Monday, 30 April 2012
Unser Film ist vollständig!!!
For those who can't speak German, OUR FILM IS COMPLETE!!!! woop woop, check it out and be amazed!
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Friday, 27 April 2012
Continuity check for the final film
I have watched our two minute production to ensure it is okay in terms of continuity. Most of the things are alright, as there is no definite assurance that the scenes are meant to be on the same days so things such as changes in lighting aren't too important. However Callum's jacket's do swap in scenes, going from grey on top to blue on top and back again. This could be confusing for any viewers, but we may get away with it as, as already mentioned there is nothing to say the scenes are all set on the day.
Target audience analysis
The target audience for our film is going to be majorly males, aged from 16-25. We identified this as previous films like ours such as Shifty and Trainspotting and the genres of action and drug-thriller mostly appeal to this age range. Also the cast is mostly male and the film is very male orientated, meaning it would appeal more to males
Thursday, 26 April 2012
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
Title analysis - Trainspotting
I chose to analyse the titles of Trainspotting as this is a film that features heavily around drugs.
. The titles start by showing simply 'Channel Four Productions Presents' in white text on a black background. From the title then cuts to a shot of two characters running down the street, narrated by an unknown voice until one character gets hit by a car and the action freezes, showing the characters name. We are then shown a game of football where the theme of freezing and introducing characters continues. After all characters are introduced, the narrator continues with his speech, talking about heroin and the good points of the drug. During all this we see people preparing heroin to inject. Once the narrators speech is finished, we then see the title of the film in simple black text on a white background and hear a train horn sound. Strips of white and black moving horizontally on the screen, as if a trains headlights were passing by, linking to the title. The screen then turns completely black with the title now in white text.
This title is particulary effective as it introduces all the main characters, so viewers don't have to wonder who someone is or stop and re-wind to hear a name again. It also gets across the title of the film in a short but effective and understandable way.
So by the end of this title sequence we know all the main characters names, the name of the production company and the name of the film, which is why I feel it is a very effecive sequence.
Analysis of the first 15 minutes of a film - Taken
I chose to analyse Taken as although there is no theme of drugs throughout, the entire film is about kidnap, which is also a major theme in our production. The film is based around an ex-government 'preventer' - essentially a secret agent - and his chase to get his daughter back after she is kidnapped on a trip to Paris.
The film starts off with a home-video of the daughter, creating an emotional attachment to her from the start, as its natural to be caring for small children. This then cuts to a shot of the main character sat alone. Close-ups are used to show the emotion on his face, as well as the clearly audible sighs as he remembers the past.
The titles of the film are shown in plain white text over the film, as opposed to obscuring anything that is going on. This keeps the viewers eyes on the film and keeps them interested in what is going on, but allows people to view the titles as well.
The dialogue in the film comes from a character who doesn't make another appearancem which may make some believe they are insignificant. However it is what is said that is important, as the first words are the main characters name: 'Mr Mills'.
Following this exchange of dialogue we see Mr Mills attend a party, where the guests are all in suits and carrying fairly large presents. This gives the impression the person who is throwing the party is of high status, unlike Mr Mills as he was previously seen wearing a grey plain shirt, and even during these scenes has only a cheap suit on with a plain shirt
We then see the main character's daughter, who's kidnap the film will centre around. The plot is set up via a series of shots and dialogue, mainly close ups that show the emotional attachment between Mr Mills and his daughter. This is also amplified by the look of dejection and his body language when his gift of a kareoke machine has clearly been out done by his daughter's step-father's gift of a horse. The music that plays at this time also serves to portray the emotions he is feeling and the enormous sense that he is being left out of his daughters life, as well as to show how much he clearly cares about her.
After this party Bryan Mills returns home and has a night with friends, who appear to be former colleagues. They convince him to help with a body guard job, during which we see that he still has an incredible amount of skill and speed, which also hints towards the plot of the film and shows that he is more than capeable of tracking down a kidnapper. It also shows the emotion and shock associated with an attempted kidnap, both for the person who was the target, and for the person protecting her by showing their faces in a two shot medium close-up.
During this scene we also see him take a phonecall and arrange to see his daughter the next day. When this happens, we find out his daughter wants to go on a trip to Paris with her friend, unsupervised. Mr Mills isn't happy about this, and through a shot/reverse shot series of closeups we see the emotions on the two characters faces: Mr Mills' worry about his daughter going somewhere alone, and his daughters distress and not being trusted. These also serve to show the deep emotional connection between the two, and that Mr Mills will do anything to protect his daughter, as we see throughout the rest of the film.
