Thursday 1 December 2011

Main Task Brief

Main Task AS Brief:The titles and openings of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes. 


Therefore because of this brief we have decided to do teen horror as are genre, we thought this would be the easy's and most effective, but on the other hand we don't want it to be to stereotypical with other films in the same genre.Furthermore we also choose this because we all have strong ideas about horror film and they are one of are Favourite type of genre, so we decided to link it with our age therefore giving us teen horror. Final you can make good cheap horror films for explain Paranormal activity with it filmed with hand held shot also giving the scared effect. 
 Teen films is a genre targeted at teenagers and young adults in which the plot is based upon the special interests of teenagers, such as coming of age, first love, rebellion, conflict with parents, teen angst, and alienation. Often these normally serious subject matters are presented in a glossy, stereotyped or trivialized way.
Films in this genre are often American and  set in high schools, or contain characters that are of high school age. Sexual themes are also common, as are crude forms of humor.

Sunday 20 November 2011

Preliminary Evaluation

As part of our  foundation portfolio, we were put in to groups to create the preliminary task. This was to help us force on continuity ( seamless transition in film) and to learn about filming and editing ready for are main task. The brief for this task was filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and exchanging a couple of lines of dialogue. The task had to include match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.


The first thing we did before filming was to drew up a very simple a story board this was to help us choose what would be in the mise-en-scéne and more importantly the camera shots and angles.Costumes are also a important part to are clip we choose the chacater to were smart clothes as it added to the genre to also hint that many be the character are spy's on a mission.Therefore we followed this the whole way through are filming there were a few small changes but not a lot, furthermore most of the changes were to do with timing as we wrote down the first shot of character one walking down the hall way would take 10 seconds were in fact it took only 4 seconds this showed us that our clip would be shorter then you originally  thought.Also the sound of the door unlocking is heard twice once when the door handle is being pushed down and secondly when the character is walking through the door.


The first camera shot used was a long shot this is to establish the setting and character, around 4-5 second we show are first cut this is to show that the character has turned towards the door and this about to open it, therefore this takes us to a close up with a pan down to the handle of the door as it is being push down so the character can open the door, this therefore shows match on action.Meanwhile as the character walks through the door there is continuity error because the door handle is pushed down slowly but yet when filming from the other side the door open quite quickly and dramaticly this error  continues as the camera is force on the whole character but then to camera changes to behind the character furthermore making is possible for the audience to see the cut and edit.


The conversation includes a mixer of close up and over shoulder shots. The close up are to show the reactions from the character as the receive the dialogue. Similarly a pan down at 25 seconds follows the eye line from character one to show the parcel being placed on the table, we stayed forced on the object for a few seconds then paned back to character one. Furthermore this gives the audience a scene of wonder because they are not a wear of what is in the parcel.


Use of match on action when it comes to character one walking out of the door and back down the hall way flows well and shows good continuity, is also shows how the character is interested about what is in the parcel there for making her stop and take a closed look at it. Meanwhile keeping to the 180- degree rule we shot from over her right shoulder looking down to show the message on the parcel. This connotes enigma to the audience, furthermore the continuity goes from smooth to messy, as camera angles show the parcel lower in the character hands then it was when looking over her shoulder. Similarly the cookie being pulled out of the bag slowly but then the next shot being of the character already of taken a bite.


The editing and sound linked together in a clip, we didn't add additional lighting or sound to our piece just diegetic noise of the surroundings and ambient lighting from the ceilings and window (behind character 2), this was to make it seem more natural.Furthermore editing it took long them we thought it would as we hadn't done it before so we were learning at the same time as putting all are clips together to make one. We made a few mistakes when editing like cutting to much or putting the clips in the wrong place, but on the other hand this help us to see our errors, for example the beginning we filmed the character walking passed the same object twice, this links with continuity as well.Furthermore the thing we found hardest to edit was sound from just one clip as we didn't want no sound at all in the clip because when it came to the dialogue it sounded odd because it had surrounding sound as well but I thing in the end with the final piece it worked out well and we insured that it flowed well, also to made sure of this we added a fade out at the end of the clip so it didn't just stop with character one at the doors but actually walking through them. 


In conclusion I think our Preliminary task went well because it shows all aspects of the brief and showed some good continuity even if it did have some error this is also useful because we can learn from our mistakes and take them on to our main task. Furthermore the Editing prose has showed us that we should start recording before the action takes place so gives us more leeway for editing and cutting the clips together. 

