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

• 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. 

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 

• 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; 

AS Genre Construction Pros & Cons by wildamadeus

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.

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.

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:

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: 

Opening Title Research 

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

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.