Pre-Production Notes

• Scripting
• Developing screen break down
• Storyboard
• Shot list
• Casting
• Location

Production Meeting Template

I will soon begin to start blogging a poduction meetings that me and my group have, they will be structured in a similar way to this template:

Date:
Who is present:
Foucus / Agenda
Then there will be bullet points of what our focus is and any plans/notes we have:

• ----------------------------------------------------- 
• -----------------------------------------------------
• -----------------------------------------------------
• -----------------------------------------------------

Action points:

Organisation Into Actors, Location, Costumes and Props

For our main character we already had an idea of the kind of costume we wanted her to wear.
Having realised that we could attract the social group our media product was aimed at by dressing our character in the kind of clothes that they would wear, thankfully being the kind we had in mind already.

Our character will wear a hoody or jacket of some kind with a tshirt underneath, skinny jeans/trousers with trainers:

                                


Hoodies or jacket:
                 


Skinny Jeans/Trousers:

             

T-shirts:

Trainers:

              

This will help show what our character's personality is like through her attitudes to fasion and also help the target audience to connect with her through what she wears, being the kind they would wear and like.

Main Task

In class, we looked at what the outline of a brief consists off. We decided  it was these headings:

• Intention
  - what the brief intends for the film or tv program to be like.
• Purpose
  - what the creators want the audience to gain out of watching the text, whether it be enjoyment or knowledge etc.
• Target Audience
  - the certain type of people you want to view your text. For example, certain age groups.
• Limitations
  - what stops you being able to do everything you want. For example, budget.

'The Amazing Spider-Man', a 2012 superhero film, was intended to entertain viewers watching it. The purpose was to portray the character's, spiderman, origin story and his development into a superhero while a high school student. 'The Amazing Spider-Man's target audience was people from the age if 10-16 mainly but also anyone above that age, having a reasonably concentrated target audience. I cannot find any information on the limitations that the film had, so if any one knows then don't hold back from telling me!!

I thought 'The Amazing Spider-Man' was a great film, having a good diversity from other Spiderman films and sticking to how Spiderman was originally portrayed in the comic books by Stan Lee, making sure it met its purpose. I also thought that it used a great deal of CGI but very effectively, making sure that things weren't to unbelievable so that it was enjoyable to watch, making sure it met its intention. It was also very entertaining and enjoyable for my younger brother, who is 10 years of age, meaning that the content was suitable for their target audience.
This is something that we will be taking into account on creating our opening title sequence, remembering to keep it to a standard that means it will still be suitable to our target audience.

Here is also a review of the film: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/jul/04/the-amazing-spiderman-review

Have a read and see if you agree, then come back and tell me what you thought of the film!

Research into Creative Team

Creative Team:

• Executive Producer - responsible for the overall production.
• Writer - writes the script.
• Producer - in charge.
• Director - tells people what to do.
• Production Manager - manages the production and regulates the cost of delivering the expected film.
• Storyboard Artist - produces the storyboard for the film.
• Camera Operator - professional operator of a film camera, in charge of the all the camera work.
• Lighting Director - in charge of all the lighting in a film or tv.
• Sound Technition - in charge of all the sound in a film or tv, making sure that all the levels and sounds are right.
• Actors - persons who play the characters.
• Editors - person who is in charge of and determins the final content of a text.

If I were to have one of these jobs I would love to be the director. One of my favourite directors is an American director called Quentin Tarantino. He has directed films such as Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds and has one many awards for his work. Here is a link to some  infomation about him: http://www.tarantino.info/

Quentin Tarantino

I would like to know of other peoples favourite directors and their films so I can see what I think of them and widen my knowlege of directors, so get telling me them!

Product Research

I researched three more opening sequences again in a lesson. I looked at what the genre of Cape Fear was (thriller), what the narrative of Hellboy 2 was and lastly what the setting of Forest Gump was. Links to infomation for all three films are attached bellow.

Below I will statue what I have found researching these three films.

Cape Fear: Thriller due to these reasons: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/cape-fear/

• The opening sequence has lots of dark colours indicating dark happenings and a dark story.
• The water distorts the images shown, insinuating that things won't be right in the film and that some people could get hurt or 'distorted'.
• Fearful music (non-diagetic) gives an uncomfortable feel, reflecting the rest of the film.
• Red is shown in the sequence, which represents blood and this shows that there could be murder, makes it mesterious.

'Hellboy 2' Narrative: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/hellboy-ii-the-golden-army/

• Something has been created, what?
• Large scale production - loud noises all the things go into making just the title words.

