Credit Sequence 1

I will be analysing the credit sequence for the following film, the main reason for this is to gain incite and maybe gain some inspiration of what to do and maybe even use some of the skills the producer used when creating this sequence.

The sequence below is from the movie Lord of War, this famous sequence is known as the Life of a bullet; the music which is used in the background is about guns and war. On the screen we can see a production of a bullet and process which is goes through when being made.

The producer has decided to follow one bullet from the moment it was created to the moment it was used, we can see that this is mainly CGI effects; and we follow it till the bullet gets shot into the persons head.

Whilst we being shown the life of the bullet we are also shown the producers and the main people involved in the creation of this film, and when the bullet finally hits the cilvian we are shown the director as he is the most important person in this.




After analysing this sequence I have gained the idea of attempting to have credits running whilst the story is running in the background, as well as having to conduct some further research into more credit sequences and find some more suitable ideas to incorporate.

Progress Report

So far we have finishe majority of our filming, only a few more scenes left to film and edit and I feel like as a group if we work together we can complete this and obtain a high grade if we all focus and try hard; I feel like i can contribute a lot to the group and save a lot of time if I focus creating the title scene for the opening sequence, as I have a lot knowledge from doing A level ICT. As a group we decided that we will have to complete all the editing by next week Wednesday and identify any missing clips and fill them in if we need to.

Sound for own production.

Sound is a very vital aspect to the project as it entices the audience into understand what is going on, this can be done via the script - enabling what the characters say and how much information they provide via the dialogue. Another, role for sound is that it can enable the audience to get involved, for example if the character is trying to cross a road and a bus goes past very fast just infront of the character, it could cause the viewer to jump.

I believe that for my production the sound I will be incorporating will be fast paced and up beat when the chase sequence occurs, this should definately get the audience involved as they can see that it is very intense as the character is running very fast and the music will get them to understand how quick the character must react.

Another form of sound which I will be attempting to use is a heartbeat noise, this will be used when the character is about to commit suicide - the audience should be able to understand that his heart is beating fast and that he is very scared of death, but he hates his life so much that he is willing to go ahead with it.

I have also been thinking about trying to use contrapuntal music where ever I can possible, but due to this being a gangster movie and it will be very intense and fast paced, finding an opportunity to use different type of music which remaining serious is very difficult.

Codes and Conventions for a Chase Sequence

For a sucessful chase sequence there are some codes and conventions which must be followed; it starts off with slow music which has to be non-diegetic, which slowly gathers beat and enhances in speed as the scene enters the climax (main part) of the chase, at this point the music must be loud and fast to entice the audience.

 

Another aspect which must be used is the editing skills, the cuts must be shorter no longer than 2 seconds per cut; this will ensure that the audience understand the speed of the character and it surely must get faster as the chase gets closer to the climax; however, it must be cut between the person running and the person chasing.

 

A sucessful chase sequence will have to include cuts of the whole body via mid shots, low shots, and long shots; a close could also be used to see the anticipation of the character who is trying so hard to run away as well as the character who is trying very hard to catch that character who is running.

The longshot could be used to display the distance in which the character is running and to inform the audience of his desired destination of safety.

A final trick which could be used is the slow-motion editing, this could be used as one character is close to another; this could allow the audience to question the fact if the runner is going to be caught or is he going to get a lucky escape.

 

 

Sound + Sequence Analysis

In this post I will be analysing the sounds used in this opening sequence made by AVS, this sequence was made in March 2012, and I believe that the sounds and the sequence is very close to the film which I would like to make, hence why I am going to analyse this sequence. I hope that this will give me some ideas and inspiration to use.

At the start we can clearly hear the Character on the phone to his friend asking for help, then the music changes into a dramatic tensed but not too tensed music with bass to increase the tension. Soon after at like 0:42 seconds the music changes once again into something very fast paced and intense as the character is being chased, this music carries on till about 1:45.

As soon as the character enters the lift, they use contrapuntal music to release the tension as the other character who is chasing him is running up the stairs, but this music changes between the two characters; one being very fast paced as he runs up the stairs and one being calm and relaxed as if he has nothing to worry about.

When the characters are at the roof of the "car park" the music changes into something which creates tension for the audience; as the character who is chasing points a gun at the other character who has nowhere to run.

After this analysis I would like to use the fast paced and tension building music when the character in my film are running, I believe that it builds tension for the audience.

