micro essay

An Analysis of the Cinematography and Editing used in the opening scene of Frank Millers Sin City.
My choice of film is Sin City which is a hybrid genre as it is a crime thriller and uses neo-noir style filming, in the sequence the editing makes the whole sequence stand out to the audience as it uses very good techniques that other films do not and it is in black and white which you do not often see in the films of this day and age. The Cinematography in this sequence uses effective angles and shot types so that the viewer could become confused of what is happening or why it is. How Sin city uses these micro elements is what I am going to analyse.
To start with you see a medium-long shot of a female character and instantly you see her and think what she is doing there as it is out on a balcony and she is alone so it is a bit strange. This could be used by the director to say that she is lonely in her world and has no one to care for her or it could simply be that she just wants to be alone. Another thing about this scene that stands out instantly could be the red dress she is wearing, as everything else is black and white she stands out and this would make the audience look at her instantly. The use of her in a red dress could be to show that she is a significant character, that she is in danger of something because red shows danger when used, or it could even mean a moment of passion could happen because red is also the colour of passion and she could be a passionate women.

The next significant shot is the male character known only as The Salesman, is shown over the shoulder of the main female character this is used to establish the male character coming into the scene, as he walks in the women rubs her arms as if she knows someone is there and sort of looks round, this is used to inform the audience that the women could be expecting the Salesman or that she is nervous as someone is approaching her. Also the editing in this shot makes everything a bit brighter as there is light coming from inside the building, this makes the male character shadowed and dark which could mean the director wanted the character to look a bit shady and dark or even maybe evil so the audience knows something bad is going to happen. Towards the end of this shot however the male characters face is revealed and seems quite soft and normal.

Greg Annetts Editor

Our film is a British Crime Action Thriller sequence. In the clip the audience are shown the development in which one of the main characters finds out about the betrayal between two friends that are in the same gang. After seeing his friend/gang member with his girlfriend he chases him and eventually catches him up and says 'its not about her blad, its about respect' a punch to the stomach of the cheating gang member leaves him laying on the winded.

My role in our group was editing the filming we had done and putting it together so that it flowed well together making it an exciting sequence to watch. As a group we decided we wanted the film to be in an urban setting as our genre of film was a crime thriller. To make our film more realistic to the genre we looked at different movies to get ideas from these to help us with the different camera shots, editing skills and sound. Some of the movies that we looked at for ideas were Kidulthood, Adulthood, Snatch and 4321. After looking at clips from the films we decided that Adulthood had some of the best ideas that we could use, from one clip of a chase scene we saw that this was an idea we could use easily and then adapt to it. This is the clip we looked at;


From this clip we decided to use the slow motion that featured in the film sequence,in our film we used this when the main character is chasing his friend through a point of view shot which was slightly distorted to give a more effective view of the character running.




To do this in our clip I needed to highlight the clip, then go to modify, speed and then change the speed until we found the best motion, we also distorted the picture to make it more realistic of the point of view shot that was used.
Another idea we developed from the film was the betrayal of two friends. We felt that this would be perfect to set up the reason for the chase scene, the difference we used was to use a Femme Fatale in which she is cheating with the main characters best mate who is also in his gang, this is the development of the film.
We used a built up area to set the scene building up the reality of the film. As the genre of the film was a crime thriller we wanted to use match on action shots when the chase sequence happened so that the shots went into one another perfectly to keep audience interested, in order to do this I needed to cut clips down in Final cut express so that when the main character is running after his friend who has betrayed him you can see that they fit perfectly together keeping the suspense of the scene.



We had at first decided to use a gun locking so the main character was unable to kill his friend who was cheating with his girlfriend but then knocked him out with the butt of the gun followed by a scene in which the main character would bury him, but the cheating friend would wake up and run away.
To do this I had planned to fade a point of view shot of the victim in and out to give the effect he was blacking out and then when he came back around do the same but have blurred vision leading to the point of view shot re-focusing. As we didn't do this I only did the fade out of the victim by going to effects and fading in and out effect. I felt that this was a good end to the scene as it makes the audience wonder what will happen next.

this is the last clip before the final blackout of the victim laying on the floor.
Thought the editing I wanted to keep the audience interested in the film and not bored of what was happening, to do this I tried to make the different shots flow together so there wasn't any gaps and so that the suspense though out the chase scene would keep the audience on the edge of their seats, wondering what could happen next.

