Monday 30 December 2013
Sunday 29 December 2013
Film Treatment
Film Treatment
This post will contain our film treatment for our film Hacked.
Hacked
The Present.
Kitchen.
House.
Daytime.
A typical kitchen in a family home with a sink in the centre with bowls and glasses next to it waiting to be washed up. On the same wall a window shows the view of the garden. There is a wide shot of a male sitting on a stool next to the counter to the right of the sink and this is the Hacker. He is of fair height and build of around 6ft and is dressed in tracksuit joggers and a sports jacket. He is hunched over a laptop tapping away furiously at the keys for a moment before sitting back in the stool. He puts headphones in his ears and stares at the screen intently.
A close up shot of a mans lower face and neck is seen with a shirt collar and the top of the tie is visible. The lower part of a phone can be seen and its assumed it is pressed against his ear. The dead space around him gives little clue as to wear he is due to low key lighting. He speaks the following words to an unknown recipient. He coldly says into the phone. "You know where to find him, take all the evidence and destroy it".
The hacker rushes to pack his laptop into a bag with a few other items and rushes out of the door behind him.
Tracking shot of the Man in a suit's shoes as he walks down what appears to be a drive way. It tracks upwards so that the back of his head is visible. He approaches the door and moves an unseen device towards the lock and then steps inside to find that the house is empty. He dials a number and simply states "He's not here".
The Hacker is running and a dolly shot of his feet running emphasises this.
The man in the suit is walking at a calm pace and another dolly shot is used to show this.
The Hacker runs down into some garages and pauses at the entrance to an alley to catch his breath and glances back to make sure nobody followed him. He turns the corner coming face to face with the Man in the suit and his eyes open wide in surprise.
Hacked
The Present.
Kitchen.
House.
Daytime.
A typical kitchen in a family home with a sink in the centre with bowls and glasses next to it waiting to be washed up. On the same wall a window shows the view of the garden. There is a wide shot of a male sitting on a stool next to the counter to the right of the sink and this is the Hacker. He is of fair height and build of around 6ft and is dressed in tracksuit joggers and a sports jacket. He is hunched over a laptop tapping away furiously at the keys for a moment before sitting back in the stool. He puts headphones in his ears and stares at the screen intently.
A close up shot of a mans lower face and neck is seen with a shirt collar and the top of the tie is visible. The lower part of a phone can be seen and its assumed it is pressed against his ear. The dead space around him gives little clue as to wear he is due to low key lighting. He speaks the following words to an unknown recipient. He coldly says into the phone. "You know where to find him, take all the evidence and destroy it".
The hacker rushes to pack his laptop into a bag with a few other items and rushes out of the door behind him.
Tracking shot of the Man in a suit's shoes as he walks down what appears to be a drive way. It tracks upwards so that the back of his head is visible. He approaches the door and moves an unseen device towards the lock and then steps inside to find that the house is empty. He dials a number and simply states "He's not here".
The Hacker is running and a dolly shot of his feet running emphasises this.
The man in the suit is walking at a calm pace and another dolly shot is used to show this.
The Hacker runs down into some garages and pauses at the entrance to an alley to catch his breath and glances back to make sure nobody followed him. He turns the corner coming face to face with the Man in the suit and his eyes open wide in surprise.
Friday 20 December 2013
Our Film Pitch!
As a final part to the thought process of our movie, we pitched our film to our media class who were playing as important people who were considering commission our movie, our job was to give our pitch, answer questions and take constructive feed back so as to get our movie to be commissioned, our lovely media teach Mr Hood filmed it for us to upload so you could see another step in our ever nearing conclusion to our media product.
And here it is our film pitch!
Just as a side note there were 4/5 movie pitches made and only TWO were being commissioned, our pitch was one of those two, as we had considered challenging conventions, plot, background, setting, characters, audience age range and a few other things, this left hardly any room for queries or constructive feedback, which we were very proud and pleased about but there is always room for improvement!
Identify the target audience
In this post I will be identifying the target audience in consideration to the British board of film classifications. For this I need to know the classifications to be able apply one to our film.
British board of film classification (BBFC)
The BBFC is a regulatory agency that classify Films, TV shows and other forms of media into ratings suitable for an aged audience.
Classifications
U - The U symbol stands for Universal. A U film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over. However, it is impossible to predict what might upset a particular child, especially at this lower end of the category range.
British board of film classification (BBFC)
The BBFC is a regulatory agency that classify Films, TV shows and other forms of media into ratings suitable for an aged audience.
Classifications
U - The U symbol stands for Universal. A U film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over. However, it is impossible to predict what might upset a particular child, especially at this lower end of the category range.
