Practice Extract Essay

Practice Extract Essay - Breanna C. - Period 5

 The director's purpose in the extract from ”24” was to create a tension between the characters, along with a tension between the organization some characters are working for and some sort of terrorist threat. The director wanted the audience to feel the tension. As for the genre the director is working with, it seems to be some sort of cop drama. Throughout the extract, the audience learns that there is a bomb set to go off, and a lady who was a part of setting it. This lady seems to be in an interrogation room, and she is then interrogated by a guy who doesn't seem to have his emotions under control. Whether these two characters have some sort of personal past is unclear. These two do not seem to like each other, and keep pushing each other to act out, which the guy eventually does. There are other characters watching these events from another room.

The extract starts off with the guy entering the room the lady is confined in. Inside of this room there is dramatic lighting, having the characters stand out with this contrast. At first, there isn't anything explicitly telling the audience of the tension rising, but there are a series of other things that do. There are close-up shots of the two characters, creating a claustrophobic feel. The guy is also standing, and when the camera faces him, it is from a lower angle, while the opposite is true for the lady. This shows that the guy is towering over her, trying to elicit fear. But the lady does not fear, despite her predicament. She stays calm, always watching the guy. The background music is low and sparse, but the notes heard set the mood to be serious and dangerous. Immediately, the scene is set, and the lady starts off their conversation.

Both of them are fighting each other, but the lady is the only one that keeps her cool. The camera almost looks as if it is handheld, constantly and shakily zooming in on the characters and their expressions and reactions to what the other character has said. The scene cuts to show there are people watching these two, and they are worried for what can be assumed to be their fellow employee, the guy. The guy paces and his footsteps and heavy breathing only show more of how angry he is. The guy continues to threaten the lady, flipping the table as a show of his frustration. The lady only mocks him. At this point the audience is unsure if the guy is going to act further on his anger, as he sits down. The camera is constantly going back and forth, giving no rest for the audience. The music steadily rises as the lady smiles at him in victory, putting him over the edge. He attacks her. Pushing her chair against the wall and chocking her throat. A split screen shows the observers going to try and stop the guy, all the while the music is at an all-time high that you can barely hear the threat he gives the lady on her life.

 All of these things - the close-ups, the low/high angles, the zooms and shaky camera, the rising background music, the heavy breathing and quick footsteps, the constant back and forth, the dramatic lighting and threatening acting - they all serve to create what the director's purpose was: to create tension.

Eden CCR

This is it, the last post on my blogger! In this one I will be posting a Critical Creative Review of my project Eden. I did this entirely by myself, so there was a few bumps doing it but I got it done. (I took the camera out to record, but it didn’t have an SD card in. I then put an SD card in, but it was too full. I finally got what I need on the sixth attempt.) I tried to make it interesting, but I’m not sure how it ended up, and I’ve been staring at it too long. I used a lot of content from the creation of the project, and I used a neat little split screen to show myself interviewing myself!

We were supposed to make this video between 10-15 minutes long, and originally my script ended up being closer to thirty minutes, so I had to cut it down a lot. Final time is six seconds 12 minutes! It was interesting doing the entire process myself without any help from my group mates. I didn’t expect to learn anything new, but I did! When I was recording my two different sides, I had my Mom say the lines of the other person so I could keep time. I tried to make it two different personas, but it was really awkward just staring at the wall/backyard.

It was fun getting to talk about some of my thought process about the film, along with answering the provided questions. I even added a question about what I liked and didn’t like about the film! Unfortunately, I didn’t add much music from my film, and instead I went with a different song as background music. I did do a lot of visual editing, though. I made these little videos on my iPad and inserted them onto the CCR for the questions. I showed what I was referencing on screen, and I took some pictures on some of the items I was talking about. I also inserted some photos from the internet, although they’re low quality and I really should have done a better job on those. I also added some text and the like. And then I compressed it down so I could post it! Anyway, here you go! My CCR for Eden:

 

Our final project! Eden

This is it! This is the biggest project we did this year, and it was fun. When I heard about this project at the beginning of the year, when my teachers were going over the plan for the year, I was so excited. Throughout the year I was brainstorming ideas, although loosely since I didn’t know any of what the criteria was for the project. We were constantly preparing for the project on the horizon. My group mates and I decided we would work together the whole year, and I’m glad I got to work with them. We might have had our bumps, but we all worked together for this to be done. We learned a lot about filming and editing for our videos, and this is the final project we got to put all of our learnings into.

There are things I like about this project, and things I don’t like, but I’m glad that we got to do it. It’s sad that we couldn’t do some things, like reshoot in the park or sit together to edit because of the coronavirus. But despite the things in our way, we still completed it. This video isn’t the best, but we got to put all of our own ideas into it and basically make it from scratch, so it has a special place for me. I’m definitely saving a file of it. So here it is! Final name for the project: Eden. I’m sure you know enough about it already from my previous posts, so I won’t bother repeating myself. Please enjoy! (Unfortunately, the quality isn't the best due to me having to post this on blogger.)

