GNACS

GNAC:

• Genre
• Narrative
• Atmosphere
• Character

These 4 factors are key in filming, they represent the basic structure of a film and essentially are some of the most important factors.

GENRE

Genre is essentially the backbone and basis of the film, it sets the feeling and mood. A genre can be recognised by its common set of distinguishing features

What you can learn from genre is how big an audience is for each genre and how popular each genre is. This is important because if we do an unpopular genre, people simply will not watch it.

NARRATIVE

Narrative in media is basically the media term for 'story telling.' 

Narrative is the way different elements are organised to form a story, an example of these elements would be in documentaries or characters in a drama or comedy (Will- Inbetweeners)

ATMOSPHERE

Atmosphere is the genuine feeling the movie gives the audience, essentially the way the audience interprets the text (denotation). Atmosphere can be anything, the surrounding, characters or the dialogue for example, in a comedy you would expect calmer, friendly dialogue, a friendly setting and a lively main character. Whereas, in a horror, we would expect a darker atmosphere, where our character would be horrible, surroundings dark and low key lit, and freaky dialogue. 

CHARACTER

Character in media is crucial, the character is the main characteristic of a film,simply because they represent the film. Our character 'Felix' will be important as our film focuses just on him, and will portray the conventions of todays representation of skaters. So it will be important to nail the characteristic side of our filming much like the rest of the GNAC Factors.

Sound terminology - Understanding Basic Sound

Pleonastic- Sound which is heightened to create fear, tension, excitement etc

Ambient - Background sounds which are present in the scene e.g. animals, people, weather etc

Selective - Sound which is used to place emphasis on certain things in a scene 

Sound Bridge - At the beginning of a new scene the sound is carried over from the end of the old scene

Sound Effects – Sounds which are used to make a psychological impact or place emphasis on certain things in a scene

Score – Music which is played during a scene which can create a certain mood, link two scenes or help add to the plot

Silence – Used to create suspense or get some sort of reaction from the audience

Theme music – Music which is played throughout the movie and is used to develop the narrative and match the theme of the movie

Voice over – The voice of a character which is used to guide or inform the audience but can also mislead them

Synchronous – When a sound matches an action or event on screen and can be used to emphasize it

Asynchronous – When a sound or music does not come from the diegetic reality of the movie

Contrapuntal – Sound which does not match with what is happening on screen and is used to create a different meaning 

Diegetic - Sound which is the source is currently coming from someone or something on screen e.g. Characters speaking

Non-Diegetic - Sound which the source does not come from something that is happening on screen e.g. Narration

What I can learn from these key terms is the basic sound terms in media so when doing coursework i can buff up my grades with good knowledge and terminology on the sound aspect of media. 

Risk assessment

British film analysis

Eddie the Eagle is an example of a British produced film. The company responsible for the production is MARV productions.

Eddie the Eagle pulled in $46 millions worth of grosses (£12.8m) in the UK, making it the highest grossing British to date. It had a production budget of £23m.

20th Century FOX distributed the film as well as Lionsgate (Canadian) to help market and exchange the film for a wider global audience, this is important because ETE (Eddie the Eagle) is a drama like ours. We need to research a British film however, because we need to see the kind of production studios we will use to put in our opening sequence when we present our own film company (Black sheep productions)


We will use MARV to partnership our film as people will see this and be aware they are quite a strong company as they have produced such a strong, touching drama film which is one of the UK's most successful.


Obviously we can't use a major American partnership like Walt Disney or 20th Century FOX because our production is only little and we feel the film wouldn't go international as it touches on a minority audience (Young people, teens) whereas big American companies produce family friendly films for everyone

Musical themes in Media

Leitmotif: A reoccurring theme throughout a film or musical, attached/associated with a character, location, emotion or situation.

An example of a leitmotif producer is; John Williams - Famous for:

• E.T and Jaws
• Star Wars - Darth Vader
• Indiana Jones
  
  
  
  
  
  This style of sound can be helpful if we plan to give our character a personality, we may not use this style of sound but we will consider it when filming and editing our final piece.
  

