Production Diary

Week 1-2 

• We learnt about the conventions of the opening of a film. This helped us come up with ideas for our own film opening. For example, we looked at Productions logos, Titles, Establishing the genre, locations and key characters, and themes etc

Week 2-3

• We learnt about genre signifiers, and what is used to tell the audience what genre that the film is within the first 2 minutes. For example we spoke about the 'Chicken and Egg' dilemma. Commonly recognised formal elements and common features of a specific genre need to be identified 

Week 3-4

• We learnt about the analysis of a still image and what to look for when analysing a still image. For example, using CLAMPS (Costume, Lighting, Actors, Make-up, Props) to analyse a still image. We also learnt about camera work and camera angles, for example, close up, mid shot, long shot, high and low angles etc

Week 4-5

• We was introduced to the preliminary task. To complete this, we had to make a film opening following a certain set of criteria to make this successful. We had add the following shots: Match-on-action, Shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule. Also the character had to be shot opening a door, crossing a room and sitting on a chair opposite another character. 

Week 6-8 

• We were set a task to re-create the opening scene to the film 'Juno'. First we had to watch the opening, and create a storyboard of all the shots involved, we then was given a week to film and edit the piece. Finding the location for the filming had to be very specific due to the actual opening of Juno being very precise.

Week 8-9

• This week we was told to get into groups and to start to plan our final opening. We started by brainstorming genres and then looking at previous film openings to gather ideas for what we would put into our film opening. We then looked back at our theory work to find some what genre signifiers go into a action/thriller film. We learnt about how hard it was to pick a location and to gain permission to film there. We learnt from our preliminary task that location is everything in a film.

Week 9-10

• This week we looked at film openings again and we started to evaluate them. We also looked at script writing. As a group, we understood more about script writing due to our preliminary task and therefore we spent more time writing the script and tweaking parts to make it the  best we could. We also started to look at title sequences and how important they were to make the film what it is.

Week 10

• We went on a school trip to BFI - the British Film Institute where we learnt about the importance of film openings. We also watched successful film openings for example, Catch Me If You Can. The main speaker told us the downfalls of film openings and what we should avoid. This was extremely helpful as we then knew what we shouldn't do. This helped us in the later weeks when it came to producing our film opening.

Week 11

• This week we done all the production work. We made the storyboard and planned all the shots. We also started to make the production logo. We did this using Adobe After Effects. At first this was very hard for us to get the grip of as Adobe After Effects have many things that could go wrong with the slightest slip up.

Week 12

• This week we told photos of our main actors as we wanted to put photos of the characters in the house. This will therefore make the film opening a lot more realistic as the audience will see this and build a picture of who our main character is. We also made a shot list and a storyboard so that we could see what shots to film and when to film them. This made filming so much easier as we were much more organised. We learnt this from our preliminary task as we were very unprepared whilst filming it!

Week 13 

• This week we started filming. We spent the whole of this week filming. We filmed this whole week as we had the chance to change any shots that we didn't like. We also filmed many different shots from different angles so that we had too many shots just in case some got lost or we wanted a different perspective. Towards the end of the week, we edited the final piece and put it together with our production logo.

Week 14

• This week we got all the feedback from our teacher. She told us what we could improve and how we would gain more marks. We then made these improvements and then we started the evaluation questions! 

Preliminary task - The House

Preliminary Task - Storyboard

Camera Angles

Preliminary Storyboard Task

The Male Gaze

Laura Mulvey (1975)

"Visual Pleasure and narrative cinema"

What is the Gaze?

The concept of the gaze is one that deals with how an audience views the people is presented.

Feminists view this in 3 different ways :

- How men look at women 

- How women look at themselves 

- How women look at other women

Laura Mulver invented the term 'The Male Gaze' in 1975 and she believes that media is produced in the view from the perspective of a heterosexual male.

Features of the Male Gaze

Camera lingers on the curves if the females body and events that follow a presented based on the males reaction to these events.

Use of the theory in everyday life

Some theorists have noticed the sexualizing of the female body even in situations where the sexualizing of females has nothing to do with the product being advertised.

Criticism of Theory 

- Beauty Pageants 

- Can be directed towards members of the same gender, such as comparison of body image and/or clothing. 

