Film information

Key roles in film (film production)

• Director
• Production
• Writer
• Editor
• Cinematogropher
• Sound recording

Equipment- The cameraman

• Is the camera charged?
• Do you have the SD card/tapes to film with?
• Do you have the charger cable and extra batteries?
• Is the tripod working

Props/comstume/make-up

• Who is responsible for props?

Director

• Storybord/shotlist
• Directs actors
• Ensures you get what you have palnned
  

Producer

• Overseas the whole production
• Ensures project is deliverd on time
• Schedules+plans the shoot+post production
  

The Production Cycle

The production of all media texts follow the same stages

1. Research and Development (end of the script and ready to go)
   

• Based on books
• News stories
• Comics
• Fairy tales
• World events
• People's lives

2. Pre-production (preparing for production) THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT STAGE

• storybords
• locations (finding)
  
• casting
  
• scheduling (the first thing to do)
  
• budgeting
  
• testing= camera, tripod and sound.
• -finding sound effects
• -prop list
• -costumes
  
• -equpitment
  
• -actors/extras
• -make up
  
  

3. Production (filming)

4. Post-production (editing the picture and sound)

5. Distribustion and Exhibition.

Our idea for the opening of our feature film.

As a group we eventually landed on the idea of a boy killing another boy and then goes through a trumatic experience after. We were first thinking about a drug dealer killing a boy and then realized we were trying to fit a film into two minutes. we realized our mistake and then decided on the idea of filming the boy who has comitted the murder to convey his feeling about what he has done and to show the audience that.

Preparation for the filming of our feature film opening.

Schedule

• Meet at my house at 2pm
• 30mins to go over acting and camerawork
• 30mins journey to get to Primrose Hill
• 3pm arrive at Primrose Hill

Props

• Mobile phone
• Ciggarettes+lighter
• Ipod
• Sweets
• Wallet
• Umbrella

Costume

Actor SAM

• Black jeans
• Checkerd shirt
• Addidas trainers
• Brown Jacket with pockets

Actor ANGUS

• Tracksuit
• White trainers
• Big hoody
  

Opening Title sequences research: Aliens

This is the opening title sequence from Aliens (the 1979 Alien sequal), these titles start out just a black screen and all you can hear is a sound like wind blowing. Just this makes the film seem scary already. As the titles show up they are in a very simple white font that makes a big contrast on the black backround this makes you focus on where the names are on the screen and takes your focus off the backround. That is a very good technique that horror films do, they make you look somwhere when somthing else is happening or about to happen in another place on the screen. Then a very mysterious shape appears. It looks very futureistic and appears very softly first then gets clearer and clearer. As this happens there is a soft drum beat that sounds once. This is used to build suspense. And there is a gradual sound that is getting more intense and louder like the shape which is also getting bigger. All of these is used to build suspense. As this shape in the middle of the screen shifts and moves it slowly separates and forms into the letters that make up the word Aliens. The letters are in bright blue. The sound becomes more intesnse and the I in the title starts to open and as the camera goes through the opening in the screen the sound that has been getting bigger turns into a scream, the screen goes white and we are transported into space and the music slowly fades away. As we look into space the camera tilts downwards and we see an extreme long shot of a space ship. The ship is very mysterious and as it gets closer (if you saw the original Alien) we learn that this is the ship that the survivor escaped on. As the ship moves closer there are more credits and they are in the same white font that they were at the beggining.

The ship is now very close and the camera goes into a arial shot and dives into the ship through a window and as it goes in it dissolves so we are now inside the ship. The lighting of the ship is very dark and sinister. The camera starts to move then it is the end of the titles.

The viewer gets hooked on this because the beggining is so mysterious and that we want to know who or what is inside the ship floating in space.

Opening Title sequences research: Juno

This title sequence from Juno is mainly cartoon but it starts out reality and she takes a swig of orange juice then music starts. that is the only thing we can hear throughout the whole opening. It starts a tracking shot then she walks past a tree and she walks into a cartoon world. As she walks through the cartoon its like it is in a book because it uses a very clever editing technique that makes it look like someone is turning pages and looking at different cartoon pictures. Also she is always walking in every shot which tells us that she is trying to get somewhere but not nessicarly in a hurry. As the shots change we follow her through her town to get where she wants to go. The font of the titles is also very cartoony. The music used is a happy song and the colours that are used are aslo very happy, and some of the locations like to what the song says.

From this opening title the veiwer is hooked because it is very integing and we want to know more about this girl and where she is walking to ect.....

Opening Title sequences research: Lord of War

This title sequence is simple but effective in giving the audience a little about what the film is about. Bullets and guns. The titles start with a tilt shot, then the camera moves into one of the mechines and follows bullets being made. at one point it almost picks a bullet and then throughout the opening we the audience are the bullet and we see what happens to them and how they get made then used. The bullet eventually ends up in a box, the screen goes black and a moment later the box is opened by a Russian soldier, from this we can tell that Russia will have somthing to do with the movie and that when the screen when black it was time passing as well as being in a box.

