General Codes and Conventions of Film Openings

At the start of any film, it nearly always starts of with the production company name and logo, but some companies for example Universal, are linked to many other subsidiaries. These films will involve more than one company, therefore may have many names and logo's before the film actually starts. For most hollywood blockbuster films, the actual film footage does not start until at least a couple of minutes into the start.

In Halloween (John Carpenter) it uses a blue filter and does not show the main protagonist until 6 minutes into the film, but unusually this is quite early for a horror film. The first time we get any indication 

In the Bride of Chucky (Ronnie Yu) they signify where this horror is set by showing the American flag, but as well as that it includes rain and also is set at night.

Marley and Me starts of with a voice over from the main protagonist, describing his life so far. Also a two shot is used with him and a woman, which could signify it is a Rom Com.

Napolean Dynamite is a comedy film, and this is shown by the main protagonist wearing unusual clothing, and standing on his own which could signify he has limited friends.

Anchorman is another comedy, and in some cases the production company can change their logo depending on the type of film they make, for example they could change the text to make it suit a horror purpose, or animate it for a comedy. Here is an example. As you can see from the same production company logo, it changes from film to film.

Ali G Indahouse is yet another comedy, but with a twist. When the audience sees the establishing shots of all the gun crime and the city, they immediately think that this film must be an action, but then once the main protagonist is introduced they can see straight away that it is a comedy, from his visual appearance and his behavior.

Avatar is a mix of genres, which involve adventure / sci-fi / action, and this is signified by a spaceship moving through space, and a voice over involving the main protagonist explaining the journey he reluctantly takes.

The lost boys is a gothic horror, and this is signified at the opening by small body language, which in this case was the picking of the teeth, which signifies a vampire.

Never Back Down is an action / adventure film and it opens with an introduction into his behavior, which in this case is punching someone in a football match. This relates back to the genre so straight away you know what the film is about.

Harry potter and the philosophers stone is a fantasy film, and this starts by him locked in a house under a wardrobe, so at the start you do not know what the genre is.

Narrative Theory

Our task was to create a unique or already existing microdrama involving Propp's seven character types. These are the -

1. Hero

2. Villain

3. Donor

4. Princess and the father

5. False Hero

6. The dispatcher

7. The magical helper

These character types exist in nearly all modern day productions, often with multiple versions of these character types, so you can distinguish between them.

Filmic Tastes

The last 5 films I have seen are -

The Social Network

Avatar

Never Back Down

Transformers 2

The Hangover

Ice Age 3

The last move i went to pay and see at the cinema was The social network

My two favourite film genre's are comedy and action / adventure

My all 5 top favorite films are as follows -

Avatar

The Hangover

Anchorman

The Social Network

Fight Club

The hangover has to be my favorite out of all of these, because even as a comedy it made me laugh throughout it. The plot is as the title suggests, some people in Las Vegas wake up with an extreme hangover due to the alcohol and drugs from the night before. To make this such a funny comedy, everything that happens is very extreme, but still maintains realism.

Evaluation Questions

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

4. Who would be the audience for your  media product?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Physcological Horror

Psychological horror tends to be less gruesome compared to traditional horror and typically contains less physical harm, as it works mainly on the factors of mentally affecting the audience rather than the display of graphic imagery seen in the slasher sub-genres. 

The main protagonist's in these films are generally male, with female victims, stereotypically blonde, busty and sexually active.

It creates discomfort in the viewer by exposing common or universal psychological vulnerabilities and fears, most notably the shadowy parts of ourselves in which most people repress or deny.

A good example of this is The Shining.

(wiki)

Film Tastes

This is the greatest film ever made http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_social_network 

Avatar Swede Description and evaluation & The Coursework Task (reworked)

 What is a swede film?

A swede is a film which has been made on a low budget on purpose, which is usually based on an popular film. These can either be made for comedy, or to see how well the film could be made on a low budget and therefore any changes to the real product can be made.

Shortlist of possible films to swede

• Avatar
• I am legend
• Lord of the rings
• Fight Club
• Harry Potter

The swede we chose!

