Film pitch and institution

Film pitch and institution

1) What is the main film outgoing audience?  16-24 year old. 

2) How do cinemas make most of their money? Not by selling tickets for films but it is the popcorn they sell to their customers when they go to watch a film/ 

3) How do you get a film into the cinema? Similar to music, you need to speak to someone that acts as an agent for film and media, this is like a distributor. A distributor is hired by the owner of a film to go around to different cinemas to ask if they can show your film in their cinema, sometimes the cinema will pay you to have the film shown in their cinema, however sometimes if the cinema has a free screen and your movie will not attract many customers then you have to pay the cinema to show it on their screens to their customers. 

4) What does a distributor do? A distributor goes around to different cinemas asking them to show your film in their cinema to their customers, this can either be the cinema paying you to show the film, or you paying the cinema to show the film. 

Audience

Audience - Class Work notes

User and Gratifications of Media

The main target audience fore the film-going and the new films that are released are generally 16-24 year old. 

User and gratifications can be shown and remembers by using the acronym PIES. 

Personal Identification

Information

Entertainment

Social interaction 

These are all the reasons why people tend to view media and receive gratification from it. Personal identification means that when somebody is watching the media and can feel relevant and related to the information the the similarity to their even they remember and the information is in the form of the media. 

Information is when people view the media just to gather information from the article or video, whatever the piece of information is from. Whether the information is the past present or the future the form of news can be displayed by a documentary or an article. 

Feedback on the film pitch

Feedback on our film pitch

The movie that we pitched to our class was called 'The Zootastics' this was a film that was targeted at 5 year old and was supposed to be an action film. After pitching our film we got feedback and a score out of 70 of what our class thought of the film and the way we delivered the pitch as a group and whether they would but the rights to our movie if possible. On average as a group we had a total score of 50 out of 70 and generally most of the class said that they would by the rights to our film. This meant that overall the class thought that the Zootastics was a good film and obviously thought it was unique because the majority said that they would buy the rights to our film. 

However, the constructive criticism that we received as a group was accepted and as a group we thought that these comments were fair and we could have improved where the class said we could have done better. These comments included being too similar to the Incredible's which was one of our inspirations when creating this movie, as a group we agreed that this was one point that we could argue against as creating an action for under 5's was not easy and we were trying to alter the Incredible's to make an enjoyable film for under 5's. So, as a group we accepted this comment but did decide that it was suppose to be similar to the Incredible's as this was one of our inspirations and we took ideas from this movie in order to create the zootastics. 

Finally, some other comments read that the title of the film 'Zootastics' did not really match the genre for the film which was action. Then again we did decide that we could have thought a bit more about the films title, rather than thinking of one and sticking with it, we could have listed a few potential titles and then decided from there. So, some of the comments read that the zootastics did not relate to the genre and that it should be changed to make the title of the film more suited to the genre.

Here is the film pitch again, it can also be found further down the page.

Individual film pitch from lukeweldon

Institution slide show

Institution from Luke_10

Film Production Logo

As a task we were asked to create a film production logo, I created this using photo shop and fireworks, this took me a lot of time but that is mainly because I took a lot of time looking for the right images and background to go with the logo, I think that overall the final piece is a good logo.

Film Presentation

FILM PRESENTATION

This is our film ideas and contains all of the information about our film, this is an action for under five year old. Its called 'the Zootastics' 

Individual film pitch from lukeweldon

Stereotypes, Archetypes and Countertypes

Starter

As a starter we were asked to draw our thoughts of a typical french man, Scottish person, inner city youth and someone of Arabic decent. The whole point of this starter was to show how we all decided to actually draw 'stereotypes' of these people and what we thought of them from what we heard from the media etc... When actually it could have been a much different french or Scottish person.

                                         Stereotype of a french man:                                             

Stereotype of a Scottish man

Stereotype of inner city youth:

Stereotype of someone of  Arabic decent:

Stereotypes
This is an instant understanding that is often negative, that we believe is real over time when we keep on hearing it on the radio or TV.

Archetypes
This is the ultimate stereotype. This is pushed to the points that it is not real anymore and is obvious by the way you are describing this person.

Counter-type
This is a representation that is the opposite of a stereotypical associations of groups, people or places.

