A4-Research Project

A4-Reflective Writing

As we all know, movies, in a sense, can be seen as the description and sharing of characters’ thoughts, and audiences can usually get different thoughts and experiences through movies. In daily life, the split of thought and personality is a stage that everyone has experienced. In the state of psychological contradictions and panic and anxiety on things, people will produce contradictions in their hearts and the process of thinking separatism. However, for severe personality and schizophrenia, most people do not have a deep experience, and society, therefore, lack attention to the mental state of schizophrenia. Split in the movie, this theme has become a lot of classic important subjects, taken by the director through the absurd and the vagaries of camera language to show the audience the schizophrenic serious world, cooperate with the actor’s expression language elements and flexible lighting effects to make the audience more profound feel schizophrenic complex and contradictory inside. This paper analyzes the lens language and shooting techniques of Black Swan and A Beautiful Mind, two films on the theme of split personality, thus reflecting their performance skills on the characters’ spiritual world.

Darren Aronofsky’s film shows the audience the most complex part of human psychology, his work is the biggest characteristic of the black swan surreal paragraph is used to change the state of a normal person to a state of extreme, and this characteristic in its script has been fully established, is the basis of the characteristics of the establishment of a solid, the layered presentation of surreal paragraphs is the direct carrier of this characteristic (Sandino. 2013, p. 311). Among them, the most representative scene is the so-called schizophrenic scene. The whole film has a large number of follow-up shots, which can continuously and exhaustively show the movements and expressions of the characters while moving, and depict the world in Nina’s eyes more directly. It is very obvious in the dance. The camera takes turns to shoot with Nina as the centre with multiple shooting techniques. We can not only see Nina’s expression and eyes but also see her wonderful dancing posture and delicate body. In the walk to the dance with perturbation, through Nina’s head can see theatre, probably look cold building, hiding the devil, like the back of black wings tattoo is a symbol of black swans montage, she also can see the poster of Beth, we don’t have to see the expression on her face, completely can understand her heart was very envious. When she was practising dancing alone, the lights dimmed (Chu, et al. 2020, p. 1517). When Nina wanted to turn on the lights with the staff, she used a set of follow-up cameras. Nina walked through the darkness, the light and shadow were motley on her face, and you could see the light flickering and dim in her eyes. After seeing Lily and Thomas having sex, Lily turns to look at her, and Thomas turns into the Dark Lord, breaking down and crying. In this film, the director puts a story about the growth of a normal person into a surreal atmosphere. Through the surreal atmosphere, the normal person is eventually prompted to take on an incredible transformation and finally burst out with great power.

As for the other work, the director portrays the theme of schizophrenia and dual personality from different angles through lens language. “A Beautiful Mind” is a well-known psychological blockbuster, the hero Nas is a typical schizophrenic patient. This paper makes a psychological analysis of Nas from the performance of Nas in the movie and reveals the psychological reasons why Nas suffers from schizophrenia from the perspective of analytical psychology, to help the audience better understand the movie and mental patients. The scene I chose for the split-plot was that Nash automatically rationalized the existence of the three virtual characters, and the evidence brought by his wife when she visited him in the mental hospital could not make him deny the delusion in his heart. What makes him realize that they are fictitious is that he actively realizes that the little girl Kathy is not growing in age, proving that she is fictitious. And his wife was with him at this critical juncture, encouraging him to correct Nash’s thinking with genuine love and people, akin to faith correction. He began to struggle with his disease, to live with it, to live with it for the rest of his life. In the process of shooting, the use of lens language is skilled and ingenious. The film externalizes the conflict and illusion of the characters’ spiritual world, turns the illusory spiritual feeling into a visual and audible image, and enhances the dramatic conflict effect of the story (Rosenstock. 2003, p. 118). Nash from genius to a psychopath, the main conflict lies in the struggle and confusion of the mind, the film materialized him into different images, the combination of fantasy and reality, showing the world in the eyes of a psychopath, quietly bring the visual experience of schizophrenia. The film uses subjective shots many times to show the psychological activities and mental states of the characters after Nash enters the Pentagon. When Lou decodes the code, he uses a rotating camera to show Nash’s thinking reaction when facing abstract numbers. The 360-degree camera rotation brings a sense of dizziness, while the subjective camera directly introduces the audience into the plot and experiences the feelings of the protagonist to enhance the subjective experience.

In conclusion, for schizophrenics, there is a close intersection between fantasy and reality, and it is the confusion between the spiritual world and the real world that prevents them from fully living in reality. From the perspective of the technique of expression, the most important part of the film is to visualize the bizarre spiritual world of the split patients. Through camera rotation, montage symbolism and clever use of lighting, the director creates a strange and strange world in the mind of the patients. Through the above analysis process, from a certain point of view, the films that describe psychological problems need a lot of representation and description of the fantasy world in the lens, so they have similar characteristics with the shooting techniques and scene rendering effect of science fiction or even mythological films to a large extent.

