Post 17: Ancillary Task 2 - Film Reviews Part 1

For this project we have been asked to write a film review for our short film. To get a good idea of how to write and layout my film review, I decided to look into other existing ones in the media. The idea of  film reviews are so that they can be used to assess or criticise new releases which helps the public decide on whether they want to go and see the film. 

Sight & Sound Film Review:

The first film review that we had to study was a film magazine named Sight & Sound. Sight & Sound is a monthly magazine that is a good example for helping me get a insight into film reviews. 


We have recently looked at an article from this magazine that we have discussed on a film named "Frozen" which was released in the United Kingdom in 2004, and directed by Juliet Mckeon.

Whilst reading through the article & discussing with others about it, I noted down some interesting ideas that these film reviews have.

Below are the following Ideas:

. A straightforward image that relates to the film is included as a unique selling point for the film.

. A view of Comparisons to other films.

. Cast List.

. Words & Phrases such as "Prize Winning" are used to appeal to the viewers making them think that it is a high rated film meaning that it will be a good film to watch.

From this 'Frozen' review article, we can see that the text is small and formal due to the fact that this article has come from a film industry magazine making the layout formal & set out in columns. This makes it easier for people to read.

The name of the film, release date and the director’s name is shown in bold, making it easier for us to get first impressions of the film. Also the language is extremely formal & again this is due to the fact of it being an industry magazine.

As well as looking at Sight & Sound, We also looked at articles from newspapers such as 'The Guardian' & 'The Independent', as well as Internet web pages of which we also analysed. 


Below is the Internet Web Page for Sight & Sound:


. http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/

The Independent Film Review:

As well as Sight & Sound, I also looked at The Independent, which is  a newspaper in the United Kingdom that is published by Independent Print Limited (I.P.L). From looking at The Independent, I found it to be overall very different compared to the other article as it was easier to read and understand as well as it having less technical language.

The reason I Iooked at this newspaper was because we as a class looked at a film review of "The Kings Speech". 


I found it to be a positive film review, which gave the impression of it to be a traditional film by the style of written communication and images that we see on the page. The Independent focuses on using formal language aiming it at 
middle class people who would be interested in involving themselves with the paper.

The Image on the left is of Colin Firth, who is the the main Actor throughout the film. It is also a unique selling point for audiences as they are aware of a well known actor who is starring in the film. 

Within this review, it also attracts the audiences attention due to the fact that it mentions the fact that Colin Firth and 'The Kings Speech' are both nominated for BAFTA awards. 


The idea of this is to hope that audiences notice this and are appealed and interested in watching the film.


The Guardian


I felt that The Guardian Review viewed differed viewpoints throughout The Kings Speech and used a different style to analyze because it gives a different effect that can be viewed more by the audience opposed to other reviews.

I felt that it brought together different elements of which I have picked up on, and the are the following: 

• The fact that a picture/screen grab image has been taken and displayed from the film.
• Expresses in detail the plot of the film and it is well focused on.
• A description of film in the title
• Conclusion

I found that this newspaper is similar to The Independent in relation to the Film Review as it compares similar conventions. However I Found it to be is entirely different to the Sight & Sound review.

Empire Magazine

Empire magazine has a completely different layout to all film reviews that I have mentioned above as it focuses on independent things that is used to catch the audiences eye, for example they include a large variety of images of which they use to make the audience interested.

I compared my Film Review to this magazine as it was the most appealing to me, and below is a video that shows an example of an Empire free addition booklet that I have explained about what the company focuses on and what it looks like.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1uOZBrbXto&feature=youtu.be

Post 16: Ancillary Task 1 - Postcards

For this task we had to focus on promotion and distribution. After researching into the best effective ways of promoting films, I realised that one of the most common ways of promotion is the use of film Posters and Postcards. 

I found that some example of the principles that audiences may expect to see are:

• Name of Film
• Release Date
• Images
• Slogan/Tag Lines
• Quotes from the Film
• Unique Selling Points
• Style
• Actor’s/Actresses names
• Directors Name
• Logo
• Production Company

There are many principles that need to be taken into account as we can see above however, not all production companies will be able to afford this due to budgets that they have. Posters require a large amount of money because they are placed in many different areas for example:  

• Shop Windows
• Bus Stops 
• Buses 
• Billboards
• Train Stations 

This is an effective  way of promotion because there is a higher advantage of promoting the film to the biggest audience possible. 


From looking at this poster on the right, we can see that it automatically catches the audience’s attention due to the detailed images and interesting title.  As well as hardly  having  any writing, it  makes the audience only focus on the image as it is the dominant feature of the poster.


