Storyboard - Main Task

Here are our storyboards for our main task. We've changed and changed and changed our idea, but finally we decided on our story.

 

 

Poster Analysis

As I am thinking of creating a poster for my media evaluation q.5- I decided it would good research to look at a poster which is of the similar genre to our. I chose the Insidious poster -

Looking at and analysing has really helped me to learn what makes a good poster in the horror genre. 

Evaluation Planning

After we have finished our Main Task we have to evaluate it. We have seven questions to answer and it is advised that we use different medias to answer the question.

In this blog post I will share what I am planning to do in order to answer these seven questions.

 

1st Question- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge the forms and conventions of real media products?

 For this question we need to link it to research we have done about our chosen genre, such as camera shots and movement, colour correction and title style. For this I might look at using a PowerPoint to be able to pinpoint specific moments in our opening sequence or perhaps a directors commentary where I can pause it to be able to talk about how our opening sequence uses, develops or challenges conventions.

 

2nd Question- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

For this question again we need to again link to research and particularly audience research that we have done. Also I need to think about our actor and how she is presenting young girls in our opening sequences. In terms of response I think I will use the interview technique so that someone can ask me questions about the opening sequence and I can hopefully answer the question better.

3rd Question- What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

 Here we need to identify the different media outlets we know such as cinema or straight to TV or DVD? Or perhaps even stream it online on website such as Netflix or just YouTube. It would be good I think to create a poster if we were thinking of distributing it in a cinema to show that we have thought about how films that do go to cinema are presented. For this I might just speak to the camera. For example from research online I found a video that shows what I plan to do- Here's the link -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xd7XFs7jsM0 I think this type of format works really well as it engages you with the audience.

4th Question- Who would be the audience for your film?
This is specific to audience research so what I might do is ask people who they think the audience for our opening sequence is and then record this making sound bites that I can add to a video I do expressing my view about who I think the audience is for.

5th Question- How did you attract/ address your audience?
Here is would be good to talk about advertising our opening sequence. I think I will make a DVD pocket or a poster as these attract people into watching films. For example a poster from the film the Conjuring conveys the tone of the film and gets the audience's attention-
 Also other ideas could be radio ad's, trailers etc... For this I think I will do a PowerPoint or blog post as then I can show pictures of what I want to create.

6th Question- What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
For this I will talk about all the equipment used in making our opening sequence in all 3 stages of production. I again might do a PowerPoint or just sitting down and talking to the camera. From the same person I showed earlier here is another example- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3fTPu48f0Y. I like how she has used actual clips of her using the equipment and I will be thinking of using this idea in my response. I also like the idea of using a website as a way to present what I have learnt.

7th Question- Looking back at your preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the final product?
Here I will analyse how my skills have progressed. For this I want to do a podcast or perhaps a side by side video commentary. I think a good idea for this would be to do a group evaluation as then we can think about what we all learnt.

Thanks for reading :)
 

Audience Research

 When creating our opening sequence we need to think about our audience as we need to think about the age rating of our opening sequence. The media industry spends millions making sure they are giving the audience what they want by doing lots of audience research.

For the our production we will need to know-

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Who our audience is

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Age/interests/views/opinions

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What other types of media they consume

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How they consume it

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Where do they get it from

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Who they identify themselves with

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How much they consume

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Who they consume it with

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The effect it has on them and the effect they have on it

 After doing some research, the target audience seems to be around the age of 15-25. An answer on Ask suggest this idea -

"The target audience of a horror movie is usually teenagers who are mostly curious and daring. This is because most horror films involve unknowing naive teenagers as the main protagonists."

This fits with what we thought it would be in our original production pitch


I also did poll and Facebook and Blogger- asking -What age of audience is the most likely to go see a psychological thriller/horror? - 10-14, 15-20, 21-29, 30+?
80% of people asked responded with 15-20 years old, which was what I expected. From this I think we should be targeting  our opening sequence at people aged 15 and above.

Media Trip to BFI about Youth, Media and Collective Identity

On Wednesday 5th Feb Y12 and Y13 Media Studies students went to Southbank in London to visit the BFI. What it involved was presentations from Matthew Hall, where we got to learn about psychoanalysts such Jacques Lean, and also about psychanalytic film theory, which is how we use the cinema/TV screen as  a 'mirror' to reinforce our identity. We also looked at how the role of the teenager has changed from the late 19th Century till the present day.

