Macro Elements:

Cinematography, Sound, Mise en scene, Editing

Cinematography

8 Shot Types:

Extreme Long Shot:

An Extreme long shot is a shot that covers a vast amount of area, the focus is mainly on the environment and area around the character, who is barely visible. It’s commonly used to establish the location of the scene as its most of the screen.

The extreme long shot shows the audience the location and sets the scene and tone

Long Shot:

A Long Shot is a shot that presents the character from the top of its head to the tips of its toes, its used to place the character in its surroundings and give it a relationship with the environment. Still has information about the background but its focus is now the character.

This shot shows the audience the subject giving it size relative to the background and tells the audience things about the character like body language.

Medium Long Shot:

A Medium Long Shot shows the character but above the knees, which Is also why it's called the three-quarter shot. It’s the middle ground between the longshot and the medium shot, despite the character being a lot of the frame it does tend to favor the background rather than foreground.

The medium long shot communicates a lot of body language by having enough of the body in frame to pick out things like posture or stance.

Medium Shot:

A Medium Shot is commonly used for dialogue as the character is shot from above the waist with little background in frame but still enough to give you information. Also, this shot shows off more body language as its closer to the character.

This shot communicates to the audience by showing us more detail about the skin, clothes, posture, body language while retaining the background setting.

Medium Close-Up:

The Medium Close-Up is a shot that frames the subject from above their head down to their chest. The idea of this shot is to show the actors facial expressions and reactions, in addition it can be used for conversation between characters. It's also used a lot in news.

This shot communicates by making itself seem like a conversation, using just the head and sholders makes it a more formal, serious shot, at least in the news viewpoint.

Close-Up:

The Close-Up shot is used to show the subject in much greater detail that you wouldn’t see in other shots before this and it will show a significant amount of emotion in the eyes and facial expressions which mostly take up the frame.

Close-ups communicate by being a more intimate shot, you get to see the eyes, for example this picture:

enables the audience to see the madness in Jacks eyes and smile

Big Close-Up:

The Big Close-Up is just the subjects face, starting from the middle of the forehead to just above the chin. This shot exploits the Social Triangle, eyes and mouth are the focus. It’s a very intimate emotional shot showing details you wouldn’t see, and you never get this close to someone unless they're your partner. Used for extreme emotion or detail of a prop.

The big close-up purely uses the social triangle to communicate with the audience as that’s all they can see.

Extreme Close-Up:

Extreme Close-Up is used to point out a detail that is so miniscule that you’d miss it in any other shot. Focus is on this one-minute detail and nothing else. An example would be a reflection in the eye.

Communicates through the use of a reflection for example, shows details you wouldn’t see and gives the audience an “insider scoop”

4 Camera Angles

High Angle:

The High angle shot is commonly used to create a sense of weakness and inferiority as you’re looking down on the character like you would do a bug.

But that’s not its only use for example this frame of Deadpool

on top a building isn't used to make him feel weak but to give a sense of depth between him and the ground

Low Angle:

The low angle shot is the opposite to the high angle. This shot is used to give the subject power and a sense of superiority. It’s the shot to use if you intend to make a character look intimidating and strong in contrast to a weak character.

Eye Level:

The Eye Level shot is a more comforting neutral shot, it doesn’t show power either side, it gives more of personal real life feal as you can imagine yourself there as you’re looking at the characters eyes

Oblique/Canted Angle:

Also known as the Dutch Angle, this shot brings a feel of disorientation and uneasiness to the scene, it could show the deterioration of a character's mental state or it could be inferring danger and chaos

Camera Movement

Camera Pan:

A Camera pan is the movement from left to right from a central point. The camera itself doesn’t move because the pan refers to the fact that it swivels from a stationary position. Example here:

The pan shot is used to establish the location as it gets a 180 view of the whole scene. it can be used to track movement like a ball being kicked for example, or a person moving. It can also elevate tension depending on the speed of the pan, for me a slow pan would infer danger, horror or mystery.

