My completed preliminary shoot

Second editing session of my Preliminary shoot

In my second editing session I continued to use Adobe premier pro, and simply continued to add to my editing that I had already done, with the help of Crerar and Ben. We took the rushes that we needed and cut these into desired segments which enabled us to put in the final touches for our sound bridging. Really, however the only new thing that we did during this second time, was to add an opening title sequence that forms an introduction to our Preliminary shoot.

'Dawn of the Dead' opening title sequence by Kyle Cooper

The opening title sequence to 'Dawn of the Dead' is very clever in that from the start it shows something very sinister and gruesome. For example, the titles are bright red against a black background and shown for time enough to be read. The words then run off the screen as if it is blood washing away in water. After each name has appeared there is an incredibly short cut to a rabid, bloody face that is presumably of the zombies that we see later. This is clever of Cooper as it informs the audience of the type of things that are coming. The remainder of the sequence shows POV and amateur footage of the chaos that we can assume took place before the virus to hold. Now this is visually appealing to an audience because it is showing them a number of different, curious and eye catching things. Cooper is intelligent in the sound bridge that he uses here also as he uses quite a calm and famous song called 'A Man Comes Around' by Jonny Cash. This is quite comedic in a way as the song is completely the wrong thing to play if you are summing up a devastating virus that has 'zombified' the globe, yet it works.

'Superman Returns' opening title sequence by Kyle Cooper

The opening title sequence of 'Superman Returns' is clever from the word go because it immediately captures your attention in that the first shot shows a sort of bloody red plasma ball that quickly shrinks into nothing. Now this sounds fairly basic, but what it does is so much more than that. It captures your attention but as there is only something of visual interest on the screen for such a short time that you want to see more the second that it goes. We then hear a heartbeat type sound and a black dot made visible only by bright light shining behind it, something that is not dissimilar to a solar eclipse. This shot then explodes outwards into a space type setting, with a blue colouring that contrasts the previous red and black. We then are shown greenish coloured rocks that fly past against a black background. The camera follows these rocks until all we see is a black screen. This is again clever as it takes away everything of visual interest, making us want to see more. Next comes the title sequence in which we are presented with a black background with blue writing advancing towards the screen, and once these words have got to a certain position, the words disintegrate into scifi type beams that shoot forwards in a 3D sort of way. We then see the iconic superman crest that naturally excites the audience for what they are about to see. The final thing that Cooper does to present a visually appealing and clever opening sequence is that he has the camera take the audience on a journey through the galaxy where they see meteors, planets, stars, the moon, landforms on planets and finally the scene ends as the camera very quickly zooms in on earth, with the sequence ending with a shot of what looks to be South America from above.

'Wimbledon ' opening title sequence by Kyle Cooper

The opening title sequence in 'Wimbledon' begins with a sound bridge of a tennis ball being hit back and fourth, which is a fairly well known sound, therefore it sets the audience up for what the film is about. I also think that Cooper has been very clever about how, on each beat of the tennis ball, the shot cuts to another area of cloudy, blue sky with a plain white text which is either an actors name, directors name or a word introducing someone on either the left or right of the screen. This effect is continued further as when the name of the film appears, 'Wimbledon', the next two sounds of the tennis ball make the word shrink smaller and then smaller to the point that it disappears off screen. This idea of the names bouncing from left to right on each sound of the ball continues, however the background scene is changed. It is of a moving, painted style image of the crowd and I find this visually appealing because on each sound, the heads of the spectators move from left to right, with the credits, and with the ball that we cannot see. There is then a break in the sounds of the ball for the crowd to clap which shows that a point has been won and it also represents the well mannered sportsmanship and eticet that is associated with the sport and iconic British tournament. There is then two more changes of backgrounds, the first of reporters and photographers with their huge camera's and then onto the umpire, who like the crowd is following the ball intently. The change of four different backgrounds was a clever move by Cooper as it makes the opening sequence visually different, and therefore appealing and it provides a contrast to prevent the audience from being bored in the first 1:00 minute that this sequence lasts.

Kyle Cooper

Kyle Cooper demo reel

Kyle Cooper was born in 1962 in Salem, Massachusetts, USA and he has directed over 150 title sequences and he has been credited for "almost single-handedly revitalizing the main-title sequence as an art form". He has single handily found two film design companies known internationally, Imaginary Forces and Prologue Films. Cooper is especially well known for his work on Seven, Braveheart and Ironman 1 and 2. He has 206 credits as part of the crew, and been nominated for 6 primetime emmy's and one of which he has won.

Editing the prelim shoot

When it came to editing our prelim shoot I worked with Crerar and Ben on a programme called Adobe Premier Pro. When we first opened this programme with all of our shots we created a new bin to contain every original shot that we had (rushes). We then made another new bin for us to copy the rushes that we wanted to use into (called logging), this then means that we could name each shot individually so that it is clear which shot is which. Next came the actual editing and this began by cutting our required shot so that we had the part that we needed. We then dragged our cut into the timeline. This process was repeated so that half of our video was edited smoothly to cut to other shots, presenting the same scene from a different angle.

Overall, I think that our editing ran smoothly however we need to learn to work together and to agree on certain things before continuing the rest of the editing next week.

Actual Coursework Task

Video

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source. Both preliminary and main tasks may be done individually or as a group. Maximum four members to a group.

Prelim shoot

Doing our prelim was an ejoyable experience and very informative as it was the first time that I had actually filmed something from a number of angles. The roles in my group were simple, Ollie (me) and Crerar were the actors, performing a short sequence, using the storyboard given to us by Adam. Filming was jointly done by Ben and Lauren, where the task of director was given to Katie. To begin shooting this sequence we bubbled our camera (Sony NX5) and got the white balance right by holding a blank white piece of paper before the camera. The opening shot was very simple as all that it involved was holding a piece of paper infront of the camera that had our names written upon it. Things became slightly tricker but remained possible as we moved onto shooting different angles. But Paul showed us a new way of doing this in that he told us that we should first shoot the entire scene with a wide shot, then the whole thing again with a over the shoulder shot, close up, mid shot and so on..
On finishing these shots we added some of our own to present a better understanding of our story to the audience. For example, we did an over the shoulder shot of pictures on a phone of Crerars 'husband'. This was because our story was about a women who is being told by her lover to get out of the house and run away with him before her husband gets back.

Overall, I feel that this task was a great success as it showed me the basic principles of shooting a scene, how to direct a piece and also how to work with the camera to gain the desired shot.