The film starts off with a home-video of the daughter, creating an emotional attachment to her from the start, as its natural to be caring for small children. This then cuts to a shot of the main character sat alone. Close-ups are used to show the emotion on his face, as well as the clearly audible sighs as he remembers the past.
During this scene we also see him take a phonecall and arrange to see his daughter the next day. When this happens, we find out his daughter wants to go on a trip to Paris with her friend, unsupervised. Mr Mills isn't happy about this, and through a shot/reverse shot series of closeups we see the emotions on the two characters faces: Mr Mills' worry about his daughter going somewhere alone, and his daughters distress and not being trusted. These also serve to show the deep emotional connection between the two, and that Mr Mills will do anything to protect his daughter, as we see throughout the rest of the film.
Behind the scenes 2: Voice Over!
Josh setting everything up
Matty does his voice over
Then its my turn
First 15 Minutes Analysis - Four Lions
For my First 15 minute film analysis I have chosen to analyse Four Lions because It is a British made film and is similar to our film we have created.
The first scene of the film that we see is animated titles for the film companies, this is like our film because we also created an animated intro for our film company 'Ochre Digital'.
Within the first minute of footage you realise that the film is possibly about terrorists or what appear to me terrorists, this is a good sign for the film as it lets the viewer know what the film is going to include and have a plot about, also in the first scene the viewer is told through the form of dialog that the film is of a humorous nature.
Another good use of cinematography is that the director chooses to switch between the angle of the cam-corder and also room shots and close-ups of characters to help establish emotions and the setting. we can use this type of technique for our own film.
Further into the film at around 2 minutes, the family of 'Omar' who look like a normal family as his wife is a nurse, we can tell she is a nurse as to the costume that she is wearing, costume will playa big role in our film as it will be hard to make Matthew & Callum look like homeless people without a convincing costume and make-up.
3 Minutes into the film the first titles are show, the second title being the actual film name, many hollywood films leave the film name till a lot longer in the title sequence to make the film feel epic. This title also establishes the location of the city that the film is set, for people for Yorkshire most people would recognise that the building in shot is Meadowhall which is a major shopping centre in Sheffield.
The music in this scene sounds like the stereotypical Middle-East/Asian style of music which would be associated with people of the ethnicity of the film's characters.
This scene then turns into the next scene's location which is Omar's place of work, as a security guard at Meadowhall. The viewer knows that Omar is a security guard due to the set which is surrounded by pc monitors and also the costume which is a typical security guard uniform which would be seen at a shopping centre.
The next scene is an extreme long shot which establishes a small house next to the motorway in Sheffield, then this shot turns into a shot from inside the house where the first scenes were shot which tells the viewer that they are new to the idea of terrorism and haven't had the "correct" terrorist training which they aim to have, this adds comic value to the film.
After this scene the film goes to a scene shot in a car where the characters are discussing the idea of going to a training camp in Pakistan, from that point the shots become fast-paced as they tie up Barry, the fast shots show that its exciting and shows how fast the guys react to tying Barry up.
The next part of this scene includes some dialog which is shown by 'Shot Reverse Shot' between the characters that are talking, this is a good technique and is used in almost EVERY film in the world and is an industry standard way of shooting dialog.
The next scene shows a plane taking off which signifies that they are travelling somewhere, because of the dialog which suggests that they want to go to training camps in Pakistan, the viewer assumes that they are flying to Pakistan, the scene following that confirms the viewers ideas.
The next shots are filmed in a small side building which is lit very dark to show that it is an unsafe place and the activity that the are doing is not for the public eye, an excellent shot that the director uses it to film the characters from outside the room that they are in, through the doorway which is covered by beads, the camera work is also not stable which creates the feeling that it is as if you are looking through someones eyes.
The shots are then returned to Shot reverse shot and also the previous camera work through the doorway which shows dialog.
The next scene shows the characters in a car driving through the desert, through this scene the different camera angles include close ups of the characters faces and also establishing shots of the surrounding and the road they are driving down, this tells the viewer that they are in a remote place which could suggest that they are on their way to a training camp.
Once they exit the car, they grab their thing which are large rucksacks, these props are very good because it shows the viewer that they are actually off to the camp whereas if they didn't have any bags the viewer wouldn't be sure if they were at the camp. The costume of the other characters in shot also confirm that they are at a camp as they are dressed like a stereotypical terrorist.
The next scene opens with an extreme long-shot of the centre of Sheffield which shows that the story is jumping back to the characters who are still in Sheffield, England, this type of editing is great because it keeps the viewer on edge and also keeps their mind thinking about what is happening to the different characters at different parts of the film which will keep the viewer intrigued and wanting to continue watching.
This brought me to the 15 minute mark of the film and this is what I analysed.
