Tuesday 11 May 2010

final film

under the label planning, that is all my coursework, also the quality is much better on the dvd and you can also see it in full screen so please watch everything on the dvd.

Prelim film

Tuesday 13 April 2010

The soloist features

•The film was based on facts which came from a number of newspaper articles (written by Downey, Jr‘s character), these were also made into a book and then finally into a film.
•The director (British born Joe Wright) spent a long time establishing himself and relationships in America with some of the actors before the filming process began.
•The director made a point in saying that the more time the director spent in America, the less the director knew about the country, making him feel like an outsider
•People from the “Skid Row” community were used in the film; whereas, hundreds of extras from the streetspoorer communities were also used in creating the film. this would have helped them find a job and learn new things which would have boosted there confidence and may have got them off the street.
•People creating the film described it as "a massive trust exercise", due to the fact that hard hitting issues were raised within the storyline of the piece.
•Foxx’s learnt to play the Chello with the help of a expert called Ben Hong he spent hours with him teaching the chello and they found ways to get around the difficulties and the time scale they had to learn it.
•The films message is deep and that may be the reason why it isnt a big hit as most people like to watch a film where they dont have to think
•The use of an “honest ending” was probably one of factors as to why the film was not successful.
•Another reason that the film was not as successful could be that the audience have to think more when they are watching the film; as opposed to the normality of a films normally watched to induce escapism.
•Another reason could just be the fact that it just didnt appelle to anyones interest.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

costume



Becky and Emma did the makeup, I gave my input when it looked too tacky. It took a long time but I think it was worth it. I made the T-shirt using scissors and tomato ketchup to make it look effective. emma had an old pair of tights that we cut up and we also used mud to cover her in so that she looked rough and scruffy.

Filming

we had arrange to meet up on the monday and thursday night of the second week in febuary,we started off by doing makeup and running through camera shots. We started very late and it began to get dark so we struggled to fit in all the outdoor filming, however, we managed to get a lot of the indoor scenes completed instead. With our thumbnails we were able to run through the scenes quickly and efficiently without many problems.

Target market Questionaire

1. What do you think of the title "The Unbeknown" for our film?
2. Is it the kind of film you would watch at your leisure?
3. From the opening would you want to watch the rest of the film?
4. What do you think of our actors?
5. What do you think of the story line?
6. Is the story line easy to follow?
7. Do you think that the effects used work well?
8. What do you think of the music?
9. What things do you like/dislike about our film opening?
10. Overall does it look professional?

Monday 1 March 2010

Evaluating peer work

AFL Cwork YR12 Video


on task three niel powis analysed our film opening and he gave us:
level 2-holding a shot steady
-framing a shot
-shooting material appropiate to task set
-variety of shot transactions

level 3-using a vriety of shot distances
-selecting mise-en-scene
-editing so that meaning is apperant to viewer.
Niel also said it needs cutting down a bit and also there needs to be an adjustment on the whit balance.
i have took niels views into account and I am going to play around with transitions and colour so that we can make an effective horror opening. I also feel that we need to create some scary music to make it effective and also we should take time in putting the credits in our film so that it looks more like an opening.

Tuesday 23 February 2010

Quantum of Solace Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfGJJ1cxtZs

this is the trailer to the James Bond Quantum of Solace film, it is very fast paced and it uses effectiv techniques to fit the shots together. i found that the openng minute contains lots of flashbacks as it helps us to gather what the story is about and it shows us the link between himself (james bond) and the other characters he is fighting against. in the second half it is faster paced and the shots are not in cronological order it is fast paced and is all jump cuts as it breaks up scenes and just includes the fast paced action. I know it is a jump shot as they are not happening at the same time

