Preliminary Research

Continuity editing is where you select the good parts of the film and edit them together to make a good movie, which is something that the eye can do naturally. The two categories include 'Temporal cutting' and 'Spatial cutting'.

Temporal cutting is showing the audience that the narrative has changed. Also temporal cutting connotes shots to support the narrative development and may be linear progression or not, flashback or flash forward establishes the progression of time.

Spatial cutting is used to create unfilled space through editing shots from different sort of angles and framing shot/reverse shot. Kuleshov effect and parelle editing. Spatial Editing also has a 180 degree rule where you have to imagine there is a line going across separating the room in two. The camera women or man have to follow these rules to stay on one side. If the camera women/man was to change sides they have to show the camera movement because if you didn't show the movement it wouldn't make the film more realistic as it should. There has to be 30 degrees between the shots of the same subject, if their wasn't it wouldn't make the film look as good as it should.

When the camera women is filming a conversation between two people the best camera shot to use is called the 'over the shoulder shot' because when the camera is focusing on the person speaking it will engage the audience to listen carefully to the conversation. Also when using the 'over shoulder shot' its clear to see their facial expressions. An example of this is in the film 'Mean girls'

Shot reverse shot is an important film technique, this is where one character is shown looking at the other character and then the other character is shown looking back at the character, because the characters are shown facing in opposite directions to one another, the audience assumes that they are looking at each other.

In these two images below the camera has used two different types of shots, one of them is a medium close up of a women starting to open her book, then it follows on with a close up of the women's book open as she starts to read. Both of these shots are called match on action shots. When the women's eyes are been drawn to the writing the camera zooms in.

My opinion is that I think coninutiry editing is very important in the process of shooting a film. This is because it is important that the transition between shots run as smooth as possible to ensure that the audience has maximum enjoyment and excitement form the film and no attention is drawn to the change in shot. Without it wouldn't make the film run smoothly it would jump between different shots.

Filmography

2004 - Mean Girls (Mark Waters)

Websites

http://www.solutioneers.net/cinema/axis.htm#  Accessed on Friday 18th November 2011
http://www.cybercollege.com/tvp050.htm Accessed on Friday 18th November 2011

Our Group Genre Conventions - Final Descisions

For our costumes, we have decided to go really over the top and exaggerated with our costumes because of our comedy horror genre. For example in Scary movie the killers costume is very over the top with a black cloak and a scary mask . At the beginning of the film the Heroine would be very vein and a girly girl with make up and nice clothing as the only thing she really cares about is her looks, but towards the end of the film she realises that she must put others first because their lives are in danger. The geek would wear something like a checkered shirt and glasses to signify his type of character. The Innocent one who turns out to be the geeks friend would act very childish and during the film opening he experiments with womens clothing when he incidently becomes the first victim. And the helper would wear something similar to the friend.

Lighting in our film will be very important but because of where we are setting it in the woods, it will be done for us so for example the darkness of the rest of the wood, Will help with the effect or mystery and make the audience feel a little scared, but the lights from around the camping site should help bring contrast to where the good and evil take place. Lighting use will help because shadows that will fall on the villains face will also help make the audience convinced that he is defiantly the evil and bad person in this film. The shadows created by the moving tree branches and falling leaves, will help as this will also connote that it’s a very eerie place where we are and that there isn't any around for miles.

Props is another very important area for our film as we are doing a horror/comedy we have to use a prop that be found funny but can do damage, so for instance when the killer first try’s to kill the victim we will use a banana as this isn't usually associated with danger or death but it makes the comedy element of our film glow, as no one expect someone to be killed with a banana. This also creates no murder weapon as then the villain can eat the weapon as has going back to his friend leaving no evidence of what killed the victim. Then the main proper killing will be done with a knife as is normally expected in a horror/comedy film.

Mise - En - Scene is actually very easy for us to accomplish due to our location of our film, the wooded area provides the scary mysterious setting we need to accomplish our theme and genre goals. Due to us setting the film at night the dark shadowy trees will reflect the moonlight creating a mysterious effect through the trees and focus all attention on the lights around the camp site. this creates the focus on the campsite but remains that the area that is in darkness is the most scaryest part of the setting.

Treatment Update

The set up for our film opening is set up in the park. We decided to use the wooded area for our film because it would create a tense atmosphere and it invites the emotion of being scared into the audience as they know that the woods is quite, isolated and threatening place to be especially in the dark. Also the horror genre portrays the woods as scary because in most horror films people usually get killed in the woods, for example "The Blair Witch Project" this film is set in the woods because it is the ideal place for camping. The audience wont suspect anything is going to happen. " http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_Hw4bAUj8A "

The Equilibrium in our film is the beginning, where everything is normal. The diserquilibrium is what sets the characters off on the adventure and thats usually where the problem lies, for example in Shrek the diserquilibrium is where he goes on an adventure with the donkey to save princess Fiona.

In our film the diserquilibrium is when Scott who plays the geeky kid  asks myself who plays the popular girl out on a date but I rejects him and then humilates him in front of everyone, then he plans revenge when he is invited to join a group of friends, including the popular girl on a camping trip. The new state equilibrium is the ending of the film and how the characters change throughout the ending.
In Our film "When The Clock Strikes 12"  the protagonist which is myself, who portrays herself as the popular beautiful girl who has a mean streak and a history for breaking boys hearts. Her character changes throughout the film and realises life is not just about her. Towards the end of the film, she portrays herself as the hero/heroine because she tries to solve the murders and goes out of her way to try and find out who his identity is. She also realises that its not just her and her friends at stake, its the whole community.

