Pitch Idea

original idea:
My Original idea was for it to start with a group of girls being stalked. They then get trapped in quite a closed space, maybe in a wood or a shelter of some kind and there is then a flashback of these girls tormenting and bullying another girl that isn't there is present day. It then flashes back to present day and all the girls are then killed/already dead. The killer turns round to face the camera to reveal it being the girl that was tormented in the flashback.

Unfortunately I think this idea needs changing slightly as there is too much plot line for the opening two minutes and is more like a short film.  But, this could be the general idea and how I want the film to progress too.

In films like Prom Night (Nelson McCormick, 2008) and Terror Train (Roger Spottiswoode, 1980) it starts with a groups of people bullying and tormenting an outsider or a final girl type of character (often academic or 'nerdy'). The joke then gets taken too far and the final girl character is believed to be dead, but then comes back for revenge. This is a kind of idea that I could use and show the initial tormenting and death, yet not revealing the final girl character is actually alive. After the character is believed to be dead, the titles then start to be shown. As the titles draw to a close, you hear a scream and the girl that is thought to be dead walks towards the camera with a bloody knife.

This goes against Propp's theory, as the initial victim then becomes the villain and the initial villain/villains then become the victims and scream queens. It isn't as common for there to be a female villain in slasher films, as feminist views such as Carol Clover.

I think a good place for the tormenting part to take place would be either a dark wood or dark alleyway. By using an alley way like this, the shot is still framed well by the buildings either side and then the action being very central.

The accidental 'death' could be done by them starting by throwing things at her as she walks away and the objects increasing in size and weight until she is knocked out and her head is bleeding, the group run away thinking she is dead.

example of alleyway

example of weapon from Prom Night

Vodcast - Slasher Titles and Idents

My Ident

Franchise Vodcast - Friday the 13th

Films in the Friday the 13th franchise include...
Friday the 13th (1980)
Friday the 13th part2 (1981)
Friday the 13th part 3 (1982)
Friday the 13th p: the final chapter (1984)
Friday teh 13th: A New Beginning (1985)
Friday the 13th part 6: Jason Lives (1986)
Friday the 13th part 7: the new blood (1988)
Friday the 13th part 8:Jason takes Manhattan (1989)
Jason goes to Hell: The final Friday (1993)
Jason X (2002)
Freddy vs Jason (2003)
Friday the 13th (2009)

Ident Ideas

As we are working on horror and slasher genre at the moment I thought it would make sense to make my ident more slasher related.

My final choice for my company ident name was corrupt productions. I chose this because i thought it fit well with the horror genre and it would be easy to think of a concept to go with it.

ideas for font:

Image ideas:

My concept is that it starts with a black screen and then there is the sound of thunder and lightning and a strike of light across the screen. The name will then appear on screen. I like this idea because lightening is very stereotypical to the horror genre and hopefully it will help set the mood for the slasher opening that will then be shown after our idents.

SlasherEG3: Last House on the Left

Last House on the left 
(Wes Craven, 1972)

exposition

Budget - 90 k and was an indie production.
 It was made by Wes Craven and his friends and film students. No stars were in this film whatsoever. A common device in slasher films is to use an idiot figure and in this film it is kind of like a family unit with the father figure being the main killer.

opening shot

The denotation of the exposition at the start of the film is white writing with a sans serif font. This writing is chosen to look realistic to a scare audience. It uses fairly conventional media language. The film opens with a pan of an extreme long shot which then cuts to a different part of the environment. It has been a convention of all the slasher openings i have watched so far that it starts with an environment shot and not just the characters. A lot of the exposition is done by showing graffiti. Initially by the protagonists name being on the screen. The quality of the footage on the film isn't very good. Also at the beginning of this film there are some discontinuity editing.

titles

There are very minimal titles, only 6 including the film title being shown. No stars are mentioned because the budget wouldn't have been big enough to hire any. In a lot of the slasher films the reason for a lot of the deaths is due to immoral behaviour and the killer wanting to see them punished for something they may have done. Unlike a lot of slasher films it uses a lot of long takes and limited shot variety, this is probably also down to the lack of money.

titles

In the opening there is also an extreme close up of a neclace 'magical object'. This is a very significant part of the mise-en-scene.

