Mise en scene - Sound

There are two types of sound in a film...

Diegetic sounds:  diegetic is when its source is visible or implied in the world of the film. Common diegetic sounds present in most films are:

• Dialogue
• Ambient sound

Non-diegetic sound: Sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film:  

•  Voices of characters 
•  Sounds made by objects in the story
•  Music represented as coming from instruments in the story space ( = source music)

The hunger

In the clip we witness the last few minutes of Bobby Sands life. There is little dialogue in this clip and long spells where little sound is projected.  This is unusually for modern day films were there is little speech is filled with sounds effects and music. The clip is set in a prison, the noise of the gates doors opening and keys being rattled were exaggerated and emphasised. I think the noise of the doors were enhanced because they were like the different stages of death he was going through.

There is very little non- diegetic sound within the clip. However there is one part where there is a flashback with a sound track being played over the top of three scenes, this allows the audience to see the link between the different stages of his life before he dies. There were also birds singing in the background at several point during the clip which symbolise with wanting to be free (like birds outside the prison walls).

Ratchatcher

• The film begins with a boy wrapped up in a curtain but its a rather unclear what the  abstract image is to begin with. There is also abstract sounds  in the background, the diegetic sound sounds as if its coming from inside the boys head. There are two sounds one of children laughing and shouting and another  a muffled sound that sounds like inside the boys head like blood rushing I his head.
• There is then diegetic sound of the mother then slaps the boy bringing him and the audience back to reality.
• It then goes back to the curtain as it unrolls and the same sounds at the start are repeated (the sound of children and the muffled sound)
• As the boy looks out the window the same diegetic sound is repeated of children playing as if that's what he is imagining in his head because he really wants to go outside and play where he would hear them sounds.
• There is a conversation between the boy and his mum as she runs of. They both have a strong, clear Scottish accent that stands out to the audience, maybe the actor is stereotyping the low class of Scotland as they are in a run down location.
• Sounds are deliberately heightened such as when the boy pulled his trouser of his wellies to make a point in this case him standing up to so him.
• The camera is then  from inside the window as if its someone's point of view we can tell this because speech is muffled of the children outside fighting although, the sound quickly gets louder as it changes to the boys points of views outside.
• When the boys head is pushed underwater the water the same sound as the start begins again the abstract unclear sound of blood rushing around the boys head.
• It then shows the kids playing football and the noise of the ball is heightened and then it goes silent.

Slum Dog Millionaire

I watched the opening of slum millionaire and put looked at the different sounds in each shots such as the action, description of sounds, diagetic/non diagetic sound, atmosphere created by sound and the music type- type atmosphere.

Sound in opening of genre films

In class we listened to the opening sounds of a selection of songs.

The first selection of songs were from horror films. There were no lyrics in the songs which made to effective because it gave a mysterious eeriness to the sound but it did include sounds effects in some of the music such as knifes and spooky laughter which went well with having no music because it meant the audience could focus on the spooky sound effects making the audience feel scared. The music is staccato that's suspenseful as the tension builds up.

The second selection of songs were from western films. The sound is made using acoustic instruments and strings. Western are different to horrors in the sense they have lyrics with the songs. They were effective because they were up beat and with all the instrument's sounding like the desert and sand you could picture yourself in the scene.

The third selection of songs were from sci-fi film. The songs are rather atmospheric which is effective because they make you create new world in your head and you can put yourself in the world created in your head. The sci-fi music is made form orchestra, so they're rather dramatic and busy as the music builds up getting faster and louder creating suspense; which is mysterious like the sounds at the beginning of horror film's.

Recreating the submarine opening

This is the opening of submarine that we shall be recreating.

Before filming

When we were given this task we were told that we could work in groups of one or two people. I decided to work with Molly as it would be easy to arrange a day to film and we felt that we could produce a better piece of work if we were working together than on our own.