PG - PG stands for Parental Guidance. This means a film is suitable for general viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for younger children. A PG film should not disturb a child aged around eight or older but in case a child is sensitive to things being shown on screen, parental guidance is advised.
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12/12A - 12A means that anyone aged 12 or over can go and see the film unaccompanied. The A stands for 'accompanied' and 'advisory'. 12 means children younger than 12 may see the film but only if they are accompanied by an adult (eg someone over the age of 18), who must watch the film with them. A 12 category means; Strong language may be used but it must be infrequent and promiscuous behaviour must be brief and discreet. Violence is permitted however it must not be dwelled upon in detail however gore can be permitted if it is in context such as a medical drama might feature injuries. Dangerous behaviour is vague so not to effect the audience and any anti social behaviour is not to be endorsed as positive at all. There is to be no glamorisation of drug use.
15 - No-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a ‘15’ rated DVD. 15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age. 15 category is the same specifics of the 12 except some features will be stronger, for example profanity will be more excessive.
18 - Films rated 18 are for adults. No-one under 18 is allowed to see an 18 film at the cinema or buy/rent an 18 rated DVD. No 18 rated works are suitable for children.
After researching the BBFC ratings i will now assign one to my film!
As a group we have decide to assign the rating 12 to our film, because there isn't any graphical violence, no sexual scenes but there maybe be possible profanity later on in the film, so the child may need to be accompanied by an adult so they can make the adult decision on whether to continue watching the movie or to leave because it is too mature for them, this is why the film hasnt been rated any lower and hasn't been rated 12A.
Our typical audience member, will be a working class male 16 -21 year olds of no certain ethnicity, but this film is up their street because they will be at that social age to go to cinemas with friends and will be into such genres as thriller's, horrors, comedies and action. Films like 'Die hard', 'The wolf of wallstreet' and 'Money never sleeps' will be their favourite films. They will be a typical school boy just starting or in the process of doing A levels, with low income as they will only have a small low wage part time job, we're thinking band E income which is around £3000 a year, which works out as £250 a month or £62 a week. They'll have found out about the film through social and media sites like youtube and facebook, and will most likely have gone to the cinemas to watch our movie or watched it on an approves media streaming site as this is what out target audience member frequents.
This is John Smith and represents our target audience.He is a white British male and he has a band E income of £3000 a year through his job as a part time store assistant in a supermarket whilst he studies in his final year at Birmingham Sixth Form before moving on to university. His favourite films include, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Die Hard 4.0, both of these being thrillers which is their favourite genre. He watches films with his friends of a similar age and will go to the cinema to watch them. Alternatively he uses a film streaming service such as Netflix or Love Film to watch movies from home. His hobbies include being an active member on social networking sites, taking part in part time sport events including football and swimming and they like to go to music festivals. He listens to a mixture of pop and rock music. He drives his own old black Volkswagen Golf and he currently resides at his parents semi detached house until he moves to University accommodation in a few months time.
Main elements and themes in our film:
Before I can go any further with this blog post I'm going to identify the main elements and themes of the full film. Here is the list of key words that represent the main themes and elements in the film:
Similar Genres and Themes
I now compare two films from the thriller genre, looking at the similarities and differences between the target audience of our film to their target audience
The movie i'm going to compare is 'Taken', here is a snap shot of the audience profile from Pearl & Dean's website. It's a Thriller just like our movie, 54% of the audience is males which is what we are expecting for our movie. The age range 15 - 24 is the highest viewing range with 38% of people being around this age, our expected age range is 16 - 21 so our film may similarly have this high percentage.
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12/12A - 12A means that anyone aged 12 or over can go and see the film unaccompanied. The A stands for 'accompanied' and 'advisory'. 12 means children younger than 12 may see the film but only if they are accompanied by an adult (eg someone over the age of 18), who must watch the film with them. A 12 category means; Strong language may be used but it must be infrequent and promiscuous behaviour must be brief and discreet. Violence is permitted however it must not be dwelled upon in detail however gore can be permitted if it is in context such as a medical drama might feature injuries. Dangerous behaviour is vague so not to effect the audience and any anti social behaviour is not to be endorsed as positive at all. There is to be no glamorisation of drug use.
15 - No-one under 15 is allowed to see a 15 film at the cinema or buy/rent a ‘15’ rated DVD. 15 rated works are not suitable for children under 15 years of age. 15 category is the same specifics of the 12 except some features will be stronger, for example profanity will be more excessive.
18 - Films rated 18 are for adults. No-one under 18 is allowed to see an 18 film at the cinema or buy/rent an 18 rated DVD. No 18 rated works are suitable for children.
How much sex and nudity is allowed at rating 18 you ask?
