Semiotic Analysis of Riona & Adel's Final Cut

I performed a semiotic analysis of another student's rough cut of their film opening. This allowed me to practice semiotically analyzing film openings/clips. This is the comment that I left on the student's blog:

"In terms of mise-en-scene, there is a use of props, when creating the titles such as the pillow with the production company name on it, and the cereal layed out to present the actors name. In the bedroom scene, there is some artwork/art books on the floor, which gives an indication about her character.

The diegetic-sound of the alarm on the phone ringing is very effective in signifying that she is a teenage girl (white iPhone) and that she is waking up in order to go to school.

There are some interesting camera angles and quite a lot of variety. One very effective shot is a high-angle shot of the male character getting out of bed and pulling the covers off. The low-angle shot of the same character brushing his teeth is also very interesting and effective. The low angle shots of both character's feet on screen together is also excellent in portraying the fact that the two characters are linked or will be linked later on in the film.

The representation of the characters is presented mainly through their costume and props, but also through their way of speaking/acting.

The blond character that we have been following is represented as studious and creative, due to the art books on the floor in her bedroom, she is also portrayed as intelligent as she answers a question in class. The binary opposition of this character are the three girls, their clothes and bags are girly (pink, stylish) and they are shown as popular as they are sitting with other people in the classroom, unlike the blond character, who is sitting alone.

These three girls are also an intertextual reference to the rom-com Mean Girls, which is clearly established in the scene where they first appear and slow-motion is used.

This film opening uses a lot of very effective editing techniques, that feature very frequently in this particular genre. These editing techniques are things such as layering between scenes/characters, which is very effective at the beginning to suggest a link or connection between the two characters. The pink cloud used when the three girls appear is very effective in showing their girly characters but also their significance in the film. Slow motion (again, when the three girls appear) but also fast-forward, when the blond character is going down the spiral staircase are very characteristic of the rom-com genre, and help establish it."

Practice Shoot 1 TBC

We got together and filmed most of the interior scenes.
Jon then edited them together for a rough cut. This gave us a good idea of what needs to be changed/added and if any of the scenes need to be re-shot.

(set in video of practice shoot) 

I think that the scenes we shot are quite effective and the variety in camera angles and positions works well. The shot that I think is particularly effective is the last one where a shadow of my hand can be seen and the red nail polish spills onto the surface. The way that we used the shadow to show my hand I think works really well and it is also a good use of foreshadowing, and a good place to insert a flash forward.

We also discussed the things that didn't go quite as well. At the moment, the editing is too fast paced. However this can be fixed by trimming the clips less, so having them shown for a longer amount of time. The establishing shot of the house at the beginning lasts for too long.
Also in the low angle shot where I am holding my hand above the camera, we did a focus pull from my face to my hand and this is barely seen as the shot is too short. We could perhaps choose a different shot of me looking into the cupboard and taking out the nail polish as we filmed this multiple times so there is possibly one of those that we could choose that would work better.

Tyrannosaur Swede - Evaluation

After finishing our swede, we watched it back and analysed what could have been done better, and what we can apply next time we edit or film.
In the Fenton scene, the pace of the cutting was too fast-paced, there was a loss of continuity. The ambient sound in the clip is not right, also due to the  position changes, the wind changes with it. Over-dubbing can be used to record the audio and play it over the video. You can also record a small amount of continuous ambient sound which you can add across the clips, and continuity is achieved.
There is not much change between the different shots. We could have cut away from a medium shot to a close up or extreme close up. 
For the scene where the dog was kicked, it didn't feel significant enough, as i think i went too quickly. This could have been corrected through a use of slow motion but also perhaps by repeating one of the clips a few times. Layering could also be quite effective by changing the opacity of the clip on top.
In the funeral scene, the camera moves downwards from Sophie's face to the book and cross she's holding. A way in which we could have improved this could be by starting on the cross and book. The shallow field focus works well on this scene, as there is nothing significant in the background. Later in the funeral scene, i was looking into the camera, which is something that should never be done by actors.
Something good that we did was we returned back to the initial funeral scene shot, which adds to the continuity.
The scene where Kristian was saying goodbye to fenton was very effective as we tightened in to show emotion.
At the start of the music shop scene, we could have cross-cut between Adel and the door handle opening. Even if at the start we were cross cutting the the door handle without it moving, it would actually be a good use of fore-shadowing as a close up on a door handle would generally mean it would be going to open.
We had some shots that were very effective due to the framing, and the lines and angles that the instruments created.