Contextual Studies - Short Film Review 3 - Call Back

My third and final short film that I am reviewing is called Call Back. Its about a man who has killed his wife and lover after catching them having an affair. After instantly regretting what he has done, he is offered a dose of hope for a way out by a mysterious man over the phone. Can the man be trusted? Is this a genuine escape route?

As soon as the story begins its intense from the start. The use of fast cut editing and the enigma created due to not revealing whats going on immediately grabs the audience with mystery. There is a rumbling low atmospheric track playing in the background to let the audience know that something dark and dangerous is happening. A non diegetic sound of the phone ringing is heard showing several different close ups of a bloodied hand and a gun before cutting to a birds eye view of a woman covered in blood, laying on the bed. There is also a man dead on the floor. Its done from an audiences perspective looking in at the whole scene. Without saying too much the audience can draw conclusions of infidelity from this scene as well as seeing a close up of a wedding ring.

There are many close ups used through out this film mainly to add to the intensity of the film for example the door handle moving as the police are on the other side of the door and the needle as the protagonist is injecting. It heightens the action that is being carried out.

There is a scene where after the man has injected the liquid we see everything has been edited in slow motion. This allows the audience to simulate a high, drug feeling of what the character is experiencing. It takes us from watching whats happening, to being in the scenario ourselves. This is also helped by switching to a POV shot and blurred vision.

In terms of audio, this film is heavily focused on post non-diegetic audio. There is the eery score in the background throughout most of it as well as the sound of a slowed down, pounding heart beat allowing us to align with the characters own heart. There is also a scene where the sound goes quiet and then there is a loud knock at the door using a jump tactic to get the audiences heart going.

Over all this is a thrilling and captivating short film that use's great techniques to help add mystery and tension. For my own film I will take the use of eerie music and less dialogue to help create mystery and suspense.

Storytelling Unit - Finishing My Script (1st Draft)

Over the past week I have been writing my script and on Monday I had completed my first draft. I found that the lectures, workshops and my own research helped greatly towards this first development helping me to minimise the challenge of it. Developing my characters was the first thing I did. By exploring the depths of their layers I felt like I knew who my characters were in my head. I could visualise them and know what they would do in normal situations so when it came to writing my script I could picture them and describe their actions to how they would react from normal to extreme.

Once I knew my characters I needed an Idea. I already had in my head that I wanted to do it surrounding an affair but I needed more substance. The first thing that I learnt from Steve Coombe's talks was to come up with an ending. I pondered on a few but decided to go with the fact the husband was dead and she felt like she was having an affair because she never got over the grief and loss of him. I felt this idea was exciting and would give viewers an unsuspecting twist, an element of surprise that could not be predicted until the revealed moment.

I wanted to create a big change in my story. I managed to achieve this by playing on the layers of my characters. Harriet is strong and together, she has a good job and always looks nice. Lewis is charming, flirty and magnetic, he's pleasant. As soon as we hit half way through the story this completely flips. Harriet is weak, crying, scared and fallen apart. Lewis is anything but charming, he is vindictive and nasty making the audience retract from what they felt before. I wanted to do this to create a virtual alarm that people aren't always what they seem, people have fronts and can be someone completely different deep down. It also is entertaining and helps create tension when viewing this.

When it came to writing the script it was a lot easier than I thought. I knew my ending, I knew my characters, I knew my change and all I needed to do was play it out on the page. As I started it seemed relatively normal to what I had imagined. I could briefly describe Harriet but also show her characteristics through her emotions and actions. I already embedded the false idea that she was married by her shouting up the stairs to someone called Adam. I was also able to hint at the fact that she was having an affair by use of body language and the way she was doing herself up. As I wrote on to after the affair, the change happened. It was quick, sudden and a lot more of a change than I intended. Lewis became more horrible the more I wrote but I enjoyed writing a mean character so I stuck with it.

I had never thought about Lewis following Harriet home but as the writing flowed this is what happened. By doing this it worked out well as I was able to go beyond the twist for my ending and create a really tense and thrilling climax. The unplanned ending was unexpected but in a good way. I am very pleased with the progress that I achieved when writing the first draft.

