Location Planning Discussion.

In our non contact session today, Me and the rest of the group decided it would be a good time to try and crack on with our Location Planning process now that our Storyboarding is successfully finished. As always, we decided to go to our usual location for discussion and carry this brainstorm out in a similar fashion that has served us well in recent weeks.

We used the script we created just recently to help assist us in our location planning, Joseph got this script up on his phone and then I took charge and stood at the board prepared to plan. We worked this planning logically, Joseph would tell me the shot, then we would discuss what location ideas we could use and listed them on the board and labelled the shot #1, #2, #3 etc. This helped us get a better idea of what location each shot would need instead of just talking about general locations. We did this for every shot and then we went back, and nominated several locations that would suit best, since then we have been doing some research into the accessibility of the ideas we wish to use. One location that we found we would need alot would be The Lighthouse Theatre which is a local theatre, so in aid of this I immediately contacted the manager of the theatre regarding this, this email can be found below.

Click the image to view it in large view.

I believe that this discussion has helped us decide what locations to use but more importantly gave us a clearer idea of the sort of setting our shots will have and we now feel that we have an even clearer idea of what our final product might turn out to look like, we must now look into securing these locations and making sure we can get use of them, once we have done so we will provide pictures of all the locations we have decided to use.


Below I have provided some pictures that Joseph and co took during the discussion -

Joe writing notes for future use.

Full brainstorm - Short one, just for confirmation

Vimeo & SoundCloud.

Vimeo -

In recent weeks gone by the school filter system had picked up on some explicit content on DailyMotion, the site we formerly used to upload and publish are video's for our Blogger, this meant that we had no means of showing evidence of any further video's we created, to try and overcome this problem a few of us spent some time searching for a new website that provides this service and one of the class came across Vimeo. Vimeo is a well established website that provides a fast, easy and effective video uploading service. This is perfect as it will allow us to provide the examiner and our teacher with proof of a variety of different video's we may need to upload, such as different audience reactions, practice shots etc for our planning and research to our finished Teen Horror Task.

SoundCloud -

Another problem we faced was the inability to upload music tracks onto the internet, as we had never been able to do so with DailyMotion, as we did with the above we went in seach of a reliable, easy to use and trustworthy site that, again we came across a solution, this time it was SoundCloud. SoundCloud is very easy to use, it requires you to set up an account very easily and then you can simply select your audio track, rename it and upload and it will be uploaded fairly quickly. This will help us with a number of different things, for example we can now produce a number of different pieces of audio for thing's such as Original Sound Tracks and we can publish them to our Blogger via SoundCloud, this will help the examiner see we can use a wide range of technological aspects.

Storyboarding

Now that we have completed our discussions and brainstorms and finished the script, our next plan was to conduct the storyboard for us to use as a guide later on in the task and to give us a stronger idea of the way we will lay out our production and what the final production will appear like. In the abscece of Jordan, Myself, Pav and Josepeh took iniative and went and collected some A3 sized storyboard from the Media Suite and began to storyboard, as Jordan contributed alot towards the script yesterday, we had no qualms or disappointment in completing this without him whilst he is unable to attend school due to illness.

Me hard at working constructing the Storyboard for our teen horror film Breaking The 4th Wall.

We went to a classroom in the English block and logged onto the computer, loaded up my blog and got the script viewable for us to read from our seats on the interactive whiteboard. From this we could see what we needed to include everything that the script listed, this included audio and sounds, camera angles and movements and label each shot 1, 2 ,3 etc accordingly. Me and Joseph took responsibility for the illustrations whilst Pav took responsibility for the writing of Type of Shot, Movement, Location and Sound etc, and was in control of the computer.

Below is what we came up with:

1st Page of the Storyboard - Includes 6 first shots with location, camera movement, sound etc.

2nd Page of the Storyboard - Includes the 7th to 12th shot with location, camera movement, sound etc.

The final 3 storyboard sections including with location, camera movement, sound etc.

Now that we have completed the Storyboard we are ready to move onto location planning, from constructing our storyboard I feel we all benefited massively as we now have an even more in depth idea of how our film will look and can asses for any floors or errors that may play against the effect we wish to have with this piece of media. We will have a third group discussion over the course of the next 7 days and see where we wish to go from here. This will allow all of our group to stay informed and communicated which will be vital in the success of this project.

