Monday, 27 April 2009
Thursday, 2 April 2009
Main Task- Evauation
Our film opening used some of the common codes and conventions of film openings, for example we used the opening two minutes to introduce the central protaganist of the film `Matt`. However, our film opening also went against some the of the elements you would expect to happen in a film opening. For example, our genre was slasher and yet we had no element of obvious` violence in our opening two minutes.
Our media product attempts to represent several social group. The plan, if our film was ever made into a feature length picture would have been to represent teens in a good light to attempt to combat the unjust `bad press` that our group felt that young people are subjected to by the tabloids in Britain. Also, following the codes and conventions of the slasher movie genre we had to make the police look incompetant and stupid.
The sort of institution that would distribute our product would be an organisation such as `screen Yorkshire`. A local institution specialising in low budget movies with an emerging cast such as ours.
The audience for our media product is a male 15-34 year old who's into heavy rock music. Clearly this is quite a narrow target audience so there would have to be cross-over appeal to make our film viable as a commercial proposition. We think that our cross-over appeal comes from both the older end of the 15-34 bracket moving closer to 40. Also, as our film developes we invisage a lead female role, this would create cross-over appeal to a female audience. This character would also lead into the male gaze theory.
I have learnt an awful lot about different technologies as I have gone throught the process of constructing this media product. As far as computers goes I am not the most talented person in the world, so it took me a while to get used to the new software, perhaps more than most members of the group. However, I know feel a compitant user of both imovie and garage band. Obviously, we used imovie to edit the final cut of our film. We used garage band to create the music for our film. We created the music ourselves for two reasons. First, we felt it showed more initiativethan if we had jus found a copyright free source on the web and secondly, we were able to finely tune the music so it fit in better with the action that was taking place on screen.
From the preliminary task to the final cut there is a vast difference in quality. Shot variation, lighting, sound, editing all these factors improved enourmously. These diffences came about through familiarity with the cameras and the software, also through detailed research into our genre and target audience which I have demonstarated in this blog.
Our initial final cut was a marked improvemtent from our initial rough cut, however, it could still be improved. The main diffences between our initial final cut and our finished final cut was to increase the prominance of the knife in our film and also to include a busty blonde as with most slasher movies of this type. These differences were brought about through constructive auidience feedback.
We also veared away from the use of garage band music and found an appropriate track from a copyright free source. We did this for two reasons, first, because we didn't feel that either me or Alex were good enough at using garage band to utilise it's full pottential. Secondly, we thought the copyright free track suited our genre better and improved the overall effect of the filmon the audience.
Our media product attempts to represent several social group. The plan, if our film was ever made into a feature length picture would have been to represent teens in a good light to attempt to combat the unjust `bad press` that our group felt that young people are subjected to by the tabloids in Britain. Also, following the codes and conventions of the slasher movie genre we had to make the police look incompetant and stupid.
The sort of institution that would distribute our product would be an organisation such as `screen Yorkshire`. A local institution specialising in low budget movies with an emerging cast such as ours.
The audience for our media product is a male 15-34 year old who's into heavy rock music. Clearly this is quite a narrow target audience so there would have to be cross-over appeal to make our film viable as a commercial proposition. We think that our cross-over appeal comes from both the older end of the 15-34 bracket moving closer to 40. Also, as our film developes we invisage a lead female role, this would create cross-over appeal to a female audience. This character would also lead into the male gaze theory.
I have learnt an awful lot about different technologies as I have gone throught the process of constructing this media product. As far as computers goes I am not the most talented person in the world, so it took me a while to get used to the new software, perhaps more than most members of the group. However, I know feel a compitant user of both imovie and garage band. Obviously, we used imovie to edit the final cut of our film. We used garage band to create the music for our film. We created the music ourselves for two reasons. First, we felt it showed more initiativethan if we had jus found a copyright free source on the web and secondly, we were able to finely tune the music so it fit in better with the action that was taking place on screen.
From the preliminary task to the final cut there is a vast difference in quality. Shot variation, lighting, sound, editing all these factors improved enourmously. These diffences came about through familiarity with the cameras and the software, also through detailed research into our genre and target audience which I have demonstarated in this blog.
Our initial final cut was a marked improvemtent from our initial rough cut, however, it could still be improved. The main diffences between our initial final cut and our finished final cut was to increase the prominance of the knife in our film and also to include a busty blonde as with most slasher movies of this type. These differences were brought about through constructive auidience feedback.
We also veared away from the use of garage band music and found an appropriate track from a copyright free source. We did this for two reasons, first, because we didn't feel that either me or Alex were good enough at using garage band to utilise it's full pottential. Secondly, we thought the copyright free track suited our genre better and improved the overall effect of the filmon the audience.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Props
We used three key props in the opening two minutes of our film, a mirror, a bass guitar and a knife. The mirror was used in the voice-over scene where 'Matt's' second personality takes over. The main reason for using the mirror was so that we could increase our shot variation by doing an over the shoulder shot.