Actors

I have researched the main two actors:
Robert Downey Jr

Robert John Downey Jr. was born in Greenwich Village, New York City, at 1:10 pm. He's the son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. His first part in a movie was in his father's Pound (1970), in which 5-year-old Downey played a puppy. When he was 20 years old, he joined Saturday Night Live for one season. After that, he went to Hollywood. In 1987, he got the leading role in director James Toback's film The Pick-up Artist (1987), co-starring with Molly Ringwald. The same year, he played drug addict Julian Wells in the movie Less Than Zero (1987). In 1992, he played Charles Chaplin in Sir Richard Attenborough's film Chaplin (1992). For his astonishing performance, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In the year 2000, he guest-starred in the comedy series "Ally McBeal" (1997), where he portrayed the attorney Larry Paul, who became Ally's love interest. For that performance, he won the Golden Globe for "best supporting actor in a comedy series." On "Ally McBeal" (1997), Downey got to show that he can sing as well as act, when he sang Joni Mitchell's "River," "Chances Are" as a duet with Vonda Shepard, and "Every Breath You Take" together with Sting. He released one song of his own, "Snakes," on the "Ally McBeal" (1997) album "For Once in My Life," and a full album of his own work entitled "The Futurist" in 2005. He has know been in 77 films of a wide range of genres. through his career he has done many things includeing having a drug addiction where he was arrested but not found guilty but the judge ordered him to remain in rehabilitation.

Jamie foxx



Jamie's mother, Louise, was an adopted child. When her marriage to his father failed, his grandparents, Mark and Estelle Talley, stepped in and, at age 7 months, adopted him too. He says he had a very rigid upbringing that placed him in the Boy Scouts and the church choir. During high school, he played quarterback for his high school team and was good enough that he got press in Dallas newspapers. He studied music in college. He released a music album in 1994, "Peep This" and sings the theme song for his 1999 movie, Any Given Sunday (1999). However, in 1989, his life changed when a girl friend challenged him to get up onstage at the Comedy Club. In fact, he says he took his androgynous stage name because he learned that women got preference for mike time on open stage nights. That led to his being cast in "Roc" (1991) and "In Living Color" (1990) and ultimately to his own WB network TV series. He has a daughter, Corrine, born in 1995, who lives with her mother. he has been in 32 films of a wide range of genres.

Wednesday 3 February 2010

Organisation

We have been told that we have two weeks to do our rough edit. we have planned to use a weekend to film and our practical lessons to edit. I am willing to give up some of my Free's to do the editing as I enjoy it and Mrs Hammond said that it was one of my strong points. I think that all of the filming needs to be done in one night because if the setting changes in a slight way then it will take the realism and the professionalism out of our piece.

Monday 1 February 2010

Feedback on blog

We recently got feedbacks on our blogs were we where told what level we were on. Miss Elger said she was impressed with my blog but there was room for improvement. she gave me 11 out of 20 which is a high level two, and these are the things she told me to improve on:
-summary of pitch feedback
-relate analysis to my owm piece of work
- thumbnails and storyboard need adding and explained

I then got talking to miss sutton and she gave me a few ideas on how to bump up my grade:
-actors profile
-initial ideas of music
-organizing skills and time management

Tuesday 26 January 2010

camera shots




these are the main shots we use during the filming stage we will have quite a few more but this shows the main parts from start to end and also it shows you the setting, but we will actually be filming when it is dark. it also givs those of us who dont know the setting very well to see the size of the place and also so that we can see if the shots will look good enough in real life rather than picturing them in your head.

Audience feedback sheet and Pitch

Audeince Feed Back

Our pitch was successfull in that people knew our target audience and our genre and they all though our idea was good. It reminded them of The Ring which was good as that was where we got our inspiration for a scary charcter.
we have looked at our feed back and we think that the problems are doable but we agree that we have to use good effects in order to make it scary.

Planning Questions on Film

is it pracicle?
our idea is quite simple and with good use of effects we will be able to creat a scary atmosphere in Emmas house were we are filming it. We are also doing all the make up ourselves so we limit costs and allso we are using exsisting resources as our props so that we dont spend much money.

Is it an idea that works to the strengths of the group?
I found that i shared alot of my ideas and I also think that I was a key motivator behind our ideas. Becky then helped simplify these Ideas and she wrote them down on paper. Emma was the artist in the group and I told her the idea of the costume and she drew it exeptionally well. I think the idea works well as we agreed on everything when it came togeter and we all used our different skills to have hopefully made a good idea.

will it show off the skills you have learnt so far on the course?
Our opening contains over 50 different shots and should have many different effects that hopefully we can encorporate well in our film so that we can show off what we have learnt on the course.

