Editing In films can be done in many different ways. Different cuts and transitions can completely change the tone of a scene. So back to Kingsman we go. This time the editing. The editing in this scene is absolutely amazing. The cutaways between the action break it up nicely but also add a bit of comedy to the scene. Seeing the other characters reactions to whats happening is sometimes quite funny but also helps to show the real horror of whats happening inside of the church. The fact that most of the scene is all done in long tracking shots also adds to the feel of the scene and the action. It makes the scene feel intense but also strangely fun.
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Music in films is incredibly important. Imagine some of your favourite scenes without any music. Weird huh? Well lets look at a scene and talk about how the music and sound make the scene what it is. Free Bird!! It's fast, frenetic and slightly over the top. It works so well for this scene. It gets you ready for the fight as soon as that iconic solo starts. It draws you in and makes you feel like you are in the scene. The sound effects also lend well to the scene. The gun fire and punches have a serious punchy sound to them. They feel brutal and painful. They almost make you feel uncomfortable with the seriously painful sound they give off.
Sound is kind of incredible in that sense. Imagine this scene with a slow, melodic soundtrack. It wouldn't work. One song that I've found that does work is 'Sugar we're going down' by Fall Out Boy. It works. Seriously just listen to it while watching this scene on mute. You'll thank me. There are quite a few ways of getting into the industry. Those ways are Apprenticeships, Degree Courses and Trainee Placements. I'm now going to talk about them for a bit.
Apprenticeships With apprenticeships you can, as they say, earn and learn. Now if that little phrase didn't make you vomit I'll tell you more about it. They are a great way of gaining experience in the industry by working with media professional's on real projects in real studios. They also help as a way to get your foot in the door of a company. As long as you do well of course. Degree Courses Now these are big. These courses are taken at university and can give you a big advantage when looking for a job in the industry. Degrees look good on CVs. They also show that you are very highly skilled and could be the one person that can make a difference between a good project and a great one. They also help if you want to become a teacher in the industry. Trainee Placements These should definitely be looked at by younger people trying to get started in the media industry. You go into a place you want to work and get trained on the job. They are very similar to apprenticeships in that respect except at the end of the training phase you basically have a job. Apprenticeships don't have that safety net. So I just did about different types of context and how they relate to Whiplash. Now I'm going to talk about which one I think is more relevant to the film. I think that the social context is more important than the others. The film takes place right now in the modern world, in a sub culture of young musicians. As I explained in a previous post Andrew is the human embodiment of modern society. He's cold and success driven. This can make people think about themselves which makes it very important.
More Whiplash talk. I'm sorry I really like this film. I'm not sorry. This time context.
Historical Whiplash was released on the 16th January 2014. Also on the same day the first session of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon opened. There is literally nothing that connects these two events. Social It's pretty easy to compare Whiplash to our current society. People are mostly out for themselves. Trying to make it big. And unfortunately, for the most part, they don't care who they hurt. That's Andrew. That's how he is. He wants to be the best and he brings people into his life and he doesn't care how much he hurts them. Andrew Neiman is basically the human embodiment of todays society. A cold, success driven person who just doesn't care what happens to those around him. Cultural Culturally speaking there isn't much to talk about here. What I will talk about is how in todays culture things like music can take over peoples lives. Not just making it but listening to it. Andrews love for drumming and his drive to be the best come from being obsessed with the music of people like Charlie Parker. It took over his life in two different ways. So now I've done about Narrative, Genre and Representation in relation to Whiplash. Now I'll talk about which one I think is most important to the film.
I believe that Narrative is the most important in Whiplash. The story is the driving force behind the film and without it the film would be nothing. The choice to leave out most of the classic character archetypes of Propps theory was a bold one but I think it works for the film. It's unique. Genre and representation are still important however. They help the film get its themes across a lot better than it would otherwise. The representations of the different characters are very important to the film and story. Also if you think about it, although the narrative is more important, without the genre and the representation of the characters the narrative would have nothing to hold it up. The way that people are represented in films is very important. Films have been seen as sometimes racist or sexist in the past due to mis or under representation of different groups of people and genders. Now Whiplash has also come under fire for it's supposed under representation of women. I'm now going talk about that.
Whiplash is about Andrew Neman. Andrew is a guy who wants to become the best drummer there is. This is the main focus of the story. At one point in the story Andrew meets a girl, Nicole. Nicole quickly becomes his girlfriend when life begins to look up for Andrew. Nicole is also only in about 3 scenes. She is also the only female character to really have even a passing impact on the story. To some she is under represented in the film and as a result so are the entirety of women. To me personally I don't see a problem. Now Nicole's story is not the main focus of the film. Andrews is. Andrew is the lead and his story is about life and the sacrifices people make to achieve what they want to achieve. Nicole is just someone who comes into his life and then they are gone. If anything she is used to show that Andrew is a bit of a cold uncaring character. He neglects her, his family and himself to get where he wants to be. I think Nicole is used perfectly. She brings out the good side of Andrew. Makes him seem like a better person. Then he ruins that. I do however agree with the criticism that she could have played a slightly bigger part. Appearing in more scenes maybe in order to allow the audience to connect more with the character before she is taken away. In the end if everyone was represented the same amount with the same amount of screen time there wouldn't really be any story or characters. Films need leads. Whiplash. A great film about one guy with big dreams of becoming a drummer. In the film he deals with an incredibly aggressive mentor in the from of Terrance Fletcher. But what genre does the film fall into. Does it fall into one or multiple? Is it just a drama or could it also be seen as a thriller? Well, let's take a look shall we.
