Artefact 5 Research

Leading on from my fourth artefact I’m looking to create my fifth artefact based around the use of special effects to see the effect they have on the audience and the genre of film. I will try to help recognise which effects are seen to be related with each genre. I will try to include a variety of different effects to ensure that the artefact is able to deliver a broad range of results but I will have to ensure that I take into consideration time constraints.

A recent film that I watched was Knowing (2009) starring Nicolas Cage, although I didn’t enjoy the overall film there was one effect that caught my eye and is shown above. When seen in the cinema this was an intense scene, I feel that this effect and some other effects would be classed as action effects, but overall I believe that the film was a sci-fi based drama.
I will look to use the website videocopilot.net which contains a wide range of after effects tutorials, some of which will be very relevant to my artefact and ones which I am familiar with. I can also use YouTube to find special effect tutorials but I will have to scour through them to find the best ones as they should be concise and easy to follow to ensure that the artefact turns out how I want.

Artefact 4 Evaluation

In my fourth artefact I looked at whether colour and lighting could effect the audience’s perception of genre in film. The artefact contained four clips from different films; The Departed (2007), Perfect Stranger (2007), Meet The Parents (2000), and Collateral (2004). All four clips begin by showing the original film footage and then changes to the version with edited colour and lighting, the effects in each were achieved using a program called Magic Bullet.

In my questionnaire I included questions to discover what genres the audience associated with different colours. My findings were that the following colours related to the following genres;

Red – Horror
Blue – Drama/Thriller
Green – Sci-Fi/Action
Yellow – Comedy/Romance
Black & White – All Genre’s/Film Noir

My findings from the artefact revealed that colour plays some part in shaping the audiences perceptions of film genre. I discovered that in some cases the audience would place an entire film in a different genre based on colour or lighting. The majority of results revealed that although colour has a vital role in shaping film it cannot override the content of the film, and so the core genre will remain the same regardless of any colour or lighting adjustments. As well as this the artefact showed that because the colour and lighting has an effect on the way the audience view film, it would in essence place the film into a different sub-genre.

In conclusion colour and lighting can change the audience’s perception of a genre but cannot change the whole genre and whilst certain colours may be associated with certain genres this is due to the cultural meanings of those colours.

Artefact 4 Research

My fourth artefact will be looking to discover how the audience perception of the genre of a film can be effected by the editing of lighting and colour on a scene.

Films that are worth mentioning and spring to mind imediatley are Sin City (2005) and 300 (2006) which were both Frank Miller comic books. Sin City uses a film noir style, but with elements of different colour used throughout such as the red in actor Clive Owens shoes and the blood which was made white in post production.

The reason that 300 was partly such an epic and diverse film was the fact that the visual effects done in post production were stunning and helped to give the film an unique stylised effect. Many effects that are the same or similar are reffered to by many people as 'the 300 effect'.On IMDB it says that "The unique look of the film was produced in post-production by using an effect nicknamed 'the crush'. As producer 'Jeffrey Silver' explains on the film's official website -- "you crush the black content of the image and enhance the color saturation to change the contrast ratio of the film." As well as this the "Post-production took almost a year. The film was edited on an Avid, with an HD cut also maintained in Final Cut Pro. The 3D was made using Maya, XSI and Lightwave. The 2D composites were made with Shake, Inferno, Fusion and Combustion. The filmmakers prefer Macintosh, but large portions of the movie were made under Linux. Asset management was handled by custom software written in the Panorama development environment, made by Provue. Color management was handled by Truelight software. The film was scanned on a Northlight scanner and was recorded on the Arrilaser."



As well as this, other films such as the Matrix (1999) use colour effects such as the green tint, know to some simply as 'neo'. This played a big part in all three of the films in the Matrix series and was attached to seens in which the character Neo is present. The colouring and lighting added to the film by making its own style, this was achieved in parts by taking out the colour blue from the exterior shot and thus convey the grimness of the world of the Matrix.

I will now look to manipulate footage to enable myself to find out what role colour and lighting play in shaping the apperance of genre.

Artefact 3 Evaluation

This third artefact was loosely based around the Kuleshov effect and looked to reveal how editing could change the audiences emotions when piecing together seemingly unrelated footage in a montage sequence and try to create different meanings for different people.

The artefact contained four separate parts, each of these parts contained a five second clip at the beginning of an actor’s emotionless face, at the end of each part was a clip of the actors ‘reaction’. Placed in the between these two clips was an unrelated clip, but the artefact looked to find if it would still have an emotional reaction from the audience.

The research into this artefact followed the same structure as the previous two and again was done with an internet questionnaire. Overall the research showed that there was a difference in opinion between people thoughts, some people thought that the images did not go together and said they did not see a change in the actors emotions. On the other hand many people believed that the actor’s emotion changed throughout the four parts, with some of the emotions being cited as “hungry”, “tempted”, “aroused” and “happy”. The research proved that although footage may not be related, it can still be edited in such a way that the audience makes up perceptions in their own mind when in reality there is no link between what they are seeing.

In my next artefact I will try to focus on how colour and lighting can both effect the audience’s perception of genre, this will be done through testing out various colour and lighting combinations on a singular short piece of film footage. Hopefully this will enable to find out if it also has any impact on the audience’s perception of genre.

