Quadrophenia deconstruction notes.

Fade in from black to a long shot of two men walking over a hill against the sunset, the men are in silhouette against the sunset, this therefore creates enigma as we cannot see who they are. There is mysterious music in the background, diagetic sounds of the sea, non diagetic sounds of birds.

The music fades in quickly and then fades back out again. We hear more diagetic sounds of leaves crunching. Through out all of this there is shill the long shot of the men still walking. Then there is a close up of the sunset. Then the footage cuts into one of the men riding a motorbike, there is upbeat rock music. The titles zoom in over the footage, titles are in yellow writing to stand out against the action. Titles are fast fast paced to fit with the action of the man on the motorbike and the past pace of the music. Voice over the music from the main character over music which is slightly faded down in order for the voice over to be heard. Music fades out with a black fade out. This is an effective film opening as the upbeat music is effective as it creates an excited feel to the opening. Another effective aspect is how the characters has been established, through out the opening sequence we can clearly see who the main character is as he is presented whilst the titles are being show and he is in the main focus through the sequel. One aspect for improvement would be to show more characters to create further enigma.

Snatch deconstruction.

Firstly we see the titles appearing against a black background, this therefore is used to make the writing stand out. There is a voice over from one of the characters who is telling the audience about past events. Whilst this is happening there are more titles over the footage, this writing is white backed on black, this is used in order for the audience to read the writing. There are tracking shots of Jewish men waling along corridors. The shots cut from tracking shots to shots of CCTV monitors that are showing footage of the men walking through the corridors. There is music played in the background, this music is what we would stereotypically associate with Jewish people. We then see many jump cuts to fit with the action of the scene, we also see some of the cuts are spun around to fit reinforce the idea that the action is unpredictable. As the men rip of their costumes and pull out many different guns. There is fast upbeat electro music to fit the action. When there is a piece of action that is fast paced the footage speeds up on purpose to create a tense and edgy feeling for the audience. We then see a short clip of each of the characters doing something that is significant to there personality. Each of the short clips turn into freeze frames and the characters name and the actors names appear in white against the colour background in the still shot. On one of the still shots is of a man looking at a book, when the footage starts playing again the man looks into the book and the camera spirals into the middle of the front cover where the picture of the next shot is. Once the camera has set onto the next shot the film carries on. The next piece of editing is of a diamond, this is done by using the reflections of a character in the diamond, next there is a zoom onto the diamond and onto the reflection and then onto the next shot. From this opening scene of the film we can detect that the genre of the film is a action film. This is a effective film opening as it creates enigma and is action filled leaving the audience wanting to watch more. 

Practical Production Diary

Planning and research.

Our task was to film the three aspects of Continuity by showing a good understanding of them by filming the well, 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot. We had to do this by filming someone waling into a room, looking at another character then siting down on a chair opposite them and exchanging two sentences of conversation. My research into this task was mainly learning the three aspects of continuity and understanding how to use them well in my filming. I did this by learning in class and by looking in my OCR book. We had to draw our story boards and complete our plans so we knew what we were exactly doing, then we were ready to start filming. This helped as when we began to film we knew exactly what we had to do and because we researched thoroughly we knew how to film the different shots. 

Procedures.

To film our project that had to show the three elements of continuity we based it on the school site as previously trying to film off site led to difficulties with travel, finding similar spare time and people to take part in our filming. Finding an appropriate location on the school grounds was difficult due to people interrupting by walking through the set whilst we were filming. Therefore we moved outside to a quiet location where we would have no interruptions. We found relevant props that were needed in which were two chairs, we then placed them opposite each other as the task instructed. After getting all of these aspects perfected we started filming, this was a fairly short process as we found the task enjoyable and fun to do. Our dialogue and story line were both very complex to begin with however we made them very simple as we got told that the main focus was to get the three aspects of continuity perfect. The basic story line was about a young girl being asked if she was pregnant, we chose this subject as this a growing problem in todays society. The filming went smoothly and overall i think we covered the three aspects that were given to us to meet. The next process was to edit our piece of film. Firstly we began with ordering our clips as we re filmed some pieces therefore they were in a odd order. Then we cut our pictures to fit the correct timing to the piece would flow at a fluent pace. We had to edit our match on action as it was slightly overlapping in time, so we cut around 1-2 second of it to create a better sense of continuity. We then put a a fade in at the beginning and a fade out at the end to make the start and end seem more professional so the clips don't just jump straight into action.

Evaluation.

Overall i am happy with our filming and i think we learnt and understood the three aspects of continuity well. I think we worked well as a team and understood the task given well. We shared the task of filming well and help each other when the one of us didn't understand something. However i think there are a few aspects in which we could have improved and avoided. At first we originally planned to film in a hotel in the back rooms where the staff work. however this idea didn't work as out idea was far to complex as we realized that we only had to concentrate on the three rules of continuity. We then decided to move to filming on the school grounds. Firstly our first mistake was filming inside the school, this proved a challenge as people were constantly walking through and around our set. At first we planned to film in a time in which we though no one would be walking around the school. However people still wondered around near the set and interrupted our filming therefore we decided to move outside in a secluded area. This worked well as we had no interruptions and we could get on with the task set. The conversation was very plan and simple and was about the young boy assuming the young girl was pregnant, we chose this topic as we thought it was something that was a big problem in society. We also thought that this topic would appeal to the younger audience as they may be able to relate with it. One of the negative points of our film was that it was slightly short as we missed out a pice of footage that was need. therefore we had to film another piece of footage as we missed out the transaction from the girl walking through the door and then sitting down, however due to costumes this changed our footage slightly. The two actors didn't wear the same clothes on the correct days and due to deadlines we had to film the actors in the clothes that they had on. Over all i think we worked well together and we showed the three aspects of continuity well.

Continuity Editing

Continuity editing is the style of editing in which is used in TV and films. It is the editing that constructs the narrative of TV dramas and films by creating sequences and then linking them into a structured shape. The audience should not notice the editing in Continuity Editing as they should be drawn and involved into the story line.

Continuity editing includes a number of different effects such as:

• Make space expressive
  
• Helps the audience to understand what is going on
• Helps the audience to predict what is going to happen next
• Makes the audience interested in specific things
• Selects significant details from past information
• Parallel action/cross cutting
• To leave out unnecessary parts of the action
• To vary points of view
• To build suspense and tension
• To imply and create emotion
• To create rhythm and pace
• To build up tension and excitement

The main key rules in Continuity Editing are:

• Transitions - The techniques used to get from one shot to the next
  
• The 180 degree line rule - Filming by keeping on one side of a 180 degree line to prevent confusion from the viewer.
  
• Match on action - This is when the editing is disguised by cutting in the middle of action, this makes the cut less noticeable.
• Eye line match - Shot of a character looking at something that the audience cannot see, then straight to a shot of the object.
  
• Match cuts - Cuts between different locations or different parts of the same location are disguised by matching the elements of the previous shot to the new one. 
• Shot reverse shot is a shot that cuts to the opposite side from where it is filming.