Understanding Single Cam

Genre- Kind or type of production

Audience knows to watch – fan

Narrative structure – Human behaviour; audience tied to films; twists; entertainment- fan

Format – Air spot, music, characters, title sequence, names of actors, running time, short, episode name.  Writer, producer, director.

Single camera productions -

Advantages - ease of set-up and teardown.

- the speed at which a single camera can be deployed.

- flexibility; the amount of time it takes to set up is minimal.

Disadvantages - you're stuck with one camera angle all the time.

- the huge amount of time that you have to spend in post-production.

Scrubs is a single camera comedy with a storyline told through the perspective of J.D. He provides voice-overs which allows him to discuss other people through his own inner monologue. It’s a realist setting.  The structure is non-linear as there are a lot of flashbacks to previous memories and there are also daydreams that J.D imagines throughout each episode. Closed endings.

It is a television program format set in series of episodes; it has a certain air spot to fill but can't go over the set time. The running time is quite short set at only half an hour. The title sequence at the beginning is kept short with the casting and names of the director and the producer. The fact that it's shot on a set opposes the idea of a single camera production as most people want scenes shot at different angles. Sets and props cost a lot of money, which is one of the reasons why this is a program set in series rather than being aired all the time like programs such as Coronation Street and EastEnders.

A music video of Mumford and Sons: Winter Winds is an example of a single camera production.

In the format of a music video. Every individual shot has been planned out (storyboarding) and edited together to create the story.

Motivated Editing

Motivated edits are when shots are cut because of sound or so that the audience can see a conversation between people; the camera angles will be changed and shots will be cut short and edited together so that the scene will show a clear conversation alternating between the people having the conversation; so we can see who is talking/who is listening and their reactions. The editor has to use the footage to make decisions on how to edit the shots together so that it makes sense.

An example is the conversation between Gandalf an Frodo from Lord of the Rings when Gandalf arrives in Hobbiton.

Montage

By definition, a montage is "a single pictorial composition made by juxtaposing or superimposing many pictures or designs." In filmmaking, a montage is an editing technique where the shots are put together in a  fast-paced way that conveys  a lot of information in a fairly short period of time. 

An example of this is a scene from Dirty Dancing 

Continuity

A seamless edit is a process which involves having no visual, audio or narrative mistakes.

The job of the editor is to tell the story.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/learntvnews/continuityediting Accessed on: 19/09/2012
Source: https://film110.pbworks.com/w/page/12610182/Continuity%C2%A0Editing Accessed on: 19/09/2012

Continuity Editing - A style of editing that requires the director to try to make the film a reality. This means trying to recreate what the world around us is and trying to make it easier for the audience to understand the action that's happening on screen. Within this style of editing there are many terms or ways of implementing the style. These effects can be used independently of each other to create desired effects. From the root word continue, continuing what came before. It's the typical editing style of most films and TV shows. It's primary purpose is the clarification of events, designed to tell a story clearly and coherently. The goal is to create a smooth flow from shot to shot. 'invisible' it doesn't call attention to itself or remind the viewer that they are watching a film. The audience construct a 'mental map' based on what they see and hear. Continuity editing helps the audience to maintain this 'mental map'.

Common continuity editing shots -
Establishing shot: usually a distance-framed shot that establishes the spatial relations among important figures, objects, and setting in a scene.
Cut-in: instant shift from distant framing to a closer view of some portion of the same space.
Shot/reverse shot: two or more shots edited together that alternate characters, typically in a conversation. 

Creating pace - slow motion allows a break in the action to keep the audience interested. The shot length creates a pace; long shots = slow pace; short shots = quick pace. The type of music that's used also creates a pace and tells the audience how to feel. Slow music slows down the pace and allows the audience to relax and take a break from the action. A faster beat speeds up the pace and gets the audience excited.
Shot selection - the shots can be given from a character's point of view to include the audience and make then feel like they're a part of the story.

Diegesis

Source: http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/narratology/terms/diegesis.html

The diegesis of a narrative is its entire created world, so any narrative contains a diegeses and every story will portray it in a different way.

The manipulation of diegetic time and space is an editing technique used to portray a story showing different time or age periods. This can be used to show the passage of a person's life or certiain points in their life with flashbacks and dreams. It can also be used to portray the environment that the story is set in, so it could be futuristic or it could be set at some point in the past.

