BFI! Thursday 2nd December 2010

Today were off to the British Film Institute to learn more about our AS coursework!
Currently walking across The Thames! On a bridge obviously not on the water...
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Thoughts

I really enjoyed todays course!

Wake Video - SnorriCam/Panning Shot

Here, a SnorriCam is used. This is a device attatched to the character (although it is not visible) which gives the effect that everything around the character is moving! We are hoping, as a class, that we could fashion our own SnorriCam which we, and other media students, could use.

Here is what it may look like - luckily we have a Res Mat room just waiting for us to ruin it!

In the short film 'Wake', we also see a fantastic panning shot at the beginning. As a group, we are beginnning to think and plan ideas which can achieve a similar shot using things like a skatboard, childs toy train track etc. Hopefully, we can use it in the beginning of our film.

Change of Plan and Survey Results

After a discussion with the group, we decided to change our idea for our coursework completely. We are sticking with the idea of an indie/comedy type film due to the results of our surveys (see below) but we're now playing heavily on the shots as opposed to the narrative.
We are currently finalising our storyboard, but now have a solid idea for our coursework.
It will be set in our local sweet shop which is very old fashioned and the jars of sweets will help create fantastic shots.
Depending on the time we are able to get the shop, we'll either film it opening, closing or during the working day and our character will then be cleaning and sorting out the shop. The credits will be made out of sweets.
The soundtrack will begin non-diegetic which will appear as the girl listening to it, as she's interrupted, she removes her headphones and the song becomes diegetic. The song we will use subverts to our character as it is a heavy rap song.

50 Cent - Candy Shop





I sent out a survey to 40 people asking their ideas on films.

Here is a copy of my questionnaire:

1. Male or Female? (please circle)

2. Age? 11-21 ( ) 22-31 ( ) 32-41 ( ) 42+ ( )

3. What's your favourite genre of film? (please circle)

Comedy / Indie / Horror / Chick flick / Sci-Fi / Action / Romantic / Other? ____________

4. What kind of factors of a film grab your attention the most? (circle two)

Soundtrack / Costume / Characters / Location / Narrative / Special Effects

5. How often do you watch films? (please circle)

Once a day / Once a week / Once a month / Once a month+

6. What certificate of films do you mostly watch? (please circle)

U / PG / 12A / 12 / 15 / 18

7. What is your favourite film and why?

______________________________________________________________________________________

8. What is your least favourite film and why?

______________________________________________________________________________________

9. Do you prefer to watch films at the cinema or at home? (please circle)

Cinema / Home



Results on genre:

Shot Angles Research

Here is my brother's music video from year 13. We really liked the shot where the characters outfit changes as he runs past the phone box. We are hoping to re-create this shot within our 2 minute opening.
Here are a few other shots we are hoping to achieve within our opening:

Foot Shot

CCTV Shot

Traffic Shot

Changing Clothes Shot

Lesson - Friday 12th November - CLC

Today we visited the Computer Learning Centre where we were taught about iMovie. We had the chance to play around with some footage provided by the centre and this is what I came up with.





Here is a video Miss Foster took of us at the CLC.

Music!

Our plea for help!!

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Preliminary Exercise Bloopers

You can see it took a long time to get shots worth using!!

Marking Scheme

Here is the marking scheme for our opening of a film.

G321 Marking Criteria

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We can now look at what needs to be obtained to achieve the highest possible marks.

Preliminary Exercise

Today we filmed and edited our premilinary exercise.



Analysis

The prelimiary exercise is only a few seconds long but must involve someone walking through a door and holding a conversation with a second participant. It must also involve a variety of camera shots/angles.
I filmed the exercise whilst Beste and Lana acted out the lyrics of Lady Gaga - Bad Romance.
Originally, we didn't plan on editing our exercise but as we had never used iMovie before, it seemed the perfect time to experiment with it. Also, due to our genre of comedy, it seemed the right time to try it out.
The ends of some of the words are cut off throughout our exercise and this is due to it being the first time we have used iMovie. As the number of times we use iMovie increases, so will our skills of editing.

Test For Continuity

Here is a sample of Beste walking. We was worried this idea would look too "jumpy" in our film opening so decided to try it out on the Flip Camera in our lesson.

