Risk Assessment

This is our risk assessments that we did as a group in order to identify the hazards that could take place within filming. We wanted to identify how these hazards could be overcome and solved. For example, in the first one we discussed how the camera equipment can be ruined and how we can prevent this from happening. We will then rate how dangerous the hazard is on a scale of 1-10.

Production Diary

Day number 1. 9/11/15 On day number one we had to think about the group we were going to be in. We also had to start by writing our individual pitch ideas onto our emaze that has been uploaded onto my blog.

Day number 2. 10/11/15
The second day of our meeting we each presented our presentations to the group in order to voice our initial ideas making it easier for us to expand our ideas.

Day number 3. 12/11/15
Today we have drawn a group mind map of all our ideas. We made our ideas anonymous to avoid having problems deciding which idea to go for.

Day number 4. 13/11/15
On day number three of planning we showed our presentation to our class and got feedback. we discussed straight away the feedback and responses that we got in order to better our ideas and tweak them slightly.

Day number 5. 18/11/15
On day number 5 we filmed the storyboard and put it together. We each got on with our jobs and I scouted a year 8 to play our 12 year old Sam Brewer.

Day number 6. 19/11/15
On day number 6 we each got on with our allocated jobs. Megan wasn't in so we had to try to work around that, to do that we aimed to complete more jobs than usual to make up for the missed time.

Day number 7. 20/11/15
Today we have continued to do our individual contributions to the opening. Max was finding titles from similar films to copy and Megan was doing a shot list. Spencer was not able to make it to the lesson today therefore we had to compromise and just ensure we were all on task doing helpful things.

StoryBoard



This is our story board, to show what we plan to have and film within our movie opening. The reason why we chose colours and images to portray each shot, was that so we can be reminded visually of our goals. We want to make each shot the best it can be, and we do not want to settle for anything less. We put a rough time amount/ limit so that when we are filming, we gain a rough idea of how long we should do each shot for. This also gave us an overall idea of how long our film opening will be and whether or not we need to make certain shots longer or shorter. The only thing we could have done better is put on each box the types of shots that we aim to do for each one, a defined word, rather than just movements. However, we added just enough information to gain a good understanding of the overall aims for our film opening. The box underneath the images allow us to tick off each section as we do it. Meaning that we can keep it organised and planned, not falling behind. A big thing for our group is staying on track and doing everything we are physically possible to stay organised and get an excellent end product.

Characters

Characters
 
The first character will be played by Max who plays James - James is a henchmen for Jade who is in control of the group of criminals. He is independent as shown throughout the movie opening as he goes off by himself a lot. Whereas all the characters wear black, James wears a blue jumper to show his independence.
 
Next is Megan who plays Ellie and Jade - Ellie is a normal girl who is just at home. She is a typical teenage girl who is the innocent party in what is going on. She wears normal clothes. Jade is Ellie's twin sister who is involved in some sort of criminal activity. She wears all black but directs the others to show her authority.
 
Then we have Melissa who plays Rose - Rose is a loyal follower to Jade and specialises in working with tools and breaking into areas that they need to go to. This is shown when she breaks into the house in our opening. She is very tough and can definitely handle her own but likes being in a group. She wears all black with the rest of her crew to show she is a criminal.
 
Lastly we have Spencer who plays Tom - Tom is the guy who has anything that you need. If another member needs some kind of tool or weapon, Tom is the guy to get that for you. This is shown when he hands Rose the tool case so they can enter the house they looking inside. He will wear all black as well to fit in with the group.

Ttitles for our movie opening

Titles
The titles in our movie opening are one of the most important factors in getting the highest mark possible. If the titles are wrong this can be costly as we could lose a lot of marks. Below are the following titles that we will use throughout our movie opening.
 
 SM studio's presents

A Never Forgotten Production

Melissa Hariz

Spencer Stevenson

Max Duffy

Megan Thomas

Casting by Amanda Lee

Costume design by Lisa Moore

Music By Nathan Hall

Edited by Niall Waters

Production design by Willow Childs

Director of Photogrophy by Lucy Sapwood

Co- Producer  Rachel Headly

Produced by Frankie Croft

Written and Directed by Archie Smith

What is Institution?