Later we watched some clips from various films such as The Wild One, Quadrophenia and Kidulthood. We were then asked to analysis and write down what we thought the dominant messages sent about youth was. For example in Quadrophenia (the clip on the right), message sent about youth is that they are loud, misbehaving and out of control. For the audience watching at the time it was released in 1979 this would perhaps promote a negative view on youth, however some may feel nostalgic as the film, set in the 60's, could remind the audience of their own life. Many of the clips we watched showed a negative view of youth, mainly painting them as rebellious.

 

 

 

 

We then watched a film called My Brother, The Devil, directed by Sally El Hosaini. It tried to portray what life was like for teenagers growing up in Hackney, with gangs, family drama and a twist, overall I thought it was quite a good film. After the film we had a Q&A with one of the producers which was very helpful as we learnt about how and why they did what they did in the film. I found this very useful and interesting and it gave me a lot to think about in terms our my own opening sequence.

As a side-note it would be really helpful to me if when you have finished reading this, if you could vote in the pole I put up.
Thank you :) 

Ones to Watch in 2014

I thought I would share 3 films that I'm excited about watching in 2014, and why :)

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Firstly is a film called Divergent. IMDb describes the plot as "a teenager with a special mind, who finds her life threatened when an authoritarian leader seeks to exterminate her kind in her effort to seize control of their divided society." Which may sound like every other teen film around at the moment e.g. The Hunger Games, and although similar I believe Divergent to be different. As a reader of the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth, I was equally as excited and nervous about a film adaptation. I was worried that with like many film adaptations of books it would look cheesy and not how I imagined it, however looking at the recent trailers and with actors such as Kate Winslet, I think this film will be a real success.

Release Date UK - 4th April

Trailer-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sutgWjz10sM

 Secondly is X-Men: Days of Future Past

Directed by Bryan Singer, this is the sequel to 2011's X-Men First Class. The premise for the film is that the X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods. The characters from the original X-Men film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from X-Men: First Class in a battle that must change the past – to save their future. With amazing actors such as Hugh Jackman and James McAvoy, I think this film will be a definite must-see.

                                                                 

 Release Date- 23rd May (US)

Trailer -http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK2zYHWDZKo

 

Thirdly is The Fault in our Stars

 

Hazel and Gus are two teenagers who share an acerbic wit, a disdain for the conventional, and a love that sweeps them on a journey. Their relationship is all the more miraculous given that Hazel's other constant companion is an oxygen tank, Gus jokes about his prosthetic leg, and they met and fell in love at a cancer support group. Having read the book I am really looking forward to the film

 

Release Date - 20th June

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ItBvH5J6ss

 

Deep and Shallow Focus

Deep and Shallow Focus are part of the composition of a shot. They both are used to create different effects in a film.

Deep focus is where the whole image is in focus -

Here is a example taken from the film 500 Days of

Summer, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Here all of the shot is in focus.

However Shallow focus is the opposite. One object or part of the shot will be in focus whilst the other is not. Typically its used to emphasise one part of the image over the other. Below again is an example from 500

Days of Summer. It shows Summer (Deschanel) in focus, whilst Tom (Gordon-Levitt) and the background are out of focus to emphasised Summer and her actions.

 

I wanted to look at deep and shallow focus because I was thinking about how we might be able to use them in our opening sequence, perhaps to emphasize important parts of the scene.

Todays Minutes

In our lesson today we made some critical decisions about our Main Task, before we start filming tomorrow. Some things we have decided to add in include :

1. A ticking clock. We had the idea of using a music box to provide the source of our sound, but before that we are thinking of adding a ticking clock sound, and with every other tick the shot changes to different locations in the room, preferably more creepy things, such as china dolls. After the music starts were going to make our movement more move and flowing so that it creates the sense that the monster is dancing to the music.  
2. We have decided what to film for the nightmare. We will have our actor (Katie) in a dark room alone with several whispers surrounding her.
3. We had a discussion about titles. In a previous blog I talked about the importance of titles and how they can add or detract from an opening sequence. Today we finalised what our titles would be and the order in which they appear.

Minutes from our previous meeting can be seen on Joel's blog - http://joelurner.blogspot.co.uk/

 

We looked at some other students AS Main Task Opening Sequences and noticed how titles were incorporated into theirs. A good example of how titles are used was in this opening sequence called Inner Evil-    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLsiGGF9DPc

I particularly liked how the titles faded in and out, as I felt it fitted well the genre of this piece -

 

I liked how they were simple so that they did not detract from the piece. For our scene we don't want to use white as the colour for our titles as we feel it would stand out too much against our dark setting.

