1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (i.e of film openings)
The aspects we would like you to consider are:
The title of the film
Setting/location
Costumes and props
Camerawork and editing
Write about how typical or not of opening sequences your particular design is.
Title font and style
Story and how the opening sets it up
Genre and how the opening suggests it
How characters are introduced
Special effects
How does your opening sequence develop or challenge the conventions of an opening sequence?
Does your use of conventions indicate that other opening sequences have influenced your work?
If so, then be specific with examples.
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2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
What are the social groups represented in terms of gender, age, class, race, etc?
Pick a key character from your opening. Think of one or more characters from other films with some similarity to them (but maybe some differences too!). Write about the similarities and differences in terms of appearance, costume, role in film etc.
So for example if you have a nerdy/dreamer character, look for other nerdy/dreamer characters to compare them with..
Pick a key character from your opening. Think of one or more characters from other films with some similarity to them (but maybe some differences too!). Write about the similarities and differences in terms of appearance, costume, role in film etc.
So for example if you have a nerdy/dreamer character, look for other nerdy/dreamer characters to compare them with..
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Would this be something that could be produced by a major Hollywood studio, if yes then why? Is it similar to existing products?
Would it be a TV movie?
Would it be an arthouse film?
Would it be an internet only release?
Why would it be released? Does it offer opportunities for franchises and/or merchandising?
Where might the money come from for a film such as yours?
What films are similar 'institutionally'?
(Name some films which would be released in a similar way.)
Link your conclusions to a discussion of the mise-en-scene (visual style) of your opening sequence.
Would it be a TV movie?
Would it be an arthouse film?
Would it be an internet only release?
Why would it be released? Does it offer opportunities for franchises and/or merchandising?
Where might the money come from for a film such as yours?
What films are similar 'institutionally'?
(Name some films which would be released in a similar way.)
Link your conclusions to a discussion of the mise-en-scene (visual style) of your opening sequence.
4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
Consider the age and gender of your target audience.
(Link this to the narrative and style of your film.)
What kinds of taste might your target audience have : Where would they shop? What music would they listen to? What would their favourite TV programmes be? etc.
What other films are similar to yours? Who do they appeal to?
(Link this to the narrative and style of your film.)
What kinds of taste might your target audience have : Where would they shop? What music would they listen to? What would their favourite TV programmes be? etc.
What other films are similar to yours? Who do they appeal to?
5. How did you attract/address your audience?
Are there particular points in your film that would appeal to a certain age or gender? If yes then explain them in detail.
You should refer to genre conventions, use of music, similarities with other movies and what you have identified as the Unique Selling Point of your imaginary film.
Link this into your audience profile (I.e. what age and gender they are)
You should refer to genre conventions, use of music, similarities with other movies and what you have identified as the Unique Selling Point of your imaginary film.
Link this into your audience profile (I.e. what age and gender they are)
6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing the product?
Talk about the filming process. Were there problems you faced? How did you resolve these issues?
Did you get to use new equipment that enhances your opening sequence? I.e. the dolly.
Editing software - Final Cut Express. What have you learnt about editing?
Photoshop - What have you learnt about using the software?
Garageband - was it a useful programme for creating a soundtrack? What challenges did you face during this process?
Did you get to use new equipment that enhances your opening sequence? I.e. the dolly.
Editing software - Final Cut Express. What have you learnt about editing?
Photoshop - What have you learnt about using the software?
Garageband - was it a useful programme for creating a soundtrack? What challenges did you face during this process?
7. Looking back to your preliminary task, what do you feel that you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Concentrate on editing and camerawork.
Show what you know about shot types, edit terms and techniques.
Discuss the planning stage, storyboarding, and explain how this helped you to produce your opening sequence.
Make sure you mention the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot
Has your use of specific shot types improved? I.e. match on action, point of view?
Do you feel more confident with the equipment?
How successful do you feel your end product is as fulfilling the task?
Show what you know about shot types, edit terms and techniques.