References

1. Sandino, AM 2013, ‘On perfection: Pain and arts-making in Aronofsky’s Black Swan’, Journal of visual art practice, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 305–317.
2. Chu, SL, Brown, S, Park, H & Spornhauer, B 2020, ‘Towards Personalized Movie Selection for Wellness: Investigating Event-Inspired Movies’, International journal of human-computer interaction, vol. 36, no. 16, pp. 1514–1526.
3. Rosenstock, J 2003, ‘Beyond A Beautiful Mind: Film Choices for Teaching Schizophrenia’, Academic psychiatry, vol. 27, no. 2, pp. 117–122.

Reflection 1

Through the study of this course, I have a deeper understanding of many professional lens terms and shooting techniques. What impressed me most was my understanding of montage shooting techniques. In the past, I always thought that this technique was mainly an additional lens language applied for rendering effect. However, through learning, I realized that montage is a means of expression that can conform to people’s experience and inner vision when observing the objective world, and it reproduces the thinking activities of human observation and understanding of life.

As a way of expression of the objective world, it is based on the basic psychology: montage reconstructed the people along with the shift of attention in the environment, in turn, contact inner process of vision, and when two or more than two linked phenomenon in front of us, will inevitably produce, according to the general logic of association activities. There are rules to this process and this activity. Montage is based on such a law, forming a film art language that can be understood and accepted by everyone. In daily life, people will not and can not take such a fixed Angle to observe the phenomenon of life compressed in a certain frame at a glance. Even from such a fixed point of observation as the keyhole to see the scene in the room, people’s point of view is constantly changing, he can not see the whole room at once, he sees in every moment, is only a part of the room, or even a sporadic part. The whole image of the room, which is made up of the parts we see in turn, is not a clear whole, but a montage that exists in our memory. The application and combination methods of this montage are often different due to the different psychological states of the observers.

In the narration, the film director often uses the camera lens as an imaginary observer, and thus leads the audience’s attention to the factors that are significant to the development of the plot continuously. This shift of attention is consistent with the natural shift and logical order of people’s observation of things in their daily lives. This is the basic method of film, and also a way to reveal more deeply the nature of real life.

Reflection 2

Through studying this course, I have gained a deeper understanding of the use of lens and scene performance when I enjoyed movies or dramas in the past. Generally speaking, according to the survey, a feature film is about 9,000 to 10,000 feet in total film length; The film is made up of between five hundred and eight hundred moving and stationary lenses. Moving lens refers to the lens taken by different shooting methods such as push, pull, swing and move. The fixed lens is divided into close-ups, close-ups, mid-shots, panoramas, large vistas, and elevation lenses according to the invariable position between the subject and the camera. Only when artists use these shots in accordance with the logic of human observation and understanding of life can they become the basic elements of the language of film art.

In daily life, our attention, always due to the external things to observe and understand the inner requirements and objective things to our attraction, and constantly changing direction and distance. This kind of attention direction and distance conversion, the magnitude is different, sometimes just need to roll the eyes, sometimes need to turn away, or head, head, or the whole body rotation, or even to move their body position, approach or go away. This kind of transformation, always in the unconscious continuous progress. In a theatre, people are forced to take the most unnatural Angle when they see a play on the stage. This is manifested in two aspects: first, the audience is fixed in one place, watching the actions and scenes from a considerable distance, he can not get close to the facial expressions of the actors or some important props; Nor can we follow the instinct of the heart to see what happens outside the stage frame and the performance area created by the scene. Second, the movements and scenery of the stage are limited by the frame of the stage, and in order to adapt to the fixed distance from the audience, through concentrated all the time, they can be clear at a glance. This makes the experience of the audience in the theatre completely different from their usual experience in real life.

Reflection 3

Through learning, I have a deep impression of some representative lens techniques while understanding different lens techniques, among which the most important one is the application of long shots.

