Wednesday 23 September 2009

In class we have been looking at teaser trailers, we have looked at several and some of them were spiderman, toy story 3 and the flinstones. We looked at all the techniques that they use to make a good and exciting teaser trailer. Some of the techniques we learnt are that they should be a short yet exciting trailer and should not give much away. Depending on the teaser trailer will then depend on how wel the teaser trailer does.

In class now im in a new group and are working on a Therfield School perspectus evening trailer. This will give a short insight on what we do at Therfield. If our film does well then we will be able to show this at the evening.

At the moment were just sharing ideas on what we can do and are filming short snipits around the school.

Saturday 2 May 2009

Choices of Camera shots

For our film, we needed to think of the types of camera shots to make sure the audience knew how the character felt and what he was like. We thought a tracking shot would be good as the opening shot because it can show if the character lives in a messy or tidy house. This could then give away part of the characters personality.
We then thought that in the film, the character is feeling confident and happy that he is going for an interview for a job. So a low angle shot would be appropriate because the audience will be able to see that he is feeling confident and good about himself. This same shot would also be used when he is putting his suit on when the character thinks he is looking good.
Within the film, the main character is seen dancing to Michael Jackson in his room. So we thought a variety of shots was needed to show off the dance moves he is pulling off. We used high angle shots, mid shots and close ups to show his excitement for the job. These shots are also used to show how he gets ready for it, and how the audience can relate to what he does to real life.

Friday 1 May 2009

Mise en scene

For our film, we wanted to make the Mise en scene as realistic as we can to a young adult who was abit of a party animal and found job life very boring. The room we used had many posters from Eminem to Friends which is what many adults listen to and whatch. We made the floor as messy as we could to show that this man could not care about where things go in his room. We left the laptop on to show he doesnt care about the enivronment or gas bills. An open Condom packet is shown to show that he could be abit of a ladies man too. The actor is going for an interview at Mcdonalds for a job. So we thought we should make him look scruffy as a job at Mcdonalds isnt brilliant, but to wear a suit to show he can make the effort.

Costume

For our film, the characters used will nee to be wearing Pjs and a suit. Here are some ideas for what our characters should wear in the for the opening scens fo the film.






For the Pj choice, the clothes should be patterned as most young people like to where more fashionable clothes, even if it is only Pjs. They could also be quite immature, and could include woman on them or famous logos like playboy, to signify that it is a young mans clothing.














For the characters suit, it should be grey or black and should be quite formal, so he could be seen out at a social event with it on. It should also be smart enough to be seen at an interview. Which is what the character is going to in the film.

Target Audience

When thinking about making the film, we had to make a decision about who the film would be aimed for. As we have gone for the comedy genre, actors who are young and jokes which the majority of young adults/ older teenagers would understand, our target audience therefore are both male and female audience between the ages of 15 to 25. We came to this conclusion because both male and famale like to whatch comedy movies and will be able to relate to the jokes which are said within the film. We went for the 15-25 year old bracket because any older than that and they may not understand the humor. It is a film meant for the out going people who do similar things to the characters in the film and as the characters are young, it would be fitting to have a target audience around the same age as them.

Thursday 30 April 2009

Casting

In all honesty, we as a group did not think about what Actors/Actresses we should use. In Hindsight, we would have used people who could keep a straight face when acting or have been doing drama for sometime. This way we could have used people who have worked in a similar to environment to our film. However, our film didnt require to much acting skills except for a dance and abit of singing. therefore Choosing people to act in the film was not to much of a problem for us but it could have changed or improved the end product of the film.

Lighting for our film

For our film, we are shooting in a bedroom and a bathroom. We found problems in filming both those rooms due to the lighting we had. The natural light from the windows was not enough, meaning the shots we wanted to take for the film would be to dark, so the audience couldnt see what the actors were doing. When we tried using the artificial light in the room, we found that the shadows of the characters and the film crew were effecting what we filmed. We did not want the audience to keep seing different shaded bits in the film, otherwise there would be questions on how we filmed it, as it was meant to be filmed as if it was morning. We though using the lights in the room would be pointless because not many people sleep with the main light on and also using the natural light would be a problem because not many people sleep with the curtains open, but we could get away with abit of natural light with the curtains slightly open. We then thought about using the hallway light. This way we could gain light from there without the shadows being to much of a problem. The only problem with using the hallway light was that it was dark on the bed, but this wasnt to much of a problem because not much of the film will be spent there but there was a little bit of natural light we could use. When in the bathroom, The lights from the bathroom caused a problem because it would reflect off the mirror, so we didnt use any except some from the hallway light and the natural light. We found this way the light wasnt to strong or to light and gave a perfect ballance.

