Editing Techniques Video

This is the video that me and AJ created to express our understanding and ability to recreate different editing techniques.



Shot Reverse Shot - 

Shot reverse shot or also known as shot/countershot is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (the other character is more than likely off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character.

180 Degree Rule - 
The 180 degree rule is a cinematography guideline that states that two characters in one scene should maintain the same left/right coordination to one another. When the camera passes over the invisible axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line and the shot becomes what is called a 'reverse angle'.


30 Degree Rule - 


The 30-degree rule is a basic film editing guideline that states the camera should move at least 30 degrees relative to the subject between successive shots of the same subject.

Cut In - 

In film a cut in shot is the interruption of a continuously filmed action by inserting a view of something else. It is usually, although not always, followed by a cut back to the first shot, when the cutaway avoids a jump cut. The shot is only on screen for no longer than 2-3 seconds. 

Cross Cutting / Parallel Editing - 

Cross-cutting is an editing technique most often used in films to establish action occurring at the same time, and usually in the same place. In a cross-cut, the camera will cut away from one action to another action, which can suggest the two actions are happening simultaneously. However it is not always the case. 

Establishing Shot - 

An establishing shot is usually the first shot of a new scene, designed to show the audience where the scene is taking place. It is usually an extreme wide shot.

Match On Action - 

Or also known as 'Cutting on Action' is an editing technique or continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot. This creates the impression of a sense of continuity. The action carrying through creates a "visual bridge" which draws the viewers attention away from slight cutting continuity issues. 

Temporal Overlap - 

When an action is repeated from a different point of view and often within slow motion.

Kuleshov effect - 

A recognition that a shot’s meaning is not only dictated by what it contains, but by its relationship to other adjacent shots

Eisenstein Montage - 

An approach to editing developed by filmmakers in the Soviet Union in the 20s. It emphasises dynamic, often discontinuous, relationships between shots and the juxtaposition of images. It’s primary focus was to engage with the viewer in an intellectual manner.

Health and Safety

A risk assessment analyses what hazard, harm and risk a set-up pertains; 

• A Hazard can be defined as anything that has the potential to cause physical injury or damage to health, the environment or to property.
• Harm is the adverse effect on an individual that may result from exposure to a hazard
• A Risk is a measure of the probability of harm being caused and the severity of that harm.

Within a studio set-up there are a number of safety measures and precautions that need to be taken to ensure safety, it is each person who is working in there responsibility to maintain high level of health and safety. Wires within a studio setting can be a tripping hazard so it is important to unsure that any wires are taped down or are winded around the equipment out of the way of the path that people are walking. With using a studio there is the risk of electric shock with using the electric equipment to ensure this doesn't happen make sure to keep a look out for open wires and make sure to tell someone who maintains the studio, they also come with an emergency stop button in the case of an emergency so to be safe make sure you know where that is. With the set-up below you can see that is a relatively safe environment, all of the wires are out of the way of everyones path so there are no tripping hazards, you can see the emergency stop on the left hand side on the wall.

When filming out and about its important to keep all of your equipment safe and make sure non of it gets stolen, if you are filming make sure you are still aware of your surroundings and that you are not near heavy traffic areas etc. 

Bristol Rough New Wave Short

Lighting Skills

Lighting

Studio Lighting Techniques

Rembrandt Lighting is a lighting technique can be achieved by using one light and a reflector or two lights at different settings to create a shadow under the eye, this is a popular technique because although it is simple it can help a picture become interesting with little skill or equipment.

Edge lighting is a technique that is used to create subtle lighting edges on the subjects face, edge lights are aimed at the camera and so the user has to be careful to keep any light from shining into the front of the lens and stop any lens flares. 

Butterfly lighting is one of the most used and oldest techniques for highlighting a face, this is named after urge shadows it creates when lighting up the subject, the light creates a butterfly shaped shadow which forms underneath the subjects nose, this setup is proven method to secure your subject is lit well.












