Debussy - Claire de Lune

Claire de Lune - Debussy by Phil Best

This song is mentioned in one of the books I am studying for english and it is also in the film Twilight. Im not sure if it's right for our project because there is something quite romantic about it, which obviously doesnt relate to the characters or narrative of our short film. However I thought I would upload it so that we dont completely rule out classical music because at some parts where the sound is slightly lower pitched it is fitting for the message we want to convey. And I really like it also :)x

tonight!

I went to see 'The Soloist' starring Robert Downey Jr and Jamie Foxx, the film tells the story of a vagrant and a middle class man who are binary opposites and become linked. This is similar to what we want to do with our project, however at the end of our short film the two characters will not be friends.
Although the film did not quite reach my expectations, I did find it really inspiring for our project, as the central theme throughout the film is homelessness - and at times it feels as though this is what is mainly being explored, and not the relationship between the two men. I felt that the film deffinitely has a moral message, and I came away feeling sorry for vagrants. At the end of the film text appeared on the screen with the number of homeless people living in LA, which made me feel mixed emotions, sad and lucky.
It was clear that meeting the vagrant changed the life of the selfish 'business man' character which is what we would like to imply at the end of our film. x

Sound Cloud

Acoustic One by Ekspert

as a reply to jess's previous post i thought something like this i can imagine tht narration over the top. and he setting it to play on his ipod and pause (check storyboard if you dont know what i'm on about) ok, i am typing this while listening and it has changed abit but i'll leave it its still a possibility.

WHY WONT MY FLIPPING COMPUTER PLAY HALF THE TRACKS.

i'm adding this just to see what it sounds like for this i searched "instrumental"

Some place else by H3X

WOW i like it. imagine it with the vigrant on the road and the cocky businuess man walking along the road.

ps. we have reached the big 80!! lol :P

Cheerio Theodore x

more about music!

Today in Mr Ford's lesson me and Caitlin were looking into music we could use in our short film, we were using soundcloud to do this. At first it seemed like all of the music was quite upbeat and dancey, which isnt really wanted for our film. However, after typing in 'acoustic' I have found lots more fitting tracks we could maybe use, but I wasnt sure what type of music we were thinking of using, happy or sad? Opinions pleeeeease :) x
ps, I made us an account on soundcloud with the login caitlinjamiejesstheo and the same password as the blog.

UNCOPYRIGHTED MUSIC !!!!

I saw this song on someone elses blog. I realise we can't use this because it will majorly tick them off but here it is:



it happy and upbeat but the website is awesome , i think they are all copyright free and downloadable. also there is loads and loads of music on there

Groove Shark

ok it is reasonably hard to use and songs are hard to "stumble across" i think i will leave grooveshark and see if i can find another source , group you can check it out if you want though some of the tracks aren't copyrighted i think.

Storyboards

Basically in my free this morning, decided to do a storyboard. basic though it was it was good to get some ideas down in terms of our film and how it was actualling going to start, and end. so i quickly drew out a 32 frame storyboard this is shown below:



this is helpful to me but to an outside viewer it isnt very clear so i decided to draw it again better quality and less random labelling! however this isn't a definative shot list is just ideas that i wanted to include and some transitions etc.

here is the clearer version:



can i please have some feedback group on the comments , any more shot ideas etc. thanks
by the way if we callaborate our ideas we can then post a final storyboard up on here and then i can put all your names on the labels!

i used flickr to display these photos.

Cheerio, Theodore x

sound cloud

Hey guys,
im just going to have a look on soundcloud to see if i can find any uncopyrighted song that would fit with our short film. I'll update you once i've had a look.

Over & Out, Caity x

Time to Storyboard

With thanks to Theo, i now have some storyboard templates which i can get stuck into at home...
when ive finished doing some, i can bring them in and we can all compare our own ideas and stuff to then hopefully come up with some final ideas that we can get started on putting forward.
J x

Research

Right, thanks to Mr Smith we now know that even if i play another bands song, its still copyrighted. stink. so i have watched the music video by Radiohead for the song "Just" which basically links to my point about not having any dialogue. This video uses no dialogue, but just subtitles at the bottom of the screen, which could be an idea that we could take into account.
As the video has disabled embedding here is the link.

Radiohead - Just

Another idea, is to just not have any dialogue, and rely on camera angles and shots to tell the story, which could be using the cultural code, where we rely on the audience to understand what is going on, rather than the chararcters explaining.

J x

Storyboard please!

we need to get a storyboard going or at least a detailed mindmap of events in the film.

We have plenty of inspiration and ideas we just need to apply them to our film now and get "cardboard dreams" rolling! If we are not doing anything in Mr. Fords 3rd lesson tomorrow that needs to be a priorty (if someone can spell that please change it!) so have a think of a few ideas for tomorrow, i have some.

