Sonya/Julian's lessons

 Thursday 17th September 2020

Film Trailers 

Film Trailers  How does the story or characters relate to the genre? How does the filmmaking relate to the genre? (music, lightning, props sound, shots, etc…)  Romance: Love and basketball            Girls Trip           The fault in our stars   The characters end up falling in love later on in their lives and having difficulties staying in touch with each, having the same profession      The story shows how four ladies fall in love with their partners in their own unique ways.      The characters meet in a unique way. Both attending support groups for being diagnosed with cancer  Use of different camera shots such as extreme closeups. Sounds such as ambient sound were used to analysis the scene for the audience. the setting also stand out as well hence"basketball" in the title            The use of music in intense moments and also funny moments. The use of sound such as ambient sound and synchronised sounds.    The use of music in heartful moments to show the happiness of the characters. Additionally, to also show the characters sorrows with the sad music and the shots showing how sad they are.

Thursday 24th September 2020

GENRE THEORY 

Name of the film chosen: Black Panther

 

1.    What genre is it? 

·      Action 

·      Science Fiction 

·      Adventure 

·      Superhero 

·      Fantasy 

 

 

2.    What are the expectations of this genre?

 

·      The expectations of these genres were that we are likely to see lots of action. Fighting between the characters to show us the audience the intensity they try to build for us. The use of colour scheme in black panther such as palette has 4 colours such as rich black. The colour combinations makes up the suit which in a way meets our expectations because all superhero colour schemes are really vibrant. The setting allows us to imagine that we are really in the movie with them. It also shows us the different types of setting makes the scene. The lighting used was quite similar to other superhero movies. So, it did meet expectations. The camera movements made the movie more intense for the audience. For example, in the fighting scenes the camera movements were a lot. Which indicates the tense built up within the characters. Sound effects were also used to allow the audience to interact with the scenes a lot better. 

In your answer you can refer to 

·      Use of colour

·      Setting

·      Lighting

·      Use of stereotypes/stock characters

·      imagery

·      Camera movements

·      Sound effects

·      Transitions/edits

·      Dialogue 

 

 

3.    How does it differ in these expectations?

 

·      The movie highlights the different parts that stands out to the audience such as majority black characters. This suggests that there is a change for once in the movie superhero industry. As an audience member this implies that the is some type of diversity and more open minded people.it is different from other superhero movies. with in a way I did and didn't expect. because the title in a way gives it away  

 

Key words for analysis 

The use of… 

·      Suggests

·      Implies

·      Conveys

·      Highlights

·      Reveals

Thursday 1st  October 2020

Narrative Theory Task

Step One:

Think of a film you know: Captain Marvel

Step Two: Genre Theory

1. What genre is it in?

• The Genre of this film is  Action, Science-fiction,Fantasy.

  
  

2. How does it meet the expectations of the genre?

• This movie has a superhero per usual and is always the one everyone wants to succeed. This movie does meet the expectations because we expect the superhero to always save the day. and in this movie she did but per usual it wasn't easy for her to have victory.

  
  

3. How does it subvert/go against the expectations of the genre?

• Captain Marvel subverts our expectation by having a lead female. From the start of the movie we expect that there is no way a female would be able to outdo her male superior without some sort of superpower. however , at some parts of the film they forget to emphasise the fact that the main character is powerful despite her feminist. so we rally did not expect the plot twist.

Step Three: Propp’s Character Theory

• HERO: The hero is obviously the main character. This is the one everyone wants to do well and roots for. Which in this case is Carol Danvers. 

• 
  

VILLAIN: Frost Man is the villain in this film. He wants to take out the hero and become the hero in a sense, but he uses his powers for evil not for good, which is usually what most villain do.

• FALSE HERO: Yon-rugg

• HELPER: Nick fury is the helper in the movie. He helps Carol navigate where she is meant to be and helped her gain her powers back when she lost them. 

• DONOR: The donor in this movie is also the helper however, there is a cat that also contributed to the main character succession. The cat hid something that was used for evil inorder to help the main character.