Camera Tilt:

A Camera tilt is basically the exact same as the camera pan but on a vertical axis (up and down). Like panning, tilting can be used to mimic human head movements like when you scan a room.

A downward tilt is used to observe the action, taking it from the ground to the sky. While an upward tilt is used to create a sense of intimidation, starting at the feet rising to the head as an example. Shows all the character, leaving you pointed up at it to show power.

Microanalysis:

Movie: Hot Fuzz (0:00 - 2:07)

Minor Notes: Pete is the thief, Nick is Simon Peg, Danny is Nick Frost

Lets focus on the first 12 seconds for now.

The pan right showing Pete shoplifting and then Nick sliding left into shot with him being the focus at the start tells us 2 things, that its going to be a funny scene and Nick is the important character as the focus shifts to him from Pete. Also the fact that's its a Medium Long Shot helps establish the location and the spacial relationship between the characters

. From this it cuts to and from Pete and Nick as the camera goes from a Medium Close-Up to a Close-Up. This shot lets us compare the characters reactions and get a feel for their respective emotions. As it zooms in on Pete you can see the shock, realisation and fear as the camera gets closer and closer to his face and with Nick you can see the anger and grumpiness in his face which progresses each zoom in.

From the close-up it really zooms into the eyes making an extreme close-up, this clip of their eyes gives us a much more in-depth look at what they're actually feeling like with Pete you can see and actually feel the terror in his eyes knowing he's been caught and you can see the pure intensity in Nicks eyes.

Now part of The Chase Scene: 0:15 - 1:10 For this bit

First lets talk about the scene with Danny. Lifting the DVD to where the chase happens is a good shot and a nice was to add him into the chase while keeping his character. The chase itself changes between many shot types, but mainly keeping with close-ups, Medium close-ups, Long shots, Medium long shot, medium shots, etcetera. I believe Edgar Wright did all these cuts and angles to keep the movement fast and clean because if it was just a long shot to Medium long shot the viewer would get bored quick, so he's used all these different shot types to keep the action fresh and entertaining. Wright also uses a handful of close-ups which he uses to display reactions throughout the chase. This section of the chase if very specifically crafted to not bore the audience and i think it did its job perfectly.

End: 1:12 - 2:07

As Nick is Jumping across the fences it remains a long shot. I think the reason for this is to keep it simple and ensure everything is in frame, also i think it leads into Danny trying to copy Nick better. You could see it as you're watching Nick through Danny's eyes which would explain why the shot is handheld, in that case the shot brings the viewer into the eyes of Danny which makes the shot more stunning. Then when Danny tries to copy it keeps the same shot so you can compare the 2 and it adds to the comedy.

In this clip he continues to use more close-up reaction shots to present the characters reactions while keeping the scene fast and comedic.

The whole clip ends off with an over the shoulder longshot which is used to keep the spacial relationship between the characters and to get the right shot of the spray paint hitting Pete on the head.

Sound

Sound Types:

Dialogue:

Dialogue is any sound that are spoken from a character. Dialogue is used to help establish characters and their relationships.

Music (score) :

Music is used to give the scene more emotion and a special feel. Audiences can understand tone and genre just by listening to the music score. For example the imperial march

The March makes Vader apear important. As its the first time we've seen him the music tells us what we should think.

Sound Effects:

Sound effects are added in post to elevate a scene and add things that the mic wouldn't have picked up on set. like a glass smashing, door opening, explosion from ship.

In this clip from transformers, the majority of the sounds you can hear are sound effects added after the fact. The guns, clang of robot, Explosions etc.

Diegetic:

Diegetic sound is any sound that has a physical origin in the film world. For example

This clip is all Diegetic sound, more specifically the button pressing, you can hear it and you can see where the noise comes from.

