post 11

before we started to talk about lighting in class i had a very poor undestanding on the importance of lighting. I felt that other aspect of filming like the camera and actors would be more important this simply is not the case. First of all we stated to look at what lighting can do to effect an image of a filming scene i found this vey interseting and educational.

we looked then looked into Film Noir which was very interesting in what it was trying portray. This type of filming was used in Hollywood over a period of 10 years between 1940 and 1950. It was mainly used for crime dramas and had even had links  in German film.

The main attributes to it was how dark and dangerous the atmosphere was using this technique. This was totally separated it from any other genre in Hollywood at the time with comedy and big lively musicals in production. the affect that film Noir had was by far very different.  Film Noir was often refereed to as 'Black film' because of its desperately dark and depressing feel to it.

Film Noir was first developed in the 1940s during the Second World War where there was a lot of anxiety and fear among people. it was a black and white film era used until the 1960's where then it finally had finished its golden age and faded away with the arrival of color.











some people misinterpret Film Noir as a genre like comedy, action, thriller ect but this is not the case. Film Noir is a style which which sets a mood and atmosphere within a genre it is not a genre itself. it is a unique style which sets a dark scene and mood to a a film. Film Noir is very important part of history in film and lighting. it developed during the second world war and has become very historic.     

post 10 - Job Roles Research

This post will be looking into the different roles involved when making a film. for our own film these jobs will be indiviually given within the group so having a good knowledge on what each job role consists of is vital if we are to make a successful short film.

Director

The director has the job of managing the film, being in control and making sure everything is done to the correct standard and to what the film needs to be made like. There are often assistant directors aswel. In our case for our media studies course work Anton is the director because it was his script chosen to be developed into a short film for our course work. So he will be the one who decides where it is filmed who the actors are and other important factors linked with the short film. He will manage the camera crew and actors on how he wants to portray the film as he is the director. they control a films artistics and dramatic aspects of the filming.

Camera

The camera operator's job is a vital one. He or she has the responsibilty of operating the film camera and physically controlling it keeping it fluid by composure and maintaning its stabilty whilst filming. other aspects such as zooming in and out and camera lenses also come into consideration. The camera positioning is also very important with the camera operater having to know some vital rules such as the 180 degree rule, shot reverse shot and others.

Lighting

lighting is very important in any film production. with out light controll the atmoshpere and mood of a scene can be taken away. light portrays what mood the scene is in. though many films use natural in dark rooms or at night when there is no natural light available atrifical light is vital. there are different methods when trying use artifial lighting that can be used such as filters and framing. the main atributes the cinematographer (as know in the film industry) are the following

• filtration



• composition



• exposure



• lens choises



• film selection

Sound production

This is all noise that is made during filming and is monitered and under the controll of the sounds crew. this is all dialogue whilst filming and any music that needs to be put into the film for mood and atmosphere reasons.

Post 9

The Man Who Never Returned

By

Tim White  

1^st draft

It’s a cold January morning Jamie stands alone in his Army uniform. Jamie has just returned from tour of the Middle East. He has returned to his home town where he was born and raised. He looks around and stares down the deserted high street where as a boy he would walk and play.

Jamie

‘Don’t remember it being so deserted the happiest days of my life were spent in the town in these streets’

It’s about 7 in the morning its cold and frosty. Jamie is in deep thought about his childhood and how things have changed since he last stood in these streets. He starts to walk down the empty street observing every detail.

Jamie

‘I wonder if everyone will even recognise me now. Feels like it’s been years and years since ive seen anyone from this town.’

Jamie continues to walk down the road into the distance. (end of scene)

It’s still quite a few cars swift by on the road. Jamie stops and looks to his right and turns to face what used to be his home. He loos at it with intensity and memories flood his mind. He cant help but stare for a moment before walking to the door and facing the memories of inside.

Jamie

‘Its amazing how somewhere of such happiness can turn into a dark and lonesome place. This doesn’t feel like the house I left’

he opens the door and steps inside. He drops his bags and closes the door. He scans the house in detail, eventually he walks into the kitchen. (end of scene 2)

The alarm is bleeping Jamie sits at the side of his bed in deep thought after a nightmare. He turnsthe alarm off and stares forward.

Jamie

‘Maybe I could have done something. Maybe I shouldn’t be here and my men should be what if I didn’t do enough’

Jamie is stood in his kitchen the phone rings and startles him. The phone is from a job that he applied for. He answers.

Phone

Hi am I talking to Jamie smith?

Jamie

Yes thats me

Phone

i received your job application and am willing to offer you and interview

Jamie

Yeah that sounds great, when would be a good time?

Phone

5 o’clock tomorrow?

