Student Montage I found on Youtube

I found this montage made by Shaun Hillman on youtube and really liked it.

Back to the blog - Montages!

Earlier this year I made a short film montage, and have decided to look into a short history of montages and find some examples myself.
From what I found, a montage is a short clip of a certain subject including various different shots of the same subject.

I also read into Soviet and Eisensteins montages and found that:

“In formal terms, this style of editing offers discontinuity in graphic qualities, violations of the 180 degree rule, and the creation of impossible spatial matches. It is not concerned with the depiction of a comprehensible spatial or temporal continuity as is found in the classical Hollywood continuity system. It draws attention to temporal ellipses because changes between shots are obvious, less fluid, and non-seamless. “ - Wikipedia.

I also found this nice table describing the various forms of Montage:

Methods of montage

1. Metric - where the editing follows a specific number of frames (based purely on the physical nature of time), cutting to the next shot no matter what is happening within the image. This montage is used to elicit the most basal and emotional of reactions in the audience.

   • Metric montage example from Eisenstein's October.

2. Rhythmic - includes cutting based on time, but using the visual composition of the shots -- along with a change in the speed of the metric cuts -- to induce more complex meanings than what is possible with metric montage. Once sound was introduced, rhythmic montage also included audial elements (music, dialogue, sounds).

   • Rhythmic montage example from Il Buono, il Brutto, il Cattivo where the protagonist and the two antagonists face off in a three-way duel

   • century.rojects/98-99/9505060m/sounds/steps.mov Another rhythmic montage example from The Battleship Potemkin's "Odessa steps" sequence.

3. Tonal - a tonal montage uses the emotional meaning of the shots -- not just manipulating the temporal length of the cuts or its rhythmical characteristics -- to elicit a reaction from the audience even more complex than from the metric or rhythmic montage. For example, a sleeping baby would emote calmness and relaxation.

   • Tonal example from Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin. This is the clip following the death of the revolutionary sailor Vakulinchuk, a martyr for sailors and workers.

4. Overtonal/Associational - the overtonal montage is the cumulation of metric, rhythmic, and tonal montage to synthesize its effect on the audience for an even more abstract and complicated effect.

   • Overtonal example from Pudovkin's Mother. In this clip, the men are workers walking towards a confrontation at their factory, and later in the movie, the protagonist uses ice as a means of escape.[1].

5. Intellectual - uses shots which, combined, elicit an intellectual meaning.[2]

   • Intellectual montage examples from Eisenstein's October and Strike. In Strike, a shot of striking workers being attacked cut with a shot of a bull being slaughtered creates a film metaphor suggesting that the workers are being treated like cattle. This meaning does not exist in the individual shots; it only arises when they are juxtaposed.

   • Some contemporary examples of intellectual montage:

     • In The Godfather, during Michael's nephew's baptism, the priest performs the sacrament of baptism while we see killings ordered by Michael take place elsewhere. The murders thus "baptize" Michael into a life of crime.

     • At the end of Apocalypse Now the execution of Colonel Kurtz is juxtaposed with the villagers' slaughter of a water buffalo.

     • In Boogie Nights, Dirk Diggler announces at the conclusion of filming a pornographic scene that he can "do it again". There is then a quick cut to a champagne bottle uncorking at a post-shoot party, representing both ejaculation and Dirk's celebratory initiation into the world of porn.

-Wikipedia.

Overview of this Semster!

Over this last semester we have been focusing on sound and the various techniques used to record and edit previously recorded material. The project I enjoyed most out of this was the soundscape, as I found it really fun recording various sounds and editing them into a clip in order to make it sound like a melodic audio track. For this project I had to learn how to operate a boom mic, as well as use Soundtrack Pro in order to edit the sounds together and add various effects and Eq changes.

The second project we did was a 15 minute radio show based on unsigned bands, I found the production of this project really fun, as I got to record my friend on guitar and make it sound as if he was in the studio, as well as making a competition to slot in halfway through the show. For the recordings I had to learn how to use a Eridol R-09 recorder, which worked really well. The main problem with this show, I feel is that it came off slightly short (13 mins) as we had to cut one of the interviews out, which left us short of material.

The part of this project I did not enjoy was the pre-production paperwork, mainly because I just hate paperwork!

Another project had us editing together the sound for a short film called Bodil, which we were given the scrambled sounds which had been recorded and we had to edit it to fit the movie, for this we had to learn how to sync up sounds and how to nudge the sound buy minute amounts.

Overall I have really enjoyed this side of the course, and it has opened my eyes to sound editing and recording but I am really looking forward to getting involved with video next semester!