When printing it out and proof reading over I noticed there was a considerable amount of grammatical errors. My grammar has never been amazing so I had to go back and correct as much as I could see. I also left the story open ended as although I quite like it this way, part of it was due to the fact I didn't quiet know how to round it off.

Contextual Studies - Review a British TV Drama

I am reviewing Doctor Foster for my British TV drama. I chose this as it has the adult themes that are similar to what I am doing in my film. Its a short TV mini series created by Mike Bartlett commissioned by the BBC about Gemma Foster, a head doctor of a practice who has the perfect job and family, until she suspects her husband is having an affair. As she begins to investigate things turn deeper and darker as secrets unfold and her perfect life starts falling apart.

Mike Bartlett managed to captivate audiences being one of the years most successful drama's on TV and was immediately commissioned for a second series. It won several awards including Best new drama at the National Television Awards and the lead actress Suranne Jones won a BAFTA for best actress.

When looking at the complexity of the characters they hold many different attributes to their personalities. He has clearly developed many layers that show the different sides of them creating a more compelling and intriguing hook to discovering new things about the characters as the series unfolds. I want to bring this to my film as I believe this is the way to good story telling as well as the protagonist playing a strong woman like mine.



When watching the series I particularly focused on the first episode looking at key camera angles, sound and other aspects that had been done to make the episode highly watchable. There are many close ups used to display emotion and an importance of an object as well as uses of mid, long and establishing shots. I love that there are a wide variety as the audience will never get board and it never stays on one shot for too long. When looking at sound I particularly like the way its used to build mystery and tension. When she first discovers a Blonde hair on her husbands scarf there is no audio at all making the focus all about what we are seeing. When Gemma slowly starts unraveling her husbands affair the score turns to a dark and tense sound that indicates something is wrong. I will use that in my film to add the tension as mine is a Thriller/ Drama.

The series as a whole is thrilling and captivates the viewer into Gemma's tragic breakdown of what seemed to be the most faultless marriage as it disarrays into tragedy and despair.

Storytelling Unit - Soft Trailer

After learning about trailers I created my own for the short film called SOFT. I used lots of different footage from the film and added audio to give the film more atmosphere and to build tension.

It shows narrative of what the film is about but it doesn't give too much away hinting at the problem with the aggressive youth gang but not disclosing how it is dealt with or if it is even dealt with at all.

I wanted to start with the Sundance Festival overlay as this would entice viewers knowing it was recognised by a film board and has won awards. I then show clips that set up the narrative of a boy being bullied by the youth gang and showing the aggression of their nature. Once this was viewed I wanted to edit together sequences of the father encountering an attack by them. This builds up the tension and lets the audience question what is going to happen as it seems they are not afraid who they target. I finish on a scene where the farther and son are peering out the window and the gang is looking at them from outside hinting at a possible showdown or a large climax for what is going to happen. This leaves it on a cliffhanger and builds suspense. I then finish with the title at the film at the end.

Contextual Studies - Short Film Review 2 - UNLOCKED

The second film I'm reviewing is called Unlocked. Its an 11 minute drama about a woman who is getting over the loss of her mum to cancer. She meets a man on the street who is asking for help towards his cancer charity. But things aren't quite what they seem. The film can be viewed below:

I thought this would be a good short film to review as its a drama about 2 people meeting in a melodramatic situation which is similar to what my short film is. At first the film relies on a lot of dialogue to tell the narrative of the story. Towards the end the film gets more intense and it changes to a more visual approach. This is done to help the narrative flow as it sets up the story and then allows to effectively create tension by what we are seeing without getting lost as an audience.

The types of camera shots used are mainly close ups allowing us to connect with the characters emotions but also to show that something is important. One particular scene that I thought this was done very well was the part where he was cutting off her hair. It was zoomed very close into her face as we could see the fear but also keeping what was going on a mystery as we could not see entirely what the man was doing and how much of her hair he was cutting off.

