Simple Short Film using various different shots
This is a short and simple film that myself and a small team created about a person who has no money, but whilst sitting on a park bench, a £10 note blows through the wind and lands by his feet. Me and two other students recorded all the footage and then edited them individually using Adobe Premiere Pro. The video to the left in particular is my own edit.
Shot -Types used
Low-Angle Medium Close-Up
Extreme Close-Up
High-Angle Over the Shoulder
Extreme Long Shot
Long Shot
Close-Up
Sound
Failed Sounds
When my group and I went out to record the sound for the short film, we weren't able to get all the sound that we wanted. The track above has examples of the unusable sounds that we had recorded. In there, we tried to record the sounds of someone walking outside, but unfortunately the wind was just way to strong and we could hardly hear the footsteps over the wind. We also tried to record the same footsteps indoors outside of the wind, but it sounded a bit too echoey due to the corridors. Next time we try to record sound for the film, we will have to plan it for a day with better weather conditions much like when we filmed it.
Shutter Speed
Shutter speed, also called exposure time, is the speed of the shutter. If the shutter is faster, the image will be less blurred and will have a darker image. If the shutter speed is slower, it will capture images with a lot of blur and the image will be brighter.
White Balance
White balance is adjusting the colours so that the image will look more natural. There is a big difference between outdoor light and indoor tungsten light.
Aperture
Simply put, aperture is a hole within a lens, through which light travels into the camera body. The larger the aperture, the more light that is let in. In photography, aperture is expressed in f-numbers (for example f/5.6). These f-numbers, that are also known as "f-stops" are a way of describing the size of the aperture, or how open or closed the aperture is. A smaller f-stop means a larger aperture, while a larger f-stop means a smaller aperture. Large numbers represent larger values, but not in this case. For example, f/1.4 is larger than f/2.0 and much larger than f/8.0. One important thing to remember here, the size of the aperture has a direct affect on the depth of field.
Foley Sound
This week, I had a lesson about 'Foley Sound', Foley sound is when the original sound is replaced with an artificial sound which is created to get a better sound to be replaced in the edit and is used a lot in film and TV. Foley sound can be done really badly, and will not sound natural and can be jarring for the audience as they have certain expectations to how certain things sound like, but when it is done professionally, you shouldn't be able to recognise that it is not the original sound of the footage.
​I partnered up with a few classmates and formed a small film group and we was tasked to go out and create our own Foley sound to place over the short film we created earlier last week(see above). Unfortunately, we could not properly match the ambient sounds to our footage and it just looked unrealistic and kind of jarring. The main problem for us was the wind was disrupting our boom mic causing our recordings to be unlistenable. We will go back and try again when the weather changes and the wind isn't as strong, hopefully making our Foley sound more realistic.
(Below is a video about Foley sound that was shown to us in class)
Foley Sound Fight Sequence
(Before I start talking about this small project, I just want to say that the footage to the left belongs to my partner, my footage of the project was unfortunately lost as there were problems with the mac where all of my footage and edit was stored and as it was getting sorted out by the IT technician, I believe the entire system on the mac was overhauled and I lost my footage, including other non related projects. Do note that my edit was almost identical to the one on the left, with the exception of different font used for the text and different sounds as we recorded a variety of different sounds for this.)
I was given a tasked to team up with 2 others to make a short scene and remove all of the original sound and create my own Foley sound. We decided to make a small fight scene as we fought it'll be good to record our own sounds for a fight scene, so we attempted to make our own sound using our voices for the grunts, and objects we had around us for the punches and running etc.
I feel that this task, besides my issues with the mac, went well(at least for the actual production of the video and sound) for our first time using Foley sound. If I was to do this task again, firstly I would make sure to save both my recordings and the edit into a USB stick and take it back home to save on my personal laptop so I will not have the same trouble, I would also have a better variety of sounds as only a select few which kind of worked for our footage, but despite all of my issues, this task went really well.
Trainspotting targets people who like gritty drama films, however, and the target audience would be people aged 18+ the film give a very dark and surreal look into the lives of drug addicts and psychos in a comedic way. I don't believe that this is a comedy film however, as the film uses comedy in some dark scenes to show the audience that these things that the characters have to go through are normal for them and adds to the surrealness of these situations. It would also target people who have read the original book 'Trainspotting' by Irvine Welsh.
As this film's target audience is older people, director Danny Boyle will have much more freedom to do what he want without having to stick to the confines of censorship which I believe is what made this film to be so acclaimed and is among my personal favourite film of all time. However having such a small target audience in comparison to films like Star Wars or The Lord of The Rings, the film would naturally not make as much money as them despite being (in my opinion) a better film.
I think the main target audience would be those who haven't read the book as the film takes the story in a different direction and changes a few key moments from the book as some scenes wouldn't translate well from book to film so they focused on the general 18+ audience who are into dramatic films. As for the people who have read the book beforehand, they would go and watch the film anyway(assuming they are fans of the book) to see the story unfold in a different and unique way onto film, especially one which was directed by Danny Boyle who at the time wasn't big worldwide but he was an acclaimed director within the UK.
26th - 30th September
This week, myself and a colleague were tasked to create a video which should sort of promote London to those within the age group of 18 - 23 year olds. On Wednesday, we filmed in many locations such as Southside shopping centre in Wandsworth, Vauxhall, and a few areas in Waterloo. The weather in Wandsworth wasn't that good, but as soon as we got into Central London, the weather brightened up and the lighting was ideal for filming and we got some very good shots. On Thursday, we went into Camden and took more and some even better shots there, so now my partner and myself are considering to just have all the Camden footage and make our video about just Camden.
