Night Journey Continued

An element of our finished piece that works well is the characterisation we establish and maintain. This was done in a number of ways, firstly, through considered voice over we were able to establish somewhat of a power relationship between the two characters. An example of this is the way in which the two characters are introduced to the piece, character one i.e. the scared man opens with polite conversation "do you live in Germany?" to which character two quickly retorts "what's it to you, in half an hour you'll be asleep, then I'll do what I want with you." Not only does this begin to inform the audience of the cannibal's intentions, it also, as I've said, sets up the notion that one of the characters is in charge over the other. The chosen reaction of character one furthers the characterisation being that we decided to use a clip of him looking visibly anxious, had we used one of him looking completely relaxed the result would be totally different. 

The fact that neither actors display any obvious 'acting' in the film made it hard to match any particular section of voice over to an appropriate clip, any acting they do perform is done with the eyes or small movements. As a result, therefore we thought it best to emphasis this and use these subtle movements to convey an emotion and make them make sense when coupled with the voice over.

Part of forming the character of the cannibal was to show him as aggressive and creepy as possible from as early on as possible, we decided to introduce him using a close up, the rational being that it show cased an intense personality, something we wanted to establish early on. Adding to this intensity and simultaneously making use of his eye and head movement, we decided to synchronize the moment his eye's fall back on 'the scared man' with the line "I'll do what I want with you." By doing this, not only does it make it obvious that the cannibal is talking about the other passenger but it also suggests clarifies which character is meant to be the one talking. As the same voice actor was used to voice both characters I wanted to avoid any confusion as to which one was speaking. 

    

As the right line falls, the cannibal turns his gaze back into the camera.

Below is another example of where I matched the voice over to the cannibal looking back at the scared man. In this scene, the actor leaves frame while supposedly the cannibal is still talking to him, just like before, to clarify who's meant to be speaking. When the line "Your educated you should know that" is heard, this is the moment when the cannibal looks back in the direction of the scared man that just left. 

Aside from making use of eye movement, we made the most of any obvious body language to make the scenes of internal dialog more believable, as well as making it easier for an audience to accept the two people are really conversing. Further to this, I made the conscience decision to, where possible, avoid using clips where the actors mouths were moving. Not only do I believe that non-synchronized speech looks comical and therefore would take away from the serious tone I was trying to achieve but secondly, it's impossible for an audience to watch out-of-sync speech and believe the words they can hear are the words coming out of the actors mouth. In that sense, a result of the voice overs seeming to be some kind of internal speech, it's making it easier still for the audience to believe the conversation is actually happening.

The two screen grabs below illustrate how I used the motion of the cannibal leaning forward in order to initiate a conversation, again adding to the realism of the scene. The second image is when he leans back, cuing the end of the conversation. It was also my intention here to further characterize the cannibal, generally speaking, to lean back in a chair in the way he does suggests a confidant and relaxed demeanor. This juxtaposes the voice over as its at this moment when he passes comment on how tough ears are to eat, being so relaxed when talking about such things is a big indication to the audience as to what kind of character he is.        

Cut in-between the shots above is one of the scared man's reaction to the comments being made, once again I wanted to make use of subtle eye movement to better convey his emotion. Just after the cannibal explains how he sucks the eyes I cut to a clip of the scared man just before he gulps and closes his eyes as if in reaction to what he's heard.   

A big issue and one that was quite limiting was making sure not to break continuity too obviously. The hardest aspect of this was the transition from night to early morning as there are very few clips where its visibly day time. To get around this I colour corrected one of the hall way shots to loosely match the colour tone of the shot that follows it. While its not perfect, its better than inexplicably jumping from midnight to early morning in one cut. 

The screen grabs below illustrate the effect of the colour correction. The main difference is the reduced 'green' tone, by dragging the 'whites' closer towards blue, the colour temperature was lessened and gave the impression of it being morning. 

The end of the film makes use of a long piece of voice over that wraps up the narrative and concludes the journey. The problem was that there wasn't a clip long enough that fit the requirements we needed i.e. to be at morning and to include only the scared man. To get around this issue I used the motion of a train rushing by the window in conjunction with a cross fade to hide a cut. The fact that the light outside the train increases daily significantly isn't noticable and if anything helps portray the passage of time and the coming to an end of the journey.

