Codes and Conventions in Film

Here is the link to the SlideShare presentation I made on the codes and conventions in Film.
SlideShare Presintation on Codes and Conventions in Film

Cowboy Bebop Opening

Cowboy Bebop (the movie) is an animated action comedy movie targeted toward teenage males aged 15 to 21 who enjoy comic book violence, sci-fi, and anime. The opening was designed around Yoko Kono’s theme, “Tank!,”. Mixing the jazz beats with stylistic visuals to create a unique style all its own.  The opening itself borrows influence from the Steve McQueen movie ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ made in 1968. Both use a unique mix of black backgrounds  with pictures using eye catching colouring to stand out, this makes Cowboy Bebop’s opening seem to be a homage to movies from the 60’s. 

The opening wants to create a style all its own, breaking the codes and conventions of the genre by combining different elements of art. This is shown by wording across the screen stating: “They must create new dreams and films by breaking traditional styles. They are sick and tired of conventional fixed style jazz. …the work, which becomes a new genre itself, will be called COWBOY BEBOP, will play without fear of risky things.” The idea that the opening was built around the musical track gives off the idea that the movie will be a fast paced action movie with fantastical style and jazz centric music.  

The Opening uses lighting as a heavy feature, none of the characters are coloured in and are instead seen as either silhouettes or outlined figures having their body manipulated by the lights angle.

From the opening, the target audience will assume the movie is an action movie set in space with handguns and artillery, due to the amount of ships and guns shown in the intro.   

Link to Cowboy Bebop opening (via Art of the Title): http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/cowboy-bebop/

Camera Shot, Angles and Movement

Key Term Definitions

Continuity: The maintenance of continuous action and self-consistent detail in the various scenes of a movie or broadcast.

Match on action (Cutting on action): Editing technique for continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot portraying the action of the subject of the first shot. This creates the impression of a sense of continuity the action carrying through creates a “visual bridge”. This draws the audience’s attention away from slight cutting.

Shot reverse shot: a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character.

The 180-degree rule: a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene.

AS Media G321

Welcome to AS G321: Foundation Portfolio in Media

Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

Main task: the

titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes. All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source.