Cast:  We decided to cast My eight year old brother to play the role of 'Oliver Tate'. We thought that this would be a good idea because it will be easy to organize a time to film. Also, by using my brother we can film the scene in his bedroom because he lives with me. Even though he is a little bit younger than the actor used to play Oliver in the film, we felt that it was still the best option because all of the other options we thought of didn't fit right with the scene or didn't have a suitable bedroom to film in, such as not having room under the window. However, we will use a different person to narration for the scene as we both agreed that my brother was too young and therefore wouldn't be confident enough to speak into the microphone. Also, he doesn't attend our school so getting him into the recording studio could be difficult. For this reason we are going to use someone from one of the younger year groups at our school to film as this will allow us to have easy access to the music studio and will also allow our work to be professional. We decided not to get someone from our age group to do the voiceover as their voice would sound too mature for an eight year old boys image.

Location: As mentioned above we agreed that we would use my brothers bedroom for the scene which is shot inside. We felt that this would be a good location as there is a window with room for him to sit under and there is a few things on the wall which is fairly similar to the boys bedroom in the actual film. However, there isn't anywhere near as much clutter in the room that we are using than the one in the film which could make our version of the film look very different from the original. Also, we are deciding to use the countryside located around Molly's house, in the village of Morley, to film the outside, scenic shots. We felt that this would be appropriate because it would be easy to find the time to film the shots and there is nice scenery.


Storyboard: We are creating a storyboard to aid the way that we film the scenes. The storyboard that we are creating will act like a plan on the day of filming which will make the overall process easier. As well as having a rough sketch of what will be shown at each stage of the clip, we will also write how many seconds each shot should be shown for. This will mean that we are able to know exactly what we are doing on the day of filming and we won't have to cut as much footage when creating the end product. The storyboard will also show the angle that each shot should be filmed at and this will allow our work to look as close to the original as possible, creating a professional feel.

Filming

When filming all shots we used a tripod to make sure that the shot was still, this created a professional look to the shots. To film the shot of the room, we used a slow panning shot from one side of the room to the other. By making the speed of the panning shot slow meant that you could see the items in the room which created more meaning and correlation to the original opening sequence of Submarine. We found getting the shot under the window difficult as it was hard to get the right proportion of window and still make sure that we got all of the shot of Annie's little brother, playing Oliver Tate. The next shot was then a zoomed in shot of Annie's brothers face. We had a lower angle for this shot to emphasise the change from a far away shot to a close up.

To film the outside locations we tried to film in the evening when there was a pink/orange sunset. This backdrop would create a similar look to the scenic shots used in the original clip of Submarine. We used several different fields around my house as they display natural scenes, similar to the natural clips used in the original. Once again we used a tripod to make sure that the shots were steady and level as if they had been shakey it wouldn't have looked very professional. We didn't move the camera to film these shots as we tried to base it around the shots used in the original opening sequence. 

Editing

To edit the footage we used Adobe Premiere Pro. Firstly, we decided to look at all of the footage and decide which clips we wanted to keep and which to delete. Once we had done this we had to put them in place and cut them down so they were the right length, to do this we used the razor tool. The aim of our project was to create a version of the opening couple of minutes of submarine, as a result of this we decided to use the same idents used in the original, film 4. Therefore adding in the idents between the footage was the easiest part of editing. After this we had to make sure that the clips ran smoothly onto each other, without stopping and starting and without having a brief moment of pitch black. This was essential as we didn't want the end footage to look unprofessional. After this, we had to add the backing noises such as the soundtrack from the opening sequence of the original and the narration, it was really important that we made sure the sounds in the background were in the right place as they are key aspects of the opening sequence

Evaluation

Me and Molly found it really hard to edit our videos on adobe premier as we have never used the programme before. We have all the footage and what we did what was fine such as the acting of the boy and the videos however we struggled to get the film four ident of YouTube onto our submarine video and the titles that come up in the original submarine video. if we were to do it again I would try have more experience with adobe premiere before trying to tackle making my own video.



Camera shots and Angles

The different types of camera shots and angles...

