Feedback 26/3/09

A good prelim task alex, Charlotte and Joe! Well done!
Good analysis and research.
Next scan and upload your storyboards and remember to keep blogging your progress at least once a week.
Miss McNulty

Opening sequence

after re-thinking our film idea, we decided it was a little boring and the opening sequence may not catch the audiences attention as much as we thought, therefore we have decided to add more of a horror element to it. Therefore we have decided that the girl running away from home, will also be being followed by a man, the opening sequence will still show her running through the forrest but some shots will convey that she is being watched rather than the camera just following what she is doing, adding more enigmas to it, for example; who is watching/following her?

We will be using diegetic sound such as; heavy breathing and our non-diegetic sound  will be quite slow, but then will speed up to create tension.

Questionaire

looking at the questionnaire we can see that we have chosen the right target market for our film. Our film will be based around teen genre, which came out with the most people wanting it from the questionnaire. Teen films can also be classed as a hybrid, our film will be hybrid because it will be based around a teenager, but also cover genres such as relationships and a little bit of horror therefore a wider range of people from our target audience will be able to relate to it and enjoy it. If we were to create the entire film, it would probably rated as a 15, because it will include scene of a violent nature, bad language and drug abuse, although the opening sequence that we will filming will only last two minutes, therefore all these issues may not arise in the opening sequence. Our questionnaire conveys that more people would rather see a female as the protagonist rather than a male, therefore we have decided to use a female. casting the part of the female will not be a problem because we will be using someone from my drama group. 

                      Charlotte Gerrard

Preliminary task

Below is our preliminary task video:

 

For our preliminary task, we had to create a video that would contain the following content -

> Opening a door.

> Crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, with which she/he then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.

> The task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180-degree rule.

We completed all of these tasks together as a group with Joseph working on cinematography and filming and Charlotte and Alex playing the characters in the video. We then all edited it together.

We feel that the video worked well as it was fun to do. The music used was used just to demonstrate how it would work with the music.

The things that we hoped had gone better was some of the editing of clips due to not having enough time to perfect the video.

Joseph, Alex and Charlotte

Ferris Bueller opening sequence- Alex

Teen film analysis: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is an American teen film, demonstrating typical aspects of teen behaviour and stereotypes, and the stereotypes of what would be expected from a teen film, for example, the teens fooling the adults and school/college life.
The film opens with titles, over which speech can be heard- a woman calling ‘Ferris... Ferris...’ This already gives the audience of what one of the characters is to be called. The shot then changes to show the front of a large house, over which the dialogue continues- the woman calls ‘Tom!’ The sound of footsteps is heard as someone obviously approaches her location, and a male voice says ‘What’s the matter?’ They proceed to discuss that Ferris is not well. The shot changes to a close-up of the face of a mid-teens boy lying in bed. The man continues to call his name as the boy opens his eyes and looks up. The shot reverses to show the man and the woman looking down at the camera- a point of view shot. This clarifies to the audience that these are obviously the parents of the boy in bed, who is obviously Ferris. The woman worriedly turns to the man, explaining that Ferris ‘doesn’t have a fever but he says his stomach hurts and he’s seeing spots’. The next shot shows Ferris look up as if he cannot see and calls for his father. His mother then explains that his hands are cold and clammy, and his father feels his hands to see for himself.
Ferris then says ‘I’m fine, I’ll get up’ and starts to get up, but his parents react by exclaiming ‘No!’ and pushing him back into his bed. Ferris argues that he wants to go to school and that he has a test that day, but his parents insist that he stays at home. This is unusual at first as Ferris here is going against the typical stereotype of a teen wanting to miss school. Ferris continues to say ‘I wanna go to a good college so I can have a fruitful life’. This is possibly a shocking contrast as these things would be completely unexpected to be said by a teen.
The shot cuts to show a pair of feet in the doorway, one foot tapping impatiently, and after a close-up of Ferris’ mother with her hands on her hips the shot cuts to show a late-teens woman in the doorway, who is annoyed and starts to argue with Ferris’ parents that Ferris is not ill. This is obviously Ferris’ sister. At the sound of his sister’s voice, Ferris leans forward and starts to call his sister, as if he is blind- ‘Jeanie? Is that you? Jeanie? I can’t see that far’. A reverse shot shows the irritation on his sister’s face. He continues to call and dramatically collapses back into his bed. This starts to show a hint of unrealism in Ferris’ illness and that he might possibly be faking it. Ferris’ parents, now facing his sister, tell her to go to school, and a shot shows Ferris leaning forward and winking at his sister. This reveals that Ferris is faking being ill, and doing it very well, but that it irritates his sister. His sister protests about her parents letting him stay home, claiming ‘If I was bleeding out my eyes, you’d still make me go to school, this is so unfair’. At this point Ferris croons ‘Jeanie, please don’t be upset with me, you have your health, be thankful’. This is also unexpected from a teen and also shows that Ferris is starting to take advantage of this situation to annoy his sister. He then gestures at her with his finger over his lips to keep her quiet. His sister storms out of the room, saying ‘That’s it, I want out with this family’. Ferris’ parents turn back to him, where he resolves that he will stay in bed for the day and ‘maybe have an aspirin around noon’. His mother proceeds to tuck him back into bed and both his parents croon about ringing them if he needs them. Ferris again comes out with a non-stereotypical statement: ‘It’s nice to know I have such loving, caring parents. You’re both very special people’. This is unusual as the stereotypical teenager is usually ungrateful and rebellious towards their parents. Ferris’ mother then gives him a loving kiss as if he is a small child, and his parents leave the room, constantly emphasising that if he needs them, call them, as Ferris makes sleep, babyish sounds. Once they have left the room and closed the door, Ferris sits up and stares at into the camera and states ‘They bought it’. This brings Ferris back into the mould of the teenager as he has successfully tricked his parents.
The shot then cuts to show a TV screen showing MTV, with rock music coming from it. This is back into the stereotype of teen, as already modern music is involved. Now up from his bed Ferris talks to the camera again, directly addressing the audience- ‘Incredible, one of the worst performances of my career, and they never doubted it for a second’. He opens his bedroom curtains and continues- ‘how can I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like this?’- the shot changes several times to show the view out of his window of the blue sky.
This is back into the stereotypical style of a teen film- a teen outwitting his parents in order to skip school for a day.

