Costumes

This post is about the costumes our characters will be wearing in the film opening.

The characters in our film are:


Elderly Man. This character plays the character that we are basing the film on in the present time. He is in casual normal clothes walking through a park in England.


Young footballer. These characters will be in a football kit all the same showing a team. Also the character that is playing the elderly man that is now younger will be wearing the same numbered shirt as the older character did. Also when the scene change and cut to the changing room this character will be shown first to symbolise this is him. We tried to get a kit as same as the kits were in the 1960s so it showed the flash back well enough. as shown in the two photos. the one on the left is a 1960s football kit and the photo on the right is the kit we used. We changed it to black and white so it looked older and that was the cameras used then. The kits were yellow and black still if we had decided not to use the black and white effect.

                                

Rest of the football team around 17 years of age. These will be wearing the same kit as the character are basin git on.











Similar Films

This post is about the films which are similar to ours and how they are similar.

We have to look at films of a similar genre and films with a similar opening to us.
One film that is similar to our genre and our opening is Saving Private Ryan.
They have similar shots of the elderly man walking through the park. Also the music is similar to what we will use. It replicates our genre and creates a feeling of emotion and meaning to the viewer.
Our group will take different shots from this as they have a very similar scene to what we want. Also we will want to carry the emotion through into our film opening.
Another similar film is Forrest Gump. This film is similar as it is of a similar genre. It has emotional music that sets the mood for the first scene. We will take some ideas from the sound of this film as it correctly shows the genre and different objects match the sound.
Finally, our final similar film is the Goal series. They are similar because of the genre is Sport. Also they follow one individuals career and personal struggles.

 

Title Research

This post is about the films which are similar to ours in some way and the titles that are in them.

Saving Private Ryan

The title of the production company comes up on a black screen dead center. The titles are in a old fashion formal writing in a white font. It is all in capital letters and is in about front size 28-32. This means ti is easy to read and stands out enough. Each title is on for about 2-4 seconds. This means each tile can be read easily. Each one fades in and fades out in the center of the screen. The title Saving Private Ryan is on for the longest time about 5-6 seconds. This stands out at the start and gets the audience thinking about whys it is called this and engaged them in. The titles stop and it cuts to an american flag flapping in the breeze.


Goal

In goal the camera pans to the right from a birds eye view of a packed stadium. the title comes in at the top right of the screen. It is in yellow writing and a graphite style font. Where the letters are broken up and not solid lines. The titles are all in capital letters. The brand of the production company is in bigger font. Each title is on the screen for 2-3 seconds. The place where it comes onto the screen changes each time to not cover up the filming that is going n behind. Each title fades in and out. The titles go on for a whole 2 minutes of section and highlights of a football game.






Damned United

It starts of with 2 big film production companies flashing on the screen. This shows its a big film and will be well known. The smaller titles flash on a black screen with white writing. The titles are dead centre and fade in and out of the middle of the screen. It shows the date set and then flashes into eye catching titles of the name of a football club. It goes to a goal being scored in a football game.


Fonts


Arial

Courier

Georgia

Times

Verdana

Helvetica

Trebuchet


These fonts fitted the type of genre we chose. It shows that it is a big bold name and stand out in the sequence. It looks emotional with the name of the actor we have based it on. However the one we are going to use is called Engravers.

Location

This post focuses on the Locations where we will be filming our film opening.

We have planned in advance where we were going to film.
Location is very important as it adds to the Mise en Scene.

We decided to use this location as it is easily accessible for all of our group as it is nearby the school. Also it is perfect as it has a thin concrete path flowing through the large amounts of grass where we needed our actor to walk through.
Finally there are football goals in the park and makes the flat football in the park realistic.


Another location we are using is a school changing room.


This is very easy for us as it is at the school so is easily accessible for everyone in the group. Also it is accessible for other actors we need to include in the film.
The changing room we are going to use is large and allows a lot of potential of including a variety of shots.

Story Board Walkthrough

This is a walk through of our storyboard. It is spoken by 'Oliver' and 'Dom'.


Fonts for titles and Film name Research


In this post i talk about the titles and the Name from our film and where it roots from.