PRINCESS:  This is the character's best friend. I think this is the main character's reward because when Carol succeeded in her fight, she was the one she went back to, so this indicates to me as an audience that this might be her reward after her victory. Furthermore, it might be confirmed later on that they end up together as a couple

Hero, Villain, False Hero, Helper, Donor, Princess

Step Four: Todorov’s Narrative

Equilibrium: This is when the character is introduced to us, as a normal person. in this movie carol was introduced as the lead by, we know this because the story is revolved around her

Disruption: This is when she realise she has powers and people are after her so she realises there is a  problem 

Recognition: This is when carol looked at how bad the bad guys wants her dead, and she has to do something before it’s too late

Repair: This is when she now goes to fight her enemy who has caused her a lot of problems.And tries to fix what her enemy has destroyed.

New Equilibrium: she now has peace because she won the highly anticipated fight and goes back to her happy place, which is with her best friend.  

Wednesday 7th October 2020

Narrative 2- Barthes and Binary Opposition

Movie : "we" (my version of "us"

A) Equilibrium: The characters are normal in the beginning no one suspects anything from no one. they have been introduced to the audience as four main characters

Disruption: When their evil doppelgängers starts revelling themselves as their evil sides. and also being haunted by their dramatic experience from the past

Recognition: when they see four masked strangers descending from their house, then the masked been revealed to show that this is them fighting for survival from themselves.

Repair: they now realise that this is themselves they are fighting so they have to know their own strengths and weaknesses in order to win against themselves. 

New Equilibrium: They now know that its not them just fighting against themselves its a much deeper thing so they realise that in order to overcome their evil selfs they have to face them and stop avoiding it. furthermore, they ended up facing themselves and found out that they are battling their real selfs not just the evil part of them. this comes as a shock because we always thought that its their bad side then realising its actually their true self they've bee avoiding all along.

B) HERO: In my movie the hero is the mother. she's the hero because she wants to save her husband and their two kids which, she ends up doing at the end

VILLAIN: This is the four masked version of themselves. they are the villain because they try to kill their good selfs in order to take over as them.

FALSE HERO: This is the "sj" who pretends to be on the families said however, later on we find out that they have been plotting all along and is secretly against them.

HELPER: this is "Cody" he helps them figure out who the villains are and how to overcome them.

DONER: this person is "will" he gave them his knowledge on doppelgängers which helped because he said there is always something different about them that no one ever figures out. which we found out that it was true no one ever guessed the little thing that separated them from their real selfs

PRINCESS: i would say in my movie there is no princesses however in the end the hero gets her real husband back and live happily ever after but obviously its not all sun shine and rainbows but they still manage to stay together as a family with their two children but s always there is a plot twist in there.

C) My movie is quite similar to us the original movie however i have a few plot twits in there that makes it different from the original movie. the similarities we have are the evil doppelgängers, then the differences we both have were that how mine ended with a cliff-hanger.

• D) Good v Evil
• Strong v weak
• Ignorance v wisdom
• Empowered v victim

E)How did they become doppelgänger's

• How did they react finding out what happened
• why did they choose that specific beach to go to

Wednesday 14th October 2020

Auteur Theory Task

• The Auteur theory says that
• - the director is the 'author' of the film. they are responsible for how good a film is.
• the film therefore reflects the director's taste and interests.

1. Auteur theory: is when the director is viewed as the major creative force in the movie 
2. Auteur theory comes from a French publication in 1954 of Cahiers du Cinema.
3. ss

• David Russell is an American film director, screenwriter and producer. his early directing career includes the comedy films spanking the monkey, flirting with disaster, three kings and i heart Huckabees. three of Russell's more recent films: the fighter, silver linings playbook and American hustle, were commercially successful and acclaimed by critics, having earned Russell three Academy Award nominations for best director as well as a best adapted screenplay nominated for silver linings playbook and a best original screenplay nominated for American Hustle. Russell received his seventh Golden Globe nomination for the semi-biographical comedy-drama joy(2005)
• Spanking the monkey, the 1994 independent dark comedy, was his first directional effort. the film was produced by Dean silvers and starred Jeremy Davies as a troubled young man and someone as his lonely mother. despite the controversial matter the film received critical acclaim and won him best first screenplay and best feature from the independent spirit awards, as well as the audience at the Sundance film festival 
• I think he is an auteur because all his movies have a patterned in them and the all in a way relate to who he is as a person 

Wednesday 18th November 2020

 

How Context Affects Film

A) Hollywood pre 1990: Gandhi is a 1982  biographical film based on the life of Mahatma Gandhi, the leader of nonviolent non cooperative Indian independent movement.it is directed and produced by Richard Attenborough from a screenplay written by john Briley. The film stars Ben Kingsley in in the title role. the film covers Gandhi's life from a defining movement in 1893, as he is thrown off a south African train for being in a whites-only compartment, and concludes with his assassination and funeral in 1948.

B) Nollywood: Lion-heart this film isn't considered as your typical nollywood movie. It is a Nigerian drama film produced by Chinny Onwugbenu and directed by Genevieve Nnaji. it stars various popular nigerian actors and actresses. the film was acquired by Netflix making it the first netflix original film produced in Nigeria. Lionheart premiered at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival in Canada. the film was Nnaji's directorial debut.

C) British Films:

Wednesday 25th November 2020

Technology

Digital Camera

• I think the most significant technological change in filmmaking is the introduction of Digital Cameras. the first Digital Camera was created by Steve Sasson in 1975. it was built using parts of kits and leftovers around the Kodak Factory and an early CCD image sensor from Fairchild in 1974. the camera was about the size of a breadbox and it took 23 seconds to capture a single image.

Fujifilm FinePix S1 Pro was the first interchangeable-lens DSLR to hit the market. Priced at $3500, it was marketed as a camera for serious amateur photographers. It was based on the Nikon N60 that was modified by Fujifilm to include its own image sensor. Given that the S1 Pro had a Nikon F mount, it was compatible with all Nikon manual and AF lenses. The FinePix S1 Pro had Fuji’s 3.1MP, APS-C-format Super CCD Sensor that output images with a resolution of 6.13MP, and enabled sensitivity settings up to ISO 1600.

Wednesday 9th November 2020 

Budgets & Studio/Independent Films

• Studio Films: These are mainstream film with big budgets made by major Hollywood studios. studio film have higher  production values and star actors. example of this might be the Hunger games series, Batman V Superman.
• All these films are usually distributed by the studios that make them. the studio are often multinational media conglomerates that own companies across a range of various media platforms 
• This means that these conglomerates can use all the companies they own to promote and market a film 
• This use of all media conglomerate's companies to produce, Promote, market and distribute a film and its official merchandise is called Vertical integration 

Studio Films-Marketing

Studio films are usually hyped up by the companies that produce them.

Cross-platform strategies are used to appeal to a full range of potential audience. the James Bond film Spectre used a marketing method which included:

Viral campaigns, adverts or interviews

Independent Films 

independent films usually has a smaller budgets and sometimes as a result, lower production values. that are less likely to have so called A-list actors. Examples might be Juno, Bird man  or Brooklyn 

Financing 

independent film productions raise money from a variety of sources. they can secure funding from private investors but usually they are funded by arts agencies, such as the British Film Council or the British Film Institute 

Release 

Horizontal integration is when a conglomerate uses smaller independent companies to help with marketing, distribution or even the exhibition of a film. 

Promotion 

Independent films rely heavily on critic reviews in newspapers, magazines or online publications that specialise in independent film.