Whats also interesting about this scene is the lighting. Its very dark but only half of their faces are illuminated. This could convey a different meaning for each character. For her it could be that she is a good person but whats happening to her is dark and sinister as the cutting of the hair starts from that side. For him it could be that he appears to be nice but he has a very dark and evil side to him.

when in conversation the 180° rule is used throughout the film making sure both characters are in the right place and there is plenty of over the shoulder shots that focus on what character is speaking at the time.

As I'm using a phone to tell a part of my story there is a scene which shows a close up of a phone call coming in from the protagonists dad so I will use a similar technique.

When focusing on audio it contains diegetic use of dialogue and natural background noise to help the film seem more real. With non-diegetic audio there is the intense sound of the clippers after she has her hair cut off and she's reliving the moment. The sound starts off quiet and gradually gets louder and louder creating an unnerving feeling to the audience. 

Overall I love the style of this film as it has a lot of drive behind it all the way through keeping the audience hooked and intrigued. 

Contextual Studies - Sound

Today I learnt about how relevant sound is when it comes to film and TV. Its split up into four main elements but they are not necessarily all used. The first is speech. This is the dialogue from the people on screen for example when two characters are having a conversation. It can also be a voice over where you don't see the person talking but you can here them. Although this is very common to to involve one if not both of these there are productions that do not contain any at all like old silent movies like Charlie Chaplin - The Lion's Cage

The next element is ambient or natural sound. This focuses on sounds that can make the film more realistic like bird song or traffic noise.

When looking at this scene you can clearly hear car horns and a slight rumbling of car engines as it starts adding to the realism of the traffic jam thats happening on screen in New York City. When it cuts to inside the car where the family are playing a game you can still hear the car horns and sirens but more muffled giving the viewer sound as they would hear it if they was in the car.


The third element is sound effects. In the same clip from World War Z above you can hear sound effects that have been placed. When chaos breaks out and the cars are smashing into one another you can hear glass shattering and cars creaking as they are being turned over. You could also argue that the horns at the start are sound effects too. This is to immerse the audience heightening and adding to the realism.

Musical Scores is the last element of sound in a film. in the clip below we have a scene from the film Crash.

The score is very present as it connects with the audience and tells them how to feel. It starts with emotional piano and then progresses with intermittent strings over the top almost sounding like a fluttering heart beat when the man walks up to the drive with a gun. It creates a sense of nervousness adding to the fact that something is going to go wrong. When the girl is shot the music is played loud muting all the other sound. By doing this it immerses the audience into the emotion of sadness and heightens the drama of what we are seeing.

Storytelling Unit - Trailers

Although I am not doing a trailer instead I'm doing the opening 2 minutes, I still thought it was relevant and interesting as I learnt about this today in a session with Simon. Its important for me to understand what a trailer is and its conventions.

The main aim for the trailer is to contain enigma codes and enticing moments to give the audience a sense of what the film will be about giving a buzz. It hooks an audience into watching the film in its entirety. Lasting around 2 minutes, they are made up of key moments in the film without major spoilers creating drama, suspense, comedy and action depending on the genre. Below is an example showing the trailer for a film released late 2016 called The Girl On The Train

When watching this it shows clearly that its a thriller/ crime mystery as it sets up the plot through the use of dialogue, the visual edits and the use of titles "one week ago, at 4:36pm, a woman disappeared". The Audio is ominous and dark setting the mood for the film with related lyrics about a woman being heartless hinting that the plot could be to do with a not so likeable woman has been killed although it could also be hinting about a woman's involvement in the disappearance. Doing this helps the audience to piece and fabricate the plot for themselves without even seeing the film creating the hook. There is also a title that says "based on a thriller that shocked the world". Since the film has been adapted from a book it will appeal to those who have read it but also entices people who haven't read it to see "The book that shocked the world". The edits become fast paced as the music heightens creating tension and excitement to the viewers. Overall it lasts just over 2 minutes but gives enough content in a gripping and mysterious way to get the audience wanting more and to go and watch the film. 

A teaser trailer is generally much shorter and usually focuses on one or two specific enigma codes with less information creating a hype. It still shows that its a mystery and its exciting but its very short and gives away much less.

When looking at a TV trailer they generally have no relation to the actual programmes style but use it as a sole hook. When watching the programme its very different to what the trailer is portraying and often shows elements of the characters personalities and a vague hint and the storyline. Below is a clip showing a trailer for coronation street and a particular storyline they want the audience to focus on.

