Sunday, 7 March 2010
Sound- Ben Brown
This weekend I took a recorder home to produce some of the diegetic and non diegetic sound for our short film. We decided on using an instrumental cover version of a song called 'where ever you will go' by the calling on the guitar. It took me a while to get used to the recorder and figuring out how it worked but by the end it became simple. It also proved difficult trying to play the guitar whilst having headphone wires in the way and balancing the recorder so the guitar could be heard. Overall I think it turned out well with a clear high quality sound and i enjoyed doing it. Over the course of next week we will be using garage band to create the rest of the sound effects we need in our production.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Textual Analysis of Film Poster - Fisk Tank.
FISHTANK
Director – Andrea Arnold
Distributed by – IFC films
Synopsis: Everything changes for 15yr old Mia when her mum brings home a new boyfriend.
Starring - Michael Fassbender, Harry Treadaway, Kierston Wareing, Jason Maza, Katie Jarvis, Jack Gordon, Charlotte Collins, Brooke Hobby, Chelsea Chase
The poster for the film Fish Tank is very unique and skilfully adapts a range of hidden techniques to expose to the audience the films qualities and features such as the genre, characters and narrative.
The title ‘Fish Tank’ is a clever metaphor, playing on the contemplation of looking out to the other side but cannot get there or escape, which links into the film and the girl’s circumstances. Furthermore which relates to the image of her looking out of a window, as if she cannot reach it. The simple eyelevel shot from the camera work of the girl connects to the realistic theme and highlights her expression more. Her positioning to me gives out the emotion of loneliness. Her expression is serious and she seems to be preoccupied and isolated. Her character is shown to be a very stereotypical working class girl who from just her appearance you can estimate her background and characteristics. For example, the gold hoop earrings and the slight greasy hair. I think her wearing black clothing is a symbol of her unhappiness, and as the shot doesn’t show her full body and the clothing isn’t in any way revealing, there are no sexual connotations to it which reveals more about her character.
The location which the poster shows isn’t exposed clearly, but I would guess it is a council block of flats, due to the graffiti and grimy settings. The wall is ripped, there’s food smeared across it and the graffiti of the pink heart uncovers a few details. For example it may inform the audience more of her age and be evidential that there’s a good chance she’s rebellious.
The tagline ‘Live, love and give as good as you get’ is a very strong willed and powerful sentence, giving the audience an insight to the nature of the film. All the writing within the poster is made up of pink and blue text, this could indicate the film is aimed at both genders. There is a few alliterations used in the poster, for example “powerful and poignant” and “live and love”, which makes the poster even more vivid.
There are references of feedback from Total Film, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent and more. There are no tabloid newspapers, only broadsheets. This indicates a specific audience - well educated middle class - and although a small readership it shows us the film’s target audience. It also specifies the awards the film has won, both British and European awards, which to film literate people, will be very impressive.
Fish Tank also has another poster used to advertise their film. This poster is different to an extent to the first one. The image of the same girl is very contrasting, as it reveals more of her body (with some of her stomach exposed) as a medium shot, which is obviously airbrushed, which doesn‘t seem to match with the social realism theme. She has more makeup on and is wearing a hoody, which emphasises the stereotypical character she is labelled as and seems to gives her more attitude and status. But as it is a low angled shot, I would say she looks a lot more vulnerable here. The location is a lot more obvious here, as you can see the urban city landscape in the background. The posters image is set up in complete contrast to the first poster. In this one it seems as if she has left her past behind and has escaped from it into the big wide world - as if she has escaped the fish tank.
Director – Andrea Arnold
Distributed by – IFC films
Synopsis: Everything changes for 15yr old Mia when her mum brings home a new boyfriend.
Starring - Michael Fassbender, Harry Treadaway, Kierston Wareing, Jason Maza, Katie Jarvis, Jack Gordon, Charlotte Collins, Brooke Hobby, Chelsea Chase
The poster for the film Fish Tank is very unique and skilfully adapts a range of hidden techniques to expose to the audience the films qualities and features such as the genre, characters and narrative.