Discuss the planning stage, storyboarding, and explain how this helped you to produce your opening sequence.
Make sure you mention the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot/reverse shot
Has your use of specific shot types improved? I.e. match on action, point of view?
Do you feel more confident with the equipment?
How successful do you feel your end product is as fulfilling the task?
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
The history of the dull and boring
We have decided to change the name of our film because we think the name we originally thought of (the jungle school) didn't really work well, but watching our film, the end scene there is a part where the teacher shouts at Russell, and tells him that he has to do a 10,000 word essay about The History Of The Dull & Boring. So we decided to adopt this name as our title. :D
As our film intro comes to an end
As the last few edits are done to our film and the music is edited to fit smoothly with the film the ending of the film is getting close.
While watching the film near completion we realised that we had successfully made a child's film opening. What makes us confident we have done this and not any other type of film audience market is that the humour is very goofy humour e.g the monster running after Russell in a very goofy way. If it was a family film then the parents would be finding things humorous during the opening however from us watching it there is nothing that would make a parent laugh.
Our film also follows the theme of other children's film by being very simple to understand as its quite black and white that there is a good person (Russell) and a bad person (Pumpkin man). Well feel that in children's films there is less morals than in family films and so our opening does not show any morals for example "dont lie`'.
Our genre for our film is adventure so we hope it would capture our audiences imagination. When we were originally thinking of ideas for our opening we decided that the genres we could choose from were obviously limited to a small few genres for example no murder mystery as that would be too complex, however a slapstick comedy or an adventured themed film would be ideal for a child audience. Ways in which we knew what genres are inappropriate for a child's film and are more suited for a older audience was by just thinking what a zombie genre for an extreme example includes which is usually a lot of gore, death and swearing. And of-course it goes without saying that putting any of that into a child's film would be a very poor chose.
While watching the film near completion we realised that we had successfully made a child's film opening. What makes us confident we have done this and not any other type of film audience market is that the humour is very goofy humour e.g the monster running after Russell in a very goofy way. If it was a family film then the parents would be finding things humorous during the opening however from us watching it there is nothing that would make a parent laugh.
Our film also follows the theme of other children's film by being very simple to understand as its quite black and white that there is a good person (Russell) and a bad person (Pumpkin man). Well feel that in children's films there is less morals than in family films and so our opening does not show any morals for example "dont lie`'.
Our genre for our film is adventure so we hope it would capture our audiences imagination. When we were originally thinking of ideas for our opening we decided that the genres we could choose from were obviously limited to a small few genres for example no murder mystery as that would be too complex, however a slapstick comedy or an adventured themed film would be ideal for a child audience. Ways in which we knew what genres are inappropriate for a child's film and are more suited for a older audience was by just thinking what a zombie genre for an extreme example includes which is usually a lot of gore, death and swearing. And of-course it goes without saying that putting any of that into a child's film would be a very poor chose.
Friday, 6 November 2009
Our Mood Board
We decided to make a mood board which shows what inspired us and influenced are final idea. We have chosen pictures of kids who also have been on adventures e.g the kid from the spiderwick chronicles.
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Editing Away
After gettiing back from half term we went straight into filming. We put the footage onto the computer. We have also just started editing the major scene in this introduction sequence which is the forrest.
The music that will be on the film during the scenes started, we decided to go for quite a jungle film however some of the group have decided to go for a rodeo music as the sound "sounded" good but wether it goes well with the footage is debatable. For some reason a kid going through a forrest with the sound of some old wild west musician playing in the background seems strange.
However one problem we are currently having is that the mask we used ha got mixed opinions amongst us about wether we should of used a mask deemed less scary however we feel with the shot that shows the pumpkin man/monster running he has quite a comedic run which talks away from the intimidation he may cause.
