Screen grab of Newspaper Practice

In this image, we are just commencing to get an understanding on how to use  and become familiar with live type and sound. We have gathered all the clips and shots we took to now produce a final clip edited to perfection, cutting, adding to the clip to make everything fit into place and produce a well presented practice clip. All the sound, editing, fonts, titles will prepare us for our thriller opening. 

Who watches what genres?

As we are making thriller opening i did some research on the people who watch thrillers.

Here are the figures for the suspense films released in the UK in 2009.

In 2009 408 box office films were released, but only 31 of them were thrillers. Action, animation and comedy took up 52% of the Box Office in 2009. I think that it was this high because it attracts different genders. Importantly it also attracts different ages, which makes it more popular. Also animations attract a younger audience which are more likely to go with their parents or guardians to the cinema.

I think thrillers only had 4% of the box office because they can sometimes be categorised under other genres or they don't appeal to enough people. A big factor in this can also be age as a thriller is usually scary and will need a 18+ certificate. This leaves a huge gap out of the population who would want to see these films, so maybe they should make the target audience 15+. 

Here is some information about Gender and Genre

This shows what stereotypically each gender is draw to. Showing how films are targeted at the audience. This shows how Romance is aimed at Female while Action and SciFi is aimed at male. Horror in the middle shows it is like by both.

Introduction to camera

n order to begin our filming we had a lesson how to use a professional camera, we we're taught the key points such as:

• The battery and memory cards are inserted properly 
• Don't situate the camera on west surfaces or filming in the rain   
• Make sure lens is in focus before filming
• Only use the necessary buttons (record/zoom/focus etc) 

Along with the camera came the tripod and the key things we was told was:

• All the legs on the tripod are set out even 
• Make sure the camera is locked on properly to the tripod to avoid it falling off or causing the camera to wobble
• To disassemble the camera off the tripod press a red button also make sure the lever is pulled away from the camera then slide it off the tripod

Jelly baby animatic

In this lesson we were given jelly babies and told to take pictures of the jelly babies to make a short animatic. This meant that we had to create a short animatic with not much, leaving a lot to the imagination. Think of ideas to do with this concept was quite hard. Eventually our idea came to a jelly bean being dumped by its partner, getting over the sadness, meeting a new partner and getting married.  We created tableaux of our jelly babies and took different types of shots such as over the shoulder and birds eye view. This created a good effect considering we only had jelly beans. We used props such as rulers and folders to create the scene and help stand them up properly. 

We had a short amount of time to take pictures to get them ready for editing next lesson. Because of the lack of time we couldn't come up with a lot of ideas. We couldn't communicate it to the best of our ability to improve it. Our group became annoyed with the concept and we dislike it over all but i think we still got the most out of it.

Newspaper Practice: Evaluation

After our introduction to the camera we had to show everything we learnt in class and produce a practice film.

For our first practice film, all of the groups in our class were given a sheet of paper with a simple idea for it to be based on. Our piece of paper told us we had to base ours on someone reading a newspaper. We had to think of a idea involving a newspaper. We began brainstorming and put our opinions together and came up with an outcome. We decided to make our storyline humorous so we decided someone would be on the toilet reading a newspaper, while people were spying on him and breaking into the toilet. The group decided that i was going to be on the toilet while everyone else spied on me. 

We filmed loads of different shots types such as over the shoulder, point of view, low angle shots, extreme CU, LS, MS. The result of having a wide range of shots was really good, because it helped us make our film flow more consistently. Our group got on really well and managed to edit it as a team. We had loads of fun and made it even tho we had a short time to film and edit it.

Analysis: ‘I Hate You More’

Absolutely upsetting with how our performance was today. today was the day that we could have redeemed our selves but we could not do that! On the bright side, me and Jade had managed to edit something together. To be honest, it is absolutely lacking the majority of shots that we were expected to include e.g. Over the shoulder shot, Long shot, Mid-Shot. This was not our best at all! I really enjoyed doing the beginning. I can’t deny that at all! I really liked the way me and Jade had the beginning fit together quite smoothly and in a flow.

