My 2 minute film opening

Here is my 2 minute film opening: 'Philip Reads a Book'...

Sound

This is my chosen background music for my 2 minute film opening.

Iconic Sounds

Some of the key iconic sounds from the Pastiche genre are (I am looking at a mixture of comedy, action fantasy, gaming genres):

       

There are usually a lot of explosions in action films, so I might use this convention in my pastiche.




The game over track is an iconic sound, referenced in films with the video game theme to signal a death or the end.





The 8bit track is iconic to vintage video games which is often very relatable to gaming audiences.







The gun shot sound is extremely recognisable as it is used in a wide range of genres. People recognise it even if they've never even seen a gun in reality.



Zombies are one of the most popular human-mutant features in fantasy films, and their moan is easily replicated seeing as they are formed from creatures that were once human beings.

Best Coin Ever Spent

Before I left for school this morning I wanted to check my facebook page, but when I went to open up a browser a page was already open. On the page was this video, which I noticed has some good camera angles. So here it is becoming a blog post. The fact that the performers made up a full orchestra with a choir must have given the director/cameraman a lot to work with, and the way the camera looks at the instruments gives the clip variety.

The assortment of shots include:

• a Bird's eye view shot of the square the orchestra is in,
• Long shot of children watching the musicians
• Shots from bellow the instruments
• Extreme close up of string instruments
• Close up of instruments from behind
• Pan shots of the women in the orchestra
• Pan shots of other musicians walking into the square
• Shot from above of drums moving into the group
• Shot between musicians of conductor and many others that I cannot currently pin-point.

This video has emphasised that I will need to use a wide variety of shot types and distances in my film opening to keep my audience engaged.

I think this was worth note, and a fun video.

More Sound

For our Media homework this weekend, we had to watch a film and pick out some diegetic and non-diegetic sound.
I watched 'Pitch Perfect', and found both of these elements in one scene.

(I apologise for the fact the clip is in German, I couldn't find it in English but the language doesn't matter.)



At the start of the scene you hear the song 'Open Season' by the High Highs. This the main character Beca cannot hear, making it Non-diegetic sound.

Further on in the clip Beca is in her room watching 'The Breakfast Club'. She hears the characters talking through her headphones but we watching Pitch Perfect can hear them too, so in a way this is Diegetic sound that we shouldn't be able to hear (which makes it a bit of both).

As the film ends, you (and Beca) hear 'Don't you' by Simple Minds, and you think it's Diegetic as she watches Judd Nelson walking across the field, but when she takes her headphones off you realise the music has switched to become Non-Diegetic that Beca can no longer hear.

For an effective film opening, I see that I need to think carefully about how I combine diegetic and non-diegetic sound. I could do something like this.

Diegetic and Non-diegetic sound

In our Media lesson today, we were looking at sound in film.
We read about two specific types of sound: Diegetic sound and Non-diegetic sound.

Diegetic sound - This refers to sounds that happen within the film that the characters can hear. This could be dialogue and all the noises made by objects.

In this clip from 'Top Gun', the main character is sitting in a bar listening to a juke box. A background character changes the song on the juke box which carries on playing at the same volume which could be an example of diegetic sound as it is an object from within the film emitting a sound the characters can hear.

As the volume grows, the sound is no longer coming from the juke box alone, but turns into Non-Diegetic sound gradually during the rest of the clip until the credits where the song continues at the loudest it's been.




Non-diegetic sound - This refers to the sound the characters can't hear, such as voiceovers, sound effects and overlayed music.

There was an example of both of these in the clip we watched in the lesson. The clip was an extract from 'Hunger', a film about PIRA volunteer Bobby Sands who died from a hunger strike whilst in prison. An example of Diegetic sound could be the sound the trolly made as they wheeled him out of the building or the crying of birds as they flew overhead in a flashback he experienced. An example of Non-Diegetic sound could have been the faint music that had been overlayed to set the tone in his dying moment as he stares unblinkingly up at the camera.