Our first attempt at shooting went ok, but when we came to edit we found a number of problems with the captured material. These problems included such things as our camera making some of our film blurry, and when we uploaded it the movement wasn't smooth, as the pc skipped a couple of frames, making it jumpy, affecting the overall look of our peice.
Also, we decided that some aspects of the outfit "Simon" was wearing in the shooting weren't suitable or good enough for his character, so by re-shooting some shots and scenes we were able to make sure the continuity and costumes were more appropriate.
After we changed the costume, and some of the shots,the filming became alot easier and ran alot smoother.
(Late December & Early January)
We encountered another more serious problem towards the end of 2008, as the main pc's hard drive malfunctioned, losing many files from the designated pc. This included the filming for our thriller, and the already edited bits. We were unable to retreive the files, so we had to start filming again from the start, and editing. This put us behind the other groups, as some of them were close to finishing editing, however our teacher gave us an extension to complete editing and our evaluation, giving us a chance to improve our footage and learn from our mistakes. This worked quite well as we sorted out our character casting problem, and helped us see what we needed and what we didn't.
However, after we finished filming and editing, we disvoered our film was 1min and 44 seconds too long.
We are in the process of cutting it down, which proves harder to do than it sounds.
Tuesday 16 December 2008
Friday 12 December 2008
Thriller Opening - Layer Cake
Director: Matthew Vaughn, 2004.
Opening shot/Mise-en-scene/shot types: medium shot of the explosion in the van, genrly zooms out, instantly makes impact and grabs the audiences’ attention. Close up of drugs, and shown different time period flashbacks. Siren and camera zooms out and begins panning, slow paced film, high angle shot which makes the characters look like they are being watched, long shot shoging the drive in, extreme long shot following the car going along rural road to large mansion. Midshot shows them walking, following the characters and rorates around table whiles rockish music played.
Opening credits: First titles of producers etc, centred and plain with no music. Black and white, white writing of title layer cake on the door of his terrace house.
Narrative perspective: internal monologue – thriller signifier – match everything up and well fitting for a good carry off.
Mise-en-scene: switching places in periods of time, reflecting different periods, prison, flower drug power, modern day, innocent and clean more professional and pharmacy suggesting pharmaceutical lifestyle. Shot in London following Daniel Craig down the road, contempory music, chilled, male protagonist, flaw of drugs and drug dealing.
Editing: drugs in what looks like a pharmacy storage room, into a pharmaxy. Shots fade into others. Diegetic music faded out and went white, went to show a car shot. Goes into another shot lots of people contrast of people lower class and professional dealers.
Thriller Opening - Sin City
Directors: Frank Miller and Robert Rodingnez, 2005
Opening Shots/Mise-en-scene/Shot stpyes: establishing shot, urban city setting, seductive woman with red low backed dress. Two person shot, slow jazz music (film noir) non diegetic sirens and city noises. Birds eye view. Car view camera shot exactly like in Chinatown and vertigo. Chiaroscuro lighting. Woman looked in the camera zooms out whilst panning and goes in a spiral (thriller signifier) twists occurring.
Opening credits: explosion, city, font of credits look almost cartoony or as if written for a comic book – white outlines. Red writing, balck and white background. Images behind the text like guns, people (possible characters) stills that move across the screen, all drawn as comic books are. Film is based on drank miller’s graphic novel so use od the graphic images is almost a reminder of his book, influenced the film.
Mise-en-scene: raining/slashed streets, classic thriller signifier. Wet lashed streets and balcony with smoke. Bleak atmosphere, woman is vulnerable but sexy and possible dangerous. Eyes flash green sugguesting emotion (jealousy?) man seems protective. Monochromatic black and white flash of the scene when they kiss, more reminder of the graphic novel.
Editing: black and white, red dress and gren eyes only colour, slow paced shot editing, showing contrasts, and monochromatic flash.
Narrative perspective: voice over of the man, internal monologue.
Opening Shots/Mise-en-scene/Shot stpyes: establishing shot, urban city setting, seductive woman with red low backed dress. Two person shot, slow jazz music (film noir) non diegetic sirens and city noises. Birds eye view. Car view camera shot exactly like in Chinatown and vertigo. Chiaroscuro lighting. Woman looked in the camera zooms out whilst panning and goes in a spiral (thriller signifier) twists occurring.