We decided to use a subtle white font for the titles in our film. We used the titles in Saving Private Ryan and Forrest Gump as a base for this as these films of both biographical dramas. We also looked at the film Goal II but the font was too bold and bright and didn't match our genre well.

Coming up with a Film Name took a lot of thought. We came up with a few, the first was 'Cohen the Lion' this was because our characters name was Cohen and he played for England and obviously the England badge has three lions on it. However, when we told our classmates about the name they didn't understand the link between the lion and the England football team so we scrapped that name. The second name we had was 'Replay' this one worked better as it was clearly justifiable from our film opening of an old man looking back at his life. However, we felt that this name didn't match our genre very well, it seemed too Sci-Fi in our opinion. The last and official name for our film was simply 'Cohen' the name of our playing. Influenced for this name came from other sport films such as 'Best', 'Rudy' and 'Rocky' which is why it worked for our film.

Shooting Schedule

Below is our Shooting Schedule which displays our details on each of our shoots.

Day/date
Scene
Interior/ Exterior
Shot number/ description
Location
Characters
Props/ Special Equipment
Monday 23rd November
1
Exterior
1

On this day we will film our first scene which consists of an elderly man walking through a park and looking at a flat ‘England’ football.
Chelmsford recreation park.
‘George Cohen’ (Elderly) played by John Hazell.
Cannon Camera

Monopod

Tripod

Umbrella

Flat football
Wednesday 2nd December
2
Interior
2

On this day we will film the changing room scene which consists of a football team preparing for a football match.
Great Baddow High School changing room.
George Cohen (young)

8 other young men.
Cannon Camera

Tripod

Monopod

Footballs

Bags

9 Football kits.
Thursday 10th December
3
Interior

3
We filmed a young Cohen going back into the changing room to get a football.
Great Baddow High School Changing room.
George Cohen (Young)
Cannon Camera

Tripod

1 Football kit.

Production diary

Below is the production diary which shows the process we went through in making our film opening.

Monday 9th November
On this day we were put in our groups and set the task to create an individual film pitch about what we would individually like our film opening to be. My one was about an old man suffering with dementia and looking at the details of what is going on in his head. Harry's was about a football player preparing in the changing room for his first football match. Joe's was a drama about a spy and his first encounter on a busy day.

Tuesday 10th November
On this day we pitched our individual pitches to each other in our group and came up with an idea which we all liked. We mainly took ideas from/ merged mine and Harry's ideas. We came up with a plot where an element of all our ideas was included. .

 -Olly presenting his pitch.


Wednesday 11th November
We then developed our idea further and developed a film pitch based around target audience, genre and marketing putting all of our ideas on to a PowerPoint ready to present it the next day.




Thursday 12th November
On this day we pitched our film to our classmates. We all contributed to the presentation taking turns speaking and all contributed to the questions we were asked at the end. The only problems we faced was not having a name for our film and people couldn't get there heads around a biographical drama, but after giving them a couple of examples such as 'Forrest Gump' and 'Best' they seemed to like the idea more.

Friday 13th November
On this day we started to plan our planning what we would do on each day which took around about 30 minutes. Then for the other half of the lesson we focused on Fonts and titles and Harry did a Mood Board.


Monday 16th November
On this day we looked at music, we felt that sound was the most important factor of the film opening as sound can transform the context and feel of any footage and we wanted a specific image for our opening. We also decided on location and casting.

Tuesday 17th November
On this day we went to Baddow Recreational Park to take some pictures of the park and find a good place to shoot and to do some test shots.
   

This is a picture of us taking test shots.



These are some of our test shots. The last one is upside down because we had the idea of using this technique to try and do a successful tracking shot. It was not successful and we avoided using the shot in our final film.

Wednesday 18th November
On this day we went to the changing rooms at Great Baddow High School and took some pictures of the changing room and decided it would be perfect for our film opening as it looks old fashioned which is what we wanted as its quite a plain room with nothing modern. However, the camera we had died whilst we were doing some test videos so we decided to come back the next day and get some more test shots.

Thursday 19th November
On this day we went back to the changing room and took some more test shots.


