Tension Sound Task

 

For this task I had to create tension using sound. My group decided to do an exam scene which was a good way to use sound for tension as there is a lot to think about and loads of possible sounds you could find in that environment.

There was no sound recorded on location, we recorded Foley sound separately in the dead room using a Zoom H1. Most of the sounds required objects that we had access to which made getting the sounds easier, but we could have used completely different objects to create the sounds if we had decided to.

I gradually added each sound once the visual for it was seen on-screen, then towards the end it got louder and louder until the character couldn’t take it anymore and stormed out the room.

I gradually raised the gain of each of the audio so that it had the effect of getting louder in the room. I also added reverb to some of the more prominent sounds so it would sound like it’s echoing inside the characters head as if everything was getting too much to handle.

I colour graded this project to make the scene darker than it was shot, I felt by having it a little bit darker it added some tension to the scene which helped backup the sound in making the scene have tension which is the task we were trying to achieve.

We recorded audio before we recorded the footage which I felt was a mistake afterwards as some sound didn’t fit the video. If we had shot the footage first then we could have recorded sound as we were watching the video to make sure it fit perfectly. Recording sound afterwards would also allow us to make sure we got all the sounds we needed and that everything looked as it should.

I think this worked well. The ways the sounds slowly get louder creating the effect of the character hearing it in her head works great. I feel it would have made a slight improvement if we had recorded sound after the footage so we could line it all up perfectly so it would all run smoothly and be more appealing to the eye.

Lighting Task

We were set a task to recreate a certain type of scene using light. We had to create a fire scene, a person watching TV and people driving a car.

For the fire scene we used two lights. One LED light with an orange gel folded over four times to get a darker orange. At first we tried shining the second light directly at the back of the subject to create a back light but that on its own was too harsh. So we decided to shine the second one facing away from the subject being shone towards a reflector that bounced the light back to the subject to achieve a softer back light. There was also a diffuser attached to the light to also achieve a softer light. We then slowly flickered the light to add the effect of flames in front of the subject.

For the TV scene we did a similar thing. We only used the one LED light for this shot but swapped out the orange gel for a diffuser. We only used one to try to get the effect of someone sitting in a dark room watching the TV so there was no need for a back light or a fill light. We did the same flickering effect that we did for the fire but less erratic and this gave the effect that the subject was sitting in a dark room watching the television.

For the car driving scene we had to think of a way to show reflections coming from the door window. We came up with the idea of holding a small sheet of transparent plastic in front off the lens and move it around which would reflect the light and hopefully recreate reflections of passing street lamps and buildings on a car door window. This effect turned out to work quite well and we was all impressed at how similar it was to the effect we was trying to achieve. If we had more time we could have tested out and adapted our techniques to hopefully achieve a more realistic look.

I think the TV effect worked the best and would have worked great if there was sound to go with it, it looked the most realistic out of the three and would be a good technique to use in a project in the future.

 

Case Study 2

Research plan for ‘13 hours‘ (2016) case study.

Chronological:

• Genre
• Similar productions

 

Social:

• Comparison of true accounts
• Current war

 

Political:

• Governments contribution to the Benghazi attack
• Governments experience with war

 

Chronological

‘13 hours‘ is a Drama/Thriller that is based on the true story that follows a group of six former soldiers who where hired as security in Benghazi.

A Wikipedia article read “Thrillers are characterized and defined by the moods they elicit, giving viewers heightened feelings of suspense, excitement, surprise, anticipation and anxiety.”  (Thriller (genre), 2016). This is a correct statement for the film 13 hours as you go through the film with strong connections to the characters knowing that they are playing real men in a story that actually happened. The film is split up into sections of intense action, calm bonding moments between the characters and waiting anxiously for the next conflict. This adds a sense of realism to the film and a level of emotion that wouldn’t have been the same if it was just pure action or a completely different genre to begin with.

