T.V

In different parts of the world Television is broadcast in different standards the reason for this is money, if it all played on the same then the companies would not be able to make as much money as people could tune there T.V's to receive the different channels elsewhere in the world. this means that instead of the program being brought by Sky so that it can be played in the UK and Fox so it can be played in America, Fox could buy it and we could watch it through them, there are also different copyright laws in different parts of the world which means that they might end up not being payed for the program at all. there are four main types of format, they are:

NTSC- national Television Standards Committee   

This has recently been replaced due to the digital swich over to, ATSC - Advanced Television Systems

NTSC runs at 30P which gives you a smoother motion that PAL
SECAM- System for Electronic Color with Memory. {Sequential Coleur Avec Memoir}
SECAM is an early attempt of  color Television and it's transitions are more robust over longer distances

PAL- Phase Altering Line

PAL runs at 25P which is less smooth but it automatically cancels out hue errors with phase reversal 

1st attempt at a review, Looper

Looper

Director: Rian Johnson

Writer: Rian Johnson

Actors: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily blunt.

Genre: Action, Si-Fi, Thriller

Setting: A futuristic state in America where there is a high amount of poverty, and crime is in power.

Plot: In 2074 it has become almost impossible to kill someone and not get caught, so mob bosses send people thirty years back in time to be killed by hired gunmen called looper’s . One of the rules is that you can’t let your target live, but when Joe (Joseph Gordon-levitt) finds that he was sent his future self (Bruce Willis), to close the loop/ end his contract he hesitates and in that moment his target runs off. Joe must now find his target, his future self before the people he works for find him and kill him for letting is target go.

The general idea of the film, a man killing people from the future and then one of his targets (his future self) escaping and he has to find and kill him seems bland. As I looked at it it schemed like it would just be another film with a weak story line/plot and field with action and violence too try and compensate. But when I came to watch it I found that the story had more depth and style to it and at its centre there is an emotion story about revenge and it's ongoing cycle. It's because of it's story line and excellent timing that it can stand high with other grate time-travel films like “Back To The Future” and The Terminator”.

As this film starts it shows you Joe's life, his relation with others and who he is as a person and as the plot thickens when Joe's future self runs off we get to see his life start to crumble as he's trying to save himself from the people he works. As this is happening his future self is out seeking his revenge by changing his/the past and also trying to protect his passed self from the people who are hunting him down.

The timing of the film was done especially well as after we see one of his days some background music starts to build up as it starts to flash past his days showing how his life is a routine as it gradually gets faster until one night where his friend tuns up out of the blue in the middle of the night. And after this they continue to build to action scenes and and change the pacing of the film in a way that draws you into it, creating the illusion that this is/will happen.

Different types of microphones

Microphones are an electronic device that turn sound waves into electronic waves so that we can record them and then listen to them later throw a speaker. 

Shotgun:
A shotgun mic is used for filming on set or location and is useful because it can be moved closer to the subject to record it more clearly, it also works as a sync, recording the sound and the footage at the same time. it can also be recorded separately, if you have a device to record it onto. But the down side to the mic is that it records whats in front of it of it, if you move it left or right the sound levels will completely change, you also wont be able to here something coming towards or further away from the camera because of this.       

On-board Mic:
An on-board mic is a basic microphone used to record sync sound, on some cameras they are small and can distort very easily, others are bigger and record in better quality and will be harder to distort the sound, unforchantly they all pick up wind and other sounds which will decrease the quality of the sound you do want. but this will create a grate base for post-production later making it easier to edit sound into the film later.

PZM:
The PZM or presser zone microphone is used to pickup sound waves/vibrations off a surface and convert them into sounds which are then converted into electrical signings which will then get converted into sound waves throw a speaker. They pick up sounds form all around at an equal level. The police used them when interviewing suspects. 

A lavaliere mic:
The lavaliere mic is a wireless mic used for news interviews or for when someone is walking around and you want to keep the volume the same without having the microphone in shot or having to move about. It's small and compact and normally attaches to a peace of clothing by a clip and is connected to a transmitter where it is converted into radio waves and revived by the recording device.

