Monday 14 December 2009

Brainstorm

Today we developed our ideas for the storyboard. After taking pictures for our animatic, we realised that we needed to add a lot more shots to create a scary atmosphere. We brainstormed our ideas, then added them to the storyboard. We now need to re-draw the storyboard to finalise our ideas. Then we need to finish the animatic and use the editing software to see if our trailer in achievable.

Sunday 13 December 2009

Examples Of The Animatic





Animatic Task 1

In our last lesson, we were taking photos for the animatic of our trailer. We now need to complete taking these photos and add each photo to the editing software and make each shot last for the amount of time the shot will last in the finished product, adding in any titles that are needed. By taking pictures and creating an animatic, it will help us to see if we need to add in anymore shots and see if the product flows fluidly.

Wednesday 9 December 2009

Animatic

Now we have completed our storyboard, we have to create an animatic of our trailer. A simple picture of each shot is taken so they can be put into order to see if it is attainable and so we can pre-visualise the motion picture before filming it.

Friday 4 December 2009

28 Days Later Trailer

Dead-ucation

A sixteen year old boy (Peter) gets up for school. His parents have left early and left a note on the fridge saying that they had to leave for a conference at work so he is on his own in the morning. He walks down the stairs with a hoody and MP3 player in both ears. He's eating his breakfast cereal in the kitchen and the radio is playing an emergency broadcast explaining that there is an outbreak of a highly infectious virus which turns people delirious and is highly dangerous and the reader reccomends all listeners to stay indoors and to keep their children from going to school. Peter cannot hear this because of his music. He walks to school unaware of all that has happened. He comes across a disoriented young boy, as he is walking, who is from Peter's school and he has school uniform on and this boy just stares with a pale face and mouth open. He then begins seeing disoriented pupil and teachers in school who seem like they feel threatened by Peter as that start slowly trembling towards him. He sees a few other fellow students who are not infected running through the school gates as they are being chased by several infected individuals. He then meets up with them in the vacant reception in Upper School. These friends consist of Lisa, Henry and Simon who are all in his Year Group. They then realise that all school exits and surrounds by infected individuals. So they form an alliance to fight through the school grounds and get to the towns train station to evacuate. This is a daunting task as nearly 2500 pupils and teachers are abundant in the school grounds.

They are trapped in the school assembly hall and trying to find certain implements to use as weapons to combat the infected as they now know they are dangerous and seeking to kill. Steel chairs are used to fight off the ever growing foes in the Hall scene. As they then break out of the hall, they run for the sports field to hide in the tall trees. They run past the sports equipment shed, which is open and grab some hockey sticks to use as weapons. They then run across the field, bringing down each enemy as they pass until they reach the trees. They use this time to carefully devise a plan to escape the school. They loose Henry and Simon to the infected so Peter and Lisa escape the town and eventually get to the train but their is a twist at the end as we find out that Lisa is infected after suffering a minor bite to one of the infected earlier on in the film. The film ends here. So there will be a sequal.

Thursday 3 December 2009

28 Days Later

28 Days Later - Textual Analysis

28 Days Later is a Horror film. The audience are able to identify this by the by the digetic and non-digetic sound used immedeatly at the beggining of the trailer. You can hear the sound of an alarm, monkeys and a man screaming. Also the speed of the different shots and the font on the titles makes the film feel tense. It targets the audience by showing blood and gore and showing the most exciting clips from the film. It shows the main victim and the monsters. The film trailer lasts 1 minute and 58 seconds and has about 110 shots used. A lot of fade to blacks are used in the transitions between each shot. The digetic sound in the trailer shows the fear and tension in the characters voices. You hear them talking about an infection and it being in the blood which makes you understand the plot better.

The non-digetic sound is lots of tense music, sirens, glass smashing. This creates an uneasiness to the viewer. The trailer creates a code of enigma because it makes the audience want to find out whether the male character survives and whether the disease disapears or not. The titles in this trailer explain what has been going on. It says 'Day 3 Infection' 'Day 8 Epademic' so we know what has been happening up until the 28th day.

In the middle of the trailer, a title with the directors name and what films he has directed before. The mise-en-scene in the trailer shows that the male character is alone in desolate London. Everything else looks dark and dingy with blood and gore everywhere. The trailer is successful in targeting an audience who like horror, but it targets a specific audience who prefer zombies, blood and gore. There are many elements in the movie that create an intimidating atmosphere. These are the different camera angles, special makeup and costumes to build an intense environment.