Is it something you can reasonably shoot and edit in the time available?
we have decided on the time we have to film makeing sure we have left enough time to edit as i feel that the editing is crutial in makeing our film look scary. we will be able to film at any time as Emmas house is only a 5 minute walk from school and the editing studio is in the school so we will not waste anytime in the makeing.

Can you get access/ permission to shoot in the chosen location at the chosen times?
yes, Emmas parents said they are fine with us filming as long as we dont make to much of a mess. the good thing about Emmas house is that we are able to film at any time because it is so close to school. I think it is just a case of when we are all free.

Can you organise lighting to use in that location?
we dont want the opening to be light but we also dont want it to be to dark so you carn't see much. in Emmas house she has lights that only let out a bit of light so we are hopeing that that will work. if not then we can always chose some effects that make it look good.

Have you included dialogue? If so, will it work to shoot conversation in that location?
we have not got any dialogue as we want it to look as proffesional as possible and we feel that we dont have the best technology to use to make dialogue look good.

Do you have guaranteed high quality reliable actors to play the characters?
Both Becky an Emma do drama and they are close friends with the actors and they both live close to emma so they said they would be able to be in our film at any time.

Monday 25 January 2010

target audience

Age: 15-40
Background: middle class people who enjoy horror films
Occupation: writer journalist, construction trade
Gender: sways more towards females but still suitable for men as well


Likes:
they would enjoy horror films and would have to understand and like to know about people’s problems E.g. schizophrenia. The would also like being on the edge of their seat and tension thrilling dramas. People who are interested in exaggeration of real life.
Dislikes: soppy dramas and romantic films.
Ambitions: would be quite Gothic people and would like to be in the music industry

Musical preferences: the person would like rock music as it goes with the horror genre but i suppose that others would like the film as well even if they didn’t like that type of music

Looks up to/idolizes:
they would idolize actors and musicians as they would be into that kind of thing

Media consumer habits e.g. T.V programmes watched, magazines interested in, cinema goers, genre(s) of film interested in etc
Watch lots of TV and are into music magazines. They would like TV dramas and especially Like the story of newt in holloyoaks as he was schizophrenic

mood board



I chose to do this mood board because it shows what our film is like and it also shows what our target audience likes as we chose gothic girls as our target audience.

Friday 22 January 2010

Inspiration



i like this film as We took inspiration from it to make our costume and the personality of our imagiary friend i like it how she conrols everything people do and i think it is scary when the tv goes fuzzy as we know this is where the victim is going to die. I also like it how his room is plain and has know colour this is to show us something bad is going to happen.
The opening is very silent but with the sound of the Tv fuzzying it is unerving as we cannot see what will happen he then turns it off and turns away were we see a close up of his face this is so we see his reaction to the Tv turning back on. his facial expression looks frightened and then we hear the phone ringing. the frantic sound of it ringing makes us assume that something bad will happen as he doen't pick it up. It then scips scenes to a girls trying to ring him maybe his Wife, this is to keep us on edge. It then crosses back to the other scene were we see him walking towards the screen as if he is getting sucked in and possesed by something on the TV. we still hear the frantic sound of the phone ringing and then we see te scary girl come out of the screen and whe falls over. we then see him from a high angle to show his funerability and maybe to show that she is in control of him as we see her from a low angle. our group likes this piece as there is not much dialogue and we have also got just one piece of diologue which is at the end to leave on a cliff hanger

Actors, props and costume

We have asked two b-tec drama students to star in our film. Emma is good friends with these two Girls and they said that they would be happy to be in our film whenever we need them. we have chosen to drama students as we hope that they will be profesional and take our film seriously. also to make it look effective we need actors that know what they are doing and can take insrtruction and we believe these girls can do that.
The Main props we need are a pack of tablets, this is to show that she has an illness and we also need a knife which we have go from emmas house were our opening is set. we are also thinking of using oatmeal to put in the girls hair when she is sick because we think it might look real and effective.
we are thinking that the girl should be quite gothic looking, as the streotypical scizaphrenic person is gothic and we got our inspiration off the character Newt from hollyoaks.she will be dressed in long black clothes and black makeup so she looks strange and different from other people. Our imaginary friend will be dressed in a white gown as if she looks like she came out of a mental home. It will be muddy and a bit ripped to show that she doesn't care what she looks like. She will have bare feet and her hare will be covering her face to show she isn't right in the head.

