Behold the great Saul Bass

Look before you make. In particular, look closely at the wonderful title sequences of the great Saul Bass. Look here

The Ten Commandments of Typography

Take heed and do not sin!

Creativity

Dolly Zoom - a visual explanation

Evolution of the Dolly Zoom from Vashi Nedomansky on Vimeo.
If you want to disorient your audience you might want to use a dolly zoom.  As you can see from the examples given above, it offers other possible effects.  Read more about how to achieve the effect here.

Lighting Tips

A quite exhaustive guide to different types of lights.  Towards the end he gives some useful tips on using cheap every day lights to improve your shots.

The Last Shot

The last shot is crucial.  It's often what lives with the viewer the longest and can certainly either confirm or change the viewer's impression of all the went before; an impressive last shot can elevate a mediocre piece of film making and a mediocre last shot can undermine a film that may have had moments of excellence.  See how many of these you recognise and seek out the ones that grab you.



The blog this originates from looks like a great resource if you're interested in cinema greats or looking for some visual inspiration.  It's called The Final Image.

Production Tips

There are loads of these out there, but for clarity and ease the Frugal Filmmaker is a great place to find some very useful production tips and accessible solutions to many of your problems.

Great Titles in One Short Video

The Art of the Title has packed some great titles from the history of cinema into a quick 2.5 minute video.  Pay close attention to how well edited this is.


A Brief History of Title Design from Ian Albinson on Vimeo.

The Emotional Impact of Sound

Two things you should check out to help you think about the impact of sound on your production work.  The first is an Imagine documentary called "How Music Makes Us Feel", which you can find here.  It contains interviews with musicians, including Emile Sande and Laurie Anderson, psychologists and film composers.  It examines how music creates emotional responses in us and looks at how both composition and instrumentation affects this.
The second is on the blog of the excellent documentary maker, Adam Curtis.  It uses the same piece of film and place two different pieces of music with it.  Watch the two versions and think about how it affects our attitude towards the people within the film.  Watch and read here.

Copyright free music and sounds

For your AS Foundation Production coursework, you need to ensure that the music and sounds used on your video are all copyright free. There are a number of ways that you can do this:

• Approach local bands and get written permission to use their material
• Approach unsigned bands on 'MySpace' and other social media sites and get their written permission to use their material
• Collaborate with music students in the school to create original music and sounds
• Create your own music or sound track - learn to use Garageband  (on Youtube )

Failing any of the above there are also a number of resources on the internet where you can find copyright free music and sounds.  While the music found on these sites may be copyright free (i.e. you do not have to pay a fee to use it in your video work) you may have to pay a fee to download it. Therefore, be careful to check the terms and conditions of any site where you find tracks you wish to use. Some may also ask you to register as a user.  Before doing so, please check with your teacher.

Click on the title of this post for links to lots of internet resources.  Others can be found at:

http://www.freeplaymusic.com/
http://www.freesound.org/
http://www.mobygratis.com/
http://www.unsignedbandweb.com/

Foundation Portfolio and Advanced Portfolio Mark Scheme

Here's the link to the mark scheme for your  Foundation Portfolio (AS) Advanced Portfolio (A2) coursework. The link brings you to the specification for your whole course but if you skip to Page 70, you'll find the criteria for the Advanced Portfolio. For Foundation Portfolio the relevant pages are 60 and 61 (for the construction of the film) and 66-69 (for your research and planning and your evaluation). You should keep these criteria in mind as you make decisions about your project.

http://www.ocr.org.uk/download/kd/ocr_9646_kd_gce_spec.pdf