Technology Standard Ramblings

Operating a Video Camera:
Well, For most of it I simply held it. Documentary live action styled. It would have been too hard to follow the action if it was on a tripod ie. the hotel scene. I did use a tripod for the scene of me walking and talking about what the film was going to explore. Also for the interview shots. The reason for this was that they were non-moving shots and a mildly shaky camera would not have been appropriate like in the moving shots. The camera was sufficiently controlled for the kind of film I'm making. It never wobbled too much and camera movement as opposed to the movement of the characters is never obtrusive to the flow.

Composing Shots:
Starting with the framing of the shots for the interview portion. The interviewer is generally shown waist up, as I am for the majority. I never cut off heads or have the subject cut down the middle to the side of a frame. This was dificult during the scenes in the morning, with me having to follow the character up the hall and having to adjust the camera. Some crafty as editing made it so these moments of poor framing were non-existant.
Lighting was horrible, and the cameras that I used did not help in the slightest. I tried filming the morning scenes using the camera I had in Australia but after an hour and having to be restrained from taking to it with a hammer I decided I had to find another camera. I understand cheaper cameras have issues with different lights and the new one still had light streaks and things so I removed some lights from the roof and the lines disappeared while still providing adequate lighting. The lighting was also an issue during my takes. My scenes of me asking questions had to be taken in 3 different locations. Twice I had a half-light half-dark scenario going on as the sun was much brighter from one side and my camera thought it was smart trying to adjust its lighting settings. Silly thing. So I had to take it from a location without light coming from either side. It wasn't ideal, but it is alright and seems to fit alright now.

Recording or using sound effects, dialogue, music + manipulation of:
Dialogue was my biggest disappointment. Having to re-dub the whole first half of the film with post-recorded audio is hardly documentary style outside of narration. Possibly only what advertisers do when they introduce ads to new countries. At least I did it so you can't tell unless you really pay attention and am OCD about perfection as me. So, I used Audacity and lined up my original recorded waveform and then used the waveform cues of my voice to re-record and then over-dub into the film. Muting the original sound. (Refer to picture below.)
Sound effects only included the establishing shot with city sounds and birds chirping. Juxtaposing the beautiful sounds including the sea to the aggressiveness of the mother. Oh, and also waves during the boat shots in the montage.
Music. One thing that I learned while doing all of this is that in documentaries you must make sure that the music fits the type of doco and also that you do not over-do it. I played around with including background soft music during the action outside of the montage. Especially the beginning, however it seemed out of place no matter how much manipulation occurred.
To fit 'When Doves Cry' by Prince in I had to make 5 edits to the sound file. The biggest being the complete cutting of about 3 minutes of the middle of the song. I then levelled the song to remove the dynamics so it fitted better with the volume of the rest of the film and for the playback systems that will be used in the classroom setting - laptops, cheap speakers. I did this in audacity. I also changed the volume so it is much lower while I talk then gets loud for the snare hit. The verse I kept in I felt had relevant music to the doco. The lines 'don't cry' and the general depressed, broken feeling of the lyrics showed what the holiday was like.

When Doves Cry - Original vs. Edit

Eden's Speech. The bottom is the original version after sound level boosting where you can barely hear the speech over the hum clearly visible in the waveform lie during playback. The top is the re-recorded speech which has been levelled and boosted which is much clearer, and was easier than trying to remove the hiss from the original. That simply reduced the sound quality further by also affecting the voice.

Importing Images, and also manipulation of:
I added them all to premiere pro. With the ridiculous amount of footage I took it did at times take a lot of sifting to find the best of each shot, however generally when I got one I knew was absolutely perfect at the time of filming I stopped filming and moved on or took one more. So generally the best was at the end of each section of shooting.
Starting with the general transitions between shots. Tacky transitions are my biggest pet peeve. How many films, or documentaries have you ever seen that actually non-ironically use the star wipe. The only ones that I utilize are the Film dissolve between the establishing shot and the hotel room. This is because the shots are parallel to each other, time wise. There is no break in flow, they go directly from one view to another. And then the dip to black. These are used between different segments eg. the start and end of interview portions and also once in the montage. This is because the shots are not happening one after the other, and are not sequential in the timeline. the rest is simply a cut transition and is the most commonly used in real documentaries. Simply flowing between shot angles or shots designed to fit sequentially one after the other.
I used still titles for the Title of the film and also the names/just painstakingly funny occupations of the people like they do on the news. It took me a long while to figure out how to actually make these appear on the image. But none-the-less they are there now. They need to be on their own track and set so that they are transparent to the background video. the font type and size also had to be changed to be appropriate. The fading out of the title in time with the image also took careful manipualtion. Originally the title was fading too late, after the image so I had to play with its track length.
On the section with me walking and the Dreamworld ride I had to cut the video tracks into multiple sections and then edit their 'crop' and 'position' setting. Cropping 50% off either side and moving it by the appropriate amount of pixels.
the only other thing to really comment on is the fitting of the montage clips to the snare hits on When Doves Cry. I zoomed right in and listened to where the snare hit in regards to the location on the timeline, then edited the clips to that length. This left about 4 seconds at the end before the family shot so I had to add in some cutting room floor footage of the swing ball game.

  A portion of the timeline. The video 3 section is the titles. Video 2 and Video 1 are video files. Then Audio 2 is the dubbed sound files, with Audio 3 being in this section the music and in previous sections the sound effects.

General Changes from the Original Plan

Most of what I have done is still the same as what I had before. There was the change from not having the 'attempt at funky eye opening techniques' as I put it before as it would be outside my capabilities. The change just meant that I filmed from the mother's angle as opposed to the son's. I had also originally planned to have the montage filmed in Australia but that was impossible due to me putting it off and I'm glad I didn't as later I got a marginally better camera to record here.

