Click the link to access the BBC Radio 4 Film Archives which feature interviews with a host of stars as well as a documentary discussing how cinema going has altered in Britain in the past 100 years. Fantastic!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/film-season/

Posted in FM2 Producers & Audiences, FM3 Auteur Study, News

What should go on my blog?

• Your blog is an online notebook where you should collect links and other useful online material and store it.
• You should also use your blog to make notes on how useful the sources are and what they have told you about your chosen topic
• Not everything you find will be useful or relevant to your investigation but this is part of the process

What else should I be doing?

You must watch the films! This is very important as these form a key part of your project and you will need to know them very well and be able to refer to specific scenes from them in your presentation script. When you watch the films the following questions may help:

• Do the films have any common themes? If so what are they? How are they represented?
• Does the director work with the same actors? Who are they?
• What genre are the films you have chosen? Has the director worked in other genres? Is this relevant to your investigation?
• Do the films have stylistic similarities? What are they? Does the director work with the same cinematographer, editor, producer or other key personnel?
• What do you think are the key scenes in each film? Why do you think this? How does this relate to what you are investigating?

Where else should I be looking for information and sources?

• We will organise a college trip to the BFI Film Library in February, this library is a fantastic resource and has loads of articles and books about popular choices of directors.
• Cambridge Central Library has a good film section on the top floor near the cafe
• You should also use the college library which has a good range of resources

What happens with all this information?

This information will form the basis of your presentations script which we will work on after the January exam.

If you are having problems please email boram@longroad.ac.uk and put ‘research project’ in the topic box!

Posted in News

The college has open evenings on Wednesday 17th and Thursday 18th. We need students to help out and say why other students should choose to do Film Studies at Long Road. If you are free to help on either evening please let your teacher know. You will get enrichment credits for doing this. Thanks

Posted in News

Editing is a key part of the film making process and is often misunderstood. Editing is responsible for the structure of the film, the dynamics that we see on screen, the manipulation of time and the colour of the film. Alternatively it is “cutting out the bad bits”. It is likely that in some projects the bad bits will far outweigh the good bits and if this is the case then it is important to remember the maxim “you can’t polish a turd”. In some cases it may be beneficial to re shoot footage particularly on student projects.

The Oscar winning editor Walter Murch works to a ‘Rule of Six’. These are six criteria that should be staisfied by every ‘cut’

1. Emotion – is it true to the emotion of the moment?
2. Story – it advances the story
3. Rhythm – it occurs at a moment that is rhythmically interesting and “right”
4. Eye-trace – it acknowledges what you might call “eye-trace” – the concern with the location and movement of the audience’s focus of interest within the frame
5. Two-dimensional plane of space – it respects “planarity” – the grammer of three dimensions transposed by photography to two. (The question of stage-line)
6. Three-dimensional space of action – it respects the three-dimensional continuity of the actual space

(from ‘In The Blink Of An Eye’ – Walter Murch)

Here are two videos of Walter Murch discussing his career and editing.

Tags: Editing, Walter Murch
Posted in FM1 Film Making, FM3 Short Film, News

This short extract illustrates the work of a foley artist. A foley artist is responsible for making the everyday sounds used in a film. A good foley artist’s work will be invisible to the audience but without their work the film would appear quiet and strange. The Mean Streets task you worked on was your attempt at recreating the work of a foley artist.

Posted in FM1 Film Making, News