Representation
The way in which people. events and ideas are presented to the audience. To break it down, the media takes something that is already there and represents is to us in that the way that they choose.

The male gaze (Laura Mulvey)
Cinema puts audience in a masculine atmosphere to watch the women on screen.

Film Language

Film language 

In today's lesson we were leaning about film language and specifically we learnt about the four main aspects of film language and what to analyse:

1.  Camera
2.  Editing
3.  Sound
4.  Mise En Scene

Camera

The acronym we learned to remember what to look for in the camera was FAM

Frame - Extreme close up, close up, mid shot, mid long shot, long shot and extreme long shot. 

Angle - Worms eye view, birds eye view and level. 

Movement - Pan, left to right, tilt, up and down, tracking shot, Steadicam and hand held. 

Editing

Transitions - Fade to black.white

Order of narrative - Beginning, middle and flashbacks

Pace - Slow, fast and editing in romance and horror and action scenes. 

Special effects (SFX)

Sound

Dialogue - What/how 

Music - Tells us how to feel in a scene

Diegetic - Sound that actors hear and we don't. Non-diegetic is opposite. 

Mise En Scene

Costume

Lighting

Actors - class, age, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, body language and make up. 

Make up

Props

Setting

Boyz n the hood Film Language - Link 

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=boyz+n+the+hood+dutch+subtitles&FORM=HDRSC3#view=detail&mid=BCA98CE309ED50662AF4BCA98CE309ED50662AF4 

Camera
The opening few minutes shows many different types of camera frames, one of them was the tracking shot. This was used to set the scene and show the setting of the movie. The tracking shot was used to follow the teenagers through their ride on the motorbike onto the murder scene, which was in a wide field. The tracking shot shows the background of the teenagers which shows graffiti and a discriminated place, which shows that the children have not grown up in a well place. Additionally, another camera frame that was used was the tilt shot, which was used at the start when it shows the STOP sign. This was very effective as it showed the directors views on the status of the African American community. Also, the angle of the shots are usually POV, this was to put us on the same level as the children, to make use feel like we were actually there as well.

Editing
An example of great editing was used when the mother is talking on the phone and Treys is walking down the street as the mother and teacher are almost narrating/summarising up his day as Trey walks through men fighting on his way back to home. This shows the environment that they live in and it makes it seem like Trey is used to seeing men fighting as he is not at all fazed by the fight that is happening next to him as he is walking. Also, the transitions to enter the shot of the group of four walking to the murder scene are very effective to establish the brutality of what happened and of the movie with color changes.

Sound
Diegetic sounds are very important in the opening scene with the sound of the sirens and people in the car talking. Additionally, the sound of the gunfire music with the sound on the car and men talking in the back ground. Non-diegetic sound us also used when Treys walks down the path with his mother on the phone.

Mise En Scene
All of the characters had varied costumes throughout the scene and the main child was wearing a much more smart/formal clothing while all of the other children at the school were wearing casual clothes and clothes that would represent clothes of youths. This shows that the boy is different to the community in the way he dressed, acts, walks and wants to be, this could represent a complicated character mixed any many different minds. The setting of the scene also sets up the setting for the whole movie as this gives a representation of the life that characters in the movie lead and will help the audience understand different attitudes of different characters.

Audience - User and Gratification

Class work

Today in class we were learning about the audience when watching films. We learnt that previously researchers would always be watching the films to find out information. But now instead of researchers watching the films they watch the audience that are watching the films to see their facial expressions and reactions to some of the scenes in the movie, also the researchers would tend to focus on 16-24 year old and not really any other age groups. 

Definitions:

Gratification - Something that gives you pleasure 

In order to remember audience and what we need to know about audience in media our teacher gave us an acronym to help us with this. The acronym is PIES, and this stands for the following:

Personal identification

Information

Entertainment

Social interaction

How do i consume a film?

1) What do we mean when we use the word film?

 Whenever i use the word film i am generally talking about a film that has either just came out, coming out or i have just watched. I like to see a film as either a short film 20 minutes or less, or a long film 1 hour at the least. If there is a video that is in-between these times i don't really think of this a a film but just as a clip or video.

2) Do you think it means the same as the word movie?