Producing The Script

 

Today Jordan Mander and I set to work on producing our script, we made sure to include a number of different aspects in this piece of work including all visuals, audio, diaglogues and types of camera shots and angles. We have provided a print screen of this script below, we followed the rules of script writing shown to us by Mr Henton, these rules are: The font must be Courier, any soundtracks, audio effects and dialogue must be in CAPS. Above is what we produced.

Now that we have this done we can now move onto task 2 in the process of tasks we need to complete in order to get the best quality product at the end of production, tomorrow we will take our time to conduct a full storyboard, we can use this script to our advantage because it can be a sort of basis as what we have to include in the storyboard.

Screenplay Decision Making

Today Myself, Jordan, Joe and Pav took it upon ourselves to go and do another group discussion. As we have been left free to crack on with the tasks set we knew that to do so we needed to discuss and decide how we plan to set out the opening titles and scene, we went to the room previously used to try and discuss and illustrate these ideas and that we did. We decided to include new aspects into our movie project including big camera flashes between titles and camera flash noises that are overly exaggerated and prolonged to unsettle the audience. We also want to include different cut shots to cause a sense of unknown amongst the viewers, this amongst other things that we will include in our script that will be provided in the post above.

We thought this was beneficent hugely to the group, as we could take our ideas from the previous meeting of the group and adapt and improve them, but more importantly make important decisions on which shots, props, locations and even actors we are to use. We have all the ideas we need in place and we are working hard to maintain the high quality of work we have set the standard for so far. We have discussed our thoughts with a number of highly experienced figures in this subject within the school and they are looking forward to being involved with the acting of the opening and are excited to see what we can produce.

Below is a few snapshots of us in action at our latest meeting - 22/11/2011.

Jack (Me) & Pav discuss ideas and share thoughts

Jack (Me) & Pav at the end of our group discussion.

Portrait Picture - Mr Craddock

In our previous lesson with Mr Craddock on 18th November 2011 we were asked to submit a portrait picture that we have taken, having learnt about the different aspects that create a quality portrait photo, such as lighting, rule of thirds and looking space, amongst others I set to work and below is what I created

This has taught me that it isn't just focus that makes a good photo but many other aspects, I feel this also links into my work for Mr Henton, the creation of my teen horror opening titles and scene. Things such as lighting and rule of thirds will help me with my camera skills and set me up perfectly to go and film a good piece of footage for this task.

Media Lesson Content | Update In Schedule | Deadlines.

In today's lesson we were asked by Mr Henton to make our way to the Media Classroom rather than the Media Mac Suite. When we arrived we were asked to be sat and silent, he wanted to talk to us about a number of things including Media Success, Blog Management, To-Do-List and Deadlines.

Media Success and Blog Management - The reason I have included these two parts of the discussion into one section of this post is because they are very strongly linked together. The key to success at this stage in Media Studies is maintaining the management of your blog is kept at a high standard, this includes keeping all posts analytical rather than just descriptive, this means the user should explain and anaylise rather than just describing and giving an overview on proceedings. Another thing that will help good Blog Management is good time keeping, this basically means not just leaving everything to the last minute and doing a number of blog posts in one night, it means updating your blog as and when things happen. We have also been told that over the 3 month period we should be updating our blog of research and planning etc every other day, this means the amount of posts we should have on our blog should be 45.

We should also make sure our blog contains mass amounts of presentation and should look loved by the user, this means making sure all colours go easy on the eye and it is laid out correctly and in an orderly fashion. But to obtain the high marks we need to make sure we include research into similar products and explore the potential target audience in order to get a greater look as to what needs to be included in our product to make it suit the audience and work better all round.


Deadlines -

To-Do-List -

Below is a list of things that we have to do before our deadline of January 4th 2012 - This is all of the research and planning that needs to be completed before we can start to film footage for editing.

