Cinematography 2000 word essay On Line Logbook...

Researching into action horror sequences and the use of cinematic styles that make up these specific visual elements within these scenes. (1) Supernatural mash Fan Made Alien Song Remix, See Bibliography (time 1:04-1:14) with the majority of the footage being in low key lighting as a common use of lighting in the majority of horror and supernatural flicks and movies. With low-key lighting used mostly in adding the feeling or mode for uncertainty and suspense or the element of surprise within a scene. (2) Introduction to the Insidious movie, see bibliography ( time 1:22-4:03) use of low key light with framed darkened edges with the use of a slow rotation of the camera with subtle flickers of light mimicking that of candle light. Using a combination of pictures and possible use of video that forms the visual medium in the Insidious intro, which could easily be edited/composited to create movement from photographs, like the scene where the picture on the wall moving giving a subtle eeriness for example. (3) Let Me In- movie,( time 29:23-31:13) seemingly natural light spilling in from the back, with the girl vampire in the right bottom corner setting up the layout for the actions of that scene, as the shadows showing very little of the character mostly an outline from a distance. This type of lighting adds to the next part of the scene where the vampire kills the man and starts changing her form in a shadowy fashion, giving a quite graphic and intense moment. There is also a slight rim of light on the top of girl vampire's hoody and the man's head that seems to look like its coming from a key light or back light but when the camera zooms out there appears to be no space to place those types of lights into the scene as it is cut off by the tunnel sides, so it must be produced by the light from either the front or the back of the tunnel. Others that where took into consideration was alleyways in the dark or people walking past street lights come to mind like the famous DVD cover from the Exorcist similar to the supernatural T.V. series street scene shown below both displaying cold colours spectrum of the colour wheel brining across a scene of mystery and chills to the scene. More on light and shadows was experimented with in the kitchen footages.

(5) the exorcist see bibliography

(4) Above snapshot from Supernatural fan-made song see bibliography

Below are rough layouts of the cameras and lights of suggested used places planed out beforehand? Utilising the lighting that came with the location were basic florescent lighting on the ceiling was used, making a decision to use a extra one or two more lights for three point lighting un shore if it still counts as three point lighting by including the florescent ceiling lights with a Tungsten light and Standard LED key Light.

After problems gaining access to a tungsten and Key Light, in the end using an LED Spot light and the florescent lights of the rooms ceilings used during filming, with a little more control over the hall lights as they had a automatic timer for when they go off which could have been utilised in some way. The hall gave a feel for a viable dull place to film low to medium Key Lighting, as the type of cinematic style researched for this type of genre, with the additional use of the florescent light on the ceiling gives a darker shade of Low to medium Key Light with no additional natural light being added in by windows from outside in the shot below.

Test footage also used in the final footage of the entrance shown above, where the use of the LED Spot Light was placed on the stars which seemed a little too bright using a 5400K Colour Temperature seemed too bright even with the added diffused overplayed glass seemed to strong in the end it was covered with a bad to make it more diffused. Although the diffused ceiling light from behind the camera man gives a subtle light on the face of the man in the foreground It seemed fitting to add an entrance scene for more footage even though this is the only room that was not planed out on paper beforehand. Video File 0063 is darker with the use of the spotlight covered with a bag to dull the light down with additional diffused glass coverings which was placed on the stairs giving more of a dark outline of the actor link on below left. While the link on the below right file 0062 shows how much brighter it is without the glass and bag.

Click picture links above to play files & pictures on left side below & on the other page for links.

It seemed more suited to the scene to have the source of the light from the spotlight to be more out of sight, gaining a more real feel for unexpectedness. So the first set of lights above was moved from the hall side to the kitchen entrance on the left making it less conspicuous when out of the sight of the camera and looks better when turned on for this shot shown above as the kitchen entrance is out of shot from the angle the camera is placed at. Then the man behind him would walk to the kitchen door as the man in front got up to give the appearance that the other man vanished, however there was still little of that man that could be seen so the scenes contrast and light was edited darker to hide them parts, also debates on if the shadow and light on the ceiling seemed to ruin the overall feeling of the scene. While darkening the background of the scene seemed to of made the feel of the footage more creepy, as the man appears out of the dark from behind, and ending with the scene dipping back to is normal shadowy state of shade revelling the that the man has gone. Self debate over if the shadow and ceiling light spill should have been removed for more eerie effect of the footage, and the light on the face seemed a little harsh but not too bad, using low key light. With the florescent light in the foreground from the above ceiling gives a subtle light spill in front of the man in the foreground adding to the overall low key lighting of the scene. It seems even without the extra lights the mood of the scene created by the ceiling lights in the scene give an average lighting set for low to medium key lighting along with the place chosen for the shot of a long narrow hall of added white dull walls and a overall cold feeling to the shot.

This could have been improved by changing the contrast and some of the shade to a blue colour, like the slight bluish tint in the snapshot from Supernatural fan-made song on the first page of this essay.

Click on picture above for footage.

Testing the spot light from the other side of the room was not as effective as it gave a better sense of where the light was coming from, and did not really aid to the overall scene.
Click snapshot above for video...

Click on top left picture for link to video

Adding increasing darkness behind the actor as he moves closer to the camera was created in After Effects by the use of Curves Tool that was animated shown below; this was to add a bit of dramatic effect to the scene. As it come towards the end of the scene the contrast hits the actors face a little hard showing some red and green colours shown below, doesnt seems so bad that it ruins the hole video.