Here is the whole of the first part:

SlasherEG2: Halloween

Halloween 
(John Carpenter, 1978)

opening credits

The start of the titles for halloween there is tense music. This is created by long notes, these make you hold your breath and ever so often there is faster piano notes. The piano notes speed up your heart beat making it slightly irregualr, by doing this they keep the audience more scared and the opening shots are likely to shock them more. There is a black background and orange writing, next to the writing is an image of a pumpkin with the light flickering inside it. The slow zoom is aimed at the pumpkin.

opening shot

The directors titles are shown as 'directed by ....'
Exposition is given on screen with the time and place. A steady cam is used in this opening shot. This i
s a good way of making the point of view shot very steady and giving it a quite ghostly drifting feel.

POV shot of killer

The opening shot is an establishing shot of a house. Like Psycho the film starts by showing the environment it is in rather than the people or main characters. Again it creates the idea that this story could happen to anybody and makes it more believable. During this opening shot there is non diegetic sound of children playing/trick or treating, this helps establish that it is halloween and the sound of childrens laughter can sound quite creepy.

POV shot through mask

The shot is a point of view shot and appears to come from behind a shelter o
r tree, making it look like they were watching or spying on the house. There is a blue tint on the footage which creates a cod lifeless atmosphere and like something isn't quite right.

shot where killer is revealed

There is a long drawn out note and the person enters the house. They automatically know where the knife draw
is to get a knife which makes the audience think the person knows whoever lives there. After the killing happens and the person goes out side it is revealed that it is a child that is the killer. This shot shows the boy centred in the frame and the trees framing the shot nicely. There is more exposition and then a 15 year elipses.

closing shot

This opening sequence ends at 7.09

Here is the opening sequence:

SlasherEG1: Psycho

Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Psycho is a black and white film. This was quite strange as in 1960 the majority of films were then in colour. They chose to put it in black and white as it wouldn't have been allowed in cinemas in colour as the blood would have shown re and been classed too graphic for audiences.

One of the most contraversial elements of the film was when a toilet was showed being flushed. This had never been shown in a film before and a lot of people classed it as innapropriate.
All the titles are shown in black and white, and the directors titles are shown as the directers name before the film name. The titles are in a sans serif font and the letters are animated in a way that suggests something along the idea of split personality. The main actors are shown on there own on the screen highlighting the most important character with the character name. The more general titles are shown as.. 'screenplay by...'
'music by...'

The titles end at 1.50

The first shot of the film there is non diegetic music and an audio bridge connecting the credits to the opening sequence. They provide exposition of the date time and place on the screen separately over the opening shots. The first shot is an extreme long shot which is also an establishing shot, it is of a city setting and is a birds eye view. This shot slowely pans across the city. There is then a dissolve transition used to move into the next shot. The panning continues and this pan and cross dissolve sequence happens 3 times.

The next shot to be shown is a zoom on on a random window in the city. This represents the hand of fate and the fact that this horror that is about to take place could have happened to anybody in the city and they were randomly chosen, making the audience more scared becasue it could possibly happen to them. The zoom then continues through the window like the audience are spying on the people in there. This is a very similar idea to Peeping tom, also released in 1960.

There is a panning shot across the room and then a long shot, slightly high angled of a girl very much centred in the frame. It is clear that this is who the audience should be concentrating on. The Guy is only in the edge of the shot which signifies he is less relevant. The girl shown here is the scream queen (marianne) and she is a real archetype of a scream queen that a lot of scream films from other films are based or related too.

By the end of these first inital shots it is 2.53 into the film.

