Post 15: Media Language: The Five C's of Cinematography

I decided to read an article by Joseph V. Mascelli to help my understanding of The 5 C’s of Cinematography and see how it could help us in planning and shooting our film. In the article he gives a short summary of the entire book and explains what the 5 C’s are and how they affect a film.

 

 

 

 

1.      Camera Angles

‘Camera placement is determined by narrative significance’

This will be helpful when it comes to filming out short film because it will remind my group that we can move the camera to give certain shots a greater effect. We could tilt the camera up (low angled shot) at the groomer to show his power over the young girl and have a high angled shot looking down on Sophie to show her vulnerability.

2.      Continuity

‘Good continuity encourages the viewer to become absorbed in the story- telling, without bothersome distractions’

If we don’t have continuity throughout our film it will look unprofessional, we will have to make sure the props are in the same place each take and that the actors are in the same positions.  We also have to make sure that the action happening on screen has continuity, this is done through the use of shot-reverse-shot and match on action. If the continuity is not constant throughout it will not only reduce the quality of our film but it can also distract the audience from our storyline.

3.      Cutting

‘It is possible to cut away to anything happening anywhere at any time’

We don’t have to have the story of our film told in a liner timeline, we can jump backward and forward, we can switch from one event that’s happening to another. This will be useful for our montages; we can cut from one shot to another so the audience can see more than if we stuck to one thing.

4.      Close-ups

‘The stronger the motive for using a close-up, the more the close-up can help make the story-telling truly effective’

Close-ups in our film will be to show the emotions of the characters and to show the importance of them to the audience. We will have to make sure that we only use close ups when we feel it is necessary so that when we do they have a greater effect.

5.      Composition

‘Good composition is the arrangement of pictorial elements to form a unified harmonious whole’

We will make sure each shot looks good and has good composition to encourage the audience’s eyes to concentrate on the important elements on the screen. Each shot should also work well with the shot before and after to give a better overall composition.

We want to ensure our film is as good as possible and to do that we have researched lots of different aspects of film making. I think that the 5 C’s will help strengthen and improve the quality of our film.

 

Post 14: Research Short Films and their use of lighting.

I decided to look at some short films and carry out textural analysis on them to explore the use of lighting in each of them.

The first film I watched was Flung by Fiona Walton

 

 

“‘Flung' explores the moment when the worlds of a tormented young boy and an alienated old man collide with unforeseen consequences for them both. Sympathy shifts from one character to another as the boy's interaction with the old man becomes increasingly cruel. An emotional story that brings together two, not so very different lives.”

Flung was shot in black and white and with a lot of obvious natural lighting. However there are still small aspects of different lighting techniques being used. Although there is no obvious three point lighting being used, the camera has been placed at angles where the natural light has the same effect as the artificial light would. The natural light has been used a lot throughout this film as it is obvious they couldn’t use colour gels to change the tone or the temperature.

When the young boy has his hood up his face is darker due to the small shadow the hood is causing. This suggests that there is a darker, possibly meaner, side to the young boy which is revealed when he makes fun out of an old man. Both of the characters in this film have dark clothing on which could suggest that they are lonely characters. There obvious use natural light is evident in the film as it is set outdoors, but the use of shadows on the characters throughout the short film can help to add tense and mysterious atmospheres.

I think the techniques that have been used work well on this film and help to make it look realistic.

 

The next film I looked at was Playground by Mark Kuczewski

 

“‘Short thriller about a man who pics up a young female hitchhiker. As the awkwardness builds in the car we find out more about the man's past and what his intentions really are.”

There was a large range of lighting techniques used in this film; direction is one of the most obvious. At the beginning the screen is lit from the bottom right hand side only illuminating half of the character’s face and leaving the other half in shadow. Lighting is also used to highlight different areas of the car and to make it seem as if it is moving through a tunnel.

Throughout the film the audience only sees half of the man’s face and half of the woman’s face, this insinuates that there is something going on between the two for example; an argument or they’re both keeping a secret from one another. 

The lighting in this film helps create suspense and mystery about the characters and what’s happened. It also helps create different effects like the car moving through the tunnel.

 

The final film I watched was All My Dreams on VHS by Timothy X Atack

“‘James never misses his dreams - he records them straight to VHS using Dreamspoon wireless technology. But when a work colleague, Erica, stops by one evening, she finds something surprising amongst the titles. Curiosity gets the better of her and the evening takes an unexpected turn.”

This film uses a lot natural lighting to make the settings look realistic, as someone who wasn’t present when it was being filmed I don’t know if a white balance was used but it may have to make sure the end result didn’t look blue or orange.