London/Camden 18 - 23
Forest of Blood (Trailer)
Shot List
Myself and a colleague have been tasked to create a video that sells London to a specific age demographic. We was originally tasked to do the video for people of ages 15 – 20, but I thought it would be best if I could change this to 18 – 23 year olds as there are vast differences between what a 15 year old is interested in to what a 20 year old is interested in. My colleague and I felt that there would be a lot of things to cover, so we chose to do our video like a survival guide for students living in London but don't want to spend too much money. In the video, we will try to explain to our target audience where and how to find good food, travel, landmarks and things to do in there spare time without sending too much money as most people in our target audience aren't working full time yet and will not have as much money as the average person. I did both primary and secondary research about what young adults like to do in London and took notes on where and what we want to film. Then we questioned our other classmates about what like to do in London and where they tend to go when they are short on money as most of us are part of this demographic. At first, I thought that we will have to much to do, but after doing our research and finding out where to go and the best time of day to go, I feel like I have a much more linear vision of what we are going to be doing and I believe we will be able to manage. On the first day on filming however, my teammate was not able to help me so I had to go filming with another group. But this other group was tasked to film for a different demographic from mine, and I couldn't get many shots that correlate to my demographic.
Audience
Reading 2013 Trailer
The Reading Festival Promo is distinctively aimed at young people who fit my demographic. The trailer is full of energetic dance music and the flashy lights is something many young people look for in a festival. It uses loud dubstep music and some flashy light leak overlay over a compilation/montage of people dancing and just having a good time. It also indirectly encourages alcohol consumption, so this definitely fits with my target audience of 18 – 23 as you'd have to be 18 or over to drink alcohol.
Nike Camouflage Clothing Ad Campaign
This can be targeted to 10 – 25 year olds, therefore fitting into my tasked demographic. This will attract people who are into sports as these clothes are made to be comfortable, and there are also a lot of hip hop idols who wear these clothes and many of there fans may be inclined to by these clothes because of that. Having football celebs such as Ronaldo and Neymar as some of the main models will also draw their fans, or football fans in general, to this.
We continued our work on the London project the week after. Firstly, me and my teammate went filming in a park in Wandsworth, and then alongside the Thames in Central London. In Wandsworth, the weather wasn't really ideal for filming as there was a bit of rain, but by the time we got to Central, the weather cleared up and the sun was piercing through the clouds making the weather very ideal for filming. The day after, we went to film in Camden for the market place as it is known to have some very good deals for all types of clothing, food and merchandise, however it was a rainy day which made the footage bleak compared to the other shots that we took the day before, but this is London and has notoriously unpredictable, mostly gloomy, weather. We filmed for about half a day and then packed up. The day after, I was checking the footage that we got in Central London and Wandsworth and I wasn't really satisfied with the footage that we were able to get. We were able to get some very nice shots, but it didn't really fit with our narrative and the whole theme of the video I was creating, therefore, with the help of my partner, I came up with another theme. As we got a lot of good footage in Camden, I decided it would be best to just do the video about selling Camden to 18 – 23 year olds. With this new idea in mind, I felt more comfortable editing our footage together centralizing around Camden. I edited the footage into a 2 min 20 sec video. I used "One Step Beyond" by 'Madness' for the first background music which worked well with the fast paced editing and the mise en scene, and I used the instrumental of "10 Crack Commandments" by 'The Notorious B.I.G.' for the latter background music to give it a sort of urban hip hop feel to it, and I edited the video together to make it fast paced to suit a younger audience.
Trailer Analysis
Basic Mood Board
I was tasked with creating a trailer with another colleague, and for most of the week we spent our time researching other trailers and planning what we'll do in our own trailer. We then followed our shot list almost exactly when it was time for us to start shooting our trailer and we ended up going to Wimbledon Common to film the majority of our shots. It is a horror movie with a thriller and mystery feel to it. I went very well throughout the filming process as a few hours before we started filming, myself and my partner were very worried about not being able to do a lot of these shots such as the ones around a pond and in deep forested areas whilst still keeping that creepy feel to it, but it turned out that everything went really well and I very happy with what we were able to get. Once we got back to college after filming, we went into a separate room to record the sound for when the main character gets the phone call. We then got everything we recorded and imported it into the computer, I started editing all the footage and sound in Adobe Premiere Pro. I used a small amount of effects but I fought that what I did do was effective and really added to the horror effect I was trying to translate through to the audience.
​
I also created a mood board seen above instead of a storyboard because I felt that a storyboard wouldn't really work too well as it was a just a trailer with no proper linear value, so I thought that a mood board would be the best way to plan it out.
I didn't really model my trailer after any existing film trailers, but I did try to create the same feeling of trailers to horror movies and try to add certain elements from horror/mysterious based trailers. I watched a few horror trailers, for example Insidious and Cabin in the Woods, and they all seem to follow similar conventions and have similar patterns. There is tense music playing throughout the majority of the trailers until it climaxes towards the end with very intense music and the trailers themselves tend to last between 1 minute to 2 minutes.
​
I used adobe premiere pro for the editing, but I also used after effects for some of the text and titles in my trailer as I wanted to have font with a somewhat stereotypical horror aesthetic to further suggest the genre I'm trying to convey to the audience. If I was to do this again I would make the trailer shorter with quicker shots so that audiences can get into the story but not long enough for them to get everything about it
Genre: Action, Drama, Sci-Fi
​
USP: This is a live-action movie adaptation of the Japanese animated classic "Ghost in the Shell" which was critically acclaimed worldwide, so it will pander to fans of the original movie. It also stars well known Hollywood actor Scarlett Johansson, and also one of Japan's biggest celebs, Takeshi Kitano.
​
The trailer uses shots that have never really been seen in a live action movie before which only seemed possible in animation until now, so the trailer really feels like the movie is bringing the animated classic to life.
