Evaluation Question 6

Evaluation Question 2

'The Greater Good' Film Opening

Here is our final version of our film opening 'The Greater Good'

First Draft Review

Here is a commentary of our first draft film opening. In this commentary we discuss the changes that we are going to make before our final piece, these decisions are made based on the responses we received from peers that watched our opening and filled out a questionnaire. This video enabled us to point out the parts of our opening that either did not work, or were not effective enough at portraying our genre or our narrative. 

we had trouble uploading to you tube so we will sort the video out asap, but it is on the macs

Advertising our Blog

We decided that to attract an audience for our Media group we would use a variety of social media. Social media sites have become all the more popular since the introduction of smart phone apps such as instagram, twitter and Facebook so this is where we chose to post about our blog and production progress. 

We chose twitter and instagram as they attract an audience of teenagers and young adults, similar to the target audience are aiming at in our film opening. Also, by having a Facebook page we can advertise our work to all our friends and family and invite them to gain frequent updates about SHER Productions. 

On our instagram page we can post visual updates. So far, we have uploaded filming progress as we had begun the filming process. These include a number of our test shots when experimenting with different types of lighting and focus. 














The twitter page is our main method of advertising SHER Productions as it is quick and simple to attach photos and links. Therefore, we can link twitter users to our Facebook posts and instagram pictures and videos, in turn, increasing peoples awareness of SHER. The hashtag craze allows us to hashtag relatable words to our post which widens our audience and opens up our page and film to millions of twitter users worldwide. 

Psychological Thriller Mood-board

We created a mood-board to gather and demonstrate all of our research and ideas for our film opening. It allows us to gain a better understanding of our chosen genre, so that we stick to its conventions. We focused on the genre in detail as we decided to pursue this as our final genre.

Themes

eyes - focus

truth and lie

memory

reality

a psychological state

narrative - conflict in the mind

existence/purpose

human conciousness

identity

fascination with death

intelligence

Typical ideas

complex narrative

focus' main character psychological state

sub-genre of thriller and horror

music relates to drama

elements of mystry and drama

discovery

reality, perception, mind

makes you think

first person existance

Camera Work and Editing

camrea graphic match

multiple cuts

POV shots

/close ups

Our Ideas

children

webcam phones laptop ipad

multiple people

controller deserted

ordinary clothing

contrasting colours

natural makeup

lighting key/back

Examples

Inception

Shutter Island

Black Swan

Dream House

Hide and Seek

Seven

Psycho

6th Sense

Genre: Horror and Thriller

Horror and Thriller are examples of a genre of film, these genres aim to create fear and panic for the audiences by portraying their worst fears and nightmares on screen. A lot of horrors are based around an evil force or being or involve a mythical creature such as zombies or vampires.

A lot of horror films use the feature of sound to create suspense or an eerie atmosphere, this can be done with a squeaky door a loud bang or even silence can be very effective in creating a tense atmosphere.

Another typical feature of horror films is the use of symbolism and imagery for example a haunted house, chainsaws, blood, and graveyards. All of these images are commonly used in horror films and aid in creating a scary atmosphere. Setting is also created using certain objects and locations to create vulnerable situations such as night time and abandoned warehouses.

A common feature of horror films is the use of point of view shots, showing the scene through the killer or the victims eyes, putting you in their shoes and bringing the audience into the action, this aids in creating fear and panic in the audience.

The following clip is from "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" and shows the opening scene. "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"  is a thriller and is rated 18 by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification). This film contains sexual abuse and is based around an unlikely pair uncovering a serial rapist and murderer. This opening scene is very different to other film openings as it uses a realistic animation style rather than actual actors. This is very effective in creating a tense atmosphere and along with the music overlay and mis-en-scene makes it clear to the audience that this is a thriller. I chose to show this clip as it shows an un-typical feature used in horror movie openings and shows a contrasting idea and technique.

In contrast this opening scene from "The Women in Black" uses actors. However much like the previous clip it uses a music overlay that is non-diegetic that juxtaposes the mis-en-scene of little girls having a tea party to create and eerie atmosphere and create the suspense of something bad that might happen. This music overlay shows the viewer that this is a horror movie. The use of getting the girls to do things in sync creates the idea that they have been possessed which adds to the scary atmosphere and helps to create fear in the audience. 

Representation of Gender in Adverts

There are Six codes and conventions of advertising that are commonly used to portray men and women:

1.     Superiority and Domination: men are shown in dominant positions. Women are 

physically portrayed in subordinate poses.

2.     Dismemberment: Parts of the body such as legs, chest, etc. are photographed, rather 

than the full body.

3.     Clowning and Exaggeration: Women are shown in positions that make them look 

contorted or foolish while men appear in positions reflective of thought an intelligence.

4.     Male approval: Males desire and women and desired. Women are shown as

 recipients of male approval.

5.     The voice-over authority: male voices are used as voice-overs in commercials rather

 than females.

6. Irrelevant Sexualisation of women and girls: Women’s bodies are used to sell products 

even if the product has nothing to do with sex.

These codes and conventions affect the messages of the ads and our attitudes about gender. These codes and conventions are expressed through both image and copy.

An example of ways in which women are represented in the media is by the photographs taken by Terry Richardson, who portrays women in a very sexual way:

Our Plan

Once we had been given our coursework groups we worked together to create a flow diagram of what we think we are going to need to do before we can start filming. This gave us an idea of the sort of tasks and experiments we need to carry out in order to create a storyboard and ultimately create our film opening.

1. Research different film openings to get ideas and aid us picking a genre

2. Narrow down favourite two genres

3. Research genres in detail

4. Brainstorm possible plot ideas

5. Re-watch film openings for preferred genre

6. Pick a favourite genre

7. Begin script outline for whole film to narrow down for opening (motifs)

8. Storyboard plan

9. Perform testshots

10. Create a time table plan (filming)

11. Find actors, props and scenery

12. Re-write neat and final story board

This is simply a rough idea of how our schedule should work as we are anticipating that we will come across difficulties that would hinder our progress or force us to change our order. We have only had our preliminary task to go by. therefore we are going by this to base our schedule upon. 

Preliminary Task: Emily and Serena

This is our preliminary task - I don't even teach history.