Harry Potter is a worldwide known million pound production that is filmed in the UK, however it is joined with Warner Brothers in America. 

As we can see from this poster on the left , we can compare it to the Harry Potter poster and see that it is a much less budgeted film due to the basic writing and straight forward images.


It also has shown less principles on the poster compared to the Harry Potter poster which also tells the audiences that it is a less budgeted film.


Trainspotting was a small budgeted British production which is addressed as an adult film to the audience due to the age limit image. 


Also the image of the man swearing and smoking a cigarette is another way of telling the audience that this is an adult film. Similar to Harry Potter, this image is the dominant feature of the poster.  

A well known way of promoting Short films is a Postcard as it is a much cheaper and effective of promoting your film. The Postcards tend to have less information on them which is a creative effect as it draws the attention of the audience to wanting to know more about the film.

The biggest difference between a poster and a postcard is that you can add extra information on the back of a postcard & this gives an extra chance of promoting your short films as you can leave some in shops for people to pick up or you can hand them out to the general public.



Below are the following principles that you should think about including on your Postcards:

• Name of Director
• Short Film Email Address
• Cast List
• Logo
• Title
• Image
• Tag Line/Slogan

Below One of Two existing Postcard designs produced for short films:

Divine is a short film produced by Becky Knapp, who came into some class lessons to help us with our scripts in our pre-production stage.

Post 15: Reflecting On Theory

In this post I am going to be looking at how theories can be applied or not applied to our short film scripts and plans that we are making for production. Looking back to Post 4, I looked at Genre theory as a media concept, & from it, we can get a better understanding about theorists such as Chandler, Robert Symth School who gave the point that for a genre to be recognised, certain conventions need to be followed and become specific by the audiences, also McDougall and their varying ideas of what Genre theory is.


Genre Theory

Genre Theory is looking at how texts are placed into different categories or lists, which is then used as a way of analysing the text hopefully making it easier to differentiate between different genres. It is impossible to give a definition on it as everyone has their own ideas, opinions and interpretations and over the years this has been debated by critics and audiences.


This theory is looked at throughout post 4, with Robert Altman, Neale and Hartley's opinions being talked about throughout. 


As part of our short film task, we have had to look into different conventions that audiences would accept or unite with genre of Drama. An example of a convention that we have used in our short film would be the main subject of sadness & individuality due to the loss of a loved one. This topic is something that  people in a similar situation can relate to in one way or another as it is known to happen to some people. This means the audience will be able to relate to the subject easily as they will already have a good understanding of what is being portrayed. 


Our location is set outside on a bench, this is because it is a memorable place where our main character often spent with his wife in the past, so therefore it is another good example to use as it reflects our genre as drama due to the fact that it is realistic.

Audience Theory

Audience Theory is vital for the accomplishment of our short film because it highlights the fact that texts have different meanings which are viewed by audiences. Different models have developed over different time periods such as the Hypodermic model, Two step flow & Reception Theory. 

When we first looked at Audience Theory, we as a class were divided into groups and looked at a different model. 

Below is the following link that shows the presentation in more detail: 

http://klsmediadepartment.blogspot.com/2010/09/audience-theory-student-powerpoints.html


The first model is the Hypodermic model; the audience receives information as it is transmitted without any attempt to process the data. When looking at our short film, we wanted to relate the film to others who could be in the same situation & we wanted to transmit the message of what people may go through.


The next model is the Uses and gratification model. This model shows that the audience is far from inactive and that audiences get through texts for different reasons such as a diversion to break away from issues.


Relating to our short film, it will be a good experience if audiences take away observation as well as getting a better understanding of what it is like be in the situation of what our short film is on.


Narrative Theory


The third and final theory is the Reception theory, this projected individual circumstances that would affect the reading and interpretation of texts such as age, gender, class, and race. 


With Narrative Theory, we can look at the different theorists of whom give their personal views on Narrative theory.


Below are the following Theorists:

• Propp
• Todorov
• Barthes
• Levi-Strauss

Propp

"Vladimir Propp was a Russian and Soviet formalist scholar who analyzed the basic plot components of Russian folk tales to identify their simplest irreducible narrative elements. He had the Narrative Structure that was  that he extended the Russian Formalist approach to the study of narrative structure."

"In the Formalist approach, sentence structures were broken down into analysable elements, or morphemes, and Propp used this method by analogy to analyze Russian fairy tales. By breaking down a large number of Russian folk tales into their smallest narrative units. Propp was able to arrive at a typology of narrative structures."

Post 14: Pre-Production Documentation

Even though I was chosen to be the Cameraman my group is a group of three. I was involved with all tasks as well as my own. I have highlighted what jobs I was responsible for as well as the others.

