Filmmaking Activities

Art Productions

http://classes.yale.edu/film-analysis

It’s all about continuity

• Good filmmaking is all about continuity. Cameras must move up, down, all around, in close, at a distance. Actors must stop and restart their scenes. Days go by, months go by, but through it all, to the viewer, the action must always look continuous.

• Piecing together dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of individual shots and maintaining the illusion that the action is continuous is the magic of filmmaking.

Combine a series of twelve (12) techniques into one continuous film• Create a film the incorporates a collection of 12

filming techniques • The film does not need to be a story or have any

plot continuity between technique-scenes• Each technique needs to have onscreen text

identifying the technique• The film can blend multiple techniques into one

or two large scenes• OR each technique can be filmed independent• Choose 12 activities from the following options

Short list of 24 options• Voice-over (ADR)• Dialogue in noisy surroundings• Added sound effects• Low-key lighting• Flashback• Stop-action• Slow motion• typage• Racking focus• Canted framing• Point-of-view subjective lens• Sequential close-ups: extreme

long-shot, long shot, medium long shot, medium close-up, close-up, extreme close-up

• Hand-held camera following action – without unnecessary movement

• Pan• Tilt• Tracking shot• Whip pan• Shot/reverse shot• Eye-line match• Reaction shot• Graphic match• Match on action• Long take (3-minutes)• Overlapping editing• Rhythm• Montage

Voice over (ADR: Additional Dialogue Recording)

• Shot must be taken in a noisy environment such as along a busy highway or in a crowd of noisy people or in heavy winds

• Dialogue must loud and clear over the noise (without yelling!)

• Dialogue can be recorded separately and dubbed in so it is loud and clear, yet we can still hear the background noises.

• Or you can go out and buy an expensive boom microphone with a windsock over it. (I recommend recording the dialogue separately)

Add Sound Effects

• Record sounds separately from the film

• Add those sounds to the film

• May include the dialogue

• May include substitute dialogue

LOW-KEY LIGHTING

• A lighting scheme that employs very little fill light, creating strong contrasts between the brightest and darkest parts of an image and often creating strong shadows. This lighting scheme is often associated with "hard-boiled" or suspense genres such as film noir.

FLASHBACK FLASHFORWARD

• A jump backwards or forwards in time. With the use of flashback / flashforward the order of events in the plot no longer matches the order of events in the story.

Stop Action

• This would be similar to the photography project except that you would do it with a movie camera.

• Some, not all, movie cameras have the ability to take still shots, or single frame shots. Use this feature to create a stop-action scene that is considerably longer than the one you did during the photography session.

Slow Motion

• This can be done with some cameras that can be set to run at a higher frame rate than normal. However, it is an expensive feature that isn’t available on most cameras.

• Slow motion can be faked by your actors, but that could look cheesy.

• Slow motion can be done with digital film editing software. This is the preferred method.

TYPAGE• Typage refers to the selection of actors on the

basis that their facial or bodily features readily convey the truth of the character the actor plays.

Eraserhead

RACKING FOCUS

• Racking focus refers to the practice of changing the focus of a lens such that an element in one plane of the image goes out of focus and an element at another plane in the image comes into focus. This technique is an even more overt way of steering audience attention through the scene

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/RackFocus-Peking.wmv

CANTED FRAMING

• Canted Framing is a view in which the frame is not level; either the right or left side is lower than the other, causing objects in the scene to appear slanted out of an upright positon. Canted framings are used to create an impression of chaos and instability. It can be used to imply actors are aboard a ship at sea, or in an earthquake, etc.

POINT-OF-VIEW SHOT

• A shot taken with the camera placed approximately where the character's eyes would be, showing what the character would see; usually cut in before or after a shot of the character looking. Horror films and thrillers often use POV shots to suggest a menacing and unseen presence in the scene. We have seen many POV shots in Evil Dead movie.

