Harveys

Just filmed at harveys house today got some ok footage, just need to put it all together and give in our first draft. Unfortunately there was a video diary but the clips are taking so long to upload!!! 

Schedule and planning

Here is our media schedule plan for the next week. As you can see were planning on filming at harveys for the second part of our opening sequence and gabbys house for the first part and we are hoping to film harveys on monday morning and gabbys thursday night!

Health and Safety

Here is our health and safety sheet. Obviously when filming we needed to take into consideration of health and safety, because we are thinking of filming in two houses Harveys and Gabbys (the girl we have just got to star in our film)! it is not a very dangerous surrounding. The only really dangerous part would be when Gabby would have to handle a knife.

Storyboards for main idea

Here are our initial storyboards for our main filming. The general idea would be girl at home physco doing lots of weird things because a boy then we see the boy receive a text go out and whilst going somewhere gets jumped down an ally!! 

Costumes Idea's

Here are some of my drawings of what we believe gabby should be wearing for her scene which will now be film at her house, we also took into consideration her make-up!!!

Target Audience

As a group we decided that our film would come under the category crime thriller. we now had to decide on the target audience for the film, after looking at some website's we realised that there is hardly any crime thriller's that are PG and only some that rated 15, when you think about it it makes sense because a thriller needs suspense and crime films are not intended for children. Looking at our first draft we would of rated this film an 18 because of the violence towards the end and the shots of a dead body but after we got our first draft back and made the decisions to change the second part of the film we have decided that a 15 would be suitable rating for this film.

Obviously because the film is a 15 we have targeted the ages 15-30 when producing the film, with a predicted 70:30 male to female ratio watching the film.

similar target audience as our film:

Preliminary task evaluation and final video

After 1 hour planning, about 30 minutes filming and a good few hours editing we ended up with quite a good piece of work!

We decided to film in our school's english corridor, as it was convenient at the time and all we needed was a free classroom, as i said before this took us about 30 minutes and we were surprisingly very efficient when filming.

We then went back to the classroom and uploaded the footage onto our apple mac's which are provided by the school. We then was introduced to the software Final cut express by our teacher Mr. Titheridge. We used final cut for lots of things such as cutting clips, adding transactions between clips, importing music from garageband and importing credits from livetype. I must admit, originally we needed alot of help from our teacher as the software is quite complex but after a couple of lessons we were able to finish our task.

Overall our task was alot easier than we first imagined although we did struggle with the editing part of the task quite alot but eventually we ended up with a solid piece of work. I believe we worked well as a group for the first time and our final piece shows we understood and were able to execute effective continuity editing. The task also helped us alot for our main project as we learnt different transactions and the "ins and outs" of Garageband, Final Cut Express and Livetype.

3rd Opening sequence analysis - Herm and Pro Codes

Usual Suspects

The usual suspects (1995) is a crime thriller directed by Bryan Singer. Straight away in the first 20 seconds of the film we see a proairetic code as the man sets alight a piece of paper, we keep cutting to barrels which are leaking petrol and we instantly think there is going to be an explosion. So the man then throw's the paper onto the floor and we wait for the fire and petrol to meet, as the fire follows a line to the barrels a mysteries  man comes along and piss's over the flame to stop it reaching the barrels. So forty seconds in and we have already loads of hermeneutic codes, the first being where are they? Who is the man in the coat? Who is the man on the floor? What are they doing? Why are they there? Do they have an connection?

As the man in the coat walk downstairs toward the other man we see loads of dead bodies all over the ship. He then starts to talk to the man on the floor, the man on the floor is not surprised at who he is looking at and they obviously know each other. The man in the coat then pulls out a gun and kills the man. We then ask ourselves why is everyone dead? How do they know each other and why did he kill him? 

We they get a serious of cuts of the boat from the outside, there is no one to be seen, Where is everyone? then we see the man in the coat leaving the boat as he is walking away we cut to a barrel and petrol is pouring out of it. then we see him flick a cigarette onto the floor (another proairetic code) and we then see the man walk off as the oat goes up in flames!

2nd Opening Sequence Analysis

Pulp Fiction

Straight away in the first 20 seconds of the film the definition of pulp is shown in white writing on a black background. It says 1. A soft, moist, shapeless mass of matter 2. A magazine or book containing lurid subject matter and being characteristic printed on rough, unfinished paper. I believe this is here to get the viewer already asking questions why it’s there and how important is this definition to the story of the film. Also Tarintino has probably shown the actual definition the viewer can compare it to the way he portrays it in the film.

