For some reason, I really dislike the raw material that I shot for my project.

I’m not sure why. I think that my shots are plain and awkward and weird. I also feel as though I don’t have enough variety of shots, and I also felt that on the day but couldn’t think of any more angles I could shoot from. Nevertheless, I still edited 2 versions of my own and have given it to two other people to edit. Both times, I was with them and helped them to cut and move the footage. At the end, I asked them some questions about what the story was like, what they thought of the characters, what their relationship was like, and what they wanted to achieve with their edit.

Editing choices – Justification

Less Weird

Mid shot – shows Kai’s face, emphasis begins on him, while Polly is more mysterious

Side angle – Kai’s face is still in view, but now we can see more of Polly

Front CU of Polly – we can see her expression and that she is somewhat dejected

Pan following letter – highlights its importance

Pan left to show both characters – chose this shot because I liked Polly’s performance and how she dropped the letter, like she was dropping the matter

Final pan – wanted emphasis to end on Polly

Weird

CU of Kai – liked how his face is obscured by the cup. Also, I expect that others will use establishing shots to begin, so beginning with a close up will be unique

CU of Polly – for continuity purposes, and also to correspond to the CU of Kai

Pan to follow letter – again, this is to emphasise its importance

Front view of Kai approaching camera – chose this shot to show him moping

Pan to two shot – characters of equal importance

One Take

I chose this take of all the ones we shot because I liked the speed of the performance and was satisfied with the panning. The only thing that I would change is probably Polly’s expression in the beginning – she was slightly smiling.

EDITORS

Lena, 28, never studied media

– Story: BOY did something wrong and he knew the letter from his ex-girlfriend was going to address that, GIRL is either his long-time friend or employee at the bar he frequents

– at first, just wanted to use a one-take of the scene, but after I showed her some examples of my edits she realised how she could change things to her liking

– cuts to the letter to show it’s significant, finds the camera movement in this shot ‘movie-ish’, decided to show the actor’s reaction to the letter in ‘front-side-front’ pattern to emphasise his expression (at the expense of continuity)

– opened the scene with GIRL, so the scene should end with GIRL

– used transitions because she thought it looked more natural that way, and the dialogue flowed better

– did not consider continuity of visual or audio as much as I expected

– used 8 shots, 4 transitions

Priscilla, 19, studied media in Year 10-12

– Story: BOY is mentally unstable, letter contains personal content: could be a secret, from a doctor, GF or family member. GIRL is his friend

– preferred distant shots because she wanted to convey isolation, not intimate with audience (she also found CU shots awkward)

– didn’t think about transitions, and thought it didn’t need background music

– paid more attention to script and continuity

– more conventional, predictable – what I expected the footage to be edited like

– overall ‘neat’ edit, used 5 shots

 

Today we were told to ‘do stuff’ in relation to our projects.

We created an exercise where we had to have a mobile camera and convey a story without dialogue. The script we used was actually the one I wrote for my project. Overall my scene is quite ‘static’, the characters don’t move much and the blocking is simple. For some reason I thought that using camera movement with my setup would be achievable since everything else is bland but I was wrong. I think my simple blocking actually hindered the camera from moving in a purposeful way because there was almost no reason for the camera to move at times.

After monitoring how our shots looked, we came to accept the inevitably of the camera’s shakiness and decided to experiment. My little experiment consisted of something like a ‘one-man show’, where one actor played both parts.

On the weekend, we also had to film footage for our own projects. Though I had high hopes for my project to turn out well, I am already dissatisfied with what I’ve got. While editing, even I did not know how to arrange the footage, so I’m not sure how well others will handle it. In regards to the framing and composition of my shots, they were really awkward. The filming space was very cramped and the two actors were also really tall so I had a hard time expressing the spatial relations within the scene; the shots ended up looking really weird to me and were not the way I would have liked them to turn out. On the bright side this dissatisfaction has fuelled motivation in me to revise my project and plan even more thoroughly for the next time I plan to shoot. I am determined to create what I sought out to create in my proposal!