Monday 18 January 2010

Final idea

our final idea was to have a girl who had schizophrenia. We would use several shots to show how she changes when she doesn't have her tablets. we thought of the idea of haveing an evil imaginary friend who would look like this


Emma created this picture, and we all agreed it would be a good costume as we liked how effective the costume of the girl out of The Ring was.We also thought to make her look more scary to have her clothes worn out and dirty, this could show that the imaginary friend is not right in the head and and this idea fits to the genre of our film as it will show a creapy side to the girl
Her hair we thought should be long and black, maybe covering her face, so her identity is never revealed, also if it was greasy, that would add to the appearance of her being dirty.
Her skin tone we thought should be of a an off colour or really pale, to represent death. we would also have her with black around her eyes and we were toting with the idea of using red contact lenses to show she is evil.

Monday 11 January 2010

Rough storyline

After talking through all the ideas for a whole lesson and making everyone happy about what we were doing, by scrapping the idea of having a chase scene, stalker man in the forest, forest itself involved and any bombs going off, we came to the conclusion of doing our film based in a house with a twist.


Here is our plan:
We would start the film with a long distance shot of a "normal" girl walking home to her house. We would add more shots in of her walking, to make it more snappy and attractive if needed to make her walking longer, the other shots we could include are extreme close up of her feet/eyes/back of her head. When she puts her key in the door to open it, we'll have match on action with her opening the door and entering the house. So far, all would seem normal as she walks up the stairs to her room we would make her act as though she's dizzy and in pain, using a disoriented camera function, to link the action to her feelings. Once she gets into her room, still dizzy she'd start frantically looking for her pills, tipping things over, showing how important they are. Using again different angles of the whole room with her tipping things up and close ups of her face, showing emotions. Once hysterical she falls asleep and starts having, what she thinks is a bad dream. With a girl killing her mum, the girl is insane with dark black eyes, pale face, cuts over her face and hands and messy hair, using flash back kind of techniques to make this clear to the audience as to what she's dreaming, then flashing back to her moving in her bed, representing that shes still dreaming. She wakes up, walks towards the mirror, over the shoulder angle of her looking in the mirror, then using the camera as though that is the mirror, the audience can see that she is the girl she was dreaming about and questioning is she going to kill her mother? Then having her walking, as though processed by something, she walks to the landing with a knife in her hand where she sees her mother who is at the other end of landing. Then ending the opening with her mother saying "What's wrong" Then a close up of the girls black dead eyes, showing that she's not right.
We knew this idea would not be final so we asked for the teachers imput and she gave us a few good ideas to work around

Monday 4 January 2010

initial ideas

As a group i dont think we have entially thought about what we would like to do yet, the following clips are some clips that i am inspired by and they are some of the types of genres I would like to do for my final piece. I like the idea of Action films as the inspire me but I also like horrors as the make you jump both of these genres exagerate the realitys of real life that is why the are good genres.



i like this james bond clip because it is action packed and has short and snappy camera shots which makes it fast paced. Also we inspire to be as good as Bond at his stunts and I think this makes a great opening peice because it draws us in and makes us want to watch on to see what will happen. I also like it because there is know dialogue and I feel that a good opening of an action film shows us the location and also puts us on the edge of our seats by extreme stunts and fast paced action. the tact that there is know dialogue shows they are focused on the job in hand an will stop at nothing to get it done.