There can be strong and detailed portrayals of sex at 18, including full nudity. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context.
Very strong, crude and explicit sex references are permitted at 18.
An 18 film or DVD might also contain depictions of real sex if it is justified by context, as long as the film or DVD is not a sex work.
R18 - The ‘R18’ category is a special and legally restricted classification primarily for explicit works of consenting sex or strong fetish material involving adults. Films may only be shown to adults in specially licensed cinemas, and video works may be supplied to adults only in licensed sex shops. ‘R18’ videos may not be supplied by mail order.
After researching the BBFC ratings i will now assign one to my film!
As a group we have decide to assign the rating 12 to our film, because there isn't any graphical violence, no sexual scenes but there maybe be possible profanity later on in the film, so the child may need to be accompanied by an adult so they can make the adult decision on whether to continue watching the movie or to leave because it is too mature for them, this is why the film hasnt been rated any lower and hasn't been rated 12A.
Our typical audience member, will be a working class male 16 -21 year olds of no certain ethnicity, but this film is up their street because they will be at that social age to go to cinemas with friends and will be into such genres as thriller's, horrors, comedies and action. Films like 'Die hard', 'The wolf of wallstreet' and 'Money never sleeps' will be their favourite films. They will be a typical school boy just starting or in the process of doing A levels, with low income as they will only have a small low wage part time job, we're thinking band E income which is around £3000 a year, which works out as £250 a month or £62 a week. They'll have found out about the film through social and media sites like youtube and facebook, and will most likely have gone to the cinemas to watch our movie or watched it on an approves media streaming site as this is what out target audience member frequents.
This is John Smith and represents our target audience.He is a white British male and he has a band E income of £3000 a year through his job as a part time store assistant in a supermarket whilst he studies in his final year at Birmingham Sixth Form before moving on to university. His favourite films include, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps and Die Hard 4.0, both of these being thrillers which is their favourite genre. He watches films with his friends of a similar age and will go to the cinema to watch them. Alternatively he uses a film streaming service such as Netflix or Love Film to watch movies from home. His hobbies include being an active member on social networking sites, taking part in part time sport events including football and swimming and they like to go to music festivals. He listens to a mixture of pop and rock music. He drives his own old black Volkswagen Golf and he currently resides at his parents semi detached house until he moves to University accommodation in a few months time.
Main elements and themes in our film:
Before I can go any further with this blog post I'm going to identify the main elements and themes of the full film. Here is the list of key words that represent the main themes and elements in the film:
- Thriller
- Spook
- Journey
- Action
- Computer science
- Political
- Crime
- Banks
- Serious drama
- Secretive
Similar Genres and Themes
I now compare two films from the thriller genre, looking at the similarities and differences between the target audience of our film to their target audience
The movie i'm going to compare is 'Taken', here is a snap shot of the audience profile from Pearl & Dean's website. It's a Thriller just like our movie, 54% of the audience is males which is what we are expecting for our movie. The age range 15 - 24 is the highest viewing range with 38% of people being around this age, our expected age range is 16 - 21 so our film may similarly have this high percentage.
My second comparison from Pearl & Dean's website is 'The Tourist" with the 15-24 being the highest age rating again, but the gender percentages are more even than with the last film, this does not compare to our film as we're looking for a male majority audience.
Film Title Design Research
Film titles weren't actually that important in the production of a motion picture at first, it used to be just a plain title piece, but now as motion pictures have progressed through out the years, focus has been paid to film titles and they have been given a revamp, to become just as interesting as the movie.
around the 1930's there was a change in film titles here's a video of the history of film titles, ranging from 1930's on wards. This is to show the progression through the years;
Typography
What is typography?
Well typography is the style and appearance of printed words. So like the spacing between the letters, the font, the colour, the size etc are parts to typography.
Typography is considered when creating a Film title, it was a specialized occupation until the digital days now it is just something everyone does without even thinking about it.
The typography of an opening film title will always represent the tone or perhaps happenings of a film today in modern motion pictures. The title is not just merely a title anymore it is a considered piece to a motion picture and typography and type design is seriously considered while making a movie.
After looking at examples of film titles and their typography i shall be considering their work when i work on my own title for my short motion picture.
Here's another example of an opening film title that has considered its title and typography;
As you can see the film title is made of steel, which is appropriate as the movie is called man of steel, it zooms in to the title to get a closer look at the metallic texture, just backing up or emphasizing the movie point.
around the 1930's there was a change in film titles here's a video of the history of film titles, ranging from 1930's on wards. This is to show the progression through the years;
Typography
What is typography?
