Some more filming...

On Monday, me Jack and Max went to Marlborough common to do some more filming. Due to the very wet grass we had to change some of our scenes. The scene where I was supposed to fall over, we changed to me stopping at a tree in shock and shouting "what do you want?". We also added a few more shots at the start of our film which I think have worked really nicely. After putting the film onto the computer and editing it using iMovie, we as a group have decided that we need to do some changing. We have decided that we are going to take some of the hand held shots out and replace them with normal shots using a tripod, decided that some shots need to be made shorter and we have also decided that we are going to add something into the opening title that will start with something like '3 weeks earlier'. Hopefully this will make the opening titles a little bit more clearer but still keep the audience guessing. So far it is all coming together nicely and we need to start designing a logo and getting some music made for our film!

Film Treatment

Film treatment

For our coursework we have to film a 2 minute film opening. To do this we have had to plan the whole film to be able to get an idea what the opening will be like. The plot to our film is about a teenage boy, who is lonely, and has to face a nasty group of bullies every day at school. There is a main bully whom is a girl that torments him so much that he cannot take it anymore. The film demonstrates a few deaths and the mystery of who is making these killings. The opening of our film will start with somebody’s eyes closing. It will then involve a chase between two people, a boy and a girl – the boy chasing the girl. This will take place at dusk in a quiet area. None of the shots will reveal the boy’s face as we don’t want the murderer to be revealed. The film will capture the girl falling over and will then show the boy slowly becoming closer and closer.  The shot then fades to black and changes to a shot of someone’s eyes opening, followed by a series of shots of this person getting ready for school. Hopefully this will give the impression of the chase being a dream – even though it wasn’t.  Hopefully the chase will create tenseness for the viewer as the genre is a thriller.

Ideas for filming locations and casting:

·         Marlborough common

·         Must be at dusk (just getting dark) so this is using some pathetic fallacy

·         One of our houses to film the character getting ready for school

·         Max Tonkin is a possible actor for one of our characters

·         I am also a possible actor for one of our characters

·         For the bullies we are planning on asking a group of our friends to act this part out for us

I have asked one person some questions so that I can create a profile for a typical audience member. My profile for a typical audience member:

Name: Lewis Philcox

Age: 17

Occupation: Student at Gloscat

Gender: Male

Dislikes: Reading books

Likes: Cars and Indian food

Interests: music, films, cars, mechanics

Looks up to/idolizes: Gabriele Tarquini

Musical preferences: dance, dubstep, euphoria

Ambitions: Become a mechanic

Media consumer habits: watches tv for a couple of hours in the evening, watches tv more at the weekends. Tends to watch a film or two at the weekend, mostly on DVD but sometimes on the internet. Goes to the cinema now and again with friends. Loves to watch Top Gear on Dave.

 Taking into consideration the typical audiene profile that I have just created, below is a picture of what a typical member of our audience would probably look like.

This is our (mine and Jack's) animatic of the story board I drew. It is just a brief outline of what will happen in our opening. I drew the pictures in pencil and then outlined them in a dark pen. I then captured each picture on a camera, uploaded them onto the Apple Mac's and turned all the pictures into an animatic using iMovie.

Coursework Preliminary

We had to film our preliminary which is 15 marks towards our final grade in our coursework. We had to use a number of shots in this video and we had to show somebody walking through a door and then sitting down and having a conversation with another character. To do this we used a classroom at school and we used two of our friends to be the characters in the preliminary. Whilst editing the film we decided to experiment with music for it. At the time we thought it sounded ok, although we are not so keen on it now! However, it's the shots and filming that count!

Using iMovie

iMovie is an application on Apple Mac computers which allows users to edit their home made videos. In more recent years it has become an application that is also used to edit some successful films.
When we first filmed our preliminary and were told that we had to edit it on iMovie I was very unsure as I had never used an Apple Mac before, never mind iMovie. Thankfully, I had a friend who was experienced with iMovie as he already owned a Mac. It was really helpful of him to talk me through using iMovie in the lesson and he showed me how to cut, crop and add lots of different affects to the film. By the end of the lesson I felt more confident but still a little worried on how I was going to use it by myself. Eventually I started to get used to it and understand it more, therefore I managed to successfully edit some of the preliminary. I managed to add a title at the start and credits at the end. I also managed to add in a few affects between some of the shots so that they blended in together more nicely.
I am still not 100% certain on how to use iMovie but much more than I was to start with. I only know the basics, and there is probably, I'm sure, a lot more depth that the application goes into to create fantastic results. I still have much more to learn, however in time, I am sure I will get there.