Colour and their meanings in Media

Colour plays a crucial part of the Mise-en-scene aspects of film. Colour is very important in that it symbolises different meanings such as; Black - (Death/Power) or White - Innocence and new beginnings

Colours and their representation

This is important because if the colour isn't nailed in film it can look very unusual and give the viewing audience integrated ideas on the character. Say if you took a murderous villain, you'd expect the director or costume designer to dress them in dark dull colours to represent bad feelings like death etc. Not in bright yellow or green to represent happiness or cowardice.

As a team, me and Liam can use this chart to dress our character accordingly so that he fits the gloomy drama setting, whilst maintaining a stereotype of 'the typical skater.'

Learning Premier Pro and basic editing

In one lesson when editing our animatic, Liam (our editor) showed me how to edit so that I can use pro in the future should he not be able to.

What I learnt is that editing can be a long, hard and complicated process if you do to know what you're doing, however even though I not doing any editing for our final piece. Learning to use premier is important for me in case I decide to work alone for next years final tasks. What I have learnt, is how to bring in different transitions like dissolve, cut etc. I've also learnt how to overlap and import sound which is crucial as I share a joint role with Liam on sound.

This will help me greatly with my media as now I know all the main aspects of film making (Sound, Camera and Editing) I can use these skills to my advantage and make the bet I can out of our final piece.

Rough cut

Here is a one minute rough cut (sequence of clips for rough footage NOT final) of a part of our final product. The sequence you see here is the first 1/4 of our film to about halfway.

There are some minor errors I as the camera man will redo, such as when our protagonist Felix is putting on his top, it was intentionally meant to be an arc but I decided against it last minute, and it became a very shaky handheld shot which I have evaluated and will improve on when we re-film and add the rest of our segments.

 I especially like our crab shot in the cupboard as the composition is perfect and the scene really flows. however in that sequence in the kitchen we have paid minor attention to Mise-en-scene and glowing Christmas lights can be seen which will take away the attention of our viewing audience. Another reason we have to re-film. Also because we filmed at dusk and the lighting isn't as natural as we'd have liked.There was a fair amount of planning and we had our animatic aside to roughly get similar shots. But evaluation for next time is use a tripod more often and pay more attention to Mise-en-scene.

Mise-en-Scene

Mise-en-Scene is a French term meaning what is put in the scene or frame, basically Visual information in front of the camera.

There are 5 key areas in Mise-en-Scene which are crucial to any success in film, These 5 areas include:

Setting & Props:

These are a very important part of film, simply because its not just "backgrounds." They are usually a set built from scratch and there is vast research and time taken into setting the set. Settings can also manipulate the audience by creating expectations ad then taking a different turn. Props can also be handy as they set the genre for the audience.

Costume, Hair & Make up:

These factors all indicate the personality of the characters within the shot and help the audience establish status and role of the character.

Certain costumes can signify set individuals, - Cape can signify a superhero, or a suit a hero or villain depending on the genre



Facial Expressions & Body Language:

Facial expressions provide a clear indicator of how someone is feeling

 if someone is smiling broadly, we assume they're happy. However if you apply different lighting, the audience get a different feeling if the lighting is followed up with clothing that matches the tone.

Lighting & Colour:

There are two main types of lighting;
LOW KEY - Deep distinct shadows/silhouettes can be formed, gives away small parts of the frame. Commonly used in horrors or darker films.
HIGH KEY - Brightly lit sets or a sunny day, gives off a lot of the frame. Commonly used in romances or upbeat films.

Colour carries set connotations which can add distinct meanings to a scene. (Red - Danger/Love | Black - Scary/Sad) Giving them looks, feels or a mood. Also used to create dramatic effects.



 Positioning of the character/objects within shot:

Positioning within a shot can draw audience attention to an important character/object, this applies to the use of rule of thirds I explained in a previous post.

Our main character

Felix Hirsch-Keogh

Our main character (Felix) will portray the role of a skater, we aim to be unconventional with him however. The normal representation/convention of a skater is that they're a bad influence usually fairly old lads and do all things bad, like ruin the streets, litter and do drugs/smoke.

