Our New Ideas

Hello

As you might know my group has decided that we want to film some ideas to go in to our final product as the clips that we filmed originally were not what we were hoping for. We wanted to keep most of our idea but change a lot of the clips and perhaps find some new ideas to go along with ours. To do this we decided to look at some film openings that are in our genre, tragedy drama.

The one that caught our eye the most was the 'To Kill A Mockingbird" opening that you will be able to watch at the bottom of this post. 

We absolutely love the idea of a hand view. We think we could use this idea but our main character could be at the stage where she has found the police letters and pictures of her real dad in a box of memories. 

We love this idea because we think that it gives us the chance to let our audience connect with our character straight away which is very important in a tragedy drama. As soon as the film starts the audience are taken in to this box of memories along with the character. They are experiencing box together for the first time which really connects the audience and character together. We will definitely be using this idea in our own film.

See you soon

First Filming Evaluation - Final Film

Hello!

As you know we have been panning to create and produce the beggining of a film. Recently we went out and did the filming and thought it went well. 

Main Strengths:

• Creativity - We had a few shots, the river shot in particular, that were impossible to shoot. The river shot was impossible to use because the whole of the local area had flooded and therefore ever puddles or rivers that were approachable did not work because the water was very dirty and therefore no reflection could be seen. However, we over came this by looking at our back up ideas for shoots and using our creativity to produce a new shot. We had to do this without thinking or planning it before hand which was a challenge and also lost us a bit of time. However we did well and managed to film another idea to replace the one that would not work. This was a massive strength as it meant our final product wouldn't be affected too much.

• Time Planning - Another strength was our time planning/schedule. Because of this it meant that we got the filming done when we needed to and could effectively use our actors time. It also meant that each shot was on schedule and we moved locations on time.

However, after the filming we decided to look back at the footage before our editing stage to make sure it was all okay. This is when we realised our main weaknesses:

• Rushing - As we were focused on keeping to a schedule we rushed our filming. On a few of the shots we didn't check them first we just presumed that they would be fine and moved on. However we were wrong because it left us with shots that could have been easily improved and made to look exactly how we wanted.  

• Shot Planning - We feel that we did not look at enough openings in our genre to get some ideas about what to include. Because of this, although in our heads the shots looked brilliant, the shots that we filmed were very boring. When we thought about putting it together we realised that there wasn't really anything to grab our audience's attention.

• Basics Loss - Because we were so focused on our storyline and the legal paperwork ect, we forgot about the basics. We realised that we didn't have any techniques that we learnt at the start of Media AS in our filming (shot reverse shot, match on action, behind shoulder shot). This again, made our filming and ideas seem very poor when we watched them back.

Becaue of this we decided that we need to sit down and think up some more ideas. Although we will keep the story line exactly the same, we think we need to think of some more exciting shots to ensure that our audience enjoy it and want to watch the rest of the film, while still keeping a few of our ideas.

This time we will:

• Watch some openings to get some inspiration and ideas. Although we do not want to copy any openings, we definitely need to get some ideas that we could use in our film, however with a different and unique twist.

• Also, we will take our time with the shots. We will book our actor in for more time to ensure that there is no need to rush our shots. Also we will review each shot straight after it is taken to consider whether we need to shoot it again or if it can be improved.

• Another think we will do is ensure that we get basic filming techniques in. We will include shot reverse shot, over shoulder shot, match on action and 180 degree rule in our filming to ensure that it is seen as good filming and skill.

In the next few days I will be uploading an updated location plan, costume plan and story board as this will be dramatically changing. Also, as we are planning to make our next ideas much more exciting, we will use many more props. Therefore, we will need to create a budget list that will also be uploaded soon.

See you soon.

Director Study - Steven Spielburg

Steven Spielberg

Filmmaker, director and producer Steven Spielberg was born on December 18, 1946, in Cincinnati, Ohio. An amateur filmmaker as a child, Spielberg moved several times growing up and spent part of his youth in Arizona. He became one of the youngest television directors for Universal in the late 1960s. A highly praised television film, Duel (1972), brought him the opportunity to direct for the cinema, and a string of hits have made him the most commercially successful director of all time.