Storytelling Unit - Story-boarding and Types of Shots

Today I had an interesting talk about story-boarding. Although I had a rough idea what one was I was interested to go into more detail. Its a series of basic/ detailed sketches that show the key frames of the production that is being shot. Used in TV and Film, they can be quiet basic to give a rough idea of what is going to happen and are less artistic (Diagrammatical) but they can also be very detailed to give exact scene elements of how the final product is meant to look. This is generally films or tv productions with a lot of action but not solely.

Below is a detailed action sequence from The Matrix. You can see a lot of thought has gone into what the characters are doing as well as the scenery behind them.

Storyboards can be used throughout the entire production process. In pre - production they are used for the initial planning and creating the vision of what shots you want to use. During production they are useful to have on set so that you can follow an instruction of what type of shots are used and where. In post production the editor can refer to them on the editing phases to create the exact scenes that were intended.


Adding to my knowledge of the types of shots you can use I also learnt about camera movements.


Tilt shot - up and down with the camera stationary

Crane Shot - up and down but the whole camera moving

Pan shot - Moving from left to right or right to left with the camera stationary

Tracking shot - Parallel with a character and moving with them

Dolly shot - The camera moves in or away from a subject (also known as Dollying in/ Dollying out)



There are many different angles that can be used as well.


Two shot - Two characters in the frame

Low Angle - The camera is placed below and looking up at the subject

High Angle shot - The camera is positioned higher than the subject

Over the shoulder - Where the forefront character has the camera positioned just behind his shoulder facing at the other character (generally a conversation piece)


Ensuring my shoot goes smoothly I will ensure to either storyboard or create a shot list so I can understand what I am doing and not miss anything out.

Contextual Studies - Short Film Review 1 - D.I.Y

I watched a short film called D.I.Y which can be viewed below:

It follows the story of a man who catches his wife having an affair with a worker from the local D.I.Y store. Instead of confronting them he keeps it to himself but later goes to the store to pay the man a visit. The overall film is exciting and thrilling all the way through with heightened tension throughout. This is done with the help of many different aspects and techniques to elevate the story and ensure the success of the many awards it won.

When looking at locations there are 4 different places in which the film is shot. These are the garden, bedroom/ landing, the D.I.Y shop and inside a car. With it being 9 minutes 30 long, the producers have kept to only these 4 as more would not be needed keeping the film flowing. They also have only used 2 characters, the husband and the lover for the same reasons of not over complicating the story.

When looking at camera angles there are many different types of shots used. Close ups are used a few times but for different reasons. There are close ups and extreme close ups of the protagonists face several times showing him crying and angry. They specifically use these shots to strongly express the emotion of the character and what he's going through. This is something I will take on board when shooting my shooting my film when I want to convey emotion. In the opening scene there is a close up of the sheers showing the audience that this object is important.

An Establishing shot is only used once outside the D.I.Y store as this is relevant to show where the scene is set. Apart from this, no other establishing shots are used throughout the film as its not relevant.

When looking at the editing the pace moves very quickly, especially when there are intense moments where the main character is seen thinking about killing the lover with tools from the D.I.Y shop. It heightens the atmosphere and creates excitement as well as unsettlement for the audience. When looking at sound there are many uses of diegetic and non diegetic audio. From background noise of cars and wildlife to the dialogue and the audio used when the intense scenes take place. This all helps to build the narrative and lets the audience know how to feel.

Overall this is a great short film that I will take a lot from when shooting my film. Since its a drama about an affair I realise that its very conversational using the 180° rule to shoot the characters back and forth when they speak. It also uses ambient sounds to make scenes more natural as well as an intense score to relay the emotions and create tension.

Storytelling Unit - Research - Screenplay Formatting

After learning the basics of how to format a screenplay, I wanted to expand my knowledge so I took a look at a video that I came across on Youtube as seen below:

It showed me in more detail about the 5 basic elements of screenplay writing in a creative and different approach to Steve Coombes lecture. I found this video very useful as it has given me the confidence on laying out my screenplay properly and professionally. 