The beginning of the end: A slow pan to the window

This is where the camera finishes moving and the state of the light outside the train 

This is the moment were the train comes into frame and the cut occurs

This is the lighting once the train has passed, noticeable when compared back to back but not when watching the film

The use of a cross fade blends the two clips together and helps to hide the cut

As part of the narrative we wanted to include a dream sequence, we tried a few techniques in terms of making it as clear as possible that what the audiences were watching was a dream. Speeding clips up and fast paced cutting of flashing images are elements that feature in the finished cut however it wasn't until we began experimenting with the layering of images did it begin to look as we wanted it to. We knew we wanted to include the footage of amsterdam as there it would be his visit to the city that he'd be dreaming of, then as the dream progresses the cannibal enters the dream. We weren't afraid to recycle clips that we'd already used as it was thought that it would be more believable if he was dreaming about events that had recently happened to him. Some of the more fantastical footage like the skulls for example were also used to emphasis his hysteria and delusion. 

As the dream progresses it gets more and more extreme, first highlighting amsterdam, then introducing the cannibal character and finally using clips containing the skulls along with further sinister clips of the cannibal, showing his teeth for example.  

The sound had to match this mash up of dream like footage and this was done by overlapping sections of voice overs, employing that all this was running though the scared man's head all at once, better conveying a sense of panic. 

  

Rough Cut - Night Journey

The screen grabs below are from our current rough cut, I'll analyse them and discus the techniques we plan to utilize in order to justify the cuts.

First and foremost I thought that if any narrative was to be found in the piece, the narration needed to be the driving factor as its this that will give the images meaning and context. Here is a screen grab of all the clips cut, organised and labeled so as I may quickly select the one I need. As I understand the importance of leaving plenty of space within the narration i.e. pause for thought, I decided to go through and select only what I considered to be the most valuable. 

In order to create better cuts we plan to use a number of sound bridges to carry some of the edits. The screen grab below illustrates one such sound bridge, we've decided to cut just before the door closes and carry the sound onto the following shot to make sure the audience understand the fact these two shots happen chronologically. With the footage we've been given there are enevitably going to be certain cuts that seem to jump and at times may seem jarring. I like the way in which the camera pans up to the character who then lights his cigarette however because of this seemingly unnecessary camera movement it may seem like time has passed, by using a sound bridge it will be clear that it is a continuation of the scene and not a jump cut. 

The other sound bridge will occur just before the fast paced montage of the high speed train. I wish to slowly raise the volume of a train speeding on tracks just before making the cut, then on the cut raise the volume considerably emphasising the speed and power of the train. My reasoning behind this bridge is that while I like the montage, to launch into it without any prior warning of whats to come might seem, like before, too jarring. By introducing the sound of a moving train I hope to suggest to the audience what they are about to see before it happens, carrying the cut and smoothing out the transition. 

Another way in which I hope to smooth the transition between the rapid cutting and back to a static, internal shot is through letting the train leave frame during the final clip of the sequence. By doing this while syncronising the fading sound of the train I hope the intensity of the previous shots dies with the sound of the train, allowing me to cut to a static shot inside the train. The reason behind allowing a few seconds before the internal shot begins to pan toward the character is that I find that when editing from a shot with movement to a static one, the cut becomes very noticeable. These few seconds of still will hopefully hide the cut and make the transition feel more natural.  

 Below is a screen grab of the fast paced close ups of trains. For the rough cut I made them all the same length and arranged them in an order I felt flowed the best. Starting with shots of the tracks and progressing to shots of the carriages as the sequence moves forward.

As part of my invented narrative, I wanted to include a surreal dream sequence that would seem to be the spring board for the characters paranoia. I'm not entirely happy with it so far however the form its taken is something close to what I have in mind. To establish his dream state I chose to use the only shot of the passenger asleep, then, in quick succession, flash a few frames of the supposed cannibal revealing his true nature. While I don't fully appreciate the string that can be seen in this shot, I thought by cutting it very quickly the method by which the case opens isn't overly clear allowing me to use the clip.

To further suggest his panicked sleep, I cut out single frames of over exposure and used them in the frames between the edits of him asleep and those of what he's dreaming. The result are instant flashes of light, disorientating to the audience and representational of his distorted dream. Another method I used to suggest the fact its a dream is by putting motion into the shot. Using key frames I make the camera zoom in on the characters face very slowly, progressing closer and closer each time it cuts back to this shot. I like the result as it evokes the idea that we are seeing deeper and deeper into his mind.

