Throughout the last two lessons we created a practice film pitch for a horror film called The Lurking.We decided and envisioned every detail of the film including the narrative and the cast. The main points which we had to concentrate on when creating this pitch were:
Characters- Whether we have Antagonists/ Protagonists, who do we want to cast, who will be our supporting characters.
Mise en Scene- Do the decisions fit the genre, does the setting portray across the feeling we want, do the costumes show the personality of the character.
Audience- What would they want/ expect to see from a film of this genre, will people in the target audience enjoy the narrative and character choices.
Genre- What would people expect- how does your film match genre conventions and does it go against them in anyway to make it niche.
Plot/ Narrative- Have you used binary opposition, 5 stage narrative analysing, does the plot make sense, can it be followed.
Title- Does it fit in and make sense with the rest of the film.
Marketing- What type campaigns will you use, will any be aimed at your target audience.
While creating our pitch we tried to answer as many of these questions as we could so that our ideas could be understood in the clearest way possible.
In class today we began to look at film companies and major companies which produce a majority of the blockbuster films. At first we looked at 'The Big 6'. These are the enormous multimedia companies who can afford to produce high budget films with special effects, as well as low budget films. The Big 6 are:
20th Century Fox
Paramount
Walt Disney co.
Universal
Warner Brothers
Sony
You also find Mini Major film companies which also have film franchises but are never going to be as big as the other six. These include companies such as, Lionsgate and MGM.
I then looked at how much low budget and high budget films are. We found out that a low budget film is classed as anything up to $2 million and a high budget film is around $150 million. The higher the budget of the film the more it is going to cost the cinemas a lot to show it. This is due to the production costs so the company charge the cinema to show it. This means that the cinema then has to take most of its profit from the food and drink which they sell and therefore cover the showing costs.
There is also a 'film year' that occurs, so that means that you can predict when certain types of films are going to be released into the cinema.
Mid October- February = Academy Awards Nomination Films
Half Term- Christmas = Christmas Films and other Children Films
Easter- Summer = Big Blockbuster Films
After looking at the typical film year we begun to concentrate on how the audience, ourselves, consume, understand and watch films. These were my answers:
The final part of our lesson today was us creating our film industry's logo. I called mine 'Top Hat Productions'. In this I used a upside down top hat as the 'T' in Top and a black bow tie as the line that crosses the 't' in Hat. Here is my logo:
In lesson today we learnt about different film language and how is used in order to help portray across the narration. The four types of language which we have learnt about are:
Camera: For this we look at the frames that have been shot, the angle at which it has been shot at and the movement of the shots shown.
Editing: When looking at the editing we concentrate on this acronym:
Transitions, so how well it moves between shots and frames. Order of the narrative, which is how time is shown throughout, whether time is passing and whether it is in order of the characters life. Pace in which we decide how quickly the cuts are in succession of each other (e.g. an action film will have faster and more cuts than a romantic one). Special effects, so we look at whether any special effects have been edited into the film (e.g. editing in animals that don't exist in reality).
Sound: Then we look at what sound has been used and chosen. So you concentrate on the dialogue, where we analyse what and how the characters say things. We also look at what music is being played in the background and whether it is parallel or contrapuntal to the context of the scene. The last part of sound that we focus on is if they are using diegetic sound (the sound taken in during filming) or non-diegetic sound (the sound added onto the clip during editing).
After being taught about the various types of film language, we then took the opening to the film UP and looked out for these specific types of language.
Throughout this clip of the film the same piece of music plays in the background the whole time, however to portray across the emotions during each part of the clip the speed/ mood of the music changes, the sound is parallel to the emotion shown by the characters. This variation in the tone of the music is vital to the audience watching because there is no dialogue, so the audience has to receive the emotion of the scene through the music rather than speech. So the happier the music seems, the happier the characters are.
During the animation they show the time passing by the actions that they are completing, so they complete the stereotypical actions you'd expect a couple to go through. (E.g. marriage and then moving into a house together etc.). It is further shown through when only the ties are shown, these continually changing display the days continually changing and going past. Also another way the producers showed time passing is that the characters slowly older so by the end of the clip they are elderly.
Finally due to the clip being an animation the producers would have wanted to make the clip look at realistic as possible for an animation. To do this they have created natural and high lighting on the characters so that it looks more like they are in reality.
