Exploring Documentary's : My Five Minutes of Fame...

I have recently been in a TV documentary for a professional production team (the show will be aired on channel five so I say it was my five minutes of fame), and it gave me real taster into the professional side of media. Firstly it helped me develop my skill of different shot's and heights used when creating a documentary. I learnt that even in professional TV many shots have to be repeated again and again to get it right (no one is perfect at media). It also showed me "if you had the same budget as the professional", the different lighting and sound equipment you could use when creating the opening two minutes. Not only did it give me an insight into the technical side of media, it also made me think a lot more about documentaries, I am keen to explore this genre further and has helped me come up with an aim of developing a powerful, impacting, emotional opening two minutes for my foundation production. However I have made a mind-map of all the possible ideas that I could do for my production. The mind-map explores different genre's, mise-en-scene and the narratives. As I have always said you not only need a plan A and B, but also a plan C, D and F!

Film Openings : Existing AS Students...

To anable us to create the best foundation project, we must as well as analysing professional work, review past existing AS level projects. We reviewed four different two minute opening clips (Broken, Basis and Foundation, The Abudction and Last Chance), who were in the same situation as we shall be (around the same budget and equimpent). We looked for the pluses and minuses, therefore gathering ideas of what worked and what didnt. Unfortuently in my own opionion I found alot more minuses than pluses, and more gatered ideas of what not to do. However like all films there are always small areas which show protential, even if the majority does not. We looked at five different aspects to judge the clips on (orginality, creativity, perfromances, professionalism and intrique). Here are two of the example AS courseworks, with the positives and negaitives to each film (unfortuantly the negative very much out way the positives).

Broken - Tom Goodwin

For the first 40 seconds of this opening I think works quite well. The character being hunched over and in darkness, allowed the audience to build a profile of an unhappy character. The tears, and picture uses forshadowing, allowing the audience to ask questions of what happened to the girl? why did it happen? However after the frist 40 seconds, the promising if a a little obvious story starts to grately diterate. Firstly the character at 2:15 seconds is said to be a husband with children and a wife, however the actually character looks about 16.  The middle is just a typical fight, where the audience gets the impression that the group just wanted to try some stage combat, rather than wanting to create an opening. All the aspects which are trying to build the suspence in the first 40 seconds, is ruined as we are told pretty much the whole story in the opening, which stops the audience wanting to watch on to answe their questions as they have already be answered. The use, or more like lack of use of the tri-pod for the camera, means that rather than creating the action packed chase the audienced is just thinking that the filming is very terriable and shakey (espeically at 1:20 seconds). My overall review of this film, is that even though it does have areas of promise, the use of bad camera work, and lack of suspence creates a rather cheap looking typical gangstar teenage replicar film.

The Abduction - Andrew Fisher

To start with this film opening is very professional, bringing excitment as a promising opening. I espeically loved the shot of the river, as its using a different location (especially compared to Basis and Foundation and Broken which just used their houses). The off black and white colour scheme adds another level of drama. There is a range of angles used on the camera which works well. The use of the older man for the police officer, is another promising aspect, however from there the characters are very much a disappointed, as the mass of press are more just 5 teenagers bunking off school with their little cameras. Out of all the examples coursework, this was the most promising, and the fact it had more than just one positive was always a good sign! From this I took the idea of how much better it looks using different age characters, and a different location (they used a city location) can be very effective.



Film Openings : Professional Openings...

For our final foundation production we have the task of creating the opening two minutes of a film. We must come up with an overall film idea and from there decide how much we feel we want to inform the audience within the opening, think about the shots we want to include, the music, how many characters if any at all, whether we want non-digentic or digentic sound, whether we want any dialogue, how many opening titles we need to include. Therefore I have been researching professional film openings to start getting some ideas together of what I would maybe want to include in my opening.

Juno- Jason Reitman

The first opening I decided to focus on was "Juno" a 2007 romantic comedy directed by Jason Reitman. The reason why I focused on this opening was because of how unique it is. I think it is firstly very effective how it takes real life footage and changed to the effect of a comic within a split second and then once the opening titling had ended changes back to real life footage. Another thing that really attracted me is how simple each aspect of the opening is, yet it the creation of it was very in-depth. I also thought that the fact that the images "drawn" behind the main character were pre-set up for shots that are used within the film, making me think it would look effective to use a setting for my opening that I go back to within the film at least once. In terms of sound, again it is a simplistic use where one song is used throughout, this woks really well for this opening as it does not take the focus away from the comic opening, however I think for my opening in order to keep the audience interested I am going to use dialogue as well as non-digentic sound. I have taken from viewing this opening that simple can be very effective, not to over complicate my opening but to focus on a key location or character for my opening.

