Sound in our movie

In our movie we have include diegetic and non-diegetic sound.
The diegetic sound was the natural sounds that could be heard in the background.
The diegetic sound that we used was a voice over.
The voice over was used for our main character.
We used a voice over so that the audience is able to understand the emotions and feelings of the girl is going through.
By doing this the audience is able to sympathise toward her.
We got the idea to use a voice over in our movie because when we were researching dramas we saw that alot of dramas have voice overs for the main character.
For example in the movie 'while you were sleeping' there was a voice over and also in the movie 'my sisters keeper'.
Also while we were editing we added a soundtrack to create and calm and relaxing atmosphere.
Some improvements that we could have made was to include some sound effects or made a score for a specific scene and we could have included silence to create a dramatic effect.
Overall i feel that the sound techniques we used was good.

Joygun Yasmin Nessa

Filming Experience

When i first started filming the various different restaurants using whip-pan i realised that i was making a lot of mistakes and moving the tri-pod when i should have been moving just the camera.
As i carried on filming other locations i realised by mistakes and understood what i was doing wrong.
I think that doing this made me have a better understanding of how to move the camera,
and helped me significantly because after doing this i was able to improve on by filming skills and learnt how to do whip-panning properly.
These mistakes i made when first filming has taught me to keep giving it another go and trying so that when i am filming in the future i will no longer make the same mistakes and have a much more steady hand with the camera.

Joygun Yasmin Nessa

Practise Voice over

In our film opening we will be using a voice over of the main character.
I have practised making a voice over so that when we make our one for our film opening i am familiar with the program and understand how to make it.
When i practised making a voice over i realised that the voice sounded like it had echoes.
This is something that i need to improve on when making the actual voice over for our film opening.
I experimented with the different tools to make the voice sound the way i wanted it to.
I was able to change the pitch and make it  sound deep or high pitch and squeaky.
I also wanted to match the voice to the character,
the main character in our film opening is a girl and i think her voice should sound quiet and calm because she is upset about finding out that she has terminal cancer.
I think practising the voice over has helped me so i now know what sort of things i can do to the voice over for our film opening.
I can now make many improvements to the practise voice over and include the changes in the final voice over that we will use.

Joygun Yasmin Nessa

Soundtrack- Whole Album

http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/hanford-24preludes/

this entire album includes great solo piano tracks that would go well with our film opening.

Farjana Begum

soundtrack option 3- Calm

http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/dini-calm/

This soundtrack is called ''calm'', it is most preferable for the film opening because it is really good in emphasising the sadness in the film. the music is really slow and really relaxing. The minds natural rhythms are reflected in its sounds.

Farjana Begum

soundtrack option 2- magical tales

http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/jbwallach-magicalt/

this solo piano soundtrack would go well with the sad film opening as it is slow and calm which would make the audience acknowledge the fact that someone is about to die and how sad it is for them. the music is not upbeat so the audience know the film isn't about something exciting or happy, neither is the music too sad that it makes the film too boring to watch.

Farjana Begum

soundtrack option 1- beauty of the earth

http://magnatune.com/artists/albums/lmccauley-beauty/

i think this is a good soundtrack that would go well with our film opening because the film is about someone finding out they will die and would accompany it well with the calm and slow sound of the piano. it isn't too sad or too jolly. the voice has to be cut out.

Farjana Begum

Researching into Film Openings

Whilst researching on the genre Drama, I watched film openings to the same genre I aspire to have our film opening. Like Seven Pounds, The Art of Getting By, My Sisters Keeper, While You Were Sleeping and The Help. They all establish the genre, character, setting and narrative in the opening, but in their own different way. However, there are some techniques that reached out to me and gave me an idea on how I could establish everything needed in a film opening. For instance, I really liked the use of the voice over in 'My Sisters Keeper', and really inspired me to want to use it in my film opening. It's an easy way to explain the position of the film, an idea of the narrative and a taste of the character's personality; words are strong and using a voice over to kill three birds with stone, is a great way to go. 'The Art of Getting By' is set in New York, showing how you can use even city landscapes in a drama genre film. The isolation, the grey days and the narrow pavements filled with restless people can add to the genre, the character's feeling, circumstance and personality and it can add to the atmosphere. On the other hand, the landscapes are so beautiful aswell, so it could be used to create a happy vibe, nevertheless, it made me realise the contrasts of scenery I have in london and a bus or walk away from my house. Also the time the film is set in is during winter and being in winter helps add the gloomy lighting and atmosphere, and to the narrative also. So, I decided that shooting our footage in winter will not be a problem and maybe even a plus side, and we can use it to out advantage and introduce our genre to the film.

