Tuesday, 20 January 2015

Media- Media Theorists

In the world of Cinema, the 'Thriller' genre has become one of the most loved and iconic, and this is due to its relative uniqueness compared to other film genre, such as Horror or Sc-Fi. Due to its popularity, there has been multiple applicable narrative structures and theories that revolve around the Thriller genre. One of these theorists that created a theory applicable to Thrillers was Tzvetan Todorov, and his theory of the constant of narratie structure. His theory is that there is always a five-part guide line for the story that all Thrillers follow in order to make them conventional. These five steps are; Equilibrium, Disruptance, Recognition, Repair and New Equilibrium. The first Equilibrium stage shows a 'normal' scene, where the main plot of the story has not yet been established and so the main characters are living their lives as average as can be. Secondly is a disruption stage, which is often caused by the main villain(s) of the film, which somehow involves the main character. The third step is the stage where the main character realises the problem, and has not yet acted upon it. This is the fourth stage, whereby the main character(s) attempt to fix this probe land return to normal. This is the fifth stage of the 'New Equilibrium', where even though the plot has completely been revealed and the heroes are returned to normal living, the equilibrium will be different to the one featured at the beginning of the film. This narrative structure is very typical of most modern films, excluding horror films.
 The second theorist is known as Vladamir Propp, and his theory involves different roles derived from folk tales. According to Propp, every conventional film has a set list of characters, and there are eight roles that are filed by different varying characters, and roles can overlap for one character. These eight roles include: The Hero, The Villain, The Donor(Provider), The Helper, The Father, The Dispatcher, The Princess and the False Hero. Each of these are fairly common among films, and can be unknowingly put into a certain category. An example is in the Hitchcock Thriller 'Rope', whereby the main two characters are technically murderers, and yet are put into the Hero and the Villain category simultaneously. This is because we automatically assume that the characters with the most screen time are the true heroes, which are still the two murderers. This also puts them into the 'False Hero' category, as by the end of the film we are left questioning why we were ever supporting two murderers, and secretly hoping that they'd get away with their crime.

 The third theorist is called Levi-Strauss, and his theory of characters and themes having 'Binary Opposites' this theory explains that different recognisable aspects and parts in the film, no matter what they are, also have their opposites also in the film. This is how we can identify the good from evil, by looking at their exact differences. This can include their gender, race, religion, sexuality, personality or even their opposing views on a certain topic. In 'The Birds' however, these 'Binary Opposites' are taken to a new extreme: Human vs. Birds. While most other films concentrate on two  aspects of different people to oppose each other, Hitchcock decided that the opposites to be present in this film was to be humanity against nature, and the basics of species conflicting with each other, something that rarely happens to humans when we decided to nominate ourselves to be at the top of the food chain and to be the overall Apex predator.

 The Fourth theorist is Laura Mulvey, a feminist film critic who published 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' in 1975, and included in her work the idea of the 'Msle Gaze' and the 'Triple Gaze'. The idea behind the Male Gaze was that women in films are often sexualised more than men typically are, and are exaggerated in sexual aspects of the woman, including the female protagonist to wear little clothes and own above average sized breasts. This lead to Mulvey writing about the 'Male Gaze' in cinema. This means that all women are sexualised because the camera is always from a mans point of view, making women appear to be more like sex objects and men to be very epic and independent. This also leads to the 'Triple Gaze', which explains that the audience see three different male filters between the female character and themselves, and even female audience members are forced to look at the actress from a male perspective. The three filters are between the Female-Male, Male-Camera and -Camera-Audience. This means that whatever the male sees is later filed through much more sexualising, which is the reason why female protagonists are often beautiful and well gifted with their bust and physique.

