ROUGHPREPRODUCTION!
I’ve now finished all my pre production work, over all i think my work is good for a rough version. Some problems i encountered whilst filming, editing and planning my work was my filming. Throughout my filming process my shots were unrealistic, and the actors were unenthusiastic so i have had to start again, so therefore i will be filming today.
Add a comment January 23, 2012
Inception Essay!
How and in what ways does cinematography create meaning for the audience?
In this essay i’m going to be talking about the use of cinematography in the film ‘inception’. Im going to be talking about camera movement, camera angles and camera shots. Inception is a film, based on a man who can enter peoples dreams and make them think that the dream was real. He was blamed on killing his wife, but she actually commited suicide and killed herself, so this means he cannot return to his children in the States. so he decides to live his life as a “thief” who steals secrets from someone’s mind through a dream. He got a job offer from Someone that gives him a chance to return home. The man made a promise to make the charge on Cobb dropped if the mission succeeded. Instead of doing “extraction” (stealing), the mission is to plant an idea in Robert Fischer Jr.’s mind to split up his father’s company.
In the film there is a wide veriety of cinematography, everything from an establishing shot to a birds eye view shots. Cinematography focuses on relations between the individual shots and groups of shots that make up a scene to produce it’s effect.
Camera angles and movements combine to create a sequence of images, just as words, word order and punctuation combine to make the meaning of a sentence. The camera movements and angles in the film ‘Inception’ are more significant and extreme than any of the other two films we watched because they’re more exciting. Camera movements in Inception are better because they make the audience relate to the charecters in the movie and feel like a charecter of the movie. The most effective angle in the film is definately the point of view shot in the start of the film when they show the man who enters peoples dreams washed up on the beach with the man pointing the gun on his back, the angle is also a high angle tilt.
The movie ‘Inception’ was made on a theory called The Todorov Barthez Theory. Barthes was a semiotics professor in the 1950s and 1960s who got paid to spend all day unravelling little bits of texts and then writing about the process of doing so. All you need to know, again, very basically, is that texts may be ´open´ (ie unravelled in a lot of different ways) or ´closed´ (there is only one obvious thread to pull on).
Barthes also decided that the threads that you pull on to try and unravel meaning are called ‘narrative codes’ and that they could be categorised in the following five ways Action/proiarectic code & enigma code (ie Answers & questions), Symbols & Signs, points of curtural reference and simple description/reproduction. These are six key assets to Inception. Dream sequences, repitition, different charecters, Flash fowards, real time interludes and pre-figuring of events that havn’t taken place yet.
The next thing im going to be talking about in this essay is framing. Framing tells us how and why to think about an issue. To frame means to communicate in a way that leads audiences to see something in a certain light or from a particular perspective. Aspects that are not included in the frame do not come to the audience’s attention. For example in a scene from momento there is a pan down when the man opens his bag. This makes it look like the audience are in the room too. This creates meaning to the audience because it makes them feel involved in the movie.
I think that cinematography creates meaning to the audience because all the different types of shots make the audience feel like they’re in the film, for example a tracking shot makes the audience seem like there following/walking behind the charecter. Throughout this essay i feel like i have explained how and in what way does cinematography in ‘Inception’ create meaning for the audience.
Add a comment November 23, 2011
Our presentation on Hypodermic needles.
Here are the various theorys we have studied.
Two step flow – this is where leaders express the views to make the audience see their point of you. The opinionated leaders are ofterm biast. The audience can choose whether to follow or not.
Uses and gratiforcation theory – this is when people take what ever information they want from the media, this shows the media doesn’t control the audience.
reception theory – this shows that peoples past experiences and beliefs have shaped what bits they be;ieve.
Add a comment November 21, 2011
Essay for seven.
In this essay im going to be talking about the mise en scene assets of the film ‘Senen’, mise-en-scène refers to everything that appears before the camera and its arrangement—sets & props, space, costumes, and actors. Mise-en-scène also includes the positioning and movement of actors on the set, which is called blocking. These are all the areas overseen by the director of the film. The scene i’ve chosen to annotate is the final scene of seven.
