Monday 27 February 2012

The use of font in titles

In most film noir OTSs they use font the matches the genre of the film. Film noir's usually involve rule breaking, violence, and sexual attraction. They make the font match up to this by making it look like the text was drawn by someone who has cut the tip of their finger to use as a writing object. This is a good use of font as it blends in well with the OTS of a film noir, which usually consists of dark, dingy shots in smoke filled rooms with chiaroscuro lighting effects.

Thursday 9 February 2012

Storyboard

This lesson we were given a story of which the plot had been mixed up. We hat to rearrange each part of the story to how we think it related to todorovs narrative theory.
Todorovs theory was structure like this
Equilibrium
Disruptive Event
Recognition of disruption
Attempting to repair structure
New equilibrium
That picture shows how
we structured the story. We were then told to take a picture for every piece of the picture and make it into a storyboard.

Iconography associated with film noir films.

Here are a few typical photos that relate to film noir.

This is typical iconography of film noir, a bad girl holding a gun!


In this photo it is relevant to most film noir films, silhouettes and chiaroscuro lighting.


Here is a typical shot from a film noir of cigarette smoke, which has a silhouette effect. Smoking is a tradition in all film noir films.


Although this image is an illustration, it's a perfect example of a car you would see in a film noir, a black, shiny body with white tires and headlights beaming into the nighttime mist


This last image is great iconography of film noir films! Not only is he holding a gun, he also has a black hat on, but the light shining through the blinds chiaroscuro lighting, which is a contrast between light and dark.

Wednesday 8 February 2012

Continuity task rules.

Our continuity task must involve the following rules:
Shot/reverse shot. This is used to show us a two way conversation, and the camera points at whoever is talking, and sometime cuts between characters to show their reactions/facial expressions.

180 degree rule. This is also used to show a two way conversation but sometimes we can see both characters at the same time. The idea is that the camera must stay within a 180o angle otherwise it will look like the characters are the other way round and this may confuse the audience.

Match an action. A good example of action match is someone smoking a cigarette in one scene, and as he leans down to put it out, the scene cuts and someone else ends up putting the cigarette out.

Foleying

Foleying is when a sound is used to replicate anohter sound. It is non-diagetic, and is considered the art of creating sound.

Sound - Understanding how to use it

My initial thoughts about using sound in film.
Sound is very important in terms of film, infact it is just important as the picture its self. Sound includes the charactors voice, which we need to hear to understand what is going on in the film. It also includes sound effects which can help us to determine what is going on in the film, for example in a night show where we cannot see anything, if we hear the sound of an engine we will know there is a car passing or pulling up. Then there is background noise, which we do not notice as much when we are listening to a character, but it can include things such as wind, birds singing or trees russling. And lastly there is music. Music often matches what is happening in a scene, for example in a film noir music will get louder to build up tention.
After doing an activity on sound, I am a bit more comfortable on what sound is about. I learnt about the different types of sound, including Diagetic&non-diagetic sound, synchronous sound, asynchronous sound, contrapuntal sound, dialogue and a wild track.

Monday 6 February 2012

Film noir DVD cover art.

All film nor DVD cover art is quite similar. The particular DVD I have is called the big steal. The title is featured at the top of the cover in large, bold red lettering. The antihero is standing with his lady. He has more power and we can see this because he is taller than her and she is looking up at him. We also get a chiaroscuro lighting effect which is a very high contrast between light and dark.