Final Girl Concept

The final girl concept was originally created by Carole Clover, writing about gender orientations in horror films. Her book was called Men, Women and chainsaws. She says that the Final girl is the last woman alive to confront the killer. She is usually virginal, avoiding the vices of victims. The final girl has sometimes shared history with the killer. During the final girls confrontation with the killer she becomes more masculanised and uses a weapon against the killer. Clover points out that the villain of slasher films is often a male whose masculinity, and sexuality more generally, are in crisis. Often has a unisex name, for example Billie

halloween

How Laurie Strode (Halloween, John Carpenter) defines the final girl archetype. The first signifier is her link to academia and how she is carrying books. Later on she tells her friends she has forgotten her textbook and they laugh at her even though its a big deal for her, this is a clear indication to her more moral attributes that make her the final girl. The clothes she is wearing is another signifier to her being the final girl. She is wearing very unglamerous clothing and nothing remotely sexy and quite old fashioned. Her hair colour is brunette which is a convention that applies to a lot of final girls, unlike the majority of scream queens that are brunette. Laurie Strode also doesn't have a boyfriend which refers back to Clover's concept of the final girl being a virginal character. She seems a responsible character unlike her friends that become scream queens. When with her friends they smoke where as she doesn't and her clothes are considerably duller.

halloween

The Final girl Sidney Prescot from Scream (wes craven). She is signified as a final girl be her having brunette hair and she is wearing a long night gown which is old fashioned and quite childish to wear. Also, the first time we see her she is doing her homework so like in Halloween she seems to be quite academic. Her bedroom is also very childish with a lot of floral and framed pictures which you wouldn't expect to see on a teenagers wall. She also comes across as a virginal character when her boyfriend climbs through her window. ' I wouldn't dream of breaking your underwear rule' said by her boyfriend.

Festival Masterclasses

On Friday the 9th of November we went on a media trip to the ASFF short film festival in York. We went to two master classes, a talk from the head of production at Warp films Barry Ryan, and listened to Danny Cohen the successful cinematographer talk about some of his work.

Warp Films Master Class

warp logo

Barry Ryan talked about the latest in film productions and a lot about Warp films and its achievements as this year it is celebrating its 10th year. He talked a lot about how to get ahead in the business and all about budgets and how much you truly make off box office intakes once all your financers and people who put money into the project have been paid.

It was really interesting to hear all about what his experiences have been working for Warp and he gave a lot of opinions on current issues and what the future looks like for film makers. He took some questions at the end of the session and this led into a discussion about how he got into the industry and he earlier also talked about how competitive it is and that the majority of aspiring young film makers are unlikely to become big and successful. Even though talking about this may come across quite negative, he spoke about how he originally wanted to be a director and he had realisation that there was better people than him at directing so he stuck to production which he knew he was good at, and now he is very successful at what he does.

He went into a lot of detail about how warp films have advertised and presented cover art for their films and how you need to get the attention of your target audience by showing them what they want. He gave example here of there cover art for dead man's shoes (Shane Meadows, 2004)


He talked about how here they showed a man holding an axe. Showing this would appeal to people who enjoy slasher and horror movies which are the kind of people who would also like this film. He mentioned about how they chose to simply use red, black and white as it is very striking and will bring attention in a simple way.

He spoke a lot about how they were celebrating 10 years and he mentioned all the achievements and what they have accomplished over that time, for example 18 films , 5 tv series and much more. He also mentioned a few future projects they are working on and it sounds like they are just going to continue to be more successful. He said that the 10 year celebrations are taking place all this year and in particular they are doing a special viewing of dead man's shoes but with the whole musical score being done by a live orchestra.

Danny Cohen Master Class

Danny Cohen

This master class was set up like a relaxed conversation between Danny Cohen and Mariayah Kaderbhai (asking him questions). He started by talking about how he got into the industry and how initially he did a social science degree and then became a photographic technician which gradually led into him being the cinematographer he is today.

Throughout the master class Danny gave useful tips to any aspiring cinematographers, for example he said that you have to be very resourceful, you're never going to have enough equipment or crew. He also said that you start small and make mistakes that then become something interesting. They then showed different clips from films that Danny had worked on and discussed what it was like and which were more of a challenge. Danny Cohen worked on This is England (Shane Meadows, 2006) which was made by Warp films. This linked very well with the Master class from earlier and both master classes will come in very handy when talking about British cinema in coursework and the exam. Danny continued to give useful tips saying that you need to make a good relationship with the director and learn how open they are to suggestions.