Non-Diegetic:

Non Diegetic sound is any sound that doesn't have any origin in the film. like the music track or voice over. For example The backing music in this Overlord clip is nondiegetic

Emotional Realism:

Emotional realism is when the music and overall sounds match up to the image and how the character feels which makes the viewers feel the same

Contrapuntal:

Contrapuntal sound is when the music heavily contrasts with the mood conveyed by the film. Its a good way to convey the tone to the audience. An amazing example of this is.

This clip is a compilation of terrible things America has done backed by the song "What A Wonderful World" by louis Armstrong. To me this tells me that the video is how America truly is while the music is what it acts like.

Parallel:

Parallel sound is the opposite of contrapuntal meaning that it matches perfectly with the video on screen.

Clip Analysis: The Hunt

Athena = bad black hair lady, Crystal = good blonde lady

The pig makes a big slam followed by suspenseful non-diegetic music. The men start shooting their guns at the pig. The suspenseful music is played here because at this point we're in the eyes of the men and the music plays because we're under the illusion that stuffs about to go down but it ends up being the pig. The music could represent the adrenaline they're feeling in the moment. Its brought to a screeching halt when Athena shouts stop, or when the men realise its just the pig.

When there's little sound you can hear the slight hum of crickets and the general night sounds, this just adds a layer of realism and ambience as that's what you would hear if you were there.

It goes from no music to more spy or mission type music when one of the men gets shot in the head and Crystal is revealed, this music changes slightly to a more mysterious tone when we lose the positioning of the men, this immerses us as a viewer an hlaf puts us in crystals position, until the tone is broken when she grabs the gun.

Her gun clicks signifying that shes out of ammo. The music is then forced to change as an arrow flys into the wall next to crystal, making the music shift to Athena's side. The music boosts the situation, it enhances the problem that crystals out of ammo and has lost her dominance. This tone is changed when she stabs Athena and is onto the next enemy.

A nice "reveal" sound plays when the camera tilts down to a gun in-between the two characters which gives a less serious feel. This tone is enhanced when she's got the gun and the mag is pulled but she knows she has a bullet in the chamber, the music leads into the shot adding comedy along the way.

The music starts to lead into the final kill and eventually does, having the climax of the beat when she shoots the sniper. Once she does no music plays, symbolising that its the end of the fight and everything is calm... until a big tackle sound followed up by unexpected tense music happens which continues into the fight. Having the end hit with the pipe match the music, telling us its over for good.

Mise-En-Scene

What is Mise-En-Scene?

It's everything you can see in the scene. The visual Information.

The 5 Elements consist of:

Body language + Facial Expressions
Location, Setting, Props
Costume, Hair & Make-Up
Lighting & Colour
Position Of Characters & Objects

Props - Props are property, they can give a sense of: genre, time, location etc.

Setting - The setting is the where and when. the location. it also gives a sense of the genre.

Costume, Hair + Make-Up - Instant indicator of a characters personality, status, job, background.

Facial Expressions / Body language - Shows the characters emotions and could give an insight of a character.

Positioning within frame - Draws attention to certain characters or objects and it can indicate relationships between characters. for example if they're close they are friends.

Foley:

Unfortunately My Foley i edited video got corrupted and i lost the video but i can describe what we used for different sounds. The task was to use foley to dub over a silent copy of this bridget jones fight scene

We used many different methods to get all sorts of sounds to use for the scene.

For the sound his jacket would make we rubbed against a fire extinguisher cover, but before this we tried rubbing against all different materials before we settled for the cover.

Next, for the fight sounds me and Tyler went into the creative media tunnel outside and proceeded to make a bunch of weird grunts and noises into the zoom mic. It was an experience.

For the fountain we poured water into a bucket next to the zoom mic. this allowed for realistic splashing from the fountaing raining down.

And for the big splash at the end we dropped several objects into a bucket but in the end i went for the take where we dropped a big stone in because it made the most pleasing and fitting sound.

Continuity Editing:

We were tasked to create two videos. One that conformed to the rules of Continuity and one that completely broke them. The rules we had consisted of:

Shot Reverse Shot
Eyeline Match
180° Rule
Establishing Re-Establishing Shot
Match On Action