Codes And Conventions Of 28 Days Later

Blood
Death
Killing
Victims
Monsters
Evil
Gore
Violence

Jeepers Creepers

Tuesday 1 December 2009

Jeepers Creepers - Textual Analysis

The genre of the film is a Horror. The audience are able to identify this through the eerie music and the representation of the characters e.g the monster/predator. The mise-en-scene creates horror. The first shot establishes that two characters (male and female) are isolated "In the middle of nowhere". This is shown by a car driving on a road with the youngsters in it and the next shot is text. The monster is established by carrying bodies wrapped in sheets but his identity is concealed. It makes him look like a psycho path killer. The iconography of the setting shows religious connotations (the church and cross). This is where his home is and where he hides the dead bodies. This shows he is clever and has a plan.

The film trailer lasts 1 minute 24 seconds and has a total of 31 shots. The transitions used in the trailer are mainly fade to blacks to establish the different sections of the film. The teaser trailer does not use much digetic sound. Only the sound of the female character screaming is used to create tension. The non-digetic sound is different types of eerie music which sets the mood in the film. We realise the male and female are brother and sister and they are the victims and the fictional character is out to get them because they have something it wants. The monster is reffered to as 'It'which shows it has no gender.

The teaser trailer is in a linear structure. The film studio selects the most intriguing parts which creates interest to the audience and shows the basis of the film. The trailer is successful in targeting an audience who like horror because it gives you an adrenalin rush watching it, your heart rate raises and also makes you jump. The trailer uses text to communicate with the audience to outline what is going on. The text moves which makes the audience feel unsettled.

High angle shots are commonly used in horror film trailers to make the victims look vunerable. Also there are establishing shots to set the scene and close ups to show the fear on the characters faces. The trailer shows when equilibrium is disrupted when the female drops the males down the pipe.

Codes And Conventions Of A Horror Teaser Trailer:

Representation Of A Monster/Something Evil
It Has Victims
Digetic Sound
Non-Digetic Sound
Narrative Structure
Linear Structure
Transitions - Fade To Black

Film trailers are an effective promotional device for films because it helps boost your anticipation to see the film. They normally showed the best bits of the film in the trailer, which makes the audience engrossed in the trailer and then they crave to know what will happen in the overall film plot.

Monday 30 November 2009

Comparing To The Original

Our version of the scene compares favourably to the original clip of 'What Lies Beneath'. The camera shots and angles, the costumes (dressing gown) and the setting (bathroom) were as simular as we could get to the original.

When trying to recreate a scene from an existing film, you pick up qualities the film maker has used. This is helpful as it has been created by professionals who are creating films daily. It gives you a head start in your real production, as you pick up different ideas from using the camera and you become more familiar with the equipment, lighting, props, comstume and also helps gain experience by editing the film you have created.

Our version could have been improved by the sound in different shots of the scene. The problem was the digetic sound, as we could only run a bath tap when there was no one in it because of health and safety. Between different shots, the sound varied when we had to consider the regulatons, but we could not do anything about this.

Friday 27 November 2009

Preliminary Task

Planning Stage

In the planning stage of the preliminary task, firstly as a group we had to discuss which film we wanted to base our task on. We decided to base it on a horror film which we had all seen before, so we chose 'What Lies Beneath'. We had to decide which part of the film we were going to re-create then plan a story board to work out the number of shots used in that particular scene. We put all of our ideas together to remember the scene as graphically as we could, made notes on each of the shots of what angles were used, the length of the shot and whether there was any text. After we decided the scene of the film, we had to find a location for the filming as it was the scene with a bathroom involved. I had to take a release form home and have permission off my parents as we used a bathroom in my house.

Production Stage

During the production stage, the group had to work out which roles they wanted to take. We had 2 actors (Abee and Sam), then the rest of our group (Tessa, Georgia and I) took it in turns to film different shots and use the clapper board. We discussed what position the camera would be in, how long the shot would be and how many takes we needed of each shot to see if each shot was good enough. Each of our actors had to wear similar clothing to the ones in the film to make it as similar as possible to the costumes in the film. First of all, the lighting was too bright in the bathroom because the sun was beaming through the window, so we covered it with a towel to dim the brightness. In each of the shots, the digetic sound varies as we could not run water in the bath with the actor in it because of a health and safety regulation.

Post-Production Stage

In the post-production stage, we loaded the footage onto the computer and used some computer editing software to create our scene of the film. We looked at each of the takes (shots) and chose which one we thought was best to be used. The clapper boards we used that we used in the production helped in this stage as it allowed us to put the scenes in order without hassle which left us to put the shots in the right order to get the extract right. We decided not to add any non-digetic sound in the editing process as we didn't want it to get in the way of the speech, because it was difficult to hear with the water running in one of the shots.


During the process of these three stages, I was responsible for certain tasks. I drew the story board in the first stage and filmed in the second stage.

Monday 23 November 2009

This is my first post for my A2 Portfolio Blog.