The biggest changes came from my original Concept where I thought I was going to make a mockumentary. Thsi quickly turned into a documentary due to it fitting my general ideas better found in the treatment. The original concepts connotations of characters and also the whole testing family dynamics were still relevant. I mention exaggerated realities in the concept plan, they are now all just realities. The exaggeration was for the mockumentary. Documentaries wouldn't be documentaries if they purpsefully exaggerated what was going on. The montage wasn't one going backwards through the trip, simply a montage. And I did end up using When Doves Cry.

So mostly the final product follows the original plans.

Production Evaluation

The positive aspects were far and few between, lost between the stress and procrastination of the majority of the process. An aspect that was positive about the whole process was slowly building knowledge about how to use Premiere Pro. I say this as the first day i used it I could have thrown a brick at the screen. But I'm not into destroying things before I've even paid them off, so I came back the next day and over the week of editing and clip manipulation I managed to make some things easier, while some of the more complex edits such as getting both clips on the screen at the same time for my walking and the tower at Dreamworld took much playing around to get something that worked. Also the fitting of the clip transitions (of the montage) to the beats of the music. It was important for the tower clip to start when the snare kicked in and then, besides the boat clips, change to the beats. It took a lot of editing of clip lengths and also eidting of the music to get it to work. I also enjoyed trying to fix the sound throughout the video. Mainly the talking. I am someone that while gets absolutely stressed at the whole editing process is quite happy when things eventually work and a masterpiece comes to fruition.

Steps that could have been done better are the original scripting. Looking back if I had have actually sat down and tried to get a solid script it could have been better. My favourite is the last scene with my mother 'and touch everyone.' how awkwardly amusing. The fact I went to Australia wasn't the most helpful of things that could have happened. I was supposed to film a lot more over there which would have made the montage better however I was purely in holiday mode. Then I got sick. So some of my original ideas had to be thrown out the window. Again, mainly the montage. It looks a bit cheap now.
My sound recording could have been severely improved. Having to try and dub the tracks to an acceptable level was just about impossible. Waveforms of my voice everywhere and having to put up with listening to my own voice. I pity other people.

To achieve these things I could have gone with my original idea of using separate microphones attached to the people top record the sound. Even if these were visibly attached to the front of the people's tops like on talk shows it would have been fine as it is a reality show. And in saying that it's also not Jersey Shore boom miked 'reality,' it is reality. It's not a movie where every little imperfection needs to be hidden. Overall re: the scripting and any planning, a more solid plan that I was sure could be gold would have been better. The feeling that everything I was doing was just a little bit average put me off fully investing myself in the project and putting things off. I can see now that even with what I did do that it isn't a bad film. But it could have been box office smashing level.
The fact I also used so much different technology at different stages of the production process was also an issue with the quality of the final output. I used a different camera in Australia to the one I used back home. I actually used two. One for the hotel room and also the establishing shot. I then used one on the boat which I borrowed off the people I stayed with in the second week. Then I used one for the majority back home which was supposed to be an upgrade. But as far as sound goes that is hugely debatable. Then I used a fourth one for the reshoot of the scene of me walking along the bridge going into the montage. I should have invested in a quality video camera. I just was a cheap production manager back then and wasn't going to spend more than a flat $100 and what can you get with that? Nothing.

Well, all in all these changes could have positively affected the media product. What is already a fairly good idea could have been better executed and the quality of the footage could have been better so that the editing stage wasn't such a pain. There was unnecessary stress when other subject departments, namely English, are throwing a mass amount of work at us. Also internals in 2 subjects during the final editing week. So, also, the clichely cited time management could have been better which may have meant a better edited project.

Focusing for a moment on the actual scenes. The footage of Mum - 'get that f--king camera out of my face' through until the door slam was my favourite single piece of footage. It brilliantly portrayed my Mother as an unhappy, vile character. It would set you up going through the rest of the film as someone who could change into this mood at the drop of a hat. Making the trip horrible for everyone else. The establishing shot was taken to go right across to the sea more, however due to a smudge on the window and sun glare this was not possible. Removing the smudge proved out of my technical ability as it blended in to the rest of the image a bit much. But I think it does still portray a lovely little city where you would want to holiday. high rises,beach, sun. Eden's section does show a broken, deprived boy. So all is well there. Ahh montage is as mentioned throughout and the day:1 activity is fine with me as it shows the stess before they have even left. You have to leave on a positive note or it can set the tone for the whole trip.

Exam Reflection

Well as a whole the exams went better than the mocks last year. I at least attempted to put some study effort in. However, this year I have put more effort throughout the year in so more information was already retained, especially in commerce so that studying was purely for brushing up on points and not staring at a page and going 'oh holy scheiße I have no idea what any of this is about.' Well.. apart from 2.1 accounting but who knows about accounting notions and qualitative characteristics, really.
In respect to Media Studies I did try but as seen in English my essay writing has never been particularly stellar. I'm not good at sequencing or the memorizing of points and quotes etc. I spent about an hour and a quarter on each essay I believe and didn't write everything that I could have purely for condensing purposes. In the representations essay I did have an essay memorized where they compared the boy racers to skin head Nazi's and compared their actions to those undertaken in the South African rugby protests of the 1980's but I felt it was too specific even within the offending group. Mmm I'm not sure what I'd do for the end of years that is different. I attempted to perfect them this time around so I'm not really sure what angle I would take next time. For genre I'd probably go back to basics and for representations write about whatever we learn in the coming weeks and write a parallel essay to everyone else in the class.