Representation

The representation theory basically means that the media will think about presenting a particular person or a group of people to the audience in a certain manner. However, another form of representation would be the realistic and the non-realistic side of presenting a realistic event; the main aim for media is present a realistic event that occured but for the audience it's a video, or image of an event which occured but it isn't exactly reality.

There are three main different types of character typing:

1. The Archetype is character which is built up over many years, this is mainly a stereotypical fairytale and storytelling.

2. A stereotype character is something which can be used in the society today, like a teenager with hoodie will be stereotyped as a thug or something who will be out to cause trouble in the society.

3. A generic type is a character who is used in one genre type of a movie.

The largest form on representation seems to be the stereotype, as it is very easy to use as the society in the 21st centuary tend to stereotype in everyday life. In my film I will be attempting to use the stereotype of hoodies, as the genre is gangster and I feel that hoodies will be the most appropraite stereotype to use.

Genre Analysis 2

To enhance my understanding of genre I will be analysing more genre acts; this time I will be analysing a thriller themed movie. The reason behind this is that I find the similarity between horror
and thriller very alike and I will like to gain an indepth knowledge of the two.

This image on the left is from a movie called AL Lilaw, we can clearly identify that this is a thriller movie due to the realistic image of the characters on the main front of the poster, as well as the blood stain behind the text of the film name.

Another trick which the distributor used when creating this poster is the mysterious character on the top of the little children, it immediately intices the audience in to trying to find out who this character is, as his identity is hidden; as well as trying to find out whats his relation to the children at the bottom.

Genre Research 1

Genre is basically the type of movie, there are many categories which fall under genre like; Action, Adventure, Horror, Comedy, Thriller and Romance. However, genre doesn't only rely upon the media text, but also the way it is constructed. This is important as some genres are very simliar to eachother, like thriller and horror - for example the horror can be taken place in a scary/eary place and thriller tries to entice the audience by keeping it realistic.

I will now analyse an image which is horror film, in order to give further indepth on the unrealistic feel.

As you can see on the left is an image from a poster of the movie "SeMum", this poster can be clearly identified as being unrealistic and fake. This poster will give the audience an immediate feel that it is a horror themed film as the characters displayed on the cover are clearly edited and unrealistic.

I believe that to accomplish a sucessful horror movie, you need scary and eary music, as well as a dark atomsphere to make the audience afraid. A dark atmosphere would be used as the audience know you cannot see anything in the dark.

However, for our opening sequence I will not be encouraging to do a Horror themed genre as it is very difficult to acquire the mise-en-scene, and to sucessfully edit it with minimal skill which I have.

Self Evaluation of Filming today.

Today was very productive and I feel like we accomplished a lot since our last filming session, the group was very helpful in the way we completed a whole scene in the first take.

I feel like the bond of our group has increased significantly alongside the effort we make individually. My personal feedback would be that the shots which we used were good, and everything was finished as we scheduled.

Group work Institution

The work we did into the film industry and distribution was used in our first pitches we gave as groups. The genre we were given was a high budget comedy therefore we researched a lot into the most well known distribution companies.

We managed to create a well rounded idea that fitted the stereotypes of the genre but when it came to choosing the well known actors that would have been in a high budget film, we could have chosen better.

As for the distribution company we chose Entertainment Film Distributors:


We chose it as it was well known for the most recent Inbetweeners film as well as previous comedy films such as over her dead body. The company is also well known for promoting films of various genres the biggest film it has been involved in is The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. As well as this it is also a British company which was essential.

Distribution

To create a film there is a few steps which must be completed:

1. Pre Production
2. Production
3. Post Production
4. Distribution

Distribution is the final stage of film production, disrbuting is a vital role as its main aim is to inform the audience and grab their attention; they will find a unique selling point (USP) inorder to have a successful sale.



A well known distributor is Warner Brothers, there have been around for 90 years, being founded in 1923 by the Warner Brothers. The logo which the company have is very simple and just gets to the point, its a WB in a shield.

The company have distributed many famous films which have been sucessful like; Slumdog Millionaire, Sherlock Holmes and many more.

Opening sequence + Sound Analysis of Shank

The main reason for chosing this film to analyse was the genre, this is a British drama movie made by a British director as well as it being low budget.

For the first two minutes we only see the production company names and the credits for the characters, but the inbetween the credits we see a small clip of a riot being held in London between the youths and the police, and a character being hit with a batton by the police.

After the credits have finished we are immediately shown a chase scene between two characters, one being a black male running from a male on a motorbike; during this scene there is a cut to a character walking through a passage with a dog and looking down on the chase. Soon after the black male enters the estastes he is being chased by another male who is hooded.

