Film ideas mind map

Preliminary task evaluation

Evaluation

When our preliminary task was finished, we had to present it to the rest of the class so we could receive feedback on what was good and what could be improved. When we had shown it to the rest of the class, we relieved both positive comments and constructive criticism. The positive feedback we received where things such as: we used a good editing effect to make one of our shots look like a security camera. Overall we kept the camera steady while filming our preliminary task, with no real visible shaking. Match on action was was also overall good. Shot reverse shot was used well during the conversation, with the camera changing from shoulder to shoulder. The 180 degree rule was kept too as well. Good camera angles where used, such as a high angle shot used with the CCTV effect, a low angle shot when Casey was walking down the stairs and over the shoulder shots during the conversation. Some criticism we received was: we could have used an effect during the lift scene to make the transition smoother, and not with a visible jump. This was the same when pushing the lift button and other scenes, if we had just cut of fractions of a second in some scenes, we could have made the transitions smoother and flow more freely.

Preliminary task diary

Story board

To plan for our preliminary task, we had to draw out a storyboard showing what shot types we where going to use. The storyboard contained several boxes where we would write down the shot type we where going to use with a brief description of what happened, how long it would last and any sound or dialogue we would be using. However, after we had finished our storyboard, we decided that we wanted to change some of the ideas and shots we had chosen, so we had to scrap what we had come up with to replace it with our new ideas, as we had decided to film our preliminary task in st johns school.


Filming

We started our filming for our preliminary task in st johns school. The people who are acting in our video are casey and charlotte. We began with a middle shot of casey walking towards the camera in a open corridor approaching the lift. this shot was recorded for around 8 seconds and then stopped filming and chose to use a close up shot of casey pressing the button to the lift, adding effect. This shot was recorded for around 4 seconds. We then placed the camera inside the lift so we could film casey walking into the lift as the doors opened, and then it moved to an over the shoulder shot of casey walking into the lift, and the same for her walking out. We then filmed a medium shot of casey walking across the room towards the door, where she opens it to go into the other room. this whole sequence lasts around 11-12 seconds. When casey enters the next room, we film a high angle shot of her walking down the stairs, and then a medium shot of her sitting down at the desk, this sequence lasts around 10 seconds. We then film an over the shoulder shot from caseys shoulder, watching charlotte walk down the stairs and sitting down at the desk. This shot lasts about 8 seconds. We then film the conversation between casey and charlotte. We use over the shoulder shots during the conversation depending on who is speaking, so if casey is speaking, we would film over charlottes shoulder, and when charlottes speaking, we would film over caseys shoulder. the entire conversation lasts around 47 seconds. When then conversation ends, we film a slight high angle of charlotte sitting at the desk, and then this transitions into a long shot as we film her walking up the stairs and out the door. this shot lasts around 7 seconds, and then we film a medium to long shot as charlotte walks across the room, which lasts about 4-5 seconds. Our video ends with a long shot of charlotte running towards the camera, this then turns into a medium shot, and then a close up shot as she looks into the camera as she runs past. This lasts around


Editing

When we had finished with our filming and we had the raw footage, we put it onto adobe premier elements 10 to edit it. Our finished video had a length of 3 minutes, so we needed to crop some unneeded footage. It took roughly an hour to go through and edit out the unneeded bits of the video to make sure it didn't go on for too long. When we where finished with editing, we had managed to reduce the video to a length of 1 minute and 35 seconds. Also, as well as cropping out unneeded footage in the editing process, we also made the video a lot more smooth by making the shots flow together and transition better.

Pirates of the caribbean (adventure)

Pirates of the Caribbean is an adventure film. Adventure films are usually exiting story's, with people travelling to exotic locations, or expeditions and quests to lost jungles or deserts. Pirates of the Caribbean is a swashbuckling adventure film. It is set in the vast ocean expanses of the Caribbean, with pirates going on a quest to rescue captain jack sparrow. They travel far and wide to rescue him, facing many perils on the way. The costumes are pirate costumes, with props such as swords and guns. The set design is usually that of the pirate ship. The music used is fast paced, with big build ups that lead to the main part. The music matches that of the grand scale of the adventure that the pirates are on.

Avatar trailer analysis (sci-fi)

Avatar is a sci-fi/fantasy film, and the trailer shows this is many ways. The setting is on a different planet to earth, and like many sci-fi/fantasy films, they take place on a different planet to earth. There is also a lot of CGI used in the film, something that is used a lot in sci-fi/fantasy films. The costumes used are things such as army uniform, but for the alien race (Navi) the costumes used are actully CGI. This also shows that it is a sci-fi/fantasy film, as the CGI alows for more extreme looking characters, especialy for the alien race, and it can create a better effect that prehaps using real costumes could not. The set design is also CGI heavy, with large floating island, waterfalls and lush forests, and that what isent CGI is set in a high tech base of operations with advanced machines and gadgets from the future, something that is also heavily present in a lot of sci-fi/fantasy films. Music used is fast paced and exiting to fit the pace of the film. Many sci-fi/fantasy films are quite fast paced and exiting. The plot alone that this trailer shows is a heavy indicator that this is a sci-fi/fantasy film, humans going to an alien planet to gather a resource worth millions, and the main character becoming one of the aliens to fight against his own kind. All of this is not realistic at all, and this fact alone shows that it is a sci-fi/fantasy film, and this genre of films are not realistic.

RED Trailer analysis (action)

The trailer for RED contains several action movie cliches, for example, the group used to be in the CIA, however in RED, it mirrors the cliche of instead of them retiring after their last mission, they are already retired. RED also follows the cliche of being betrayed by the CIA, and are now being hunted by the people they used to work for. There are also many of the obvious cliches that make up an action film, the explosions, the high speed adrenaline car chases, intense shootouts, and LOTS of guns. There is also of course the cliche of slow motion to make scene even more epic, such as the bullet hitting the rocket in this trailer, and Bruce Willis stepping away from the spinning police car.

Ring Analysis (horror)

The ring is a horror film about a supposedly cursed tape, that when watched, you will receive a phone call from someone saying that you will die in 7 days. when the 7 days are up, a girl with long black hair covering her face shows up, who will be the result of your untimely demise.

In the first two minutes, right of the bat, we have a typical horror film cliche, two teenage girls home alone at night. As anyone who has seen multiple horror films before will know, this is never a good thing, and gives off a major sense of foreboding, and when they start talking about a horror story about a cursed tape, and one of the girls says she has watched it, we know something bad is about to
go down. Another cliche here is that the two girls begin talking about a horror story, and something from the said horror story will come to wreck havoc, this is like in a film when a scary campfire story is told, the same slasher as in the story comes to carve them up like christmas dinner. Yet another big cliche that happens in this horror film is that the phone ominously starts to ring, as as we know, you NEVER answer the phone in a horror film, because the person on the other end is usually not calling just to have a friendly chat. Another cliche that this film follows is that the girls decide to go to bed, and going to sleep in a horror film never ends well. All in all, the first few minutes of this film alone have a variety of horror film cliches in it, but this comes as no surprise, as if it didn't have these cliches, it wouldn't be a horror film that we have come to know.

research and planning

There is no evidence of research and planning.
Make sure you upload your preliminary task.

You MUST have at least 8-10 posts on here by next Tuesday, including:
- Analysis of at least 4 different genre openings (analyse how mise-en-scene, sound, plot convey genre to audience)
- Preliminary task diary
- Preliminary task evaluation
- own ideas mind map - what genre? plot? etc
- Analysis of at least 2 openings of films from your chosen genre