Chris Ashwell Media Coursework!

Thriller Evaluation Powerpoint.

2010-04-02T06:32:00.000-07:00

Chris Ashwell 9006

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Conventions Of A Thriller

2010-03-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

Conventions of a Thriller

I have devised a video about three different types of conventions within a thriller film. They all apply within our production.
Youtube will not allow me to embed the video so here is the link to the video on youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsobNoNJzOc

Quick Cuts:

At the beginning of the film we have the scene where grace is running away from the prospective shot of the killer. This is the scene where black and white was used and the heartbeat fades in and out. Quick Cuts are used to create tension, excitement and confusion as to what might be happening at the start of the chase. In reverse quick cuts aren't use to to create a calm or neutral feeling

Zooms, Pans, Low angle shots, High angle shots and Over the shoulder shots:

Prospective shots of the killer are the best to illustrate the purpose of camera angles, prospective shots are the most obvious shots because the camera is never on a tripod and you often get the unsteadiness of the camera wielders hand and this is similar to the movements of the head. A good example of this the shot is the final scene of Grace walking down the road and the killers prospective shot of him behind the lamp post watching her as she walks.

Mise en Scene:

When Grace gets up out of bed she looks at phone, this is a part of Mise en Scene. Mise en Scene can represent many different things and in this instance she uses the phone as an alarm in the morning. Typically teenagers use their phone for a lot of things. I use mine as an alarm in the morning and as its primary use to talk to others. The phone is used to represent the fact that shes a average teenager.

Equipment List

2010-03-19T02:43:00.000-07:00

Camera ; HD 10801, handycam

Tripod ;Manfrotto – 190 X B

Mircophone Rode

Casting

2010-03-19T02:31:00.001-07:00

Casting

Killer Character – We are 99% certain we will be Using Jamie Fisher as our killer character who is going to be called The Hooded Figure. But as he had a busy schedule we drafted in Jacob O’Shea. His has a similar build to Jamie which is tall and Thin but muscular. Tall characters are very good as they look dominate and they can overpower people lot easier. Also by him being a thin build muscular build he has a mussels so he seem fit so he will not get tired so he will not fail in the quest of stacking Grace.

Female Character – We are not that certain who we will be using Grace Birchill. She is a typical blond girl so she seems vulnerable and also defenceless as she is going to be stacked while she is alone. She is also short so it emphases the fact that she is vulnerable.

Other characters – We should not be using anyone else but we might just have a few local people in the film as they go around doing there day to day life. We would like to have no one in our film because that would create a better atmosphere and at would give the allusion of isolation and desolation.

Thriller Target Audience

2010-03-05T01:47:00.000-08:00

There are many different types of audiences and thrillers, and these all target specific people. Horrer thrillers such as The Sixth Sense, Signs and The Village are targeted towards teenage girls and thrillers such as No Country For Old Men and Silence of the Lambs are targeted towards young males. The older classic thrillers like those from Alfred Hitchcock are targeted for Adults even though they are rated PG's.

Thrillers tend to be for people who like to work things out but sometimes it never happens until the end.

Our thriller appeals to those who enjoy the mystery. The twist at the start of film just before her possible death gets the audience to think because thev've seen part of the end of the film at the start. Our thriller is not made to strike horror into people but it's there to make people ask questions and to get thier hearts beating faster a few times. Our target audience 15-30 because we feel that anyone younger than 15 wouldn't be able to understand part of the ending being at the start. For anyone older than 30 we feel this film will not appeal to them because the film is about a young girl who attends college.

Thriller Research/Production - Script

2010-03-05T01:37:00.000-08:00

Script

Jessica running along a country path in with a perspective view of the killer chasing her.

Heartbeat noise linking in with music and blackout after every heartbeat whist Jessica is being chased

(Hand reaching out to Jessica.) Jessica: heavy breathing and shocked face.

Blackout/Flash back to the morning before the accident.

Jessica's mother: Jessica time to get up!

Jessica: Grumbles No, ergh

Gets up and goes to the bathroom, door closes fade out and then fades back when door opens, comes out of bathroom dressed.

Jessica goes downstairs and starts making breakfast

Jessica: looks at time oh! Grabs Jacket and puts on shoes "Bye mum!!"

Walks out of door up the pathway whilst being watched by killer

14/1/10 Homework

2010-02-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

Audience – A gathering of people who are often public to watch or listen to something
Institution – An organisation or establishment built/created for a specific purpose.
Q – How many ways you can ‘read’ something produced by the BBC?
TASK - Go to the Doctor Who website.
Q. How can the audience engage with Doctor Who? How many different forms of ‘media’ are offered?
Well the obvious first piece of media is the big video displayed as soon as you enter the website. The video is a teaser that shows you many small clips of the upcoming doctor who series. You’ve also got small clips at the bottom of the webpage that introduce the new doctor e.g. the regeneration of the old to the new.
Convergence – This is the merging of two or more things. This makes the difference between types of media and different media industries.
Q. How would you usually watch an episode of Doctor Who?
Doctor Who is most commonly viewed through the living room TV.
Now think of the other ways you can watch an episode
SD (Standard Definition)
HD (High Definition)
Blue-ray
Even in cinema viewings.
What links these formats?
They all offer good quality viewing, unlike if you were to watch these’s movies illegally online its often the worst quality possible so there’s less MB’s to upload. Viewing HD on the internet for instance Eastenders on iPlayer will take a lot longer to buffer than if you were to view the same piece of media in SD.
They’re all digital, your fourth keyword..
Digital technology has led to increasing uncertainty over how we define an audience, with general agreement that the notion of a large group of people, brought together by time, responding to a single text, is outdated and that audiences now are ‘fragmented’.
Explain, in your own words, what fragmented means.
Fragmented is a piece of media that is scattered or out of place within its environment.
Key Points
In media studies we focus on ‘the contemporary’.
What does this mean if, for example, we are to study the film industry in Britain?
It would be to study the latest and newest in the film industry within Britain.
We are also keen to focus on convergence as a key agent of change. Why?
The world is constantly change and we need to keep up with everything that changes. For instance Avatar(2009) was suspended because they waited for technology to catch up. We know that technology is constantly changing and this brings new and different viewings for everyone.
Because it’s one of the most important things that’s happening now.
Q. How does the film industry 'converge' with the internet?
I wouldn’t say it converges, it does meet but in a bad way, piracy is the bane of the film industry. It affects the film industry badly.
We are finally interested in how things are changing.
Within the context of not only convergence, but also ownership,technologies and globalisation.
More key words – ownership and technologies are pretty straightforward however…
Globalisation means - The shift in media distribution from local or national to international and the whole world at once. Culturally, describes the process of ‘sameness’ over the world, typified by the availability of McDonalds in most nations.
Convergence
(Can be more than one way of converging.)
Definition again - Hardware and software coming together across media, and companies coming together across similar boundaries. This makes the distinction between different types of media and different media industries increasingly dubious.
1. Converging technologies – e.g your mobile ‘phone…
So what can the iphone do?
Make a list of the features…
Answer incoming calls and also dial numbers.
Browse the internet.
Listen to music.
Use apps such as games.
2. Converging media industries
News Corporation produce and distribute across several media. Find examples of their multinational media presence.

News Corporation Settles With Valassis Communications for $500 Million
http://www.newscorp.com/news/news_440.html
(Luhrs quote)
“We no longer live in a media world where TV, videogames, films, newspapers, radio, magazines and music exist separately.”
For this reason it is essential that you become aware of the impact of convergence on the film industry.

Questionnaire

2010-02-01T08:23:00.000-08:00

Kim Brenchley, Chris Ashwell, Alex Frost and Tyler Davidson
Questionaire

Question 1
What do you think a thriller is?
______________________________________________

Question 2
What type of thriller do you prefer? (Circle one)
Horror
Gangster
Sci-fi
Western
Comedy
Other, please ________________

Question 3
What is your favourite aspect of a thriller (circle)?
Characters
Setting
Costumes and Props
Narrative
Music
Other please state ________________

Question 4
Watch the opening to Vacancy that we have just shown you.
What is it about the opening of thriller that gets you interested and makes you carry on watching?

