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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.