Research Into Similar Products + Practise Filming

Last week in media I re-drew a storyboard from a scene in Shelock Holmes: then in the lesson we filmed our own version of this scene, going of the storyboard I had drawn. Attached is the story board that I drew:

 Here is the short clip of the scene from Sherlock Holmes that we filmed:

Comment and tell me what you thought, what you though was good and what we could do to improve it!

Research Into Similar Products

The other day in my lesson we looked at opening titles to three different films, those films were:

• Coraline
• Falling Down
• This Is England

We looked at the differences and similarities that they all had.

Coraline:

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/coraline/

• Contains titles - key personnel.
• Shows who possible characters could be.
• Has a soundtrack playing over the top of what is being shown.
• It leaves you asking questions about what could happen in the film, making you want to watch more.

Falling Down:

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/falling-down/

• It doesn't have a soundtrack unlike most opening titles of films.
• It immediately gets the person watching asking questions about the film
• Shows the possible main character.
• Shows the titles of key personnel.
• Shows very clearly where it is set.

This Is England:

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/this-is-england/

• Has a soundtrack that represents the people and era that the film is about.
• It doesn't actually show you any of the characters as it shows real clips from the past, but does show what the characters could possible be like.
• Gives clear time period and setting.
• Contains titles of key personnel.

BFI Lecture

On the 13th of November I went on a media trip to the BFI (British Film Institution) where we had lectures on useful things about our main task what we could include in ours to get the best marks possible. We were spoken to by Pete Frazer, Simon Frame and Joe Cornish.

Pete Frazer, the chief examiner of OCR media studies, told us all about the main things we need to make clear in our opening scene. Here are my notes that I made on his talk:

Key Features:

• Genre
• Narrative (enigma) - Don't tell the whole story.
• Character - little clues of the characters.
• Atmosphere
• Setting

Research:

• Start general.
• Home in on specific thing you want.
• Make your own research focused and relevant.

Useful websites, people and useful things to do:

• artofthetitle.com
• Saul Bass (graphic designer, title designer and film directer)
• Title exercise
• Pete's Blog: @petesmediablog
• Doing lots of small things adds up to get you better marks.

Pete also showed us the nine steps that we should take and they were:

Step 1: Take Stock

• Titles and opening of a new fiction film.
• Up to 2 minutes.
• 20 marks research and planning.
• 60 marks constructing.
• 20 marks evaluating.
• Time frame and equipment.
• Build your skills.
• Build up your research.
• Build up your planning.
• Give time to shoot and edit.
• Keep audience throughout the whole process.

Step 2: Set up blog

Step 3: Build up skills

Step 4:

Step 5: Brainstorm ideas

• Possible scenarios for pitches / treatments.
• 25 word pitch.
• Mood board treatment.
• Peer and teacher feed back.

Step 6: Planning

• Experiment with camera and editing.
• Try out different shots of locations.
• Examples of shots, costumes, props etc onto blog.
• Post-it storyboards, animatic, mood boards.

Step 7: The shoot

• People, places, props, costumes.
• Rehearsing, directing.
• Equipment, jobs on the day
• Keep a record of the process.
• Importance of audio
• BIG PICTURE BEFORE FINE DETAIL.

Step 8:

Step 9: Evaluation

Pete also mentioned about Foley:

• Replacing the sound of something in a film.
• If done in the polimanry task make sure it is done properly.
• Remake things for experiance.

And lastly, Pete mentioned 6 common problems that occur in most pupils work:

• They make it seem like a trailer or short film.
• There is insufficient titles.
• There is poor sound, poor lighting.
• And lastly poorly directed actors.

Research Into Similar Products

This is a short film called 'Tell' made by Ryan Connolly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGgRH7-Qs9g&feature=player_embedded

I thought that it was a brilliant short film, with many great aspects to it.  At the beggining of the film I was very drawn in by the fast moving camera shots moving back and forth from both characters, being very intreged by what the whole commotion was about. Also, I thought the sound throughout the film was brilliently done, it built up the tention perfectly and really unnerved me. The camera shots and angles also contributed to the tention as there were many shots that I thought could be used to scare the viewer but the director waited for the less obvious angle/shot to scare the person watching.

I'd be very keen to know what other people thought about it, both good and bad things.

Research Into Types Of Camera Shots

In my last lesson I was in a group with two other people and we tested out the cameras that we will be using in our future film making. First of all though we had draw out a story board for a couple of ideas for camera shots, we chose to do a high angle shot, extreme close up, reverse angle shots, low angle shot, medium long shot and eye level shot. I will post the video that we madew as soon as I can get it on a computer. In the mean time I have added a few photos showing examples of the types of camera shots I have tride, so take a look at them then suggest a few other camera shots that you think would be good for me and my group to try out!