Myspace Celebrity - Newsdesk (Chris)

Myspace is broadening it’s horizon by introducing a brand new service dedicated to celebrities. This new step will allow users to connect to their favourite celebrities through messages, videos and blogs.
It also allows the user to know that they are messaging the actual famous person, as there are many fake profiles set up by other users claiming to be these celebrities.
Famous people already registered with this new service include Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears, Leonardo DiCaprio, Paris Hilton and Vince Vaughn. This helps the celebrities as they will then have control over their image as the many ‘fakers’ may not be portraying them as they should be.
Myspace already gives this opportunity to connect their users with their favourite musicians through myspace music.
With all these new extensions it appears as if Myspace is trying to broaden their horizons, they already have a political channel called Impact and a gaming portal in production.
This new service will be called Myspace Celebrity, and will offer the public a wide range of information about their favourite celebrities; such as daily blogs, behind the scenes footage, and various images supplied by Getty Images.
To me it seems as if Myspace is trying to expand and keep up with the ever growing and increasingly popular Facebook.

Article from the Guardian Media.

Newsdesk - Producers Role.

This weeks news within the media industry seems to be directed towards the various changes which are currently under way.

To start with the bad, Channel 4's audience levels have plummeted by 11% since 2006, they have been the worst hit by dwelling numbers of viewers out of the five terrestrial channels. These channels need to find a new way of re-capturing the public, or terrestrial television is a thing of the past?

Microsoft seems to be trying to take dominance of the web, by tying up with Multimap in order to compete with Google's map utilities such as Google Earth and Google Map. They have also recently invested £117 million in the social networking site we all know, Facebook. This could allow them to reach out to specific target audiences, and find out exactly what people want.

Another internet site, Youtube has offered some of its high ranking users the ability to earn money through advertisers on their site. The scheme called AdSense could lead another step forward within V.o.D. Technology.

Recently it has been found that 68% of the UK's internet users would like to stream and download high quality movies, while only 40% would be willing to pay for this service. Ofcom's recent broadband test speeds have also proven that the majority of the population will only get 39% of their promised internet speed.

Ofcom has also been researching the effects of restricting junk food advertising aimed at a young audience. They have discovered a 20% reduction in the viewing of these sort of advertisements, the new target audience seems to be towards healthy people by advertising healthy alternatives to junk food.

Ofcom has also been auctioning off airwaves which will be freed up during the digital switch-over, making room for new things such as; new channels-including localised, high speed mobile broadband and broadband delivered through radio waves.

Media Consumption Over a 2 Week Period

Friday
Wake up to Radio 1
Read The Sun
Listen to iPod
Watched Reqiuem for a Dream
Browsed Youtube
Checked Myspace/Facebook

Saturday
Watched Scrubs
Listened to music
Read FHM
Watched rugby in the pub
Checked Myspace/Facebook

Sunday
Checked myspace/facebook
Watched Natural Born Killers
Browsed Youtube
Listened to music

Monday
Listened to music
Played PS
Listened to more music
Checked Myspace/Facebook

Tuesday
Woke up to Radio 1
Watched Goodfellas
Browsed Youtube
Listened to music
Checked Myspace/Facebook

Wednesday
Listened to music
Watched Boondock Saints
Checked Myspace/Facebook

Thursday
Woke up to Radio 1
Checked Myspace/Facebook

Friday
Woke up to Radio 1
Listened to iPod
Listened to music
Browsed Youtube
Checked Myspace/Facebook


Saturday
Listened to music
Checked Myspace/Facebook
Watched Scrubs
Watched South Park

Monday
Watched Family guy
Listened to music
Checked Myspace/Facebook

Tuesday
Listened to music
Browsed Youtube
Checked Myspace/Facebook

Wednesday
Listened to music
Browsed Youtube
Checked Myspace/Facebook
Browsed Liveleak

Thursday
Woke up to Radio 1
Checked Myspace/Facebook
Listened to music
Watched Dane Cook

BBC Bosses Warned

Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of The BBC Trust has warned management that they will be watching the children's department very closely.

This comes after a 10% budget cut was placed on the department due to the BBC not getting the license fee that they requested.
With many broadcasters cutting down on their child orientated programming, due to the severe lack of commercial interest, BBC1 remains to be the only analogue linear broadcaster to show these programs after a regular school time.
Lyons has promised that the trust are going to keep a close eye on the quality of programming intended for children, and make sure that the standard doesn't fall.

It is a pure shame that quality children's programs are becoming so few and far between, as I remember myself getting up at stupid-o'clock in the morning to watch my cartoons as a child.