Unit 16 - Analyse of purpose

Storytelling

Once all the footage has been filmed, the film does not become a story until the editor puts everything together.

Storytelling is a way to show people events by telling them or showing them different ways. But in this case storytelling is mostly told through movies, something we watch. The purposes of storytelling can vary from different things for example, it can romance, comedy, non - ficiton, real life events etc. These stories will also have elements such the plot of the story, the narrative within and the different points of view throughout the film.


When telling a story in a film there key shots that are always used to tell the story and for the audience to know what is happening. The first shot which is used is the establishing shot. This tells the viewer what is happening, who the character is, where they live and what is happening around the person. It gives the viewer an idea of what type of film they are watching and what it will be about.

Creating pace

Creating pace is when a film speeds up or slows down certain parts of the film. The pace changes in a movie to make the audience feel a certain way and understand the movie. For example, if the movie paces slows down which you would expect to see in a love or sad movie the pace will have longer cuts as it allows the audience to understand the characters and the scene.  However, if the movie paces picks up, which you would normally see in action movies there would be car chases, fighting or running as there would be scenes cutting quickly and moving to other shots to create a fast pace.





Combining shots into sequences

This is the process of placing shots together and making them flow together. It starts when all the shots have been edited, and once that is done they are placed into a sequence. The quality of the editing will determine how smoothly the sequence will flow. When combing shots into a sequence it must be invisible to the audience so they don't notice when it happens.


Development of drama

The way footage is edited can show the drama of the film. It is popular to use this with reaction shot to make the audience shock. For example, when a film is keeping  information is a good way to develop drama as we see the victims reaction and we also have our own reaction making us shocked, or scared. This is commonly used in horrors. Scream has used this in the phone call scene where they leave the audience questioning who is on the phone, who are they and why are they doing this. As it progresses we are fed little bits to help us understand before the drama comes making us feel what they want us to feel.



Creating motivation

This is a technique, where two shots are put together, which both provide pieces of information about what is happening within the scene, but you find out separately whats happening. So for example, a shot could be shown of a woman staring into the distance. The shot will cut to where the woman is looking at. This shows us what the woman is looking at and why she is looking there. 

Engaging viewer

Engaging the view is very important in a movie because it shows whether the audience are going to carry on watching the movie or if they are going to get bored of it and not continuing. There are different ways to engage a viewer but the genre that does it best is horror movies. For example, it's the little things that scare the viewers and makes them jumpy and not knowing what to expect next which makes the want to carry on and see what happens to the character.







Relationship to genre

When editing genres of film there are different conventions, techniques and styles to use to show us what type of genre we will be watching. It captures the audience's attention because if it turns out to be a genre they enjoy then they will watch it, because the techniques used are what draw them into watching it.

For example, action movies. They use fast paced editing because this is what the audience would expect from the film and because this is the nature of an action movie. Fast pace editing gives the audience a sense of danger but also excitement to know what will happen next. It's what makes them want to carry on watching and get them interested. Fast moving shots will always be used in action films because of the car chases, fight scenes, the violence and explosions. These will make the people watching it entertained. 'Fast and furious' is a film that uses a lot of quick shots, are fast paced moving to different shots rapidly. This builds up tension and also excites us because we want to know who will the race. It also shows close-up of the men faces as some of them we can see them looking determined to win, another looks worried that he will lose and another looks confident. This helps us to see what the character is thinking.


Romantic comedies are a genre that use slow pace editing. The editing is done this way so we can be more involved with the movie and also understand what is happening. This is because it focuses on a man and woman falling in love and the problems they go through. This type of genre needs to be slow because if the scene is sad it will make the audience cry at what is happening. A lot mid shots are also used in this genre to keep things neutral and to also show the two main characters body language towards each other. Unlike horrors and action movies when low and high shots are used this genre used eye line match to show the balanced relationship between the characters. There is no intimidating the character or looking superior. This type of genre will also focus more on setting the scene and the characters who the movie is based around on. An example of a movie is '6 years' this movie does a good job which the slow paced and the continuity of natural flow the scene has.