The title ‘Fish Tank’ is a clever metaphor, playing on the contemplation of looking out to the other side but cannot get there or escape, which links into the film and the girl’s circumstances. Furthermore which relates to the image of her looking out of a window, as if she cannot reach it. The simple eyelevel shot from the camera work of the girl connects to the realistic theme and highlights her expression more. Her positioning to me gives out the emotion of loneliness. Her expression is serious and she seems to be preoccupied and isolated. Her character is shown to be a very stereotypical working class girl who from just her appearance you can estimate her background and characteristics. For example, the gold hoop earrings and the slight greasy hair. I think her wearing black clothing is a symbol of her unhappiness, and as the shot doesn’t show her full body and the clothing isn’t in any way revealing, there are no sexual connotations to it which reveals more about her character.
The location which the poster shows isn’t exposed clearly, but I would guess it is a council block of flats, due to the graffiti and grimy settings. The wall is ripped, there’s food smeared across it and the graffiti of the pink heart uncovers a few details. For example it may inform the audience more of her age and be evidential that there’s a good chance she’s rebellious.
The tagline ‘Live, love and give as good as you get’ is a very strong willed and powerful sentence, giving the audience an insight to the nature of the film. All the writing within the poster is made up of pink and blue text, this could indicate the film is aimed at both genders. There is a few alliterations used in the poster, for example “powerful and poignant” and “live and love”, which makes the poster even more vivid.
There are references of feedback from Total Film, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Independent and more. There are no tabloid newspapers, only broadsheets. This indicates a specific audience - well educated middle class - and although a small readership it shows us the film’s target audience. It also specifies the awards the film has won, both British and European awards, which to film literate people, will be very impressive.
Fish Tank also has another poster used to advertise their film. This poster is different to an extent to the first one. The image of the same girl is very contrasting, as it reveals more of her body (with some of her stomach exposed) as a medium shot, which is obviously airbrushed, which doesn‘t seem to match with the social realism theme. She has more makeup on and is wearing a hoody, which emphasises the stereotypical character she is labelled as and seems to gives her more attitude and status. But as it is a low angled shot, I would say she looks a lot more vulnerable here. The location is a lot more obvious here, as you can see the urban city landscape in the background. The posters image is set up in complete contrast to the first poster. In this one it seems as if she has left her past behind and has escaped from it into the big wide world - as if she has escaped the fish tank.
Editing today
Today we continued with the editing we managed to get another 30 seconds of continuity editing done makeing a few changes on what we had already editied too and changed some cuts and transitions. We found it hard with what transition we wanted to use in our film from when we represent the boy and the girl turning into themselves 5 years later on. We searched through all the different dissolves but non of them seemed to show what we wanted them to show so when we continue editing we will research further into what dissolve or maybe even a differnt transition to portray what we are trying to show, which is the time change of the charicters getting older.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Textual Analysis of film posters - Ben Brown
Fish tank - A socail realism film poster
The camera work of the photo presented of the girl is a medium close up which is used to show her facial expressions and body language. Her facial expressions are portrayed as if she is pre occupied, serious and isolated this can tell you a lot about the female character on the poster along with what she is wearing which is cheap jewellery, hooped earrings and a black top which is a stereotype of and under privileged working class girl and can portray that she is struggling through life which is quite dark and mysterious shown by her black clothes.
The poster seems to be set in a block of stingy flats which further stereotypes the girl. The flat is shown to have graffiti and food on the walls with the wallpaper tearing off in parts which shows that the place is falling apart and no one is really doing anything about it or anything to stop it. The colour of the wall off the flat is plain and simple which shows that where she is living is nothing special or expensive.
Other colours that are shown in the poster are blue and pink can show that the film is aiming at both a male and a female audience. The film has good reviews from a number of news papers like The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Independent these are all respected newspapers for sophisticated readers different from newspapers like the sun which sell millions a day at 30p these newspapers are more expensive and seen to be targeted at the older market and only sell hundreds of thousands a day. The reviews from these newspapres tell me that this film is aimed at an older audience whom would appreciate her situations and understand certain aspects of the film more than others.
In this second Fish Tank poster they have used a portrait layout and have used different techniques within the poster. They have placed the main character in the outside world rather than in a room so you get learn more about the setting, which is an urban setting which shows flats in the background which proves that in the previous poster that she was sitting in a flat somewhere. This furthers the stereotypes that she lives in an urban setting and also with what she is wearing.
