Short Media Artefact

This was a short media piece in Media, this was done in order to show and demonstrate our understanding of the different types of continuity techniques and cinematography shots and how they're used in a scene and what certain effect it has on a scene.
Next, we had to also show our skills and knowledge of the general editing techniques, such as transitions,creative filters, sound altering and special effects (SFX).

What are the good points of this clip?
The use of the shots given to us were all correctly used and usede effectively as it had created the effect of our scenes being presented myseteriously and from the beginning introduced this mysterious nature.

This is evident from the first pan shot of Junior emerging from around the corner and walks towards the staircase. 
The use of showing him first in the shot shows to the spectator that he does have some importance in the 2 scenes.
Also, the use of he pan following him aswell also






What did not go so well?

127 HOURS ESSAY: How does Danny Boyle use direct address in 127 Hours and how does it function as a narrative device?

127 HOURS ESSAY:

SECTION 1
'Breaking the Fourth Wall' is a type of direct address, but the contact only interactive to the character although spectators are still literally powerless in terms of communication towards the character on-screen. Furthermore, it is a film device and technique used in some films in which the character in the film attempts to make contact with the audience, in other words, the character on-screen would talk specifically and directly to the audience watching, and the character would speak to the audience whether they should make a particular decision about the situation in the story, explaining information or their own perspective on a particular character in the film, or recapping where the story has gone so far and maybe ho they've got to this certain situation in the present, as done in 127 Hours.

The film 127 Hours features effective use of direct address and is used to present different elements and aspects of the film. Furthermore, direct address plays a very significant role in the film and reveals things about both the main character Aron, and his background and surroundings at the present moment.

Direct address is effectively used in 127 Hours to often recap the story and where it’s gone so far and to reveal fragments of Aron’s past-life and how his family is like and who they are. Also, it is used as narration for something he is doing in the present moment or the future with the use of his camcorder, which every now and then he turns on to create this video log-styled address to the audience.

SECTION 2
Boyle uses the technique of Cinematography & Direct address as a form of narration to the spectators.

This is evident from one part of the film where Aron turns on his camcorder and starts to describe his surroundings and what his usual sights are, also, how the weather works and the Raven that flies over in the same direction everyday at a certain time.

This is a well-used technique here as it recaps what happens when he's trapped in there and what his experience was like. Also, this works in a way that it recaps the story to some of the spectators who may have not understood Aron's situation very well. This makes the spectators almost feel included in the story as he goes back over what happened but from his perspective, and because the scene where he falls is so quick and uses really short takes, it may have confused or slightly disorientated the spectators therefore creating some sort of confusion regarding the positioning of his hand stuck by the rock. 

The use of cinematography in 127 Hours was used to improve the spectators' understanding of the setting that he is in for the majority of the film and his surroundings. 

This is evident where is this high-angled canted shot from Aron's left showing all the objects around him as he gives a description of what happens around him and what equipment he has got, and he also explains the condition of them which reminds the spectators that time is going. 

This is effective as it allows the spectators to understand more of the story and from Aron;s perspective, which then seems as if he's actually taking directly to them and it is almost like he knows that some of the spectators may have been quite confused about what is happening or what has happened.

By including where his arm is and the water bottle, this also reminds the spectators that he is still stuck in that same position and Boyle does this in a way that they won't forget about the main scenario as much as Aron may take viewers away from it in some parts of the story with flashbacks or his video logs, or sometimes, his sense of humor which is surprising still there to despite the fact he is in a pretty gruesome situation. So the use of the cinematography was partly to ensure the spectators are all on the same pace in the storyline.

The use of Mise en Scene is significantly used by Boyle and plays a vial role in reflecting Aron's condition persistently as the story progresses.

This is evident throughout the film as when the story progresses, the battery on the camcorder would start get lower and lower, and so does his physical condition and sanity. 

This particular and genius Mise-en-Scene technique was significantly used as a monitor o his physical condition and appearance, the use of the battery meter in the corner of the frame everytime he is shown on the camera is to show his current condition day by day, and as the movie progresses, the battery starts to gradually run out and when this happens, Aron's health also goes down aswell. This is acts as a realization to the spectators that time is running out for Aron and that he must free himself quickly before the battery runs out and Aron's survival time runs out aswell. In other words, as Aron spends more and more time down in the pit, the more his physical condition starts to deteriorate, and so does the camcorder's battery life,which is a symbol his life.
This provokes high levels of suspense and unease within the spectator as they wonder if he will ever free himself in time or if the story will have a happy ending. 

