Film Opening Sequence

Representation

Stereotypes...

Media institutions use stereotypes because the audience will instantly understand them. Stereotypes are basically just a 'visual shortcut'. Because they are repeated so often, we assume that they are normal or 'true'.

Archetypes...

This is the ultimate stereotype. For example, the white stiletto wearing, big busted, brainless blonde bimbo.

Countertype...

This is a representation that challenges traditional associations of groups, people or places.

Representation...

The way in which people, events and ideas are presented to the audience.

To break it down, the media takes something that is already there and represents it to us in the way that they chose.

 Representations are created by producers. What they choose to show us is controlled by the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper is any person involved in a media production with the power to make a decision about something the audience are allowed to read, hear or see. E.g a newspaper editor has the final say on what goes into a newspaper.

Moguls...

In the example of the newspaper editors decision, the decision can not be made freely and can be affected by technical issues and also by the kind of person who owns the newspaper. E.g the so-called media moguls, such as Rupert Murdoch

Who, what, why, where...

Who: what is being represented? Who is the preferred audience for this representation?

What: what are they doing? Is their activity presented as typical or atypical? Are they conforming to genre expectations or other conventions?

Why: why are they presented? What purpose do they serve? What are they communicating by their presence? Whats the preferred reading?

Where: where are they? How are they framed? Are they presented as natural or artificial? What surrounds them? What is the foreground and background?

The male gaze...

Cinema apparatus of Hollywood cinema puts the audience in a masculine subject position with the woman on the screen seen as an object of desire. Film and cinematography are structures upon ideas.
Protagonists tended to be men. Mulvey suggests two distinct modes of male gaze: 'voyeuristic (women as whores) and fetishist- woman as unreachable Madonna's'  (Narcissistic women watching films see themselves reflected on the screen.)

How we treat people- Richard Dyer

Dyer argues that how we are seen determines how we are treated and how we treat other people is based around how we see them. This comes from our understanding of representation.
He believes that stereotypes come down to power. Those who have power stereotype those who don't.

Myths- Roland Borthes

Prezi



Before we made our film we spent a while planning. This is the Prezi I made. This shows all the steps we took to making our film.

Prelim task



Self Evaluation

1)   Who did you work with and how did you manage the task between you?

I worked with Olivia Seymour and Bonnie Fitch. Each group was assigned a genre. We got horror, i was glad we got horror as I thought it would be a challenge but also good ideas could come from horror.  We got into our group and decided on a basic storyline and characters etc. Bonnie filmed and Olivia and I were mainly featured. I was the main character and Liv was the secondary character. We took a while to think about the storyline to make sure the genre was obvious to the people watching.  

   
   2)   How did you plan your sequence? What processes did you use? What theories did you try to take in to account?

When we got into our groups we planned the story line then added a script to match. We then created a storyboard with all our planned shots on. For example, where we would shoot it, what lighting we would need, how long we would do each shot for to make it interesting for the person watching. We tried to think about the genre and how to make it evident but also scary and mysterious.

3) What technology did you use to complete the task, and how did you use it?

To complete the task we used one of the schools video cameras which we recorded all shots on. We also used our phones to create the flashing effects in the first and end scene and also used the computers at school with premiere, this is what we used to edit what we had filmed and how we actually put the film together as one long clip.

4) What factors did you have to take into account when planning, shooting and editing?

We had to take into account how to actually go about making a horror film as none of us had done it before. As we had to film during the school day it was quite difficult due to the lighting, horror films usually feature low key lighting and eerie settings. We only had around school/ out the front of school to set the film so we had to think carefully about where would have worked best for our genre. We had to think about all the shots we were going to use and how to incorporate them into our filming. When we actually came to shooting it took a few practices to get used to the video camera as none of us had filmed before. We also had to re-do quite a lot of scenes as I kept laughing and couldn't take the part seriously. When editing we used premiere. As I haven't used it in a while it took me a while to start using all the effects etc on all the different scenes but once I knew what I was doing I finished the editing quite quickly and am pleased with my outcome.

5) How successful was your sequence? Please identify what worked well, and with hindsight, what would you improve/do differently? What did others say about your production?

I think our sequence was quite successful. We used all the shots asked and also had dialogue in it. I think the effects and music I used when editing worked really well with the genre we were given as it made it look quite mysterious and eerie. I also think we used the spaces we had carefully as they also matched our genre. There was parts of the sequence that almost looked like a parody of a horror film, like we were trying to turn it into a comedy and mock the horror genre. Next time I think I would try to equal out the time for filming and editing as for this task I ran out of time to edit as much as I would have liked to. Most of our feedback from the people in our class and also the people in other classes was good. We had no marks out of 10 below 7. Mostly all of the comments about the Mise En Scene were around 9 out of 10, the feedback of the music and effects was that they matched well to the genre. I think our outcome was quite successful however next time I would want to practise the script more so I could take it more seriously. I enjoyed making the film.

6) What have you learnt from completing this task? Looking ahead, how will this learning be significant when completing the rest of your foundation coursework, do you think?

From completing this task I have learnt how to prepare to film for a specific task what we need to do. E.g plan the script and timings etc, it is also very useful to have a storyboard to refer back to at each different scene. I also had more practice using Premiere which will help me in the long run when doing more filming and editing. What I have learnt with this task will definitely  help me when completing the rest of the foundation coursework as I will know how to use the video camera and also how to edit. Knowing how much time to spend on planning will also be useful and it will mean I wont waste valuable filming/ editing time.