The long-shot is a kind of shooting technique. Generally speaking, a long shot is the uninterrupted and complete shooting of the next complete segment, performance process or movie idea from the start to the end of the shooting process. In terms of understanding, If you take a machine two people talk, first on the left one, and then slowly turned to the right one, and then retreat, panoramic and slowly walked are rare, transfer directly to the canteen, met a friend bought rice, and then you always follow the friends upstairs, to the dormitory, lens from friends into the aisle, and then the dormitory a panoramic view，aims at the distant scenery, then shuts down. From beginning to end your shot is going through different Spaces and there’s more than one event, there’s only one shot, there are no breaks, there are no cuts, there are no interjections, that’s a long shot. Long shots do not interrupt the natural process of time and maintain the uninterrupted nature of the time process — consistent with the actual time and process, eliminating the possibility that montage can compress or prolong the actual time through lens slitting. So why do many people say that long takes are extremely difficult and expensive to take? The difficulty is mainly due to poor rhythm. There are also unexpected situations that can occur when shooting without stopping, such as the following uncontrollable situations. Another factor is whether the shooting site scheduling can keep up, such as character scheduling, equipment scheduling, lighting schedules, etc., which is a huge project. Let’s say we’re just tracking an object and we need to lay tracks and unload tracks at the same time, which is pretty difficult. A real long shot usually involves several scenes. In addition to the uncontrollable factor of the weather, the performance for a long time has very high requirements on the actors, especially on the cohesion, accurate positioning, posture, expression and lines.

Reflection 4

In this course, in addition to the lens language, I also learned about the analysis and evaluation of film scenes.

The film scene, first of all, is a spatial relationship, which prescribes and restricts the composition and processing of characters, narrative and action dialogues in a certain paragraph of the film. The scene is a macro concept, but it can also be a concrete concept, such as playground, street, river. Kitchen, bathroom, car. The scene in the film can have a geographical limitation, also can not have geographical limitation. Strictly speaking, a villa in the suburb should be a scene. However, in the specific shooting, indoor and outdoor scenes are often divided into two different scenes in the shooting and presentation. Secondly, the movie scene has a time relationship, which prescribes and restricts the time relationship of narration and action expressed in this scene. As mentioned in the course: in terms of film narrative, the change of shot is the interval; Changing scenes is changing time. Changing scenes is changing space.

A scene in a movie can clearly and unambiguously complete a relatively independent and complete narrative plot, or it can only express a small part of the narrative plot. In the process of making a film, we should also pay attention to the role of the scene in the film. A scene is a language of expression, a term of actual addition, and an expression of an independent event. The actual increase tends to be; A scene may be completed in one scene or several scenes. Because of the importance of the scene in the power plant, it is necessary to select the scene accurately and precisely. According to our analysis of modern films, the composition of scenes in films is more and more flexible, and the number of scenes is richer and richer, which is conducive to the narrative of films, to the characterization of films, and the expression of the style of films. Therefore, the applicable rules of movie scenes are what we need to analyze in detail.

Reflection 5

In video art, besides lens and scene, shooting Angle is also very important. In the past, I paid little attention to the performance characteristics of characters in TV works from different angles. However, after learning the course, I realized that the shooting Angle plays a very important role in the creation. The difference of Angle will show completely different picture light and shadow structure, position relationship and emotional tendency. Angle change will directly affect the audience’s movie-watching psychology, which is a means to adjust the atmosphere of the picture.

Therefore, if a photographer wants to communicate with the audience through the screen, he must think about how to convey the correct idea to the audience from what Angle, rather than lead the audience to the wrong way unknowingly. First of all, for the straight Angle, the Angle is the perspective from which we observe the world, which is not easy to produce any special meaning. It makes people feel equal, objective, just, calm and kind and is often used to explain the narrative. When shooting, the photographer should hold the height of the camera position in place, so that the camera is at the same height as the human eye. Shot too high or too low can give us a different look and feel, which in turn can affect how we feel about the action or the character. Secondly, as for elevation Angle, elevation Angle is usually endowed with a certain meaning. Elevation Angle can increase the importance and authority of the subject, purify the background, highlight the subject and show a strong perspective effect. It is often used in propaganda films and films that emphasize heroism. When the camera is lower than the horizontal line of the subject, it is necessary to master discretion when shooting the close-up of the characters in the performance. The Angle of overelevation at a relatively close distance is easy to cause perspective deformation. For depression Angle, depression Angle shooting is a top-down, from high to low view effect. The depression Angle reduces the importance of the subject and makes the person appear harmless and humble. Directors often shoot victims, cowards and losers from an overhead Angle. The viewing axis of the camera lens is tilted below the viewing level, and the lens is higher than the horizontal line of the subject. Similarly, overturning at a close range can easily cause distortion, but sometimes perspective distortion is used to achieve an exaggerated effect for an artistic purpose.

Similar to a straight Angle, a positive Angle is a normal way people view things in everyday life. Make people for the performance of things to see more clearly, the performance of things to achieve a glance at the effect. In movies, it is often used for tall people or stately buildings. The camera is in the front direction of the subject. When the front Angle is taken from the normal point of view, the picture often lacks perspective changes.

