By placing a filter over the lens you can dramatically change the tone so a colour becomes darker or lighter grey. You may have seen a black & white landscape photograph with the dark blue sky turning almost black. The chances are this will have been taken with a red filter over the lens. Filters allow certain wavelengths of light through and block others from reaching the film. The filter will let through it's own colour so the grey tone of subjects with the same colour as the filter will be lighter and the tones of subjects with contrasting colours will become darker.
The following filters are commonly used in black & white photography: Yellow, Orange, Red, Blue and Green, and the visual below shows what happens to the tones when the filters are used.
Original colour photograph for reference shot on a blue/grey background.
Photograph taken in black & white with no filters used. Notice tones such as orange and light pink become almost identical so do blue and red.
Adding a yellow filter introduces a subtle change to to yellows, oranges and red which become slightly lighter.
The orange filter lightens oranges and reds and darkens the blue and green pencils. It's the red filter that has a serious effect on tones. Notice the pink and orange are now almost white while the deep red displays similar values to the original orange, while the blue and green have become very dark.
Since we are featuring several black and white shots in our film, this research is seriously relevant. We are using a yellow dress based on the assumption that it will appear white when pictured in black and white on the camera we will use, but if that doesn't come out perfectly then we can use a yellow filter on the camera lens to achieve the desired effect.
As a group we went to Tonbridge station to research furthur into our chosen location for the film opening. During this time we experimented with the camera around the location as well as putting it at different heights to see what effect is created. Here is the video of our finding and the path in which our protagonist is going to run from start to finish;
We decided the tunnel near tonbridge station would be perfect to use as part of our chase. The walls were dirty and the lighting was fairly bright, however we can edit this to make it look darker to increase the tension. Personally I (kathy) thought the tunnel was really good for what we anted to achieve in our thriller opening, and we stuck posters on the walls, which all have a reference to our protagonist for example a macbeth poster- blood on his hands etc.
Sorry about the poor quality and the foreign subtitles but this was the only online version of this episode I could find!
You see the investigation team look into photographs taken of the victim and the location. They are of A4 size and appear to have a white border around them. (Kathy is gathering information from Kent police unit of what the photographs look like so I will not go into detail on what the ones here look like)
However, the photographs are of the victim and there is a close up of her eye approximately 6:35ish. This is due to the fact that her eye appears to be cut slightly. This is important in our production as we wish for the victims eye to be the last photograph shown and for it to be zoomed in and then out to the protagonist eye. However, as we have already discussed, each photograph has to have a reason (such as a cut or bruise) for it to be taken as evidence.
I emailed Mark Ginsberg, and asked him to send us some police posters for our shots at the station, and he sent me 'Be seen, be Safe' which i thought was really good as it is contrapuntal to how our protagonist wants to be.
The information provided is in bullet points, so its easy to read and gets straight to the point they are trying to convey. It also has two large pictures so that it is more appealing from a distance and it has bright colours or high visibility colours so that it can also be seen from a distance which is parallel to what they are stating you should do when you go out at night.
At the bottom of the poster they have put on the contact details, for emergency's, non-emergency's and their website address. The font is simple, so it is easily read, and the colour of the font depends on the back round colour, but it is white or black which could be said to be symbolic as it is the same as their uniforms.
As I took the camera home, I experimented with lighting which was suitable for when we film someone looking at the CSI photos at the beginning of our film opening. i first looked at the effect of just using a spotlight in a dark room which is focused on the photos (but in this experiment I used a piece of paper). Here is what I filmed;
When the the paper in on the desk, it can easily been seen because the spotlight in focused on it. However when held up to the camera so that the audience can see the picture better, it becomes darkened because its blocking out the light to the camera. Therefore in my next experiment I tried putting a lamp behind the camera. Here is the result;
First I looked at what the picture would look like with just a source of light behind the camera. Although the piece of paper was seen it was still quite dim. So I next tried using a spotlight in front of the camera and a light behind it.
I believe this to be quite successful as the pictures are visible at all positions and angles because of the two points of lighting. Both sources of light area neccessity for the clarity of the pictures when they are on the desk and when held up to the camera. However we are trying to create quite a mysterious and dark feeling to the room the CSI pictures are being looked at in. This will be done by briefly filming in pitch black then turning on the spotlight after a few seconds. The spotlight will be focused on pictures already on the desk. Therefore both sources of will need to be turned on at the same time so that the light behind the camera is not noticed making it seem like the only source of light in the room is from the spotlight which will be in shot. This can be done on a countdown as we will be muting any sound picked up on the camera and laying the music track over the top.
I know that this is an advertisement, so it is created to appeal to consumers and potiental customers. However, the music and the mise en scene are very useful. At 0:08, the music begins to fade in and it appears to be in time with the couple running. The music has a steady pace and a reliable rhythm. This will be essential when we are recording the sound effects and music for our opening. As the music develops, it has a 'unorganised' feel to it. It appears to lose its steadiness and pace although there is a clear cymbal or tamberine (Im not sure! but its some sort of percussion) which keeps the pace so its still recognisable and relating to the pace of the running that the couple are doing. Although, the unorganised, amateur and cluttered feel that the string instrument has reflects the hecticness that the couple are having trying to out-run each other.
At 0:34 - 0:37 the couple run through a tunnel. For around one second (maybe slightly less) the couple are no longer clearly visible due to the lack of lighting in the tunnel as they run through. There is some background lighting which makes the couple appear 3D as they stand out from the shadow. However, it appears to only be natural light and not manufactured. Which is effective when trying to make a clip/film authentic and therfore believable (especially in advertisements). As they progress through the first tunnel ( 0:35 ), the lighting appears to get brighter which makes the couple much clearer to see so there is less confusion. The couple then progress to go through further tunnels of which they are clearly lit and then poorly lit. This means that the viewer has to look closer and concentrate more on the visible mise en scene in order to follow what is happening. This is especially useful to capture the attention of the audience. This may be effective in our opening project, although we do not want the audience to not be able to see the protagonist's facial expressions clearly as this is vital to portray the feelings that he is experiencing at the time.