Wednesday 29 April 2009

Scary Movie 4: opening scenes

Scary Movie 4 is a horror comedy film which takes extracts from serious horror films and makes them into funny scenes. The movie has not really got a story line to it, it just makes films which are meant to be scary, funny. Therefore we should look at the opening scene to this film and see how they create humor and grab the attention of the audience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FES426W4Xw

The first shots we see are of Shaquille O'neal, with his head in the bath full of water. He then pulls his head out and is about to start walking when he bangs his head on a metal pipe and then on the ceiling. Humor is created here because your not expected Shaq to bump his head at all but manages to do it twice in the space of a few seconds. The audience will be already interested because they regonise Shag as a famous super star.

We then meet Dr. Phil who also has no clue like Shaq to where they are, when a man in a mask appears and tells them they have a 120 second to get the antidote or they will both die. This is where the film starts to get slightly intense as both Shak and Dr. Phil know they have to escape from the chains on their legs. To do this they have to put somethign heavy through the basketball net. On the first attempt Shaq misses, hits a metal pole and lands on Dr. Phils head. Humor is created hear because not only do the audience think Shaq could not miss, but he also manages to hit his partner in the head. He then trys again, and does the same thing but manages to knock a light onto Dr. Phils head created a similar humor.

We then see both of them argueing to each other for some stupid reason and both of them ending up trying to comfort each other. Here humor is created because it is has nothing to do with the situation there in and there both comferting each other when they know they are going to die soon. Eventaully, Shaq hits the shot and two saws drop down. They both realise that cutting through the chain is not going to happen, so they end up having to chop there foot off. Shaq manages to make Dr. Phil go first. Humor is created here as Shaq makes the doctor angry and then the shot of Shaq's face also creates humor. Finally we then see Dr. Phil successfully cut off his foot, but he doesnt notice hes cut off the wrong foot. Humor is created here because the audience would expect that a "Doctor" would know which foot to cut off.

The opening scene to scary movie 4 does provide Humor which we could relate to, but also we couldnt relate to because our film is nto based on horror comedy.

Tuesday 28 April 2009

Love Actually: Opening scenes

Love actually is very famous british comedy film, staring many great actors and actresses, such as Hugh Grant, Bill Nighy, Colin Firth and Emma Thompson. Even though the film is more of a romantic comedy, the opening scenes create great humor and is a film that we should look at to help our ideas for the opening scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_saCHD4Wzqk

The first scene the audience sees in the film are lots of shots of people hugging and kissing each other at a terminal airport. This scene hasa voice over of Hugh Grant talking about Love. This automatically tells us as viewers that this is going to have elements of romance in the film. At the end of this scene, the title of the film is given " love actaully".

The next scene we see is of Bill Nighy creating a changed cover of a famous song. Bill has already made a mistake in the song and on the second attemped ( 2:47 to 2:54) he also makes a mistake, but then comes out with a variety of swear words to get out his anger. Humor is created here because the audience knew Bill had made a mistake, but did not expect the many swear words to come out of his mouth. He then correctly sings it on the third attemped and nearing the end of the cover, he realises how bad the song is. Whilst the background singers are doing their job he asks the producer "This is shit isnt it?" with the producer agreeing. Humor is created here because the audience are not expecting Bill to say that whilst the tape for the song is still going on.

The next scene we see is of a mum and her daughter having a chat about the Nativity play the daughter is in. The mum is all Excited to hear what part her duaghter will be playing, when she answers with " Im the lobster". Humor is created here because the mums face drops from excited to sad as most people never knew a lobster could be in a nativity play.

The next few scenes are all about how we can expirence love, with one of the shots being of a man and a woman pretending to have sex. Humor is created here because It is a shot which is totally random to the situation but has links to the film title. We then see more shots of love includding a wedding which is about to happen.

Finally, we then have shots of the new prminister (Hugh Grant) walking to his house at 10 Downing Street. We walk through the house were we meet the staff. First we meet "Terrance" the man in charge of running the house. The priminister then tells a story about his Uncle Terrance who was a peedophile. Humor is created here because it doesnt send out good vibes for the man in charge. We then meet Pat who is the main House keeper. Humor is created here becuase the new priminster is refering to the old priminister (Tony Blair) and his family. We then meet a new member of staff who is clearly nervous to meet the priminister. She starts off by saying his real name instead of "sir". She then realises this mistake and swears out loud twice. Humor is created here because no one should ever swear infront of a priminister let alone swear twice.

The opening scenes to " love actaully" have many humorous texts and have been made funny in similar techniques. We should use this as a way to help making our film funny and interesting.

Saturday 25 April 2009

Santas Slay

For the opening scenes to our film, we are thinking of making it very comical, so that the audeince are interested from the start. The opening scene to the film "Santas Slay" will offer us an insight into how we should create humor in our film but also prove a good starting block on how other films use simular techniques to create their humor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKrsAFWPnl4

Santas Slay
At the start of the opening scene, we see a turkey being bought into the dining room with some christmas type diegetic music in the background. This tells us that the film is most lickely to be set in the festive season at christmas. So the film has already set the scene for the audience. We then start to see the rest of the family dinning at the house. We first see two teenage girls who are chatting about what they want for christmas, the one on the left of the picture says " none of that chain store shit", giving us as the audience the idea that this family is very rich or is very high class. This is even more evident when the person we next see at the end of the table replys back to the teenager "Settle for nothing less than prada girls".