Question 5
In the clip you have just seen how do you know what type of thriller it is?

Question 6
what do you think a character or a building that is has a low camera angle shot would be??

Question 7

What character would you associate with these colours?
Black ________
Red _________
White ________
Green _______

Question 8
What wouldn’t you want to see in a horror thriller opening?
____________________________________________

Question 9
how do you find out about the recent releases of thrillers?
____________________________________________

Question 10
whats the best thriller film you have seen and why?
____________________________________________

Brain Storming

2010-02-01T08:22:00.000-08:00

Brain storming

• Type of film: Horror thriller
• Setting: Corpusty, graveyard, abandon area, light from the bottle bins (in Corpusty) the ford, Marriots way, Thurning, tower.
• Props of the villain character: knife or a weapon of choice
• Similar to, I Am Legend and Vacancy
• Shots of killer watching a young innocent girl
• Multiple killers?
• Killer has a weakness, and a symbol such as a tattoo which will be viewed when running.
• Title = Black Crow

Ideas from other media students – you tube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KSaTaIvMTQ

• Piano music, also birds but then turns into tense music
• Panning of the landscape
• Use of computer typing and close up of computer screen words
• Mixture of black and white and colour
• Camera going through grass to find a phone
• Goes dark with only a lighter lite – blown out in slow motion

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJLABXpLOpc

• Different shots of two guys walking
• Typical villain – black hoodie
• Dialogue music is tense
• Twist being right at the start
• The title is very interesting

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3cQeRG_xL4

• Starts with a chase and continually goes back to his memory of it
• Goes to dialogue
• Looking out through windows
• Tense music
• Slow motion
• Black and white
• Feeling of being watched
• Freezes with title at the end.

A brief synopsis of the plot

2010-02-01T08:21:00.001-08:00

A brief synopsis of the plot

Young girl named Jessica previously lived in the city and her and her parents moved to the country a year ago. They bought a house in countryside at a low price. In the year they have been there, there has been many weird occurrence, such as; things going missing etc.

The reason these are happening is that the land has been sacred for many years and was used for rituals. The house was then built and has been haunted ever since.

Jessica then finally gets chased by the cult and find the object that they worship, and then the cult die or move on.

Case Study - 2012

2010-02-01T08:15:00.003-08:00

Chris Ashwell
2012 - 2009

Wikipedia – ‘There are a variety of popular beliefs about the year 2012. These beliefs range from the spiritually transformative to the apocalyptic, and centre upon various interpretations of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Contemporary scientists have disputed the apocalyptic versions.’
Many religions believe that the year 2012 is that last year for the human race. They believe that the world will end and our race will cease to exist.
There has been a film based around this date called ‘2010’
Plot:
2009: American geologist called Adrian Helmsley goes to India to meet with a forma colleague, he learns from this colleague that neutrinos from a massive solar flare are acting as microwave radiation, causing the temperature of the Earth's core to increase rapidly. Adrian fly’s to the US to the speak with the White House Chief of Staff (Carl Anheuser) who at first ignores him until he shows the data that alarms the Chief. He is then given a meeting with the US President (Thomas Wilson) and informs him that that this will cause a massive event natural disasters. They begin a secret project intended to ensure the survival of humanity but they only pick the most important people from around the world. Around 400,000 people are chosen they are given special passes to board ships.
2012: Jackson Curtis has a part time job as a limousine driver with 2 kids but has divorced his wife who is with another man, he’s also a writer. Jackson his two kids on a camping trip to Yellowstone National Park, here they meet what seems like a crazy man called Charlie who has his own radio show all about the apocalypse. He says that he has some plans or map all about the secret project of building these huge ships. As they return home the natural disasters begin to take place, a crack develops along the San Andreas Fault in California and earthquakes start all over the west coast. Jackson fears that it’s going to get a lot worse after the talk he had with Charlie so he decides to rent a plane just in case something happens. Los Andreas begins to fall and so Jackson collects the family and runs to the plain, they manage to get away just as Los Andreas falls into what is now the sea.
They decide to fly back to Charlie in the Yellowstone National Park to retrieve the map but Yellowstone begins to erupt. They only have a matter of seconds to get the map and drive back to the plane. They run to the plane but Jackson forgets the map so he has to run back to the van and get the map but the ground falls beneath the van and it looks like Jacksons falls as well but he manages to climb back up and they narrowly escape the meteors whilst flying the plane.
The map tells them that the ships are being made in China so the land in Las Vegas in search for fuel but they find the super rich man who Jackson drives for. He is with his family and a plane driver so they decide to hijack a plane and fly to china.
They arrive in the China with a crash that kills Sasha as he fly’s of the edge of the mountain. They are spotted by the Chinese and they take the Russians who posses tickets but leave Jackson and his family behind.
They get picked up by some Chinese civilians on their way to the arks but they have to brake their way in. Once they get in a drill falls into the cogs and jams the door from closing this then comes to the attention of the crew and they spot the intruders. The water begins to fill the ship and Jackson has to swim back and remove the drill as the water level increases. He manages to unlock the cogs and close the door and the ship is dragged out of the dock uncontrollably nearly smashing into Everest.
Directed by Roland Emmerich, developed and distributed by Columbia Pictures 2012 began development in Vancouver August 2008 and finished in January 2009.2012 launched with an estimated $65 million on its first weekend and then a $225 million at the worldwide box office on the opening weekend. The film has managed to gross $161,458,000 in the United States and Canada and $574,100,000 in international markets, for a worldwide total of $735,558,000. It was the 5th highest grossing film of 2009 worldwide.
Audience:
With this film I don’t feel it appeals to anyone of a younger age as I know kids tend to get scared at the thought of the world ending, well I did at least. I don’t think that older people really have an appeal for this movie as I asked my grandparents and they said it’s not really there type of film. The range that I feel this feel appeals to is 15-40.
4*/10*
They had all the money, actors and special effects they needed so how did they manage to screw this one up? Obviously they thought exciting moments were more important than developing deeper characters and that's why this story that had great potential stayed so shallow. The dialog was always cheesy and none of the 'hero's' in this film really showed any real emotions nor did they give any of those speeches that give the audience goose bumps. Another thing that really bothered me was that so much was almost going wrong the whole time. Every second of the film had a 'close call' which made the film seem totally unrealistic. Examples are planes taking off just before the runway collapses or driving just fast enough to not get hit by an explosion. This can be very cool if it doesn't happen 100% of the time and I have never seen a movie abusing this way of creating excitement to this extent. So to sum up: If you feel like turning your brain off and watching special effects and big explosions with a very shallow storyline then this movie is for you. But if you feel like watching a movie with a bit of depth then go and see something else.
Quotes from IMBD.com

I can relate to this author, they have put in too many thrilling moments and after the first couple its starts to get slightly boring however I fell that the quality of the effects has a counter balance to this. The explosions and close calls really keep you tuned to see what happens if the ‘hero’ escapes in time for instance.
7*/10
If you've seen Independence Day, Titanic, or any recent vintage of the well-worn disaster film genre, you will not be disappointed at all with any of 2012. Its 2.5 hour+ running time moves at a great clip, and there's enough science and pseudoscience running around to give the film a certain of-the-moment wonder and clarity. The many destruction sequences throughout the film are absolutely breathtaking to behold, and one wonders if Roland Emmerich starts every film imagining how he will destroy the White House. Like all of his other films (except for The Patriot) it has big names but no huge names and really is a blast to watch. It has just the right balance of action and melodrama, often, as with all good films of this genre, in the same scene. The audience I watched it with was laughing and cheering throughout, and I'm sure it will be the definitive event movie of the holiday season, critics be damned.

This author obviously enjoyed the film “The audience I watched it with was laughing and cheering throughout” when I saw the film there wasn’t any crowd cheers but there was a little laughter and this is what was good about the film. Even though it’s about the world ending it has a little light heartedness to make it less depressing than other films of the similar types.
Technological Advancement:
The effects here are similar to those of Avatar, the technology used was so good it really did give those ‘hold your breath’ moments at certain escapes scenes. The effects are what I reckon sold this movie for sure. It’s not every day that people want to go to the cinema to see the world ending, it’s a rather depressing matter for some. The story line was same old like the rest of the films the world is ending but the human race struggles to find a way to survive. The effects like the car driving through the middle of a falling building trying to navigate between pillars were absolutely stunning. The trailer shows this for definite, its spine chilling music and eye pleasing effects would make anyone feel bedazzled.
Many people from IMDB.com said that the storyline wasn’t the greatest and I think the production company may have known this too, there are many films out there like this. So they really had to flaunt their movie and they did this with the special effects. If you haven’t seen the trailer I recommend watching it. The effects looked so real it made the hairs on the back on neck stand on end.

Case Study - Avatar

2010-02-01T08:15:00.001-08:00

Chris Ashwell
Avatar – 2009
Plot:
In 2154, the RDA corporation is mining Pandora, a planet that looks similar to Earth. Pandora is inhabited by the Na’vi, a blue type humanoid who somewhat resemble a tribal community. Physically stronger and taller than humans, they have blue skin and live in harmony with nature, worshiping a goddess called Eywa.
Human scientists created human-Na’vi’ hybrids called avatars, which are controlled by human who are genetically compatible with the avatars. Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a young man who used to be a marine, arrives on Pandora to replace his twin brother who was murdered, the film doesn’t tell us much about his death just a line about how he was shot for the paper in his pocket. Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver), the boss of the Avatar Program, thinks that Jake is incompetent and that she doesn’t want him on her team and he isn’t going to help her in anyway.
Jake goes on this first mission with the biologist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore) which consist of them analysing and taking data from the trees in their avatar forms, the group is attacked by a large predator, Jake has to run from the predator where he hides in the roots of a tree but this doesn’t work as he make a run for it and has to jump of the side of a waterfall. Jake now has to try and survive in the jungle by himself, he is attack by a pack of Pandora dogs but he is rescued by Neytiri (Zoë Saldaña), a female Na'vi. Jake follows Neytiri wondering why she saved him and they end up on a log with a big drop on either side where the ‘Seeds of Life’ gather and sit upon Jake, Neytiri decides to take Jake back to the Hometree and tells her father it’s a sign. Neytiri is then given the task to teach Jake the ways of the Na'vi.
The Na'vi don’t know that Jake is actually undercover to try and make them move away from the Hometree because the RDA want to mine a resource called unobtanium, which the Hometree sits upon and very very big deposit.
The film progress’s and Jake is given three months to learn as much as he can, but Jake becomes to prefer the life of the Omaticaya and becomes a mate for life with Neytiri and betrays the Humans when he attacks a tree bulldozer destroying the cameras mounted on the top. Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) finds out it was him and stops him from using the avatar. He then puts the plan forward to use fire power to destroy the Hometree. The ships are sent out to the tree and it is destroyed, the Na’vi find out that Jake knew what was going to happen and ban him and tell him he will never be one of them. Jake then takes it on as a personal mission to defend the Na’vi when he finds out that the Humans are going to destroy the Tree of Souls, the last place left for the Na’Vi. He tames the Toruk, an immensely powerful flying beast that only five Na'vi have ever tamed before and he then re-gains the trust of the Na’Vi.
The humans attack with a set up of huge bombs, the Na'vi fight back but suffer heavy casualties, among them Tsu'Tey and Trudy the plain pilot. As the Na'vi are on the verge of defeat, the Pandoran wildlife suddenly attacks the humans from the prayer than Jake did to the Tree of Souls, overwhelming them.
Jake destroys the bomber before it can reach the Tree of Souls. Quaritch escapes in an Amplified Mobility Platform suit, finds the avatar interface pod where Jake's human body is located and attacks it, exposing Jake to Pandora's atmosphere. Neytiri kills Quaritch and saves Jake, seeing his human form. With the attack repelled, Jake and Neytiri reaffirm their love.
The humans are expelled from Pandora, while Jake and his closest co-workers remain. Jake is seen wearing the insignia of the Omaticaya leader. The film ends with Jake's soul being transplanted into his Na'vi avatar.
James Cameron was the director of Avatar and Lightstorm Entertainment and began development in 1994. Camerons original idea was to start the filming after Titanic but Cameron changed his mind and decided that Avatar need better technology than what was there at the time. The film then began its remake in 2006 when the script was re-developed. The film was released on December 10, 2009 for the London premiere and December 18, 2009 for the United States. Avatar managed to grab a huge $3,537,000 from midnight screenings in the United States and Canada. The film then got $27 million on its opening day and $77,025,481 over its opening weekend in the United States and Canada this made it the second largest December opening ever just behind I Am Legend.
Audience:
James Cameron said so himself that his intended target audience is 8 – 80 and that he expects to get repeat viewings from those of a younger age. He said this because he compared it to one of his own experiences when he was young he went to see Doctor Zhivago three times in a row and he had to walk 4 miles every time to see the film, just because it was so visually appealing. I reckon this also applies to Avatar. Quote from Cameron “When you’re a teen and you see something you like it inflames your imagination”.
1*/10*
I had high expectations going into Avatar. Now I admit, it's probably stupid to go into any movie with expectations that are too high, lest they be crushed. However, even without high expectations, Avatar impresses only on a technical level, and on that level only. The story is very predictable, and as I watched this movie I was overcome with a feeling as if I had seen this all before in something in a made for TV movie on SyFy. This is pretty bad considering this is the same guy who made The Abyss and Terminator. I can only say that if you go see this movie, expect beautiful visuals... and a standard humdrum story that you've seen before if you follow any number of science fiction TV shows or just sci-fi in general. Oh, and if this is the 22nd century, why are they still using manually propelled wheelchairs?
Quotes from IMDB.com

10*/10*
I went with my two kids, one is 16 years old and my daughter 9 years old. Afterwards by the bus stop, we looked at each other, and in unison we knew and agreed, we had experienced something extraordinary at many different levels, an once in a lifetime moment. This is truly by far the movies of all movies. The only bad thing that I can say about this movie is I never wanted it to end, all from the jaw dropping scenery to the emotional computer graphics. I take a hold of you as I never experienced it in the theatres before.

I feel blessed and grateful, really honoured by the makers of Avatar, for letting us share this beautiful adventure, it is truly a milestone in motion picture history!
In some respect I agree with this author, the story was slightly predictable but nothing like what he said it was. The film didn’t feel like something I’d seen before and I’d gone in with high expectations and came out feeling like it had lived up to them high expectations.

Now this author I agree with, I remember the comment from my father “You don’t think you’re watching a animated cartoon, you feel like you’re watching another world.” The way it’s been produced; the graphics, storyline and dialogue makes it so real.

Technological Advancements:
This film by far to this date is defiantly the most technological advancement ever in cinematic development. The film was also produced in using Stereoscopy. (Wikipedia: “Stereoscopy, stereoscopic imaging or 3-D imaging is any technique capable of recording three-dimensional visual information or creating the illusion of depth in an image.”
Stereoscopy requires certain cameras in order to create the 3rd Dimension. Using these it can create two of the same images which are 6.35cm apart then using the goggles it can put these together to create the 3D picture.
Because this film has been one of the most expensive to make you would expect them to market it very well and they have. An estimated 150 million dollars were used for marketing. The marketing would consist of trailers and teaser all over the web. This film was hugely anticipated and because of this I think it spread through mainly word of mouth. I heard about the film from my brother and he told me it was one of the most expensive films to make so I had to see for myself. Of course the thing that really promoted this film was its trailer. You could see just from your television how good the film looked and it really showed some parts of the moving which wanted you to see the rest.
I’ve seen this film twice, once in 2D and again in 3D. I was amazed by the visuals in 2D and just had to see it all in 3D and it was worth it! If anyone decides to buy a pirate copy or watch in online they are defiantly not getting the stunning visuals from what you get in the cinema and thus missing out completely.

Case Study - Eagle Eye

2010-02-01T08:13:00.000-08:00

Chris Ashwell

Eagle Eye – 2008

Plot:
It all starts when the US have possible leads on terrorist in the Middle East but the lastest technology called DoD says that the mission to track these down should be aborted, however the president disagrees and decides to carry out the mission. It turns out the suspects were civilians and as a response to this suicide attacks begin.
Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) attends his brothers funeral, his brother used to be in the Air Force. Afterwards he goes to withdraw money from the bank and he finds that he now has $750,000. When he gets back to his apartment he finds lot of different types of weapons in his apartment, consisting of bombs and guns. He gets a phone call from a woman telling him he needs to leave his apartment or the FBI will cuff him in 30 seconds.
He doesn’t believe this woman and as a result the FBI burst in and cuff him. He is taken to a interrogation room and meet Special Agent Thomas Morgan (Billy Bob Thornton). The unknown woman rings him again and gives him instructions on how to escape. As a consequence he meets Rachel Holloman (Michelle Monaghan).
The woman on the phone carries on giving them instructions to avoid the Chicago Police and FBI, the woman has creates a crystal explosive made into a necklace that is worn in a meeting in the White House and its triggered by the woman’s son playing his trumpet.
The woman finally reveals herself and they find out that she is actually a super computer who has the ID of everyone all over the world. The supercomputer is actually corrupt and trying to kill the president but she says it in a different way so that the two characters think that they are helping to save the US.
The film progress’s and there are many different escape scenes from the police, and it’s only until near the end they find out that the computer is corrupt and they try not to give it away. They destroy the Supercomputer but its plans continue to take place without the actors knowing.
Rachel is given the explosive necklace by an official who was also instructed by Ariia and Rachel is sent to the Capitol to watch the President's speech. Sam's (son of Rachel) class, whose performance was in the Capitol for the President's State of the Union Address. They begin to play. The trigger that will set off the explosive necklace is set to activate when Sam plays a certain note on his trumpet. Jerry gains entry dressed as a Capitol policeman and he’s not sure what to do to stop the performance so he fires his pistol into the air, but then Jerry is then shot several times by a Secret Service agent.
In a hearing after the chaos Ariia caused, the Secretary of Defense urges that another supercomputer should not be built: "sometimes the very measures we put into place to safeguard our liberty become threats to liberty itself," he cautions them. Ethan posthumously receives the Medal of Honor and Agent Morgan posthumously receives the Commendation Medal, while Jerry, injured but alive and well, receives the Congressional Gold Medal. The film ends with Jerry attending Sam's birthday party. Rachel thanks him for attending, which her ex-husband had never done, and kisses him on the cheek. She then tells Jerry that she's glad he's there. He then responds, "Me too", and the movie ends.

Audience:
I think this film appeals to a wide variety of people. I would say that it appeals to everyone but the younger people won’t be able to understand. This film is one that throws you off balance in all directions, it’s one that you watch and constantly have to work out what happening in order to understand so I would say the initial target audience for this film is 14- 40.
Quotes from IMBD.com
8*/10*
In the plot of Eagle Eye, there are elements taken from the books written by William Gibson, the video game Portal and movies like Enemy of the State, I Robot and a long etcetera. But, in spite of that, I had a very good time watching this movie. There's no doubt it's unoriginal but the movie has an enormous energy that takes possession of the spectator so the final experience is very entertaining. The action scenes are very well filmed : they are exciting and they feel realistic.The movie has a good tone because it never stops entertaining. The actors also did a good job. Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Bob Thornton, Michael Chiklis and Rosario Dawson bring a lot of enthusiasm to their characters. I'm usually against the lack of originality but, there are some occasions in which, that fail is redeemed with a lot of good elements. Eagle Eye is one of that cases. I can easily recommend this movie. I had a very good time watching it and it did not bore me even a second.

This author is bang on target! A truly great film! The action scenes are shot extremely well but you can argue that Shia LaBeouf performs well in all the movies he plays particularly in Transformers his action shots are awesome. It really does take the aspect of a thriller film, keeps you on the edge of your seat and keeps you guessing throughout the whole film.
1*/10*
Terminator was good. but why do it again with "that guy from transformers" and poorly? i apologize for using blatantly simple, crude language to express this movie, but that is exactly what this movie is. it starts from what seems to be a interesting political thriller into yet another mediocre scifi about how technology will get out of our control, but with so many plot holes you end up feeling completely numb with all the running around and explosions happening. shia is the next ben affleck. the moment our b list stars are in circuit city and the computer reveals itself, i immediately thought "...are you serious?" i mean who wrote this script? In the end rosario dawson simply sticks a metal rod into the giant "eagle eye" that was just unsuspectingly dangling in front of her, and that stops the super intelligent AI completely.. i don't even want to get into why they didn't do something about that earlier. and the whole fiasco about putting the crystal on the lady and the sonic trigger in her son's trumpet.. whoever programmed Aria is retarded and whoever wrote this script is on the same level of IQ as the computer. only props go to billy bob thorton for killing himself, like he should do in every one of his movies.

I know this is my opinion but this author is completely wrong! The way he put it sounds like this film has been made on an extremely low budget and have employed cheap actors to create this fantastic film. Well he/she is wrong. Busy scenes have been executed with maximum smoothness and extreme care, this isn’t work of a 1* film!

Budget spent on this film was $80,000,000 now that’s a lot of money for a film that I hasn’t seen advertised anywhere but perhaps that was just me. The film managed to reach a total gross revenue worldwide of $178,066,569.
Now in my opinion I don’t think this film was marketed very well at all, I personally didn’t know this film was even out until my sister brought me the DVD and said you might like this. I was sold as soon as I saw Shia LaBeouf was the leading actor. Once I had seen the film I was so surprised I hadn’t seen it advertised anywhere, not even on TV.
Technological Advancements:
The film uses an even balance of animated scenes and real scenes but it does use a lot of explosions and collisions which to the standard they used must have cost a lot of money. The technology used to achieve these standards must have been the latest for 2008. Even the technology to ensure that everyone is safe when the stunts are happening e.g. wires. I reckon if this film had been released in 2009 and was put a year ahead the film would be very visually appealing. This film wasn’t produced in 3D and was produced like most other films.

Case Study - I am Legend

2010-02-01T08:12:00.000-08:00

Chris Ashwell

I Am Legend

Information:
Directed by Francis Lawrence, I Am Legend was released in 2007 in the United States and was a big hit with the public. It managed to reach the largest box office for a non Christmas film ever in December. The film is set in New York 2012 where Robert Neville (Will Smith), who is immune to a virus that’s turning everyone within New York into zombies. Three years prior to the event a cure to cancer was made by a doctor called Alice Krippin (Emma Thompson) but the virus quickly mutated and became airborne this then began a huge worldwide infection that killed 5.4 billion people which was 90% of the world’s population.
There were 600 million survivors but only 12 million were completely immune to the virus and the rest were turned into zombies with the appearance of baldness and paleness with traits such as over aggressiveness, they were called ‘Darkseekers’. Robert Neville (Will Smith) stays in New York after the evacuation of Manhattan to try and find a cure for the virus. As his wife and daughter enter a helicopter to be evacuated, chaos breaks out and people begin to jump onto another helicopter that rears out of control and smashes into the helicopter with his wife and daughter on with a huge explosion.
Then throughout the film you see many different signs of loneliness, for example; when he goes into the video shop, he’s set up all the manikins to look like a real life situation and he even talks to them as if they were real. When he kills his dog after she gets bitten and infected by another zombie dog he goes to the video store and begins to cry and begs for the manikin to talk to him showing desperation and loneliness.
With help from Warner Bros., I Am Legend began development in 1994 and then started the production in 2006 in New York. Most filming was done in New York and with a $5 million scene of Brooklyn Bridge and was the most expensive scene ever made at that time. I Am Legend quickly became a massive hit and produce a lot of money, earning $256 million in the US and $329 million internationally, making a grand total of $585 million.
The reason why I Am Legend manage to earn so much money was the fact that it appealed to a vast array of audiences, it wasn’t a gory bloody film so it wasn’t classed as an 18 but a big enough thrill to be classed as a 15. When I saw this film in the cinema I notice there were higher aged people than I first anticipated and as I watched the film by the end I could see how it appealed to everyone! This film showed a lot of emotion; that between him and his dog, the zombies and if you’ve seen the alternative ending the zombies even show the emotion called love. There was also a book which this film was based around and it was called ‘The Omega Man’. Many people may have already read the book and this could have also lead to the success, a prime example of this is Lord of the Rings the books were a huge success and thus was the film.

Audience:
This film is appeals to many but I feel that the films main target audience comes from a range of 15-45. This is because when I saw the film I was 15 and really enjoyed it and when my father saw the film he was around the 40’s and he said that he enjoyed it. Also I get the idea of who was in the cinema when I was there and as I mentioned before there were ages there I didn’t expect.

Quotes from IMDB.com
6*/10*
This film could easily have filled 2.5 hours of content. Why did it only last 1.5? I want more back story. I want more character development, especially toward the end. I want to know more about what happened, and how Will Smith's character is dealing with it. In short, I just want MORE.

All in all, this film left me feeling a lot like I did in Spider-Man 3: A lot happened, but none of it was really EXPLAINED.

It's a shame, really, because the concept is golden... and Will Smith's films usually feel quite epic and full. I'll definitely pick up the novel... hopefully it will give me the depth that I want.

As you can see from this review the author liked the film but he felt they could have added a lot more to it. Personally I feel that 2.5 hours would have been to long however I agree that they could have gone into a lot more detail. The storyline for this was very rich and I agree with this author and it is “golden”. A few things just scraped the surface like the emotion he showed to the manikins, they could have shown a lot more at these and shown more meaning behind his loneliness
Basically this film changes the main character COMPLETELY, deletes EVERY OTHER character from the novel, ends with Neville being a hero rather than an ANTIHERO, contains a dog in a completely changed way from the novel, and ADDS all other characters completely NOT in the book. Also, Neville's family is killed in a helicopter crash in the film. In the book, his wife returns from the dead as a vampire and Neville visits her in the mausoleum nearly every day. He longs to be with her. His daughter too dies from the plague of the disease.

Read the novel. Skip the movie.

If this had been called anything other than "I Am Legend" I would have given it maybe 3 stars to begin with...but since it stole he namesake of a great, great novel only to let me down more than The Lost World did... 1 star. Rent it if you are THAT bored sometime...

As for this author you can see he is very strong with his opinion and feels that the movie is rubbish. I haven’t read the novel but by this review I feel that I want to read it because it sounds very different to the movie when he says “Also, Neville's family is killed in a helicopter crash in the film. In the book, his wife returns from the dead as a vampire and Neville visits her in the mausoleum nearly every day.” This author though is very biased towards the novel rather than the film and it is his own opinion.

Technological Advancements:
Back in the 1920’s the first TV was made but TV’s were a rare thing to have in your house unless you were really rich and could afford one but compared recent years, now just about everyone has a television and has become somewhat a mandatory element to have within your home. Trailers are being broadcast on our TV’s to get people aware of the most recent and upcoming films. Cinema’s themselves advertise new films before the actual feature is shown and cinema is now a lot cheaper than it used to be so more people are going to watch a new film they saw advertised on TV.

I remember first seeing the film advertised on TV and when I saw it I knew I had to go see it. There was also a lot of talk about it at school which gave me even more reason to see the film so we could all talk about it the next day. Billboards placed around Norwich also advertised the film and created a lot of hype for it. Also the internet played a huge part of the advertisement, seeing as I spend a lot of my time using the internet I noticed a lot of adverts for the film on various different website such as YouTube.
The internet has been a huge technological advancement over the past years, video streaming has become a huge success with all the new speeds offered by you ISP (Internet Service Provider). Everything used to be ‘Dial Up’ which deals with perhaps tops 1MB/s speed but now we have ‘Broadband’ and top at the moment is around 20MB/s which is a huge difference between Dial Up and Broadband. It has allowed the live streaming of videos and there’s no need to leave your computer on for a certain amount of time whilst you wait for your video to buffer, you can now just go to the video click play and watch it right away from the comfort of your sofa.
There are many websites out there that are purely set up so you can see the latest trailer for an upcoming feature film. A very popular website which most people will have heard of is YouTube, YouTube is a video sharing website where you can upload your own videos for your friends and everyone around the world to see. You don’t need to register in order to watch videos so you can just navigate to the page, search for what you want and then watch it. Organizations can set up their own ‘channels’ where they can upload there latest trailers or music videos, allowing and extremely easy way to gain some knowledge of the latest films.
However the internet brings a catastrophic downfall for the film industry. There’s a vast array of illegal pirated films out there on the internet. These illegal websites are slowly but surely sapping the economy from the film industries. It’s too easy to just Google search a film you wish to see and with no more than five minutes you can find the film online.
With less and less people deciding to go to their nearest cinema to watch the film it’s having a big impact on film industries. They need the film to do well so they can earn enough profit to cover all the initial cost of making the film and paying all the actors, but pirated movies are stealing all this money from the industries. If you think for every person who watches the pirated movie instead of the official movie they are losing around £5 for every person. One in five UK internet users claims to have downloaded a pirated copy of a movie, according to research by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
Along with all these pirated films instead of live streaming them we can now also download these films with the improved ISP speed as I said before. There’s no need to go out and by the DVD anymore because people can just download them for free. This is seriously affecting DVD sales all over the world. This is another way of which piracy is affecting the industry, less DVD sales = less money and the future of films is slowly but surely fading away.
According to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) ‘nearly half of downloader’s consider it acceptable to download movies before they are released on DVD or video, and the vast majority have no objection to downloading a movie after it is released on DVD or video. Downloader’s also said that they would download more movies if it took less time, something likely to happen with the wider adoption of broadband’.

2010-02-01T08:08:00.000-08:00

2010-01-29T05:12:00.000-08:00

2010-01-29T05:05:00.000-08:00

Notes on 'Berlinale Keynotes Film 2.0 is cinema toast?'

2010-01-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

Movies inspire and awaken people they also educate but anger some. Changes that are taking place in technology and new generations of people we are moving into Cinema ‘2.0’. Moving into a period with big changes, a film can become an experience where we can participate in the film. The film industry is changing as well, based on the concept of calibration. Viewer becomes user.
Why is this occurring?

Four big drivers:
• Web 2.0 – Very different from the .com period, access through the ‘things’ such as phones and media players. Concepts of screens are changing. Not very far from having actors in your living room through being holograms.

• Broadband – HD films on the internet, something that is happening today. New web you can browse the physical world e.g. GPS. True multimedia no longer looking like cartoon character but the real deal.

• XML – Not for presentation but for collaboration and computation, the internet is becoming a giant global computing. Enriched with services. Building communities around videos e.g. ratings

• Peer to Peer File Sharing – Open source anyone can access and change.
The next generation there is no longer fear of technology to them. Watching less TV, come home and turn on the computer. Generation now process content differently. The internet now their world. Kids are now changing everything that will affect the future. Kids now know more about this than their parents. Kids want freedom and choice they want to customise everything. A generation that wants to have Fun, Speed and Innervations. New blog created every second of every day.

Collaboration Cost – Greater than the cost of boundaries of cooperation. Rise of the internet and companies evolved into networks. Cost dropping so much that Peers can come together. 150,000 open source application projects. Creating our own content not the internet creating it. Box office revenues are declining and the people who visit the cinema are declining and people who watch films are home are even declining! However Video games are on the rise. People are watching films on their own personal media systems.
What is a film is changing, 3 minute film. People can now create their own dashboard on top of their games. Welcome the future because the future will soon be the past.

Individual Work - Location

2010-01-25T05:56:00.001-08:00

Individual Work - Sound

2009-12-14T06:46:00.000-08:00

Sound

Sound is a very important part of any movie production, if the sound isn’t right it can really spoil the film. There are two types of sound:

Diegetic:

This is sound that comes from sources within the film for example, the sound of a bird in a cage. It’s sound that hasn’t been placed onto the film whilst the editing took place.

Non – Diegetic:

This is sound that has been placed over the original film and the source can’t often be seen for example, the sound of a dog barking in a housing estate.

Music

The type of music is going to play a huge part in our production. Using something that is up beat and energetic isn’t going to have the same affect as something that has an eerie and mysterious feel.

It’s high likely that we will be placing Non Diegetic sound over our production. Typical sounds can be placed over during the chase scene like a dog barking as the two characters run to the playing field.

For Diegetic sound there will also be emphasis on footsteps, when the killer walks around the house with camera shots of his feet, say walking up the stairs and the sound of his footsteps quiet but emphasized in a way that gives the viewer an intense feeling.

Individual Work - Editing

2009-12-14T06:43:00.000-08:00

Editing

I have comprised a small video to show some simple transitions that can be used in our production, it will be posted on our blogs but here is the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPJl-F2o_7o
Transitions
Transition One, Fade: The most basic transition, it’s so simple and effect that I think it works the best out of all the transitions. It provides a nice smooth change between a scene. It would work best with a calm scene rather that a fast paced action scene.

Transition Two, Dissolve: Another simple transition but one at which I feel doesn’t work very well at all. It gives the film a crude, patchy and unprofessional feel.

Transition Three, Wipe Wide Down: This transition would be good to show a new day. It feels like it wipes everything clean. It would be used to show different times of days.

Transition Four, Page Curl: This one is also like Wipe, it feels as if it should be used to show a new beginning or change in time.

Transition Five, Inset: Personally I would not use this transition it feels very unprofessional. The transition feels too blocky.

Transition Six, Flip: This transition I could see being used in the title or credits bit not within the actual video clip itself.

Transition Severn, Bars: This one I feel is the worst of the lot, it feels so very unprofessional and doesn’t work well as a transition at all.

Thriller Research - Editing/ Transitions

2009-12-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

For examiners use. See notes page (Editing)

Preliminary Task

2009-11-30T06:06:00.000-08:00

Our AS Media created by Kim, Alex, Tyler and Me.

Analysis of Vacancy and The Departed

2009-11-22T10:32:00.000-08:00

Vacancy:

The title scene's music is very slow at the beginning and very occasionally they speed up for a couple of seconds and this helps to build suspense, also give it a very eerie feeling. All the titles are in red and drip like blood and are a very urban broken text. The opening credits help to set the mind of the audience and this is very important because then the viewer can enjoy the film.

The credits play the part of setting the viewers mind into an eerie and mysterious feel. The music uses a low pitched bass note with a high pitched strong note these are put over the original theme song that repeats over and over, this helps to create the eerie feeling.

The film begins as the credits fade into the licence plate of the car.
Its set in the early hours of California, with the two characters travelling in the car, the filming is mostly done so at least part of their faces are shadowed and you can only see certain parts. This shows the separation and anger between the two characters.

The man in the car is frustrated and tiered, you can tell this by the way he wipes his face continuously and his facial expressions, because of this you can tell they have been travelling for a long time. The shadowing of the faces also helps to stop the audiences from getting any attachments to the characters. This is done so the character doesn’t feel any emotions for the characters. He still finds that he can joke and make remarks about the woman.
The Departed:

The titles are short and it starts with the old man's voice over with a small explanation of life.

He uses a lot of swear words and his voice is load and low pitched and you can nearly make a connection to him being the bad guy. Once again a lot of shots show darkness and corruption when he goes to collect his money from the corner shop.

Cutting It

2009-11-22T10:20:00.000-08:00

Cutting It was a popular BBC television programme set in Manchester, England, which ran for four series between 2002 and 2005, total time of 60 minutes for each episode.

Created by - Debbie Horsfield and Starring - Sarah Parish, Jason Merrells, Angela Griffin, Siân Reeves, Ben Daniels and Amanda Holden

It got five nominations (BAFTA TV Award, National Television Award, RTS Television Award x 2) and one of which was won (RTS Television Award).

Page 123 and Page 136 Establishment Questions

2009-11-15T09:24:00.000-08:00

1. List Five Media Sectors And One Leading Profit Making Company For Each Sector?

?

2. Name Two Interdependent Music Labels?

Dancing Turtle Records and Dragonfly Records

3. Why Is Some Music Downloading Illegal And Some Legal?

Downloading music offline is illegal unless you pay for it or the company doesn't have the license. Downloading a song off iTunes is not illegal because you pay for it before you download it.

4. Who owns the British Board of Film Classification?

?

5. Name three organisations that own British Newspapers?

Sky, The Mirror and The Guardian

6. Why does the BBC have no adverts?

The BBC is funded by the TV License and don't need any extra funding and other broadcasters have to find funding in order to keep broadcasting so they sell there time between programmes to adverts.

7. What is OFCOM?

OFCOM is the organisation that deals with complaints from the public.

8. What is MP4?

MP4 is a type of file extension which produces live pictures e.g Movie/Video Clip

Why does the sound regularly disappear on the live Big Brother?

So they don't broadcast any swearing or indecent material said by the house mates.

10. Who owns channel Five?

?

11.What happened as the result of the Hutton Report?

?

12. What do magazine make most of their money from?

Adverts inside the magazine

13. Who owns your regional ITV channel?

?

14. How do website that offer free content make money?

Again it has a lot to do with advertising. Companies buy spots of a website to display their adverts.

15. Who deals with complaints about adverts?

OFCOM?

16. Which is the biggest film industry in the world?

Hollywood

17. Who decides for age classifications on video games?

Pan European Games Information (PEGI.

18.Which media company do you pay the most money to?

BBC

19. What is an RSS feed?

Something that informs you of all the latest information about that particular RSS feed.

20. Who are BARB what what do they do?

?

British Films

2009-11-08T04:32:00.000-08:00

Investigate a recent British film: Lesbian Vampire Killers

Lesbian Vampire Killers is a 2009 British comedy horror film which stars James Corden and Mathew Horne, very funny comedians. It is written by Stewart Williams and Paul Hupfield, produced by Steve Clark-Hall and is directed by Phil Claydon.

James Corden and Mathew Horne are very popular comedians and actors who's main recognition is Gavin and Stacy (comedy)their popularity is what I reckon leads to the success of this film.

In short the film plot is about two men who aren't very successful in life and haven't had any luck with the ladies, they decide to go on a road trip to a random location of a unknown village in which they find by throwing a dart at a map of England. They make their way to the unknown village and stop by into a small pub, the men inside the pub tell them about a place down the road in which they can stay. Previously they had seen some young women making their way to this lodge. After time goes by the girls begin to get picked off one by one and its just Fletch (James Corden), Jimmy (Mathew Horne) and Lotte one of the young women left. Turns out Fletch is the prophet who, in legend is supposed to kill the vampire queen Camilla, after Fletch is captured Jimmy gets help from the Vicar who tells him about the sword which can kill Camilla, they go get it whilst throwing holy water bombs at vampires and shooting them with crossbows. Only to find that the sword is some amusement to Jimmy because it looks like male parts. They get the sword and kill the vampire queen. End of story. Throughout the film love builds up between Lotte and Fletch.

This film was extremely popular in Britain and in addition made a healthy profit. The film is a tongue-in-cheek homage to the classic Hammer Horror films and was originally slated to be the first "new" Hammer film. This did not come to pass and it was ultimately Alliance and Momentum Pictures along with AV Films who finally allowed the project to go ahead. The film as I can see did not win any awards even despite its popularity, it was slated by many film critics and was given a bad name.

Compare a recent Hollywood film: Role Models

Role Models is a 2008 American comedy film directed by David Wain about two energy drink salesmen who are ordered to perform 150 hours of community service as punishment for various offenses. For their service, the two men work at a program designed to pair kids with adult role models. The film stars Seann William Scott, Paul Rudd, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bobb'e J. Thompson, and Elizabeth Banks.

This film is about two men who are energy drink sales men who eventually give up on their job because it was becoming more and more depressing as each day passed. As a result Paul Rudd loses his girlfriend and after a particular school assembly they crash into a school statue by trying to escape from a cop who attempts to tow their truck. Then they are sent to a program called Sturdy Wings which involves them looking after their own child for 30 days. Paul Rudd gets the quite, white and nerdy teenage boy and Seann William Scott gets the opposite, a small, young and rude black boy who attempts to joy ride his car. Throughout the film they both start to develop a relationship with the boys and they end up participating in a event that Christopher Mintz-Plasse likes to go to called 'LAIRE' which they previously got banned from after having a fight with the king. This time they come back with their own country to attempt to over throw the king and become ruler, it ends up with just the king and Christopher Mintz-Plasse left for the final battle. Ill let you watch it to find out what happens ;).

This was a hugely popular film in both UK and the USA no doubt about it there was a huge profit in this film and with 3 nominations of Critics Choice Award, MTV Movie Award and Teen Choice Award.

Production Tips

2009-11-01T08:48:00.000-08:00

Diegesis:

Diegetic material is something that exists within this world and its something we can hear that has not been syntheticly put over something else. Examples of this are Dialogue and Thunder.
However Non - Diegetic material is something that is placed over the film for the audience for example: Music or Sound affects.

Some types of sound can be both! A characters thoughts as a voice over for instance, its diegetic because we aware of the thoughts but non - diegetic because other characters are not.

Micro and Macro Origination:

One thing when shooting appropriate material is to use the Micro-Macro strategy. Best not to dive right into filming at any stage planning is important. You need to follow three steps which are:

. Research into the type of film you are making.

. Comprise a story line that will be recognisable from the start.

. Plan how you are going to edit and film the production.

Camera Work and Framing

Using tripods is very important unless a shaky FPS shot is what you want, its very difficult to hold a camera extremely still with your hands. Zooming is best to be avoided as its not every professional and hard to pull off. Using a widescreen resolution is more appealing to the eye and avoiding Extreme Close Ups is recommend due to people nowadays can afford larger TV's. Use mainly Mid-Shots and Long shots.

The 'rule of thirds' is all about imagining the screen is spilt into 9 squares (3x3) and the eye is often drawn just of the centre square and this is the best place to have the character or object.

The stages in which you change the camera angle is important, its much more easy for the viewer to understand the film if you go from long to mid to close ups rather than long shot, close up and then mid shot.

High and low angles and important as well, low shots will enforce power upon the character and a high shot will show weakness.

Mise en Scéne

Mise en Scéne means what type of mood and atmosphere is within the film. Mise en Scéne will be one of the hardest elements to catch in our production due to the lack of time and expensive equipment we will not have at school. Although using props and the correct lighting it is still possible to catch the right atmosphere.

Lighting

As student it can be very hard to get the correct lighting for our production but there are some things we can do to get good lighting:

Use natural light - Sunlight, shadows, mist and rain

Use cheap and cheerful artificial lighting - using candles and street lights you can obtain the right effects for a thriller.

Colour Filters - Shining light through coloured liquids vases and ornamants.

Position of lighting - Using lights to shine from above can create different types of atmospheres.

Combining sound, image and titles

Titles plays a very important part in our production it can sometimes introduce the movie and if its not visually appealing it can put people off the film from the start. Also we will be using music in our titles and thus this can also affect the mood and atmosphere of the film.

Somers Town After Viewing

2009-10-21T14:39:00.000-07:00

How would you categorise this film in terms of genre? Does it remind you of any other films you have seen?

4) I would class this film as a comedy drama because young Tomo has a particular cheeky attitude and you can see this in the film when he steals the photos from Marek and runs away into the private area of what looks like an housing estate, then when a man comes out and tells them to leave he gives him back chat and swears at him.
The film reminds me of This Is England even though I haven’t seen This Is England by watching the trailers they do look similar.

5) What do you think is the film’s appeal for audiences?
I think that the film’s appeal for the audiences is the independence of Tomo and the decisions he makes by himself and the way that he wants change things by moving from Newcastle to London. Also I think some of the appeal is about the romance between the two boys and Maria

6) As well as being in black and white, the film is subtitled during a conversations in Polish between Marek and his farther; there are also sections in French. In what ways do these factors affect your responses to the film, the situation and the characters?
Response: The use of using subtitles added almost another dimension making the film seem more real rather than scripted. I personally found this very interesting, it really managed to grab the attention of the viewer and gave me an impression of the two characters.
The Situation: As before it did make the situation feel more real, but it also made it feel slightly uncomfortable with people talking different languages that we wouldn’t understand if we didn’t have the subtitles.
Characters: I feel that the sense of it being uncomfortable also plays a part on Mareks father because we know from early on that he is a drunk. It also made me feel slightly uncomfortable about Marek until later on because his father’s actions could have been portrayed upon him

7)What similarities and differences can you identify between Somers Town and This is England?
Both the films are very British, I have not seen This is England but I can explain some similarities between them. Both the films are set around teenagers who are perhaps lost and are looking for independence in the way of getting as far away from their existing lives.

8)To what extent do you think the audience is expected to be ‘comfortable’ with this portrait of two teenagers?
When Tomo is beaten up by the three lads late at night it makes us feel as if he is vulnerable and that portrays upon us and makes us feel like if he were to be a real character in real life then he wouldn’t poses a threat upon us. Also all the little witty things he says and when he steals the wrong clothes from the dry cleaners, the fact that Tomo and Marek are funny and makes us laugh also helps us to feel comfortable with them. Also the relationship between Tomo and Marek is tight as and this reflects upon us and we’ve been watching them the whole time and this makes us feel as if we are in with their friendship.

9) A sign on the estate reads “children playing on these grounds is prohibited”. In what different ways do Tomo and Marek seek to amuse themselves within this environment? Do you think the film encourages us to judge any of their actions?
One way they seek to amuse themselves is by drinking alcohol in park and then having a party, playing loud music and drinking more alcohol and lots of it. They do this because they are feeling down by the fact that Maria left to go to Paris. I don’t think we are meant to sympathise for them because even though they are upset about her leaving they say that they are drinking to move on and get over Maria.

10)What message of childhood adolescence do you, or could you, take away from the film?
I personally do not see a message to take away from the film. The boys to me were acting somewhat immature by getting drunk over a woman who’s 10 years older than them. However there could be a message to others about how sometimes we learn to adapt in other situations in desperate times, when we are put into situations we don’t know or are comfortable with we as human beings learn to adapt and this is what Tomo had to do when he left home and went to London.

11)Do your reactions towards the boys change at different points in the film? Which moments in particular?
a) Encourage you to sympathise with the boys
When they get drunk like I mentioned before and start pondering on why Maria left them to go to Paris without telling them is defiantly a time when we should or are supposed to sympathise for the boys. It makes it even worse with the fact that they are in the park because this is place where people are supposed to have fun not to be upset.

b) Make you unsympathetic towards them
When they steal clothes from the dry cleaners but they are clothes that they would never wear unless they really had to. We all know that stealing is bad and because of this we know not to sympathise with the boys because what they have done is wrong.

12) Some of the other characters include marek’s father, Mariusz, Graham the cockney neighbour, and a French waitress, maria. To what extent would you agree that Meadows is playing with stereotypes in his representation of these characters?
We often see in films that French woman are waitress’s and Maria is a waitress in a small cafe. Also that France is a very romantic place and Maria is somewhat of a flirt with the two boys. Also we see immigrants as people who work for low income and can work hard, his house is small and in a bit of a mess which indicates low amounts of income.

Notes on Somers Town

2009-10-19T02:24:00.000-07:00

What is a British Film??

. Britsh films are often low budget
. They are about ordinary people
. Classy
. Working class heroes

Depiction -
Comic Relief
Crime
Maids

They also often broke taboos

Alot of brit films are about leaving ID behind for instance in Somers Town Tomo moves to London leaving New Castle behind.

