The document provides details about the student's arts challenge to improve their skills in editing sound effects for film. They summarize meeting with experts from the BFI who provided guidance and equipment for recording sounds. They then discuss analyzing the classic film "The Third Man" to understand effective use of sound and inspiration for their group film project applying film noir conventions.

2. MY ARTS CHALLENGE.
My foremost ambitions are set on working in the film industry, specifically, I work best
as an editor; I admire working with the director on this part of the process and I love
assembling clips into my own final product. The challenge I’ve been given (and what I
believe I need to improve on when I’m editing in the future) is on sound effects.
I will be concentrating on learning about sound effects, it’s thanks to the BFI that I
will fulfil my challenge with their helpful advice and professional perspectives.
My aims that are mentioned in this PowerPoint:
• What I’m going to use to record sound.
• How effective sound is and how timing is key.
• How to extract audio from the film.
• How I’m going to edit audio using audio effects.

3. GEAR USED FOR RECORDING & CHECKING
SOUND
TASCAM Digital Recorder
When we met the BFI film team, there was an opportunity made
by Laura who set me the challenge and advised me to talk to
Will who works on the technical side of film-making. He is
knowledgeable on the subject of sound. I talked to him about the
challenge and I was lucky enough that he let me borrow his
digital recorder to record sound effects by myself, but this was
only if I needed it because I have other ways of using sound.
Boom Pole
Initially, I chose to be the editor in the group, although, I
thought it would be a good idea to become a piece of
contribution with the film crew to help out with sound. I
suggested to them that I would be well-suited as sound boom
operator to gather good sound for my benefit as the editor who
is required for looking at any sound burdens during the editing
phase, luckily, there weren’t any. The microphone is attached to
a pole enabling me to get close to the action occurring in the
shots . I should also be aware that there aren’t any shots with
the microphone getting in shot of the camera’s frame.

4. ANALYSIS ON THE THIRD MAN
The Third Man is a 1949 Film Noir directed by Carol Reed and
starring Joseph Cotton, Alida Valli Trevor Howard and the legendary
Orson Welles. The film is best known for it’s breath-taking long shots
of the wide, open streets of a Renaissance-type Vienna.
The film follows an American, Harry, who is examining the Vienna’s
black market for the murderer who killed his best friend Harry Lime
(played by Orson Welles). In conjunction with the search for the
murderer, the film follows interesting characters who are quite
evidently suspicious by the gloomy environment they surround
themselves most of the time during the intense night-time sequences.
Overall, The Third Man is praised as a time when the thriller genre
was at its peak. Notably, it was voted by the BFI as the best British
film.
This black and white masterpiece inspired our group to produce our
own film noir film with a modern twist of conventions we learnt from
the films of today. It was mainly due to the visual features from the
film that spawned ideas of the themes generated from film noir.
A list of interesting Mise-en-scene from The Third Man.
• Articulate shadows on walls – Lighting
• The architecture of the Vienna buildings are visually eye-candy –
Setting

5. THE THIRD MAN
Review Arts Event
There are Six main aspects to a film’s narrative that are important for the construction for a film such as the ‘The
Third Man’ film. These are the story, the structure, dialogue, an original idea, characters and a conflict.
Favourite Shot:
Shot of the protagonist running into shot in the canted angle position (or Dutch angle) focussing on the streets
alongside the character expresses themes of loneliness and solitude and the angle can be better described as a
distorted look to enable further tension to rise.
Powerful Single Moment:
The scene where Harry Lime struggles to cling on to the ladder to escape, however Martins reaches Lime but pauses
only to kill his best friend to portray the hesitation to stop him in his tracks, however the friendship is kept strong in
this scene as Lime nods allowing his inevitable doom to come.
Favourite Scene:
The prominent, critical moment in the film is the apprehensive reveal of a key character. Martins notices someone
watching from a dark doorway. A stretch of light exposes the face of Harry Lime, whom then flees the scene and
ignores Martins’ pleas.
Memorable Line of Dialogue:
“Mind if I use that line in my next Western?” is the line cleverly delivered by Martins in a discussion with Calloway who
advises him to that he is in danger and needs to leave. This demonstrates a curious person as what many writers are
inspired to do, which is to seek adventure in his life. A truly inspirational comeback, to say the least.