After meeting the teenagers, we then meet the two couples, this is where humor is created within the opening scene. "Guen" and her partner who his name we do not know yet start talking about what they want for christmas. Her partner gets Guen's attention by saying "eyy" and then winking at her, maybe suggesting that hes trying to be flirty with her. He Then asks she wants from santa with her reply being " a faithful husband", humor is created here because that was not the answer the man was expecting back and the fact that being flirty over the dining room table at christmas dinner is not something you would talk about at your own home.

We then meet the other couple. The man at the other end of the table is married to "Angel", he then talks to her about the turkey which has been cooked and says "Dear god, i hope this bird doesnt taste like a shoe like last year", this already creates humer because he is referring to Angels cooking abilities and basically saying its rubbish. He then asks for it to be "moist and tender". Angel then replys with " Moist would be nice, its called Forplay". Humor is created here because the audience would not be expected a sexual comment back.

After their little discution, we see Angel giving Guen's partner some potatos whilest playing footsy under the table, this then turns into Guens partner's hand going down angels dress. We then hear a screem from Angel, with everyone looking at her. This creates humer because of the reactions from the other characters and how you wouldnt associate something like that to happen over a christmas dinner.

In the Final scene a Santa clause comes down the chimney and breaks into the room, we then see Santa killing all the characters on the table using all the props available around him, this creates humor because stereotypically, christmas is a time to celebrate and not a time to be voilent. I think the opening scene to Santas slay gives us a good idea of how our film should create humor.

Friday 24 April 2009

Naked Gun: opening Scene

The naked Gun is a famous comedy movie which had a great success. The opening scene to the film should be looked at to see how they created humor to attract the audience within the first few minutes.

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



In the opening scene, the non diegetic sound is very dark and eary. This tells us that maybe something bad is going to happen. This is even more evident when the person at the hotdog counter and the man at the top of the stairs both look towards there guns. We then see a man reading a newspaper, who looks up at the clock to see what time it is. The music is still tense meaning that it is almost certain something bad is going to happen. We then see the man reading the newspaper loook towards a woman struggling to take her baby pram up the stairs. He then goes to help her with it when another woman with two prams is struggling to get them up the stairs. He then calls for the man at the hotdog counter to go help that woman. As that man helps the woman with two prams, another woman with a pram is having trouble taking her child down the stairs. Humor is created here because the audience is still thinking that there could be some gun shooting very soon, yet the three people are trying to be nice civilians and help out.



The next scene we see is of 5 men at the top of the stairs, who the audeince pressume are the "baddies". As they start walking down the stairs, the man reading the newspaper notices its the people. They both meet midway on the stair and then look at each other with close ups of their faces. Then the shooting happens in slow motion, showing the three people forget about the prams they were helping to carry. This creates humor because they were wanting to help the ladies with the prams and have now left them to go straight down the stairs where the babys could potentially be killed. We also see the man at the top of the stairs struggling to take his gun out from his leg. This creates humor because its not often you say the good people sturggle when doing something.

Next, we see One of the woman miming " My baby" as the pram goes down the stairs. We then see the hotdog counter man chace after the pram, with a lawn mower behind him and a guy with a rake in his hand. This creates humor because it is totally random to see a guy with a rake and a lawn mower coming down the stairs. Then all the focus goes onto the babies, while the shoot out is going on. Then the present and the pope appear at the top of the stairs. This creates humor because it comes from out of the blue and the reaction on the face of one of the good people is totally confused.

Nearing the end of the opening scene, the person reading thew newspaper runs out of bullets. They cut back to a shot of the baddies and then somehow he has ended up with a machine gun. This creates humor because in reality there is noway someone could find a gun in that shorter space of time. Then whilst this is happening, we can see in the background the hotdog guy saving all the babies. The last baby he saves he starts dancing and celebrating with and is about to throw it on the floor when a woman stops him. This creates humor because in reality you dont hold a young baby with one hand and you would most not likely want to throw it on the floor.
In the end this is all just a dream. This is a good example of a opening scene and we should look at this when we make our opening scene.

