking up from sleeping/coma/accident.

A wipe transition is when the next shot introduced by a geometric shape either moving across the screen or increasing/decreasing in size. This type of transition os most famous in the Star Wars films and is not common in film, especially Hollywood films.

Unit 16: Assignment Brief 1: Task 2: Editing for a Purpose

Editing can be used for multiple purposes and is not just as straight forward as being used to put put footage together. There are different uses for editing within a film being story telling, creating motivation, combining shots into sequences and to create pace. The key to mastering editing is to be able to achieve all of the above in one go. 

            There have been different ideas of editing to create a god story in film the most popular now being the standard hollywood method of editing which enabled time to pass with continuity and another was lev kuleshov where two pieces of footage are placed next to each other to create a second meaning an image is placed next  Story telling is a key element for editing but is not only making the plot of the film clear and in chronological order but also for other things within this.
           One of these is engaging the audience and is very important for a film as without getting the audience engaged means that they are less likely to feel for the characters. If a long scene takes place without many edits then this could cause the audience to lose interest however if too many edits have been made then this means the audience will most likely be unlikely to follow the story or or get confused which will also cause them to not be as engaged. Another way to keeping the audeince engaged is by using a variety of camera shots as this will make the audience be contanstly looking and not getting used to seeing the same camera shot or a constant static shot.

       

             For the development of drama the editing determines the way the drama develpos mainly by the sequence that the footage is Put into. When done correctly this can cause a heightened sense of emotion for specific characters. The relationship to the genre is linked in with the development of drama as depending on the style of film it is will result in a different method being used to create the drama. For a hooror film to create drama the shots will usually only last a few seconds each to convey a sense of terror and uncertainty. This is similar to the editing in action for the creation of the drama as this will usually be an unsteady camera tracking one person but will have fast editing with different shots of that one individual.

A key for editing to create motivation is to make the continuity of the shots very smooth almost so that the audience does not realise there has been a change. This will create the motivation as they will not be unsteady. An example of making the most out of this continuity is in a conversation with will use a shot reverse shot so that the audience can get a look a both characters emotions which gets the motivation. This is seen At around the 30 second mark where the camera changes between looking at Lauren and then at me whilst keeping in mind the 180 degree rule to not confuse the audience.

In editing, combining the shot into a sequence is important because it makes sure that the film is happening in a chronological manner and that it makes the audence understand the events that are occuring. This can also be seen in the video above where the story is clear to the audience because the events are edited to happen in a logical order so there is a clear beginning middle and end. The pace in which the clips are editing effects the movie as much as the order in which they are placed to get the audience's attention A faster pace of editing will usually cause a sense of panic or high intensnity action. This kind of pace would be seen in a horror or action film. A slower pace will cause the feelingthat everything is fine in the movie world and that it is calm. This is usually seen in romantic films.

Unit 16: Assignment Brief 1: Task 1: Editing developed over 50 years

The start of film was created by Thomas Edison, whose company had created the film camera and projector so films could be recorded and shown. These first films were only short films with one long shot and were static because they could only film with the amount of celluloid that was in the camera and tripods had not yet been invented so the camera was not able to move from its position. For these first films the fact that the pictures were moving was enough to entertain the audience so there was no need for a story to be created. This meant the first films were simple scenes such as moving traffic or people exiting a factory. An example of one of these films is 'Sortie d'usine' by the Lumiere brothers in 1895.   

After this the technology for filming and showing the films had spread around the world which meant many more people were able to film and also a higher chance of the next revolution in film to happen which is exactly what happened. One way in which it had evolved was the introduction of a story into the film and was done by Edwin S. Porter in the Miller and the Sweep. This filmed showd conflict between two characters by them fighting.




 However films were only lasting a relatively short amount of time and Edison wanted these films to last longer so he went to Porter and this when editing of film was created and is first seen in 'The Kiss is in the tunnel'. This film was not only special because it had the first parts of editing in but also because the camera was no, longer static in all shots which brought even more life to the films. Although this is was a big leap in the film industry as it meant films could now be longer and tell more of a story the backgrounds are not realistic and were something the would be expected in a play.






In 1903 Edwin S. Porter made a breakthrough film called 'Life of an American Fireman'. The reason this was such a breakthrough film was because it was one of the first films to contain a plot, action and also a close up of a person hand which is seen at 33 seconds into the film. Before this film a film was only a short 30 second clip of something happening with no real story such as the Lumiere brothers 'Sortie d'usine'. Life of an American Fireman was also an important film in the progression of editing because it had continuity editing with the camera showing a shot of the outside and then changing to a shot of inside the house whilst keeping the movement the same. An example of continuity editing being used at when the film goes from the inside of the train to the outside and then back into the inside. This is continuity because it shows the movement of the characters as though it has been continued for the time the camera was not showing them. Someone who used this skill of cutting in a different way for the time was George Melies who create a piece called "The Vanishing Lady". In this he used the cut to remove one of the actors from the scene which made it appear as though she had vanished. This can be seen as being the first use of special effects in a film as it created a scenario which was very different to other films which were being produced at the time.








