Camera work research

For filming our final piece, it is crucial that I learn all of these techniques for filming. When filming I will take into account these shots and keep on referring to them when shooting our task.

I may even make posts about them so I can show that i'm improving my skills and talk about what I have learnt from these experience.

Previewing film openings and getting ideas

For our opening we want to use a narrative over the top, whilst reatianing a story about soemones life. We aim to use many establishing and detailed shots to set our scene

Films that have ideas we like

-Zombieland - Narration

-Shaun of the Dead - Some of the shots / also British
-Inbetweeners - The narration / relatablilty / far less humour
-Walking dead - The idea of the empty but scenic opening shots

Yes, these films maybe in the thriller/zombie concept. But we're taking ideas not the overall genre
Another inspiration is Me before you, another drama in of which we plan to similarise with. We didn't copy it as we didn't know it existed till someone referenced it to us after previewing it. however know owning this knowledge we can go of a drama which follows a similar opening to us of which we can share and differ on conventions.

Idents

For our final piece we (I and Liam) will need a logo in which our film is represented by. Like warner bros. They have their iconic symbol which pops up before the film to give the audience connotations of how good the film really will be. Seeing as our final task will be a drama we will find an ident that fits.
This cat ident was our first draft, simply because its simple, unique and catchy. However after feedback and discussion people told us a "fat cat" wouldn't really be representative of a drama simply because it's to humorous.

What I can learn from this is that the ident is crucial for the audience to establish the genre and capability of the film, and if that your ident is not in any ways similar to your film then it could reflect badly on the company.

Obviously we can't use official idents, as the ident needs to be unique and one of our own. So what I will do is some research into the kind of ident you'd expect to see for a drama genre film.

Meet the Team

 For our final product (The 2-3 min opening sequence of a film) I myself are pairing up with Liam Heath, having split from our group of 4 as 3 is the maximum members you can have. Luckily for me Liam is a computer wiz having studied IT and owning Premiere Pro at home Liam will be a necessity for our groups edit, I however didn't study IT, but I do have very Arty skills, despite not taking Art as a GCSE nor A-Level.


In our group we have to split 3 roles, obviously not easy in a group of 2. Which is why we have chosen to share an aspect being Sound or Audio. We made this decision as we felt it was both of our weakest link in media, therefore to share it would allow us both to learn together to progress from the shambles we called our prelim task.


Profiles:

Aidan Walker

Cinematographer-Director

Watches comedic films;

Inbetweeners- Meet The Spartans etc.

(Also a huge Star Wars fan!)

Arty, studied drama so has knowledge in the film area already

Likes to play sport in free time

Liam Heath

Editor-Producer

Watches horror films:

Saw - Childs play etc.

Very technical good with PC's having studied IT should be at an advantage

Likes to skate in free time

So as you can see, we should be quite the team both having some skills of which media will ask of, Me having the qualities to enhance our actors performance having studied Drama, and Liam who will be a computer Wiz having taken IT.

My role for the final task

For the final task I will be taking on the role of the Camera man. This is obviously a key role to be as I will be responsible for the types of shots and angles. When taking photos I will have to bear in mind factors like the edits to the shots or clips I take. Having worked previously with camera work when I used too make videos for fun, and having my own instagram (which i'll link to give evidence). I will be hopeing to take these photography abilities with me into the filming I do. For me having the role of the camera is a tough one as there are many editing and camera based aspects like the composition ill have to bear in mind when producing these clips for our final task.

Going off this post you can now expect to see more updates of our final task planning and more evidence of me learning the top techniques for filming.

Idents of big companies

An Ident is a sign/logo shown in the opening sequence or trailer of a film to signify who the people that made it are. Its essentially just a visual stimulation so that people can identify the channel/company, which can also help people deter the films quality.

The idents design is crucial as its the main form of appeal towards the viewer, whilst representing the company, carrying its messages.
As its the brand of the company its vital the company stays on the good side of the viewer. Because of this many companies through the years have made major edits to their idents.

W.Disney Ident in the 90's

W.Disney Ident today

Take Walt Disney, a company who base films for the younger audience. Their ident used to be very bland and unappealing to the younger viewers. So after years of research, the ident was made more realistic, and more brighter in your face, the sign of the castle obviously to signify princesses and things which appeals to the younger audience. And because of this one little touch to the ident, Walt Disney draw thousands of people to the cinemas at the release of a new film. Where they flash their ident just so the audience know, they're in for a classic. But thanks to the tweaks, Disney is known to produce films which are fun for all the family, and instant classics.

Timeline planning

Incredibles | Opening sequence timeline

This timeline here is an example of The Incredibles opening. Timelines are very useful for the opening sequence as they allow full planning so that the editors know what to put in the film and at what point. So basically every small detail is put in the timeline so there are minimal errors. This kind of planning is effective and ensures the editor of what to put in and when, so that the intro flows smoothly.

