Media Workshop

On the 16th of December we had a media workshop where we had Anna Thomas come in and talk to us about the media industry and the work that she does.

During this workshop she showed us a couple clips from the films she has worked on and these were;

• Quarantine
• 28 weeks later
• The best times of our lives
• The edge of love
• Nowhere boy.

At the workshop we also discussed in our groups what we think are the advantages and disadvantages of working in the media institute.

We also spoke about the importance of Continuity. Anna strictly emphasised to us the importance of continuity when filming, and how it can affect the way things are filmed and also the order. We also looked at film shots and angles.

at 0.15 seconds Anna showed us how she had to fill up the yellow plastic bags with clothes from charity shops.

Our Job Allocations

As an activity we were all told to choose a role that we would like to do in our group, when filming.

Narrative Research Assignment

Narrative theories- study the device and conventions governing the organisation of a story in a sequence.

Tvzetan Todorov- suggested that stories begin with an equalibrium or status quo where any potentiality opposing forces are in balance













Equilibrium disequilibrium and new equilibrium- These are the three main points to a successful movie. Equilibrium is- an existing state of harmony at the beginning of a movie

Disequilibrium is- when the equilibrium is disrupted by an unfortunate event or evil character that will then progress into a chain of negative events or conflict taking place.

New equilibrium is- when the evil character or event ends up being defeated, conflict being resolved and the mood returning back to harmony

Here are a few examples:

Peter Pan:

In the beginning Wendy and the children belong to a normal family, and the mood is set as a peaceful family. When Peter pan arrives and takes the children to never land; things are all exciting for them. (This is where the equalibrium ends) Later on in the film we are then introduced to Captain Hook- who wants Peter Pan dead, he holds Tinkerbell captive and Wendy and the children. (Disequilibrium begins) In the end Peter Pan is defeated by Peter Pan's clever plan. (new equilibrium comes in)
















Daddy Day Care:

At the beginning Eddie Murphy runs a well earned household with his family and has a well paid job (Equilibrium) The problem begins when it is trouble for his son to get into a good day care and he looses his job alongside this too. (This is where the disequilibrium begins) When he final begins to start up his own day care Ben (the son) previous headmaster gets Jealous and attempts to make his daycare a complete failure. However towards the end of the film Eddie Murphy's daycare outshines the other, making their daycare a success. (Bringing the new equilibrium)










Valdimir Propp- His theory was a study of Narratology he studied the fact that fairy tales can be compared by examining the most basic plot components; he argued that fairy tales were constructed of most plot elements, which he called functions, which consistently occurred in a uniform sequence.
From his analysis he found that analysis reveals that fairy tales do share several similarities as far as basic plot elements. However his analysis about the plot element does not fit in with this
What his thoery fails to take into account:

• Propp's analysis also fails to recognise the importance of such story components as tone, mood, characterization, and writing style.
• According to Propp, a cohesive story can be formed by connecting a series of any set of the thirty-one functions in order.
  
  Binary Opposition- is a theory that you can easily put to use when you analyse texts it is a theory set out to explain how we create meaning from things in the world
  
  Flashbacks- an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point.
  
  
  The flashback scene takes place during 0.30-0.53
  
  
  
  
  

Music Idea for Opening Sequence (individual work)

For the opening sequence; alongside having the role as director I also needed to start thinking about what music am I going to include in my opening sequence. Bearing in mind that we are already going to have a narrator, I needed to think about what and how I will go about doing this. So these were the suggestions that I came up with..

• using string instruments, as it contradicts with what is happening in the opening sequence
• Overlaying the music with the narration, giving it a subltle and soothing element
  
• at also at first i thought about about using base sounds to give a dark and mysterious effect.
  

The inspiration I got these ideas from the following:



at 0.52 seconds onwards

Continuity- What works well and what doesn't

In the lesson we looked at continuity.
The first question that we were asked to look at was: What is continuity?

Continuity in terms of props and costume, and the same rule applies with actors. It is the consistency of characters props and making sure that things are the same, at all times when filming.

Example: If I was to film a scene where the female character was walking, to show continuity I would have to shoot the female, from different angles as she is walking to show continuity bearing in mind what foot she takes to walk with first so that the action looks continuous.



The second question we were asked to take into consideration was:
What are the ways in which we can prevent continuity errors?

When thinking about this I thought to prevent continuity errors we can write down notes of certain things.

Example: in our opening sequence when the female is flicking through the diary we can have someone writing notes about which hand she uses to flick the diary open, and also when the female character walks up to the collage what foot she uses to walk with first.