Various Tasks

Task 2: Pre-Production Research
Well, I had a gander at some professional documentaries on youtube of different styles. I looked at the documentary "Living with Michael Jackson,' as it follows his life and is intercut with interview sections. I found this most relevant to what I was doing. This documentary was slammed by fans of Jackson due to the interviewers negative slant throughout however the techniques included must be seen seperately. Upon running my ideas past various people in our own Media Studies class, my cast and Matthew Lane the feedback was positive enough to run with my ideas found in the treatment.
Before I left I looked up the Q1 tower, the highest residential tower in the world. It just so happened to be in Surfer's so I was able to film the establishing shot from up there. Too bad the windows were so dirty when I got there.
Safety issues were non-existant. There was however the one injury with Oriana getting the knee to the face and a rushed trip to the after hours clinic on one of the filming days minutes prior to the filming starting. Also, the day after the montage footage in NZ was shot my Dad got a moon boot on for his broken ankle. It only took a few months for him to get it looked at.
The searches for non-diegetic sound, locations and props were completed as they came up. Sound effects were simply google searched eg. The birds. Music was decided from the beginning and I worked my montage around it. Due to the lyrics mostly. And also due to the holiday my talent was my family no matter what I did.

Task 4: Crew and (Talent)
The amazing crew that will be apart of my film is my family. The main protagonist will be my mother with the counter balances being my father, brother and sister.

Task 5: Production Schedule
Filming of the Australian scenes will be completed on the 21st and 22nd of July. The night scene will be recorded on the Sunday the 7th of August and the remaining scenes on the Wednesday 10th, Friday 12th and Sunday 14th.

Actual Production Timeline. The only reason for a further take after already taking them was because of an actor flub or in the case of moving footage - cutting a part of the body, generally the head, from the frame. I had a pretty much precise vision of how I wanted each shot to look and 9/10 times managed to gauge that at the time of filming when one was 'perfect.'

• July 17: Citycat montage footage was shot. Single take at everything. Three sections were used.
• July 19: Filming of establishing shot. 5 angles. 1 salvaged however none were perfect.
• July 22: Filming of the hotel scene. 6 takes. 2 perfect acting, one framed the best. Plus it had                         the slamming of the door at the end which was only filmed for that one take.
• August 10: Filing of the 'Day 1' scenes. About 6 filmed of Eden's room and then looking towards the stairs. 2 of these were used in the film. One for the first time the angle is used then another the second time. Then 3 from the alternate angle looking back towards the hall and following Mum. 1 was used.
• August 12: Shots of Eden's Interview - 10 takes, 2 usable. Shot's of Oriana's interview (not used in the end) - 5 takes, none usable due to sound. About 5 different takes of me saying each part of my questions in 2 different locations. None of which were in the end usable due to lighting. 6 shots of Mum's first interviewee section and 3 of the second. Two of each were usable.
• September 2: Some footage was shot. None used. Lighting for it all.
• September 4: Montage footage was shot.
• September 23: Final used take of me walking and talking shot. 2 takes, one used.

Task 6: Art Department.
I will require 6 different chairs. They will be sourced from my kitchen and also the motel. I will also need some suitcases which play a vital role in the scene after the opening title sequence. Some passports to go inside some kind of bag. Multiple changes of clothing will have to be undertaken, the talent will have to supply this themselves and their choices are relatively at their own discretion.

Task 7:
Locations:
Surfers cityscape for establishing shot.
The motel in Surfer's for the second scene.
New Zealand - My house for the 121 shots and also the action after the title sequence.
The montage sequence will also be sourced from New Zealand due to timing issues and from pre-recorded online material. This is apart from the footage from the boat that I filmed on an iPhone I borrowed.

Speech/Narration

(Shot 3) "oh, get that f--king camera out of my face!"

(Shot 4) the person that is me/Logan: 'Now, I can't help but notice a mild agitation. talk ahh, talk me through it.'
Mum: "Let me answer that through a story from my life. Before you have children it seems like a great idea. Then you have them, they grow up and the novelty wears off. Moral of the story, save up and move to an exotic location. Buy a nice boat. Be like Madonna and adopt a child at 50 when you are past it anyway and sit around waiting for the benefits to roll in.'

(Shot 5) Me: 'Now you are the oldest and only son, correct? Right, from your perspective here, how was the holiday for you?'
Eden: "I'm not even sure what is real anymore, to be honest... No cellphone coverage because my parents are too stingy to buy me a new phoen and I havn't been on Facebook in 3 days. THREE DAYS."
Me: ..White man 21st century issues indeed.

(Shot 6) Our cheap fleet of last minute brandless, trade me bought cameras captured every moment. What were the reasons that stopped this from being a holiday that is looked back on in the photo albums in 20 years, but made it a holiday that will stop the family from looking eachother in the eye for 30.

(Shot 13.) Get out of bed! The alarm didn't go off and we have to be there in 20 minutes. *Shouted down hall* Joe, where the hell are the passports??

(Shot 14.) Thank God, here they are..

(Shot 15.) Me: So, you are of course the Mother in this family. What were the reasons behind this trip?
Mum: Family bonding. Every family at some stage needs a week together in close confinement. Really let that inner love everyone knows is there somewhere flow out and touch everyone.

(Shot 16.) Me: What are you looking forward to doing?
Oriana:

Treatment

The film opens with an establishing shot of Brisbane. This will be taken from a moderate height up a building looking out over central Brisbane incorporating a view of the river and buildings. The shot will pan across to the right and will involve minimal dense sound. Small levels of sound effects imitating the beautiful sounds of life will be included eg. Bird noises to contrast to the following scene of ugliness.