Another film that shows these qualitys are the Bourne trilogy




Horror films


I do like the saw films but I was unable to embed the clips from youtube. I like them because they are grusome and the all have a twist. they are also different from other horror films as we only ever see the caractersin ne location which is the warhouse we sometimes get short clips of other locations but the characters are all manely lockedaway getting torchered. in the openings there is not much dialogue which I feel is affective as we see all that we need to know and we pritty much know what is going to happen.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=saw&search_type=&aq=f
the clips on this page are good as they are guick and groosom which is tipical of the horror genre as thinks are kept secret throughout.

Thursday 10 December 2009

Gavin and Stacey



Almost all of the cast are seen in this scene as it is a christening for the new baby. Gavin and Stacey is a comedy drama and is about to people who meet, get married and it is about there lives, familly and Friends.
The spotlight is on Bryn the singiner and the camera angles used are low angles so it shows us he is in control. Also the spotlight makes him look like he is a celebrity this is funny as we know that he is an ordinary person just singing at a christening. Also he is really trying and he thinks hes good which makes us laugh at him as he really isn't that good. Everybody else is seen from a high angle shot to show that the are watching him and Bryn is in power. we also see close ups so that we can see the characters facial expression during bryn singing. we see some of them laughing and joking and others are enjoying it. we see one women asleep as she is drunk during this scene which is funny as there are a wide range of charaters all in one place and we get to see them all together which is typical of a comedy family drama. we see alot of quick shots so that we can see everybodys reactions and there are a wide range of reactions from young and old people. there is a diagetic sound of bryn singing, as this is the main thing that is happening in the scene and as it is of a comedy genre and usually they exagerrate things and take the mickey as here we see an old women playing the drums and it doesn't fit the stereotypical view of a drummer. As we usually see drummers as being gothic and young and as we can see she is none of these.

Tuesday 8 December 2009

TV drama conventions

Characters – even particular kinds of characters: eg, at its most
simple, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ characters.
 Stories – they all tell stories, whether those stories involve
adventure, crime or romance and they often, but not always, end
happily.
 The stories are told against familiar backdrops: – eg, homes,
police stations and offices (for crime dramas), hospitals (for
medical dramas) – most of which are created in studios. However,
most dramas also use outside locations to create particular
effects.
 Camerawork – particular kinds of shots are used: eg, sequences
involving establishing shots followed by mid-shots of characters,
shot/reverse shots to show character interaction and, in particular,
close-ups to show the characters’ emotions.
 Stories use dialogue to tell the stories. Occasionally, monologues
are built in (as voiceovers, a character telling a story).
 Music is used to punctuate the action, create effects (suspense,
tension) and underline emotional moments.
 Particular subgenres tend to have items which make them
immediately identifiable – police cars, blue lights, operating
theatres and scalpels, triage/reception areas in hospitals. Icons of
the genre, they symbolise the (sub)genre.

Regional identity

Sexuality

Ability and disability

Age

Gender

Friday 27 November 2009

Wednesday 18 November 2009

Friday 30 October 2009

Evaluation Questions on film

1. Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?
I worked with Kam, Tom, Katie and Louise I did most of the editing and me and Tom created the music on garage band. Louise and Kam did the filming and me and Katie were being filmed but we all put our imput in on what we should film and how we should film it.


2. How did you plan your short filmed piece? Did you use any other films for your inspiration?


we created a picture board of the different camera shots we would do, we also drew the action are characters in the film were doing as we tryed to create a horror. we had no other films for inspiration.



3. What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?


We used a camera and imovie and also garage band on the macs to create our film

4. What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?


We had to choose a dark environment but as their were lessons going on, there wasn't much space so we were limited in where we could film and it was noisy so when it came to editing we put music in to cover it up. The setting wasn't scary so it didn't really fit to the horror genre

5. Which film conventions does the piece follow? e.g. music, match on action, 180 degree rule, camera work etc


Me and Tom created a very load and bassy piece of music because it fitted well with our genre and what we were filming also it was in beat with the camera changes which was good as it made it flow. The match on action was a close up of my hand on the door and then I was seen on the other side from a different persons perspective.