Interview Lighting

Camera Skills

ISO 100 

ISO 1600



With these two short clips its easy to see the difference between the two ISO's, with a dramatic increase within the different clips the influence that ISO has on a shot. This shot in its simplicity is to give evidence that I can adjust a cameras ISO setting to create the best shot I can. These two shots portray that because

The higher the number the more sensitive your camera is to light this means that more light is let onto the footage but the quality deteriorates. The more artificial light on the images the noise or image grain you will get. Using a higher ISO against bad lighting will not work, everything looks bad in bad lighting and using a higher ISO will just make it look worse. ISO values work with exposure 'stops' with an increase of one stop being a doubling of the sensitivity. The relationship of the ISO value to exposure stop is simple. ISO 200 9s a one-stop increase (doubling the sensitivity) over ISO 100. If you increase ISO from 100 to 400, you need to balance that with a two-stop decrease everywhere to maintain the same exposure value, by changing the shutter speed from 1/125 to 1/500.

Pull Focus 



Focusing with DSLRs

A pull focus or a rack focus is a camera technique which allows you to change the focus of the shot, typically just moving from one subject to another. Manual focus is carried out by the user of the camera and is done by adjusting the focus ring on the lens. Autofocus happens when the shutter button is pressed halfway down and the camera automatically focuses on the subject, when a subject is in focus it will automatically lock, useful for motionless shots such as an establishing shot or shooting portraits. Continuous Autofocus is when the user chooses the autofocus option from the menu and means that the camera will focus for as long as the shutter button is half way pressed. Focus Stacking is the technique of taking several images with different focuses in them and combining them to make an image that is sharply focused all the way to the background.



Shutter Speed

1/30



1/250



Is double the frames per second that you are recording, 25 frames per second equals a shutter speed of 1/50th of a second. Frame rate is not shutter speed. Frame rate = image per second and shutter speed = exposure of each frame. This is the length of time that the digital sensor of a camera is exposed to light,  also when a camera shutter is open when taking a photo. The amount of light that reaches the sensor is proportional to the exposure, 1/500th of a second will let half as much light in as 1/250th.

Aperture

Depth of field is effected by aperture, how wide the aperture is to let light in. F stop (F2.8 or F22). Focal length affects the depth of field because the longer the lens the shallower the depth of field is, 400mm lens will give you a shallower depth of field at F2.8 than a 50mm lens at F2.8.

4 hour film challenge

1. Doors - Room 6

A short film depicting a girl getting locked into a room and discovering something unfriendly and unknown, shows uses of pull focus, using non-diegetic sound and voice-over with choppy editing to create a story with depth and exploiting one or more of the senses. Uses of low-level lighting with a variety of angled shots creates a composition that jumps from the p.o.v angle to a spectator angle creating a depth that fully envelops the viewer into the film.

Evaluation: The film contains strong points, such as the quick editing and jump cuts, its continuity of the shots at the start of the sequence are fluid. The lighting in the film itself is well done and highlighted the shots well and portrayed the necessary and wanted effect. A weak point of the film was that it lacked a proper clear narrative that wasn't well explained enough through out the film so therefore caused slight confusion. the film itself was strong with its audio but points through-out could've benefitted from ambient sounds and sometimes even silence to create a greater effect.



2. An Unusual Perspective

A short film depicting a group of college students seemingly recording themselves being clueless about what they are doing and how to create a film for what they are planning, then at the end of the film it is revealed that this was there idea all along. With use of different angles and a more hand held feel camera it has a more real life documentary feel to it. With the use of upbeat music and editing to enforce that.

Evaluation: The film has a number of strong points such as its fit the ideology and that it creates a confusing perspective through the use of handheld cameras, the narrative itself is confusing as it was not as clear to others as it seemed to us. To improve this we could have shot the film from a number of different perspectives.