Using the ceiling light and distance with the zoom of the camera to create a soft dark outline of the actor in the foreground, with a subtle light spill on the man in the foreground. Having man vanish again appears more effective to have in a separate shot from the other side shown on the left below, on the right testing out shade to light ratio. (Click on pictures for links to test footage below)

Testing the light in the kitchen first closing the curtains to the street lights outside and using the spotlight pointing towards the wall and bouncing off that wall into the front as a kind off diffuser shown below. As a actor moves further from the camera the more defined they become as the man in the front is more as a dark outline, trying to keep continuity of the type of light used. Although in this shot the background wall is vary in focus and not dipped in the dark which is similar to the hallway scene shown above.

Click on Picture above for footage...

Zooming in gave a change of depth of filed from strong to shallow, and helped for a transition between one scene to the supposed monster summand shown on the above right. With the transition from the hall to the kitchen scene after the man bending down to pick up the keys seemed appropriate as the flow of the story going from the first scene entrance into the hall then to the kitchen and back to the man appearing and disappearing seems to flow quite nicely to start with. Although the ending was a bit iffy in trying to keep the ratio of footage from the kitchen to match the Hall scenes, there did not seem to be enough that compensated for the other footage. Trying to plan out a scenario to start for the use of continuity throughout the footage got harder towards the end and gaining more footage at later was close to imposable to get with the same people as they had other things to do, and it seemed best to use the same places for making extra footage although once home a 200 mile trip just to film the same locations was not possible in the limited time left before the deadline. Making do with what was gathered, as other ideas came to mind as progress and editing accrued it was a little too late by this stage to get more footage, it has become relevant that one can never have too much footage or at least in this case. Though filming at home could have been done for extra footage as low dark key light still could have been done but the continuity of a scene link a hall or long path way would not have been the same for a better continuity.

Music was added to compliment the actions of the scenes which got really difficult towards the end of the final edit and some of the scenes where also increased in length as it did not reach the 3 minute mark at first. Increasing these scenes seemed plausible to increase the kicking scenes in order to make the man chanting seem more sinister, with a sound track that was added which seemed right for the genre and the overall feeling its spost to portray. Also in some of the original footage one can here the squeaking movement of the tripod that was edited out in Adobe Audition. Then a sound effect was added for a transition from 2minits 14seconds in to compensate for the slightly dragging scenes of the kitchen and transitioning back to the main soundtrack when the actor summoned zombie disappears then cuts to the man holding the brume although it most possibly would have looked better if there was more time to make more appropriate footage to edit for the ending. Taking a other look at the overall final footage shown below there was one part that felt like it had to be removed as it give the impression it took away the continuity of the rest of the footage as it seemed quite positive, even though it was removed the ending still seemed a little odd and was time stretched slightly to make up for the 3 minutes plus.

There were times where parts of this seemed plausible to turn into a minor humours comedy as even the actors thought it was funny when going through the story plot; it was tempting, as some might gain a snigger or laugh at some of the content, even the ending is quite bizarre?

After a second attempt edit for the final 3 minute short film to deter try and sync the music and sounds to the footage including adding the credits, having the camera cut from the actor at the front and cut to a zoom of the man that was doing the summoning. As the music seemed to fit the man striding outwards as the music came to its climax strangely revelling who the summering man was. Although the ending still seems a quite a bit odd (iffy) maybe its just ones own opinion, as this is where feedback would come in handy.

link to final 3 minit + http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CmUzLJd3T8&feature=youtu.be

Bibliography:
(1) & (4) Supernatural mash Fan Made Alien Song Remix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUL5zqbHPJ4&list=FL_7_dpp90GIrVzWoiIMTkkA&index =64 uploded 7th oct 2010 by PunkPrincessPirateyoutube name of title (Supernatural: Extraterrestrial (Destiel)) [online] accesed 2011 7th october
(2) Introduction to the Insidious movie: watched online at 11:00am, 10/11/2012 from http://www.movie2k.to/insidious-watch-movie-723497.html# (3) Let Me In- movie, [OFFLINE] DVD NUMBER:D1-44889-UK-A Bar Code 5 035822 414471> ( time 29:23-31:13 in) (5) the exorcist scanned picture from [online] accessed from: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres? um=1&hl=en&sa=N&tbo=d&biw=1846&bih=875&tbm=isch&tbnid=kUXslTCA2-7WM:&imgrefurl=http://blog.flipkart.com/%3Fp% 3D2091&docid=yn7N88BoRZWDcM&imgurl=http://blog.flipkart.com/wp-content/ uploads/2010/10/ theexorcist.jpg&w=350&h=475&ei=0cbUUIbFDeW-0QWypIHoDA&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=2&sig =109635311443823199909&page=1&tbnh=136&tbnw=97&start=0&ndsp=54&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0,i: 120&tx=60&ty=86

(Nerves) song Sond-track accessed (20/12/2012-23.24pm) from:http://incompetech.com/music/ royalty-free/index.html?feels%5B%5D=Action&feels%5B%5D=Dark&feels%5B% 5D=Intense&feels%5B%5D=Mysterious&Search=Search+by+Feel [ONLINE] Contributed artist by Kevin MacLeod

Audio file 'props099' [OFFLINE] accessed from: Sound Effects Copped From Auditory Disk in 2010 given By Yvonne Davidson Casette Head of Multimedia Interactive Media At Stanford College Name of Disk is Unknown, Name of Individual Sounds from that Disk is as listed below by folder Category of the Disk. Audio\Audoitaryl\Sounds\WAVE1\Cd_05\WAVE2\ showing the last file on the list as '99'.