I might make a simple storyboard grid so we can just get things down easy. yeah. infact i'll do that now

Cheerio, Theodore x

Neon Thoughts - Kevin Bradshaw

I have just been on Mr Ford's blog and watched a few of the short films he has put up from the Virgin Media Shorts website, I then started watching some more of the entries on the website to see if any of them related to our own short film :)
Here I have uploaded 'Neon Thoughts' which was produced and directed by Kevin Bradshaw, this short film has a clear message and really made me think as I was watching it. It shows the protagonist going through different settings, surrounded by lots of people but always standing alone, this feeling of isolation is something we aim to create in our homeless character. I really like the effect that has been used to show the rest of the world moving at a fast pace behind the character, as he just stands still, also by not looking at the camera he appears disconected. At times, for example when the man looks up on the bus and the woman smiles at the camera, the point of view shots that are used place the audience in the mans position, this is effective in allowing us to almost feel the way that he does.
Time lapse is used a lot throughout the film which highlights the busy lifestyle most of us lead nowadays, by always staying still it appears as though the protagonist has taken a step out of reality to review, and critisize the behavior of the modern day person. There is a short piece of stop motion when the man moves down the road perfectly still.
The last sentence we hear is "6 billion people live here together, yet within your life time you connect with less than one percent of them, how many have you avoided today?" Here Bradshaw has used personal pronouns, the same as Theo did in his poem, this is effective in directly addressing the audience, so they are forced into thinking about the people they have avoided eg. homeless people. I also thought that the music used was fitting to the action, however it did get a bit repetative towards the end! x

research

okay, ive just listened to some of the Bright Eyes album because most of the songs represent different messages, realism & how corrupt we can all be. this made me think of our short film, because we want to show how you chose your morals, that homelessness is universal & that we all at times forget what we stand for. Like the businessman, who deals with a situation we are all familuar with, however, we find his behaviour offencive & heartless even though most of us would be lying to ourselves if we say we haven't done exactly the same thing. i think some of Bright Eye's songs make you question yourself & your actions sometimes.

'At the bottom of everything'

Oh my morning's coming back
The whole world’s waking up
All the city buses swimming past
I’m happy just becauseI found out I am really no one.

'We are nowhere and it's now'

I've got no plans and too much time
I feel too restless to unwind
I'm always lost in thought as I walk the block
To my favorite neon sign.

'Land Locked Blues'

So I’m up at dawn
Putting on my shoes
I just want to make a clean escape
I’m leaving but I don’t know where to
I know I’m leaving but I don’t know where to.

like i said before, i know that these songs arent necessarily about homlessness but you can see how strong & home hitting a simple sentence & in this case lyrics can be. i thought it was neccessary to put these on due to the fact we have said from the beginning that we dont want to include dialogue (as little as possible) as this could make it look cheap. However, if we wanted our message to be stronf & powerful to create empathy we our audience, we need to play around with ideas of how they will clearly see what we are trying to reflect. We all now how powerful a song can make a scene, or even a simple narration. Like Theo's already wrote his poem from 'the secret millionaire' & the poem from the beginning of 'trainspotting' it can have a huge affect on our audience.

Over & Out, Caity x

Bright eyes,

hey guys,
i was just listening to my itunes & 'bright eyes - first dasy of my life came on' & dont worry im not going to say use it in our film (i know the copyright issues), but i really like some of the lyrics & the different messages & emotions they reflect.

here's some of the lyrics;

I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain suddenly everything changed

Now I don’t know where I am
I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go

And I wondered if I could come home.

these lyrics make me think that behind every face is a story, and even though this song isn't about homlessness, you could see it as a man who is lost & not knowing what direction he is heading whether it is to do with love or life. the same as our vagrant.


Over & Out, Caity x

Research

Right guys, been doing a bit of thinking about music for the video, and i was wondering what you guys think. I think we should have some music for the introduction, and because were focusing on camera angles and shots etc, were trying not to put any dialogue into the video, we should perhaps have some backing music for the actual video?

Basically, if we cant use any existing songs, then i think it would be best to avoid using garageband, as the sounds are limited and we wouldnt get the specific sound we wanted, therefore i have came up with an idea that you might or might not like. Me and theo both like the song "When the sun goes down" by Arctic Monkeys (Who doesnt?) however we may not be able to use this due to copyright etc. Therefore i have realised that if we do want to use that song i can just play the intro on guitar and record that, and it will just sound like the actual song without vocals, which could be what we want anyway.

Another idea, is for me to write a song or something, or learn to play a song that you want? obv try and be reasonable as i cant do everything, however i am in a band so technically we could learn a song if anyone wanted us to... :)

let me know what you guys think about music, as we definately need a plan if were not having dialouge, as we cannot have 5 minutes of silence. :)

J x

Poster, Tonight seems to be blog night!

Having read Jess's post on Film Posters i loved the first example of her eternal sunshine poster. Because it goes well with our theme and style. So i decided to design one! I started out with a simple sketch just to show the outlines of what i wanted to do with the poster.

