2013 Post 6: Media Language - Editing

When speaking about media language we must know that editing is a massive part of completing our project as a group, this is vital towards our final grade as this is how we will be putting our film together. When we talk about editing it’s not just effects and visual elements that are noticeable but it’s how smooth the editing of the film is, this is crucial as if our editing is not up to our standard then our film will be a lower grade. Editing is part of the creative post production process of filmmaking; this includes using a vast variety of different types of digital technology. A film editor would have to work with all the footage captured by the group, they would then have to select shots and combine them into sequences to create a finished motion picture.

A montage is when a filmmaker will produce a series of shots that will reduce time and information, montages will mostly be used for flash backs or condensing space. We will be producing a montage for our film that relates with how Alan feels about Sophie as he is having a hard time trying to figure out what he wants.

Edwin Stanton Porter was an American film pioneer; he was most famous as a director with Thomas Edison’s company. He made some very famous films such as Life of an American Fireman (1903) and The Great Train Robbery (1903). In 1999 Porter joined the Edison manufacturing Company. Soon after this he took charge of motion pictures creating many montages that are relevant for his films. He took charge of motion picture production at Edison's New York studios, operating the camera, directing the actors, and assembling the final print. After this he became the most influential film maker in the United States and he began by making trick films and comedies for Edison.

Post 5: Researching Short Film Content (3)

 The research that was most needed for our project was facts on sexual grooming and how grooming can develop. When researching we found some suitable facts that were very helpful with our additional research that will definitely help us with our final outcome. We needed to know the stages of grooming, how a groomer would act around children that he hasn't spoke to or hasn't had any contact with and how a groomer would act around there daughter or son. When we went online and researched this topic there were many inappropriate details that were not needed for our project, we avoided these articles and made a load of notes that would help with our short film that were appropriate.

I have carried out much research that will help me and my group, the research I have done is crucial towards our final outcome and contains researching existing films online that contain relevant content with grooming. The main type of research that I used was the Internet, I had found out some interesting already existing films and I then searched them on Google and got some very interesting facts that would help to develop our film. The films that I researched were related to grooming and they gave us some very crucial information that is relevant towards our film, when I had found out this information I took notes and listed down the key points that would be needed for our group.

In class we looked at many examples of films that are related to the topic that our group has chosen, films such as ‘The Lovely Bones’ and this is a novel that had been released in 2002, it is a story of a teenage girl who after being raped and murdered watches her family and friends from Heaven struggle to recover after she comes to terms with her own death. We also looked at the famous Lolita as this also related to the topic chosen by our group, when looking at short films like this it helped us come up with idea's, it made us think of what we can come up with to produce a high quality short film that we can be proud of.

2013: Post 4: Researching Short Film Content (2)

Lolita is a Novel by Vladimir Nabokov, written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York. The Novel is a story told from a sexual groomer’s point of view. We all agreed that reading the book or watching part of the film would be good idea as it would give us more of an idea of what a sexual groomer would do to attract the opposite gender.  The main Character of the book is a man named ‘Humbert Humbert’, a literary scholar, who has harboured a long-time obsession with young girls; he suggests that this was caused by the death of a premature sweetheart, Annabel Leigh. Humbert then moves to Ramsdale a small Town in England, where he is then shown around the house by Charlotte, it is here that Humbert then notices Charlotte’s 12-year-old daughter named Lolita and immediatly falls in love with her. Later on in the book Humbert gets married to Charlotte so he can keep seeing her named Lolita that he loves.



Jeremy Irons as Humbert in the film Lolita (picture shown on Google images



This research was very helpful to our film as it gave our group more of how our script could end, we also gained an idea as to how we should structure our storyline. It also gave us a great idea on how old we would need our actresses to be and how our main character Alan would look. When reading the book I also took some note's on the ways and techniques that Humbert would use to disquise himself from being a groomer. This is very useful to me and my group as we initially found it very difficult to camouflage the fact that Alan is a groomer. This is because we were keen to build qeustions in the audiences minds as to whether he was or wasnt at fault. In the book there are many interesting facts that helped us within our group, these facts were mainly based on how a groomer would prevent getting cought and how he would come in touch with the person being groomed, for example Mr. Humbert uses a young girls mother to see Lolita and he see's her when he is being showed around the house by her mother. The book also provided further ideas for our plot with regard to how groomers use and abuse their victims cares in order to gain access to them. This is predaminently ahcieved by building up a level of trust.