First off there is absolutely no denying that the film is a drama. Theres no action, no real romantic themes and definitely no horror. The film is lit in a way that makes you feel emotion for the characters but it also makes you feel nervous and on edge. This lends to the idea that the film could also be considered a thriller. The lighting focuses heavily on Andrew and Fletcher. It makes you feel like no other characters matter and you feel the tension between them. The film is also edited in a very intense way. By the end of the film you feel out of breath because the cuts happen so fast. It makes you feel on edge as you aren't sure what Fletcher is going to do next. I feel that the film is a dramatic thriller. It has aspects of each genre but doesn't over do one or the other. A pretty important part of script writing is making a character profile. What they like, who they are, where they grew up, what they were doing this time five years ago on a wednesday. You know that sort of thing. A good way to practice this is to find a random picture of a random person on the internet and make up a backstory about them. This is vaguely how you do it. Name: Guy Fone Date of Birth: 19/06/1975 Home town: Phoneton Guy Fone was born in the small town of Phoneton. A mining town who's main export Samsungium. A precious metal used in the production of communication devices. Guy's father, Manson, was the mayor of the town before he was brutally assassinated by Simon Sez. Now Guy must travel the world in search of Simon to exact his revenge and restore Phoneton to its former glory. And that's character profiles. How you do them and why they are needed is now in your brain.
So this is my version of a scene from Ghostbusters. Audio quality isn't fantastic and everyone sounds the same but I am just one man. You may remember I did a weird post about research and how it's important. Well this is another thing about research. This time Primary and Secondary research.
There are many differences between the two types of research. Primary is when you go directly to the source. Going and interviewing people about life experiences relating to the piece you are creating. The main advantage of researching in this way is that you can taylor the information you get to suit your needs. You can ask the right questions and go to the right people to make sure you get what you need. On the other hand the information could be quite unreliable as peoples memories on the whole aren't that great. Now secondary research is when you look online at things that other people have done. Like how you would at school. You use the internet to look up news articles and important things in the media. You can also look at documentaries and other things like books and encyclopedias. An advantage of this type of research is that you can fact check the things you have found out with your primary research. One downside is that the facts may have changed over time. This is especially true for scientific research as new discoveries can change the things we know or think we know. So that's research. Now you know. You might remember that I made an Ident. The things that play before films. Well here is some research I did on it. I made survey and held a focus group.
In my personal opinion my Ident works well for what I will use it for. It appeals to my target audience and does a good job of showing what the company is. The only thing I would do is add some sound. Music or something to make it a little more interesting.
At my college I've been asked to reflect on my skills and how I personally feel I'm doing. Here is that reflection.
You'd be mental to think that regulation in media isn't important. Like properly mental. We're talking like box of frogs in a microwave mental. For those that don't know regulation is when a group of people get together and decide what can and cannot be shown on TV and in film. This is not the same as censorship. Thats when people actively cover up or remove parts of a film or TV show. This is not that. This is to ensure that doesn't happen.
In my opinion for the most part regulation is a very important thing. If there weren't any in place people would be able to do what they wanted and everyone would get offended. And no one likes being offended. On the other hand of course sometimes regulation can go too far. When things get cut for seemingly no reason that sucks. Don't do that Ofcom. Not cool. Narrative is an interesting thing. Propps theory states that all stories follow the same framework and feature the same character archetypes. These are The Hero, The Villain, The Princess, The Helper, The Dispatcher, The False Hero and The Father. According to this theory all films and stories begin in a state of equilibrium, the world as it should be, then falls into disequilibrium, when everything goes wrong, then at the end of the story back to a new state of equilibrium, a new world and a new normal. This is a video me and some others made relating this theory to the movie Whiplash. Watch it here: Annoyingly in media there are a lot of risks involved. People can trip on anything. Like anything. You can be on the other side of the room and somehow they will trip over your foot and take out your lighting rig. It happens. This means that it is very important to carry out risk assessments. Below is an example of one. The names aren't real people (obviously) except for me. I think. I'm pretty sure I'm real. Thats how its done. They get done to make sure no one hurts themselves of anyone else. Now you know and, as a wise man once said, knowing is half the battle.
Lets imagine, for a second, that everything was okay. Nice isn't it? Now thats done, media! Producers do a lot of work. Choosing projects, hiring crew, choosing directors and sometimes casting. On top of that, and the subject of this mess, is research. Not just researching the project or the people involved but also the market. Market research is essential to finding out how the film will look and feel and also when it will come out. Lets look at a hypothetical situation. Lets say that I'm a big time producer and I have to do research for a big blockbuster. We're talking Marvel levels of big. What would I do. Read on for a weird not script but kind of script thing.
Producer-"So we have this big new Marvel Movie and we need to know some stuff" Gary the research man-"First we should look at what similar movies are coming out and when. That way we can look at the competition and work out how long to leave between our movie and theres. Six months should be good." Producer-"Fantastic! Gary you're one step closer to that big promotion I talked about! Now we know that which one of you fact nerds is going to tell me how to find out who will be watching this thing?" Sandra the tea lady-"You could use the JICNARS scale. Using that you can look at different classes of people and what they might be in to. Then you can decide who to market it to. But then again what would I know. I just make tea." Producer-"Excellent! Jenkins, my butler who was totally here the whole time, shake that woman's hand for me!" Jenkins the butler who was totally there the whole time-"What woman sir?" Producer-"Good god. She was never there. It was me all along." Jenkins-"Very good sir." Not really sure what happened at the end there but you get the general idea. Anyway, research is important and people get paid a lot to do it. On another note this may be the most ridiculous thing I've ever done on this blog so hooray for me. Shots! I'm aware I've already done that joke but it's funny and I don't care. This time it's all about head room and lead space. What is that, you scream? It's all about the space above and in front of someone in a scene. Here are some examples of both. Head room: Lead space: Now you know about shot composition. Thank you for visiting.
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