Even thought it sounds simple; I believe it is the only way to prevent continuity errors.

As a class these were the Idea that people came up with:

• Write a list of props and costume
• Take a picture or a video of what is happening- as there might be intervals (days) between time of shooting.)
• Also noting down the time of day as this may effect continuity as to what is taking place and when. Example: If we film our first scene in the evening and then our next scene which is suppose to continue from this in the the late evening. This would confuse the audience as to what is taking place and when it is suppose to take place.

Addressing the evaluation questions

From the Evaluation questions the questions I am planning to focus on is;

• How the media product represents particular social groups
• Who would be the audience for the media product

As the genre of my film is Film Noir, mainly females are inerested watching this genre of film, so it would make sense to address this film to teenage girls aged 15. The opening sequence represents this particular social group by the intense and conniving element; and also it relates to love, relationships and feelings; which are things that many teenage girls face.

Our media product represents girls from a particular social group by the way the female character is dressing. She wears a high waist skirt, an appealing blouse and heels. This high fashioned dress sense can relate to the modern day fashion that teenage girls are into.

::Conventions::

Use.. Develop.. Challenge..

From our presentation, we were told to think about the Evaluation question, about what conventions we are going to use, devlop and challenge in our opening sequence.

Adriana drew this table to illustrate the conventions we would be using, developing and challanging; using the information I had given here based on my knowledge of films that I watched and also from my individual presentation.

Improvements needed on Presentations

Today, we were asked to show our presentations to our teacher based on the corrections and improvements we were asked to make.

•The first thing that was indicated to the group was that we need to draw a table of the conventions, and say, what we would use, develop and change.



Here Ms said to me that the slide which talks about the male protagonists is not linked with a picture it is in the mise-en-scene text box. So Ms suggested to me that I should fit a text box with the correction.



The mistake I made here was using the same picture in my presentation, which I should have just removed.

Match on Action

As an assignment I have been asked to look at match on action and how I would like to incorporate this into my opening sequence. So to give a better understanding of what math on action is I have extracted a couple of clips from you tube.








How match on action is used in this shot- As the female walks up to the bookshelf it then cuts to her picking up the book and flicking through the pages, while she is doing this we see a over the shoulder shot of her "reading" and then a close- up of her holding the book.This editing technique is done to show a continuous flow of action that is taking place. This shot is done for a couple seconds to probably emphasise the change as it then returns to an over the shoulder shot.

The definition of Match on Action: is a shot that connects an action so that it appears continuous. The action should start from one shot and then end in the following shot that has just been cut.

This editing technique is vital as it shows continuous flow of action is taking place; I could use the editing technique in my opening sequence in scene 4 as the female circle the chair can use match on action to show her from the four stages she will take as she circles the chair. E.g. from her back,the side, and the front. These three cuts will show that her action is continuous; making the scene engaging.

Changes.. Changes.. Changes..

IDEA --) To represent the husband in the opening sequence at first we had the idea of the husband sitting tied up on a chair.

CHANGE --) However after thinking this all through we decided to change this: to where there is only a chair to show the investigator as it is not an important convention of film Noir; as it may reveal too mutoch for an opening sequence.

IDEA --) In our group we also went through a few changes when it came to representing the husband: at first I decided to have him in the opening sequence as he is the is the main cause for the female characters mental state.

CHANGE--) After the first group meeting we thought about not having the husband and just having an empty chair with the female circling it. This would be to show that she is just imagining the whole thing of what she would like to do to her husband. (This was Victoria's suggestion)

After presenting our PowerPoint to our teacher I then remembered:
Where would the credits go?

Admittedly we did not think of where the credits would go as the group was thoroughly focused on completing the storyboard. After the first group meeting we thought

I then suggested we could use post-it notes with the titles and credits on in it, as the setting would take place mainly in an office; for example a post it note in scene two when we have a close up of the diary or when she finds a picture of her husband when we can have a still shot of the picture then briefly show the items on her table before we go into the next scene and from this we then see a post it note with the credits.

Although after asking this question, the group then looked at the opening sequence and came up with more creative ideas.

Mica came up with the idea of "using home items and putting home names on them." Basically expanded on my idea and thought about using a range of objects that are place din an office.

