Task Twelve - Transitions and Effects

Within the film making industry they are other techniques to make the film more interesting, this means that you can include transitions and effects. A transition is the movement from one shot to another, this can suggest different ideas to the audience which means that it is important to choose the right transition to match the scene. One of the most common transition used is called the straight cut, this is when one shot moves instantaneously without gaining any attention from the audience. They are been used to many times within film making which means that the viewers suspension of disbelief is not broken.




Within transitions they are other types, these can consist dissolves, fades, wipes and a graphic match.
A dissolve is when a shot fades into the next shot and the audience will be able to see both shots at a mid point. A dissolve means that the shots are connected in some way or even to show that time has passed. This is transition is used because it normally looks good in films but it is normally avoided within the film industry.



A fade is similar to a dissolve but it is a gradual darkening or lightening of an image or clip until the screen becomes black or white, they normally indicate the start or end of a particular section of time within the narrative.
Wipes are an unusual type of transition, this is when the transition pushes one clips to the other and as well as a dissolve it can be used to gain a sense of time has been moving on as well as something has happened in two different places.

Then we have a graphic match, this is when you deliberately choose two similar shots in the same shape by adding a dissolve. This is used so that you can show that two shots have been linked together, this is a special type of transition. An example of this would be Physco when the character gets murdered in the shower. This is one of the important ones because is is really smart on how they have used it, they used it to show represent her death has literally just gone down the drain.

On the other-hand we have effects, this is where you can simply add a colour or filter in order to give a sense of different time zones and how they are linked with the clip. An example of this would be the film The Wizard of Oz, when the hurricane hit Kansas and Dorothy woke up the colour change in order to represent a change in time.
Another effect would be using time and speed, this is where things have been sped to represent a huge change in time such as 100 years. An example of this would be the film Time Machine, this film used techniques which would include having to film two of the same shots twice in order to make it work, then you would have to record all of the day in order to represent the moving of the sun. But a modern day version of this technique would be Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

So why would these techniques need to be used? We would want to use techniques like this so that we can give an affect to the audience, such as a fade representing that time has either gone back or has passed.