Well typography is the style and appearance of printed words. So like the spacing between the letters, the font, the colour, the size etc are parts to typography.
Typography is considered when creating a Film title, it was a specialized occupation until the digital days now it is just something everyone does without even thinking about it.
The typography of an opening film title will always represent the tone or perhaps happenings of a film today in modern motion pictures. The title is not just merely a title anymore it is a considered piece to a motion picture and typography and type design is seriously considered while making a movie.
After looking at examples of film titles and their typography i shall be considering their work when i work on my own title for my short motion picture.
Here's another example of an opening film title that has considered its title and typography;
As you can see the film title is made of steel, which is appropriate as the movie is called man of steel, it zooms in to the title to get a closer look at the metallic texture, just backing up or emphasizing the movie point.
Role of the Sound Editor
In this post I will be explaining my research on Sound editing.
Sound editors are the people responsible for putting or assembling the sound of a movie, whether it be foely sounds, music or dialogue, they are responsible for syncing it to the action on screen or rather putting it where the director wants it to be, because not all sounds are synced with the goings on, on the screen, for example L cut sounds are slightly out of sync with the things on screen. See my past post if you haven't already and that shall explain what an L cut is.
The very first films produced were known as 'Silent Movies'. This is because they featured no sound what so ever and relied on the on screen picture to tell the story to the audience. (See my post - Silent Movie Example 'Silent Chess' for an example of a silent film).
The first movies containing sound used a method called the Vitaphone process, which involved using a single microphone to record a sound from the set straight to the phonograph master. However the limitation to this is that the sound could not be cut, resynchronised, or dubbed over the film and so had to be shot and recording in one cut.
It wasn't until the 1930s when Warner Brothers used several recordings from the Vitaphone Process and mixing them together to create individual sounds such as 'Music'.
Foley artist's
What is Foley?
Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film, video, and other mediums in post-production to enhance audio quality. For example when recording a scene you may want the persons footsteps to be more prominent, so you use a Foley of a persons foots steps and put that over the audio instead, it will be a clearer sound and is easily created.
Foley artists are people that are employed to be able to replicate sounds that we would recognize to be, such as walking through snow, opening doors, a cat purr etc. This is all what their job includes and they spend years getting the sounds exactly right. They could be forced to produce something because of ADR, this is when dialog/sound cant be salvaged so they have to re-create the sound to get it included in the film to make it accurate.
My class and i had a go at creating our own foley sounds, check it out;
The Wilhelm scream
The Wilhelm scream is a film and television stock sound effect just like a Foley, that has been used in more than 200 movies, beginning in 1951 for the film Distant Drums. The scream is often used when someone is shot, falls from a great height, or is thrown from an explosion, although because the sound has been used so often it has now taken on a comedic effect instead.
Here's a compilation so you get the jist...
I don't think we shall be using the Wilhelm scream in our movie, as our's is a thriller and the scream has taken on such a recognized comedic affect that all hopes of keeping it a serious thriller film shall be lost.
Film composer
A film composer usually is hired to write all original dramatic music for your movie. Any scene that has “score music” is part of what the composer should do for your movie, their job also includes, sourcing music, writing songs and recording/mixing music. It's their job to edit and manipulate the music and make it as memorable as possible, remember any film can be redeemable if it has a good soundtrack.
Examples of good soundtracks would be, The rocky horror show, Grease, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Graduate, Indiana Jones, E.T... oh the list goes on! but you understand now, that the soundtrack and the movie go hand in hand, if they have a good soundtrack whether it be, a musical or climatic music or just songs. The music makes the movie. If I played this song to you;
you'd know within a few seconds what film it was from! (providing you're not some weirdo that hasn't watch E.T)
This is why the role of a sound editor is one of the most important if you want to create a good film, and this is why we will take careful care and consideration when creating and editing our sounds.
Sound editors are the people responsible for putting or assembling the sound of a movie, whether it be foely sounds, music or dialogue, they are responsible for syncing it to the action on screen or rather putting it where the director wants it to be, because not all sounds are synced with the goings on, on the screen, for example L cut sounds are slightly out of sync with the things on screen. See my past post if you haven't already and that shall explain what an L cut is.
The very first films produced were known as 'Silent Movies'. This is because they featured no sound what so ever and relied on the on screen picture to tell the story to the audience. (See my post - Silent Movie Example 'Silent Chess' for an example of a silent film).
The first movies containing sound used a method called the Vitaphone process, which involved using a single microphone to record a sound from the set straight to the phonograph master. However the limitation to this is that the sound could not be cut, resynchronised, or dubbed over the film and so had to be shot and recording in one cut.
It wasn't until the 1930s when Warner Brothers used several recordings from the Vitaphone Process and mixing them together to create individual sounds such as 'Music'.
