Questionnaire

We have asked 30 people to fill out our questionnaire, 15 females and 15 males of all ages.

Detailed research into chosen genre - Thriller

What goes into a thriller?

• Quick cuts and change of the camera angles
• Use of lightning to create shadows
• Main character's/killer's or whoever POV
• Flash backs
• Makes audience think
• Pass of time sequences
• Plot twists

What makes a good thriller?

A good thriller consists of building up suspense, tension and anticipation of things to come. It provide thrills from various circumstances presented in the story, were the protagonist or main character encounters certain types of menacing, mysterious or dangerous situations. 

• Conventions
• Low key lighting
• Quick cuts
• Shadows
• Tension music
• Changes in the angle shots
• Diegetic sound of breathing 
• Montage of shots

Genres

http://www.filmsite.org/subgenres2.html

There is a lot of different film genres like:

• Horror

A horror story is told to scare or frighten the audience, through suspense, violence or shock. The supernatural variety is occasionally called "Dark Fantasy," since the laws of nature must be violated in some way, thus qualifying the story as "fantastic."

• Action

An action story is similar to adventure, and the protagonist usually takes a risky turn, which leads to desperate situations (including explosions,fight scenes, daring escapes, etc.). 

• Crime

A crime story is about a crime that is being committed or was committed. It can also be an account of a criminal's life. It often falls into the Action or Adventure genres.

• Comedy

Comedy is a story that tells about a series of funny or comical events, intended to make the audience laugh. It is a very open genre, and thus crosses over with many other genres on a frequent basis.

• Fantasy

A fantasy story is about magic or supernatural forces, rather than technology, though it often is made to include elements of other genres, such as science fiction elements, for instance computers or DNA, if it happens to take place in a modern or future era.

• Historical

A story about a real person or event. Often, they are written in a text book format, which may or may not focus on solely that

• Romance

Traditionally, a romance story involves chivalry, adventure and love. In modern writing, a story about character's relationships, or engagements. It has produced a wide array of subgenres, the majority of which feature the mutual attraction and love of a man and a woman as the main plot, and have a happy ending. 

• Science fiction 

Science fiction is similar to fantasy, except stories in this genre use scientific understanding to explain the universe that it takes place in. It generally includes or is centered on the presumed effects or ramifications of computers or machines; travel through space, time or alternate universes; alien life-forms; genetic engineering; or other such things.

• Adventure

An adventure story is about a protagonist who journeys to epic or distant places to accomplish something. It can have many other genre elements included within it, because it is a very open genre. The protagonist has a mission and faces obstacles to get to his destination.

• Thriller

A Thriller is a story that is usually a mix of fear and excitement. It has traits from the suspense genre and often from the action, adventure or mystery genres, but the level of terror makes it borderline horror fiction at times as well. It generally has a dark or serious theme, which also makes it similar to drama.

From my questionnaire the results also showed that people want action and suspense building scenes and that will be used in our final project and the video opening is most likely to be a thriller genre. 

Importance of sound

Too often film makers focus all of ther attention on video footage and ignore the quality of their sound. Interestingly enough, audiences seem to be more annoyed by poor sound quality than by poor cinematography.

The entire sound track is comprised of three essential ingredients: 

• the human voice
• sound effects
• music

These three tracks must be mixed and balanced so as to produce the necessary emphases which in turn create desired effects.

The human voice: dialogue

Dialogue authenticates the speaker as an individual or a real person rather than the imaginary creation of a story teller. 

When voice texture fits the performer's physiognomy and gestures, a whole and very realistic persona emerges. The viewer sees not an actor working at his craft, but another human being struggling with life. 

Sound effects: synchronous and asynchronous sounds

Synchronous sounds are those sounds which are synchronized or matched with what is viewed. 

Synchronous sounds contribute to the realism of film and also help to create a particular atmosphere. 

Asynchronous sound effects are not matched with a visible source of the sound on screen. Such sounds are included so as to provide an appropriate emotional nuance, and they may also add to the realism of the film. 

Music: background music

Background music is used to add emotion and rhythm to a film. Usually not meant to be noticeable, it often provides a tone or an emotional attitude toward the story and/or the characters. In addition, background music often foreshadows a change in mood.

Background music may aid viewer understanding by linking scenes. 

Film sound is comprised of conventions and innovations. We have come to expect an acceleration of music during car chases and creaky doors in horror films. Yet, it is important to note as well that sound is often brilliantly conceived. The effects of sound are often largely subtle and often are noted by only our subconscious minds.

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Ideas and brainstorm

My first idea for a opening film is a horror themed.
The opening would start with a person's POV walking around the streets at night, while light stop to work and a child appears not far away in front of that person with its back facing the person. The person asks "Hey sweetie, are you lost? Where are your parents?" and comes toward the child but then the child turns around and screams, the person trips on the floor and tries to crawl back but all you can see is a blood spraying on the floor and buildings and a big shadow passing by. To develop it further I would need to work on the details of characters and as it is the horror genre - make up and clothing will play a huge role in it however to make it original I should try going further then how people look in stereotypical horror movies.