by Alex Holden
(A link to the clip will soon follow)

Kidulthood extract

Analysis of Kidulthood by Charlotte

For this section i have analized a two minute clip of Kidulthood. I chose to analysis Kidulthood becuase it is generally based on teen genre therefore in links in with the style of genre we have chosen for our opening sequence. The clip starts with the title kidulthood appearing in white on a background, the font style is modern almost like a graffitti style. In an opening sequence the first few moments are key because they establish, time, place and who the protagonist(s) are. Kidulthood adapts this very well, the first few moments of the clip cuts to various scenes around a school, you can tell it is a school through the mise en scene, for example; there are teenagers palying football, you can see school gates, the playground, the school buildings, the mise en scene also helps to establish that it is a 'Teen' genre. The non - digetitic music is slow pased and basic creating a dull atmosphere around the school. The various cuts around the school establish the main characters, they are all in uniform, although the uniform is worn scruffy which conveys that they may not ahere to the rules and that they may not do this through out life. One of the girls is on the phone, her hair is scrapped back and she is wearing large whoop earing this image is used to clevery to establish that she is a stereotypical 'chav'. The difference between the school pupils body language is very relevant, it separates the 'popular group' from the 'outkast.'

By looking at this clip it has shown how important it is to establish place time and the main protagonist(s) in the first few moments, in then keeps the audience captivated and raise enigmas. The mise en scene is also a key aspect in helping to establish these points.

Charlotte Gerrard

Target Audience

Our film is based around a runaway teen, therefore we think that our target audience will be 16-25 because the film certificate would most likely be a 15, due to it including violent scenes and bad language.  We created a questionnaire for people in this age bracket to fill, to see if they would be the right target audience.  We asked various people from the college canteen to fill it in and the results are as follows:

Are you male or female:

4 male 

6 female

What type of genre of film would you prefer?

1 Horror

5 Teen 

1 Romantic 

3 mixture of these

Who would you prefer to see as the protagonist, a male or female?

3 male 

7 female

What type of film do you prefer blockbuster or independent?

6 blockbuster

4 Independent

Would you be put off if the film and scene of a violent nature or included strong language?

1 yes

9 no

Charlotte, Alex and Joseph

Our Ideas

Film:
We have decided that our film will be based around a girl, who is being abused and having a bad time at home. She is tired of living in fear and being controlled. So she runs away to start a new life on her own, although it is not as easy as it seems....

Opening Sequence:
The opening sequence will show her running away from home, possibly located in a forest, to create a bleak atmosphere. The opening sequence will include flashbacks of her life, conveying the reasons why she is running away. We will be using minimal dialogue, instead using loud music and heavy breathing to create tension and keep the audience captivated.

Week 1

Hello ... it's our first day of planning and we have started on thinking of ideas for our movie introduction for our media coursework. 

We have decided to do a teen drama/fake documentary hybrid about a band with more ideas to be added to the blog shortly...