'District 9'

Here is the opening of a film called 'District 9' which is possibly one of my favourite films that I have seen recently. Just like our opening, all of the production names, etc. appear at the very start of the film with some sound before any images are shown.

The special effects of this film are incredible too and it is generally a good plot. I would definitely recommend this film.

'The Life Of David Gale'

I watched a film called 'The Life Of David Gale' the other day and it was not what I expected it to be, but it was even better than I had thought. I had heard a lot about the film and got the impression that most people that watched it had thought it was amazing and loved it but I was intrigued by it because I had never heard of it before and felt that I should have heard more about it if it was as good as everyone said it was.

When I was watching the film, the thing that struck me most was the intensity that the film managed to create. The whole way through the film dramatic tension is being continuously built up further and further by every aspect of the production; Mise-en-scene, editing, sound and camera work.

One of the techniques I especially liked was the swirling camera movements and flashes of words every time that there was a flashback shown on screen. I also liked that the viewer was shown the end of the film at the beginning.

I definitely did not see the twist at the end of the film coming and it shocked me, which serves as proof as to how cleverly produced the film is.

Also, the opening credits of the film helped us to decide that our title for our film opening would be right at the start too in order for it to look more like a film opening rather than a trailer.

Blind Side...

Watched the film Blind Side last night and really enjoyed it! It was slightly longer than it needed to be but such an amazing, heart-warming story (If it hadn't have been a true story I probably would have hated it) and even though it was a bit too cheesy for my liking, I would recommend it! Sandra Bullock gave a good performance too, I think she deserved the award.

'Alice In Wonderland'

I went to see Tim Burton's latest film last night at the cinema and was really looking forward to seeing it because of how much I had heard about it and because it was a Tim Burton film and I generally love all his films but after the film I realised that it was very different from what I had expected. I enjoyed the film quite a lot but it was not what I thought it was going to be. I think that they could have made it more obscure and it didnt seem as odd as the average Tim Burton film. There were some very funny parts of it and I thought the effects that were used on the film were incredible but I still left feeling that it could have been slightly more interesting but that is just personal preference. Having said all that, I would still recommend the film and Johnny Depp gave an amazing performance as expected!

'The Bank Job'

Watched this film the other day and really liked some of the fast paced camera shots of the cars as they speed off and they reminded me of the shots that we have in our opening.

Group Discussions...

We decided as a group that we had to change the flashback footage from being completely black and white to being slightly drained of colour, because the completely contrasting effects between the flashbacks and the present were too different and made the film seem very inconsistent. We then changed the flashback parts by adding a different effect on iMovie to them which is called 'Old World' and then manually changing the colour settings to drain some of the colour from the footage to give it a dream like quality.

We tried all the other effects on iMovie but none of them really gave us the dark, atmospheric look we were going for.

We also wanted to make sure the audience would be very clear about which parts of the film were supposed to be the present day (Charlotte waking up) and which parts were supposed to be flashbacks so we thought the best way of doing this would be to use a fade to white before every flashback (where necessary) although, when editing we found it quite difficult to get each fade to white to last for the right amount of time, because iMovie kept automatically changing it so we need to figure out how to fix this eventually.

We also were deliberating about how to fill in a gap between two particular shots at the end of the opening where Charlotte wakes up, and then where she walks away so we experimented with all the different transitions on iMovie and found one which we thought looked the least obvious, where the two shots overlap each other.

Another thing that we discussed as a group was our credits. We wanted to attempt a similar style to that of the 'Se7en' credits because we really liked the creepy way that the writing flickered around the screen. So we tried out different ways of creating this on iMovie and came up with our own interpretation of this by adding in multiple textboxes in quick succession but changing the font size, letter spacing, etc. each time so that when it is played all together it appears as though our names are moving around.



Finally, we got round to talking about the name of our film and somehow we thought of simply calling it 'Pulse' because of the close up shot of Charlotte's hand at the beginning. We still are not sure about this name and whether it is right for our film or not but we have left as that for now and will change it later if we want to.

Voice Overs...

Whilst editing our film we were trying to think about what sort of music we were going to eventually put with our footage and we got given the idea of using a voice over/narration over the footage rather than making a piece of music that wouldn't really fit the images on screen.

I really like this idea because we could have the narrator talking through whats happening on screen so that it confirms what the storyline is to the audience and because quite a lot of films open with a voice over.

When we were having a group discussion about the idea of using a voice over, we had a slightly different idea which was to make the voice over a police interview, so that the audience is more aware of what is going on and the darker connotations of the plot are more obvious to the viewer.

Here are some examples of film openings with voice overs that I found on a website of top ten voice overs;
http://www.film.com/features/story/top-ten-movie-voice-overs/27339682



"The genius of the narration in Election is how most of the characters are saying the exact opposite of what they really think. You listen to them rationalize their immoralities or completely kid themselves into accepting delusion."
said Dre Rivas on his blog.






I really like the idea of using a voice over with some music in the background (we thought perhaps the beep of a hospital machine as we discussed the possibility of calling our film 'Pulse') and I hope we get to use this idea successfully in our film opening.

Up...

Saw the film Up for the first time on Saturday and loved it! Really sad at the beginning but the rest of the film was so good, and pretty funny too!
Here are some videos I found on YouTube;

'This Is Spinal Tap'...

Love this film. Even though it is obviously a completely different genre of film to our film opening, I wanted to put a clip of it onto my blog because I think the way it is filmed is so clever. There is so much subtle comedy in there due to the camera work (for example when Nigel is telling them not to look at one of his guitars the audience never sees it which leaves them wanting to see it) and it is a film that has to be noted! Here's one of my favourite scenes from the film;

Radiohead - Karma Police

This video has a lot of similar shots to the ones we took from the passenger seat of the car.