Friday 20th November
On this day we worked out what shots we were going to actually do at the Rec and what order we would do them in. We then prepared our risk assessment for filming at the Rec. In addition to this we practiced the shots we would be using in the first scene we were filming on the following day.



This is some test shots we did when we worked out what shots we were going to use. We found that the camera was on the wrong setting and the footage was too dark because of this. Therefore we remembered to check the camera setting on the actual shoots.

Monday 23rd November
On this day we did all of our filming at the rec. Harry's Grandfather was the only actor we needed for this scene. He fitted the part perfectly, he looked like an old football player which was exactly what we wanted. After we finished filming we uploaded the footage to a computer and reflected on how we though the shoot went. We all thought it was successful and concurred when we saw the footage later.

Tuesday 24th November
On the first day of editing i separated the clips i wanted to use from the ones i didn't and put them into order. I thought that when applying the sound to the clip it would all just slot into place, this wasn't the case. I decided it would be better if i put the music infirst and then apply the clips to the music. Which is what i began to do the next day.



This is the order of our first scene.

Wednesday 25th November
On this day i began to fit the footage we got to the music, this took me the whole lesson as i wanted the transitions to occur on the strong beats in the music.

Here is the music we used as non-diegetic sound on the second audio channel.

Thursday 26th November
We also came up with idea of having commentary from the 1966 world cup final come in quietly towards the end of the old man scene. We spent this lesson looking for the right piece of sound.


Friday 27th November
In this lesson we applied the old fashioned commentary to our clip and began adding a couple of titles in.

Monday 30th November
On this day we attempted to film our second scene in the changing room. We had all of our character (The football team) ready to film, however when we arrived at the facility there were people using it. We did book it but we were pumped at the last minute this meant we were pushed for time for filming and editing with one week until our deadline for our first draft. Our Next filming opportunity wasn't until the 2nd.

Tuesday 1st December 
On this day we recorded our story board talk through, edited it and posted it onto YouTube and eventually onto the blog.


Wednesday 2nd December 
On this day we filmed the second part of our film opening. We filmed this in the changing room, unfortunelty the teacher who was organizing the slot for us made a mistake which limited the time we had to film. We did our best to get as much footage as we could. We then took it back to the classroom uploaded and were delighted with the results.




Thursday 3rd December
This day was designated to editing we import the running order of the clips to adobe premiere and then applied the sound.

Friday 4th December
This was the day of our first deadline. We spent our lesson working out the levels for sound and tried to get the transition between the scenes right which took a long time. We then exported our first draft under the name 'Replay'.


Monday 7th December 
On this day we watched all of the films opening and began to evaluate them.

Tuesday 8th December
On this day we finished evaluating the film openings.

Wednesday 9th December
On this day we looked at our feedback. We found that our film wasn't long enough and the transition between old man and teenager wasn't great. We decided to do another shoot and extend the end of our piece.

Thursday 10th December
We already had a risk assessment prepared as this shoot was in the same place as our last. The filming process was very quick and I feel it was successful. I edited the order straight away and that night I also recorded some foley to go over this part of the film opening.

Friday 11th December 
On this day i applied the sound i had recorded the night before and worked on the transition between the first and second scenes. This was the day our second draft was due in.




Monday 14th December -Friday 18th December
Over the last 5 days i made the editing as perfect as i could work primarily on titles. The rest of my group worked on the marketing campaign and made sure all the blog work was up to date. They also made a poster for the film.



Above is the finished film with all of the sound, footage and titles.

Risk Assessment for Filming Day 1

Below is the Risk Assessment for our first shooting day. We filmed in quite a safe location so we feel we included everything that would be a problem.


Target Audience


Target Audience
Our primary target audience we have decided for our film is 14-30. We chose this because we thought this range can relate to the film well. We are setting the opening around 1980 to 90s and the opening will be based in the present day. Most people in this age group enjoy watching football. Also they will be able to get into the film as it is based around a true story.

Our secondary audience will be people outside the age range we have chosen. Also people that may not want top see the film but have a mate that does and they are encouraged to come and see it. People that like emotional films can also relate to the film as it isn't all about football and has life involved as well.