Se7en - David Fincher

Another opening I have decided to focus of is "Se7en" a 1995 crime thriller directed by David Fincher. Firstly the first opening shot of the book, I thought was really effective how a simple book is the main object of this opening, and all is focused around this book. I thought that the extreme close up shots that are used, are also very effective and in my opening I would like to include a few extreme close up shots, I also would like to use a prop such as Se7en uses the book, through my opening which I keep referring back to, I am thinking maybe a case file if I go down the path of a detective/crime/thriller genre. I also chose to focus on this opening because of the title sequence and how effective the font is, before I had not thought that even the font of the titles can create an effect, I am therefore going to make sure that for my opening I ensure that I have focused on each aspect not just the actual content but also the font style and colour. This is a unique opening as it does not involve a character (apart from their hands) but uses objects to inform the audience and attract them to carry on watching the film. Overall I think that this is a very effective opening, again it is not an over complicated opening just very effective, as the audience it makes me want to carry on watching the film if only just to find out who is the character behind the hands!

The First Filming Task : Reconstructing the Opening of an Existing Film...

Background information to the film
We were given the task of reconstructing the two minute opening of 'The Hangover' shot for shot. The hangover is a 2009 American comedy film, it was directed by Todd Phillips. The basic plot to the hangover is that it follows three characters (Phil, Stu and Alan) who wake in Las Vegas, with no memory of the night before and the groom to be (Doug), missing who is unfortunately due to get married to Tracy the next day. They must work out what happened the night before, where Doug is and how to get him to the wedding on time. The opening two minutes is a flash forward of the phone call between Phil and Tracy where he explains that Doug is missing, the phone call is made five hours before they are due to get married, the rest of the film then is set in the past showing the audience what actually happened at the bachelor party.

Planning
For this task we were given the deadline of the 20th October, we were told to work in groups of seven. In my group there is me (obviously), Georgie, Caitlin, Lilly, Megan, Beatrice and Lizzie. We first of all watched the opening a few times through, to make sure we all understood the opening. We then made a list of the different scenes, characters, props and settings which we would need or could be options to use for the opening :
- Costume : Sunglasses, wedding/brides made dresses, dressing gown (Tracy), black shirt (Phil)
- Props : Wedding cake (Pauline), van, old car, flowers
- Setting : car scene = field with old car, hotel = Guisbrough hall, park farm hotel
- Actors : Phil = Alex, Dad = Dave, Tracy, Bridesmaid, extras for car scene = Caitlin and Alice, Mum
We decided that rather than each having a certain job we would all help each other, as the task was given to complete in a group we wanted to show our skills of working with each other. However to be able to make sure we had all we needed for filming we each took things to sort out for each scene. I chose to find locations for our shoots. For one of the scenes it is a hotel, and we all thought it was important to try to get a hotel as our setting to make it look as much like 'The Hangover' as possible. For this I contacted the Park Farm Hotel, and thankfully they were very kind and let us use one of their rooms and the outside of it for our shots. Using my connections (my mums best friend!) who creates wedding cakes, we were able to find a location and a cake for the cake shot. For the car scene, we decided to use Georgie's uncles farm and a very rusty old car. So with the settings sorted we were able to schedule when we would shot. We decided that on Sunday 9th October me,Georgie and Caitlin would do the care scene. Then on Sunday 16th October we would all film at the Park Farm Hotel.