Shot 2 will show the family all seated in the lounge of their motel room. The shot will have a window in the background with low amounts of obtrusive unnecessary furniture consuming the rest of the field. This will make sure that attention is directed towards the characters and not the foreground. The mother will have an angry look on her face as this shot will be seen to have presumably have been taken relatively shortly after a fight between family members. The other characters will have looks of being totally over the trip altogether and basically just wanting to go home. This could be displayed through a sigh by the character sitting directly to the mothers left.
(3) The camera will zoom into a mid shot of the mother and will be greeted with a vile upwards stare and speech directed at the cameraman.
(Shot 4) will be the first of the scenes with an opinion 1-to-1 with the camera type deal as seen in The Office. This will show the mother as aggressive to make her seem completely unreasonable. She will lean forwards into the camera so that her whole look is aggressive, not just her words. This and any similar proceeding shots of this nature will be shot with the character sitting on a basic looking chair against a white wall with no other objects in shot. Again this is so full attention is paid to the characters movements and words.
(Shot 5) The purpose of this shot is to act as the counterweight to the style of holiday that the mother is trying to enforce and will probably be acted out by my brother. This is the same styled one-to-one audience directed shot as the former.
(Shots 6-..) Tentatively this will involve a brief clip of me walking along looking important talking which will then morph into a montage of various holiday clips with me narrating not what is happening in those montaged clips, but the basis of what the film is and why it is at all. The montage will include serious looking clips of an angry mother finger pointing towards the recipient of a complete ear full and a lighter clip of an ice-cream being licked on a hot winter's day. There shots along with the music accompaniment will climax and then the title will fade in.
-Blankness-
(Shot 13ish) Dark room, brother in bed. Mum throws the door open basically forcing it off its hinges. She as she appears to be in every shot less than impressed with anything or anyone. Time is short and nothing is properly organised. The character will roll around and make some groaning sounds in dissatisfaction at having to get up. This will be in POV with him facing the door to see his mother burst in. The scene will begin as dialogue only as he hears his mother before he opens his eyes. Some attempt at funky eye opening techniques and what is shown on screen from POV will be attempted, along with fuzzyness slowly coming down in harshness.
(Shot 14) Brother enters the kitchen with Mum finding the passports. This is the only time where we see the mother with a mildly happy look on her face. Dad is just sort of standing there trying to look helpful, in a daze from being thrown into everything so soon after having gotten up.
(Shot 15) 121 shot. Mother
(Shot 16) 121 shot. Father.

Concept Task 1

My film opening will be of the mockumentary variety. It will revolve around an international family holiday.
I'm thinking of borrowing a few ideas from The Office and also The Hangover. The main ideas that I want to explore are the straining of family dynamics when we must spend an elongated amount of time together. Along with the added stress levels of planning such a trip, and everything coming together at the end... or falling apart at the last minute.
I wish to evoke emotions in the audience towards each of the characters. I want to portray a couple as the ones that are causing all of the drama and a couple that are simply trying to enjoy the holiday but are being cut down by the dramatic characters. The audience should have positive/negative connotations to each character accordingly. This should help the humour come out through their interactions and the word choices that each person uses.
I would like the audience to come out of it seeing that the opening was an exaggerated reality. There is always stress in travel however you get over it rather quickly. But with characters that hold onto the negative and don't let the stress float past them can bring down everyone around them.
So, basically, the film will start with an Australian establishing shot going into another shot with my whanau sitting in our hotel room looking rather disgusted with the whole ordeal. There will be some kind of incident here and then there will be a backwards montage into a title screen possibly with the instrumental ending of Prince's 'When Doves Cry' as I have imagined it being that way in my head. But realistically it would not fit in very well. Then there will be a scene with the morning we are to leave to Australia from New Zealand. This should be relatively brief.

Horror Genre Study Essay.

The horror genre flourished and adapted to changing audiences over the first 100 years of cinema, and along with the films themselves, so did the conventions that those films adhered to. One of those conventions was the portrayal of main female characters . Early films a la Jane in The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920), Elizabeth in Frankenstein (1931) and Barbra in Night of the Living Dead (1968) showed the lead as an incapable victim, with no ability to fend for themselves or act logically. Barbra spent much of the movie in a catatonic state after seeing her brother be murdered by a zombie, she has to be looked after by the lead male character, Ben. As time progressed and woman became closer to being equal counterparts of men in everyday life, their characters in films also evolved and they became more powerful. They were more often than not shown as characters that could outsmart the killers, examples where this is prominent are Rosemary in Rosemary's Baby (1968), Laurie in Halloween (1978) and Sidney in Scream (1996). Rosemary, while ultimately being strong and under-covering the plot against her was seen for most of the film as a delusional character like in previous films. She thought the lovely old couple living next door had a conspiracy against her to try and hurt her baby when they were shown as being caring and wanting the best for her. This was released the same year as Barbra's Night of the Living Dead and was at the turning point for woman's portrayal.