Our idea was to try and remake the film 'Avatar', using low budget special effects. In our swede we used a range of different camera shots, editing and special effects to try and make it look as realistic as possible, but with a comical aspect to it.

The reason we chose to do Avatar was that it is a very modern film, so there is more chance for people to have seen it previously and also this film had the highest budget of any film ever.

If this was my main production what would I do differently?

I would use a larger variety of shot types, as well as focusing on one aspect of the film, for example the opening, instead of trying to cover as many aspects of the film in less detail. We would also use a more precise location and costumes. The genre would be very different to this, due to the fact that with a film like this, the special effects are crucial to make it believable, which we could not achieve.

The Coursework Task

Our coursework task is to produce a 2 minute opening to a film of our chosen genre which must include a variety of shots, sound and suitable cast. Along with that, we have to make a blog for research + planning and our evaluation.

Fillm Poster

For our Gothic Horror film poster, I had the idea of using an image from our actual footage which will signify that the poster relates to this film. The image that we chose to use was a low angle of the main protagonist in the forest, showing the setting of the film opening but also the main protagonist. The lighting we decided to use was a shadow feature, which had a blue tint to it, to help signify the genre which is a gothic horror. The leaves in the foreground help signify that it is a point of view show which has been used to anchor in that somebody is watching this main protagonist.

The reason that we chose this rather than a poster with for example a coffin, was because in the opening minute to our film, you would not guess that it is a gothic horror, instead thinking that it is just a simple horror film. Only after the main protagonist is signified as killing the stalker, then do you realise that it is infact a gothic horror.

Our revised narrative

After getting audience feedback from classmates and peers, we have decided to open our film in an isolated place, for example a forrest or a countryside. From this, we are going to signify to the audience that our main protagonist, which will be female, is being watched and stalked by someone, yet we will not show the audience who this person is. We will do this by using many point of view shots of the stalker, but also diegetic sound to anchor in the feeling that the protagonist knows she is being watched.

We will make it appeal to our teenage audience by having a teenage protagonist, we will appeal to a female audience by suggesting romance with the villain by having a photograph before the chase that shows the protagonist possibly a female holding the hand of a male the identity of this person will be signified by a watch which wee will see the villain having to signify the villain is the person in the photograph. The outcome of the chase will have lots of polysemy to create narrative enigma. The chase will be signified as a dream by unusual lighting or echoed sound. The protagonists bedroom will depend on the gender of the protagonist it will need a mirror so that they can find the bite or scratch to signify the dream really happened. The bedroom may also signify the protagonist as a romantic perhaps the romance was lost when the villain became either a vampire or a werewolf.

Our age-group are used to high budget films with lots of special effects so to appeal to our audience we would need to signify as much gore without spending much. Also on a site such as Youtube the most viewed hits are ones of stunts, humor, animals, babies, pranks and music. We may film some animals in the forrest if we can find them it may be insects or birds or a pet cat within the house. The chase may include lots of jumping, hiding and tripping over. We may record a non diagetic rock band as this appeals to teenagers too. Our genre appeals to predominantly males so to appeal to females to we have included a female protagonist and romance. Our audience of our original anamatic did not connote the preferred reading of the film as seriously as we hoped therefore we have made ours not silly but not too dark.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

So many things! To start of with, I couldn't even name half of the shots I have used in my film back then, for example the panning shot, I would have just thought it was turning the camera. I have learnt how vital the number of different shots and angles in a film are, but more importantly that you should never use the same shot for more than 5 seconds, as the audience will then get bored and not find it as interesting. This is extremely important in horror / action films as you want to create suspense and not boredom.

Another important issue I have found since the prelim task is how important the cast is in comparison to who you want to view this film. For example, if you want an action film you do not normally want to see a pensioner walking to the tills in a supermarket, you want pure action! We have used this in our film by selecting a young blonde female for the male gaze, the teenage audience and the female audience because of romance we brought into it by her going to meet her boyfreind. More importantly, we chose a female to play the main protagonist & villain to add drama and shock in our film, as this is usually the scream queen and not the killer.

