Prelim Task: Evidence 2

This is a more updated piece of evidence, it is the storyboard with the technical details written in.
Link to Evidence Documents on Scribd

Prelim Task: Evidence

There are three pages of evidence here, the storyboard is just a sample.Link to Evidence on Scribd

Opening Sequence Genre Analysis

The film clip I am going to analyse is from 'The Dark Knight'

1) Identify the genre.
The genre is Action and Adventure


2) Who are the main characters?


The main characters at the moment are the masked robbers and the man who tries to fight back. Once all the clowns have killed each other there is one remaining, this is probably the second biggest character in the whole film. He is called the Joker. He is the main villain behind everything bad in this film


3) How has narrative been constructed?


Narrative has been constructed by having all the different parts of the plan that happen at the same time being being cross cut or cross edited to show that these various tasks are happening simultaneously. Also as of yet, we have not any hero, we have only seen evil.


4) What is the key iconography and how does it signify the genre?

•  A bank robbery for starters is a key point in a lot of A&A films
• The robbers are wearing masks
• They have a specialised man on the team for each job, like disabling the alarm
• Sliding from one building to the other on a pipeline
• They all have guns

5) Identify the audience pleasures/expectations.

• Get a pleasure from trying to work out why all the robbers are killing each other
• After seeing that the Joker planned for them all to kill each other so he could have all the money the audience expects him to be a twisted and cruel person.
• Also, having seen how the plan all fitted together perfectly, the audience will expect more, bigger and more complex crimes

Continuity Clip analysis

I will be analysing a clip from Ace Ventura: Pet Detective

The clip starts off with an establishing tilt of the building, this helps to start narrative flow so the audience know where the action is taking place. This is followed by what starts as a long shot with the car moving into space, but then turns into a pan as the car drives pass, this creates the effect that makes the audience feel like a person/bystander on the pavement witnessing this as he drives past. We then see his his reckless driving swerving from side to side and then we get a reaction shot of two men looking at what appears to be awful driving. He then makes a very smooth hand brake turn/ hand brake park. We then have a very big jump in framing from the whole car to his head and shoulders, but it works because when he says "like a glove" it gives him a cocky bigheaded demeanour. going from the parking of the car to his dialogue is a shot reverse shot, used effectively to jump to the most important information, the dialogue.

Barthes Codes Analysis

I will be analysing the opening sequence from Wall-E

Hermeneutic Code (Enigma)

• Flying through "ghost planet"
• Looks like a post apocalyptic earth
• Little cockroach still alive

Proairetic code (Action)

• No real action takes place
• He compresses a metal cube, then takes it to a big pile
• Cockroach pops out and follows him

 Connotative [or Semic] code

• Audience could assume that maybe due to human behaviour of littering and wasting energy and releasing CO2 emissions that we destroyed the earth and made ourselves extinct, connotations such as:
• Cockroach surviving always been the animal that can survive
• Absolute wasteland
• Robot clearing it up

Cultural or referential code

• Very tall skyscrapers, would normally make us think, bust town centre lots of people, very fast pace
• We also see everything is rusted which as we know is a process that takes time
• We know its set in the future because robots to that level have not been created or commercialised yet
  

Symbolic code (and Binary Opposites)

• The Opposites Wall-E and the Cockroach, there relationship will grow to be very important to the story line.
• As we fly to the planet we see wind powered electrical generators, these are almost opposite to Wall-E in the way that they are both trying to achieve the same goal, but the generators have been around since humans inhabited that planet.

Continuity Clip analysis

The clip starts off with an establishing tilt of the building, this helps to start narrative flow so the audience know where the action is taking place. This is followed by what starts as a long shot with the car moving into space, but then turns into a pan as the car drives pass, this creates the effect that makes the audience feel like a person/bystander on the pavement witnessing this as he drives past. We then see his his reckless driving swerving from side to side and then we get a reaction shot of two men looking at what appears to be awful driving. He then makes a very smooth hand brake turn/ hand brake park. We then have a very big jump in framing from the whole car to his head and shoulders, but it works because when he says "like a glove" it gives him a cocky bigheaded demeanour.

Film Poster Analysis

I have chosen the film 'Stomp the Yard' for poste analysis.

Genre Conventions of Dance Action/Drama

• Firstly and most obvious in the foreground, the main figure in a one handed freeze
• The foreground and background shots are both action shots. They are both caught in the pose of a dance move.
• Having the foreground image as a silhouette in a dance pose is quite typical, another example of this was Michael Jacksons 'This is it'
• The background looks like two dance crews having a dance battle with an audience in the background. In other words it shows there will be a competition, which is very typical of dance films.
• The font of the words 'STOMP THE YARD' almost looks slightly dirty, the 'S' is definitely a slight dirty grey next to other letters

Connotations/Denotations/Iconography

• The flood lights and the fact that the whole image is slightly blue tinted gives the mise-en-scene an underground feel.
• Also the graffiti at the top give a sense of urban underground
• As I pointed out before the silhouette of the dance pose is quite an iconographic feature for dance films
• The lighting overall is quite dark which could connote that the film itself might have some darker themes (which it does)
• There is also a subtle cliche in the image, which is effectively 'light at the end of the tunnel', which almost is a rough narrative of the film
• The very grainy and blurry, almost scratched effect of the poster again gives the poster a feeling of having 'come from the streets' or 'downtown'