After this breakthrough film it wasnt long before more films that resemble modern films were made, one of these films is 'The Great Train Robbery' also by Edwin S. Porter in 1903. This was because it had the standard story with the newly made and introduced camera shots such as close ups and also continuity from filming scenes at parallel settings. Another feature of this film is the parts of colour in the film. This colour was done after it was filmed and was painted onto each individual frame. An example of when the frames being painted in when the is an explosion. This is also one of the first films to have visual special effects in. The first film that included parallel editing was the Horse that Bolted by Charles Pathe. Another exmaple of this method in a more recent film is Francis Ford The God Father in the baptism murder scene in which the baby is being christened and during this clips are linked in which people are being mudered and is happening at the same time.






Another advance in cinema and film was done by D.W. Griffith and this was cross cutting. Cross cutting was used by this American director show parallel action in different locations. This simple new editing skill influenced many other film maker in the future and even cinema today. Not only was it this new technique that was different in the film but it was also the length which was 3 hours compared to the previous 10-15 minutes that films usually were.



Lev Kuleshov ad a slightly different influence on film as he was one of the first people to think about of different ways film can be made and how they should be made. He said that editing a film is like constructing a building with each brick being a shot. He did not only theorise these new thoughts on cinema but also performed an experiment which proved his point. In this experiment he took an old film clip of a head shot and placed different images in between the clip. The following clip is an example of how this worked. Using this gave the appearance that the actor was thinking of each object and acting a specific emotion for it for example hunger when he saw the soup and the just when he saw the women. We know that this experiment worked because when this clip was shown to an audience they praised the mans acting with hunger and lust even though it was only the image of the objects that changed. It was the juxtaposing of the image that gave the illusion of the relationship.



Man with the movie camera directed by Vertov used the idea of juxtaposing to show the relationship and this was the first time that Kuleshov's theory as used in a real film. This film had no real actors but instead characters such as the camera man and an orchestra. In 2012 it was voted the 8th best film.




A montage in film terminology is an editing technique which is french for putting together and there are different methods of creating a montage. The first one is in French film and is its english translation of assembly and simply identifies editing. The next one is used in Soviet film making in the 1920's and is placing shots between others to give it a new meaning that was not there from the individual clips.  Th final montage method is is a "montage sequence in which a short segment of the film gives a narrative in a short amount of time. A famous Hollywood cinema montage is from Rocky Balboa and is an iconic scene in cinema which shows the main character starting off not strong or good at fighting to gaining strength and skill which would take a long time to show was it not for the montage.



The soviet montage theory came about from the a man named Sergei Eisenstein who was a student of Kuleshov's but had a different idea about what a montage should be and used for. Where as Kuleshov established that a montage leads the audince to reach a certain conclusion aout the film. An example of this Soviet montage theory is in apocalypse now.

 However Eisensteins theory was that a montage was an idea of dialectical means of creating a meaning by using contrasting shots to provoke the viewer to to create a shocking association. An example of this is in the video "strike" where clips of workers on strike and police are cut in with a clip of  cow being slaughtered to give the effct of the strikers being tortured and abused. This is an example of a shot which does not have anything to do with the main video being inserted. Another example of Eisensteins montage being used is in Battleship Potemkin a scene which shows happy people which then turns into fear and switches between shots of people running down steps to close ups of peoples faces in distress.



Continuity editing is when events occur in a logical progression and became known as the popular classic hollywood style that was developed by European  and American directors. This style of editing is used by directors as a way of continuing and furthering the narrative by also using techniques like shot reverse shot, 180 degree rule and an establishing shot. One director that used this style of editing is D.W. Griffith and a famous film of his that uses this is The Birth of a Nation.



A new trend of editing developed in the 1950s and 1960's called the French New Wave and was used to create non-narrative film and the directors that used this new style did not conform to the traditional forms of hollywood continuity editing . One film maker that used this new trend of editing was Jean Luc Godard. Other properties of this editing style were its lack of continuity and the effect of making the audience know that they were watching a film and was achieved by its overt use of jump cuts and material inserted which did not often relate to the narrative of the story. A film that shows this French New Wave is A Bout de Souffle by Luc Godard. The jump cut in this scene is used to startle the audience  and draw attention to something which is emphasised by the gap of action when the mirror is picked up.