Scenes to Inspire

 In class we were told to choose a clip that showed what we loved about film. For my clip I chose the film Now You See Me (2013) directed by Louis Leterrier. Below is the clip-

I chose this because it has what I love about film. Not only was this film visually spectacular, it also made me think. It made me question what was going. This is what I love about film: It's ability to make you capture your emotions. It's the same reason I like to read; the ability to take you on a journey, whether visual or in your mind. It can make you forget what's going on and just focus on the magic of film. 

In particular, with this scene, I like the on-screen tension with the actors. They really become their actors, which I find makes a film. It's the same with Heath Ledger and Christian Bale in The Dark Knight. Both actors bounce-off each other creating movie scenes that you will remember.  

 

Things that I can apply to our own opening sequence are very clean cuts and shot transitions. This makes the action run more smoothly and therefore is easier to watch.

Titles

As titles are very important in an opening sequence, as a group, we decided to analyse where titles occurred so that we could get an idea of where to put the titles in our opening sequence. We decided to take a look at The Conjuring (2013) as our genre for our opening sequence is psychological thriller/horror.

 Here's the link to the title sequence- http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-conjuring/

We created a timeline of where the titles appeared-

What we found interesting was that the director (James Wan) came up first which is very unusual as normally the director is shown last. As a group we liked the idea of having the name of the film last so that is stuck in the audiences mind. 

Sound

Sound is very important in film and TV programmes. It is 50% of your film experience.

Diegetic Sound is sound whose source is visible on the screen, such as dialogue, whereas Non-Diegetic Sound is sound that comes from nothing within the field of vision and has been added on afterwards.

Other sound definitions include-

Sound Motif- A sound associated with a character or with a place, e.g humming of machinery associated with a factory. A character may have a particular musical figure that plays when they appear.

Direct Address- This is when a narrator or character speaks directly to the audience, not to characters within the scene.  This technique means the characters interacts with their audience. 

Here's an example of this taken from the popular TV show Miranda, starring Miranda Hart-

 Here Miranda directly speaks to the camera and also turns to looks at the camera, making it more comical.

Score- This is music composed, arranged and played specifically for the production.

Incidental Music- This is non-diegetic music that accompanies events or changes of scenes.

Themes- This is music that always accompanies a particular programme or even a particular character and suits its mood. 

Voice-over- This is where a voice from the outside the scene gives the audience information. Often the voice tells us the story and may be a character within the story. In TV programme Desperate Housewives, a character is the narrator even though she is not alive. 

Sound Bridge- This is where the sound, either non-diegetic or diegetic, continues across one or more transitions or cuts. 

Thanks for reading :)

Semiotics

Semiotics means the study of signs. It helps us to understand images and visual signs.

All communication is possible through signs.

Key names in the history of semiotics are Charles Sanders Pierce, Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes. All three influenced the development of semiotics.  

Connotation and denotation are very important when discussing semiotics. Denotation is literally what you can see, whereas connotation is what is inferred by the image or the emotional suggestions related to the image. 

The denotation of this image= Woman, with blond hair, wearing white dress, in the style of a wedding dress. 

Connotation of this image= It's her wedding day.  She's probably happy. The white dress also suggests purity and innocence,while it's in a style that is associated with Western weddings. 

Camera Shot Analysis

In class we were told to get into pairs and analyse a film clip's camera shots, following on from last lesson. My pair decided to analyse a clip from X-Men First Class (2011) starring Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy. During this clip there are many interesting camera shots that all add to the effect of the film, so I decided to take a few examples.

    First here's the clip:

First example is a reverse shot form 0.03-0.09 seconds in the clip there is a reverse shot, which is where a character is seen looking back at another, unseen, character. This kind of shot brings the eyes in, signifying that the next thing you will see is going to be important. The effect can be very unsettling.

At 0.22 seconds we see a low angle shot, emphasising Fassbender's characters, Magneto, dominance and power, also because it's a medium close up shot we can see how his body is positioned in a very dominant stance.                                            A screen capture from that moment here- 

0.51 seconds shows a long shot being used so the audience can see the destruction that has just occurred, allowing us to learn more about the scene.

At 1.46 seconds there is a medium close up of Rose Byrne's character, Moira MacTaggert, which really emphasises the distress her characters face allowing the audience to experience what her is really feeling.

From 4.12-4.30 seconds there are many different close ups because it's is important for the audience to see what how each character has real emotion when Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) is shot. The close-up shot of Charles Xavier after he gets shot is very effective as you really see his pain and emotion.

Here's a screenshot of this moment-