22/01/10

In this lesson I added some extra techniques to my film to emphasise the passing of time. I did this by using one long clip and cutting it into small sections, I then put all these together into a different order which I think effectively showed the passing of time. This also came in handy when I found I didn't have enough footage, for instance the overdose scene, I found I could use the same footage in a rearranged order to make it longer.

15/01/10

In this lesson I played around with slowing or speeding up clips. I slowed down the graveyard clip and the overdose scene at the end of the film, I think this made the clip more powerful. I also did some manipulation of the footage we shot. The best part of our film I thought was the Gothic stairwell scene. It had to be edited on Final Cut Pro to achieve the desired affect. I did this by first using the clip where the girl is stood against the wall up until the boy completely cuts her body out of camera shot when he is running past, I then found the same point on the second version where the girl is not there and joined them together to give the impression she disappears into thin air, this is very effective and my favorite part of the film.

14/01/10

Underworld Film Review.

This review is of a film with Gothic themes throughout. Aspects that make this film Gothic are location, costume, weather, dialect, theme, atmosphere, soundtrack, storyline and even time of day in the majority of the film. Firstly, the majority of the film is shot in very underground dark locations, such as the castle with use of bricks, slime and darkness. This helps to create an atmosphere in the film and back up the Gothic themes running through the film, overall the film is very dark and secretive with an ultra Gothic storyline about the war between Werewolves and Vampires. This is a very Gothic storyline used in many Gothic films like Van Helsing and Dracula. I think Underworld however creates a modern version of Gothic with clever use of costume and soundtrack. By using a modern soundtrack and up-to-date costumes this film was given a believable modern twist to what could have been left as a conventional Gothic film. This makes the film appeal to younger audiences with use of weapons, sex and violence, it makes Gothic fashionable.

Throughout the film the weather is dark, rainy and sometimes stormy this creates a tension in the film which grows with the elevating feud between the vampires and werewolves. This clever use of pathetic fallacy adds to the atmosphere of the film and overall build up to the end. The dialect in the film is not entirely modern to keep the Gothic theme alive "your in the war which has been raging for the better part of a thousand years". The costume is very vintage in this film using Gothic extravagant dresses portraying a luxury Gothic lifestyle for the vampires in contrast to rags that the werewolves are wearing. The time of day in the majority of the film is night and in the dark, this was to enhance the Gothic theme also because vampires cannot come out in daylight.

Overall I greatly enjoyed the film, I thought it combined Gothic themes and locations to create a brilliant Gothic film with a modern twist.

08/01/10

By now I had a rough cut of my film. Sara showed us some techniques like transitions you could use in your film but advised not to use to many as it extracts from the quality of the film and draws your attention away from important detail in the shots. I found this very sound advice as when we were trying out different transitions they did tend to look very amateur. Within my shots I used the transition channel map to show going from one scene to the next I think this was the best out of all I tried and showed a smooth transition.




Now that I had a tidy version of my film in the order I wanted I tried to think about the theme in relation to the footage we had. As an overall theme we had wanted a tragic love story, to enhance this we decided to use flashbacks and memories. To portray this using editing I had to edit parts of different footage together. This was quite easy as I just selected the area of footage i wanted and dragged it down, to move footage forward to create space for more I used the cut tool to create a space then shifted it across, I didn't use any transitions on the flashbacks as I wanted the transition of the flashback to be sudden and shock the audience.