Filming 'The Breakfast Club'

A few weeks back we filmed our own take on one of the scenes from the film 'The Breakfast Club'. It was a fun task and the whole class took part in different roles to create the scene. Some of the class acted in the scene, whilst others filmed, directed or edited.
I learnt that it is crucial to involve many different camera shots to succeed in making a good film. If you keep on using the same old angles then the viewing can become boring for the audience. An effective camera shot can sometimes even play with the viewers emotions by adding different affects. For example if you were filming a thriller and you wanted to use the typical shot of filming a character from someone else's perspective i.e from behind a tree looking towards the character, then this gives the feeling of someone watching them which creates tenseness. Although we didn't use shots like this because 'The Breakfast Club' isn't a thriller, we still used a good range of angles so that there was variety.
I also learnt that you have to be very precise when cutting between shots. For example if you were filming someone walking towards a door and pulling a handle down, but you then decided that you wanted to film them walking through the door from the other side then you have to make sure that you get the camera in the correct place and height so that it will flow fluently. This is also the same for editing. You must make sure that when cutting down a shot that it blends in nicely with the next shot otherwise it will not flow and will seem jumpy. This is not the effect you want.
In editing the scene I learnt that there are many different affects you can use on iMovie. It is all down to personal preforations of the editor and what he/she thinks is best. However, editing is a very important part of creating a film and a badly edited film usually means, an unsuccessful one too!

Comparison of the Opening Scene of The Hangover and The Ring

Comparison of the Opening Scene of The Hangover and The Ring

Every film has a film opening; they always vary in time length and are unique. I have chosen two very different films from the comedy genre and the horror genre. I will compare both their film openings by the conventions that they use.

The Ring has a rather unique film opening in the fact that it has no details of the cast and crew or even the film’s title. The opening here is more based around setting the scene and the actual story line for the film. The two characters that we see in the opening aren’t even main characters so we therefore can’t be introduced to them properly or relate to them as you would expect to with a main character. The very first shot is a long shot and it is showing the mise en scene which happens to be a cottage-like house all on its own, at night, which gives you an indication of the place and how the scene may be. The fact that it’s raining and you can most definitely here the rain,  (pathetic fallacy) adds to the mood of the scene and also makes you think/realise the tone in which the scene will be. This also gives an indication of the genre that the film is along with the lighting throughout the opening which happens to be very dull but in a way almost quite clinical. This lighting is echoed throughout the film and always gives the film a tense feeling.  We can tell by the two girls and what they are wearing in the scene that it is a modern day story that is set in present day and that this is most definitely when the rest of the film will be set. There is strangely no theme tune either, unlike most film openings. The only music in the opening scene is when the camera zooms in on the clock and there is a brief piece of music which sounds like something is zooming in, almost giving the impression of something getting closer, in this case, something frightening. The tenseness builds up more and more throughout the opening until something nasty happens to one of the girls right at the end, although we don’t know exactly what it is that happens. We see evidence of her face looking very pale and almost monster-like as the camera very quickly zooms in onto her face as an extreme close up. This leaves us asking the question, “What happens/happened to her?”

In comparison, The Hangover does use the details of the cast and crew. These appear after the main part of the opening, one at a time, in front of a scenic aerial shot of either a desert road or Las Vegas – the setting of the film. After about 2 minutes, when the main part of the opening is finished, the theme song starts playing and the shot moves up into the clouds and blends into a white screen with ‘The Hangover’ written in bright red, capital letters. We get a brief introduction of one of the main character’s, Phil, and we start to get ideas of how this character may be and his personality. This could even make us start to gain a thought of what the other characters may be like in the friendship group and how they could all relate in some way to the film. The start of the main opening shows the mise en scene which is a wedding venue and we also see the bride panicking in her room with her parents because the groom isn’t back from what we must assume as his ‘stag’ night. This gives us an idea that the film will relate to a group of people rushing back in time for a wedding. After the title of the film has appeared we see desert roads and we also start to see some famous landmarks of Las Vegas which reveals where the film is going to be based – in Las Vegas. Again, exactly the same as The Ring, we can tell by the costumes that the characters are wearing, that the film is set in present day and is modern – a modern film is much more relatable for an audience because this means that not just the look of the film will be modern but the characters will have personalities like a modern day person, this will also make it more funny. The lighting is realistic and the use of pathetic fallacy through the weather, which is sunny, is providing us with a sense that the film is going to be light hearted and comical. There are no huge clues about the genre of the film although there is a slight hint on one of the voicemails that the bride rings and it says, “Hey it’s Phil, leave me a message, but don’t text me... It’s gay!”. This hints at the comedy genre as it’s a full grown man saying not to leave a text because according to him it’s “gay”!

The film opening of The Ring definitely draws its target audience in straight away. It does this by having something dramatic happen very suddenly – there is no waiting around, the film gets straight to the point. The first minute of the film then goes onto one of the main characters, a very young boy, sat in a class room, drawing. Because this is such a change from the opening it draws the audience in and makes them wonder firstly, “what was the opening about?”, and secondly “who is this boy?”. On the other hand, The Hangover doesn’t hugely grab the target audience attention until ‘Phil’ appears, talking on the other end of the phone to the Bride. Once we realise that they have got themselves into trouble and say that they won’t be able to make it back in time for the wedding, we automatically get drawn in because we want to know why they won’t be back in time and from this we can tell that this is what the film will be about.

A typical film will use the technique of having an opening that gives you a brief idea of what the film is going to be about.  It will be short and snappy and hopefully draw you in straight away. The opening, however, doesn’t necessarily have to draw the target audience in straight away because people decide to watch films mainly from seeing trailers on television. If the trailer draws them in then they will most probably want to see the film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYkw8PMyGAc&feature=related (The Ring - Opening Scene)