Storytelling Unit - Final Draft

In this session we first talked about keeping your moment. It may sound boring and you may go off it as you keep revisiting it but thats only because you have heard it several times. Its all about first reactions, remembering those from when you first thought of it and then keeping it.

We then moved onto talking about using the software for script writing called Final Draft. We looked at the basic layout of it as well as using its features like adding an instruction and dialogue using the appropriate ways the software follows. When looking at a sample of a script I was able to apply action, character and scene headings appropriately to get an industry standard layout.  Creating reports was a very useful task that I learned about. If I needed to know how many locations I have and how often they are used I can look at this easily buy creating a report on this. I also can see how many times each character speaks as if one has a lot more dialogue than the other this could be an issue that I will need to look at.

Storytelling Unit - Editing workshop (Fairly Legal Project)

Today we were given some clips from a tv show that we had to edit them together to make the scene flow. Below is the final edit that I created.

I learnt a few skills that I had never picked up on before with the main one knowing how to overwrite onto the timeline with only audio or video from a clip. I also learnt how to use the ripple tool to help create a seamless effect when cutting between angles.

Storytelling Unit - Screenwriter Research 2 - Paul Abbott

Paul Abbott is a British television screenwriter who has produced many successful shows such as Touching Evil, State of Play, Clocking Off and his more recognisable work Coronation Street and Shameless.

After a hard start in life being born into an underprivileged family and a series of life events that lead to an attempted suicide, things started picking up for Paul when he won a Radio Times competition writing radio plays for BBC 4. He was noticed by Granada Television and became a script editor for the very popular soap drama Coronation Street.

Working as a producer and writing episodes for BBC and ITV dramas, Abbott really came to be strongly recognised for his work when he created Shameless. This was a channel 4 drama based on his own life experiences set on a council estate in Manchester. I particularly wanted to focus on this series as I can take a lot from it into my own film that I am doing. Being an adult drama there are many issues that Abbott deals with as well as creating very complex characters that elevate the scenarios they are in.

Although the series focuses on poverty and mine is more middle class, it still holds issues with affairs and characters that have darker sides to them on multiple levels. It also interested me as he is writing about what he knows and it is set in one location (which is where he was born) allowing him to be in depth and create a realistic view of the story. The drama went on to be commissioned for 11 series, winning a BAFTA award for Best Drama Series and is now being re-made for the american market.

Abbott has since gone on write more drama screenplays and is seen as one of the best British screenwriters of modern day.

Contextual Studies - Editing

Editing is the post production process assembling and constructing a narrative (linear or non- linear) from the scenes that have been shot. It is imported into editing software (as apposed to the old process of actually cutting the film with scissors and piecing it together) and then cut and changed to create a fluid final product. There are many ways in which you can edit a film and today I learnt a few examples of the different ways it can be done.

A good editor is able to take boring and mundane shots and turn them into something that works. There are many things that can be done from Jump cuts to the speed and tempo of the edit that when done right can transform a piece following conventions that turn it into a typical genre. An example of this would be to add tension to the popular spy action thriller James Bond - Goldfinger. With this scene you can see the cuts start of slow but as the laser beam gets nearer and nearer to the protagonist the rhythm of the clips are cut faster and faster together to make the audience uneasy and nervous.

With the shooting ratio of 10:1 for a film and 60 - 100: 1 for a documentary, There is lots of footage that can be adapted and edited into a final edit.

Contextual Studies - Understanding Camera Work

In the contextual studies lecture today I learnt about the involvement with camera work. This involves how a camera is used in television and film to construct a story. Its the primary grammar of visual story telling.



First I learnt about the different Basic shots that can be used and in what sort of situation you would use them.




Wide shot - This is used generally to establish a location and is often used at the start of a film. It sets the audience up to where the story is going to be.

Medium Shot - In this particular type of shot a character dominates the frame. It solely focuses on them and no one else.

Close Up - In these types of frames its usually a specific object that the director wants the audience to focus on I.E. a weapon or a plant.