A media institution is someone that owns a large number of companies in various mas media such as television, radio, newspaper, movies and internet. There are the big 6 media institutions that own 95% of the total media. The big six consists of GE, News Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS.
 
These big six media institutions have been slowly buying other companies to own a bigger share of the overall media. In 1988 the media was owned by 50 companies and today it is all owned by six.
Rupert Murdoch controls over a 5th of the media. Rupert Murdoch owns News cooperation which is one of the big six. This also means that he owns Fox, Wall street Journal and New York Post. This means Rupert Murdoch can control what does and doesn't go into the news which gives him a lot of power. 

Mood Board



Mood Board
 
The mood board shows everything that will affect our opening as we will take inspiration from a lot of things that i will show below. We use the mood board to get a better idea of what our movie will look like and what we want it to look like. Our opening is based around some kind of criminal activity. The idea of it a heist/kidnapping idea so we want the start to be quite dark but also pretty fast paced. There are six characters, 5 criminals and one girl. The criminals will be wearing masks and will start off in a van.


Props





Mood Board

The Mood Board

The mood board shows everything that is needed and that we have used to have influence on the opening scene. Firstly our opening scene is based around army life and following an individuals life. This includes all ages. We really wanted to emphasise that army life is a serious and forever growing cycle that many people aren't aware of. This is why the mood board includes several quotes and disturbing pictures to do with being a soldier. Secondly I had to focus on setting. This way we are including facts without directly telling the audience, meaning we have drifted away from making it seem like a documentary. Thirdly we had to think of a key idea that would make our film stand out and seem original. To do this we decided to attempt a 'deathbed thoughts' sort of scene. We would make this clear by adding in the stereotypical 'white light' shining in and then directly cut to flashbacks of this persons life. To show clearly we are inside the mind going through all this soldier's memories.

 

Title Ideas

Title Ideas

The opening titles of a movie opening are very important. If the titles aren't laid out correctly or you have used the wrong names for roles, it can make your movie opening look very unprofessional and you can get marked down for it. So I have to make sure that the titles are perfect in our movie opening. Our film is army based so I'm looking for inspiration from films such as "Saving Private Ryan" and "Top Gun". These film did really well at box office so I feel that we should copy their
theme in the titles.
My group thinks that because we are creating an army film the credits need to be plain and regimental. Top Gun shows these credits well. Plain, White and the writing is simple. This presents the army theme well because the army like to strip individuality from people and make them all the same, so the titles can't be anything special. But Megan thinks that we should go for a greenish colour because when you think army you think green army costumes. if we mixed the two it would show a real army stereotype within the credits. This will give our audience a hint about what genre our movie opening scene.

Audience

Audience
Q1.What do we mean when we use the word film?
I think of an independent film when I uses the world film. I think of a low budget film that has been recorded on poor cameras and has no good stars in it.

Do you think films is the same word as movie?
I associate movies with big blockbusters. Movies describes high budget films that have great storylines that will attract you and Hollywood's biggest stars. Movie seems more classy than film.

What do you think the word cinema means?
Cinema is where you go to showings of the film/Movie but have to pay for a ticket and popcorn. This is how cinemas and movies makes their money.

Q2. Top 10 Films
1. Never Back Down
2. 2 fast 2 furious
3. Matrix
4. Top Gun
5. Southpaw
6. The prestige
7. Prisoners
8. Men In Black 3
9. Never Back down 2
10. The Town


Q3. What film has stuck with you since you were a child?
Finding Nemo is a film that has stuck with me ever since I was a child. The morals of the film have never left me. Finding Nemo shows to never give up and this used to motivate me when I was younger. Finding Nemo also teaches you to keep family close. Also the colours used during the film was amazing. As a child the amazing use of colours really pulled me in.