• Script - The script should include a number of different aspects that we wish to include in our media project. A script doesn't just include dialogue, this is merely a misconception that alot of people seem to believe. We must include aspects such as visual, dialogue, audio, soundtracks, amongst other things. To ensure that we can produce the best script possible we will be hosting another discussion session in which we can brainstorm ideas for the script and finalise any thoughts and make decisive choices that will allow the go ahead of the script writing.
• Storyboard -  This piece of work should be completed on the A3 storyboard sheet that we previously completed storyboarding for our preliminary tasking upon. These can be obtained from Mr Henton himself, Reprographics or the Media Suites and should be used sensibly and responsibly by the groups. We need to include photographic, audio or visual recordings as evidence of us carrying out this task and show research put into conducting this along the way and provide this all on our personal blogs. The storyboard it's self should include a number of different aspects in filming, things such as camera shots, angle and movement of the camera, along with sound and location of each shot. 
• Location Planning - This should be completed preferably with pictures of the chosen locations and should match up to the locations planned to be used in the script. We have chosen to include video evidence of our locations as it will help us get a more realistic effect and help us visual better as to what our final product will appear like. We have also decided to get a number of secondary back up locations incase one location is unavailable or unsuitable nearer the time. Pictures and video footage shall be posted to our personal media blog, using embedding from Youtube on the video.
• Casting -
• Filming Schedule -
• Risk Assessment -
• Shot List -

Main Task Brainstorm

Today me and my co-workers spent over an hour of our own time brainstorming ideas. We went and found a free classroom in which we could use a whiteboard and we set to work. We set 3 different branches of what we wished to brainstorm ideas; Location, Visual and Audio. We then went onto give branches coming off each initial branch with ideas springing of them.

What we were looking for -
Audio: When thinking about audio for our opening titles and scene we had to try and remember not to plan to far ahead. This is because if we find a track that we really like we may start to try and fit the scene around the track, when it should be the other way round. However we did start to brainstorm some basic thoughts and we wish to remain undecided on this until the future. We came up with a few thoughts of using a certain Barrack Obama speech where he touches on a New World Order within our opening titles if it links in productively, we feel this would set the scene and give our opening a professional look. Our inspiration for this was the opening titles of Dawn of the Dead where they include press interviews of important figures touching on important subjects. We also wish to vary the volume of all our sounds and any OST we wish to vary in sound and go from loud to quiet to continuously put shock through the audience and keep them on edge and jumping at the loud sudden sounds, Jordan mentioned on creating our own OST using Garage Band on the iMacs available within the schools very own Mac Suite, he also said that we should link up the music keyboards to the iMacs and productively create our own soundtrack, these our all brainstormed below and all up for selection when we finally get round to selecting what options we wish to include within our audio for the main teen horror film task.

Visual: As for visuals we focussed more on the type and vairety of effects we wish to include within our opening titles. We thought about including a brick wall and then suddenly a section of the bricks start to break and smash out the wall leaving the gaps where the bricks formerly lay spelling out 'Breaking The 4 Wall'. However upon further thought we have decided this maybe a little to difficult to replicate and have pushed it down the pecking order of ideas but we will try our very best when the time comes to give it ago and hopefully make it work, Pav mentioned using a piece of software called Fireworks to try and create this idea so we will definately have to keep that in mind when it comes to it. Another idea our group came up with was to include Illuminati shadows, what we mean by this is cutting The Illuminati Symbol out of the paper, getting the room dark and shining a tourch onto the paper to get the shadow of the symbol on the wall, we feel this will improve desired effect and create a spooky and devilish atmosphere within the audience.

Location: In terms of location the discussion were slightly briefer, going with what we plan to do from the pitch we know that we have to address the issue of a 'west end theatre' & 'views of audiences queing up for the antcipated show'. I came up with the idea of using the local theatre in Kettering called The Lighthouse Theatre, if permitted to do so we could que crowds gathering and queing for a well watched show at this theatre and also get any footage of the theatre needed, but we need to keep in mind that we will need permission from the theatre autorities to do so. Another idea we manage to come up with was using the drama stage in school, the drama stage gives us good access to a stage with a big red curtain, this could be used as back up if our plans for The Lighthouse Theatres fall through, we feel having a back up plan is good because it means we have less chance of coming unstuck later on in the production process.

This is what we came up with:

I have also attached a couple of further images of myself and my group during the brainstorming session. (Below)

(Jack) Discussing ideas with the group in front of the brainstorm.

The group as a whole with the brainstorm behind.

Audience Views On Original 60 Second Pitch

Today Me, Joseph, Pav and Jordan undertook the task of showing our original 60 second pitch of which I didn't feature in as it was filmed before I changed groups to some willing viewers. We selected a few people to watch our pitch and give us there honest opinions and thoughts upon it and tell us how they thought the film might lead next.