Thursday 23 April 2009

Evaluation

Our film is about two boys who live together. They are both slobs and don’t have jobs. One of them wakes up and is going to a job interview at McDonalds. The other stays in bed. They are trying to get jobs so they can get a decent flat as all they have at the moment is a one roomed flat with one bed which they share. We had loads of ideas for our work. We started to film a different one about two girls going home from a party but because of the weather and other problems we changed our idea. This is a link to our opening: http://hannahemilynileshjohn.blogspot.com/2009/02/emily-has-downs.html. We have represented teenage boys in our opening; it shows them how they might live. The camera work in our opening was okay but not we could have used a lot more shots we used a variety but needed more to make it better. The sound we used was good but we should have done it over the top instead of filming it. We now know that we should have done this and know to improve it next time. Our target audience would be teenagers as it is relevant to some of their lifestyles and they would find it entertaining. We chose this because we are teenagers so we know what we enjoy and we are able to relate to it. We tried to show this by doing as many things that were funny as possible. We only used a camera and a tripod to film our work but if we had had more money it would have been good to have other equipment e.g. a track to film a tracking shot. The preliminary helped us a lot with the main task as we were able to practice using the camera and the program on the computer. We had an idea how to use the camera but was good to practice and none of us knew how to use the computer work so it was extremely helpful to learn that before we did our main task. Overall I am happy with our opening but we know that there are a lot of things that we would change if we did it again. For example using more shots and doing something different with the music.

Wednesday 22 April 2009

Response to Greg Potter

Greg: I thoguht the scene was a clever way to star a film it portrays the main character early but doesnt give away the genre, it than slowly sneaks visual gags into the scene and we than become aware of this comedy. I liked the opening sequence, opening the door and walking through the house, i thought this was great use of a point of view shot. The only criticsm i have of this sequence is the use of zoom, i felt although with a proper film camera can be effective, in this instance it did not create an effect that i felt suited the film.

Hannah: I agree what greg said about the zoom and feel that we should have re done this shot. This would have improved the comical effect as making it more realistic. I also think that a better variety of camera shots would have been nessesery (stated in other comments). This would have improved our film dramatically. We also take note to when the door is opening you can see an arm. We understand that this makes it unrealistic and theirfore we would have tried 2 perfect this better. We are glad that most people enjoyed watching our film and hope to make more soon.

Evaluation

Introduction

Our final film piece is called ‘Brian's life’. It was made by myself, Emily, John and Nilesh. It stars John (As Brian) and Nilesh (As Dave). Our initial idea was to make a horror film but due to weather conditions, as we were filming outside this was not capable. We started filming this and everything was going well including editing but when we started to film our second part the snow came and dead lines were meeting so we changed the idea completely.
Our new idea was to have a comedy, something inside and something that could be filmed in a realistic environment. We filmed at Nilesh’s house and I believe really made the comical effect work. Our work is on our blog and on YouTube.

Representation

We used John as the main character being Brian as he was the funny character, the one that was laughed at. We made him symbolize a man that isn’t very well off, lazy, possibly a student due to the surroundings and having a funny attitude towards his life. We made the place seem more realistic to surroundings by having lots of rubbish around, messy and having one single bed for two people represents lack of money. The time period it is set in is modern day. You can see this by having casual clothes, Michael Jackson playing, classic student attitude and the house living in.
At this point there are only two people involved. This is because we really wanted to focus on John and make him stand out from the other characters. You only briefly see Nilesh as we wanted him to be more in the background.
We made our film as realistic as possible by having a student room, the language spoken is modern day and having no un-realistic happenings.


Audience

Our target audience would be the YouTube generation. This is because they can relate to the people in this small clip. This is also because they are more attracted to the comedy genre. It would not be for an older generation because they may find some of the language offensive. We came up with this decision by us being able to relate to these people ourselves.
We analysed and researched our film by watching beginning of films with the genre of comedy. We analysed together as a group Superbad, Dodge ball and Knocked Up. We also watched films individually on the comical effect to give ideas on what we were going to do.

Camera Shots

Our camera shots used are quite limited so therefore we should have used more varied angles and shots. Especially when getting out of bed when he gets up from falling, this is not linked very well and this should have been re filmed at a previous date to connect this better. The shots could also have been a lot steadier when zooming in and out (clock scene and house zooming in). We could have perfected this by slowing the zoom in and steadying the tripod. This would have also added to the comic effect due to having smoother actions.


Sound Editing

We also could have made the whole film silent when the music begins to play, and then have the soundtrack played over the top. Then match up his miming in the editing suite. However this would have an extreme amount of time and we as a group personally feel, having the music on the tape sounds reasonably good.


Final Evaluation

Overall I think that we as a group did well, however some parts could have been improved. Shown above the sound editing and camera shots would have been a must have to improve. I enjoyed making and editing our film and feel that we as a group did well in the task.

final evaluation

Introduction

we started off our film initially to be a horror genre. But due to weather events and light problems, filming was very difficult. We then decide to make the film to a comedy genre. the outline idea to the film is 2 room mates are struggling for money so they only have 1 bed to sleep in. But the main charactor gets a job interview at a fast food restaurent and the humor developes from there. The main charactor is Brian, a student whos life is being represented in the film. This why we called it "brians life".

Here is the link for our film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiA-P65pXTY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fhannahemilynileshjohn%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2Fsearch%3Fupdated%2Dmax%3D2009%2D04%2D21T02%253A05%253A00%2D07%253A00%26max%2Dresults%3D7&feature=player_embedded.



