Main Character Sketches

Together we were trying to find what our main character would look like so that it would give us a good idea of who we should cast for the role. This is our idea of what the character should look like. We also where trying to play around with the stereotypes e.g. we wernt going to cast someone with blonde hair because they would look to inocent. We will select our main character soon and all the information will go on our shot list.

Camera Practice

heres us having a rough go to get the feel with a camera just so we could work out what was the best way to do the 180 degree shot.

First Shot,Prop and character list

This is our first initial shot list which gives us a rough idea of what we need and who we want to use and where abouts we will film. This list will get bigger as we start to film and it will also change in some areas.

First Draft Annamatic

Our Task:

Our task was to produce a rough animated storyboard containing cuts, fades etc for the first 2 minutes of our main project which included a title sequence. We firstly discussed and created a shot list which we then drew up a storyboard. This is only our first draft anamatic using all of our story board sketches that as a group we produced using combined ideas and cooperation. However we inverted the sketches to show our white images against a black background. We will improve our animatic until it is perfect then we can actually go out and start filming our proper piece. We only have a few improvements that need to be made which is included in the feedback. But overall our anamatic successfully displays our film in a rough way. However a shot that seems unclear is shot 10. This is because we are breaking the 180 degree rule and that is why the shot is so long. Our animatic was hard to portray because we only had still images to use however we added in a few effects and annoted shots such as shot 10 but otherwise everyone got the idea of our shots.

Our Piece:

Our Feedback:

The inverted images were very effective.

A wide variety of shots were used.

However, too short, we may need: longer shots

Missing titles: actors and actresses, the title of film, cinematography, editor, sound, producer, director.

Diegetic sound is needed

The pace of editing is good, a good sense of continuity

The Importance of Storyboarding, Sound And Colour

StoryBoarding: many famous directors (one of whom is M.Night.Shyamalan) use storyboards to get an extremely rough idea of what the film will look like before they actually go out and shoot the footage. Shyamalan says "storyboarding takes time, however it's worth it." He also says that "storyboarding is a chance to select and make specific props" for example in "The 6th Sense Shyamalan had a door knob made to shoot a specific shot where you could see the child's reflection in the handle and we can see his facial expression, this helps add to the atmosphere and pace of the movie. Shyamalan also says "it's a continuall point of reference". This can help guide you through a film even if it is a tiny guideline, it is still there if you forget what the original plan was.

Sound: M.Night.Shyamalan also says that sound is really important in his films. For "The 6th Sense he used a load of people and animals breathing to create the creepy music for the film which he said worked effectively because you couldn't tell. Also in "The Village" Shyamalan has taken a piece of sound and repeated and reverbed it. He says"sound is a character itself" and "you don't realise it's there as a viewer."





Colour: M.Night.Shyamalan also uses colour to help tell the story in most of his films, For example "The Village". Shyamalan uses the colour red to show the evil creatures (a symbolic sign of blood danger etc) and yellow to show the good and innocent people from the village. However there is a director called Wong Kar Wan who uses a lot of colour in the film "In The Mood for Love". For example the scene with the woman going down an alley to get her meal. Even though she is going down a dark alley Wan uses colours (the colour of her dresses) to show what mood she's in e.g. green, envy etc. Colour is very important in films because it helps by adding an effect to the scene.

Continuity Task

We were given our task which was to take 15 or so different shots of two characters (one enters the room). We had to make sure we didn't break the 180 degree rule and have shot reverse shot in our final piece. We used James's house as our location and we had james and Charlie in our piece. We did a quick storyboard and we created a quick story which we had 4 days to film. After we had filmed the shots and we were happy we had at least two good shots of every angle, we had to edit the piece together and add a tiny sound clip to complete our continutity task. What went well with our continuity task was the fact that we managed to shoot the shots, edit and add sound in a resonable ammount of time. However what was bad was the fact that I made mistakes such as being in shot when the camera was on and not realising that my reflection was in the window for one of our shots.

EVALUATION:

overall we got 32/60 marks. What was good about our work was: the effective use of sound (diegetic/non diegetic), our continuity and our framing. Our SRS was also good as was the fact that we stuck to the 180 degree rule.

To improve our work we should: use more CU/MCU which would have helped improve our piece a lot. Our framing in some areas was bad so we should improve on that. Our other target was framing to forground point.

Overall I think our piece was really succesfull.

Questionnaire Results

Final Idea:

Our final idea is to do a psychological thriller. We decided to do a psychological thrilller because to meet the conventions was very easy, also it is very easy with the equipment and location that we have. The narrative is: Someone moves to a new town, however the town is not what it seems. Everyone is acting very strange and some wierd occurences continually happen. We were going to film this probrably in a city to help with mise en scene and we are going to get actors and actresses for the roles. Our first idea was quite simular, it was of a man being chased down a dark alley and is ambushed at the other end (we do not see the attackers faces). We decided however that this was a bit too simple however we wanted to develop the idea of filming in the city further and that is how we came up with our final idea.