Sunday 9th October

Me, Caitlin, Georgie and Alex (our actor for Phil, which only included a little bribing to get him to act). headed down in the typical cold English weather (luckily not raining though, however we had come with an umbrella ready), to the farm yard location (the best one could do to replicate the desert in America). Caitlin also took on the role of make-up artists, creating a very realistic cut on Alex to match Phil's cut (there is no limit to how far a pen can go). Before the shooting Alex had been prepped on his words, and Caitlin had also done some stills of the shots so that we can establish the different angles we needed. We all then watched the opening again (yes we are all the stage where we are seeing the opening two minutes in our sleep), this was to help as match the scene shot for shot. We did a practice run through before the actual filming to make sure everyone was happy with what we were doing. We then decided as there are two different angles of Phil, a wide close up with only the profile of Phil and Full shot, where Phil was in the shot along with car and two characters one propped against the car and one on the bonnet (yes I ended up the one having to climb up on the car). We decided we would film the whole scene in both angles, and then tomorrow (Monday) we are going to edit the two, and interlink them to allow us to replicate the use of two different heights.

Wednesday 12th October

Today, it was my job to film the cake part (which also included a free cup of tea after filming). I went along loaded down with the camera, trip-pod and my laptop to Pauline's kitchen, where a freshly iced (it had been iced about half an hour before I had arrived) cake was waiting to be filmed. After a bit of a struggle in working how to set up the tri (and a little help from my dad), the filming commenced (luckily I was just taking the clip rather than sound as it was rather difficult to make my dad, Pauline and her husband Peter to be quiet during filming!) I took a range of clips, so that on Friday we can all decide as a group which one we think is the best. It was my first time at filming, and I enjoyed it a lot and apart from one problem with the tri (where a dad always comes in handy to help) I did it all by myself, and learnt to feel more confident using the video camera. On Friday we shall carry on editing the scene's of the farmyard which we started today, and also add in the cake scene. We are then going to finish off our filming on Sunday at Park Farm (which I must say shall be nicer to be in a warm hotel room than the cold weather and mud like last weeks filming!)

Sunday 16th October

All seven of us, plus one very kind friend who was willing to be a bride and two very patient lovely parents (who we did thank with a box of chocolate at the end of the shoot) headed down to Park Farm for our final day of shooting (Yay we shall have our Sunday afternoons back!). The poor receptionist looked slightly startled when we all walked into the entrance lobby loaded down with dresses, cameras, a manikin and lots of bags (I had come prepared with a print screen of the confirmation email to make sure our journey was not wasted!) but all went smoothly and we were shown to a very posh room, with the biggest bed and most amazing bathroom, after about five minutes of just staring at the room in amazement (and the classic speech from the receptionist of making sure when we finished it was exactly the same) we got busy. Our shoot started with a shot of the brides dress and bridesmaids dresses, we then did the vans scene as we were using Beatrice's dad's van (and he was waiting very patiently outside the hotel for us to do the shoot we wanted to get it done as soon as possible). Lizzie, Beatrice, Megan and Georgie filmed the van scene, so whilst they were busy me, Caitlin and Lilly blocked out the next scene. Then, came the repetitive filming of doing the audio again and again at different angles (this was helped by intervals of wine gums, chocolate biscuits and homemade Swiss roll that Georgie provided!). We had a few problems to overcome with the layout of the room as however impressive the bed was, it was in the middle of the room which left not much space for the chairs and sofa layout. We managed to keep to a schedule and by 4:30 we were transforming the room back from a scene set into a hotel room. As the room was on the second floor it was going to be tricky to do the shot of the mother from outside looking through a window at her (non of us had the skill of flying with a camera!), so we had to do the shot of the mother using the restaurant and Caitlin stood outside the window looking in at the mother (a friend who is waitress there gave us permission!)

Friday 21st October
Today is d day, the big screening! The last minute rushes of finishing it all off, getting all the shots, the moment when you find out you need to re-do some editing all over again, the relief when you can finally press the export button - yes we have had the classic last day emotions! We had managed to get most of the shots of the hotel scene's on Sunday however we had not managed to find a room to do the chair scenes, so today Megan and Lizzie used there free time to shoot the chair scenes, with a very lovely Evie willing to help out. We were then able to say we had all the footage which was a nice feeling. It was then the task of editing, editing, a bit more editing and then the final export!

