Zhang YiMou Cinematography Presentation

Day 10: 25/10/2010

Today was our first class after mid term break. Ms. Wong had told us that we should have finished filming by the end so we would have lots and lots of footage to edit when we got back, but my group didn't manage to film once throughout the whole week as most of us were away and busy. So instead during today's class, we used the footage we filmed the last time we filmed before the break and Kazia and I worked on editing the clips and deleting the parts we didn't need while Sharon and Betty worked on our filming schedule. Even though we didn't have much to work or edit because we didn't shoot much the last time, it took us the whole lesson just to get through 2 of 5 or 6 clips we've uploaded already. While we were editing it, we realized that there was one scene we'd have to re-film and that we weren't very aware to our surroundings when we were filming because the clock we used for the second shot was still there later on, and we had forgotten to change the time on that clock.

Other than working on our film during today's lesson, we also got the draft of our essays back with Ms. Wong's comments on it as well as her suggestions to what could help us get an even better grade on it. For the essay, I got a 6, out of 8, and I think that that's pretty good. But I also agree with Ms. Wong's comments about my essay; how I was more descriptive than analytical in my essay. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but in this case it isn't because this essay is about analyzation and how we interpret different scenes and such.

I think that during today's class, I was mostly a communicator. I think that this is because I spent most of the lesson talking to Kazia about all the different parts that comes with editing footage. Even though Kazia was controlling the computer, we often talked to each other about which parts of the film we were going to keep or cut and when there were more than one take of a certain shot we'd discuss which one was better with the rest of our group. And once Sharon and Betty were done organizing our filming schedule, we all worked together and talked to each other, which is what communication and being a communicator is all about. :)

Day 7, 8, 9 - 21, 24, 30/9/2010

Day 7: 21/9/2010

During today's class, in our groups we continued to work on our script. We managed to achieve what we were aiming for last time; to add more dialogue in order to balance out the dialogue and the description and to add more characters and thicken the plot a bit more so that the film won't be dull. I think that achieving this was great because it helped us get a better sense about what the story is going to be like and what is going to happen as the story continues. But as we were writing the script, we came across a couple of problems which took some time to sort out and decide on what we wanted to do, which resulted in us not being finished with our script. We came across problems such as how we were going to make her invisible, how we were going to incorporate action into a movie about a teenager who gets a superhero, and how we were going to separate her regular life and her superhero life.

I think that overcoming these problems helped us develop more as thinkers and communicators, and I think that although we had to finish our script as homework, we worked really well as a group and as individuals. :)

Day 8: 24/9/2010

During today's class, we spent the lesson working on our scripts and finalizing it, adding in things, taking away irrelevant things and making sure that the script was clear and easy to understand. After we did so, we printed out our script, one copy for us and one copy for Ms. Wong. Our script ended up being 7 pages long. :)

After we printed out our scripts, Ms. Wong handed out storyboard sheets to each group. For the rest of the lesson, we worked on the storyboard. Because we spent most of the lesson working on our scripts, we had to split up the storyboards among all of us. I got the first and the third scene, which really wasn't that hard because we did most of the first one as a group before it was time to go and the third scene was more focused on Julia and Julia's mom talking and her going into the bathroom getting ready. Before we worked on our storyboards, my expectations as to how hard it would be to draw the storyboards were really high, so I was really surprised when it was that easy to get the storyboard done.

I think that throughout today's class, we all worked really well as a group, working as open-minded students, thinkers as well as communicators. I think that I was a communicator today because I often suggested ideas to make the story more interesting and to make it more like a teenager and casual rather than formal, which I think was one of the main problems towards the end of our script. :)

Day 9: 30/9/2010

During today's lesson, we put all of the storyboard sheets together and started numbering the shots as we didn't do that because we decided it'd be easier if we did it all together because we didn't know how many shots each person would've done for their storyboard scene. After we labelled all the shots, we put them all together and made sure they were all in the right order.

After we were done, we started working on the shot list sheets of paper that Ms. Wong handed out to us near the beginning of the class. A shot list is a table with 6 columns; shots, distance, angele, movement, blocking and script notes/dialogue. This was to help us organize what we were gonna film first, and we decided to sort out the order we were going to film in order of location. For example, we put all of the bedroom scenes first as we were planning on filming in the bedroom first, then we put all of the house scenes next, and so on. I think that having this shot list is really going to help the process of filming as it'll help us be more organized when we start filming. Another reason why I think it's really important is because the table included the camera distances, the camera angels and the camera movements, which even though were shown in our storyboard drawings, it'd be hard to tell what we were trying to achieve in the cinematography area without the actual words. :)

Day 6: 15/9/2010

During today's class, we spent the lesson working on the script of our film project "Me and my Superself". While we were writing out the script, we went back and forth on how to improve our story by adding more action to the film, which resulted in us changing the way the story was going to be filmed. We went from her not knowing she had any powers at all to the main character narrating the story from the moment she got her powers to the superhero she is now. When we were halfway into the lesson, I wanted to look around to see what other people's script looked like and I realized that in the script for my group, we barely had any dialogue while all the other groups had tons, but what we had a lot that they all didn't have much of was description. So we decided to cut back on the descriptions and focus more on the dialogue, which is actually much harder than it looks because as our story was going to be told as a narration, it was difficult because we didn't know where exactly to put the dialogue or if we should add more characters into the story. Our story isn't finished just yet as there are still parts of the story where we need to add more, cut back, or change. Even though we've only got the beginning of the story worked out so far, I'm looking forward to see how the story will turn out in the end as we continue writing our script. :)

Day 5: 13/9/2010

During today's lesson, we started off discussing our homework on different camera techniques, camera angles, and camera distances. With that in mind, we reviewed it by watching the first couple minutes of a movie called "Vanilla Sky", starring Tom Cruise. Throughout the couple minutes we watched, what we all did as a class was use all the skills we learnt so far to analyze the film. While we were discussing it, I never realized how much someone could tell just from the first few minutes. We talked about the music played in the beginning, signifying that the movie is suspenseful and the genre of the movie is most likely either a horror film or an action film. Not only did we talk about the music, but we also talked about the way the movie was shot from the different angles and I think that the way the dream was shown in the beginning gives me the feeling that it's something that is going to be bigger than just a dream, might even develop into the center of the story.