Equipment and Props

Below is a list of the equipment and props needed for the filming and editing of our film opening.

Equipment

  • Tripod
  • Cannon Camera
  • Steady cam
  • Computer with Adobe Premiere 
  • Umbrella (In case of rain)

Props
  • Deflated football
  • Football boots
  • Football kit (i.e socks, shots, shirts)
  • Sports bags
  • Towels
  • Footballs
  • Goalkeeper Gloves

Mood Board

In this post is our mood board which shows pictures which represent idea's and motives for our film. It is analysed underneath. 


Above is our mood board, it shows our motivations and ideas for our film/film opening. In the top left of the board there is a picture of the shot from the beginning of the film 'Saving Private Ryan' when the man is remembering his experience in the war the camera zooms into his eyes and then flashes back. We have taken inspiration from this scene and have decided to incorporate something similar in our opening. Obviously the film is football based which is why alot of the picture have football players and footballs. We have taken inspiration from a deflated football which will be in our opening shot and will stand as an enigma code for the abrupt end to our main characters career. Some of the photographs are in black and white, this is to signify that our setting is in the past. Injury is a theme in our film which explains the disturbing photographs in the center of the board. The settings are displayed in this mood board as the pictures of 'the changing room', 'the park' and 'the tunnel' out to the football pitch.






Music for film opening.

In this post i will talk about the music we are considering for our film opening.

The music we are going to use is going to be quite slow and emotive however we want it to build up into a climax when the character walks out onto the pitch. Piano and String music will be very good for this opening. Here are some of the kinds of music we are going to look into using. Occasional silences may also be effective in showing emotion, silence can make moments more poignant.



This piece builds very well but i think that there are too many instruments in it. We want the music to be extremely stripped down so there is only one or two instruments, this will make it sound more personal therefore being more emotional.



I think this piece will be perfect for the part at the beginning but it doesn't have much of a climax therefore it won't work as well at the end of the scene. The piece uses piano which is an extremely good instrument for showing emotion which is why it will work well for the beginning of our opening.

Group Pitch

This is my groups film pitch which we presented to our class.

The title says "Football film (Based on True story), the color of text was clear on power point but slide share seemed to change the color.


Initial Pitch and Presentation

This is the individual film pitch which i pitched to my group.


Titles Analysis

This is an analysis of the titles from the opening of the film Skyfall. I looked at the length of the titles, the role the person in title payed and the order the titles come in.


Student Film Evaluations

Here are some evaluations of film openings we watched in class and which i watched at home.

Roses are Red



What went well?
A lot of the aspects of this film opening work really well for example the titles which are incorporated in a really clever way. The genre is displayed clearly as teen, this is displayed by the set which is in a teenage girls bedroom, it is very bright and colorful and the music complements what you can see on the screen. The ending also adds a sense of enigma and starts the narrative.

Even better if?
The ending of the opening has very bad sound quality. I also thought that it didn't match the rest of the video. This would be better is it wasn't included because if it wasn't there then it would affect the nature of the piece.


Mother and I



What went well?
Enigma is created really well at the end of the piece due to the story line. The music choice also worked really well to establish the genre. Camera work was an effective element in this film, it worked smoothly when one of the characters walked across the house.

Even better if?
I think at the beginning there is too big of a jump, there is just a simple scene and then it skips ahead 30 years, this takes impact away from the scene. The music which comes in at the end of the scene is slightly too abrupt, it should come in quietly then slowly build up to create tension.


The Edge



What went well?
The titles are incorporated really well by using editing. The title is effective as it has a distinctive design. The music worked really well with the piece, it helped establish the genre and made some parts look exciting.

Even better if?
This piece would have been better if it was slightly shorter as it got a bit boring and if it didn't include the same name for every role as this is unrealistic.


Captive



What went well?
The music and sounds work well together to create a tense atmosphere. The mise en scene works really well with the blood and cuts across the characters face and the blood on his clothing. The shots work really well at the end flipping between flashback and real time, this matches the music also and helps to build the tension. The titles are incorporated in a really interesting way to match the mystery of the scene.