When Erica is watching the video, the dark room with little lighting; a blue light seemingly from the TV makes the room seem colder, helps create a dark and mysterious atmosphere, and a lamp illuminating the rest of the videos, suggesting to the audience something sinister is on the tapes.

The film uses both natural and artificial light to create mood and atmosphere, after watching all three of the short films we have some ideas about the different lighting techniques we can use to make sure our film is realistic and give certain parts more emphasis.

Post 13: Media Language - Lighting 3 (Source & Colour)

Source and Colour

Source and colour are two important aspects of lighting to remember when filming. When speaking about source of lighting three point lighting is often referred to. Developed by classical Hollywood film makers, three point lighting consists of using three different lights to illuminate an object or person. The three lights are the key light, which focuses on the subject, the fill light, which fills the entire scene and helps diffuse shadows, and the back light, this focuses on the background and also diffuses shadows.

Our group decided that to learn about the different lighting techniques it would be easier for us to try them so we knew what we were talking about.

Three Point Lighting Test

We first experimented with three point lighting; the images below show the different parts of the screen being lit up using the different lights. The key light illuminated the person and created large shadows behind her, the fill light subtly illuminated the entire screen which was a complete contrast to the background light which lit the background and ignored the person creating a silhouette.

 

Key Light                            Fill Light

 

 

Background Light

Colour Gels and White Balance

Colour Gels can be used to change the colour of the scene, there are CTOs and CTBs. These consist of colour gels being used in order to change the lighting, for example blue colour gels work by making the room seem warmer, whereas orange colour gels are used to make the room seem cooler.

The white balance works by making the colours appear more realistic. It keeps scenes from looking unnatural.

We carried out a short experiment to test the different colour gels and to see what effect they would have. We put the camera in a corridor, which was already full of natural light, and set up the white balance on it, we then held colour gels in front on the lights and saw the effect they had on the screen.

We carried out to main experiments: White Balance to Half Orange and White Balance to Half Blue.

Orange Gel                              Blue Gel

 

By using coloured gels to white balance provides the DOP with the opportunity to warm up or cool down a scene for special effect. As seen from the orange gel used, the images can go a steely blue which is often used to create 'day for night' scenes.

 

 

Post 12: Media Language Lighting 2 (Quality & Direction)

The quality and direction of light are also very important when filming. In order to understand and learn about how to use light in our own film, my group and I researched these two aspects and at the end carried out our own experiments with light.

Quality- when referring to lighting, quality means the intensity of the illumination that the audience are viewing. This can be described in to ways, hard and soft. Hard light creates large, bold shadows with obvious textures and edges. Soft lighting is indirect or diffused which blurs contours and textures and has a softer contrast between light and shade.

Direction- this refers to the direction in which the light travels from the point of origin and the effects it creates. Every light has a point where it is at its brightest and lowest. When it is at its brightest it creates a spot light and when it’s at its lowest it blends in. the direction of light can come from anywhere; left, right, high or low.

Madonna- Vogue Video

The Madonna vogue video is a great example of showing how the direction and quality of light affect the object or persons importance. There are many different techniques used throughout the video such as light shining in different directions with different qualities and three point lighting. The lighting is stylistic and replicates the strong contrasting light and dark shadows which we saw in film noir.

The screen shot of Madonna’s face shows that she is the most important person in the video with a plain background and her face being strongly illuminated in the classic film noir style.

This screen shot shows a girl in the middle of the screen picking things up from the stage. She is made the focus of this shot with the large back light behind her creating a shadow effect with the contrast of the bright light and the girl’s dark clothes.

In the last screen shot there is a man sat in a chair who is being illuminated from the bottom left hand corner which causes an attached shadow on his face from the position of his hand.

Post 11: Media Language - Lighting 1 (Shape & Texture)

Lighting is a huge part of any film and can change the way a whole film is interpreted. Film Noir is ‘is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasise cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography.’

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir

Some examples of famous film noir films are Double Indemnity (1944), Touch of Evil (1958) and The Maltese Falcon (1941)

In film noir lighting is very important and can be used to create different effects. In black and white films lighting was more important than ever because it was emphasised more with the lack of colour. It also meant it was easier to create shadows and new and interesting ways to use them. There are two main ways to describe shadows; cast shadows and attached shadows.

Cast shadows are when a person on screen is partially illuminated because an object is blocking the light source, for example another person, door or blinds.

Attached shadows are when an object or someone’s features are partially illuminated due to something natural being in the way, for example, a hat or hair creating shadows on a face.

 

 

Here is our experiment where we tried to create the Venetian blind effect.