Her costume gives a lot more away in this poster than the last you can see quite clearly that he is wearing a hoodie with her hood up which shows that he is serious and can show that she has stopped caring. Also the lighting is dark around her face showing that she is angry and not to be messed with, along with that the camera work shows her at a low angle which makes her seem powerful and in control.
The first poster is almost like she is looking scared to leave her 'fish tank' and the second poster almost is suggesting that she has left her comfort zone which is the fish tank and has gone into the big wide world.
convensions of layouts in posters and distribution- Ben Brown
What do all film posters have in common?
- Images of the main character/characters in the film
- A big notable title to create awareness of the name of the film
- A background in which gives away the nature of the film and the type of setting it is in
- Reviews from different news papers rating it out of 5 stars and commenting on good aspects of the film
- The awards he film has won
- A catchy tagline
Distribution
Distribution is a highly competitive business and is used to gain the widest possible audience for their upcoming film. Films do not become famous over night by accident. The distributer’s job is to find potential in a film and bring each one into the market for the widest possible audience. Without a good distribution the film no matter how good it maybe will never because famous because people may not be aware that it exists and has not created a 'want to see BUZZ' which is what they are trying to create.
- Images of the main character/characters in the film
- A big notable title to create awareness of the name of the film
- A background in which gives away the nature of the film and the type of setting it is in
- Reviews from different news papers rating it out of 5 stars and commenting on good aspects of the film
- The awards he film has won
- A catchy tagline
Distribution
Distribution is a highly competitive business and is used to gain the widest possible audience for their upcoming film. Films do not become famous over night by accident. The distributer’s job is to find potential in a film and bring each one into the market for the widest possible audience. Without a good distribution the film no matter how good it maybe will never because famous because people may not be aware that it exists and has not created a 'want to see BUZZ' which is what they are trying to create.
Editing.
Today, me and Ben have carried on with the editing of our short film. We transferred all our shots from iMovie to Final Cut Pro, so we can use this more advanced editing programme to enhance our editing skills and perfect our shots. So far it is going well and although we hadn't used this programme before, it was quite easy to grasp and actually found it easier and less fiddlely than iMovie. Our main aim today was to go through everything and check on the final few shots we need to shoot, which will take place tomorrow at my house after college.
Nicole Laurie.
Nicole Laurie.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Poster Ideas.
I’ve been looking in detail into film poster ideas and design proposals in order to help towards making our decision on what to use for our group poster of our short film. Through looking at other film’s promotion posters, and especially social realism films, I’ve developed a few ideas for ours. I’ve searched through the internet and found some posters with inspiring ideas.
Firstly, this poster is promoting the short film “Variations”, which is detailed more on the website http://www.behance.net/Gallery/VARIATIONS-(SHORT-FILM)-POSTER-ARTWORK/304355.
The design is simple yet effective, almost with a hidden meaning. The image relates to the title in a subtle but clever way. To me they look like they almost symbolise strings of genes, which come in different variations - hence the name of the film. Some of the letters in the film’s name, the R and the T, are upside down or backwards, which I think adds more effect to the overall poster. It doesn’t give much about the film away and although extremely simple, I think it has more meaning to it than you would first think. This may be something we could incorporate into our film poster, perhaps something to do with the msn convosations, as that involves simple icons and emotions?
This film poster is clearly not a social realism film, but I was intrigued by the design and reasoning for it. The image, which appears to be a butterfly, doesn’t seem to relate to the title, but this suggests a hidden depth of the film which could encourage the audience to watch it. I would guess it is either a thriller or a horror film, with the bold but dark colour scheme and the brash font of the title. Furthermore, just the actual title ‘unstoppable’ suggests this genre of film. Maybe we could use our font of our title to suggest social realism and the image to be very unattached to the title?
Although I like some of these ideas, I don’t think they link as well to the genre of Social Realism as I would like. I think I would expect to see more realist situations and images, such as the characters and a few props maybe? I looked into these ideas more carefully.
An Education - Prodigal Son Story/ Grass is Greener on the other Side until you get there story.