An example of a futuristic environment is The Hunger Games. Panem is a picture of the dying world based on past events. The Lovely Bones is an example of flashbacks and dreams and we see the main character as being 'dead' in limbo.

Premiere Short-Cuts

IN - i
OUT - o
INSERT - ,
OVERWRITE - .
UNDO - cmd + z
Up Arrrow - Backward
Down Arrow - Forward
Arrow key left - Backward Frame
Arrow key right - Forward Frame
Ripple Edit = No gaps

The Lumiere Brothers, Georges Melies, George Albert Smith, Edwin S. Porter, Lev Kuleshov

Creative Media Production.

Source: http://www.earlycinema.com/pioneers/lumiere_bio.html : accessed on 11/9/2012

Auguste and Louis Lumière - Famous quote: 'The cinema is an invention without any future.'

Film-making history -
Their father, Antoine Lumière, an artist, set up his own business involving manufacturing photographic equipment. Louis joined him in the business and started experimenting with the equipment. He then discovered how to develop the photography with a process known as dry-plating. The brothers ended up producing about 15,000,000 of these dry-plates every year.

They then managed to recreate their own version of a Kinetoscope, originally invented by Thomas Edison, in a way that would overcome the problems they had with it. They combined a camera, printer and projector and named it 'Cinematographe'. Thus managing to create the first moving picture in 1894 with a screening so that it wasn't just a one person experience as the original Kinetoscope allowed. 


Source: http://www.earlycinema.com/pioneers/melies_bio.html : accessed on 11/9/2012

 Georges Méliès - 

Film making history - 
Georges education consisted of stage design, puppetry and at his parents' insistence, he studied English in London. When he returned to Paris Georges worked as an illusionist with performances centred around magic. He did this full time.

Around 1895 the Lumière brothers made a presentation of their 'Cinematographe' and showed it to the public. Georges was in the audience. After the show he wanted to buy one of their machines but was turned down. Determined, he managed to get hold of a camera and then built his own. He presented his first ever film in 1896.

Georges was the one to discover stop trick photography and he did this by accident when his camera jammed when filming, he corrected it within seconds but when looking back at the film he was amazed at the effect the incident had. He used this idea to create further special effects such as a split screen and dissolve.

He was known as a 'cinemagician' and was one of the first filmmakers to use nudity in a production. A lot of his film productions included science fiction, fantasy and horror.


Source: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/449633/ : accessed on 12/9/2012

George Albert Smith -
 He was one of the most important and influential people in Victorian cinema. In the early 1880's he started to perform as a hypnotist and he bought his first camera around 1897. His ideas and skillful manipulation meant that he could create a successful dissolve. He cut between lenses to allow appearing changes in time, location and perspective. 

His films show how quickly he acquired an understanding of how to work within confines of seventy-five feet.

He showed subjective and objective points of view.

In camera editing; post-production editing; static camera. 


Source: http://www.earlycinema.com/pioneers/porter_bio.html : accessed on 12/9/2012

Edwin S. Porter -

Life of an american firefighter - 
This film used actual footage of fires, firefighters and fire engines combined with dramatised footage which Edwin shot himself, this added tension making the film dramatic in contemporary setting.  He uses a variety of different shots and angles and was the first film maker to use a close up shot.

The film uses actors and it has a storyline; the characters are developed throughout the story. 


Special effects composite. 

There is a linear narrative. He's following the action of the film and he uses the action to take the audience from one place to another. 


The Great Train Robbery -
The film had a strong storyline, good camera work and excellent editing. Edwin used the technique of cross cutting in some of the scenes and he also used jump cuts while manipulating movement to cover up any mistakes that occurred.  

The film is a lot longer than his previous film, he had some scenes that were long and some that were short, he failed to generate a pace which cost him his audience's attention. 

There was a lot more action in this film and he followed the action throughout the story. He also started moving the cameras. 

Source: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0474487/bio : accessed on 12/9/2012

Lev Kuleshov -
A Russian director used an editing technique known as 'the Kuleshov effect'. Although this was already being used in Hollywood, Lev was the first to use it in the Soviet Russia. He was a controversial figure who made rare silent films based on his experiments. He made documentaries and feature films about communist propaganda and others from his own ideas.