Representation



We have tried to make a scratch idea for our film. We noticed that not many comedies start with a charactor going to a fast food resaturant for a job. so we thought that would be a good idea as it was original. We decided to set the film in my house, because it is quite small and compact, which can be simular to what students live in at university, We though at in this time peroid, students are always straped for cash, so makin 2 people sleep in one room can represent the poorness of nowerday students.

We have creating a scence of realsim of making the house look messy as students tend to live in a messy life style. Also the opening shot you can here rain falling, maybe suggesting that this is going to be like any other day, misserable and a long.

We wanted the parts of the mise en scene to be realistic but parts of it to be unrealistic to create the humer. The music was Micheal jackson-billie jean, and we see Brian (john) start dancing to it as soon as he wakes up, this unrealisticness creates humor because its something that wouldnt usually happen. Also we see brian hitting over the ready made jenga blocks, this was unrealistic because its not usually a game a student would play but alo realistic because it wakes up the other charactor in the room which happens often in students lives.The mess that we see on the tracking shot to the room shows lots of different objects making it look realistic because it is messy just simular to a students house. We used camera work to represent the who the main characters were. There are mainly only shots of brian to suggest he is the main character but we did not use many camera shots which is what we could have improved on. There is not much to much dialogued used, which wasnt o important in creating the humor as it it came the actions of the charactors.

Audiences

I think our targets audince was the youtube generation and for males and females aged 15-25. this is because we wanted the film to be based on views who would enjoy the comedy genre, people who use recent technology like youtube alot and to people who may have been through simular events like students being poor in the film. We came up with this decision because its all something that all of us in a group had a good idea about and we could share our knowledge to try create a good opening scene.
for our reserch we whatched a couple of comedy films, but we though the opening scene to "dodgeball" was good to what we were wanting. Also we saw that alot of youtube viewers were of a young age, so this helped in the pre production process becuase we knew we had to make a film which will attracted these viewers.
when sampling our film on our target audience, we got different responces. Some said that they got the idea that it would be a teenage comedy movie but they said that camera work wasnt that great. Others said that the camera work helped but the dialogue and mise en scene wasnt that helpful. We learned that our next film we would have to get both problems corrected to make sure the audience knows what the genre is for sure.

Progression from the preliminary task to the main task
the preliminary task got us using the cameras. This helped us when choosing the type of camera shots to take of the characters. It also helped us with music and sound, we used two types of sound in the priliminary task but only one in this task.
In the primilinary task, we made the mistake of not wearing the same clothes sometimes and a big mistake of one of group having a hair cut. which can be found on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6dfdHACHU4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fhannahemilynileshjohn%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2Fsearch%3Fupdated%2Dmax%3D2009%2D01%2D28T03%253A31%253A00%2D08%253A00%26max%2Dresults%3D7&feature=player_embedded.
Final evaluation
in conclusion, i think the film was not a bad success. Analysing the comments that have been said about our film has helped us choose what we would do to the film to help improve it. When i first saw the finished film, i saw mistakes which were shown in the comments. I did like doing the comedy genre, it was fun to do and all our group enjoyed working together and our ideas were shared through out the group. I wouldnt change the genre of the film but i would like to have taken more camera shots for the film so we had more choice on what we put in our opening scene and maybe spent more time on pre production and post production, but this was effected by the weather events and lighting that stopped us from doing out original idea.

Tuesday 21 April 2009

Institution possibilities and audience

I think if our film was to be preduced, it would be done with working title, because it is a scratch idea and is done on a very low budget of nothing, it also contains actors that are young and arent heard of.

Our target audience would probably be older teens and young adults. It would most likely have a rating of 15. We came up with this desicion beacuse there is alot of films with the same target audeince, such as Dodgeball or American Pie, and we could use some of the ideas from other films. Also most of the ratings for our film would be students from our class, so we made our film to target them and todays humour.

Mikel's Evaluation

nice :) easy to get storyline and good use of shots. i know there was some controversy about the music being copyrighted but you stuck with it and i hope and think you should get a decent grade for this :)
(blog may need more detail) i enjoyed watching :) genre didn't need explaining, showed what you wanted to show. Nicely done guys ^ _ ^

Greg's Evaluation

I thoguht the scene was a clever way to star a film it portrays the main character early but doesnt give away the genre, it than slowly sneaks visual gags into the scene and we than become aware of this comedy. I liked the opening sequence, opening the door and walking through the house, i thought this was great use of a point of view shot. The only criticsm i have of this sequence is the use of zoom, i felt although with a proper film camera can be effective, in this instance it did not create an effect that i felt suited the film.

Andy's Evaluation

What i liked about this film was the comedey with boyzie dancing and singing in the mirror. There was a good use of camera shots and the mise en scene was also good. I liked it well done.