A huge issue we have had to tackle in our full product is editing, which we did very little of in our prelim task. For our main product we had to edit the sound, lightining issue, adding a blue filter, a voiceover, cutting shots, adding shots, and much more!

I have feel I have learnt a huge amount since looking back at the prelim task and the things listed above are just a number of them!

What have you learnt about technologies from the process if constructing this product?

Well to start off with, the filming equipment we used was new to our group, which included the Camera, Tripod and Boom Microphone, so we had to play around we these before we could start filming anything. Once we started the actual filming, we realised that it was important to keep the Boom Microphone close to the cast, but not in shot, as it would be very difficult to hear the audio otherwise.

Another problem on our first night of shooting was the camera, due to the light difficulties and no place to plug in an elecrtic lamp. Even with the night filter on, we still didnt get the quality we needed so had to reshoot. On our reshoot we found it much easier doing it in the day, then using other technoligy to edit it to make it look darker, but more importantly the blue filter.

For editing all of our footage, we used the programme IMovie, which we found very difficult to use at the start but then got used to it the more often we used it. By the end of our film we were managing quite complicated things on IMovie, such as balancing the light quality to put on a blue filter but not ruining the quality of our film, and also adjusting the sound so we got the right pitch of sound for whenever one of our cast was speaking.

Throughout this coursework task, another programme we have used is blogger, to keep an updated blog on the events which have taken place in order to complete this coursework to a standard at which we are happy. We have learnt many things on blogger during the way, such as learning how to change the time setting so that our followers didnt get popups at 3 am, to embedding video clips and hyperlinks through texts, which enhance the level of ICT used on the blog.

Another programme I have used when I have not been using IMovie is Windows Movie Maker, which is identical to IMovie, but on my computer at home runs faster than IMovie. The other benefit of using Windows Movie Maker is because uploading videos and images is a lot faster, so I have used this for different things such as short films to location scouting.

Who would be the audience for your media product? & How did you attract / adress your audience?

We decided that we wanted the audience for our film to be a teenage one, due to the popular demand for films now at our age range, but we did not limit our audience there. We tried to get our film to appeal to as many different catagories of people as we could, for example, we had the main protagonist as a blonde young female, which appeals to the male gaze, but also to appeal to the female gaze we added the idea of romance, with the main protagonist wanting to meet her boyfreind to tell him something. Also to appeal to a young audience we used a teenage cast instead of an older cast, but an older generation might also enjoy watching this film because of the genre, not because of the cast.

We attracted our audience in many different ways. The first, and most appealing to us was Youtube. This is because of how widely spread the audience on here is, and how active and busy the website is. It is the largest video website currently on the internet.

Our second idea was to put our video on Facebook, which is currently the largest social networking site available, but more importantly, together in our group we have over 500 active freinds on the website, most of whome will be happy to comment and watch our film, which will in return give us great audience feedback.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

Well to start off with, we would set our hopes high, which a lot of films do, and aim for some of the biggest distributers. Due to the biggest film industry being in America, thats where any film would love to be shown, as thats where it would be best known. The first thought would be the Big 6 in America, which comprises of 20th Century Fox, Warner Bro's., Paramount, Columbia, Universal and Walt Disney. To be linked with any of these Big 6 would then give you the best possible links with the biggest distributers.

For example with Universal, if you had a contract with them then they would put you in touch with Studio Canal, which is the largest distributer for films across Europe. This would then largely help your film in being recognized as it would be distributed in the two largest film continents.

With Columbia, their distributer is Sony Pictures, which would also be very good as it would link you with the rest of Sony.

However, this would just be what we hope for, and not be being realistic. In looking for a film distributer, you would think of looking for a good Indie company based in the country you set your film, for example for my film it would be England. I would then go into detail about each company, then narrow down my search by looking at a genre distributer, for example Hammer Film Productions, which specialises in Horror films. The reason that this company would be very good for my film would be due to the specific genre in horror, which I have already mentioned and because they would know more about this than any broad distributers, as broad ones do not have specialities.