We initially planned to film this using the Macs but then realised that Daily motion was blocked and decided to record it outside of the media suite in a spot with better lighting, we used Pav, a fellow member of our groups iPod to record the views in 480P quality, as the pitch was being viewed off a phone the audio of the pitch was poorly picked up by the iPod, I have decided to take the audio out from the clip up until the views and replace it with the original audio off the Daily motion video available on my blog. To do this I downloaded a piece of software called Audacity, this lets you record any audio streaming through the computer, I recorded the audio of the pitch and replaced the original pitch audio picked up by the iPod with the new and improved pitch audio. This enhanced audio and made it clearer to hear, I then merged all 3 of the audience recording together using Sony Vegas Pro and uploaded it straight to YouTube where I then grabbed the embed code and slotted it into the Edit HTML section on Blogger.

 Below is a recorded clip of what we collected.



From this I believe we can come up with further inspiration and ideas as to what we can incorporate into our main horror film task of creating the opening to a horror film. It is a great piece of research because now we have something to look back upon and see what the audience would like to see added and what the audience feel should be kept from our pitch.

However after watching and getting the thoughts of the audience we have decided to:
.Change the basic concept of the idea to make it less simple
.Added a meaning to the film (Illuminati)
.Added different twists to make it less predictable
.Changed the storyline

Opening Film Pitch

In today's lesson Me and my group presented a pitch that we produced in yesterdays lesson about the opening of our horror film. Below is our pitch, we have tried to include all the different effects we wish to go on to include within our film including different types of visuals, audio effects and different footage and camera angles. We have also included the basic ideas for our opening titles such as the Barrack Obama clip, and also what titles we are to include such as production companies etc.



We recorded the audio for this clip using a voice recorder on Joseph's (Group Member) Samsung Galaxy S, he then sent me this audio through Skype and then I put it into Windows Movie Maker and put images of the speakers over the audio accordingly, I then published it to YouTube straight from WMM and used the embed code into this post to get the above.

Planning The Opening

In today's lesson me and my group began to plan ideas for our film opening. As I am new to the group I have been given an insight into the original plan for the opening of this film and been told about the meaning and details behind the idea of the film, we have also discussed several different aspects we would like to include into our opening film. We have come to the conclusion to take a twist on the initial idea. (Below is the original idea for the entire film shown through a pitch)


dhillon cassidy mander 60 sec by kbamediastudies

We have taken this idea and decided to add the effect of The Worldwide conspired Illuminati, we have decided that a good idea would be that the show being talked about in the pitch above is about exposing the Illuminati on a big west end stage on a hugely viewed opening night. However the Illuminati have other ideas and are out to try and prevent anything of the kind happening.

We have also been discussing and thinking about adding a soundtrack to our film opening, we want this soundtrack to stick in the mind of the viewer and to be a very dark and spooky tune. Instead of acting for visuals we have decided that for a more professional and effective look we should choose to use a number of clips and hand acting footage and put it over the soundtrack for maximum effect.

With all this in mind we have produced our very own pitch for us to present to the class in tomorrows lesson, we hope that the audience find our idea very innovative and interesting and are eager to know more about the idea and concept of our film.

Click here to find out some more about the Illuminati

Recent Events

I have recently been transferred from my old group of Timothy Oziegbe and myself and have moved into a group consisting of Myself, Jordan Mander, Pav Dhillon & Joseph Cassidy. I am very pleased with this as Mr Henton believes it is the best move for me if I am to be as successful and my ability is worthy off. The reason for this move was through no fault of my own, it was solely a move based on the lack of co-operation and contribution from my partner.

To find the Blogger accounts of my new group members just click on there names in the text above. 

SE7EN - Opening Titles Analysis

In our lesson yesterday we were shown the opening title sequence of the hit film Se7en. We were instructed to write down every single title that was shown on screen and with that provide what time they were show. By writing the times we get an idea of the gaps that are used between titles and we can see if the slow down or speed up as the opening titles progress. We were also told to produce a written analysis on the time line of what we could hear when listening to the title sequence, I did this by turning on my computer screen whilst playing the opening titles and every time I heard a noise worth mentioning I turned my screen back on, went back and found that noise, wrote it down and included the time of the noise. A final task we were told to for fill within the main piece of work was to write down all the visuals shown, to do this I muted my computer and continued to play the opening titles over and over again until I had successfully filled my timeline up. I have taken a picture of this piece of work and provided it to you below.

Media ID Card.