After we analyzed and finished discussing the film, Ms. Wong told us about the assessments we are going to have during this action films unit. Our criteria B assessment was called "Me and my super-self". For this assessment, we have to create a film about an ordinary teenager who has a superhero power in groups of 4.

Our film is going to be about an ordinary teenage girl with the ability to go invisible.

It starts off with the ordinary teenage girl, set during a saturday morning with her not wanting to wake up. At 8AM, her alarm clock rings and she wakes up, but because she was exhausted that morning, she went back to sleep. At around 10AM, her mom comes in and starts yelling at her to wake up so she decides to sit up on her bed and tell her mom to get out, slamming the door in her face whilst doing so. Because she was exhausted that morning, once her mom left her room after yelling at her to wake up, she momentarily wishes that she was invisible while she lays down on her bed planning on going back to sleep. She thought that it was just a wish, but then she started slowly disappearing underneath her blanket, and before she knew it, she was invisible. She might have the ability to go invisible, but not only does she not know how to control it, but she is only invisible in the appearance; people can still hear her and they can also touch her...

I'm not sure how the rest goes as we did not finish the synopsis as a group because Betty took it home with her to finish, but I think that the story is going to be kind of fun to shoot and it's something I'm definitely looking forward to as it's my first film, ever. :)

Day 4: 7/9/2010

During today's class, not only did we learn about cinematography in general, but we also learnt more and more about the things important to cinematography, such as; different camera angles, different camera lenses, different lighting, different color

s. This all taught me some really important things about film. I learnt that sometimes thesmallest difference in one picture frame can change the whole dynamic of the rest ofthe scene or picture. I learnt that the angle you shoot the scene and the type of lenses you use makes a big difference, proving once and for all that all the small things don't count. The small things are the things that we never notice, even if it's right in frontof us the whole time, especially in movies as sometimes we are way too caught up in the moment watching the scene that we forget about other things which are also importantto the film.

After learning about cinematography, I remembered I once watched an episode of the show called "Legend of the Seeker" and how beautiful the cinematography in that movie was.

Here are two examples of pictures from the show:

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Camera Distances

Extreme Long Shot:

Long Shot/Wide Shot:

Medium Shot:

Close-Up:

Extreme Close-Up:

Deep Focus Shot/Wide Angle Shot:

Camera Angles

Bird's Eye View:

High Angle:

Eye-Level Shot:

Low Angle:

Dutch Angle:

Point-Of-View Angle:

Camera Movement

Pan:

Tilt:

Track:

Zoom:

Arc:

Day 3: 3/9/2010

During today's film class, we started off today's lesson sharing the scripts we wrote with our partners. Because Kazia Tam was sitting beside me, she was my partner, but because she forgot to send herself the script, I didn't get to see her's. After she read my script, she pointed out some errors in the description, but other than that she said it was good. Another thing which she also said was that the storyline/plot for my script was very limited, which I agree with her because this script was really only made for one scene, as it can only be stretched so far. After listening to her comments, I realized that doing this kind of thing will not only help me become a better film student or just a student in general, but it'll also help me become a bit more open-minded to other concepts and expand an idea further.

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For homework, we had to find a fictional video on youtube and embed the clip onto here and talk about what the signifiers and the signified things are in the clip. The clip I chose to embed is the trailer to a new movie coming out soon called "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". This is the first part of the final movie in the installment of Harry Potter movies, which is based on the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling.

The reason why I chose this trailer was because right after I watched this trailer, it made me feel anxious to watch this movie, and it also made me speechless because of how well this movie was shot and directed. This movie might just be the first part of the final Harry Potter movie, but the way the director captures the reason why Harry Potter is a worldwide phenomenon, and he also showed how all the past movies have led up to this final one.

This movie is based on the final book of the Harry Potter series, and although I haven't read the books, it looks quite similar to the overall concept of the books. The music played throughout the trailer tells us a lot about the movie; it's an action film which is going to be filled with suspense. I would also categorize this movie as fantasy as well as adventure because the plot for this movie is Harry, Hermonie and Ron going on an adventure to find Voldemorts remaining Horcruxes and destroy them, which shows that this movie is also a fantasy film because of all the magic involved. The acting in the trailer was amazing even though there wasn't much dialogue in the trailer, you can feel the intensity and the darkness in their voices. All the snippets of clips in the movie tells us more about the movie because throughout all those snippets, you can sort of characterize the relationship between each character based on their emotions on their faces, which proves that the quote "a picture is worth a thousand words" true. The lighting in this movie was beautiful; the way the people on worked on the lighting used the proper amount of lighting during each scene shown in the trailer, for example; when Harry Potter was talking to Voldemort near the beginning of the trailer, they didn't add much lighting because in my opinion, i think that that particular scene was suppose to be dark and intense.

This trailer definitely captures the importance of all the past Harry Potter movies and why this is going to be a movie worth remembering, and a movie worth watching. November seems too far away!