There is a large variety of Film Distributers for every type of genre you can think of, but the problem is finding the perfect one for your film, as it is hard to persuade a company to distribute for you, as it is a huge business.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

With our production, we decided to use a countertypical villain in it, which is of course the blonde teenage girl. The reason we have gone against the norm is due to the shock that the audience will recieve when they suspect that the girl has been killed by the stalker, but then infact kills the stalkers.

An example where this has been used is in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but instead of the main protagonist killing the vampires, she is the vampire. The reason that Buffy the Vampire Slayer became so popular was because something like this hadn't been seen before, as with Twilight, which again links to our film with the idea of vampires.

The video below shows parts of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but also shows that this particular social group which is 18-32 year old blonde girls has an appeal on a male audience which is known as the male gaze. We incorportated this idea into our film by choosing a blonde lead character over a brunnette.

The reason that we felt that our main protagonist should not be linked to any steriotypical youth culture of today is because it would ruin the idea of our genre, which is gothic horror. This is because you do not expect the main protagonist in a gothic horror to be drinking, smoking and socialising with freinds much.

The clothing is also very important when linking to social groups. In a film when trying to appeal to a male gaze, you do not expect the main protagonist, if female, to be wearing, for example some trousers, you would be expecting her to be wearing a skirt and a low cut top. Also the colour of the clothing can play a large part in the genre, for example in a Rom-Com you would expect some bright colours, whereas in a gothic horror you would expect dark blue / black.

Our finished opening

Evaluation - In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

To start of with, the setting in any horror film is crucial, as this plays a large part in why the victim can't escape from the killer. Over time, there have been many different settings which make the victim feel isolated, for example in Shrooms, the setting is some Irish woods, which is an isolated place and also a stereotypical place for a murder in a lot of films. The reason that this particular setting was probably chosen was due to the title, Shrooms, which links to magic mushrooms which then links to the woods. As our film opening is also based in the woods, we looked at why this setting is so relevant to horror films, and the conclusions we came up with was that it is a dark, isolated lonely place, that you don't often visit at night.

Another film setting we looked at because of its isolated setting was Creep, as it is situated on a railway line at night, which is stereotyped as a dangerous place, due to the accidental deaths because of trains. In this film however, they have turned the stereotype of dangerous trains into a good thing, because it would mean civilization, which the main protagonist is looking for, due to being chased by a creature.

Another key trend a lot of films use it to show in some way where their film is meant to be based, so that you can get a clearer idea on how people there might speak. For example, at the start of Bride Of Chucky, you see an American flag over the top of a building, which anchors the audience view that it is either set in America, otherwise it is an American based building. With our film, we used a clear Yorkshire accent and set it in the forest to signify that it is based in England.

For our cast, we chose to go against the common stereotype of having a male killer, instead we had a female killer, although we changed it by having her being stalked by a male victim, which links back to some common stereotypes. The key change we made was that instead of her being killed by the stalker, she actually killed him. A television program which has the same sort of scenario is Buffy The Vampire Slayer, where the girl is the hero, but kills the vampires. We followed this counter-type for ours to shock the audience, as they would expect a blonde female to be killed, and not to be the killer.

In our film we also decided to include a voiceover to describe the narrative, as it can be quite confusing, so we did this to anchor down the preferred reading of the film.

For our production titles, we decided to use the idea that originated from Halloween, which is to make the titles glow red, which can signify danger. Here is an example of a video created to show how ours looks compared to the original Halloween.

Film Poster (Revamped and added detail)

For our film poster, I had the idea of using an image from our actual footage which will signify that the poster relates to this film. The idea I had was to use the same clip of our main protagonist, but have one of these clips in the light and one of these clips in the dark, then drop each one in half and put them together. This will relate to our film and the idea that everybody has a dark side.

Soundtrack

We are currently putting together the final touches for our second rough cut screen, which this time will include our soundtrack.

We are making the soundtrack in GarageBand, which will include varied instruments to fit with different parts of the film opening. For example before any action takes place, we will have a slow paced instrument to build up momentum for when the main protagonist screams. After that, we will switch to a fast pace when the boy is running to find her, which can build desperation to get there in time. It will slow down once he finds the girl with the body lying next to her, then suddenly stops and that is when she turns around.