This is the basic outline, It has key conventions such as the title , the credits at the bottom and also a heading of who is starring in it , other possibilitys is to put review comments on this will be possible but just for the sketch i left it out. You will notice i did it on cardboard, this is not only because i have an abundant amount in my garage but because it fits with the title of the film and also the style I wanted to achieve in the end product.

~~~~~~
The next scan i have uploaded is of a basic development from my sketch it has an image of a vagrant ( that i sourced from google , obviously for the final thing we will have to use our own photos) and it has a slogan where the eyes of the man should be, you will also notice he is not clean shaven and has stress lines on his forhead so it asks the question to the audience , why he has got these (barthes enigma code)



I achieved this effect by using a printed of image , glueing it to the card and riping a section of his eyes a way, for now the slogan i have used it "ignore me" this in no way is what is going to be on the final one it was just to show what it looks like.
~~~~~
This next scan is a further development, using collage techniques , i think this image is the powerful and artistic to use as a poster for a short film it is also eye catching due to the unorthodox presentation(ripping, hand-writing)
~~~~~

Nearly finished!!!

This final scan is a full development from the final idea i have used a Photoshop program to add writing and blend the edge of the image into the cardboard background. I think it looks proffesional and artistic as a poster, please leave feedback on the comment please it would be a great help to generate new ideas. I could change the contrast levels to make the balck blacker and the white whiter but i kept it reasonablly 'raw' at this stage.

Cheerio, Theodore x

film reviews.

I've just thought i should look into film reviews a little more so we know what styles to go for & conventions to use within our review.
There are also issues that are going to come with this as if we want this to be as realistic as possible, we need to think about certain factors such as; how biased can we be? how much detail do we want to go into? and how much we are willing to give away?

Typical Features:


- star rating
- directors name
- main cast list
- length of film
- date of release
- picture of iconic image within the film/ or characters
- plot summary
- positives/ negitives
- personal opinion
- mention of audience/ target audience
- performance of actors
- comparison of directors work (use AS pieces)
- does anthing make it different?

we also need to think about asking the typical questions to ourselves, such as;

- who is our target audience?
- what are we trying to portray?
- where did we find our influences? (make comparisons)
- when did our film most excel?
- how have we used our techniques/ convetions/ camera work/ casting/ editing etc. to our best ability?

these are all questions we can consider when writing our review because as a critic there are certain areas & questions they will have to look at & consider. so if anyone had an copies of any film reviews bring them in asap so we can all have a look at the style they are written in aswel.


Over & Out, Caity x

Secret Millionaire

Hey guys,
i watched 'the secret millionaire' on channel four last night & it looked into homlessness & the different aspects within it. i thought it might help with the representation of our character & allow us to give him more depth which will enable our audience to create a different reflection of the said 'vagrant' and empathesis with his character.

Representation:
In the documentry style program it shows the audience the reality of life behind closed doors. The rawness of some of the stories told were really home hitting, such as the crisis one woman had to deal with due to financial troubles in the current climate & the distructive reality of alcoholism & drug abuse. This allowed me to believe that behind every face is a seperate story. This made me think we really need to have a powerful & believable story behind our own vagrants eyes which will allow the audience to feel sympathy towards him. In tomorrows lesson we could mind map some ideas to create the depth to one of our main charcters, yeah?!

Imagery/ Style:
Seeing the potrayal of the people in lat nights program gave me a clearer idea into how we need to make sure our vagrant looks realistic & not to be too stereotypical with how we style & dress him. I know we will be relying on Barthes cultural code for this part of the narration but there are our factors within the mise en-scene, setting & props which should also reflect this. Last night, you could see that the homeless people are not that different from you & I. yes, they are rougher looking at times, slightly dirtier (what do you expect?) but not always outrageously hairy & long nailed. We could try & be more clever about the way we reflect him, such as through habits formed, from either drugs or drink, make a key feature of his eyes because we all know the saying & just style him carefully as we don't want it to look tackyyy.

Over & Out, Caity x

posters - eternal sunshine of a spotless mind

This is a poster for the film 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind' when i originally searched for this poster, 3 different choices came up. I have decided to analyse all of them.
- I like the way that the eyes have been cut out here, and replaced with words. This is a technique we could use for our poster, as we would like our film to convey a message and this would be a good way we could hint it to the audience through the poster.
- The way that the characters eyes look as though they have been ripped away looks really effective and almost collage like. I like this technique and think it works really well here.
- A lot of different bright colours have been used, with the characters smiling faces this makes the film appear quite positive and happy. However the text placed across their eyes hints a different story, the film makers obviously do not want to give to much away.



This is the second poster for the film I looked at..
- I really like the lighting that has been used here, and the way that one photograph has been used for the background of the poster, and text has been added on top.