Today in lesson we looked at how in order to portray across a character and their story without speech, stereotyping is done so that this information is able to be represented across to the audience early in the films. Stereotyping is also seen in everyday life as when people are asked to describe someone from certain countries they will describe their country's stereotype. E.g.
A French Man:
People would stereotype people from that country as people that always drink wine, and eat french bread stick. Also people would imagine them wearing striped shirts and berates with a curly mustache even though that it is probably not what any french people actually look like.
After learning about how people use stereotypes in everyday life we then had to apply our knowledge to an analysis of film opening of our choice. I chose the film Stick It which is in the Teen genre with the sub genre of Teen Sport.
Above is the opening scene to the film Stick it. The characters they use are made to look like the stereotype of teenagers with hoodies and baseball caps on. They dress the characters like this so that as soon as the film starts the audience is able to tell the type of people they are and when people see others dressed like that they automatically expect them to be trouble. So by dressing them in these outfits it confirms that the actions which they are completing are going to end with them in trouble therefore creating an issue for the rest of the film to be based upon.
By that you can tell that the representation has been created by adults and not teens due to the fact that now a large majority of adults see teenagers in the way shown by the film and as adults stereotype teenagers like this in quite a few films now, it means that teenagers are also capable to identify who the characters are suppose to be too.
Another point is that as the setting to this film is in a makeshift skate park and a derelict house it further portrays they idea of 'rough' teenagers, because it is on the side of the streets and when teenagers hang around on/ by the streets it is believed that this is when they get into trouble. This therefore continues to back up the idea and thought that they are causing problems for themselves later in the film.
Finally the main character in this opening has their hood up and are covering their face the whole time. This shows that they don't want to be caught and this suggests that they have already been in trouble before. By having the hood up it also conceals their gender, so as they are dressed in boyish clothes it could either be another stereotype for a male teenager or a countertype for a female teenager due to them wearing the opposite of what you would expect and creating a shock for the audience as it is against what they originally thought.
Over the past couple of lessons we have begun to learn how to edit videos and clips through a software called Adobe Premier. We imported the music and clips that we wanted to use and then arranged, cropped and editing them to create a video which we wanted. I created a music video with a dramatic start to the audio piece of 'Uptown Funk' by Mark Ranson and used clips of dancing animals which we were supplied with as the visual aspect of my video. Although for the dramatic start I used videos of a city skyline as well as the city streets. Below is the final edit of the editing practice video.
In the first scenes with the city I chose the slower transitions with the dissolve and square reveal, I did this so that the transitions matched the speed of the music that I had in the background. By doing this it also created a greater contrast between this part of the video and the dancing animals section. In the section where you see lots of people walking on the street I added the ghost effect onto it, by adding this effect it meant that the clips looked like it had more people walking in that area and that they were walking faster. This effect further makes it look more dramatic as mixed with the music it makes it seem like more people are in danger, due to the James Bond music building up.
After building up the tension I add a comedy feel by editing it so that these long dramatic shot quickly cut to the shot shots of animals dancing with the abrupt change of song to 'Uptown Funk'. During this section of my video I cut each clip a lot more so that it transitioned between each shot quicker and this enabled it to go with the upbeat music better.
However if I completed the editing task again I would have been more careful with the cutting of the clips. this is because near the end of the video it kept having blackout flashes, which made the video seem jolty and unprofessional. So to stop that happening again I would move each of the clips closer together so that the video doesn't stop in between cuts and therefore transitions at a smoother rate.
When something has a narrative it means that it has a plot or storyline to it and that is what we were looking at in lesson today.
Claude Levi- Strauss
The first narrative theory which we learnt about was the idea that for a story or plot to be successful in someway 'Binary Oppositions' should be involved. This theory came from Claude Levi- Strauss and he looked at what the themes of films and television were rather than the plot itself and came up with Binary Oppositions. It is where the theme in the plot/ storyline involves conflicts between two things. E.g. Good vs Evil or Man vs Machine.
Roland Barthes
Another narrative idea is that in order to get the audience gripped you should want them to be asking questions which will get answered at the end of the film, this means that then the audience is more likely to watch until the end. This principle is called an Enigma Code which was thought about by Roland Barthes. An example of a question which the audience might ask is: "Why did they disappear?"
Good examples of this being used is in adverts and often openings of mystery genre films.