 He also gave more general tips not just about cinematography but he talked a lot about location and how directors like Shane Meadows got a lot of ideas and inspiration on location meaning that you have to react a lot to what you see when on location. He also spoke about some of the complications he comes across when working. For example, he was recently working on the film version of the musical Les Miserables. The director wanted all the actors to sing live and to preserve there voices this had to be done in as little takes as possible and with a few cameras on them at once so they then didn't have to reshoot from different angles. He then also talked a little bit about how by making them sing live this would  also make post filming harder as people would have had to edit out mic packs attached to them etc.

 The other films mentioned and talked about included, dead man's shoes (Shane Meadows,2004) another warp films production, Dive (a film for tv aired about 3 years ago), This is England 88 (the tv series) and Peer point (2005 another film for tv) and The Kings Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010).

In conclusion I found both master classes really interesting and I learnt a lot about the film industry and cinematography. I found the second one slightly more interesting as it was more about the actual making of the films in contrast to the first master class which was more about the industry and warp films as a company in general. Both I have found very helpful to understanding more about both subjects and I would definitely recommend anyone interested in media studies to go if they were to happen again.

cinematographer Danny Cohen talking about the lensing on The King's Speech

Film Openings - Summary of Conventions

Films mentioned in this post:
Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry, 2008)
Hidden Agenda (Ken Loach, 1990)
Star Wars (George Lucas, 1999)
Atonement (Joe Wright, 2007)
Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1988)
Up the Junction (Peter Collinson, 1968)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell, 1994)
About a Boy (Chris and Paul Weitz, 2002)
(the films after this are from the other vodcast made in the class)
Violent Enemy (Don Sharp, 1967)
Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976)
Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007)
Nacho Libre (Jerad Hess, 2006)
Bullet Boy (Saul Dibb, 2004)
Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990)

Fonts in opening titles
Four weddings and a funeral, Hidden Agenda, Heathers and Atonement all use a traditional serif font. We have found that these are usually used in the more serious dramas and not comedies or films with a more light hearted films like Be Kind Rewind where they would use sans serif fonts. Serif fonts will also be used in films that are not set in modern day to make it look older.

be kind rewind, sans serif font

hidden agenda, serif font

Directors Titles
Heathers, Up the Junction and Star Wars all don't show any directors titles. In Four weddings and  a funeral and about a boy the directors titles are presented as the directors name and then the film. In Be kind rewind, hidden agenda and the atonement they say 'directed by' followed by the directors name. These are the two main ways a directors name is displayed and sometime both are shown in the opening titles.

hidden agenda directors titles

Other Titles
In the majority of the films the main actors names where shown on the screen on their own, but in Be kind rewind this was also framed on the actor in shot. As the less important actors started to get mentioned they came on screen in groups, usually swapping sides of the screen, in the more modern films like be kind rewind  the letters are sometimes animated but in more traditional films like hidden agenda they wouldn't do this.

hidden agenda- grouped names

Transitions
All the old more traditional films mentioned tend to fade from black into the film, the more traditional films mentioned are hidden agenda and the atonement.

Music and Audio
All the films we looked at that had music in the opening sequence was all non diegetic and had and included an audio bridge to link all the scenes. This was also true of all the films looked at by the other vodcast group in the class. The music used in the opening can reflect a lot about what the genre is going to be. For example heavy metal music is usually associated with horror. In wild at heart violins and romantic music is played, this indicates that there is going to be an element of love in the storyline.

Shot types
The films we looked at that included close ups was to show the characters emotion or to introduce them more into film as it may have been the very first time we have seen them. About a boy and Up the Junction also show high angled shots to show weakness. There was use of shot reverse shot in star wars and four weddings and a funeral this helps to show conversations between characters. In all of the films there are establishing shots to show mise-en-scene.

establishing shot, shows mise-en-scene

Overall we have seen a lot of similarities and differences between the different film openings we have looked at. We came to the conclusion that the different conventions are very dependant on the genre and the certain genres have different ways of presenting there openings to give the right impression for the rest of the film.