Opening credits: explosion, city, font of credits look almost cartoony or as if written for a comic book – white outlines. Red writing, balck and white background. Images behind the text like guns, people (possible characters) stills that move across the screen, all drawn as comic books are. Film is based on drank miller’s graphic novel so use od the graphic images is almost a reminder of his book, influenced the film.
Mise-en-scene: raining/slashed streets, classic thriller signifier. Wet lashed streets and balcony with smoke. Bleak atmosphere, woman is vulnerable but sexy and possible dangerous. Eyes flash green sugguesting emotion (jealousy?) man seems protective. Monochromatic black and white flash of the scene when they kiss, more reminder of the graphic novel.
Editing: black and white, red dress and gren eyes only colour, slow paced shot editing, showing contrasts, and monochromatic flash.
Narrative perspective: voice over of the man, internal monologue.
What makes a thriller introduction successful:
Initial idea's on what makes an opening/introduction to a thriller so successful:
- Mystery/Intrigue
- Possible cliffhanger
- Clever and effective editing
- Good/steady camera shots.
- Appropriate lighting/dress/props
- The abililty to "hook" or "engage" the audience, so they're interested in the rest of the film
- Good use of the mise-en-scene - Effective
- Originality/Individuality
- Effective framing, compostion (rule of thirds)
Camera Rules/Shots:
180 degrees rule: maintains that line of action should not be crossed, interests of fluid continuity. Therefore precludes a difference greater than 180 degrees between camera angles in consecutive shots.
Shot reverse shot: alternating shots, typically of two characters in a dialogue sequence.
Match-on-action: occurs when an action begins in one shot and is continues or completes in the next.
Shot reverse shot: alternating shots, typically of two characters in a dialogue sequence.
Match-on-action: occurs when an action begins in one shot and is continues or completes in the next.
Cast - Thriller Film
The cast starring in our thriller are:
CHARACTER'S NAME ---- ACTORS:
Simon ---------------------- Ben Jones
Reason: We had a problem with our casting, as someone dropped out, and Ben was free when we needed to film. Also, he fit the character profile quite well when he wore the appriopriate clothing for "Simon". Ben has an innocent "baby face" which is what we hoped for for the casting of "Simon", as he's meant to be a good boy gone bad. His face represents his innocent youth, and his outfit (similar to in the picture below, but without the scarf) represents the group of people he has fallen into. Because Ben usually wears similar to clothes as to the ones we picked for "Simon", he suited the character props well. He owned a coat, hat and shoes extremely alike the ones on our prop list, so generally he was a good pick.
Jitmal ---------------------- Jakob Montagu-Shaw
Reason: Jakob had the appearance and attitude to suit the character, and also, a problem with our casting led us to need him to play 2 roles in the film. This worked quite well because the other role he plays, we do not see his face. Handily, Jakob owned many clothes to fit this character, and could act the part, as its what he is usually like.
Old man -------------------- Jakob Montagu-Shaw
Reason: He's tall (which fits the character profile) and we generally thought he would be a good person for this role because he is in our group, wanted to be in the film, giving him a good chance to multi-task within the group. He also helped write the character profile for the character giving him a good idea of how to act toward the camera in the shots, as he was involved in the conversation about the character as well as the written work.
Jitmal -------------------- Mark Wright-Premachandra
Reason: Mark has the appearance and attitude for this character. At first we didn't think he would be able to play this role, so we prepared to cut out the gang leader, and prepare Jakob for the role. However, he came through and when he was available we filmed with him. Mark smokes, so it wasn't a problem getting cigarettes into the film to show the gang's nature. he also has darker skin, which fits in with the gang image and gets the film to appeal to a wider audience. Mark wears quite bright colours compared to the others in film, however this suits his character as he's meant to be the more child-like and sensitive one of the group, the "little brother".
CHARACTER'S NAME ---- ACTORS:
Simon ---------------------- Ben Jones
Reason: We had a problem with our casting, as someone dropped out, and Ben was free when we needed to film. Also, he fit the character profile quite well when he wore the appriopriate clothing for "Simon". Ben has an innocent "baby face" which is what we hoped for for the casting of "Simon", as he's meant to be a good boy gone bad. His face represents his innocent youth, and his outfit (similar to in the picture below, but without the scarf) represents the group of people he has fallen into. Because Ben usually wears similar to clothes as to the ones we picked for "Simon", he suited the character props well. He owned a coat, hat and shoes extremely alike the ones on our prop list, so generally he was a good pick.