Here is the before and after of the use of a zoom

For the opening of the film I used a standard establishing shot of the train station but following this I didn't want to use the somewhat boring, static shots of the character walking around, finding his train. What I did like however were the unusual point of view shots of a character walking through the busy station, I thought they were a more interesting and dynamic way of starting the film. I tried using one on its own and it felt very out of place stuck between two tripod shots so instead I used three, cutting them in reflectively quick succession in an attempt to establish some pace. In order to prevent the cuts from feeling too garish I made sure to cut during a moment when a member of the public blocked a substantial amount of the frame, this way the audience is distracted from the fact there's an edit by something large looming into frame. This being said, its still obvious when the cuts take place, I used this method only to try and disguise them as best I knew how.    

In order to cut from these POV shots back to a static one was somewhat of a problem, as I've already said, I find that cutting from a moving shot to a still one causes quite a jump. I tried to get around this by attempting some match on action. In the shot below there is a man with a green coat in the foreground, this cuts to a shot on a tripod where in a man in a similar coloured coat also walks into frame. By timing the cut, I tried to see if I could pass them off as the same person, using them to carry the cut.

Hannah & Her Sisters

The term 'thought track' was introduced in today's session and it refers to the type of voice over. In films we've previously looked at, Goodfellas (1990), Election (1999) etc, the use of voice over has always been spoken in the past tense. The voice over in Hannah and Her Sisters however is spoken in the present tense and, as the name term suggests, refers to a voice over that's representative of a characters current thoughts.

Although the house looks like a location, seemingly due to its incredible dressing, when you realise that its almost entirely lit from above its apparent that it must be just a very convincing set. If it was a location that the way in which the sequence is shot could be simply explained i.e. there was limited space therefore Allen made use of well considered tripod shots and hand held footage. The fact that it was likely to be a set however, one must consider more thoroughly the reasoning behind the style of cinematography. The main reason for the simple-but-effective shooting is to better convey the hustle and bustle of the party and to make the audience feel like one of the party guests. By using a prime lens to maximize the depth of field, the camera can flow through the bust house without the need to cut in order to follow the action.  

Characterisation: The thought track that solidifies Cain's character. His narration, through dialogue and demeanor, are a big indication of the kind of person this man is. Interestingly, despite falling for his wife's sister, as he so plainly states, the audience are inclined to side with, like and even sympathise him. This is all a result of clever characterisation. Most plainly, being the narrator of a story gives you authority, as a result the audience have no reason to doubt that whats being said is untrue. This is important as its through his explanation of his current situation that Cain's character is grounded. The way in which he delivers his lines suggests a degree of lightheartedness, the comment he makes about not wanting to swoon as he's a financial adviser comes off as somewhat of a joke. Not that Allen wants the audience to think Cain's character particularly funny, rather that his character is the joke. To further this idea, listening to the rest of his speech during the voice over evokes the same feeling. His line, "I just want to be alone with her and hold her and kiss her and look after her. Stop it, she's your wife's sister." Firstly the list of things he wants to do isn't in any way sleazy, quite the opposite, so in that sense he comes of as a genuine person. The juxtaposition of then finding out she's his wife's sister should shatter these prior feelings. The way in which he delivers the line however, along side the sharp contrast to the sentence before, results in something comical, furthering the audiences emotional connection with him.

In terms of cinematography and editing, the use of one long shot, following Hershey's character around the crowded room suggests voyeurism. Allen however makes a point to have her look directly into camera before any movement begins, the result of this is to let the audience know she's being watched, preventing the shot from coming off as in any way perverted. The only cut away from this long take is to highlight a kind of flash back that directly relates to the voice over. When Cain mentions the fact he nearly swooned as she walked past him in the doorway, we cut to a static shot of her passing him in the door way. A way in which this simple shot further conveys character is through the smile that the two exchange as she passes, this informs the audience that his so-called love for her could be something quite natural. What I mean by this is that its clear the two of them already have a relationship of some description by the way they interact, using the exact same shot but having Cain ignore her presence would suggest something completely different.

The way in which the characters of the sisters are formed is mainly through their shared dialogue. Often in the opening sequence all three of them are in the same shot at the same time all talking at the same time, this suggests the closeness each of the sisters shares with their fellow sister. Not only this but it also suggests how involved they all are in each others lives, causing potentially major problems for our protagonist. Secondly, whats actually said between the sisters reveals a lot to the audience. Its done in such a way that it seems natural, when ever its just two of the sisters talking (not Lee) to each other it tends to be something personal i.e. a drug habit or Lee's "depressive" husband. Rather than feeling like the dialogue is trying its hardest to get as much background information across as possible, it feels like family gossip and therefore its totally believable that certain things are being discussed.