Ghost In The Shell
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
​
USP: This is a movie adaptation to the famous Assassin's Creed video game series and is also an original story that fits within the Assassin's Creed video game universe, so this is a must see for Assassin's Creed fans and video gamers in general. The film also stars Michael Fassbender.
​
The trailer starts by showing a clip ripped from the film itself of the main character being plugged into a machine. The editing starts slowpaced and builds speed as it goes on. The trailer also includes dialogue which were used in the games which would be a nod to the fans of the series.
Assassin's Creed
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
​
USP: It's a reboot/reselling of the King Kong story and is set in the same universe as 2014's Godzilla, and also stars household names such as Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, and John Goodman that will attract fans.
​
The trailer starts off with 70's music suggesting it is set in the 70's and shows a meeting military men planning on going to an undiscovered island and dropping bombs to find out how the island is set up using seismic waves, and the whole intro seemed very upbeat, until the helicopter pilot says "Is that a monkey?" and is followed by a shot of a tree being thrown into the helicopter. Then all music and sounds cut off and the tone of the trailer is changed completely. The music changes to a darker and lower tone. The trailer then slowly start building up the plot with the editing speeding up when showing images of Kong, the Island and introduces new monsters and it hits the climax of Samuel L. Jackson's character face of against an angry Kong with very fast paced and intense hard hitting music. The font throughout the trailer is black and grey with a stone texture floating over a very misty and orange tinted forest to suggest that nature is a big part of the film as it is set on a remote island and that Kong and the other creatures are of nature.
Kong: Skull Island
Pre-Production
Above and to the left is a shot list for my London Locations for 18-23 year olds video, I was able to do this after lesson in the library before visiting the locations. I don't think I will follow this shot list as me and my partner will most likely go to these locations and film what we feel will be good when we see an opportunity to film something. My shot list only includes example of key shot that I would want in my video.
During my secondary research, I looked into a few websites about London, I found a website called TimeOut which is a site that shows you things to do in London. Using this site, I was able to find a few places in which I planned to visit to film, one of which was Camden marketplace.
​This site gave myself and my partner many ideas of places in London to visit, however, as we wanted to keep prices low(so that we can relate our film to our target audience) we had to scrap a lot of ideas. But it was helpful as it gave us information about Southbank skate rig, Camden etc, making it ideal for my research.
This is another website which I looked into by the request of another colleague, however I didn't find it to helpful as it did give us a list of many places and things to do in London but they just didn't seem to relate to our target audience for our film.
From this website I found a few places of interest, but I wasn't too sure if they would fit into our film, so I went out on my own to places like the Ritzy in Brixton and the Tate Modern further into London and was able to get a few shots, however, the shots that I took weren't great and it wouldn't fit into my film anyways so I scrapped all the footage after coming back to college and showing to my partner for the project.
London Locations/Camden Film - 18-23
Evaluation
The main theme of this task was to promote London with a certain age group in mind, me and my classmate Noah was given the age group 15-20 but was eventually changed to 18-23 year olds so we had to create our video to promote London to 18-23 year olds.
To develop ideas for this task, myself and Noah asked a few other classmates who're within the age group of 18-23 and asked them questions about what they tend to do when they go into London. We the looked into a trailer for the Reading 2013 Trailer and the Nike Camouflage Clothing Advertisement Campaign.
Overall, I feel this project went well, I think the pre-production went well as we were very organised, however the production didn't go as well as we had hoped and there was a time where I had to go with another group who were tasked with another age group in mind which made it hard for me to film anything on that day and we ended up scrapping the footage, then we shot the main stuff that we were meant to get, however we couldn't get that many good shots but we were able to get some really nice shots in Camden and we ended up only using those shots. I feel we got some really good shots which fit together really well in the final edit.
​If I had the opportunity to do this again, I would focus our shot in Camden therefore having more usable shot to spread out the edit with intro and outro shots and just more good shots in general. I would have also liked to have got a few establishing shots to compliment the edit with a few filler shots. I would also do actual voice over instead of just the text on the screen, but if I did have to use just the text then I would change the colour of the text so it'll stad out more from the background as a few shot made them almost unreadable. If I was to do the pre-production again, I would change the focus to just Camden.
Genre
Genre in film is a category based on the type of film and what elements the film has, and can also be based on the emotional response of an audience. Genres can be used to match the target audience, and the films are usually put into genres because of the genre stereotypes within the film, for example, if a film is made to make the audience scared or have a feeling of unease it would generally be put into the Horror genre, and if a film has a lot of "action" scenes such as explosion, fighting, car chases etc, then it would be put into the Action genre.
Evaluation
Related to all oriental asians.
They all know martial arts.
White Stereotypes
Starbucks.
Football fanatics
Rednecks/Hillbillys
Fat people tend to be white
Black Stereotypes
Rappers
Gangstas
Play Basketball
Like eating KFC and/or fried chicken in general
Documentary Style Idea
Oriental Asian Stereotypes
Bi-lingual/Multi-lingual.
Maths Genius
Mind Map
Pre-Production
Class Representation
The family seem to be a stereotypical lower class family. The dad has greasy hair and dirty clothes and looks like an unhygienic alcoholic, and is the only parent figure present to a lot of children. They also speak in Northern accents, which is usually associated with these types of people within media. The scene is also shot strangely with a lot of zooms, more notably the sequence when the camera has many shots of the father figure with lots of zoom ins and tilts to suggests that he is or is going crazy. And the majority of the scene is shot to resemble other reality TV and seems to be directed to a lower class audience.
It was hard to gather ideas for this subject for some reason, but in the end I was able to think of a few concepts for my film about representation. I want to make this project a comedic documentary style film which takes advantage of certain stereotypes of certain ethnic groups like white people being fat and football fanatics, black people being into basketball and eating chicken, and oriental people being martial artists and looking the same as every other Asian.
