Story Boards for Preliminary task

For our preliminary task we had to create story boards to represent how we planned our short films to go e.g camera angles and lighting. These story boards (drawn by myself) show how we plan to film the entrance and scene conducted by the characters and we show the planned use of props.

Character enters room to meet another character

Lines are exchanged, use of props is incorporated 

Reverse shots and over the shoulder shots added

Ideas for Preliminary task

For our Preliminary task we have been told to produce a short film opening consisting o
f a character entering through a door and sitting down with another character and exchanging a few lines of dialogue. This scene would have to include a 180 degree rule implied and a shot/reverse shot.

For ideas we looked on the great web for movies that had scenes at least similar to this and we found a couple of good ideas.

Our first idea was and interrogation scene and we remembered the interrogation scene from the dark knight between the joker and Batman. This featured the camera angles we needed and the acting is sheer class from the two of them. Heath ledger as the joker especially.

Our second idea came from a recent horror game weirdly. However the scene's seem to capture a lot of what we need in our scene so we had to give it a mention. There are a lot of over the shoulder and first person shots and it consists of someone entering a room through a door. Plus the dialogue is very well done and keeps you feeling uncomfortable which in a horror game is very important and it does it very well.

Top 5 Television series'

Today I will be covering my top 5 TV series'

5.  The Missing 

 So far we have only seen one series of the missing and it was absolutely gripping from start to finish... even if the ending was left on  a terrible cliff hanger. It was about how a young family of three went on holiday to France ended up having their child kidnapped. The series then goes onto how the events lead to the family splitting and shows the stress of those involved.


4. Top Gear 
I think if any Lad is going to do a top 5 on their favorite Television programs then Top gear will at least be mentioned! An absolute classic and of course no longer in existence well with the cast of Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May who recently moved to Amazon Prime. I really enjoyed the crazy challenges they attempted with cheap cars and grueling conditions.


3. Brooklyn 99 
At number 3 is defiantly Brooklyn 99. Even though this is not a particularly well known series it is still one of my favorites. I just love the immaturity and the comedy involved.





2. Russell Howard's Good News 
By far and away no one comments on the news better than Russell Howard.
He offers his own personal insight into the latest news and gossip. He usually gets his friends and family involved as well which is defiantly unique in the field.  




1. Humans 
My favourite TV series so far is Humans again quite recent the series only finished a few months ago from when I am writing this. We  have only had one season and I am already glued and awaiting the next season which should be great. In the first series it is all about how a robot with a dangerous past has been reprogrammed and given to  a family and how her past and personality is catching up. The acting in it is brilliant on all parts as well.

A visit from a Photojournalist

This week my Media class and I were lucky enough to meet a professional in the Media business his name was Andrew Johnstone.
He gave us a great insight into his trade and his equipment. Giving us some really good advice and skills we could use in our own work like the 7p's for example which are:
-Prior
-Preparation
-Planning
-Prevents
-Piss
-Poor
-Performance



He also gave us some good terms like Story and Issue and pointed out the differences, so an issue would be the basic root or a cause of a story for example "Some new houses being built"
A story however would be the effect of the issue so "Man struggles to find house as new ones are too expensive"

The equipment he showed us consisted of his main camera equipment. We were informed that the camera was of BBC broadcast quality and that brand new it would of been worth £4500 brand new but now it would be around £1500.
Here are some images and descriptions.

Front Image of the Camera

In this image of the camera we can see the wide angle lens that is fitted which allows the camera man to obtain a large field of view in order to get as much into the image as possible.
We can also see the microphone which is mounted higher just off the end of the handle.

Close up on Microphone

This image gives us a close look at the microphone, as you can see it is rather short as if it were longer than the microphone would be visible in the shot.
The furry exterior is there to make sure that the sound coming into the microphone is clear and realistic.

The Viewfinder

Here we can see the viewfinder for the camera. This is where the camera man will look down in order to achieve the perfect (most accurate shot) whilst the shot being recorded is pictured on a screen that folds out of the camera.
The viewfinder is protected by a layer of fabric which when filming helps to absorb sweat from the users eye to prevent it from going onto the glass below.

Flash light (Collapsed sun)

This is the main light which can be clipped on to the camera if you need more lighting. Even though it is adjustable brightness wise the light would be better served as a collapsed sun as it was so bright defiantly a useful tool in dark environments.

Deconstruction of a Movie Poster

Interstellar

Here I am going to be deconstructing one of the film posters for Interstellar.

In this poster we can see the connotations given off are showing mystery and confusion. We can see this on the facial expression of the character in the foreground. He is clearly confused and not in his home environment as he is in a space suit in fact all three people are looking in different directions which would mean they have no idea where they are. The cast are completely surrounded by endless shallow water which is not on earth so the Mise en sine is telling us that this film is set in space or at least out of this world the spaceship in the background also backs this theory up.
The Sky shows stars and cloud formations which we all find familiar but the stars are also a link to space. The subtitle "Mankind's next step will be our greatest" could be a reference to the first moon landing where Neil Armstrong said "Its one small step for man" so this would imply maybe human kind exploring deeper into space.
The character in the foreground is also walking towards the audience showing curiosity which the film is about as they are clearly exploring space.

In the poster we have a type of semiotic sign as we get the feeling that exploring further into space is darker or more dangerous. We see this twice in this poster, one is the sky in the background which we see is day turning to night day is closer to the ground and characters showing it to be closer to home almost however the further you go from the characters it gets darker showing how unexplored space is. We get the same with the title where the further you read on it goes from white which is bright to black which is a symbol for evil or darkness showing the further you go into whatever the film is about the more sinister it gets.

Using this poster I plan to use the skills used in the production of this poster to be used in my practical with hidden signs with connotations and denotation to make the audience look twice making my work more interesting to watch.     

180 degree rule

The 180 Degree Rule 

The 180 degrees rule in film making is supposed to help the viewer with their understanding of the Mise en sine in the picture. The rule implies that for example if you have two characters talking to each other then the camera can only record from one side of the scene.  

As this diagram below shows the camera can only stay on one side of the scene this prevents confusion among the viewers as the perspective would be wrong as it would look like the characters would be looking into space rather than at each other.
This is very important when we link it to editing as it allows the film to flow steadily and make it look like the two characters are talking to each other. It also allows a cut scene in between shot/reverse shots as the audience can fgure out which characters are where and when they are talking to each other.