Editing, Editing, Editing

We decided to make two cuts of the film opening, splitting into two groups. Me, Georgie, Caitlin and Beatrice in one, and Medan, Lizzie and Lilly in the other. We have been using our lessons to do the editing in, on Fridays lesson we had the help of James (the guy who is God when it comes to the editing programme) he showed us how to blur the background and put Phil (Alex) in focus when they were the same frame, it was a tricky as he was moving during the shot so we had to chose key moments when to re-focus him but it helped us develop a new skill with editing. Today's lesson (Monday 17th October) we have been putting all the shots together, and it has started to resemble the opening, we have had to overcome a problem with the background music being louder than the voicemail speaking, and also trying to brighten the shots of the brides dress as the lightening wasn't very good in the hotel room. In toady's lesson we finished off the editing and came across a rather big problem - the shot which we had spent ages editing on the after-effects audio had developed an echo, therefore we had the dilemma of whether to keep the after-effect cut and have a rather weird audio or use the original cut, we decided to use the original cut as we decided that the audio was an important part, we had also developed the skill of using the blur tool in the after-effects which we could use of out foundation production and developing skills and ideas for our own production was the aim of the task!

The Screening

Friday 20th October

5th Period - 2pm

'The hangover' opening two minutes (three different annotations)

Popcorn included!

Photography
So the saying goes "the proof is in the pudding", more like for media "the proof is in the image"

Sunday 16th October shoot - Park Farm the location

Sunday 16th October shoot - setting up the camera for the bride's dress shot

Sunday 16th October shoot - Beatrice, Lilly and Me discussing the bride and bride's mother scene

Sunday 16th October shoot - Dave and Caitlin being filmed by Lizzie

Sunday 16th October shoot - All of our group + Vickie our bride! 

Sunday 9th October shoot - Me, Alex, and Caitlin discussing the car scene

Sunday 9th October shoot - Georgie, Me and Caitlin all smiles after a successful afternoon filming

Sunday 9th October shoot - Caitlin's amazing make-up skills on Alex

The final production

We had many giggles whilst watching the screening of our hangover recreations - defiantly made us gel as class, overall even though there was many stresses, Sundays lost i enjoyed the planning, production and edititng. It was good to work with new people, I learnt new skills and talents that I didn't know I had. I can't wait for our foundation production now (I never thought I would say that about a coursework piece)

The Elements of Genre shown through a Video...

We were given the task to in a group of three develop a short film on the topic of genre. In our task description we were told to discuss Mise-en-scene and its elements, the Coan brothers and how they test genre especially with 'Fargo'. This task was given not only to demonstrate our new knowledge into genre but also to allow us to have our first go at editing using the software.
In our film, we took many short sequences which all had to be edited to flow from one to another.
Our editing consisted of :

•  Firstly taking out the extra time this was the pauses after the initial question and the pause at the end of each sequence when they had finished talking
• Then establishing an order for our clips, we tried to listen to the way people answered the questioned and tried to make it flow as well as we could between each different person
• We then looked closely at each frame. The first time we edited it, the frame kept being cropped, this meant many of the faces were cut off. However we have developed our knowledge in the programme and this time, we were able to crop our frame, by allowing us to demonstrate the rule of thirds
• After doing the basic editing we started to explore the more complex editing and the different things you could do with the programme. We added two still images into our film, we developed the skill of embedding the image into a clip, meaning that the film ran a lot more smoothly

Our genre video:

Inspirational Director of a Thriller...

The first director that comes into people's minds when the genre Thriller is mentioned, is of course Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense thrillers. He is an English film maker and director who has helped shape the genre of thriller today. One of his earliest films was 'The Lodger' (1926), this was a silent film. Even his earliest films were suspenseful and gripping. His first sound film was 'Blackmail' (1929). There are a few reasons why Hitchcock is said to be the master of Thriller, the main is his ability to manipulate the audience's fears and desires, he has the skill to take viewers into a state of association with the representation of reality facing the character. In most of his films he tries to add a  taboo or sexually-related theme. Examples = Homosexuality in 'strangers on a train' (1951), obsession in 'Veritgo' (1958) and a twisted Oedipus complex in 'Physco' (1960). The basic outline to his films are placing an innocent victim (usually an average, responsible person) into a strange, life-threatening or terrorizing situation, this is usually due to a case of mistaken identity, misidentification or wrongful accusation. A few examples of the variety of films within the genre of thriller that Hitchcock uses are Suspense Thriller = 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' (1933), Spy chase/Romantic thriller = 'The 39 Steps' (1935) and Mystery = 'The Lady Who Vanishes' (1938)