My friends idea was to make action based film opening. The opening would start with a person hanging  out with friends like nothing is going to happen but then the person has a car accident and wakes up in hospital/bed with wrapped face with bandages, the person takes it off and sees herself/himself in the mirror but sees completely different person, like its not in the right body.

As a group we decided to use idea number 2 and together we decided to change it a little. From our questionnaire it seems like most people choose action and fantasy genre so we decided to use it and make our film opening based on it. Person after accident would wake up but will look down at its own body, it would be a ghost, but she/he can't go to "the other side" because something is holding that person back - its murder. It wasn't just an accident, it was all planned and the person need to find out who did this to be able to rest in peace.

Communicate understanding of different Typography used in Titles

People are first impressed by those two to three minutes’ worth of quick segments, along with the
film logo, dedicated images and stylized texts on the screen – they are called “the main title
sequences”  Film titles can highly impact on impression of a film in the first 2 minutes or so and sometimes they can be most important thing in the film. They set the mood, facilitating the audience’s smooth entrance into the world created by the film.
examples:
"se7en"

They used such a font because it suits the film best. Its a drama, thriller, mystery movie. The font is like a hand written to match the film because in the film there is a killer that apparently writes a diary. The font also looks kind of scary and you would probably often see in maybe horror-thriller films.

Audience research

Some of the factors that media business must consider to find the right target audience are:

• Age
• Gender
• Religion
• Race
• Sexuality
• Education
• Occupation
• Annual income
• Disposable income
• Current and desired lifestyle
• Media interests
• Buying habits
• Loyalty to brands

Quantitative research (TV viewing figures):
It is a method used by documentary producers to find their target audience. It allows them to see TV viewing figures of TV channels. It doesn't help with finding the audience but they still use it. However it helps them find how many people watch what channel and what kind of TV program and what time they watch it.  
>click<

Qualitative research:
Another method used by media producers to find their target audience. It includes asking questionnaires on-line, in public, in focus groups or in interviews. It is very good way of finding target audience as it is more detailed and can be done at any time so it's not outdated.

BBFC prezi presentation

http://prezi.com/7p1w8rmdb5ul/british-board-of-film-classification/

Title sequence - Game of Thrones

Title sequence

First title that comes up is on 00:06 and mentions Peter Dinklage. It is a very famous character in the series and also a very popular and liked actor so it catches your attention and suggest that this is going to be a good series because of good characters. Martin felt there was never anyone for Tyrion but Peter Dinklage. No one else read or was auditioned, they "just had to get Dinklage" and he was "incredible from the start. 

The next actress mentioned at 00:08 is Lena Headey. She is a outstanding supporting actress in the drama series for portraying Cersei. As her carrier starter when she was 17, she's well popular actress with great acting skills such as Dinklage.

As 3rd mentioned character at 00:08 is Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. He is well known from the fact that he played in lots of films and tv shows since 1994.
The first 3 displayed characters are higly known so they are mentioned first because it makes it look more interesting, while on other hands film producers usually put main character first. 

Opening scene analysis

The scene starts up with a close up on man face, or rather eyes are catching most of the viewer attention. These kind of angles are here to make you focus on character and his feelings, with this close up you can clearly see the man eyes expressions and what he does with his eyebrows that suggests his thoughts on situation he is in. After they moved into a extreme close up that shows the man shoulders and up. The background is blurred so the audience is still focused on the man and his expressions. As they went to that close up you can clearly see man's whole face and you can see better how is he feeling by looking at him, his mouth, how he speaks and what faces he does. You can clearly see he is not happy at that time from his face and the fact that he is shaking in anger, blurred backgrounds helps here to see his movement and makes him stand out. Then there is a high angle shot from behind of the man that was used to show where is he now,what's the surroundings like and what is he doing. Then there is close up at a newspaper, most of it is blurred but not the head title that was bold and big, that they zoomed out from to see second heading that was also bold and sanded out. The next scene is in Hermione's room, there is a window which through you can see that is raining which makes the scene depressed as clearly the character looks sad, her shoulders are lowered and she's looking on the floor. The room has cold colours and dark shade that makes it depressing and sad. Then they used a extreme close up to show her sad face expression to match the atmosphere where the background was blurred but you could still see the rain and the dark room. Afterwards there is change of scene in which they used a high angle to show the surrounding and what is happening and where at the moment. Then they used a extreme close up on Harry looking through the window, so with all the scenes that show surroundings then one of the characters viewer can guess its what happening to them or in their surrounding. Then there is tilt upwards the big house that turns into high angle shot and then shows the front of the house which zooms out to see another character and uses extreme close up to show his feelings. All the scenes are dark, gloomy and sad which suggest that something bad/sad is about to happen or it already did happen in the film. This opening is the main scene to catch viewer attention and make them stay and watch more, as it is mysterious and dark people get curious and wants too se what will happen next.

