Task Eight – Transitions and Effects

In this post i will explain how different transitions and effects can be used to manipulate the diegetic time and space in a film. Examples of how you can manipulate the time and space are:

• transitions: Using transitions are a good way of manipulating time and space as you are able to do a wide range of effects. For example when you want to jump to another place / scene you could use the fade or wipe transitions as it shows you are to another place as one time / space disappears into another time / space. eg cut, dissolve, fade, wipe;
• Graphic Match: This is when you get something and match it to something else that is a similar shape and / or size. For example in the famous film Pshyco, there is a famous graphic match of the bath hole with blood going down it, to someones eye.
• following the action: This is when there is someone doing an action (generally in an action film) and as there is a load of things happeneing and movement, but the camera follows it all. For example in Mr & Mrs Smith at the end in the gun scene within the supermarket, the camera follows them around the whole scene.
• multiple points of view: This is where it shows you multiple points of view, through the eyes of different characters. This is a good technique if one of them is doing something good and the other is bad as it shows the contrast between them.
• shot variation: This is when your 'shot' changes / variates within the same scene, for example it starts of on a wide or / long shot and finish with a close up. For example in the Matrix, when 'Neo' is getting shot by the 'Agent' and he dodges them, the shot angles and distances changes, it is constantly moving.
• manipulation of diegetic time and space: Is when your character travels through time / space, this can be shown through a simple colour change, as in the Wizard of Oz. Also another example would be in Harry Potter when they go in time, they add a spin / whirlpool affect so that you as the audience know they are time traveling.

 In our film  the main transition we have used was the manipulation of diegetic time and space, so the audience can distinct between the present and past, is the fact we have used the whirlpool transition to show the going back and going forward in time and once they are in the past it goes into a black and white colour just like in the Wizard of the Oz, at the beginning it is in black and white but once the tornado has gone it goes to colour as she as manipulated space. 

At the end of our film, i used a fade transition once David closed the door to give it a better ending, as it makes it more dramatic and not as simple as just a normal ending. The methods i used i feel that i used them to good effect, the criticism i could give to this film would be that i have not used as many effects as i would of liked to. I would of also liked the two whirlpool effects i used to have be simultaneous as one of my whirlpools spins faster and in my eyes it does not look like it is matching.

Task Seven – Engaging the Viewer/Creating Pace

The pace of editing can be used to create a range of effects, such as;

• Engaging the viewer - Engaging the viewer is a technique director use to keep the audiences attention, examples of this are when they put music on over the scene, for example in Pshyco, before the well known shower scene they played a dramatic music to build up tension. 
• Speed of Editing - The speed of editing his a very common technique used by editors / directors, as it allows you to control the mood for the scene, for example if you are aiming for an action theme, the speed of your switches would become a lot more frequent. Also by increasing the speed of which you show scene, increases the suspense, for exaple in a 'Hunger Games' advert which lasts 0:36 seconds and has 37 scene changes.

• Cross Cutting - Is a technique used by editors that cuts between two scenes  to show that they are connected, or maybe it is because it is a characters memory.
• Cutaways - These are used in films to give the audience relevant details, without distracting them from the over plot / action.
• Creating pace - Is a technique that can also show the audience the mood of the scene as if the actually cut between scenes become quicker it is used to show that something is going to happen.
• Development of drama - This is a very similar technique to that of cross cutting, for example at the beginning of scream at the death of casey it is made more dramatic as if cuts between 'scream trying to kill casey and her parents approaching the driveway. 

At the beginning of our clip, we showed what our two actors was racing for. At the first clips of our two actors Luke (Winner) and David (Loser), the lengths of the two clips are very long compared to the rest in the video. Once they both made it through the gates, they time gap between cuts became shorter and shorter, to build up the tension and suspense of who's going to win. Once Luke goes through the automatic doors through to the courtyard that is when the speed goes up. At the beginning you would think David is going to win, but to create tension we sped up Luke once he was going up the stairs where as we made david go slowly, to build up the tension as he is just strolling, and cut between them five times once they hit the stairs to make you wonder who is going to win. The issue i have with the short film is that i would of liked to have included more scene changes to build up the intensity and keep the audience guessing who is going to win. I would have also liked to make the opening two scene where you see them come into the school, a lot shorter as it just seems to take ages for them to get through the gates. Even though i would have like to use more scene changes, i do feel that we used the changing pace effectivly as at the beginning the clips was really long and wasnt many scene changes, but about halfway in it all speed up and by the end they was changing very quickly, that is why i feel it wen't really well.

Task Six – Non - Continuity

Directors will choose to do non - continuity editing, instead of the more widely accepted continuity editing as they want to remind the audience to some extent that they are watching a film. The first two directors to start using these methods and making them popular was Jean Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut in the late 1950's and throughout the 1960's. They used methods such as jump cuts, to emphasise the lack of continuity in the films. Also a film can only be a certain lenght of time, so by skipping some of the more boring proceesses like walking, they can skip half of it to save time.

One of the main catalysts of non - continuity editing, Jean Luc Godard liked to use jump cuts when filming when using non - continuity editing. One of his most famous jump cuts was in the film 'A Bout de Soufflé' (Breathless), when the two actors are in the car and one moment you see her talking to the man (driver) and then it cuts back to her and all of a sudden see is applying make-up with a mirror. The reason it makes it a jump cut as in continuity films you would of seen her go into her purse and get it out, but as it is non - continuity she has automatically.

Another more recent filmmaker Stanley Kubrick used non - continuity editing in his widely popular film 'The Shining' as in the popular toilet scene there are two characters called Jack and Grady. Stanley  purposely broke the 180 Degree Rule, his reasoning for this was to give the illusion that jack was in-fact crazy / losing his mind, to make this an even clear fact, Grady is actually a ghost of a previous caretaker.

In a more recent films, Gary Ross also broke the 180 Degree Rule in the film 'The Hunger Games' as he was trying to show out of place she was once she got to the hotel suit as she was from a poor town, to now becoming something of a celebrity. Also he was trying to show how new and confusing it was to her as she has entered a new room, one that was probably bigger than her whole house back at home.