Narrative structure

The Narrative structure of a piece refers to the order which events occur and is usually referred to as the Todorov Model, that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end and occur in that specific order. This is so the audience find the film easier to follow and understand without needing to connect different pieces of the film together in order to make sense of the order of events and why they have played out. However, films have come out, and been successful without following this model. Films such as Vantage Point and Cloud Atlas.

Using Vantage Point as a specific example, the film continuously flicks from beginning to middle, beginning to middle etc. This allows the film to show the series of events from different characters perspectives and allow the audience a better understanding of the film. However, the audience does become very involved trying to connect the different stories of each character to make one series of events and continuity and can be at times difficult to see a clear link between the two character's stories before they are completely revealed. This then obviously creates a lot of enigma within the characters themselves and how they tie into events. This method of narrative structure does create a great deal of interest in the film instead of just following the conventional structure of beginning middle end and also readily involves the audience themselves into its plot.

For short films however, this structure can be harder to pull off as you do not really have enough time to explain the links between the different parts of the film before you are into feature length. To have it put into a short film, the film idea would need to be fairly simple in concept but be played out to look more complex. This would then make it simpler for the director to create but also more interesting for the audience to watch. Thus, in my own short film, I believe I will stick to the conventional todorov model as it is far easier to create a story in that structure and also continue the audience's interest.

Ancillary preliminary task

As part of our preparations towards creating our film posters, we embarked on a test run where we were given a set poster to recreate using our own actors and using backgrounds we could find off the internet.

We were set the film poster from the muppets.

We photographed our two actors, male and female and then the male again for the smaller guy at the bottom of the poster who we noticed was wearing the same outfit so made sense to use the same actor twice.









Once we had our actors photographed, we brought them into photoshop, we removed the previous actors from the original poster and then masked in our ones. With a little cutting and sticking, we were able to fill the holes left by those previous actors and able to create this:

The Importance of Sound - Episode 4

In this episode, I discuss the various aspects of sound and the pronounced effect it has on the quality of any film.

Narration - Episode 3

Episode 3 of the Media Student. This episode we're talking about the pro's and con's of Narration in film and whether it would be suitable for my own short film 'Sweet 18'

Action Analysis

Action films are usually far more diverse in their story lines and therefore their paradigms, however they do all have similarities:

For many modern action films, typical props include guns and many other weapons of a similar nature, super cars, planes and other aircraft, typically all things which we associate with fast action, speed and excitement. We the audience enjoy these films as they give us a glimpse of our idea of what it must be like to own and have access to these things and the image they give us, of power, wealth and authority.

The characters you find in these films tend to be fairly stereotypical. They usually have a male lead role, with supporting male characters. Very rarely does this alter as men are still stereotypically seen as the more dominant and stronger gender and thus more suited in the eyes of the audience for the role. Female roles usually occur in the objective of the film, to go rescue the damsel in distress etc. and sometimes to act as the supporting role for the male lead in order to give them motivation to achieve their task.

Settings for these films tend to be fairly recognisable locations to the audience, places such as London, Moscow, Nevada, the Amazon, Himalayas etc. Places we also associate where more adventurous and tougher characters go, particularly to an American audience. These locations strengthen the audiences stereotypes of what these people do in real life situations and the more far off worlds which they have come to associate with these types of films.

Narratives of these types of films are also fairly common place and stereotypical. The main character will encounter a problem, be it a loved one is captured or a new threat is imposed upon him and society and so he must go and resolve it. Usually he will under estimate the enemies power and be almost destroyed in the process. However, it is always resolved by some clever plan he comes up with to defeat this threat and return the equilibrium of the characters lives to almost normal. They are fairly constant throughout each film though as they need to still be recognisable to the audience in their structure. If for instance the hero of the story does not defeat the enemy, audiences are more likely to feel less satisfied with the film as they do not believe the situation within it has been resolved. And it is due to this certain frame of mind about how action films should be set out that leads them to be fairly similar in design.

In conclusion, action films can take many different images, as in they can be set in nearly any location and use many different antagonists in their story. However, they can still be very similar in their narratives and structure and also their character roles. This would be to commit to societies stereotypes of certain genders and genres and make them more appealing to the masses.

