Editing session two.

Our second editing session went well as we added all of the footage we filmed and it all work really well with the footage we had before. We decided not to use the close up shots as they didnt turn out as well as we wanted them to. We also added the music to our piece of footage, we chose Mozart as it added to the elegance to the mise en scene. We recorded the dialogue with Scarlett, we decided to do this with a mp3 recorder, this worked very well. When we added the dialogue we decided to add it later on the the footage as we wanted the piano to play for a while to create enigma and to again add to the elegance of the mise en scene.

Filming session two.

Our second filming session didn't go as well as the first session did as we did not plan it as well as we did the first time. We spent a lot of time talking about what shots to do, this was time consuming, however when we had a clear idea of what we wanted to do the filming went smoothly and we left with some very good footage. We also filmed a voyeuristic long shot from the mysterious women looking at the femme fatal which creates enigma as this is the first time there is any form of a shot of the mysterious women. Now we have completed the filming, this is a big relief!

Planning our second filming session.

We met only for a short amount of time to talk about what was going to happen and what shots we need to film and in what locations in the hotel. We have decided to re-film the footage that had continuity errors, we will replace this with a close up of the femme fatals elegant legs walking. We will also film a close up shots of a note being passed across the bar as we did not cover this in the last filming session. We also want to get some close ups of the femme fatals eyes, lips and hands as we want to break up our footage a bit and we want to add a variety of shots to the footage.

Editing session one.

The first editing session went well, we began by deleting irrelevant footage and then putting the footage we wanted to keep into the correct order. We then began to cut our footage so that each clip ran smoothly into each other. We found that there was some footage that was irrelevant, we also found that there was a continuity error. This was when the femme fatal walks along a corridor, she has a scarf hanging over her arms, in the next shot she has it over her shoulders and then in the final shot she had it hanging back around her arms. We decided this was to risky to keep in as we would loose marks for it. Therefore we decided in our second filming session to re-film that particular piece of footage. The only problem we did encounter with the editing was with a piece of footage that jumped for some reason, we could work out why it was jumping and after a long time of trying to fix the problem we succeeded.

Filming session one.

Today we met at the Imperial hotel at 6.00pm to begin filming, earlier on in the day we had completed our story board therefore we were able to get on with the filming straight away rather than pondering over where to film and what shots to use. The first session of filming went really well and we filmed almost everything. This meant there will be less to film in the second session. We also filmed what parts we did various times to reduce the chance of lots of re-filming. It was a time consuming process though because we were obviously filming in a public place which meant people repeatedly stepped in the shot. I am happy we did a schedule to follow because that made us more organized and we had no confusion with what part we had to film next. Though out the filming session we made some changes as seeing some angles on the tape is different to seeing them on paper. Therefore some improvement and changes were made whilst filming but generally we covered lots of footage that is of good quality.

Planning our first filming session.

We have prepared our story boards, equipment, props and costume lists. We are now ready to film, we have set a time and date with the hotel for our filming to take place. We didn't have many financial costs for our film opening, we only needed around £20 as we could borrow most of our props and costumes,the only costs were travel costs and we had to buy the black trilby. We our now ready to begin filming.

Actors.

We struggled to find actors to take part in our film opening, when we did find someone willing our schedules clashed. Therefore Freya played the part of the femme fatale as it was far more simple rather then working around other peoples schedules. The other female character was our friend, Scarlett, who also did the voiceover. This worked out well as she understood the story due to her playing a major part in recording the voice over. The only downfall of our actors were that we looked young so it lacked realism. We originally planned to have two professional actors in our film, Paris selley and Tom Riley, but their schedules clashed with our own.

Dialogue and sound.

Our main soundtrack is a voiceover. We originally planned on it being a males voice, in an american accent. However no one was willing to do it except our friend Scarlett. As she is American it helped to fit with the genre however when it came to lowering the pitch and tone of her voice to it didn't sound right. We came to the conclusion that we change the story line to a female love story opposed to a male one, this therefore creating more enigma. The voice over said: "Every time i saw her my heart stopped. She was stunning. She had long golden hair. Her voice caressed my ears like velvet. I first saw her in december. The weather was icy and crisp. It was at the imperial hotel. She was sat at the opposite side of the bar to me slowly sipping a martini. I didnt know who she was, or why she was there. But i knew that she was beautiful... and i would do anything to get her." The content of the voiceover is clearly about love but it also creates enigmas. Why were they at the imperial? How did they have a connection? Will she do anything dangerous to get her? The second sound piece we have is a piece of classical music from mozart. We chose this because it adds to the elegance of the main character. It is also synchronous with the mise-en-scene of a grand hotel.

Costume 2.

This black suit is similar to what we want the male character to wear as I think it represents the genre well. It also represents sophistication and class, this therefore again fitting well with the genre.

We again for the same reasons wanted the male character to wear a black trilby hat as it would represent the genre well.

Costume 1.

This black dress is similar to the type of dress that we want the femme fatale to wear. We want the dress to be black as it represents mystery and elegance. A black dress is traditionally worn in the evening, therefore suggesting she is a women of the night.

We also wanted her to wear a black scarf as it added to the elegance of the costume.

Prop and equipment list.

Prop list

• Two perfume bottles
• Note
• Book
• Necklace
• Black bag
• Bracelet
• Lipstick

Equipment list

• Video camera
• Tripod 

Locations.

We have decided to use the Imperial hotel for our filming as it has the grand and elegant setting that we wanted for film opening. We will be using the reception hall way, spiral staircase, the first floor hallway and a bedroom. We chose this place because it represents wealth and higher status through the decor. This is the representation that we wanted to give the the enigmatic femme fatal. It also had old periodic signifiers which gives a feeling of the late 1930's and 40's, this again fitting with the film noir genre. The character playing the femme fatal also wears an outfit that we adapted to signify this era and style therefore we felt like the and mise en scene worked well.

