Want to know what's happening? Do you fancy watching something new occur? Well I'm not going to say that I can give you something amazing, but I can give you my AS Media Blog. Follow the stages that I take; I will be doing research into different film openings, audience research, what goes right and wrong, film editing and of course the final production.
A film distributer is a company or individual responsible for the marketing of a film. The distributer may set the release date of a film and the method of which a film is to be exhibited or made available for viewing: for example, directly to the public either theatrically or for home viewing (DVD, Video on demand, download or television programs)
Dogwoof Pictures
Dogwoof was found in 2004 by Andy Whittaker and Anna Godeas. The company originally concentrated on foreign films such as Don't Move and Fateless. However, recently the company has been distributing documentaries such as Black Gold.
Other films that they have distributed include; Seducing Doctor Lewis, King's Game, The Age Of Stupid and Bananas!
Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures was founded April 30th in 1912 (as Universal Manufacturing Company) The distribution offices are located in New York where they buy the rights to the film and get into cinema. Three Universal Pictures films Jaws (1975) E.T. The Extra- Terrestrial (1982) and Jurassic Park (1982)- achieved box office records; each became the highest-grossing film ever at the time of its initial release.
Other films that they have distributed include; Hot Fuzz, Evan Almighty, Kick-Ass and The Thing.
A film production company may be directly responsible for fundraising the for the production (being the film) or may accomplish this partner or private investor. It handles the; budgeting, scheduling, scripting, the resources and talent resources, organisation staff, the production, post-production, distribution and marketing.
British Lion Films
Opening Logo (1971)
British Lion Films is a film production and distribution company that has been active under several forms since 1919. It was originally known as British Lion Film Corporation LTD. They have stopped in film distribution, but as a film production company they are still active and have produced over 170 films.
Films that they have produced are such films like; The Third Man, Loot, I'm Alright Jack, Lord Of The Flies and The Wicker Tree. 20th Century Fox
Opening Logo (2013)
Twentieth Century Fox was formed on the 31st of May 1935, as the result of the merging of Fox Film Corporation (founded by William fox) and and Twentieth Century Pictures (founded by Darryl F. Zanuck and Joseph M. Schenck)
Opening Scene (1952)
Films and film series that they have produced are such films like; Avatar, first two Star Wars trilogies, Ice Age, X-Men, Die Hard and Alien.
From the very beginning of the film the audience can already see that this film 21 Jump Street is a comedy. This can be seen as the first main character is an obvious mic take of Slim Shady, this is shown as over the top of the footage the song The Real Slim Shady is played.
As the first main character comes out from the bus he is first shown with a high angle. This portrays him being a vulnerable character. This portrayal is continued as the character walks ahead into school, but with the camera from his back. So the audience doesn't see his face until he later enters the school.
As the audience first get a front facing view of the character comedy is created as the character pulls a face of anxiety and awkwardness as he attempts to make a connection with someone else off camera. The next cut of the scene involves a pan zoom on a prom poster. This shows that this subject has an important purpose, therefore meaning it will either be relevant to the character next or later in the film.
After the poster has be shown it goes back to the main character quickly changing his general direction as he sees a girl approaching. Waiting for her to come past. This proves the point about the poster being an importance as the approaching girl is linked with the poster. This is shown by a two persons shot. This makes the audience notice that these two people are to be the main focus of this particular cut of the scene. As the main character comes to face the camera again, the music comes to a sudden stop. The sudden stop of the music creates suspense as a new focus point will be coming up.
We are then shown the interaction of the the male and female characters through the use of over the shoulder shots. As the male character gets more to the point the camera slowly zooms more on to his face. Then as the girl understands his point the camera does the same slowly zooming more on to her. But then as she rejects him the camera is back facing him. He then pulls an awkward and upset face. This creates further comedy as the main character has gone for someone who is out of his league.
The interaction with the male, female and newly added male is filmed by a mixture of close-up shots, two person shots and over the shoulder shots. This makes the conversation flow and look natural between the three characters. Comedy is created within this scene by the newly added male character insulting the first m,ale character to impress the girl, with subtle hint like "Well she's hot"
A sarcastic yet tense mood is later created in the scene where the character Greg is in the head teachers office. The mood is slightly tense because the cameras slowly zoom into both characters faces as they talk to each other. The camera also is mainly on the head teacher, therefore showing that she has dominants out of them both. The sarcastic mood is created by the head teacher saying to Greg "I'm glad you had a great time in school."