Eye Level Shot:
 
High Angle Shot:

Extreme Close Up:

Reverse Angle Shot:

Low Angle Shot:

Medium Long Shot:


I have looked at all these examples to try and add as many of them into my main task as I can.

Camera Angles Filming Practise

Attached is the two short clips that me and my group filmed to test out a few camera shots, the ones that I have mentioned in earlier posts. To see what kind of shots we tried watch the clip and have a look back at some my posts to see what I have said about the clips. Once you've watched the clips comment and give me some suggestions about how we could improve our camera shots and filming!

Research Into Similar Products

Today I paired up with my friend and we analised a scene from the film Equilibrium, an 2002 american science fiction action film writen and directed by Kurt Wimmer. Watch it then come back and see if you agree with what me and my media partner thought about the clip. Here is a clip of the scene:

We noticed that within the scene, whilst the two characters were fighting, the camera shots were no longer than two seconds long. This gave the scene a really fast affect making it seem like the two fighting were moving extremely fast, when in reality they won't have been moving quite as fast.
Also we noticed that every shot was being panned around the characters so that not one camera shot was stationary, again giving the feel of much faster movement, adding to the illusion of a massivly fast and energetic fight.

Then after the fight, when one had the other at gun point, the camera shots had slowed right down and were now stationary. This helped to show how fast the sitiuation for the characters had changed and just how fast the fight had been before, in contrast to the stillness of the after the fight.

There were a few different types of camera shots used within the scene, many different medium close-ups were used to show how fast the upper part of the characters body's were moving and the emotion on their faces. There was also quite a few medium long shots used to show exactly what was happening and to make it feel like you were there watching what was going on, giving the illution of reality.

Then to end the scene one the good character has killed the badd guy there is a high angle shot to show the scene and everything around it, showing the people the good character has killed. This makes the audience watching impressed with the character as he has servived through all those people and gives a feel of peace as it is high up and out of danger, looking down on everything.

I personaly thought that the filming of this scene was very well done as it has good contrast between the energetic fighting to the stillness of death, also the movement of the camera giving the fast movement of the characters fighting makes it very affective. I would love to know what other people thought of the scene though so please comment if you felt differently about it!

                                                

Research into Similar Products

In my lesson yesterday I learned about all the different types of camera shots that are possible in film making, here they are:

• Extreme Close Up (ECU)
• Big Close Up (BCU)
• Close Up (CU)
• Medium Close Up (MCU)
• Medium Shot (MS)
• Medium Long Shot (MLS)
• Long Shot (LS)
• Establishing Shot (ES)
• High Angle Shot (HAS)
• Low Angle Shot (LAS)
• Birds Eye View (BEV)
• Dutch Angle (DA)
• Eye Level Shot (ELS)
• Reverse Angle Shot (RAS)

I looked at a clip from star wars, a film by George Lucas (see bellow), of a action scene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRd9PGmAQUE In this scene there is many different camera shots used, I noticed that there were many medium long shots used so that you could see the sheer size difference between the characters, making the fight seem a lot more impressive. There is also a few big close ups used so that you can see the emotion on the characters faces, showing the audience exactly how they feel so that we feel the emotion with them.

                                              

Product Research

In my last media lesson I watched part of the film 'The Orphanage', a 2007 spanish horror film by filmmaker J.A. Bayona. Attached above is link of a picture of the films cover. In the lesson we looked at how sound was used within a scene and what different types were used and how it helped make the make the scene. Watch the scene then come back to see what I had to say about it, the scene we watched is linked here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL3nIK2i4oo  The sound track behind everything was a very, very good chilling piece of music. It started of quite quietly with violins, then as the scene comenced the violins began to play faster and more high pitched creating a lot of tention, making the viewer feel at edge.

The sound affects of the women's breathing and footsteps were exaggerated to also creat tention and make it seem as if she was in the house just above the people watching, making it very realistic and having a 3D affect.

Within the dialog of the scene the man's voice, who was talking to women walking around, was made deeper to make him sound more powerful and give him more presence. The women's voice, who was being watched, was made to sound like it was through a microphone to make it realistic that we were watching her through the screens in the room below. 

Research Into Similar Products + Introduction Post

HELLO! I have created this blog for my media studies As level. On here I will be blogging about anything i have found out about media studies, anything that I find useful for the subject and any projects I have made. Today I was given a few useful websites to help with inspiration and other useful things about media, I have found them very useful but would like to see what other people think about them! www.artofthetitle.com  www.petesmediablog.blogspot.co.uk  www.guardian.co.uk  and  www.ocr.org.co.uk