Tzvetan Todorov
The final narrative theory is called 'Narrative Analysing' and came from Tzvetan Todorov. His concept was that a narrative which is understandable can be split into five stages:
Equilibrium- The setting is established
Disruption- The story takes a particular direction
Recognition of Disruption- Character and events are interwoven
Attempt to Repair Disruption- Try to solve the issue
Reinstatement of Equilibrium- Matters are sorted out, problems are solved and questions are answered.
After learning these narratives we then put them into practice, the one in particular that we focused on was the Narrative analyzing with the 5 stage concept. We had to pick out and state where each of the stages were shown in the short animation film, called Alma, which we watched.
Stage 1- The store is set up in a quiet town
Stage 2- A little girl comes along and draws her name on the wall, in the town, opposite the store.
Stage 3- Shop tempts the girl into the store by setting up a doll look a like of her in the window that moves.
Stage 4- The child gets put into the doll as she touches it and she therefore becomes stuck inside the doll and store.
Stage 5- The town goes back to being quiet and the store sets up a doll for the next child to come along the street and past the store.
In lesson today we have started to practice analyzing different genres through their opening credits. To help us remember what we need to include whilst analyzing, we learnt an acronym called DISTINCT. This is what it stands for: Describe In detail - What's going on and happening in the clip. Setting - Where is it taking place? Themes - What genre it fit in with, why? Icons - Are any significant props shown or used? Narrative - The plot/ story line, enigma codes etc. Characters - Who do you see and what do they do? Textual analysis - What is in the picture/ is any text used, if so what font and what is written?
We begun by looking at three different scenes, the first one we looked at was from the film 'Harry Brown'. This film is a Thriller.
At the start of the sequence the setting is in what I would say is a rough area in London where you would find council flats, but it is shot in an underground walkway and then cuts to a park. By having the setting here it creates darker lighting which creates a nastier grungier feel to the setting and contrasts vastly with the greenery of a park, this mixed with some of the props such as drugs and the gun make this scene more intense, this grips the audience straight into the film of action. The sound editing throughout the opening also plays a key role in setting the intensity for the rest of the film. This is because the volume of certain actions are made more exaggerated than others, for example the swearing of the characters, to portray across the type of people they are (hooded teens in a gang) which is used to shock the audience, and the gun shots as by exaggerating this I think that it sets into my mind how once that shot has been fired that they can't take it back, showing that the outcome from it is permanent which in this case means that a woman with a baby is killed, killing a character at the epiphany of vulnerability. Finally the idea of actions being permanent and always with you is displayed through the camera angle being from a person who's involved view. This makes you feel like you, as the audience, are there in the midst of it but cant control with your mind the actions which are being completed adding interaction with the viewer into the scene.
In lesson today we begun to learn about Semiotics and how to notice effective denotations and connotations in film and television images/posters. I have decided to complete this task using the poster below of the 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2'.
This poster reveals that this film will have a battle between two sides as the poster is split into two by the contrasting colours of red and green. By using two colours that are opposites in the colour wheel it shows that the two sides and characters which are fighting are complete opposites too, suggesting the idea of good and evil. This idea of one side representing evil and the other good is further displayed in the appearance of each.
The left side is shown as the evil side because most light and bright colours have been removed to leave that half of the picture with very dark and gloomy colours such as blacks and deep blues, this causes evil to be assumed as black is the opposite to white and light colours which are associated with goodness and purity from evil/ sins. That half also has the hint of green which spreads from the wand and centre and to me green is a colour of jealousy and envy therefore showing that the bad characters are after whatever the others are protecting, which is shown in the background of the right side of the poster.
The right side is displayed as the good side as more colour is shown in the picture and in the characters outfits even if it is mainly tinted with the red colour, which I think is a colour related to holding power over others and in this case the characters on the left. However by having this hint to the picture it brightens that side a little and when a picture is brighter it makes those characters who are in that side seem like they are in the right. Also as the left side is such a contrast to the other it furthers that idea. Another part of the right side of the image is that proves the fact that the characters are protecting the building behind them is the stances that they are standing in are quite defensive looking suggesting that they are trying to defeat the intruders who are attacking, which are seen standing in open attacking stances on left.
Finally in this poster there are also flying objects and wands where special effect editing has been added to have the colours come out of the wands. This displays that the film with involve magic and this therefore shows that the genre the film will be part of is fantasy and as the characters on the right look young, the genre of teen as well.
Today in class we had to take four given genres of films and represent each one in a picture. The four genres which we were given were: Documentary, Horror, Thriller and Action.
