My evaluation site

http://chrisw54r.wix.com/media-evaluation2014

Final OTS (can no. 6906)

Final opening title sequence - VIOLENT DESIRE from Georgia Smith on Vimeo.

Continuity task

our production logo

I first chose to edit the main picture on Microsoft paint, a simple drawing program which allowed me to draw the basic design                                                     

I then moved the logo onto the Microsoft paint.net program which is similar to Photoshop to add the text and sharpen the lines.










We wanted to make a production logo that would fit into the generic style of other logo's, that is why it is simplified, mainly to do with brand recognition, the simplicity and bold colours combined creates an easy logo to remember.

class discussion ( video ) for our OST

Noir OST : Animatic

Our animatic for our OST

for our animatic we decided to use real images rather than drawn as it gives a better visualisation both for us and people who want to review our plans so far. Our animatic will of course, be a lot longer it is here to provide a basic view of our narrative.

Deconstructing this example

• institution & film industry
• representation
• audience

Institution & film industry

we knew that typical of the film industry were drawn pictures used for an animatic, we decided to use real still images as it gives a precise visualisation of what the final piece should look like, this benefits both us and our peers in evaluating our OST.

Representation

although lighting did not play a part in our animatic, which looking back was probably confusing for people who look at our animatic, obviously lighting will play a major part in our final production as it is conventional for the genre, dark lighting and high contrast. In conclusion, our OST is not a brilliant representation for our final cut film but it does however, it does provide us with a ground basis on which we can evaluate and change our plans.

Audience

Our animatic is aimed at our audience, so I feel that this gives us a good opportunity to gain the kind of feedback from our target audience, which we have done with our storyboard. Our target audience is 15 and over so we will try to encourage older and younger viewers, we tried to do this by having relatively young actors but with an adult theme, we think this will maximise our audience range and appeal to the target audience.

OST planning : age rating

Our age classification for our OST. (Georgia, Sam and Chris) We encountered a problem with what class our film should fit into.

18 class This includes Very strong violence – defined as having violence portrayed with strong detail, which dwells on the violent act. There is also strong language which is having strong terms such as “F**K” which could be used offensively or directly.

15 class This includes strong violence as well as frequent strong language, “strong violence” is defined as it should not dwell on the infliction of pain or injury, however, and the strongest gory images are unlikely to be acceptable, easily accessible weapons should also not be glamorised. The language should also can have frequent swear words but cannot have frequent bad swear words such as “C**T”.

Within our OST we’re not planning on having a huge amount of swearing the occasional “F**K” will be sufficient, however what we were more concerned about was the violence. Our character will be shot in the head with frequent shots of the injury, the wound will be detailed with gory imagery, however the weapon will not be shown and the scene will only last for about a minute.
We do have the storyboard finished and available to show the class for clearer understanding and interpretation.

Feedback We found from our class discussion video that most felt that our OST should be a 15, the reasons for this is because we do not dwell on the serious injury as well as not actually having the murder weapon in the film, also there are limited uses of bad language.

lighting for our noire OST

As we do not have the lighting freely available to use on location, we have chosen specific locations that fit with the conventions of noire genre mise-en-scene including lighting, we have chosen area's that are badly lit on purpose, but this of course brings the question of "what if you can't see everything?" well we have chosen these locations because of that we can choose whether we actually want to cover up a certain item or person. Our locations contain street lamps so we can dip in and out of visualised characters which is conventional and adds enigma to our OST. Most of the lighting within our OST is most likely to be a three point light setup as this is most of the lighting that is available to us.

Foleying for our OST

Deconstructing this example

• Institution & film industry
• Representation
• Audience

Action needed for my production

We've decided that for our OST to foley with items you would find about the house. although they may not sound how the sound of the item sounds, normally you can get close without having muffled sounds. It is usually used so that you can layer sounds as close to the truth as possible without the background noise. This video also explains why foleying is used but in greater detail, as it is a professional explaining it.

Institution & film industry

I was very surprised at how the film industry still use labor to achieve the sounds they want, i say this because I thought that they would have a database of sounds. foleying provides the layers of sound that  make all the sound, sound realistic. This provides a realistic effect without muffles and other unwanted noise, enhancing the quality of sound and the overall experience.

Representation

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, foleying is used to alter the overall feel of the film without making it feel synthetic (unless this is desired). Foleying can be mixed easily having the control to alter the characteristics and volumes of sound, this way you can make certain sounds more predominant such as voices or explosions.

