Possible locations for the start of our video.....

 This is the location that will be used for the very beginning or our film. Our character will run down the hill towards the camera fearful and looking over her shoulder the entire time.

 This is the bridge she will run across. There will be a point of view shot of her running across the bridge to put the audience in the girls shoes and build up tension.

 Like the lampost in narnia, this statue could act as a kind of gateway between the two worlds that are being represented in our video.

 Alleyway's are regularly used as places that strike fear into the audience so used properly, this location could be extremely effective. This location holds a lot of potential and could possibly be a place where the killer catches the girl but she then overpowers him and escapes again. 

 The girl escaping from the alleyway could run down this path. The path next to the riverside is very long so with proper editing and cutting, the length of the path could be reduced a lot. 

  At some point, the girl hides in a bush. This bush is the place that transports the girl from the black and white world of the 50's to the modern day world of 2011.

 The bin in this location seems very modern and the riverside is very long so a tiny part of this location could be used as a shot to link the previous shot of the bush and the future shot of the stairs. Although the camera will be looking at the girl running. The camera man will have their back to the river and facing the trees so the length of the river will not be obvious. 

 The girl stops for a second and catches her breath and holds on to the barrier. There is potential for this location as she could either hold onto the barrier and catch her breath or hide behind the corner then peek back round the corner to make sure she is safe. 

 The stairs are important as our location is seperate from the rest of the town. This is used for a simple shot of the girl walking up the stairs as she discovers she has entered a world that is not her own. 

  This bridge will be used as the character enters what she thinks is safety. There are people around so she assumes she will be safe from the killer but she notices that they are all dressed very differently from herself and what she is used to. There is a shot of her walking down the path and into the town where she is terrified to find the modern shops with the LED lights.

These are just the locations for the first small part of our film. It's a small but very significant part of the film as it is showing the difference between the girl and the world she has entered. The modern shops and the style of the girl is very significant to show the contrast of time periods. 

Plan for opening sequence

• Script
• Storyboard
• Video of set – Where we are going to shoot. What’s going to happen in the scene.
• Stills of possible locations
• Videos of characters, costumes, what their character will do.
  
  
  

Opening sequence outline

Our opening sequence for the movie starts of as black and white. It is set in the 50’s and this is shown by the girls costume, make up and hair. The girl is running away from something and is looking very fearful. The girl is seen to run and hide in amongst some bushes whilst her killer looks for her. The killer is seen to then run away. When the girl gets out from the bushes she enters a different world. The audience know that it is different because the colours will change from black and white to technicolour. The girl checks she is alone then runs but slower. She then sees shops and the town centre that is new and modern. The girl enters a confused state as it is now apparent that nothing that is around her is what she is used to. The girl looks scared again and frantically looks around at all the neon lights and modern day cars of the town and when she grabs a newspaper from a passerby it dawns on her that she is in a different time zone.

Opening sequence research continued

TV dramas that include time travelling are Ashes to Ashes and Life on Mars. They both start off slower than our movie sequence will but they both have the same type of storyline. Both programmes show the confusion of being thrown into a time zone that is out of the ordinary. In these two programmes the confusion of the characters is represented by the camera spinning around the character showing the world around them and making them look disorientated. This would be good to use in our own video as our character is thrown into a time that is not her own so she would have the same confusion as the characters in the TV dramas. The representation of both characters in these dramas is very clear and there is a story before they go back in time that tells the audience everything they need to know about this character. In our video however, we want to purposely create a sense of confusion so that the audience don't know anything about the character before she goes forward in time and learns everything they need to know throughout the film.





Both include modern day police officers trapped in the past but our movie will include a woman from the 50's in the future instead.