Even better if?
The only problem for this piece in my opinion is that the title is at the end, this makes it seem trailer like rather than like a film opening.

Revenge



What went well?
The editing is really well worked, the titles are incorporated very well and look effective. The foley added in in the park works well but doesn't include all sounds. There is enigma created at the end of the film which is good.

Even better if?
The first half of the piece looks more like a music video than a film opening. The colour of the titles suggest the film is going to be romantic because of the font and colours but it goes against everything else in the scene. There is a lot of sound missing from at the park, a car drives past but you cant hear it.

The Promise



What went well?
There is good narrative to the story, and the flash backs work really well. I like the enigma's which are created at the end of the piece and the music matches it quite nicely.

Even better if?
The font of the titles at the beginning are quite difficult to read. There are also quite a lot of wind sounds in the dialogue scene at the beginning.




Prelim Task Overview and Analysis on Emaze

Powered by emaze

Above is the presentation I made for our filming process presented on Emaze. Emaze is a presentation website used to make interactive slides which are more interesting than a regular PowerPoint. When I first started using Emaze I didn't like it, found it difficult to use as it was unfamiliar to me, as I got more familiar with the website it still didn't make the process any easier. It takes a very long time to flip from slide to slide on the average Emaze PowerPoint and the movements made my eyes hurt and feel nauseated. I noticed there was an 'Emaze your PowerPoint' button so I decided to start the process again on PowerPoint then upload it when I was ready. When uploading the PowerPoint I found that it didn't work on my Laptop, this could be the Laptops fault however when I did finally upload it from a desktop it still took a very long time. When the PowerPoint finally did upload I found that my video's were missing and my photo's were of a bad quality. I replaced the video's but could not find the original photographs so they had to be left unfocused. When the long process was finally finished I upladed it to blogger, then found that one of the slides had been shifted to the left and the photographs were barely on the page, I did my best to improve this but not much came of it. This is why my 'Filming Photography' slide looks extremely awkward. I think I will try and avoid using emaze in the future as although the presentations do look very impressive when complete the process is too long and cumbersome and other presentation programmes work just as well and are easier to use.

Preliminary Task (Story Board, Plan)

We have been set our Preliminary task which is to produce our own film opening which must include certain shots and techniques. Going into this task i have thought about what i need to do to make this film better than my Juno task. I have decided that i am going to use more still shots and make sure that my story board is detailed so that when we start filming, the process is more efficient.

In our first lesson we started by deciding on our film genre, we thought we could make a 'Gay romance film', as this would be controversial and moving for the audience. We changed this idea after we realized that people would over see the serious side to our idea and think it was funny. We changed our idea completely to a story about two best friends who fall in love with the same girl, the genre will be 'Rom-Com'. We decided to set the film at our school and aim the film at secondary school students. 

We also made our story board in this lesson. We started by looking at the shots we needed to film and the best places to film them in the school. We decided to use our schools music department for the made part of the scene as we wanted to use a high shot on the stairs. 

In this lesson we also went around the school and took pictures of possible places where we could film and reviewed them in the classroom as we were making the story board. These photographs are blow along with the story board.






Above is the story board for our prelim task.


Juno Filming and Editing

Below is my groups completed Juno remake. In this blog i will analyse the process.




The filming process was moderately accurate. The actor had a slightly slower walking pace than the woman in the original sequence. Some of the camera work was quite shaky, this was because we foolishly did not use a tripod for most of the shots. We also found it difficult to do the tracking shots as we were using a person sitting on a desk chair and the ground was quite uneven. However, apart from the shaking the camera work was quite good, we used the right type of shots and recorded for the right lengths.

We found that our story board was a big help when we were filming. We had the right time lengths and the correct shot names, a problem we did face was that they did not know what was actually happening in some of the scenes, however this was overcome as we had the video on someones smartphone. This made it even easier to copy the scenes.

Our group had a confident actor who was comfortable with playing the role, he used good facial expressions and took the process seriously. Lots of other groups had problems with filming due to in-confident actors. An initial weakness we had was that one of our group members wasn't with us for the planning session this meant it took longer to complete the story board and it would be difficult for us to film in the next session. Despite this the member adapted really well to the circumstances and worked really well directing and filming some of the shots.