Lesson - Monday 18th October

Today we began to storyboard our idea with some final ideas. Although this is not our final one, it is roughly what will happen..

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Lesson - Friday 8th October - Proposal

Here is our groups proposal.
Im not sure why I use my hands so much when I speak!

Our Proposal

My group have taken on the challenging task of making an alernative/indie/comedy film. The plot is simple but should be able to bag a few laughs.

The film starts with a pitch black screen. A cigarette is then lit (the only source of light) and the hand lighting it is covered in blood.

This will decieve our audience into thinking that the film is infact a thriller however these ideas our shattered as the male chokes on the cigarette (element of trying to act cool) and the camera zooms out to see a young male with shaving cuts on his face (the blood on his hands) sitting in a shed. A light will come on and this is the point where we realise that it is infact a comedy. He leaves the shed and makes his way to his bedroom where he gets ready for his day.
As he gets ready, he "attempts" a work out in which he praises himself for doing three pull ups on his door frame but awarding himself a sticker on his "workout chart". As he gets ready he puts a random selection of objects in his bag, confusing the audience. He is in his own world and as he leaves his house for his destination, he is confident. The camera zooms in on his feet but as it zooms out he is on a busy main road.
It is here we realise he is prehaps not so confident and we see his "awkward" character. The rest of the two minutes will be spent by the character trying to make it from one end of the road to the other, in which comical happenings occur. He then reaches his destination (however you never actually find out what his destination is) and says a line that again confuses the audience. The scene ends and the audience are left wondering where he was going, why he had these objects and what he was doing.


1. Our idea is practically possible to film as it doesnt involve any difficult scenes. The only possible problem would be cars on the main road we are using for the final part of the film, however if we time it correctly it will be possible.

2. Our film will definately show off the strengths of all the members in our group. We each had our own contribution to the plot of the film and due to our different interests, we can each show our strengths. For instance music, creativity and fashion.

3. It can be easily storyboarded as we only use 3 locations and there is nothing too complicated occuring.

4. It can be reasonably shot and edited in the time given as the scenes shouldnt take too long to shot - their concept is simple.

5. We can easily get access to the locations as we are using our actors own house and a public street.

 We chose to use Camden Town for our main road as it's well known for being unusual and perculiar. We believe this will highlight the characters "awkwardness" and he will be able to react off of the people surrounding him.

6. Lighting should not be a problem for any of the film as for the first scene of the film as we are using a shed and the intentions is that it is dark. When in the characters bedroom, there should normal daylight and we will be filming early morning in Camden Town. Sound may be an issue in Camden however that can be eaily edited out.

7. We will be including dialogue in the film however it will be kept to a minumum. In the first two locations the sound can be filmed at the time however on our final location the sound will have to be added in.

8. For our main character we are using our friend James Mansfield as we feel he will fit the character well. He is reliable and therefore continuity will not be an issue. Our character is inspired by the actor Michael Cera as he portrays the "awkwardness" of the character perfectly.

We may also use extras however they are irrelevant and it will be down to who is avaliable at the time.

9. The credits and the soundtrack play a huge part in portraying that film is an alternative indie film. We are hoping to have animated credits like that of Juno and Superbad.

Opening Credits of Juno


Opening Credits of Superbad


Diana Vickers video for The Boy Who Murdered Love also contains some really good animations which have inspired to make our credits similiar.

Diana Vickers - The Boy Who Murdered Love



We have also thought about the soundtrack which will play as the character leaves the shed and gets ready for his day.
We have friends who are willing to cover songs if not we will get in touch with people who have already made covers and ask if we may use theirs.
Here are a few songs we are interested in using.

The Kinks - Wonder Boys



Kimya Dawson - Loose Lips



Hall and Oates - You Make My Dreams

Lesson - Friday 1st October - Story boards

Today we looked at story boards and how important they are. We story boarded a previous media student's preliminary exercise as an example.
This exercise illustrated how much work goes into a simple 2 minute clip and highlighted their importance.
We have now formed groups and are gathering ideas on plot/locations etc for our opening of a film.