Boyle's use of setting as apart of Mise en Scene is used as symbolism in the story.

This is evident where Aron narrates what happens everyday when he recaps where he is, he says he gets 15 minutes of sunlight when he is down there.

At that part of the film, he sunlight appears bright and stands out from the rest of the low-key lighting in the setting, acting as a symbol of hope that there is a chance and a way for Aron to escape.

Next, is the costume used as apart of Mise en Scene to show how time affects Aron and what he's wearing.
For example, there are  a few low-angled mid shots and long shots to show what he is doing or to re-establish what he's wearing, and that is when it is most noticeable.
The clothes gradually become pale,creased and dusty with a ripped,rough-look.

Boyle's use of cinematography is used to also show that time has gone by and is continuing to in 127 Hours.

This is visually evident throughout as the colours of Aron's clothing, equipment, setting and lighting become more washed out and pale colours.

This is effective for indicating to the spectators that time is going by in the film, making it much more realistic, also, this brings out and portrays the bleak, terrifying reality of Aron's situation in the film and this was Boyle's intention. He wanted to show the harsh reality of the scenario and make the spectators really have insight into how the situation could be like if they were in that same position and almost see everything through Aron's eyes aswell.
 Furthermore, as the colours had gradually became more and more pale in the film, it acted as reflection of Aron's current condition, that the fact that he was losing colour, he was in fact losing his character and gradually losing strength and energy.
The use of the colours becoming more and more pale on everything has shown this sense of realization to the spectators that his time is running out day-by-day and that he needs to get out of there or else his story could end right in that gorge.

Then, the effect of the colours on everything in the scene getting more and more pale in colour  is like seeing everything from his perspective, the fact that he has not got any food and very little water reinforces the idea of everything looking like what is in his vision.

The use of cinematography in the film is used to make the spectator empathize or feel something.
This is evident throughout the film where the Aron turns on his camcorder to start 'breaking the fourth wall'. The Close-up shot of the camcorder does not focus on Aron himself but it focuses on Aron's Close-up of his face  through his camcorder's LCD screen.

The purpose of this technique is to focus on the camcorder's close-up view of his face because he looks weak and in a bad condition, he looks reduced in character off of the camera so he turns the camcorder screen away so he doesn't see himself in such a state but to also show just how much trouble he is in, so it is used as this moment of realization that he is literally helpless, and the use of the Close-up shots of his face shows this.

In 127 hours, Boyle uses the technique of sound throughout the film to demonstrate certain effects to the spectators.

EVALUATION

INTRODUCTION

Our brief was to create a short media artefact as a group of 3 in order to effectively and practically demonstrate our understanding of continuity techniques and when they’re used.

So we were given a task to come up with a short media piece about a Detective meeting up with an informant and conversing about any information of our choice as long as it suited what we were doing and the basic outline of the story we were given.

We were split into groups of 3 to create the short movie example of continuity techniques.

The continuity techniques we had to include in our demonstration were:

-     - The “SHOT REVERSE SHOT”

-     - MATCH ON ACTION

-     - The 180 “DEGREE RULE”

-     - Some dialogue between the two characters

      All of these techniques has to be used correctly in order to assure our understanding of continuity techniques and the effects created by using them in a scene.

THE CHALLENGES

As good as the outcome was in the end, we did however face a number of problems during the production process in general which had really slowed down our progress and risked the completion of our media artefact.

PRE-PRODUCTION

In pre-production, the first problem was the planning of what shot to include and how we would show them in a specific way to create some sort of cinematic effect and would demonstrate good use of cinematography and continuity techniques. Also, there was the problem of the people in my team in this  having to find themselves being often distracted by other groups and not focusing much on the planning of the task. Furthermore, there was a real lack of focus within my group and it had seemed that I had taken it a bit more seriously then them, but however they did contribute, but not in a wayI would be expecting them to, and i mean buy presenting ideas on props,setting and costume.

In general, the group's attention as a whole was not the best and could have been much better if we had put in much more effort into the planning and importantly communication & teamwork.

Also, we had to be able to plan our filming in the space of just one lesson period so that was challenging presuming we had those issues occurring quite often, so we were against time. That however was quite luckily not much of a major setback for us at all but just put us under pressure as we had filming the next lesson.

