One Page Pitch answers

These are the questions we answered for our one page pitch. As me and Laura are not in the same class we weren't able to record our responses to a teachers questions which is why we wrote answers to question sent to us down.

One Page Pitch

One page pitch from Tammybaldwin99

Thriller opening - initital ideas

What can't speak can't lie

Scene 1 - Girl's house

Dusk. A girl, 16, is having an argument with her parents, she storms out, slams the door and starts to pack her bag, angry music is playing over the top of the scene and stops when she slams the door.

Camera pans across some pictures on a shelf, the first one is of her parents, she smashes it on the floor, the next one shows the girls 'war hero' grandfather, music changes to emotional, she looks at it then packs it carefully. She takes a deep breath then leaves her house (diegetic sound).

Scene 2 - Grandma's house

Dark rainy night. Girl knocks on the door, grandma lets her in and gives her a drink. Montage with same emotional music - they sit on the sofa looking at an old photo album, by the fireplace. The girl yawns and they set up a bed on the sofa because the spare room in the attic is full of her granddads old stuff.

Scene 3 - Grandma's attic

Bright sunny day. Grandma is downstairs and the girl is looking through the boxes, she comes across a box filled with war medals etc. and a strange, ripped, document about murders and kidnapping in Northern Island in the 1970s. She puts the two pieces together and finds something surprising. Dramatic music plays and the title sequence starts.

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows institutions

Director analysis

Director analysis from Tammybaldwin99

Age ratings

These are all the different age ratings explained by BBFC (British Board of Film Classification):

Film age ratings from Tammybaldwin99


Based off these we have decided to classify our thriller film as a 15, because later on the film a lot of death, weapons and gore, which may be unsuitable for younger viewers.

Conventions of a thriller

conventions of a thriller - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Textual analysis of Seven

Lighting

Lighting from Tammybaldwin99

Texual analysis of a title sequence

Textual analysis of back to the future from Tammybaldwin99

Question 6: Evaluate your contribution to the group's work

What did I do?

I attached and detached the camera every time. I also filmed the first part of the film including zooming in on the hand opening the door. finally during post-prediction I added all the sound effects like the clicking of the door handle and the shutting of the door.

How flexible was I?

I was willing to use any free time I had in school, e.g. non-contact times, to make sure we got the task finished.

What skills have I gained from doing this?

I have gained film recording skills, continuity skills, production skills and gained confidence.

Did I work well as a part of our group?

I think that I work well in a team for it needed both of us to complete the task and I think that we both had something different to offer the group e.g i was more of a camera person and Elsie was more in front of the camera.

Question 5: feedback from others

Question 4: how well did you meet the brief?

Question 3: Areas for development

I think some areas that could be improved include the use of different effects and camera angles. For example we could have use some low or high angled shots to create more of  an atmosphere and we could also look at different types of lighting that would have made the scene seem more realistic. Also we could look at doing filming in a different setting apart from school to make it look more professional. 

During filming I broke the forth wall by looking down the camera so we had to cut the last shot and slow it down to make it flow and not go to fast, so to improve I will make sure that I avoid that during the filming of the main task.

Question 2: Areas of success

We planned a storyboard well enough to know what we were going to do in each shot. For example i knew that I had to zoom in on Elise's hand when she turned the door handle because on our storyboard it showed a box with arrows pointing towards it to indicate zooming.

In one editing lesson when Elise wasn't there i tried my best to add noise effects on the scenes at appropriate times, like to clicking when the door opens and the slam when she stormed out, using Mixcraft and Premier Pro.

We also effectively used Premier Pro to add tile slides with music both at the beginning and the end, we had rolling slides for these and we had still titles on the scenes displaying our names.

Because there was only two of us in our group we had to do a lot of editing and cutting of scenes during post production, but it turned out good.

Question 1: What have you learned during the making of your preliminary task?

Final Preliminary task

Storyboard

This is the storyboard for our preliminary task:

Preliminary task

Our preliminary task is a continuity task involving filming and editing a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down on a chair opposite another character, they then have a short conversation.

Continuity filming means that the scenes flow so no possible changes will effect it. In this task we will use three different types of shots:

Match on action - this is when there is one shot from behind the character then the camera is cut and moved then next shot taken in front, or visa-versa, in one seamless action.
In our interpretation one shot is taken behind the character and shows them opening the door and the next shot is taken in front of the character and shows them walking through the door.







Shot/reverse shot (see previous post for definition)- this is an over the shoulder shot, we will use this after Elsie (the person who's late) comes through the door and is looking at me (the woman waiting for her).

180-degree rule - this rule draws an imaginary line between the two characters at 180-degrees at which the camera doesn't pass so the viewers don't get disorientated.
We will use this when the characters are having a conversation.

First Task: Camera Shots

Our first task was to get into groups and with a camera practice all different types of camera shots and angles and come up with an overall narrative that links our photos together.

The narrative we choose was for these shot types was a bully and a victim in the school courtyard.

Close-up shot: 

this shot is used to catch a character's emotional response to something or show them in thought, for example in this shot it is showing the character of the victim looking scared

Establishing shot:

this shot is used to set the scene. It is usually used in an opening shot or sequence as an exterior and can sometimes be called an extreme long shot. From this shot we set the scene in the school courtyard.  

Extreme close up:

 this is used to show an important detail, object, gesture or moment of contact between characters. Our shot shows a moment of contact of a fist and a cheek between the bully and the victim.





Long shot:

                             
this shot shows a character at some distance. The character will often be dominated by their surroundings. Our shot shows the bully chasing the victim at a distance and you can see a lot of the surrounding area.






Shot/reverse shot

these shots show a conversation between two characters. we get to see in detail how they react to each other emotionally and what they say. In this shot we see the victim covering their face portraying sadness or upset. Even though the cameras facing the victim the photo is still dominated by the bully for we can see more of them.

In this shot we see the bully pulling a face at the victim trying to intimidate her. We see that the victim's back isn't in the shot as much as the bully's because we wanted the victim to look less dominant.






Low shot:

 this shot makes someone seem larger than life or dominant, or to suggest we are seeing through the eyes of someone seated or small. Our shot shows the bully dominating the scene, and making the victim feel small.






Tilt shot:



this shot can be used to show speed, movement, or an unsettled mood. We used it to capture the moment after the victim gets hit and falls to the floor to show movement. The camera is high up to make the victim look vulnerable.

  

                                      

Introduction

Hello welcome to my first ever blog for my A level media course.

In my media lessons this year I am looking forward to learning how to make and edit my own videos. I like watching YouTube videos so it will be good to know what goes on behind the camera not just in front of it. I'm also excited to learn about how films are made and produced because I spend a lot of my spare time watching movies and TV programmes.

I expect, because I have never edited my own videos using professional software, it will be difficult at first, but I hope that over time I will be able to get to grips with the technology and my blog will gradually improve.

I'm worried about getting behind the rest of the class because of not knowing something but hopefully i will be able to keep on top of all the tasks, and keep my blog up-to-date.

I chose media studies because I think it'll be a fun alternative to many other subjects and gives people the chance to be creative with their work, as well as learning loads about what goes on in the massively growing world of media and hopefully being a part of that.