Zoom mic:
A zoom microphone is a bio-directional microphone, this means that you can have a care drive right to left and that is how it will sound when you play it back later, having most of the sound of the car come throw your right headphone to your left. A zoom mic also allows two extra microphone to be plugged in to the back of it and then record throw them.

Three Point Lighting

Three point lighting consists of the key light the fill light and the back light and is used in the media to light the subject according to what they are doing.

The key light is used as if it was light coming form the sun on a cloudless day, a hard light which will create shadows on and around the subject but will show off all the features of it .

The fill light is more like the sun shining throw a cloud to defusing the light which fulls upon the subject, a soft light which will leave the subject less defined but it will create softer shadows. 

The back light Is used to create a halo around the subjects body, separating them from the background and drawing more focus to the subject. In film and T.V industry they might only use this light so that we wont see any of there body feathers, only an outline of it. This is used on crime shows such as crime watch when someone is telling a story of something that happen to them, its used so no one will know who they are so they don't get targeted later after the show has be broadcast.   

The background light is used to create an even light on the background so that there are no shadows, and makes it so the background wont be more shadowed on one side while more lit on the over. by using all these lights together you will get 4 key lighting.

High key lighting is used to light a subject and show off there features but also gives the skin a more smooth look by reducing dimples and other defections, this is commonly used for interviews with famous people or profile pictures for acting adjacency.     

Low key light is where you Just use a key light to create shadows over the face of the subject giving them a more serious/dramatic look.this is also used as a profile picture for an acting adjacency or in films when they want to give more feeling to a-close up of an evil characters face.

Limbo is also another term used for lighting, it means only light the subject and for everything else to be black/dark. this type is used for adjacency, the cover of an album or for a shot in a horror film where someone is alone in the dark, giving the audience an unerring feeling of not knowing where they are, or whats behind them. 

Colored light is when you place a colored sheet of plastic over the light to create a different feel to the shot. this is used when they want to give the shot a more interesting look and feel to it and is most commonly seen in si-fi movies. 

Sound in film making

To begin with I'm going to talk about the layers of sound track that you will hear in a film or in other media forms.
SYNC sound is the sound that records with the footage as you are filming it using an microphone that has been built in or an attachment, so that when you upload it on to your editing software  you don't ten have to try and sync all sound with the track. If the sound is out of sync you will lose the illusion of the film and you would lose money because the audience could not stand hearing the sound before or after the event has happened instead of hearing it at the same time of the event. This also makes it easier to add different layers of sound on top of the original soundtrack track, for example adding sound effects for a fight scene because you already have the sound there you just need to move the effect on top of it and delete the original clip  instead of looking for where to place it and lining it up correctly so it feels looks and sound natural.

ADR otherwise known as Additional Dialogue Recording or dubbing is used to change the language, to add a quiet voice which you could not here or just to replace the original voices with a more crisp voice, as an example in a film where there are guns shooting and a character is talking at a normal level across a room to another character. in realty you could not hear his voice but in the film you can hear it easily over the added sound effects because they have dubbed over his voice from the footage with his voice form a recording they did in a studio. The big problem with this is if what they are saying dos not match with their lips the audience will notice and will lose the illusion of the film, and this happens allot when you change the language of the film.

ATMOS is the sound that sets the scene, like the establishing shot its used to tell you where the characters are and what is happening, without it you the film would leave you displaced momentarily as it changes the place and.

Foley Sound is recreating live sounds from the production and then adding them so you have a more nice and crisp sound instead of the SYNC sound that was recorded with the footage. As an example in a film when you listen to a dog run across a road from afar the sound you would hear is coming from a sounds make after the the footage was filmed so Foley artists could recreate the sound in sync with the dogs paws tapping against the pavement. To do this they would use pepper clips for the claws and some padded leather for the paws in order to recreate the sound.

Sound Effects is for any sound added during the post-production/ editing, this means all the sound types of sound that i have talked about apart from SYNC is SFX or sound effects.