Steven Spielberg is now known as one of the most influential film personalities in the history of film. He is one of Hollywood’s best-known directors and one of the wealthiest fim makers in the world. He works with many genres of film, one being tragedy drama which I am going to explore.

Spielberg has many features that he regularly includes in his films and has been for some years now, here are a few:

Track-in Shots

One of these features is Track-in Shots. In this type of shot, the camera physically moves in on the subject, typically going from a medium close-up to a tighter close-up. The movement is smooth, the background is usually blurred, and it is typically used to draw attention to a significant moment in a character’s story. We see this type of shot throughout many of Spielberg’s work, especially in his tragedies. This is because it’s a very deep shot that helps us connect with the characters, a very important feature in tragedies.

One tragedy film that gives a good example of this is “Amistad” – here is a link to a clip from the film:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee8NvgURCZs  (Technique starts at 0.50, ends at 1.00)

This track-in shot is a typical one. The background is blurred and the movement is soft and slow. Also, it’s going in to the character’s face, letting us connect with him more.

Mirrors

Spielberg often films shots using multiple mirrors. This is mostly for emphasise on the character, through appearance or something deeper.

Here is an example from the film "Catch Me If You Can"

 Sideways Tracking Shots

Another feature that is usual of Spielberg is Sideways Tracking Shots. In this shot, the camera moves sideways over an area. His sideways tracking shots can be very long, typically tracking with two characters that are walking and talking. Spielberg changes this shot to add considerable visual skill to the shots by putting all types of objects and extras between the camera and the two main subjects, to enhance the richness of the frame and visual perception of movement.

Here is a like to an example from the tragedy film "Saving Private Ryan" 

http://movieclips.com/DTa9Q-saving-private-ryan-movie-needle-in-a-stack-of-needles/

This sideways tracking shot is a perfect example, tracking two characters walking and talking. Spielberg adds hundreds of soldiers in the shot and around the characters, a common skill of his.

Framing Through Objects

The next feature that I looked at was Framing through objects. Spielberg often films sujects through objects (often circular) or through another persons arm. This is my favorite technique of Spielberg's.

Here's an example of a circular object from the film "Artificial Intelligence":

And here is an example of someone else's arm acting as the frame, from the film "Minority Report":

Wide Lensed Shots

A third feature that Spielberg likes to use in his work is 'Wide Lensed Shots'. He uses these lenses usually to film over-the-shoulder shots, tracking shots, close-ups, and any other shot in which he wants to make the foreground subject dominate the background. He can be very bold in his use of wide lenses, much bolder than most other filmmakers. 

One film that has a great example of this is Schindler List, here is a link:

42-59

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jri0U57iWWM (Technique starts at 0.42, ends 0.59)

In this clip, the wide lens is used to show the amount of people in the crowd. The group of people are the subject that Spielberg wants the audience to focus on.

Font Study

Hello!

As you know we have been playing around with some font styles for our credits on our movie. To help me get some ideas I decided to have a look at some film credits from films in my genre or similar to my genre.

The first one I looked at was 'Panic Room'

The credits for this opening are a grey colour. Grey is a very plain, empty and depressing colour which helps to illustrate the story. The credits are also all in capital letters which give us a sense of desperation and urgency that helps create an idea of pani, also illustrating the story. The last thing I noticed is that the colour blends in with the background, perhaps illustrating an urban city life.

I like the colour of these credits and think that they would be good to use in our opening as our story is very depressing which is a connotation of grey. 

The second credits I looked at was 'Virtigo'

The font for this film is styled so the letters only have an outline, not a fill. This creates an emptiness feel, represented by the empty letters, this illustrates the story. Also, because of the style of letter we focus straight away on something that is missing, illustrating the story further.

I love the style of this font and think it is definitely something to consider for our own film. I think it would work really well with our story line and help represent the characters.

Next I looked at 'Sherlock Holmes'

The font for this film is handwritten, this makes the film and the story feel more personal to the readers, almost at if we are being taken through a personal diary. 

I like the style of this font and think it is another style to consider for our own film. The reason I like the personal feel is because it is very important in a tragedy to be able to connect with the characters and get to know them and become comfortable with them to the point where they can place themselves in the character's position.

See you soon

Location Plan

Hello!