Set design
An important element of “mise en scene” is set design, and the setting of a scene and the props that are in it. As ‘John Doe’ is the most dominant charecter in the movie he shows his domiance, inteligance and cognition through the scene. The scene is set up to be empty and spacious to show his inteligance to excluding hisself and the police from the rest of the world so he can die with pride. The scene has also go little stacks of hay around the field this exaggerates the emptyness of the field. In this scene the are very few props used this may also be to essentuate the emptyness.
Lighting
The intensity, direction, and quality of lighting have a profound effect on the way an image is perceived. The lighting in the scene is percieved to be natural , but has a hint of gloom and yellowness to it. The lighting looks dusty and yellow, this goes with the scene because the floors got sand on it, and most of the objects in the background have yellow in it to. This scene looks like it was shot midday also.
Space
The representation of space affects the reading of a film. Depth, proximity, size and proportions of the places and objects in a film can be manipulated through mise en scene. Allthough that isnt the case in this scene. The space is used well in this scene, the dramatic and pretty background adds alot of depth to the space because the sand and the mountains are practicauly the same colour so this adds more dramatic depth. This scene is a long way away from the other places in the movie this makes this scene different from the others. The proportions of the space used are all the same because there is a background feature in every different camera angle.
Costume
Costume simply refers to the clothes that characters wear. Using certain colors or designs, Detective Summerset is wearing a long brown jacket with a white shirt and tie with body armour. detective Mills is wearing a white shirt with black a black tie too with a leather jacket. And John Doe is wearing in bright orange prison clothes ( short sleeve top with trousers). These clothes show clearly who the charecters are. The outfits also show clear distinctions between characters, and what occupations of the charecters are.
Add a comment November 3, 2011
1000 word essay
Memento
is a 2000 American psycholigical thriller film written and directed by Christerpher Nolan, its a film about a middleaged man that lost his wife due to a rapist/murderer. Leonard sets out to kill the other one of the remaining alive murderer, with difficult objects in his way such as he has a rare illness that doesnt allow him to make new memories…
Introduction
In this essay i am going to be explaining the decoding process of the film ‘Momento’ and how the audience engage on the conciously of the film. im also going to be writing about the narrative of the film and also how the narrative of the filmpresent problems. im going to be helping you understand the concept and the expectations of the film.
How to film makers play with the audiences expectations?
In the film momento, the film makers play with the audiences expectations they let the audience know the ending of the clip before the start, so the expectations are the complete opposite way around usaully in a film the expectaion is at the end, on the other hand in this film the expectations are what he done before to get himself into this mess. The film makers are maybe trying to make the audience understand what it is like to have his illness.
How do action and enigma codes work in with the segments?
The action and enigma codes work in well with the segments because there are lots of different types of scenes there are calm, dramatic, action packed and confusing and they all add obscure and mystery to the film. The filmmakers do this to set up some ambiguous mystery and catch them.
What are our expectations of the charecters?
At the beginning of the movie the filmmakers have made it hard to understand who the charecters are? But as the movie goes on we discover more and more about the charecters. In a typical thriller movie there is always a villan.. in this film there is a villan, but the filmmakers have made it really hard for the audience to guess who it is until approximately one hour into the film, this builds up suspence. In the movie there is a charecter called natalie. The expectations of this charecter are that she is a friend that really sincerely wants to help lennord to find his wifes killer, but as the movie goes on we find out that shes not the person everyone thinks she is…
What binary oppositions are presented within the film?
I believe that Lenny lives his life by the third category of truth which is “an opposition between a self or consciousness that is turned outward in an effort to apprehend and attach itself to truth and true knowledge, and a self or consciousness that is turned inward in the direction of its own prejudices, which far from being transcended, continue to inform its every word of action. There are three oppositions that underlie all of the basic binary oppositions of the definition of rhetoric. All three of these oppositions are between (honest) truth and a sort of “made-up” or perhaps an influenced/bias truth. For the character Leonard Shelby in the movie Memento it seems that he lives his life by a part of one of those oppositions. The most significant part that determines much of how he leads his life is that fact that his “self or consciousness that is turned inward in the direction of its own prejudices… continue to inform his every word and action.
How does the the momento help us understand the narrative?
This film shows the distinction between the plot and story. The film’s events unfold in two separate, alternating narratives — one is in color, and the other is in black-and-white. The black-and-white sections are told in chronological order, showing Leonard conversing with an anonymous phone caller in a motel room. Leonard’s investigation is depicted in color sequences that are in reverse chronological order. As each sequence begins, the audience is unaware of the preceding events, just like Leonard, thereby giving the viewer a sense of his confusion. By the film’s end when the two narratives converge we understand the investigation and the events that lead up to Teddy’s death.
