Planning our Preliminary Task

This is a sped up version of the lesson where we were deciding what we was going to do for our preliminary task, at first our group decided that we was going to do a horror themed preliminary task, so we made a mood board on horror to show it was going to be. This was the mood board our group made:

 

After making a mood board we has to dicuss about where we would film our preliminary task, so we wrote down some notes on paper on where we would film it and why, this is what we wrote down:

 

 

When we had finished planning out what we would do for location and for our theme, we then decided that it would take too much time doing a horror, so we then came up with a more simple idea and came up that we would do a drama instead. We wrote out a quick script of what the characters would say and then picked who out of our group would be acting in the task, we then chose me and Jessica to do the acting. To keep things simple, we decided we would stay in the theatre to film our preliminary task because it would go well with the mise en scene. We then went on to filming our task, which I will present to you in another on of my blogs.



Feedback Form- Invitctus Homework

Feedback Form- Mean Girls Homework

 

Invictus Homework

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Location Analysis

What factors do you need to consider when selecting a location?

• Weather 
• Time of location
• Safety
• Permission

What could this location be used for?

• A wedding- Comedy/Romance/Drama.
• A funeral- Drama/Horror.
• A christening- Romance/Comedy.

How could this location be used to emphasise a genre/mood?

It could:

• Make you happy.
• Make you laugh.
• Make you scared.
• Be mysterious, dark and gloomy.
• Be happy, funny, jolly.

Compare two genres and explain how this location could be adapted for both

• Romance- high key lighting, happy atmosphere, a wedding, happy music.
• Horror- low key lighting, dark, scary, creepy music.

Mise En Scene Analysis- Mean Girls

The mean girls screenshot we got to analyse showed a lot and gave away clues about the characters and where the movie was set. I analysed the picture of the people outside of the school, about to do P.E . You can tell they're all about to do P.E because the way they are dressed, as they are all wearing shorts and a gym top.

The screenshot we got is the first scene a that the 'popular' girls (named the plastics) are introduced. By the clothes Karen is wearing you can tell that she if very confident within herself, knowing she has a good body and no one would judge her because of it because she is one if the plastics. Regina is getting carried in by a group of boys, this suggests she is the leader of the group of girls as the two other girls, Gretchen and Karen, didn't get carried in.

The picture is a long shot, to show the popular girls compared to everyone else, and how they're completely different to the other people in the school. The scene has high key lighting, this might be to show that this scene is early on in the day and that they're at school. The light is mostly focused on the popular girls as they want to show off what they are all like early on in the film. 

Things to remember!

In our lessons we have been discussing in our groups what we need to remember when doing our preliminary task. We also looked at some examples on you tube of other peoples preliminary tasks to help us see how other people made mistakes and too make sure them mistakes don't happen when we do ours. Me and my group came up with a list on 'things to remember', these are the things we came up with:

• Follow the requirements of the preliminary task well (make sure the actors open a door, cross a room, sit down and exchange a few lines with another character).
• Use the 180 degree rule and do it correctly.
• Make sure the sound, make sure the audience will be able to hear what we are saying clearly and make sure it isn't too loud.
• Have good lighting, use either high key lighting or low key lighting (depending on what suits the genre best).
• Put the shots together so they flow well and go with the genre too (e.g. quick transitions for a drama or a horror).
• Use match on action.
• Make sure the camera is stable and doesn't isn't wobbly.
• Don't use too many camera angles as it may become confusing to the audience and could break the 180 degree rule.
• Make sure the mise en scene is correct and that it fits to the storyline.
• Have continuity during the whole of the preliminary task.

Sound Analysis- Shaun of the Dead

We watched the part of the film where they was all fighting in the pub. In this scene they use music to build up tension, when all the zombies are outside, trying to get into the pub. In one part of the scene when they are trying to get the zombies away, a song starts playing from the jukebox, this adds humour to the scene and is also contrapuntal sound because it doesn't really connect with what is happening in the scene.

When the song by queen is being played, it is diegetic sound because the people who are in the scene can hear it. When the song stops it then goes into non-diegetic sound, because the actors cant hear what is being played.In the bit of the scene where the woman pulls her sleeve, they use sound effects to make everything seem more scary and dramatic. Throughout the scene the music builds up and then suddenly stops, this adds more effect to the scene


The scene what I analysed- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sB98-NOO9Ug

Sound Terminology

In this lesson we talked about how sound can create a meaning in a film/ tv show. Some of the things that was said were:

• It creates emotion and can also create tension within the audience.
• It can sometimes help you understand the film/ tv show more.
• Sets the time period.
• It can make the film more interesting to watch.
• It can show the emotions of the characters.
• Parallels the action (e.g. fast music in action scenes and slow music in romantic scenes).
• It can help with the character representation/ identification.

We also learnt about the meaning of key words to do with sound terminology.

Soundtrack- this is the recorded sound element of a theme.
Theme music/tune- A recurrent melody.
Sound effects- Sounds other than dialogue or music added artificially.
Ambient sound- buzz and/or surrounding sounds.
Dialogue- speech.
Voice over- narration in a film not accompanied by a synchronised image of the speaker forming the words.
Direct Sound- when characters speak directly to the camera i.e. the audience.
Diegetic Sound- any sound that has an on screen source and belongs to the world of the film.
Non Diegetic Sound- any sound that does not have an on screen and characters on screen do not hear it (voice overs, music)
Sound Bridges- sound/s that continue from one shot to another. They help create a smooth transition from one shot to another. In this way the sound is said to be enhancing the continuity of the film.
Parallel sound- sound that complements the the image track. Sound and image seem to reflect each other.
Contrapunctual Sound- sound that does not fit with the image track (e.g. insidious and tiptoe through the tulips)

Representation

Representation is the way that media re-presents a person/ event. The media can make someone look either really good or really bad. There is three types of representation these are, stereotypes, archetypes and counertypes.

Media uses stereotypes so the audience will instantly understand them. Stereotypes is often reffered to 'visual shortcuts'. People repeat stereotypes so ofen so that we think the stereotype is normal or true.


Archetypes are the ultimate stereotype. For example, people from Essex are usually seen as 'dumb' and 'fake', but in real life they could be completely different.


Countertypes are a representation that challenges tradition stereotypical assosiations of groups, people or places.