- Obviously we couldnt do anything like this for our film, as the main characters are both male, and this is very romantic looking. However we could use some sort of picture without revealing too much.
- I like the way that this picture only shows a fraction of the characters, and not their faces - this not only looks effective, it also ensures that nothing is revealed to the audience. This is deffinately something we need to think about with our poster, as we have to be careful not to reveal the 'twist' before the audience have seen the film!
- I like the font that has been used here, and the way that it is not centrally aligned, I also like the way that the poster does not contain the actors names. As we are not going to be using famous actors, this is not something we need to worry about advertising on our poster.


This is the third and most well known poster I looked at for the film...
- This is clearly the most comercial of the 3 posters, as it shows both of the well known famous actors - advertising them to the audience and enticing them to watch the film. It also names all of the actors included along the top of the poster.
- I like the way that half of the protagonist's face is shown at the bottom of the poster, it appears as though the top of it is his mind - showing his thoughts. This is also achieved by the position of his eyes, looking up.
- The poster uses a simple colourscheme, even though the pictures are in colour, they have stuck to oranges and blues mainly, which looks effective but doesnt really stand out. I like the way that 'eternal sunshine' is almost fading away, hinting the way that the protagonist's memory begins to fade away after he has treatment.

film posters - 5 minutes of heaven

I have been doing some research into posters, as this is another part of our project which we have decided we are going to do after we have finished our main film. I have been using the website IMP awards to look at different film posters :)

This is the poster for film '5 minutes of heaven' - I have never actually heard of this film but I was drawn to this poster when doing my research as it features the faces of two males, and our short film is going to include two main male characters - the business man and the vagrant.
- I really like the use of black and white, I think this makes the poster look almost vintage, and in some way I feel that it draws attention to it more than colour would.
- I also like the contrast between the black and white and the black and yellow, sepia tone could have been use here but the yellow provides an effective brightness, which allows the poster to stand out more.
- I think that the way the faces are both emotionless, almost sad, makes the poster intriguing, and automatically allows the audience to see what sort of film this is - for example, it is clearly not going to be a comedy.
- The plain font used fits in with the whole mood of the poster and I think that this looks really effective, it highlights that there is no need to use a big exciting font to draw attention to it.
- There is deffinately a simplistic feel to this poster which automatically drew my attention to it, and I like the way that the characters whole faces are not shown, this makes me intrigued.
- A negative I would give to this poster is the font sized used for the actors names, I found that this was the first thing I noticed when looking for the name of the film, as these are both well known british actors, there wasn't really any need for the film company to make their names so big.
- The use of 3 main colours looks effective and not too complicated, this also reflects the mood of the film - bright colours would have looked too happy, positive.

I have saved so many, i'll try and upload some more later! xxx

An Idea

Am I human too you?
When do I become less than an object,
less than a background noise,
when do I become part of your routine,
something you are so used to ignoring.

When you shut your door,
draw your curtains,
I am on the outside.
When you commute to work,
sit in your office,
and have those “water cooler moments”
I am wondering when my next meal with arrive.

Turn a blind-eye.
Check your phone;
change the track on your Ipod.
Anything to avoid eye contact,
with the person you think you don’t know,
you can’t relate with.
You never know me,
you don’t know me,
and you never want to know me.

But you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
Walk on by; immerse yourself in your own world.

i realise this is really airy-fairy and too much of a lecture, but we could use parts of it or change it a bit, i wrote it myself while watching secret millionaire. could this be what is written on the cardboard box's or could it be a narration over apart of the film.??? need answers group when you check the blog.

Reponse: Mr. Smith sent me a link to the opening of trainspotting, and although we dont want it as fast paced as this, i think maybe that is the route to go down, PLEASE WATCH THIS GROUP!





Cheerio, Theodore x

stereotypes in mean girls

I have included this clip of 'Mean Girls' into our research because in one of the opening scenes it introduces the different stereotypical groups in the cafeteria to a new student who has never been to a real school before. As a result of her being home schooled for the majority of her life, Cady (Lindsey Lohan) does not have the cultural code that the other student have, and is unaware that students would be separated into groups relating to their dress sence and hobbies.

The 'Asian Nerds' are playing cards across a table, contrasting to the 'Cool Asians' who are wearing revealing clothing and sitting in a relaxed manor around their table.
The 'Varsity Jocks' are all masculine, and appear quite stupid by fighting across their table, 'Unfriendly Black Hotties' are all giving the point of view camera questioning looks.
'Girls who eat their feelings' are all overweight and look very excited about eating a burger this juxtoposing the 'Girls who don't eat anything' who are all very skinny and sharing a can of diet coke between them.
The 'desperate wannabes' are disabled or small, I think this is the harshest stereotype so far! The 'burn outs' just look very relaxed which contrasts with The 'sexually active band geeks' who are all kissing eachother around the table.