Later on the audience are shown the two main male characters outside sitting on separate benches. Then using a combination of cuts the characters look at each other. This creates a relation between the characters as the camera pin points them looking directly at each other. Comedy is then created as the not so "cool" male try's to copy Greg's action of kicking the bin. But ends up hurting himself instead.
Throughout the scenes titles and credits are introduced. The credits help show the audience what the film has a link with. The link being police. This is shown as the titles and credits are presented in bright blue and red flashing colours that represent American police lights.
The British Board of Film Classification is a trusted guide to media content. They work as independent, self financing and non-profitable media regulators. The BBFC has classified cinema films since it was set up in 1912 and then videos/DVDs since the Video Recording Act was passed in 1984.
The BBFC is the company that puts the age guidelines on to films. All classification decisions are based on the BBFC's published and regularly updated guidelines. The guidelines are the product of extensive public consultation, research and the accumulated experience of the BBFC over a period of many years. The company reflects current views on film, DVD and game regulation.
The guidance for the media content starts from the rating U to R18.
What are they, you may ask? Well this is what they mean:
U - Suitable for all
PG - Parental Guidance
12A - Cinema release suitable for 12 years and over
12 - Video Release for 12 years and over
15 - Suitable for 15 years and over only
18 - Suitable for only adults
R18 - Adults works for licensed premises only
Here's a link that briefly tells you what the BBFC does
Camera shots, angles and movements play a big role within a film. If a film doesn't contain good camera shots,mangles and movements then honestly it isn't a good film. No matter how good the actors are, how nice the location looks it's not a good film! All films need to contain good cinematic shot, angles and movements whether it is a low budget or Hollywood movie. The cinematic work contributes to the film more than you think.
Camera Shots
Camera shots are amount of space that is seen in one shot or frame. Camera shots are used to demonstrate different aspects of a film's setting, characters and themes. Meaning that camera shots are very important, as they shape the meaning of the film.
Establishing Shot: An establishing shot contains a large amount of landscape. It is used to show the audience the general location (setting) of the film. This shot is used generally at the beginning of the film or scene.
Long Shot: A long shot contains landscape but gives the viewers a more specific idea of setting. A long shot may show a pacific place where the next scene may be located, where the action is to next happen.
Full Shot: A full shot contains a full view of the character/s. This shot allows the viewers to take in the character/s costume but also see the relationship that characters have between each other.
Medium Shot: A medium shot contains characters or just one character from the waist up. From this shot the viewers are able to see the characters faces more clearly as well as their interactions with others.
Close-Up: A close-up is a shot that has a pacific focus character's face. From this the viewers are able to understand the characters emotion and then feel a pacific emotion for them.
Extreme Close-Up: An extreme close-up is a shot that contains one part of a character's face or an other object within the scene. This type of shot creates a pacific mood (depending the film genre). For example an extreme close-up in a horror film would create an intense mood.
Camera Angles
Camera angles are used to position the viewer so that they can understand the relationship between the characters.These are very important for shaping meaning in the film as well as in other visual texts.
Birds Eye Angle: A birds eye angle is an angle that looks directly down upon a scene.This angle is often used as an establishing angle, along with an extreme long shot, to establish the scene.
High Angle: A high angle is a camera angle that looks down on a subject.These angles are often used to demonstrate to an audience a perspective of a particular character. A character with a high angle will look vulnerable or small.
Low Angle: A low angle is a camera angle that looks up to a subject. This is an opposite to a high angle as the low angle makes a character look more powerful. This can make the audience feel vulnerable and small by looking up to the character. This can help the respondent feel empathy if they are viewing the frame from another character's point of view.
Eye-Level Angle: A eye-level angle puts the audience on an equal footing with the character/s. This is the most commonly used angle within films as it allows the viewers feel comfortable with the character/s
Dutch Angle: A Dutch angle is used to demonstrate the confusion of a character.
Camera Movements
Composers of films also use camera movements to shape meaning.
Crane Shot: The crane shot is often used to signify the ending of the film or scene. the effective is achieved by having the camera put on a crane that slowly moves upwards and away from the picture.
Tracking + Dolly Shot: Tracking and dolly shots have the same effect. A tracking shot is moved on tracks and a dolly shot is mounted on a trolley. This camera movement is used for several effects but most commonly used to explore a location or room. By using the tracking or dolly shot the viewers get a tour of a situation. The shots can also be used to follow a character.
Panning: Panning is used to give the viewers a panoramic view of a set or setting. It can be used to establish a scene.
Here is my preliminary video!
To be honest it's okay.. I mean it was my first time actually doing some proper recording, as well as my first attempts of editing. But this is what it's come out like.