Audience

Having foleying techniques in a film makes it a more pleasurable experience for the audience. it takes the environmental, and general sounds from the final film which allows the viewer to concentrate on sounds the editors would've wanted, this attracts attention, which can be used to create sound effects such as suspense and surprise, or used to emphasise.

film noir conventions

noire opening: narrative- initial planning

our team consists of myself, georgia and sam, team kilamunjaro our plan is to have the protagonist be a journalist who is investigating gangs and mob's, he has set up a meeting between him and an informant who is the fem fetale, however he does not get any information from the informant. towards the end of the convosation the informant recieves a phone call from a mysterious contact named "The Man", she then abruptly ends the convosation and walks to meet up with the unknown man, who is the antagonist and will look like a mob Boss. the end will have an eyeline shot of the journalist spectating the convosation from a distance, un-noticed, or is it...

Continuity task

This is our completely finished and edited, in our group there was myself, Georgia, SamS, and Sam B.

I handled the camera using handheld and tri-pod techniques, using various zooms and angles. I also played a part in editing deciding how long each clip should be. Georgia was the director making sure the film was decent as well as Sam B and Sam S acting.

When we filmed we followed a script accompanied by a rough storyboard, which gave specific camera angles but did not determine location, which we later on decided on the day.

noire conventions in neo-noire

blade runner

conventions:
fog
silhouettes
smoking
urban enviroment
typical character traits
rain
crime

non-conventional:
sci-fi
music
technology
different ethnicities
doesn't follow typical timeline (back-to-front)

Mulholland drive


conventions:
music
silhouettes
urban
very dark
fem fetale
guns
smoking

non-conventional:
background
no anti-hero
bright vibrant colours gives a happy feel

Red Riding


conventions:
dark clouds
gun
starts from the end
urban
crime
narrative
rain
smokes and drinks heavily

non-conventional:
crime contains a child
rural
1970's setting
music
sepia tone
set in England
featured his family

Pete Buckingham (audience trends, profiles and patterns)

Young. 15-­‐24s represent 32% of the population, but 40% of cinema audience. By contrast 55+s represent 34% of the population, but only 20% of the cinema audience. 35-­‐44s who make up 38% of cinema audience represent 35% of the population. Upmarket. ABC1s represent 49% of the population, but 60% of the cinema audience which increases up to 66% amongst heavy cinema goers. Rule of thumb; the older the audience, the more upmarket. Frequency. 15-­‐34’s form 60% of heavy cinema goers and within that 40% are from the 15-­‐24 group. Medium cinema goers are 50% of 25-­‐44’s. The 55 plus make up 32% of the light cinema goers. 

Audience pete buckingham what people go to see from Elaine Humpleby

research and critical theory: understanding narrative theory (unfinished)

Media narrative codes from Elaine Humpleby

Linear & Non-Linear

Linear  
An example of a linear film would be "21 jump street" as it follows the story of one main character, the timeline also follows a real timeline true to realtime. Linear story lines follow a chronological order for the narrative, the timeline is in a "straight line", which means that the story flows seamlessly throughout the film. Linear storyline's are usually used in action, comedy etc. films because they're easy for the audience too follow.

Non-Linear
An example of a Non-Linear film would be "Pulp Fiction" because the storyline has several main characters as well as moving around timelines, with the help of flashbacks, link-ins of narratives and       coinciding events that bring the characters together. Non-Linear storyline's are usually used in Sci-Fi films, to often refer back to the equilibrium point at the start of the film, usually used through flashbacks.

 Propp

Propp categorised characters, by explaining their role to the main narrative of a film, he used research that suggested that narratives are character driven and the plot revolves around these characters actions. The hero - will typically have a mission that is in the name of good or so on, and will usually be a character that conforms to social values. The villain - normally there to stop the hero specifically, or have an evil agenda eg. rob a bank. The doner - aids the hero throughout the story. The dispatcher - sends the hero on his quest eg. Gandalf or commissioner Gordon. The false hero - seems to be good but then ay trick the hero or give him bad advice. The princess - the typical helpless lass that is in a spot of bother and cannot help herself. Her father - normally rewards the hero for saving his daughter, to which she is normally the prize.