Jamie

Yeah that should be fine

Phone

Great ill see you then Jamie goodbye

Jamie

Good bye

Jamie puts the phone down and gets a class of water he looks nervous and agitated.

Jamie

Not quite like the army but a change is what a need If I ever want to be normal and to forget, Well will I ever forget? (end of scene)

3a Target Progress

In June at the end of my AS media I set my self targets for my self to achieve in my A2 work. I set targets that would benefit my quality of work and help me to keep up to date with all my blog posts.

1. My first target was to learn more key words that are important and relevant to my media course work and examinations in June. I feel since I have started my A2 course this year I have learnt many new key words mainly through our lessons and class discussions. I think that I am far more knowledgeable compared to a few months ago and I have contributed more in lessons because of this.

2. my second target was to become more comfortable in the edit suit because last year in my AS course work I found it difficult at times because of my lack of experience and understanding of
the equipment. though by the end of my editing of our opening sequence i had become far better I think I could improve. We have not started out filming yet so I have not had a chance to use the edit suit and progress with my understanding of it. But I'm hoping that when we start to film I will be heavily involved in the editing and I will get to grips with it then and will be firmly comfortable with it by the end.

3. Another target was for me to try and keep up with all my blog posts so that I don't
leave so much until the last minute like I did last year. though I have been far better this year I feel that I can still improve a lot with how quick I update my blog every week. I am still a little behind on my blog posts so I need to work hard in the coming weeks to catch up with all the blog posts that I have not completed yet.

4. Task four was similar to task three in such as I said that I need to make sure that I complete all tasks handed to me as soon as I can. As soon as I have homework or an assignment to do I must press on with it as soon as it is given so I don't put it off until the last minute. This will improve my quality of work because I will ultimately spend more time on the task which will enhance the quality of the work.

5. And my final target was to improve my quality in writting. I think my english skills have improved and my blog posts are far more clear and presentable compared to last years blog. I have put work into my presentation of work and I feel it is slowly paying off in my written work.

Post 8

When I made my own script I had to take many different factors into consideration. firstly I had to sit down and think about what story I could use in my script. This was in fact harder than I first thought it would be. I needed to take factors into consideration as I would not be able to have too many actors (all of which would need to be friends) and have a next to zero budget and would need to think of viable locations that the short film could be filmed at.

I had to go through a trial and error system to begin with. I thought of some good story lines but then when I thought about them more and in detail I realised they would be very difficult to actually film. I decided to to a bit of my own research into short films on the Internet trying to think of a good story line. I looked at many short films such as Cubs, Wasp, About a girl and Signs. These films really helped be grasp and understand short films. For instance About a girl is a narrative she speaks to the audience directly as if it was a diary I found this very interesting and in fact decided to use this method in my own script.

I played around with different ideas but after looking at and evaluating other short films I came to the conclusion that I wanted my short film to be a narrative about a man who returns from war in Afghanistan and how he copes with day to day life back at his home after his horrible experiences of war and destruction. I had to look at war journals and even watched a couple of documentaries on men returns from war in Vietnam and Iraq. This was very helpful and I had a very clear understanding in my head on what I wanted and needed to do. I came up with the final idea of my short film being called 'The Man Who Never Returned'. This name was supposed to represent the fact that physically the Man came back from war in Afghanistan but he was not the same Man that left to go to war mentally. His mind was still out in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately I realised a bit too late that my story was far to broad for the time I had to film. It was a very big story to portray and a very good actor would be needed to portray this Man. I learnt a lot in the process of making this script non the less.

Post 7 - Creating your own script

We have been doing a lot of script work in our media lessons which have benefited hugely in my understanding of scripts. Firstly we started one of our lesson with a simple but affective task that was not as easy as one might think. The class sat in a circle and we all had to talk to the class about what we did the night before with no planning or time to think and we had one minute to talk continuously about what we did. This gave the class a good basic idea of a script as we all found it more difficult than we thought.

In another lesson we watched a short film called signs which was a very different kind of film that any of us had seen before in such as it was a silent film when there was no talking what so ever. This gave myself and the rest of the class a lot to think about as it was unlike anything we had seen before. I feel that signs was a great example of a short film because it was like nothing we have seen before but yet it was very affective in how it got its points and emotions across to us even though there were no words involved.







