Location for the main task

On Wednesday 14th of DecemberRoxane and I went to look at one of our location choices, the Woodstock lanes, we thought this would be suitable because as well as it being a wooded area, local residents us it to walk their dogs which is part of the plot to our opening sequence. We took some pictures of he location which are in the following powerpoint.
The Woodstock Lanes

Doctors

In class when we were learning about editing we all looked at a short clip of tv drama, and did a presentation on the editing used, I looked at the tv drama Doctors on BBC1. Here's my powerpoint:
Doctors Editing Power Point

Red Dragon (2002) Opening sequence

http://www.anyclip.com/movies/red-dragon/opening-credits/

If you go to this link you can watch the opening sequence to the film Red Dragon. I analysed this because I wanted to research into ways you can show insanity and darkness without giving to much away.
The sequence showed a scrapbook made by who the audience assume to be the serial killer, full of newspaper clippings which jut show the effort he goes through and how insane he must be to look into everything.
There was a lot of zooming in the sequence which I think represents how he killer zooms into these newspaper clippings and studies the in such detail.
At one pint the word 'Cannible' stands out, which obviously is a disturbing concept which the killer is looking at in great detail which shows the darkness of the film. There was another point where a picture of a man was shown but the picture had been scratched so you couldn't make out his face, this really show the darkness of his personality.
The lighting throughout was dark, which could represent the film as a whole as well as the killer.

Main task- My story board ideas

Here is story board I drew, In it I put together a few idea I thought wol be good, it is not the final story board.

I started with an establishing shot of the woods because I though it would be good to start by showing the enviroment first before introducing the characters. And then I put 'Title' as a representation of where the title of our film will be, and in the other shots the smaller 'Titles' represent the titles of everyone involved, so people like main charactrs and the director.
This is just a few of my ideas and Roxane and Yasmine also drew out their own individual storyboards so we can put all our ideas together.
But we do all agree that we want the opening sequence to have a lot of depth to it, so the audience can get a feel of what the film will be about without giving it all away. We want it to show the insanity of the serial killer and how disturbed he is.

The link attatched to the picture of my storyboard takes you to a website which explains what story boards are, why they are used, and how to make one.

The main task- production meeting 1

The brief for our main task is: Film the titles and the opening of a new fiction film, o last a maximum of 2 minutes.
This is very different to our preliminary task, but it allows us to be more creative with this task. I'm in a group with Roxane and Yasmine because in previous task we have always worked really well together. Here is a pod cast of me explain what we came up with in our first production meeting.

Zombie Land - Opening sequence

In class, we got into pairs to analysis opening sequences. I worked with Aaron, we choose the movie Zombie Land, from the website Art of the title, which has a selection of different opening sequences to choose from. Here is the link to the opening sequence of zombie land:

http://www.artofthetitle.com/2010/04/05/zombieland/

We looked at Sound, characters, location and titles. Here is what we found:
Sound: At the beginning of the sequence it started with a distorted version of the American national anthem, this shows that America has been distorted and ruined by the zombies. And also throughout the opening sequences there are emphasised zombie noises, to make it more realistic and scary.

Characters/Relationships: Throughout the opening sequences of Zombie land, the audiences is introduced to different zombies and victims, the relationships between the zombies and victims is a lot of fighting and mostly the zombies eating their victims, this shows the audience what to expect in the rest of the film and what to expect.

Location: The opening sequence of Zombie land is set in America, you can tell this by the American flag and American football pitch, this shows that the Zombie invasion is taking play in a big country and having a big impact.

Titles: the titles in the opening sequences, are mainly the really important people in the film and involved in the making of the film, like main characters, producers, directors etc. The titles were in red, which has the connotations of blood and death.

Preliminary exercise

In class we got into groups of threes or fours, and were given a brief for the preliminry exercise we had to do. The brief was, a continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room, and sitting down in a chair opposite another person with whom she/he the exchange a couple of lines of diolouge. This tsk should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule.

I was in a group with Yasmine and Roxane, first we choice a location and we choice the science block and decided who was going to be whe characters in the film. We decided Roxane was going to be the main walkin person, Yasmine was going to be the person sat down and I was going to be the director. After that we discussed different shots we thought would look good and came up is story board.

Collision task story board

In the collision task we did, we had to draw up a story board of the different shots we wanted to achieve. Drawing up a story board made it easier for yasmine, roxane and I when we went out and filmed it because we had everything ready a planned out and we just had to film it. I think a story board was also useful because it made us think more about the different shots we wanted to achieve and what effects they would have. This was our story board for the collision task we did:

Hollyoaks

As a homework task we were asked to find a short clip of a TV drama, and analyse it using mise-en-scene. I found this clip from Hollyoaks and looked carfully at the first 3 minutes.Here is the clip:


First Location: in a flat
- the lighting is very natural lighting giving off a daytime atmoshpere.
- There are 2 actors in the scene, one is a women wearing casual top and jeans, and the other is a male and he is wearing all black, which makes him seem quite dangerous.
- During the convasation between the both of them there is no movement, they just stand opposite each other which shows that there is some tension between the two of them

Second Location: Pub
- this location is darker, there is no natural light, it's all artifical through lamps, which makes the scene a lot less casual than the first location
- there are 2 actors, one is the man from the first location, still wearing all black. And the second character is an old man, wearing glasses, shirt, and a sweater vest. whihc as clothes that are suitable for an old man. he is reading a newspaper, which makes him seem very intelligent.