The early films used the Female character to give reason or justify the actions of the lead male characters in the destruction of the evil present in the film. Francis goes out to defeat Cesare after Cesare kidnaps Jane in Caligari, and Frankenstein goes to defeat his monster after it attacks his wife-to-be, Elizabeth in Frankenstein. The use of the female characters in this way shows the director's inclusion was only to progress the storyline in a simple way that can be connected with by the audience. The Man must always protect his woman and hence any harm coming to their woman must result in a retaliation against that that has harmed, as in real life. As time passed woman became counterparts of men. This began with a fresh wave of feminist uprising in the 1960s continuing in varying shapes and forms until today which has meant films have adapted to show the female as an equal to the male characters, and even when the killer is a male, above them. As audiences and target demographics of the horror genre moved from sophisticated adult audiences to thrill-seeking teenagers (Halloween, Scream) the director had to appeal to as much of the possible audience as they could. If the tradition of having a weak female lead continued the films would not appeal to the female audiences. Females would prefer to watch a film where they can watch another female overcome the evil themselves than be killed off because they are effectively brainless. Scream has two of these strong females as seen in Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers. Gale Weathers ultimately kills the murderers of with a gun after Sidney outsmarts them inside. This is even unlike in Halloween where the murderer is only rid of after Dr. Loomis comes the strong characters are strongly females.
So, while newer (mid-60's onwards) horror films break from the female lead traditions of the first 50 years they have mostly now followed the newer established tradition seen in Halloween and Scream.
There is however one horror sub-genre that has not fully continued to follow the modern traditions and that is the R18 type nothing but killing off all of the characters with no character development or believable storyline slasher genre. This is greatly attributed to the fact that in the 21st century it is a male demographic orientated sub-genre. Females do not share the same want to watch someone waltz around and take out 80% of the original characters. The female characters in the blood and guts slashers are young, sexually active and attractive people that spend most of the movie either flashing their unnaturally enhanced breasts in a mandatory sex scene or being cornered and blubbering in a corner before being killed off.
Feminist scholar Carol J. Clover says that films such as Halloween showed woman as heroines. Clover discusses how Laurie established the 'final girl' aspect of the genre and how she managed to triumph in the end even though Loomis did ultimately get rid of the murdered. Had the murderer been a normal human Laurie's multiple attacks would have more than killed him. Critics of this view such as John Kenneth Muir point out that Laurie does not survive due to her 'good planning, or own resourcefulness, but sheer luck.' Scream has the Sidney about to be killed by the killers before Gale Weathers comes and shoots him through the head. This is however another female character and shows them as equally powerful female characters. One could argue that if the lead got a clear shot and was fully resourced from the start that these kind of movies would be rather short.

In conclusion, the horror genre has grown into its own kind of uncontrollable monster during its first 100 years and the conventions we expect to see in the films have grown with them. Females are no longer weak and worthless but strong and significant. While there will always be notable exceptions to the norm most movies now follow this convention.

C.4) Transitions / Scene Lengths (General Editing)

As mentioned earlier in section b), Saturday Night Fever uses rather long lengths of time between the transition of shots for the opening scene. And for the most part, throughout the whole of the film.
This is in comparison to more modern movies in the same Genre i.e. Hairspray. One of the reasons that movies have shorter transition times nowadays is because people have less of an attention span - the 'MTV' generation can't focus on a certain shot or idea for too long. They require different angles, distances, parallel action shots in the case of dance scenes - there has to be something else going on at the same time as the dance and/or more than a single character participating. I debated mentioning these two in work of mine, however, High School Musical or Glee would not have been as succesful had there only been a single singer/dancer up on the stage. By having multiple different things to focus on the audience feels more involved and don't lose interest. While I'm not saying that people would lose interest during Saturday Night Fever, I'm simply saying that if it were to be made today its shot lengths would be halved or in the dancing segments cut into quarters (some individual shots are extremely lengthy, pushing 15 seconds) so that the audience could feel more 'excitement' and feel like there was a lot more going on than there really was. This can also be achieved by unnatural camera movement or sweeping shots.
Comparing the opening of a modern film 'Hairspray' (2007) and Saturday Night Fever shows how the shot lengths have changed. Hairspray's average 3.15 seconds/shot while Saturday Night Fever's average of 6.25 seconds/shot. Now, while these may not seem drastically different the fact that Hairsprays are pretty much half those of Saturday Night Fevers give you less time to focus on each action and wear your brain out faster. Had Saturday Night fever been made today there would have been faster cuts, more emphasis on the other people on the street and different angles shown of Tony and he'd have done more dancing than a simple bop.
For the sake of fairness Hairspray does begin with a dance as part of the opening, so to compare to the lead in and dance to a similar sped song from during Saturday Night Fever 'You Should Be Dancing' by the Bee Gees the shot length averages 6.05 seconds/shot. This allows un-interrupted focus on the dance.

Apart from the fade up of the films picture and a single fade transition between the two establishing shots the only transitions used between shots are cuts. Apart from the one later mentioned jump-cut all cuts are logical and do not distract the audience in any major way. Should the cuts have been jumpy and all over the place the effect of Tony's character mentioned throughout other parts of C would be lost as the audience would not be able to follow seemlessly with the walk and it would appear as though we keep jumping to different parts of the walk and it wouldn't flow correctly.

As a side note, i found these sets of rules by Edward Dmytryk entitled 'the seven rules of cutting.' Saturday Night Fever seems to follow them well:

"Rule 1: Never make a cut without a positive reason."
"Rule 2: When undecided about the exact frame to cut on, cut long rather than short."
"Rule 3: Whenever possible cut 'in movement'."
"Rule 4: The 'fresh' is preferable to the 'stale'."
"Rule 5: All scenes should begin and end with continuing action."
"Rule 6: Cut for proper values rather than proper 'matches'."
"Rule 7: Substance first—then form."


Couple of editing goofs that i noticed:
During the opening, there is a very irritating jump cut. This occurs while Tony's feet are shown and the title 'Saturday Night Fever' is neoned over the screen. The moment that title is removed from the screen the camera changes to one further back. I'm not entirely sure why this was in there and I hadn't noticed it until i properly focused on the opening with my face pressed a couple of inches from the scene, however now that I've noticed it it is the most irritating part of the opening.
Another interesting editing decision was that before Tony arrives at the street of his paint store the paths are dry, however after his boss is shown motioning him to use the back door the paths are wet. Due to his dryness, his hair still being perfect and the fact it was a beautiful sunny day moments before this big down-poor it would be fairly impossible for it to have actually happened. Since the opening scene would not have worked as well had it been raining it simply comes down to a poor editing choice on the part of the director and/or post-production persons.