Planning our initial ideas.

Our initial ideas consisted around the Film Noir genre, we wanted to create something realistic therefore we thought this was good genre to create ideas around.
Our first idea.
To have a titles over a black screen with smoke floating in the background. Non diagetic sounds of a car pulling up and stopping, there is then a cut from the titles to a low angle shot of the women's legs walking, this would then cut back to the titles and then again to the women's legs. We then wanted to have voyeuristic tracking shots of the women in her hotel room whilst the voice over from a mysterious man was playing. This therefore creating enigma as the audience do not know who he is yet. We then wanted some sort of love note to be passed between the two characters. We wanted to end our piece of a cliff hanger.

Our second idea.

Our second idea was to have a montage of photographs of a beautiful el

egant women, in between the photographs we wanted to have footage in slow motion of the woman i

n her bedroom pampering herself. This therefore representing she care

s about her looks and is vein.

Over the footage is a voice over of a man declaring his love for the women. 

Our final idea.

For our final idea we picked the strongest parts of the first two ideas and put then together with some other ideas. We wanted our setting to be grand and elegant therefore we chose to set it in a old grand hotel. The footage would start with a black screen with smoke slowly floating across the screen. Then white titles appear centrally on the screen. We th

en wanted to have a tracking shot of the woman walking up a grand spiral staircase, then she would walk along a corridor to a bedroom where she would walk around whilst a voice over plays in the background, the voice over talks about how he loves the women and will

 do anything to get her. There is then a flash back of him passing a note under her do

or. As she sees the note by the door she picks it up and reds it, then we her sat by the mirror looking at the note, the footage ends there. We decided to end the footage there as we wanted to create enigma as the audience is left not 

knowing wether she reply's to his message. 

Research on Film Noir.

Film noir is the genre we have adopted for our film opening, we will explain why in the proposal however we have to research the techniques and ways in which film noir is represented. A good example of film noir is this youtube video made by students. We are taking inspirtation and guidance from it:

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography, while many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Depression.

The term film noir, first applied to Hollywood movies by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was unknown to most American film industry professionals of the era. Cinema historians and critics defined the canon of film noir in retrospect; many of those involved in the making of the classic noirs later professed to be unaware of having created a distinctive type of film.


Visual style
l style Shadows of window blinds fall upon private eye Jake Gittes, performed by Jack Nicholson, in Chinatown (1974). Film noirs tended to use low-key lighting schemes producing stark light/dark contrasts and dramatic shadow patterning. The shadows of Venetian blinds or banister rods, cast upon an actor, a wall, or an entire set, are an iconic visual in film noir and had already become a cliché well before the neo-noir era. Characters' faces may be partially or wholly obscured by darkness—a relative rarity in conventional Hollywood moviemaking. While black-and-white cinematography is considered by many to be one of the essential attributes of classic noir, color films such as Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Niagara (1953), Slightly Scarlet, and Vertigo (1958) are regarded as noir by varying numbers of critics.

Film noir is also known for its use of Dutch angles, low-angle shots, and wide-angle lenses. Other devices of disorientation relatively common in film noir include shots of people reflected in one or more mirrors, shots through curved or frosted glass or other distorting objects (such as during the strangulation scene in Strangers on a Train), and special effects sequences of a sometimes bizarre nature. Beginning in the late 1940s, location shooting—often involving night-for-night sequences—became increasingly frequent in noir.

Structure and narrational devices
Film noirs tend to have unusually complicated story lines, frequently involving flashbacks, flashforwards, and other techniques that disrupt and sometimes obscure the narrative sequence. Voiceover narration—most characteristically by the protagonist, less frequently by a secondary character or by an unseen, omniscient narrator—is sometimes used as a structuring device. Both flashbacks and voiceover narration are today often used in movies looking to quickly establish their neo-noir bona fides. Bold experiments in cinematic storytelling were sometimes attempted in noir: Lady in the Lake, for example, is shot entirely from the point of view of protagonist Philip Marlowe; the face of star (and director) Robert Montgomery is seen only in mirrors.

Plots, characters, and settings
Crime, usually murder, is an element of almost all film noirs; in addition to standard-issue greed, jealousy is frequently the criminal motivation. A crime investigation—by a private eye, a police detective (sometimes acting alone), or a concerned amateur—is the most prevalent, but far from dominant, basic plot. In other common plots the protagonists are implicated in heists or con games, or in murderous conspiracies often involving adulterous affairs. False suspicions and accusations of crime are frequent plot elements, as are betrayals and double-crosses. Amnesia is far more common in film noir than in real life, and cigarette smoking can seem virtually mandatory.

Certain archetypal characters appear in many film noirs—hardboiled detectives, femmes fatales, corrupt policemen, jealous husbands, intrepid claims adjusters, and down-and-out writers. As can be observed in many movies of an overtly neo-noir nature, the private eye and the femme fatale are the character types with which film noir has come to be most identified, but only a minority of movies now regarded as classic noir feature either. For example, of the nineteen National Film Registry noirs, in only four does the star play a private eye: The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Out of the Past, and Kiss Me Deadly. Just two others readily qualify as detective stories: Laura and Touch of Evil.

Film noir is often associated with an urban setting, and a few cities—Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, in particular—are the location of many of the classic films. In the eyes of many critics, the city is presented in noir as a "labyrinth" or "maze." Bars, lounges, nightclubs, and gambling dens are frequently the scene of action. The climaxes of a substantial number of film noirs take place in visually complex, often industrial settings, such as refineries, factories, trainyards, power plants—most famously the explosive conclusion of White Heat. In the popular (and, frequently enough, critical) imagination, in noir it is always night and it always rains.

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.