Film intro update

For the opening to our film, our genre is Romantic Comedy. This is because we do not like them so we will be putting a sort of mockumentary twist on the genre to make the film funnier. We will think of many areas of a stereotypical romantic comedy and then reverse them so that the film is totally unlike what people are expecting. In the first two minutes that we have to create, we will see a man and a woman getting up and ready to go on a date, however a few things may go wrong for one of them.

To see what would happen, we turned to audience research. We will ask a group of people the following questions and note their responses...

In a typical romantic comedy....

• who would you expect to have a bad day? Man or woman
• who would you expect to show their emotions the most? Man or woman

I think that information about this will help us decide how to make the opening a romantic comedy that is not a romantic comedy which I believe will be very effective.

Pitching an idea for a film

Today, we pitched a made up film idea to the rest of the class. We worked in groups of 4 or 5 to create our ideas.  For inspiration, we were given four cards. One had the genre, two were characters, and the last was a prop. Our cards were as follows:

• Action
• Chrissy
• Roger, 46
• A bottle of wine

From this we created the following idea: Roger and another man called Jason were partners in crime, they stole things, beat people, and robbed banks. At the start of the film, they are seen robbing the bank. However, Roger is arrested and Jason gets away. The rest of the film is then about Chrissy (Rogers Daughter) meeting Jason and working with him to get her father free again.
The name through the keyhole can from the fact that Roger is going to be locked away in prison and the fact that the only way that they can get him out is with perfect precision. Much like a key and a keyhole. The way that we are using the bottle of wine is through the timing of the film. We find out that Roger is on death row and only has limited time left to be rescued so to show the progression of time running out, we are using the nursery rhyme about bottle on a wall. At the start of the film, there is very little sound, only a child singing about 30 bottles on a wall while a montage of slow motion bank robbing is happening. Then as a woman is running out of the bank, she knocks a table and a bottle of wine falls off the table and onto the floor. As soon as it hits the floor, the singing stops and all of the sound and normal speeds kick in. To finish the film, and making a circular narrative, as Roger is freed from the bank at the end, the last thing that we will see is him walking out of the prison after all of the guards have been killed by Jason and Chrissy and the camera just shows his cell and the sound fades out and the child singing fades in as the last bottle of wine falls off the wall (the shelf). This makes the film start and finish at the same point which makes the story seem complete.


I found the pitching part interesting because I do not really enjoy giving presentations but I found it really fun and easy to do. I spoke mainly about the target audience for the film which we agreed would be late teens to mid 20s, but I did go on to say that it is suitable and would be enjoyable for an older audience too because unlike the average action film, there was a good story behind it. An example of an existing action film that I enjoyed is Kill Bill. This film is action from start to finish. There is plenty of fighting, so much blood, and an awesome protagonist played by Uma Thurman. This action film is unlike our idea because ours would not have so much blood, I think it would be a less gory film so that the audience will focus on the story rather than the action.

Overall, I think the pitching went fairly well and not only did we get good responses, we also learnt things and it was good to be able to practice what the real film makers do.

Film opening

Today, we have started to plan for our actual film opening. For this project, I will be working with Luke Bates again as the work that we did for 'get off my land' went really well and we both have many good ideas for the opening. Ideas that we have had include:

• A documentary looking at animals
• A romantic comedy but with the opposite things that would be expected from the genre
• A film about a man who uses magic and psycology to commit crime

We are going to brainstorm ideas and see which of these we can get the most ideas for.

Genre (part 3)

Another genre of film that many love to watch is Drama. I am not a fan of Dramas because I prefer more funny films however I enjoy watching dramas when they are mixed with other genres such as sci-fi. I was not sure if I had seen any dramas as I am not too sure what makes one, but I visited the IMDB website and under dramas was 'The Shawshank redemption' (1994). This is possibly my favourite film of all time. The film features a young man called Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) who is believed to have killed his wife over affair issues. Because of this, the court of law sees him to Shawshank, a very large maximum security prison. When he is on the inside, we get taken in with him to see what life in an american prison is like. Shortly after entering Shawshank, Andy becomes good friends with Red, the man who knows how to get stuff for people on the inside. The part of Red was given to Morgan Freeman and it is in my opinion, one of his best roles. This film is definitely a good example of a drama, it is serious, emotional, and has some characters that you grow to love.