This idea follows a lot of other horror film soundtracks, as it builds up momentum and the shock of whatever happens when there is no music is greater than if there was music.

Audience Feedback

From screening our first rough cut to our peers, we have general feedback that the shot variation is good, although the narrative needs altering as it very confusing, in-particular the coffin scene at the end, which anchors down the genre, yet the audience didn't understand why it was there.

From this feedback, we know that we need to re-shoot the coffin seen, but also add a narrative voiceover in places, ready for the second rough cut screen. This time we will also add our soundtrack into it, so the audience feel it is more like a film than before. So after all this feedback, we are thinking of how best to incorporate all of the points into our film.

Editing

Now that we have all of the footage we need, we are putting together our rough cut ready to be viewed for thursdays lesson on April 4th. In that lesson, we hope to get good feedback on our rough cut telling us what is good about our production, and what needs to be improved. From this we can arrange any re-shoots that need doing during the easter holiday, and also sort out the sound and music to go with our production.

From looking at our audience feedback, to anchor down our narrative we have decided that a voiceover from the main protagonist will help, instead of only having a voice over at parts. With this voiceover it will describe what is happening on screen, why it is happening and what happened next, so there should be no reason to why people misinterpret the narrative.

Our first time shooting our film

Well to sum it up, it was a disaster. This was mainly due to the fact that by the time we started filming, it was very late and therefore pitch black. This caused us many problems because with our location, it was very hard to get a good light source. To add to this disaster of our footage, it started raining just when we had started, so because we had not planned for it to be raining, we did not bring the necessary equipment to deal with it.

The good points were that we managed to get a crucial scene filmed without a problem because we did this in a different location, but hopefully the rest will be finished very soon.

We found no problems with our casting and acting, but more importantly shot variation, it was just the problem that we started filming very late, therefore we could not see anything.

To deal with this in the future, we are going to start filming earlier because this will mean we can just edit it to make it darker, which is a lot easier than to make it lighter.

Horror Film Openings

Generally, they all start at night, so the audience knows that this is unlikely to be a cartoon film. The anchor into the Horror genre, a blue lens is usually put over the camera, because it gives a scary lighting effect. At the opening it is unlikely that you see the main protagonist, as usually you see the victim which is generally an attractive blonde.

Halloween starts with a point of view shot of the main protagonist going up to a house at night. A blue filter is used over the camera, and later on in the opening the main protagonist puts a clown mask on the camera, which is quite unusual in horror films.

Shaun of the dead starts off with main protagonist shown then opens out onto mise en scene, but this is done by the protagonist watching TV and it being on the news, which is quite unsual.

Prom Night starts with a flashback from how the main protagonist knew the killer, and how even though he has been in prison this now comes to play in the film.

Strangers starts with a wedding and is set in a rural location which signifies vulnrability aswell as being isolated.

Saw 1 starts by showing its a slasher straight away with the chains around the victims ankle, and you can guess by the name of the film and the objects in the film he will have to cut himself free.

Friday the 13th changes the production logo of paramount, and uses a red glow effect to suit the genre of the film better

Texas chainsaw massacre starts with the mise on scene at a party, and it is set at night and you dont see the main protagonist until later on, which follows the general horror film opening.

Creep starts off with the mise on scene in the train station at night, which links back to the general codes and conventions for this genre, but this time is shows the main protagonist at the start of the film as the victim and not the killer.

Our revised narrative ( Revamped with more detail into our actual revised narrative

We know that were going to have the protagonist having having a gothic horror nightmare or vision. It will be either a vampire or a werewolf chasing the protagonist.  The protagonist will wake up and the audience will find out that this vision is real from a bite or a scratch.

We will make it appeal to our teenage audience by having a teenage protagonist, we will appeal to a female audience by suggesting romance with the villain by having a photograph before the chase that shows the protagonist possibly a  female holding the hand of  a male the identity of this person will be signified by a watch which wee will see the villain having to signify the villain is the person in the photograph. The outcome of the chase will have lots of polysemy to create narrative enigma. The chase will be signified as a dream by unusual lighting or echoed sound. The protagonists bedroom will depend on the gender of the protagonist it will need a mirror so that they can find the bite or scratch to signify the dream really happened. The bedroom may also signify the protagonist as a romantic perhaps the romance was lost when the villain became either a vampire or a werewolf.