Sunday 13 November 2011

Preliminary Task finished clip

After about 3 weeks of planning, filming and editing the finished piece for are Preliminary, it links with the story board and shows all the clips.


This one minute  clip also includes the brief of a person walking through a door and exchanging dialogue with another character, we played on this to make it more interesting by adding in the parcel, this shows continuity, but also has some mistakes but this will help with the main task to improve on them and not make them again.

BFI London Film Festival

Thursday 20th October. I went to the BFI film festival. this involve viewing a series of 5 new British shorts and a new film.The shorts included: The ride, I'll tell you, Friend request pending,Ernesto and Pitch black heist. All this shorts showed how you don't need a 2 hour or so film to make the audience think. These film were all about 10 mins, but all showed the meaning to the story they were trying to show.
The ride- ( Director: Marian Pilowsky) A hitch-hiker and a welcome lift turns into a bit of a nightmare all round, this left me hanging on my set wanting the clip to continue. 
Ill tell you-( Director: Rachel Tillotson)young identity,love,relationships and friendships which last a life time. this shows a young girl who idealise her older friend because of her relationship with boyfriend but doesn't all end happy.
Friends request pending-( Director: Chris Foggin)online dating and the perils therein, starring Judie Dench, this film looks at how technology is growing and the older generation is trying to stay up with it, contain a lot of humourer and made the audience have fits of laughter.
Ernesto-(Director- Corinne Ladeinde)7 year old Ernesto is feeling left out at school because he still has his milk teeth, so he plans to remove them his self, equalling in some wired consequences. This was the only animation of the 5 shorts, showing you are never to old for cartoons. 
Pitch black heist-( Director: John Maclean)two strangers meet to take on a bank job in the dark, this stories unfolds to show how they are in fact involved in one another's lives. 

The film that I watched showed at this years BFI Film festival was Mr Tree ( Director- Jie Han) a satirical tale about a village idiot who might just be a prophet, this film was a double prize winner in shanghai, the town loser who botcher his own marriage but becomes a savants to his mining village in north- east china. Through the film it has clips of Mr Shu( Mr Tree) sitting in a tree this gives the audience the imposition that he is dreaming or imaging everything that is happening furthermore in the film they believe that maybe Mr Shu could be a prophet sent to save there town. 

Thursday 20 October 2011

Sound in Film

Leant different types of sounds used in film:
Diegetic sound: sound you hear form in the film world ( everyday sound cars etc.)
non-Diegetic: music added to the film ( voice over)
parallel sound: fits with the genre and runs along with on screen action
contrapuntal: doesn't link with the genre
sound bridge: adding to continuity through sound, by running sound


sound can include:( theme, tune, incidental music, sound effects, ambient sound, dialogue, voice over) 

Wednesday 5 October 2011

Psycho

Watched psycho today at film club, I had seen the shower clip from Hitchcock's film in 1960 and compared it to the remake from Gus Van Sant in1998, but not the whole thing so i was delighted to watch it at film club (1998).
The Setting:
Marion crane is fed up with the way her life is going. she has to her lover Sam in lunch break, they are unable to get married because Sam has given most of his money away so one Friday Marion is trusted to bank $40,000 by her employer, seeing the opportunity to take the money and start a new life, Marion leaves town. tired after the long drive and caught in a storm, she gets off the highway and pulls into Bates motel. the motel is managed by a quiet young man called Norman who seems to be dominated by his mother.

I think it was a good remake and i think the choose the right actor (Vince Vaughn) to play Norman, because he was very polite at the beginning to Marion so you don't think anything is going to happen, he is also very shifty about his mother and it not tell the end you found out the true about his mother. Furthermore there was a couple of continuity error.
  I decided to talk about the continuity about  the detective this falling down the stairs you can tell that there is a green screen behind him because it has no verisimilitude as the angle and mise-en-scéne behind stays the same but let he is falling down the stairs.In conclusion I think it is a good film because it not one of those film that you can sit back a relax you have to think about, how there is more to the story that lets off to start with.

Sunday 2 October 2011

Grammar of TV & film

Found a useful website on which it talks about  camera techniques and movement,editing techniques and use of sound. It also includes picture so you get a better understanding of what they are talking about:
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/short/gramtv.html

Death proof trailer

This week we were asked to analysis a short clip and reflect upon the us of camera, mise-en-scéne and editing.Therefore i choose to analysis Death proof by Quentin Tarantino.
I started analysis from 1.27.