Prizes from film festivals help 

Wednesday 16th November 

Film Trends 

• Interconnectivity 
• adventure films(family-friendly)
• fewer adult thrillers
• fewer mid-budget adult films(20-60m)
• Micro-budget horros 
• mixture of genre(comedy, action sf) 
• love interests in blockbuster films(no romantic comedies) 
• film based on IP (intellectual property) 
• CGI
• decline of film stars(will smith, Robert Downey jr, the rock, Leonardo DiCaprio.
• Film made for streaming platforms 
• Sequelisation 
• fast editing
• 
  

Wednesday 27th January 2021

Introduction to Creating a film for a Target Audience 

Mass Market audience Interested in sports 

• Love and Basketball(2000) BASKETBALL
• The blind side(2009 AMERICAN FOOTBALL 
• Bring it on(2000) CHEERLEADING 

1. Quincy and Monica, the main characters both dream of playing professional basketball. Quincy has the easy path to success because he's a male. Meanwhile, Monica has to work hard to repeatedly establish herself, overcoming obstacles at each level of play. in the end, Monica makes it to the WNBA because she stayed focused on her objective. this appeals to its target audience because the storyline is relatable. it shows how every relationship has its own struggles but this was done through a sport that majority of people love. i consider this a good marketing strategy. 
2. The film is about a homeless black teen, who has been drifted in and out of the school system for years, then Leigh Anne and her husband take him in, they eventually becomes Micheal's legal guardians transforming his life. The film goes with emotion which is good because the vast majority can often relate
3. This film was quite popular when it came out because in the early 00s cheerleading was popular, this meant that every movie that came out having something to do with cheerleading had a massive not all did though. the target audience for this movie was teenagers however, everyone interested in a sport movie is likely to watch it. 

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 

Initial Research 

Just wright 2 

The film I have chosen Is just wright 2, which Is my version of the original movie Just wright. The film was released in 2010 and the production company was flavor unit Entertainment. The film is set in United States and the genre of the film are Romantic comedy and drama. The film had multiple producers including Debra Martin Chase, Queen Latifah and Shakim Compere. These are all we known people, which is an advantage because more people are likely to watch if they know their favorite producer is in a film. A producer oversees film production. As a producer it is important to oversee every aspect of production from idea to distribution because if the producer doesn’t do it the end result wouldn’t be as they imagined and they might not be happy with their final product.

 The research technique available to the producers was test screening. This is when producers  hold a preview screening of their movie before its general release to the public. The films rating is PG which is parental guidance it was rated this because of some suggestive material and brief language. I think they targeted this specific audience based of the content they had in the movie like basketball. They knew a lot people are interested in that sport which was good because it brought a lot of attraction to the movie. The film was marketed through the use of film posters, trailers and production Blogs promoting it. The film was distributed by Fox searchlight pictures which an American film studio within Walt Disney. it being within Disney that right there tells us that the film reached it target audience. 

Wednesday 10th February 2021 

The Plan 

Title: Just Wright 2

Tagline: Is it Worth fighting for?

• My Film starts off with the introduction of one of my main characters Scott Mcknight. He is introduced first because the story is centered around him in the beginning. Then we go on to find out his ambition, which  is a professional baseball player. He is a happy man with lots of money, so finding a partner in life isn't really hard for him however, finding a partner with the right intentions is what he’s afraid of. The middle part is where it all goes downhill for him and the female character is introduced. This female character Leslie Wright is a physical therapist. her and her God-sister, Morgan, are living together and Morgan wants to be an Nba trophy wife. after a basketball game Leslie helps scott at the gas station. he then invites her to his birthday party, this is where she shows up with Morgan. Scott is then introduced to Morgan, instantly he takes interest in her. After dating for a while they end up engaged. Leslie then gets a gig of a lifetime working with the NBA star Scott McKnight. Scott Mcknight tore his acl whilst playing a game which isn’t good for his profession. This is where we see how depressed he’s become. He goes from this happy man to someone who can’t play the game he loves. Morgan suggests that scott enlists Leslies help so Leslie Moves in with Morgan and Scott. this is where rumours started circulating that's scotts injury might end his career if he does not recovery quickly. This is where we see Morgans true colours because she ends up leaving him in his time of need. Furthermore as the story goes on, the more time Scott and Leslie spend with each other the more they realise they are similar in some ways, this is where we start to see them fall for each other.

Scott Mcknight: Common 

Leslie Wright: Queen Latifah 

Morgan Alexander: Paula Patton 

Intended Audience: Mass Market audience interested in sports

Genre: Drama/ Romance

Age: 15