In class we identified the key features that pretty much all short film have. we used signs as an example as we tried to identify all his needs and desires. firstly we had to distinguish these features. we came up with the following:

a world (the world in which he lives)

a character

a want

a need

a problem (preventing his need and wants)

and an obligation (something he needs to do to achieve his goal)

The character is obviously the man the short film revolves around. The impression we got of him was that he was living in a big city, he lives by himself and does not seem to have any social activity out side of the work place. He seems lonely and depressed. we discussed as a class that his want is friends and a need was a girlfriend. he clearly is looking for a female companion as he is always looking and smiling at other women trying to get a reaction. eventually at his work desk in a tall building he makes contact with this women across the road in another office building. They exchange messages through signs which is where the name comes from. His obligation is to meet this women face to face but we get the feeling he is nervous and afraid which we identified as being the problem, so he keeps on the sign messaging for days maybe weeks. he eventually confronts his problem and completes his obligation by meeting her and the film ends. this is a classic example of a want, need, problem and obligation scenario

Post 6 What makes a good short film?

In our media studies lessons we discussed and researched many attributes of short films. As a class we watched and talked about all the different types and watched many short films ourselves to compare and evaluate as shown in my previous posts (wasp). we had a professional short film director called Becky Knapp to talk to us about short films and answered many questions that gave me a much better understanding on short films and their purpose.

In this post I will be discussing what does make a good quality short film. firstly Becky Knapp gave us two different short films scripts to read through. One was called Donna and the other Does god play football.

The fist script I read was the script Donna. For me personally I found it very difficult to get into and i was not enthused to try and read the hole thing. My reasoning for this were it was not a very compelling story. I felt that the story had to much description of the scene and the atmosphere but had no interesting dialogue or substance to it. For me it was far from compelling and interesting. Taking into consideration when actually put into a film it will be more visual and perhaps more interesting I still feel that the scrip was in many ways was quite boring. We discussed the script after we had read it and most if not all of the class were in agreement that the script was not to our liking. I thinks this may be because it is targeted at a different audience a lot of the people who are my age look for more comedy and action but the script (Donna) was not offering this type of entertainment. We then watched a clip of the actually short film and it was in fact how I imagined it would be (better and more interesting visually and the acting and camera work was in my opinion to a good standard). this made it more interesting but unfortunately I still found myself thinking the story was fairly boring and it did not hold my attention at all. Ways to improve this would be to engage with the audience more, perhaps more dialogue and better explanation of what was happening because I found my self within a few minutes of watching the short film slightly confused on what was actually happening. questions such as who is the girl? Who was the man shouting at her? These were questions passing through my mind. Perhaps the directors were trying to do this so the audience would want to watch more to find out what was happening but for me it was simply not enough for me to want to watch the hole short film.

We then read the script Does god play football. I found this short film far more interesting for many different reasons. Firstly the story was easy to follow and was very clear and understandable. The story in general was good and encouraged the audience to watch more. There were things in the film that I really liked. For instance when the young boy asked his mother who his father was his mother replied God is all of our fathers, in response to this the young boy relates himself to Jesus Christ (the son of god) he takes his mothers words quite literally. When he prays to God he refers to God as 'Dad' I thought this was a marvelous touch by the director and film writers.

After doing my own research I have come up with some of my own points and views on what is needed to make a good short film. Firstly I feel the story line needs to be a an exiting and original idea (something different to what has already been produced). The film is only short so it must be exiting from the start and can not be the same old stuff that has already been done or else it is a waste of time. People don't want to watch short films that have already been done and watched before. Another important factor for me is to have a really good start and powerful start to the short film. This is something the short film 'Donna' failed to do. This is important because it draws the audience in and compels them into the story line. another important factors for a short film is perhaps using different filming techniques that can separate the film from the usual films being brought out. This will make it slightly quirky and different, audiences could really appreciate this. The short film needs to be short exiting, have good actors, exiting story line (original) and to be different from all the other films done before and must also have a good director because they will a short film requires the vision and creativity of a good director. If these points I have made are factored into the production of a short film then it will be a to a high standard.

Post 5 - Audience Theory and my Short Film

For Post 5 we were first given the task of reading through Audience theory links and were put into four groups. Each group had to research each slide of audience theory and present a presentation for the class. For example Philip J Hanes was one of the groups presentations.

We then were given the task of watching four short films of our choice. we needed to watch all four films (on YouTube) and analyse them using what we learnt through the audience theory infomation that we studied and discussed in class and see what if any message is trying to be put forward for The viewer. Important and relevant information needs to be found out about the four short films that we watched. For example what was the funding, what were its reviews were they positive or negative. I must research the short films on the Internet and find out relevant and useful information about the films which will give me a wider range of knowledge on short film productions.

