Media Ownership

These are some notes I made about media ownership and the different intergrations and ownership terms used. These notes explain actions such as merges and take-overs and how media companies adapt to the consumers needs.

Main Task Anamatic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Mh8pWJ1jg

I am very pleased at the quality of our animatic and gives a brilliant idea and tone to our main task. The animatic is good and easy to follow. Since filming the animatic we have removed one of our actors from the title sequence as we didn't want the title sequence to be too long and drag out. By removing an actor from our title sequence, it will be more quick and suspenseful.

Study of Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and what they interpret.
I was deeply engaged when I found out signs have more than one implied meaning. This was due to the fact that people refer to signs as just one meaning.

A sign is the smallest unit of meaning that is used to communicate in which has two concepts that create it. A signifier is a material in which signifies meaning. Things such as words on a page on a page signify the sign and is the physical form of the sign but is distinct form the meaning. The concept of the signified is that of which the signifier refers to. Both the signifier and the signified make up the sign.

Sound

The soundtracks for our title sequence is going to be relevant to our theme which is crime/thriller.

I wan the sound track to match the tone of the dark dreaded underworld of drugs and crime. I have flicked through a few music genres and have found that the best suited genre to our theme and from many inspirations is grime music.

Grime music is a form of London street music emerging from pirate radio stations,that reflects the views and actions of the working class. This involves themes such as drugs and violent street slang of the 2000's. 

The instrumental of the dis track Nasty by Skepta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uHUGqTWhfA was used in the opening sequence of the film Anuvahood. Although this film is a comedy, the opening sequence was set out to build tension for the audience before hitting them with a sudden change of events. This slow grime track certainly did its job in building the tension in this movie and i'm hoping of doing the same for our main task.

An alternative to a grime sound track would be a dark, slow soundtrack  that involves a large amount of depth. I have researched websites for soundtracks for our main task and have found a few royalty free websites such as http://www.premiumbeat.com/royalty_free_music/production-film-scores, 

http://www.soundtrackbay.com/and http://www.audiomicro.com/royalty-free-stock-music/film-scores. 

Remembering how to analyse editing

P-pace

E-editing

C-cutting

T-tranistions

Remembering how to analyse sound

P-props

L-lighting

A-appearance

C-costume

E-expression

S-setting

Typography Research

I have found a website called http://www.dafont.com/ that has a huge selection of royalty free fonts available to download and use. The website features a large range of categories to choose and browse from.

I have been browsing the destroy section and found the following fonts for our title sequence of our Main Task "After Dark".

I found this font particularly intriguing to use for our Main task as it is simple and subtle at first glance but integrates a slight danger/distortion which is perfect for building that slight suspense for our thriller.

This next font had the same sort of effect but with slightly more distortion for that unknown fear factor.

This font i thought could go really well as it is symbolic to the blood spilled in the death of one of our characters in our main task.

I liked the subtlety of the font above but capital letters have not been animated in this font yet so this is a downside. 

I liked the danger and shattered effect of this font as it could resemble the way that drugs can shatter lives but this font has only animated capital letter so this could be a downside in our title sequence as our titles may look "Blocky" and "Bulky" if it is in all capital letters.

This next font involves a large amount of distortion and could build up that unknown tension that thrillers continue to give to the audience.

 

Title Tutorial Research

I have been researching how to create titles in Adobe premier as it is the software i am going to use to edit our main task.  I have been researching into youtube tutorials and come across this one which helps me step by step.

Main task ideas discussion.

Breaking Bad Title Sequence Analysis

Breaking Bad is a thriller series that is about a terminally ill chemistry teacher who turns to cook crystal meth. The opening title sequence is quite comedic considering its thriller type content.

The soundtrack used for the title sequence is a mixture of drums and an acoustic country like guitar slide. This gives the title sequence a very rough and loose feel to it. The mixture of the instruments creates a catchy and unique tune to it.

The sequence starts with a reverse zoom of a digital periodic table with chemistry equation typography loosely moving and fading in the background.

This further zooms out to a periodic table in which the Br(bromine) element is highlighted and separated from the rest of the elements on the table. 

The same thing happens with the Ba(barium) element from another periodic table. 

This goes on to separate completely to create the title "Breaking Bad"

The typography used for the lettering has a rusty metalic depiction. This lettering is further blown away by a chemical smoke. 