Conclusion
so in this essay i have summed up the narrative, binary oppisties, expectations of charecters, enigma codes, action and audiences expectations of the film ‘momento’.
Add a comment September 30, 2011
Narrativeee
Narrative
Narrative is defined as “a chain of events in a cause-effect relationship occurring in
time” (Bordwell & Thompson, Film Art, 1980).
Diegesis
The internal world made by the story that the characters themselves experience
And encounter
Story – all events referenced both explicitly in a narrative and inferred (including
Backstory as well as those projected beyond the action)
Plot – the events directly combined into the action of the order that they will be presented.
Unrestricted narration – A narrative which can be anything it has no limits to the information that is presented.
Restricted narration – only gives away minimal information concerning the narrative i.e.
Thrillers
Subjective character identification – the audience is given exclusive access to the character’s movement and speech
Objective character identification – the viewer is given access to a
character’s point of view, this allows the audience to hear what the character is thinking, such as dreams, fantasies or memories.
Narrative Theory – Conventional narrative theory can be discovered via the work of
The Russian Formalists from the 1920’s.
Vladimir Propp’s Theory of Narrative
Vladimir Propp suggested that characters took on the role of narrative ‘spheres of
action’ or functions. From a comprehensive training of folktales Propp came up with
seven different character types:
- The hero, usually male, is the agent who restores the narrative equilibrium
- Often by embarking upon a quest (or search). Propp distinguishes between
- the victim hero, who is the centre of the villain’s attentions, and the seeker
- Hero who aids others who are the villains victims. The hero is invariably the
Texts central character.
- The villain who usually creates the narrative disruption.
- The donor gives the hero something, it may be an object, information or
Advice, which helps in resolution of the narrative.
- The helper aids the hero in the task of restoring equilibrium.
- The princess (the victim) is usually the character most threatened by the
Villain and has to be saved, at the climax, by the hero. The father’s (who in
Fairy tales was often the king) role is usually to give the princess away to the
hero at the narrative’s conclusion. He may also despatch the hero.
- The dispatcher sends the hero on her or his task (who can typically be the
Princess father)
- The false hero appears to be good but is revealed, at the narrative’s end, to
have been bad
Tzvetan Todorov’s Theory of Narrative
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
Modular Narratives “articulate a sense of time as divisible and subject to
manipulation”.
Cameron has identified four different types of modular narrative:
Anachronic
Forking Paths
Episodic
Split Screens
Anachronic modular narratives include the use of flashbacks and/or flashforwards,
with no strong power between any of the narrative threads. These narratives also
often repeat scenes directly or via a different perspective. Examples include: Pulp
Fiction and Memento.
Forking-path narratives juxtapose alternative versions of a story, showing the
possible results that might effect from small changes in a single event or group of
events. The forking-path narrative introduces a lot of plotlines that usually
contradict one another. Examples include Groundhog Day and Run Lola Run.
Add a comment September 23, 2011
The colour purple – Thriller aspects. ♥
During the lesson today we watched the movie The Colour Purple, whilst we were watching this film we had to take notes on the thriller aspects, to see what makes the movie a thriller. I think that the amount of obtusive editing, tension building music and suspence are the more obvious reasons for why its a thriller. I also think that the shadows sugest that her life is dark, and hurrlible so therefore her shaddow is dark. The scene with the mirror wich reflects the poster of her friends. this maybe suggests that she wanted to get away with her friend to. ♥
Add a comment September 19, 2011
Saving Private Ryan! – Hybrid thriller♥
in class today we watched 10minutes of the hybrid action/thriller movie Saving Private Ryan. We were asked to take notes on what makes the movie a thriller. In the movie there were alot of high angle tilts, this made the graves stones (crosses) look the same height as the average human. The army men are speaking, but the loud noises of explosions and gunshots over power their voices. The lighting is natural but also is a dark dull colour to emphasise the red blood flying everywhere. The camera movement is also very shaky this makes it feel like its a real action movie taken from one of the soldiers cameras. ♥
Add a comment September 19, 2011
Media 