Improvements on Presentation

In this slide what i did was i used more visuals as Ms suggested before as it was too much writing:

Feedback from Presentation

After presenting our powerpoint presentation to our teacher as a collective we were given good and bad points as to what worked well and what could have improved:

WWW: - What went well

•A lot of vocabulary used- the presentation is clear and simple

•As a group we understand how to make a good opening sequence

•Ms. liked the idea and how we all collaborated our ideas to fit together smoothly

•The conventions shows how we are going to reinforce them in our opening sequence, which shows that we understood how to stick to the conventions of film noir

•We are not sticking to the cliché, which is good

Ideas Ms Suggested to us:

•As film noir is usually in black and white due to the time it was set in ms suggested that to get the red on the nails of the female and the red heels that we are planning on using- we can use a special affect called “Chromakey” however if we wanted to use this feature we would need to do a little research on this to see how it is done. Ms also gave us a prime example from the film Sin city.


(Here are two examples of the chromakey effect from the film sin city.)

•Photograph of the investigator, instead of using a male character as it may show too much in the opening sequence

•It was also suggested to us that we should take out the echo effect of the room and then put a dissolve in scene 2

•And also the whole idea about the female character being schizophrenic, it was suggested that she should just be an evil character as the “smurk” that she will have on her face will already show this. So by giving the female character a schizophrenic personality this may confuse the audience


Ms thought our presentation and idea would work with these changes or improvements

EBI- Even Better If:

•Wider range of films

•Investigate lighting as in filming as it will be black and white; we either need to have low blacks and high whites so that it emphasise the importance of things

•Research black and white photography

•Low key lighting- Ms said to think about this as she wasn’t too sure if we had an understanding as to what it was (referring to what I as part of the conventions.)

Powerpoint of Group Idea- Draft

Everyone in the group was given a title slide to do.

Jamilla- - Conventions
Victoria- - Setting
Mica- - Storyboard
Adriana- - Characters

StoryBoärd Process

Draft of storyboard.

While incorporating everyone's idea together we then came up with our new story board; however some of the features that were originally in the storyboard were kept the same such as the diary entry the narration and so forth. These were kept the same specifically so that we stuck to the conventions of Film Noir.







Scene 1: Establishing shot of the room using the echo effect.
scene 2: Extreme close-up of a female flicking the diary pages with a soft voice of the woman narrating.
Scene 3: The woman walks into the room with a diagetic sound of heels. There is a close up of her legs.
Scene 4:The female circles around the chair- on the chair there is a notepad zoom in to: ‘she’s done it again’ on the notepad
Scene5: From the notepad we dissolve into her diary. She continues talking, and turns the page. She sees the picture and gives a mischievous smirk.
Scene 6: Low angle of her shoes when she is walking which tilts up slowly (up her body) finally to the face there is another echo effect on her face.
Scene 7:POV shot of her looking at the collage of pictures of men with ‘X’ s on them. She adds the picture to the collage and we her pen she points the picture to his face-contemplating
Scene8: We zoom out from the collage then pan to the desk where the woman shuts the diary leaving her hand with a large ring on top



Throughout this processes of getting our storyboard together we made various changes, as we were all individually come up with new and improved ideas about what will happen in our opening sequence.

One of the main changes that were made was the order as to how our opening sequence is going to start. Originally out idea was to start it off with a close up shot of the females hand as she flicks through her Diary, this would have been done to show uncertainty and to indicate to the audinece that something is wrong with her.

We then decided that we may not use another echo effect; even though the initial idea of this was to show that she is a schizophrenic, and another purpose of the diary was to show that she has done something out of the ordinary or something in which she should not have done (referring to female character)

In scene 8 originally we were going to have the pages of the female characters diary flicking until it clode itself shut. Due to logical reasons this would have been a huge filming problem as it would have been hard to find a way to do this.
When I first devised my storyboard I did take this into consideration as a potential problem although I thought this may have been an effective way to end the opening sequence so I decided not to change it.

2nd Group Meeting

The purpouse of getting into groups was to come up with an idea and present it on a power point presentation as to what idea we have choosen and our new exisiting idea as a whole. We were then given a task shhet with requirements as to what we should include in our new presentations and this was:

i)A clear description of what is goin to happen in 2 minutes
ii)Conventions of the genre: how are you reinforcing or challenging them into the opening sequence
iii)What films were we inspired by and what will we be taking from them (using videos)
iv) Characters-who wil be in it/ who will act
v) Setting- where will you film this?
vi) Storyboard- what is going to happen and camera angles.

During our second meeting as a group we were each allocated a slide to do for these specific reasons.

Conventions and the inspirartional of films, are the two powerpoint slides I decided to do as Film Noir was originally my idea and I had already had previous knowledge of the genre.