Script

The Script was the first thing to be created by Rebecca O'Brien, who is the Director. She did a total of Three Drafts having the Third one as our final Version.

Below is the following Version 3 of our Script:

Shot List

The shot list was the first piece of work that I focused on, as it was the first bit that I needed to do in order to be able to work on completing the other parts. The idea of being able to do the shot list was that I needed to look at the script and write down every shot there was throughout it. These then had to be separated into scenes and shot numbers.

Before I started the shot list, I discussed with my group members what they reckoned was the best way to set it all out and if they felt confident enough with the amount of shots and scenes that we had.

After I completed the first draft, I had a discussion with my group members to see if they approved of the shot list which luckily  they did.  This gave me the opportunity to finalise the shot list by doing my final draft. Once I completed the shot list, I went over it again and checked that it was okay, and I then double checked with my group members if it was satisfactory and it was.

Below are the following Shot Lists:

Storyboards

I then started on the storyboards; these were reasonably easy to do as they were very straight forward. We had an added  advantage within our group because one of the members  was a very good artist; therefore she volunteered to draw the pictures on the storyboards which we as a group were more than happy to allow.

As the storyboards took a long time to complete, we separated them towards the end as we had one member drawing the pictures. Myself and the other member of my group then cut out the pictures that were completed and stuck them onto the storyboards.

This was a good arrangement as it made us more focussed and it gave us all vital jobs to do on this task which if done, would complete the work quicker and more efficiently as we were able to only focus on the part of the task that we needed to do rather than the whole task.

Production Name & Logo

A production name was needed for the film and a design to go with it. As a group we sat down and discussed ideas on what production name to have. We had different ideas that we gave which in the end, we merged two ideas together and came up with a name that unfortunately had already been taken by another group .We then used our 2^nd choice name instead which was ‘Core Productions’. The idea of doing this task is so that it can be used when creating the postcards and other tasks.

Below is our Logo for our Short Film:

 

Mood Boards

The Mood Board's are used to increase our understanding of the characters that we have chosen to appear in our short film. As Emma agreed to take on the job of the Production Designer, this was one of the tasks that she had to do.

Below are the following Mood Board Images:

Character Profiles

The character profiles were produced. Emma produced this character profile of Jonathan to indicate to the audience some background information on his personality & him & his wife. This character profile shows us how he is grieving for his late wife. We also learnt the background information as to why he collects all the images that he takes by the bench.

She also created character profiles for all the other characters who encounter Jonathan throughout the film. These include:

. Sam - Is a small child who has come to the park with his mother

. Harry - An unsociable teenager in the park to meet his girlfriend

. Carol - An Office Worker in the park to eat her lunch

. Becky - A cheerful and sociable Art student who is very pleasant towards Jonathan

Below are the following Character profiles:

Sam- "He is a shy young boy and has come to the park with his mother, he's aged six. He bumps into Jonathan as he has run off from his mother but is slightly anxious as to whether or not he should speak to a stranger. We see him playing with a toy car on the bench whilst waiting for his mother to catch up to him."

Harry- "He is a sixteen year old boy and is quite unsociable with headphones on listening to loud music. He is reluctant to talk to Jonathan and tries to ignore him. He is more interested on being on his phone than a conversation with a stranger. He has come to the park to kill time before he goes to meet a friend and go to a concert."

Carol- "She is very busy and is sitting on the bench to eat her lunch. She is dressed very smartly in only dark clothing to show her cold attitude. She doesn't want to engage in conversation with Jonathan and tries her best to ignore him. She looks uncomfortable next to him and tries to leave as soon as she can."


Below is the following image to show the costume attire that each character wears:

Risk Assessment

Risk Assessments are a step in a risk management procedure.They are vital for our Pre-Production Work. Risk Assessments are the willpower of risk related issues that we need to note down if they are a concrete situation and recognised threat.

Seeing that this was a task for Emma, she has to do two Risk Assessments due to the fact that we are filming in two locations. Scenes 1,2,3,5 were all filmed outside at a public bench, & scenes 4 & 6 were filmed inside at Jonathan's living room.


Below is the Risk Assessment for Outside at the Public Bench:

Below is the Risk Assessment for Inside in Jonathan's Living Room:

We then had to produce casting documents to show the actors details so that when it comes to filming getting the right size costume etc would become easier. Again Emma had to create this task because she is the Production Designer.


Below are the following documents that show all the characters that will be featured in the film and their details:

Costume, Hair & Make-Up and Prop List



Emma also had to do the Prop List as part of her Job Role. This is a list of which items we & the characters will be using & wearing when it comes to filming our Short Film.


