graveyard shift presentation

In our last media studies lesson on tuesday the 27th we finished our animatics for our short film "graveyard shift" and at the end of the lesson we presented it to the class and the cless felt that it was a good and met its purpose as a horror comedy. It was pointed out that we have used the same shot more than once during our animatic which we did to save time and make it longer as our animatic had to be 2 minutes long and we had to lengthen it at short notice. We will not be doing this in our final film.

Storyboard Shots

This is a picture of our shots that we hand drew for our storyboard. We have also taken pictures using our mobile phones.

Production Company Update

We have renamed our production company
"Northern Yeti Productions"
We have created our production company animation which we made using Flash. We will place this at the start of our movie similar to the way film companies such as Paramount or Universal do.

Hot Fuzz Storyboard

I have produced a storyboard on Hot Fuzz. Although the film is slightly different to the genre we are using it is made and produced by the creators of Shaun of The Dead. Shaun Pegg and Edgar Wright use similar editing styles in both films and can help us decide on the shots we want to use in our final piece.


This first shot lasts for around 15 seconds. Which for the opening shot of an action movie is very long. However it establishes the scene in a formal tone, which is quite contrasted to the overall tone of the film. The shot itself is a long shot that tracks forward at the end.

The second shotis of a close up of a police badge. We are shown the name of the character and the information that he is a police officer obviously. The shot lasts for 2 seconds and sets the pace for the rest of the sequence.

The next shot is a wipe cut to close up track of a pair of feet in an office environment. This shot also lasts for 2 seconds.

The next shot is a mid shot of the protagonist "Nicholas Angel", he is dressed in practical police uniform. The shot lasts for 2 seconds.

The next cut is a straight cut to a side on mid shot of Angel. The camera tracks his fast pace forward. This shot is slightly longer, around 3/4 seconds.

The next cut is a soft zoom cut to the shoulder of Angel showing his shoulder and police number "777". It lasts for around 3 seconds. The next shot is the same as shot 5.

The next cut is a straight hard cut. It is a close up of two officers faces and pans to reveal Angel standing next to two other police officers. This shot lasts around 2 seconds.

The next shot is a mid shot that tracks forwards to single out Angel among all of the other officers.

The last shot is of a sideways tracking mid shot that moves away from the direction the police officers are moving. This shot lasts for 2 seconds.

Throughout the sequence there is constant use of diagetic noise with no soundtrack. However there is a voice over from Angel which explains his background and training to bring the audience to the equilibrium.

Opening of 'Shrooms'

Please note, that for some reason the image uploader has ordered the pictures from 10 to 1, so the timeline is backwards. Start from the bottom.

Link to the opening of 'Shrooms'; http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3p3fJtecGGg

Homework

The film I have chosen to story board is “severance” this is because it is the same genre of film as “Shaun of the dead” which is the film our group chose. I have done a story board of the first 10 clips of the film. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca-xhttoHjQ

Clip 1: This first clip is a two shot of two women running franticly through a dark wood.

Clip 2: The second clip is a medium shot of a man also frantically running through the same woods behind the two women

Clip 3: This is a match on action shot showing the the back view of the man running behind the two women in the woods.

Clip 4: This shot shows a side view of the two women running past the camera shot while still going through the woods.

Clip 5: This is a match on action shot of the women running through the woods. This is also a tracking shot of the two women running

Clip 6: this is also a match on action shot of the two women running through the woods. At the end of this clip you see the two women falling in to a ditch

Clip 7: this is also a match on action shot of the women falling in to the ditch.

Clip 8: this is again a match on action shot of the women falling and landing in the ditch.

Clip 9: this clip is of one of the two women attempting to get out of the ditch. This shot has been taken from inside the ditch

Clip 10: this clip is of the same women stepping back from the wall and then you see the man who was running behind them appearing on the side of the ditch. And then you hear the women say “Sir George help us”

Homework

Attempted to follow the link to complete the film education link homework, on narratives for a selected film, but the website does not work.

narrative clerks opening

http://www.mediaknowall.com/alevkeyconcepts/narrative.html

We learnt about narrative structure in film. We applied this to the film Clerks

Todorov - Equilibrium - Dante's day off
Disturbance - Phone Rings
New Equilbrium - End of film

The film follows a linear narrative

Dante ---> Phone call---> Goes to work

We have also learnt you can predict the ending or plot of a film based on it genre. For example a phone call in a comedy may lead to good news. Whereas in a horror movie a phone call normally signifies bad news.

http://www.filmeducation.org/secondary/concept/film-narr/docs/

Video Clip

Matt M:

I feel that this sequence shows how SotD utilises humour in a variety of dfferent ways to its advantage.

In one sense it is used to parody the horror and seirous drama occuring in the film, this takes the edge off of some of the more horrific or startling scenes. But by using comedy as a middle ground we find certain characters humourous and quirky in either there own oddly funny behaviour or hilarious lines and become attatched to all of them more than the default characters in a simple zombie action b-movie. This attatchment makes it all the more heart-wrenching when we see their losses (such as the scene with Shaun and Zombie Barbara in the Winchester, though this is not shown in the clip). So humour here is a double edged sword, dulling some of the drama, but intensifying other parts.

Some of the humour lies in the camera work and editing styles, where we see fast paced action montages for some of the most mundane scenes e.g: Shuan preparing his rather bland breakfast and getting ready for work. This is humourous in the sense that it is completley irrelevant to the scene, but also how it makes us think about how some films use these same editing styles to make their rather standard fight scenes more dramatic to the audience.

And finally, SotD uses comedy to seperate it from the traditional, run of the mill horror. But not in the Scary Movie style, parodying famous films with more adult content, SotD uses witty and sometimes rather dry humour to seprate itself from a simple remake and brings it into a light of its own. If it had been without this, I'm quite sure most people would see this as just another international remake, and wouldn't have even come close to the acclaim it has gathered.

12 January 2009 15:04

Research Production Meeting

This morning we watched a film about film production, express many different elements and the challenges of creating a film. We have also created a production company between us, which is called 'Guys. we'll head North from here Productions Ultd'. We have nominated each of us with certain positions:
Matt G - cinematographer
Matt M - Director
Elliot - producer
Billy - editor

Before this lesson we have prepared our storyboard via bluetoothing mobile phone pictures to the macs, this gave the outline of what our film will be consisted of. We also learnt how to use livetype. We then studied films to gain knowledge of shot types and narratives. These films were Wild at heart, Clerks, This is England, and Natural Born Killers.
We began to right scripts for our production.