Idea 1
I recently met up with a friend who was black, and I asked him if he had experienced any stereotypes against him, and he gave me a list of stereotypes, such as being a gangsta and into rap music, basketball, and likes to eat fried chicken. He also told me that he gets stopped by police in the Sutton area regularly and is searched for drug possession a lot and he reckons that it is because he is black and the police are just assuming he is holding when he isn't and hasn't shown any sign of having any. But he has chosen to embrace most of these stereotypes and eats fried chicken on an almost daily basis, and also play for his local basketball team.
Idea 2
The person who is working with me shared an idea that I thought might be a good idea. He is white and gave us a few ideas on how he is stereotypically viewed by others and himself. He say he is into Starbucks coffee and is a football fanatic. He has because mocked in a joking manner as being a school shooter by other minorities.
The white person would be wearing either smart clothing or hipster-like clothing as white people are known to wear those types of clothing. He might also be into football, and might be playing football with his friend in the park. I might also have a scene where the main character is in Starbucks drinking coffee.
Idea 3
My third idea is probably the most likely idea I will use. It is of oriental asian stereotypes as I myself get plenty of stereotypes thrown towards me. For example, people assume I'm a martial artist, and that I'm a maths genius and very smart, And my friend jokingly mock me as looking like other asians or are related to other asians. I might interview people from my college and outside of college to see which of these ideas people would most likely wanted to see.
This suggests the stereotype of women being non violent but can still cause damage in an argument with manipulation and psychology while still keeping calm and collected, whilst men are loud and physically threatening.
Lulu then talks to Michael in a manipulative manner because she knows that Michael is in a bad situation and that she is the one who can help him out, so she stays calm and tries to force him to apologise for what he said with a satisfied and slightly sadistic grin on her face.
He then walks back towards her with a more threatening and ticked off face, and then threatens her in an aggressive tone.
After the man says that he broke up with her and begins to walk off, the woman threatens him by asking him a question which causes the man to stop and turn around.
Michael is more aggressive in his tone than the woman, as the woman is speaking in a softer and quieter tone. This suggests that men are louder and more aggressive in arguments against women who seem to be more calm and collected.
Gender Representation
Representation
After discussing with my partner for this project, we came up with the idea of doing a documentary style project using the representation of people within London based on stereotypes. The documentary will be targeting certain places around London and see what racial stereotypes can be seen in the areas we will be filming in, to do this I may do some vox pop Q/A's to the people around the area. In my vox pops, I may ask question like, "What is a stereotype?", "Would you consider yourself to be a stereotype of your race/background."
​I may also use voice over talking about and/or describing the different stereotypes we will feature in our film. We also thought about talking about the positives and negatives of the stereotypes whilst we show relevant shots of London.
Documentary Style Idea 2
A short documentary/mockumentary about a stereotypical Japanese person living in London. In it audiences will see what it's like for this stereotypical Japanese man to live in London and the things he does on a daily basis, for example eating ramen, watching Japanese cartoons/anime, reading Japanese comics/manga, knows martial arts and drinks green tea and basically doing things which have connections to Japanese culture.
Evaluation
The main theme of this project was representation, and for my edit I wanted to focus on stereotypes and show my ideas in a documentary/mockumentary style edit. With the help of my partner for this project, we were able to come up with many ideas for the project, and I decided to do some vox pop in London to talk about what stereotypes are given to people and whether or not they feel that stereotypes are necessary in cultures, however the public in London were very unresponsive as they did not want to answer our questions, presumably because we were asking people at around 5-6ish and people probably just wanted to go home. This caused both of us to be running out of time to get the footage I needed.
As I am part Japanese with some knowledge of Japanese culture, I decided I wanted to do a documentary style film to show the representations and the stereotypes of Asian/Japanese people living in London. I wanted my character to portray a stereotypical Asian/Japanese person living within London.
Overall I think I did well in this task despite the rough start with the vox pop. I think the main thing that went well was the framing of the shots and how we used the focus on the camera, and I was also able to use some obscure edits which I wouldn't normally use and I feel I did this successfully. Also, living in Japanese living conditions at home thanks to my mother, I was able to bring some Japanese foods and items with me to film which I believe helped sell the factor of the 'Japanese stereotype' of my character. We also used the locations of our shots to our advantage such as Chinatown to fully portray my character.
If I was to do this again, I would've done a better vox pop for research purposes instead of when I actually did it to include into the final product(which I ended up scrapping that idea after we did it). Also, I kept changing my ideas with such a small amount of time left to complete the task. I also need to improve decision making as there were too many times when we fail to do a task and we end up just not knowing what to do and we couldn't think what we are able to do; causing too much time being wasted.
Story
Narrative
A story is a series of events recorded in their chronological order.
Plot
A plot is a series of events deliberately arranged so as to reveal their dramatic, thematic and emotional significance.
Order of a Story
Crime conceived
Crime planned
Crime committed
Crime discovered
Detective investigates
Detective reveals
Order of a Plot
Crime discovered
Detective investigates
Detective reveals
Crime conceived
Crime planned
Crime committed
Flashbacks
Star Wars (Episode IV: A New Hope)
Initial Situation:
Pricess Leia gets captured by Darth Vader and the Empire.
Disruption:
The Death Star destroys Alderaan.
Resolution
Luke Skywalker saves Princess Leia, and with the help of the Rebels, he destroys the Death Star.
1. Empire kidnaps Princess Leia.
2. Luke Skywalker meets Obi Wan Kenobi.
3. Luke and Obi Wan meets Han Solo.
4. Luke saves Leia.
5. The Rebels destroy the Death Star.
(Sub Plot)
1. Imperial ship takes over a Rebels ship.
2. Luke Skywalker learns how to use a lightsaber and the ways of the force from Obi Wan.
3. The Death Star destroys Alderaan.
4. Luke and co. infiltrate the Death Star and save Leia.
5. Luke with the help of Han and the Rebels destroy the Death Star.
T2 Trainspotting
Initial Situation:
Mark Renton arrives in Scotland and catches up with old friends and family.
