Types of Film Editing_Cutting_Cut-aways

Cut- aways need not match previous scenes, because they are not a part of the main event. Cut-aways are shots of secondary action- directly or indirectly related to the main action- used as a reaction, a comment or a dirtraction. However, cut-aways should be established when they appar as part of the original long shot and later moved off-screen, when the camera is moved in to film the principal players. A long shot may depict several players. Later, the action may be covered with a two- shot. The off- screen players' reactions are directly tied in with cut- away close-ups. In this instance, it is important that each player be shown with the proper right or left look, to match his established off- screen position in relation to the principal players. The wrong look will give the impression the player is now on the side oposite that shown in the establishing long shot.

Reference:

Mascelli, J. V. (1965). The Five C's of  Cinematography. The United States: radstone publications.

Types of Film Editing_Cutting_continuity cutting

Continuity cutting consists of matched cuts, in which continuous action flows from one shot to another; and cut-aways, in which the action shown is not a portion of the previous shot. A continuous sequence, or series of matched cuts, may consist of various typs of shots filmed from different angles. The event depicted, however, should appear as a continuous series of moving images. Whenever action continues, the players' movements, positions and looks should match through spliced together. A mis-match, caused by change in bodyposition or a switch in directional look, will result in a jump-cut. This occurs because the player will appear to jerk or jump across the splice between shots.

Whenever the camera is moved straight in from a long or medium shot to a closer set-up, a mis-match becomes most discernible. A minor mis-match, such as a slight difference in had position, may go unnoticed if the camera is shifted to a slightly different angle, as it is moved in for closer shots. It is always wiser, therefore, to move the cameracloser and to one side of the subject, rather than straight in. Whenever a shot includes a portion of the previous scene- such as when cutting from a long shot to a medium shot- players' positions, body movements and looks should be duplicated as closely as possible. An arm should not be shown raised in the long shot, and then apear lowered in the following medium shot. A head should not be depicted turned in a different direction, so that the player's look does not match the previous shot. Such discernible differences in screen images will jar the audience. When the camera is moved back, or cut back, from a closer shot to a longer view, it is necessary only to match the action shown in the previous close-up, because everything else was outside the frame. Cutting from a long shot to a close-up and then cutting back to the long shot again permits considerable cheating. The audience, beingmomentarily distracted, will accept any change in the last long shot as having occurred while the close-up was on screen.

Reference:

Mascelli, J. V. (1965). The Five C's of  Cinematography. The United States: radstone publications.

Cutting_ Introduction

Film editing may be compared with cutting, polishing and mounting a diamond. A diamond in the rough state is barely recognizable. The raw diamond must be cut, polished and mounted so that its inherent beauty can be fully appreciated. In the same way, a film story is a jumble of odd shots until, like the diamond, it is cut, polished and mounted. Both diamond and film are enhanced by what is removed! What remains tells the story.

Only good editing can bring life to a motion picture! The various shots are just so many odd pieces of film until they are skillfully assembled to tell a coherent story. Cutting takes up the slack in the film, by removing all superfluous footage: false starts, overlaps, unnecessary entrances and exits, extra scenes,duplicated action, bad takes. What is left must be woven into a continuous narrative; to present the screen story in a manner that captures audience interest and holds attention from opening scene to final fade-out.

Reference:

Mascelli, J. V. (1965). The Five C's of  Cinematography. The United States: radstone publications.

Shot_14- The Composition For Time Contunity

Look at these five pictures below, there are five different actions separately and the camera stays at the same postion as well as angle all the time. It is impportant to clearly show the position of glassman to the little ball each action, which express he is trying different ways to research the little ball and spends a long time.

Animation in Screen 2

The pictures are being rendered and I will upload the text as well as pictures later.

Composition- Animation in Screen

I have resolved the problem about motion textures that I can use them in the proper time. It is very important for expressing my project in the narrative, and the render is going well. I will finish it in 3 days.

Let me take shot_07- shot_12 for instance.

Screen Animation 01

Screen Animation 02

The alarm is warnning and then he goes there to shut down it. The monitor is working sudenly that both of Screen Animation 01 and 02 in those two big screen. The 01 is the monitor to analise the distance of the UFO and 02 is scanning as well as analysing its structure. From the Screen Animation 02 the audience could understand the little ball is recyclable. They could easily understand the glassman operating the computer to recycle it.