Our film

to the respsonce of cat and Abbies comment. I Feel the same about how it is quite a typical comedy starting scene, and i also agree that maybe the zooming needed to be steddier. I can see that the zoom scene is abit wobbly and jerky. To maybe improve on that, we could of done more takes of the zooming shot or to take a close up of the clock. this would eilimate the zoom, give us a steady shot and show off different type of camera shots.

Rachel, Lucy, Nikki and Helen

We thought your film had a good variety of shots and was very comic!The song made your film light hearted and makes the auidence want to watch more! Our favourite shot is the mirror shot, we think it was very well done. The handheld shots make your film seem like a real life documentary.We really liked your film, well done! :)

Zoe's Evaluation

I thought this was really creative, in the shots you have used and the soundtrack. It works well together, and fits in to make a great opening for a film.

Cat and Abbies evaluation

What we like about this film beginning is the fact it reminds us of typical film openings in past comedies. We like the idea about having the film opening centred around the main character and how the personality of the character is clearly portrayed. We especially liked the over the shoulder shot of the charcters face in the mirror because we feel the lighting compliments the character and allows the audience to see his comedic facial expressions and personality clearly.
We do feel however that some of the shots could have been a little steadier. In particular, the zoom shot of the clock seems a bit jerky. We also feel a wider variety of shots could have been used.
Overall, the comedy genre was displayed clearly and it is a good beginning that helps the audience understand and guess what may happen in the rest of the film.

Tuesday 10 March 2009

Good & Bad

Posotives of our finish piece would be...
1. I feel that we have deffinatly got the whole comedy genre and it worked well.
2. I think that the location was good to film in as it was realistic
3. I liked that we have used the music fading in and out i feel it worked really well
4. I believe that our piece was good because of the characters they really played their part well.
5. Finally i really enjoyed making, filming and editing Brians Life.

However... I would have changed:

1.I think we should have used a few more camera shots and angles
2.The filming should connect more especially once getting up from the bed
3. I think we should have finished it a bit more sutterly like ending on a better note

Thursday 26 February 2009

Brian's Life

The finished piece

Because or out situation with the weather and completely changing the idea and reshooting the film at such short notice, i thought our piece was goodish. Obviuosly, we could of done with more time in which to take more shots and to edit, but i think our piece achevied what it was suppose to do, to be a comedy.

Thursday 12 February 2009

our new film

The last week or so have been very busy for our group. We as a group knew that our original idea of making a horror film was going to be very difficult due to weather outside and lighting. So we made a new short film to try and get the best possible marks that we could.

On Monday 9 of febuary, we filmed for our new film which is of the comedy genre. Because we had limited time, weve had very little time to plan how we were going to use camera angles and props in the film. This caused arguments between out group over where to put crops, what types of camerea shots to do like panning, tracking, high angle and low angle. Even though we had not planned, created a script or made a story bored. Hannah and Emily managed to tape enough shots for us to produce a new short clip. In my opinion, i found filming fun and i enjoyed it like my other group mebers did even with the arguments included. I think the downside to our film was that we ddint get enough shot types to show our true producing skills and the diagetic music was also a problem with filming. If we were able to improve on our film, then i would try adding more shots to the film so tehres a high chance that the audience intended understands what the characters will be like in the film.

However, Editing has been a problem for us as stated in the comment below. I, if there is a next time to making or doing something in the editing suite, would like to have more imput into how to cut from scene to scene and have any other influences in making a decision to help improve out film. We would like our followers to add a comment on our movie when it has been posted and tell us the good bits, bad bits and ways of improving our film for future reference.

Thanks, Nilesh Patel

Editing contiued

We have had a lot of trouble with editing our clip. When we fist put all the shots onto the computer we had 26 and slides and when we editing them all down it was 6 and a half minutes long as it could only be a maximum of two minutes we had to cut a lot of it out. We then edited it again and managed to make it two minutes long. At the moment hannah and i are trying to make it as short and good as possible using different editing techniques.

Editing

Over the past couple of days emily and i have been in the editing suite. We have edited the clip before, during and after school. We have spent plenty of time going over and over the clip perfecting the clip.
Since Nilesh's house when we filmed we have got straight to work so that we can meet the deadline of Friday.
Were still working on it now but only have a few more bits and pieces to do.

Wednesday 11 February 2009

Filming

We all went to Nilesh's house after school to film our work. We used lots of different shots and different parts of the house to add variety. We disagreed on a lot of things to do with our film like the music we used and the camera shots we used. We managed to film all of it in the end and in today's lesson and will upload our work once we are done.

Monday 9 February 2009

Filming

Today we are going to be filming our new idea. (Finally).
We have decided that we are going to completely change it and go along with the comical effect. Boyzie(John) will be in the film as the main character and Nilesh will also be in the film. Emily and I will be filming it.
Were hoping to complete it in one day and finishing school early to complete this.

