Monday 28 November 2011

YouTube ANNOTATION TOOL

The following (which, in terms of shot order, I slightly messed up!) is an example of how you can use the YouTube annotation tool to create effective posts which work in a similar way to a vodcast.

OPENINGS EG: The Lost Boys (J. Schumacher, 1987)

Can't find full uploads of this classic opening, but there are two clips which show parts of the opening. We get almost a double opening - a helicopter shot over coastal waters, eventually tracking and zooming in to a fairground, where some obvious badass types in long leather coats and with heavy metal hair stylings (simple but effective mise-en-scene to set them as the binary opposite of the ordinary innocent folk enjoying the carnival rides) cause havoc before being ejected by a security guard. With nice use of ellipsis we shift to later on and the guard is locking up the empty fairground ... and gets taken out by the now flying vampires (a second helicopter shot is revealed to be them, as the first presumably also was!).
We cut then to a second ELS helicopter shot, and hear voices and radio from within an unseen car - an audio bridge as we gradually cut in closer to a road, then a car and finally inside the car. YOU DON'T NECESSARILY HAVE TO INSTANTLY INCLUDE A SHOT OF CHARACTERS TO START USING DIEGETIC SOUND!!!
Here's the first part, tho' it cuts out before the killing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l9ezm2tEp8&feature=related
This is a longer version, but seems to cut out the sequence with the guard: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7T-YG_6uMU

The following (which, in terms of shot order, I slightly messed up!) is an example of how you can use the YouTube annotation tool to create effective posts which work in a similar way to a vodcast.

OPENINGS EG: Trick or Treat (M. Smith, 1986)

A fun, inventive movie, as cheesy as it looks now a quarter of a century on. Fetauring Ozzy Osbourne as a televangelist. Most useful for the great example of using mise-en-scene for exposition: the tracking shots across the protagonist's bedroom tell us a great deal about him. This also delays showing us his face - that simple bit of narrative enigma is generally a good convention to follow yourselves.

We also see a classic convention of teen movies (which, furthermore, hints at the romance sub-plot [hybridity] which we see in so many horrors, as production co's are well aware of the importance of attracting a female audience; the book Blood Money centres on this): intercutting between the geek/outsider and a glamorous cheerleader type, with the outsider thinking she's looking at him ... only she sails past to greet a jock type.

We also see the diary used as a device for exposition, plus a good example of humililation of the outsider - which often appears in slasher movies as the cause of the killer's transformation into a psychpath (see Prom Night and Terror Train, both featuring Jamie Lee Curtis).

The opening contains one use of strong language 5:17 in, so I'll only provide the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqpSvOMykQU&feature=fvsr

OPENINGS EG: Halloween (J. Carpenter, 1978)

Contains nudity so I won't embed it, but you can view the classic opening, largely shot as a single take (there is a clever join), and featuring aspects of media language which became part of the genre (blue-filtered lighting, suburban setting, steadicam, subjective POV shots) and that classic soundtrack...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7oP_vLpLoA

OPENINGS EG: The Warriors (W. Hill, 1979)

Low budget, but a great example of inventive crosscutting and carrying on diegetic sound over shots of other scenes; a very effective soundtrack and distinctive titles font too.