The film is aimed at teenagers and young adults, I think that they have used a scene like this to explore stereotypes because it is something that people of our age can relate to. Although it is not so segregated in real life, with relation to the colour of skin etc, it is still seen in other stereotypes - goth, chav, indie.

Stereotypes in Our Short Film

Our short film is going to contain two main characters, a business man and a homeless man, we need to explore the stereotypical views of these characters so that we can portray them in a believable way. I have just tried to come up with some keywords to describe both of the opposite characters.

A typical business man... wears a suit, clean shaven, neat, tidy, organised, shiney shoes, brief case, expensive gadgets, posh car, well spoken, rushing, arrogant, ignorant, selfish, clean, smart, attractive, smoking, stressed, busy, white teeth.

A typical homeless person... dirty, smelly, unshaven, unhappy, bored, hungry, face shows a lack of emotion, clothes with holes in - too small, slow, brown teeth, messy, no real material possessions, living in a cardboard box - clothes in bags, alcoholic, unattractive.

When coming up with key words to describe both of the characters, I found myself looking at what I had written for the other man and then trying to think of an opposite, this is because our leading characters are binary opposites!

Stereotypical business men always dress the same, as smart dress is required for their line of work, this can maybe be seen as a positive stereotype, however it is false to believe that business men are always arrogant, rushing and stressed. Our audience will automatically recognise our leading character as a business man because of his smart dress.
The vagrant will have to be dressed in dirty old clothes, and look physically unclean in order for our audience to believe he is homeless. It is not so much a stereotype to assume all homeless people are unclean, as they would find it difficult to wash living on the streets, however it is a stereotype to assume that vagrants are all alcoholics. It would help if the actor had a beard also :)

Stereotypical Video

this is a video highlighting stereotypes.



and i think the answer to there question is it brings us comfort to know we our someone unique we are not them, we define ourselves to be diferent whether it be the colour of our skin, the salary we earn, the car we drive, it what we grow up with , even in films that appear so innocent if you read into them we can see age old stereotypes i found an interesting video.. again on youtube to show Disney's use of stereotypes.



more examples with out the explaination.



They'll cut off your ear in the Middle East? All Arab women are harem? Why are Jasmine and Esmeralda so overtly sexual? Native Americans from Peter Pan are literally red? Or savages in Pocahontas? How many times do the crows from Dumbo call each other 'brother'? The African American workers never learned to read or write but they're happy slaving away in the rain?

Is Disney Racist??

Cheerio, Theodore x

Leon Festinger's Theory of Cognitive Dissonance

Leon Festinger came up with the theory of cognitive dissonance in his book 'When Prophecy Fails' in 1956. The feeling of cognitive dissonance is caused by holding two contradicting beliefs at the same time. Festinger argued that we resist adjusting our attitudes unless faced with overwhelming evidence against it. The theory also stated that we seek out confirmation of our thoughts and beliefs. An example of this is some people would find it difficult to believe that a masculine man, such as a builder, would be gay. This theory could apply to our project, if people have preconceptions of business men being unfriendly, always rushing, arrogant and rude then they may find it difficult to comprehend our main character's behaviour at the end of the film.

stereotypes

I have noticed that Theo has already started blogging about theory Tuesday, so rather than repeat what he has already said I went on www.wordle.com and created a mindmap of some of the well known stereotypes :)

The Soloist

I saw a trailer for this film a couple of weeks ago at the cinema, it comes out soon and I would like to go and see it as I think it could be quite inspirational for our own project! Although it has obvious differences such as it being a full length film to be shown in a cinema, and stars famous actors, it is still a story of a homeless person and a 'business man' (journalist) and the relationship they have. From watching the trailor I think we may be able to take ides from the settings and costume used for our own short film. It is also apparent from the trailor that this film is designed to make the audience think, which is what we would like to do with our project. x

Todays Lesson , stereotypes

Theory Tuesday!

In todays lesson our main theme was representation and stereotypes. This is important towards our film and characters because they are both stereotypes : the businuess man , wearing a suit , wearing smart shoes with a breifcase. and a homeless person, wearing scruffy clothes and writing notes on carboard. this is stereotypes at a basic level in media. it helps identify characters and makes the audience comfortable and helps them relate and think they know the character, this also can be linked in with Barthes Social codes our stereotype of a homeless person is that he lives in a carboard box, so therefore he was a bum at school and took drugs and is not respected or known, or even cared about , this is an example of symbolic code, semiotic code and also cultural code. even if this thought is subconsience or you are casting stereotypes.

We looked at a theorist called Tessa Perkins. Who founded theorys to do with stereotypes and we also looked at leon festinger another theorist, i wont go into full detail to do with all of these theorists or else my group won't have anything to write about. however i will mention Tessa Perkins (1997) she defines stereotypes as group concepts (held by social group, about a social group) which give rise to simple structures that often hide complexity, based on an 'inferior judgement process' she argues that, against commonsense notions of stereotypes:

- they are not always 'false': cowboys do wear cowboy hats etc. the interesting question is to what extent social groups consiously adopt stereotypical signs in order to identify themselves, and to what extent the mass media orchestrate or amplify thiese dilberate social acts of communication:

an example of this is that businuess men do wear suits to work.

-Stereotypes can, at least in part, be positive, Germans are stereotypically efficient, the French great lovers, black people good at sport and so on. However, these are always backhanded compliments - the germans may be seen as ruthlessly efficient

an example of this is that polish people are hard workers or that jamaicans are laid back and really cool.

-They can be held about one's own social group: the English several stereotypical images of themselves.

an example is that because i listen to a certain type of music i should wear certain clothes, etc

-They are not always concerned with opressed groups: there are stereotypes of aristocrats as arrogant, americans as loud and brash.

an example of this is teachers only like boring music, or get drunk or have a life outside of teaching!

-They are not always about minority groups of which we have little direct experience: stereotypes of women and men, with whom we all have experience, are widespread.

an example of this is girls are always tidy, and boys are messy. or if a girl has alot of partners she is a slag if a boy has alot of partners he is a player!

-They can be simply and complex at the same time: the 'dumb blonde' stereotype, of which Marilyn Monroe was the most famous representative, paradoxically combines lack of intelligence and wit; sexuality naivety with the power to manipulate, an exploited subordinate position and cult status.

an example of this is child like innocence, having power over there parents etc.

- They are not rigid or unchanging - stereotypes evovle and adapt since they relate to struggles around power, which may differ in scale and change over time.

an example of this is smoking, it used to be cool to smoke but in the 21st century it has become more frowned upon and somewhat stupid, another good example of race this has evolved a long time it used to ok to use "negro" and such words but now it is severly frowned upon.

-We do not simply 'believe' or 'disbelieve' in stereotypes: they can 'work' for us or communicate to us without our necassarily 'agreeing' with them.

an example of this is when people dress in suits or smartly dress to come across professional, even if normally you dress in joggers and a hoodie!

- They do not necessarily influence our behaviour and attitudes: it is possible to 'hold' a stereotype without believing it to be true. The reaction of the viewer to a stereotype will depend on a complex set social, historical and individual experiences.

an example of this is sexist jokes, you may tell them to make someone laugh but you may not be racist.

As a group we need to understand stereotypes in our film , poster and magazine and get the right mediational view, to attract the correct target audience. I will try to find a good video to demonstrate stereotypes. In terms of our media products we want to represent two stereotypes businuess man (opressed) as arrogant, and as for the homeless man we want to represent him as a stereotypical homeless person to allow the audience to understand what is going on, but the twist should show a change of stereotypes to more of a positive perseption of a homeless man. (a hard life, someone that has lost everything)

Cheerio, Theodore x

Cardboard Boxs!

Hello, on Friday I got about 50 cardboard boxs ready for the stop motion! If we need to use it. There in my garage at the moment so it doesnt matter when we use them if at all!

I was thinking of doing a storyboard this weekend but i have been too busy, we should try to do one in class. or at least got a specific idea down finalise what we are going to do , beginning, middle and end or else we could hang around this planning stage for ages.

Cheerio , Theodore x

500 days of summer

over the weekend I went to the cinema to see 500 Days of Summer, I really enjoyed it and noticed a lot of techniques that we could maybe use in our short film. I was unable to find specific clips because apparently they cant show complete films on youtube now? So i've just posted the trailor which shows some of the things i noticed. ps, thankyou theo for introducing me to tubechop.com!

The film follows two people, a male and a female, and the relationship they have over the space of 500 days. The characters have opposite beliefs, and the film documents their differences etc. Both of the characters were really believable and realistic, which links to what we want to do with our short film. The film is non linear, and all of the days are mixed up and shown at different points in the film, this was something i really enjoyed about the film, and is similar to what we hope to achieve by using flashbacks!
As a group we were talking about introducing the vagrant by showing different parts of his face and body, this technique was used in the film as you can see on the clip here... i also really liked how they have made the film footage look old and recorded on a handheld camera, if we still wanted to use flashbacks from childhood then maybe this is something we could create?


Time lapse was also used in the film to show the days progressing, which we have also researched, this is hinted here...


Something else in the film that i really liked was in one scene, the leading male character walked down a street and it slowly changed into drawings of buildings - this is also shown a bit in the clip here...


Im not sure if we would be able to do it using school computers, but there was also a scene with a split screen showing what the man hoped would happen and what actually did, i thought this also looked really good :) xxxx

Shot Ideas #2

This is another film that i watched on mr fords blog, i think we could try a similar montage within the realisation part of our film and he then flashbacks to all the moments he ignored the vagrant or just walked past. This should be realization to the character but also for the audience , here is the montage:



this montage is then repeated again at the end of the film, i think we could use this at the end of our film for example if earlier on in the film he flicked his cigarette butt on the floor we could zoom in on it and just watch the smoke rise like the balloon in the sample clip, or as it called carboard dreams one of his messages could blow by in the street or something.



Cheerio , Theodore x

Shot Ideas

This is a short film that i saw on Mr. Fords blog (i think) it is worth watching but i am just picking some shots out using TubeChop.



I like the reflection in the window, almost like a mirror displaying the businuess mans vain-ness and arogance , this would be difficult to film but would look amazing.

The next shot is a similar one but it conveys a different emotion, as the character on the film is dead and he is viewing his wife through a window this has more than one connotation, firstly how he is looking in like she is an objective, a object in a shop window, but also the way that she is being observed doesnt let him near her.This conotation is confirmed in the following shot.



Cheerio, Theodore x

Congratulations

Well Done, Group i think we did well in our pitch. and covered all the areas needed :D

now we need to carry on and start to storyboard some ideas, i might try to do one over the weekend if i find time. or even just write what we want.

I can get millions of cardboard boxes from work if you want as well because we need loads for the stop motion.

I will post a few shot ideas for the start of the film but also someones that i like the style and composition of.
Anyone whose ill get well soon :)

Cheerio, Theodore x

The Pitch!

Today we presented our pitch to the rest of our media class as well as our teachers AND it was on film! I think that it went really well and we managed to even it out so that all of us spoke equally which was difficult to do in a group of 4 :)
At the end of the presentation we had to answer questions from people in the group who were given specific labels such as 'aspirer' and 'mainstream.' The pitch as well as the questions and aswers will be up on the blog asap! xxx

Virgin Media Shorts 2009

I am watching Virgin Media Shorts 2009 on Virgin 1 if you check the blog in time it might be worth watching it on Virgin 1+1

It's only 10 minutes long and worth a watch for any inspitiration

What not to call a blog post!

1. Pointless Blog

Pointless Blog

I enjoy this video. :)



J x

The Moment you have all been waiting for... the film pitch!

If any alterations are needed contact me but other than that were ready for Friday.

Media Pitch

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Cheerio, Theodore on behalf of the group x

narrative

Here's my section for the pitch on narrative.
I've just used slideshow, well when i finally found out our username & password!

Narrative

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Over & Out, Caity x

:D

Hey guys, i really like 'Cardboard Dreams' as a title.
it doesn't give away too much to do with our plot & also features a key element in the vagrants life.
whoevers idea it was, nice one :)

Theo, i like the idea of the stop motion on the cardboard box, i think we should all have a look & play around with some ideas.
It will probably create more of a relationship between the audience & actors too, making more of a rapport.

I'm just about to upload my slideshow on narrative.

Over & Out, Caity x

Representation

Enjoy.

Representation

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J x

The Pitch

Next week as a group we are required to present a pitch to the rest of the class, describing our idea and who it will appeal to. We have split the different areas between us and I have chosen to focus on genre, we have decided to create separate powerpoint presentations and then join them all together.

I will look at elements of genres in our film and what genre it is.

Genre Presentation

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The Embeded youtube video doesnt work but if you click on the link on the problem slide it will work.

Cheerio, Theodore x

Just a small thing...

I like Cardboard Dreams , Jamie. it's that for the pitch anyway!

ok , wait , i'm going to type this now so i dont forget could we do some kind of stop motion writing on the side of a cardboard box, that the tramp holds like the stereotypical thing. That talks directly to the audience or the businuess man. :) I think i'll think about this a bt more and put a later plog post on , what you think guys comment on it

Cheerio, Theodore x

Ideas

Hello to everyone,
Me and Theo have been brainstorming names for the video, however he doesnt know i am posting this, because if he did he would currently be attempting to write a better one...
here are some names we have came up with.
Primary Nighttime Resident
To Be Alone
Alone Among the Crowd
Cardboard Box Dreams
Life In a Concrete Jungle
Previously Parted
Parted

However me and Theo think that the name "Cardboard Dreams" is very effective and would really go with our video.
What do you guys think?

J x

Our pitch

Today we have been planning our pitch which is on friday! We have decided to all make separate powerpoints and then join them together, at first we were going to start with an introduction but then we realised that this would create a lot of repetition with the narrative section of the pitch.
The order we came up with is;

Narrative - We felt that it was important for the rest of the class to understand what our short film is about before we go on the talk about the other aspects of the pitch. By starting with this it also means that we don't have to do an introduction. This is Caitlin's area.

Genre - Theo is going to talk about the genre of our short film.

Representation - Jamie is going to show how we want to portray both of the characters with his part of the pitch.

Audience - Finally I am going to talk about the audience we hope our film with appeal to, we decided it was best that this went last so that the rest of the class could see what our film was about etc before saying who we hope will watch it.

xxx

*sigh*

Oi, EXAM BOARD QUIT CHANGING THINGS, A2 Students not guinea pigs.

Its a shame they have changed the specification for the music video. having known that from the start our group probably would have gone for that but its too late to turn back now i guess, get on with it, forget it.

Life's a Beach!