When we have finished this evening, our next media lesson we shall edit it, then get it posted as soon as possible.

Thursday 5 February 2009

Change of plan

Due to the snow that is still here and the snow that is supposed to come in the following days we have had to stop filming our film and change our idea. we now have the idea of doing a comedy inside so that the weather cannot affect our work. We have to film next monday and edit next week as we now only have just over a week until our work needs to be complete. We will upload the little bit of work from our last idea that we have done. As soon as we film some of our new one we will upload it.

Monday 2 February 2009

Snowww

Due to the snow, again we are having to cancel on our filming.
When we finally go back to school we will start recording as soon as possible then

Sunday 1 February 2009

Tomorrow

Hopefully (if the weather is ok) tomorrow we are going to continue with filming after school. When there we are going to have to re-do a take as it is to dark to see. We have also found out hat we can darken the screen when editing to make it look more at night. This will help solve the problems when filming in the day.

Wednesday 28 January 2009

Problems with filming

the last couple of weeks we have struggled with filming. Weather has limited us to filming as we cant have different weathers in different scenes of our film. Different lighitng will not give a good effect to the horror film. Also we had not realised that lighting could be such a problem. As our setting is in the woods, lighing is darker so we have to film before sun light goes. This coming week, we are planning on makign sure we have done all the filming to make sure we can edit before half term.

Saturday 24 January 2009

Our first film

The Strangers Video

This is a film that we have looked at and could possibly use some shots,angles and get a few ideas from.

Thursday 22 January 2009

Sound

We like the sound of Muse, Hysteria we think if we slowed it down a bit it could be a good piece of music to use for our film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0fELeOpenE&feature=related

Review of The Strangers

In our lesson we tried looking for some music, we looked at sound effects, movie trailers and music videos.
We looked at a band called black emporor, we thought that there music was heavy metal so it would not sort our film.
We looked at a heart beat for a sound effect, we are debating weather to use this or not yet.
Finally we watched a few trailers e.g Doom, 28weeks later and the Strangers.
We found that the strangers really suited our film as this is like our film.
We could possibly use the music and we also have some good ideas for some shots. Here is the clip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCU0k_jbCUo

Script

This is the first part of our script. It is as much as we have filmed.


Script


Two girls walk out a house.
Girl 1: Bye dad
Girl 2: Bye!
Dad: Have fun and don’t go through the woods.

The two girls stumble round to the side of the house.
Girl 2: We are really late let’s take a short cut through the woods
Girl 1: No! You have heard the stories my dad told us
Girl 2: There all rubbish
Girl 1: Okay but just this once

They walk through the side gate towards the end of the garden and towards the woods.

Girl 1: I’m really not sure about this!
Girl 2: What’s the worst that could happen?

Girls walk through the gate which creaks and off into the woods. Over to the left you see a creature in the woods. The girls walk off into the distance and you see the creature following them.

Starting our film

We started to film our two minute opening of our film last night. We went to John's house as out the back of his house is the woods. We started about four but we finished about 4:45 as it got dark really quickly and we couldn't see anything in the camera. We managed to film different shots and we have enough work to start editing some today in our lesson. We will need to go back to John's house so we can film the rest of our opening, but will make sure we leave enough time to film enough of it.

Monday 19 January 2009

Our Second Film Ideas

For our next film we have chosen the genre horror. We came up with many ideas about what to do and where. In the end we came up with having the film in Ashtead Common/Epsom. Emily and I would be 'coming home from party' and we decided to take a short cut. However doing this results to our death.
Probs we are going to be using are costumes Hannah&Emily : Jeans Heels and Top
Boyzie: Dark Clothes and probebly a mask of some sort.
We will be using the weapon as a spade & we will be using bottles of wine to achknowlage that Emily and I had been drinking.

Nilesh will be filming the piece. As we are off site we are using |Nileshs Camera and my Tripod.

We were going to film this on Monday 19th but due to people being ill and the weather we are having to re schedule.

Out first piece of coursework

For our first one i thought it was alrite,however it would of been better in many ways.
The first obvious point is that my(boyzie) hair changes three times, this made it look very amatuer and unprofessial, but for our first one, this can be expected. The other thing was that some of film was deleted, this caused a delay in editing as we had to re film a scene. This made the film look rushed in the final scene.

Thursday 15 January 2009

Film Analysis

Over christmas our homework was to analyse 3 films of our genre. We have chosen horror. This is what I came up with.

American Psycho

Sound-
Voice over to explain who the person in the film is, daily life and what they do. This shows importance to the character. Shows main character. Also Non Diagetic sound of background music. This gives the effect of it being eerie sound so knowing the genre.

Camera Angles/Shots-
Most camera shots are short and quick. This is the effect of a rushed life. They have a reflection shot of him in a picture. The picture is from the music Les Miserable. This could show that this person is upset and depressed. This then zooms in onto his face to show a head shot of him. All shots are based at eye level so not to judge the character just yet; this is apart from a shower scene. This is because to show the shelf in this.