Reflection of Presentation

In week 9, we made a brief presentation on the progress of the research. Everyone showed the source and progress of their own research topic inspiration. The instructors also gave us many suggestions for improvement, which benefited us a lot. Jin’s presentation impressed me the most, he talked about Nolan’s film. Nolan’s film always put you into Reality and hyperspace, he would like to talk more about behind the scene in this film. He noticed that camera crane was like some incredible device. The rhythm of it is unique, and when you watch it, even if you know how it was done, it confuses your perceptions. It’s unsettling in a wonderful way. Expression using air cannons, glass, audio effect and what we do in visual effects is we can add  more destruction and more debris. He also analyzed ‘How is film superior than digital?’. Many believe that this film photography is more authentic, and more pleasing to the eye of the audience that is used to 24fps film experience. For the long time, film had higher resolution thanks to the large film prints. Film captures 100% real image taken from the lens. Digital cameras have to convert that light into digital signature, sometimes with visual artifacts. Film  is inferior to digital because more expensive to work with and store. Cameras can record much more material, and everything you film can be viewed immediately. Much less money spend in secondary costs for storing, editing, and instant viewing. Digital cameras are lighter, easier to carry, and can be created in many forms. Filming with long exposures is difficult, and can produce strong noise and light leakage. Digital cameras don’t work great with gradients and highlights. The movie is truly mind-twisting, we need to watch it more than one times that we might understand it.

Reflection of Week 4

In this week’s study, I have a deeper understanding of the film Beijing guidance and its meaning. You should know how the objective environment and pressure affect the physical and mental state of the character you play on each plot point in each scene. You have to ‘given the situation’ including who your character is, when, where, and what you are doing. They include physical and psychological characteristics, social conditions, special interpersonal relationships, and the values and moral stances of your role.

Generally speaking, during the rehearsal, your director will ask you questions about the background of the character from time to time. When encountering some unclear things, you always have to find the bottom line(Assouly. 2018, p. 17). Therefore, compile a biography for your character to support the illustrative but suggestive background story in the play. All the words and actions of your character are derived from the character’s past, whether it is recent or long ago. If these contents are not limited, you must compile a suitable short biography.

Next, in the processing of character actions and coherence, you will get a series of relationships between people and doors. The description of tags will help you find suitable actions for performing multiple shots of a shot. Keep the same in each shot, they will also better specialize the action and reveal the inner world of the character. When you need it, preset the real body and inner movement may also release the real emotion. Therefore, we need to give a descriptive label to the actions of the characters to help you give them themes and meanings. For example, common actions like opening the door of a cupboard also need a clear label, such as soft, hard, and other adjectives that can reflect the mood of the character and the atmosphere of the scene.

Reflection of Week 5

In this week’s study, I was able to develop a deeper understanding of the background guidance in the film through a further understanding of the characters and the analysis of adjustment actions. In the performance, keenly listen to the subtle parts of the will and intentions of other actors, so that your character will remain fresh and alive. When shooting multiple shots with one lens and shooting from multiple angles, it can appear vivid, because the work of you and your partner is based on reality, not just imagination. When an actor always maintains a constant consciousness, you must know where the beat of your character is (Louis & Georgina. 2020, p. 95). These parts should increase the intensity of the performance and become the support of your character.

When you follow or maintain your role goals, you should consider success or failure in every turn of the event. When obstacles occur, you have to make strategic adjustments according to the specific situation. Find out where these adjustments are, or how to help you build a dense and flexible role awareness. And because the actors that you play with are slightly different in each performance, you must respond together when you perform. Continue to do this work can help you easily become the focus of many shots. Evoke the inner image of your character from the past, remember and imagine in the character, express the inner thoughts of the character gently, and see the inner image. This will keep the audience interested in you.

In addition, in the process of action guidance, the character needs to fully integrate the scenes, understand what each scene and the whole movie want to achieve, and understand what role your character can play in it. Don’t try to exaggerate or change these effects. During the rehearsal period, as you gain a deeper understanding of your character, you will continue to gain new insights for your character’s “highest goal”. This will happen to all actors and will deepen your understanding of the film and its potential.

Reflection of Week 6

During the study process this week, I have a clearer understanding of the core values ​​and specific details of the scene and film guidance through thinking about the guidance work of the actors on the set and the rehearsal process of the actors.

Strictly speaking, each characterization has its dramatic function, and it must play its proper role in the plot promotion and highest goal of the whole work. Here, you have to cooperate with other actors, not compete. You should be ahead of your actors in creation, so you have to break down each scene and find out the factors that trend each character forward in each dramatic unit. You will learn more from the work of actors, but actors generally feel that you know their roles better. Starting from the preparation, you will become more and more convinced of the work and how to deal with it. You know that the authority of the work comes from this. The actors have to get decisive and clear guidance from the director, and at the same time, I hope the director can give concise but detailed feedback for their performances. They feel that they have never been satisfied in this regard. A director who is sensitive to what each actor conveys and can accurately express it to the actor is like a conductor of a symphony orchestra, who can hear the mistakes of the fourth violinist in his performance (Thomas Dunne Books: St. Martin’s Press. 2009, p. 99). No one is born with this skill-you have to study hard to acquire it. Make your preparations-learn the source of drama in your life, and then analyze the script-lay the foundation.