Categorizing Facial Expressions 

Women 

- Chocolate Box (Giving expression)

- Invitational (Welcoming)

- Super Smiler 

- Romantic/Sexual

Majorie Fegurson (1980)

Men 

- Carefree

- Practical 

- Seductive 

- Comic 

- Catalogue (blank expression)

Trevor Millum (1975)

Key Theorists beliefs 

Johnathon Schroeder (1998) "To gaze implies more than a look - it signifies psychological relationship of power in which the gaze is superior to the object of the gaze

Homework

The reason why we couldn't answer all the questions after we watched the video is because the video was so focused on the girl, we didn't notice the little things. Even when an extreme close up of the man singing appeared, we were focused on the lyrics about the girl we didn't seem to notice the little things such as what bowling alley they were playing on or the colour of the mans shoes.

Todorov's Narrative Theory

The narrative has two parts: 
-Structure 
- Elements 

Structure of the narrative
- The structure of the narrative is where Todorov's theory comes into play 
- His theory states that there are five stages of every film. the five stages are:

1. A state of equilibrium (as it should be and ever was)
2. Disruption of that order by an event 
3. Recognition of that disorder 
4. Attempt to repair damage
5. A return or reformation of a new equilibrium

Homework

The Purge

1. A state of equilibrium - Peaceful town and a happy family settling in for the night during the one night of The Annual Purge.
2. Disruption of that order by an event - Family's home on lockdown, son sees a scared man and lets him in the house.
3. Recognition of that disorder - Man disappears, group that were trying to murder him turn up, they start to break down security lock. dad gets killed.
4. Attempt to repair damage - Family try to defend themselves until morning.
5. A return or reformation of a new equilibrium - Family leave town and start a new life.

Pitch Presentation

Camera work

Pan
-Following character of object

High Angle
-Looking down on character or object
-Shows Authority

Low Angle 
-Looking up at person or object 
-Emphasizes importance 

Birds eye view
-View above the scene 
-Gets grasp how big scene is 

Point of view
-View of what the character is seeing

Over the shoulder 
-over a persons shoulder to view another character or object. (interviews or conversations)

Canted Angle 
-Used to show distorted mind/drunk

Tracking 
-Tracks characters movements

Genre Signifier's

Andrew Tudor (Genre Theory, 1974)

'Chicken and Egg' dilemma 

Commonly recognised formal elements and common features of a specific genre need to be identified 

Ex. 1 

Science Fiction

Colours: Silver, Dark blue, Metallic, Neon, White

Costume: Spacesuits, Puffer Jackets/Trousers, Moon Boots, Blue Uniform (Star Trek)

Character Types: Robots, Astronauts, Aliens

Genre is to specific to describe a film. Some genres crosslink so they cant be defined as one simple term, although in this case, the most suitable term for the film will be used to describe it.

Analysis of Still Image

- Camera 

- Mise-en-scene (Costumes, Colour, Lighting)

- Characters 

- Genre 

- Setting 

Costume

Lighting

Actors

Make-up

Props

Setting

1)How do these aspects clearly indicate genre?

2) How do we know what the characters are thinking/ feeling?

Image 1 

Facial expressions shows how it is a horror as his eyes aren't looking at the camera show hes looking for someone/something. The colours are dark which signals it is a horror. His smile is very creepy. He looks worn out due to having a sweaty head, shows his is maybe chasing someone?

Image 2

Costumes are very average. knife in the middle of shot draws attention to it. Pointing it at the man. Maybe eating? Mid shot shows clearly what they are doing. Bright shot makes it clear that this is not a thriller.

Analysing Film Openings

ALWAYS LINK BACK TO THE GENRE 

Enigma - Person or thing that is mysterious, puzzling or difficult to understand.

Jaws

Locations: Beach either late at night or early morning.

Music starts about a minute in, faintly in the background. Gets louder and faster. Contrast between louder music during the attack and after with the man lying on the beach. The foley in this scene was the splashing water and the screams of pain.

Before the attack, there is a panoramic image of the sea with the girl swimming in it, then after towards the end, there is the same image but missing the girl. 

Genre was clear throughout the scene that is was a horror/thriller due to the screams and the mystery as to what is happening (enigma)