The glassman click on the buttons to activate the recycle system.

This close-up is highlighting the action which will make the audience curious what will happen.

Screen Aniamtion 03

 From the Screen Animation 03 the audience could know the spaceship is recycling the little ball.

Then the little ball is moved to the cockpit by lift.

Capture Shot19

The little creature found it is scanned by infrared ray from the screen and it jumped out of its small spaceship near the glassman. It looked at him and then they were watching the screen together. The screen showed it is not an identified creature.

Lighting Test Shot_12 and Shot_17

The picture is not with AO pass

Image of Screen 1

Lighting Test

Shot_02

Shot_03

Shot_04

I hope lighting design could make the atomosphere mysterious and psychedelic. So I use 6  Directional Lights and 5 point lights, which have hard contrast, blue and yellow. However I find it is easily to make the image a little bit dirty and I need to do more experiment and some special effects in AE.

Capture Shot18

Capture Shot17

At the beginning the glassman is at left side and the little creature is at right side, and his angle is low angle which is for showing he is looking down at it suprisingly. The shot is moving to the little creature slowly at eye level camera angle because I do not want to show its body inside of the little ball which could make the audience more curious about its shape.

The camera turns around. They look at each other curiously.  

Finally the camera turns around opposite angle. The glassman sit down in chair and move to left side. Such an angle is clearly showing his movement and make the audience understand the next shot easily. These different camera angle are turning around the little creature which show its eyes for audience.

Capture Shot16

Capture Shot15

Capture Shot14

Capture Shot13

Capture Shot11

Capture Shot10

Capture Shot09

Time Continuity

Actual time moves forward only, chronologically. Motion picture chronology, however, may present the story in reel- rather than real- time. Motion picture time may be divided into four categories: present, past, future, and conditional. A motion picture story may employ one or more of these time elements, singly or in any combination. The film may depict events as happening in the present, and then switch backward or forward; or it may compress, expand or freeze time in any manner. However time is portrayed, its handling must be easily comprehended by the audience.

Uses of real time, and employment of dream time, are limited only by the imagination and technical abilities of those producing the film. However the time factor is employed, the film story based on time continuity is told with the passage of either actual or fanciful time.

Present-time continuity depicts the action as if occurring now. This is the most popular and least confusing method of presenting the material. Events transpire in a logical, straightforward see-it-now way; so that, regardless of story developments, transitions, continuity lapses, the audience is always watching the event in the present. The viewer observing events this way has a stronger feeling of participation in the screen happenings. Neither he nor the screen characters know what will come next. This keeps the viewer interested in following the screen story to its conclusion.

Reference:

Mascelli, J. V. (1965). The Five C's of  Cinematography. The United States: radstone publications.

New Shots

catalogue image and text

My workexplores the notion ofcinematographyusing the 3D animation toolset.The focus of which is the use of camera angle, camera movements, continuity, close-ups as well as composition.By practical research and experimentation I wish to heighten the audience’s understanding of the narrative and their enjoyment of the piece.

Story introduction:

By 2084 Humans have explored to the edge of the Milky Way. Our heroisthe captain of a cargo shipNO. 007 of The Earth Defence Army and his task is to recycle space junk at edge of the Milky Way. On one such mission he finds a UFO. He has never seen such a strange craft before but he recycles it anyway. After recycling it he is surprised to find the craft still occupied. He thinks the alien must be from an advanced civilization who was planning on visiting the earth as anemissary... 

After a series of adventureshe takes his new companion back to earth. However the emissary turns out to an experimentdesigned by Earth scientists to try tounderstand physiological changes caused by living in deep space. Unfortunately our herohasbroken it... ... This is an ironical story that the humans are teased by their science and technology development.

image for MA book

Camera Movements

Authentic camera movements, like their human- movement equivalents, never happen without a stimulus or motivation. Camera movements divide into three kinds of motivation.

Subject-motivated, where the camera follows a moving subject or adapts to a changing composition. Relatively passively, it adapts to keeping a subject in view. 

