5 Master Editing Technique Mini-Analiysis

Sharmeen Shivji

5 Master Editing Technique Mini-Analysis 

This week’s assignment is to choose a movie or episode of a TV series of my choice and then analyze it based on what we have learned thus far in this class. There was obviously only one right choice in what TV series to analyze, “The Vampire Diaries”. I will be commenting on the composition and editing of season 2 episode 19. If you haven’t watched this show, what are you doing with your life?,  just kidding. If you haven’t watched this show, here is a little background before I get into it. The Vampire Diaries is about the lives, loves, dangers, and disasters in the town of Mystic Falls, Virginia. Creatures of unspeakable horror lurk beneath this town as a teenage girl is suddenly torn between two vampire brothers. 

This specific episode is when Klaus is revealed and Elena learns shocking news about his motives. Plus, flashbacks to 1491 reveal Katherines introduction to Elijah and Klaus.

To begin with at the beginning of the episode Stefan and Damon have put a dagger into Elijah which allows him to remain dead until the dagger is pulled out. However, Elena believes Elijah could be of great help to her, so she pulls the dagger out of him and once Elijah wakes up and sees Elena, a flashback occurs. The reason for this is because Elena is the spitting image of Katerina which he has met in the past. This flashback has a linguistic element of a heading which says "England 1492", this is used to show the audience the time and place that this flashback occurs. This flashback starts off with a master shot to set the setting of a get together in 1942 and also shows the main characters in that scene which include Elijah, Katerina, and Klaus. The flashback ends when Elijah sees Katerina for the first time to seeing Elena as he wakes up. This shot is an example of parallelism as the face is the same, however its a different time and a different girl.

 

To add on, these flashbacks occur throughout this episode which set a sense of  nostalgia. Also, every time these flashbacks occur, the same tune is played which is an example of leit motifs. This is done to associate the tune with the flashbacks and to help build a sense of continuity. 

Then unexpectedly, Jenna comes home from her college campus without anyone knowing, she is constantly trying to get in touch with Elena, however she is not picking up. The last time Jenna was in contact with Elena, she told her to stay away from Alaric at any cost. At this point, Jenna has no idea about the creatures that roam Mystic Falls, let alone that Alaric's body has been taken over by Klaus. Jenna then calls Stefan who also tells her to not go and meet up with Alaric, he also tells her that he will come over and explain. Once he gets to her house, he realizes that Alaric is there. These shots show contrast as the both Stefan and Elena warned Jenna to not meet up with Alaric, however in the next shot he is at her house. These drastically different shots create a sense of suspense and intrigue, as the audience knows that Alaric is dangerous and that Jenna is oblivious to all that is happening around her.

As all this is occurring, Damon takes his compelled girlfriend to Alaric/Klaus's apartment, where Alaric is currently holding Katherine hostage. As Alaric has been compelling Katherine to remain inside at all times, she is unable to leave. However, Damon finds a loophole in which he gives her vervain which can prevent Alaric's future compulsion. Also, at this time Elena is also with Elijah who is telling her the history of the curse that has been put on Klaus at the Lockwood mansion. All these shots are an example of simultaneity as they are all occurring at the same time. The reason the director did this is to show that the characters have the same goals but different ways of achieving them.  By doing this the director adds suspense which keeps the audience at the edge of their seat.

 

Lastly, the last flashback of this episode occurs when Elena has to leave to help Jenna, so as she is running away from Elijah the shot changes to Katherine also running away from him, because they are playing tag. Also, during the flashback, while Katherine and Elijah are spending time together, Klaus comes to take Katherine on a night out. This flashback ends with Elijah looking in the same direction both in the past and the present. This shot is an example of parallelism as there are similar events occurring with similar characters but at different times and locations. This shot was used to show the past relationship between Elijah and Katherine, as he was slowly falling in love with her. Skip to the present, he is in shock of how similar Katherine and Elena look, and deep down he still has those feeling.     

       

In the end, I think this was my favorite assignment so far as I got to watch my all time favorite show again, for like the 4th time. I think this TV series was the perfect show to analyze because it uses a lot of different editing methods, shots, angles, etc. There were a whole lot more examples in this episode, but I just chose the ones I think contributed more to the episode. If you haven't watched Vampire Diaries, you should get on it right away because it is such a unique and addicting show. 10 out of 10 recommend!

5 Master Editing Skills

5 Master Editing Skills 

By: Sharmeen Shivji

           

    This project was something I was looking forward to doing because I have always wanted to learn how to edit a video in different ways.  However, coming up with ideas to portray some different editing skills was harder than I thought. 

    To begin with, the editing skill contrast was the one of the easier skills to portray because it is simply drastically different shots. So to portray this shot I put in a video of me with my cousins sitting at a table painting and talking. The shot then cut to just me sitting in the same spot as I was before, but with my family not there. Through these shots I portrayed the huge change of me being with my family and then just me being alone. I think I could've been a little bit more drastic with the changes in the shot because when I look at it put together I think they portray more parallelism than contrast. If I did myself being angry and getting violent and then spending time with my family, I think that would've conveyed the meaning better. 