Micro drama Finished Film and Reflection

This is our finished micro drama. After editing it ended up being about 2 minutes 19 seconds long, which is okay for the length of a micro drama.

establishing long shot

The micro drama starts with an establishing shot of a live news report. Unfortunately we couldn't work out how to put text over the footage to make it look more realistic, but the orange tape we used made it look like some body reporting from a crime scene. If possible it would have probably of been better for us to get hold of some proper police tape.

establishing, point of view shot

the news report the main drama starts with a long two shot of two girls walking along in a park at what seems to be evening. This also comes across as a point of view shot of someone that seems to be stalking or watching them without them knowing. It becomes apparent quickly that these girls may be victim to the person being referred to in the news report just shown.

extreme close up

There is then an extreme close up of the girls shoe. This distracts the audience from the fact that the other girl has run off to hide. But, this shot wasn't very smoothly zoomed or edited, we should have watched it and re shot because also there is some background talking which was quite hard to avoid when shooting in the park.

false scare

We then tried to create a false scare. Unfortunately it wasn't very effective when showing in class. This may be partly due to them finding the acting funny, but mainly I think things like this will improve a lot when we have studied more into this genre and seen more example of a false scare.



We then lead on to a very long take of the girls walking, this was quite uneccessary and one of the situations where we should have used a lot more shot variety.

good lighting 

A shot I really think worked well was at 1.34 where one of the girls is walking through the tunnel on her own. Here the light is shining from behind her making her look dark and a bit like a silhouette, this looked very effective but does have quite a purple tone due to us trying to darken it whilst editing. This shot I think also looks well framed.

bad framing example

When the camera ran out of battery, we didn't turn the iphone to landscape and therefore all the footage from now on minus the end news report had to be zoomed in to fit the frame. This worked well at times but in some situations the girl was badly framed and her head totally cut off, luckily these were only short in length.

narrative enigma

An example of when the zoom worked was on the murderers feet walking towards the girl. Because you can only see the feet this creates narrative enigma as the audience are unaware as to who it might be.

After the girl is grabbed and screamed it goes back to another live news report saying two more girls had been murdered. This leaves the micro drama on a cliff hanger and could be easily continued from where this one was left.


In our micro drama I think it is very clear that the murderer who is still unknown is the antagonist or villain. The two girls are the victims and some of the other archetypes are very unclear as it was left on a cliff hanger. However our micro drama does follow the idea of Todorov and the 3 stages. The equilibrium at the start isn't exactly stable but is more so than the end. The dis-equilibrium is all the action that takes place and the two murders and the new equilibrium is the news report about what has changed. Even though the equilibriums aren't positive I still think it mostly follows this theory. Barthes theory of narrative enigma is used throughout as the murder stays unknown but partly shows his feet and the back of him/her.

Overall I think our micro drama was successful, but we definitely needed more shot variety so the editing process and the end result was better. I think we got some really interesting shots but I think it will become a lot easier to film horror based dramas when we have done more research into the drama and its conventions. Also if we had been more organised about the camera the editing process wouldn't have been as hard having to zoom all the shots. I think we would also reconsider when we shot it to reduce back ground noise.

Micro drama Editing

This first thing we noticed when transferring our footage onto the camera was that one shot was missing. At first we thought this would be a major problem and we would have to arrange for a re shoot, but when we had edited the rest of the footage we saw that it actually created narrative enigma and probably improved the drama by doing so.

For editing we split the group into two so that everyone had input and there would also be two totally different versions of the micro drama to compare and see where we could have made improvements. On the group I was in's version we decided to make the footage look more like night time. By doing this it did have a slight purple tone to it but we still thought it looked more effective and slightly more scarier. The other group thought it looked too purple though and kept the natural daylight.

We also struggled to put writing on at the beginning of the drama at the part that was meant to look like a live news report. Due to the time we had to edit we didn't look up on youtube or the internet how to do this. We should of done because it would have made a big difference and improved our drama. But, the more we have been working with final cut pro the easier it is starting to be and I am really getting the hang of how it works.

Micro drama Shoot

On one day in half term our micro drama group went to shoot our footage. We filmed in the order of what happens starting with a live news report. As the drama also ends with a news report it made sense for us to film both reports at the same time then continue in order of shots of the main drama.

However, when filming we did come across a few problems. The first of these was the amount of people in the park during the day. We hadn't thought about the fact that it would be half term and there would be a lot of children and parents in the park so there was a lot of background noise and it was hard trying to avoid having people in the edge of shots.