C.3) Character / Performance

Of course the component that made Saturday Night Fever was the performance by the one-and-only John Travolta. During the opening scene as I have mentioned again and again Travolta's facial's and walking style convey the feeling the audience should have going into the film.
The effect of the facials is helped by the shot types, you can clearly focus on his expressions by the close up shots. Along with the use of the close-up shots there is an ever so slight use of shallow focus along with the general washed out print of the late 70s film.
The first obvious use of facial expressions to see inside the characters mind is when Tony sees that (once again mentioned) girl walk buy. You see him checking her out thinking 'yeah she's alright.' He turns back however before long stops dead in his tracks and double takes to have another look. You think that he is going to follow her and make a move however he then decides it's not worth it and continues on his way after a look to the side and a roll of the eyes. Due to the fact no dialogue is used you get all of this simply from the way Travolta uses body language and the facial expressions that he chooses.
Even though for the majority of the walking he has a rather vacant expression on his face it still manages to captivate you. You watch his eyes and see where they are looking and know that he is taking in everything around him.
Facial expressions are also used by other characters. The second girl as mentioned before who has a close up on her to show her exact thoughts lets the audience know that she has no time for his games. She rolls her eyes and tries to move around him before deciding that was enough and waves him off and walks away. You see Travolta feel slightly defeated and feel for his loss. You connect with him from times that you have in real life have been rejected and have had similiar thoughts.

Throughout the film facial expressions are used realistically and to show real emotion.
In the scene where they all go to the bridge with Annette (Tony's first dance partner who still has feelings for him) has some very lifelike facial expressions and emotion, because they are. Following on from the importance of Tony's facials during the walk the director decided that the facials here needed to be as realistic as possible. During the scene Tony, Double-J and Joey jump off the side of the bridge and land on a platform. The directors and actors didn't tell Annette that there was a platform there so when her expressions went from horror and shock to outright anger they were real emotions as she thought they really had jumped. She then runs over and sees them there and delivers very angrily the unscripted line 'YOU F**KERS!'

Back to the general performance from Tony instead of just focusing on his facials. Once again during the mid and long shots we get to see how the character is walking - bopping to the music and swinging his arms. This tells the audience that he is care free and as mentioned earlier in the post is trouble free. This would be contrasted to if his movements were stiff and jerky. His movements are free moving and indicate that he at this point is fairly care free. If his movements were jerky then the use of the music and facial expressions would really be lost on the audience as they are not also being felt by the character. When it all boils down to it the audience is going to fell a very similiar mode to the character during the whole film so if he were to be stiff for this opening, happy scene the audience would feel awkward with the disco fun music playing and the directors intention of showing he was care free and at this point did not see his life was going nowhere would be lost.

Even though Tony is portrayed as the smooth talking, hip man that he thinks he is, he comes across to the audience as slightly self-absorbed (his opening scene facial expressions, walking style etc.). Throughout the film he is shown as being the centre of his social group of friends. They look to him for help (at the club when someone stays in the car for too long. And also to lead them in revenge against the gang that beat their friend up), they look to him for life help (his friend Bobby C has got a girl pregnant and is in the dilemma of whether he should now marry her or have the kid aborted). All of the story-lines show Tony as being the man to turn to and the man that they all look up to. While their friends think this in reality the audience sees different sides of Tony and knows that he is not as perfect as is shown in the opening. We know as well as he finds out that his life is at a stand still. This is summed up by Stephanie saying this to him while sitting looking at Brooklyn bridge: "You live with your parents, you hang with your buddies and on Saturday nights you burn it all off at 2001 Odyssey. You're a cliche. You're nowhere, goin' no place."
This also illustrates the fact that the directors have made Tony's character a cliche or a stereotype. A young kid in the big city who thinks that his life is going places. He's got a job, the girls love him, he's the best dancer, his friends think that he is the be all and end all.
Unlike in other movies the use of the stereotypical character is used so that by the end Tony has completed an overhaul of his life. He goes from the stereotypical character the audience sees as self absorbed, to a character that has acknowledged his wrong ways and seeks to make a change (this is bought on by Stephanie) and then after he hits rock bottom (rape, fallouts with his boss and parents, the supposed suicide of his friend Bobby C whom he did not help even though Bobby had looked to Tony in his time of need) he gets his life on track. He goes to Stephanie's new apartment and confesses his desire to change. Stephanie sees that Tony is truthful and embraces him. This is the end of the film and the audience is left feeling that Tony will now life a long and prosperous life.