Foley artist's
What is Foley?
Foley is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added to film, video, and other mediums in post-production to enhance audio quality. For example when recording a scene you may want the persons footsteps to be more prominent, so you use a Foley of a persons foots steps and put that over the audio instead, it will be a clearer sound and is easily created.
Foley artists are people that are employed to be able to replicate sounds that we would recognize to be, such as walking through snow, opening doors, a cat purr etc. This is all what their job includes and they spend years getting the sounds exactly right. They could be forced to produce something because of ADR, this is when dialog/sound cant be salvaged so they have to re-create the sound to get it included in the film to make it accurate.
My class and i had a go at creating our own foley sounds, check it out;
The Wilhelm scream
The Wilhelm scream is a film and television stock sound effect just like a Foley, that has been used in more than 200 movies, beginning in 1951 for the film Distant Drums. The scream is often used when someone is shot, falls from a great height, or is thrown from an explosion, although because the sound has been used so often it has now taken on a comedic effect instead.
Here's a compilation so you get the jist...
I don't think we shall be using the Wilhelm scream in our movie, as our's is a thriller and the scream has taken on such a recognized comedic affect that all hopes of keeping it a serious thriller film shall be lost.
Film composer
A film composer usually is hired to write all original dramatic music for your movie. Any scene that has “score music” is part of what the composer should do for your movie, their job also includes, sourcing music, writing songs and recording/mixing music. It's their job to edit and manipulate the music and make it as memorable as possible, remember any film can be redeemable if it has a good soundtrack.
Examples of good soundtracks would be, The rocky horror show, Grease, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Graduate, Indiana Jones, E.T... oh the list goes on! but you understand now, that the soundtrack and the movie go hand in hand, if they have a good soundtrack whether it be, a musical or climatic music or just songs. The music makes the movie. If I played this song to you;
you'd know within a few seconds what film it was from! (providing you're not some weirdo that hasn't watch E.T)
Thursday 19 December 2013
Early Consideration of the Evaluation Questions
When we actually come to creating our Media product we must consider the evaluation questions early on so we are able to answer them and fulfill what it ask's of. In my group we sat down and started to consider the evaluation questions;
Question Four
Question One.
In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products ?
After some discussion we decided to challenge the stereo type expectations of a "Chav". So we made our genius hacker (The protagonist) into a Chav instead of the regular predicted "Nerdy computer geek"
Another convention that we challenge is the look of the "good guy" and "bad guy" If you were to see a man smartly dressed with polished shoes a straight posture and a smart but stylish hair cut and a young boy/man in Trackies and a hoodie with scuffed up shoes and a hunched shoulder posture, which one would you identify as the one more likely to do or has done crime ?...
Exactly. You thought the chav because of his stereotype and look, this is how we are challenging the conventions, the quote 'don't judge a book by its cover" comes to mind here.
Question Two.
How Does your media product represent particular social groups?
I've already touched on this answer in the first question, but incase you didn't catch the social group, it's "Chavs" we represent it in appearance mainly as our chav isn't the ordinary stereotypical chav.
Question Three
What kind of media institution might distribute your media product? Why?
Any studio looking to commission a new and interesting movie, at this stage though we're not too concerned about which kind of movie institution might distribute our movie, we could decide to just put it straight to DVD if no cinemas want to showcase our movie.
Question Four
Who would be the audience for your media product?
We target our audience at age 15 to 25+ and the main viewing sex would be male as it was researched that men are more interested in thrillers.
Question Five
How did you attract/address your audience?
This is not yet applicable as we have not produced out media product yet.
Question Six
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
As we have yet to construct our product, it is not yet applicable to answer this question.
Question Seven
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I will come back to answering this once i have created the full product.
How did you attract/address your audience?
This is not yet applicable as we have not produced out media product yet.
Question Six
What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
As we have yet to construct our product, it is not yet applicable to answer this question.
Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
I will come back to answering this once i have created the full product.
Wednesday 27 November 2013
Idea for a Production team name
So after some umming and arring on what to call ourselves we finally agreed on a production team name!
we have chosen as a group "Limelight".The reason we chose the name is because we have based it on the actual phrase 'Limelight' to signify that the films produced through "Limelight productions" are always in the spotlight or rather limelight. This sets a certain standard within the group to produce a film worthy of being described as being in the limelight since it has to have left a lasting impression on the audience.
Have a look for yourself at our free hand sketch, We hope to recreate this image in a more professional manor later on:
Initial idea for our thriller film
After initial discussion between the group we have come up with our first narrative draft. Our draft follows as...
