Blink Murder

The Main Task

Blink Murder is the name we gave to the film that we made the opening sequence for as part of our main task. The brief was to create a 2 minute opening sequence for a film of any genre, including titles and a soundtrack, with no copyrighted materials. Please click the HQ option at the side to view in high quality and improve your viewing experience! Enjoy : )

The Prelim - Ugliest Jumper Ever

The Preliminary Exercise

This is our preliminary exercise, which we called Ugliest Jumper Ever. The aim was to create a sequence demonstrating good continuity techniques, and had to show match on action, shot/reverse-shot, and the 180-degree rule. The brief stated that it had to be 30 seconds long, and comprise of a character opening a door, crossing a room, and sitting down in a chair opposite another character with whom s/he exchanges a few lines of dialogue. Again, please click the HQ option for a better viewing experience!

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Contrapuntal Sound

These are some examples of the use of contrapuntal sound in film sequences.

Face/Off (John Woo, 1997)






Example found 3:56 minutes into the clip - Somewhere Over the Rainbow, a calm, peaceful song with idyllic lyrics about dreams coming true etc., is playing in the boy's headphones (so is diegetic) whilst around him a fight scene is in full swing, with guns being fired, things being smashed to pieces, and people dropping dead all over the place - the music is completely contrapuntal to the action.

Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996)






This is the opening sequence for Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, in which the main characters are introduced and the situation set up, and Renton explains, by means of a voiceover, that instead of 'choosing life', they have chosen to live in 'a blissful, meaningless heroin-induced stupor'. The music accompanying this sequence is Iggy Pop's Lust For Life, the lyrics of which are contrapuntal to the actions - for example, from about 2:30 minutes into the clip, as we get the lyrics 'no more beating my brains with liquor and drugs', Sick Boy is injecting someone with heroin.

In the next part, Habanera from Carmen Suite No. 2 is playing, as Renton talks about 'relinquishing junk' and prepares himself to go cold turkey, which includes getting three buckets to essentially use as toilets. The music is contrapuntal - coming from an opera it has associations of class, elegance, and luxury, which does not match to the scene at all.

On an unrelated note, there's a nice graphic match when Renton gets hit in the head by a ball at 1:12 minutes in, and there are cross-cuts to him at home falling down as he does on the football pitch (mainly at 1:16-17 minutes).


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