C.2) Sound

The opening scene mainly uses non-diegetic sound to convey the intended mood of the film to the audience. This however does not begin until the one minute mark.
For the establishing shot hovering over the city the sounds heard are diegetic sounds of the cars below on the bridge followed by that of a train's horn and the train moving along the tracks. The train's sounds, like the whole shot itself is used to break up the quiet diegetic sound of the establishing shot to the fade in of the song 'Stayin Alive' by the Bee Gees. The music instantly connects with modern audiences because of its timelessness and its connection with the disco era that the film came out. However, at the time of the release of the film the song was used as it was a #1 hit and was one of the most recognizable songs for worldwide release. If the audience was not familiar with the song the effect would be a lot less powerful. Tony bopping along to the beat and his footsteps in time with the drums would not create the same amount of personal connection to the character.
You could say that the lyrics of the song embodies what Tony is about. The song opens with the lines 'Well, you can tell by the way I use my walk, I'm a woman's man: no time to talk.' This foreshadows Tony's character believing that he is a bit of a player and even within the first few minutes the song is playing he tries it on with those girls. The lines 'got the wings of heaven on my shoes. I'm a dancing man, no time to lose' go along with the theme of the movie - being a dancing musical film and more specifically Tony being the main dancer and having magical dancing feet. Finally the lines 'Life goin' nowhere. Somebody help me. Somebody help me, yeah.' Can foreshadow the film dealing with Tony's difficult life. During the film, his boss (Dan Fusco) fires Tony when he asks for the afternoon off - Tony gets told no however then takes it off anyway in a rage. When he returns to the store Dan admits he over-reacted and says that he does not want to lose Tony as an employee. He motions around the room and lists the amount of time that the other employees have been hired with him in that same store. This was upwards of 16 years for two and you can see by Tony's facial expression that he realises his job isn't as great as he thought, he doesn't want to still be there when he hits 40.
As a whole the lyrics 'Stayin Alive' can connect with New York and the general population at the time. In 1977 New York had a citywide blackout on July 13 - July 14. The power outage resulted in looting and arson especially in the Puerto Rican community. People were stranded in the subways resulting in 4000 people needing rescue and the airports were closed. The city basically shut down for a whole day. This came as New York were already suffering in a severe financial crisis and worrying over the 'Son of Sam' murders. All of the New York residents were, while struggling, simply trying to stay alive in the city.
Both times that Tony interacts with others (dialogue, pizza store plus layaway on shirt) the music fades down so that the focus shifts from the dancey, bopping feeling in you and Tony to focusing on what he is saying to the respective parties.

Interestingly there is very limited diegetic or non-diegetic sound outside of these interactions besides the sound of Tony's footsteps and the Bee Gees song. This again ties in with the use of camera angles and shots so that you focus on how he is moving with the music and so that the feeling evoked by the intro isn't intererupted by shouting or a loud car horn etc. If the feeling were to be distracted the audience would take too long to reconnect with the feeling before the movie properly begins.

Lyrics:

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/bee+gees/stayin+alive_20015578.html

C.1 ) Shot Size / Angles

The use of the long 30 second establishing shot of New York cutting to Tony comparing his shoes against those in the shop's glass compartment shows that he is but another Teenager in a large city. Tony is simply going about his daily life comparing his shoes fairly oblivious to anything else going on.

Even though there are endless amounts of people living in the town the different types of camera shot show the importance of Tony. The close-ups of his feet and face make you focus on him with minimal distraction from surrounding objects. If you were to focus on other objects the effect created by Tony strutting to the music and his interactions with others would be wasted and you would not get the characters basic thoughts. These being that he is the one everyone wants to know and that he wouldn't want his life any other way. When the camera is in a long shot position the character / characters that Tony is interacting with remain centre screen to remain as the centre of attention.

What i noticed is that multiple times the shots appear to be from the point of view from what Tony is thinking about. These two occasions are the comparing of the shoes (shown above), when Tony approaches the pizza store and when he approaches the second girl. With the shoes especially it shows that at that moment it's the only thing that Tony is thinking about. It emphasizes the fact Tony is young and that he has little cares apart from his appearance and woman. The target demographic of the film would be younger (20s) so a number of them would connect with Tony's thoughts on having to have the best shoes and having to try it with that girl walking down the street.

After Tony approaches the second lady the camera changes to a close-up point-of-view shot of the girl's face as she stands in-front of him. She is shown as aggravated and disrupted by him standing there. Her facial expressions show she has no time for his advances. (this was difficult to screen capture, i did my best). This tells the audience that while he may think anyone would go for him he's not as irresistible as he might like to think. This is revisited again later in the film. While Annette likes Tony it is not the girl that he wants. He wants Stephanie. Tony goes against his own principles of keeping his dance partners as strictly dance partners with nothing on the side. Tony can not understand why Stephanie will not be more than dance partners with him, until Stephanie makes Tony realize his core values are dragging him down and that he could be so much more. She tells him his life is going nowhere and he makes a change. This is touched on further in character/performance.

At one stage during the sequence the camera is in a low angle mid shot position with only Tony in shot with the sky behind him. This is so the audience feel that they are looking up at Tony and his importance is asserted. Even though the shot isn't necessarily required along with the close-ups already sprinkled throughout the scene it gives the audience a sense that he himself also thinks he is important and that he is the only person people should pay attention to.

Apart from during the dance scenes, the rest of the film uses mainly more close-ups and secondly mid shots of Tony and the characters he is with. The minimal use of long shots throughout the film means the film has a very personal feel to it. The movie throughout is giving the story of Tony's troubles and how he is coping with them. The use of so many close-ups means that the audience has a very intimate look into what Tony is going through and you feel his pain. As discussed in character/performance his facial expressions convey every feeling that he has. i.e. During the dance competition against the Hispanic couple you see every emotion that Tony is feeling. You know when he changes his mind from knowing he was the best to being upset and angry about being out done. And then his embarrassment when he was awarded first regardless of the fact he didn't deserve it.