Extreme Close Up - This is a frame very close to something. When its to a character it is generally to emphasise intimacy and emotion





There is also slow and fast motion which changes the audiences emotional response to the scene they are viewing. Slow motion can dramatise what we are seeing and fast motion can give us a fast pace adrenaline rush.



I then learnt about the rule of third when it comes to framing and composition. This is where a subject is aligned via guidelines and intersection points for example how a person is positioned on screen. The eyes are most commonly a third of the way down in a medium shot and the person is centred on one third of the frame.

In a lot of scenes there is movement of camera. The director does this for many reasons like to heighten the action or emotion in a scene or to explore the setting and the environment. There are many camera movement techniques that are used in film.

Pan tilt and zoom - This is where the camera position remains stationary but moving the camera itself up and down, panning across and zooming can create the effect that its moving along

Handheld/ Steadicam - This is where a cameraman is operating the camera manually by resting it on his shoulder or holding it in his hands.

Dolly/ Crane - A dolly is tracks that are placed on the floor and a platform that the camera is fixed to so that the scene will be smooth and fluid when moving along. A crane can give high shots that can move vertically up and down.

Storytelling Unit - My 180° Rule Film

After learning about the 180° rule I filmed a short scene to put it into practice. After editing it together this is what the final result is.

You can see a conversation taking place. As they talk the camera switches to face who's talking as well as a shot from afar showing both of them. As the camera angles change the characters stay in the same position on the screen but it gives variety. I never cross my 180° arc as otherwise the characters will switch place on screen and confuse the audience.

Storytelling Unit - Editing (The Chair)

This is my edit of The Chair. I have learnt that you can create a story and emotion through a simple act of a girl walking to a chair, sitting down and then walking off again. The first edit shows the simplicity of the act. 

This is the second edit below where I used more clips, music and overlays to create an emotional and sad piece showing a girl who is lonely and all by herself when everyone around her is working together. By using more footage and adding the music I was able to create a narrative out of the simple act.

I realise that even the most boring and simple scenes can be created and add to great story telling when there is a variety of footage and the use of editing. This can relate to my own project as rather than just showing someone walking up to something and sitting down I can think about the small details that add to the story.  

When I received all the clips together I noticed that I had several problems. I had not set the white balance properly on a few and some of them were a bit out of focus. I used the colour correcting tools and adjusted the RGB to try and get the hue right. I will make sure that when I'm on a shoot that everything is how it should be before I record. 

180° Rule

Today I learnt something very important that I will use whenever I am filming called the 180° rule.
The rule is that when filming, although a camera can film 360° around the characters it can only go as far as 180. This is a simple yet critical boundary that helps the audience to keep in sync with what they are seeing on screen and not get disorientated to the visual they view. It particularly applies to characters in a scene where the person on the left remains on the left and vice versa. Heres an example I have drawn below:

It shows two characters sitting at a table in a scene. The line with the √ symbol is where the camera can be placed. Anywhere along that line would keep the characters on the same side and would look right when watching it as a viewer. If you were to film on that line then follow it with a scene filmed on the line with the X symbol it would flip the characters and seem odd. One of the films that challenges this rule is The Shinning. Purposely trying to disorientate the audience, the red bathroom scene has the protagonist on the left and a character on the right. It is immediately followed by jumping to being filmed directly opposite.

Another film that does this is Black Swan. In the clip the two characters are on drugs in a nightclub scene. To add to the disorientation and to immerse the viewer as if they are actually there on the drugs themselves, the rule is broken to help add to this effect as they constantly switch positions where the camera has been filming 360° instead. 

Although I like the way both films have broken the rule to add to the way the audience should feel, my film will not need to put a viewer in this position and would look strange as it is not needed so I will be sticking to the 180° rule. 

Storytelling unit - Camera Workshop (The Chair)

I retained a lot of knowledge from this workshop. When looking at how stories are made on film the most important thing is to make it exciting for a viewer. It's not essentially what is being told, but how it's being told. Giving a variety of different shots and angles we are able to give a diversity to the viewer and make the story more compelling. When there is tension and drama it can be escalated by the quick pace and change from shot to shot.

