Editing and Meaning in a Thriller Genre

Aloha!

During this week of lessons, I learnt many new things. For example, the Kuleshov Effect, the Niche genre and the editing and meaning that takes place in a thriller genre

This blog is about, as you already guessed, Editing and Meaning in a Thriller Genre.

To start off, as a class, we watched the opening of the movie "se7en". Which I must say is very gruesome.

 As well as that, our teacher had asked us to answer some questions whilst watching the opening. They were: 

1. How does the editing construct meaning in the opening sequence of "se7en"?

To answer this, the beginning of the movie, an eerie music is added in to give the audience a sense of suspense and unnatural behavior. In addition, the introduction is full of different shots and scenes of things going on. For example, blades and writing, a lot of artsy action like sticking images on paper and looking at video reels. This leads the audience to think about the man is really doing and feel obliged to watch the whole movie. 

2.  How does the opening titles of se7en communicate meaning about the killer?

The opening titles of the movie is practically like telling a story as it starts off with an empty book and ends with the book almost full. The shots in between show the book in progress of filling up. For example, a person holding a pen and writing within the book and pages being turned.
Furthermore, there is change in dynamics with the sound being played in the background. If listened closely, the beginning of the clip has slow and mysterious music but the end has violent and compelling music. This could explain a lot about the character; his thoughts or even actions. 

Overall, this opening clip helped me to understand that the opening of a movie is immensely important as the scene of the entire movie is set and is where the audience decides whether they want to watch the movie or not. 


Thank you for reading this blog!

The Moodboard for "My Bestfriend's Man"

Aloha!

This blog is all about the mood board that me and my group created for our film - "My Bestfriend's Man"
In the images below, you will be able to see how we had characterized each of the three characters, whose names were as the following:
Michael Lewis
Courtney hill
Katherine Lopez

Mood boards are originally produced because they let the creator(s) experiment with ideas. These allow the creator(s) show the audience a proposed look/ a vision they have in mind. 




In the images of the mood boards in this blog, the basics of each of the characters are established.  This was a baseline to what we as a group were going to stick to whilst directing. 

I hope this was helpful and you understand what we had in mind whilst directing the actors for out movie. 


Thank you!

The Kuleshov Effect

Aloha!

Today I will be explaining something that most of you probably haven't heard before. It's called the Kuleshov effect.

The correct definition is -  "The Kuleshov Effect is a film (montage) effect demonstrated by Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the 1910's and 1920's. It is a mental phenomenon by which viewers derive more meaning from the interaction of two sequential shots than from a single shot in isolation."

In class today, we watched a clip called “2001 a space odyssey - the dawn of man” and we had to write about the introduction.

We got given two question to answer and below I have got them as well as the answers 

1. "What meaning is being created/communicated?"

Within the opening, the clip shows dominance of the Gorilla over the Tapie. This is because the Tapie wanted to eat the same food of the gorilla but the gorilla does not allow that. This could be trying to portray that humans are very possessive over their objects and they do not let anybody touch their things. 
Furthermore, another meaning that could be created is the idea of survival. As shown in the beginning of the clip, a gorilla gets attacked by a cat, speaking practically, a gorilla is a lot more stronger than a cat but the clip shows that everyone is trying to survive their own way. 

In addition, I would say that in this movie, the audience understands that the theme of evolution is presented throughout, as the gorillas represent us, humans. 

2. “How is it being communicated”

These ideas are being communicated with the Kuleshov effect. The audience is shown one scene, then cut to another and then shown the original scene. Suspense is built up, which is why this effect is used particularly well within directors. 
To add to that, the different sounds in the clips also help the audience understand what is going on. 

Continuity Editing

Aloha!

Today I learned some new terms within the topic of continuity editing.

The first one is called continuity editing  - 

This is the predominant style of film editing and video editing in the post-production process of film making of narrative films and TV shows.

This makes the video seem almost natural and everything flows. 

Secondly, there is a continuity editing called match on action - 

Cutting on action or matching on action refers to a film editing and video editing techniques where the editor cute from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action. 

An example would be a man walking up to a door and reaching for the knob. 

Next, is shot/reverse shot - 

This is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off screen) and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. 

As shown on the right, there is a little explanation on shot/reverse shot and the images provided will help understand that this term of continuity editing is used very frequently. 


Lastly, I learnt about the 180 degree rule - 

With this rule, people are able to understand where everything in the scene is. So, the director films a scene, using separate shots. 

As you can see on the photo on the left, scenes that are shot will only make sense if they are within a an angle of 180 degrees.