A film that follows similar attributes of 13 hours is ‘Lone Survivor’ (2013) it’s about a group of four Navy SEALs who are greatly outnumbered by a small Taliban force and fight along side a friendly local village to defeat them. This is also a true story and the characters played in the film are real people. They both follow the same pattern where there is bonding between all the characters to establish a connection and then there intense action. There was only one survivor of ‘Operation Red wings‘ which is the mission that the film is based on, ‘Marcus Luttrell’. He worked closely with the director ‘Peter Berg’ to get as close to the real story as possible.

In conclusion, there are a lot of films that are categorized as Thrillers which follow the exact same rules. However I think the fact that both examples are telling a true story is the reason they are so similar, as the soldiers who actually experienced the event have to follow a same set of rules under military guidelines which has an effect on story telling. Due to this I believe military thrillers that are based on a true story should have there own genre.

 

Social

The film 13 hours is a true story and tries to portray exactly what happened. Erwin Stoff the producer of 13 hours said this, “Any time you are doing a real story or a true story, there is that temptation to say, ‘Well, it would be better if this would happen or that would happen.” He goes on to explain that ‘there is not a thing in this movie that is not verifiable by two or more sources.” This adds real power to what is shown on screen, knowing that every part actually occurred and the 6 men had to endure everything they’re shown going through.

The events of 13 hours took place in the year 2012 in Benghazi, Libya. The attacks were carried out by an Islamic terrorist group called Ansar al-Sharia (AAS) there motives are to drive out all US and Western influences from Libya.

Overall, this film was made with the full intention of telling the exact story of what happened that night in Libya. The makers of this film wanted it to be a educational experience as well as a enjoyable one and the even brought the real men in to achieve this.

 

Political

There is a lot of talk about how there just wasn’t enough security at the US diplomatic compound to protect themselves from the attacking Islamic group, which led to the group of 6 CIA contractors from a nearby compound called The Annex to rush to the rescue. The person getting the blame for the lack of security staff is the former US Secretary of state, ‘Hillary Clinton’. Hillary also took responsibility for the security at the compound, she stated “I’m in charge of the State Department’s 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts,” (Surrey, 2016).

America’s experience with World War 2 was expensive, it cost the government around $340 billion dollars but most of the money was coming from us civilians who purchased war bonds and lending the United States government half of it.
Although the cost was extensive, it also aloud the farms to sell more produce. ‘American farms multiplied their output of wheat, corn and other foods.’ (The United States during WWII: The home front – video & lesson transcript, 2003)

A lot of the politics involved with the Benghazi attack bury the actual events of what happened that night, which was the main reason the men that were actually there wanted to help. They wanted to tell their story exactly how they experienced it without politics blurring the details.

In conclusion politics wasn’t very helpful and was one of the biggest reasons for the lack of security and overall the failure to defend the US Compound.

 

 

Bibliography

HistoryvsHollywood (2016) Lone survivor true story vs movie – real Marcus Luttrell, Mike Murphy. Available at: http://www.historyvshollywood.com/reelfaces/lone-survivor.php(Accessed: 7 November 2016).

Johnson, T. (2016) How ‘13 hours’ tries to get at the truth of Benghazi. Available at: http://variety.com/2016/film/news/benghazi-13-hours-hollywood-truth-michael-bay-1201680420/ (Accessed: 8 November 2016).

NCTC (no date) National counterterrorism center. Available at: https://www.nctc.gov/site/groups/ansar_al_sharia.html (Accessed: 8 November 2016).

Surrey, M. (2016) Hillary Clinton’s role in Benghazi: What you need to know. Available at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/hillary-clinton-role-benghazi-know-195600379.html?ref=gs (Accessed: 8 November 2016).

The United States during WWII: The home front – video & lesson transcript (2003) Available at: http://study.com/academy/lesson/the-united-states-during-wwii-the-home-front.html (Accessed: 13 November 2016).

Thriller (genre) (2016) in Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thriller_(genre) (Accessed: 4 November 2016).  

