PLANNING: INTERVIEWING OUR CHARACTERS

I read this article by Charlie Sierra, where he refers to award winning Pen Densham, he mentions about how to get to know our characters. We are going to do character interviews so we get to know the background story of our characters and our film. He writes about how we should think of it like a questionnaire which the characters need to fill out. For our film we are going to interview the girl character from the Dad, so we can see the turn of events that happen.

My Character Interview

One of the main characters is a teenage girl, so for this we decided to use a What's App message interview between her and the characters Dad. Here he shows anger about asking where she is and is worried. She replies saying where she is and that she is just trying to have fun. This then turns badly 

as she then realises she is in danger. Here are the screen shots from our interview

RESEARCH- BIFA

I have been following the nominations at the  BIFA this week, especially since I have been introduced to the film American Honey since seeing the trailer at the BFI on a study day given by Rob Miller on An Introduction to the film industry in November 2016.

https://www.bifa.film/awards/film/american-honey

I am interested in American Honey because of some similarities of this film and the film we are making ourselves. At 2.7 million pounds budget it was not expensive to make, it featured almost unknowns except Shia LaBeouf. It is promoted as defining our generation according to the website. 

I first saw this film at the BFI. I learnt that American Honey counted as a British film as it had a British director, Andrea Arnold. and cast and the key organisations involved. It is an example of a BFI funding model. The director also made the film Fishtank which was funded at a cost of 1.3 million pounds in 2009, (compare this to Star Wars, which was 230 million pounds). American Honey's key themes involve young people and their lifestyle, and how they live in the moment in a carefree way, which are themes and issues rarely shown in mainstream cinema. In addition there were no expensive sets as it was shot in location, as the same for our films. Part of the social realism was created by its camera work: the film was hand held, exploring the urban youth, which gives the cinema verite. 

There are similarities between the film I will be making and American Honey, because ours will be low budget, with unknowns and taken on locations.

PLANNING: THE TOP LINE AND BIG QUESTION

Frank Ash is a creative consultant who has taught story telling and creativity techniques to teams across the BBC and beyond. In this presentation he said to develop and strengthen the story of a film you need to think about the audiences and what do they want from the story they tell. To tell the audiences what the story is all about, he gave advice saying can you tell you story in one sentence? The second most important is telling the audience 'what is going to happen?'

I have recently watched the film 'Catch me if you can'. If I was to describe this movie in a sentence it would be 'a funny, inspiring and suspense cat and mouse chase between two very much alike characters'.

The big story question in the movie 'catch me if you can' was 'is he ever going to get caught?'. Although they hint in the very first scene what happens in the end, they don't show all of it. The movie then starts the story from the beginning after that, then when it gets to the end of the film, you realise what the main character is really like and you get a better understanding of the beginning again.

RESEARCH:DEADPOOL

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/deadpool/

Deadpool is a comic superhero movie, it is known as comic film which breaks the fourth wall. The fourth wall is a performance convention in which is an invisible, imagined wall which separates actors from the audience. However Deadpool and the main actor breaks this by talking to the camera/ audience. This film came out in 2016, and was very popular not only from Ryan Reynolds starring, and the comedy in all the trailers, but also from the 'viral' videos the came out once a day in December, and in each video Deadpool himself would addresses a different topic for example on 'World Australia Day' and 'Valentines day'.

By having the opening title as a fake one makes the audience realise this isn't going to be a normal superhero film. Here is what the director Tim Miller, and layout super visor Franck Balson said about the fake opening title, and how they managed people to see whether it was a joke or not.

Tim: The screenings were so informative. You get to see when and where the audience laughs. And the magazine cover gets a huge laugh…

Franck: Only at a certain spot though!

Tim: It’s true. We had it later and it didn’t hit.

Franck: We had it earlier, but what we realized was that Ryan’s cover was kind of the moment everything shifted completely into meta, where people were like “Oh my Gosh! This is a fake title sequence!” When we tried the cover later people were still trying to analyze the title sequence as if it was a real one and didn’t understand the jokes.

You can tell this is a fake opening title because unlike in a normal opening they would show the name of the actors and be professional about it, however they say 'starring a hot women and a moody teen'. This straight away tells the audience that it is fake and that the whole movie will be taking a dig at normal superhero films. They also seem to make fun of the main actor by showing old magazines covers of himself being named 'sexiest man alive 2010' and a card of him wearing the Green Lantern costume as Ryan Reynolds also played that superhero in the past.

RESEARCH: BUSINESS OF FILM

In the UK, the BFI and its predessesscor the UK Film Council and, have published a number of reports on the economic and cultural value of film. An example of this is the most recent report on economic impact found that film contributed £3.67 billion to the UK economy. Studies have shown that the cultural impact of films have shown how films, apart from being a popular activity of enjoyment, carry powerful personal and politcal messages for viewers, give new views and insights into other cultures, and help reflect peoples cultural identity back to ourselves.



http://www.bfi.org.uk/education-research/film-industry-statistics-reports/reports/uk-film-economy/economic-contribution-uks-film-sectors


Why film is important to the economy

The UK makes many independent films that are British, such as Pride, Paddington, The Inbetweeners, and the Imotation game.
Many of these films perform well at award shows such as the BAFTAs, and even US Academy awards. This is a source for the UK, this is one of the reasons why there are so many Hollywood stars that are British born.
Another source of income from film and television is from tourism. Tourists go and look around the film sets, for example Harry Potter world near Watford. Around £840 million of tourism spending is by visitors can be added to film-induced tourism.

The benefits of inward investment

The benefits of inward investment is for companies like the BFI, is to deliver economic growth through investment in the UK. The International Strategy has committed £200k to support attracting film inward investment from the US. This is also been in addition to £400k grant for funding the BFI.  This and another £200k to help UK Trade and Investment attract Tv inward investment and film inward investment from emerging markets.

Thinking about the value chain

In the film industry 'value chain' is the series of steps that go from the first thought about the film right to the end of the commercial life of the completed film. The chain includes these seven steps:
Distribution, Concept origination, Development, Finance, Creative packaging, Production, Exploitation. The producer would be the only filmmaker that is with the film on its entire journey through the value chain.
The order of the value chain is:
Concept origination, Finance, development, production, distribution, creative packaging, exploitation.

 Concept origination-find ideas
Creative packaging- hire casting director, secure development finance, secure key cast, hire writer.
Development- secure rights, hire director, secure pre-sales, option agreement.
Finance- preliminary budget, prepare estimate.
Production- pre-production, principle photography, post production
Distribution- marketing campaign, secure rights, broadcast license, certify as British, video/DVD/VOD licensing
Exploitation: Download to own, cinema exhibition, DVD rental and sales.

RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE SKYFALL

https://www.emaze.com/@AWCZWOZO/skyfall


 This is my fourth Art of Title which I presented using Emaze.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/skyfall/

TWITTER ACCOUNT

 This is the twitter account I made so I can catch up on all the latest news going on within media.
I have followed certain media accounts such as the BFI, Film 4 and Jenny Grahame. Hopefully by doing this it can keep me up to date on all the latest news on media. I also think it will show the real truth of what is happening instead of tabloids writing the wrong.
Twitter is useful for us because it is a form of distribution, its a highly effective way of spreading ideas, information and content. It is where things happen first, celebrities and companies will put teasers of products or news on twitter for there millions of followers to see so the excitement increases. It is a great way of marketing, if people like what you posted they cam 're-tweet' and there followers see it and so on. Twitter allows anyone to say anything, it is diverse, this gets peoples voices heard.
Here is the link for my Twitter page.
https://twitter.com

PIKTOCHART ON AUDIENCES

https://magic.piktochart.com/output/17633707-audiences-2016
This is my Piktochart on audiences.

 This is a screen shot of my Piktochart on audiences when I had finished it.

RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE NEON DEMON

The Neon Demon is a horror film, it is about a 16 year old moving to Los Angeles to pursue her modelling career, the head of her agency tells her she has potential to become a star but she comes face to face with ruthless vixens. It is directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016

The names shown in the credits are the actors and the production team for the film, these names have been written in different colours every time a new name appears. The background also changes colour which makes the writing bold.

The production company for 'The Neon Demon' is Wild Bunch . By looking at the opening it doesn't give away the period the movie was set in as it doesn't show any actors and there is no narrator. The colours in the background are dark , e.g. dark pink, blue, green and these keep on changing in a slow motion. There are no props in this opening.

For the editing in this opening there is no voices just tense music playing slowly in the background , this gives the effect that it is going to be a horror. The editing is the changing colours and when the title of the film appears at the end it gives the effect that the glitter is being thrown on the screen and then the title appears.

The audience would be drawn in to this opening because of the mysterious changing colours and the tense music that matches it. However it doesn't give away what genre the movie would be.

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-neon-demon/

RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE THE BREAKFAST CLUB

This is my second Art of title on the movie 'The Breakfast Club'

 This is my screenshot of when I had finished my Emaze
http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-breakfast-club/

RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE NAPOLEON DYNAMITE

The genre of Napoleon Dynamite is an offbeat comedy, the actor's names are shown on pieces of food throughout the opening which might relate to the rest of the movie. This is the same with the rest of the names of people who worked on the film, the remaining are shown by a pair of hands opening and closing books and grabbing pieces of paper which show the onset names. Each time there is a new name the background changes its material, for example one background material is white fur, then the next is a brown carpet material. The production company for this film is MTV movies, this is shown at the start of the opening on a plate of food surrounded by eggs and the name written in a sauce.

The period of this movie was in 2004, I can tell this because when it shows the name of the main actor/character on a student ID card it says '2004' underneath. I then found out than in an interview with the director the although the clothes and styles in the film look like they are from the 80s, as the movie is set in a small town the characters are behind in the latest styles, but it is set in 2004.

They use pastel and very plain colours for the background and the type of food they use. The props used are the plates of food and pieces of paper that are related to the rest of the film, each time these appear they show names of the actors or someone who had been associated with the film on screen or behind it.

The music they use in the background is continuous beat of a guitar and the same monotone voice of a male singing. There are no sudden changes to the music, for example the voice or beat doesn't go any higher or lower throughout the opening. There is no talking in any of the opening so it doesn't explain the start of the film and they only show one picture of the main character.




http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/napoleon-dynamite/

PLANNING: TRELLO

I have created Trello account, this is a really useful organisation online tool. This will help me keep track of my work. I will continue to update it as I work.

Here is a screenshot of my Trello account:

THE BRIEF

I am doing the video brief:

Main task: the titles and opening of a new fiction film, to last a maximum of two minutes.

All video and audio material must be original, produced by the candidate(s), with the exception of music or audio effects from a copyright-free source.

PRELIMINARY EXERCISE

Continuity task: filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room, sitting down in a chair opposite another character with whom she/he exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180% rule.


For todays lesson in Media Studies, we had to do a practical. We were put into a group of four, in our group we had to choose between five different scenarios, which ranged between 'Antiques Roadshow' to 'Australian border control'. Our group chose Antiques Roadshow and got a genie type lamp for a prop for the exercise. In our exercise we had to follow the rules of the task. These included: filming a character open a door, crossing a room, sit across another character and for the characters to exchange a few lines of dialogue, and then edit it all after. For our piece we decided to have a businessman come to the show with his antique and tell the expert how amazing the object is. Whilst this is happening the expert is examining the object and eventually tells the man it is not worth much. This then leads for the hopeful man to storm off. During this scene we shot from different angles involving panelling across the room, close up of facial features and expressions, over the shoulder shots when he opposite character was talking, and close up of the antique prop. We then finished the lesson by editing the piece. 

Here is our final piece.