The adversary  in our film is Scott, At the beginning of our film he comes across as a geek who is lonely and has no friends, but then the audience see him as a completely different character. In the middle of our film. The theory of our film "When The Clock Strikes 12" is based on friendship but it involves a twist of humiliation and love.


The 3 act structure of our film "When The Clock Strikes 12" includes:

• The set up - In our film it is set in a park near a wooded area.
• The set back which is when Rhys who plays the victim gets killed due to a mistaken identity
• The resolution which is all the drama e.g trying to solve the murder, running away from the killer screaming and shouting and trying to save your own life and others by fighting off the killer and wins.

The character types for our film are the hero which is myself because I try to stop the killer and save everybody life, the villain is Scott because when he gets rejected by the popular beautiful girl it sends him over the edge and causes him to go mental and he wants to get his revenge. The hero helper (sidekick) in our film is Siobhan because in the film she follows the hero on her adventure to stop the killer and she is there to support the hero but also back her up if things go wrong

Filmography-

2001-Shrek-Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson.

1999-Blair Witch Project-Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez.

Websites-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_Hw4bAUj8A Accessed on Friday 11th November
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ThreeActStructure Accessed on Friday 11th November

Questionnaire Results Analysis

This is a questionnaire myself and my group designed to find out what interests people the most about horror/comedy genres. Our groups film opening is aimed at teenagers aged 15+.  Which means the people we asked to fill out the questionnaire had to be 15+. We asked a variety of different people these questions to see which was the most popular answer and which was the least popular answer. The first question we wanted to know was what genre people liked the most, we come up with different answers they could choose from but the majority of people said that they like comedy films rather then horror or other kind of genres.

We wanted find out what was the most and least popular answer so we know what people expect and like when watching horror or comedy films. We wanted to know what they like because when we are making our film opening we want to include all the things which the audience would like and what would keep them interested and want to know what happens. For example one of the questions we asked was 'what are your expectations when watching a comedy/horror film?' The most popular answer to this was blood/gore which means when we are making our film opening we are going to include over the top and dramatic blood/gore scenes with a twist. We were also able to discover that the audience is humoured by silly costumes, slapstick and murders when they are watching a comedy/horror film.

By doing this questionnaire this helped myself and my group  because now we know what our target audience are interested in and what they are not interested in when watching a horror/comedy genre.

Final cut introduction

The aim for today was to create a short role play using a blue screen between a news reporter and the president in front of the white house. I was the news reporter and Siobhan was the President, the scenario was that the white house was under attack but no one knew what by, it could have been by aliens or a goverment experiment. So my self who is the reporter asked the president who was played by Siobhan if she knew what is happening or does she know as much as the rest of us. The President tried to reassure everyone as quick and simple as she could that she dont have any idea what is going on or what is going to happen, all she knows is that it wasnt a goverment experiment.



After filming the news report we tried to use Final cut to put everything together but there was a few problems as the videos on the camera wouldnt transfer onto the computer which is slowing us all down completeing the final cut. Finaly we got the videos to transfer and I and Siobhan started to edit our clip.

Narratives Theories Research

A narrative is used for story telling to engage the audience attention to get them hooked so they want to carry on watching the movie to find out what happens. Narratives are important because with out a narrative it wouldn't make it as interesting as it could be. A various number of people start a story or film with "Once upon  time" The story's or films which are started with "once upon a time" are usually fairy tales to make it more magical and easy for young children to understand and makes it more interesting.

Most people would think "Once upon a time" is just a way to start a story or film off but there is a meaning to it. Once is used to interest us into the narrative world which is set in the past and upon is used to situates us into the world we know is different to our own in a time that is not now. At the end of the story good defeats bad and its the same sort of ending for movies as well because in a various number of movies the hero always wins and the villain either gets murdered or taken away which then goes on to " character type" Character type is basically describing what each character type in a film for example

• The hero - Leads the narrative and is usually looking for something like a quest or trying to solve something
• The Villian -is the bad one in the story/movie and conflicts with the hero.
• The Heroine - is usually some sort of prize or reward the hero and villain are trying to win
• The Father - An authority figure who offers a reward for the hero to complete his or her quest
• The Helper - The helper is on the hero's side and helps him or her complete the quest.
• The Donor - Gives the hero something which is a clue or special power which will help defeat the hero and win the reward.
• The Mentor  teaches and will guide the hero in order for the hero to win.

Another narrative theory is Binary Oppositions can help establish 'good' or ' bad ' characters. The equilibrium is basically just the start of a movie where as disequilibrium is what set the characters on an adventure, and the new state of equilibrium is the ending how the characters change from the start of the film through out till the end.

An example of a film which includes all of these character types is Shrek.
The hero in Shrek the movie is Shrek himself as he is the one who is trying to save the princess from the dragon in the castle. The villain is the dragon because he is the one who is keeping the princess prison in the castle. The heroine is Princess Fiona because she is the reward or the goal which Shrek is trying to achieve and save. The Helper is the donkey because the donkey and Shrek team up with each other and the donkey helps Shrek save Princess Fiona, also the ginger bread man helps Shrek and donkey as well so I would think that the ginger bread man is the helper as well. I didn't really think that there was a father in this movie.


Filmography -
2001-Shrek-Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson.

Alien Invasion Movie