Setting-
Setting is in his flat. The flat is has modern equipment and furniture. This shows the era that this is set in. (2000).

Costume and Make Up-
Costume in this is mainly white shorts. This shows perhaps vanity and perfection of the body. White shows purity.

Lighting- Lighting is shown clear and pure.


The Shining

Sound-
Non Diagetic Sounds to set mood which would be quite unsettling. However it becomes deeper to become eerie.

Camera Angles/Shots-
Long Shot at beginning to establish where we are, Panning shot with birds eye view to follow a car. Then have lots of different panning shots at different levels. A man walks into a room. A long shot to establish the room and the people in it. A man wearing a smart suit carrying a plate with dishes on them, indicates a hotel. When he walks over to the desk he puts his hands onto the reception desk representing power. He slowly walks away leaving his hand to be the last thing on it, this confirms the power theory.


Setting-
Location is first set over water. It then changes to woodland, mountains and weather changes from sun to snow to show travel in time. When in the hotel it has a posh setting of a upper class scene. It is set about the 1980’s due to the type writer being used and the clothes.


Costume and Make Up-
Man wearing a dark suit shows wealth but mysterious. The women at reception wearing causal clothes from 1980’s confirms the eerie set in.

Lighting-
All lighting is natural as being filmed outside. When filmed inside the light is from the windows and candles from the chandeliers. In the office it is again lit by lights in the room.



Sweeny Todd

Sound-
The sound being a organ gives a scary effect. Then continues to be even more eerie. Singing is used as dialogue to tell what is happening. Dialogue is also used.

Camera Angles/Shots-
Panning shot of over houses to indicate where we are. The barber’s pole shows that probably in old London. There is a long shot of a boat to show where we are going to be. Close up of face to show detail in expression. Two shots are used to show two people speaking and both expressions at the same time.

Setting-
In London due to seeing the barbers pole. Panning over murky rooftops shows perhaps in a Victorian age. London Bridge rising confirms it being London. Shows many London settings like London Tower. The bad weather can show a bad time.


Costume and Make Up-
Pale makeup to indicate the cold weather. Rings under there eyes to show little sleep which shows that not living in very good conditions. Costumes are dark clothes showing mysterious. The white streak in Sweeny Todd’s hair could indicate him being pure at some point in his life. Also it could be like this because had a shock in his life.

Lighting-
This is made from computer effects making it look like the moon is shining on them.
When off the boat it is lit by the street lights.

Wednesday 14 January 2009

yayy

Yer this is our first bit of filming so its not exactly spielberg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6dfdHACHU4
enjoy, if you actually watch it.

Films

This is the opening to 28 weeks later: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHf6Th-E3kE

Different Openings of Films

We watched different genre films in class. Two of them we watched were Daddy Day Care and 28 weeks later.
Daddy Day Care started with an establishing shot of the house to show where we were. It goes in side and you see a young boy waking up to get ready for the day. Lively music is being played to make it more fun. He walks into the toilet and the music stops. You hear him goign for a wee and then the music starts again. This adds humour so we know its going to be a comedy.
In 28 weeks later, we see a family in a dark room. There are candles on certain people to show their importance. The mother worries about her children who went on a school trip and did not come back before they went into hiding. A disease had been going round and when people get bit by a dieseased person they become a zombie. All of a sudden there is a knock on the door. No one wants to let him in but they realise he is a small boy. The dad lets him in but soon after the zombies are at their house as they followed the boy their. Some of them get bitten and the mum, the dad and the young boy run upstairs. The dad goes to the window and opens it he calls the mum and son over but the zombie comes in so he jumps out the window and runs. There is then a running scene of him going to a river. There is a man with his boat. The zombies follow and he gets in the boat and rows off. We can tell from this opening that it is going to be a horror film where people are running from the zombies.
As a group we prefered the horror film so we chose horror as the genre of our own film.

Tuesday 13 January 2009

Our horror movie

From some of the trailers we saw in class, i think camerea angles movements and sounds will need to be taken into account with some thought. There are many ways which we can create the intensity for the film but choosing the right one could be a problem when editing the movie. in my opinion, slow, dark eary music would be great for the woodland setting.

Tuesday 6 January 2009

Our two minute trailer

We have to film the opening two minutes of a film for our coursework. We decided to do a horror film. Our idea is for two girls to be walking from a train station after a party. They are late so they decide to take a short cut through the woods. You see the back of a man digging a hole in the middle of the woods. As they are walking through they hear noises and see shadows so they start to run. Then you hear them both scream and this scream fades. The whole film would be about the man being a stalker and a murderer and kills these two girls and goes on to kill more throughout it. We will use different camera angles in the trailer to add tension. We will also use different music in the beginning it will be happy music and then as soon as the girls get scared it will change to a heartbeat again to add tension.