Theory - Movement and sound

Movement and sound

• Pan - camera moving from left to right and vice versa
• Arc - full or semi circle around character or object
• Tilt - camera upwards or downwards can also be used with POV (point of view)
• Zoom - tracking shoot
• Reverse room
• Track/Dolly - movement backwards or towards (in, out)
• Rolling - camera moves diagonally making the image askew
• Crane - extreme heigh (helicopter)
• Stedicam

Angles
- low
- high
- canted/tilt

Composition
-framing
-Depth of field

Focus pulls:
The action of adjusting to focus of a camera lens between 2 prederteminated moints

Rule of thirds:
9 boxes and what each contain

Diegetic sound:
Sounds wjich are part of the 'film world' we are watching: dialogue, music, sound effects

Non-diegetic sound:
Sound which does not appear to be part of the 'film world': voice over or background music

Sound bridges:
When the sound from one scene continues into the next visual scene: aids smooth transition.

Parallel:
Sounds which compliment the visual on screen

Contrapuntal:
Sounds which do not appear to suit the visual scene

Film production companies

DreamWorks Animation

A film company that has so far produced films like:

Shrek

Madagascar
Kung Fu Panda
How to Train Your Dragon

It is currently distributed by 20th century fox. It is recognisable for its logo, a fishing person that sits on  a moon.

"DreamWorks Animation is one of the world's most recognizable entertainment brands and it is thrilling to join with them on this venture," 

Evaluation

Clueless film evaluation:

Conventions of a film opening	Codes used to convey this convention (e.g. technical, symbolic, written)
The Hook!	technical - camera techniques,
Set the scene (time? Setting?)	symbolic Driving through the street>mall>pool>party scenes suggests its a teen age life comedy movie.
Introduce characters	symbolic and technical - (clothing, objects, setting) When they show each character individually, they present their lifestyle, how they dress and what they like in different scenes with various of camera angles.
Introduce the genre	written - (language style, colours) Showed with the place setting, characters, colours (bright and mostly warm) and atmosphere.All seemed more like a happy scenes more than dark creepy as would be seen in a horror movie so audience can recognise it is a comedy film.
Credits
Narrative

Conventions and codes

Conventions in the case of media texts are generally accepted patterns of code that communicate a particular message. 

There are general conventions such as the use of quotes in a print article, but conventions are also genre specific. For example, in Westerns fights scenes are generally shot from a low angle, the setting is usually dusty and desolate, and even the sounds used within the scene are conventional, such as castanets, or some sort of whistle.

Codes:

There are three categories of codes that may be used to convey meanings in media messages:

TECHNICAL CODES, which include camera techniques, framing, depth of field, Mise en scene, editing,  lighting and sound;

SYMBOLIC CODES, which refer to objects, setting, body language, clothing and colour.

WRITTEN CODES in the form of headlines, captions, speech bubbles and language style.

The purpose of an film opening is to interest the audience and get them into watching the film. The opening should also establish the genre and characters, it can be done in many different ways.

How codes and conventions apply in media studies

Codes and conventions are used together in any study of genre – it is not enough to discuss a technical code used such as camera work, without saying how it is conventionally used in a genre.

For example, the technical code of lighting is used in some way in all film genres. It is a convention of the horror genre that side and back lighting is used to create mystery and suspense – an integral part of any horror movie.

Main exercise

The title and opening of a new fiction film, to last at least 2 minutes.

preliminary exercise

The plan was to try using the 3 different camera shots, these were 180 degree rule, shot/reverse shot and match on action.
As our first try it wasn't as bad but sure there was a lot of editing. To improve ourselves for next time I think we should correct on zooming in and out and try different angles. The main 3 camera shots weren't that bad but they need to be worked on.

180 degree rule

It’s a basic rule that means that two characters should always have the same left and right relationship to each other. When a camera crosses the ‘axis’ connecting to two subjects it is called ‘crossing the line’. The new shot is called the reverse angle. 

Shot/reverse shot

Shot reverse shot (or shot/countershot) is a film technique where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.

Match on action

Match on action is a very simple but essential technique, where the perspective of the camera changes during a scene and the scene continues to flow. A good example of 'Match on action' is between 2 and 3 seconds. The perspective changes while the scene still flows without any disruption. A match on action is a technique used in a film editing, it connects two different views of the same action at the same moment in the movement.

Preliminary exercise:

Produce a continuity exercise which involves a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down in a chair opposite another character, whom they exchange a couple of lines of dialogue. The task should demonstrate:

• Match on action
• Shot/reverse shot
• 180 degree rule