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.