(Above) My ID card created for Mr I.Craddock in Media.

We have spent the last few media lessons with Mr Craddock improving our portrait photography and working on creating an ID card for media, this can be used when renting out equipment and the media room. Creating this resource was a fairly simple task but we had to use some techniques that we may be called upon in future to use so it was a good basic start to set us up for further tasks in future. I incorporated Photoshop elements in cropping and editing the picture of myself down and pages to add text and edit font colour and the font itself.

Saul Bass

Today I have taken it upon myself to do some more additional research into Opening Titles. I have done some research into a man name Saul Bass, I've produced a slideshow on this man and how he has helped change the film industry for the better and how it all happened.

Saul Bass

View more presentations from jackwhiteas.

Opening Titles Further Analysis

Dawn of the Dead
Dawn of the Dead is a horror film based on a zombie invasion. With this in mind the creators of the opening titles have incorporated graphic clips, fearful narrations and a mix of special audio effects including screams, flat heart rate monitors and meaningful lyrics to a country western song. They use a red font on all there titles as studies show the human brain can see red as a colour that represents danger if the right atmosphere is set. To help set the atmosphere they use effects on there text, after a couple of second of there red text being shown, the text is almost dragged of the screen in a similar fashion to a big gust of wind coming across the text as if the text was blood. This makes the viewer sure that this red is to represent danger, not love or affection. Another method the opening title producer use is positioning, they position each title in different positions of the screen, this keeps the viewers focussed hard on the screen and trying to see where the text will appear next, in order to keep the focus solid they use short, sharp and powerful clips of footage and narration so that the viewer doesn't have time to settle and relax.

Order Shown -

Basic Introduction Titles (0:00 - 00:15)
Universal Pictures
Production Company
Film Title
Stars (00:16 - 00:32)
Main Star #1
Main Star #2
Main Star #3
Main Star #4
Main Star #5

20 Second Pause (Music Starts)

Actors Continued (00:58 - 01:15)
Featured Actor #1 & #2
Featured Actor #3 & #4 & #5
Casting - (01:30 - 02:30) (In Order Shown)
Music By, Music Supervisor, Special Make Up Effects, Costume Designer, Co-Producer, Editor, Production Designer, Director of Photography, Executive Producer #1 & #2 & #3, Producer, Based On, Screenplay By, Screenplay By #2, Director.

To view a clip of the opening titles of Dawn of the Dead just click HERE!

Alien
Alien is a science fiction film set in outer space, the creators of the opening titles have included a panning shot across space, then across a dark planet until the whole screen it completely pitch black, this makes the viewer unsure as to what is next in the film, they don't know what to expect which makes them on edge and more focussed and enticed in the film. Whilst this panning shot is happening there are very simple lines being added across the top of the titles simultaneously to each name that appears in the titles.  It then pans again, coming out on the other side of this dark planet and showing the other side of outer space. It then uses a montage shot and zooms out of a space shuttle, the film then begins. This films opening titles may seem very dull and lacking in creativity to some people but the inner meaning leaks creativity "Everything pointing to the centre because the centre is where the parasitic pupae of the Alien comes from; the middle of you. Steady, dark tension" - with the addition of the Sci-Fi like music is helps set the scene tremendously and create a sense of expanse amongst the clip which makes the audience feel as if they are in space when watching this is a dark large cinema room.

(Above) Shows section by section the adding of the lines in order for it to create the end product of the word 'ALIEN' - This method of adding to the title keeps the viewer watching and guessing as to what is being spelt or created with each line added, the viewer is eager to know what each line represents.

Order Shown -

Basic Introduction Titles (0:00 - 00:16)

a Brandywine - Ronald Shusett Production

a Ridley Scott Film

Stars (00:21 - 00:59)

Main Star #1

Main Star #2

Main Star #3

Main Star #4

Main Star #5

Main Star #6

Main Star #7

Casting (01:02 - 01:35) (In Order Shown)

Music by (Conducted by), Executive Producer, Screenplay by, Story By, Producer, Director,

Film Title (01:35 - 01:45)