Then the box is opened again and we are in a different country. We see a crane arm come towards the box and all the bullets are knocked onto the floor. As we care still the bullet we are picked up and put into the box again. The font that is used for the names is very army like and that gives us more of a clue of what the film is about. Later on the bullets are dumped onto the ground and it is picked up and loaded into a magaizne for a gun. The gun is then fired a few times and then it gets to the bullet we have been watching and we are looking down the barrel like we are the bullet again and ready to be fired.

The bullet is then fired and we see it in slo-motion and it hits a small boy in the head. The screen goes black and it is then the movie. I think what this tells the audience is that life is short, we are born then die. Just like the life of a bullet. And that war is horrible.

This title sequence is very effective in intriguing the audience into watching the rest of the film.

Mise-en-scene

These are some notes on mise-en-scene.

1. A director might use historical locations to establish where you are in the time period that the show/film is set.
2. They will use locations to show the audience where the show/film takes place and so that the audience understand the social status such as a coucil estate would suggest one type of social class.
3. Common Place props are often used for authenticity.
4. Noteworthy props are props that are key to the narrative of the story.
5. Costumes are used to understand the character, there social status and the time period.
6. Stars and Actors get the audience to expect the film to be good beacuse it has a big star and a lot of the time stars can sell a film.
7. Unknow character actors are effective for making the audience think that the film will be faithfull to the text and directors cast them not beacuse they are stars but becacuse they fit the character that they are going to play.
8. Lighting is a key factor in films and low key lighting is used to read the text as being somber and moody.
9. apart from low key lighting there is high key lighting which is used to allow the audience to see the action clearly and to read the text as if it were natural light.
10. Colours are used to read the drimatic mood of the scene with colours and signifiers.
    

Bullet time

Along with the dolly zoom bullet time is a technique that I like to. I think when ever i see bullet time being used well. When bullet time is used in "The Matrix" it is used to actually show how fast the character is moving. This might sound strange but it convays how fast he is moving very easily.

Another example of bullet time is in a film called "Swordfish", in the scene there is a bomb explosion in the mibble of the road in a hostage situation. When the bomb goes off the camera starts an arc motion around the whole explosion. The camera takes around about 40seconds to arc around the whole and if they didnt use bullet time then they would have to arc at the same speed as the explosion whitch would take less than a second so the audience wouldnt know what is going on. You can watch that clip here.... SWORDFISH bomb scene

The dolly zoom

This is an example of one of my favorite shot types. When filmmakers use this technique I think it is very effective. Eg. When they use the dolly zoom in 'Vertigo' they use it for a phycological effect that really hits the audience when it happens. It can also be used when someone has a brain wave and this tells you that the things they just fingured out was bad or someone is in danger because of it. It is also used in horror films to show the physical effect of a moster/supernatural person on the physical surroundings.

To make the effective you have to either track into the object or person and zoom out at the same time or do the opposite to get different effects.

My 5 favourite Films

1.Pulp Fiction: Crime, Drama, Thiller. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110912/

2. Apocalypse Now: Action, Drama, War. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/

3. Shaft: Action, Crime. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162650/

4. The Great Escape: Action, Adventure, Drama, History, Thriller, War. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057115/

5. Alien: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/

My Preliminary Task

This is my preliminary task that is filmed with Petros and Edward and we all edited it together with Final Cut Pro. This was all shot with one camera and we used the specified techniques such as: match on action, shot reverse shot and we also stuck to the 180 degree rule while filming.







This is the areial floor plan that i drew for my pliminary task that I scanned into the computer then uploaded it onto my blog.






This is an example of match on action that myself, Petros and Ed filmed together. Match on action is when you have two shots of someone doing the same thing (eg opening a door) and to have them look like they have done it all in one motion you have to match the action that they do so it doesnt look like they suddenly jump through the door way or if they are not even through the door way from when you saw them last.





This is my GIF storybord that I created on Adobe imageread.

Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is what has happened to the internet. Web 2.0 enables people to produce and distribute there own films, music, stories all with the help of websites like Youtube, Myspace and many others. While there is Web 2.0 it obviously evolved from Web 1 but we never called it that. Now more and more things are evolving Web 2.0 will evolve into Web 3.0. This link will tell you what Web 3.0 is....

http://webtrends.about.com/od/web20/a/what-is-web-30.htm

The 180 Degree Rule

This is one of the basic rules of film making this is used to orientate the audience watching. This rule applys to most things such as dialouge scenes, chase scenes, sports etc....

Shot Reverse Shot example

This is a very simple example of what a "shot, reverse shot" is.

How to embed a youtube video task

How to upload an image task