Disruption:
Begbie escapes from prison.
Resolution:
Mark and co. come together and knock Begbie out and send him back to prison.
1. Mark arrives back in Scotland
2. Mark meets with his old friends and family who he hasn't seen in 20 years.
3. Begbie escapes from prison and finds out that Mark is back in Scotland.
4. Begbie meets with the rest of the gang to find out where Mark is as he wants to kill him.
5. Confrontation between Mark and Begbie ends with Sickboy and Spud knocking out Begbie and then leave him in front of the police station.
Home Alone
Initial Situation:
Kevin gets left at home and is all by himself.
Disruption:
Robbers try to break into the house and catch Kevin.
Resolution
Kevin outsmarts and defeats the robbers and the family comes back home.
1. The family goes on holiday but they forget to bring Kevin with them, leaving him home alone.
2. Robbers are discovered by Kevin that they are planning to rob the house.
3. Robbers break into the house and try to get Kevin.
4. Kevin outsmarts and defeats the robbers, thus getting them arrested.
5. The family return back home.
Delicatessen Sound Analysis
I chose to analyze the famous scene where people who are living in the building a all making different sound in unison to interact with each other. The scene begins with the main character painting the ceiling and is followed with a couple having sexual intercourse with the springs underneath the bed squeaking in unison with each stroke the main character takes with the brush. The camera then tracks towards and into the ventilation and the sound is echoed because of the sound echoing throughout the ventilation. The whole section of the camera tracking through the ventilation serves as a transition into the next room where a woman is playing a piano. All the previous sounds of the squeaking and the brush strokes are still present and remain present throughout the entire sequence and creates a rhythm to the scenes. The next scene is in the next room in which a woman is dusting off a carpet by whacking the dust off. All previous sounds can still be heard and provides a rhythm whilst she whacks the carpet. A violin can also be heard in the background. In the next room, a man is pumping a wheel, and in the certain shot, the background noises disappear but comes back in the next scene. More and more sounds are added to the sequence as the scene goes on and pick up their pace. The sounds and the editing keep getting faster as the characters get fed up of each other and try to block out other sounds by making more noise by doing what they are doing louder and quicker. The fast paced cuts in between shots creates tension and develops a sense of urgency and builds a rushed atmosphere. The whole sequence ends with the characters ultimately falling and break their pianos and the male having intercourse climaxes etc. This can suggest that all the characters are connected and is symbolism to family.
Institutions
YouTube
YouTube was launched in 2005 and has revolutionized the internet and media ever since, allowing users to watch what they want at any time. People can upload and share their own videos aswell without having to have a license of some kind and is open for millions of people to watch, all you would need is an individual with a camera and internet. Google was able to see the potential of YouTube in 2006 and bought the site for $1.65 billion. YouTube has made a huge impact on the internet and society throughout the majority of the world. Influencing many to filmmaking and gaming, and encouraging others to put there face out there and tell there stories etc. It was a catalyst to the beginning of the Arab Spring, and it also encouraged suicidal people and the LGBT community to come forward and seek help and spread their stories to others. The site has grown so much that it was able to catch the attention of big public figures such as actors, music artists and even some white house officials such as Barack Obama, and more recently Donald Trump. YouTube allows normal everyday people to express/broadcast themselves in a way that you won't be able to normally do on regular TV because of censorship rules and that not everyone can just be on TV whenever they want. As YouTube is open to everyone, it doesn't really have any particular values as it is a streaming service that doesn't really have any boundaries on who uploads a video and what the video is, with the exception of a few basic guidelines such as no nudity or hate speech, however the comments section are filled with all sorts of people who post comments of praise, debating, or even very hostile comments as there are no guidelines pertaining to the comments. I personally use YouTube often for music, and TV, film and gaming trailers and updates etc.
"YouTube’s mission is to provide fast and easy video access and the ability to share videos frequently"
BBC
The BBC news network is the worlds largest broadcast news organization, which broadcasts around 120 hours of TV and radio each day. There are also a few websites, for example bbc.co.uk and BBC iPlayer, that are accessible to people around the world with the exception of a few government censoring laws. The BBC has been, on a number of occasions, been accused of biased reporting during the war in Iraq by both side, British and Iraqi. However, the BBC claims that the news that the cover is neutral. I personally don't feel that the BBC are biased and spreading misinformation, but there is no denying the long list of accusations against their coverage of things such as the US presidential elections, the EU Referendum, the Israeli-Palestine war and multiple political affairs worldwide.
The BBC has stated that their mission is: "To enrich people's lives with programs and services that inform, educate and entertain"
The BBC's box logo has been used since 1958 with minimal changes done to this day.
Netflix
This is the most recent/current BBC logo which still follows the overall design of the boxed initials. It is a bit more simpler than before and the words are not in italics like most of the rest. The BBC started using this logo in 1997 because a producer noticed that other BBC branches had different logos to each other, thus weakening the brand.
Netflix is one of the biggest streaming services worldwide with over 86 million users globally and 47 in the USA. Netflix has grown to the point where it can streaming there own shows and are known as Netflix Originals. A lot of these shows are popular and very well received such as shows like Narcos and House of Cards.
Netflix's has stated that there mission is their "...core strategy is to grow our streaming subscription business domestically and globally. We are continuously improving the customer experience, with a focus on expanding our streaming content, enhancing our user interface and extending our streaming service to even more Internet-connected devices, while staying within the parameters of our consolidated net income and operating segment contribution profit targets."
