Media Studies Blog 2009-2011

Footbal Factory

The production team comes up on top of a sort of retro background. “A Vertigo Films. Rockstar Games. Production.” It then transitions into a shot from below of a helicopter. It then changes into a black and white shot of what appear to be football hooligans. The border is in the same orange, yellow and black style as the background from the very first shot. That then zooms out into some black and white footage of a brawl only  glimpse of it and then the Directors name comes up. “A Nick Love FIlm.” Again the font and background sticks to the same colour scheme. Then there is more black and white footage of what appears to be a riot. Then we get a still shot of some possible hooligans, this time in colour but a little distorted. The lead actors name comes up “Danny Dyer”. It then carries on in the same fashion slowly revealing more about the film by using shots of newspaper headllines. This goes on for about 1 minute 30 until at about 1:50 the images start changing more quickly. All of this was happening to a techno track which was building in tempo and ferocity. The music stops and you see the main character getting his face bashed in, however he is upside down in relation to the camera.

Green Street

The film starts with a blurry image which is then revealed to be some sand dunes.  A tree is in the centre of the dune and then a box comes and cuts it off. That box then forms the company logo for “OddLot Entertainment.” It then fades to black for a few seconds and “an Odd Lot Entertainment Production” appears on the screen. Then “Produced with the Take Partnerships.” “A Lexi Alexander Film.” That then fades out into an obscure image. It isn’t clear what that image is. Then the picture changes to a train station. Then some stairs. You then hear some football chanting gradually gettin louder until you see where the chanting is coming from as a group of men come into shot. They then start playing football with a can along the train platform. They then see a group of other men standing a little further down the platform. There is an interesting shot between two of the characters shoulders showing the full group of rival supporters.  They then have a verbal square off using shot reverse shots. It then kicks off and then a train passes the screen obscuring the view.

The preliminary excercise created by Mr Marshall, Mannix and Tordoff featured many purposeful mistakes. The most noteable mistake w      as in the sound during the dialogue. Whilst Mr Marshall’s dialogue was understandable, Mr Mannix’s microphone was placed to close to his mouth so was too loud and had poor quality. The piece also breaks the 180 degree rule. This is known as crossing the line. When doing the shot reverse shot, the camera leaps from one side to the other giving the illusion that the characters have swapped position.

However the rest of the piece was pretty much fine. The excercise fitted the brief to a tee. The close up of the door being opened was particularly successful as the piece still flowed smoothly. Also the tracking shot when Mr Mannix walks over to the chair flowed well into the shot of him swinging the chair.   

Action Adventure - X men Origins: Wolverine

20th Century Fox and Marvel logo films take up roughly 35 seconds. The film then does an opening scene revealing the story behind the characters. Then the opening title sequence kicks in.  The title sequence features footage of the two main protagonists from the opening scene growing older using a montage effect. In each little segment they are fighting in a different war. From the american civil war up to present day, The action pauses at certain points and blurs when the characters credits appear. The music is very heroic but with a dark edge. Lots of strings and trumpets etc. This mixed with the war sounds creates a hostile atmosphere. A bit of the story is also told through the credits. As the wars progress Victor is shown to be enjoying killing too much. The title sequence ends with Victor and Wolverine surrounded by soldiers.  Then they appear in front of a firing squad. The guns go off. Cut to black. Then the films title appears on a blank screen.

Old School Action - Die Hard (Best film ever)

As per usual the 20th Century Fox film plays. The production team comes up on a blank screen. This title sequence is less obvious. It has the establishing shot of a plane landing in a sunny environment. Then it shows the hero John Mclane (Bruce Willis) on the plane looking nervous. The actors names are coming up at regular intervals. There is no music until the title comes up. The scene then changes to a party scene, and the credits roll more quickly now. The dialogue takes front seat revealing what is going on. Within approximately 5 minutes the two main characters have been introduced revealing certain character traits.

Science Fiction/ Horror - Alien Vs Predator

20th Century Fox film. Black screen then “twentieth century fox…” appears. Then the film title comes up. There is then a sequence of short scenes revealing a portion of the plot and then more short scenes revealing characters. All of which culminate at one place. There is more plot telling yet no actors credits have appeared. Reason? There isn’t really anyone mega famous in it. The film isn’t particularly about the human characters but is more about Aliens and Predators.

Comedy - Anchorman

Ooooh Dreamworks film this time. Cuts to black then in big white writing it reads. ”The following is based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.” What are we 30 seconds in and the first joke has been made. The screen then goes black but has ”Dreamworks Pictures Presents”. A light airy music is playing. Then the picture kicks in with a regal fanfare and a voice over. Soul/Rock/Funk music comes in and introduces the lead character. His credits then appear next to a close up of him. The title then appears. Then a sort of television screen effect happens when the rest of the credits roll but the film still focuses on the main character whilst he is funny. The same music is playing throughout. It then changes when the credits stop. There is then a mock news piece introducing the rest of the characters then the directors credit appears.  

A shot log is simply a written record of all of the different shots on a tape or disc. The easiest way to do a shot log is whilst you shoot but it can also be done afterwards. The shot log contains information such as at what time on the tape the shot occurs, what the shot is, who is involved and what shot type is it etc.

This is the preliminary excercise for my Foundation Portfolio.  The excercise had to fit to a brief which included: A character walking through a door, approaching another character, exchanging an item and a few lines of dialogue.

The main problems that the group encountered was after the filming had all been done it came to editing. Whilst editing we discovered that we actually didn’t have that much footage to edit, and what we did have was mingled between multiple takes and other groups footage. I tried to pre select the shots we wanted by recording over some of the unneccessary footage with the lense cap on. Unfortunately I ran out of time before I could do it all. So when it came to the editing process there was still a lot to sift through.

Another problem encountered was a group member. His work ethic was minimal to say the least and acted as more of a hinderance than a help.  Thankfully he was absent when it came to most of the filming and editing process. 

I felt that the main high point (if the only high point) was the fade to black at the very end. It nicely smoothed out the ending. Some of the shots used were also pretty good, such as the shot reverse shot and the close up of the chair being pulled.   

This is the Foundation Portfolio. This is critical! As it is 50% of your overall AS mark. The foundation portfolio includes the preliminary excercise. The preliminary excercise is a very short piece of film featuring a person walking to, then opening a door. Walking through it, handing something to another person then those characters exchanging a few lines of dialogue.  The Preliminary excercise will not gain any marks, however if it is not present it will lose you marks. The main piece of filming is an opening to a film of any genre and should be longer than the preliminary and must have titles etc.

By Easter you should have submitted all planning work, 2 pieces of film and an evaluation done in a multimedia format. Which will be marked then submitted to OCR

As mentioned in my previous blog, premiere features Tools that enable the user to manipulate the footage.

The full list of Tools is as follows.

Selection - This is just your average mouse pointer to allow selection.

Track Select - To select all clips on a certain track on the timeline.

Ripple Edit - Adjusting an edit point.

Rolling Edit - Adjusting an edit point between two clips without altering the timeline.

Rate Stretch - Changes the length of a clip, by changing the playback speed to compensate./

Razor - Cuts clips into pieces.

Slip - Moving a clips in and out points equally.

Slide - Moves a clip back and forth in the timeline.

Pen - Creates control points.

Hand - Drags the timeline to the left or right.

Zoom - Zooms in or out of the timeline for a better view.

Learning how to use these tools well will result in an altogether better and more professional edit.