I have finally completed the location plan for our filming. I included some information about the location and why we chose it, pictures of where in that location we will be filming, possible hazards at each location, things that could go wrong at each location and some maps of the surrounding area so that our crew can get to services that they might need, these are: nearest bus stop, nearest phone box, nearest refreshment shop and nearest public toilet.

The first location I did was Chandos - here are some screen shots of my work:

So, as you can see I have written about three locations that we will be filming at in Chandos and put up some pictures of them. I have then written bout three hazards and three things that could go wrong, also suggesting how we will solve the possibilities. We then have the four services, a picture of them and two maps on how to get there from the location either by foot or by car. I then did the same for our two other locations, 

The Old Railway Station:

And Maids Moreton:

(For this location I did not include public toilet as there will be full access in the house)

See you soon!

First Font Choices

Hello

Recently we have been looking at what font we want to have on our credits. When we started this task, we wrote our original title 'The Noose' down to try out different fonts with it. That's when it hit us: our title needs to change! A noose is a very horrific and daunting thing, something commonly used in a horror. We realised that the title 'The Noose' screams horror, not tragedy, therefore we decided to change it. We brainstormed some more ideas using 4 headings: character, places, plot and object". We used character because we know that tragedy drama films are very character based. We chose places because we know that the setting in a tragedy drama film is vital for the audience's engagement and a lot of tragedy dramas use places for their titles such as "Leaving Las Vegas". We chose plot because this is the main bulk of the play and can give clues to the genre, such as the tragedy drama "Run". And lastly we chose objects because we didn't want to completely scrap our original idea "The Noose" which is an object.
Here is the mind-map we created:

We then looked through each section and either kept it or ruled it out. First we looked at character, we thought that it would be good to have a character as the focus for the title as it could give away hints about the genre whilst not giving away too much about the story. We then looked at places, we ruled this out because we didn't particularly like any that we had written down. We then looked at the plot, we liked a few of them but then we decided that we didn't actually want to give clues about the plot in the title, so we ruled this section out. Lastly, we looked at objects, again we liked a few of them but not as much as the character section so we ruled this one out too. Then we focused on the character sector. We went round and asked some females within our target market which they preferred and they chose "The Truth About Annie", therefore this is our NEW title!!

When we had gotten over our crisis, we started to look at different fonts. As we are only starting to look at this we just chose a few word texted ones with some effects on them.

These are the 7 that we created. As it is not urgent that we need to choose the font soon, we do not want to rush the choice,so we just let them play on our minds and will be creating some more to look at and consider soon. The one that caught my eye straight away was the 3rd one down. This is because it looks a little bit like a tree bard style of font, which is a big part of our plot. However, as our genre is tragedy, I think we might need to go for a font a little big straighter, bolder and a lot more serious. We did ask a few females in our target market to get a starting idea and they said that the first two look too romantic like and so they didn't like these. I think we are far from the chosen one however I feel like we are off to a good start. When we have chosen our font, we will start looking at colours!

See you soon

Age Certificates

Hello

We have recently learnt about the different Age Certificates and what the film has to include to be given its certificate. To research this I looked at 4 different subheadings: Violence, Sex and Nudity, Imitable Behaviour and Language.
Here is the research I carried out:

After this we needed to decide what age certificate to give to our film. To do this we went through each category and decided upon a 15.
This is because:

Language:
In a 15 the BBFC allows strong language and in our film we will only be using moderate strong language. Therefore, a 15 rating would be accepted.

Violence:
Strong Violence is allowed in a 15 and in our film, we have one strong violent scene where a man gets shot. This is expected in a 15, however it is not acceptable to dwell on pain on injury, which we are not planning to do. Therefore, a 15 rating would be accepted.

Sex/Nudity:
There will be none of this featured in our film.

Imitable Behaviour:
This is the main thing that tips our film from being a 12 rating, to being a 15 rating. This is because in a 12 rating, you are able to include harsh behaviours such as suicide, however you can not include any instructional evidence at all. In our film, we have a suicide scene where a young girl ties a school tie to a tree. This can show children how to easily do this action as they will all be able to tie knots and will have a school tie. Therefore, we have to boost our certificate up to a 15.

See you soon.