Peer evaluation


 

 

Using film language

Using film language


Cape Fear



Camera

•Zoom out
•Tilt down
•Level/ crane

Sound

•Tension building music/ dramatic
•Contrapuntal
•Non diegetic
•On screen
•Build up of tension

Mise En Scene
 
•Shirt
•Day light
•Books
•Prison/ cells


UP


Camera

•Zoom in and out

Sound

•Positive, upbeat music
•Contrapuntal
•Non diegetic
•On screen
•Starts happy and positive, dulls down and begins to get sad
•Dialogue is happy to sad

Mise En Scene

•Dress down when young, gets smarter as the couple get older
•Daylight/ low level lighting when it begins to get dull and sad
•In their house they drew a picture of when they were younger, dream to go to Paradise Falls

Film language

Film Language

Camera...
  • Frame
  • Angle
  • Movement
  • Low, level, high/ Birdseye and Wormseye
  • Tilt up, Tilt down
  • Pan left, Pan right
  • Tracking- whole room/ whole camera moves
  • Static- camera is still
  • Zoom in, Zoom out
  • Crane shot
Mise En Scene...
  • Costume
  • Lighting
  • Actors
  • Make up
  • Props
  • Setting
Sound...
  • Music- genre/ what materials used to listen to music
  • Contrapuntal- when the music does not match the images. E.g childrens nursery rhymes
  • Parallel- when the music does match with the images/ shot
  • Diegetic- background noises heard when filming
  • Non-Diegetic- sounds put over what's been filmed
  • Off-screen- sounds heard but not seen
  • On-screen- sounds heard and seen in shot
  • Voiceover- talking over scene/ what's been filmed
  • Emotion- the way the outcome makes you feel
  • Dialogue- the way the characters speak. E.g danger, anger, jealousy etc
Editing...
  • Transition- straight out, dissolve, slide out/ in
  • Order of narrative- flashbacks, dream sequences etc
  • Pace- how fast each shot is
  • SFX- special effects
  • Graphic Matches. E.g one door opening going into one door closing/ same thing, different scene

Media key concepts

Media Key Concepts...

Forms and Conventions
  • Genre
  • Narrative
  • Textual Analysis
  • Camera
  • Edit
  • Mise En Scene
Audience
  • Class
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Ethnicity
  • Sexuality
Institution
  • Warner Bro's
  • Disney/ Pixar
  • Sony
  • 20th Century Fox
  • Universal
  • Paramount
  • MGM
  • Lions gate
Representation and Disability
  • C
  • A
  • G
  • E
  • R
  • S

Institution Task

Institution task


Here is my logo, i like it as it actually relates to filming and recording videos. I couldn't think of an original name hence why i used my last name.



Juno Task

STORY BOARDS


You are editing your own footage, how did the filming go?

I think the filming for our Juno task went well. We only had the hour of the lesson to do the filming so I think what we did in that time was quite successful. However I thought the filming side of it was actually quite difficult as it was hard to know when to stop filming or when to change the angle etc. One scene when Juno walks forwards, toward the camera- the camera then pans up and focus' on telephone wires. The way we filmed this was quite unsuccessful I thought as it didn't really look like the actual Juno scene, however if we had practiced filming more it would have been a lot more successful.

Was your storyboard accurate?

Our storyboard was accurate when it came to what shots to do after the previous one, however what wasn't very clear was the settings ad how long to film each shot for. Luckily we had written down timings for each recording or it would have been a complete guess. Our story board wasn't very detailed as I didn't think we would need it as much as we actually did. We focused more on the writing of the story board rather than the drawings, however we came to realise that the pictures were actually quite important too. The settings were quite important for the filming too but we hadn't really written down much detail into where we would film each part of the film so that was also quite difficult.

What were your strengths and weaknesses in the group?

The strengths in our group was the agreeing of where we would film and how we would make it similar to the original Juno task. The weaknesses started when our storyboards weren't very detailed and we had to improvise with our filming. However I don't think this really affected the overall outcome of our filming.

Did you get all the footage you wanted?

I think we managed our time well in the hour and got all the footage we needed, done. If we had more time I would have liked to re-do a few scenes and make them more similar to the original Juno task. However I do think what we got, matched quite well. We could have used more props and made it more like the actual film but we didn't really have time to plan in that much detail. But I think that we made use of the schools props (guitar, chair) well. I also think we could have made it better if we were allowed out of the school area, however I am relatively happy with what we did film.

What technical skills - camera and premiere - did you learn?

  To do this task we used premiere, as I had only used it once before I didn't really know how to edit some of the footage and had to play around with most of the features before I got them how I wanted them. I learnt how to drag the effect wanted onto the audio/ video and it would apply it to that part of the recording.

  How does it compare to the original?

I think our clip compares quite well to the original opening. There were some parts that we couldn't make the same whether we tried to or not. For example the group of people that run past 'Juno'. We didn't really have much of a choice where to film so we had to make do with what we had. This obviously affected how the two filming's compared. However I think what we did was quite good and seeing the two openings together would have quite a lot of similarities.

What went well - What I learnt - What I will take with me to the next production

I think the filming went well as the video camera was fairly easy to use. I think Jimmy was good at mimicking the original video which made it successful. I learnt how to use premiere a bit more which made the video effects more alike with the original Juno opening. For the next production I will take with me the skills I learnt to use Premiere and I will also remember how important it is to do a detailed storyboard as it will make the production a lot easier to plan out.