The film opens to see a person rushing to unlock a door with a key drawn from their pocket. They unlock the door and half close it behind them leaving it slightly ajar. They rush through the hall way into the kitchen and hurriedly wash their hands there's sounds of heavy breathing coming from our anonymous person and the sound of their heart played over the film. They take a bag from the side and fill it with items preplaced on the side. The shot switches to feet walking up a drive, the camera moving to the back of the strangers head as they reach the door. The person looks left and right but not showing their face to the camera and push the ajar door open with deliberate carefulness. They walk in to find no sign of the first person. shot changes to their clenching fist. They take out their phone, speed dial a number and speak into it.
"They're not here."
...
The shot switches back to the first person who is now running, glancing all around as they run. Change shot to second person, taking purposeful strides sounds of their posh shoe's clacking on the pavement, change shot back to the first man running, his breathing is fast and in scared gasps, tense music starts to play to raise the tension, quick shot of seconds mans feet picking up speed, Back to the first man just as he runs around the corner and comes face to face with the second person and the first person steps back in shock with a panicked sound, eyes wide and pale.
PRO'S
The film opens to see a person rushing to unlock a door with a key drawn from their pocket. They unlock the door and half close it behind them leaving it slightly ajar. They rush through the hall way into the kitchen and hurriedly wash their hands there's sounds of heavy breathing coming from our anonymous person and the sound of their heart played over the film. They take a bag from the side and fill it with items preplaced on the side. The shot switches to feet walking up a drive, the camera moving to the back of the strangers head as they reach the door. The person looks left and right but not showing their face to the camera and push the ajar door open with deliberate carefulness. They walk in to find no sign of the first person. shot changes to their clenching fist. They take out their phone, speed dial a number and speak into it.
"They're not here."
...
The shot switches back to the first person who is now running, glancing all around as they run. Change shot to second person, taking purposeful strides sounds of their posh shoe's clacking on the pavement, change shot back to the first man running, his breathing is fast and in scared gasps, tense music starts to play to raise the tension, quick shot of seconds mans feet picking up speed, Back to the first man just as he runs around the corner and comes face to face with the second person and the first person steps back in shock with a panicked sound, eyes wide and pale.
PRO'S
- No complex shots identified, so it should appear professional
- Local locations and self provided costumes meaning we won't have to spend money,
- props are also are on hand and do not need to be brought
- only need 2 actors
- set in the present pretty much so there shall be no worries of time period mistakes
CON'S
- Finding actors that look the part and CAN ACT - if you have rubbish acting in a film you will find it downgrades the whole quality of it.
Thursday 14 November 2013
Choosing a genre to work with!
I shall be discussing why I choose the genre I did with Pro's and Con's weighed out and our class evaluation of other genres, this will show you how we came to decide on our genre for our media product.
The genre we choose was "Thriller" Why ? Well i'll show you.
Pro's of a Thriller film
The genre we choose was "Thriller" Why ? Well i'll show you.
Pro's of a Thriller film
- Doesn't require a multi million pound budget for special effects, costumes, settings etc
- The conventions of a thriller are so obvious that a student like myself could recreate them
- Basic lighting techniques can be used to set the thriller atmosphere like low lights or different colored lights
- Sound effects are simple and can be found online or even recreated (this is known as foley sounds)
- The plot of a thriller is flexible as long as it has the peak of tension points
Con's of a Thriller film
Well there are not many definite thriller con's, only that if you have a complicated intense plot that needs a lot of atmospherics and effects this could impose a need for a lot more money and software to create your movie. BUT as we are not looking to create a whole movie with an intense plot and a lot of effects and atmospherics this is not a con for us to consider.
Here is our class research into choosing a genre, as you will see Thriller is the best for us at AS Level right now;
22 Stories
Here's an illustration that explains that apparently there's only 22 stories out there, these posted below are the 22 story plot lines, its worth considering these before writing our own film pitch as it may inspire us to be more creative with our pitches or maybe adhere to the stereotyped/cliched story line.
Underneath every story is an example movie to go with it, to support its claim too.
Underneath every story is an example movie to go with it, to support its claim too.
Wednesday 13 November 2013
Advanced Camera Techniques
Camera Focusing
You can have a camera automatically focus of course, but with manual focusing you can control who or what the camera shall focus on, this is done by turning a dial usually placed around the fore front of the camera just before the lens, turning this dial changes the depth of field of your shot.
What is depth of field you ask?
Well Depth of field is how much your camera is in focus at the given time, if you have a clear shot where everything or mostly everything is in focus (the background and the foreground) you have a deep depth of field, If however you have a small amount focused in the shot you have a shallow depth of field.