Another problem we had was that the video camera we were using to film ran out of battery before we had finished filming. Luckily someone Hannah has an iphone 4s and they have HD video camera on them so the quality of the last part of filming was still very good.

Overall I think our micro drama shoot went very well and I think that was mainly due to us planning it quite well and knowing exactly what we had to shoot. But we should have double checked the battery on the camera before starting.

Micro drama Planning

Our Micro drama task was to use the key narrative theories to help us create a mini drama based on the
horror genre. We split into two groups so it was easier and more people were involved. There were 5 people in our group: Me, Hannah, Tilly, Millie and Kate.

We started planning by getting together and discussing some basic plot lines from what everyone had pitched to the whole class. Whilst we started to improve and develop the idea though it did totally change from the original idea. This didn't matter but it did make the planning process a lot longer. We then decided on the place to shoot the micro drama and decided that the park would be a good idea as it would be quite creepy at night and very easily accessible.

We then started to story board the basic plot and the different shots that would be necessary. When doing this we had to keep in mind where in the park this could be filmed to look most effective. This will come in very handy when shooting as we know exactly what to film and wont have to rethink things whilst on the shoot wasting time. We then planned the time and date of filming. At this point it became very clear that it would cause a lot of complications to film in the dark so we planned to go a little earlier in the day also due to some of the scenes needing to be in daylight. We hope to make the rest of the scenes seem a lot darker when editing.

Key Narrative Theories

Vladimir Propp
As well as Propp proposing that narratives can be broken down into 31 basic functions, Propp argued that there are essentially 8 different character types, also known as an archetypes.

1. Villain - also known as the antagonist they are the 'bad guy' of the film and they never usually end up 'winning' or having the best outcome at the end of the film.
2.Donor - this person usually helps prepare the hero for for what they have to overcome or gives them something to help them.
3. (magical) Helper - helps the hero in their quest.
4. The princess or prize - the hero that deserves her/it throughout the story but is unable to marry her at he beginning of the story due to whatever villain is doing to stop them.
5. The princess and her father - gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, Propp noted that the father and the princess can be quite hard to distinguish between.
6. the Dipatcher - character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
7. Hero/Victim - reacts to the donor, weds the princess, also known as the protagonist.
8. False Hero/Anti Hero - takes credit for the hero's actions and tries to marry the princess.

These roles could sometimes be distributed among various characters. Also once character could do things that mean they apply to more than one role.

Todorov
Todorov is associated with the theory that every narrative can be broken down into 3 basic stages. Equilibrium, dis-equilibrium and new equilibrium. Crucially, the protagonist is not the same as at the outset, the events they have had to overcome has changed them. People generally refer to the easier 3 part model but in fact he proposed 5 stages.

1. a state of equilibrium at the outset
2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action
3. a recognition that there has been a disruption
4.an attempt to repair the disruption
5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium.

Levi Strauss
When we consider the use of stereotypes it is often evident how a binary opposition is at play. For example how we describe a stereotypical poor or working class person in broadly the opposite of how we would describe a middle class or upper class person. Scenes within dramas often reflect this idea with clashing pairs. These binary opposites are what often cause conflict or tension.

Barthes
Another basic but vital component of most narratives is the concept of narrative enigma. These are the puzzles created within the narrative . Trying to figure out these puzzles is part of the enjoyment of watching the text. This is often done by not showing someone's face or key information purposefully being hidden from the audience.

Semiotics Rap

We had to create a semiotics rap using all the key terms we had learnt to help become more familiar with them and use them in the right context. Here is my semiotics rap.

Denotation is the description of what we see or hear,
connotation is the facts that can be much more clear.
Commutation test is what we don't see,
anchorage makes you understand much more easily.

Narrative enigma is the mystery,
protagonist wins the 'prize' usually.
Intertextuality can be hard to get,
the antagonist of the film can be quite a threat.

A polysemy image has more than one meaning,
The false or anti hero may be seen as scheming.
A signifier can be someone giving a rose,
love isn't necessarily what it always shows.