Opening Sequence research

Hannah and I are creating a movie opening for our final project. In the beginning of our movie, it is all in black and white. There is a 50's woman running away from a killer. She goes through a door and hides. When she comes back through the door, the killer is gone and she has been transported into the future. She runs through the town where the colour has changed from black and white to full technicolour. The woman is full of fear as she slowly realises that she is trapped in the modern world.
The video above is a good example of a woman running away from something. It is a clip from "kiss me deadly." The techniques that are used in this clip set the mood very well so we could use these techniques to show the fear that has struck our character. The audience don't know why the woman is running until later on and this is the effect that we want to create. We want to set the scene so it is obvious that she is in the 50's before we let the audience know what is going on. We don't want things to be obvious from the start so we want to let out little bits of information at a time to keep the audience interested. The video above does this as there is no information as to why she is running or what she is running away from so the audience have to keep watching to find out whats going on.
We have to carry out research and found openings for movies that included these components so we could film our movie in a way that would represent what we wanted.
  
In "The Wizard of Oz," Dorothy starts off in a sepia tone world. This is her home town of Kansas and this is what starts off the film. Later on in the film she gets caught up in a tornado and gets transported into a new technicolour world. This film was one of the first to use technicolour which made it extremely special in it's time. The techniques used in this film represent Dorothy's confusion and presents to the audience the sense of being lost and in a foriegn land. Dorothy is confused and doesn't know whats happening. She is in a world that she has never been in before and it is all new and scary. We want our character to have the same effect on the audience as Dorothy had as she presented forward the idea of a girl trapped in a strange world. Dorothy had the fearful attitude and the confusion that we need from our character.

This is mine and Hannah's continuity video

We are both pleased with the final piece and feel like we have completed the project and met the final criteria well. Although the filming was slightly rushed I feel like the final piece did not show this. We definatley need to improve our time management. We have used a variety of shots but have stayed in our comfort zones and not done anything very exciting or interesting to make our video stand out. While watching it, I realised I would have liked it more if we included a flashback scene to explain what the note was all about. We faced a lot of problems due to lack of cameras but we plan to get around that by planning in advance more and making sure we get a camera before anybody else.

Continuity video project

Me and Hannah have finished filming our continuity video. We used a variety of different camera angles and filmed our video without as many problems as our last video. The camerawoman was a lot more skilled this time round so the camera angles were not all blurred together. We stuck to the 180 degree rule to ensure the images all flowed together without any blurring coming from rapid camera movements.
Our next step is to edit the video so that all actions are continuous and flow together professionally.

Script for continuity task

Script for media
Actor 1 = Hannah
Actor 2 = Rachel

Actor 1 is walking down the corridor. Actor 2 is stood with an envelope when they see actor 1.
A2= Hey! (runs to catch up with A1 then stops) (says in a serious tone)We need to talk.

A1= What about?

A2= Not here. (looks around and sees a door. Grabs A1 by the arm and goes through the door into a dark room.)

A1= Are you ok?

A2= No. Sit down. (They both cross the room find chairs and sit down facing each other.) I got this through my door this morning. (Gives actor 1 the envelope)

A1= (Opens the envelope and reads the message *the message says "I know what you did"*) (talks quietly) Who gave you this?

A2= (Gets up and walks up and down room) I don’t know! But somebody knows what happened.

A1= No. No it has to be a wind up. Somebody’s just joking around.

A2= pretty sick joke.

(They camera shows each of their faces looking worried. Camera then shows the message and fades out.)

The prisoner - final edit

This is Hannah and my own production of "The Prisoner."
Whilst shooting we expercienced problems such as bad camera skills and lack of camera angles so when we shoot our own video we will overcome these by adding a wider variety of camera angles and a better camera woman. In this film you can see a couple of continuity errors that can be overcome with more time put into editing and timing. Overall I think that this is a good video for a first attempt but with more editing and more camera angles, we could make it a lot better. 

The editing process

Hannah and I have so far shot our footage for the recreations of "The Prisoner" and have edited it so the video is in chronological order. We have decided to make our video black and white to give it an air of darkness and an authentic feel. We have overcome the shots being jumpy by adding fading effects between the shots. This was an issue as there was very little continuity but the effects have added continuity making our video sequence more fluent. We still have more editing work to do on the video and final touches such as title sequences need to be added but we are making good progress.