Today we focused on getting enough content to give us more variety when it comes to editing the project together. The assignment didn't have a particular story but it had to be about someone walking up to and sitting on a chair. From that I used the camera to shoot a variety of different shots and angles to tell this in a more varied and exciting way than just filming someone walking up to a chair and sitting on it.

I also made sure I took forward the skills I had learnt from the previous camera workshop like setting the white balance to its correct colour temperature every time the lighting changed and using the focus wheel to get a sharp and clear image. I also thought about the framing of the subject whether that was the person, the chair, the door handle etc. I was using a different camera in the workshop to what I was using in the previous one so that took a bit of time to learn where everything was and there were no available tri-pods so some shots were a little bit shaky as everything was done handheld but I believe with the use of the editing software this can all be resolved into a good end product. 

Storytelling Unit - Screenwriter Research 1 - Ryan Murphy

Ryan Murphy 

This screenwriter has wrote many screenplays as well as assisting with directing and producing big TV dramas including Glee, Nip -Tuck and American Horror Story.

Murphy started as a journalist writing newspaper columns as his first main job. He then moved onto writing scripts in the late 1990's which would prove him to be the success that he is today mainly focusing on Television. After creating the show Popular which ran for 2 series, he moved onto Nip - Tuck. This series was well received and ran for 6 seasons highly focusing on the lives of 2 plastic surgeons Sean & Christian who deal with the stresses of money, family and relationships. I wanted to look at an episode that focuses on this to see how Murphy conveys everyday life into a compelling drama.

When looking at American Horror Story I watched season 1 episode 2 focusing on how the themes of the episode were conveyed. The main theme in this episode is centred around the husband having an affair with one of his ex students and is pregnant. I was particularly interested in this episode as it has links of an affair like my own project and I wanted to see how tension was created through Ryan Murphy's writing. The build up is interesting as first of all the lover calls and says she is pregnant. When he gets off the phone the title sequence starts to which after it rejoins later on that evening. His wife explains about how her pregnancy doesn't feel right. You have a sudden click of peril as an audience realising how they are both pregnant at the same time. Your engaged by the interesting dynamic and this is what I want to convey in my drama.


For Murphy to engage his audience
he moves the story at a fast pace. Its never too long on one particular scene and keeps moving back and forth throughout time adding detailed subplots that all tie together. It shows he must have thought about all the stories in a very deep analytical way allowing them all to flow and link into each other. Subplots are something that Ryan Murphy does well in American Horror Story as they keep the audience from getting bored and allow the slow reveal of clues to the overall mystery in an exciting and gripping way. When looking at the characters in the show they are very well thought out and included a lot of depth to their personalities for example Tate. He is a teenage boy with multiple issues dealing with his hatred for his mother, coming to terms with death and lacking in empathy. He is very much an outcast who wants acceptance but his metal health issues make him go about things the wrong way. This shows me that strong and complex characters are key to creating a good TV Show.

Storytelling Unit - Editing Skills

Today I got familiar with a new piece of software that I had never used before called Adobe Premiere Pro. When given some video clips and audio we were asked to edit them together. With no knowledge of the program I managed to place clips in the timeline as well as unlink and delete the audio, overlay a title,, use the razor tool, transition fade in and out from black and change the volume in a clip. I found this session very useful as I have never used this before and now I feel more confident using it with my short film trailer. 

This below is the short film i edited together with the clips that were provided for me.

At the start I added audio that would run throughout the short film. I then began fading in from black with the two train clips to insinuate the protagonist traveling. There was a train announcement audio clip that was separate but I felt it would add to the awareness of the surroundings I was showing. I added the audio underneath but It was very quiet and could not be heard. I managed to go through the menu and increased the decibel volume so that it became more present. I followed this with the protagonist walking into the library. This was done purposely to allow the audience to make the connection that he had traveled by train and was arriving on his own. As this is shown I overlaid a voice over of him speaking that with several splits to allow appropriate timing, would run throughout the film. I then gathered lots of different clips of him reading and looking at books that allowed the voiceover to flow with visuals. At the end I finished on the same train clip as I began to suggest he was traveling back home with a title overlay of the project fading in. I then faded the whole thing out to black to give the piece a nicely executed finish.