However, what I found most enticing was the use of having the present first, explaining the circumstance, leaving the audiencee questioning how they got there or what will happen. Seven Pounds does it by giving away the main character wanting to commit sucicide in the present and we want to know what happend in the past that lead him to that current even but at the same time we want to know what happens next when the paramadics do come. The Help is opened along the same lines, with the main charcter interviewing the main 'help' and gives off her horrible circumstances in a few sentences, it then goes a little back to the past and explains her circumstances,. On the other hand, My Sisters Keeper is done a bit differently as she explains the main climax the story is based around with a voice over, explaining the main characters problem and gives us an idea of what the narrative is about. It also gives off what type of character she is and what other character will be involved, with the many little home video footage flipping on. The film While You Were Sleeping also explains her circumstance and her main aim or the main climax of the movie, starting with her chidhood. Overall, researching and analysing closely into the film openings that matched my genre really inspired and influenced me on my ideas and how I would develop them and how I want the outcome to be.

Farjana [Reshma] Rahman

Wit

The opening of 'Wit' starts off with the main character talking about how she loves poetry. there is then a close up of her and her doctor who tells her she has terminal ovarian cancer. There are different shots of her going through her treatment and the side effects she has such as vomiting, chills, fevers etc. we gradually see movement of time where she loses her hair and becomes weaker and weaker. The audience are shown the main character spending time with the only person who cares about her properly who is her nurse. 

Farjana Begum

Seven Pounds

1 minute and 30 seconds in you are drawn into the film, with heavy, shaky breathing you can tell there is something wrong than we see him crying on the film, upset and shocked. When he reports a suicide and says he is the victim, it instantly grips the audience in wanting to know what happens that leads him to wanting to commit suicide. We know that the film will be about his journey to where he is now and that there is definitely something wrong in his life that causes him to feel this upset and hurt. However, despite the score in the background being calm, slow chords of the piano, it still adds to the upset and hurtful atmosphere. With the music you can relate to Will Smith's character, although you haven't really been introduced to his character you get affected by his choice of wanting death. Nevertheless, not only does it add to the emotions and make it easy to relate to him, it creates a great deal of suspense and tension, creating a dramatic atmosphere wanting us to watch more, that lasts the whole movie, making the audience want to know each detail of the narrative and how it lead to him to be in that position and what happens after. With the music and the opening credits being the first thing we see and hear, it subliminally introduces the genre to the film. The music soft and tensing it create a dramatic atmosphere; hence to introduce the drama genre, also the text is in normal capital letters, which is normally used for drama genres. Nevertheless, the colors used: white and red, signifies that there will be some sort of danger or problem which will arise in the film and we are very shortly informed that there is something unusual going on with this man that causes him to want to commit suicide. I really like the use of music and speech, it really shows what you can do and what affect you can create with the type of music and words. 

When you go into the film, you hear more of him talking as if he hates life, "God created life in 7 days and I wasted mine in 7 seconds". He is swimming and walking towards what seems to be his house; it then confirmed when he is looking through a list to make a phone call. This is when we get a glimpse of the other characters that play a vital part in the narrative; we also get a better perspective of his character. We get an over- shoulder of Will smith- the main character fixing his tie and shirt; normally when people dress like that they are smart and always mean business. We then see an eye-level shot of the list he was looking at and the note really adds to the confusion and suspense of wanting to know more. "Ben, These are all the candidates that meat your criteria here in region 5. Remember, you don't know me" From this line we know that he is looking for someone but we know that he is maybe doing it illegally and he is doing it secretively. This is all in the time in 2 minutes, and we are effectively pulled in to want to watch more but we still acknowledge everything needed to understand, who the main character is the genre and we know where he lives. If you went on to watch it until the film title, you get a better idea of the film and his character, the same quality in the first 2 minutes continuing. However, I looked at the first two minutes because that is the maximum time we are looking to create out film opening and this is a really good opening. The director Gabrielle Muccino was very in clever in his work and it really inspired me with some ideas and how important it is to grip the audience to your film even in the first few seconds. Overall, I think the opening of this film establishes the 3 important things needed in an opening: character, genre and narrative and it was done brilliantly.

Farjana [Reshma] Rahman