The sound during this extract is very fast paced and upbeat, this is emphasise the adrenaline that the character is experiencing whilst he is being chased; after the character has ran away the music then changes into a relaxing calm music.

The director has decided to set the scenary after the chase and to show that this is a poor estate with high crime rates.

After this analysis I believe that for our sequence we might use a similar clip at the start, and the chase sequence is probably how we will start our opening sequence - as well as some fast paced sound to get the audience involved and intruiged about what's going on.

Analysis of Kidulthood - Opening Sequence

I decided to analyse this opening sequence beause it has the same genre as our intial idea for opening sequence.

During the first 2 minutes of this film, we can see that it starts in a school - and it emphasises the characters mise-en-scene a lot. We can easily identify that this school has a sixth form attached to it as some characters are wearing school uniform but the some aren't in uniform. However, there is one character who is different to all the others as he is in a room working on something which we as the audience cannot see.

Also, due to the camera movements we can identify the main characters who will be involved in this film as they are given close ups during the first minute. We can also see that this school is a community school or a school with minimum discipine due to the actions which the characters are doing by the tree.

The music which is being played at the start of the sequence is very mysterious and suspensed, I believe this is done to emphasise the secracy of that one character who is working on something, as well as the other character who is going around asking the where abouts of another character.

For our own production, we won't be using any foul language, but we will be emphasing the fact it is a school which we will start the sequence at. Also, another aspect we can add to our sequence from this would be the mysterious sound played at the start.

Costumes for our film.

As a group we chose our costumes very carefully because this place a big part for mise-en-scene, we had come to an conclusion that we have found our ideas of costumes and props to use in the film opening sequence. The characters will be dressed by stereotypical ideas of how the public see the role and the action the character who plays the role of the character. 

 

Bullies - hoodiess, baggy jeans and Nike shoes. This would be to enhance the fact they do not care about school, or their presentation and what other people think - the hoodies will be worn to show that the bullies will pull their hoods over their heads to hide their identies when causing trouble.

 

 

Person being bullied - Glasses, shirt tucked in and clothes worn by this person will generally be out of fashion. This was chosen by the group because it is a stereotypical idea of a nerd wearing glasses and out of fashion clothes, as bullies will  tend to pick on nerds.

 

Brother - dress smart, suit to show hes a man with class and liked by many. The main reason for the brother dressing opposite to his brother would be the fact he has authority and has accomplished something in life, he would be a person people find approachable.

 

These ideas we came up initially as a group and we have agreed to go ahead with these plans, because they suit the role of play in this particular sequence. We had come to the decision because we had done some research and found that audience prefer to see sequence built to the average day of life, and with stereotypes this shows that it fits into that category.

Personal Feedback on Filming.

Today as group we re-filmed the chase sequence footage, it's really amazing to see the group working really hard in order to complete this task. We filmed majority of the sequence and got to grips with the new camera and enhanced our techniques of filming.

We also decided that we will carry on filming tomorrow and complete the bits and bobs we didn't finish today, after school we have decided to film another scene at Fahads house which shall be fun.

Narrative

In media terms, narrative is the organisation given to a series of events. The human mind needs narrative to make sense of things. In everything we wacth, there is a beginning, a middle and an end.

When looking closer at a narrative we can identify the codes and conventions required; these are the characters, genre, and the mise-en-scene we can use the knowledge of these conventions to help us interpret the text.

It is only because we are used to reading narratives from a very early age, and are able to compare texts with others that we understand these conventions. A narrative in its most basic sense is a series of events, but in order to construct meaning from the narrative those events must be linked somehow.

There are many ways of breaking down narrative structure. You may hear a movie described as a 'classic 21st centuray movie' meaning it has three acts. News stories have their own structure. A lot of work has been done by literary theorists to develop ways of deconstructing a narrative.

Tvzetan Todorov - suggests narrative is simply equilibrium, disequilibrium, new equilibrium.

There are five stages the narrative can progress through:

 

• A state of equilibrium (all is as it should be)

 

• A disruption of that order by an event

 

• A recognition that the disorder has occurred

 

• An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption

 

• A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium

Location for our Opening Sequence

Finding the appropraite location for the opening sequence is vital, as a group we decided to plan our storyboard together with the storyboard we have to sort out the correct location to suit the plan.
We decided to set Fahad the task of finding the best location as he knows the area really well compared to majority of the group, and obviously his experience doing Media at GCSE enabled him to give us some extra information on which shots to use and which scene would be best suited at which location.