Romance Analysis

Romance is far easier to pin down to certain paradigms than Comedy is. Its far more regular in its target audiences, references and the way it portrays certain members of society.

Props that are typically used in romance films are flowers, chocolates, rings, presents, songs etc. many things we in a western society associate with love. These items help us to connect with the characters situation, by either reminding us of a fond moment in our past or of strengthening the image of what a perfect romantic moment would be like with a partner. Either way, they support our ideas of what romance should be and aids that image we the audience have of those moments.

Typical Characters you are likely to find in many romance films are obviously one man and one women. These characters will obviously make the stereotypical, heterosexual couple later in the film. Then usually for at least one or both of these characters, they both have friends and family members who either aid or dissuade them from potential partners within the film environment. They tend to be gender specific, so for the woman it is most common to find her with mainly female friends and for the Man it is typical to find him surrounded 1 or 2 male friends. Obviously any difference from this such as the woman having a gay friend usually signifies this film is a blend into a more comedic scene.

Settings are fairly stereotypical between romance films, including locations such as more tropical climates, urban western cities or coastal areas. These are areas many of us associate with happiness, love and fun, so to reflect these feelings and help us connect to the film as the audience, these films are obviously set there. Also, the benefit of setting these films here is so the characters may have something to do e.g. they could be on holiday, road trip etc. It gives the characters some method of bumping into each other in the film world and make them far more interesting individuals.

The Narratives of Romance films are fairly standard. Commonly they involve the two meeting in some obscure way, they take a liking to each other before some tragedy comes between the two. This usually adds more tension to the situation and gathers more interest for the audience. Also, having an element of conflict between the pair reminds us of the issues with relationships and makes it seem far more realistic and believable. This is then obviously resolved by either one of the main characters or with help from one of their aids and the two end up finishing the film as a couple.

In conclusion, romance films by themselves are fairly stereotypical in content and construction. For this reason, you will not often find them just stand alone genres without pairing with another genre such as comedy or action. Many purely romantic films can seem rather cliche and dull as there is very little variation you can do on this genre without repeating a film which has already gone before it.

Horror Analysis

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

The best way to categorise a film genre is into its main Genre Paradigms. These are Props, Characters, Settings, Narrative and themes. 

Starting with what a paradigm is. A Paradigm by definition is, a typical example or pattern of something. This means in film terms the most commonly seen patterns and stereotypes in a particular genre. 

So what are the paradigms of the props shown in Horror? These can be as simple as blood splatters, to murder weapons, a flickering light, masks, haunted mansions and even voice vocoders. Everyone who's seen any horror movie will know these are all fairly clique items which we see in almost every horror movie. They are what we expect to see as audiences in these films and so the directors add them in, not only to appeal to our stereotypes of what makes a horror film, but also to make it far more attractive to thrill seekers. I mean, would you go and see a horror film based on pixies and unicorns? No, of course you wouldn’t as it doesn’t full fill your ideals of what a horror movie should be about.

Characters; In every horror movie it seems, you always have three types of characters. You have the dumb blonde woman who is usually rather bitchy and always ends up being killed in the story. I’m referring to both Scream and Carrie, and Lights out. A piece of gaffe tape! Seriously?

You then have the boffin of the story, the one who always knows what to do and always has a rational explanation for everything. This is the character you always secretly root for but know he will eventually be murdered in some tragic manner. 

Then of course there is the main character, the one who solves it all and generally resolves the situation and nearly always survives to the end of the film. 

Settings; as we said before, the settings of horror movies tend to all be the same, haunted mansions, creepy hollows, urban rough areas etc. Places which many of us associate as being creepy  and dangerous. So bringing it back to Lights out, its based in an urban environment, a rather tatty old flat, seen a lot of history. It looks like a place which certainly I wouldn’t want to live. Basically anywhere that gives me the shivers….

Narrative, this is basically the same through many horror movies. There comes a mysterious happening within the film to disrupt the equilibrium, be it a mysterious disappearance or appearance of something or someone which encounters the main characters of the film and thus we are set to discover all about this mysterious apparition and the deadly intensions it holds! With reference to the short ‘Lights out’, the phantom is obvious with the dark shadow in the corner slowly closing in on our main character before it finally gets her! *Evil Laugh*

Themes; there are 6 main themes that horror movies can follow. They include the fake documentary horror films with supposedly real life situations being reported on by newscasters, the exorcist for one example. The mass infestations of zombie movies with films like ’28 days later’ and ‘The crazies’ still have us cowering behind the sofas. The unknown terrors, with films such as ‘The Sixth Sense’ and ‘Unbreakable’ rely mainly on jump scare techniques where the monster generally makes a nuisance of itself until it finally reveals itself at the end of the film, much like ‘Lights out’. The overwhelming gore explosion films such as the Saw franchise, films displaying larger than life gore and generally provide real gross out films which have audiences flinching in their seats. And finally the serial kill fest, shown in films such as the Scream franchise which rely on a mysterious killer recking havoc in a predominately small sub-urban town. Definitely the most popular theme with audiences.

So then how does this all relate to our source material, ‘lights out’? Well lets start with the Mise-En-Scene of the piece. We begin in a urban flat and theres a woman preparing for bed. Normal enough so we the audience begin to trust and relate to the scene. The lighting of the piece is very high key, very bright and we grow to associate it with safety and security. Turn the lights off though then comes that human assumption that evil things lure in the dark! and that is in essence how the film builds up that fear factor we feel when watching it. The lighting is actually key to our understanding of the piece. When its bright its safe, when its dark its not safe, and as the film draws us into this method of thinking, it then sets up  a false sense of security when we think the monsters gone but actually, its right there. Though seriously, how long did it stay in that position just so it could turn off the light at her? 

There is not one handheld shot throughout the entire film, meaning the director is very keen for us to be fully concentrated on the action. This then allows us the audience to be fully concentrated on the action of the film and all the scary events which go on within it! The film also seems fairly obsessed with close-ups of characters and furniture. This would then be for the same reason, to make us more focussed on what the camera is showing. Cinema is as much as what is in the frame as whats out of it. And of course the whole point of a horror is to feel the same as the characters, so showing them in close-up makes it obvious to us how they’re feeling and so we can relate even closer to them. 

Sound is perhaps the most important aspect of not only this film but any horror movie. If you watch a horror movie in mute its far less scary than it is un muted. Thats because the soundtrack within many horror movies are what makes them so scary! Oh, its those strings again! 

And even beyond the soundtrack, if you take out the footsteps, the creaking floorboards, flickering lights etc it makes it far less scary. Its these foley sounds which really make any film and tell us far more about whats going on in a scene than what the picture is. Audiences are far more likely to watch a video with great audio and awful video quality compared to fantastic video quality and awful audio. So these foley sounds really add to our relation to the film and the events taking place.

The editing of the piece is also specifically designed to build tension and generally set us up for the big jump scare at the end. With comparatively far longer shots, the director wants us to soak in the shot being shown and add to that sense of anticipation for that jump scare which has us cowering under the covers. All these shots are far longer than they would normally be in any other genre and it is for that reason why it has been edited in that way. 

Evaluation of Recreations - Episode 2

Second episode and I'm discussing our recent recreation of get off my land.

For our recreation, click here.
For the original, click here.

Get Off My Land Recreation

Here it is folks, our finished version of the BBC film Network's 'Get Off My Land'. Starring Amanda MacKinnon, Robert Thomas and David Andrews.

For the original version, click here.

Get Off My Land - pre production

For our recent recreation of the BBC Film Network's 'Get Off My Land', we were able to complete our preliminary tasks in order to prepare as best as possible. Here is a review of these tasks;

Character Profiles:

Character: Woman

Originally played by: Ruth Wilson

Characteristics: Long brown hair, brown eyes, middle aged.

Costume: Purple rain mac, white t-shirt, grey waterproof-type trousers, walking boots.

Props needed: fake blood

Character: Farmer

Originally played by: Robert Glenister

Characteristics: Grey hair and beard, getting on a bit (maybe 50-65).

Costume: white chequered shirt, with green jumper, dark green jacket, flat cap.