We aim to move away from the conventional skater, make our character likeable so the audience sympathise with him, so that his death/disappearance in the sequence affects our audience. After watching multiple famous films we have learnt that having someone who can act or portray a role in a set way is important, and that you need to establish a character to communicate with the audience so that the piece is more effective.

Learning to film with sound

In our lesson we were taught by a year 13 Media student Tom Joyce, who taught us all the techniques for sound when
filming.

Before  filming you must (as the camera man)

- Call what's going to happen

- Call the take

- Get the actors to clap to make the sound synchronisable

The sound needs to be synchronisable so that there is a peak of sound in which the person in charge of sound can use to help fiddle with pitch and tempo.

Sound man however just needs to stand out of shot with the microphone and audio device.
This lesson was useful to me as we can use this skill to record audio without any external sound interference like wind etc.

Pitch

In our last lesson, me and Liam presented our pitch/idea to the class. We feel it went rather successful, unfortunately few students put their hands up when asked who would watch it. We got very minor student feedback, some of which consisted of 'needs to be clearer.'
To us this was fair enough as it was fairly rushed and could have been better. Our biggest critic was understandably Miss. She gave us strong criticism in which we took well, she told us how to adapt our character to keep audience engaged, and we have.

One of our audience who said they'll watch it was Harry Stoakes. He claimed he'd watch it as its a kind of film he like to watch. Not only tat but he has always been a film watcher and will watch anything. to us this is helpful as it tells us that there is more a male audience than female, he also gave us a comment as to that its a good time to produce as set genres on films have times when they peak (e.g - Horrors/Halloween, Fantasy's/Christmas).

Finding the perfect location

The other day, me and Liam decided to go out and explore our local town Ottery St Mary to find good areas to film. being only 16 (me 17 but still learning to drive) and unable to drive we knew it would be best to start our final with Ottery, as going else where would be too difficult, having given it thought. We decided it would actually be ideal to film here. We both lived close, we could use either one of our houses, and Ottery being a rural area offers some beautiful scenery and areas.

It would also fit the rural kids doing drugs and skating scene rather well, which would help us come up with our character idea. - An unconventional skater. We also were aware Ottery offers heritage which may draw in older viewers because they're familiar with the scene, not only but our target audience as well. A lot of local teens live around and to see something shot in their local town would be a way to draw them in to see our piece.

 

 

 

 

Research of an Oscars' Best picture

The real 'Oskar Schindler' who film is
based on

Schindler's list is a 1993 American true historical period drama film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg and scripted by Steven Zaillian. The film relates a period in the life of Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German businessman, during which he saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust.

Schindler's List premiered on November 30, 1993, in Washington, D.C. and it was released on December 15, 1993. Often listed among the greatest films ever made, it was also a box office success. It was the recipient of seven Academy Awards (out of twelve nominations), including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score, as well as numerous other awards (including seven BAFTAs and three Golden Globes).

Market & Exchange

Obviously our final piece isn't historic nor true, but researching Schindler's list (having seen it) is important, it may be an Oscar winner which lets be real as a British film ours won't (but we can dream). It's important however because we can take ideas and camera angles to what makes a piece so strong, 

There are similarities in that both films intend to have a sad effect - Obviously Schindler's in that it's based on one of the most inhumane events ever, ours in that our character we aim to make the audience cling to and feel for. Have something bad happen to him.

Actors Liam Neeson and Ben
Kingsley star

When filming we can look back to this piece to see where we can improve after filming, obviously we don't it to be exactly like the film, but that way we have something that won many awards to give us a backbone and send us the right way.

Our Animatic

This is our animatic, I advise you have the sound off, simply as there is an error (we didn't experience whilst editing) where it makes a horrible noise every 10 seconds after the 4 second mark.