    The next shot was parallelism, coming up with an idea for this shot wasn't the easiest and filming it wasn't any better. To convey the meaning for this shot, I had my baby cousin wearing a pink hat which then cut to a shot of me wearing the same hat to show a difference in time periods but with the same visual item. This shot would've been the easiest to film if my baby cousin was being cooperative, however she had decided not to wear the hat. It took her mom and I at least 15 minutes of just convincing her to put on the hat and then another 10 of explaining what she had to do. But, once we finished we were able to put together the shots and bring the idea together. I think I was successful in getting the meaning of parallelism across, however I just wish I lined up the shots better to have a flawless change.

     To add on, the editing skills shot for symbolism was the hardest shot to think of an idea for. I understood what needed to be done, however thinking of relating two things through a storyline and then filming it was very difficult for me. For this skill I showed someone texting another person who was very interested in hanging out, but the other person did not want to at all. I also then showed the uninterested person searching up on google "how to tell someone that they are annoying" to show that this person was very mean and uninterested in the other person. To symbolize this person I then showed them drinking water with ice to portray their ice cold personality. I definitely think I could've come up with a better idea for this skill and that this shot was a little difficult to understand.

    The next editing skill I conveyed was simultaneity, to show this skill I had someone walking towards the door in a hoodie and a butcher knife and then someone else alone inside the house. As the person with the knife was walking towards the door and the other person was just inside, through the editing I made it seem as though the person with the knife was going to murder the other person. However, the person in the hoodie was actually just going to trick-o-treat as it was halloween. These events were happening simultaneously but at different places, however to the audience it made it seem as it was happening at the same place. I think I was successful in conveying the simultaneity skill because to the audience it really looked like this was going to be a murder scene, but it was just someone going to trick-o-treat.

    

    The last editing skill I portrayed was leit motiff, this skill was the most interesting to think an idea of because the tone of this skill could've been changed very easily. My first idea was to do that every time my baby niece would hit me a song would've played, however, my cousin and my mom were telling me that she would destroy me if I let her do that. So I moved onto another idea where every time she walked in, a specific song would've played. For these shots I tried to get my baby niece to walk in a very dramatic way to really showcase her personality. Next, was to think of a song every time she walked in, and after much deliberating I decided on "Level Up", I chose this song because I think this was the perfect song to get her dramatic personality across to the audience. I think I was successful in getting the message of leit motiff across, but I think I could've made the small clips before she walked in longer because I think it starts to get confusing. 

    

    In the end, this project was very interesting as it made me really think outside of the box of how I could get the message across without just telling them. 

 https://youtu.be/Oe6sPAHD-dY

One Word Film Reflection Essay

One Word Film Reflection Essay 

By: Sharmeen Shivji

    

    This short film was a very learning and exciting experience. The concept of only using clips that we shoot, of no dialogue, and of expressing one word just within 2 minutes was something interesting to take on. The word we based our film on was “stress”, we felt that this was something that every student has gone through and could relate with. By only filming in school, we felt that our word with fit perfectly with our setting and it helped convey our  word better to the audience.

    To be completely honest, my partner and I came up with this word within minutes of being assigned this film, we really felt that this word would not only be easier to convey (I mean it was so hard) but also we just have experienced stress so much recently it was like a match made in heaven. The reason we chose to show a math test countdown, specifically, was because we both have the same math teacher and lets just say math isn’t the easiest right now. This film is basically our lives at least once a week. Anyways, towards the beginning we had a basic idea of what we wanted to do, however we had to figure out all the technical aspects. We started by spit-balling ideas of what shots, angles, and movements to use and then we started to weed out the best ideas on a piece of paper. During the same class period we had a very “coordinated” plan and we started to film right away, to be honest we knew we had a basic idea and we felt we would build it up as we go.

    We started off by filming the small ideas we knew we wanted to include so then we would just have to put it all together at the end. We started our short film off with an establishing shot of our school to set the scene and to show the audience where the film would be taking place.

    We then filmed my partner getting out of class to set the tone that it was that specific class that was causing her stress. We also wanted to add a scene where while the character was doing math problems, the numbers would be coming off the paper, however, my partner and I aren’t that advanced in editing so we decided to use a candid shot with a blurring filter on instead.

    To add on, we set all the scenes to a low saturation to set the emotion of somber and to set a dull and grayish tone to the characters actions. By using low saturation we felt that we could get the audience to feel the sadness and stress that the character was feeling through the screen. 

    Additionally, we were having trouble capturing “stress” through sounds and music as we weren’t allowed to use any dialogue. All the searches that were coming up for “stressful music” were “How to relieve stress”, which as you can probably tell was exactly what we didn’t want. After 15 minutes of continuous searching we found a sound that induced paranoia and stress which was perfect for our film.

    In the end, we used a variety of different shots, angles, and movements including high angle, POV shot, over the shoulder shot, medium shot, tracking movements, etc. I really enjoyed doing this project as it was a new area for me to explore and it made me think outside the box. Also, Sophia and I worked really well together, as we were continuously bouncing ideas off each other and we worked very well together. I'm proud of how our “One Word Film” came out and I hope you enjoy watching! 

One Word Film