Logos
Almost all institutions within the media have their very own unique logo. Logos are essential for companies as it is a visual representation of the company and is useful for differentiating between other companies so that people can recognize them. They help companies create brands to identify between the brands which helps the company and the certain products get recognized easier by the public.
Some companies seem to use very stand out colours, making them stand out to catch the eyes of audiences. To make their logos more recognizable, companies will try to make their logos unique and and original.
Bold and capital text to stand out and draws the audiences attention.
Some companies have multiple different logos to advertise themselves in different ways, for example, different side companies and different products.
Sources:
With Photoshop, I created two of my own logos, each with different styles. I tried using stand out colours and I felt that using stand colours made it more noticeable.
This is my personal favourite logo of mine as I think it still stands out whilst being more professional than the one on the far left. It gets straight to the point whilst drawing your attention at the same time.
Exhibition Visits/ Video Installation
By the end of 2016, my class and myself visited the Tate Modern to see two film art exhibitions, however due to personal reasons I had to leave early but I was able to get a good experience from my limited time there. Despite my limited time there, I did find both exhibits really interesting and I feel they helped build some ideas for when I create my own installation. I don't regret leaving early as I had to see to an urgent situation, however I definitely wish I could stay and take everything in as from what I've seen I felt that it was very important for me to see how these artists put their work into an exhibition; the layouts of the video installations were used effectively when it comes to expressing their work and how they set a mood using most/all filming techniques. (Some photographs of the exhibition below belong to some of my other classmates.)
This was in my opinion the best exhibit out of the whole exhibition as I could tell the pre-production and the way it was set out at the exhibition done very well. There were many different screens for this exhibition, the main screen at the centre was showing the main film whilst the other screens which surrounded it were used to set different moods with the use of various colours and shades of light.
The sound of rain could be heard from above us as there were lots of speakers above the screens and across the ceiling. For a while, we were made to sit in the darkness and watch the lighting change colours whilst listening to the rain. I enjoyed the atmosphere it was trying to give, however I felt it was too long and I preferred actually watching things from the screen as it uses everything such as the lighting, the multiple screens, the sound etc.
I really enjoyed this piece of work (To the left) because of the layout of it. However this was the moment where I had to leave early due to personal reasons but I was able to catch a glimpse and a good feel of what this piece was about. There were many small screens showing clips from old films, I noticed one of the films starred Charlie Chaplin and he was one of the main things I got from this piece as he is such an iconic film star.
I also really enjoyed that there were no sound at all. It was just a bunch of screens in a dark room, the darkness really helped bring me in to what was going on within the screens and gave myself a chance to focus on one screen without being overwhelmed by all the other screens. It wasn't my favourite part of the exhibition, but I do love the uniqueness of the piece as it wasn't like anything I've seen before.
I was given the opportunity to use a 16mm Steenbeck Flatbed and I was able to create my own edit using 3 pieces of found footage was were provided for me, I cut them and put them together.
Due to the limited amount of time to use the 16mm, the edit came out a bit short, but I was still able to get across the theme of memory from the edit. I specifically picked footage of normal life back in the day, one shot being a row of parked cars, the other two being in a workplace.
Factory workers cutting cloth, it then cuts to and set of parked cars, and then cuts to a workplace with a scientist in a lab of some kind which pans over to an office worker writing things down.
Installation Layout Ideas
Above are some plans for the layout of my own video installation. My initial idea is to have 1 main screen and two smaller screens on either side of the main screen, each showing different film but each connected to each other in some way.
For my second idea, I was thinking about having one screen showing a short film of some kind. I'll also have certain objects around the screen and I'll use various types of lighting to light up the objects regarding to what the short film is about.
Research
Kahlil Joseph – m.A.A.d (2014) - I visited The Infinite Mix in London and I was able to see a variety of different pieces of art from various different artists. One of which was by an artist called Kahlil Joseph. I really enjoyed how it was like an informative music video. It was a duel screen exhibit showing the people and the streets of Compton, a working class and largely African-American neighbourhood in Los Angeles. Kahlil made this piece in response to an album, good kid, m.A.A.d city by hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar. This piece uses home videos shot by Kendrick's uncle from 1992 onwards alongside news footage of police violence and his very own footage which features shots which show everyday life to magical realism.
I feel like incorporating many things into video art installations such as the music, voice over, and good visuals related to the topic is a very effective technique
Ugo Rondinone – Another one of the many artists featured at The Infinite Mix, featured a largely famous poet John Giorno performing a piece called 'THANX 4 NOTHING', which is a poem about Giorno looking back on his 70 years of life and how the people and the events which occurred shaped it
This piece had an interesting mix of humour and compassion, performing in a tuxedo and bare feet as he switching from an empty stage to a brightly lit TV studio. He gives thanks to 'everyone and everything', as he talks about the death of friends and lovers, sex and betrayal, and his frequent periods of depression.
I am hoping to make my installation quite visual like Joseph's piece and kind of looking back on history like Ugo's piece so that the viewers enjoy what they're watching.
Research Survey
Location Report Form
Location Layout and Orientation
Location Name: South London
All of the installation has been filmed within South London from the past 6 months
All of the shots that I took were taken within South London around cities, towns, parks, forests and housing on different days, there wasn't really any planning taken whilst filming these shots and there were no set location.
The main areas used in my shots were taken in North Cheam, Sutton and Morden. But I will be having a little bit of other areas in the South of London.
Notes
South London - No set area
Installation
Evaluation
The main task for this project was to create a video installation and present it to the class, however, I was not able to present my installation as I was sick for the entire week we had to do so. We were given the theme of memory to base our video installations on. For this I was originally thinking of doing it with home videos of my early days as a baby to now to show my growth, however I didn't have enough footage for some of periods of time which I wanted and even some of the footage had been lost, so I had to change my idea to show the areas in which I normally reside; so I gathered environmental type footages which I had created from the past 6 months of the places where I live and where I normally go to hag out with friends or even on my own. I wanted to give the piece a limited amount of colours and tried to focus on it being a dream like sequence with it using dark lighting and dull colours whilst at the same time making it bright to match the music I had used.
