To Do This Week
Do: Search for a favorite movie scene or sequence (no animation please) on YouTube. Select a part of a scene if it is made of many shots. Take screen grabs of each distinct shot in the scene or sequence.
Blog: Post these screen grabs in sequential order to the blog. Then for each image provide a description for the kind of shot (long shot, medium shot, close up, shaky, pan, etc) it is. Use Class Notes- Framing for reference. Discuss how the scene is held together as a narrative whole through the camera framing and editing.
Framing Assignment
no more than 30 seconds!
In visual storytelling, establishing a setting is very important for narrative context. Where are we? When is it? And what is the story about? The first shots of scenes in documentaries, as well as fictional movies, often provide the viewer with a wide context and then essential details. Or, alternatively, starting on a detail and proceeding to reveal something in the wider context.
In this assignment, you are to show the aftermath of a situation or event in a sequence of video frames. No moving shots. No acting or dialogue, just a sequence of static shots that presents the aftermath of an event and the possible clues for what happened. This does not have to be a crime. It could be an accident caused by a child, pet or… teenager. The aftermath could be from something mysterious. The point is to use framing to convey, describe or evoke. Use at least 5 different framing compositions (long shot, medium shot, close up, etc.). Shoot, edit, compress and upload these videos to youtube.com or vimeo.com. Present the assignment to the class with a blog post.
Video Lectures
Please watch this 15 min early movie before class ( I discuss it in the video talk, and will return to it in our Zoom class):
Friday Class (Zoom)
- View framing assignments
- Continuity and Storytelling / Classical Hollywood Style > conflict, action/movement in space
- Griffith scenes 3:27 (station), 6:27, 12:06
- Continuity Rules / plan vs spontaneity
- Classroom Scene – 5-shot sequence
- Adobe Premiere basics
- Skyfall Exercises
Notes
Adobe Premiere Tips
Adobe Tutorials
shoot 720p, edit by dragging clip into timeline
Premiere export in codec .H.264, format .mp4
Presets for Vimeo and Youtube
Upload to Vimeo
compression guidelines
Upload to YouTube
compression guidelines
creative playbook
Cinema Form/”Language”
- mise en scene – world depicted/in front of the camera, faces, landscape, gesture, costume
- framing – camera position and lens, moving camera
- editing – continuity and montage, order, rhythm, syntax/grammar
- sound – voice, music, effects, 3d space
Cinema Space > Storytelling
Continuity Editing: connecting shot to shot so that there is momentum in the narrative telling and a seamless narration of causally connected events. All edits are discontinuous. Story and character drive the editing and the sense of continuity.
EARLIEST FORMS
Eadweard Muybridge – motion studies (1878)
Thomas Edison – Kinetoscope, movement, sensational (1896)
Lumiere Brothers- outside (light), portable, travel, “documentaries” (1895)
Melies – theater, vaudeville, fantasy, special effects, illusion (1909)
HER TRUST – D.W. Griffith (1912)
“A shot of a whole battlefield would be incomprehensible because looking at real things, the human vision fastens itself upon a quick succession of small comprehensible incidents like a mosaic out of such detail- the director counterfeits the operation of the eye with his lens and varies the length of shots to avoid the hypnotic affect.” – Griffith
Continuity Editing (The Classical Hollywood Style)
objective camera, invisible editing, dramatic tension (desire and obstacle), cause and effect chains
Continuity:
“Rules” Continuity Editing (and Shooting):
- Establishing shot
- 180 degree rule
- 30 degree rule
- Cut in / Match on Action
- Motivated Pov shot
- Eyeline match/ Shot Reverse Shot
- Empty frame
- Graphic Match
- Parallel action/ Crosscutting
Movement through spaces driven by the narrative.
Continuity Clips: North by Northwest – Alfred Hitchcock, cafeteria scene…
@madmatthies My head ✨bobbled✨ – BEHIND THE SCENES will be available next week on my YT CHANNEL #transitions #transitioner #transition #crazytransitions #fyp
Skyfall exercise
Download Youtube video – get Firefox Addon – 1-Click Youtube Downloader or use https://keepvid.pro/
Notes/Examples:
For covering processes -like somebody making something- think of five shot variations for each sequence:
Michael Rosenblum’s 5-Shot-Sequence
- A closeup on the hands of a subject – showing WHAT is happening
- A closeup on the face – WHO is doing it
- A wide shot – WHERE its happening
- An over the shoulder shot (OTS) – linking together the previous three concepts
- An unusual, or side/low shot – providing story-specific context
Student Continuity Work:
Assignment: Due Next Class
Continuity (5%) :
no more than 60 seconds
Shoot and edit a short video that follows the principles of continuity to create the illusion of continuous space and time. Try to vary the angles and distances of your shots: establishing shot, medium-shot, close-up, extreme-close-up. Sound may be an element here, but please do not include talking, music or verbal explanations. We are working on visual explanations, depicting continuity of action. Below are some ideas.
- Making or Doing Something:
Document someone making something or doing some focused activity. The process may take 3-30 minutes, but the final video should be no more than 60 seconds. Document a single continuous action (making art, playing sports, cooking a meal, walking a dog) and edit it into a sequence that is between 30-60 seconds.
Post your Continuity Assignment with a Vimeo/Youtube embed (place the url on its own line) and write a 500 word assessment of your video from the standpoint of framing and continuity editing. What works and what doesn’t work to tell the visual story?