 

Another aspect to my method of working is that I don’t get out of my comfort zone a lot, I tend to hibernate in there.

Last week I drew some storyboards for my self-created project, and I decided I to draw up some shots where there is camera movement involved. Almost in all of our exercises, I have filmed or edited scenes which are entirely static. But I can’t stay static forever! This is kind of exciting for me because I usually try to avoid any panning, hand held, or tracking shoots. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps it’s because it’s easier to achieve a ‘perfect’, symmetrical, or clean shot when the frame is locked off compared to when it’s moving. Or maybe I’m just scared my scenes will end up looking amateur (because that’s what I am, and I try to hide that).

As for zooming and focus pulling, I still have not considered these, though on the day if I am feeling experimental and bold enough I might try to incorporate it into some shots. As I have mentioned in the week 8 reflection, I am so bad at camera operating so I still have lots of things to try out, lots of mistakes to make (and of course learn from), and lots to familiarise myself with. I think a unit like ‘The Scene’ – where you can essentially do whatever you want, choose your own activities, play with the camera and editing – won’t come by often, so I’m going to take this chance to improve on my weaknesses, investigate the things that interest me, and expand my horizons – do things I usually don’t do.

For now, it’s working with a mobile camera, but in the future it will be working with a mobile lens.

 

This week we focussed on exposure and focus. During our Wednesday class, each of us took turns to adjust the focus and exposure of a shot ‘properly’.  This was much harder than expected, and I realise that I have pretty much forgotten everything that I learnt about camera operating last year. The following Friday, we went out to Bowen Street and did a focus pull from very deep depth of field to a shallow one. Mostly, we just played around, focussing on random individuals who were walking towards camera. Can’t say I’m the best at it, but I did enjoy it. When you describe focus pulling, it sounds very simple, almost trivial – all you do is pull the focus according to markers. But in reality, it is so difficult. First of all you have to keep your eye on the subject and where they are going, secondly you have to monitor the markers on the tape and make sure that you’re hitting all of them at the correct timing. You can’t see how the image looks until afterwards so you’re kind of clueless and insecure during this whole process.

Afterwards, while we were waiting down in the edit suites for Robin to make his rounds, we reviewed what we had filmed and realised that our images came out quite ‘flat’. It got us thinking about some other ways we could do it better next time – if we should move the camera closer or further, what focal length it should be, how big or small the aperture should be…etc. Some students also showed their documentaries they filmed last year. I found them all to be interesting, and I’m not just saying that out of politeness. They told me they were less ‘trained’ at the time of filming, but I think it might not have made such a huge difference – or maybe it would have actually, I’m not sure. Nevertheless, I still enjoyed them. I guess I am trying to achieve something similar with my project, just an editing version.

Today everyone presented their proposals on what they’d like to personally investigate. Surprisingly, there was a lot of variety; I found that none of the proposals overlapped so I think results of these proposals would be really interesting.

Listening to my peers’ ideas, has sparked my imagination for some other experiments I might look into if I have time. For example, I found Aki’s idea really fascinating. She made the point that in animation, the possibility of perfection is greater because anything is possible. How the set will look, character facial expressions, body gestures and movements can created through CG exactly as the director wants- it is a highly controlled construction, but that is what enables the director’s vision to be fulfilled. I wonder how it would be to create an animation, that reproduces a live-action scene. Although I won’t be able to create an animation myself, it would be good to at least look into a film that has both live-action and animated versions.

Another thing that I want to do is create a set of ‘cinema rules’. Rules like the 180 line, continuity, establishing shots, and other ‘common sense’ types of things like showing the actor’s facial expression while they’re conversing – I want to break all of them, but somehow make them work. This is actually something that I always wanted to do but I kind of forgot about it. This project is definitely something I can put into practice. Rachel mentioned a couple of times that everyone gave themselves too many restrictions. For this activity, I will give myself the only restriction of breaking the common rules of cinema production.