The first scene of the film that we see is animated titles for the film companies, this is like our film because we also created an animated intro for our film company 'Ochre Digital'.
Within the first minute of footage you realise that the film is possibly about terrorists or what appear to me terrorists, this is a good sign for the film as it lets the viewer know what the film is going to include and have a plot about, also in the first scene the viewer is told through the form of dialog that the film is of a humorous nature.
Another good use of cinematography is that the director chooses to switch between the angle of the cam-corder and also room shots and close-ups of characters to help establish emotions and the setting. we can use this type of technique for our own film.
Further into the film at around 2 minutes, the family of 'Omar' who look like a normal family as his wife is a nurse, we can tell she is a nurse as to the costume that she is wearing, costume will playa big role in our film as it will be hard to make Matthew & Callum look like homeless people without a convincing costume and make-up.
3 Minutes into the film the first titles are show, the second title being the actual film name, many hollywood films leave the film name till a lot longer in the title sequence to make the film feel epic. This title also establishes the location of the city that the film is set, for people for Yorkshire most people would recognise that the building in shot is Meadowhall which is a major shopping centre in Sheffield.
The music in this scene sounds like the stereotypical Middle-East/Asian style of music which would be associated with people of the ethnicity of the film's characters.
This scene then turns into the next scene's location which is Omar's place of work, as a security guard at Meadowhall. The viewer knows that Omar is a security guard due to the set which is surrounded by pc monitors and also the costume which is a typical security guard uniform which would be seen at a shopping centre.
The next scene is an extreme long shot which establishes a small house next to the motorway in Sheffield, then this shot turns into a shot from inside the house where the first scenes were shot which tells the viewer that they are new to the idea of terrorism and haven't had the "correct" terrorist training which they aim to have, this adds comic value to the film.
After this scene the film goes to a scene shot in a car where the characters are discussing the idea of going to a training camp in Pakistan, from that point the shots become fast-paced as they tie up Barry, the fast shots show that its exciting and shows how fast the guys react to tying Barry up.
The next part of this scene includes some dialog which is shown by 'Shot Reverse Shot' between the characters that are talking, this is a good technique and is used in almost EVERY film in the world and is an industry standard way of shooting dialog.
The next scene shows a plane taking off which signifies that they are travelling somewhere, because of the dialog which suggests that they want to go to training camps in Pakistan, the viewer assumes that they are flying to Pakistan, the scene following that confirms the viewers ideas.
The next shots are filmed in a small side building which is lit very dark to show that it is an unsafe place and the activity that the are doing is not for the public eye, an excellent shot that the director uses it to film the characters from outside the room that they are in, through the doorway which is covered by beads, the camera work is also not stable which creates the feeling that it is as if you are looking through someones eyes.
The shots are then returned to Shot reverse shot and also the previous camera work through the doorway which shows dialog.
The next scene shows the characters in a car driving through the desert, through this scene the different camera angles include close ups of the characters faces and also establishing shots of the surrounding and the road they are driving down, this tells the viewer that they are in a remote place which could suggest that they are on their way to a training camp.
Once they exit the car, they grab their thing which are large rucksacks, these props are very good because it shows the viewer that they are actually off to the camp whereas if they didn't have any bags the viewer wouldn't be sure if they were at the camp. The costume of the other characters in shot also confirm that they are at a camp as they are dressed like a stereotypical terrorist.
The next scene opens with an extreme long-shot of the centre of Sheffield which shows that the story is jumping back to the characters who are still in Sheffield, England, this type of editing is great because it keeps the viewer on edge and also keeps their mind thinking about what is happening to the different characters at different parts of the film which will keep the viewer intrigued and wanting to continue watching.
This brought me to the 15 minute mark of the film and this is what I analysed.
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Feedback of Our Film
To get the best feedback for our film, I shared the link to our film on my Facebook page to ask my peers what they thought of the film and what could be improved. In total I got 10 comments about our film, all the feedback we got was of a positive nature, the main criticism is that in the scene where Jake and Kyle are talking the audio is far too low, we already knew about this issue and tried our hardest to fix it, but it was really hard to get rid of the background traffic noise, we would have gone and re-shot the scene but we didn't have time to do so with all the editing and blog work we had to get through, if we had to re-shoot the scene we would take a Boom-mic to record the talk scene so we had clear audio to work with.
Friday, 20 April 2012
The variation of the scripts
When we went to shoot our film we followed some of our script but but we mainly adapted some of the scenes because of certain locations and scenes worked better than it would if we followed the script completely, we did this with confidence because George Newton who played Banjo in This is England came and spoke to our class and said that the director, Shane Meadows, often changed the script and the way the film would be made on set to create a better outcome.
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