Filming Finshed
We have no finshed filming. We got our main scene - when Russell is exploring in the forrest done in one lesson which we were happy with. Then in the second of the three lessons allocated to film for our introductions we filmed the cave scene with great difficulty as lighting was a big issue on the footage came out too dark for someone to understand what is happening. We also in the second filming lesson got the footage of Russell exploring the "ruins" known as the art block to those who know Long Road. We managed to get some good shots there and the important shots we needed and so we moved onto our final location which would not take long to film and it lived up to our expectation and did not take long to use. We used a empty classroom as planned towards the end of the second lesson we had got all our footage required.
Because of this we did not in the end use the third lesson we were able to film in and instead started with the editing and creating the music to go in the background.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Filming and stuff that require filming and the like........
over the past two lessons, we have been filming in the woods near the school, the boys toilet for the cave scene, (no seriously it worked very well), and then the art block for the ruin and then finally a classroom for the .....er......classroom scene.
Looking at our plans our group was planned on what we wanted to achieve in terms of footage and scenes were we shot. We did not write much down as there was no script required and we at the time was not sure on the shots that we were going to shot whilst in the locations as we would just record what looks good and hope we are being creative with what we shoot during our filming days.
filming went very well and we suffered little problems, apart from johnny and the pumpkin guy doing the kersal massive, but that was all in good fun and it won't appear on the main piece, though that would be a shame. either way we have succeeded.
Looking at our plans our group was planned on what we wanted to achieve in terms of footage and scenes were we shot. We did not write much down as there was no script required and we at the time was not sure on the shots that we were going to shot whilst in the locations as we would just record what looks good and hope we are being creative with what we shoot during our filming days.
Friday, 16 October 2009
Locations sorted
In our final planning lesson which as been designated to designing the introduction we have.
We had four main locations to film in which has to resemble one of these each,
A Forrest, A Cave, A ancient ruins and a classroom
The forest was our first location we found which was near the train track where there is a lot of trees which of course suits our forest location well
The second location we found was the ancient ruins which is in the art block area. Its the best we could do with the limited places around school that resembles ruins(we don't mean that in a bad way). We then had a big problem trying to find somewhere which is cave like. We had to find something dark, which not much in. Finally we stumbled across the toilets in the photography area which is very dark and generally a good places for our cave scene. We did not bother looking for a classroom for our final scene as this is a school and so finding a classroom should be easy with many classrooms with no one in. Also we will have to use what ever classroom is free on the day we film the classroom scene we can find a free room on the day.
We then discussed what we want our main character is a child known as Joe which i (jonny) reluctantly volunteered to play in the film.
We have based him on the character from the child programme "recess" called Gus, he is the boy wearing glasses. So basically we are trying to create a character who is not really that "cool.
Here is a video of recess in which you can see who Gus is.
We had four main locations to film in which has to resemble one of these each,
A Forrest, A Cave, A ancient ruins and a classroom
The forest was our first location we found which was near the train track where there is a lot of trees which of course suits our forest location well
The second location we found was the ancient ruins which is in the art block area. Its the best we could do with the limited places around school that resembles ruins(we don't mean that in a bad way). We then had a big problem trying to find somewhere which is cave like. We had to find something dark, which not much in. Finally we stumbled across the toilets in the photography area which is very dark and generally a good places for our cave scene. We did not bother looking for a classroom for our final scene as this is a school and so finding a classroom should be easy with many classrooms with no one in. Also we will have to use what ever classroom is free on the day we film the classroom scene we can find a free room on the day.
We then discussed what we want our main character is a child known as Joe which i (jonny) reluctantly volunteered to play in the film.
We have based him on the character from the child programme "recess" called Gus, he is the boy wearing glasses. So basically we are trying to create a character who is not really that "cool.
Here is a video of recess in which you can see who Gus is.
