Sound and Music

In this lesson we learnt what Diegetic and Non-Diegetic sound is. Diegetic sound is the sounds inside of a scene, such as: dialogue, alarm clocks, door slamming, glass and cups moving etc. Non-Diegetic sounds are sounds that are added to a scene during editing such as: soundtrack/music, voice over,  theme tunes etc.

We also learnt that sound can be either parallel, meaning a soundtrack that fits the mood of the scene, or Contrapuntal, in which the sound contradicts the mood of the video track.  Another type of sound we encountered were 'Sound Bridges' which are sounds that comes from one scene and brings you into another. Effective sound in a scene should be able to: reinforce the atmosphere of the scene, enhance audience's emotional experience, suggest a characters thoughts and feelings and build a sense of continuity. 

We looked at some theories regarding sound as well. One of these was 'Enigma Codes', a theory by Roland Barthes. In this theory Barthes said that all media texts are encoded and have enigmas (which are questions the audience ask that need an answer) inside of them. These questions are often 'what's going to happen' or, the most common one in the crime genre, 'who dunnit'.

Another theory we looked at was the theory of 'Readings' by Stuart Hall. He says that there are 3 ways that an audience can 'read'/understand a text. The first way being Preferred Reading. This is where the audience understand a product in the exact way the producers intended (for example they may hate the antagonist). The second is called Negotiated Reading. This is when a member of the audience only partly agrees with the message of the text (for example they may see the antagonist as a bad person but understands why). Finally, the third is called Oppositional Reading. This is when the audience are in complete disagreement with the text's message (for example really like the antagonist).

Types of Camera Angles:

1. Extreme Long Shot: can be as far as 1/4 of a mile away, its often described as a scene setting shot, its often shows the exterior of the setting or scene rather than inside an area or building, frequently used in thrilling actions scenes.
2. Long Shot: this is a full shot and image of an object, its shows a person from head to toe, its ensures the audience is focused on the character as well as the mise en scene and background detail.
3. Medium Long Shot: over the shoulder shots are often used at this length and they are also, the person is in shot from the waist/knees up. 
4. Close Up: this shot included very little background, it concentrates on the person's face or the detail of an object, the background and mise en scene is often blurry, this shot often has the effect of making the audience feel especially comfortable or uncomfortable with a character. Variations of this shot are Medium Close Up (which is a shot of a person from the bust up), Further Close Up (which is a little closer to the main focus, its shows less background but still includes partial body language) and Big Close Up which shows more of the face and creates a very dramatic atmosphere and mood. 
5. Extreme Close Up: this shot magnifies beyond the human eye so has low levels of verisimilitude and is not likely to be used in soap operas or TV Dramas. It shows no detail of the background or the character and usually focuses on the mouth or eyes alone. This shot is really good at creating mass amount of drama and tension and showing strong emotions or reactions. 
6. Low Angle: this shot is great at creating a sense of confusion and powerlessness in a scene to the audience, the background that can be seen in this shot is usually just the sky or ceiling and is of little importance, this lack of background creates disorientation to the viewer. 
7. Birds Eye View: shows a scene from directly overhead and is a very unnatural and strange angle, most of the objects seen from this angle look completely unrecogninable which is why it creates confusion to the audience. It puts the audience in a Godlike position and make the characters in the scene look insignificant. 
8. Worms Eye View: this angle views the object or person from right down low, from the floor almost, whereas the low angle is slightly higher up. This is the opposite of a birds eye view because of the way it views things from below rather than from directly above, its often used to create a 3rd perspective and to make the object look strong, tall and, mighty. 
9. High Angle: this is not as extreme as birds eye view as the camera is only elevated above the action not looking down on it completely. This creates a general overview of the scene and makes the object look smaller and less significant and is often used to show a weak character. 
10. Eye Level: this is a fairly neutral shot as the camera is positioned to make the audience feel like they are the character observing the scene occurring at that time.
11. Canted Angle: this is when the camera is tilted to suggest imbalance and instability (hence why it is often an angle used in the horror genre very regularly). It can sometimes be used in a POV shot, it disorientates the viewer and is often used when correlated with alcohol or drug use from a character.

Using lighting to create and showcase different genres and moods of films.

We really liked this image as we weren't expecting the results we got when we first took the photography. At first we were just trying to show a half face in which we held a long stick of wood in front of our key lighting in attempt to completely black out half of the face in order to create a mood of mystery and nervousness. However, instead when we moved the camera to the right and took the picture we realized that the shadow created from the block of wood on her face has in fact bent around her main features to create what appears to be the facial silhouette of another person. This creates a lot more mystery and drama to the image as not only is half the face covered but why is the silhouette directly on her face?

 

This image is good as the softness of the fill lighting which is angled from below creates a romantic look to the object in the photo. We created the softness by covering a torch with a tea towel that was off white and had red stripes which is why there are some lighter red/orange tones in the image. If it was just red the image would be a lot more sinister that is is romantic which is why the softness works well. Also the use of the front facing fill lighting and no key or back light creates a obvious silhouette so the audience's focus is clearly on the object of the image. The connotations of the soft pink and off white color are emotions such as love, gentleness and innocence, all of which are evident in this image. 

This is the image we were originally supposed to create when using the wooden stick to block out some of the key lighting. I really like this image because it creates confusion to the audience as only half of the face can be seen. It also creates a feeling that the person involved is dangerous or a terrifying person because of the vivid contrast in the bright right side and the blacked out left, thus creating disorientation to the viewer which would be perfect in a film in the horror or thriller genre. 

This images create quite a scary atmosphere and looks as if it belongs in a film in the psychological thriller or horror genre as it creates quite a lot of confusion for the audience as only certain areas are lit up. We did this by putting a strongly lit torch beneath a colander and moved it around until one of the openings focused on the eye of the person and lit up only some other areas of them. This creates very low levels of verisimilitude as it not a lighting set up  you would usually see in real life. This low level of verisimilitude creates further disorientation to the viewer as they feel concerned with the surreal and unlikeliness of the scene. 

This image has a really sinister look which was created by using a red piece of tissue paper over the light we used and holding the light below the persons face thus creating depth and shadows on the higher areas on their face, especially around their eyes. Not only is the color red symbolic of danger in many ways but the use of the dark shadows around the eyes creates an evil and dangerous look as it ensures that the character subject to this lighting technique  shows only dark emotions. I am certain that even with a happy face the character in this lighting would still look menacing, and the smile would only add creepiness to the image. 

Here we again used the colander in assisting us to create a fractured light effect. This one is less disturbing than the previous fractured lighting, i believe this is because of the focus not being on a certain part of the face. However, this would still perplex the audience as the light has low levels of verisimilitude and is unrealistic. 

First Filming Task

Our first filming and editing experiment, testing our recently learnt knowledge of camera angles and movements and the impact they have on the story line and audience.

First basic edit of the film:

What is good about this is the way we used camera movements to establish the scene, setting and characters. It shows a variety of camera angles and movements, for example a long shot to present the initial scene, a POV shot to show the positions of different characters and also we used it in this film to show the wandering personality of the character and to show how the other two characters attention is on the person in the. We also used a pan shot as well as a zooming in shot. Both of these helped to capture the attention of the audience and helped enhance the emotion and intent behind the words being said by each character. Also when edited together i think the different shots transitioned and fitted together really well and made the story very understandable to the audience.

What i would've changed is tried to add a few more different transitions and not faded each clip together all the time, i think this because most reality TV shows, soap operas or TV dramas do not use special effects or fade their clips together all the time as it looks unprofessional and doesn't always make the finished product as smooth as you would like it. 

From this initial edit i learnt how to do the basic actions when editing a video, like how to join clips together in a set sequence and how to fade them in and out from each and other. I also learnt how to trim different clips to cut sections of them out or make them the length you desire. And through the actual filming of the scene i learnt how to position a camera when filming and realised how much you have to think about each shot and how it will be carried out during the action.

Second edit of the film in which we were testing serifX5, the editing software

What is good about it is that it shows a lot of creative ideas in one short film and follows a particular internet trend that i wanted to try out myself as part of a idea explosion. But even though it follows a trend i also added some individuality into the video. As well as this it shows how much i really experimented with the software and as a first go using the editing software i think the second edit of the film really shows a burst of initial creative ideas. I think it shows a wide range of initial skills that i learnt as well, for example; I learnt how to add audio on top of clips in a film and how to change the length and volume of that audio, however i haven't quite learnt how to completely cut out previous audio and replace it which is something i would like to learn, and will very soon. I also learnt how to overlap different images or visual clips on top of the already existing clips and how to move the image around on the screen into the area that i wanted and how to re-size and change the angle of that image. I also learnt how to add a zoom effect after filming as well as different color schemes for an image; for example adding a black and white effect. This will be really useful if i ever need to create a different feel for a film, for example a darker visual effect will be really useful in horror films and a black and white effect will come in handy if i ever do a film in a traditional 'old timey' film. I would like to learn how to slow mo or speed up a clip as i did not learn how to carry that out in this editing experiment but would really like to know how to. 
At the end of this i really would've liked to try and focus on making smoother and more relevant transitions and figuring out how to use different transitions to each clip for various reasons and intentions, however as this was just an initial experiment and a practical idea brainstorm it would make more sense to practice this another time. I would also try adding different types of long audio tracks and music instead of short clips of audio, for example longer songs playing quietly in the background of the visual track. 

First Lesson

September 3rd 2015

1st lesson

Semiology : The study of signs. 

In the first lesson of AS media studies we focused on Semiology, which is the study of signs. We discussed how a sign can be anything that's meaning is something other than itself. We learnt how signs are often culturally specific, for example, in the western world, a thumbs up is a sign that something is good and okay. However, in china and some other east Asian continents a thumb shown in public is a sign of disrespect and is a rude gesture. This means that the sign is Polysemic, which means they can have more than one meaning. 

We also discussed the denotation and connotation of signs. A denotation being the physical sign that is shows and the connotation being the message that is taken from a sign. 

We learnt how there are 3 types of signs:

1. Symbolic - which is a sign that does not look like what they signify. For example, a toxic sign does not look like toxic material, therefore it is a symbolic sign. 
2. Iconic - these are signs that resemble what they look like and what they symbolise. An example of an Iconic sign would be photographs, cartoons or drawings of certain objects.
3. Indexical - these are signs that act as evidence that something else has previously occurred, for example smoke is indexical of fire, footprints is indexical to the fact that someone has been walking.