What Went Well
In the end I think for a first time recording it was okay. I think that I was able to show and record my shots well. I specifically like the cut between the door opening. I like it because it looks smooth and steady, working well. The lighting of the film is good as it suits the films theme of being dark and mysterious towards the end.
What Could Be Better
To be honest the sound from the background and the speech of the actors is of bad quality. So if I was to do this again I would improve that by reducing if not silencing the background sound. I would also have a dubbed the voices of the actors to make them more clear.
After I created my Questionnaire I was struggling to get any responses for it. So I posted a link in a community page and asked if people would take some time to answer my questions. I was very lucky to then receive over 100 in the first hour. Now after a week of my questionnaire out, I have received 282 responses.
But as I am only using the free version of Survey Monkey I can only view the first 100 responses. However, still this vast amount of responses I got some useful information and also some non helpful information. Unfortunately the non helpful information was either irrelevant or people miss understood my final question.
Gender Response: This question got 98 responses as two participants skipped this question. The majority of who took part in my online questionnaire were females. 76 who took part were female, so only 22 males took part.
Age Response: This question received 99 responses, meaning one participant skipped this question. Eight of who took part were between the ages of 11-17. Fourteen of who took part were between the ages of 18-25. The rest of the participants were of the ages of 26 and above.
Ethnicity Response: This question got 100 responses. Ninety seven who took part were the ethnicity of British White. Two of who took part were the ethnicity of Irish. One participant didn't want to answer the question... Fair Enough
Cinema Response: This question involved me asking how often people go to the cinema in the a month. All 100 of the people who took part in the questionnaire answered this question. Ninety seven of who took part go to the cinema 0-3 times a month. Two of who took part go to the cinema 4-7 times a month. Meaning the last one of the participants go to the cinema 8 or more times more a month.
Film Genre Response: I asked this question by giving multiple choices for the participants to answer. The choices were a variety of film genre. The genre choice I gave was; Action, Horror, Comedy, Romance, Comical Romance, Thriller, Sci-Fi and Documentary. This questioned achieved 99 responses meaning one person skipped this question. The top three genres were; comedy we got 34 votes, comical romance which had 16 votes and then then action which achieved 15 votes. The least favourite genre was documentary which got 3 votes.
So the favourite is comedy. Well I haven't planned my film intro to be a comedy so how much people are liking comedy the most.. Sorry it's not happening. The reason why comedy was the favourite out of all of them was because of the majority of the people who took part were female and stereotypically females prefer comedy and romance comedies. So I didn't expect much more than comedy. I won't be doing comedy because comedy is actually one of the hardest genre to create. This is because what some people find funny others might not. Unfortunately not everyone shares the same comical values, so I wouldn't be able to suit everyone's style of comedy. Therefore not making my film intro suited to the audience.
Film Start Preference Response: This question involved my asking what type of film intros people prefer. The choice was Film intros that either jump straight into action. Or Film intros that have a story that develops from the start. All 100 participants answered this question. 71 of the participants said that they prefer film intros that develop from the start. Which meant that the other 29 participants prefer film intros that jump straight into action.
It's good that some prefer film intros that jump straight into action as my film into idea starts off with action. So this means my film intro will suit some of my audience.. Hopefully
Interesting Film Opening Response: For this question I asked what makes a film intro interesting for each individual. I gave them a box which allowed the participant to put any type of response of their choice. This question only received 68 responses, meaning 32 skipped this question. However, this question is the most important so the more the merrier, but not so much in this case. Never mind. Unfortunately not all responses were as helpful. This was either because of people miss-understanding the question which was asked. As they answered saying what makes a whole film interesting and not just the intro. Other unhelpful answers were just people putting something.. To be funny. But trust me having Anal sex as an answer isn't as helpful as you'd think. Hey, ho there could be worse. So by carefully looking through and analysing all the responses, these are some examples of what I gained:
A films intro has to have some excitement! Even if it's to introduce people to the film, make their entrance exciting so viewers are captured from the beginning!
I like it when a film starts further into the story and then goes into flash back to tell the story or when the into quickly sets the scene and the characters.
How it builds on the story of the film introducing you to the ethos of the film, the characters or back story so you can know some of the basic story.
The film needs to very quickly do what the genre says it should. If I see a comedy I want to laugh in the intro, horror I want to jump etc.
From reading this information I can see that some audiences prefer a film intro stick to it's genre like glue. From start to finish. Also some people don't want too much to be given away, yet enough to know what the film is about. Now with this information I will be able to use this as a reference and a guide when creating my own film intro.
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