In addition, during the filming process, the actors look out from the scene, and you look in from the outside, just like the audience. You are responsible for the formation of the drama. By linking the beat with the needs of the plot, the attitude of the character or the emotion of the character, you can know how to perform to show the greatest tension of the script, and by consolidating the trajectory of the development of the scene. By clearly developing the intention of the character, you can help shape this scene. The influence exerted by the audience, the title of the tag can help you clarify this point and can help you avoid unnecessary repetition. Your goal is to keep the audience in a state of attention and speculation.

Descriptive & Analytical Writing

In this analysis process, I will analyze one-by-one continuity shots in a classic movie that I personally admire most-“Titanic”. As we all know, there are too many moving moments and classic scene shots in this film, for example, the virtual focus shot of Jack and Rose standing on the front of the deck, and the classic long shot of Jack standing on the deck cheering when he just got on the ship. However, for me, the shot that impressed me the most and moved me the most was at the end of the film, when the elderly Rose threw the heart of the ocean into the sea and fell asleep, and then, in this series of continuous clips , The camera takes Ross’s perspective, from the ship to the wreck of the Titanic on the bottom of the sea. As the camera progressed further, the wreckage gradually returned to the old scene. When the lights came back on and the door opened, Ross still saw the brightly lit auditorium. The passengers who had been on the ship stood there unharmed, and Jack Standing on the stairs of the auditorium and waiting, as the camera gradually approached Jack until the two kissed each other, the camera shifted directly and coherently from Rose’s subjective vision to the outside. The whole process gave the audience a feeling of time change and a combination of reality and reality. . In this shot, since there is no process of lens switching and editing splicing, the audience can intuitively feel the gradual change of the scene in Ross’s dream and the switch from cold reality to warm dream. At the same time, the reason for the director to arrange this shot is to leave suspense and speculation for the audience. There are two explanations for this shot. The first explanation is that the old Ruth dreamed back that year. The second explanation is that Old Ruth never wakes up after falling asleep. Those who waited for her were all killed and implied that Old Ruth was also dead and finally reunited with them.

The so-called one shot to the end is to achieve a smooth picture effect through the precise design and control of the start and fall of the lens. At the same time, the director also used some other techniques to hide the editing points (Haubenreich. 2016, p. 378). For example, when the main body is moving, the audience tends to ignore the changes of secondary content, the movement of objects is easily ignored, lens flare, light and shadow changes and actual light effects caused by the transition of time (Roberts & Roberts. 2014, p. 6). Inadvertent dark field, etc. It is difficult to maintain a stable focus during sports, so each set has a position called a focus follower. This is a shot of a rotating picture taken from the perspective of the protagonist in the film. The romantic effect that we see in the end is actually the photographer carrying the machine with one hand, resting his right hand on the protagonist’s shoulder, and continuously rotating and shooting. In this kind of high-speed rotating motion picture, a little carelessness makes it easier to run out of focus.

References

Reflection of Week 1

In this week’s learning and activity experience, I have gained a deeper understanding of the shots involving the subject of shooting in film and television shooting. In the previous process, I have always believed that under normal conditions, the selection of shots in film and television works is relatively simple, and the shooting effect of the scene and the shooting subject is usually determined by the shooting distance and the characteristics of the shooting subject itself. However, through this week’s study and research, I found that in the shooting process of film and television works, the photographer usually combines a large number of professional lens tools and shooting techniques to systematically depict and render the shooting subject and its surrounding environment. In this process, according to the characteristics of the shooting subject, the role of the scene and the shooting environment and other factors, the photographer needs to carefully choose and apply the shooting methods and lens types.

In this week’s study, I realized in the process of film scene, the plot of according to different requirements, the photographer for the characteristics of the subject and choose to have different requirements, for example, the subject need according to the requirements of the actual scene to its’ from the eyes to the whole body is all from local to the lens, in this process, the photographer has very strict criteria for the choice of the lens. According to the course content, people can usually divide the lens use method into: long shot, medium shot and close-up shot.Because the shooting method of the lens often determines the size of the shooting subject in the scene(Bak & Park. 2020, p. 3390). Therefore, I realized that the previous idea was wrong. The scene size of film and television works is not solely determined by factors such as shooting distance. Instead, the photographer adopts different techniques of shot expression according to the requirements of the plot and scene to achieve the best scene effect.

