Analysis of a Film director: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost

Hello again!!! 

Today I'm going to analyse film Director Simon Pegg and actor Nick frost with their movies that they collaborated together to create. As our theme for our main task is under the genre of comedy we thought that it would be appropriate to see why famous comedy producers such as this duo are successful. Most of their work consists of parody's of famous movies or TV series'. A good example of this would be Shaun of the Dead which was a parody of the walking Dead which is an American TV series based on zombies with over the top gore and drama. The way that Simon and Nick made this funny though was by adding in the "British Version". So as you can imagine in America as guns are legal so everyone had a gun but in the UK we would have to be very creative and have to use other things such as a Cricket bat, part of a stair well and in one case a mans arm that had been ripped apart. What the essentially did `was take the piss out of themselves and the British public in a way that no one could get offended as it was true and quite hilarious. 


Another famous parody they released was "Hot Fuzz" which was a parody on the British police force (service sorry). In your usual Cop film you would usually expect big tough robbers with guns stealing money from a bank whilst the "cops" try to stop them. Instead as its England it takes place in a village with what it seems harmless pensioner vs. Two police officers One who is a good police officer the other is just hilarious and as it turns out the pensioners are criminal masterminds with guns and artillery which is the last thing that you would expect, this is why it is funny as well as references to American Cop films like Breaking Point and Bad Boys 2. So for our task film references might be a good idea to use.

Film editing workshop (Title sequences)

So recently we were visited by an EX-student of the Kings School called Sion Roe. He right now is a professional photographer based in Exeter and he came into our lesson to help us out with editing film opening sequences specifically the titles.

 In this image we can see a still from our finished title sequence experiment that we did ONLY FOR THE LESSON not for our task even though we may use some of the techniques that Sion taught us.
We went through fading, opacity, colour, layers and artwork in order for us to have all the tools we needed for our title sequences.
In the image you can see that the title is surrounded by the main recording whilst another recording is playing within the faded letters which really added up for a great effect and is certainly something that we can use in the future.

In order for us to gain this style of title we had to select a style from the tool bar called "Track matte Key" this allowed us to put the title in without any boarders or text boxes blocking our view.

In this image we can see the opacity settings that allowed the title to fade in and out and expand in and out. This was a very nice effect as it could open up various ideas about how we could combine various ideas from the film into the title sequence so that they could work together.
We can also see the time line at the bottom which allows us to show when we want the title sequence to start and the layers of video that we used.
The workshop was very useful however I found it very difficult and I think premier pro will take some getting use to it. 
It REALLY helped me with sound though as I now am familiar with the sound effects and transitions. So hopefully the sound/audio should be amazing in our actual task.

Media studies story boards for 60% task

He we have our 60 marker story boards which we will plan to base our short film opening on. This will tell us as we are filming our chosen camera angles and motion of objects /characters. They will also allow us to put our task together in a structured way so that it makes sense to the audience without diverting away from the subject. 

Pinterst moodboard

Quantitative and Qualitative research

Quantitative research is when information is gathered by large companies gather large amounts of information. This means getting information from many audiences to get their opinion on their product. In doing this they can get a wide range of opinions on how to improve or how to target a particular audience. They would usually do his with surveys and questionnaires done over the phone or Internet questionnaires that appear as pop ups.

Qualitative research is when the companies interview there individual customers to find out their opinion and feeling for their product and also how they would talk about it to their friends. It is a very direct and personal opinion compared to quantitative research. Its about getting inside your customers head and seeing how you could improve your product. It produces accurate and local results so that the company can tailor that product to a tighter audience instead of a wider one.

Audience Profile

This is Fred. Fred is in his 2nd year of university. He enjoys spending times at the zoo and travelling to savannah's in Africa in his spare time as he likes to get away from the constant life of studying and research for his chosen subjects. when he's not at the zoo or Uni he enjoys watching films. Especially indie style films. When he listens to music he likes the Hard Rock genre.

Fred is a prime example of my target audience. As he likes indie movies he isn't particularly bothered with big name actors or directors only the story of the film and the moral only matters to him. 
With sources such as IMDB and BBFC he has access to lots of indie films that he might want to watch with other people reviews and opinions. This will heavily influence him on what films he will want to watch. This means the film industry's can find out why people like certain films and how they can implement these ideas into there own films which for me as a film maker is very useful.
If Fred was to see a film at the cinema he may bring friends/ family with him acting as a secondary audience.

Analysis of natural sound from opening scene of a film

The opening scene that I shall be analysing is from the film Hancock.

The sound in the first ten seconds or so is mainly implemented with the sound of guns, sirens and racing cars along a freeway this is all non diegetic sound as it has been planted into the footage to make it more exiting and absorbing for the audience. What I really like about this scene though is that you go straight from dramatic loud and violent to quiet calm and laid back, as the scene immediately diverts to Hancock (Will Smith) lying on a street bench with the natural sound of your typical suburbia in the background i.e. distant cars and people talking. This is added with the faded sound of the news broadcast and the conversation the audience has been directed to follow between Hancock and the child in front of him.