Finally,  Horror. Horrors are great as they can be so stereotypical and similar but still be successful
because many people love them. As well as this, it can easily be mixed with other genres such as romantic films or comedies. One thing that makes a horror film a horror film is making an audience jump. Most people love and anticipate these moments because of the adrenaline and shock they get from it. I have not watched many horrors, but a good example of a comedy horror film is 'Scary Movie' (2000). This film follows a group of teenagers being stalked and murdered one by one by a psyco serial killer. One thing that I love about this film is that there are no jump scares because in my opinion these are so pointless and they make a film all about trying to make the audience terrified and by doing this, they often are distracted from the actual story which will make the film really boring and rather repetitive. The fact that there is a good story is why I love scary movie. It may not be the best, but it doesn't have to be because it is a comedy. I reccomend this as it is a great example of a horror and one of the best, another horror I am planning to see is 'The Babadook' and I will write a review once I have seen it.

So to sum it all up, all of the variations of genres can all be brilliant in their own way and I believe that if you read something similar by another film lover, the opinions would be completely different because everyone likes different types of films.

Genre (part 2)

Now for Documentaries, this type of film is a more serious approach to film (much like a drama) but it is real and the story and what is happening is all true. This could be a documentary about animals, or even buildings. I enjoy watching wildlife documentaries as I am interested in animals so I know what can make one interesting or boring. One thing that is important is to (unless the documentary is on one type of animal) talk about many different species. This is because some audiences may get bored if someone is talking about one animal for an hour, however I do not see this as a problem if the documentary is good. One series of documentaries that is currently being shown on BBC One is 'David Attenborough's life stories'. This is Attenborough back at his best. These documentaries are exciting, fact filled, and enjoyable. One thing that I particularly like about his documentaries is that after the program, you get to see how the camera crew found and filmed the animals. Something that I find amazing is how they will look years for maybe only ten minutes of good footage, but it is well worth the wait. This is what happened in yesterday's episode of life stories, in which the crew had been searching for 2 years to see the endangered African Wild Dog in its habitat hunting. Eventually, they found a pack and managed to get ahead and by doing this, they were able to capture footage of the entire chase, catch, and kill. As well as this, they were also very lucky to see a hyena, that came within a couple of meters of one of  the cameramen, fight with the pack of dogs and be chased off by them. This action is what a good documentary needs.

Mockumentaries are a type or documentary that involves mocking a subject or someone. Unlike documentaries, these do not have to be so factual as most of the time the subject is not real and it needs to be more for comedy. A good example of a mockumentary that is funny, interesting, and a believable story, is 'This is Spinal Tap' (1984). This film follows the lives of the made up popular rock band Spinal Tap. I absolutely loved this film. Some parts were so funny I was in tears, and other parts so upsetting that you can feel the pain that the characters are feeling. One part that I found particularly amusing was when a few of the band members were being interviewed and they were discussing all of the impossible freak accidents that happened to all of their deceased previous drummers. These include a ridiculous idea of spontaneous human combustion leaving only a glowing green blob. This film is a brilliant example of what I believe to be a perfect mockumentary.

Big fish - 2003

Tim Burton is known for his amazing and interesting ideas and concepts in film, and this film is no

change from this. When listening to the stories of Edward Bloom, we see giants, wolves, danger and adventure! The main concept of the film is that throughout his life, Edward Bloom has always told his son all of his stories about his life but as his son Will is growing up, he is starting to believe that these stories are nothing more than fiction. In the film, we are taken through Edward's life and all of the terrible or amazing things that he had to endure. I really enjoyed the film because it was so unexpected in some parts and so heart warming in others. One part that I particularly enjoyed was the ending, I will not spoil what happened but it was very emotional and happy.

In the opening of is film, the main idea of the story is set. This is that there is an uncatchable fish that represents many things throughout the film including Edward Bloom's wife, his dreams and himself too. This fish starts the film and ends it creating a circular narrative type of structure which I think works very well. When looking at the baked bean theory, I do not think that this film is a copy of another as I have never seen anyting like it and it is very well known so would be the type of film that other companies would copy.