Lighting is very important when it comes to creating atmosphere and aspects of a character so to make sure we use the best effects on our film we researched other films to learn about how even subtle lighting enhances the story line. We had already watched the film Lolita earlier on in our research in to sexual grooming and looking back at it we realised how lighting had played a big role in creating our opinions of the characters. For example in this shot here Humbert is in a shadow cast by an object off screen (maybe Lolita’s sitting in the light from the window). This suggests to the audience that Lolita is an innocent character, whereas Humbert is secretive, confined and mysterious.

Other films which we looked at which are film noir films were Double Indemnity and Asphalt Jungle.

Double Indemnity- in this screen shot you can see a man who is standing facing a window; the shadow lines across his body are most likely to be coming from blinds across the window. This draws the audience’s attention to him and by doing so suggests that he is the more important out of the two men.

Asphalt Jungle- in this screen shot the main light source is evident as the overhead light is on screen creating mood and suggesting that because the characters have only got this light source focused over what they are doing that what they are doing is secretive. This is also suggested by the fat that apart from this light source the rest of the screen is darker suggesting that they are up to no good. There is a man sitting at the table whose hat blocks the light on his face which could show that he is an important character in this scene or that he is hiding something from the others.

Lighting can also change our sense of shape and texture, with Josef Von Sternberg -thought to of been one of the cinema's masters of film lighting, said "The proper use of light can embellish and dramatise every object." An example of this theory is shown through the clip Lemon by Hollis Frampton, by moving the light in various ways and focusing on various angles of the lemon, you are able to create what appears to be an entirely new object for the audience.  

Lemon - Hollis Frampton
 

After seeing this as a group we did two experiments changing shape and texture with light. 
 

 





Post 10: Script Feedback

Before we could officially complete our script we wanted to get feedback from our target audience. Throughout the process of writing and re-writing I had shown my friends, and coincidently people from our target audience, sections of the script and they had offered their opinions and views about what we had. However, because they hadn’t seen the entire script and because they are biased we didn’t only rely on their opinion. We then showed the finished script to a random sample of people in our target audience and collected their feedback. Once we had collected all the feedback we then discussed whether we should make additional changes to the script and to what parts.

Most of the feedback we received was positive with small suggestions like making sure the language used by the characters fit the age and class of people of a similar position. This meant we would have to go through the script changing phrasing and grammar to make it appear more realistic to the audience.

Another piece of feedback we received was that the ending was too clichéd and happy, with the bad guy being arrested, some of our target audience wanted an extra twist at the end. We thought about what we could add to shock the audience and agreed on the idea that Alan should be having a sexual relationship with his daughter. We hoped this would shock and appal the audience and on re-reading with an extra sentence added on the end all of our target audience agreed that they didn’t see it coming and that it ‘creeped us out’.

We tried to act on as much of the feedback that we could whilst trying to still keep as close to our ideas as possible in the hope that it would lead to a stronger final script.

 

Post 9: Script Workshop 2

After removing, adding and changing our script we are almost finished writing it. We made quite a few changes over the course of changing it in order to create the best script we could and one that would be most beneficial to telling the story and showing the different stages of sexual grooming. They also helped develop the characters and their relationships.

 

We developed the relationship between Alan and Sophie to make it seem more realistic to the audience by giving them a past, shown mainly through the montages. In discussions we agreed as a group that we didn’t want to make it as obvious that Alan is grooming Sophie as it had been in our AS and previous drafts so decided not to include any physical of sexualised scenes in the hopes of keeping the audience guessing. We used subtle hints to suggest what was going on, such as Alan putting his hand on her shoulder, but also to confuse the audience, for example the looks Sophie gives Alan suggest she has made up their relationship or that Alan sees her as a daughter. We also edited the dialog to make it not only seem more realistic but suggestive and open for interpretation into what they mean.

 

 

 

We also wanted to make sure the stages of grooming were well defined and visible to the audience. By doing this not only will it inform the audience on the stages of sexual grooming but it also shows the development of the characters and the story.

 

 

Another thing we changed was the language the characters use, when we originally wrote it we had used grammar and fully formed sentences but when people speak they don’t speak like that. We went through, especially the girl’s (Sophie and Paige) and changed their dialogue by using more ‘common’ words and adding ‘slag’ in to make it more realistic.

 

Once we had a complete script we sat down with our actors for a read-through, we recorded a few scenes to see what kind of set up would be best.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R120aRCaXBc&feature=youtu.be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtQqcwJRYUE&feature=youtu.be

Throughout writing the script we have asked the opinions of our target audience and before it is finished we are now waiting to hear the feedback from them to make sure it sounds right, the story is understandable and easy to understand yet keeps them guessing and that they would find it interesting if they were going to watch the film.