Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Editing and Sound

We started class by analyzing different views, or focuses, a camera can capture. Close ups have the subject taking up most of the screen. This stresses the importance of the subject and puts the focus on the emotion of the subject in the frame. Medium focus gives you a wider view of a scene, and long shot gives a much larger view of a scene so that the viewer gets the complete outlook of a situation. Also we discussed the use of zoom and dolly panning in. As an example of zoom, we watched an interview scene from Citizen Kane. The camera starts with a medium shot. The interviewee was the main subject in the shot with the light and focus on him, to further emphasize the interviewee’s importance, the background was out of focus and the interviewer was covered by a shadow. As the interview proceeds, the camera zooms in on the interviewee’s face until it is a close focus, and the viewer has no choice but to concentrate on him.

I also enjoyed the scene in Citizen Kane when Kane was talking to his wife at the dinner table. Sound and visual transitions were used to show a change in time and a progression in their relationship. As the movie transitioned into older and older conversations, we notice the couple getting older and their relationship fading. Moreover, the distance between the couple increases after each transition and acts as a metaphor to reinforce the slow deterioration of their relationship. I found that scene to be very interesting.

We learned that there are four main story tellers in movie making which includes: the writer, the director, the editor, and the sound editor. Sound editing is a part of movie making that is very essential but often goes unrecognized by regular movie goers. One of the commentators in the behind the scenes features we watched explained that people would watch a movie if it had good sound and grainy video but would not watch a movie with amazing visuals but terrible audio quality. This stresses the importance of audio in a movie and sound editing.

We watched a feature on the sound editing that was used to make Lord of the Rings and I remember being impressed and awestruck by the ingenuity and creativity needed to “invent” sounds necessary for movie. For example, the sound editors had to think of a sound for a giant spider. They decided combined the sound of a steam blowing out of an espresso machine, the hiss of a Tasmanian devil, and the growl of an alligator to create a very unique, eerie the scream of the spider. I found sound editors to be the most creative and dedicated because they are constantly thinking and listening for ways to manipulate and combine different sounds.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Bored at work...

So...I need a new title for my blog. I'm not really feeling this one...

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

1st Day of Class

I have always been interested in knowing and understanding how movies are made. We all go to the movies with friends and family, talk about our favorite scenes or retell our favorite quotes, but a lot of times I am more intrigued by the actual ideas, inspiration, work, and techniques that are used to make movies. So when I saw this class listed in the Core IV classes, I was extremely excited!

In class, we focused on how the movie was invented and the most important early milestones and genres of movies. Understanding the history of movies was interesting to me because it was cool to see how simple and innovative the first movie makers were. They were able to take this new medium and develop new uses and techniques to convey very different emotions. I liked watching the short films by the magician George Melias. He would enhance his magic shows by using stop motion to make it seem as if people, objects, and, even, he was disappearing; this was the first use of the camera to produce movies with special effects and illusions. We also focused on aspects of movies that are thought of and planned before shooting begins. Some of these aspects includes: camera angles, choreography, video and sound editing, and set and props. Musicals and dance numbers are good examples of movies that utilize all of these aspects of movie making.

The cross cutting techniques is what the part of class that I enjoyed the most. After being explained how that worked, it was like personal epiphany. I started thinking about those lame sports movies that would have the action going in slow motion while cutting back and forth between shots of the game and the clock. My sisters and I would always laugh about how retarded the directors must have been, not knowing that it is a technique used to show things occurring simultaneously. I just kept having flashbacks of movies, most of them with time counting down, and thinking about how much more enjoyable they would have been if I had known what cross cutting was before.

I cannot wait to get my hands on a camera and begin on our projects! The most appealing part of this class, for me, was learning that we would be able to make our own movies in this class. I have always been more interested in making movies rather than watching them, and this class provides the perfect opportunity for that. I’m excited to see what kind of movies everyone’s going to make this semester!