Preliminary Task

What have I learnt from the preliminary task?

For our preliminary task my group decided to have our short sequence based on a humours situation. To convey this we focused especially on the confusion of my character and the anger of the other character. To do this we used several close ups and over the shoulder shots to show the other characters reactions to what was being said. Our whole practical production lasted for 57 seconds; to improve we could have made the sequence longer.

For our practical production we had to include 3 principles: Match on action, the 180o rule and shot reverse shot. We had to make sure we incorporated each of these principles and that they were noticeable to the audience. We did make sure we included each of the 3 principle, but some were more obvious than others.

Match on action: This is when unnecessary parts of the action are cut out in order to shorten a sequence. However, the clip still keeps its flow. We used this technique a few times in the sequence. We used it first at the very beginning of the production, when our main character is walking. We then cut to a clip of her opening the door. Here we cut out the action of her walking up to the door and reaching out for the handle. We also used match on action when she is walking to the table my character was sitting on. We saw her walking and then it skips several paces and she is grabbing the chair to sit down. Here we cut out the unnecessary parts of her walking.

180o rule: This is a rule in which the camera cannot cross an imaginary line. If used in a conversation type situation the camera must look over the shoulders on one side of the line, and not interchange unless this is to create purpose. This rule ensures that the audience is following what it happening, they can clearly see who is talking and who they are looking at. If this rule is broken it causes confusion as the audience may think a new person has joined in on the conversation. We used this rule when the two characters are having the conversation at the table. We used this to ensure the audience knew who was talking and to show the reaction of the other character.

Shot reverse shot: This principle is usually applied to conversation situations as it involves showing a character talking and another characters response or reaction. Quite often shot reverse shot is done over the shoulder, so it is used in interviews a lot as it shows the reaction to questions or answers. Shot reverse shot works along site the 180o rule. When filming over the shoulder the 180o rule cannot be broken as it causes confusion as to who is talking and who is responding to what. We used this principle with our 180o rule, the conversation at the table between the two characters.

We created a storyboard before we started shooting and this saved us a lot of time on set. This is because we knew what was going to happen in the scene, what was being said and how the camera should be set-up. It also gave us a good idea of what we wanted the shot to look like. The storyboard were also handy as we had quite a few ideas, instead of trying to remember these things whilst on set we wrote all of them down, this meant all of our ideas could be tested and if they did not work we would not use them.

We edited the production on a Mac, we added several transitions and effects to create meaning. First of all we uploaded all of our clips and chose the ones we were definitely going to use. We then used our storyboard to put them in order. Some of the clips needed cropping and moving about just to make the whole production flow better. We then decided to add some visual effects to the clips. We made all of our clips slightly darker as we felt it reflected the mood of the production, as the main character is angry and the other is confused both of these emotions have quite dark connotations. We also added transitions to make the production flow better. We added in two transitions. The first was between the main character reaching for a door and appearing on the other side, we used the fade out transition. We felt it would make it seem more like the end of one scene and the beginning of another. We also used a transition on the last of the clips, we simply made the last clip to fade out, this indicates to the audience that it is the end of the production.

Our idea came from a situation that happened during planning, we had no clear cut ideas and we were finding it difficult to decide unanimously on what we were going to do. Then out of the blue one of group members said something and we all were really confused, we then all agreed that would be a good situation for our practical production. We then began storyboarding and we all came up with things to contribute like: locations, dialogue and actors. Then our production just came together. We decided to fit each of the 3 principles in at different parts of the production based on what we had come up with.

Overall I am pleased with the outcome of our preliminary production as we successfully embodied each of the 3 principles in our production as well as sticking to our original storyline. If we were to improve it we should have made the production slightly longer as it seemed a bit rushed when we watched it back through.

Key Concepts homework

Analysis of film: Twilight
Genre is a way of classifying media products into categories (know as genre). The movies are classified according to its codes and conventions. Codes are signs that create meaning, there are two types of codes, technical and symbolic. Conventions are the accepted way of doing something, these actions help the audience recognize certain genres.

