Editing and Sound Paragraph: The Aviator

The editing and sound in the scene from The Aviator assists in conveying the genre suspense.  The editing throughout the scene is mostly slow, which builds suspense. For example, when the man is in the plane, there are shots of the windsock and different parts of the plane, which are held for a few seconds. Each of these shots build suspense for the audience members. Though most of the editing is at a slow pace, there are a few instances when it is fast, such as when there are shots of different controls in the plane. These shots are only held for very short periods of time each, again building suspense for the audience in a different way, as there is no clear indication of what the controls each say. Throughout the scene there is barely any music. This paired with the slow shots of the man in the plane build a lot of suspense, as it is silent causing the audience to be on the edge of their seats. Though when there is music it is very suspenseful. The editor of the film The Aviator uses slow editing extremely well to create a feeling of suspense for the audience, the lack of music used contributes to this very well.

Feedback on short film

For our short film we got a bit of feedback from the class and from Mr. Andrews. There were a few scenes where the lighting was a bit too dark and therefore confused the audience as to whether Lauren was good or evil. Also, we didn't use the rule of thirds very well in a fair few shots and therefore we could have improved on that. A lot of our shots didn't look as good as they could have because of this. We didn't have time to go back a shoot scenes again so we had to leave what we had, but we did change the brightness on a couple of the scenes. 

Horror Recipe

1 hunter 1 supernatural being Multiple victims Small isolated town Vampire serial killer

A vampire hunter reads about suspicious killings in an isolated town and decides to check it out. He travels to this town as another killing occurs and he investigates at the crime scene (impersonating a policeman or agent). His findings lead him to other clues and people who are family or friends of those who were killed. A few more deaths occur. He figures out that it is a vampire and begins to track it down. His search leads him to an old abandoned, isolated mansion just outside of town. He sneaks in and it’s very suspenseful (music enhancing this). He hears multiple sounds and sees shadows and a rat runs across the screen. Then as he slightly relaxes, the vampire jumps out from behind and attacks him. A fight ensues. The hunter comes out on top but in bad shape, though he is victorious.

Editing and Sound Paragraph

The editing and sound in the scene from the film Sleepy Hollow, contribute toward the horror genre of the film. The editing starts out slow and speed up a little towards the end of the scene, when the storyline becomes a little more intense. Though the genre is horror, the editing doesn’t help it too much, as it is generally slow paced throughout the entire scene. This makes the film look less scary than it could be and also stops the audience from getting the full impact of the genre. The sound in the scene makes up for the editing a bit, being suspenseful and dramatic and speeding up as the action got more intense and when the tree opened, showing the heads, as this was a scary part of the scene. The dialogue was very genre specific, talking about the different aspects of what was happening. The sound effects in the scene made it a lot more realistic, such as when the horse was galloping, there were sounds that related to this action, also when he was hitting the tree with the axe, there was a chopping/thumping sound every time he hit it. The editing made the scene look a little less like it was in the horror genre, but the dialogue, music and sound effects made up for it. 

Short Film Group Task

This is the completed movie my group and I made (Julian, Millie, Lauren and I). We each put effort into it, worked together well and we are happy with how it turned out. Lauren came into our group late, but I am very happy with how she helped and cooperated with the group. It was a very fun task, but took a lot of time and effort to get completed. We discussed the idea of the film for a while, trying to come up with something that would make sense fit into 1minute and without sound. That took a while, but we eventually got there and hopefully it does make sense. Some of the shots we took had to be retaken multiple times because the camera would shake, Lauren would start laughing or something else would go wrong. But we shot everything in a reasonable amount of time and had enough time to finish editing it. The whole group stayed back after class into lunch to finish the editing. The work was evenly split up between us. Millie did a bit of the filming at the start, Julian did the lighting, filmed a bit and came up with the base idea that we worked on. I filmed a bit, brought in most of the props, directed a bit and wrote the shot list, and Lauren did the acting as she wasn't here for the first 4 weeks of term, meaning she hadn't learnt the rule of thirds, mise-en-scene and everything else as well as we had. It was a bit stressful trying to get everything done and edited and be happy with it all, but we did it and had extra time left over to get Mr Andrews to give us some tips on how to make it better. It turned out well and I'm very happy with how we did. 

The shot list/planning I wrote for the movie can be seen below:

Shots:

1.        Collage of newspaper clippings shown – zoom in, zoom out

2.        Close up of feet of detective walking, shot moves up the body to the face

3.        Turns a corner, sees someone fleeing around another corner, sees this person drop a key

4.        Picks up the key, holds it next to a picture of the key (shows it’s the same one/the one they needed)

5.        They purposefully walk back the way they had come, into a room, with the newspaper clippings board in the background – camera in front of them as they walk

6.        Go into some odd hiding place where the box is kept and take the box out

7.        Sit the box on a table and open it

8.        Show the reaction of the detective – not what is in the box

9.        Closes box, runs out of the room to a gun being pointed at them

10.    Slowly look towards the person with gun

11.    White flash

12.    Slow motion shot of box being dropped

13.    Shot of just the arm, implying the person is dead

14.    Shot of the shooter walking away – only their back

Costumes:

Detective:

·         Jeans

·         Plain shirt/singlet

·         Heels or leather school shoes

Murderer:

·         Long trench coat

·         Hat

·         School shoes

We had to change the shot list a bit as we didn't have the correct props/we wanted it to make a but more sense, but it is basically the same. We also had to change some of the costumes worn as we forgot to bring in one or two of the items needed. 

I created another shot list to follow, though it is still not completely accurate to what we completed. It can be seen below.

Shots:

1.        Collage of newspaper clippings shown – zoom in, zoom out

2.        Shot of Lauren running through door at top of stairs

3.        Shot of Julian running down stairs - drops something

4.        Lauren walks down the stairs - picks up the bag and takes key out

5.        Cuts to her searching through a desk - different angled shots

6.        Finds image of key

7.        Shot of the key next to the image of the key

8.        Show the reaction of the detective

9.     Walks out of the room

10.  Gun appears at her head

11.  White flash

12.  Shot of the arm, implying they are dead

13.  Shot of the shooter walking away - only their back