Continuity editing is not only a form of editing but with it come techniques that can be used to highlight the change and make the transition from scenes smoother. One technique is the use of an Eye line match which is where we see the character looking at something which the camera can not yet see off screen and then is cut to the footage of the object they are looking at. There is an example of this in Kill Bill where there is footage of eyes and then her feet to show that she is looking at her feet which would not be known if it was not for this eyeline match. Another technique which goes along side continuity editing is Match on Action which is when a character starts an action in one shot and then it is seen to continue in the next one. The final technique is called Graphic Match and is where two shots are transitioned together with a similar shape or image. A famous example of this is in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho where a circular image of a plug is shown and is dissolved into the image of the victims eye.

A Moviola is the main instraument that was used to edit films before the introduction of non-linear editing. This device allowed the initial style of editing which was done by using a positive copy of the film negatvie, the celluloid, and physically cutting out and moving around the frames of the film on this positive copy. This moviola was designed to make this process easier and quicker by allowing it to perform the splicing and threading tasks on this device and also view them on the machine.
        In modern film the editing that was once done physically is now done digitally on programmes such as 'Final Cut Pro' and 'Avid' which meant that the time of using a positive copy had been bypassed. When digital intermediate, the finishing process on a film digitixing the motion picture and manipulating the colours, arrived there was then no need for the physical negative of the film to be used and spliced and cut together as these tasks could now be done faster and more efficiently throughthe use of digital. The negative however is till used to film and is scanned onto thea computer
       The hollywood director Edward Dmytryk who directed films such as 'Murder, my Sweet' and  'Crossfire' derived a list of seven rules that are to be followed when editing in order to have a good edit which are still followed by many modern directors. These were:- 1. Never make a cut without a positive reason.
                     2. When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short.
                     3. Whenever possible cut 'in movement'.
                     4. The 'frsh' is preferable to the 'stale'.
                     5. All scenes should begin and end with continuing action.
                     6. Cut for proper values rather than proper matches.
                     7. Substance first then form.
       This director was not the only one to think of the a set of rules and guidelines for the purpose of effecive editing. Another director called Walter Murch who directed apolcalypse now said that when it comes to recoding there are six main criteria to consider when thinking of making a cut and deciding where to put one. Instead of just a list of rules that had the same significance or similar this style has a hierarchal system. In this list emotion is the most important aspect to consider when editing with 51% of the decision being relied on this. With thinking of emotions and how the audience is going to react to the sequence that is being cut a large portion of the editor can be seen as it is what and how they think the emotion with be ost effectivley portrayed. This means that even with the same clips but different editors would most likely have a different end result. His second highest rated thing that is to be thought of by editors is the story which accounts for 23% of what the editing should give. This means does the cut advance the story and not keep it in the same place or take it back. The third is Rhythm and is similar to Dmytryk's rule of editing in movement. Murch describes hi idea of editing with rhythm as if it is a time that is rhythmically interesting to the audience and this takes up 10% of what should be going through the mind of the editor when editing. 7% is given to Eye trace and is looking into whether the the cut pays respect to "the location and movement of the audience's focus of interest within the frames. The final two relate to the dimensions of the film, 5% to two dimension and 4% to the third dimension. The two dimensional thinking of the film means the audiences vew of the screen as a two dimensional object and the main rule of which tht should be respected is the 180 degee rule. The final criteria by Murch is three dimensional space and is the diegetic thinking which is thinking about the characters in their world rather then the audiences view. What the editor should be thinking of the physical relationship andspatial awareness within the charcters world.
        In camera editing is latin term for in chambers and is when all of the editing is completed inside the camera and not through an external source such as Final Cut or a Moviola. In camera editing is achieved by filming all of the shoots in their exact order and will be viwed in. This editing technique is very har and often intimidates videographers. Completing a film in this way requires a large amount of planning to be done before the filming can start as the shots that are filmed will not be changed in anyway after they have een recorded so can not have mistakes in which, if edited in the normal way would able to be deleted and done in a way which would not show this mistake. Once all of the scenes have filmed when recording by in camera editing then the film has been completed and the production completed. Below is an example of in camera editing being done. This shows that although there is no outside editing the film is still able to look as though it has been editied via other software.



Following the action is a term used to described a time when a movement or action that is being performed is followed by the camera. The following is an example from Mr and Mrs Smith in which there is a gun battle occuring and the camera rotates and tracks certain movements. This following the action gives a real tense feeling to the audience and makes them feel as though they are more involved with the action rather than if the camera was static or simply panning.



Multiple points of view can be thought of as similar to eyeline match as it where characters showing different sides of a particular view. This is achieved by showing the first character looking at something and then cut to what they are looking at, after this it then cuts to the second character and repeats this so that the auience is able to get the view of the object from two perspectives. Iron Man is an example of this multiple points of view being shown. In this example is shows Tony Stark lokking at Pepper Pots, the camera then changes to a shot of Pepper and she is looking at something then the camera once again changes to show the object that she was looking at.