After my class mates had viewed our groups film they made comments about the different elements in the film. All of the comments made about the editing I had done were positive, they included 'Parallel editing builds tension well' and 'good pace of shots'. The only issue that came up was that one of the close up shots showing the cheating girlfriend was very short in comparison to the males close up.

Overall I felt that our film overall was a great success, as a group we worked well together and had no confrontations over how to do the film. As a whole I felt that my editing of our film went extremely well and wouldn't change anything I did except for the one clip in which the close up was cut too short and should have been longer as when it came up it was only for a second which didn't then make the whole of the film flow, except for the one clip I thought it all flowed well into each clip and was a great success.

screen shots

Craig Gannon Cinematographer

Our film is a British Crime Action Thriller sequence. In the clip the audience are shown the development in which one of the main characters finds out about the betrayal between two friends that are in the same gang. After seeing his friend/gang member with his girlfriend he chases him and eventually catches him up and says 'its not about her blad, its about respect' a punch to the stomach of the cheating gang member leaves him laying on the winded.
In our film my part was cinematographer, i had to film everything we needed in our film so that our film could be put together in the end by the editor and so that the sound person could put sound to it so it was a complete piece. Through using certain camera angles and camera techniques i gave impact to the film extract and allowed the film to flow quickly and become action packed when edited. I also filmed camera angles that allowed the film to flow, an example of this is that i filmed the one of the main male characters and the femme fatale walking past and also filmed the gang walking to give the audience the idea that both parties of people were walking at the same time and in the same area.
In our film as a group we decided that we wanted an urban setting to give our footage more of an edge and make it seem more gritty as this makes our film stand out more. We then discussed what genre of film we wanted to make, this was easy as we were all in to the same type of film and decided on an action thriller in a town which involved gangs as we could kind of relate it to real life. We the proceeded to watch various clips of films that are along these lines, the clips we watched were Adulthood, Snatch and 4321, which are gangster or gang cultured films. In the end we decided that our film would be like Adulthood and involve a chase scene as this could involve some interesting angles and make an action packed sequence that people would be interested in the clip we used for our inspiration is below:


This clip gave us the inspiration to include a chase because it involves good action and some good tracking shots which give a bit of action to the scene. We also added a point of view shot which added to the effect of a chase and gave you a feeling of what it would be like chasing someone.

In our film I chose us to do a point of view shot so that you could see that the main female and male characters affection for one another and to show you that they want to be together. The screenshot at the top of the post shows the main females point of view shot towards one of the main male characters.

This is one of the main points to focus on of our film as this was the base of our clip because it is about betrayal. The betrayal is between the two main characters over one girl and that she is cheating on the leader of the gang with his best friend. Using this we set up the reason for a chase because the gang leader finds out about this betrayal. In the chase scene I included a match on action shot so that you could see where the chase was going and so it was snappier and looked bet.

Within our ideas for the film we originally wanted to use a gun in the confrontation scene at the end of our sequence, however we decided to change this as it seemed a bit too extreme just over a girl and we decided to change it to a punch . The punch was used to leave a bit of a cliff hanger in our sequence as i decide to film a falling shot that the editor could use to give the feeling of someone feinting.

Overall with most of the shots I filmed i chose to do short snappy clips in it so that our film flowed and was quick paced so that the audience would be on the edge of their seats interested and would keep wanting to watch. I also involved a number of different camera angles as it made the film look edgy and make the audience even more interested.

After the film was put together completely our class mates got to view them and make comments on each micro element so that we could get feedback, involving the feedback i received about the camerawork is that the "POV shot was good and worked well" and that the "Match on Action" shot involving the walking section at the begining established where each set of characters were and that it worked well and looked good.