 

Well done to us! But, on the other side, it would have been great if we had the whole group there... but you have to what you have to do!

I hate you more: practice film.

Yesterday, I was not in to make the film with my group. The group also had to remake the film because it was not up to the right standard therefore we all decided to come in today and redo the film as a group. Unfortunatly Samire was not able to come in and Carlos had to go early. So we all filmed it together but me and Anisa stayed back to edit and finish the film to get it over and done with.
As yesterdays idea did not work out, we thought of a new idea which was to have two girls who are forced to be in a room together that did not get along. They were rivals to each other. We took close up shots of both face expressions. We also done match cuts of the door being opened and panning shots.
Personally i thought this was not the best that I done. I feel that if we had more time, more ideas could of been thought and we could make the film a lot better by not rushing. Next time i would want to put more effort in the film and be more organised as a team.

'I Hate You More'

Sadly, this was not to the best of our ability but we have tried our best to make something out of this!

INTERTEXTUALITY. Some examples.

Intertextuality is describe as the visual referencing between films. Basically films borrowing parts of a scene from each other, and also certain camera angles, aspects of mise en scene, snippets of sound or methods of editing in some films that you have seen in others.


An example of intertextuality is the film 'The stepfather'. When the man is running after the woman, and he tries to stab her. She stabs him first then he walks towards the bathtub and drags the curtains down. This part of the scene is borrowing from Psycho. As he pulls the curtains with him, you can see a close up shot of it ripping of. It shows more excitement and gives the audience the feeling of fright as the sound increases. The angle of the camera was also very affective as it was filmed from the side, it gives you a sense of shock.  I find the curtain scene very interesting because when Psycho done the same, it was also a close up shot and the minute the curtains got pulled of, both films,  the characters dropped dead straight after. It gives you an impression that this is the end of the film and it creates tension.  

Another intertextuality film that interested me was 'SUCCUBUS' which was made by a student.The film was very similar to Psycho in many parts of the scene. The first one is that they were both filmed while someone was showering. This creates tension because the audience will feel anxious to know what will happen next. They both have someone creeping up on them planning to kill someone. I find Succubus better because as she was in the shower room , there was non-digetic sound which made it more interesting and scary. The sound suggests something bad will happen to him and that she is about to hurt him. There was also close up shots of her holding a knife which would make the audience feel afraid and have a feeling of fear. The part where they both stab the person in the shower was also very similar as you can see blood on their body and also where the camera was going back and forward, not showing literally them stabbing the person but their face expressions. This created excitement towards the audience. I thought the stabbing scene was very powerful and enjoyable to watch as it got me on the edge of my seats. 

Overall I find intertextuality very effective because it gives the audience attention and some people realises that they have seen it somewhere else which shows that it is a good film therefore they remember it. I really enjoy watching some of these films as it gives me many good idea to make a film that also has to do with intertextuality. 

Analysis: The Classroom =)

It first started off with us having to plan the Jelly Bean Animatic. We had made all the different shots today. However, we were extremely unhappy with the result. The reason of why I believe that we were unhappy with it was because it seemed to be simpler when we had done it with the Jelly beans. On the other hand when we had started filming it in real life, it was extremely hard for us as we couldn’t find the right locations to be able to perform our scenes at. At first we thought the ‘break up’ scene was pretty well done, but after that, it just went a bit downhill! It simply didn’t make any sense!

 

Solution? Of course! We had to do it over again. We had to make up a new story and try and work our way around this in 5 minutes! So we concluded with having it very short and simple. When I mean very simple, I mean extremely SIMPLE. We had a new story. Our new story was about a boy who has a secret crush on a girl in his class. We see him ‘checking her out’ in lessons. This could leave a slight suspense of what may happen next. A romantic thriller in order to be specific.