The changing of this depth of field is done by this lens I mentioned earlier, to change the depth of field whilst filming is called a focus pull, as you are changing the viewers focus to something else. For example, You're filming a woman in a shallow depth of field walking towards the camera as we track her, we then do a focus pull to a deep depth of field to reveal there's a man 100 yards back with a mean look on his face following the woman.
The man was obscured before to the viewer as we had a Shallow depth of field which only shows things close to the camera but as we did a focus pull, he became visible as there was a deep depth of field which allows you to see things that are further away, in detail.
What is depth of field you ask?
Well Depth of field is how much your camera is in focus at the given time, if you have a clear shot where everything or mostly everything is in focus (the background and the foreground) you have a deep depth of field, If however you have a small amount focused in the shot you have a shallow depth of field.
The changing of this depth of field is done by this lens I mentioned earlier, to change the depth of field whilst filming is called a focus pull, as you are changing the viewers focus to something else. For example, You're filming a woman in a shallow depth of field walking towards the camera as we track her, we then do a focus pull to a deep depth of field to reveal there's a man 100 yards back with a mean look on his face following the woman.
The man was obscured before to the viewer as we had a Shallow depth of field which only shows things close to the camera but as we did a focus pull, he became visible as there was a deep depth of field which allows you to see things that are further away, in detail.
My media class's example:
Crane Shot
A crane shot, sounds like what it actually is, it's a camera on a crane. Yes that's it really...
A crane shot allows you to enter or exit a scene via the sky coming in to the scene, or via the ground going up to the sky to come out of a scene.
It also allows you to film things from a "birds eye" perspective, and what ever other way you can think of filming that you may need to get your camera higher than steady reaching arm span.
Tip: When used in the right circumstances and setting, the crane shot technique, when its high looking down on a character can make them look to the audience as if their character is small and isolated.
After having a go on filming with the crane, I discovered that it's not a practical tool if you dont practice with it before filming, it has a slight weight to it, but mainly its hard to get a smooth appearance on screen, no jumpy footage and so forth.
here is our media classes very first attempt at filming with a crane shot:
A crane shot allows you to enter or exit a scene via the sky coming in to the scene, or via the ground going up to the sky to come out of a scene.
It also allows you to film things from a "birds eye" perspective, and what ever other way you can think of filming that you may need to get your camera higher than steady reaching arm span.
Tip: When used in the right circumstances and setting, the crane shot technique, when its high looking down on a character can make them look to the audience as if their character is small and isolated.
After having a go on filming with the crane, I discovered that it's not a practical tool if you dont practice with it before filming, it has a slight weight to it, but mainly its hard to get a smooth appearance on screen, no jumpy footage and so forth.
here is our media classes very first attempt at filming with a crane shot:
And here is a professional movie crane shot:
All of this is important to know when creating a semi decent film. I will be using all these skills and techniques with the knowledge of idents and title sequences to create with a team, a 2 minute opening of a movie genre that I will be investigating into and sharing my thoughts on in the posts to come.
Film title conventions
The Task
As a class our task was to go away and record the order in which titles appear in the opening sequence of a film. We had to do this for three films.
Our findings
The common theme developing was that the names of actors and directors and producers were always at the start or the end of the opening titles. Meanwhile the names of Costume Designers, Photographers, Music contributors and Casting members always remained in the middle of this sequence OR closer to the end if the main jobs/names/labels were at the start.Here are our class findings, look for yourself:
After looking at all the film title sequences, we decided on a "most common" title sequence, our list was this:
Production Company
Main/popular Actors
Film Title
Film Title
Casting Director
Costume Designer
Production Designer
Associate Producer
Editor
Music Composed/score by
Executive Producer
Written By
Produced By
Directed By
Visual Examples:
Film Distribution
We have done our research into Film distribution as its something we must consider if we were to want to distribute our movie, Who would distribute it, who would we share our release plans with, who we will need to help distribute it etc.
Heres a video to describe just how many people are involved in the distribution of a film:
Distribution is the highly competitive business of launching and sustaining films in the market place. The distributor's challenge is to bring each one to market by:
- identifying its audience
- considering why they'd go and see it
- estimating the revenue potential
- persuading cinema operators to play the film
- developing plans and partnerships to build awareness of and interest in the film
The film opening I deconstructed was Psycho, as you can see it's distributor was Universal Studios, and the places it was featured/shown to was BFI South bank and Key Cities.
As you can see it was only distributed in its basic format, being made in the 1960's after all it didn't have "Digital 2D" or "IMAX"
Salt is another Thriller movie on the Film Releases website, as you can see its distributor is 'Sony Pictures" and it had a Nationwide Release.
Film Idents
What is a film ident?