In addition, in this week’s activity, we discussed the possibility of the scene together in groups and designed the position of the scene and the relationship between the characters we imagined. Since I was not completely familiar with this process, I established a good relationship within the group through active communication and cooperation in group activities. With the help of other team members, I designed the plot summary prepared by myself into the plan of the film and television scene. Although there are still some defects in my works in terms of professionalism, I believe that I can continuously improve my cognition of film lens and scene design through active cooperation with team members. Through this group activity, I also realized the importance of communication and cooperation in academic research. In the future study, I will continue to maintain my enthusiasm for cooperation so as to achieve further self-improvement in future group activities.

Reflection of Week 2

In this week’s study, I have a completely different understanding of close-ups in shooting techniques. In the past, I have observed a lot of close-ups through photography and film and television works. Generally speaking, I think the meaning of close-ups is that the photographer wants the audience to focus on a particular point in the character or scene so as to satisfy the connection and communication between the plots of the work. Therefore, from my point of view, close-up shots are mainly used to focus on some small but special elements to attract the attention of the audience. After this week’s study, I realized that there was a certain degree of deviation in my previous understanding.Depending on the concept, a close-up usually frames the character’s face to show emotion, or highlights an object to show details of the scene. There are many types of close-up shots, from medium to large close-up shots. In many cases, I still use the close-up as part of the magnification because it accentuates the scene, and accentuation is the purpose of the close-up. A well-placed, well-timed close-up can add color to a film(Chen, et al. 2020, p. 516). The key to a successful use of a feature is judicious judgment. If the purpose of a feature is emphasis, then the abuse of a feature undermines that purpose.

In the process of analyzing close-up shots, I found that actors convey their inner activities to the audience through their faces, and close-up shots, whether of characters or other objects, can leave a strong impression on the audience. In feature films and TV dramas, the close-ups of props often contain important dramatic elements. In a montage of passages and sentences, close-ups have the meaning of emphasis and aggravation. For example, in the activity, I once tried to take a picture of a glass of water on the table in the middle of the teacher’s lecture with my mobile phone. If I took a close-up, it would mean that it might not be ordinary water.

On this basis, I also learned that close-ups, because of their strong visual effects, should not be abused. To use just right, with fine, in order to play the role of the finishing point. Abuse makes people boring and diminishes its effectiveness. In particular, big shots of the face should be used with caution.

Reflection of Week 3

In this week’s study, I have gained a deeper understanding of the application of long shots in film and television works. Before I had a systematic understanding of the lens application in film and television works, I had no idea about the influence of different lenses in different scenes. In the past, my cognition of long shots was only limited to the recognition of the visual effect of the continuity of shots in film and television works and the appreciation of the acting skills of actors under long shots. In fact, in the general cognition, the shooting difficulty under the long shot is much higher than the shooting. Both the photographer and the actor will face considerable challenges during the long shot shooting. However, after learning this week’s course, my understanding of long shots is no longer limited to the traditional shooting skills and actors’ acting skills. As for long lens, it is not the length of physical lens appearance or focal length, nor is it the distance from the camera lens to the shooting object, but a shooting technique, which is the time distance between the start point and the shutdown point of shooting, that is, the length of the film segment.

In our practice, we studied and analyzed I AM Cuba, which was shot in 1964 by Mikheil Kalatozishvili, a former Soviet director. In this film, the long shot creates a powerful energy atmosphere, and the dynamic force and the aura of the black and white images can bring the audience a more realistic scene effect. In the days of filmmaking, when technology was not yet highly developed, photographers were able to use simple processing to make the camera dive directly from land to water, passing the camera from hand to hand, all the way to the swimming pool. Through analysis, I realized that long shot refers to the continuous shooting of a scene or a scene for a long period of time to form a relatively complete shot section. This naming is mainly symmetric for relatively short shots. The camera takes a shot from one turn on to this turn off. Generally, a shot that lasts more than 10 seconds is called a long shot. There is no absolute standard for a long shot, it is a relatively long single shot. It is usually used to express the specific conception and aesthetic taste of the director.

Movie scene analysis

For many successful films, it has strict design and planning in basic space scene selection and lens coverage. In this way, the director will be able to show the situation and connotation of each lens itself in the most real and emotional way (Cutting. 2014, p. 70). Therefore, in analyzing the scene of the film and television, people need to focus on the lens coverage of the scene, the design of the scene and the design of the scene and the overall structure, so that the film production method of the scene is more clearly understood by the film’s value of the movie.