The camera angle marks the specific location at which the movie camera or video camera is placed to take a shot. A scene may be shot from several camera angles simultaneously. This will give a different experience and sometimes emotion. The different camera angles will have different effects on the viewer and how they perceive the scene that is shot. There are a few different routes that a camera operator could take to achieve this effect.

Establishing shot: An establishing shot is usually the first shot of a new scene, designed to show the audience where the action is taking place. It is usually a very wide shot or extreme wide shot.

Wide shot: An establishing shot is usually the first shot of a new scene, designed to show the audience where the action is taking place. It is usually a very wide shot or extreme wide shot.

Medium shot: In film, a medium shot is a camera angle shot from a medium distance. The dividing line between "long shot" and "medium shot" is fuzzy, as is the line between "medium shot" and "close-up".

Close up shot: A close-up or close up in filmmaking, television production, still photography and the comic strip medium is a type of shot, which tightly frames a person or an object.

Cut away shot: In film and video, a cutaway shot is the interruption of a continuously filmed action by inserting a view of something else. It is usually, although not always, followed by a cut back to the first shot, when the cutaway avoids a jump cut.

Low angle: In cinematography, a low-angle shot, is a shot from a camera angle positioned low on the vertical axis, anywhere below the eye line, looking up. Psychologically, the effect of the low-angle shot is that it makes the subject look strong and powerful.

High angle: A high-angle shot is a cinematic technique where the camera looks down on the subject from a high angle and the point of focus often gets "swallowed up

Extreme close up shot: The extreme close-up shot is traditionally used in film to allow the viewer to enter the character's intimate space, revealing certain characteristics and emotions 

Two shot: A shot of two people together.

Worms eye view: Worm's-eye view is a shot that is looking up from the ground, and is meant to give the viewer the feeling that they are looking up at the character from way below

Birds eye view: A bird's-eye view is an elevated view of an object from above, with a perspective as though the observer were a bird.

Over the shoulder shot: In film or video an over the shoulder shot is a shot of someone or something taken from the perspective or camera angle from the shoulder of another person.

Reverse shot: Shot reverse shot (or shot/counter shot) is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character.

Perspective shot: These are films in which the audience sees just what a character does, all or part of the time.

Point of view shot: A point of view shot is a short film scene that shows what a character is looking at (represented through the camera).


In the film City of God the opening is very short and snappy. There are many camera shots, all a few seconds long. This was effective as it builds up tension when the chicken is about to run. In contrast, the film The Graduate was simple using long shots. There was a man against a plain white wall as the credits came up besides him. This gave the audience time to focus on the main characters and get and idea what he's like. Lastly, the film submarine used long wide shots to set the scene and gives the audience an idea where and what the town is like its being filmed in. It shows the boys bedroom using a wide shot this meant we can see everything inside the room including the furniture and toys so we can get a feel for what kind of person he is.  This is followed by a range of different locations in an extreme long shots form a high angle that are shown  around five seconds long. This is effective because the audience have enough time to look closely into the film to get a feel of the atmosphere.

Long shots

Short shots: If you use a close up too late in a scene, and you're holding on an actor's profile in a two-shot, or a distant long shot, the viewers are craning their necks and squinting their eyes to see who's talking, what's their expression or who are they anyway!

If you use a close-up too soon, you may gain immediate intimacy, but lose a great deal of information conveyed through body language that may be part of the actors' performances.

Too much use of close-ups also produces "Talking Heads" type of movies, a TV show disease.

The close-up should be a natural cut from a medium shot that is technically unnoticeable, but emotionally poignant or revealing. It should be a subtle enlarging of the presentation and used sparingly like salt.

There are all kinds of close-ups, some are extreme, showing eyes or lips, others are soft and romantic; however, all close-ups should be well lit and photographed with artistry, such as, when appropriate, back-lighting or using special filters and nets, since they are usually the easiest to control and much of the photographic excellence of a movie is judged by them.

Also, it's what actors are most concerned with. So pay a lot of attention to your close-ups. Much of your popularity as a film maker will depend on how you make your actors look. They'll literally love you for it! I mean that only figuratively of course!