6. Which does it break?

7. How did you consider mise en scene? e.g. lighting, camera work, setting, costume, props etc
We used a dark environment as it fits in with the horror genre but I found it wasn't dark enough. We had our hostage in the corner as it was the darkest this was to show that she was alone. I was wearing a hoodie and a bandaner across my face this was to show that I was the villain and it showed that I had something to hide.


8. How did you consider narrative? Is there a sense of a storyline? Can any theorists be applied e.g. Barthes, Todorov, Propp, Levi Strauss
Our story line was a girl who had been taken hostage and the villain dressed in a hoodie and bandaner over his face was trying to get information off of her in the end he hit her and killed her. we used the action code as it put the audince on edge and also the enigama code was used because at the start we didn't know why she was there.

9. How successful was your filmed piece? Identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently?
I think our piece was good because it used all the conventions we were told to and a few more. but it was very short and didn't create much tension. If I was to do it again I would take more time in filming and use a wider range of shots to make it last longer. I would also have liked more lesson time as we didn't have much time to complete the task and I feel it was a bit rushed.

10. What have you learnt about producing a short piece of film? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework?
It has givern me a base to work from and I think I will be able to improve on what I have done if I do a film for my actual courswork piece

Tuesday 27 October 2009

Thursday 15 October 2009

Evaluation and Method

As a class we were told that we had to create a front cover and a contents page for a magazine of our choice. On my own i chose to make the magazine spasific to the school football team. the specification said that it had to be:

  • for a school
  • mid shot front cover photo
  • 3 peices of text
  • including a price and barcode

The person i chose to put on my front cover was Luke Rimmer because he is a known team player and also plays for the lutterwoth school football team. the name of my magazine cover is 4-4-2 i called my magazine cover this because this is a football formation and relates really well to the theme of my magazine.

In the wrighting side of the magazine i have wrote ' Rimmer reacts to referees howler' this is illiteration and so therfore grabs the readers attention and makes it an effective magazine. its also wants to make the audience pick it up and read whats inside.

The magazine as a whole is eyecatching. the colour theme is blue and green which is the school colours which maybe makes the reader feel like if they are seen to be reading it they automaticaly look and feel part of the school community.

Monday 12 October 2009

Practicle

Me a Tom staid in at lunch to finish off our piece. We started to creat music on garage band, we came up with some good tunes. we had a tense piece of music which put us on the edge of our seat. when creating it we had many layers of music cutting in at different times to create suspense this was use of the ation code. We started to get the idea and it became very easy to use. When we uploaded the music we changed the volume at different parts, fading it when their was diologue then loadening it when there were new scenes. Over all I found that are filming and music was a sucsess and by using transactions it slowed down the pace of the film.

Monday 5 October 2009

practicle

On friday 2nd october we started filming are film. We had to have a shot of max on action, 180 degree shot and a overshoulder conversation. I enjoyed doing thhis filming as we tried to make it scary. When we got to the editing stages we found that are scenes were a bit jumpy this was a bit dissapointing as the different shots were ment to build tension. we managed to do a variety of shots which was good as it shows how much we have learnt already. If I was to do it again I would have better planning as are plan wasnt very accurate and I would somehow make it flow better.

Sunday 27 September 2009

practicle planning

Today we were told to create a film were you filmed a shot of a person walking through a door then record some dialogue showing different types of camera shots. Me, Kam, Louise and Tom created a picture board to help us through the the different stages of our film. Next lesson we are going to finish off the picture board which includes our different shots, and then we are going to start filming.

Tuesday 22 September 2009

1st Practical Practice

Me, Kam, Louise and Tom created a film which showed different types of camera shots. We then edited it in imovie where we merged the clips together using different transactions and we deleted the clips we didn't want. We added music which was an up beat drum tune which was played throughout as we thought it went well with our clips. Also, we changed the speed of each clip so it was in beat with the music and so that it didn't drag on.
I enjoyed doing the filming but it was a bit boring as there was nothing exciting to film. We kept the camera steady which was good because it was our first time filming. If I had the chance to do it again I would not film two people standing there as it is boring. I would think of something with some action in it. I felt that I contributed the most in the editing stages as I enjoy doing that side of the practical.
On the whole I think we did well as a group as we had less time than everyone else.