Jitmal ---------------------- Jakob Montagu-Shaw
Reason: Jakob had the appearance and attitude to suit the character, and also, a problem with our casting led us to need him to play 2 roles in the film. This worked quite well because the other role he plays, we do not see his face. Handily, Jakob owned many clothes to fit this character, and could act the part, as its what he is usually like.
Old man -------------------- Jakob Montagu-Shaw
Reason: He's tall (which fits the character profile) and we generally thought he would be a good person for this role because he is in our group, wanted to be in the film, giving him a good chance to multi-task within the group. He also helped write the character profile for the character giving him a good idea of how to act toward the camera in the shots, as he was involved in the conversation about the character as well as the written work.
Jitmal -------------------- Mark Wright-Premachandra
Reason: Mark has the appearance and attitude for this character. At first we didn't think he would be able to play this role, so we prepared to cut out the gang leader, and prepare Jakob for the role. However, he came through and when he was available we filmed with him. Mark smokes, so it wasn't a problem getting cigarettes into the film to show the gang's nature. he also has darker skin, which fits in with the gang image and gets the film to appeal to a wider audience. Mark wears quite bright colours compared to the others in film, however this suits his character as he's meant to be the more child-like and sensitive one of the group, the "little brother".
Thursday 4 December 2008
Why Britain Needs The British Film Industry.
Jobs:
•The British Film Industry supports many British people by supplying them with jobs and an income.
•These jobs include: building, acting, painting, make-up, electrician, directing, costume designing, writing, advertising and many many more.
•This is important to the British economy as if we relied on the American Film Industry we would have many unemployed and our economy would loose a lot of money. Also it would mean we would have to rely on America for our living.
Tourism:
•Thousands of people a year come to walk round the British Film Industry, or places in which films have been made in Britain. E.g: People from europe, america and other places (even people from the UK) have travelled quite far for a holiday or break just to visit Alnwick castle, where the Harry Potter films were set.
•This provides many local businesses with money and an income, because b&b's, small hotels or other hospitable places get more buisness from the people visiting their area's.
•They also come to see many new english actors, hoping to meet them or visit the places in which they grew up or were born. E.g: Some people visit Chester or West Kirby, as this is where Daniel Craig, star of the new Bourne film's was born and went to school.
•All this tourism is good for England and for other countries, as it opens everyone up to each other and other cultures. Bringing in tourism lets us not only make our buisnesses thrive, but also allows us to meet people from other cultures.
•The British Film Industry supports many British people by supplying them with jobs and an income.
•These jobs include: building, acting, painting, make-up, electrician, directing, costume designing, writing, advertising and many many more.
•This is important to the British economy as if we relied on the American Film Industry we would have many unemployed and our economy would loose a lot of money. Also it would mean we would have to rely on America for our living.
Tourism:
•Thousands of people a year come to walk round the British Film Industry, or places in which films have been made in Britain. E.g: People from europe, america and other places (even people from the UK) have travelled quite far for a holiday or break just to visit Alnwick castle, where the Harry Potter films were set.
•This provides many local businesses with money and an income, because b&b's, small hotels or other hospitable places get more buisness from the people visiting their area's.
•They also come to see many new english actors, hoping to meet them or visit the places in which they grew up or were born. E.g: Some people visit Chester or West Kirby, as this is where Daniel Craig, star of the new Bourne film's was born and went to school.
•All this tourism is good for England and for other countries, as it opens everyone up to each other and other cultures. Bringing in tourism lets us not only make our buisnesses thrive, but also allows us to meet people from other cultures.
Shooting Schedule - Thriller Film
Our shooting scedule for our Thriller is:
- 6th December, 4 o'clock
- 16th December, 4 o'clock
- 17th Dcember, 4.30pm
- 12th January, 5 o'clock
We had to also film some more in january because we had a few problems with our tape, which is fine now. The filming was to be done near dusk, when it was dark, as that's when the film was set. Also it gives us shadows and dark corners which created mystery for the location and the story. Depending on how much filming we get done on each day, we are leaving plenty of time to re-film to sort out technical problems, so we have enough time to edit and finalise our peice.
We had to also film some more in january because we had a few problems with our tape, which is fine now.
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