MIS EN SCÉNE

Mis en scene, according to what I learnt in year 12, is something like an all-encompassing term which describes the composition of a frame. From my memory, it is French for ‘to put into frame’ or something similar, and so it involves whatever is seen on screen such as set design, costume, make up, and actors’ blocking. I remember we used the acronym ‘CAMELS’ to help us remember the production elements of film, and mis en scene fulfilled the ‘m’ in the acronym.

C – Cinematography, A – Acting, M – mis en scene, E – editing, L – lighting, S – Sound

It is not exclusively about aesthetics, nor production elements, but somewhow fuses these two and combines them with aspects of the narrative to create meaning or symbolism.

So that’s my take on mis en scene, now I would like to explore how others think of it. In my research, I hope to gain some deeper insight into what mis en scene involves since currently I have a relatively ‘shallow’ idea/memory of what it is.

Allan Rowe and Paul Wells describes mis-en-scéne as the ‘visual aspects which appear in a shot’ (2003, pp. 63). They make a note of how some theorists limit the elements to those which are shot by the camera, and not the camera itself. Mis-en-scene would include props, lighting, costume and makeup, setting, and performance. The concepts was developed by thinkers who were interested in autership, and the role of participants – particularly directors – in the construction of meaning. This is because directors usually have only a small role, if any, in production and post-production, and so their style will predominantly be delivered through the mis-en-scene in the production stage.

Elements of Mis En Scene

Setting – produce authenticity: help audience to realise where? what period/age? what time?

Costume/makeup – subtle changes in costume and makeup usually signify something, a develop in relation to the narrative

Props – used by characters, may have significance in narrative

Performance and movement – ‘coded’ quality to this. The nuances in speech, body language, and expressions of performers convey things not outrightly stated

Lighting – enables depth of vision, when used in addition to a smaller aperture, enables camera to record over a number of fields of action (>André Bazin argued that this form of shooting was more ‘realist’ because it resembles the eye’s to recognise objects across a wide depth or adjust their focus)

Camera and camera movement – this part is contested. Some may exclude this from mis en scene refer to it as ‘mis-en-shot’ instead. Bordwell and Thompson state that the original use of the term ‘mis en scene’ was in reference to the direction of plays and therefore involves the components of stage theatre which overlap with film (2013).

Mis en scene, from what I’ve read, is defined quite concretely. In any case, it has to do with visuals, whether cinematography is included or not.

MONTAGE

A montage is a series of several images edited into one sequence. They can be used to depict multiple situations occurring concurrently or the progression of time, like a time lapse. Though I do remember studying this at some point last year during the Editing Media unit I did last, year I don’t remember much of it.

The word montage is French for ‘to edit’. A montage involves arranging parts of footage to create one whole (Joyce, 2003) and was adopted by Soviet filmmakers. They realised the cinema’s ability to link unrelated material into something coherent – or at least something that makes sense to the viewer.

There are four types of film montage:

– Intellectual (dialectical montage or discontinuity editing): shots are ‘conflicting’ and audiences have to be active in interpreting two images and making connections between them

– Linkage editing (constructive editing) – a scene is fragmented and the parts are used to ‘build up’ the scene

– Hollywood montage – a quick succession of events over a period of time

– Fast cutting: to build suspense or tension, usually used in action scenes

The Kuleshov effect illustrates how edits can change how audiences interpret things. In one instance an actor may look displeased, and in another, he may look hungry depending on what image he is juxtaposed against.

Sergei Eisenstein pushed his theory ‘montage of attractions’. He believed that he could shock the viewer with every cut that juxtaposed one image with another. Audiences have to fill in the gap and make assumptions about what has happened from one shot to the next or interpret how they are associated.

If a montage is merely a piece of work which has been produced by the assembly of smaller parts, it seems as though anything which has been edited could be regarded as such.

DECOUPAGE

I don’t recall much of what decoupage consists of, all I remember is something about images not being arranged side by side, but being mounted on top of one another. When we close our eyes and see an ‘image’ and then we close it again and see another, it is similar to a cut in film. We don’t arrange these images we see horizontally, they are mounted (?) on top of each other.