I needed to look at such topics as :

Dominant Hegemonic Position

Negotiated Hegonomic Position

Opositional Hegonomic Position

Mode of Adress

Aberrant Decoding

Mode of Panic

Wasp (short film 2003)

Wasp is a 2003 production as a social realism short film which was funded by film four and New Cinema. The budget set was £53,000. I watched this thrilling social realism short film on YouTube to analyse and discuss my own views on its Dominant Hegemonic and Negotiated hegemonic and my own personal opinion and views on it. The short film is 26 minutes long and has Danny Dyer as the ex boyfriend who many people will recognise.

My view on this film is mixed in many different aspects. The film wasp looks into poverty and single parent life and its problems. firstly we see two grown women fighting in front of their own children setting an awful example to their kids. Then the language the kids use is bad which also indicates that there being no father figure around there has been no discipline and the mother lets the children do what they want. In many aspects the mother in Wasp is not fulfilling the duty of a good mother. Fighting and swearing in front of her kids is not what a good parent should be doing. But despite this the audience has some sympathy with the mother because she has no money and has four children to try and bring up with no money no father figure and no support living in awful conditions. Perhaps it is the mothers fault she is in this position which may take away any sympathy the audience have for her.

The Dominant Hegonomic view for the audience will be that there are still massive areas of poverty in this country and there are people still living in awful conditions trying to look after children. It is what I would call an eye opener to what is actually still happening in Britain today. Many people who watch this thrilling short film could well be very surprised on how close to the truth this short film is to reality.

But there is another view on the short film. Though the mother acts selfishly at times and is more worried about going out with her ex boyfriend than be looking after her kids there is another view that it could well be a good thing for the kids if their mother can have a relationship with the man and they could finally have a father figure. A father is what the kids need desperately and is what the mother needs aswel. At the end of the short film this is in fact confirmed as when the baby swallows the wasp and the ex boyfriend (Danny Dier) finds out she has 4 children he doesn't leave them he takes her to the hospital then gets them food from the fish and chip shop then takes them home. Everything that the ex boyfriend did was what the family have needed. This will be the Negotiated hegonomic position theory that perhaps her desire for a partner is in fact not selfish but essential.

About a Girl :

This is another short film that looks into social realism it was produced in 2001. The film lasts roughly 10 minutes. The film is based on a 13 year old girl who talks about her life and interests. She tells the audience of her dreams of being a singer but also the problems that she faces in her everyday life.

She seems to be alone and in need of some attention from her family especially her father. she wants to be a pop star with her friends and wants to escape the life she currently lives. This is shown when she asks her father if she can move in with him. This shows that she wants a change in her life style. The relationship with her father is poor. I feel the girl wants to have more attention from her father but he is unwilling to give it to her. because of a lack of interaction and advice from her parents she doesn't know wright from wrong in my opinion. for me this point is backed up when she throws her baby into the canal at the end of the film.

In the last scene I think the audience will be shocked and surprised at the actions of the girl. Many will see her actions as unacceptable and wrong. But some may feel that it is not the girls fault. She has not been brought up in a good way and as I mentioned before she doesnt understand wright from wrong. Some may feel sympathy for her as she has been faced with such a problem at such a young age and receives no support, attention and advice from anyone. This leads her to react in the only way she knows.

CUBS:

Cubs is a short film that looks into peir pressure and what kids are doing in and around london today. The film is 10 minutes long and is a tense short film that keeps the audience on their toes as it does not become clear What is happening until near the end and even then the audience must guess what the objective of the hunting. There is something gives the audience the sence of danger and perhaps the sence of crime involvment even though there is no direct link to crime that I could see through out the short film until the end when the gun apears.

The film in my opinion shows how young people can be easily peir pressured into getting involved into crime because of the rewards it perhaps brings but are not naught of the problems and drwabacks of getting involved with gangs. They are entering a dangerous world and do not understand the consiquences they will face. We dont know the story of the young boy and girl who are trying to get into this gang they may have personal issues that we dont know about and therefore are lead to crime to solve money issues or something along those lines. the audience from the start are lead to the feeling of danger and perhaps crime. The boy is desperate to join this gang and this is shown when he shoots the fox at the end of the short film.

Post 4 - Genre as a Media Concept

In our media studies lesson we have been studding and discussing genre in depth. In class we had to evaluate our own opinions of the subject 'genre'. This is important because we need to put theory into practice when we come to making our short film for our A2 course.

Firstly in my research of different genre I investigated into Robert Altman and his theory's. From what I gathered from his work his basic theory is that it is vital that the genre needs to be easy and clear to understand for the audience. If the audience does not relate and understand the genre (or is miss led) of the film it will not be as affective. this is the producers job to make sure the audience easily recognize the film's genre. The audience expects certain things from certain films. A good example would be the Expendables. For me personally judging from what Ive heard from the film and the actors that are involved that it is fair to say that I have a certain amount of expectation that the film is going to be action packed with big names as Jason Statham, Steve Austin and Bruce Willis makes the film a predictable genre. The text in the film are very important because it shows characteristics in peoples behaviour which helps the audience understand roles of the characters. I will look into these theories in more detail latter on.