Pace/Music: The music is clever in this sequence as it remains the same level through out, starting as the opening credits roll and only stopping at the cue of a bell when all the family/guests sit down to eat. The music is a fast paced piano solo that's cleverly included in the sequence by way of using three seperate cut away's to the parents playing and singing along (further characterisation). The result enables the music to be used and accepted by the audience throughout the sequence as it shifts from non diejetic to dietetic sound. The music greatly effects the pace of the opening, because the piano music is never lowered in volume its as if the characters are trying to compete with and speak at the same speed as the piano is being played. This relentlessness carries the sequence and prevents any moment from feeling labored upon. In any modern Hollywood production, fast editing is used to quicken the pace. In contrast, due to the music, fast dialogue and the movement of both the camera and the subjects within it, the long takes do nothing to slow the pace.





  

Skyfall Breakdown

I watched Skyfall for the first time yesterday and while watching I made a conscious effort to look out for sequences that progressed the narrative in few shots, resulting in few edits. After watching and analysing Goodfellas, I've been far more aware of methods and techniques directors use for driving the narrative forward without a detailed step-by-step of the characters actions.

The scene I'm dissecting is used by Mendes to transport Bond from London to Shanghai then locate and intercept a target. What caught my attention is that all this is done in a scene of around ninety seconds and without the use of any dialogue

This shot, fairly obviously, establishes the new location. The use of a title confirms to the audience what and more importantly where they're look at. The next two edits cut to two different helicopter shots of the same city, getting closer to the city each time it cuts. 

 This shot (above) centers a particularly noticeable building and as the camera gets closer and closer to it, keeping the swimming pool on the roof center frame, it becomes apparent to the audience its safe to assume our protagonist is somewhere close by.

The shot that follows confirms this, within around fifteen seconds of jumping continents, Bond is located and the entire audience is satisfied that he's now in Shanghai (no need to explain or show how he turned up there). The location is typically Bond and engaging, and the action of swimming carries the location shift as its more-or-less a continuation of the rigorous tests/exercises he was put through in London minuets ago...

A quick cut to show he's out of the pool  and, just like in London moments earlier, he's panting again, showing signs of his vulnerability (2nd below). Another interesting technique to mention is the use of tracks when introducing a character to his new location, in the case of the shot above, the camera quickly tracks along side him as he swims a length of the pool.

This sequence serves two functions. Firstly, Mendes needs Bond engaged in some activity in Shanghai that explains to the audience where he is I mean for example Craig could be sat in a tourist information looking at a map, however that that wouldn't have quite the same effect as a penthouse swimming pool. Secondly, everything about this shot is saying something about his character. He's panting therefore out of shape and vulnerable. Also, he's completely alone and flooded in pale blue light, (he's even wearing blue swimming shorts) suggesting a cold, hardheartedness. Not only this but perhaps a 'cool', blase attitude to the job at hand. The same colour is repeated in almost every shot from now on in the sequence. Due to the lack of speech, clever use of colour and the emotional attachments that come with them subconsciously suggest moods to audiences without the actor having to 'act' a great deal. In this case his performance does go some way to reiterate the tone, glaring and unflinching, suggesting a detachment from any emotional softness.

The next shot he's sat in a bar, still high above the city so that the location change isn't too jarring. Movement has been used again too, just like before when introducing a new locale, in this case its a slow, smooth track along the bar towards Craig. Note the entirely blue building to the left of Craig, implying further emotion to the scene.

The next cut is of one to his phone as its the message that's received that progresses the narrative and tells the audience everything they need to know. Reading off the phone, the audience now know where Bond needs to go, what time he has to get there by and how long he has until his target arrives, all in around three seconds and without any need for speech. The use of blue on his phone and even on the signs at the airport continuously reminding the audience of the emotion of the scene.

As the track toward Craig has continued, the audience are looking at a close up of his face. His performance once again is one of intense consideration, he looks serious, preparing himself and the audience for some action that's bound to follow. The use of sound is worth noting at this point in the scene, the sound of an plane landing rises up out of the atmos of the bar, signifying, as a result of the message, where Bond will go next. Sure enough, the next shot is one of a busy airport terminal. The jump making perfect sense due to the information the audience were given in the moments prior to the cut.   

In all, the sequence cleverly utilizes sound and editing, just as Scorsese does in Goodfellas to quicken the pace of the film and get a lot of information successfully across to the audience in a very short time. 