This is the still image for the genre of Documentaries. We set this image up as a scene where an interview is happening with a sports star. When we were creating this we decided that for the idea behind the photo to be portrayed though the camera that two prop would be needed in the form of the microphone, which was to display he fact that the person was being interviewed and the tennis racket, which is to show that the character was a sportswoman and therefore the person being interviewed. However I think that to make this better we could have found a more appropriate location/ setting as there are doors and signs in the background which can distract you from the people in the shot. If I was to take this again I would have, due to the tennis racket, taken the photo either on or next to a tennis court to make it even clearer who the character is.
This photo was the one taken for the Horror genre. We created this picture by putting a light directly underneath the face so that then the facial features would be shown in an extreme way and therefore create shadows over certain parts of the face making a contrast between light and dark. This contrast was further enhanced by the black and white effect we have put on the photo. We also did this to give the image a darker and scarier feel as without any colour in the picture it takes away any joy that could be associated with it and therefore maintains the sense or eeriness which you would get throughout horror films. Although if I was to take this shot again I would have wanted to have found a darker room to take the photo in as then a greater contrast with the shadows would have been created on the face.
The genre that this picture was created to represent is Thriller. We made our photo represent a scene in which the main character is being chased or followed by a character who they do not know and they have realised and are therefore tying to get away. We took the image in mid action to portray the urgency the main character has to get away and to show the fact that the picture is of a chase. I then changed the focus of the photo to be on the main character in the foreground who is being chased, by doing this it causes the character who's in the background identity to be more difficult to be seen and therefore increases the amount of mystery displayed across to an audience. Also we made the image slightly faded causing the saturation of it to decrease and for the lighting to be a bit darker this then enabled us to portray a darker feel and therefore cause the picture to look creepier and more mysterious as to why someone is chasing the foreground character. Although I think that the picture would have represented the thriller genre better if the background character had some type of weapon e.g. a knife to give the audience a reason why they are chasing the other character.
This final picture is representing the genre of Action. By having one of the characters shooting into the camera and the other character ready to shoot suggests that they are after someone out there past the camera which gets the audience feeing like they are involved in the film. Also both characters have straight, stern faces and this portrays across the fact that they are being serious about what they are doing as if they were out to complete a job. We then blacked out the corners to create the effect of a circle around the two characters in the image, this means that your eyes are drawn to them and the action which they are completing. Additionally that circle creates tunnel vision of the photo which is similar to the gun barrel continuing the theme of shooting and shows that fighting will feature throughout the film. If I created this photo again I would have used props of a weapon rather than using our hands because by having the props it makes it more realistic and authentic to the genre which is being shown.
Above is the opening credits to the film Back To The Future which I have chosen as my first opening credits to analyse in class today.
At the start of this opening you are set with a shot in a garage where a covered over object is left. This suggests that something is trying to be concealed from the viewer and other characters who will feature in the film which adds mystery into what they are hiding. However as the sequence continues the object is revealed to be a car. I think that this injects some curiosity into the start as it made me wonder why just a car would need to stay so hidden, creating the idea that this car is special or very valuable to the owner.
Also throughout the opening you get glimpses of the scientific sign for radioactive substances, I think this portrays across that science will be a big feature during the film and due to the radioactive substance being sat next to the car further shows that the substance has a large role in the reason why the car was being hidden in the first place.
Another part of the sequence that hints at the rest of the film is that the car has doors that open upwards rather than outwards and in my opinion this gives the car a futuristic feel as this feature on the car is different to most other cars hinting to the viewer that the film will include the future in some type of way. This futuristic idea is continually proved by the radioactive signs, electric rods and high-tech dashboard with many switches which are shown. I believe this makes the car and knowledge needed to create such an object to be quite scientifically advanced for the period of time which the film is set in (1985). To me this is a deliberate anachronism to act as a clue to the audience watching about the rest of the film.
The music throughout the opening credits changes as it continues as when the dash board with the lights and dates switches on the music become louder and has a more triumphant and upbeat feel. This suggests that by switching the machine/ car on and getting it to work was a big feat and successful.
Overall the whole of the opening credits is based around this car as even when a character is shown you only see their back causing you to maintain a majority of your focus on the car and not to focus on them. This suggests that the car is the idea of which this a large amount of this film is set on leaving the audience with this knowledge as they go into the rest of the film.