We used a knife because clearly, a film can't be called a slasher without a knife or a blade of some sort. The knife also created a narrative enigma at the end of the film, would Matt use the knife?
The bass guitar in the corner of Matt's bedroom in the first scene was used as an inter-textual link to the film 'Trick or Treat' and also acted as a steer towards our target audience, rock fans.
Tuesday, 31 March 2009
Main Task- Target Audience 2
Nationality- We expect out film to appeal to a British audience due to the northern english accents used by the cast, we don't think that this would transfer to an American audience. Our feeling is that an American audience would interpret the use of non-standard english and the use of colloquial dialect as representing the working class. However, we did not want to give this impression. 
Socio-economic groupings- Our Target market for our film is the C1,C2,D and E social class groupings. We have chosen to target this sector of the market as it is the broadest group with cross-over appeal, what i mean by that is you can appeal to all these groups with the same media texts, however it is difficult to appeal to a broader range than that.
Fans- We expect that fans of the horror genre and the slasher sub- genre would be attracted to our film. In particular fans of the film `Trick or Treat` we hope would be enticed by our film opening as there is a strong inter-textual reference to that film in our opening two minutes.
Sunday, 29 March 2009
Main Task- Target Audience
Gender- Our film is aimed towards a male target audience. Although there will be a female in the cast her primary role is to fulfill the male gaze theory, the rest of the cast is male. The horror genre tends to be a male dominated genre, partcularly the slasher sub-genre. The music in our film will be mainly drum and bass and heavy rock, again, clearly male orientated music genres.
Age-
The age group that we have aimed our film at is 15-34, the `youth` band. This is because slasher movies usually appeal to this demoraphic due to their graphic nature and the use of fast cut editing. You would hardly expect to see a group of pensioners going to the cinema to watch `Scream`. Another factor contributing to the target audience is the level of violence shown in the film. We have made a fairly violent plot and this would clealy be unsuitable for children and young teens. We decided that if the BBFC wer to classify our film they would give it a `15` rating, mainly due to the violence and gore.
Age-The age group that we have aimed our film at is 15-34, the `youth` band. This is because slasher movies usually appeal to this demoraphic due to their graphic nature and the use of fast cut editing. You would hardly expect to see a group of pensioners going to the cinema to watch `Scream`. Another factor contributing to the target audience is the level of violence shown in the film. We have made a fairly violent plot and this would clealy be unsuitable for children and young teens. We decided that if the BBFC wer to classify our film they would give it a `15` rating, mainly due to the violence and gore.
Wednesday, 25 March 2009
Main Task- Equipment
The hardware i will be using to film our project will be:
1. A video camera.
2. A mini DV tape (60 min.)
3. Tripod.
The hardware I will be for the editing will be:
1. A fire-ire camera wire.
2. An imac computer
3. Blank dvd /Rw
The software I will be using for editing will be:
1. iDVD
2. Quick time player.
The props i will be using during filming:
1. A mirror.
2. A bed .
3. Gothic heavy metal posters.
4. School lockers.
5. School desk and chair.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
Friday, 13 March 2009
genre research and intertextual links
Halloween- 1978.
John Carpenter, always a figure of law and authority, Adult, police, parent. Police often depicted as stupid.
Verisimilitude, creating a sense of realism in a diegetic world.
Low budget, ,made big at the box office. No stars, little or no special effects.
"Halloween is the gone with the wind of the horror genre."
Inter-textual references; Dr Loomis (halloween), Sam Loomis (Psycho), Billy Loomis (scream).
Auteur theory- John Carpenters Halloween.
Initial title was the babysitter murders. Limited location- sense of claustrophobia.
Target Audience, 15-34 (male). Although, cross-over appeal to women because the lead characters are a group of women.
The Warriors.
1979.
Low budget, good example of a film opening that creates a good sense of background and setting without using obvious and 'clunky' exposition.
Monday, 2 March 2009
Friday, 27 February 2009
feedback
We gained Feedback by showing our rough cut to a random selection of our peers from sixth form, a mixture of year 12's and year 13's. We asked the audience to be as critical as possible whilst remaining constructive. In their criticisms there were several recurring themes. These were; Sound, Music, Cutting, colours and the lack of a production logo. I will now go through each of these in more detail.
Sound- The sound quality on the rough cut was very poor, far too much camera noise ad other unwanted background sound.
Music- There was no music on our rough cut and our test audience said that music inkeeping with hegere of the film would improve it.
Cutting- Some of the scenes in ou rough cut wern't cut at all and therefore in some of the clips you could hear the director calling action an som laughter and televiion noise i the background etc.
Colours- Several membe of the tst audience suggested that our film may look better and suit the intended genre better if it was in black and white rather than colour.
Production logo- Our rough cut didn't have a production logo. clearly, we needed one for the final cut.
editing
As our crew only consisted of meand Alex we had to degate the jobs beween us. Alex had far better knowledge of computers, so he was in charge ofany matters IT and due to my past expeience of drama and camera work I played a key role in that side of the producton.
