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.