After doing a bit a research I discovered that I seem to have the wrong idea of what decoupage is. In film, it is regarded as a break-down of a shot. I looked through a couple books in the AFI centre but couldn’t find much on decoupage, so I took to the internet. On a website called Caboose, I found a short discussion on decoupage. It is commonly confused for, or rather, replaced by editing. There is also mention of mis en scene and how it affects the piecing together of footage. Actually, there is mention of a lot of other things. Decoupage is kind of a mystery.

UPDATE: DECOUPAGE

So the last time I did a database search on decoupage at RMIT Library and in the AFI, I could not find much so this time I changed up my technique. I google searched ‘decoupage in film theory books’ and it brought me to some blogs on the net which spoke about how decoupage was discussed in different texts. I then searched those texts in the AFI database, and voila, I finally got some hits.

In film production, decoupage refers to either the ‘shooting script’ that precedes filming, or a realism editing style that emerged during the advent of sound cinema.

Bordwell (1997), differentiates the decoupage editing style from the earlier montage style of the Soviets. Soviet filmmakers marked realism in the locations and non-professional actors, but their editing techniques came to “define the most artificial aspects of montage” (Bordwell 1997, p. 51). They cut in abstract, poetic ways to convey ideas and created scenes from cutting separate details at a time that may have never occurred during the same time or space.

Decoupage may be considered the opposite of this as it conveyed spatial and temporal continuity in fragments. A normal shot list of a conversation between two people may comprise of: 1. an establishing shot, ‘plan americain’ style framed from knees up, 2. a medium two shot, 3.cut back to establishing shot where more drama plays out, 4. medium shot on one character, 5. reverse medium shot on the other character. In all shots, continuity is honoured.

Some writers like Astruc argue that it is more theatrical. I would have to agree that decoupage compared to montage, it is more telling and ‘simple’.

But Burch (1969) goes into more detail in ‘Spatial and Temporal Articulations’ and decoupage becomes a bit more complicated. He describes decoupage as being the ‘underlying structure of the finished film’ which is made of two ‘partial decoupages, one temporal and the other spatial’ (p.4). In the discussion following, he describes the ways a certain scene could be played out through different cutting techniques, and all are merely spatial/temporal articulations. He mentions continuity and discontinuity but does make note of whether they are integral to decoupage discussion. Instead, it appears as though the unfolding of time and space within the film is decoupage, regardless of of whether there was realism-defying treatment of footage involved (like time reversal, repetition, ellipsis or omission).

Barnard, T 2014, ‘Montage, Découpage, Mise en Scène: Essays on Film Form’ <https://www.caboosebooks.net/montage-decoupage-mise-en-scene>

Bordwell, D 1997, “Andr Bazin and the Dialectical Program” in On the History of Film Style, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England.

Bordwell, D & Thompson, K 2013, Film Art: An Introduction, 10th Ed., McGraw-Hill, NY.

Burch, N 1969, ‘Spatial and Temporal Articulations’ in Theory of Film Practice, Martin Secker & Warburg Limited, UK.

Nelmes, J 2003, An Introduction to FILM STUDIES Third Ed. Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, London.

Shot begins with Van running down the stairs hurriedly, there is only a close up of her shoes so the audience does not see her face until the next shot. When she turns the corner, she tries to snoop quietly though this is in vain. Here, the camera, hand-held, follows her as if the audience are snooping with her. As Cine opens the door and calls out to Van, the audience is able to see his face clearly through a well-lit medium close up. Cutting back to the hand-held shot we can see, in the foreground, Van’s troubled expression and Cine in the background, who is asking her for her name.

Van slowly turns around to face Cine. The camera is re-positioned to show her face from the front, still in a medium long shot, though the lighting here allows for a better view of her face. The shot-reverse-shot pattern is continued until Cine cuts her off and drags her elsewhere. As he does this, they two are filmed in a medium long-shot though it eventually turns into a medium close up as the characters walk towards the camera and the tracking stops. The camera movement helps to highlight the action in this shot.