Our age-group are used to high budget films with lots of special effects so to appeal to our audience we would need to signify as much gore without spending much. Also on a site such as Youtube the most viewed hits are ones of stunts, humor, animals, babies, pranks and music. We may film some animals in the forrest if we can find them it may be insects or birds or a pet cat within the house. The chase may include lots of jumping,  hiding and tripping over. We may record a  non diagetic rock band as this appeals to teenagers too. Our genre appeals to predominantly males so to appeal to females to we have included a female protagonist and romance. Our audience of our original anamatic did not connote the preferred reading of the film as seriously as we hoped therefore we have made ours not silly but not  too dark.

Casting, costume and makeup & Location Scouting

Vampire Stereotype

• Fangs
• Pale
• Red eyes
• Deep voice
• Greased back hair
• 19th Century black coat
• Older
• Powerful and villainous

More Recent Representations of Vampires

• Teenage
• Fangs
• Pale
• Everyday modern clothing
• Red Eyes
• Sexual
  
• A victim to their Vampirism
• Outsider
• Atractive 

Werewolves

• 1/2 Man 1/2 Wolf
• Furry
• Growling
• Snout
• Sharp Teeth
• No Sympathy
• Large
• Angry
• Powerful

Horror Victims

• Blonde
• Atractive
• Useless
• Screaming
• Emotional

General Codes and Conventions of Film Openings (reworked and added to)

At the start of any film, it nearly always starts of with the production company name and logo, but some companies for example Universal, are linked to many other subsidiaries. These films will involve more than one company, therefore may have many names and logo's before the film actually starts. For most hollywood blockbuster films, the actual film footage does not start until at least a couple of minutes into the start.

In Halloween (John Carpenter) it uses a blue filter and does not show the main protagonist until 6 minutes into the film, but unusually this is quite early for a horror film.



In the Bride of Chucky (Ronnie Yu) they signify where this horror is set by showing the American flag, but as well as that it includes rain and also is set at night.




Marley and Me starts of with a voice over from the main protagonist, describing his life so far. Also a two shot is used with him and a woman, which could signify it is a Rom Com.

Napolean Dynamite is a comedy film, and this is shown by the main protagonist wearing unusual clothing, and standing on his own which could signify he has limited friends.

Anchorman is another comedy, and in some cases the production company can change their logo depending on the type of film they make, for example they could change the text to make it suit a horror purpose, or animate it for a comedy. Here is an example. As you can see from the same production company logo, it changes from film to film.


Ali G Indahouse is yet another comedy, but with a twist. When the audience sees the establishing shots of all the gun crime and the city, they immediately think that this film must be an action, but then once the main protagonist is introduced they can see straight away that it is a comedy, from his visual appearance and his behavior.

Avatar is a mix of genres, which involve adventure / sci-fi / action, and this is signified by a spaceship moving through space, and a voice over involving the main protagonist explaining the journey he reluctantly takes.

The lost boys is a gothic horror, and this is signified at the opening by small body language, which in this case was the picking of the teeth, which signifies a vampire.

Never Back Down is an action / adventure film and it opens with an introduction into his behavior, which in this case is punching someone in a football match. This relates back to the genre so straight away you know what the film is about.

Harry potter and the philosophers stone is a fantasy film, and this starts by him locked in a house under a wardrobe, so at the start you do not know what the genre is.

Prelim task and Avatar Swede (DRAFT)

Vodcast

My 3 ideas for film openings & Initial pitch. Also my final idea. (Reworked)

1. My first idea and the one I pitched is where a man is at work on the computer, then some red letters appear on the screen saying, 'I am at your home'. The man knows his sister is at home, so trys to ring her, but there is no answer because she is upstairs listening to music, but what you do see is a black glove clicking the phone off, and also in this scene there is a rack of knifes, with one missing. He rushes home and then the person in the home kills the man, then there is a sudden end.

