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 :) 

Mise-en-Scene of our Main Task

COSTUME - Although you won't see a lot of our character in our opening sequence, the clothing she will be wearing is quite childish looking pyjama's as she is supposed to be in bed asleep. Make-up will be kept to a minimal as she is supposed to be a child and in bed people don't tend to wear too much make-up.

 

LIGHTING- Fitting to a horror, the lighting's going to be quite dark, also because it's supposed to be night it's the colours going to be changed to blu-ish hues.  

 

ACTOR- Our actor is going to be a portaying a young child so it increases the vulnerability of our character .

 

MOVEMENT - The movement we are planning to use in our main task is going to be quite slow, to draw out the tension and suspense.

 

PROP'S - Jewelry Box - This adds suspense and an element of wonder as the jewelry box opens on it's own.

The Dolls and Teddy Bears - show the childish nature of the character

Clock- The clock show's that it is night giving the scene a creepier feel

 

SOUND- Sound is an important part of our opening sequence. The main sound is the ticking of the clock and the jewelry box music which creates a nostalgic feel to piece.

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.

Insidious clip

Here is our version of the Insidious clip. We tried to include every shot and movement in our clip, especially the movement at around 10 seconds. This camera movement was achieved by Katie on a wheely chair, zooming out whilst being pushed forward by Joel to create an unsettling effect. Another example of this camera movement is in Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg.                                                                      

We had some difficulties whilst filming, especially to get all the different shot right. What we found we needed to improve was our storyboarding as we had to refer to the clip, whereas we should've been able to rely on our storyboards.   

                                                                    Thanks for reading :)