Q4. How do you find out about a film?
I usually find out about a film from a friend or I find the trailer on YouTube. These are the two main ways I found out about a film.
What makes you want to see a film?
A really exciting trailer is what makes me want to see a film. If the trailer is exciting the film must be exciting. If the trailer is boring the film must be boring.
How do you know what to expect from a film?
You don't really know what to expect from a film. I look at the trailers and if the trailer is boring I wont go see the film. If I really like the look of a film I might look at the review. If the review is poor I may not go see it, but if it is good it will usually draw me to go see it.
What our you paying for when you buy a ticket or a DVD?
You are paying for the film they have just made e.g. cameras, microphones, tripods, vehicles, Actors and directors. By buying a ticket you help lower their costs.
Where can you watch films?
You can watch films in cinema or on a media platform such as Netflix or Amazon Prime


Moby Music

Music Copyright
In media the other day our teacher told us that we cant use music that has been produced by a record label or has been copyrighted, unless its more then 50 years old. This was annoying to hear because our group had our hearts set on a piece of music we wanted to use called "Flower" by Moby. Because this song isn't 50 years old and is copyrighted I thought that we wouldn't be able to use it. So I had a little look into Moby's music and I found out that he allows students and indie film makers to use his music free of charge. This means that we have Moby's permission to use his song in our video. This is a short video of "Moby" himself explain it and his website link will be below the video.
http://www.mobygratis.com/

Ideas For Our Movie Opening

Movie Opening Idea's

In our movie opening we are having a child growing into an adult over the years. But we will show him growing up whilst training to become a soldier. Because our opening scene is going to be featuring a lot of training, I've looked up some film scenes that I think have pulled off training scenes well. The first one I thought was a good example was "Never Back Down"

Even though this film is about training to become a UFC fighter, most of the training would be used if training to be a soldier .The reason I like this first of all is the sound. The music in the background is very motivating and gets the audience pumped, this is good use of music because when people train they like to listen to music that motivates them and gets them through the session. They have also used "Foley" well with the sound of the punching bag being punched and the brick hitting the floor. This sells the scene even more to the audience. Secondly, I like the shots used in this scene. Most the shots have the action he is doing and his face in it. This gives the audience the effect that he is training hard because he is squinting, taking deep breathes and sweating. All these small things sell the scene even more, so I think we should try integrate that  into our film.


South Paw
This is my favourite training scene because you can really see the determination in his eyes and the editing is amazing. First off, exactly like "never back down" they have included all the small stuff e.g. Sweating, heavy breathing and intense facial expressions. But what I like about this one is that the music is quite dark, but motivating at the same time. But because the music is quite dark they have filmed in a dirty, run down, dark boxing club. This shows that thee character has an evil side to him. Secondly in the editing they have lowered the lighting to make the room darker, this links in with my last point. The editors have also made it a bit of a montage. A montage is short sharp clips that have been added together. This gives the audience a sense of action and that he has been training for hours upon hours. This is what we need to include in our film because we need to show him training over a number of years. This will then give our audience a sense of time.
Never Back Down 2
This scene is a little irrelevant because the whole scene is concentrating on UFC, but I still think the shots used are a good example of what we could use for our film. The shots are short, sharp and constantly changing. Also the music goes well with this scene because the music is very modern and American, so it suits the scene well. I've noticed that a good way to show that time has passed is by changing their clothes and changing from night to day . This makes it seem like days/weeks have passed of training.

My Groups Film Pitch

Powered by emaze
My Group consists of Me, Megan, Melissa and Spencer. I'm really pleased with this group because I know all of them quite well and I know that they will all pull their weight and will work hard. I feel that our group could make a decent film opening. Our Film is about a War Romance. It starts off with Sam (our main character) saying I want to be a soldier at age 4. Then it will cut to a year 7 (Henry Islam), this will be older Sam. We will then have year 7 Sam grow into me, then I will grow into my friend who is a Royal Marine. We thought this would be a good way to show him growing up and training to be a soldier. I think that it will involve a lot of editing, but we think we can pull it off.

Sound

Sound in Movies

There are lots of different types of sound in Movies.

Diegetic sound- is sound that the characters would be able to hear in the background of the scene e.g. Children playing, birds chirping and cars passing by.

Non- Diegetic- Sound that has been added in afterwards and is something that wouldn't be in a natural background e.g., a voice over or music.

Synchronous sound- Sounds that go with what you see on screen.

Asynchronous sound- We can see it on screen, but we can hear it.

Ambient sound- Creating an atmosphere. This is where sounds are faintly put into the background to create tension.