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
The Jungle School
A productiive lesson does not quite sum up how productive it was. After a big knuckle down we finally not only came up with an idea which we have now got officially planned, we now have a title for it and also a story board. The introduction is looking like it will take around one minutes 30 seconds. We plan to include three diffrent locations at minium, one being based if a green area e.g trees, another location will be in a 'cave' whih will either be in very dark room or under a table, whatever works best. Ad the last scene will be in a class room. We plan to have the kid narrating during the introduction which will be what he is thinking at the time (his imagination)
The introduction will have three characters in it, one will be the teacher, another is the kid and the third is the 'monster'. Tomorrow we plan to get where we are filming these places set and also what will be happening in these scenes so for next week we will be able to just arrive film with no planning on the filming day and get it done.
Here is a picture of our storyline
Finally an Idea
During the our second out of three lessons we have to plan for our child's film we actually had an idea that does not at any point mention Fidel Castro which is an achievement in itself.
We were looking into the Lemony Snickkets and Ronald Dahl books for some "insperation' however while looking through some of the introductions to the films of the books by these two men we came up with a idea. It came from realising that in these books there is usually a non average person, this does not mean weird but that they can be more interested for example. They are sometimes escaping the real world somehow which they do not like into a world they prefer. By escaping the world we do not mean getting on a rocket but getting out of realism by example of imagination.
So from realising this we came with the idea of a kid who dislikes school. He likes to imagine exploring places.
The current idea we have for the introduction is that its showing this kid in these exotic locations for example in a forrest or cave. The camera does not show that the kid is actually only near some trees or under a table until the last bit of the introduction when also of a sudden while the kid is dreaming he is in these locations he hears someone yelling his name, all of a sudden the camera will show he is actually for example under a table and it will show him getting out and going to lesson.
The reason we chose this genre which is adventure is because children enjoy that sort of genre as it can capture their imagination and its fun for them to see these weird places and ofcourse because the adventure genre suits all the criterea for the u or PG certificate.
The way the certificate has influenced our creative choices is quite a lot, we had to chose from a smaller choice of genres which meant that some of our ideas would have to be scrapped when we were originally brain storming ideas due to not being suitable for the certificate.
We were looking into the Lemony Snickkets and Ronald Dahl books for some "insperation' however while looking through some of the introductions to the films of the books by these two men we came up with a idea. It came from realising that in these books there is usually a non average person, this does not mean weird but that they can be more interested for example. They are sometimes escaping the real world somehow which they do not like into a world they prefer. By escaping the world we do not mean getting on a rocket but getting out of realism by example of imagination.
So from realising this we came with the idea of a kid who dislikes school. He likes to imagine exploring places.
The current idea we have for the introduction is that its showing this kid in these exotic locations for example in a forrest or cave. The camera does not show that the kid is actually only near some trees or under a table until the last bit of the introduction when also of a sudden while the kid is dreaming he is in these locations he hears someone yelling his name, all of a sudden the camera will show he is actually for example under a table and it will show him getting out and going to lesson.
The reason we chose this genre which is adventure is because children enjoy that sort of genre as it can capture their imagination and its fun for them to see these weird places and ofcourse because the adventure genre suits all the criterea for the u or PG certificate.
The way the certificate has influenced our creative choices is quite a lot, we had to chose from a smaller choice of genres which meant that some of our ideas would have to be scrapped when we were originally brain storming ideas due to not being suitable for the certificate.
Tuesday, 13 October 2009
Thinking of Ideas
Today we were brain storming ideas. Well we hoped to
A few "jokey" ideas came about which included the idea of Fidel Castro - The early years. despite the prospect of this idea we felt this idea lacked the child film qunatities required of us.
Another idea that came to mind included an idea influenced by recesss, mouse trap and a kid themed Ninja bonanza.
However with two lessons left of planning we leave the room without a set idea to do.
Maybe when ideas are scarce the Fidel Castro - early years does not seem so bad.
A few "jokey" ideas came about which included the idea of Fidel Castro - The early years. despite the prospect of this idea we felt this idea lacked the child film qunatities required of us.
Another idea that came to mind included an idea influenced by recesss, mouse trap and a kid themed Ninja bonanza.
However with two lessons left of planning we leave the room without a set idea to do.
Maybe when ideas are scarce the Fidel Castro - early years does not seem so bad.