Adriana- was given the characters slide to do,as she felt comfortable taking on this role

Setting- Victoria

Mica- storyboard

My Group Idea- 1st meeting

Based on my first presentation I was then put into a group with my class peers and they are:
Mica
Adriana
Victoria

As a group we decided to take on my idea of Film Noir as it is original and it it said to be something that not a lot of people do.
the first thing we did as a group was looked at the story board and to see how we can incorporate everyone's original idea into the opening sequence.

At first we all briefly discussed what all our presentations and genre's were about; and from this we then went onto discussing as a collective what we would want from everyone Else's presentation.

Mica- The upbeat music which contrasts what i happening; in the opening sequence

Victoria- the non-diagetic sound of heels.

Adriana- pictures in a diary, picture falls out she picks it up sticks it on a wall and this picture is of her husban. So basically the whole collage idea.



This is a quick drawing of the collage that we decided to use from Adriana's main idea. Here we decided that we are going to have a collage of photos, with a red "X" on them. The purpose of this is to engage the audince on the build up of suspence during the opening sequence.

However as a group these are the important features we discussed:
Adding more things to the storyboard to make it more effective

In the stroyboard emphasise her permiscuity. We talked about having a vague flash just of the inspector to stick to the convention of having an inspector.

When looking at the storyboard I had done on my own the group thought it was quite limited and would not be effective, so we decided to should come up with ideas on how we can improve the storyboard, whilst keeping the conventions in mind.

My Main Idea- The Stages

On this slide I was told that the information on the slide is to long so therefore i would have to make my idea more clearer by using bullet points.



I then went to seek help about what I could do to improve this presentation before I presented it and I was told that I had to shorten a couple of my slides and to be a more more specific especially in mr story board. Here i was given constructive critisms feedback from my teacher and she told me that i needed to cut down on what iwrote and only mention the specific and important information.


Due to my late start in the course, at first I was unaware as to what to include in my presentation; even though i was given a sheet giving me exact details I first came up with a presentation that lacked alot of detail. And the feedback I first received was that my understanding of the genre was limited, and this was what my first draft of my presentaion looked liked,

~ Fonts~

These are the fonts that I have considered using in the Opening Credits. The majority of the titles are bold, and some are old fashioned which shows the era of Film Noir

Individual Powerpoint on Film Noir

This was my individual presentation on the genre.

Research & Planning

The Research Process :-)

Initially the genre that I was focusing on was Romance, but when I recieved feedback from my teacher, it was indicated to me that I shoud try focusing my idea on Film Noir. From this I then went on to getting information and watching films based on this genre.

I have looked up various websites that will help me to get a better understanding of the genre; and I also using you tube to retrieve videos.
Websites I got information from:

• http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html
• http://digitaldreamdoor.nutsie.com/pages/movie-pages/movie_film_noir.php
• http://www.crimeculture.com/Contents/RW-ThingCalledNoir.html
• http://www.noiroftheweek.com/2007/12/best-film-noir-of-all-time-list.html
• http://www.filmnoirstudies.com/glossary/index.asp
• http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:film+noir&ei=PVRSrG1n84AaXr7yqAw&sa=X&oi=glossarydefinition&ct=title&ved=oCAwQkAE
• http://www.filmsite.org/doub.html
  
• http://asmedia-mayamathias.blogspot.com/2009/02/codes-conventions-of-film-noir.html
  

Many of these websites have enabled me to gain a better understanding of Film Noir, it has enabled me to:

• Understand the conventions of Film Noir
• Know popular Film Noir movies
  
• See what camera angles and shots are commonly used within this genre

Alongside using the internet also used you tube to watch videos and trailers,

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSCV2qc2IY <---- This is the trailer to the Maltese Falcon, I got a couple of ideas from this trailer that I would like to use in my opening sequence. The narration that is used, is one of the main conventions in Film Noir but having it in the opening sequence engages the audience, which is the ideal purpose of films. Another inspiration I got while watching this opening is the use of different entrances in the credits, which I believe makes a domiant effect on the opening.
  

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3wjJcuGsVE
  
  

1st Individual Presentation- Romance

My first tasks was to create a power point presentation on a genre that intrested me, and the genre I decided to focus on was romance. This presentation required me to have essential knowledge of the AS syllabus and the 3 main areas that are assessed.


In this presentation I also looked at the history of films and how it came about

How each Film inspired me:

One of the main reasons why this inspired me as this contradicts the role of a man in Romance films; being an Officer and a gentleman depitcs the different roles that a man can have.