Third Location- In the flat again
- This time the flat is darker, whihc shows it is evening, the room is lit by lamps.
- The 2 characters are eating a chinease take away. This represents the modern culture, because takeaways are very popular today.

Collision

In class we were given the task to make as short clip, to help us get used to using differernt shots, and cuts. We were asked to film a collision between two people. So I got into a group with Yasmine and Roxane, and we drew up a story board of the different shorts we wanted to achieve. Here is the film we made:

I think as this was only the second time we had used the video cameras we had done quite well editing on the camera into the different shots. and i think overall we have done quite well although there are things we could have improved on like keepin the camera still, as if you look carefully it moves slightly and planning more shots and using a bigger variety of camera shots and angles.

Semiotics- Beyonce magasine advert

In class we looked at semiotics and what the difference between denotations and connotations are. I then looked at this Beyonce advert to see what things are denoted and connoted from this advert.

Orange- Warmth, heat,desert
Perfume bottle- Nice smells
"heat"-Hot, Desert
Beyonce- Popular,attractive, Icon
Light from behind- importance, high status.

Practicing camera shots

In class we'r looking at different types of camera shots and the effects of them, so we  got into groups of 3 to go out and practice using the video camera and how to get different camera shots. As a group we got a long shot, and medium shot and a extreme close up.
Long shot
Long shots ar usually used to establish the situation and to see everything that is going on. In our long shot you can see the whole of Roxane's body, so if this was in a movie it would let the audience establish Roxane's mood by the way she's stood.
here is another example of a long shot:

This shot lets us get a view of what is going on, yet it isnt that distant from the subject of the shot, so we still as an audience feel quite involved. And also we can see everything that is going on so we're not losing any information about the film.

Medium shot
Medium shots are usually used for diolouge because they are closer to the subject matter so you get more of a feel to the convastion. In our long shot we didnt use it for diolouge, but it gave us a better understanding of Roxane's emothion because it's closer to her.
Here is another example of a medium shot:

This shot is from the shining, because the shot its quite close the the subject we can as an audience understand his emotion more, for example from the way he's lied down we can tell he is very tired. but the short isnt too close.  And also the shot doesnt cut through this elbows, which they shouldnt because it makes the shot look scruffy.

Extreme close up
extreme close up's are used to catch the emotion of the characters, theses shots are almost invading personal space so we as an audience get more emotion and feel closer to the character. In our extreme close up we didnt get as close as we could have, but still we get more emotion from the face in the shot.
Here's another example of an extreme close up:

In this extreme close up, as an audience i feel very close to this character because it feels like we are invading his personal space, which helps us understand his emothion more. The eyes can tell us alot about how he's feeling, the man in this shot looks very frustrated, and i can understand this just by looking at his eyes.

TV drama- The chase

In class we watched the opening scene to an episode of the tv drama 'The chase'. We analysed it using mise-en-scene, looking at CLAMPS, which stands for Costume, Lighting, Actors, Movement, Props and Setting.
Costume
The first character that came on was dressed very formally but, in very dark colours, to represent her mood, and she was wearing sunglasses to try to hide her emotions.
Most of the people at the church were wearing formal clothes to set the scene of the wedding and make it realistic and the vicar was wearing the tradtional vicar robe.
Lighting
In the vet surgery, it was very bright i think this was because it made it realistic so they could see wen opperatng, and also it set  happy mood.
In the church the lighting was very natural, which made the church fell more traditional, instead of very fake and dramatic, which wouldn't suit a church or wedding.
Actors
Most of the actors were female, with very few male characters. I'm not sure hy is was done, but there was a clear difference in numbers.
Movement
The pregnant lady moved very fast, this showed that she was in a rush and feeling very anxious.
The old vet man, moved quite slowly, i think tey did ths to emphasis that he was distracted.
Props
The first character came on drove a convertable car, this showed that she was quite well of and had a bit of money.

American Gangster

As a class we looked at the opening scene of American Gangster. The costumes said alot about the film, they backed up the time period in which the film was set, 1968. The two main characters of this film which we met in the opening scene, were gangsters, as an audience we knew this because of what they were doing and how they reacted but also because of what they were wearing. This was a very good use of costume in the film because it backed up the characters and the date the film was set. I could tell straight away the genre of the film because of the dark and creepy atmosphere aswell as the actions carried out by the 2 main characters. And the genre is a crime-thiriller.

Collateral

In class, me and two others looked at the loaction of the opening scene 'Collateral' staring Tom Cruise and Jamie fox. There was two locations in the clip we watch, the first was an airport ad the second was a taxi garage. The two different locations shoed the contrast between the two main characters. The Tom Cruise character looked very smart and important and was located in he airport which was clean, well organised and also it was very grey with not much colour to the location. Where as the Jamie Fox character looked very scruffy, and he was located in the taxi garage which was very hectic and colouful.

The picture links you to the wikipedia collateral page, which explains the basic plot of the film and the cast and soundtrack ot the film.