Thriller Mind Map By Me, James And Louise

Using Cameras

Over the past week we have been using the cameras and tri-pods to practise taking the differen't shots and angles with. We practised: high angles, low angles, close ups, extreme close ups, mid shots and finally long shots. We practised these shots and angles to refresh our memory on them and so that we new how to set the camera and tri-pod up and on different settings etc. This will be useful for when we are going out to film our actual project. We tried out the tri-pod on differen't settings to help with the different angles e.g. near the ground for a low angle etc. We will probrably have a few more practices before we actually start filming so that our shots will be perfect.

Questionnaire

The BBFC and what makes a 15 and 18 film:

Who are the BBFC?: The BBFC or British board of film classification are the people who decide what certifacate of age rating film should contain. This is very important and was started because young children were seing inappropriate and violent films and copying what they saw in the film. The BBFC was set up in 1912 for cineama screaning however it has also started to do videos, dvds etc since 1984.

What is allowed in a 15 film? The guidelines are split into boundries and sub catergories. These are: Discrimination, Drugs, Horror, Imitable Behaviour, Language, Nudity, Sex, Theme And Finally Violence. For all of these a 15 film has to have the guidelined ammount. For example for drugs, "Drug taking may be shown, however should not promote missuse". This means that 15 films are allowed to use drugs, however they must not show the full use of them or promote them to the audience. Another example is Horror,"Strong threat and meanass are permitted, unless sardistic or sexualised". This means that you are allowed to show most gruesome or gory scenes unless they are extremely over the top.

What is allowed in an 18 film? There is really no limit in an 18 movie. You are allowed to show pretty much almost anything. Examples of what 18 movies may contain are: "risks harm to individuals through violent and dangerous acts". "Illegal drug use" things such as these that could encourage younger minds to repeat these acts that is why they only allow persons who are 18 years or older to watch them at the cinema.

Is there a real difference between a 15 and 18? the answer is yes, depending on what the film contains, some very bad films may just scrape into being a 15 it all depends on the contents.

Editing Film: Adobe premier Pro

Over the previous week we have been looking in groups at a software called Adobe Premiere pro. With this software we have the ability to do certain things such as cut, trim or even add in effects to the movie. Premiere Pro was quite simular to Adobe Flash in the way that they both use timelines as their most important tool. We also work in the same time s Flash (FPS Frames Per Second). Even though we only had a few lessons on it I managed to pick up the basics quickly because I have learned how to use Flash in GCSE Digital Art. I hope to improve my skills as we actually come to creating our own videos and editing them.

Thriller Films A Conclusion

Overall I have looked at the oppenings of five thriller films. These thriller films are: psycho, the birds, sin city, se7en and finally citizen kane. what I have found out about all Thriller films is that they will all follow codes and conventions (semiotics). For example almsot all of the films started off by setting the scene by the use of camera angles, there was always a use of either a mid or long shot to show us the scene whether we are in a city (Sin City) or in just in a normal house (se7en). All of the Thriller films background music was dark and mysterious throoughout most of the introduction (apart from Sin City). Finally the Mise en scene that is used helps so that they can be classed as a "Thriller Film" this may be the use of action or blood and gore that is used in a specific scene or a car chase etc. All of the Thriller films that I have both looked at and talked about all have got oppenings that have been able to hint to the audience what type of Thriller film the film is going to be. So overall all thriller films do use sound, camera angles, mise en scene and sound to help establish genre.

blog post 6: Psycho Notes

blog post 5: Se7en Notes

blog post 4: Citizen kane Notes

Blog Post 3: Sin City Analysis

Blog Post 2: The Birds Analysis

Blog Post 1: What Is A Thriller Film?

What is A Thriller Film?:

A "thriller" film is a film that promote intense and excitement to keep the audience interested. Most thrillers will usually have some sort of key features e.g. deaths, a fightscene or even gore etc, to keep the audience "at the edge of their seats" and want to watch on to find out what happens.Thriller films cover a variety of genre's from action to science fiction to horror. Most thriller films are hybrids (have two genre's) these can range from psycological thriller to an action thriller. There are millions of thriller films in the world to date.

A Famous Example:

A really famous hybrid thriller is "halloween" containing the iconic and infamous Michael Myers the fictional serial killer. Halloween is a horror thriller. Horror and thrillers are very simular to each other because both genre's provide thrills and shocks for their audience. Thriller films are even mixed with almost all other genre's and in most other films you will find certain aspects or signifiers (semiotics) of a thriller.

The History Of Thrillers:

The thriller genre ame around in the early 1920's with such classic movies such as "Safety Last", from then the thriller genre became even more popular and the Thriller genre is still around today such examples are "Cloverfield" (sci fi/thriller) (2008), "Death race" (action/thriller) (2008) and finally a really famous thriller "The texas chainsaw massacre (the beginning)" (horror/thriller) (2007). so as you can see thriller films have had some of the most famous icons in them e.g. Michael Myers, Jason Vorhees etc.

A Famous Thriller Director:

A very famous thriller director (especially in the 1960's/70's) is Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock created some of the most famous thrillers such as "Psycho" (horror/thriller) (1960) and "The Birds" (Horror/Thriller) (1963). These are a few examples of Hitchcocks most famous and recognised films for scaring many audiences.

Resources:

http://www.filmsite.org/thrillerfilms.html

http://www.uf.susu.org/films/genres/thrillers

My First post

This is going to be my media Studies blog for my coursework.