The film I have chosen to analyse is Twilight. The film is directed by Catherine Hardwicke and based on the fictional book written by Stephanie Meyer. Twilight is a hybrid genre, this means it fits the codes and conventions of more than one genre. Twilight fits both the action and romantic genres. The typical codes and conventions of the action genre include: fight scenes, a hero, a bad guy etc. The typical codes and conventions of the romantic genre include: the main characters falling in love, intimate scenes etc.

So Twilight is definitely a hybrid of these two genres . This is made apparent by certain codes and conventions in the film. Twilight is based around a romantic entanglement between a human girl and a vampire, they go through the stages of falling in love and there are also many romantic and intimate scenes shared between the two main characters. But there are also many: fight scenes, stunts and there is a hero and a bad guy.

Twilight best fits the Todorov narrative theory. Todorov had the idea that all films follow a set structure. This structure was equilibrium, disequilibrium and restoration of equilibrium. This appropriately fits Twilight’s structure. The film starts off with a normal girl, Bella, moving to a new town to live with her father. Whilst there she meets Edward Cullen (a vampire). This is all when the storyline follows the equilibrium. When Edward and Bella fall in love the storyline still follows the equilibrium, however when Bella accidently meets another vampire (other than Edward’s family), the movie falls into disequilibrium, this is because the other vampire wishes to kill her. The disequilibrium continues right to the point where Bella nearly gets killed but Edward saves her and kills the other vampire. This is the restoration of the equilibrium.

An audience are the people who view the media text, in this case watch the movie. Without an audience the media would not survive as this is where they earn their money from and also what they keep in mind when making a text. Most media texts are targeted at a certain audience, this is called the target audience and can vary depending on the content of the media text. The target audience for Twilight is females between the ages of 12-35 as it has factors that appeal to many ages. It is mainly aimed at females as it is based on a love story. Stereotypically women would be more interested in romance than men. However Twilight’s target audience is hard to decipher, this is because the action sequences in the film may also appeal to males. I do however believe that the age of the target audience is between 12-35 as the storyline would appeal to younger generations, but possibly to slightly older people as they can possibly relate to or enjoy the love story more than the younger generations. The film was extremely popular with it’s audience. It was also very popular with people outside the target audience as well. It received “$70.6 million” (Fact from MSBC) at the box office, showing it was a very popular movie. Several critics did not take to the movie well, but overall earned generally 4 stars (out of5) or 5 stars (out of 5). A lot of reviews by fans were very positive and many people wrote negative views as they disliked the craze it had created so there was defiantly a mixed reaction to the movie. The target audience responded the most positively, showing that they had targeted the right audience.

The company that distributed the film was Summit Entertainment. Summit was never really a successful company and did not produce many very successful movies. However Twilight gave them the big break the needed, earning them a “Gross profit of $226.5 million” (2008) and the majority of this was due to the success of Twilight. Summit are an independent company that are based in the USA. Twilight was given a budget of roughly “$37 million”, which is quite a small budget, this was because the company were an independent company and could not really afford a larger budget. This however does not show in the movie, the special effects all look well done. Summit where however limited to which actors they could use and the locations they could film on due to their budget. There is no exact amount of profit detailed anywhere, however the movie was quite cheap to produce, this will mean making a profit will be easier as they will have to make less money than other films. There are no statistics, but I believe that Summit made a large profit for Twilight as it was so successful at the box office.

Twilight was very successful in engaging it’s audience, even to the point were it made a very large profit at the box office. It also sticks very closely to the codes and conventions of it’s two given genres. All of these aspects made Twilight very successful and is why the sequel was allowed to go ahead as it will probably get the same receptions as Twilight did, if not bigger.


Bibliography:
These are the website is used to aid my research
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27874581/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1099212/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summit_Entertainment