Friday 18 November 2011

Preliminary Research

Continuity editing is editing clips and directors use this to edit their films. Its job is to make the clip look natural and so you cant notice that its been edited. It contains two categories:

Temporal continuity: This connects shots to establish narrative development, it also establishes a progression of time. An example would be a group of people at a party and the director using temporal cutting to show that the party has lasted for a long time.

Spatial continuity: This creates unified space through editing shots from different angles such as the 180 degree role. This makes it look realistic and natural.

180 Degree Rule:
This is a guideline in spatial continuity and suggests that two characters in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. In basic terms it means the characters should always be filmed from the same side (In the image to the left the green line is where they will be recorded from). You can cross this line (to the red line) but you should record both characters from the same side.

Shot/Reverse Shot:This is a film technique used to show a character looking at another character, who is often off screen, and then it shows the character looking back at the first character. This is also used to show a conversation between the characters.

Match on Action Shoot:
This is an editing technique and it is one shot going into another portraying the action that took place in the first shot, it shows the same movement and draws the attention away from the editing. An example is below:



In conclusion, continuity editing is very important as it makes the film realistic and natural, which is important because it keeps the audience interested throughout the film.

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Final Decisions

My group have now made our final decisions on the costumes, lighting, props and mis-en-scene. The costumes we have chosen are sunglasses as it hides the persons identity as the first thing people look at when meeting someone is their eyes. The idea of our protagonist being an MI5 agent means that he should not be recognisable as it would blow his cover. The next part of the agents costume is a suit, this will make him look professional and smart, it is also a common convention of spy thriller movies. The main part of the costume for the protagonist is a red handkerchief that he always carries around with him.

The decisions we have made for lighting is that there will be a dull contrasting light set to allow a tense atmosphere. However the action scenes will contain blurred light as it shows that the action is fast paced and there will also be an intense brightness constantly lighting up to show the good overcoming the evil.


The mis-en-scene decision we have made is that we will use an abandoned building as the location of where the murder takes place, simply because this symbolises that he is isolated. The other locations we have decided to use is the city centre as it contains modern and sleek buildings which gives a hi-tech and modern feel.



The props we have decided to use is the weapon being a gun, as this is seen as a tidy and effective way of killing someone rather than a knife or any other weapon that will leave a mess, which doesn't help an agent cover his tracks. For this, we will have to use a replica and try to make it look realistic as this is the only weapon we can get.

Monday 14 November 2011

Updated Treatment


The setting is an abandoned building inside the suburbs within the city. This is to symbol isolation and suggests the character faces a challenge and is out of his comfort zone. We will also be using a modern sleek setting to create a realistic, modern and a hi-tech atmosphere.

The protagonist is an MI5 agent who has received an order from his superiors to execute a fellow MI5 agent who happens to be his best friend, the protagonist refuses to carry out the order and when he arranges to meet his friend in an abandoned building to tell him whats going on, he is followed by another MI5 agent who then kills Agent GreyFox, the blame is then pinned on the protagonist, the protagonist then does everything to clear his name and does everything possible to avoid losing his family and friends.

The adversary is the government who ordered the protagonist to execute his best friend and have pinned the blame on the protagonist to cover there own backs, they will do everything possible to stop the protagonist revealing the truth.

The three act structure in our film begins with our protagonist, Agent Raiden, who is told to execute a target in an unknown location, this is his normal day-to-day life as he is an MI5 agent, as the film progresses it is revealed that the target is infact a fellow MI5 agent who happens to be one of the protagonists friends, agent GreyFox, the orders from the government to execute him is still active, however the protagonist refuses to carry the orders out, the government then get another agent from another department to do the job, agent GreyFox is then executed and the murder is blamed on the protagonist, agent Raiden. The resolution is when agent Raiden finally proves his innocence and the corrupt members of the government are brought to justice and agent Raiden is reunited with his family to start his new life.

The theory we are using to structure our film is the Tzvetan Todorov equilibrium theory. The equilibrium will be a normal day where the protagonist is talking to his friend about what they want to do once they reach retirement, the disequilibrium is the government disrupting his average day by asking him to execute his friend due to Intel that he possesses, he then faces a range of challenges in order to get back to his normal average day, which results in a new equilibrium and a different way of living his life.