In this analysis, the movie scene I chose was taken from the classic American film, the Roman holiday, which was mainly about it

A romantic love story between a European princess and an American journalist in Rome, the capital of Italy. However, the film’s type is marked as a romantic comedy, but the film’s first story is about the tragedy embedded in the comedy shell. Their identity is doomed, unable to last long together, and the sacrifice is the main word of the film, so the film, also with its plot of ups and downs and the tears of the smile, has successfully moved the audience’s mood to feel more real and closer to life in the film (Chen. 2012, p. 242). The scene I chose was in the beginning of the story, when the male and female characters were first met, and the director cleverly used the camera Settings to highlight the difference between the roles of the two sides, a noble princess and a shy tabloid reporter. First of all, the director uses the panoramic lens and the way of the method to highlight the dignity and elegance of the princess’s status, and the royal style is clear. Joe’s appearance is deliberately disorganized, whether it is the use of the short lens or the technique of the beginning of the camera, or the many passers-by in the lens, and the technique of using the position of the composition to make him appear, and instantly locate the civilian temperament of the male Lord in the middle and lower part of the society. From the beginning, the love of both sides laid down the‘sacrifice’ footnote. Light change is a kind of method that is used in this film, and the most worrying scene is the separation of the car. promise me, I will go straight after I go, don’t go back to the house. That silent understanding and inclusiveness, the sacrifice of love, in the light of the light of the film, fade in and out of the way, slow down the rhythm of the film, and let the audience sometimes savor the love of the sacrifice. The princess chose to sacrifice her love for the sake of her country and her duties. For love, Joe sacrificed the money and achievements he could easily get. In the end of the film, the director used the way of the film, taking the scene of Joe’s step away from the palace, showing his lack of love, and the fact that he was able to use the empty lens to show the end of his love.

References

Development 1

Assignment #4 Development-1

Development 2

Assignment #4 Development-2

Development 3

Assignment #4 Development-3

Conceptual statement

Conceptual statement

We watched 4:33, composed by John Cage in 1952 in class, Cage uses the audience as an instrument, in an attempt to demonstrate the artistic value of something seemingly insignificant. “Everything we do is music”, we got the idea from it. Then we chose the concept of silence and noise, we also got the idea from the film called A quiet place. We chose these two concepts not only they are easier presented than other concepts, but also fit our horror theme. Silence is not about the absence of sound but the presence of something else. Silence is always ambiguous, it is difficult to understand its true meaning, it is the real sound of music. Utilizing silence for very brief less than a few beats or for longer periods, creates a different impact on the listener. Although silence and noise are antonym, the combination of the two complements each other.

In order to highlight our concepts, we decided to combine visual and sounds, which is a considerable amount of work. First of all, we discuss the classic elements and scenes of horror films. We made an appointment to shoot most of the shots together. We made a list before filming and wrote out all the sound effects that could show horror. In reality, even if the video component has some flaws and turns out much less than perfect (pixelated, grainy, out of focus, under-exposed, etc) but the audio is clear, at the right volume and free of distractions then the project can still be an overall success and can get positive results. I proposed to simplify the visual part because the focus would be on the sounds and more efforts would been put on the audio part rather than the visual section. Several studies have shown that if the audio quality of the video is of just medium to marginal quality, that no matter how good the picture turns out viewers are more likely to reactive negatively to the video content as a whole. It’s clear that the success of your video rests more with the audio quality than the video(Harrell 2016). However, after the teacher’s comments, we found that our material is far from enough so we recorded more shots and more sounds. From this, I found that we should pay attention to observe all the small sounds around us. Some trivial or habitual sounds can become a very important part of the works through editing and processing.

A lot of people will think that the horrible visual is the cause of terror, but it is not. Sound information actually travels faster than the information we receive from sight. So, essentially, it may be fair to say that sounds are scarier than images(Renee 2013). How can we provide audiences the feeling of horror then? We used sounds like gas, lighter and nail scraper door etc can achieve the result we want. Not only importing those sounds into the multitrack, but also adding effects such as delay, echo, noise reduction, EQ, reverb and time shift. When movies take a familiar setting and add subtle, but jarring disruptions can show a more terrifying effect. For example, introducing the sudden slam of kitchen cabinets or faint children’s laughter in an empty house are ways to turn the everyday into the unnerving(Romano 2018). 

At the beginning of the video, I added a lot of noise to make people feel uneasy and prepare for the following plot. It was the key part of my clip to tear up the paper and slowly show the face of the little boy and I have put in a lot of other creepy scenes through the progress. In the clip, I added the voice of cat’s screaming, steel pipe falling and so on. They suddenly appeared not only gives people a sense of surprise, but also makes the audience experience it. The repetition of sound, the slow motion of the scenes and the dark color grading, all of them create sense of horror. Because of our time problems, the elements which we shoot are not very relevant but we still try our best to make them into a complete film. Without either, the imagination produces one, which can be more frightening than the reality(Zarrelli 2016). We hope that the audiences can use their imagination to understand the meaning of the film. There are many small details in the film waiting for people to explore. When people are all found out, they can feel extremely fearful, this is the effect we want to achieve. I used the techniques what I learned in the class, and strengthened my editing ability through small exercises. So I have a better grasp of the sound editing this time. I have saved a lot of time so that I have more time to modify and think about how to show a better sound effect.