I was able to gather a lot of footage, however, as these were just random shots I took from the past 6 months, I didn't really have the cinematography at the time I took them, so I couldn't really get a lot of usable footage despite having 100+ shots to work with. However, despite this problem I do believe I was able to get a lot of shots which not of looked good from a cinematography standpoint, but also gave a good feel of the environment of where I tend to reside.
If I was able to do this again, I would have taken the time to go out and take footage with the actual installation in mind, which may be ignoring what I wanted to do in the first place, but I would perhaps do a retake these shots or take similar shots. I may also have some actors involved so that I'm able to reenact certain moments of my life; changing the whole style of my installation from a sort of montage of my life to more of an artistic short film. Also, whilst editing these footages together, I feel I made a few shots too bright, for example, some of the shots in the forest and the bmx park. And maybe the final shot at the end showing my road and slowly looking up to the sky, I could have made the shot start out normal and then have the shot get slighlty brighter as it pans up to the sky. (Side note: I believe that a lot of these shots had different camera settings at the time of filmed these.)
French New Wave Film
Breathless
The 400 Blows
Le Jetee & 12 Monkeys
Prisoner of the Ages Shotlist
Inspired Scene(La Jetee & Twelve Monkeys)
In this piece of work, I'm thinking of making a scene which is inspired by the time travel aspect from the films La Jetee and Twelve Monkeys. I really like the moments when the main character from both films are sitting down and are just about to be sent to the future/past as I feel like they can give different ways for the audience to portray. Similar to the movies I want my character to have some sort of clothing to suggest that he is about to or just came back from travelling through time, for example eyewear or a mask.
I want to use an industrial area in Sutton, which is mostly deserted during certain times of the day, for my scene. I want to be a different from the movies and try to suggest that the main character stuck in his own personal nightmare created by overuse of a time machine. I might use the same location throughout, but shoot at different times of day for certain shots to show that he is travelling through a little pocket of time.
Evaluation
Documentary - The Triumph of the Will and Nick Broomfield
Animation
Research
One-Punch Man
One-Punch Man is a famous recent Japanese cartoon(Anime). This show is definitely one my favourite shows I've seen in recent years, mostly because of the how the animation is very unique and at some key moments the animation style will change and the fluidity would increase vastly, the show is still growing in popularity to this day. I wanted to use One-Punch Man in my research because of the uniqueness of the animation, and at many moments leaving me in awe.
One-Punch Man. (2016).
Saitama vs Genos. [Online Video]. 19 October 2016.
Available from: www.youtube.com. [Accessed: 1 June 2017].
Dragonball
Dragonball is a show which I've always been a fan of since early childhood, and still am to this day. Because of my love for the series, I used to practice to draw in the same art style as the show. For my animation, I want to make something very fluid like One-Punch Man with the art style of Dragonball. Dragonball is known for it's epic and over the top fight scene, so I feel a fight scene would make for a good animation for me.
Dragonball Z. (2016).
Vegeta Kills Freeza's Men. [Online Video]. 18 August 2016.
Available from: www.youtube.com. [Accessed: 8 June 2017].
Fight Scene - Animation
Evaluation
In this task, I had to create my very own animation. I decided to base my animation on a fight scene from Japanese animation using the Dragon Ball art style with One-Punch Man style fluidity with the animation.
To create the animated images, I firstly made a cinematic border on each paper I was going to use, and then drew each frame within the borders. I then took pictures of each frames and then imported them into adobe premiere pro, and using key framing, I was able to it my borders onto the frame so each frame will follow the next with as much fluidity as possible. I also recorded a few foley sounds of punches and swishing sounds to use for a few of the attacks in my animations.
Overall I think I did pretty well, but there are a few things I could have done better. I feel that my animation would be hard to follow, and I wish I had added a clear intro and outro.
​Next time: If I was to do this again, I would spend more time in editing creating an intro and outro, I would also spend more time creating more frames o my animation as it did seem a bit short despite having spent the majority of the time creating the frames in the first place.
What is Documentary
Michael Renov has four distinct and sometimes overlapping purposes of documentary:
> to record, reveal, or preserve
> to persuade or promote
> to analyze or interrogate
> to express
What are the Different Forms of Documentary
Poetic - Instead of using traditional linear continuity to create a story structure, the filmmaker arrives at its point by arranging footage in an order to evoke an audience association through tone, rhythm, or spatial juxtaposition.
(Example, Joris Ivens - Regan 1929)
​
Expository Documentary - Expository Documentaries speak directly to the viewer, often in the form of an authoritative commentary employing voice over or titles, proposing a strong argument and point of view. These films are rhetorical and try to persuade the viewer.
(Example, Night Mail 1936)
​
Participatory Documentary - Participatory Documentary is when the encounter between filmmaker and subject is recorded and the filmmaker actively engages with the situation they are documenting.
(Example, Louie Theroux - Weird Weekends)
​
Observational - Observational documentaries is when unobtrusive observation of the subject is the director's aim.
(Example, David Attenborough - Planet Earth)
​
Reflective - This is where the viewer is just as interested about how the film is constructed as they are the actual content.
(Example, Dziga Vertov - Man with a movie camera 1929)
​
Performative - Performative documentary emphasizes the filmmaker's own involvement with the subject.
(Example, Marlon Riggs - Tongues Untied)
Examples of Early Documentary
Man of Aran (1934)
Synopsis - In this blend of documentary and fictional narrative from pioneering filmmaker Robert Flaherty, the everyday trials of life on Ireland's unforgiving Aran Islands are captured with attention to naturalistic beauty and historical detail.