Director- Matt Lowe
This job consisted of organising actors during filming, making sure lighting was correct, organising the setting to create good miss en scene.
Producer- Alex Jowett and Matt Lowe
This job consisted of choosing what the final cut should look like, organising production schedules, finding the cast and setting, and creating a Production Company
Editing- Alex Jowett
This job meant being in charge of the editing proccesses and being able to use the software in order to edit the final cut.
Sound- Alex Jowett
This job consisted of finding good music, and sound overs to go into the production
Camera Crew- Alex Jowett and Matt Lowe
This job meant having to film the production and posistioning the camera where the cinematography told them to. They where in charge off all the hardware.
Writer- Alex Jowett and Matt Lowe
This job meant having to write the plot then create a Storyboard, Screenplay and Final Idea sheet. Also it meant working with chnages made during filming.
Director- Matt Lowe
This job consisted of organising actors during filming, making sure lighting was correct, organising the setting to create good miss en scene.
Producer- Alex Jowett and Matt Lowe
This job consisted of choosing what the final cut should look like, organising production schedules, finding the cast and setting, and creating a Production Company
Editing- Alex Jowett
This job meant being in charge of the editing proccesses and being able to use the software in order to edit the final cut.
Sound- Alex Jowett
This job consisted of finding good music, and sound overs to go into the production
Camera Crew- Alex Jowett and Matt Lowe
This job meant having to film the production and posistioning the camera where the cinematography told them to. They where in charge off all the hardware.
Writer- Alex Jowett and Matt Lowe
This job meant having to write the plot then create a Storyboard, Screenplay and Final Idea sheet. Also it meant working with chnages made during filming.
cinematography
Cinematography- Matt Lowe
This job meant making sure that evrything being recorded looked how it should and had a good 'flow' to the production. Miss en Scene was monitered by this job.
This job meant making sure that evrything being recorded looked how it should and had a good 'flow' to the production. Miss en Scene was monitered by this job.
equipment
The camera we used was a Canon MD 101.
We also used a Fuji film finepix A900 tripod, we used this to keep the camera steady and to avoid a hand held and 'shaky' effect to some of the shots.
cast
neither me or Alex were ever going to win an oscar for our performance in our film clip, so we enlistd the help of a friend from sixth form to act in our film. Jojo Bonham played the part of `Matt`. Jojo had done GCSE drama and has also had experience in an amateur dramatics group.
Prelim Task
For the preliminary task we had to split into groups and produce a short film clip comprising of a short pice of dialogue between two characters. The short clip had to contain several elements of camera work and editing, these included; shot-reverse shot, 180-degree rule and match on action. I was in a group of four with Alex Jowett, Joe Shrimpton, Theo Wightman and myself.
For a first attempt at using the editing software I think I had done a fairly good job on my preliminary task. However, if I was to improve anything in my video I would add music to the opening and closing credits.
Team America - Opening 2 mins
Introduction
*Directed by Trey Parker.
* Hybrid genre, comedy/political satire.
*Released in the UK on 14th January 2005
*Budget of $30 000 000
* Tag-line, putting the `F` back in freedom
* From the makers of South Park
Logos
*Not visually altered to suit film. However, the music is changed to a military style beat. [Long notes and quick notes]
* Paramount Pictures explodes, helping to provide anchorage to the preferred reading of the film genre.
Start of film.
· Non diegetic music starts, stereotypically French music.
· Watercolour in background Eifel tower and the arc d’ triumph giving exposition.
· Further exposition provided by the wording on screen.
· Puppet show within puppet show.
· Sacre bleu! Stereotypically French thing to say.
· Frere Jacques. Ditto.
· Berets.
Asian character enters.
· Camera angle cutting off top half of Asian characters body attempting to represent him as a `monster` from the child’s perspective.
· Non-diegetic music changes to a stereotypically Asian style.
· Staring eyes, beard etc.
· Inter-textual reference to OBL.
Team America enter.
· Music changes to a much faster pace, siren in background.
· Team America logo, inter-textual reference to Thunderbirds. Team America, world police and Thunderbirds, international rescue. Also links with the use of puppets.
· WMD-reference to Iraq war, first glimpse of political satire in the film.
· Gun fight starts, civilians getting shot, another reference to Iraq war, is the film trying to make a political point?
· Irony? `he’s getting away with the WMD` when the Team America Guy is carrying a rocket Launcher.
· Team America Knock down the Eifel tower, more harm than good?
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
new idea
subject in chair is woman in wedding dress and a veil, thereore masking her face. The woman is in her mid-twenties. The character who enters he room is a male in a black tuxido. The scene is filmed in the most part by using an over the shoulder shot of the woman looking down a long, corridor style room at the man who is walking towards her. The only sounds you can hear as this is taking place oare both diegetic. One being the noise of the man's shoes on the wooden flooring and the other being te gentle sobbing from the female character. The scene ends jus as the male character reaches the female and her veil flies up and reveals some sort of horror/gorey character.
coursework task
Preliminary exercise: Continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with whom she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/ reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.
Main task: the title and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.
All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidates (s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source.