In my eyes, i think that the word movie and film has the same meaning, but for me are slightly different. This is because where i see a film only being in-between specific times, as i said above i would see a movie as any times even if they were in-between the times that i said were not seen as a film. Therefore i do not think that the word movie and film is the exact same but definitely very similar.

3) And what about the word cinema?

Whenever i hear the word cinema i would think of an odeon or a place where all of the new movies are shown where you can go and watch them with your family or friends on a day or night out. However, if i was to hear the word cinema i would not link to this to being any type of film i would just relate it to new movies that are coming out where you can go and watch with your family or friends.

4) What are your top ten movies? and what do they have in common? any order

1. Taken 1,2,3 and 4
2. Dodgeball
3. Run all night 
4. American sniper 
5. Ted 
6. The shawshank redemption
7. Star wars (all of them) 
8. Harry potter (all of them)
9. Scream
10. District 9

My top 10 films are all a mix of either comedy or action, i think that this is because i tend to like movies that have a lot of stuff happening at the same time that are tense, or a film that makes me laugh. It could be this way because i would get bored unless i am watching a film that makes me laugh or interested in.

5) How do you find about a film?

I am either told about the film from my fiends at school or family at home, or i see the movie being advertised on the TV or internet.

6) What makes me want to see a film?

I am most likely to watch a film if it is a comedy or action film, or if it includes my favourite actor Liam Neeson, this is because i like him and love the films that he stars in.

7) How do i know what to expect from a film?

I know what to expect from a film because of either the genre of the film or if i have watched the trailer or my friends or family has old me about the film.
8) What are you paying for when buying a cinema ticket or a film?

When i go into a cinema and pay to go to see a film i am going to pay to watch the film that is coming out, i am also paying to see the new film or one that is apparently good according to family or friends.

9) Where do you watch a film? 

Normally, i tend to watch films at home with my family or at a friends house with my mates, however sometimes i will go to watch a new film in the cinema with either my friends or family.

10) Do you think there is a difference between watching a film in the cinema and watching a film at home? If yes then what?

I do not think that there is a difference, this is because when watching it at home i will have surround sound on so either way it will feel like i am in the cinema. So no i do not think there is a difference between watching the film in the cinema or at home.

11) Are there some films that you HAVE to see at the cinema or doesn't it matter?

For me it does not matter where i watch a film, because either way it feels like i am in a cinema because of surround sound and the only benefit of watching the film in a cinema is being one of the first to see it, but that does not really bother me.

12) What do i understand from the word industry? we are studying media right now. 

The word industry means for me that there is a company that are either producing a film or helping produce a film, this is because industry would signify to me that it is a production place, therefore in media i would think that it is where they will be producing films.

13) What other industries can i name?

In media there are many industries including; print, recordings, cinema, radio, television, internet and mobile phones.

Another lesson - Narrative

In class today we were learning about narrative, what it means and what people have came up with around narrative. We also learnt about some key words like equilibrium and what there meanings are.

Narrative is like a voice over or commentary on a video that has already happened and is not live.

During the lesson we learnt about four people that we need to know for media. These four people are:

1) Barthes
2) Levi-strauss
3) Propp
4) Todorov

Barthes

• Codes

1) Action
2) Symbolic
3) Enigma

Todorov

• Structure

1) Obstacles
2) Change over time
3) Different person at end than there was at the start
4) Beginning - A middle - A end

Levi-strauss

• Binary oppositions
• Female - male
• Good - bad
• Hero - villain
• Urban - rural
• Black - white

Propp

• Characters
• Need different characters
• Some have same, this should not always be the case

Propp

He said that there should be eight different character types:

1. Hero
2. Villain
3. Donor
4. Dispatcher
5. False hero
6. Helper
7. Princess
8. Farther

The four people felt that in every movie these things should be included in order to make the film exciting. Example - rather than nothing happen and the main character having no obstacles to overcome.


Key words

Equilibrium - State of normality

Disruption of equilibrium - Obstacles to overcome



We had a class task which was to watch mini clips of a video and then describe using what we had learnt today

Jack - jack attack

Obstacles-
Keep disappearing
Keep escaping
Goes on fire
Hard to control

The prestige

Enigma - Where are we? Who is he? What's happening? Who is the girl? What's the electric? What were the hats at graveyard? Is he dead?