Levi-Strauss

He states that in a typical film there will often be contrasts to make the difference between places or personalities different, he calls these contrasts "binary oppositions". Examples are such things as hero-villain, light-dark and so on. he argues that some narratives rely on these character developments, as they're typical of the genre.

Todrov - Equilibrium & disequilibrium

     He argues that the narrative relies on the hero solving a problem, and that this will include the hero passing through a series of tests and stages to get to his objective, these will be in a linear order so that the audience understands the narrative, this also includes a chronological timeline. He agree's with Propp in that the characters actions effect the outcome of the narrative, this is cause and effect.

         

Noire still images

both of these images i have attemted to edit according too controversies of the Noire genre, by taking out all colour and "antiquing" the photo's while still trying to keep modern qualities, this is especially shown in the top picture as i have added grain while sharpening the overall picture. both of the above pictures were edited on Pixlr which had a variety of suitable tool's to fit with the genre.                                                                                                                                                           Film Noir is

 “a new cinematic technique that made use of dark or dim lighting effects, dreary settings, filtered lights and generally dark themes and characterizations. Noir scenes are made from interesting camera angles and with dramatic close-ups and shadowed lighting. Frequently the stories use of smoke-filled rooms, views of light filtered through venetian blinds, seedy downtown areas with neon lights, dark wet streets to heighten the noir effect. “ 

Our characters were created to fit the conventions of a typical noire film with use of the anti-hero, a villain, and two fem fatales who are both different, one is a main character(anti-hero's partner) the other is an acquaintance of the other fem fatale.

Research textual highlights

Double Indemnity

Director:

Billy Wilder 

Writers:

Billy Wilder (screenplay), Raymond Chandler (screenplay)

Stars:

Fred MacMurray,  Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson

Budget:

$927,262

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures

Runtime:

107 min

Genres:

Crime | Drama | Film-Noir | Thriller

Taglines:

You Can't Kiss Away A Murder!

Double Indemnity from Shadows on Vimeo.
DOUBLE INDEMNITY from TODAY IS BORING on Vimeo.

Ted Swede film

Ted swede from Sam SheepDawg-OEight on Vimeo.

conventions & stereotypes

i feel that we met the conventions of a sweded film, with the use of a hand-held camera and spontaneous camera angles. The script itself was planned to an extent, we studied the Ted trailer to use key points from the story to create our own trailer. I think that the key scenes that we used were relevant to recognition for the audience to gain the narrative of the storyline. Although the script was not film specific we tried to conform to the audience guidelines for the movie.

improvement & targets

We could of scripted the film better by using an accurate example. the same can be said for the camera angles, the film we made is hard for the audience to pick up a storyline from, i think that because we had all seen the film prior to the sweded film, we picked the wrong scenes to describe the story.

Conventions of a thriller opening from zubairkhan93


This slideshow identifies the basic conventions of a thriller opening well with detailed descriptions were needed. I think that the target audience would be GCSE Media class as the slideshow only shows a limited amount of knowledge applied and does not give enough information for higher students to analyse key points. The purpose of the slideshow is to inform students about thriller openings very loosely because there are no specialist words used in media, it uses very basic vocabulary to describe key events and points. the format is successful because it provides a simple clear background, with simple font and colour.

An Analysis Of The Opening Sequence Of Vertigo from Media Studies

Codes and conventions of opening sequences from kcasmedia

slideshow

Conventions of an opening sequence from emiliefreddie

sweded film conventions

sweded films

Be kind,rewind is what, really started sweded films. it takes the narrative and conventions of film genre's and uses hand-made props as well as diegetic sounds and no special effects. They are essentially a very low budget film made by a small number of people, however it'd be wrong to say they're amateur as they can be very creative and works of genius. Coined by it's own film, the charm of sweded film is the fact that anyone can do them.

Sweded video requirements

1. Must be based on an already produced film
2. Range 2-8 minutes in length
3. Must not contain computer generated graphics
4. Based on films less than 35 years old
5. Special effects must be limited to camera tricks
   and arts 'n crafts
6. Sound effects created by human means
7. Hilarious.

i acquired these video's from Georgia's blog (http://asmediageorgiasmith.blogspot.co.uk/)

The cast away swede film, included copyright music which is not typical of a sweded film. Although all other elements are conventional such as the hand made props and amateur acting.   The inception swede however has all the essential elements that meets the conventions of a swede film; homemade props and music etc.