Search-motivated, in which the camera’s “mind” actively pursues a logic of inquiry or expectation. This mode probes, anticipates, hypothesizes, interrogates, and even goes ahead of the action.

Refreshment-motivated, in which the camera simulates the human tendency to look around when we run out of stimuli.

Camera movements generally have three phases:

Initial composition (static hold making an initial statement fefore the camera begins movement).

Movement (with its particular direction, speed, and even its subject to follow, such as a moving vehicle).

Concluding composition (static hold after the movement, making a concluding statement).

Camera movements from a static position

These include turning, looking up and down, and looking more closely.

Pan (short for panoramic) shots occur when the camera pivots horizontally, mimicking the way we turn our head to scan a horizontal subject like a landscape or bridge. Direction of travel is indicated as "pan left" or "pan right".

Tilt shots are similar, but the camera pivots vertically to reproduce the action of looking up or down the length of a vertical subject like a tree or tall building. Direction of travel is indicated as "tilt up" or "tilt down."

Zoom in or out is made with a lens of adjustable focal length. Zooming gives a forward or backward impression of movement, but picture perspective actually remains identical. This is because the size proportion between foreground and background objects stays the same. For perspective to change, the camera itself must move.

Traveling camera movements

These occur when the camera moves through space- up, down, forward, sideways, backward, or in a combination. Traveling camera movements impart a range of kinesthetic feelings associated with walking, running, approaching, climbing, ascending, descending, retreating and so on.

Craning (up or down) is a movement in which the camera is raised or lowered in relation to the subject. The movement corresponds with the feeling of sitting down or standing up- sometimes as an act of conclusion, sometimes to acquire a better sight line.

Dollying, tracking, or trucking are interchangeable names for any horizontal camera movement through space. In life, our thoughts or feelings often motivate us to move closer to or farther away from that which commands our attention. We move sideways to see better or to avoid an obstacle in our sight line. Associations with this sort of camera movement include walking, running, riding a bike, riding in a car, gliding, skating, sliding, sailing, flying, floating, or drifting.

Crab dollying is when the camera travels sideways like a crab. The equivalent is accompanying someone and looking at them sideways as you walk.

Reference:

Rabiger, M. (2008). Directing Film Techniques and Aesthetics. The Oxford: Elsevier.

Space Continuity

According to Mascelli(1965), telling the story as the action moves from one place to another involves space continuity. An expedition documentary, an auto trip or a travel picture are typical examples. To be acceptable, a logical pattern of movement must be shown. It is also possible- as with time continuity- to move back and forth in space, to speed or slow travel, or to be instantly trasported to another location; providing that the abrupt change in continuity is understood by the audience. Viewers should always be aware of location of action, and the direction of the movement. That is the only way the audience will know "from where the moving players or vehicles are coming, and to where they are going."

Space is rarely portrayed in a motion picture as it actually exists, except in a single setting; and then it may be condensed or expanded by physical, optical and editorial techniques. Illusions of space may be created in various ways. Space may be stretched or shortened through employment of optical transitions. This result can be attained by simply skipping unimportant areas; by altering spatial relationships; by ingenious editing and by imaginative story-telling. A simple dissolve may cover hundreds of miles. Filming only areas of special interest, or different types of terrain, may give the audience the impression they are seeing the entire trip- although only highlights are actually shown.

The pictures above are from Wall-E made by Pixar in 2007. From them the audience will have the impression that they are seeing the entire trip, the earth's atmosphere, the moon, the sun, then go out of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Choice of lens focal length may drastically change perspective, the distance between objects or the relationship of the players and the background. Clever editing may convince the audience that they are viewing all the travel. Inventive story construction may provide means of moving about in space, so that a great deal of territory is covered; while the viewer is unaware that much of the travel is really missing.

Audiences have been conditioned to accept the removal of needless travel, so for instance, that a player may be shown leaving his office on the tenth floor and immediately dissolve to the street entrance. There is no need to show him walking down the hall, taking the elevator, emerging and walking through the lobby.

Reference:

Mascelli, J. V. (1965). The Five C's of  Cinematography. The United States: radstone publications.

The pictures above are from Wall-E made by Pixar in 2007.