However, we chose not to include a backing track as the track has to be the we're officially using. And as we are both unsure, we'll choose to keep the song 'anonymous' at the moment. What our Animatic shows is a clearer story board and what we aim to make our various frames look like. What can be learned from using an animatic is that its very useful for planning as you can draft the kind of shot you need, however there is an artistic side to it to enhance what is going on in frame.                                                            

Opening sequence necessities

Setting:                                                                 Characters:

• Sunny                                                           Main - Someone in teens
• Morning                                                       Mains friend - Similar to main
• Town/Village                                               Car driver - Anyone as character remains anonymous

Props to consider                                              Notes to Actors

• Car                                                           Set in Ottery St Mary - Small town
• Phone                                                       Main character - needs to be dressed in dull colours-
• Daily household items -                            will be the only one using props - little dialogue in film
• Spoon/fork/knives                                    Will have to do overtop narration for the majority of the
• Cereal                                                       two minutes.
• Alarm clock                                              Second character - Bright colours -Lively-very little
• Headphones                                             dialogue, enthusiastic acting - In view for only 10-15s
• Picture

Storyboard draft for final task

For our final task, we've been given the task of making a storyboard to summarise our task. On the storyboard we've written the vast amount of media terms we will be using for our camera, editing and sound.

Our story is about a teen boy who hates life and finds is just a frustrating never ending viscous cycle, however our short opening films the daily start of his life, where we open the sequence with establishing shots to set the tone, and use a lot of diegetic and non-diegetic sound. At the end of our sequence something happens to our main protagonist which will take a green screen to edit. Our opening sequence is an enigma its self as its the ending and opening. Stay tuned and our Animatic will be up soon to give you the idea of how the scenes/sequence will pan out.

Editing techniques

Graphic match and cut away are two very effective editing methods, and for me they will be used a lot, as in our opening sequence there is going to be a lot of movement in different environments - so we will need to use these shots to move on the frames so we can get our full intro into the 2 mins, and not bore our viewing audience. By spoon feeding them our character constantly doing one action throughout the whole sequence.

We will be using Graphic Match because there will be scenes where in real life they may drag on, but with this technique we can speed up the intro and keep the audience more involved, an example we will use is filming into an alarm clock and back out but into a different environment.




Cut Away will be effective to use as in our piece there will be a lot of things going on, and to help get these gestures across we will use the cut away affect, an example will be the car we use in a variety of shots, where we film the inner of the car whilst keeping the protagonist in frame, then cut away to get the characters view with the car in the background shot.

Film opening analysis

The opening I will be analysing is; The Walking Dead

The Walking Dead is a TVseries (Horror/Drama) made by an American company, it is also vastly popular worldwide, and for me there is some inspiration of the opening sequence. As we are doing an opening on an unconventional teen skater who isn't quite like the rest, we wish to use scenic establishing shots which are quiet and empty to resemble our characters feelings.

In the first shot obviously there is minimum to see but a broken window with overgrowth to emphasise the lack of life or emptiness of the scene, the ident for AMC is well placed in order to take some attention of the shot but also not make it dull.

Our first shot of a character, in a bloodied up newspaper, where the words 'Atlanta' read to give you sense the film is American. Not much going on in this hsot to keep the film a mystery.

A lonely teddy bear lies in an empty shot placed on the rule of third line well. The shadow emphasises the light to create a contrast between light and dark to create happiness through the bear as you associate it with children, but the murky atmosphere of the film darkens the frame.

A cracking establishing shot with subtle titles stacked in the middle of the screen simply as there is nothing going on. The empty roads and litter flying about like hay bails suggest silence and emptiness - the exact feeling we are going for when we create ours. The fact that its also set in Atlanta (A busy city) is unconventional given that cities are busy where as this one is not giving it the creepier atmosphere enhanced by the mise-en-scene of the litter and empty roads.

The dark hallway shot with low key lighting gives better contrast as to what the film is about, being framed in a hospital the frame creates a more powerful effect to suggest something bad has happened.

The broken police station resembled by an establishing shot creates the atmosphere of emptiness reinforcing the films aims of a post zombie apocalypse, well placed titles look good due to the positioning and timing of the frame.

Mise-en-scene again still strong, littered roads and crashed vehicles on a long shot give better emphasis on how bad the situation really is.

The contrast of the frame gives it an essense of age which suggests time has come far from the picture we are seeing. Smart use of an establishing shot to show both highways and the ghost cars of which the audience can connote have been absent for a while. Giving stronger emphasis on what the film really may be about.

Nothing fancy 3 words down in quick succession gives away what the film is about, working really well due to the contrast being so low and dull. Really gives an old horror feel.