10/5: The Basics of Visual Cues

We had our third meeting today October 5, 2020 at 4:00 pm.

Unfortunately, several members were unable to attend. If you have a continuous conflict in your schedule please reach out to @cassadia.68 (insta) or cassienuniz@gmail.com .

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The essentials of Film can be categorized as Visual or Narrative Cues. Today we'll be studying a few Visual Cues.

Props & Settings make up the clothes, place, objects, furniture, etc seen in a shot from a film. How can these offer insight to the character, time period, action, history, or other components of a story? What kind of examples from common films use the settings or props to narrate the story? What instances can we gain insight to the story, merely from the setting?

Lighting & Filters contribute to the overall feel of a scene, character, or place. Many filmmakers may tailor the time of the day of a scene's setting to contribute to the lighting. Take a stuffy old attic for example. If it has shafts of golden light draping through the dust to the floor, we get a different sense than if it was a miserable gray attic with long shadows and mysterious corners. Lighting is also important for characters. Evil or foreboding characters are often represented with harsh lighting from below, meant to highlight their character.

This scene from Disney's Ratatouille uses "villainous" lighting to characterize the shows antagonist Anton Ego.

Music & Ambiance are huge factors that can contribute to a film's success. A good soundtrack can make or break any scene, and finding a fitting background is important. Music can also make the movie a brand of its own, having a recognizable and catchy theme, like the Avengers or Mission Impossible. Music mainly manipulates the viewers emotions in line to the move, as often music can often convey feelings better than dialogue or actors. Some horror directors will even play high frequency music, called infrasound, that isn't consciously picked up by the human ear. It causes feelings of unease, heightening the viewers tension. Ambiance refers to the sounds that would be heard at the scene; footsteps in gravel, cars going by, a dog barking in the distance, a phone ringing through the house, etc.

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Today we start working on our first project!

You're going to introduce yourself in a short (30-60 secs) video, describing your hobbies, favorite food, film experience, anything you think describes yourself. Be creative with your editing, film shots of you doing your hobbies or use previous media you have saved!

This is an opportunity to familiarize yourself with your filming software, and if you don't have any or are unsure of how to use yours, please reach out! This is also a time to go crazy, use fancy transitions, show off your coolest editing skills, use that editing feature you never use, etc. Put as much time or effort as you want into it, it's fine if you can't do much during the school days. Try to get it in by Sunday!

Most of all, make the video YOU, show how you like to edit, pasttimes, obsessions, anything you consider a part of yourself.