Below is The Prop List:

Below is the link to Emma's blog page, where you can find & view the Prop List that Emma done & read in more detail about when it came to her doing this task: 


Post 14: Pre-Production Documentation - http://emmacampbell-a2-ms.blogspot.com/2010/11/post-14-pre-production-documents.html


Technical Recce

The Technical Recce's are drawings that are necessary as we needed to decide on how to change our sets to make them potentially more fitting of the story, t They are Bird’s-eye drawings that describe the set of where we are filming. They were created by myself. These where designed so that the Director & the Cameraman could make notes on the different positions for the camera when in production.

All members in my group sat down and discussed the shot list, we discussed where to draw on the position of the camera that we think would work best for different shot sizes and the movement and direction that would be taking place within each frame throughout each scene.


Below are the Technical Recce Images:

Location Recce

The Location Recce is what the cameraman’s job was as part of their role. It is pictures of the locations of where we were filming that was put together to create a picture of what each location looks and would look like when filming. As I had the cameraman role, it was my responsibility to create the Location Recce.  In my spare time I took these photos at the locations that we were using.

As we were only using two locations to film, it did not require a lot of time in creating this task as it was given to me as part of my job role.

Also with the Location Recce, I had to describe the power, permission & lighting. For the power I had to say how/if I will get or need electricity. For permission, I needed to see if it was okay to film in the location we chose because it may have been private property. Finally with the lighting, I needed to see if I needed battery powered lighting on the day of filming or not.

Below are the Following Location Recce's:

Call Sheets

The Call Sheets were for each person to hold onto to notify them when we were filming, what we were filming & where we were filming. These were created by Rebecca the Director.


Below are the following Call Sheets:

Camera & Sound Experiments

As we only had three people in our group, I had to be involved with the sound equipment as well as doing the tasks of  the Cameraman. For this, it is vital that I know how to operate & set up the microphone as well as learning how to operate the Camera & set it up as well throughout the filming. I & two other members from the other two production groups in our class had to make a short video on how to connect & set up the Sound and Video equipment.

This was a problem because both videos  were  being made at the same time for the sound & camera. As my chosen job as the Cameraman, I had to do the video for setting up and operating the camera. As there were only three people in our group, we decided that Emma, who was our Production Designer, would do the sound video, &amI decided to watch it back when it was made so that I also knew how to set up & operate the sound if there was a problem when it came to our filming.

Below are the following video's & Links to Camera & Sound:

Camera

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2Y6RIh94Hg&feature=channel_video_title





Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLuSDsiQnis&feature=channel_video_title





Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7WRvmun2V8&feature=relmfu


From this short clip we agreed that I would film whilst Liam & Tim set up different parts of the Tripod, looking at the safety measures. This was not a problem for me because whilst they were setting up , I would watch how to do it & take on board of how it works.

Just like Camera, the Sound equipment was new to us all and never been used before. This meant that all the sound people from each group came together and worked on how to set up and use the equipment. As I mentioned before, we agreed that Emma would appear in this video due to the fact that we only had three people in our group.

Our next step involving the Camera was to demonstrate the skills we have learnt. Our tasks were to record the following:

. The Zoom - Zooming in & out by using the zoom button on the Camera, & zooming in & out by turning the Camera Lens.

. ND's

. Colour Balances

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLpyFM8z38o&feature=channel_video_title


The final test which included the Camera  we had to do  the 85 filter experiment. The 85 Filter is a rectangular orange see-through item which goes over the camera lens to give a different view of a scene you are filming.

We had to record the differences of what the camera looks like indoors and outdoors with the 85 filter on off of the camera. The reason for this experiment was  because it wouldl help me when It came to filming our Post-Production work as it is available for us if we need to enhance the lighting. 

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNGtQEw7kSE&feature=related  


Sound

Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZtXXnfr2nM&feature=related





Link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJiVAwZNF2k&feature=related






Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xam1-qIfoZ0&feature=related

By watching all of these clips on the Camera and Sound's, it now helps us as a group let other members know how to do these jobs just in case something goes wrong in our group that may affect a member not being able to participate in the production work on the day.

The links below take you directly to the other members in my groups Post 14: Pre-Production Documentation blog page, where you can see other video clips that have been uploaded & explained in detail by them which they may have personal views to give about the Camera & Sound.

Rebecca O'Brien - http://beckyobrien-a2-ms.blogspot.com/2011/02/post-14.html

Emma Campbell - http://emmacampbell-a2-ms.blogspot.com/2010/11/post-14-pre-production-documents.html