To view a clip of the opening titles of Aliens click HERE

Zombieland
Zombieland is another film based on a zombie apocalypse, it features movie star Jesse Eisenberg (previously of The Social Network). The opening titles, or should I say scene is hugely different to the ones above as Zombieland have gone against one of the main conventions in film, one that has been used since the dawn of film and have decided NOT to have normal opening titles. When you look at every successful film and see they have opening titles it is astonishing to think Zombieland could be such a major success with the lack of a major attribute of all successful films. Instead of opening titles normally they have narration. The main character Jesse Eisenberg narrates over the opening scene and helps gives the audience of the background and plot of the film, it helps the viewer get an idea of the situation the character finds them self in. They then go from an almost opening scene type footage to opening titles, they show slow motion footage of what the film is about and have edited it all to make it look like the people in these opening titles are interacting with the opening titles them self. They use a selection of action slow motion shots to set the scene, including lots of guts and gore to help set the scene and give the viewer a better idea of the genre.

Order Shown -
Basic Introduction Titles (02:46 - 03:01)
Columbia Pictures (Presents)

Relativity Media (In Association With)
Pariah Production

Stars (03:04 - 03:23)
Main Star #1
Main Star #2
Main Star #3
Main Star #4

Film Title (03:28 - 03:33)

Casting (03:38 - 04:33) (In Order Shown)
Costume Designer, Music By, Edited By, Production Designer, Director of Photography, Executive Producer  Produced By, Written By, Directed By

To view a clip of the opening titles of Zombieland click HERE


John Carpenter's The Ward
John Carpenter's The Ward is an American horror film directed by John Carpenter. It has been a big hit on screens during 2011 and features several stars including Amber Heard and Laura-Leigh. The opening titles include some very complicated special effects and a variety of different camera shots. It begins with a zooming out shot down a long corridor of some sort of medical ward,  it is a dark setting and you can hear the thunder and rain and see the lightning through the far window, this helps set the scene and spook the viewer so that they are on the edge of the seat and nervous as to what may happen next. As it fully zooms out, the movie title appears with a large beam of thunder sounding through to give the effect of the movie being electric, the title changes in colour as the lightning sounds to give the effect of lightning once more. It then moves on to extreme close up of disturbing images of death and torture and which each change of shot a large sound of thunder reckons through the audio. They then begin to bring in the white text of the opening titles, the positioning of these titles are sprayed across the screen each time, they are set in over the breaking of glass pictures, these pictures are again disturbing, spooky and creepy images, this helps set the spooky atmosphere and assign the movie a genre. The use of slow motion smashing of the pictures and large powerful audio that stays with the viewer helps keep the viewer on edge for a long time after the initial credits. The movie then appears through a shard of glass and the glass moves towards the camera and the camera zooms into this shard until the movie is fully montaged into screen as if the viewer has almost jumped into the movie.

Order Shown -

Basic Introductioin Titles


Film Title (00:08 - 00:14)

Stars (00:25 - 01:01)
Main Star #1
Main Star #2
Main Star #3
Main Star #4
Main Star #5
Main Star #6
Main Star #7

Casting (01:05 - 02:17)
Music By, Costume Designer, Make Up Effects By, Editor, Production Designer, Director of Photography, Co-Producer, Executive Producers, Produced By, Produced By #2, Written By, Directed By

To view a clip of the opening titles of John Carpenter's The Ward click HERE

Lesson On Opening Titles

Lesson Information 

In today's lesson we looked at how the opening titles of a film can set the mood and how much of a huge influence they can have on the atmosphere and quality of a piece of media. Mr Henton showed us several different clips of Opening Titles from the OCR reccomended site 'Art of The Title'. One that really stood out for me was the clip below.

CLICK HERE FOR THE CLIP

This clip really got me thinking about the use of opening titles, it made me consider effects, fonts, colours, placement, timing and also order of titles. It also gave me an advanced idea of what Opening Titles do and what they include.

My Knowledge of Opening Film Titles -

. The opening titles almost always include the following names -  Director, Main Stars, Producer and Cast.

. The actors named are usually shown in Order of Importance to establish clearer crucial information

. They can often also include the Production and Distribution Companies label/name.

. The opening titles can help give the view an idea of what genre the film is.

. They can provide information of what the movie may hold.

.  They are often used to get the audience enticed and film companies often spray names in different corners of the screen to keep the audience looking close and sucked in.

(Above) Screenshots of the opening crediets of the hit film 'The Shining'  - from this you can see that the placement of the titles is key and you can get a feel for the order of the titles.

How did it help?

Today's lesson has been beneficent to us hugely because it has taught us the importance of the Opening Titles and will make us think twice before randomly sticking in Opening Titles when it comes to our main task.