In conclusion i think our filming went well as we had no confrontations on what to film or about the genre of our film. Also i felt that my filming was up to scratch and worked well with what we were aiming for, the only bit that i think could have been stronger would have been the shot at the begining as it could have been more stable and looked better.

Evaluation. Bronwen Martin-Miceli

Our film clip was a British crime drama like kidulthood and adulthood, we wanted something that faced similar issues as the films themselves, also looking at films like snatch and 4321 we found certain things we liked and inspired us, for example the soundtrack of the 4321 trailer. The choice of genre played a massive part in all details from macro to micro to ensure that we delivered a believable film clip that people can watch and enjoy without getting distracted by mistakes and unrealistic circumstances within the genre. For my character I wanted to have her dressed like a little sex kitten as she was meant to be seductive; the guys we had dressed up in trackies and hoodies which linked in well with the personalities of the characters. We really tried to get the mise-en-scene perfect for the genre as if there are slip ups here this is when they show and effect the film, it's important to make something authentic.

My main responsibility was the sound which I thought about carefully, I watched other clips and listened to build up music before learning how to construct a suitable soundtrack of my own; I had to make sure it built tension and suspense in order to grab the audiences’ attention and keep them gripped in the chase. At the end I made the decision to replace the end part of the soundtrack with a grime track from youtube (Ill crack your skull- Napper.) I wanted to do this near the start as I thought to myself it would be a really great ending but I left it until the last minute in case my idea didn't work; there was a point when it would've been easier to leave the soundtrack as it was but I'm glad that I put in the extra time and took the risk, this way it gave the credits more of an impact when they came on. Being responsible for sound I wanted to create something that involved the audience more, hyped them up, this for me keeps the audience gripped in the picture, without sound it’s very easy to lose interest despite what’s going on onscreen. I played around a bit with diegetic and non-diegetic sound once I was taught how which actually adds a lot to a film, by mixing the two forms of sound together you can make a really effective piece; diegetic sound allows you to build up the setting and atmosphere and non-diegetic plays a huge part in hyping up the audience and showing when the film is changing.

Our plans changed as we went along, although we knew the genre we wanted to base our film around it did take us a while to come up with some sustainable material. We knew we wanted a film clip including a fast paced action chase scene but we needed a plan and a story to back this, even though it’s not 100% necessary to think up a whole film it is very useful and less stress when you spend the time to come up with a clear idea. Eventually we came up with a small part in the story where the modern day femme fatale is used to break up two close friends in a gang; from there we changed our ending ideas going from pulling out a gun to kidnapping him in the boot of a car and burying him in the woods to our final idea of the punch. I personally wanted to go with the gun idea but this was seen as unnecessary and unrealistic for the situation which I totally disagree with, I mean we’re talking about London here not Cambridge.

We received feedback from Jake and Tom, two men who are both skilled in this area which is perfect for those last minute touch ups. It was Jake who showed me how to upload the grime track off youtube but it was Tom who spent the most time with us. Tom helped us on editing and sound, he first of all showed us how to cut our editing to make it more snappy and our chase scene more fast paced; it was Tom who showed me how to use diegetic sound to build up the atmosphere from scratch instead of relying on the shoddy natural sound which was naff and all over the place. We also used our classmates as our target audience; this is where I got feedback from other people in charge of sound which were all very positive.

Over this task I think I have come away with many new skills not only in using garage band but also in final cut, even from watching I have picked up skills in all different areas which I can now use in the future. I have also learnt how well sound and editing work together, I now realise how powerful macro and micro details are in creating a strong and authentic piece of film.

Changes

Our original idea was to have 2 different types of film, 1 was an urban setting, and a chase scene, and the other was to be a forest scene where we would bury a body. we decided to change this as the idea didn't really fit in with what we were doing.

We also used a gun in the confrontation scene but decided to change that also as it was a bit too dramatic for the type of atmosphere we were trying to create. we changed the gun to a punch, we think this works better as it is more fitting to what happens in our film.

Influences for chase scene

The chase scene from adulthood influenced us to have one in our film because we like the pace and action that happens in a short piece of time and believe it will make the audience stay interested with our piece.