From about 0:42 - 6:03 you see various shots of Tom Hanks running (with some clips where he goes back to sitting at the bus stop and likewise). Although, there are some excellent shots of Tom Hanks running, the focus appears to be more on reflecting the location that he is in as shown below;
These are used to reflect the distance that he has run as this is an important part of the story at this point in the film. Although we want the audience to know where our protagonist is running (along the platform), it is not an essential element of the opening. However, the first scene where our protagonist is running in the tunnel in the dark, it may be very effective if it is unclear of the protagonists location as this will entice the viewer to discover where he is and why.
This is a still of Tom Hanks' arms as he is running. It reflects that he is not running as a professional would do - Arms moving forcefully with precision and to a definite rhythm to help with speed and stamina. I feel it is important that we make it clear that the protagonist in our opening, is not a proffessional runner and that he is just running out of desperation and out of, what he sees as, necessity not due to choice or recreational pleasure. Hopefully, we will be able to portray that he is an amateur runner but the lack of control in his arms and perhaps movement of his head (which professional runners are always advised not to do). However, if his head is moving, it may make it even more difficult to film successful and effective POV shots but we will have to find some way to overcome this when we are filming.
Whilst watching various other psychological thriller films such as: "The Butterfly effect" and "The Machinist" the protagonist wears a shirt usually done up, and it is mostly dull plain colours such as: pale blue, grey, brown etc. Which all matched their characters emotions at the time of the shot, therefore we used slightly baggy jeans and a grey and black hoodie, to correspond with our teenager character and what they would actually wear in day to day life, for our protagonist to show he was slightly crazy.
For our girl, we decided on a yellow party style dress, as yellow signifiesinnocence. She had red shoes showing love and passion however the broken heel shows that this has been demolished by her attacker. We chose this outfit as it portrayed her as innocent and as yellow is a bright and happy colour, it contrasts the darkness of our protagonists costume.
Our two girls (who our protagonist walks into) wore coats/ jackets as it was cold, and they were at a station at night. We wanted them to dress normally, so they wore skirts and then their jacket/coat covered the costume so the audience do not really see what they are wearing, as this wasn'trelevant for our opening. We wanted them to look as if they were going out, or had been out.
All our costumes are what we expect teenagers to be wearing as we wanted our actors to be comfortable, and because they were all playing characters of their age, we wanted each character to have a different look about them. And by giving them costumes in which they would normally wear, they would act more like themselves and it would look more natural.
I have been looking into camera angles and filming techniques of running scenes as I feel that we have done a lot of research on the shots of the dead body pictures but we need to also consider that our 2 minute clip has a large proportion of our protagonist running within it!
I have looked at the opening of trainspotting, As I knew that there was running within the first sequence.
This clip displays shows the behind of the main character running, the emphasis is on his feet and the environment he is running in. The pace he is running at and the movement of his feet are in time with the music/the beat. This is especially effective as the audience is drawn further in to the film from the ofset. Although it is evident that the road he is running down is rather busy, due to the people in the background, there appears to be a clear space for him to run. This allows the audience to be more focused on the character and not distracted by extras in the shot. The fact that the opening scene is just a cloes up of feet, it leaves the audience curious to know who it is who's running. This is an excellent way to create interest and curiousity from the very beginning of the film. This could be used in our 2 minute clip as we need to capture interest from the beginning as our opening is very short.
This clip shows the main character and his starring partner running directly towards the camera. It is a mid shot of the pair running, with a group of people running in the bacground. This explains that there are a group of them. The fact they are running, already displays that they have done something wrong or have a reason to be running either from or to somewhere. The main character (on the left), his shirt appears to be undone or torn. This already implies to the audience that perhaps he does not have much money to be able to afford smarter clothes. The direct eye contact with the camera is rather intimidating and can be slightly unnerving. This may be very effective, although perhaps not appropriate for our film opening as we want the audience to feel sympathy towards the protagonist although at some points we will imply that the protagonist is the killer of the young girl photographed.
This shot and a few seconds before and after this are a POV shot from the main characters view. This is very useful as we wanted to display our protagonists point of view to create further a feeling of empathy as they will experience things with the protagonist. However, it may be difficult to potray his insanity as we wanted our protagonist to be looking at his hands to display how he feels there is blood on his hands, from the guilt he feels. This may be difficult to achieve, as we want him to still be running as we focus on his hands and the blood spreading.
The shot switches from point of view, to mid shot when he runs into/gets hit by the car. This is a great use of match on action, and this will be useful in our project as we are planning to have fast editing from the protagonists point of view to change to a mid shot/ close up of the protagonist runnning into a woman on the platform who then looks scared and confused that he may steal her handbag.
Having looked at the opening of trainspotting and some stills in detail, I feel that some of the techniques used in this could be extremely uesful for our project. Although, creating effective POV shots will be the most challenging aspect. Thgis is due to the fact we do not want an echo of the camera women/man's footsteps running behind with a camera which would ruin the continuity and distract full attention from the protagonist. This means, it is likely we will need to strap the camera to our protagonists head (thanks ms watts!) in order to create effective POV shots.
Original colour photograph for reference shot on a blue/grey background.
Photograph taken in black & white with no filters used.
Adding a yellow filter introduces a subtle change to to yellows, oranges and red which become slightly lighter.