Our group managed to get all the footage we needed. We tried to make sure we got at least three good shots of each scene, this started off well but we only had an hour to film so we had less shots to choose from towards the end of the clip. We also knew that the clips weren't going to have any sound so we were able to talk to the actor whilst we were filming, this helped us get successful shots.

In this task we were introduced to a tracking shot, I now believe that this is the hardest show to make look good. I think that in future we will try and avoid this filming technique in future because it is difficult to do effectively. When editing the piece i learned how to place a clip on top of another one and play them simultaneously. I didn't learn any other editing techniques as i had learned them all during my introduction to Adobe Premiere. The main editing tool i used was the razor tool which i used to chop up different clips. My piece has the same shots as in the original clip however adobe didn't have some of the transitions, and i didn't know how to apply the special color effect to the piece. Overall my piece does not compare to the original as the camera is too shaky.

The timings went really well for this piece and i found that our shots used the right frame. However, in the next production i will try to avoid hand holding the camera and use a tripod more. I will also avoid using a tracking shot. 

Pete Fraser Talk


During our Pete Fraser talk we looked at how to make a successful film opening. He gave us top tips on what works well, what we shouldn't do and some examples of good and bad film openings. We were introduced to the use of 'Foley' which is the recreation of sound and how it is used in films. The tips he gave us included, how to plan, brainstorm ideas, editing and how to shoot.


Film openings from PGCEmedia

We were told that the website www.artofthetitle.com for additional information about film openings.

Juno Task- Story Board, Props, group planning skills.

In today's lesson we started the process of recreating the opening sequence to the film Juno (shown below). Here is the story board my group (Rory and Charlotte) created. We used stick people to represent the character in the scene and we used small boxes with arrows to represent the transitions between clips.



We also looked at what props we needed such as a guitar and red jumper. We managed to get the red jumper but we didn't manage to get a guitar. We used a tripod and a camera for the filming process.

Mainstream Vs Independent

This is a PowerPoint comparing the differences between a mainstream film (Love Actually) and an independent film (Submarine).


Evaluation of film pitch

We got an average mark of 42.06 out of 70. Most our feedback said that we didn't market the film very well, in our group we didn't talk about marketing very much. Next time we will definitely talk about marketing as we have realized it plays a big part in media. We were also told that some of the actors we choose didn't suit the film. Scarlet Johanson is said to represent a middle aged woman however she looks too young for the role. Our classmates liked our film title and our story.



This is our evaluation that had the lowest result.



This is our evaluation that has the highest result.

Genre Task 3- Demonstrate Understanding of genre with film pitch.

We were set the task of creating a film pitch for a film we created after being given the genre 'Family Drama' and the target audience 'Middle Aged Housewives'.

Blank Sheet

This is our presentation.

Blank sheet pitch from oliverloom5


This is my Script.

Slide One -You’re lonely. You’ve had a horrible past.You want things to start going right for you.You want a fresh start.You need a blank page.

Slide Two-*Title*

Slide Three -We have a vision of creating a family drama for middle aged house wives.We wanted something drastic, hard-hitting.We wanted a story that stood a-side from the rest of its genre. In today’s day and age it’s almost impossible to create a film which is completely original, however with a compelling story and fantastic relatable characters, there is no reason why our film won’t stand out.We have been in contact with the Weeknd who are interested in creating a full sound track for a film after their hit ‘Earned it’ from 50 shades of grey.

Slide Four- *Sophie*

 Slide Five- Beside me you can see a brief outline of our opening scene. We want to start the film with beautiful scenery, we’ve found a nice place down in Cornwall (Bude) where this part could be filmed. But there is a woman standing at the top of the cliff and she is reminiscing about her past.There will be flashbacks to her arguing with her now ex-husband whilst she is pregnant, she is eventually pushed down the stairs and evidently loses her baby This is when the title of the film will appear and the story will begin.

Slide Six*Aaron*

Slide Seven*Aaron*

Slide Eight*Sophie*

Slide Nine- Any questions at all?