At this point, X makes an appearance, asking ‘What’s all this racquet?’. The mid shot emphasises her confusion and frustration. The following cut shows Van and Cine (who has now let go of her arm) framed in a mid long shot, enabling the audience to see both their reactions to X. When X finds out Cine’s name, she similarly blurts, ‘What kind of a name is that?’ in the same manner Cine did to Van earlier. The screen cuts to mid shot where X drags Van into her room, though X is in the foreground, the emphasis is on Van who is visibly taken aback by this action. Cine walks to the right out of frame looking displeased. In this last shot there is a moment of, not necessarily discontinuity but rather, awkward editing. The speed at which Van was dragged inside the room does not correspond with the speed Van was moving in the mid long shot which could be jarring to some viewers. The scene concludes on an image of doors which matches the scene’s name.

 

The Activity

I will shoot a scene from a movie. Right now, I am looking for a scene which could be interpreted in several ways but this is proving to be harder than I thought. Me being an indecisive person does not help either. Once I have done this, I will draft the shots I would like to use in the final edit and also write up an extended list of possible frames to remind myself that I have to shoot a variety of shots. This is so that the footage will allow for different edits to be produced, which is an important point in my project.

Once filming is complete, I will make my own edit and ask two other people who haven’t studied cinema to create their own edits as well. Along with the raw footage, they will receive the script. My instruction to them will be: ‘edit this as you feel’. I will help them with the technical side of things, though I won’t interfere with the creative side.

The Objective

There are a few things I want to take from this exercise:

– What is the relationship between production and post-production like? Is the meaning intended throughout the production process carried on throughout the editing (even with minimal contact between the shooting crew and editing crew)? How does the meaning of ‘stuff’ change in the interval between these two stages? I will ask the participants how they interpreted the script and footage, what kind of emotions they thought the actors were trying to convey, what the atmosphere is like…etc.

– While I edit, I will justify all my choices and explain the intention behind them in a sentence, or more if I need. This part is really important since I often forget why I cut the way I do or choose to use one particular frame over another. So, with all my purposefully executed editing,  I will consider: how the message I want to deliver through my conscious decisions compares to how it is received by audiences. Will the viewer even notice these subtle messages, will it affect them the way I want? Or is it not particularly meaningful?

– Evaluate my skills: is the edit done my someone unfamiliar to this process any less effective than mine? In a way, I’m questioning my own position as a cinema student. Does it make any difference that I have studied cinema and have film theories embedded in my brain (kind of)? Will people be able to spot my edit? Will they find any of the edits better, worse, or just different?

I have a lot of questions and in the realisation of this little project, I hope to find some answers to them.

Working in the edit suites today reminded me of a problem I have with sound editing. Sometimes I feel when dialogue has been re-recorded for a clearer and cleaner sound, it doesn’t match well with the footage. Since the actors are much closer to the microphone when this happens, their dialogue tends to sound too ‘close’ and ‘intimate’ and ends up being a bit jarring when combined with the visuals. This is especially the case with my week 6 mini project. I filmed it in an area where there were mostly hard surfaces so the actors voices’ echoed while performing.  We decided to do a sound-only take at the end of filming so the lines could be heard more clearly. However whilst I was editing, I found the cleaner the sound, the weirder it was to both listen to and look at. Something about it was disorienting and threw me off; I didn’t like it. In the end, I scrapped the idea of inserting the clean sounds and just went with the dialogue they had recorded while performing.

I am not sure how this is done in the industry, and I actually don’t notice sound editing much. I take note of sound effects and music of course, but not really the way dialogue has been edited, if it has at all. I guess another problem is that I don’t know how to work the boom mic and sound device. If I had known how to do that, maybe I wouldn’t have encountered this sound editing problem. It also just occurred to me that we have minimal discussion about sound editing when we review scenes in class. I think this would be quite interesting look into.