 

Our Music Video!

This is our music video! It was the the second project we did. It was with the same group. Looking back at it, there are some things I'm painfully aware of, but there are other things that time had me forget. Coming back was almost like seeing it for the first time, and I really liked it. The details we were worrying so much about during the process turned out great. There were things that still irk me a tad(like some shakiness and the camera bag in a shot), but overall I am happy with how it turned out. Anyway, here you go with our music video for the song Sunkissed by Khai Dreams:

Our commercial video!

This is the first project that the class did! I worked with the same people throughout the year, Madelene and Josh. So, of course, we did this together too! This was our first taste of what we would be learning this year, and it went great! It definitely prepared us for our next projects, as well as excite us. We only had a limited amount of time for this project, and it was the only one done all in class. We had a good time filming, but our editing process was done on IMovie(never again). It was good! Overall, the pans were okay, the zoom was a little shaky, our song was a great match, and our acting wasn’t that bad! Anyway, here you go!

COVID-19 Effects

The corona virus has effected this project in some ways. When school was canceled, we still had reshoots to do. Sydney, our other actor, and my group members came to do so. We made it as quick and painless as possible. When we all had to stay at home, only Madelene could come over as she lives nearby. Soon enough, I had to do the editing and we conversed over the internet. Once I had the list of things we wanted to do, I did them myself.

After that, Madelene dropped off a flash drive in the mail. I downloaded the finished product to her, along with the song file that was in our film. She came later to pick it up. Unfortunately, the quality was too high for sending it digitally, so I had to compress the video down. I sent that to both of my group mates so they would have a mobile compatible version.

Our group is lucky to have been okay with social distancing. I can imagine how this could have turned out badly. Not only has the production of my class’s film projects been stopped, but film industries across the world have also stopped production. Now all that is left for my class to do if they haven’t already, is review this final project and create a video on it. Thankfully, this is individual, so I don’t have to worry about my group mates while we can’t work together.

Here is a picture of the files on my flash drive showing the finished video:

Finished Product! Re-edits

Our project, our two minute video, is finished!

Once the reshoots were done we looked through the ones we had to replace from the original shots. Then we looked at our options, of the new shots to use as replacement. We had a few, like the inside shots and some messy pans. There was one we had to replace due to a continuity error. We had quite the scare when some of the files wouldn’t load for us to edit, including sound and effects. We managed to fix it and get it back under control. Once we placed them all, down we went through the process of cutting the edges of so they would fit in perfectly. After that we made sure that the shots kept the same consistent lighting through filters.

Now, with having our new shots, we added more, special visual effects! We masked a filter so some parts were more noticeable than others, and although it isn’t perfect we decided to keep them. We also stumbled upon some layering effects and made the part where I pass out more disorientating. Along with that there were many filters added to add to the chaos, gradually fading in. We also made it get more green, as that was the evil color in our movie.

As for sounds, we found some better sound effects to use and played around with it. There are many things that I would’ve like to make better, however. It is unfortunate that we couldn’t redo the shots in the park, and I would’ve liked to reshoot them. In fact, there was one shot that was entirely useless to the story and video, and I wanted to get rid of it. But, my group members decided to keep it. Along with that there were some edits that weren’t smooth or subtle enough for my tastes, but we don’t really have much time left and we are happy with our final product.

Here is a picture of our screen when nothing would load, when we thought we would have to edit again from scratch:

Music Confirmation!

We were able to get confirmation on the usage of the song “What” is real? and we are very happy and very relieved! We weren’t sure if we were going to get a reply from the artist we had contacted - Mike Gordon. We had many songs in mind and had sent a few emails out to people, and the song “What” is Real was merely a placeholder at the beginning. It was hard watching the video without music, as nothing really flowed and it was a tad awkward. So I went through what songs were on the computer and added it. I didn’t do much in the beginning to edit the cuts of the video to the song, because I wasn’t sure if we were going to use it. Now, though, we have made things match the song, like when the singing is and when the titles fade in and out.

In the end, the songs lyrics are great for our purposes, and we got kind of attached to it. We had hope that someone would reply, and when Mike did we were relieved. Nobody else had or has. My favorite edit we did to correlate with the song is when the title “Eden” shows up and the song says “What is real?” It feels like a perfect way to set the stage for our movie, alas, we are only making the first two minutes. The song definitely helps hide the strange things happening in the background, and show a sense of normality before it’s all ripped away.

Here is a picture of the conversation we had. Unfortunately I couldn’t get the whole thing on screen for a picture. I started off with telling him my purpose for emailing and the details of our project that he probably would like to know. Then I asked him, as seen in the picture, and he replied saying he was on board and would ask the other writer of the song. He eventually gave his confirmation and then I thanked him. We talked some more like what his band was called and if he would like to see the finished product. Anyway, here in the confirmation that we could use his song in our project: