Out of boredom in the holidays I watched the film Derailed, an american thriller. When the film first started I wondered why it was a thriller, as the first half hour of the film seemed like a Rom-Com with two charcters, Charlie and Lucinda falling for eachother after meeting on a train and planning to have an affair. I was truly shocked when the two characters went to a hotel to have their long awaited affair but were interrupted by a gun man who raped Lucinda. Charlie was beaten up and made to feel guilty, he since was blackmailed by the gun man LaRoche who called Charlie and appeared at his house blackmailing him to be given $20,000 and later in the film $100,000. Charlie is forced to give over the money as Lucinda is repeatedly threatened and Charlies good friend is shot by LaRoche, the result of this was Charlie having to clear his life savings that were meant to be saved in order to cure his sick daughter suffering from diabetes. After the money is handed over Charlie is finally able to get on with his life, he soon goes to Lucindas work to find her but to his suprise Lucinda is not who she claimed she was with her real name being Jane. Charlie follows her and learns she is with LaRoche and scams men just like Charlie every day.This was a massive twist in the film that really shocked me. The film grew into an action film as well as a thriller when Charlie follows Jane and an unsuspecting man like he once was to the same hotel. He knocks LaRoche out and confronts Jane but LaRoche wakes and there is a shooting match in the hotel room. Everybody ends up dead in the hotel room and Charlie makes a quick escape. The film ends on Charlie teaching a prison English class and to his horror finds a book written by LaRoche about the story of Charlie. Charlie finds LaRoche alive and finally kills him, the burden finally being dealt with.
I thorougly enjoyed this film as it had a massive twist that shocked the audience. The film was effective as the beginning of the film did not leave me thinking something bad was going to happen. I genuinally thought Lucinda was a genuine character and the fact she was in the scam with LaRoche was a big suprise. Charlie who was played by Clive Owen was a likeable character and the audience were rooting for him although he did alot of wrong doing in the film. Overall, I would definitely reccomend this film to anyone who likes thrillers.
We've decided to change our film idea to a different genre, from a comedy to a old/war/romantic/classic film.
The basic film idea is based around an elderly woman reminiscing about a traumatic time. Flashbacks are key to our film with the elderly woman thinking back to scenes of her perhaps running through the woods. We chose to do this genre as from looking at previous examples of AS film openings nobody has chosen a film similar to this.
Our possible location is forty hall, this is perfect as we can do our flashback scene in the woods and the house gives the impression of the character being in an old peoples home or her own house which is what we wanted to give the impression of.
On Thursday we travelled to the National Film Theatre in Southbank to go to a cemenar discussing film openings. In our first session we focused on genre, narrative, character, atmosphere, themes, setting and sound. We watched three film openings to Catch Me If You Can, Dawn Of The Dead and Napoleon Dynamite and discussed how the topics fit in with these opening sequences. The openings made us think about our own film openings and how they compared to eachother. I came to the conclusion that the openings we saw focused on graphics, especially Catch Me If You Can which is very different to our openings due to our lack of software in comparison to the hugh budget films.
I really liked the opening sequence to Napoleon Dynamite, as I found it very entertaining and creative, it also allowed the audience to see what genre the film would be. I really liked the quirky and indie style of it and also found the titles really different to others I had seen in other films.This inspired me to be more creative when making my opening titles.
In the next session Daniel Kleinman came and discussed his work with us. He explained how he created the majority of the James Bond title sequences, we saw an example of his work from Casino Royale and I was very impressed feeling fascinated about how he created such amazing graphics. He expressed how important the titles are and how the music should fit in with them, this made me rethink our title credits that we are using in our film and how they should be analysed properly in order to look effective with our film. Apart from creating title sequences Kleinman also directs adverts and to our surprise he had done very well known advertisements such as the Specsavers and Coca-Cola adverts.
Next Simon Frame spoke to us, a director whose recent film is Monsters. We watched clips of the film and I was amazed when he told me they only had a cast of four people. I was also shocked when he told us that several parts of the film were not filmed together, with one scene being shot in several places. He expressed how important sound was and how it is key to many films. He said the best noises come from everyday things and by layering these noises up, great noises come as a result.
Later in the afternoon we watched examples of different film openings. We watched three films all at different levels, this helped me see what was needed to achieve certain levels. Some films we watched were really impressive and made me want to make us as high quality as others. Although some films we watched were laughed at, as they were Level 1. This made us all determined not to make our video as bad as others!
I particularl enjoyed Angeldust, I really liked the way such a simple concpt had such a brilliant effect. The film also left the audience wondering what would happen next, making it a good opening sequence as it did not seem like a trailer.
Overall, the day at the NFT was a great success and I came away with a lot more knowledge of film openings that I had before. It made me feel really inspired for my own film and I hope that it can reach a high level or otherwise it might be laughed at!
Here is a video we edited of footage we filmed on the flip cameras before we filmed our actual film. This was to practice using the cameras and experimenting with different angles etc. We also practiced our iMovie skills by editing this.
For todays lesson we went to the CLC centre to learn more about the iMovie software, we were given footage to edit and were able to experiment with different aspects of iMovie such as music, transitions and title credits. After that we went back to school and edited some of our film and here is a fisrt draft of it.
In todays lesson we watched the film Se7en starring Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey.
I had never seen the film before and was anxious to watch it as I had heard how scary it was. I thoroughly enjoyed the film as the concept was so clever as a murderer based his murders on the seven sins; Gluttony, Pride, Lust, Anger, Sloth, Wrath and Envy, hence the name of the film being Se7en. The film had me glued the whole way through as I was waiting for the next terrifying moment to occur.
I was really impressed with Brad Pitt in this film as he did not reform to his typical stereotype film role, Kevin Spacey really scared me in this film as he was so creepy!
During the film I took note of certain camera shots and angles that were used to create suspense and add to the horror/thriller genre of the film. Also I noticed the non-diagetic sounds used, this was very effective as it added to the drama and thrill of the film.
The film ending was excellent as the audience wonder where the murdered is taking the detectives and whether or not he will kill them. The murderer ends up killing Mills' wife, delivering her head to the desert, this being one of the sins Envy, the last sin to occur is Anger as Mills kills the murderer. This is a very controversial ending as the class debated whether or not he should have killed him. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Se7en and would highly recommend it.
After a very long day our group filmed the footage needed for our two minute film opening. Firstly we had a quick group meeting and discussed what we would do first and went trhough each scene. We started filming at around 10am at my house as we were using my sisters room to film in. The first scene we shot was Andrea changing her outfit, it was rather hard to film this scene as we had to make the camera movements very precise as we had to zoom in and out to give the effect of Andreas outfit automatically changing. After many attempts we finally got the footage we wanted, then we started to film Andrea waking up and getting ready. We had some great ideas and thought of putting the camera in the fridge as Andrea got a carton of orange juice out to give different camera angles and perspectives.
We then decided to start filming outside as the weather had brightened up, unfortunately for Charlotte she had to lay on the ground for a long while as we had to give the impression of her being hit by an alarm clock, but the shot was very effective so i'm sure she didn't mind after all! As we shot outside my house road cleaners happened to be down my road so we took advantage of this and asked one of them to appear in our film and he happily agreed!
After lunch we started to do the bus scenes which was a bit of a hassle due to angry bus drivers, passengers looking into the camera and a waving bus driver! We got the shots we needed, although the journey was a bit bumpy but hoepfully it will look efefctive.
We made our way back to my house and shot the final scenes of the bedroom scene such as the alarm clock scene which included throwing it out of the window! Luckily me and Valentina had the job of catching it in a blanket which was rather humourous. We also back combed Andreas hair which gave the effect of her looking as if she had just woken up, we also did the wardrobe shot of Andrea throwing clothes at the camera lense, this looked really effective and we thought of the idea of making that one of the parts of the film where a credit should be shown.
Seven hours later the day of filming was finally over, we were all really happy with the shots and footage we got, although we were very tired! Now we couldn't wait to start editing
In todays lesson we researched possible music to use in our film and found this website http://freeplaymusic.com/ and found useful music of different genres. We found one particular song called 'Cool Shades' which we find could suit our film well. We believe the website to have uncopyrighted music, but we will need to look into this to make sure.
In todays lesson we determined as a group what shots we are going to use in our short film. We went through each shot individually and determined all 42 shots.
1. pictures presents.. 2. alarm clock 3. alarm clock (shot is closer this time) 4. alarm clock (extreme close up of clock when the alarm goes off) arm reaches to turn it off 5. girl sits up (big hair, smudged make-up, hungover) shot freezes-voice over (meet...) 6. struggles with alarm clock 7. throws out window 8. clock flies out window 9. runs to window (oops..) 10. someone is lying on ground outside (hit by alarm clock) 11. shuts window (embarrassed, doesnt want to get caught) 12. looking in mirror (camera acts as mirror so she is looking into camera instead) 13. brushes hair (over shoulder shot) brush breaks (knotted hair) 14. (camera pans round so that window is in shot, girl unaware) person lying on ground attracts a crowd 15. hands opening wardrobe 16. pulls out different outfits and throws them behind 17. tries on outfit (camera zooms in) 18. (when camera zooms out she is in a different oufit) zooms in again 19. (zooms out) she is again in a different oufit (takes off top, throws, lands on camera, creates black out effect-perhaps some credits here or title may come up) 20. finds outfit (looks flustered) 21. feet running downstairs (point of view shot-camera held by actor) 22. (quick snappy shots) grabs bowl 23. grabs cereal 24. grabs juice (hear sound of cutlery as if getting spoon) 25. grabs bag 26. exits house (long distance shot) 27. close up of her face (discusted at cereal realises she has put juice in instead of milk) looks over at crowd surrounding injured person 28. shot of crowd 29. close up of girls face (shocked) 30. shot of alarm clock on floor and her feet, kicks it behind a bin 31. actor from crowd looks over 32. girl walks over, hands cereal to person in crowd scurries off in a hurry 33. confused face of by stander 34. shot of cereal floating in juice 35. long shot of girl walking down road 36. over shoulder head shot bus in distance drives past 37. bus pulls up 38. girl sitting on bus 39. starts to fall asleep hits head on seat in front 40. (shot of lips) tries to apply lipstick-accidentally draws over her cheek because the bus is moving 41. gets off bus 42. walks down road (point of view shot of feet)
These images are of the location we are using, my sisters bedroom in my house. We have specifically chosen this room as the images show the mirror shows the opposite image of the street which is a shot that we will be using in the film. Also we will be using a shot from the window looking down into the street for the crowd scene (shot 28). The street we are using is ideal for the film as it is an open space and also it is long ableing us to gain effective shots especially of the character running down it and seeing the bus (shots 35 and 36)
In todays lesson we did a proposal to the class about our film discussing different aspects of our film such as genre, setting and characters. This proposal determined what our film would be about and gave the class an idea of what the film is going to be like.
In todays lesson we looked at examples of storyboards as we will regularly be working from them in order to make our two minute films. We were given our own storyboard templates and we drew the different shots of a preliminary task video which used different shots and angles. This allowed us to practice our storyboard skills as we will soon be drawing the shots to our opening film sequence. Also in the lesson the class got into their final groups and began determining what our films would be about, we also began preparing for a presentation for next Fridays lesson proposing our film idea to the class.
In todays lesson we discussed different film genres to help us decide what type of film we will be making for our assesment two minute film opening. The class came up with several ideas such as Brit films, Indie/Alternative and even Comedy genres which we could possibly make our two minutes films on. These ideas were individual as the majority of media students choose Horror/thriller films. One of the films we discussed was 500 Days of Summer speaking about how the film is in reverse chronology adding to the effect of the film. This gave some of us ideas of the chronology we will use in our film openings. Also in the lesson we watched the film opening to Sherlock Holmes and saw how the opening title credits were not shown until ten minutes into the film, this added to the effect of the film opening as the audience is immediately drawn into the story line and plot.
The opening shot is a close up of a flickering light bulb,different lighting experiences have been used. Then swift camera movements are made showing different parts of the room from a low angle. These shots are points of view camera movements. Then a shot of a mirror is shown and the characters face is shown, this is also their point of view as they are looking in the mirror. The camera then zooms out and shows a long shot of the character trapped and then an overhead shot is used, a zoom is then used to show different close up shots and also the shots are then zoomed out. The next shot is manual focus, the shot is of the man but suddenly the shot changes to the tv screen. A close up shot is.used for the tv and regularly changes to a mid shot of the man. Over the shoulder shots are then used to show the mans point of view watching the tv. Shots keep changing between the man and the tv using transition shots , then an echo is used as shots of the mans actions are used in three very fast transitions. Transitions are made and shots are shown of parts of the room, showing the mans point of view, e.g looking at the clock. A long shot is used to show the man struggling to escape and transitions are used and parts of his face are zoomed. A part is fast forwarded to show him running in frustration, then extreme close up shots are shown of his eye.Fast forward is used again as well as pan to show several moving shots.
I find The Wedding Singer a very effective film opening as as soon as the film starts you are immediately drawn in. The film is set in the 80s which the audience immediately knows as along with the 80s outfits the 80s classic You Spin Me Round is the music in the background and this introduces the film as an exciting 80s inspired film. The title credits also represent the era of the film as blue old fashioned style font is used. The film is obviously a comedy as Adam sandler conveys along with other likable characters including a typical funny bunch of people at a wedding including a table full of fat people. The Wedding Singer opening is both funny, exciting and immediately introduces the audience to the era of the 80s within the first three minutes of the film.
The opening credits to Se7en are very effective as the audience immediately sees just what genre of film it is, a crime/thriller. The credits of the film open to spooky music setting the feel of the film, to add to the effect roughly written black and white credits are used to perhaps show nervousness or anticipation. Imagery is also used to show the audience what the film may be about as images flicker on the screen allowing them to be intrigued by the images shown and for them to question what they may mean. Overall, I get the impression that the film is a thriller and from seeing the flickering images Se7en intrigues me into what the film is actually about.
Out of boredom in the holidays I watched the film Derailed, an american thriller. When the film first started I wondered why it was a thriller, as the first half hour of the film seemed like a Rom-Com with two charcters, Charlie and Lucinda falling for eachother after meeting on a train and planning to have an affair. I was truly shocked when the two characters went to a hotel to have their long awaited affair but were interrupted by a gun man who raped Lucinda. Charlie was beaten up and made to feel guilty, he since was blackmailed by the gun man LaRoche who called Charlie and appeared at his house blackmailing him to be given $20,000 and later in the film $100,000. Charlie is forced to give over the money as Lucinda is repeatedly threatened and Charlies good friend is shot by LaRoche, the result of this was Charlie having to clear his life savings that were meant to be saved in order to cure his sick daughter suffering from diabetes. After the money is handed over Charlie is finally able to get on with his life, he soon goes to Lucindas work to find her but to his suprise Lucinda is not who she claimed she was with her real name being Jane. Charlie follows her and learns she is with LaRoche and scams men just like Charlie every day.This was a massive twist in the film that really shocked me. The film grew into an action film as well as a thriller when Charlie follows Jane and an unsuspecting man like he once was to the same hotel. He knocks LaRoche out and confronts Jane but LaRoche wakes and there is a shooting match in the hotel room. Everybody ends up dead in the hotel room and Charlie makes a quick escape. The film ends on Charlie teaching a prison English class and to his horror finds a book written by LaRoche about the story of Charlie. Charlie finds LaRoche alive and finally kills him, the burden finally being dealt with.