One my favourite characters in the film is Danny DeVito's amusing ring leader character, Amos Calloway. Amos acts as a mentor or guide for the young Edward Bloom when he meets the love of his life (Sandra Bloom). I like his character because even though he is not the most featured character, he is a funny and different character and we find out that he also has a second side.

A brilliant film, amazing cast, and fantastic storyline. I reccomend this film.

Editing

At the moment, get off my land and henry are both in the editing process. I am using After effects CS6 and a few other programmes to put together, edit and finish the films. I am doing the editing for henry and Luke is doing the editing for get off my land.

Blackfish - 2014

Yesterday, I watched the documentary Blackfish. It is an amazing and fascinating story of orca whales in captivity. It talks about why so many people are injured by orcas in captivity but none in the wild. The documentary starts by introducing some former animal trainers who have worked with sea lions, dolphins and most importantly, orcas. Their stories, and others, are amusing with some but terrifying with others. In one story, we hear them talk about a seaworld trainer with promising talent and an almost unbelievable connection between the animals and herself who sadly lost her life after she was dragged under the water by one of these 20,000 pound creatures. Her death, and the injuries of many others were used as evidence to prove that in captivity, they can be very dangerous to people because of stress and other factors including their very emotional behaviour. One thing that I think made this documentary good was the way that it brought out so much emotion from the stories not only from the peoples side, but from that of the orcas too. When they are caught to go to captivity, only the babies are taken because they cost less to move about. This may seem like a good idea but it can leave the parents of the whale seriously unhappy for the rest of their lives as they stay with their parents for life. In one scene, we see this happening and a mother orca is swimming alongside the boat crying her calls to get her baby back, but she can't do anything to stop it.

Overall, this documentary was breath taking, emotional and fascinating from start to finish, it has become one of my favourite documentaries and I very highly recommend it to any animal lover or someone studying film.

Title sequence

Today, I have been working on creating myself a company name and title sequence like the ones you see in big films such as Disney or Paramount. My company is called 'Tabloid Films' because at first I was struggling for ideas and I looked at a newspaper for inspiration but could not find anything, so I named it after the newspaper. Above is my title sequence.
I think that the main inspiration of the animation was from the Marvel title sequence because it is my favourite. In their title sequence, a similar thing happens to in mine but it is comic books not newspapers.
I think that my one is good because it is interesting but does not last too long like the paramount one for example.

Film opening update

Big announcement! We finally have decided on a name for our film opening. It will be called Henry (after the hoover). Our group decided this today as we did not know what to call it and this idea popped up.

In regards to where we are, all the filming is complete and all that needs to be done is the editing, music needs to be chosen, and we need to each do our own evaluation on how we think it went. We also need to decide if we are going to have credits at the start and which font we will use if we do so.
I think that the only words that will appear on screen will be 'Sam Woodrow', 'Frank Woodrow' and 'Henry'. These words will most likely fade in and out during the running scene.

Film opening filming

On the morning of halloween, we decided to film our opening. For the first scene of the opening, it starts in the evening when it is slightly dark and then the character wakes up. Unfortunately, one of the members of the cast was working in the evenings so we had another plan. We woke up at 5:30am to get filming before sunrise so that is seemed like the evening. This went well, however I would not do this again because it was too early to wake up and in the opening, the sky may get slightly lighter into what the audience may assume is the night.

In total, the filming took about two hours, an hour and a half in the streets filming, and half an hour
doing the rest of the shots. There had been a last minute change on where the character Johnny was going too. The initial idea was that he would hide in a shop, however the owner of the shop had to change their mind as they had a large delivery coming in early that morning, so the shop would be full. Instead of this, we had an idea that I think is actually better than the shop. To flee from the dangerous hoover, Johnny would dive into a large bin down an alley next to the shop. When in the bin, he would light a lighter to see, and looking him in the face is the evil hoover. I think this ida went very well and I cannot wait to see what it will look like.

While Johnny was running, I wanted to make sure that I made it interesting by getting lots of different camera angles. This included long shots, shots from up high, and even one from within a hedge as if it was the hoover's point of view. I
think that Sam did a very good job of being the character Johnny, he showed lots of fear in some scenes and provided some unexpected humour in others. Frank also did a brilliant job of being Dr Smith and was a good convincing character.

Overall, a good day of filming and I expect that the outcome will be brilliant.