1.28:shot reverse shot is used to show the reaction of the victim as she is being thrown around in the car, this also shows how the driver is in charge of the situation.Furthermore to add to this the camera is hand held to see the amount of movement happening in the car similarly  this links to the mise-en-scéne because it is set out with the two character and the camera looking out the front of the car, this gives the viewer the effect that they are in the back of the car watching the whole insistent.
1.31-1.35: Quentin Tarantino has chosen to show the use of straight cuts but in sink with the shots of the camera that the man is holding, this makes it a smooth transition for one edit to the next. Furthermore voyeurism is used a long side close up shots of the targets faces to suggest that they are in danger therefore this is why the mise-en-scéne just includes their faces and a small faction of the sky behind .
1.55:The camera is mid shot from the right hand side of the car as if the viewer are standing looking in.This emphasises how the character is mental. From this point on there is a clear veiwing of graphic match, is illustrates the genre of the film horror and action.
  In conclusion this clip contains more then 60 edits in the minutes this is so the trailer shows a good illustration of what the film is going to be about and also to link with the genre. 

Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey published a theory called the 'male gaze' this is the idea that we all view media such as film with a males point of view.This is portrayed by the camera angles used to show the female body, for example the why the camera works it's way up the female body normal starting from the bottom at the females shoes then slowly moving up it normal stays on bum of the subject for a while then moves up the body. Suggesting the camera is viewing the subject how a man.This is where Laura Mulvey theory came from.

Preliminary storyboard

In order for us to film the preliminary task we made a storyboard this includes a drawing of how the mise-en-scéne will be set up, camera angles and a bet about the dialogue in these shots.





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Thursday 29 September 2011

Preliminary Task Script

Brief: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

The Script:(set in a school)
 Scenario: two people have a conversation about how one was looking for the other because they have a important parcel) 
character one walks down the corridor towards the meeting room, placing hand on the handle  and opens the door.
Character one: where have you been?
Character two: What do you mean?
Character one: I have been looking for you for ages.
character two: oh I see, i apologise, I was working on "the thing"
Character one: the thing is of great importance, I understand.
character two slides a brown parcel across the table, with a "? mark" on it, while giving a knowing
 look.
Character two: you should leave now.
character one departs swiftly.once the character is outside she turned the parcel over and it says"DON'T OPEN" she opens the parcel and it is a cookie so she eats it.

Wednesday 28 September 2011

The Unloved

Watched a interesting film this evening called 'The Unloved.' This film gives a child's eye view of the U.K.'s government-run care system for orphans and children in danger.
  The story plot is about a girl called Lucy who is eleven, she has been neglected by her mother and father, this equals in her ending up in a children's home. The audience follows Lucy's struggle to cope with the system. Furthermore the only thing keeping her strong is her self-belief and her certainty that she is being watched over by God. Therefore this film doesn't contain much dialogue because it is showing her isolation and what the audience feels her pain.


The Unloved (2009)

Director: Samantha Morton



Thursday 22 September 2011

The boy in stripped pj's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTnyW7sSZTA (watch 2.00 minutes -2.30 minutes)
Bruno:German boy on outside
 shmuu: Jewish boy in camp
 At the start of this clip it shows Bruno standing in a field surrounded by flowers, they have set the mise-en-scéne  with ambient lighting because it illustrates how free he is compared to Shmuu.
  Secondly the first shot we get of Shmuu he is sitting on the floor behind a piece of rubble this gives us the impression that he is hiding, therefore this could always be one of the reasons the colours are so dull in this shots of  Shmuu, so he blending in with the background. Furthermore in this 30 seconds of clip the director has used shot reverse shot between these two character as they are talking to one another, this is effective because it give the reaction of other character.
 Meanwhile at 2.13 just after Shmuu says " we are building a new hunt" the camera changes to Bruno's perspective of the camp this also symbolises how their worlds are both so different.
 In conclusion the camera shots all link with the genre of the film similarly so do the camera angles used, a mid shot from Bruno's knee upwards portrays how Bruno is able to see over all the flowers and the fence suggesting that he has freedom ambling him to travel. wherefore Shmuu has a mid shot of him positioned on the floor signifying how he is stuck in a concentration camp.

Sunday 18 September 2011

MIGRAIN

First post important notes:
Media language ( film language)
Institutions (makers of the text)
Genre ( type/kind)
Representation (key concepts)
Audience
Ideology ( ideas/values/beliefs)
Narrative.
Newlands media page: http://www.newlandsmediastudies.co.uk/Newlands_Girls_School_Media/Home_Page.html