Slide Ten- Okay, thank you for your time, we look forward to hearing from you.

Institution

In our Institution lesson we looked at how films get into the cinema, what a distributor is and does, the main film going audience, how cinemas make all there money, and who the big 6 are.

How do films get into cinema?
After a discussion with our teacher we found out that there is a film calendar (below) where different films are released at different times. If an independent film wants to get into cinema they are better off trying during September time as there is less competition with mainstream films. Independent films pay to get into cinemas usually. Mainstream films like James Bond movies etc. usually have cinemas come to them wanted to screen there film.

In September there isn't many big films released.
October is Emmy contenders. 
Run up to Christmas there are big blockbuster films (Spectre, Hunger Games, Star Wars).
Summer there are mainly children's films.

What does a Distributor do?
A distributor makes deals with people who want to show a film in a cinema. 


How do Cinemas make there money?
Cinemas mostly make there money through the snacks they sell and occasionally from independent films being screened. They people who run the cinema see it as though if they have the best films then they will sell more snacks to customers.

Who are the big 6?
The big six are the biggest and film producers. They are:
-Warner Brothers
-20th Century Fox 
-Universal
-Disney
-Paramount
-Sony

There are also mini majors such as:
-Lionsgate
-MGM



Here is the logo for a film studio that i made using adobe fireworks. I chose to keep it simple as it still looks good and catches the eye.

Film Language (Camera, Editing, sound and mes en scene) Shot analysis.

In our film language lesson we looked at different aspects if films and learned acronyms for some of the topics. The topics and acronyms are listed below.

Camera:
-Frame-Extreme Close up (ECU), Close up (CU), Mid Shot (MS), Medium Long Shot (MLS), Wide Shot/Extreme Long Shot (ELS), Long Shot (LS).
-Angle -Worms eye view (looking up), Level View, Birds eye view (from above)
-Movements (Pan r-l, Tilt u-d, Tracking shot, steadicam, handheld)

Mise En Scene:
-Costume
-Lighting
-Actors
-Makeup
-Props
-Setting

Editing:
-Transitions
-Order of Narrative
-Pace
-Special Effects

Sound:
-Dialogue (what? How?)
-Music (Parallel / Contrapuntal)
-diegetic sound (real sounds)/  Non diegetic (music, voice over, narration)

My class have been set the task to analyse the opening scene of the film 'Boyz in da hood' using our newly acquired film language. 




The opening scene of 'Boyz in da hood' includes some good features which have sound, Camera, editing and Mise en Scene. As the scene opens you can hear the sound of shooting taking place, this part is effective as the audience has to imagine what is happening in the scene. We could tell that the film was going to be in a rough setting due to the amount of swearing and threats. From the sound in the this clip we can also see that a key theme throughout this film will be racism. The teacher is white and she is very well spoken and educated, where as the black people in the scene all cause trouble by swearing and using slang. The film opening uses Mise on Scene, the kids, who are black, are dressed in nice clothes, however when there are older black characters, late teenagers, they look very scruffy and thug like, this is to portray what the kids will turn into later in the film. In the classroom the camera is mainly a medium long shots, however there are also close ups to show the characters expressions. The camera uses a long shot whilst the child is walking home from school, this is to show his whole body and it also shows the boy being beaten up in the background. At the end of the scene there is some great editing to transition two scenes. As the boy is walking home his mum is on the phone talking to his teacher, the scene cuts between the boy walking and the phone call, however you can hear the conversation at all times. When the woman hangs up the phone the boy walks through the door and arrives home, and the next scene begins.

Representation

In our Representation lesson we learned about Stereotypes and where they come from. We also learned about how the media represents people in different ways. There were a lot of debates in the class about their opinions on different examples such as magazine covers and the way some celebrities are portrayed in the media. Here are some of the key words we came across in the lesson, there definitions.

Representation: The way that which people, events and ideas are presented to the audience.

Stereotype: A stereotype is a 'Visual Short-Cut' they are used so much that people assume that its normal or true.

Archetype: The 'Ultimate' stereotype. For example a french man wearing a striped top, holding a baguette whilst drinking red wine.