Goodfellas Break Down

The the most important element from the opening sequence of the film is the voice over. For the beginning to be a success it's important that the actor give a good performance and thanks to Scorsese he does. Timing too, as ever with V.O's, is crucial. Not only that the sound must match the considered cutting of the visuals but its pace and use of pauses must reflect the tone and overall mood of the sequence. In this instance, the V.O is quite rapid and for the visuals to keep up Scorsese has had to be very precise in what he shoots and the way in which its then edited.

A good example of this is comes three or four shots into the film. Three characters are established in the car who then have to pull over and get out. To maintain the pace and keep up with the V.O, rather than creating a drawn out sequence of the car slowing down, turning a corner, pulling up etc, Scorsese uses just one cut. He is able to transition from an internal shot of the characters in a moving car to an external one of the three of them moving to open the boot through the use of a sound bridge. Very simply, the sound of three car doors slamming shut hides the cut and carries the narrative forward very quickly without disorientating the audience. Often in student films a point tends to be labored far beyond whats necessary, for example the making of a cup of tea can be portrayed in one cut, not, as often is the case ten, each one depicting a specific action. The use of a sound bridge is used again moments later when three succeeding gun shots cleverly disguises three cuts.

Scorsese's use of lighting is also worth noting, though nothing to do with post production, it can reveal elements of the narrative. One worth noting in this opening sequence is a shot that's meant to be set at night. It quite clearly looks unnatural and artificially lit, however rather than considering it to be bad film making, the lighting creates gleaming reflections on the car parked on set suggesting a fantastical quality, a theme that the V.O confirms by saying that he was "living in a fantasy." This unnatural lighting for effect is also used in the scene in which the characters pull over and get out of the car. The amount of red light being supposedly given off by the tail lights is somewhat of a joke, however given the implications the colour red has, along with the violence happening in frame, audiences automatically put two and two together and Scorsese gets away with it. Just as he does when he apply a red filter after the third cut in sync with gun fire. I believe that what can be taken from this is that unnatural lighting, used in the correct way, can deeply enhance the depth a single shot can have.      
   

Murch's Rule of Six

Murch's rule of six is a breakdown of criteria he considers for a good cut; 

• Emotion 51%
• Story 23%
• Rhythm 10%
• Eye trace 7%
• Two dimensional plane of screen (180 degree rule) 5%
• Three dimensional space of action 4%

An interesting theory of Murch's is the use of a human blink as emotional punctuation, perhaps hence the reasoning behind the title of his book, 'In the blink of an eye'. "He found that every single time he decided to make a cut, Gene Hackman’s character, Harry Caul, would blink very close to the point where he decided to cut.  He continued to explore this notion, and came to the conclusion that often, a person will blink every time he or she has a new whole thought or emotion" (Kennedy, 2011). 

“So it seems to me,” Murch says, “that our rate of blinking is somehow geared more to our emotional state and to the nature and frequency of our thoughts than to the atmospheric environment we happen to find ourselves in.  The blink is either something that helps an internal separation of thought to take place, or it is an involuntary reflex accompanying the mental separation that is taking place anyway” (Murch, 2001).

With this in mind, I'll look at the cuts in a number of films to see if this holds true. I'll also be aware of this idea when editing my own work and with this knowledge I'll be able to make better informed decisions about when to cut. Hopefully this will improve my ability to better represent  and hold emotion. 

Something else that Murch makes a point about is dragnet cutting. This is the method of cutting dialogue so that each line is separated within its own edit with a straight cut. The result of this, as Kennedy points out in his article, is that it then plays out like a tennis match. knocking back and fourth between actors resulting in a "shallow simplicity that doesn't reflect the grammar of complex exchanges" (Murch, 2001). The point is that this doesn't mirror reality, as Murch goes on to explain; " If you’re observing a dialogue between two people, you will not focus your attention solely on the person who is speaking.  Instead, while that person is still talking, you will turn to look at the listener to find out what he thinks of what is being said" (Murch, 2001). Keeping this truth in mind, along with abiding to the suggestion of using a blink as punctuation, its possible to to create much more poignant sequences with the same footage.   

Referencing

Kennedy, A. (2011, October 13). When and where to make the cut: Inspired by walter murch’s in the blink of an eye. Retrieved from http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/when-and-where-to-make-the-cut-inspired-by-walter-murchs-in-the-blink-of-an-eye/

Murch, W. (2001). In the blink of an ey: A perspective of film editing. (2nd ed.). Silman-James Press.