Props needed: Off-road vehicle (green Land Rover Defender), Shotgun, two red shotgun shells.

Character: Man

Originally played by: Rafe Spall

Characteristics: Short brown hair, brown eyes, middle aged.

Costume: Black jacket, black t-shirt, jeans with brown belt, converse trainers.

Props needed: N/A

Location Research:

• Wymondham near the river Tiffey, past the Railway Pub. 
• Little Melton Forest Area
• Poringland

Tiffey Area wasn't used as it was reasonably in accessible to Vehicles and very tall grass at that time of year made it unsuitable to walk/film in

Little Melton was suitable for location but unusable due to land rights and restrictions on public access

Poringland was used as it had better accessibility to land and vehicles and suited location needs.

Plot Synopsis:

A couple are out on a walk through the country on what they think is a public footpath. They soon realise it isn't when the farmer (owner of the land they are crossing) approaches them and asks them to leave. The man, in order to gain merit with the woman again, challenges the farmer over rights to
the land ownership. Farmer agrees and both, man and woman, get shot in the chest.

Script:

Script

Storyboard:

Storyboard

Textual Analysis of previous A2 media films

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

Uploaded in April 2013, Eidolon is obviously intended to be a horror/psychological thriller. The spooky house, remote location, dark creepy caverns. Even the name 'Eidolon' means spectre or phantom.
The mise-en-scene of the piece is typically very dark, low key lighting, and successfully communicates to the audience the location is more forbidding than welcoming.

The Camera Work of the piece is lacking slightly. It still however translates the magnitude of the areas the characters are in by wide sweeping shots, tight handheld camera holds and more high/low angle shots to demonstrate the power held by each character.

Editing is very fluid, designed to show the most prominent character talking/acting at any given moment. The speed of each cut if also highly dependant on the action going on at the time in the scene e.g. more suspense in the scene, the faster the cuts. This would be to provide extra effect to the scene and keep the audience in tune with the action.

Sound is very detailed despite maybe in need of being compressed in some cases. It outlines the location very well by ambient noises of rivers, the sea, wind, creaking floorboards etc. It aids in maintaining the audiences interest in the film.

Textual Analysis: Get Off My Land

As part of our recreation, thought it would be suited to do a quick analysis of the short film.
To watch the film, click here.

Mise-En-Scene: 

The location is a countryside setting, several fields and

open spaces intercut with woodland area. Its setting is obvious from the very first shot of the muddy track through the woods followed by the open landscape shot of the couple crossing the meadow.
The lighting is fairly low key throughout.
The costumes are fairly stereotypical for the different characters each actor is playing. The farmer with his flat cap and jumper is certainly my typical idea of what a country farmer would look like. The couple are dressed in what I would imagine city or village people to wear when out in the country. The woman's slightly more expensive coat and the mans more elaborate fleece does give the image of well off city people, maybe unaware of the land laws.

Camera:

The use of camera is quite effective in the film. It describes the intensity of the dialogue and the things we the audience should be focusing on by means of either zooming in on characters or how violent the hand held effect becomes.

These are particularly true when it comes to the man-farmer conversation where the use of hand held becomes most prominent as the argument intensifies before climaxing when the farmers fires his gun. Also as the two exchange lines, the camera gets closer and closer on the two actor's faces to really emphasise we should only be focusing on what they are saying and nothing else.

Editing:

On average, the speed of the editing would be considered slow due to the rather moody and dull feel its meant to be portraying in the two main characters lives at the time of the event. Even the length of each shot reflects this, particularly in the establishing and primary shots at the beginning of the film, with those long, wide angle, dolly panning shots.

The moment where the editing does pick up dramatically is during the shooting sequence where the camera quickly cuts from a medium shot on the farmer to the wide shot of the 3 characters as the man falls to the ground. This would be, as before, to reflect the mood of the scene. Only now, it is far more tense and fast actioned and so the editing shows this in its number cuts.

Sound

The sound of the piece is actually fairly dull e.g. it only contains the bare minimum of foley and ambient noises. We do not hear for example any bird song or river water, trees rustling etc. We only hear the characters footsteps through the grass and the dialogue.