Actions - Audience inspects stage. Man stands on his stage. Drops down a trap door. Falls into water and cant escape. Is bird dead. Where did it go.

Symbolic - Top hats. Clothing - Victorian. Suit - rich man. Dark/gloomy. Electric/danger. Bird represents man. Girl represents audience.

Genre film opening task

Genre film opening analysis - 09/09/2015

Today in lesson we had to use the acronym DISTINCT to analyse movie opening of our choice. We looked at some as a class at the beginning and the for the second half of the lesson we were on the computers finding movie opening and analysing them ourselves.

Describe
In detail
Setting
Theme
Icons
Narrative
Characters
Text analysis

The three we done in class were; Harry Brown, Guardians of the Galaxy and What Lies Beneath

Harry Brown

Setting - Dark alley, bright field and England London. 

Theme - It is filmed up in their faces, makes you feel like you are there. Sound effects also makes it feel like you are there, when gun fires its silent like you have been deafened and the ride to the field makes it feel like you are riding with them. 

Icons - Gun, bike, graffiti and drugs. 

Characters - Mum and baby, are very vulnerable out in an open field nowhere to run away to, and gangsters. 

Narrative - The story could be like a group of gangsters that are always getting high on drugs and then go round shooting guns and killing people, then wake up and realise what they have done. 

Guardians of the galaxy

Setting- Dark, space place, futuristic, hybrid, old and new.

Theme- Sci-fy, filmed like your there and the music makes the movie seem weird because you are on a strange planet with some random music that the man is dancing to.

Icons- Music player and creatures.

Characters- Just the main character and man at the start.

Narrative- The story could be about a random man that is not your usual type of man, and is on a planet on his own very confident, could be a bit stupid not realising where he is. Could be some dangerous and nice creatures.

What lies beneath

Setting- In a house that seems to be a bit haunted. The house is slightly bigger than an average house, and the character in the house is on there own and seems to be in danger. The main stuff happens in the bathroom.

Theme- Horror.

Icons- Bath, sink, mirror, house, computer.

Characters- What seems to be the main character is the women at the start.

Narrative- The women could die right at the start of the film, and then others move into the house knowing that stuff has happened before and then they are trying to defend themselves from whatever is in the house. 



Ted 1

After looking at the three film openings above we were asked to find a film opening of our own and use DISTINCT in the way we did before to analyse the opening scene for ted 1.

Setting - Bright, Christmas feeling, welcoming and a excited feeling. Night time, warm and cosy.

Characters - Both main characters at the start, ted and the boy. Boy excited to open presents and happy with what he got. Mum and Dad just relaxing watching their son.

Icons - Presents, with teddy in. Christmas tree, sets the scene. Decorations shows its Christmas.

Theme - Christmas feeling, could be a funny film with a teddy, a unrealistic film as you would guess the teddy comes alive after the wish. Filmed to see all characters in each scene in living room and in bed room. Assume it will be a film about a young boys best friend a teddy.

Narrative - The narrator is talking over the film, tells the viewers what the setting is, Christmas day and a special day for the young boy. Narrator tells viewers, young boy becomes attached to teddy.

Another lesson - Editing in adobe premier

 

 

Lesson about editing in adobe premier

 

 

Today in class we were asked to edit in adobe premier a mini film about 30 seconds of dancing animals and then a 30 second action film part. This was to be completed over two lessons, and so far we have only done one lesson. I have completed the dancing animals 30 seconds long film, using effects, transitions and music to make the dancing animals look better. Then in next lesson I will be working on the action part of the task, and will use the whole of the lesson and similar to the dancing animals part, I will be using transitions, effects and music to make the action 30 second clip look better. I will then post about that task and lesson when I have done it and say how I got on with creating the action part of the 30 second clip. 

Semiotics - Definitions

Connotation and and denotation

Semiotics 

Semiotics is the study of signs and is also anything which stands for something else.

Connotations

This is what we understand from an image that we are looking at, and what other meanings that this object may have. For example if i was thinking of connotations of a red square, i could say that the square could represent lover at is read but at the same time red is the colour of the devil so it could mean two different things at the same time. 