Prisoners Opening Scene
The start of the film is only diegetic sounds because this builds natural tension. The first 1 minute includes no non-diegetic sounds. When the scene then changes to being outside, you start to hear the sound of rain and thunder. Both these sounds have been added because they aren't normal sounds and plus it would of been hard to record these sounds. When we see the dark figure sitting in the car ambient music starts to play to build a creep atmosphere, this builds tension through non-diegetic sound. The car revving its engine is a good use of Foley because an RV's engine wouldn't usually sound like that, so they have over made the engine sound louder than it would so people will be able to hear it because it builds tension. Sound was used amazingly in the opening scene of "Prisoners", this is what I think personally made the opening amazing because the sound was used perfectly.

Filming Openings Analysis

A-level students film opening analysis

"Alone"

All shots were included and were of good quality. All the small things within the genre were there, this made the genre really easy to identify because the small things gave away the genre subtle. This gave their movie a very professional look. The sound was very subtle, but this was quite effective because it created an ambient atmosphere. The groups acting wasn't very good according to our teacher. So they played to their strengths by giving the actors a small amount of dialect instead of huge speeches.

"Luna"
All shots were of good quality and included shots like "shot reverse shot" and "match on action". I personally thing that the montage for the moving opening was a really good idea. This made this film opening look very professional because a montage is something a professional film would do. Plus having  montage is a little bit risky because they are hard to pull off, but I feel that this group lulled it off well.

"Poscig"

"Poscig" is a polish film. I felt like this group pulled it off well. I have never seen at polish film before, but I feel like if a saw one it would be something like that. All the actors seemed to speak decent polish and it came across as if they were polish. They also used polish movie productions at the start. This added to the Mise en scene and helped pull off the effect of it being a polish film. The subtitles seem to work well with the speech and it gives you enough time to read the text as well. The screen play also went well with the music. The music added to the intensity of the action.

"The Last Run"
This film was a little bit generic! It had a women running around a forest and there was a dark coated figure following her. "Pete Fraser" (he came in and did a talk about what to stay away from when making our media project) during his talk he said to stay away from running away from a dark figure. apparently this is too generic and will not score well. Although, I felt that the sound went really well with the camera shots. The sound really added to the intensity of  the chase. The titles looked quite basic, they didn't look like professional movie titles. I feel like this would of lost them a lot of marks.

"Creeping Shadows"
I feel that this film again was a little generic. The camera angles within the film were amazing. I think they had good use of light and it gave the audience a good perspective of the scene. Also, I think the sound went really well with the intensity of the scene. The main thing that let this group down was costume. The black figure (bad guy) Was just wearing a suit and a mask. Personally I feel that they could of added makeup to the villain and could of made his costume more eccentric. This would of really improved their movie opening.

"The Visitor"
This movie opening was amazing. There was great use of camera angles and light. Also I like the way they used sound bridges for the titles. This integrated the titles well into the scene. Makeup was also really good. The girl in white had long nails, scary face paint and a ripped white dress. This added to the Misen scene and gave us the effect of a ghost or demon. I thought their work looked amazing, but it looked more like a trailer, than a movie opening. The group would get marked down because if this.


Mark Scheme

Level 1 0–23 marks The work for the main task is possibly incomplete. There is minimal evidence in the work of the creative use of any relevant technical skills such as:• Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task; • using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; • using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;• shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; • using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects. Level 2 24–35 marks There is evidence of a basic level of ability in the creative use of some of the following technical skills:• Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task; • using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; • using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;• shooting material appropriate to the task set;, including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; • using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects. Level 3 36–47 marks There is evidence of proficiency in the creative use of many of the following technical skills:• Producing material appropriate for the target audience and task; • using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions; • using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;• shooting material appropriate to the task set; including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene; • using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.Level 4 48–60 marksThere is evidence of excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:• material appropriate for the target audience and task;• using titles appropriately according to institutional conventions;• using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;• shooting material appropriate to the task set;including controlled use of the camera, attention to framing, variety of shot distance and close attention to mise-en-scene;• using editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer and making selective and appropriate use of shot transitions and other effects.
 
(I copied this off the school media blog (http://www.gbhsas2015.blogspot.co.uk/))