Comparing the shots in Saturday Night Fever to another beloved musical / drama film of the disco era - Grease (also starring John Travolta and also Olivia Newton-John - shows how the decisions used during the opening and bulk of the film give different feelings to the audience. The opening scene of Grease is animated and full of life. As opposed to Saturday Night Fever where you create a connection to the lead character and know his traits by the end of the credits you must wait longer until being introduced. Looking more broadly the film uses less close-ups or mid-shots to create less of an intimate feel between character and audience. Grease focuses more on the whole cast performing as opposed to the two main characters and hence more long shots are used. Even though you feel happy for Danny and Sandy (John and Olivia) getting together you never have the same emotional connection to the characters. The dance scenes don't have the passion of Saturday Night Fever's as they are simply for fun and do not house the same passion or feeling that are found in Tony's dancing in Saturday Night Fever. He dances a living and pours in heart and soul.

B) Genre / Atmosphere

The choices for the superimposed title credits set the tone of the film as that of a fun, upbeat movie. The credits achieve this through multiple director decisions such a using the warm, vivid red colour for the titles. The Saturday Night Fever title itself uses a font that is commonly associated with that of neon lights. The words appear one by one and then the word Fever flashes in time with the music, this is also a technique used on neon signs to grab people's attention.

The music used accentuates the upbeat tone by being a song that the audience will be more than familiar with. The song (even to those who dislike the song) is one that is catchy and even now 30 years on from the death of disco is one that encapsulates what the era was all about. A song with a positive vibe, that isn’t too complicated that anyone can sing along to.
The lighting is provided by the sun as the sequence is in an outside environment. The sun is very bright and warmth / sunny days are attributed to happiness and good well-being.

The perspective we have of Tony from the opening scene is portrayed through his walking style, facial expressions and actions during the opening scene.
After the camera changes from the establishing shot it cuts to an intermediate shot of a train going by on the tracks before cutting again to a close-up of Tony comparing his shoes to a pair in a store front glass compartment. As he is doing this he is bobbing up and down in time with the music. He decides that his shoes are better and then continues on down the road. The purpose of this is to show that he likes having the best accessories he can. He later decides he can do better when he stops outside the clothing store and notices a shirt inside, he then proceeds to put a lawaway onto the item.
The camera changes angles to the front and tracks its way along the road showing his feet walking in time with the music. The camera pans up to show him strutting along arms swinging to the music and all to give a sense of being in his zone. This attitude goes with him having to have the best shoes he can, if he's not the one that people pay attention to then he's have to do something about it. This sense of him having to be the best is regularly revisited through his dancing and the lengths he goes to through partner choice, practice etc.
Several times during the opening long-shots are used to show him approaching girls and making passes at them, however as shown more clearly the second time through the use of a close-up on the girls’ face they turn him down and the strutting continues – he just takes all this in his stride. The addition of these shows he has a high self-opinion and that he is a people person. This is backed up by his interaction when ordering pizza and with his customers, both mentioned further on.

By the directors decision to show more than only him walking along the street we know that he is easily distracted. On the way back from the other paint shop he stops to talk to check his shoes against some others, grab two bits of pizza, put a layaway down for a shirt and try it on with a couple of girls. This shows he is an average teenager in no real rush at all.
When he returns to work and the sequence comes to a close you already get the sense he is a hard worker and liked by the customers he serves and enjoys what he does immensely. He is a people person. This is shown through the Diegetic sound of Tony conversing with the customers.

The pace of the opening sequence also shows no sense of urgency with the beginning establishing shot running for 35 seconds. The shots with of Tony last for reasonable amounts of time - 10, 15 seconds. This can also be attributed to the general use of longer amounts of time between shots in older styled movies. If this movie was created today for the ‘MTV’ era then as a musical there is a good chance the shots would be half the length and could potentially change the mood of the sequence to that of one more fast moving.

Even though the tone does change throughout the film, by different locations and the people he is around it always comes back to this happy, dancey feel that the opening had by the use of disco music and disco era lighting eg. Disco balls etc.

A) Reason for Selection

The opening begins with an establishing shot of New York city, included in the shot is a view of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge which is visited by the characters numerous times throughout the film.
After showing the establishing shot which is taken from a a helicopter moving along the bridge it flicks to Tony checking his shoes against some in a window. This shows his modern style and the fact he has hip clothing and fits into the hip scene. The scene continues to move between long shots of him walking down the street and mid-shots to show his walking style and shoes. Several times when in long shot he is shown to try to flirt with girls however gets rejected.
The end of the opening scene shows him arriving back at the paint store where he works and the owner signalling him to use the back entrance to re-enter the store. This is because they had run out of paint for a customer and then Tony had run to a competing store to buy the paint so that they did not lose a sale.
The song 'Stayin' Alive' by the Bee Gees is played during the scene.

The opening scene introduces the main character as a modern teenager who is thinks that he is untouchable. He knows lots of people and is generally out to have a good time.
It shows his place of work which is revisited multiple times and also him placing a five dollar down-payment on a shirt that later on in the film is referenced and worn.

I choose this film sequence as the song by the Bee Gee's is great (how could you disagree) however, more to the point the way the character is portrayed through both his actions, facial expressions and also the shot angles is interesting to decipher. The film was set and filmed during the height of the disco era and the films original target audience were those my age and up into early 30s. After the success of the film it was then re-cut for younger audiences and stamped PG with most of the offensive, drug related and sexual material removed. As i mentioned in my first post i really enjoy the musical genre in movies. However, this style as opposed to ones in the same vain as Glee where the characters make the music and dance along and that kind of carry on. There needs to be a nice balance between musical fun and good dramatic storyline, and even though this movie could be seen as absolutely terrible to me it's a great little movie that i could watch over and over.

Opening Scene - SNF

The opening scene that I'm going to do is Saturday Night Fever (1977) featuring John Travolta. I usually like musical movies like this one - Grease, Repo etc. But then there are always terrible movies in each Genre e.g. Flashdance.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/2009/02/13/saturday-night-fever/