Next was the storyboard, I had came up with the storyboard and it had featured a series of different shots to demonstrate good use of cinematography, however. it turned out to have too many shots and was rather complicated.

Because I was the only one to create that storyboard, it was a major setback because on the day of the filming, not only did no one else had produced a storyboard, was set for them to do, but we had to very quickly create a brand new storyboard that would be kept simple and only had a small number of shots. This had therefore taken up about 10 minutes of our filming time and had been done in a hurry which had made it not well pre-meditated, but that however managed to be turned into a really good piece of practical film work so it all worked out. 

However, it was a really major setback for the group.

Next was the matter of organising the props and the setting where our scene was going to be shot, the props were all thought of at the end of the time of planning the storyboard and shots, which was good because we would be more likely to remember them for the actual day. However, that theory turned out to be incorrect and they, the two actors in our group had completely forgot to bring the costumes we had planned to carry which had therefore made our scene less mysterious and noir-like as we wanted to make it. Gladly, the outcome did not look so bad as the clothes they were wearing turned out to be not so inappropriate for the scene so that was a relief for us. 

However, with the group's not so efficient organisational skills, the scene did not luckily require props, or we would be in some real trouble...

Finally was the setting, the setting that the scene was shot in was an appropriate place to shoot, but at the same time, not the smartest choice of setting as the room we filmed in was in the Music Department which had therefore meant we would be expecting some really heavy noise coming from the other rooms. Luckily, we did not get much of that, but children going up and down the staircases screaming and shouting was quite the 'spanner in the works' for us. So every time we had to wait until there were no more screaming children running past.

PRODUCTION

SE7EN ESSAY

This essay is an analysis of the crime thriller film 'Seven' and how it is classified as an original thriller movie by looking at it's key factors.

First of all, a thriller movie is not a actually a thriller without an thrills at all. No tension or suspense whatsoever.

What does make a film a thriller ,like 'Se7en', is that there is always this really exciting build of suspense and tension throughout, whether it's just in a conversation between the characters or the protagonist entering and roaming around in an abandoned warehouse, there is always going to be some level of tension in the atmosphere.

Also, in movies that is in the thriller genre, there's majorly this storyline where the protagonist of the story encounters various types of sinister, mysterious and dangerous situations. Although, it often ends up being very risky as the protagonist tends to often always run into the antagonist's traps in one or several parts of the story, like an explosive or a trap door, or even some action leading to the death of certain characters that they may be with. This leads me to my next point, there are two types of  antagonists in thrillers:

- A strategic, psychological mastermind who's identity is often found out at the very end and turns out to be someone who has a strong hatred or envy for the protagonist as in 'Se7en'. Also, this sinister villain would purposely leave clues behind for the main characters to gather in order to finally confront the villain.

- A huge deadly brute or a blood-thirsty killer that leaves nothing but the severed body parts and gore of random victims as clues but are not usually intentional.However,normally in some dark thrillers, each horrific murder acts as a subliminal message or a message or map encrypted onto the victims' bodies.
 Antagonists like these often create really tense atmospheres as they can be lethal and stealthy, usually the one that causes a death of one or more of the main characters in the story.

Furthermore,these types of antagonists are often not afraid to compromise their identity and is one who is most likely to have a final encounter with the our main character or protagonists.Also, what makes a good thriller movie is that it has to have a genius premeditated storyline that engages the audience and that also puzzles them, featuring red herrings and cheap suprises progressively as the viewers are visually captivated in a tense storyline.
The characters have also got to be well thought of as each character may act as a representation of something, whether it's the setting or apart of a subliminal message that all comes together at the end.
Also, to make a thriller even more better, there's nothing better than that one creepy character that appears and disappears out of nowhere, because then the audience has that one character to suspect and this draws the audience in more into the storyline, keeping an eye on this rather mysterious character. Furthermore, as the story progresses, the viewers raise more and more suspicion for this one character before later finding out that he had no major part in any of the antagonist's actions or even the story itself.