This title sequence is somewhat comedic to the audience as it completely links to chemistry. The periodic table is a come chemistry table used to distinguish elements, the fact that this has been used to title a crime thriller makes the perfect link to the character Walter White who is trying to balance his criminal life with his chemistry teaching life and combining them together. The green background represents a chalkboard used in schools by teachers, making a link to the character Walter as he teaches the subject chemistry. The metalic photography links to chemistry as the rusty finish could link to oxidisation which is a chemical process that happens to metals. The yellow smoke that blows the typography away could link to fumes made by chemical reactions of school experiments or chemical reaction of cooking  methylamine.

Dead Mans Shoes Film Review

Dead Mans Shoes is a movie about a veteran seeking revenge on the manchester thugs.
The movie starts with a mystique and pretentious tone with two young British men walking almost purposely.

The pair stumble across a village that is somewhat unpopulated and scarce. The audience soon learn that Richard, an ex squaddie of the parachute regiment and his much loved younger brother Anthony who has learning difficulties. As the pair wonder through the village, a series of grainy flashbacks reveals what happened to Anthony.

As they proceed through the sparse village Anthony identifies certain individuals. This triggers Richards strange behaviour towards them. The audience is then informed about the individuals drug dealing and taking lifestyle. One by one, Richard hunts down and brutally murders each one. At many points in the movie he had the chance to brutally kill these individuals but he bides his time and grits his teeth to wait for another day leaving behind signs of brutality.

The individuals clock on to who Richard is and soon understand why he is proceeding with his horrific movement. In an attempt to escape their awful fait, they proceed to murder him first with a rifle but end up killing one of their own members.

As Richard comes down to the last distant member of the group, he gives his children a knife and says it was from an "army guy". Richard then wakes the father up early morning and drives him to an abandoned allotment with a stone, sparse building. Richard pulls a knife out and states "Now i'm the monster". He talks about how they killed his brother. This unexpected turn is very dramatic and shocking to the audience. Richard states how Anthony was an embarrassment to him and how he needs to be stopped before he comes after the group members kids. He hands him a knife and asks for the dirt deed. He kills Richard with an upsetting struggle and the film ends with a birds eye view shot of the murder scene.

A very odd and unexpectedly brilliant film that was superbly edited and scripted. The turn of events tied everything up brilliantly in my opinion and personally have two of the best threats i have ever scene in a film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58ylrJ0cH2w

The Goodfellas Title Sequence

The black background features white typography roll past in sync with the soundtrack of cars driving past and entering the screen.

This continues for a short while and cuts to a scene where three mafia criminals kill someone in the back of a cart trunk. This then zooms into the main characters face and freeze frames, further being narrated by the words "All my life i wanted to be a gangster."An upbeat jazz soundtrack is then used as the freeze frame cuts to the main titles. 

This title rolls past the screen significantly more times than the other titles. The typography has further turned to a deep blood-red to symbolise the blood spilt in this first scene and how much further blood will be spilled, revealing the brutality of mafia gangsters. It is a very short title sequence but is very effective and draws the audience in to the film.

Ill Manors Title Sequence

The diagetic sound of the television and the Rastafarian ranting is used in the medium shot of the young street criminal.

The block white typography stands out from its background. The man is smoking in his room in front of the television suggests his lack of care for hospitality and connotes a lot about his character. 

This cuts to an over the shoulder shot of the T.V to show the audience what he is watching.

This gives the audience a very personalised view of the character and almost see things through his eyes. 

The next part of the opening sequence took a very different approach to what i have seen before. The camera cuts to a close up of the mans face. Then in a street tone the narrator speaks to the audience directly saying "Are you sitting comfortably". Further reinforcing that personal interaction the audience has with the characters. He then goes on to name himself the narrator of the film. 

This shot then cuts to a black out shot and then to a time lapse establishing shot while the narrators speech further continues. 

Further cutting to the main title. 

The lower case i shows that it it is in fact the letter i instead of l because of the typography used. This can also connote the lack of grammar that the characters featured may have. The block lettering establishes the title well as it is easy to read and distinguish.

The Godfather Title Sequence Analysis

The opening scene to this all time crime thriller has little to no typography in its titles. The typography used for the main title features a puppet string and handle connected to the lettering. This connotes that the Godfather is the controller of his business and they work at his command. This could also be alternately viewed as the mafia being the hand that controls all crime, and that it is the route of all the crime in its location. The sequence doesn't feature many titles at all just the main title of the movie. This is very old fashioned and and gives the audience little to no information about the storyline. This builds up a lot of tension for the audience as they have no insight to what may happen.

