James Esdaile: Editing ideas and conventions UNIT 16

UNIT 16: Prezi link: http://prezi.com/zv0ztueqofal/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share

Editing ideas:

Conventions of mystery films:

Typical conventions of a mystery film are: an unsolved mystery has been around for a while. A person (the hero of the film) comes along, and is challenged to solve the towns problem.

A lot of mysteries tend to involve murders, giving them a very dark mood. I will give the dark and grotty mood by making the contrast of the film very high, giving a dark and gritty look to the film.  

I will use these ideas in my film, but present them through the editing rather than through visually showing it.

I have chosen to not actually show the kidnappers face, so will edit the clips just before it is shown. This will fit the genre of mystery, as the audience will always be questioning who the kidnapper is.

I will also use small free clips of glitches, that are not copyrighted. These will help to give an edge to the short film.

I will also make the music for my film so that I don't use any copyrighted music. I will create a simplistic electronic piece that compliments the genre of mystery.

I began my short film by using a fade from black. I did this to make the audience feel like they don't have a full understanding of the story, and part of it is hidden from them. This is one of the main conventions of a mystery genre. I was inspired to do this from the film: Shutter Island.

When uploading each clip in the correct order, I realised that the lighting of each scene/clip altered too much, making the film look rigid and unorganised. I added an effect onto each clip called: brightness and contrast correction.

I then altered each clips brightness and contrast to make them all look like the same time of day and same weather. I also added slightly more contrast in order to create a harsh look. I thought that this harsh mood was used heavily in old mystery films, to give a more grimy look.

I used few clips throughout the short film that contained out of focus parts. I cut these sections down to create fade ins or fade out of focus in different areas; mostly clips of the scenery and fill in shots.
I did this to give a feeling of confusion and mystery. I thought that it fit the idea of not showing the kidnappers face, by hiding something from the audience to give them question what is going on.

Through my short film I used many fill in shots of scenery and trees blowing in the wind to give a more artistic feel to the film. I also did this to fill out the time and make the time of the film seem slightly warped and slow, which is one of the main conventions of mystery films. These long fill in shots gave a sense of time going slowly, which helps to keep the audience on edge and creates tension.

In this area of my 2 minute film, I Created a glitch feature to add creativity to the film. I did this by adding an overlay of a glitch, which I then made less opaque with the editing tools on premiere.

 For the last seen, I used a shot that is meant to present an eye line match, showing the view of the killer in the short film.

I added a distortion effect onto the piece to make it look like the killers vision is bad. I also altered the contrast and brightness to make sure that the clip doesn't look out of place and creates a smooth run between different shots.

I finally created my own song that was inspired by the film musician: Hans Zimmer, who tends to create orchestral or electronic music for thrillers, action films and mystery films. I was inspired by Zimmer to create a simplistic electronic song. I listened to songs that had conventions similar to mystery film soundtracks, and created a 2 minute track that I used for my short 2 minute film.