Teletubbies start

This is my recreation of the teletubbies opening sequence. I made this in aftereffects. I stole images of the babies face and of the setting from google. To make it seem like night going into day I just changed the opacity and the brightness to work in time as the sun comes.I drew shape layers and played with the opacity and blurs to make the sun. I am happy with the way it turned out because you can tell what it is supposed to be but I also think I could have spent a little longer perfecting it.

My genre

I chose to do sci-fi thriller. This is because that my original idea (of having a speaker that effects peoples moods) fits the sci-fi genre and then I think that adding the thriller aspect into it could make it more intresting.

An example of thriller is the film Psycho:

Thriller often includes tension, an apsect of fear and the outcome of the film being difficult to predict. I think this makes the film more intresting as you want to watch the film to find out what will happen.
In thriller most of the time people's lives will be in danger or something bad has happened or will happen. Thriller films are usually aimed at an adult audience as it is difficult to convey the themes of a thriller to children.

An example of sci-fi is the film Alien:

People often see sci-fi as a nerdy genre full of space ships and lasers. It actually covers a large range of things, such as aliens and monsters, meaning that it can appeal to a lot of people. The audience they attract can go from a small audience of people to most people because of the large amount of things that come under the sci-fi genre. It is often mixed with other genres to try and attract a larger audience, such as sci-fi thriller or sci-fi horror.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Genre

What is it?
It is a way of classifying films into similar categories. It makes it easy for audiences to choose what film they want to watch, for example if they want to be scared they would choose a horror. It also means that the produces of the film will know who the film will appear to so can market is as such instead of having to watch the whole film. The audience have expectations of films because of it's genre.

Sub genres
When a film producer or writer wants to create something new of different then they may make a new genre or a spin off from the original genre. These are called sub genres. An example of this is the film Lord of the Rings, this is a sci-fi fantasy action. Sub genres can appeal to many people as they contain things that a lot of people like or they can have the opposite effect, they may only appeal to a small number of people that like that kind of thing.

How this influenced my genre choice:
After researching what genre is I decided that I should go for one of the main genres such as comedy or thriller as more sucsessful films have been made so I have more films to look at for inspiration .

David Fincher

How does he approach the opening of a film:

He will use the opening as a way for the audience to make their own judgements on what the film will be about. He often uses no characters or only small shots of the characters in these opening sequences (a good example is the opening to "fight club"). This kind of beginning leaves the audience to interpret it as they will and also raises a lot of questions which is engaging and hooks the audience.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/fight-club/

His film se7en:

What in connotes: 2 images of hands side by side seem to represent the good and bad or light and dark, they could also be showing power of things and they close up of the hands means they will be important or play a larger part in the film to come. The dirty hands are a good way of showing the rough grittiness of the film or the non-caring mind state of the person if his hands are dirty.

What it denotes: The hands are dirty and unclean, which could be the same for the whole of the person. So they could be unclean or just hard working. The book shows a story that is abouts to unfold and something that has been carefully gone over and planned may be abouts to occur. It could also show an obsessive personality if the person has spent time to document something.

What do we think will happen: Something dark and bloody will happen along with possible psychological thriller themes. The twisted non-diegetic music gives the idea of a twisted, messed up story line and characters. Religion is also shown at the beginning as being disgraced or something similar which makes you think of a hateful film or a film which has a large influence from satanism.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/se7en/

Preliminary Task

This is my preliminary task. We used shot reverse shot and a tracking shot. We also used the 180 degree rule so that the audience don't feel confused on who is talking.

I think that the editing is good as there is no jump cuts or conuity errors. I think that the by following the 180 degree rule and shot reverse shot the scene is easy for the auidence to follow.

Mine and Andy's acting wasn't amazing though.

Script Writing

We had a lesson when we wrote very very rough drafts to the opening of our film. We learnt the formatting that a movie script needs to be put into. Font must be Courier, must be size 12 and all the lines must be correctly indented. This is done so that everyone can understand what part of the script is what and each page should last roughly 1 minute. So if a company receives a script that is 45 pages long then they can guess its going to be about 45 mins long without even reading the whole thing.

example of a script correctly formatted.

 

We talked about how slug lines (scene headings) and the action description (mise en scene) help set up the scene and can connotate a lot. Reading it helped me realise that sometimes you don't need much dialogue for the audience to know whats going on and sometimes it's better to have as little as you can.

Company Ident

Street kid films: my company ident made using flash

My idea for the ident was to have something that looked casual and was a full animation. At first I was going to have the boy kick over a bin and have the words street kid films fall out but then I changed my mind because that people might then think that the film company was rubish, because it came out of the bin. So I was going to have the gurder swing down and knock the whole of the boy away and then it zoom in on the gurder and the words street kid films be written on them. But then as the head is the strongest aspect of the animation I decided to have just the head come off and the camera to follow that as it bounces into the next scene where street kid films appear.