6. ABOUT THE BFI (BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE)
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation that servers a purpose to inspire the art of moving
image, film and television all across the United Kingdom and to endorse education on the medium of film
and their influence it has brought to the world, They focus on caring for the history of British cinema and
to let everyone appreciate them.
The many areas/activities the BFI are involved in is plentiful. The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and the
London IMAX cinema. The IMAX is known for its capabilities in showcasing films in the best ways
possible such as: 3D format, digital surround sound and IMAX has the largest cinema screen in Britain.
It showcases recent Hollywood film, shorts and films from all over the world who usually don’t receive
cinema showings anywhere or any ways of distributing their work. The BFI have been known to
distribute films others spots in Britain and to other venues abroad. The BFI are responsible for launching
schemes in schools to teach film. The BFI are also responsible for the London Film Festival, London
Lesbian, Gay Film Festival and the youth-orientated Future Film Festival. The BFI hold the world’s
largest film archive, called the BFI National Archive. It consist of mostly British creations made by
distinguished British actors and directors.
Statistics on the BFI
• Their archive contains more than 50,000 fiction films, over 100,000 non-fiction titles and around 625,000
television programmes.
• They distributed films to more than 800 venues each year all across the UK, and other countries

7. Establish the activity you undertook (e.g. The idea for the film)
Each group huddled together and formed a circle and gave turns to give their ideas and sub-ideas related to the core plot of the film. It starts with a
Film Noir approach (inspired by The Third Man) and develops from there, including the codes and conventions of a typical Film Noir Flick.
What did you most enjoy about the activity?
What I enjoyed the most was having the right to share a thought and idea to express to imply team effort and the job to fill out any plot holes that
haven’t been mentioned; questions resulting the film’s inaccuracies can be resolved with the involvement of the everyone within the group. This
activity also involved answering questions set-up by the help of professionals who wanted the group to able to establish the film properly. The
questions were related to the six important components in a film in order to be experienced with the film-making process. Not only did we create
character names, there were a section of questions that relate to fully describe the character and to provide them with more depth.
What do you think could be improved for next time (In reference to your own activity)
What could have been improved was communication as there were times when nobody could fully explain their considerations, however, the group
consisted of two writers and one director who focussed on their Arts Award for Envisioning the film. These three worked consistently well with no
indecisions with what they were sharing.
What skills did you share?
The skills I shared with the group were editing aspects that could further enable the three innovators for the film. I talked to them about the various
different edits to the film that could fit with the Film Noir style we aimed to achieve. For example, there will be times in the film where the brightness
and contrast need to be altered make the film appear in the way it was inspired visually through The Third Man with the intense light and dark areas in
film, and of course, I explained the black and white effect and how it effective it is in coinciding with the correct lighting . I mentioned that dealing with
this combination correctly would make the film more seamless.
What you thought of and discussed when planning it? What did others think?
My thoughts on the idea for the film concerned about the originality of the project and how it might steal concepts from other films. I discussed with
the group films like The Matrix and Inception that surround ‘the Dream vs. Reality’ idea. The group agreed with me, and consequently, It allowed the
group to spot similarities and differences with these films that collide with the original model we had planned.

8. THREE THINGS THAT WENT WELL AND
THREE THINGS YOU WOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY NEXT TIME?
Three things that went well.
1. Team-work came together effortlessly; everyone in the team had at least two jobs to show that every person had an
equal amount of opportunity. Likewise, each team member kept to their roles allowing us to cooperate and
communicate better.
2. The direction of the editing enabled this particular phase much easier for me with the shared obligation of editing the
film with Director, Tom Beattie. He knew what clips would make the final cut, therefore I had a clearer arrangement of
clips for us to attend to.
3. The organisation of picking actors for the film was on point. One member was close friends with an exceptional actress
who we believe delivered ‘the damsel’ character brilliantly. Another member, Edo, had a history of acting so he was
open to play the role of the protagonist. Hiring people with experience in the field really heightened the film’s quality by
a long shot.
Three things you would do differently next time?
1) The full-scale plot/synopsis needed to be our primary focus from the start as we had trouble developing certain plot
holes. There were countless times where we altered on numerous occasions as it was not up to par when the industry
professionals reviewed it. Most of the process time was spent on the storyline trying to solve various different faults. I
would like to put the story first before anything.
2) The location where the stairs scenes took place was a bad choice to film because of the various things in shot that got
in the way with the traditional 1930-40s aspect to tag along with the ‘Film Noir’ genre. We had two location options for
the scene, but the owners of desired location said isn’t available for filming. I believe we should of considered more
options for close-by sites in a town consisting of many outdated architecture that would fit appropriately.
3) After the Director’s cut, I would consider also giving my take on the film and provide my edits for the film using my
expertise that the Director didn’t know about.