Countertype: A representation that challenges original stereotypes.

Gatekeeper: A media gate keeper is someone involved in allowing or disallowing something to be seen by an audience.

We were set the task to watch the beginning of a film and write about the representation that has been used. I have chosen to analyse the representation of this clip from the movie "The Shawshank Redemption".



In this clip there are several representations that are being showed. The film is about prison life and in this clip the prison itself is an archetype. It is a towering building, frightening to look at, made to look very dull, dark and miserable. Most the characters in the scene are stereotypical prisoners, they all wear the same uniform and all look ugly, dirty and grim. The character on the coach 'Andy' is a countertype to these prisoners, he seems to be handsome and intelligent looking. This could have been the writers way of saying that not all prisons are bad people.This clip shows a stereotypical prison, dark and gloomy.





Audience- Uses and Grats and how you consume films.

In today's lesson we have looked at Audience.

Uses and Gratification (Pleasure)


Personal Identification

Information
Entertainment
Social Interaction

I use films for many different reasons. The main reason why i watch films is for entertainment, they help me to relax and take my mind off of school. I also watch documentaries to for information, i watched WW2 documentaries last year to assist me in my exams. I have also watched films because my friends have seen them and talked about them, an example of this is the BBC drama 'Doctor Foster' the program isn't something i would normally be interested in but i watched it to join in with the conversations.

Film and you

What do you mean when we use the word...


Film: I believe that the word film is associated with any type of clip.


Movie: I believe that the word movie is associated with any type of clip where there is a plot.


Cinema: I believe the word cinema means a place where films/movies are showed.


What are your top ten films and what do you think they have in common?


1. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

2. Mad Max: Fury Road
3. The Dark Night
4. The Shawshank Redemption
5. Point Break
6. Forrest Gump
7. The Wolf Of Wall Street
8. Now You See Me
9.  Gone Girl
10. Grown Ups

Most of my films are comedies and i also like lots of action films. The two genres aren't really in the same film, but i guess it is clear that is what i enjoy most. I also like dramatic films, such as Forrest Gump and The Shawshank Redemption.


How do you find out about a film?

I mostly find out about films through advertising however i do often look up top rated films that perhaps had been missed or would appeal to me but not my necessarily get the same amount if advertising.

What makes you want to see a feel?

I like to be surprised about a films quality when i watch it however it has been advertised well and has a clear plot then i feel inclined to watch it. I also want to watch a film if all my friends have seen it so we can all talk about it.

How do you know what to expect from a film?

I usually know what to expect from a film usually from reviews, ratings and my friends opinions. You also guess what to expect from a film by looking at the trailer and posters and guessing the genre using hints from the semiotics. 

What are you paying for when you buy a cinema ticket/ rent a DVD?

When you buy a cinema ticket or DVD you are paying for the making of that film. Every film that is made looses money before it makes it. When you buy a Cinema ticket or DVD you're paying for the actors, the special effects, the advertising and everything else the producing company had to shell money out for.

Where do you watch films?

I mostly watch films when I'm in bed, I don't have much time during the day to watch a film but on an evening after a hard day it is always nice to find something on Netflix and enjoy it.

Do you think that there are differences between watching a film in a cinema and watching it at home on DVD? If you think there are, then what are they?

The main difference to watching a DVD at home and going to the cinema in most cases is the quality of viewing. Not everyone has the opportunity to watch films in High Definition with outstanding sound but you can at the cinema. However the problem is the price for a cinema ticket is forever rising and a more varied chose of films are forever becoming available at home, and the home cinema market is becoming extremely popular. You cant go to the cinema in your pajamas.

Are there some films that you have to see at the cinema or doesn't it matter?

I believe that when you go to the cinema to see a film it makes it quite special and some times you want that something extra when a big film is being released for example 'Jurassic World'. I believe that some other film such as 'Gravity' are also good to see in the Cinema as the screen is so big it makes you feel like a part of the action.

What do you understand about the word 'Industry'?
An Industry is a collective of organisations who are making money out of something on a large scale.

How many industry's can you name?

Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Sony, Paramount, Universal, Disney, MGM, Dream Works, Lionsgate.