The Reluctant Blogger

When creating film, it seems there is one element that is often understated and seen as a less essential component: sound. Without sound, a film is emptied of its full potential, and the audience may fail to realise the full embodiment and emotional response to the film. 'Emotional Realism' enables a film to be accompanied by sounds that both relate to the image but also the emotional feelings of an actor and consequently the viewer. For example, if a scene is one of suspense, the sounds and music that accompany the image will both set the atmosphere and mood of a scene and the feelings of the actor also. This in turn creates an atmosphere for the audience and enables them to experience a similar emotion. Sound can instil all sorts of emotional reactions in a person, and in film it can be particularly effective when used correctly. Emotional Realism is a consequence of internal logic – which is particularly interesting as without it the audience would not

You may think 'Editing' is a simple process; taking the film footage and cutting and pasting it back together in a particular style/order (simplified!)and that there is only one possible outcome. From recent experience, I have learnt that there isn't.  People see the world in different ways, which is due to the way they think and the way they imagine. People have their own interpretations of what is effective and what is ineffective - and in editing it becomes obvious. In fact the editing process is an integral part of post production especially in recent years due to the audiences more informed minds - in short, they can spot a badly filmed, shoddily edited movie a mile off! When it comes to creating film there is no real right or wrong answer - it all depends on how you think and what your instincts tell you. Originality comes from people who think outside of the box (meaning they think up ideas that no one else has or appears to have thought before). Editing lets yo

'After local youth Abdel is beaten unconscious by police, a riot ensues on his estate during which a policeman loses his gun. The gun is found by Vinz who threatens he will kill a cop if Abdel dies'. 'La Haine' is a French black and white drama/suspense film directed , co-edited and written by Mathieu Kassovitz in 1995. The film was inspired by events in the French suburbs in 1993, when  the young  Zairian , Makome M’Bowole, was shot. He was killed whilst in police custody and was handcuffed to a radiator. An officer had been threatening him due to being offended and angered by the young Frenchman's words and it was reported that the gun went off accidentally. The film is all about 'La Haine', translated into English as 'Hate', which is portrayed through the characters attitudes, their surroundings and the story line. The beginning titles of the film set a good foundation for what was to unfold; footage of burning cars and people fighting fil

Bullet time is a similar technique to Stop-motion animation, the main difference being the changing angle of a camera rather than the movement of a particular object.  Stop-motion is an animation art that appears to give life to inanimate things and make natural the unnatural, sometimes demonstrating the impossible. It works by shooting a single frame of an object, then moving the object slightly, and then shooting another frame and so on and so forth. Bullet time on the other hand is the extreme transformation of time and space - the capture of seemingly unfilmable events that are slowed down at a normal speed. This is almost impossible with one camera as it would have to move incredibly fast  (i.e. filming bullets) to keep up with a moving object, even in slow-motion. Technical variations include time slicing, view morping and virtual cinematography. The first use of Stop-motion animation was in The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1897)by Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton , in wh

There are three things that cause arguments in our house: 1) Someone standing in front of the television when we are trying to watch the television. 2) Someone adjusting the sound causing an interruption in the vital first 5 minutes of a film/programme. 3) WORST CASE SCENARIO: Someone turning the television off completely without warning or consultation. All three of the above cause auditory/visual disturbances. As soon as one of our senses is interfered with, our brains are physically affected. There is some indication of this problem in the quote: " I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced " - Obi-Wan. Some people say that silence is golden, whilst for others it is their worst nightmare. What is it about silence that catches our attention? If you turn off the visual aspect of a movie and listen to the sound there is still the ability to create a mental picture. It is not so easy

"The trick, intelligently applied, today allows us to make visible the supernatural, the imaginary, even the impossible. " - GM These are the famous words of the French Film-maker Georges Melies, who is commonly referred to as 'A Magician in the Editing Evolution of Film' and the first Cinemagician. Melies is considered to be the father of special effects, including: the simple fade in/fade out, dissolve, stop edit, double exposure and stop motion animation. He never once moved his camera in any of his 500+ films, and was the first to incorporate photography and narratives - in short he was a true auteur. The pictures below give examples of a Double Exposure - which I unknowingly used in a Photography Project for College. The far left is a still from Melies' 1901 film 'The Man with the Rubber Head'. See here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDmFxPpwlcQ The far right is a photo edit I made using Paint and Microsoft Word based on 'The B