Semiotics: the concept and key terms

Semiotics, literally the 'science of signs', are the key terms and concepts for investigating the symbolic encoding of meaning within texts. They are used in media studies when deconstructing a media text and it is important to use the specific terminology. Semiotics is all about identifying significant details and analysing them to help understand why these details were chosen and  how they effect the text.

Here are some key terms:

Signifier and Signified: A signifier is a single detail that we pick out which we think has a symbolic meaning  (the signified). An example of this would be how a low angle shot (the signifier) often signifies strength and power of the person in the shot.

binary opposition

Denote and Connote: denotation is the description of what we see or hear and connotation is the symbolic meaning of these factual details. For example, When we can denote that a male character has facial hair this often connotes that he is a villain.

Binary Opposition: where texts are organised around sets of opposite values such as good and evil or light and dark. 

Polysemy and Anchorage: every media text is essentially polysemic, this means that it has many possible meanings. Our interpretation will be influenced by our knowledge of other texts, genre, our values, cultural background, age, gender etc. Signifiers are embedded within texts to point us towards a particular preferred interpretation. Anchorage is when the signifier has become completely clear, and that is the most likely meaning or reason signified. 

Commutation Test: To always consider what we don't see. For example the choices that the producers may have rejected and why. 

Preferred, Contested and Oppositional Reading: We may be mainly considering what we consider to be the preferred reading (the interpretation that the producers want us to follow) but as texts are all polysemic, they are open to contested or oppositional reading. Contested reading is when you follow some of the inter textual references but equally don't understand some of them. Oppositional reading is when you either consciously or due to lack of knowledge little of the text is followed and by doing this are rejecting the preferred meaning. 

narrative enigma

Narrative Enigma: this is when details of the text are left very much hidden, for example somebody's face isn't shown, this creates mystery and is vital to create drama. 





Intertextuality: Is the meaning of one text tied to another, earlier text. For example if you are watching a spoof movie or a swede you would need to have watched the original film they are referring too to find the spoof funny and understand what they are trying to recreate. This can cause contested reading. 

Film Opening Conventions Vodcast

Films mentioned:

Be Kind Rewind (Michel Gondry, 2008)
Hidden Agenda (Ken Loach, 1990)
Star Wars (George Lucas, 1999)
Atonement (Joe Wright, 2007)
Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1988)
Up the Junction (Peter Collinson, 1968)
Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell, 1994)
About a Boy (Chris and Paul Weitz, 2002)

In this vodcast we discuss conventions such as directors titles, other titles, sound and audio, mise-en-scene, transitions and editing and shot types.

Comparing 2 past AS film openings

The two AS openings I have chosen are both from 2009. I have chosen Deception and The Cellar.

Deception:

The Cellar:

deception ident

the cellar ident

Idents

Deceptions one and only ident at the start of their opening is very simple yet gets the message of the company across. It shows a plain black background with white writing. On the other hand The Cellar has a much more noticeable ident and an image behind it which helps to bring your attention to the centre of the screen where the company name is written. Both openings have quite dramatic non-diegetic music from the start of the idents which instantly creates tension and makes the film genre a lot more obvious without even seeing the first shot. 

the cellar opening shot

deception opening shot

Opening Shots

In Deception every title and credit goes back to the black screen with the white writing in the same place. In the Cellar they put white bold writing over the shots so it is still visible but isn't as noticable as the Cellar. The opening shot in The Cellar is a dutch angle of a door with some light coming through it. This is a very good way of starting the opening as the dutch angle shows there is something not quite right and the lack of light is creating narrative enigma as the audience are unsure of the setting or anything the plot is about. The opening shot in deception is a tracking shot of a girl walking down a woodland path. The camera is set up behind a tree and the branches make it unclear to see who the character is walking along, this also creates narrative enigma. The camera being behind the tree might also be a point of view shot to make it seem like someone is watching her. 

the cellar

deception good frame

Good Qualities

Both openings include a lot of good shot variety and the plot is easy to follow because of this, and it makes the genre and theme more effective. A good example of this in Deception is at 1.16 where they use the tree to frame the shot and make it look balanced. In deception they also include a good example of a point of view shot when the boy is running you see his point of view of surroundings and reactions, this makes the audience connect with the character a lot more. A good example of shot variety in The cellar is towards the beginning when it cuts from the girl being tied up in the cellar and the house she must be in. These quick cuts make it very dramatic and will keep the audience on edge and it builds tension for something to happen.

