what makes my film so special?

Unlike most mainstream action or rom-com films, this film is aimed at a more active than passive audience. When watching this, the audience has a greater opportunity to connect, attempting to answer various questions such as 'who, what, when, where and how'. This is exactly why i have aimed this at a more middle class audience as it's more likely that i will get a reliable, understanding reaction. For those who fancy themselves as more of a thinking viewer, this riddle of a film is a must.

8 mile

'A young rapper, struggling with every aspect of his life, wants to make the most of what could be his final opportunity but his problems around gives him doubts'

Jimmy Smith (Eminem), known by friends as Rabbit, is a young man trying to make his way out of the burned-out shell of inner-city Detroit. Rabbit's entire life has been a hard climb. He's just been dumped by his girlfriend, forcing him to move back in with his emotionally unstable mother, Stephanie (Kim Basinger), and he's not getting on so well with Stephanie's new boyfriend. Rabbit has a factory job that's tough, degrading, and doesn't pay especially well, and he's convinced his skills as a rapper are his only real hope at a better life. Rabbit makes music with a crew of DJ's and MC's who call themselves Three One Third, among them his close friend Future (Mekhi Phifer), but his status as a white guy making music in a predominantly African-American community and culture is extremely intimidating.

The story of Jimmy's life is what inspired me to play William Chester, arguably, as an isolated and confused character. Alike Jimmy, William hasn't had the easiest of lives and feels he is circling the plug hole as his life progresses. But an opportunity has risen, which gives the young man more purpose than he could ever imagine. Confusing, initially negative, diversions take place which only makes his journey harder, for in this modern day, supernatural events remain nothing more than tales in the eyes of the population. It seems that William must tackle this dilemma on his own.

preliminary task- 'the audition'

opening sequences- rough plan

Target audience:

• age 15-35
• primarily ABC1
• Art cinema audience
• Both genders should find the film attractive for viewing as more male audience luring details such as action sequences will be infrequent. It involves more thought provoking details which men and women can appreciate.

Inspirational films:

• 8 mile- I find the location of a downtrodden toilet room very relevant to the storyline, as the whole concept of the underground hip hop scene is a very secretive and dark reality. I would like to use a similar location to shoot my first sequence of shots.

• Sin City- The one factor which i think makes this film stand out is the presentation of colour and symbolism within it. Through its simplicity, the change in colour gives you the perception of the surrealism within the film e.g. powerful colours such as green and red are made to stand out from the black and white surrounding. As a slight alternative i have a rough idea of changing the colour of the entire shot at significant points with the slight urge of highlighting strong colours within black and white shots.

Target actor:

 Main character:

• Male
• adolescent 
• potentially innocent looking
• regular build
• facially eye catching
• acting talent

Supernatural character

• preferably tall (more overpowering effect)
• other features aren't needed (covered by costume)

My Idea....

I have a rough idea involving the story of a young man (William Chester) who's, initially, unknowingly involved in supernatural events. He is pursued by a being who's out of this world and is finding it hard not to slip into insanity. Reasons behind, and developments after the opening sequence reveals a clear significance in the main character. The first few shots in the sequence will be shown primarily as close up, profile and POV shots. As the sequence proceeds wider shots will be used in various different angles, to give particularly creepy effects (involving the supernatural character). The 'sin city' inspired black and white effect will be used throughout most of the sequence, although the degree of the effect will depend on what editing software i use.

Music

conveniently, i found that my brothers music fitted my chosen genre and specific storyline effectively. 'the depths' by banditude will be the song i choose to use withing the opening sequence. The alternative style to the song fits the uneased situation and sets the intended mood.

Another option is the song 'Imogen Heap -2-1 (Murdok remix)'. I love the way Murdok has remixed this song as the lyrics and heavy drop suit  the opening sequence very effectively. The story is raw, so i need a raw song.

A third choice would be the song 'Despina Vandi - GIA ( nhertz remix )'. Nhertz brings a very dark, creepy feel to this song, which matches the eeriness of the storyline.

Hide & Seek productions.

opening sequences- responses to clips

In class we watched several previously made opening sequences by other A level students. In general i learnt that there were several things which would be best avoided, for example, actors of the same age being used(depending on style of film) , cheesy lines and circumstances, gangster + horror orientated themes (hard to pull off).

Time warners takeover of british IPC media

Time warners take over of British publisher IPC media has given the NME brand a new lease of life. discuss.

your answer should show an understanding of the concept of synergy as it relates to media business + convergence (multiplatform delivery of content)

NME is the longest published and the most respected music weekly in the world. Every week it gives its readers the most exiting, most authoritative coverage of the very best in contemporary music.In the 1970s it became the best-selling British music magazine. The popularity of the NME brand had become very popular through the mewdium of the internet, although hard back copies of the issues weren't quite as successful. This changed quite dramarically since the infamous Time Warner corp, took over.