Here is a link to the video;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uYWYWPc9HU

Film Classification...

Here is a document published by the British Board of Film Classification which explains the reasons why certain films are given particular certificates.



Classification Guidelines

Our film will be rated 15 because the content fits with the BBFC classification of what a 15 film should contain which can be found in the classification document above.

I searched for films that have similiar themes and content to our film opening on the BBFC website and here is one example of that which helped us to determine what rating our film was going to be;

DONNIE DARKO
Consumer Advice:
Contains strong language and psychological horror.

This work was passed with no cuts made.

The main spoken language in this work is English.

Directed by Richard Kelly

The cast for this work includes: Jake Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Noah Wyle, Patrick Swayze, Katharine Ross, Jena Malone, Mary McDonnell, Holmes Osborne, Beth Grant, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Daveigh Chase, James Duval, Stuart Stone, Gary Lundy, Alex Greenwald.

When submitted to the BBFC the work had a running time of 113m 11s.
The running time of this film was calculated from the measured length of 10186+13 ( feet + frames ).

CLASSIFIED 13TH MAY 2002.

The document below will also help us to evaluate our film as it includes a lot of information about why film classification is important and how it started;

Student Guide to Bbfc

Here is what the BBFC classification document states about 15 rated films;

Discrimination: The work as a whole must not endorse discriminatory language or behaviour.

Drugs: Drug taking may be shown but the film as a whole must notpromote or encourage drug misuse. The misuse of easilyaccessible and highly dangerous substances (for example,aerosols or solvents) is unlikely to be acceptable.

Horror: Strong threat and menace are permitted unless sadistic or sexualised.

Dangerous behaviour: (for example, hanging, suicide andself-harming) should not dwell on detail which could becopied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised.

LanguageThere may be frequent use of strong language (for example,‘fuck’). The strongest terms (for example, ‘cunt’) may be acceptable if justified by the context. Aggressive or repeateduse of the strongest language is unlikely to be acceptable.

Nudity: Nudity may be allowed in a sexual context but withoutstrong detail. There are no constraints on nudity in a non-sexual or educational context.

Sex: Sexual activity may be portrayed without strong detail.There may be strong verbal references to sexual behaviour,but the strongest references are unlikely to be acceptableunless justified by context. Works whose primary purpose is sexual arousal or stimulation are unlikely to be acceptable.

Theme: No theme is prohibited, provided the treatment is appropriate for 15 year olds.

Violence: Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the inflictionof pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely tobe acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also unlikely to be acceptable. There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violencebut any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet andhave a strong contextual justification.

15 – Suitable only for 15 years and over. No one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work.

Split Screen/Picture-in-Picture Technique...

Our group got told about this interesting concept that is used in the film '500 Days Of Summer' to show the character's reality alongside the character's expectations. We could possibly use this technique in our own film opening to show what really happened to our main character (or our main character's friends) the night before alongside what our main character wished had happened.
Here is a simple video on how to create this Picture-in-Picture technique on iMovie;

Sherlock Holmes

Saw the latest version of Sherlock Holmes at the cinema on wednesday and really enjoyed it. I especially liked the technique of slowing some of the action down whilst Holmes' voice over explains step by step what he is doing and then straight after the audience is shown the same action at normal speed. I liked the effect this had on the audience and their understanding of his character. We could possibly use some aspects of this technique whilst editing our film once we have the footage. Here is a clip of the film (the slow motion effect I mentioned starts at 0:31);

Group discussion...

Yesterday we had another talk about our plans, and we came up with a couple of ideas for our film opening, such as having the first shot fade in from black and have diegetic sound (e.g. sound of cars driving past/police sirens?/etc.) playing for a bit before any image is seen on the screen. This will make the audience wonder why these noises are being heard and who is hearing them.
An example of this can be seen in the start of this clip from the film 'Sin City';


When I was searching for another example of diegetic sound being used before the first shot is shown on screen, I remembered the opening credits of 'Monty Python; The Holy Grail' and how the humour of it is enhanced by the sound, although it is non-diegetic it will still help us to understand different ways in which sound can be used to create a feeling in the audience members.

We also decided that we'll be meeting up over the christmas holidays to plan every shot, make our storyboard and sort out everything about our film, that way we will be ready to start filming as soon as we get back to school in the new year.

'Crash'

Watched the film 'Crash' in lesson yesterday and really enjoyed it. It was very sad and quite tragic to me but I loved everything about the way it had been produced, it seemed very simple and to the point which was very effective. Probably more effective than if they had used loads of complex editing techniques etc. It was a great film and I really enjoyed watching it (also, the voice over on the opening credits was very effective).

Title Sequences

Next lesson we will be looking at title sequences and their significance, so here is some of my research into different title sequences;


The opening sequence for Panic Room didn't really build up any dramatic tension whilst I was watching it and it didn't really make me want to continue watching it. This might be because it didn't hint to anything about the story, other than where it was set. Although I thought the credits were done in a clever way.

>> WATCHMEN
<< I couldn't embed this video (click on the link) of the opening sequence from the film Watchmen, but I wanted to post it on my blog because I really like the effects they've used on the opening credits. Unlike Panic Room, the opening sequence gives the audience an idea of what the film is going to be about. It shows a timeline of the success'and failures of a certain group of characters. I enjoyed watching the credits and it was not boring as it established the characters' background stories and set the scene for the rest of the film. My favourite effect on it was the way it showed people having their picture taken and then in slow motion you saw the action that was occuring (at first the audience thinks it's just a snapshot). Perhaps some of the aspects of this type of opening sequence could be used in our groups film opening.

(Here is a link to a website that we are using to understand the importance of an effective title sequence)