Pitch

This is my idea for my film. I think that my main character should be a teenager or 20-25 year old. The genre is sci-fi thriller/horror. I think that it will be mainly set in a normal house and I will have to make little videos to be news reports or something similar that the character will see. If you actually want to find out what the idea is watch the video.

Foley task

We had to make a short video using a lot of foley so that we could get used to using that technique. Our idea was to do a joke Dragons Den style video on someone selling fart shoes. We chose this idea as it is funny and gave us a large range of different and amusing foley effects to put in. I am happy with the acting in the video but I think that I could have spent some more time editing it as at parts it is a bit sloppy. For example the fart noises aren't perfectly timed and there is a jump shot during the main pitch. The foley we put in was door squeak, voice over, telephone conversation, jingle and the fart noises.

Shot/reverse shot

This is an example of a shot reverse shot scene we made. We used master, close ups and reverse shots. I am averagely happy with how it came out but I would have rather used recorded speech and put this in afterwards as there is a lot of wind noise throughout. I also found getting the editing smooth to be slightly difficult be I think I got the hang of it after a while.

Title sequences

I am analysing Saul Bass's work and seeing if I like his title sequences. I have chosen to look at 3.

Bunny Lake Is Missing http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/bunny-lake-is-missing/

Music: Is calm and relaxing but at the same time slightly sinister. This makes you think about how the film might be creepy and scary. The calmness makes you think that the character may be more of a calm collected killler or similar to that. It also picks up at times to help create suspense. The ripping of the paper also

 

Graphics: They are very simple, it's just one person ripping black paper to reveil a white background with credits on. The person is also ripping it calmy and what seems to be carefully. It ends with them ripping out the shape of a small child. This gives the idea that the character ripping the paper is a calm collected man but at the same time on a bit of an edge, maybe mentally unstable. The outline of a small girl being ripped out makes you wonder what happened to the girl and why. This makes it feel like the rest of the film is going about a clam psychopath.

 

My feelings on it: I thought it was a good title sequence as it works well being so simple and it sets the scene well. But in the middle it got a bit repetitive watching a man rip paper to reveil names. The outline of a girl being ripped out was a good twist though.

 

Cape Fear http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/cape-fear/

 

Music: The music uses alot of strings to give it more of a dark feel and a larger amount of tension. It makes you wonder whats going to happen or if anything bad has already happened.

 

Graphics: It is a shot of a lake that looks like it is slightly choppy water. It occasionally has reflections in the water. The credits appearing look distorted. This all helps to give the feel that something bad has happened and probably to do with the water. The water also changes colours to greens and reds which gives the idea of murder or something is rotting. The reflection of a bird of prey connotes that something or someone is being hunted or similar. Along with the reflection of a man looking into the water you start to think that someone was drowned or similar.

 

My feelings on it: I like the distortion the text and water gives along with the reflections as they make you want to know more. However I found the music a bit repetitive which made me feel like the whole thing was very repetitive. The reflections did break this up but there wasn't enough of them for me to not find it repetitive.

 

It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/its-a-mad-mad-mad-mad-world/

 

Music: The music was very upbeat and happy which made you feel like it was going to be a light hearted film in the comedy genre. The music would also pick up speed as something bigger was happening on screeen so it worked well.

 

Graphics: It has a block colour background that changes and the drawings on it had a very doodley feel to them, this added to the light hearted feel of it. It had a globe with a little man running around near it and getting trapped in the globe or run over by it ect. He would also stick the credits to the screen. As the things that would happen to the globe were very random and creative but somehow linked together it made you want to try to guess what was going to happen next. This also added to the funny and light hearted feel to the title sequence. 

 

My feelings on it: I think that it was a good title sequence beacuse that it worked very well with the music. I also liked how it had a very casually doodle theme which I think also goes well with the title of the film.

 

This is the first video I have made in media studies. The genre is thriller.

 It is the opening scene. The idea for the film is that a girl is being followed by a villain. I am quite happy with what I have done as I think it makes you question the sanity of the main character, I think that the fragmented narrative gives it this effect, but I would have liked to use less crosscuts so that it is less confusing and has more of a story line. I think that a larger range of angles could have made it more interesting.

I tried to edit it quickly, in the example of Hot Fuzz the editor Chris Dickens uses alot of short shots to speed up the pace and I tried to do the same. I also used lots of cross cuts so the audience is confused of whats going on and have to think more. Cross cutting also builds tension so I tried to use it alot as tension is a big part of the thriller genre. Towards the end there a tilt shot of the villain. I think this slows down the pace for a short while. At times to try and slow down the pace I used dissolves, like when the main character is walking across the field. This gives the audience a chance to try and decide what they think is going to happen. I decided to end the scene with the clips being increased in speed and reversed so that it could then lead onto a more diachronic film.

And so it begins..

HELLO!!!! This is the blog that I will be using to post my Media Studies work. Hopefully it will all be good and you will like it :D