Charles Martin 'Chuck' Jones was a legendary animator, cartoon artist, director, screenwriter and producer. He is noteably known for working at Warner Bros. Cartoons and producing Looney Tunes. Out of this came Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. This was a show about a road runner who was always escaping the evil plans to thwart him of Wile E. Coyote.
Chuck decided that the show needed to follow some simple rules which all further episodes would be based on. These rules were to act as a recipe to make a good show, much like thrillers have a recipe to follow to make sure it is a successful one. These are the rules that he came up with:
1. The Road Runner cannot harm or upset the coyote except going 'MEEP! MEEP'.
2. No outside force can harm the coyote, only his own ineptitude or the failure of Acme Products.
3. The coyote could stop anytime - if he were not a fanatic.
4. No dialogue ever except 'MEEP! MEEP!'.
5. The road runner must stay on the road - otherwise, logically, he would not be called the road runner.
6. All action must be confined to the natural environment of the two characters - the Southwest American Desert.
7. All materials, tools, weapons or mechanical conveniences must be obtained from Acme corperation.
8. Whenever possible, make gravity the coyote's greatest enemy.
9. The coyote is always more humiliated than harmed by his failures.
In year 12, one of the criteria that has to be met is to create an opening for a film in the thriller genre. This has to include the titles and the opening of the film which is to last roughly 2 minutes. This particular piece of coursework is worth 50% of the overall mark.
Marks will be awarded for demonstrating excellence in the following:
- Holding the shot steady
- Framing a shot
- Using a variety of shot distances
- Shooting material appropriate to the task set
- Editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer
- Using varied shot transitions, captions and other effects selectively and where appropriate for the task set
- Sound with images
This is the finished film that me, Charlie and Daniel made for our Preliminary Task. We edited our film on Final Cut Express and filmed all our matrial in one day. Enjoy!
Today me and my group finished editing our preliminary task. We added sound effects in some places, added fade to black effects at the beginning and the end of the clip and added a title and credits.
We've already uploaded our video to YouTube and we're now counting the hits it receives!
Me and my group finished filming our preliminary task. It only took us one day to shoot and so far we're all really happy with the outcome!
We've uploaded it to the iMac ready for editing. We had plenty of out-takes while filming, so we're going to take all of these out to make our final film look professional.
We're editing our preliminary task on 'Final Cut Express'. This will allow us to cut parts of our filming, put it all in the right order, add sound, change the look of it and basically make it look like a real movie! Now we can't wait to film our thriller!
The preliminary task is a way me to demonstrate their knowledge of continuity editing. I am in a group of 3 and we will make a short film clip to demonstrate 4 different types of shots:
- Match on Action - this is when a character is seen starting an action and then see them continue it in the next frame/shot.
- 180 degree rule - two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis on screen to swap the left/right relationship, this is called 'crossing the line.' This should be avoided when filming as it creates the illusion that something is changing direction in the shot when it actually isn't, and things in the frame swap sides.
- Shot/Reverse Shot - this is a shot that is usually used in conversations. It involves the camera looking at one thing or person, then switching to look at another.
- Eyeline Match - the camera focuses on a character looking at something that the audience cannot see. The camera then focuses on something else in the scene to show that the specific that the camera focuses on second is what the person was looking at.