 

Dexter target audience

The target audience of Dexter is 18 – 50 plus due to the topic of the show. There are also x rated scenes that are not advised to be watched by children. people of elderly ages would most likely not enjoy it either, but it is more aimed at people with similar interests in crime thrillers and dark comedies such as American psycho and Hannibal.

Recreating scenes using Depth of field

 

 

These are both examples of shallow depth of fields, which is where the subject closes to the camera is the thing in focus. I used an f-stop of f/5.6 and 48 mm. I could have achieved a better similarity by my subjects face in better focus to really bring it out from the background.

This is examples of shots that use a mid depth of field, which is where the background and foreground are out of focus and the subject is in focus in the middle of the shot. I used a f-stop of f/29 and a focal length of 33 mm. The background isn’t as out of focus as it should be however is still slightly out of focus for it to look similar.

These are examples of deep depth of field which is where everything is in focus. I used an f-stop of f/5.6 and a focal length of 25 mm. This could have come out better if i had more time to adjust to the exact settings.

 

We had a group of four people who all needed to get their own set of three images so we were a little pressed for time which meant the pictures above didn’t have as much time to perfect them as they should have. Although they were rushed, they looked good and there were a good amount of similarities when I put them side by side.
I was also limited to the amount of props and locations I had so there were going to be some obvious differences but overall the effect was the same.

Case Study 1

I am going to be looking into the social, political and chronological elements of the television program Dexter (2006-2013)

Research plan

Social:

• The Crime rate in Miami.
• Discrimination in the precinct.
• The danger of weapon access in the America.
• Expectations of middle class citizens.

Political:

• Economy in Miami during the time of production.
• Gang activity in Miami.

Chronological:

• American Psycho

 

Social

Crime is a big concern in Miami, It has over half the crime rate than the U.S. average for violent and property crimes. Specifically  Murders, which is a big part in Dexter (2006).

Dexter (2006) is heavily revolved around murder. This could have been the main reason the show takes place there. The fact that Dexter is based in Miami make everything seem more realistic and it makes more sense that there is so many criminals to keep the series going for eight seasons. Although Dexter’s (2006) main focus is murder, they can add a range of criminal activities into the show as the crime rate is so high and it differs from bad to worse.
According to the Daily Mail, Miami is the worst place to live due to the crime rate, income and poverty levels. This could have also been a reason for Miami being the location choice as it adds effect due to the genre of the show.

 

There were many laws that made discrimination illegal which were placed in the 1960’s, if you thought you had been a victim of discrimination you have the right to sue your employer.
In Dexter there are a range of races and sexes employed in the police force. There isn’t any discrimination as through out the series they all have equal responsibility and some even rise to executive roles with in the precinct.
This could interest people as there is a wide range of different cultures within the same environment who of which with situations differently.

 

Access to weapons in America is really easy. There are many situations when children have accidental shot family or friends with the family rifle that lives on the living room wall. You can purchase all kinds of weapons in wall-mart which is the American equivalent of ASDA.  All you need to buy a gun is to fill out a questionnaire about personal details and a background check. This could have influenced Dexter to take place in American as anyone being able to gain access to weapons and firearms will increase the crime rate, and as Dexter is heavily revolved around crime it was the best location to pick.

 

In Dexter the main character tries really hard to blend in and make himself as little of a suspect as possible. He does this by being normal, he lives with his girlfriend and has kids. He lives the stereotypical middle class life.
By being a blood splatter analyst in the Miami police force he has already set a standard of living for him and his family, he would be one of the last people you would expect to be any sort of criminal as he is on the side of the law.
The fact that Miami has such a huge crime rate and is inhabited by many different gangs also make Dexter less of a suspect as he follows all of the stereotypes.

Political

Economy in Miami isn’t great, it is in the top ten most poor countries in America. There is many slum areas in Miami and the average Miami family earns less than £30,000. This may explain the amount of crime in the city.

The average unemployment rate in Miami is higher than the average of the United States. This isn’t represented in Dexter but could be linked back to amount of crime there is as it is the last result of money income for many people.

‘Miami-Dade Has the 7th Largest Gang Population in America’ (Munzenrieder, 2016). Gang activity and specifically Hispanic gangs play a big part in Dexter as a lot of his targets are criminals from gangs. In Miami gangs are a big problem as there is ‘230 documented gangs with 1,700 members‘ (Gangs said to be terrorizing Miami-Dade, 2011). They take part in drug trafficking and turf wars in which they shoot and kill rival gangs, this is what brings them to Dexter’s attention. The amount of gang activity in Miami could have been another reason for it to be set in Miami because of the amount of opportunity for Dexter.

 

Chronological

Dexter was very much influenced by American Psycho (2000) which came out six years before Dexter and follows similar aspects of it. The main characters both live a double life and are serial killers by night however they have different morals.
Dexter was taught by his adopted father to use his urges for good by only killing criminals or wrong doers. However Patrick Bateman, main protagonist of American Psycho kills innocent ‘Many of Bateman’s murder victims are homeless people.’ (Patrick Bateman, no date)

Although the characters are very different people, Bateman is mentally insane and will kill without any hesitation or any particular target. But Dexter will spend weeks, maybe months researching and following a target to make sure they have broken the law in some way or another and to be positive there is a good reason for them to be killed. This sets the barrier between good and evil and throughout Dexter it is difficult to decide which side of the barrier he is on, as he admittedly enjoys what he is doing but goes through so much to make sure he has the right man. However for Bateman it is clear that he is pure evil, only killing for the rush and the excitement, enjoying every single moment.

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Advameg (2016) Crime in Miami, Florida (FL): Murders, rapes, robberies, assaults, burglaries, thefts, auto thefts, arson, law enforcement employees, police officers, crime map. Available at: http://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-Miami-Florida.html (Accessed: 12 October 2016).

Reporter, D. (2016) Welcome to Miami, the WORST city in America, study claims. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3666775/Welcome-Miami-WORST-city-America-Study-claims-Florida-s-party-hotspot-worse-crime-income-poverty-levels-US.html (Accessed: 12 October 2016).

Baron (2016) Discrimination in the workplace | baron & Herskowitz law firm. Available at: http://www.bhfloridalaw.com/workplace-discrimination/ (Accessed: 12 October 2016).

Smith, A. (2015) This is how easy it is to buy guns in America. Available at: http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/19/news/guns-background-checks/ (Accessed: 12 October 2016).

*, N. (2015) These are the 10 most ghetto cities in Florida. Available at: https://www.roadsnacks.net/these-are-the-10-most-ghetto-cities-in-florida/ (Accessed: 17 October 2016).

American Psycho (2000) Directed by Mary Harron .

Six feet under (2001) Directed by Laffz 00 .

Patrick Bateman (no date) Available at: http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Patrick_Bateman (Accessed: 22 October 2016).

Munzenrieder, K. (2016) Miami-Dade has the 7th largest gang population in America. Available at: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/miami-dade-has-the-7th-largest-gang-population-in-america-6558798 (Accessed: 22 October 2016).

Characteristics and Context of Broad Church

Broad church is British TV program about the murder of a little boy in a small seaside town. Broad church was in production through out the years of 2011, 2012 and 2013.

Social

There were was research done saying that was a huge lack of woman in executive roles. In Broad church there is two main characters in equal positions, a male and female. They could have done this so that it is aimed at both audiences and also to be relevant to a popular topic during the time.

Political

In 2011 there was 5 nights of ongoing riots over a death of a man who was shot by police officers. This could of been used by Broad church to show how much of an impact a murder can have on people and what type of reactions or consequence it may have.

