media studies 2009-2011

Titanic

The opening credits to this film are very brief but introduce the film formally without giving away the actors and actresses. It begins with a dissolve in of the cruise ship followed by the production company’s name. The entire introduction is made into sepia to show the technological angle to make the audience realise that it was past present and also allows them to understand what era it would have been. More credits of the apposing production companies are shown by fading in. But then, unlike other opening sequences, the main title is shown straight away to initiate the powerful word, which means so much to the wide range audience spectrum.

Grease

The opening credits of Grease are animated to match the cartoon theme and used in a unique way to an ordinary film, the title ‘Grease’ is used by squeezing a tube of greasy hair gel to create the title ‘Grease’, which then turns into a car animation to represent the T Birds car. The sequence of the characters getting up from bed and ready for their college day, introduces each character by pausing the animation briefly and adding text to the right hand side for the boys and left for the girls. Also song lyrics are used to give the audience an understanding to what songs to expect during the movie.

The Notebook

The establishing shot of a beautiful sunset opens up the movie, and gradually the names of the actors fade in to introduce the characters. A different simular shot of a sunset is used to change the warmth of the film to make it appear to be romantic. A boat is then used to introduce the main character, the title is then shown and the film begins.

Make up-

Natural base make up with red blusher and red lipstick.

Location-

Romanby River/ beck,

A selection of random fields,

Dormant railway line,

Old-fashioned housing area.

Props-

Umbrella, basket, picnic blanket, hats.

Costumes

Our initial idea was to create a Victorian style theme by using costume along to set the era.

Elizabeth- Long skirt, petticoat, long dress, under-skirt, corset, bonnet etc.

George- army uniform, includes- beret, kaki jacket, camouflage trousers.

Storyline

Girl obliviously is having a picnic with her best friends; boy is watching her through the bushes whilst painting a portrait of her. He has a secret obsession. A series of minor events happen that leads up to the discovery of a blossoming love story. The boy’s obedient dog runs off to eat some food from the picnic allowing the boy to chance it which introduces the couple of young teens. As he goes to collect his dog he bends down and all of the paintings of the girl fall out of his satchel. She appears confused but flattered. They fall in love at first sight. From then on, the love progresses which is portrayed through a series of dates which will be showed using fast editing. The boy gets called to go to the war. Boy walks off into the distance reading a poem to her explaining his decision. As she reads this she cradles her stomach as she was about to tell him that she is pregnant.

True Blood

 The opening sequence of True Blood begins with very fast panning shots from the bottom of the screen, changing quickly but the panning flows from one shot to the next. Along with each shot a name of a person involved with the production of the film flashes up. More panning shots are used which are unusually incorporated with quick flashing shots of busy events, e.g. a festival like place and a fight at a race. Suddenly the theme of a porn-like situation shows as a comparison to the earlier images of violence and murder. The ranges of shots are all completely different but seem to all portray the same uncomfortable feeling for the audience. Close-ups are used to show worried expressions on small children’s faces, along with an extreme close-up of a child eating a tomato (which could be seen as a vampire child drinking blood). All of these shots trick the audience into thinking bad things are happening the entire time, but in reality nothing bad is actually happening. There are also a few zooms used, one zooms into a dead rat then zooms back out into a high angle shot. The mixture of sexual happenings and death related situations works really well together to make people wonder what is really going on, this is good, as it makes the audience want to know what’s going to happen next.

Skins

The opening sequence of, episode 8 ‘Gobblers End’ Skins, begins with a panning shot of the sign of the forest which then pans on to the actors distributing from the car with worried expressions on their face. Also ‘Effy’, one of the main characters is in the centre of the shot once it has panned. This gives a negative vibe to the audience and also gives us the impression that she’s going to be a big part to the storyline in this particular episode. A wide shot is then used as the characters are walking towards their campsite destination. The camera seems to be hidden in the trees to give the illusion that they’re not alone. It then slowly pans as they are walking, then flicks to a two shot where the dialogue begins. A tracking shot is used to follow the characters as they are walking. This then leads to a three shot, with the third character in front of the two boys earlier shown, this shows the audience that the camera wasn’t acting like a person in this particular shot. It carries on tracking for a while when they all begin to talk, then an over-the-shoulder shot is used when one character stops to get his point across. This then shows the other characters entering in the background, unaware of what the three boys were talking about previously.

Evaluation

Overall i was very pleased with our final piece. We used a wide range of camera angles and shots to create what we thought was the perfect end piece. Little did we know that we broke a rule. The 360 degree rule. So we have to film for a second time to create the appropiate ending to finish our mini film. I thought that the section where i run around the corner worked very well, it gives an illusion that the place where we filmed was larger than it was. If we had to re-film i would have considered shooting the door handle differently. Perhaps further away from the camera. The outcome impressed us a lot. I am very happy that my group achieved such a wonderful piece.