Client Project Program Change

After putting together my beta version of my clients DVD I have come to the decision that I will change programs to Adobe Encore, this is down to the fact that I believe it is a better program for the project as it can be used in conjunction with Photoshop and After Effects, giving it a huge advantage. I have already found a good range of tutorials for the program and this will hopefully improve my knowledge and the client’s final product.

Client Project Programs

Although I have done DVD authoring before I have limited experience and so I will begin to create my clients DVD with Sony DVD Architect, a program which was recommended to me by a friend and is highly rated as a top class authoring program. It comes with the ability to add various different types of media and to integrate with scripting. It also has a good range of tutorials available and good customer support.

Further Client Project Research

I have found this video whilst researching, it show the photographer and allows people an insite into the way he works and why he got into photography, I feel this could be used as a small part on my clients DVD and will present him with the idea.

SPP Ideas

My idea for the exhibition is for it to be about outside the box thinking and to be focused on new, fresh, raw ideas. I was thinking its should be based around this because employers are always looking to for people who have ideas that are not just based simply around others ideas but ones that show the creativity, flair and talent that we have. Essentially its a simple idea but I think it could work very effectively if done professionally.

Client Project Research

I have researched into the types of promotional videos and slideshows that other photography companies have. I have come across a number of videos for companies which stick to the same format, this is where the company logo or name is show and then there is a simple slideshow which fades in and out of each picture. This type of ordinary video is the type that I will recommend that the client stays away from to be able to stand out from competitors.




This clip is from a company called Barossa Photo Co and is a nice example of the ordinary type of promotional photography video.






The two videos from above show that professional slideshows can be created and this type of effect would be easily achieved in After Effects and I will suggest to the client that I can put together a sample using his photographs to enable him to decide whether it would fit in with the company branding. I have also sent off for various promotional DVD from photography companies around the country to gain some perspective over whole DVD’s.

Artefact 2 Evaluation

My second artefacts are two clips from the films Hot Fuzz (2007) and Gladiator (2000). The clip from Hot Fuzz was slowed down (to 90%) and is accompanied by music taken from Terminator 2 (1991), whilst the clip from Gladiator is sped up (to 200%) and is accompanied by the theme music from The Benny Hill Show (1969). The aim of these artefacts was to see the effect that changing the speed had upon the genre.

This artefact was researched into in the same way as the first artefact, this was with questionnaires both online and offline. I chose to research in this way as I found it was a good method from the previous artefact and enable me to get good answers. The research led to the conclusion that when giving a film an increase in speed the genre can change from whatever it may be, in this case an action drama, and turn it into a comedy. Similarly I found decreasing the speed also had an impact on genre, changing it from a comedy into an action drama film. This led me to the conclusion that just like the first artefact the recognition of the genre by the audience is shaped by factors such as how fast or slow a scene is, as well as this music plays a massive role in shaping genre because it has a huge impact on the audiences emotions and can produce a scene in the genre that the editor or director is looking to achieve.

My next artefact will focus on the way that positioning shots in a certain order can have an effect on genre and how certain shots can influence a genre by being place next to each other.

Artefact 1 Evaluation

My first artefact is a recut trailer for the film Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and was produced with Adobe Premiere. The aim of this artefact was to turn the films genre from a family comedy into a horror/thriller with the premise that Robin William’s character is a man who is infatuated with children.

The research into this artefact was done with questionnaires both on the internet and through hand outs. The research led to the conclusion that with the use of the editing process, the trailer had successfully managed to change theappearance and genre of the film, with all the people who completed the questionnaire putting the genre of the trailer as horror/thriller. Various conclusions can be drawn from this research, one of them being that the role of the editor holds a great amount of power because the editing process contains a vast amount of techniques that can allow the change in appearance of any given footage. The editing process happens at the end of the filming process and therefore the audience are presented with the end result of how the films footage has been processed, one editor’s version of a film can turn out a lot different from another editor’s version even though they have the same footage to work with.

This artefact will lead onto show how an editing technique, such as changing speed, can also affect the audiences perception of genre and can reveal which speed creates which genres. This artefact will enable me to begin to focus on how a technique of editing can shape footage, as opposed to the current artefact which was viewing the editing process as a whole and illustrated its power when positioning different parts of a film and combining it with sound to change its outlook.

Artefact 1 - Mrs Doubtfire Recut Trailer

This is my artefact and is a recut of the film Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), this artefact aims to show how the genre of the film has been changed by the editing process and at the same time I will be able to identify the associations with different genres. I decided to make this artefact not only because it is focused around the editing process but also because it’s something I've wanted to have a go at for a long time. When making the trailer I found it was harder than I imagined because it’s so time consuming to go through a whole film and pick out individual pieces to use and then piece them together. As well as this finding the right music to go with the trailer is key because music and sound plays a massive part in having the right feel and presenting people with something that gives them the emotions you want to give them.

Toby Neal DVD

Over Christmas I have been working on trying to sort out my clients DVD and have designed a preliminary version. I have been using Sony DVD architect to put it together, although had been finding difficulties in being able to prepare the disc which cost me quite a lot time. I produced the colour schemes on the DVD match up to the colours on the clients web site so that his branding remains constant throughout all of his media.