Discontinuity Editing
Discontinuity editing is used for most films these days. This editing technique is the opposite of Continuity editing. Discontinuity technique can emphasize emotion, key events, narrative in the film. When this technique is used carefully to tell stories along with Continuity editing, it can create overwhelming impacts on the viewers. An example of using this technique could be flash backs of something that has happened in the past (a man murders someone). The reason for this flash back would usually be important for the viewers to build the story in their heads.
Discontinuity shots stand apart from other cuts. They cut to something else that the viewer wouldn’t expect to be next. This draws attention to itself but it makes sense to the story later on.
The advantage of a discontinuity scene, it can condense weeks and months into a few seconds. The edits plunge the audience into many different places with quick edits. Discontinuity condenses a real time scene that may otherwise be 10mins long, but it can be retold within a few seconds with the same meaning/understanding narrative to it.
Storytelling
When a story is being told, it will always have an ending. The ending is usually apart of the message that the film has. A story must have a message. A message/reason for the point of the story is the message that the viewers/audience take away with them. A good story makes you listen, laugh, participate and learn from the knowledge you experience from the film you watch. It is important when telling a story to keep it interesting and moving so that the audience don’t get bored. The story must make sense by using a sequence of actions that lead of another. As viewers we reflect put the different sequence events together to build the story. A story can often be an event that has happened in real life or a dream that someone wishes was real. We all have a story to tell. We tell stories everyday but its how we change the story to the audience were telling. Storytellers share there experiences and invite the audiences to watch them.
Shots
The exact terminology varies between production environments but the basic principles are the same. Shots are usually described in relation to a particular subject. The subject could be a person, a moving object.
These are example shots for film making:
These are guidelines of the different effects that each type of shot will show/play a part in the narrative. You can shots to help with the telling of the story. How you edit the shots together is important. They usually are edited to the continuity technique. E.g. Close Up to Mid Shot to Long Shot). Correct editing for shot to shot story telling when you follow the rules will be what the audience will expect for there eyes to follow what is going on. But these rules are only guidelines that can be broken. You can have a shot that will immediately throw the eyes of the viewers from one shot to another. An example shot like this E.g. Extreme Close up to a Long Shot would be ok to do if it was a reason of throwing the audience to a big adjustment in shot size to keep your audience alert.
Narrative
Narrative is content, consisting of events, actions, time and location. The narrative is told by arrangement, emphasis/de-emphasis, and magnification/diminution, of any of the elements of the content. A narrative structure has usually got a Beginning, Middle and End.
Events are the constituents of a story, and are crucial to it. Without the different events there would be no story. An event is essentially a process, an alteration, which deals with occurrence of change. An event is an idea of change in time and is crucial in narrative. Each individual event can also be described as Major or Minor depending on the importance of its contribution to the overall narrative. An event can arise from the action of a character, natural causes or from an event before it.
The events are combined together to form the story line. A narrative has a main storyline that branches off into different events throughout the story making up the main plot of the story. The plot is defined as the sequence to the events of which a story is composed. Some events in the plot can also be defined as key moments in the narrative. A chain of events isn’t the plot but these events have significance.
Lighting
A lighting technique to use is the tree-point-system. This consists of three lights, Key light, a fill light and a Back light.
The Key light is the primary light in the scene and it simulates the natural light either outdoors or an interior light, depends on location. This light is placed 30 degrees from the camera.
The Fill light partially softness the hard shadows from the key light. It has a lower intensity with a more diffuse light than the key light. It is placed on the opposite side of the camera from the key light at a 30 degree angle from the camera –subject axis and is set to the same height as the camera. The image can become flat if the fill light is too intense.
The Back light is placed above and to the rear of the subject. This is because you don’t want the light directly onto the camera lens. The Back light outlines the subject, mostly the upper portion to separate the subject from the background.
Other lighting system:
Eyelight- a small light that can be focused to reflect the subject’s eye to give them a reflective sparkle.
Background- to illuminate the background
Kicker light- A similar light to the background light. This light is usually low behind the subject opposite the key light.
Pre Production
All aspects of planning for the preproduction stage that must be considered and documented before any filming.
Date you shots
Log, take notes and assemble rough scenes for each shot (Storyboard)
Schedule days to shot on. 8hrs of filming usually covers 2-4minutes of the script
Crew up all the camera members that are needed for the shots. Timetable which camera people are needed for each scene.
Roles to play as part of the crew could be, DP, Camera assistant, Sound recordist, a Production and Costume designer.
Produce the script
Shot list: Scene number, Shot number, Duration, Location, Camera Position, Lighting
Music, Sound effects
Think about the colour palette, mood and tone you want the piece to have.
Collect images that inspire you visually
Find and secure locations
Casting actors for the roles of the characters for the film
Ask your self questions as you choose what will be on the set, is it relevant to the story, what lighting are you going to use for each scene, does the mood progress, do the characters type of clothing tell you something
Costumes and props
Language and act sent
Post Production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production. It is the production stage after the end of shooting and/recording the completed work
Post-production include:
Video editing all the video footage using different editing techniques
Add any special/visual effects
Sound effects or theme music and change the volume levels to importance
Change any colour corrections if needed
Title and credits
This stage takes longer than shooting the film and can take several months depending on how large the project is to complete editing, color correction and all addition of music and sound.
These are the list of websites I used for this research:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-production
http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/ellibst/NarrativeTheory
http://www.creatingthe21stcentury.org/Katalina
http://www.timothyjwelsh.com/course/11fa220/2011/09/15/discontinuity-editing/