This poster is more to what I think thinking for our film poster. It is a simple yet successful layout, which reveals more than you would expect. These two must be the main two characters, who from there positioning, must be in a relationship of some sort. From their facial expressions it may give a clue into how the story pans out. They seem to be thinking and serious, a realist expression and location. If they both had big grins on their faces and looking at the camera, it would be perceived in a very different way. I think this is clever and our poster should involve our main characters and give some things away through their positioning and facial expressions. After all, our whole film is based on telling it through music, expressions and body movement/language.
Another example of this social realism poster theme is the poster advertising the film “You’ve got mail”. This one is a little more complex than the one before though, and I’m not sure if it would be possible to complete with the limited technology available. But the storyline of ‘You’ve got mail’ is slightly similar to ours in the way they both use computers and keyboards to interact with each other, and I like the way this is integrated into the posters picture. It reveals the main two obvious characters and intertwines three separate images all together. I like the way the title is designed too, as it has a little image of a mailbox with it to emphasise the word ’mail’, this is an idea we could use for our title. I think we could put the main two characters at both ages on the poster in a similar way to this one, with the keyboard across the bottom too! But I will have to check if this is possible.
I think a good idea we could use for our film poster is to show a big divide between the two characters, as they are throughout the film in different places to eachother, physically and emotionally. A good example poster of this which is a good inspiration is from the film atonement, which through the contrasting colour schemes, positioning and location shows they are a very long way away but at the same time, through there simular facial expressions, in the same place in spirit.
Firstly, this poster is promoting the short film “Variations”, which is detailed more on the website http://www.behance.net/Gallery/VARIATIONS-(SHORT-FILM)-POSTER-ARTWORK/304355.
The design is simple yet effective, almost with a hidden meaning. The image relates to the title in a subtle but clever way. To me they look like they almost symbolise strings of genes, which come in different variations - hence the name of the film. Some of the letters in the film’s name, the R and the T, are upside down or backwards, which I think adds more effect to the overall poster. It doesn’t give much about the film away and although extremely simple, I think it has more meaning to it than you would first think. This may be something we could incorporate into our film poster, perhaps something to do with the msn convosations, as that involves simple icons and emotions?
This film poster is clearly not a social realism film, but I was intrigued by the design and reasoning for it. The image, which appears to be a butterfly, doesn’t seem to relate to the title, but this suggests a hidden depth of the film which could encourage the audience to watch it. I would guess it is either a thriller or a horror film, with the bold but dark colour scheme and the brash font of the title. Furthermore, just the actual title ‘unstoppable’ suggests this genre of film. Maybe we could use our font of our title to suggest social realism and the image to be very unattached to the title?
Although I like some of these ideas, I don’t think they link as well to the genre of Social Realism as I would like. I think I would expect to see more realist situations and images, such as the characters and a few props maybe? I looked into these ideas more carefully.
An Education - Prodigal Son Story/ Grass is Greener on the other Side until you get there story.
This poster is more to what I think thinking for our film poster. It is a simple yet successful layout, which reveals more than you would expect. These two must be the main two characters, who from there positioning, must be in a relationship of some sort. From their facial expressions it may give a clue into how the story pans out. They seem to be thinking and serious, a realist expression and location. If they both had big grins on their faces and looking at the camera, it would be perceived in a very different way. I think this is clever and our poster should involve our main characters and give some things away through their positioning and facial expressions. After all, our whole film is based on telling it through music, expressions and body movement/language.
Another example of this social realism poster theme is the poster advertising the film “You’ve got mail”. This one is a little more complex than the one before though, and I’m not sure if it would be possible to complete with the limited technology available. But the storyline of ‘You’ve got mail’ is slightly similar to ours in the way they both use computers and keyboards to interact with each other, and I like the way this is integrated into the posters picture. It reveals the main two obvious characters and intertwines three separate images all together. I like the way the title is designed too, as it has a little image of a mailbox with it to emphasise the word ’mail’, this is an idea we could use for our title. I think we could put the main two characters at both ages on the poster in a similar way to this one, with the keyboard across the bottom too! But I will have to check if this is possible.
I think a good idea we could use for our film poster is to show a big divide between the two characters, as they are throughout the film in different places to eachother, physically and emotionally. A good example poster of this which is a good inspiration is from the film atonement, which through the contrasting colour schemes, positioning and location shows they are a very long way away but at the same time, through there simular facial expressions, in the same place in spirit.
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