My own view on genre is that it is important to identify when making a film. I think genre plays a big part on people interpretation of a film if he or she can illustrate the type of film it is. Different genre films are directed at different audiences. Target audiences are important.

Another theory of Altman is that 'genres develops in predictable ways'. It is important to keep changing genres because audiences demand new and different genres or else they will all be watching the same things that have already been done before. Audiences want something new which is where I agree with Altman's theory. New genres must be looked into and developed. Sometimes new genres are created but it is very hard to predict when or how it will be made. Sometimes it is made just by accident, a new branch of genre is created. This could be films looking into homosexuality, War and death in different ways and prospectives than previously looked at.

Texts in a genre share key Characteristics is another one of Robert Altmans theory's about genre. This theory looked at how conventions of a film are important. And how producers need to follow these conventions so that audiences are not confused and they get full value for money when watching a film. I agree with this part of Altman's theory. When making a film it is easy for directors and producers to make when conventions are followed in chronological order this makes it clear and easy to understand.

Post 3 skills

My targets to achieve over the next school year:

my targets will consist of me trying to extend my knowledge and understanding using more creativity in my methods of working in media.

1. My first target is to obtain a better understanding on key words which will help me gain a clearer knowledge on the subject. key words for example vital equipment and filming techniques. I must learn the names of words such as narrative, genre, angle, realism, sequence, mise-en-scene and many more so when I come to discussing these issues in exams and essays I have a strong understanding to evaluate and explain in a relative format.

2. I think an important target for me personaly is to become more comfortable in the edit suit. in my previous tasks I have focosed on other areas of the project like being heavily involved in the filming and the directing aspects. Though i did do some work in the edit suit I feel I could improve a lot in my understanding of the edit suit.

3. Another target for me is my blogger. I left to much to the last minute in my last task which meant I didnt give myself the best chance to achieve the grade I had the potential to get. I think this is a really important target for me personaly. Every week I need to be checking and updating my blogger. I need to read over my blogg for any weak spots and I need to be constantly adding new knowledge and material to my blogg to make it clear, detailed and relavent so I can get the marks i need for a good grade.

4. Another target for me is to start and complete each task that is set for me as soon as I receive it. I do not want to be starting another task with out finishing the one before it. This is very important for me because in my previous tasks set to me I have had to juggle several different tasks because i did not complete them and upload them on my blogger when i should have there for leaving myself the task of having to go back to previous taske to try and complete them. this takes away and continuity and structre to me work.

5. I think that my quality in writing could be a lot better and my grammer could improve in my course work. This is important so my work is clear and easy to understand this will help me gain marks in my work. I need to go into more detail on my explanations and use more examples in my work to show that I have a wider range of knowledge.

Post 2 Creativity

The idea of Creativity and my own interpretation of creativity.

Creativity

Creativity is using original and different ideas to effect something a person may be doing. other links to creativity is being alternative, solving problems and in some cases communication. Being imaginative is also involved with creativity in my opinion. To be creative you need to look at things from different prospectives and need to be open minded to new and different ideas.

Creativity can be used in the working environment and in day to to life. for example in the media industry where films and television programmes are produced new and original material needs to be made so viewers are kept entertained and not watching the same things.

This leads me onto one of the tasks me and my group were set in one of our media studies class. We were given a hand held video camera and said that we needed to make a short film no longer than 2 minutes and the only condition was that we had to involve a pen. We were given 15 minutes to think of a short plot and where we would film on school grounds. So our story was a person in our group would go around the school asking if anyone had seen his pen not knowing that the pen was placed behind his ear the hole time. we did some planned scenes where Ryan (the boy looking for his pen) would come and ask me and then another boy in our group. The creative part of our film was when we waited until the bell went and school students were going to their next lessons and unexpectedly the boy looking for his pen (Ryan) would go up to them and ask if they had seen his pen. this was very creative because it was risky and unplanned we could not determine how each student would react. But it worked well and this showed that we had thought of something alternative and different to what other groups had done.

Post 1

We were asked to find three definitions of a 'skill' and then wright a paragraph on what our personal opinion and reflection was on the aspect of a skill.



http://www.thefreedictionary.com/skill

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=skill

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/skill.html

My definition of a skill

A skill is where someone practises something and becomes advanced in that particular activity. some people have a natural ability to be good at a skill and some need to work and practice a lot to obtain a good method of the skill.