Scarface Title Sequence Analysis

The beginning of the title sequence features a black screen with white typography informing the audience about the Cuban refugees moving to the United states in the 1980s. A dark pulsating soundtrack is used and builds up a lot of negative tension for the audience and gives the impression something bad is about to happen. 

The basic white typography stands out from the black background and causes the audience to pay attention to this information only. This gives the audience focus towards information about the storyline of the film and prevents any distractions with a moving background. This has been done because the information is crucial in understanding what the film is about.  

                                                            

This information then fades to a speech from Fidel Castro with english translation below it in the sane typography. 

This gives the film a more realistic and historical tone and really gets the audience to interact with Fidel Castro's brutality and aggression in his beliefs and how he drove people to this extent to leave their home country.

This further straight cuts into a black background with basic,bold,blood-red typography. 

This is effective as it stands out from the background and causes the names to stick in the audiences mind as a result. The blood-red is symbolic to the blood spilled further into the film. As the speech cuts into this title, the soundtrack raises in tempo and is more timid and also catchy as well as consistent. 

The director Brian de Palma cuts this in with real footage of boat journey of the Cuban refugees into the States. The old camera gives a raw and edgy feel to the footage and ties into the treatment of the refugees. 

 

The cuts between the black screen titles and the real footage continue to cut back and fourth throughout the journey and ties into the soundtrack nicely. The alternating effect flows very smoothly and gives the audience a fluent journey of the cubans journey. 

  

se7en Title Sequence Analysis

The opening sequence for the film Se7en does not show any long shots that establishes the setting, by the way the props and tools are used in the title sequence the audience would believe that the sequence is taking place at someones house.However, it is not shown, therefore building tension.

All of the objects used in the tile sequence are shown close up, resulting in them taking up most of the frame. This creates suspense as the audience do not know who is creating the file or moving these objects about as they cannot see his face.

Most of the shots are fairly dark, this connotes a sense of danger and that the film will be quite serious. The suspicious feel the the opening sequence is credited to the low key lighting indoors.


The opening sequence is a montage format. This means that it is lots of little clips put together. The fact that the clips are in chronological order gives the audience a sense that the person is doing or making something that will be in important later in the film.

The transitions are varied in the opening sequence. Some are straight cuts and some cross fade to black. The fading gives an eery effect and a sincerity of darkness which will be played on throughout the film.

Most of the shots are fairly short, moreover some of the clips are shot in slow-motion to give them a slower pace. This slower pace gives a sombre tone and gives audience more time to focus on the dark acts that are being performed. The soundtrack used is fairly slow as well adding to the slow paced effect.  As the sequence builds up and gets faster towards the end it creates tension for the audience.

The text of the opening sequence appears to be hand written and flickers on screen. This flickering effect was created by scratching a film reel with a needle to give a rugged raw effect on the titles.

Filming Script

Script:

(Arthur enters room with gun in hand)

Jett: Drink (pushes drink towards Arthur)

Arthur: Im not here to drink i'm here for my money

(Jett puts half the money on the table)

Arthur: And the rest of it

(Jett puts more money on the table)

Arthur: Nice doing business with you

(Both of their guns are pulled and a shot is heard)

Scarface film review

The main character Tony Montana remains in the memory of the audience as you feel his emotions every step of the movie from his introduction to his death.

The opening scene of the film introduces the Cuban punk, Tony Montana and informs the audience when Cuban refugees were allowed into America in 1981. The idea that criminals were along with the huddled masses of refugees into the states is shown largely by Montana's interrogation. Montana slowly works his way into the illegal drug trade in Florida. The film observes a detachment and ' like most crime films were people are labelled "boss" and do everything they're asked to do and behave expectedly. Each specific individual has their own story and background which stop the audience becoming attached to one character but all of them. This at the same time gives an overall detachment as the audience connects and interacts with different individuals if it makes sense.

Monana is a far from sympathetic character played by Al Pachino but the character is someone the audience can identify with in a scary and horrifying way with his aspirations. He shares the desires of the audience of becoming rich , having multiple sexual encounters, living in mansions and having tigers for pets with little to no work. We learn that drug dealing is an alternative lifestyle but it involves selling your soul.

Montana gets it all and looses it. Kind of expected as the thriller/ crime genre implies that there will be a traditional and admiring "rise/fall". But what is so original about Scarface is the fact that Montana enjoys it while he has it. We learn as an audience that "getting high on your own supply" leads to irrational decisions and moves that could move you from the top to the bottom.