The character types:
Protagonist - Agent Raiden
Adversary - Government
Heroine - Wife and kids
Helper - Computer specialist
Authority figure - Older brother

Our films Binary oppositions consist of the following:
Good     vs     Evil         (Agent Raiden vs Government)
In todays modern world the people are against the government as they are increasing tax and making decisions that the public dont like, this automatically puts the audience on side of our protagonist, agent Raiden. To represent the good characters, they will be wearing white, the bad guys will be wearing black, so it will be White vs Black to represent Good vs Bad, this is so the audience know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are.

In the film Johnny English, he looks like a stereotypical agent with his suit, this is what we will be using in our film to indicate who the good guys are and who are the bad guys.

Friday 4 November 2011

Narrative Theories theories task

What is narrative?
A narrative is a work of speech that describes events that are either fictional or non-fictional within writing, song, film, television, photography or theatre. For media, it is film. A narrative tells a story and a story is an important aspect of culture and society. When trying to figure out the meaning of the narrative we have to consider the conventions of the Genre, Character, Form and time.

Why is narrative important?
Narrative is the way humans communicate information with each other. It varies between magazines, newspapers and even films. If a narrative isn't present then the audience will not be interested and will not read/watch the text, and those that do read/watch will not have enough interest to keep them entertained.

The three narrative theories:
Vladimir Propp:

Vladimir Propp is a Russian critic and literary theorist, he analysed Russian fairytales in the 1920's and came up with a theory that the characters can be categorised into roles according to their actions, the roles are listed below:

The hero - The good guy, is after a reward.
The villain - The bad guy who opposes the hero.
The donor - Helps the hero by giving something useful such as information/weapons.
The dispatcher - Sends the hero away.
The false hero - Acts as the hero but isn't.
The helper - Supports the hero.
The princess - The reward for the hero, often includes love and romance.
Her father - The father of the princess.

Tzvetan Todorov:
Tzvetan Todorov is a Bulgarian literary theorist and his theory is that in the narrative life starts off normal and everyone is happy, this is a state of equilibrium. This 'normal life' is then disrupted and the characters then have to fight against this disruption in order to return to their normal life's.

Equilibrium  ->  Dis-equilibrium  ->  New Equilibrium

Claude Levi-Strauss
Claude Levi-Strauss is a social Anthropologist who studied myths of tribal cultures and studied how stories unconsciously reflect the beliefs and myths of a culture. Binary Oppositions are used to express this, which reflects a conflict between two qualities/terms, some of the examples are shown below:

Male     vs     Female
Good     vs     Bad
Hero     vs     Villain

The most useful for my film opening:
The most useful for my film opening in my opinion is the Tzvetan Todorov theory as we can show the main character living his normal day-to-day life and show how it changes when he gets arrested. Throughout the opening we can show how its effecting his life and how his figting for him to get his life back. This would be effective as it would create sympathy for the character and get the audience on side.

Bibliography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative#Literary_theory
http://www.class.uidaho.edu/narrative/theory/what_narrative.htm
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2009/04/28/the-importance-of-narrative/
http://www.slideshare.net/guest9e3b3b/narrative-theory-2104298
http://www.mediaknowall.com/as_alevel/alevkeyconcepts/alevelkeycon.php?pageID=narrative

Alien movie

Thursday 3 November 2011

Final cut introduction

Today I recorded a mini clip to use with the blue screen. The idea I did was that I was reporting on an alien attack on the white house, the way I did this was a 'spoof' where it was a serious report about an alien attack on the white house but it was interrupted by a 'goal update' via sky sports news, it was a 29 second clip and the timing had to be spot on so that the explosion was in time. I worked in a group and I did the acting of the reporter, I had to stand in front of the blue screen whilst my partner recorded me, to edit the mini clip and have the white house as the background image I am going to use Final Cut Express, at the moment I have encountered a problem which has set back my progress, the file type for the clip is not compatible with Final Cut.

An example of the blue screen is shown below:
The actor stands infront of the blue screen whilst the camera records, then you can use Final Express to put in your desired background. This is an advantage as it means you dont have to be in the location, for example: I dont really have to be outside of the white house, I can use Final Express to make it look like I am.