'Forrest Gump' Setting: http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/forrest-gump/

• America - yellow taxis, classically used in America.
• All the cars drive on the right hand side of the road, which they do in America.
• Located in a town/city area seen from the buildings.

From all three of these films there is a clear use of colour within the title sequence, I will try and fit in colours that reflect the mood of my opening title sequence, having quite toned down colours.

Cape Fear info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Fear_(1991_film)

Hellboy 2 info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellboy_II:_The_Golden_Army

Forrest Gump info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Gump

Pitch Presentation

Attached is the production pitch my media group and I have made to show our ideas for an opening sequence for our main task in MEDIA AS, take a look and tell me what you thought!

http://www.scribd.com/doc/121366597/Production-Pitch?secret_password=2fjipvr7fsbkdeosu5zg

Product Research

In a resent lesson we looked at the opening title sequence of a film called Se7en. This is a 1995 American thriller. It features Bratt Pitt and Morgan Freeman, two very know actors, who play two detectives that are trying to catch a serial killer who plans murders due to the seven deadly sins: Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Pride, Lust and Envy.

Here is its opening title sequence:

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/se7en/

In class we noticed what was very clear and distinctive in this opening sequence:

• There was edgy noises (non-diagetic sound), this created a scary atmosphere.
• There was an obvious character who seemed to be crazy.
• A great deal of quick shots were used in the sequence which showed small cluess to the character and also the plot.
• The titles shown were in an odd type of font, almost as if someone had written them - shows the way the character has an odd way of doing things and shows the unbalace of his mental state.
• Nearly all the camera shots are extreme close ups - this is done so that nothing is given away in great detail and we, the viewers, only see a small detail of what the characters life consists of but it is still enough for us to have a good idea of him.

From this I can see that a use of clever camera work can easily create questions, with the close-ups of things creating questions about who is the character? What are they planning? What is there significance?
- From this I hope to use some clever close up shots within my main task to create questions about who the character is and what is going on in their life, but not in a scary/creepy way which is shown in 'Se7en'

As usual I would love to hear what other people thought of this opening sequence and peoples opiniouns on it, so watch the clip then tell me what you though!

Preliminary Task

Attached is my groups preliminary task:

This was our first attempt at creating a small media product, unfortunately our inexperience has shown through as it is hardly edited at all. This has meant that this product has lost its realism due to there being hardly any continuity within the scene, so it is a pretty poor media product.

This preliminary task has left us with a lot of space to improve and the knowledge that we will need to spend a lot of time working on our main task, really spending a lot of time on the planning and editing as well as the actual filming of the media product. We will also need to create all the sounds as foley to keep a sense of realism as hardly any sound was picked up with the cameras we used and it will create a more whole sound to our opening title sequence, making it more satisfying and real.

So, make sure you've watched the clip then leave a comment on your opinion and any suggestions for us.

Analysis Heading and Course Work Planning

In a lesson before Christmas, we learnt about analysing the main headings and the layout of how our course work should be done. These headings were: Genre, Atmosphere, Narrative, Setting and Character, the main headings that Pete told us to look at.

The layout of our course work should be done like this:

• Part 1
  - The brief and research into similar media texts/target audience.
• Part 2
  - Planning the filming

My group have already had a look into the kinds of films that we would like our main task to be like, a feel good, comedy tip film, such as Juno directed by Jason Reitman and written by Diablo Cody.
Here is the opening title sequence to the film Juno and below is pictures of Reitman and Diablo with links to information about them.

                     

Jason Reitman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Reitman 

                                                  Diablo Cody http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Cody

We were also shown our brief:

The Brief - The Main Task

- Film the opening sequence of a new fiction film, including titles and a soundtrack to last approximately two minutes. -

I think that this is a very good brief to be able to work with because it gives us a lot of choice in what we want to do whilst still being quite spacific.

 

     

                                                  



Preliminary Task

In my last media lesson, me and my group started on our polimanary task. In this short clip we had to demonstrate that we could use match on action (this is where the perspective of the camera changes and the scene continues to flow), the 180 degree rule (the camera should be placed somewhere inside 180 degrees on a particular side of the inversible line of shot containting two people filmed in sequence.) and lasty shot reverse shots (A film technique wherein one character is shown looking (often off-screen) at another character, and then the other character is shown looking "back" at the first character.) Our preliminary task will be uo shortly.

In the mean time, here are a few examples of what is needed to be seen:

• Match on action:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mv93covb53w

• 180 Degree Rule:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27KCpefUMxU&feature=endscreen&NR=1

• Shot Reverse Shot:
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gIdceyd1L8