This would suggest the director doesn't want our attention to be distracted by things going on in the background and more on the solidarity of the two characters trekking across this supposed empty landscape, not a bird or animal around. Just the emptiness and bleakness.

Short Films - Episode 1

First episode of 'The Media Student' discussing what makes a short film. 

Looking Back To Go Forward

As I begin to plan for my A2 short film, I must first look back at my work from last year in my previous AS blog:

Pre-Production:
For my previous work, I planned out my opening by first thinking up my story as a whole and what the whole film would be about and how it would run. This would then allow me to envisage what the opening would be and how it would set up the rest of the film. This method I found worked very well in the way I could then construct an opening for the whole film.
Casting I found the most difficult as out in rural Wymondham there is very little acting talent which I know of to choose from, thus I found myself relying heavily upon favours from friends to act out in the opening. Thus, the acting quality, while sufficient, wasn't as good as it could be. So for the new short film, I will endeavour to search further afield for more professional actors to star and this will hopefully improve dramatically the appearance and performance of the film.
Script I feel I excelled in in terms of use of technology and professional technique. I researched script software and eventually used Adobe Story. A professional online software used to script every part of film, from character profiles to filming schedules. Thus, I was able to produce a professional looking script and was far easier for my actors to understand the role of the characters they were playing.
Storyboarding I was fairly new too and had always relied before upon maintaining the visual shots in my head. I found it a struggle to narrow down the shots I wanted to shoot and to articulate those shots into a single drawing. Thus for this years work, I will try to find a more effective means of showing my shot diagrams. I have already searched for online storyboarding software and currently there are a few which have flagged up
Scheduling filming I found easy to organise, however actors would often give wrong dates or mis-leading times that they were available, thus it was a little squeezed into the time we had to film. This year, I intend to plan far in advance so to avoid these struggles and to hold people down to a set date.
Location settings were fairly easy to find as I based my idea around the facilities readily available to me, thus finding and booking the use of these locations was extremely easy and worked extremely well.

Production:
Filming turned out to be easier than I expected. All the actors responded well to my criticisms and instructions and the process was extremely quick.
Lighting wasn't great on most occasions, but this was only due to lack of equipment to improve this. Since then I have now invested in a set of photosel lights which will serve to light any setting which I require.
Directing for me is a skill I'm very new to so was a real experience in controlling actors and instructing them to follow the script but also taking on board their suggestions. I feel with more experience I will become more accomplished at it and thus more able to handle more and more actors.

Post-Production:
For editing the video, I used apple's iMovie. I was very accomplished with this software as I had used it in many other videos I had done before so the choice was simple. However, for this years production, I have decided to upgrade to apple's Final Cut Pro as it offers far more video editing capabilities and with far more powerful processors to enable faster editing of larger video files.
The audio of the opening wasn't great as I hadn't at that point discovered the use of boom microphones so I relied heavily on the audio captured from the camera itself. Thus, while the dialogue was discernable, it could have been far better in quality. Since then, I have built my own boom microphone and thus will use it in the new short film to capture even better audio. Which, if you improve the audio, audiences are 30% more likely to watch the video if the audio is good but the video quality is terrible.
Soundtrack had similar problems, I only had access to apple's Garage band to develop the soundtrack for the film, which for entry level filming is suitable. However, for a more professional film, software such as Logic Pro is more suited as it has far greater editing capabilities, sound banks and development options to choose from and thus I have bought the software to boost the quality of my films.

The areas I believe I have gained the most marks are in my planning stages and in my post-production as these are the areas I feel most confident and familiar in and thus feel I can do a far better job in these areas.
Areas I believe I have lost marks are in the quality of filming and my ability to choose/control actors, as while I believe I can control actors to a degree, my choice may not have been the most suitable and the quality of acting could still be improved.

Targets to improve:

• Use better methods of capturing media, such as better camera, lighting and audio capture
• Select better, more experienced actors to play in the film
• Provide better soundtrack more suitable and professional sounding parts.

New Year

New Year, new blog. What will follow in the blog is all the activities and projects leading up to the creation of my short film later next year. Similar to my previous blog, only this time for A2 obviously. So watch this space for details!