AS Coursework

Task
Our final task is to film a two minute long clip of an opening sequence to a new film. Where we will analyse other films and follow there conventions to make ours similar to some of the top opening sequences on screen.

This task is out of 100 and is broken down into 3 categories:

• 20 marks. Research and Planning
• 60 marks. Construction
• 20 marks. Evaluation

Preliminary Task | Final product | Evaluation

This is our final product for our preliminary task. I helped with the all aspects as we were let off and worked as a 4. My major focus was the planning of the actors and there posture as I took those skills from GCSE and adapted them into filming Media, But for our final With Liam Heath, I'll be doing camera and sharing sound.

Considering it was our first major bit of practical, I feel it went rather well. in this Piece I worked with Ruben Haywood (Camera) Dylan Fielding (Editing) Liam Heath (Sound) We had a mixture of shots and techniques which were effective. However It was rather jumpy, there was little dialogue and at some points you didn't understand what was happening and perhaps the skating dragged on a bit. Considering we had to ditch our first idea due to the lack of props which obviously for our final task we will be on top of. Some of the camera work was a little shaky, and the cameraman was visible at one point during the filming, which obviously we will focus on when filming the final. The exchange of dialogue was very vague and it was hard to tell what was going on over the sounds of the pool table and skateboards. There was also little sound effects or editing such as a title, credits etc. Which could have been involved to give the audience connotations of what the film was about, however that was what was intended by lack of titles as the skateboards and way the characters were dressed were signs, which all signified different things, to give the viewers an incense to what the film is about. Obviously this task isn't an opening so it will be very different to our final. And what we can learn is the lack of sound is an issue as it makes the film awkward in some scenes and sometimes, audio can be crucial for the genre or effect of the film. For us Mise-en-scene was big for us to involve and to do this we uses large quantities of establishing shots. And deliberately made the rooms the way they were, like the messiness of the bedroom.

For the camera work Ruben was very effective, he managed to keep the camera as still as he could and used a variety of effective shots and techniques such as 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot. Overall the filming was very good. There were minor errors but they were barely noticeable.

Dylan then proceeded to edit the film by cutting clips and piecing the film together to make sure it ran smoothly. this was important to Dylan as he spent lots of time ensuring the film had little flaws and errors. There weren't to many effects which can be improved on but considering it was his first major edit Dylan did rather well.

Liam on the sound was good, he bared in mind the realistic sounds like the cue hitting the ball and the noises of the door. An effective sound was the skateboards as it set the tone of the film. The only issue was the lack of over sound like music, which did lose its effectiveness in a way as there is little noise or sound effects. 

I helped in all these aspects but i mainly focused on the planning, such as where it was to be filmed, what the actors were to dress like and what they would say. For me the dialogue wasn't too amazing and there is definite room for improvement. But I felt the planning was very good, the scenes for the shots really helped Ruben get good shots, the actors were dressed in stereotypical skate clothes which was my intended idea. I made sure that the actors didn't focus on the camera as you would lose marks and the audience would notice, so my job was to make sure they stayed in role and avoided the camera. I mainly told them to act how they normally would as they are skaters anyway, and it would be hard to imitate the stereotypical skater dudes without causing smiles or awful acting which could have reflected on us badly.

Overall though, I feel the film went fairly successful. There is room for improvement which there obviously will be as its our first time doing things like this so we wont get it bang on perfect. But if we can take and improve our errors and perfect minor errors, we can use these skills to perfect and make our final task so much better, so that we can get the best marks possible whilst avoiding errors we could have made had we not done this task.

This task has helped me increase my skills in all areas and between now and my final I will be taking time to improve my filming and skills to get the best outcome for my final.

Planning for the final task

For our final task we have been set the objective of filming an appealing opening sequence of a new film in which we will be using all our skills we have adapted doing our preliminary task. For this task I will be working with Liam Heath and we have drafted 3 ideas we feel will appeal as an opening sequence.

1. Thriller
2. Drama
3. Horror

The reason we have chosen these is because in today's media there are many new released horror films in which we can evaluate and use to plan. Thrillers because in the news all sorts of spooky happenings have been occurring (clowns), so we thought that'd be a good fit. Or a Drama as they're all over our TV's these days and they appeal to the majority of the viewing audience.

In our most recent lesson we went through art of the title where we could see what was necessary in a good film opening, and that's when we decided to do a Drama based film as they seem to be the more appealing films of the lot. We reviewed a scene of the film "Shaun of the dead" where he walks to the shop. We feel this scene is effective for our title as our story is going to be based on one guys life and will have an narrative over the top similar to the Inbetweeners except less explicit and more serious.