Monday, 19 January 2015

Patience- Shot list


Shot List

Scene
Shot Number
Description
Scene One

Scene Two
Scene Three

Scene Four
Scene Five
Scene Six
Scene Seven
Scene Eight
Scene Nine
Scene Ten

Scene Eleven

Scene Twelve
Scene Thirteen-Fourteen
Scene Fifteen

Scene Sixteen-Seventeen
Scene Eighteen
Scene Nineteen
Scene Twenty
Scene Twenty One
Scene Twenty Two
Scene Twenty Three
Scene Twenty Four
1

2
3

4
2
4
2
2
1
5

6

2
7

2

8

4
2
7
7

7

9

0
Long Shot of Destiny reading Newspaper
Close Up of phone ringing
Extreme Close up of Destiny answering phone
Medium shot of Sibling talking
Close Up of Siblings chin
Medium Shot of 'Random' door
Close Up of Destiny's face
Close Up of Destiny's Forehead
Long Shot of Sibling
Establishing Shot of Siblings house
Over the Shoulder of Destiny on phone
Close up of Destiny looking up
Eyeline Match/POV of Destiny walking towards door
Close Up of Destiny turning door knob
Shot-Reverse-Shot of Destiny/Sam

Medium Shot of Destiny/Sam
Close Up of Sam's face
POV of Destiny's view of Sam
POV of Door closing(Sam's view)

POV of Door closing(Destiny's view)
Low Angle of Destiny

Straight Cut to Black

Tuesday, 13 January 2015

Patience- Animatic


This Animatic shows the basic storyboard for 'Patience', and while not every shot or shot type will be used, we hope that it serves as a good enough guide for us to film with relative ease.

Patience- Storyboard

Storyboard



Storyboard for Illuminate:
This is the collection of pictures used in the storyboard for the film which we are going to be making; illuminate, all of the shots are in order going from top to bottom and all of them or at least the majority of them w should be using in the actual film. 

 
























Patience- Costume

Costumes and props

Characters and Props
Character Name: Destiny

Costume: 
  • Light coloured top
  • Darker coloured jeans/ Trouser
  • Casual shoes









Props:
  • Whip
  • Newspaper
  • Phone 
Character Name: Sam

Costume:
  • Torn and ripped shirt
  • Torn and ripped trousers 
  • Scruffy hair









Props:
  • Fake blood 
  • Bounding rope
  • Chair
Character Name:Sibling

Costume:
  • Dark coat
  • Jeans









Props:
  • Phone

Monday, 12 January 2015

Patience- Risk Assassment


Patience- Location


In our Media film 'Illuminate', the location that we chose is my (Sam's) house (Picture 2). To be more specific, the setting of most of the film will be in the outside shed (Picture 1), but due to a lack of Google maps skill, the picture that was taken was the best that could be taken. The living room of my house is also a location where the film takes place, and features in it. There is also a number of scenes that takes place in 'sibling's room', which is just another location in the house that is not referred to being in the house, and is supposed to be in a different house. The general premise of our film does not allow for us to film in any other locations, and so our location list is relatively baron.

Thursday, 8 January 2015

Media- Preliminary Task and evaluation


In our preliminary task, we as a group had to create a short film that included multiple different criteria, including 'the 180 degree rule', a 'graphic match', a 'match on action', a 'eye line match' and a ' shot\reverse shot'. The film that was created included most of these, and is based around the idea of a drug deal at the school. We then had the idea for a few shots that would fit in with the criteria that could be seen in a drug deal such as the appearance from around the corner for the match on action. Despite the decent cinematography and relatively good editing (apart from the slow motion sections), the sound that was recorded was not great quality due to the lack of a Dead Cat, and any breeze would practically ruin the audio. Therefore we had to edit the only sound in, and there was no dialogue in the film. To add to this, our experiments with subtitles in the past have left negative results, and so there was no way for us to display talking between the characters. Therefore, we now know that for the next filming session, we should make sure that the sound equipment bag contains a dead cat, and to be sure that we encounter the minimum of wind interference, we should film on a less windy day, or film on times where any wind had died down, to improve both the audio and the film quality.