In the 80's there was huge un employment this was reflected on many films

The lecturer then decided to talk about simiar authors :-

Mike Leigh with the film Vera Drake

Shane meadows with This is England

Film Education Worksheet

2009-10-18T12:27:00.000-07:00

1) Why do you think a modern director would choose to produce a film in black and white rather than colour? What effects might they be hoping to achieve?

Well there are many reasons why directors would want to produce a film in black and white, the most obvious one of course is because the film is set way back when colour tv's weren't invented so making it black and white and the effect of this sets the film back in that time. Black and white can also make the film seem more realistic as if there hasn't been special effects added.

2)Choose three films, and find out their release date, genre, directors reputation, and the critical reaction of the film.

Sin City - Released in 2005 by Frank Millar and Robert Rodriguez
Genre - Action, Crime and Thriller
Frank Millar - He was a big comic reader and writer in the 70's and 80's. He wrote and penciled the Marvel series "Daredevil" for a long time. He also wrote two spinoffs about the character Electra and did a miniseries about the "X-Men" character Wolverine. In 1980, he wrote the acclaimed "Batman" story "Wanted - Santa Claus - Dead or Alive!" for DC Comics.
Critics - The New York Times
"Hard to get pulled into the story on any level other than the visceral."

Raging Bull - Released in 1980 by Martin Scorsese
Genre - Biography/Drama
Martin Scorsese - He entered a seminary in 1956 - Martin Scorsese opted to channel his passions into film. He graduated from NYU as a film major in 1964.
Critics - The New York Times - Vincent Canby
"The entire film is played at such high pitch it may well exhaust audiences that don't come prepared. And, at the heart of the film, there is the mystery of Jake himself, but that is what separates Raging Bull from all other fight movies, in fact, from most movies about anything. Raging Bull is an achievement."

Manhattan - Released in 1979 by Woody Allen
Genre - Comedy Drama
Woody Allen - Woody Allen was born December 1, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York. He went into show business at age 15 when he started writing jokes for a local paper, receiving $200 a week and pumping out an estimated 2000 jokes a day. Woody's theoretical directorial debut was in "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" which was a Japanese spy flick that he dubbed over with his own comedic dialogue about spies searching for the secret recipe for egg salad.

3. The film is named after Somers Town, the part of London which it is set. Most of the filming also took place on location in the area.

a) What iconographic sight and sounds you might expect from the film?

Hussle and Bussle of city life (beeping horns, revving of engines e.t.c)
Kids playing in parks (football)
Dogs barking on estates
The British Museum

What are your expectations about character and narrative based on this setting?

Poor family or families
Poor Estates
Crime
Neglect
Adeventure

Once upon a time in the west

2009-10-14T11:30:00.000-07:00

Non Diegetic Sound:-

Sound which the source is not visible on the screen or has been implied to be present in the action:
narrator's commentary
sound effects
mood music
Non-diegetic sound is sound that has been placed over the videos original sound.

Sound that's source is visible on the screen or the source is taken by the watcher to be present on the scene of the film:
voices of characters
sounds made by objects in the story

Diegetic sound is any sound presented as originated from source within the film's world

Definition from www.associatedcontent.com

“Diegetic sound is anything you hear that has a source within the story; non-diegetic is sound that has no source within the film itself.”

Sometime we can often hear what is diegetic and what is non diegtic for example when music is playing on a radio in the film and then gets louder as the person leaves the house you can tell its been placed on to the video but this adds an effect to the video.

At the start of Once upon a time in the west there are some immediate sounds that you can hear like:

> The Creaking Door
> Birds
> Wind
> The Chalk Board
> Footsteps

The most obvious one is the creaking door, the sound may have been amplified to add more effect to it. When the door creaks open and the man is standing in the door way it really gives him a sense of power and in away it makes him seem a bit rebellious when the other two men step into the door way because it makes you feel trapped.

The footsteps also contribute towards the mood of the film, they are slow paced and loud. The slowness of the footsteps puts across to the viewer that the cowboy is calm and in control of the situation and not the old man.

The men are wearing long brown coats with dark t-shirts underneath and the contrast on colours really helps the viewer decide whether or not the men are villains or heroes.

Camera angles have a huge part to play in many films and not just thrillers, camera angles can show many different things and not just pointing it at who's talking. For instance the pan up of the cowboy! It starts at the bottom of the cowboy and pans to the top because this give him a huge sense of power. The camera starts from a low angle and low angles are often associated with weakness. Another example of this is when the camera turns from the old man to the cowboy and the camera looks up at him which makes the old man look weak.

The reason why this film fits into the thriller sub genre because it does put you into suspense of wondering what's going to happen. The introduction is slow and it often makes us feel as if something fast paced and energetic is about to happen. Film makers can make this go along for along time which will make us very engrossed within the film.

2009-10-11T10:16:00.000-07:00

2009-10-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

No Country For Old Men

2009-10-07T11:49:00.000-07:00

No Country For Old Men was released in 2007 and produced by the Coen brothers: Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. Its is a Western Crime Thriller, and won many awards including: three British Academy of Film awards, two Golden Globes, and four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin. The setting for No Country For Old Men is in West Texas in the year June 1980

No Country For Old Men conforms to the commercial opening of a thriller because it sets the scene by using Extreme Wide Shots of the desert and there is no sign of civilization, this makes it feel like a very desolate place. There is a explanation at the start if the film which sets the mood. Also its very very silent and the only thing you can hear is the wind which makes it very dreary, the best example of this is when the man is hunting deer and its so silent you can hear his footsteps and the shell hit the floor when he fires his gun.

Final Cut Express

2009-10-07T03:34:00.000-07:00

Final Cut Express is a type of application that allows you to import and edit videos or video clips. Using Final Cut Express you can 'Capture' the footage from your camcorders so you dont have to mess around cutting and cropping clips.

We learnt that whilst doing the Capture you press 'I' to make a start point and then you press 'O' to get the end point and then Final Cut Express imports the footage inbetween these two points.

We also learnt that Final Cut Expess measures in Hours, Minutes, Secounds and Frames it measures in frames because this is then easier to get to certain points of your footage and edit it. Final Cut Express also makes editing easier by using a drag and drop system where you can simply drag footage from the browser to the Timeline,Viwer or Canvas.

The last thing that we learnt how to do was to make a new 'Bin' (Bin is another term for folder in Final Cut Express). To make a new bin you need to go to the top and click 'File' and on the drop down menu click new bin. Using the bin you can then drag footage into it, this helps keep all the clips organised so you dont mix up different videos.

In Friday's lesson we learnt how to import music into Final Cut Express, Go File, import files and find the music and double click it. Then drag it down into the timeline. If a red line appears above the timeline then it needs to be rendered, to do this you press and hold the Command button and then press 'R'. In one of the preview windows you can see a scale that shows the music waves, this is how Final Cut Express shows this type of media.

We also learnt how to import chunks of our video. What we had to do was (assuming you have your camera plugged into the Mac via the FireWire cable) rewind the tapes back to the start using the short cuts (J and L) then once it was at the start you can press the 'Capture Now' button. The video looks like it's just playing but its really importing the video and when you want to stop you just press the 'Esc' button. This then places a clip called 'Untitled' into the selected folder. It is important to make sure you re-name your clips because you can very easily muddle up clips.

Chris Ashwell

Thrillers

2009-10-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

A thriller is a type movie that really keeps you in the dark and guessing until the end. Even once you think you've guessed what's going to happen there is always a twist which throws you off balance. There doesn't tend to be much blood or gore. The Dark Knight is a good example of a thriller because just when you think they've
caught the Joker he still manages to escape!

Top 5 Thrillers from IMDB.com
1. The Godfather (1972)
2. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
3. Pulp Fiction (1994)
4. The Dark Knight (2008)
5. Rear Window (1954)

Traceur.RU

2009-09-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

I think this video is just so amazing, the amount of time it must have taken to film and edit!

Myself!

2009-09-29T08:42:00.001-07:00

My name is Chris Ashwell and I attend Reepham College, I'm in my first year of college.