The film links laziness and ruthlessness together with pipe dreams and a chronic ability to be happy. The exciting crime picture goes down in the books for me as i was hooked from the first minute to the last minute.

First filming conclusion

I think our filming session went reasonably well with a lot of positive and a few negative notes to take away and work on.


We was very creative in our ideas for each shot and got lots of filming done. However we should be a lot more prepared in our future filming schedules and charge the camera to its full battery before filming as we run out of battery and had to schedule a second date to film the little bit we had left to shoot. This caused a little bit more hard work than is should've trying to get the right lighting same positioning of everything so that it looked the same as the first filming session.

Furthermore I also think we need to plan before hand slightly more and stick to it, me included! Planning ahead better will make our filming durations shorter and easier and will get to grips with what were working with quicker.

Our set ups were good with steady and structured filming and mise en scene set up accordingly.

This shot on the left is where we used car lights to brighten up the lighting of the shot as we had no lighting equipment to use.






The set up on the right are indexual sings conveying things and about the tone and the background of our theme.

Adobe premier and Editing

Being the editor with the group, I would be the one who is going to the use the software the most. As I had minimal experience with the software, I began to teach myself how to use the software and get familiar with how it works. I mainly did this through youtube tutorials and trial and error.

Cutting:
After exporting all of the video files into the bin and onto the timeline, all of them needed shortening and moving so that it ran smoothly from one shot to the next.

This little tool allowed me to cut and trim the lengths of shots with my cursor. This was a quick and easy process and if I accidentally shortened the clip too much, I could reverse the process by doing the opposite action by clicking and dragging away.

Straight cuts:

I learned how to put two different shots together so that they flow as one by myself. I uses the cutting technique and trial and error to narrow the timings and put them together so that they cut right from one shot to the other. These straight cuts put two shots that had been filmed separately together but look and flow as if they were filmed at the same time.

Sound:   

The first and second shot of our footage contained a lot of wind and unwanted noise. Obviously i did not want that to be part of the footage. I moved the audio from each clip that i did not want to be heard into the next sound bar, this allowed me to mute these audio clips all at once without deleting them or it affecting the other audio clips.

This was also an option with video clips but I did not use it as i only used the footage i needed and erased any that I didn't need. This may be helpful in the future as I may need to put affects and locks on certain footage without effecting any other clips. I also added in a royalty free soundtrack in as it gave an eery edge to the footage. This mp3 file was easily placed and cropped to fit the footage.

Gun shot:

I decided to use a gunshot sound effect with a black out to create unknown suspense for the audience. I searched up some royalty free gun sound effects that I could download for free at http://soundscrate.com/gun-related.html 

I easily edited this in with a black out by placing the file in and moving it to its correct position.

How to analyse a scene

To analyse a scene the following needs to be considered:
The focus of the whole essay is how a meaning is conveyed in the scene. This meaning can be conveyed through four technical areas. These four technical areas are Camera, mise en scene, editing and sound. These technical areas should be analysed to convey meaning for the essay.

The essay should be structured in chronological order by breaking the scene into sections. By breaking it down into manageable sections with your note taking allows for a easy paragraph structure and to map out what you are lacking each time the footage is replayed.

I broke the scene down into sections for my titanic essay and found it relatively hard as it was my first semiotic essay. The structure was fairly reasonable but lacked in technical language and detail as it was my first attempt.

My second attempt was progressively harder as I tried to make notes without breaking the scene down into sections and attempted to take notes just in the sections of the four technical areas. This consequently resulted in a very messy set of notes upon which i had to write my essay from and let to me jumping from different bits of the scene to write about the technical areas.

Furthermore my note taking on the doctor who scene was largely improved as I had more technical knowledge and the skill of breaking the scene into sections increased as well. Although we did not write the essay as a class, i felt fairly confident I could write a stronger essay than my previous pieces.

Thriller genre

The Thriller Genre mainly consists of the protagonist in a constant battle with the antagonist character. The distance between these two characters in the diagetic world begins to close, creating large amounts of tension and suspense for the audience. A common feature that follows is a chain of negative/  down spiralling events that add and increase the suspense for the climax. The protagonist character is usually seeking justice while the antagonist does all they can to destroy it.

Common conventions of the thriller genre may include:
-Quick cuts
-Parallel editing- this is commonly used between the protagonist and antagonist.