Bibliography:

1. Romano, H 2018, ‘WHAT’S THAT NOISE?: DEVISING SOUND ELEMENTS IN HORROR MOVIES’, viewed 17 October 2019, <https://blog.kadenze.com/creative-technology/whats-that-noise-devising-sound-elements-in-horror-movies/>

2. Renee, V 2013, ‘The Sound of Horror: Why Hearing Stuff is Scarier Than Actually Seeing Stuff’, viewed 17 October 2019, <https://nofilmschool.com/2013/11/why-hearing-stuff-is-scarier-than-actually-seeing-stuff>

3. Zarrelli, N 2016, ‘How the Hidden Sounds of Horror Movie Soundtracks Freak You Out’, viewed 17 October 2019, <https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-the-hidden-sounds-of-horror-movie-soundtracks-freak-you-out>

4. Joel Hochberg, 2010 ,John Cage’s 4’33’’, Available at: https://youtu.be/JTEFKFiXSx4 (Accessed: 16 December 2010).

Google drive link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1jeDfcUhv9sxxGqjIWUNHhJ-jJO69qnfY

This week we successfully completed the speech. Through the speech and the teacher’s suggestion, we got more improvements and new ideas. Because our time is always not fixed, leading to we always do not meet. So we decided to finish all the recording work on about the same day. Our audio will have a story line, therefore it is important to start with a clear explanation. Certainly, the sound effects should also impress the audience. This reflects the importance of sound effect and enables the audience to feel horror on their own. The music in horror movies makes the movie being different, original and powerful. The sound of fear can’t be constrained by a single genre or instrument, but at its best, this music is as gripping as the scariest visual, and it is timelessly evocative. Take Bernard Herrmann’s Hitchcock soundtracks, especially his sleek, highly-strung score for Psycho (1960); its ‘stingers’ (those slashing violins, designed to shred your nerves each time you hear them) defined a device that has been echoed in countless other films. Aside from emotions, sound effects actually assist in interpreting the story of the film. Some movie goers even say that the sound effects are half of the experience of the film. The sound effects let a viewer know what part of the film is coming; for example, the background music suddenly mellows down in a certain part of a movie, which usually leads to a sudden jump in action in action films, or an escalation in the relationship of two characters in a romantic movie. Modern movies now make use of specific sound effects as cues that moviegoers have learned to read a movie using just signals from the soundtrack as a guide. In the next two weeks, we will speed up our progress in audio production.

We got the idea from the film called A quiet place. I think a lot of people know this movie. It talks about Two parents do what it takes to keep their children safe in a world full of creatures hunting every sound they can hear. Not a sound can be heard from the family hiding in silence, but all it takes is one noise and everything can go wrong.  In order to highlight our concepts, the thriller theme is a good choice. Because it is more difficult to show the visual effects, we choose to focus on audio work. We will combine silence and noise. There might have a plot in our audio work. At the beginning, villagers are talking and chatting in a bar, the sound is so loud, that the sound attracts the monster. He came in, but he is blind, so he only can tell people from the sound. After a while, he want to left. The radio suddenly turn on, the noise of radio scare and hurt the monster, the monster just run away. We will pay attention to present every details of sound. Recording indoors may record better sound quality. Although it is a big problem for the team members not to meet all the time, our success through online communication is that the project is developing as planned. We successfully came up with our ideas this week and agreed on time to prepare our speech.

I discussed with my group members about the final project in class. We were voting for different concepts and methods which we learnt through this course. We found that the combination of static and dynamic can create interesting effects. They are not only antagonistic to each other, but also can give people a sharp contrast. Mutual support at the same time can give people a vivid and immersive feeling. I got some ideas through the readings, classes and internet. It’s common to think that the “music” is what you directly hear—the notes that play instruments that fill up what would otherwise be empty space. But a more interesting approach is to recognize and take advantage of the fact that silence and incidental noise can be made into fundamental parts of the musical texture. “Silence” is an openness to any contingency, that is, to any sound. The singularity of the work flows into a multiplicity, first by unfolding the composite, and allowing the “supplementary detours” to fill up the surface. This surface then expands into an even wider multiplicity, in which the performers and audience join, by staying open to “silence.” Noise is resistance, or at least it causes resistance, so can never be the mainstream. We should not have the idea that noise is subjective – it is something that happens to the individual, but it is not solely driven by that, however directly painful the moment might be when you encounter a concert that is too loud, or the relentless thrum of TV-derived hit songs. It’s more interesting than that: if that’s your reaction, you are noise, you are the bit that doesn’t fit. But noise is a judgment, a social one, based on unacceptability, the breaking of norms and a fear of violence. In the coming days, we will discuss an exact theme to create a music around it.