3. Any idea - Plan Challenge




Basic Story Outline:
The song starts and its like that quick drum beat so each beat can be like Emily stumbling down the street on her way to the pub n she gets inside and it's just like messy handheld shots of her drinking and like rolling her head in her hands and falling about. Then the camera will change to a shot of Connie and Leah in the background like whispering about her, pull focus back somewhere or something choppy and then Connie and Leah approach Emily near the bit of the song; the two lines before the 'kick me out’ bit and we can like come up to her and have a cheeky smile to each other and then the next shot is Emily like falling out of the pub doors in a slow mo at the first 'kick me out' and then a different angle of her falling at the second 'kick me out’. Then there's like a point of view shot from Emily's perspective looking up at us at we're standing at the doors looking down at her. Basically we ruff her up and give her a gun and turn her into one of the others {Connie and Leah are basically modern day outlaws that take misfits in off the streets} Genre: Grunge Music Video {with narrative}Music: Arctic Monkeys - Fake Tales of San Francisco {only be able to do like 2 mins of the song anyway so we can fade out at the instrumental bit around two minutes.} Equipment:Nikon DSLRSpare Battery 18-55mm lens Macro Lens {extreme close-up - detailing of the clothing, facial expressions, props}Tripod {to create steady shots}Props: Fake Gun, alcoholLocation:The location will vary but it will all be inside Nuneaton due to travel expenses and the shortness of time we have to produce a 1-2 minute feature film. Most of the locations we will be scouting will have some sort of derelict aspect to fit with our ‘grunge theme’.Locations in particular that we want to shoot are:Pool ClubPool Club Car ParkIndependent food restaurants StreetsIdeas:Derelict places in Nuneaton and shoot cool shots of derelict area’s/buildings {Pool Club, Pool Club Car Park, Independent food restaurants and Streets}Dress: Grunge, Alternative Rocker, mid-1980s {teenage dirtbag}Sort of ‘on the lamb’ storyline, like we are running away from somethingSomething that happened in San Fransisco, using the song lyrics metaphoricallyIn the song the lyrics repeat ‘kick me out, kick me out’, swap the characters around; the first verse is Emily getting pissed in the pub and the getting kicked out, then Connie and Leah find her and we all run away togetherFake Gun: Emily shooting someone after she gets kicked out but we find her, save her and run away {have her point the gun at the camera then drop to the floor, have the camera placed on the floor so the camera just captures our feet running to her, and then get a tripod and set it up so it is framing an over the shoulder shot of Emily so we have the same shot from different perspectives}Emily has lost it because she is drunk, her having a gun make her go crazyWhen Emily has the gun pointing at the camera the editing could be very fast paced and choppy where as when she drops to the ground, the footage could be slowed down

Summer task two

Scenarios and Setups: 

A small documentary where portability is paramount:

For this scenario we are going to use a "day in the life of a college student" style documentary as an example.

Equipment:

1. Canon or Panasonic DSLR
2. a 18-55 mm lens
3. Tripod Kit
4. A slider
5. Spare battery
6. Barn door portable light
7. Field recorder/Mic
8. Go pro camera for portability
9. Reflector

Setup:

1. Morning routine  (go-pro camera for portability,reflector,portable light)
2. Commute to college (hand held dslr for recording driving/ slider for walking)
3. Morning lessons (tripod with dslr)
4. Lunch (handheld camera and tripod)
5. Afternoon lessons (tripod with dslr)
6. Commute to home (hand held dslr for recording driving/ slider for walking)
7. Evening routine (go-pro camera for portability,reflector,portable light)

The pros of this set up are that it is portable and natural while also retained quality and the hand held camera gives a documentary feel to the shots. Another advantage is that it is possible for one person to carry all of this around and makes it so they can be independent. A con may be that quality may be sacrificed for portability due to the go pro.

A talking head style interview: 

Equipment: 

1. DSLR Camera

2. 18-55 mm lens

3. Tripod Kit

4. Spare battery

5. Plain backdrop 

6. 3 point lighting soft box. 

Setup: 

1. Eye level camera 

2. 3 point lighting 

3. Plain backdrop 

4. Person central to backdrop/camera 

5. microphone 

 

(guess who can't draw)

The pros on this set up is that it is clear speech and video, it can be operated by one person. The backdrop ensures that the person is entirely the focus. Eye level so its more interactive.

A night time shoot

Equipment: 

1. DSLR Camera

2. 18-55 mm lens

3. Tripod Kit

4. Spare battery 

5. Microphone