Denotation

This is a lot simpler than connotations, this is because denotation is what we see when we look at the image. So if there was a red square, rather than saying what other meanings this could have i would simply say that i can see a red square.

Semiotics - Film Poster

Analysing the semiotics of a film poster

This is the movie poster from the film Jaws, my first impression of the film is clear to me. As I would think that there is a dangerous shark in the sea as this is clear from the poster because the shark is looking directly at the helpless person and has its mouth open showing its sharp and deadly teeth.

Also, the person at the top for me represents the members of the public, this is because this one person seems to be helpless in the water and does not seem to be near anyone or thing to get out of this danger. Therefore the shark will easily be able to eat this person and she will have no hope of survival, this could show that the shark is extremely dangerous and could be a sign that a lot of people are eaten from this shark during the film.

To me, it is clear that the main character of the movie is not the person at the top, but the shark its self, this is because jaws is the biggest character on the poster and then there is a small person in the background. Which shows that the person is a tiny figure and an easy target for the shark to eat. Also, the title 'JAWS' is in big, bold writing and is also coloured red with all the letter in capitals. For me the title being red shows anger and danger from the shark, because red is usually a sign for either danger or love, but in this case it is clearly anger and danger for the person.

Connotations

There is a shark, this could represent all animals in the sea, this also shows danger to the character. Additionally, the shark could show that the sea is a dangerous place as in the poster the shark looks like it is going to eat the person, this shows the shark is dangerous. 



Semiotics

Today in class we were learning about semiotic and what this word actually means. Semiotics is basically looking at a sign or symbol and saying what you see. By doing this you are doing two things the first one is called 'denotation' and this is when you are simply saying what the picture that you are looking at is, for example if there was a tree you would say that you see a tree.

Whereas the second word is called 'connotation' and this is what we understand from the image. So, for example if there was a tree you would say that you see a tree and then begin to explain what this tree could represent or mean to us when we look at it.

 Also, we learnt about the theory that was found by Stuart Hall, and is called Hall's theory. Stuart Hall;s theory is something called Polysemia, and what he basically said is that different people could have different understandings from reading a text or media.

 Preferred reading - When the readers understanding of the text is what is expected.

 Oppositional reading - When the intended meaning of the text is totally opposed by the reader.

Movie Opening Scene

Genre task

 

In our first lesson we were asked to set up our blog and had to create a new Gmail account to be able to do this. We then started to do the basics on our blog by selecting a background for the blog.

 

DISTINCT - is a way to analyse and find out what image represents what kind of genres in a film

D - describe

I - in detail

S - settings

T - themes

I - icons

N - narrative

C - characteristics

T - text analysis

Today, in our second lesson, after learning about the acronym DISTINCT, we were split into four groups of four, and each person from each group had to pick out a piece of paper from the box which would then tell you what genre you have to represent in your picture. We were then asked to go outside and take four different photos which well represent the four genres that each of us picked from the box. The four images and their genres can be seen below. For one of the images, enable to reach our genre, i decided to use fireworks to crop a face into the image. 

This image is supposed to represent the genre 'romcom' as this picture shows 2 happy people and then one person on his own who looks bored and singled out and is jealous. The people in this image are Lollie, Max and me. I am the person who is left out in the group and is jealous that his past friend is spending time with Lollie when I want to. However, Max and Lollie do not notice me and carry on having a fun time with each other.                                         
                              

This image is supposed to represent the genre 'super hero's' super hero and a villain, on the left is the super hero and on the right is the villain. The people that are in this image are Joe and Lollie. Lollie is standing on the bench showing she is high up in ranks and is smiling showing that she is happy and represents the good community, whereas Joe is standing in the background not looking very happy wearing all black, representing an unhappy person, which represents the bad community.

This image is supposed to represent the genre 'adventure' as the two people in this image, Joe and Max appear to be climbing a tree and looking around. This would show that they could be on an adventure and are searching for something. The tree is also an adventurous object therefore would be a good way to show to the viewers that this is adventure. 

This image is supposed to represent the genre 'bio-pic' this is basically something or somebody famous. I am the only person included in this image and this is basically a picture of me, however we decided to crop Arnold Schwarzenegger's face where mine would be. This is because Arnold is a famous person and therefore this image would be perfect for representing bio-pic.