Now 'Se7en' portrays itself as a thriller film is that it has a very mysterious theme to it.
This is evident as there's mystery and investigation in the film which cleverly links to the factual 'Seven Deadly Sins' which is a biblical reference.
 That had been important to the story as  the antagonist justifies his crimes as absolution for the world's ignorance of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Like the sin of 'Gluttony' coming first in the film,which introduces the theme of the seven deadly sins, and the antagonist's horrid capacity is graphically demonstrated in the dark and bleak tones and characteristics of film noir. 
Also,there's a highly strategic and psychological antagonist who commits a string of horrific and graphic murders all linked to different factors of the 7 deadly sins as whole. Also, later on in the film, the villain intentionally gives himself into the police and allowed himself to get caught after all of the 6 sins were committed  however, the last of the deadly sins was 'Wrath' and the antagonist had geniusly premeditated this form the very beginning, as he pushes detective Mills over the edge as he learns that his wife was savagely beheaded by the antagonist. Dt Mills is tempted to shoot him, and by shooting him, Mills becomes 'Wrath'.

There's a very bleak and dark outlook on the city judging from the series of unfortunate events that happen there in the storyline. 

This is evident as shown throughout the movie, there is NO high-key lighting in any of the scenes at all. But instead, they decreased the amount of lighting whether it was in a highly-lit cafe or a house.

This was effective for creating this strong old-fashioned Noir feel. Furthermore, the use of the really dark weather reinforces the idea of the city not being a very nice place to be and nothing but but a place of ruthless killings and constant crimes.

NARRATIVE The film is runs in a linear narrative as it shows day-by-day how much the case gradually progresses, although there are flashbacks of crime scenes but still does not alter the way in which the storyline is being told. However,if the movie was to run in a non-linear narrative, the storyline and the ways it is told would be absolutely puzzling.
The film does feature some visual codes such as the entire setting, the city, which is a dark and bleak place where murders always happen, political problems are out of control and it is always a cloudy and rainy day. This works as a foreshadowing that the investigation with our two protagonists, Detective Mills and Sommerset, will go deeper and deeper and that more blood will be shed.
Also, there is that shot of the photo frame of detective Mills' wife with blood on around her eyes, which then foreshadows that she will get caught up in some unfortunate event later on in the story or that death would soon be coming her way.

Throughout the the film, there is very restricted narrative, however,as the story progresses, the viewers start to also get an insight into both of the two protagonists rather than just one of them as they play a vital part in the noir-styled storyline. This is evident as it was all viewed from the two detectives, Detective Sommerset & Detective Mills, our two protagonists' perspective, and showed how this homicidal killer had both affected them personally.

CHARACTERS
The two protagonists in "Seven" are original protagonists of an average thriller movie, first we have detective Mills,a rookie who is married, but however has no children, which implies that he is not much of a family man, or that he From the very start of the film, we learn that he is a rather suspicious and paranoid character at first, judging from the way he swiftly grabs and answers the phone as soon as it rings before is wife does. This then suggested that he played some part in police unit or relative to that. As the story goes along, we start to see this lack of seriousness and concentration as he investigates the first crime,'Gluttony'. As the story progresses even further, we start to see this short-tempered character which plays a significant role at the end as he is tested to see how much he would actually do when pushed to being in absolute rage. From beginning to end, we gradually learn more and more about his character.

On the other hand, Detective Sommerset is first introduced in the film and our first impressions is that he was as an average working-class man.
This was evident from the clothing he puts on and that he has set an alarm, for a certain time that then implies to the audience that he does have a job, and a formal one, judging from the long coat.formal shirt,slacks and tie.
The way the movie allows the audience to make first impressions of a character is throught that very first scene where they get ready to go out.

This was an effective component within the movie as first we would not guess that he had anything to do with an investigation of a crime or even crime-related, until in the next scene, it cuts to him entering an investigation of a murder in what seems to be a flat. However, his countenance is calm and tired but annoyed, telling from his really calm face, this implies to the audience that he may have had years and years of experience in criminology or even that he has witnessed so many crimes that it is the usual for him.

Detective Sommerset is the most persistent and determined out of the two protagonists although he does not often show this with enthusiasm we the audience would expect, also, he does become desperate to solve the crime once and for all, but shows that he is in a way eager to solve the mystery.

This is evident in the film where at some parts of the story, there would be shots of him investigating and doing some in-depth analysis in books and independent study of the '7 Deadly Sins' after he finds out that the killer is associating all his murders with them.`

In the story, `Sommerset' almost immediately understands how the villain thinks and he plays a seriously vital part as he educates both himself and the audience about how the villain works psychologically.

MISE EN SCENE
Mise en Scene, through Production Design,  is used to create a bleak,small and restricted setting.

This is