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Lesson - Monday 27th Sepetember - Research On Film Openings

Here is an article written by Anne Billson discussing "the fascinating history of cinema's opening credits".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/sep/23/bass-opening-credits

In this article, Billson highlights how the opening credits of films have changed drastically through time. They start as "names and titles on cards, or against an unmoving backdrop" and later developing to "Robert De Niro blasted by a car bomb through a raging inferno of Las Vegas neon".
She demonstrates what credits "trend" and were successfully however she is is quick to point out those that "never caught on in the mainstream" - like the opening credits of Le Mépris.
The article is useful in helping us to create our own credits for the opening of our film as it keeps them current and we can decide which ones are effective.


Genre

In this lesson we came up with some possible genres for films that we could use for our own opening scenes and they are as follows:

Comedy (parodies): Hot Fuzz, White Chicks, Shaun of the Dead

Indie/Alternative: Juno, 500 days of summer

Horrow/Thriller: Se7en, Devil, The Hole

Chick Flick: Sex & The City, Clueless, 27 Dresses

Brit Film: This Is England, Kidulthood, Shank

Period Drama: Pride and Predjudice, Jane Eyre

Action: The Matrix, Borne Identity, James Bond

Bromance: Superbad, The Hangover, Get Him to the Greek

Documentary: Supersize Me

Hand-held (shaky camera): Harry Brown, Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity


- My initial idea was to do an Alternative/Indie film similar to that of Juno. However, after thinking of 'Brit Films' I would like to do a film that prehaps involves that element of "sex, drugs and rock and roll".

Shot By Shot Analysis of Jaws

Jaws Shot By Shot - Part 1

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I found this video very useful when analysising Harry Brown.

Shot By Shot Analysis of Harry Brown

Here is the opening of the film Harry Brown.
It can be argued that there are not many camera shots in this opening as the effect used is that the boys in the film are videoing it themselves.

Firstly we see a gang of boys pressuring one of the peers into doing drugs.
The first shot is a medium close up as it is half way bewtween a mid shot and a close up.
It is also an over the shoulder shot as we look over the shoulder of prehaps the "leader" of the gang. I believe this makes you understand the intimidation of the gang.
These shots are maintained through the first part of the opening as they hand the gun over to the boy.
The screen goes blank and then turns to a close up of the young boy on a motorbike. There are then wide shots of their surroundings, i.e. flats, the park. It is a point of view shot as we are seeing everything through the perspective of the gang member.
It then zooms out to a very wide shot of the park on the estate (still p.o.v shot) and we see a mother pushing a pram infront us.
Keeping a wide shot, they begin to circle the mother and fire shots at her. They are simply trying to scare her but end up actually shooting her. As this occurs a very wide shot is used and the picture is still.
As the boys drive off (p.o.v) there is an extreme close up of the ground as the shot zooms out and tilts up, there is an extreme close up of an on coming van.
The boys are hit and the shot zooms out and finishes with a wide shot and cutaway shot. The camera is at ground level and the scene ends.

I used this video to help with my own analysis of the opening of the film Harry Brown.

Remember Me

I could not find the opening scene for the film "Remember Me" on youtube as it is a newly released film, however it's one of the best openings of a film I have seen. The film starts with a mother and daughter on a platform and two men suspiciously looking at them. The train pulls up and the men walk towards the mother and daughter demanding their bags, and from the sight of a gun, they immediately hand them over. The men get on the train and the doors close. However, due to problems with the train the doors re-open and the mugger's immediate reaction is to shoot the mother. The train pulls away and the young girl is left screaming on the platform with her dead mother.


This opening is very shocking and therefore has big impact on the audience. There are no credits in this opening and I believe this is so the audience are fully focused on the events.
There is a general "green" tinge to the opening which gives and eerie atmosphere and you almost expect something bad to happen.



This is the soundtrack played during this scene which adds to the dramatic effect of the opening.



Here is the trailer.

Opening Credits

Here is the opening credits for the thriller movie, Se7en.



The genre of this film is a thriller and this is evident by looking at a few things. The music in the opening credits is very eerie, aswell as the actual writing of the credits. The writing of the names of the production team flicker which grabs your attention. Also, from looking at the credits only, none of storyline is given away. This leaves you in suspense which again makes you recognise that Se7en is a thriller.
The images shown in the credits are quite harsh and to those that have not seen the film, very random.

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