Preliminary Task

This is our Preliminary task:
"Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom he/she exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.
I worked in a group with Phil, Matt and Kayla to complete this. We decided on the idea of a strange man purchasing a keyboard in a music shop. 
This was our first real opportunity to use the cameras to film and then the editing software in post-production, we had very limited knowledge on film at this point.

Below is the finished product..

Camera shots and angles in movies- Coursework prep

                                                                    Shots


Establishing Shot: A shot taken from an overhead position, often used as an establishing shot.

Close up shot: A head and shoulders shot often to show expression or emotion of a character. Also can be a shot of an object, filmed from close to the object or zoomed in that reveals detail.

Extreme Close up: A shot where part of a face or body of a character fills the whole frame, also can be a shot of an object where only a small part of it dominates the frame.

 

 

Establishing Shot: A shot that establishes a scene, often giving their viewer information about where the scene is set. Can be close up shot but often a wide/long shot that usually appears at the beginning of the scene.

 

 

 

Medium Shot: The framing of a subject from waist up.

 

 

Two Shot: A shot of two characters, possible engaging in conversation. Usually to signify/establish some sort of relationship.

 

 

Point-Of-View Shot: Shows a view from the subjects perspective. This shot is usually edited so that the viewer is aware who's point of view it is.

 

 

Over the shoulder Shot- looking behind a characters shoulder, at a subject. The character facing the subject usually occupies 1/3 of the frame but it depends on what meaning the director wants to create (for example, if the subject is an inferior character, the character facing them may take up more of the frame to emphasise this.

 

 

Overhead Shot- a type of camera shot in which the camera is positioned above the character, action or object being filmed.

 

 

                   Reaction Shot: a shot that shows the reaction of a character either to another character or an event within the sequence.

 

 

 

Angles

 

 

High Angle: a camera angle that looks down upon a subject or object. Often used to make the subject or object appear small or vulnerable.

 

 

Low Angle: A camera angle that looks at a subject or object. Often used to make the subject/object appear powerful/dominant.

 

 

Canted framing (or oblique): camera angle that makes what is shot appeared to be skewed or titled.

 

 

 

 

Examples of Stop motion filming

Mary and Gretel - 1917
This is one of the first Stop-motion films, A fairy brings two dolls to life, part of a short lived stop-motion puppet series by animator Howard S. Moss. There has been puppets and dolls used along side rabbits and dwarfs. During the early 18th century technology was very limited for the time, this little short movie is inventive and performed well, in terms of creation.





Post-it Creation
This is a very different type of stop motion to the other two I have looked at, 2 men spent weeks creating this mind blowing video, from only using post-it notes. They created pictures and words using the man sitting at the desk while he is trying to get on with his work, while all the thoughts running through his head.

Fantastic Mr Fox- 2009

This is a very short clip from the 2009 movie 'Fantastic Mr Fox', it also uses stop motion, but as it was made a lot more recently the outcome is a lot more successful, because it doesn't stutter as much as 'Mary and Gretel', it has more of a natural flow of photos.

Stop Motion Filming

Stop Motion Filming- Creating Our Own
Within our lesson we learnt how to do stop motion, I worked with Kayla and we had to used play dough. Our idea was 2 people dancing. Our plan was to do famous dances, so we decided on the Michael Jackson moonwalk, the dirty dancing lift and moves, when we started it, the initial idea of moving the people, taking a photo, moving a little more and taking a picture was very tedious, but you got used to it after a while. we started to do simple walking with our play dough made people, which was simple but when it got the iconic  dirty dancing lift, we didn't really think it through of how the person would be in the air and we take a photo. the puppets were not strong enough to hold them alone, so for a small while they would hold but not when the 'girl' was fully above the others head. As a bright idea we stuck a pencil in the back of the elevating person so we could control it, the outcome was pretty successful, overall, but maybe we should have planned before how we would execute this. Our filming wasn't perfect but we kept the camera straight at all times, and it was creative.

Behind Stop Motion Filming

Definition:
In animation, stop motion animation is a cinematic process, or technique used to makes static objects appear as if they were moving. This technique is commonly used in Claymation and puppet-based animation. The objects are brought to life by breaking up the figure's motion into increments and filming one frame of film per increment.

History:
Stop motion animation has a long history in film. It was often used to show objects moving as if by magic. The first instance of the stop motion technique can be credited to Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton for Vitagraph's The Humpty Dumpty Circus (1897), in which a toy circus of acrobats and animals comes to life. In 1902, the film Fun in a Bakery Shop used the stop trick technique in the "lightning sculpting" sequence. French trick film maestro Georges Méliès used stop motion animation once to produce moving title-card letters in one of his short films, and a number of his special effects are based on stop motion photography. Now Stop motion is a popular form of creating movies, and as technology is getting better each year, so it stop motion filming.

Examples of stop motion movies:
The Tale of the Fox
Wallace and Grommet
Coraline
Dougal and the Blue Cat
Lost Continent
The Maker
Alice