Genre

The genre is a crime thriller, this is expected to follow a main character or pair of characters as they take on a case and try to discover the truth. Most crime thrillers only let the audience know as much as the characters know themselves so you can follow the case and find clues with them.

The music follows genre rules as well. The music during the opening starts of slow and builds up to create suspense and the feeling something is coming. There is shots of the police station and this is slightly longer than the rest of the shots as the show is revolved around the police and a murder case. It then hits the audience with the powerful shot of the child standing on the cliff side. Then everything proceeds to be normal with a few hints to the previous opening. That whole opening has set up the genre perfectly and tells the audience exactly what to expect.

Target Audience

There isn’t a age targeted audience apart from children as it involves upsetting content, but it is more aimed at people with similar interest for crime thrillers. It is aimed for people who live in a small town who could relate to knowing nearly everyone and having such a tight community. It is aimed for both genders as there is a male and a female main character and the story isn’t focused on one in particular there is also all the followers of David Tennant.

Characters

David Tennent’s character Detective Inspector Alec Hardy comes of as scruffy however seems professional. When we first meet him he is asked a question about the case he is working on and he shrugs, this could mean he has no motive and doesn’t really care.

The Game – Framing and Composition

We were tasked with recreating a scene from The Game (2014) using still images. We had to focus on framing and lighting. We managed to get the shadow on the right side of the subjects face, this was done by shining a light toward a gold reflector which bounced the light onto the subjects face. Our main focus was framing, we tried to recreate the scene exactly how it was framed and we got a good outcome.

In the shot we were able to achieve a good shadow on the subject face which was the same as the one the character had in the scene.

We weren’t achieve the correct shadow on our subject due to our location and the equipment we had access to but still achieve the framing correctly.

The framing in this shot isn’t perfect as my hand are a little too high but we did the lighting well as there is a good contrast of shadows and light.

The lighting in this shot is good however it could have been closer to the subject standing up to be even more similar to the scene as at the moment the character standing up seems really far away.

Our version of this shot is slightly out of focus which ruins it, however the framing works well and is very similar to the original scene. There should have been more shadow on the left of the characters face however we didn’t have control over the house lights in the room as there were other groups in there so we had to rely on using a small LED light but that wasn’t powerful enough.

This shot is also out of focus which ruins it but the framing was very similar to the original. The golden light being shone on the left of the subjects face is to harsh, it takes some of the effect away from the shadows and makes the shot too bright.

The angle of this shot is too close, in the original there is some of the table in shot which shows a glass. The reason we couldn’t quite do that was we didn’t have any glasses and the area we wearing taking the pictures in was limited by two other groups doing the same task.

This shot was taken to high up, not all the bottle should have been in shot and the character is facing the wrong way. The fact that the character is facing the wrong way takes away some off the shadows as more of the light is able to get pass the subjects face as he is looking away from it.

This shot worked well. There is the same shadow around the eyes and cheek areas as the original scene. The framing is slightly to far to the right however it still has the same effect.

This scene also has the same shadows as the original however, we couldn’t control the house lights so there was lots of light coming from above which cancelled out the shadows we were trying to achieve from shining a light on the side of the subject face.

There is a lot of differences between these two shots. Ours was out of focus again and was not framed correctly, there was too much space above the characters head which makes the shot look bad.

This scene worked well, the framing was slightly different as in the original the character is all the way to the right off the screen where as in ours the character is in the centre. The character that is only half in the frame should be more of a silhouette however again we haven’t got control of the house lights so we couldn’t get that effect.

 

This scene worked well and wasn’t far off the original scene but the problem was the silhouette again.

This scene was good the framing worked great. It could have been brighter but that was just the room that we were in, we happened to be filming in a room with black walls so it didn’t match the original scene but that was out of our control.

This scene was great, the golden light on the side of the characters face in ours really looks like it could be coming from a lamp or another light source. It would look great if we had control over the house lights as then there would have been a shadow casted on the other side of the characters face like I the original.

This scene isn’t similar to the original in any way apart from both actors are standing. The lighting is to bright and the framing is to far away. It needed to be close to have more of a personal feeling to it and he needed to be in more shadow than he is in our scene.

This is a good shot, the framing is almost spot on. the background is out of focus just like the original to draw more attention onto the characters face as he is saying something of importance to the story.

For the close ups we used a golden reflector to create the effect of the lamps to the sides of the characters. We shone an LED light at the reflector which bounced the golden light back onto  the subjects. This worked well and allowed us to create a golden light to reflect onto the side of the subjects faces while keeping the shadow on the other side of the characters face, similar to that in the original scene.

Overall if we were to try to get exactly the same outcome we would need a better control over our surroundings. Our biggest problem with the images was there wasn’t enough shadow too recreate the original shot, mainly because of the house lights that I spoke about in pretty a lot of the images above. We could have done it in a warmer environment as the room we shot in had every wall painted black and the floor and ceiling was the same, however the original scene was in a warm environment using shades of oranges and yellows which was a huge contrast between the two.
The

TV Programme Scene Analysis

The first thing you see when watching the opening scene of Breaking Bad (2013) is a pair of trousers get run over by an RV which a few seconds later is revealed to belong to the middle aged man wearing nothing but a gas mask and his underwear driving the RV.

This draws the audience in as it is a very unusual scenario to see and its fair to say no one has been in it at any point in their life. The music is intense which creates the idea that they are being followed by someone or something to solidify this idea the man driving the RV keep looking behind his shoulder and acting panicked.

There are two bodies sliding around in the back of the RV which makes the audience want to know the whole story behind them and why they are there. We then begin to hear very distance sirens which the man reacts to, this suggests what ever he is doing there is illegal.

When he reenters the RV he hasn’t got his gas mask on anymore so takes a deep breath upon entering this shows there is some kind of toxin or gas in there which explains the gas masks. This is another story that we as an audience would like to uncover.

He starts to record a video for his family. The fact that he is acting scared and upset could suggest he is new to whatever he is doing and never usually does anything illegal. By showing him make a video for his family shows he is a family man and this side of his life is hidden and unknown.

He then proceeds to stand in the middle of the road and get ready for a gunfight with the approaching law enforcement. This could counter the fact that he could be new at what he is doing as he is willing to go to the extreme and kill innocent people to avoid prison.

Green Screen Task

 

At the start of this task we had to set up a green screen so we could record our individual footage in front of it and add relevant pictures to the topic we are talking about.
There were a few problems when setting up the green screen such as creases. There were some creases in the footage because the green screen we set up was used a lot for practical use so had been folded up and taken out many times in a short period however we were able to get a few of them out by smoothing out the sheet and would be able to get rid of them all if we were to iron it if we had the time and the resources.

We then went on to film our individual videos talking about a topic of our choice, I chose to talk about the film ‘Inception’ (July 8, 2010) by the director Christopher Nolan. I gathered images from the parts of the film I spoke about and added them behind me in the edit.

I did this in Avid, first I brought all my footage in to avid then cut all of the part where I stop to think about what I am going to say out of the clip of me talking. There was almost a minute of footage where a lorry was reversing outside which the camera picked up so I also cut that out to clean it up and make it seem more professional. After that I had the remove the background of the green screen footage, to do this I had to add the effect ‘Spectra Matte’ under the key section. Then change the key colour to green.

After I did that all the green in the footage went so I could see the relative pictures behind it. In order for it to work the green screen footage of me had to be in track V2 and the pictures had to be in track V1 so it shows up behind.

There were a few dark marks were the sheet was creased so to fix this in editing I upped the tolerance and it faded out. Then repeated the process for all the cuts I made to get the finished product.

Overall thus worked well and gave a brief understanding on what the film inception is about without giving away to much. This would be a good video to use to gain peoples interest in the movie as the images behind me support what I am saying and gives a quick snapshot of what the film looks like instead of what its just about.