Audience Pleasures

• Seeing an impressive dance move/pose, which they probably would not see often or have maybe not seen at all
• Maybe a relation to the poster if people dance or if they feel like they 'come from the streets'
• Or the opposite of above for people who are neither, its like an escapism into the world of underground dance
• I also feel that the poster gives off an impression of passion and aggression which can be fasinating for audiences

Image and Shot Type Analysis for Genre

This photograph is a foreground ECU (Extreme Close-Up) and in the background it is a MS (Mid Shot). I had a low apeture which gave the photo a shallow DOP (Depth Of Field). The genre I was trying to portray in this hsot was thriller/crime scene action. The idea of the shot is that the Anna Cardy (foreground), the protagonist is directly addressing the camera. This makes her seem agressive (in a good way) like she is keen on solving some sort of mystery. The idea of the mystery comes from the fact that Jeng Au (background) is blurred, which connotes that the protagonist doesnt know who she is and enigmatic. This shot is almost a reverse over the shoulder shot. I wanted to have her eye in focus because it acts as a sharp focus point. I also used the rules of thirds, with Anna's eye being on the first/second third divider and Jeng being on the second/third third divider going from left to right. I decided not to give the audience any idea of setting or time period.

I think this shot worked well and showed the genre codes and conventions of thriller/crime well. If I were to retake the shot I would frame it closer into the eye, to have a really sharp piercing effect. I would also maybe leave some space for text if it were to be editied into a poster or opening title. I would also use artificial lighting but have the whole image darker. I would probably use a 300watt strobe light with a honeycomb/candlelight grid probably a 30 degree one. I would also use an orange tinted fill light to illuminate the background character.

Practise Continuity Sequence

 Describe the sequence you planned to create and identify the 6 shots you used.


We planned to make a continuity sequence whereby a boy running down a corridor attempts to run out the door, but fails to do so and its the glass door as it is locked. 
Our six shots were:

• Long Shot, with a pan
• Long Shot-Medium-Closeup-Medium, 180 degree tilt and 180 degree twist
• Medium Long Shot
• Medium Shot
• Medium Long Shot 
• Medium Shot

 In order to create a sequence that made sense, what did you actually have to do during production?

We had to make sure our piece had a good narrative flow. We also made our story simple as it would have been very hard to have a complex story line, 6 shots and try to have the audience in complete understanding first time. We made sure that we didn't have any jumping camera distances. Timing was very important because if the timing is out for a particular action, it can come across as a purposeful fail at that action.

 What was your specific contribution to the activity?

I was the actor and stunt artist for the film. I also came up with some of the original ideas for the storyline and had input in to shot types, timing, camera movement etc

 Does your sequence work? ie does it make sense?

I believe a first time viewer watching the sequence would fully grasp the narrative. Our only 'failed' part of the sequence was the 5th shot which due to on camera timing errors does not flow, but overall yes, I believe the sequence does work.

 What improvements could you make?

Apart from making shot 5 longer and timing it right with the last shot, i would only make one change. I would have liked to take a shot from indoors of me about to turn into the door so that when we have the shot from the outside (of me slamming into the door) we would get a match-on-action/ shot-reverse-shot effect. This would help the viewer be spatially aware of where the character is.

Opening Sequence Research

Functions of Opening Sequence

• Recap Stars of film
• Set Audience Expectation
• Create mood/atmosphere for opening of film or to set a subconscious mood for main action of film
• Give an idea of location/setting
• Create character and plot enigma and introduce film genre/characters

Conventions

• Graphics
• Titles
• Establishing shots/ enigma creating shots (hard to understand shots, until key later on in film explains them)
• Music

Dawn Of The Dead, The Walking Dead and Zombieland, Differences and Similarities

• All include zombies in the title sequence to set audience expectation of a zombie film
• Only Zombieland has narration, this is to give a more comic/instructional effect
• The Walking Dead is all graphics, fully computer generated titles, maybe to give the audience the feel that this is not a realist film but a story to be observed from the outside
• Dawn Of The Dead however gives a "Blair witch project" feel, in that the footage is from people within the story i.e a news reporter being attacked by a zombie
• The pace of The Walking Dead and Zombieland are quite similar, they both have reasonably long time spanning shots, so the audience can look at all the details. On the other hand, Dawn Of The Dead is very fast pace and quick cut editing, this is to give the audience the same disorientation and feeling things happening quickly without warning that the characters within the film would have.
• The Walking Dead and Dawn Of The Dead use the colour red extensively to the point where a lot of the shots have a red hue and background, whereas in Zombieland the colour red is used for blood and titles, but to give the titles a modern feel, the picture is very high quality and rather than getting an overall blur of red, you get a variation of lots of very sharp colours.

Homework comments BLK

Raef, your blog should be fully up to date, so I can read your homework and assess your progress. Please sort this out immediately to avoid a referral. I will check again before Monday's lesson. I am expecting to see a blog with all the agreed design features, plus your photo and reflections post.