AS Media Studies: 2012

Thursday, 20 December 2012

Monday, 17 December 2012

Inspiration

When I watched ‘Dark Shadows’ I thought the opening was particular good. It portray the setting of the film and the time in which it was in really well.

Firstly the date appeared:

We had decided to do this on one of our shots, but using the font Gabriola which is the same as out title's font as we thought it will portray our films time period.

Here’s the example of our date in our chosen font:

Another element of ‘Dark Shadows’ opening I really liked that portrayed the time period was the choice of song. ‘Nights in white satin’ by The Moody Blues was a well-known song in the 70’s in which ‘Dark Shadows’ is set in. We got the idea to have a Beatles song due to them being popular in the 60’s

This is the opening titles of ‘Dark Shadows’:

Ideas of film settings

For our film opening the characters of Rosie and Alice will meet at a field where they will be having a picnic. We have took inspiration from the film The Time Traveller's Wife of where they meet at a picnic spot in a field. I have attached below the image that shows this

Here’s a screenshot from the scene in the ‘Time Traveller’s Wife’:

This how we want this part of our sequence to look like.

Editing ideas

Before our film opening starts our company logo will appear, the ‘Fantasy Productions’ will come on the screen. We want the bird that sits on top of the ‘T’ in our logo to fly out of shot.The drawn bird with fly out of that screen using various editing programmes, and then it will link into the actual film opening with a bird on an aerial view flying downwards, which Alice will then be introduced as riding on her bike.

Our film title decision

As a group we have decided to name our film ‘Her name is Alice’. We chose this as the main character in our film is called ‘Alice’ therefore we thought to the call the film this would be appropriate. The title may make the viewer’s interested in finding out about 'Alice' as she must be a key character if the film includes her name.The font we have decided on is Gabriola which is what we will use for our title.

This is what our film title looks like in our chosen font:

Clothing

Our film features characters from two different decades (50's and 60's) therefore we have to do research into both of these era's.

Here are a few examples of the clothing we are hoping for our characters to wear.

1950's:

1960's:

The difference between the fashion between these two decades is in the 60’s the dress are straight compared the 50’s dresses that have more shape.

Change of name in our film

Our initial names for our characters in the film were Alice and Mona, we have since changed Mona as we had some disagreements within the group. We have now re-looked at names in the 1950’s which would fit in with the age of our character that died around this time. As a group we have now decided on the name Rosie to our second character, we chose this name as it can be shortened to Rose for our narration piece. Our characters names are now Alice and Rosie.

Thursday, 13 December 2012

Company logo

As a group we decided we wanted our company to be simple and sleek to ensure it stayed looking professional rather than tacky. We put all had put our ideas together and this is the final design:

We have used the word “fantasy” as our company logo name as the genre of our film will be Fantasy / Thriller, therefore it links. We have used the image of a blackbird that we have drawn as our company logo image as our film will be opening with a blackbird flying. It also links with our music choice of ‘Blackbirds’ by The Beatles.

Monday, 10 December 2012

Presenting our film idea

Here's a video clip of us explaining our film opening to the rest of the group:

Our teacher gave us feedback from our presentation, she asked us to include:

§ The codes and conventions our opening titles

§ How we are planning to edit our sequence

§ Synopsis of our film

After we were given the feedback we add all of the above points into our PowerPoint which you can see below.

Monday, 3 December 2012

Codes and conventions of 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'

The film opens with the famous Warner Bros. Pictures logo appearing through a snow storm. The music is instantly recognisable if you’ve watched several Tim Burton films, as he uses the same writer for everyone film he directs, therefore the music is rather similar. The first title is followed by an image of the chocolate factory where the majority on the film is based. The only actors name to appear before the main title - the films name – is Johnny Depp. Johnny Depp is a well-known actor who regularly plays characters in Tim Burton’s film. He has appeared first as some people go to the cinema and/or watch a film purely because it has their favourite actor in, and Johnny Depp is part of the top billed cast in the movie. By doing this it provides a hook for certain people.

As the pace of the music increases the camera enters the chocolate factory and the main title appears ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’. The next part of the sequence from the journey of how chocolate is made. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was made in 2005 and is an adaption of the 1971 film ‘Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory’. Tim Burton has kept his opening quite similar to the original film as it’s a well-known opening, this is also another reason for people to want to watch this film. The rest of the actors name’s appear throughout the images. The font chosen is gold which represents the golden tickets in the film, by doing this the opening follows well with the film. The last few shots set the scene for the film as it shows the surrounding areas of the chocolate factory.

This is the opening titles from YouTube:

Friday, 23 November 2012

Genre: Fantasy/Mystery

Thursday, 22 November 2012

Research into major events in the 60's

We have researched into events that took place within the 1960's that hit headlines across the country so that I can use them when I write the narration to go over the top of the film. Sky will be using these events within the narration to relate back to others characters within her life such as her family members.

Song choice

We've so far all agreed on the song sung by The Beatles 'Black Bird'. We chose this song as our film is set in the 1960’s, ‘Black Bird’ was released in the 60’s therefore it would help to portray what decade our film is set in. Plus we looked at the lyrics and it kind of fits in with our story line too.
We have planned to have the first 38 seconds of the song at the beginning of our opening then cut to the instrumental version during the narration so there is a continuous theme throughout the opening sequence.

This is the song on Youtube:

Thursday, 15 November 2012

Research into our chosen genre

For our film opening, we are looking at doing a thriller-fantasy. We know that thrillers use suspense, tension and excitement as the main elements. however if we added in fantasy it calms it down a little, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds.

We think this will be a different genre to do as we haven't witnessed anyone else do a thriller-fantasy. Usually people go for horrors and that can be really hard to do with the equipment we have and it wont be very realistic.

We think by doing a thriller-fantasy, we can make it look creepy and look really good if we do everything right.

Character research

In our initial idea for our film opening we will have two characters, both in which will be girls. Therefore we decided to start to research possible names for these characters. The first name we have chosen for the main character in our sequence is Alice, we chosen this because of the ITV Drama Marchlands. The main little girl in Marchlands was called Alice. Marchlands is set in around the same era as would like our film to be set in, so we thought name would be appropriate for us to use. Also I think the name Alice is seen as an innocent little girls name and we want our audience to get this impression from watching our opening sequence.

We then also did some research into other names that were popular in the 1960’s as this the time in which our film is set. From the list it has helped to pick the second girls name in our film opening, we have decided upon the name Mona. We chose this as it was a popular name in the 1960's and we think that the name goes well with the theme of thriller fantasy and is a good name for a little girl in this era.

Popular names in the 1960's:

Female Names

Meaning

My List

Male Names

Meaning

My List

Emily

admiring