NME has almost definitely been a great success throughout it's well pronounced history, but it was the synergy between Time Wrner and IPC which really allowed the magazine to take off. The convergence between the two platforms of media drew great benefits for times, aswell as NME. The financial dependence on Times allowed NME to sacrafice more money for their revenue e.g. delivering more issues to sales providers, placing more advertising within other brands of magazine (usually IPC's brands. In tewrms of Tmes Warners benefits, the fact that they had claimed IPC meant that they could make a bigger name for themselves, through brands such as NME.

This achieved higher status not only drew in more of an audience, but attracted diversity within the audience. Within the IPC media platform there are many different genre of magazine e.g. Country life, Marie Claire and TVTimes. It would seem that Times had captivated the attention of a convincing number of readers. Although, however successful this may sound, there is a possible disadvatage to this. Through Times's aim to gain control of the market, they had become more monopoly based corporation. This can be a disadvatage, as ideas and development will derive from one source. This may allow regional identity to effect how merchandise and such is delivered and presented e.g an audience in Asia may not find a product produced in America very attractive, hence affecting sales and profits.

I believe that a more oligopoly based corporation would benefit greatly. Representatives can be based over many locations worldwide, meaning that each location representing the corporations can be influenced by the region in which they are based. This way products can be specified to attract the general local audience.

Time Warner has given the NME brand a new lease of life. Although NME will always be successful through the digital form of magazine e.g the NME app, there will always be hard backed religious readers who will need to be provided for. The control of Times allosw a very strong dependence on NME's part, meaning magazines will continue to be provided succesful through multiple forms of medium.

sound

To have sound on a film was a massive revolution. It enhances/matches the feelings of the character. Without atmospheric music, a scene won't seem as tense/scary/emotional.

Diegesis --> diegetic sound in the film's world belonging to the film's diegesis.

Diegetic --> sounds in the film's world, creates a real world

Non-diegetic --> sounds that are added: music, voice-overs

On-screen --> see it and hear it at the same time

Off-screen --> can't see it but can hear it


The Soundtrack and Foley tracks are both very important.

Foley track --> the soundtrack of natural everyday sounds for a film. Additional natural, incidental and ambient sounds are added to the recording from sound effect libraries or from the Foley artists’ personal collection. The purpose of recreating this track is to provide a much clearer professional production of the soundtrack than would have been recorded on location.

Sound bridge --> sound from one scene continues into/over the next scene (makes it flow better)

Parallel sound --> audio and visual effects match, not in synchronicity, but in tone and mood

Contrapuntal sound --> music and visual elements play against each other, and are in contrast

What should opening sequences achieve?

• introduce the characters, location & time
• engage and captivate the audience
• show the core themes and signify the genre
• introduce the narrative structure
• generic conventions to satisfy audience expectations of genre/director/actors
• establish iconography that will continue throughout the film
• be able to dictate the pace of the film
• credits/titles
• soundtrack that establishes the genre and mood and creates a sound that is recognisable as that film (with motifs that will be used throughout the film)
• give clues that will relate to the future story

(practice project for main production piece) - 'The Burden'

This project was very interesting, being our first serious project. Miss gave us all the word 'albatross' to base our project on. We were warned not to make the short film predictable, for example, literally involving an albatross in the filming. So we researched the meaning of the word and found that it roughly represented a burden of some sort. This was our starting point.

We were limited to filming in school time, so we found it ideal to involve education at some point. The story is based around the life of one student who is struggling in life, having to try balance his school work with looking after his fatally ill sister (the burden).

When looking at the edited version of the short clip, we could see the story being told quite effectively. But seeing as the project was a learning process, we realised that there was still room for improvement, for example, length of cuts, effective camera angles, lighting. Harriet and I found the roles we took on quite challenging, seeing as the story was sad and gloomy, very much unlike ourselves. But again we realised it was a learning experience and we could only improve from it.

Overall our team worked very well. We presumed that moulding all the different ideas we had together would be difficult, but we proved ourselves wrong. There was no argument while filming and few disagreements to new propositions, which made the whole process run a lot smoother.

Highlights of the film:

• Point of view shot- this was filmed down the school corridor in the middle block. In this clip many students walked down the corridor, it being the end of a lesson. in the shot you could see a hand reach out occasionally as the character pushes past people. We thought having a jittery camera view as well as the pronounced heart beat for audio added uneasiness to the clip. 

•  The shot of the girl laying sick in the bed as the boy sits at the end added to the meaning of the film. The girl is shown to be of less focus in the scene, which actually tells you what situation he's in. You can see the boy more defined and visible compared to the shaded character who sits further back in the shot. This signifies his potential to achieve greatly in his school work, but there is still something that deters him, lingering in the background.