In the world of film and television, an ident is a small video clip that has possible music/audio, a logo and the name of the studio/company that were involved in the production or funding of the film/TV program.An ident is important to make the movie not only look professional but to credit the people in association with the movie.
When my group and I get around to creating our film we shall need an ident as well, so researching them will be beneficial for us when we come to making our own.
Examples of film Idents:
WARNER BROS. PICTURES Ident: Warner Bros ident is a shimmering image of their filming studios, the effect is to make it seem like the studios are a magical place. That combined the Harry potter theme tune makes Warner Bros seem even more magical, and the music for harry potter is so identifiable that with the Warner Bros logo it makes Warner Bros memerable as well.
Walt Disney OLD Ident
Walt Disney NEW Ident
Paramount Pictures Ident
Evaluation
Now i'm sure you know all the above Idents, Some recognisable by music, picture or name, all are famous and strong Idents. They're strong in their simplicity and the companies are easily remembered because of their simple but eye catching Idents.
Walt Disneys OLD ident: Before the full ident is even played its recognised by its music, anyone that grew up watching Disney films would recognise the music! or even the start of the Ident before the famous castle is even fully pictured on screen as a Walt Disney movie. Not only does the old Ident reflect the movies they have created, it is iconic and original which is important if you want a good memerable Ident. Disney have also cleverly incorperated their logo (The castle) and centered their Ident around it, this is a popular method as ident stands for identity, and a logo is part of a corporations identity, so why shouldn't it be in the ident?
Walt Disneys "modern" Ident isn't much different to their old one, as people around the world recognise that ident, all that's changed is it's became a modern animation as technology has progressed since they created their Ident, its the same principle of the star/fairy shooting over the iconic castle, and the same music but just upgraded to a better orchestral "grand" sound.
When you have an Ident it's usually practical to stick with it if you're a big film company, as that is what is recognisable to the masses who have saw it.
Paramount Ident evaluation
Paramount is a very popular Ident, with unique imaging of stars flying in to semi-circle the peak of the mountain, its so unique it sticks in your head and the message that Paramount is trying to say is that they are the best, they're at the top or rather "the peak" of movie production as exemplified by the stars arching over the mountain peak as well.
Wednesday 23 October 2013
3 Point lighting; A review of what it is.
3 Point lightingWhen filming your image will be of a 2D origin, with lights we can give meaning and a 3D look to an object, so it doesnt look like a flat image. A basic lighting technique used to do this is the 3 point lighting technique.
3 points to 3 point lighting!
A helpful site i recommend to view this technique; Three point lighting simulator
3 points to 3 point lighting!
- Key light- This is the main light point. It is usually the strongest and has the most influence on the look of the scene. It is placed to one side of the camera so that this side is well lit.
- Fill light- This is the secondary light point and is placed on the opposite side of the key light. It is used to fill the shadows created by the key. The fill will usually be softer and less bright than the key light.
- Back light- The back light is placed behind the subject and lights it from the rear. Rather than providing direct lighting (like the key and fill), its purpose is to provide definition and subtle highlights around the subject's outlines. This helps separate the subject from the background and provide a three-dimensional look.
Advanced Camera Work
Tracking Shot
Using a Dolly to preform a tracking shot
A dolly is a cart that travels along tube tracks, a camera is mounted to this to record the action and be able to follow it, following the action is called a tracking shot, an easy example of this is feet that are walking. The dolly is set up parallel to the actor with the camera framed up on the actor's feet. The dolly grip pushes the dolly at the same pace of the actor's walking speed for the camera to capture a shot of the feet walking. A camera dolly for your movie can make a world of difference in terms of production value, as a movie is a "motion picture" so it makes sense to add motion, the Dolly and tubes helps for a smooth motion too if you aren't on flat smooth ground.
A dolly is a cart that travels along tube tracks, a camera is mounted to this to record the action and be able to follow it, following the action is called a tracking shot, an easy example of this is feet that are walking. The dolly is set up parallel to the actor with the camera framed up on the actor's feet. The dolly grip pushes the dolly at the same pace of the actor's walking speed for the camera to capture a shot of the feet walking. A camera dolly for your movie can make a world of difference in terms of production value, as a movie is a "motion picture" so it makes sense to add motion, the Dolly and tubes helps for a smooth motion too if you aren't on flat smooth ground.
Our example of a Tracking Shot:
Using a Dolly to perform an Arc shot
Using this particular type of dolly gives you more freedom with the camera as it can move quickly and at any speed you want it to with a push and basically can go anywhere as long as it is on a flat surface. An arc shot can be used to arc or even circle actors, mainly in dance or action scenes, to help for an easy recording.
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