The story then moves onto the first scene as we see a coupe in a diner just after they have finished what seems to be breakfast. The first word’s that comes from one of their mouth’s is “forget it, it’s too risky, I’m through with doing that s**t”. This connotes that this is no ordinary couple and they could be a bit dodgy. The scene continues for about a minute as the couple argue about giving up. All the audience knows at this moment of time is that they are talking about some kind of criminal activity. Next we see a shot reverse shot as a worker ask the couple if they would like some more coffee, then the women replies in a nice manner, this makes the audience stop and think and ask the question, are these really bad people? As soon as the waiter leaves the man starts talking about how risky certain places are to rob, this instantly answers our question before hand. The man then goes on about how diners would be the perfect place to rob and how they would catch everyone with their “pants down”. The women agrees and they start to kiss across the table and suddenly get out two magnums hand guns from under the table step out from the side the side and point their guns at people shouting “everybody be cool, this is a robbery”. We then cut to a long shot with couple pointing their guns, the frame then freezes and the words Miramax films presents comes on the page and a fast, loud electric guitar starts being played in the background accompanied by a set of drums also being played in a fast tempo.

The opening five minutes of pulp fiction focuses on two characters which are believed to be a couple of armed robbers. After watching the opening you would also believe that these characters are the main characters in the film but if you watch on this in fact is not the case. Even through in the opening we are not introduced to the main characters Quentin Tarintino does set the scene and tells us the genre of the film very well and leaves the audience thinking who are the characters and what relevance do they have in the film.

Opening sequence analysis

The Godfather

I decide to choose the godfather as the film I am watching, as it is the same type of genre as my initial idea for the coursework.

The film starts with the credits coming up slowly as we see the word godfather across the screen with blood dripping down it. The film then shows a establishing shot of a big house where a wedding is taking place. There is a slow intense non-diegetic sound being played. We then see the bride and groom. The characters are Michael corleone and his wife; Michael is the son of Don Vito corleone the head of the family. Michael is seen as a man who has settled down and looks quite straight and not a crook.

Then film then cuts from and in the garden where everyone is partying to inside the house in a room where Luca Brasi and another are talking to don corleone. The don is position and the head of the room and in the centre of the screen this signify the don’s importance. Luca Brasi is shown as a brute as he is quite slow and the don asks him for a favour in going undercover against another family in New York. Luca accepts instantly which shows his respect for the don and also shows the power of the don. The film then cuts to the front gates of the compound in which the family lives there is a shot which show the whole house and shows the wealth in which the family has. As the people leave we see them drive of in old-fashioned cars that tells us that the film is based a while ago.

The Films then cuts to the Sonny corleone and Vito having a meeting with a local narcotics dealer. This now tells us that the families’ wealth is coming from illegal sources. The conversation carry’s on as the two parties haggle for prices and we see that Vito doesn’t accept the dealer’s others and is annoyed that the man has “mucked” him around. The dealer then leaves as the family talks about narcotics being a business in which they will make money. Sonny the older of the sons starts to raise his voice to the father as he insists’s on investing in the market. We then get a close –up of the don’s face a he turns to face sonny as sonny suddenly starts to shut up. This shows the don dominance amongst the family and he has the final say and that’s that.
It is quite surprising that as the godfather is the same genre a crime thriller as my initial idea it is so different the opening scene to the film has no real scene of a thriller, yes there is some crime in the narcotics and the mysteries vast in wealth but the opening scenes are quite slow.

This is a quick sideshow of the film with the theme tune which is played right at the beginning of the film!

Initial Ideas

Straight away as a group we decided to pick the genre crime thriller for our open 2 minutes. We decided that the genre was interesting and would be fun to create.

Our film starts with a boy watching TV or playing xbox in his house then goes down stairs and shouts to his mum thats he is going round his friends house.

Then the camera follow the boy down the road and down an alley way. The camera stops at the beginning of the alley way and watches the boy walk away, as the boy walks away he either dissolves into the darkside or get taken at the end (haven't decided yet).

Next we cut to a shot of his friend trying to call him because he is late.

Then straight after we get a shot of the boys phone ringing on the floor in the dark.

After there is a dissolve beetween the shots to a women sitting in her front room reading the newspaper and it says have you seen this boy and a picture of the boy.

Finally the women looks to her right and we get a point of view shot of the boy tied up in the corner of the room.

Introduction

Hi, my name is Michael Curtis and i am currently 16 years old and studying at The Windsor Boys' School in Berkshire. I have created this blog to show my development in creating my AS media coursework. My final coursework task is to create an opening two minutes of a film. I am working along side Harvey Muddyman to acheive this target!