Music Is used to try to create an emotional response from the audience, for example they would play a slow by slightly dramatic song or for and action scene they would play a fast beet song. or it can to be used to push a film forward at the beginning of a new chapter, where there is little speech. as an example in Reservoir Dogs beginning  scene they just had the main charters walking after a little narration and that helped move the film on to another scene and set a vibe for the film.      

  

Research into editing with Adobe Premiere Pro CS6

In city college we have recently had new software installed on the Macs, the program's are photoshop cs6, encore, after effects and premier pro cs6. To get to grips with the editing programs first is my pryoraty because that is an important part of film making and to do so I decided I would first go to the Adobe websit to watch there introduction and find out as much as I could about the program from them.

After learning things about the product I found that I still had a very knowledge of how to use but i did learn about what it is capable and how simple some of the tasks are to do. After i went to Youtube and looked for video tutorials on how to use the program better. I found several useful videos that taught me how to navigate my way around the software and  some of the key commands witch came in handy when i first went on the program.

                                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNfu0t_a8QQ&feature=plcp

S-I-N-G-W

S-I-N-G-W

 s-i-n-g-w stands for shutter speed, iris, ND filter, Gain and White balance, these are all things to think about when setting up a shot for a camera. 

Shutter speed:

With shutter speed is the amount of time each frame will be exposed. The lower the shutter speed the more blurred the shot will be, but it can give the shot a more relaxed feeling to it. Where as the higher the shutter speed the more sharp the shot will look, but it can give the shot a more frantic look to it.
  

                    
                          Canon 7D Test 12 water, shutter speed from Paul Hamilton on Vimeo.

A common mistake is thinking that shutter speed is the FPS (frames per second) and that by turning up the shutter speed you will increase the FPS for example, having a shutter speed of 60 won't mean that you are shooting at 60 frames per second, it means that you are exposing each frame to 1/60 of a second. The main thing to have in mind when thinking about the shutter speed is that you would normally want to have it at double the FPS 

Iris/appiture:

The Iris is located in the lens of the camera and is a device that has an opening allowing light to travel throw the lens and onto the recording device. The opening is called the aperture and can be adjusted to increase or decrease the F- number. The term F-number/F-stop is used to define the ratio between the focal length and diameter of the aperture, F-number = F/D and each F-number allows half the light of the previous F-number

The F-number plays a roll in the depth of field, the area the stays in focus.
The depth of field refers to rang of distance the appears in focus/sharp. This can change depending upon you camera type, aperture and focusing distance the depth of field wont suddenly change from close to far, it would occur as a gradual transition.
     

ND filter:

A Natural Density filter is used to reduce the amount of light going through the lens, the easiest way to explain this is compering an ND filter to sun glasses. When it is to bright and you are finding it hard to see you would put on a pair of sun glasses and in comparison when the shot to over exposed you can use an ND filter to reduce the amount of light let through  the lens.

Gain:

Gain is most commonly used on camera-phones, Ipods etc this is because the lenses are so small that they can not allow enough light in, it is also why most pictures taken on them look grainy.The only reason that you should use gain is if you can't change the shutter speed, open the iris or add more light because it will make your footage look like it was from a security camera  witch is great if that's the look your going for but otherwise try not to use it . Gain is a setting that makes the camera electronically boost the signal so that it will look brighter, adding 6db = adding 1 F-number.

White Balance:

White Balance removes the unrealistic coloring in the footage.

White Balance is used so that when the lighting changes you can rest what the color white is, cameras have difficulty Auto White Balancing  (AWB) which is why you would need to do this otherwise the footage you are filming might look a different color than the previous footage.

To get more details on the subjects please go to these websites:
http://vimeo.com/videoschool/lesson/56/frame-rate-vs-shutter-speed-setting-the-record-straight
http://synapticlight.com/iris-and-aperture/
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/depth-of-field.htm
http://www.redbubble.com/people/peterh111/journal/4421304-the-ultimate-guide-to-neutral-density-filters
http://www.productionapprentice.com/featured/the-truth-about-video-gain-and-how-to-use-it-properly/
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/white-balance.htm