PLEASE READ BELOW!
To view an in-depth analysis and watch all of the opening titles studied in today's lesson please click HERE!

Preliminary Task Video.

Below is our Final Product, filmed, edited and uploaded of our Preliminary Task!
(I set up my very own Daily Motion account in order to present my media work and other task work for media studies on my Blog and make it viewable in school as Youtube isn't.)


jack finish prelim by jackwhiteas

From completing our preliminary task I feel I have improved remarkably in terms of ability in different aspects across the board in media. First off camera shots and angles, my knowledge of which has come on so much since the start of media studies, I now know different shots and how and when to use them in filming, shots such as extreme close ups and panning shots. I have also learnt why these shots are used and the effects that have on the viewers. My ability to edit has also improved massively, at the beginning of the year my knowledge of how to use and function with the iMac was zero but now I have a clear understanding of how to go about editing and rendering different parts of footage a feel my ability to cut clips down and merge them together has come on remarkably, this can be shown in the video above. Mr Henton has also taught us the importance of planning and research when conducting a project such as this, we have done tasks such as storyboarding, scripting and similar product research all of which have helped us to come to this final project and I feel our experience in doing this will play a big part in the future success when it comes to creating our opening scene to the teen horror film.

Editing our Preliminary Task

Now we had all our footage successfully recorded and to a good standard it was time to move on to the next step of production which is called editing.  Being new to the iMacs we had Mr Henton give us a short introduction and tutorial to them, he taught us a number of different keyboard shortcuts, how to transfer footage and how to work software such as iMovie, Quicktime and Finalcut. This set us up well to go on and edit our footage. When editing we gave ourselves a number of options as to which pieces of footage to choose, we did this by recording the same shot from a number of different angles so that would could pick and mix which angles we wanted based on which looked best and fitted together best. We made sure to includes all 3 required camera shots, 180 degree shot, shot reverse shot and over and panning.

My experience in using the iMacs today to do this has set me up well for future tasks which may include doing similar things to similar types of footage which include the various types of camera movements and angles. I plan to do some further practice editing on the Mac's before we have to edit our main teen horror task as I feel it will keep my knowledge refreshed and help it to continue growing, making myself more comfortable using such software as Final Cut Express.

The BBFC

British board of film classification

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60 Second Pitch

oziegbe white 60 sec by kbamediastudies

Today everyone in the class was allocated a specific time slot in which they had to make sure they attended Mr Henton's classroom and produce our 60 second pitch we we have spent the last few days and media lessons constructing. We would have to talk about our film and say our pitch on camera to help give this a more realistic effect and provide us with some well needed evidence. Above is what we come up with, we feel that we have the makings for a good movie but are aware that some further tweaks and changes will need to be change if we are to give the right type of feel to the film in every aspect.


From constructing and conducting our 60 second pitch I feel we now have a clearer idea ourselves of what we really are looking to get out of the media project, we feel we have learnt more about our ideas and discovered how to truly bring our ideas across and explore them thoroughly. For that reason will feel that this task was extremely beneficial as it gave it a sense of direction in where to go from here in media studies and has set us up well to go and see what tweaks are required to make the audience happy. And who better to ask than the target audience themselves.

Creation Of Our Pitch

Today me and my partner Tim have been brainstorming ideas for the story line of our teen horror. We have noted all ideas and narrowed them down to the best, we narrowed them down using 3 categories, whichever fitted into the most of the categories is the idea we used, realism, convenience and potential were the 3 categories we used. These mean, is the story line realistic, is it easily possible with equipment and locations we have and does the story line have potential to go and be successful.

Transferring Preliminary Footage From Camera To Mac.

In today's lesson our task was to get our pre-filmed footage from the camera itself, to the Macs. This is all part of  the production process and we have to do this in order to edit our footage into a final product. To do this I had to follow a number of steps as I explain in the slideshow below -

INSERT SLIDESHOW WITH PRINTSCREENS ETC. (TUTORIAL)

The 60 Second Pitch

Now that we have completed our Preliminary Task and have a clearer understanding of what Media Studies is about and our knowledge on Media Studies is more expanse we now have to move onto our Main Task. Our Main Task is to create the opening scene of a Teen Horror Film. Before we can begin properly creating this we have to come up with ideas and create a 60 Second Pitch of a full film idea. Once we have developed a pitch we must pitch it to our teacher whilst being recorded. Our previous research comes in handy here because it lets us know what people want from a teen horror (questionairre results).