FLAHERTY, R., FLAHERTY, R., KING, C., DIRRANE, M. AND DIRRANE, M.
Man of Aran (1934)
In-text: (Flaherty et al., 1934)
Your Bibliography: Flaherty, R., Flaherty, R., King, C., Dirrane, M. and Dirrane, M. (1934). Man of Aran (1934). [online] IMDb. Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025456/ [Accessed 20 Jun. 2017].
A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner (1911)
Synopsis - A coal miner says good-bye to his wife and children, and heads off to work. He reaches the mine, prepares his lamp, and then descends into the mine along with some other workers. As he and the others work inside the mine, the coal is sent to the surface, where others at the mining site are ready to process the coal and to prepare it for shipping.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A COAL MINER (1911)
In-text: (IMDb, 1910)
Your Bibliography: IMDb. (1910). A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner (1910). [online] Available at: [Accessed 22 Jun. 2017].
Night Mail (1937)
Synopsis - Night Mail is an account of the operation of the Royal Mail train delivery service, and shows the various stages and procedures of that operation. The film begins with a voiceover commentary describing how the mail is collected for transit. Then, as the train proceeds along the course of its journey, we are shown the various regional railway stations at which it collects and deposits mail. Inside the train the process of sorting takes place. As the train nears its destination there is a sequence - the best known in the film, in which Auden's spoken verse and Britten's music are combined over montage images of racing train wheels.
BFI SCREENONLINE: NIGHT MAIL (1936)
In-text: (Screenonline.org.uk, 1936)
Your Bibliography: Screenonline.org.uk. (1936). BFI Screenonline: Night Mail (1936). [online] Available at: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/530415/[Accessed 20 Jun. 2017].
Investigating Documentary Form
This link will lead you to an atricle which talks about 'Direct Cinema' which is a documentary genre which started around the year 1962 in North America. This article also talks about 'Cinéma vérité' which translates to 'Truthful Cinema' is another genre of documentary filmmaking. In 'Cinéma vérité' the filmmaker can participate in front of camera aswell as making artistic choices and be able to create an artifice within the film whereas in 'Direct Cinema' the author is not participant.
Having your camera hidden from your subject gives you the chance of capturing natural movements from your subject which would be hard to get from a subject that is acting as there will be nothing forced in their actions.
Having your camera hidden can cause problems when wanting to capture something specific as you have no control over what your subject is doing, you also may only be able to capture certain shot types compared to when you have a subject that knows there's a camera there, for example, close ups would be a problem when wanting to keep your camera concealed from a subject.
The Thin Blue Line
Director - Errol Morris
​Year of production - 1988
I think that the purpose of this film was to find out if the man arrested for the crime committed was wrongly charged or not. There were a few techniques used in this film one of them was reconstruction, there were some brilliant scenes where the filmmaker had reconstructed a murder which I think is really effective for the audience to see as it really brings what the people in the film are talking about alive, I think reconstructions/reenactments are very important in a film like this as the people in the film are being very descriptive into what they are talking about so I think that bringing their experience to life is important for the audience to have a better understanding of to whats is going on, I think it also builds more excitement and intensity in a film like this which is important as if it was just people plainly talking to the camera it could become boring for the audience.
This film observational as you never hear the filmmaker speak, yet the people in this film are being interviewed, you never hear the questions being asked which I thought was interesting, the questions come to mind in your head and they're answered by the people in the film. I thought that the editing in this film was simple and clean, every cut was sharp with no fades or cross overs which I think is more effective as you are then not drawn away from the narrative.
The music in this film was poor in my opinion, yes I think it fit the crime/noir feel but I think it was quite boring, I think that a more exciting soundtrack would have fit better and would have had a bigger impact on the audience.
The narrative is slowly constructed by the people being interviewed throughout the film and reconstructions that give you more of an insight.
I think that the ending of the film was good, I think it really rounded the whole story up and would have had a good impact upon the audience and also the actual case itself, the convicted man was freed from jail because of this film which is extraordinary.
Synopsis: In this feature-length film on the art of the documentary, director Pepita Ferrari interviews 33 leading documentarians and shows clips from over 50 films. From cinéma-vérité pioneers like Albert Maysles and Michel Brault to mavericks like Errol Morris and Nick Broomfield, it explores the challenges of capturing reality on film. Directors as diverse as Pakistani feminist Sabiha Sumar and new media guru Peter Wintonick reflect on ethical issues and the contested status of the “truth.”
My Documentary Idea
Synopsis
Many parents in the UK are worried about the consequences of going to University such as going into massive debt and they want a change. I will be speaking to both the students who are attending uni and the parents, I will also be speaking to those who have graduated and how they have been affected, and I will ask questions for example: Do you think a change is necessary? And hopefully this will answer many questions parents have about University and what generally happens to students after graduating, a big question of theirs may be: Why are British students charged for going to Universities? And I will be focusing on this question as I really want to have the opinions of many parents and students on this case. The graduates too young to be having an average debt of £44,000 after leaving university, which is why I want to speak to a variety of students and parents to get a bunch of question about both the pros and cons of this, My personal opinion is that I don't understand why the British public'll have to pay so much to study in there own country, especially when we go to University expecting to get a good job with a good pay, yet it just seems pointless with the debt.
Loglines
A logline is a sentence that is made to try and sell a film/documentary, loglines are very specific sentences that give out the key information about the film/documentary that will bring an audience in.
Examples:
"A documentary following the controversial captivity of killer whales, and its dangers for both humans and whales." - Blackfish
"Johnny Knoxville and his band of maniacs perform a variety of stunts and gross-out gags on the big screen for the first time." - Jackass: The Movie
"Writer and musician Nick Cave marks his 20,000th day on the planet Earth." - 20,000th Days On Earth