Sequential close ups

• Begin a scene with an extreme long shot• Follow with a long shot (whole body)• Follow with a medium long shot (waist up)• Medium close-up (chest up)• Close up (face only)• Extreme close up (part of face – eyes, mouth,

etc)• Include some sort of activity or action in the

scene. Don’t simply zoom in on someone standing still.

HANDHELD CAMERA, STEADYCAM

• The use of the camera operator's body as a camera support, either holding it by hand or using a gyroscopic stabilizer and a harness. Follow the action. Camera does NOT have to bounce with the walking. However, the natural bounce of the cameraman walking is acceptable if it contributes to the tone of the scene.

• The camera should not swing wildly or pan away from the action unnecessarily or include movement that does not contribute to the tone of the scene. RE: The Blair Witch Project

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/SteadyCam-dancer.wmv

PAN• A camera movement with the camera body

turning to the right or left. On the screen, it produces a mobile framing which scans the space horizontally. A pan directly and immediately connects two places or characters, thus making us aware of their proximity. You are welcome to pan more than once.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/Pan-Traffic.wmv

TILT

• A camera movement with the camera body swiveling upward or downward on a stationary support. It produces a mobile framing that scans the space vertically

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/tilt-besieged.wmv

TRACKING SHOT

• A mobile framing that travels through space forward, backward, or laterally. A tracking shot usually follows a character or object as it moves along the screen.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/traveling-central.wmv

WHIP PAN• An extremely fast movement of the camera from

side to side, which briefly causes the image to blur into a set of indistinct horizontal streaks. Often an imperceptible cut will join two whip pans to create a trick transition between scenes.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/WhipPan-BruceLee.wmv

SHOT/REVERSE SHOT

• Two or more shots edited together that alternate characters (two or more characters), typically in a conversation situation. In continuity editing, characters in one framing usually look left, in the other framing, right. Over-the-shoulder framings are common in shot/reverse-shot editing. Shot / reverse shots are one of the most firmly established conventions in cinema

EYELINE MATCH

• A cut obeying the axis of action principle, in which the first shot shows a person off in one direction and the second shows a nearby space containing what he or she sees. If the person looks left, the following shot should imply that the looker is offscreen right.

Reaction shot

• Film action. Then cut away to person, or persons, or animals supposedly viewing the action and back again. Do more than one please.

GRAPHIC MATCH

• Two successive shots joined so as to create a strong similarity of compositional elements (e.g., color, shape).

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/GraphicMatch-Women.wmv

MATCH ON ACTION• A cut which splices two different views of

the same action together at the same moment in the movement, making it seem to continue uninterrupted. Quite logically, these characteristics make it one of the most common transitions in the continuity style.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/MatchAction-Traffic.wmv

LONG TAKE, aka PLAN-SEQUENCE

• A shot that continues for an unusually lengthy time before the transition to the next shot. The average length per shot differs greatly for different times and places, but most contemporary films tend to have faster editing rates. In general lines, any shot above one minute can be considered a long take.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/LongTake-Player.wmv

OVERLAPPING EDITING

• Cuts that repeat part or all of an action, thus expanding its viewing time and plot duration. Most commonly associated with experimental filmmmaking, due to its temporally disconcerting and purely graphic nature, it is also featured in films in which action and movement take precedence over plot and dialogue: sports documentaries, musicals, martial arts, etc. Overlapping editing is a common characteristic of the frenzied Hong Kong action films of the 80s and 90s.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/Overlap-MI2.wmv

RHYTHM

• The perceived rate and regularity of sounds, series of shots, and movements within the shots. Rhythmic factors include beat (or pulse), accent (or stress), and tempo (or pace). Rhythm is one of the essential features of a film, for it decisively contributes to its mood and overall impression on the spectator.

http://classes.yale.edu/film/videos/ryth-good.wmv

MONTAGE

• An approach to editing developed by the Soviet filmmakers of the 1920s such as Pudovkin and Eisenstein; it emphasizes dynamic, often discontinuous, relationships between shots and the juxtaposition of images to create ideas not present in either shot by itself.

Montage from The Godfather