Bad Qualities

decption cut off head

A criticism I have of Deception is that at times and in particular at 1.23 they do not frame the character quite right in shot and the top of his head is cut off. You can see that here they are aiming for a close up to show the emotions on his face and make the audience connect but by cutting off the top of his head it slightly ruins that. I found it hard to find criticisms in The Cellar as it is such a good opening. The only thing I can think of to mention is in the cellar they only used candle light which was very effective but some of the footage was so dark it was a little unclear to see what was happening. But this might be down to them creating narrative enigma or the quality of youtube when i was watching it. 

the cellar dark

In conclusion...

Both are very good examples of film openings but I would say the Cellar was the better out of the two as it has practically no flaws to it.

OpeningEG5: Hidden Agenda

Hidden Agenda (Ken Loach, 1990)

box office:
budget: unknown
Gross: $1m (USA)

trailer:


Length of opening sequence: 4.19

The idents shown at the beginning of the film were 'Metro Goldwyn Mayer' and 'Hemdale film corporation'. 

00.38 opening/establishing shot

The opening shot (00.38) is an establishing shot of the location which we can presume the film is set in. It is a rural countryside view and the camera is slowly panning across the vast landscape. 

00.45 northern Ireland quote

A quote then comes on screen (00.45), it is talking about northern Ireland, this is now known to be the setting or at least presumed by the audience. The shot is still the same panning across the countryside. There is non diegetic music playing, very traditional music giving quite a relaxed setting.

1.11 first titles

Titles then start to appear on screen, the initial one being 'John Daley and Derek Gibson present for' All the writing in the opening sequence is in capital letters and a very traditional serif font. The names are in slightly bigger font to the words that accompany them, for example 'and' and 'present for'. This is at 01.11.


Other titles then start to be shown such as 'Hemdale film corporation' and 'An Initial Production'. 

1.30 city view

At 0.1.30 the shot suddenly switches to a city view. Completely opposite to the original shot we just saw. 






The film title is then shown 'Hidden Agenda' again in capitals and centred in the middle of the screen. All the font used as titles in this opening sequence are in white. I think this is so they stand out against the darker colours in the background as it isn't very bright and they need a contrasting colour so the writing is visible.

1.44 marching band

At 1.44 diegetic music starts and there is a shot of what seems to be a marching band a crowd. The music and setting is creating quite a happy and lighthearted atmosphere.

1.50 another quote

Another quote then comes on screen talking about Northern Ireland and the UK which definitely suggests that it is set in Northern Ireland and sets the scene that these quotes will be somewhat relevant to the plot of the film.

2.04 close up

2.04 a close up of people in a band.

2.07 protesting

2.07 there is a picture of what seems to be a member of the marching band holding a sign. The sign says ' NO SURRENDER BELFAST' this is an example of mise-en-scene and this suggests that the marching band are protesting something to do with Ireland and the UK referring back to the quote at 1.50.

2.10

Actors names then begin to be shown on screen starting with the more important on there own and centred in the middle of the shot. After the main characters have been shown they then show the less important ones in groups of three and alternate what side of the screen they are shown at. They are also in a slightly smaller font.

2.29

More titles are then shown such as:
'screenplay...'
'photography...'
'Editor...'
'Designer...' 
'Costume...' 

2.56

'Casting...' 
'Sound recordist...'
'Original music...' 
'Executive producers...'
'Co-producer...'
'Producer...'
'Directer...' 

4.02 changed setting

 The setting then suddenly changes with no transition and the directors name is shown then the caption, 'Belfast: A few years ago'. This finally sets the scene and the audience then know for definite where the film is set. This is where I think the opening sequence ends as the film then goes into the main plot and dialogue and no more titles or transitions are clearly shown into the main plot. 

4.09 end of opening

Stuart Hall's theory of preferred reading is very relevant in this film. As I have very little knowledge about Northern Ireland I don't follow the preferred reading and I am more likely to be oppositional reading as I will not understand any of the intertextuality.







Useful links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_Agenda_(1990_film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_McDormand