Coursework Research: Film Opening

The Themes that we have been drawn towards for our Film opening Course work are Cop and Crime Dramas, Similiar to the HBO series the Wire. The Wire is the source our inspiration for the content of our film rather than the media convetions used with in it. Get Rich or Die Trying is similar to The Wire in the way that it includes the Mise-en-scene and the themes that we are trying to achieve in our opening.

The genres that we are interested in is are Crime, Thrillers.

The Films that do inclued these media conventions are:

- The Dark Knight

- The Matrix

- Get Rich or Die Trying

- The Departed

- Memento

- Inception

The opening in the dark knight has a fast pace with alot of cross cutting between several different events at once, which was the first thing we talked about when discussing what to include in the opening.

The Matrix includes scenes in the opening, and in the rest of the film, of cuts from either side of the door to create suspense. Combination of digestic sound and silence to contrast with the action.

Christoper Nolan's films like Memento and Inception have fast cuts, cross cuts and flash backs in the opening and the ending. In Memento he uses a black and white filter to show the past or the start point and then each of the other cuts are in colour. This is not a convention of crime thrillers but is a clever way of subtly showing the viewer additional informations, the start point of the story or flashforwards.

Crime thrillers:

Characters:

- Chief police - does everything by the book and has high expecttions of everyone under him.

- Criminal master mind - Shows little emotion,

awaiting picture

Genre Mind Map

Pre-Lim Print Task: Evaluation

• How closely did you stick to your planning? What were the challenges in doing this?

In my magazine I stuck closely to the theme of an Art Edition of a school magazine including pictures of work by students in the contents and stories of successful artists on the front cover. The featured ‘model’ (Louis Leighton) could have been linked to the theme of art through him painting or dressed like an artist of some description. The challenges with cover photo’s were getting the right shadows, the right sized shot (medium close up) and making the photo’s concise and link. Photo shop was another challenge, cropping and shaping pictures and manipulating the light within the photo was difficult and required extra lunch time photo shop lessons to complete.

• Did you find the planning helpful? Why?

For my pre-lim I only had a rough concept for my cover and context and then I went around the school looking for inspiration and photo’s that linked to my theme. Having a theme helped me because otherwise the magazine wouldn’t have a direction and would look unprofessional.

• How did you find the process of finding and cropping your original image?

Cropping the cover image was fairly straight forward, but cutting objects out of pictures was a lot more difficult. Using the ‘lasso’ tool was difficult to highlight the desired parts of the photo and often left a rough edge. 

• How easy was it to manipulate your image using photo shop?

Lightening and darkening the photo was quite simple but I didn’t try removing imperfections on the cover photo, which would have made it look a lot more professional than it currently does.

• What have you learnt from the process about creating covers and contents pages?

I have learnt the mise-en-scene of the photo is crucial as the more successful covers in the class included interesting or relevant props, locations and models. I have also learnt that to produce a professional piece of work you need to remove any imperfections in the photo’s and use appropriate fonts, cover stories and mast heads. And finally I have learnt that the planning process is very vital and I will have improve on this in the future.

• What would you do differently next time?

Before I next produce another cover I will have to learn to use Photoshop to a competent level as to be able to manipulate my photos to higher standard. And as I mentioned before the planning process will have to be improved upon to get the best grade. I felt that the pre-lim was rushed as I had problems saving my work and had to restart, so perhaps spending more time on the work would result in a more successful cover and contents.

Video Task

Finishing editing together all of the footage we took last week for the video prelim. Wassup - is our take on the popular Budwieser advert where several people who are watching TV 'Sipping Bud' and 'Watching the game'.

In our version we used three main shots:
-Over the shoulder
-Behind
-and Close up

We also included match on action when Ryan (aka Fernando) walked in through the door and sat in front or Nester (aka Hans).  The Mise-on-Scene we used were Budwieser bottle, variety of locations, music and continuity. One of the rules we inadvertently broke was the 180 degree rule. in one of the close up shot the view of Ryan is from the other side to the rest of the footage.

Cut to closed door, then students walk into classroom out of shot.
The camera then pans round to their desks. 

Medium long shot of students at their desks  

Close up on bag and pan up to students unhappy face.

I like this!!