Below is a professional pitch of a movie, we were shown a handful of these types of clips in order to give us a feel of how to go about our very own pitches.

What does a film production company do?

Production Companies by jackwhiteas

People Within Film Production

In our media lesson today Mr Henton taught us about all the different people involved in the process of Filming media professionally. As I am new to media my knowledge of the involvement of film production was fairly restricted and I learnt alot of new things about film production during the lesson. Here are just some of the new names and jobs I learnt about today.

The Grip - This persons job is to move equipment around set and build things that our needed such as scaffolding or trolleys etc.

Art Director - The art director runs and directs his lowers such as the set designers and the graphic artists.

The Boom Operator - This persons job is to hold a big microphone over scenes in order to catch clearer audio. (Below)

'Solstice' Introduction Scene Analysis

Mr Henton has allocated each group 1 DVD of a teen horror film, we have each been told to watch the opening scene and analyize it picking out different camera shots, number of camera shots, effects etc.

Solstice -

The opening scene to Solstice starts with a black screen, it then fades in with the noise of a dark wind blowing, creating tension and spooking the audience. It then cuts to several different shots of various different locations, a summer house, woods, a moon the pans and montages into holes in a wool, all in black and white. All this happens with the mirror image down the middle to add distortion to the viewers mind and the credits are in a fancy white font, which also seems distorted. We then hear a young babies laugh and pan across to a picture of two young children, this shot quickly changes to sun creeping through the tree branches, this changes the atmosphere completely. We then go back to the woodland from at POV shot and we see a hand, with red on it, picking up what appears to be some form of object, this is the first sight of real colour we see in the opening scene. We then switch to a distance shot of woodland, a bright light then swoops through the woodland and it montages into a shot of rain drops falling ever so slightly, and then onto a distance shot of woodland, surrounding different paths, this could represent different options, it also has quick flash shots of different types of shots, just like the whole of the first scene does.

The next shot shown is a panning shot, the music still remains creepy, but not frightening, this helps spook the audience as they are very unsure of what awaits them, the panning shot is off chopped woodland and dead branches, this then switches once more to another panning shot of standing healthy trees with sunlight again creeping through the healthy branches, this also shows the branches moving in the wind. The next shot shown is the rain drops mentioned earlier falling into what is a extreme close up of what may be a puddle, river, or ocean. The then changes into a shot of the camera under the water and flash shots of a young teddy bear, which is similar to that of the one shown in the picture at the top of this post, and then back to the under water camera, and then another flash shot of a girls face in the water, with fear upon her face.

At this point we are coming towards the end of the opening scene and the next shot is one of woodland, the same POV shot within the woodland but this time we see a small figure of a human, what looks to be like a girl, we only see this for a split second and you have to look hard to spot her running behind the trees. This montages into lots of moving smoke/clouds which fade out to show a group of black birds circulating, this could represent death or danger. The amount of camera shots per minute is rising at this point to increase tension and intensity. The font turns to black on the credits and we see the hand again, this time it is black with blood dripping down the finger, this cause the viewers heart rate to rise and we then go to a black screen with a bubbling noise of almost like a swamp scene feel. It then goes back to the water and woodland scenes but the shots are sped up and added spooking noises are included. It then cuts to a mirror image of a woman who appears to be dead. The final shot is that of a graveyard, it pans across the graveyard and then zooms into one gravestone, then zooms out and focusses on one girl sat on a bench. This is the end of the opening scene.

Production Team -
Endgame Entertainment
Solstice Productions
Key Creatives

Distribution Team -
Pyramid
Square One Entertainment
Viva International Pictures
Argentina Video Home
Distribution Company
Dutch FilmWorks
Film4
Future Film
RTL Entertainment
The Weinstein Company

Release Date -
January 1st 2008.

Runtime -
91 Minutes

Certification - 
15


Directed By - 
Daniel Myrick

Film Analysis - Wrong Turn

In todays lesson Mr Henton showed us how he would go about analysising the opening scene of a film. He explained to us about how more frequent camera shots can raise the intensity of the scene and how different sounds can also do so. He also showed us different times of camera shots and explained why they are used. I found this explanation benifical, I now believe I know exactly what I have to do to analyise an opening of a horror film myself.