Our first movie - shooting the film

We were given a script and our task was to successfully film the script. We had to consider where we wanted to film, how we were going to set the tone and what we wanted our actors to wear. I worked with Hannah and we were given our task and camera.
While filiming we decided to use Hannah's home village. Our actors were dressed in smart clothes but we made one look messed up. Using a series of different camera shots we created an air of mystery about one of the characters and created tension between the two characters.
We overcame a series of problems such as bad acting bad camera skills and lighting by editing out any unnecessary footage and are starting to make excellent progress with our video.

camera movement

camera shots

Movie Pitch

Title: "Soup heroes and the theft of the magic cape"

In media we have been given the task to pitch a movie to our teacher Mr Earl :). My friend and I were given the choice of either a superhero style  movie or a childrens movie. We chose the superhero one :)

Here's our pitch;

There are three main characters: Fat Batman, really dumb Piderman and Larry Plopper.

Plot: Fat Batmans magic cape has gone missing and he accuses really dumb Piderman of stealing it as it has been really dumb Piderman's dream to get it and use it's magic powers. This is when Larry Plopper arrives hopping on his backwards broken broomstick, claiming that he can find the magic cape (when really he can't).

They then follow Larry Plopper into a dreary cave underneath a roundabout (the type you would find in children's parks) in which they find the Blue Lantern, Wonder Bra Woman, Automatic Betty, Really dumb Superman, Evil Baman, Ming the Minger, and The Smoker, who all live in a cave with a creepy old man who can see the future.

After seeing that they shall embark on a journey with their superhero friends, in which they get into all kinds of trouble. For example, Larry Plopper gets killed by Mouldywart and the Fig and Lord GaGa fight about their true identities and scratch each others eyes out.

At the end Fat Batman gets his cape back but the magic has been stolen out of it leaving it open for a sequel....

your thoughts please :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EC2tmFVNNE

Looking forward to . . .

My "To See List" of films (a mix of old new and not released yet)

Sherlock holmes 2
The last exorcist
Due Date
Harry Potter 7
Jackass 3
The Last house on the left
Children of Men
Back to the Future (2 and 3)

As a bit of a Harry Potter geek I'm especially looking forward to this. My only bad point is that the film is in two halfs more than half a year apart from each other. It will be interesting to see how the cast and crew have made this film work as the last film I was not so impressed with. I'm hoping to find less faults with this film and I also hope that they follow the book a lot more closely than they have in previous films (shouting "WRONG" at every part that has been changed annoys people slightly) and by doing so making the film more memorable for fellow Potter geeks.

I also heard on the grapevine (via the media) that there is an "Inbetweeners" film being made. I personally am keeping my fingers crossed for this being true.

Who runs the country?

The media has taken over everybody's lives and in today's society nobody can escape it. Whether you read newspapers, listen to music, spend hours on the computer or simply stand at a bus stop, media surrounds us. So with this in mind can we go as far as saying that the media has gained more power and control over us than the government has?
You ask a randomer in the street and what are the odds that they will be thinking about what the politicians are going to do next? Some people are thinking about this but can we argue that there are less people thinking about the government than there are thinking about the media? How many people can name the prime ministers and presidents past and present? Then count how many can name their favourite band or favourite film or what they watched in television the other day without even taking a second thought.

The government; we vote for them then us what to do whether we like it or not. Some people try to argue and some people try to repel. Whatever they do, politicians cannot control the minds and actions of almost 7 billion people.
The media; subliminal messages plant ideas in our minds subtly without us realising. Before we know it we are playing into the hands of the media and thinking what they want us to think.

The government cannot have possibly gained the attention of millions if it wasn't for the media. Newspaper interviews, special television episodes, billboards and advertisement, news spread across the internet as well as gossip on social networks. The buzz of politics was spread by the media and without that buzz then politics would have had a hard time grasping the love, attention and votes of the public. The Sun had a particularly interesting way of persuading their audience to vote. They gathered together a group of topless models and gave them blue ribbons. They printed this as an appeal and as a result gathered a great deal of attention from the people that read The Sun. Without things like this happening votes would be lost and the public would be a lot more upset about who eventually moves in to number ten.

With this kept in mind I ask you, who really does have more control over the country, the media or the government? Or is it simply that they work together to keep the country running?