2. My second idea is where a mad scientist is going to operate on a body, but the body is alive and strangles him and walks off.  This idea will not work because we need adult actors in a labratory.

3. My third idea is where a boy is seeing a vision of a ghostly image of himself is a set location, and keeps seeing it, so decides to go to this place to see if it is real, when he gets there he cannot see anything, but then it suddenly appears.

My final idea is where a blonde busty girl is in a forrest on her own, with signifiers that someone is watching her. She has gone to meet a friend but can't find him, so tries to ring him. When he realises that somebody has grabbed the girl, he runs after, only to find the stalker dead, and the girl is a vampire.

Narrative theory (Reposted and reworded)

Our task was to create a unique or already made microdrama involving Propp's seven character types. The are the -

1. Hero
2. Villain
3. Donor
4. Princess and the father
5. False Hero
6. The dispatcher

7. The magical helper

Animatic's

My Filmic Tastes (Reworked)

The last 5 films I have seen are -

Avatar
Never Back Down
Gladiator
Lord of the rings, The Return Of The King
The Hangover


The last move i went to pay and see at the cinema was Avatar


My two favorite film genre's are comedy and action / adventure


My all 5 top favorite films are as follows -


Avatar
The Hangover
Anchorman
Transformers 
Fight Club

The hangover has to be my favorite out of all of these, because even as a comedy it made me laugh throughout it. The plot is as the title suggests, some people in Las Vegas wake up with an extreme hangover due to the alcohol and drugs from the night before. To make this such a funny comedy, everything that happens is very extreme, but still maintains realism.

All of our Podcast's

The seven evaluation questions

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

4. Who would be the audience for your  media product?

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Psychological horror

Psychological horror tends to be subtle compared to traditional horror and typically contains less physical harm, as it works mainly on the factors of mentally affecting the audience rather than the display of graphic imagery seen in the slasher and splatter sub-genres.

It typically plays on archetypal shadow characteristics embodied by the threat.

It creates discomfort in the viewer by exposing common or universal psychological vulnerabilities and fears, most notably the shadowy parts of ourselves in which most people repress or deny.
A good example of this is The Shining.

(wiki)

Hammer Horror Conventions (Reworked)

Extract from Media & Film Stduies Handbook

(Vivienne Clark, Peter Jones, Bill Malyszko and David Wharton)

'British Horror films made by Hammer Film Productions at Hammer Studios, near Bray, on the river Thames in Berkshire. Hammer produced a large number of successful low-budget gothic horror movies from the mid-1950s to the 19070s, such as The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), The brides of Dracula (1960) and Lust for a Vampire (1971). Shot in lurid Technicolor, they made stars of such actors as Peter Crushing, Christopher Lee, Oliver Reed, Ingrid Pitt and Vincent Price.'

Film Tastes (Reworked)

This is the greatest film ever made [wiki]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_of_the_Dead

Hot Fuzz powerpoint

Jonathan Bailey - Hot Fuzz

Avatar Swede Description and evaluation & The Coursework Task (reworked)

 What is a swede film?

A swede is a film which has been made on a low budget on purpose, and is usually based on a medium to high budget film. These can either be made for comedy, or to see how well the film could be made on a low budget.

Shortlist of possible films to swede

• Avatar
• I am legend
• The shining
• Fight Club
• Harry Potter

The swede we chose!

Our idea was to try and remake the film 'Avatar', using low budget special effects. In our swede we used a range of different camera shots, editing and special effects to try and make it look as realistic as possible, but with a comical aspect to it.

The reason we chose to do Avatar was that it is a very recent film, so there is more chance for people to have seen it previously and also to help this it got the top spot on the box office rankings.

If this was my main production what would I do differently?


I would use a larger variety of shot types, as well as focusing on one aspect of the film, for example the opening, instead of trying to cover as many aspects of the film in less detail. We would also use a more precise location and costumes.

The Coursework Task

Our coursework task is to produce a 2 minute opening to a film of our chosen genre which must include a variety of shots, sound and suitable cast. Along with that, we have to make a blog for research + planning and our evaluation.