Cheerio, Theodore x (on behalf of the rest of the group)

Signs / Semiotics

In todays lesson we walked round lutterworth on a task called "Mr. Smiths Semiology Treasure Hunt" we had to look for specific signs:

-Political Sign
-Religious Sign
-Imperative Sign
-Didactic Sign
-Denotative Sign
-an Advertisement
-an Icon
-an Index
-Charity Sign

(the photos will be up soon)
they fall into one of Barthes' 5 codes

Semiology is a way to analyse the media language of media texts,therefore when producing our media film we can improve the effectiveness by reviewing the semiological meanings within our film.

this activity also challenged our theorys of mediation and connotation why is a red circle with a cross through mean , its not allowed etc. but in example of our film we need to choose the right type of mediation, our film will contain a vigrant, not a tramp or hobo, this is just a small example. another easy example to use is,

-prostitute rather than slag or whore.
-elderly rather than old biddy/ coffin dodger
-overweight rather than fatty or slab-cracker
i think you get the idea!

we need to use mediation intelligently in our film to get across the prefered reading across to the audience.

Cheerio, Theodore x

p.s this blog is for caitlin to spite her comment in media , LOL ;)

Title

How About this for a title to the film,

-Primary Nighttime Resident
-To Be Alone
-Alone Among the Crowd
-Cardboard Box Dreams
-Life In a Concrete Jungle
-Previously Parted
-Parted

as you can see bit short of ideas atm but its...
to be continued

Check this beast out guys!

we might be able to try somethings out with this. might be useful might not be..

Xtranormal movie maker!



HAHA.. you never know

Cheerio, Theodore x

it's not much but if you want to edit youtube videos only to show certain bits, for example a quote or a camera transition i have found a cool website that can do such a thing!

TubeChop - Chop Youtube Videos

might be useful later on when we are looking for specific shots etc. :)

DEMO



Cheerio, Theodore x

mtv clip

Hey guys,
I've just seen an advert on mtv that used text & film to create a moral message.
Even though its only a short advert, i thought it was really powerful. you might have seen it, its about choosing life.
i'll try & find the clip now!

Over & Out, Caity x

Hi , Guys within the next week i am going to try to do a soundtrack or have a goo at making a decent tune on garageband. I might also have a quick look on soundcloud.com see if there is anything on there.

Cheerio, Theodore x

Another Good Website

YO,YO,YO

FirstLight Videos

this is a wicked website, watch the films at home though im afraid, won't play in school , technology college and all!!!

Cheerio, Theodore x

Powerpoint

Hello,
Just a quick one to let you guys know that ive almost finished my presentation on "representation"
So you guys can relax now and enjoy your weekend.

J x

Pitch

Hey guys,
By next Friday (18th) we need to have sorted out our pitches.
The pitch needs to include;

- p/p outlining.
- audience
- research
- 4 elements
- mock ups/ storyboards

Jamie; Representation.
Jess; Audience.
Theodore; Genre.
Me; Narrative.

We need to remember the key concepts in our pitch guys, here are the ones we were given in class.

- genre.
- representation.
- length & forms.
- institutions.
- audience.
- narrative.
- values & ideologies.
- attitude & beliefs.

Steve Neale once said, 'Genres are instances of repitition and difference'.

Over & Out, Caity x

The Royal Tenembaums

As a class we watched 'The Royal Tenembaums' . The Director of this film was Wes Anderson, a somewhat obsessive director that makes sure the mise en scene is perfect and how he wants it , this results in a very stylistic film. The Opening titles are different and therefore memorable. We had to anaylise a character, i chose Chas , the young businuess man. here is a youtube clip of what we watched in class.



I anaylised 'the royal tenembaums'(2001) using roland barthes' cultural and semantic codes which is when any element of the text that , for example through denonation changes the connotation or interpretation of the of the text from the knowledge of the audience. I am analysising the character of Chas; a child genius. We are told this through narration but he is wearing a suit and this shows him to be older. it is also mentioned that he drinks coffee behind his desk (the central furniture in his bedroom) this shows him as the businuess man he is but also shows him to old before his age. another element of semiotics is the press interview ; another alien element to wha is said to be about a 8-10 year old boy.

Cheerio, Theodore x

Pitch - Audience

Next week as a group we are required to present a pitch to the rest of the class, describing our idea and who it will appeal to. We have split the different areas between us and I have chosen to focus on audience, we have decided to create separate powerpoint presentations and then join them all together.

I am going to include information regarding the demographics of our audience, and how we plan to tailor to their needs. This is my part of the presentation..

Audience

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The Royal Tenenbaums - Margot

In todays lesson we looked at cultural and semantic codes in more detail and applied these to The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

I wrote a short analysis on the character Margot, she is the adopted daughter of Royal Tenenbaum which segregates her from her siblings Richie and Chas.
We are initially introduced to the character through her bedroom door which has 8 locks and numerous 'Do Not Enter' signs, this highlights her introverted and private nature. Costume is key in the way Margot is represented, she wears elegant clothing such as her fur coat which portrays her as having high social status, even though she is a child.
Throughout the opening, the characters facial expresssion is blank and sullen, her blonde hair also makes her physically stand out as being different from the rest of her family. There is an element of mystery to the character, as the audience are informed of her losing a finger on her trip, but not given an explanation. At the end of the opening sequence, we are lead to believe that the leading female character will become a writer.

Levi Straus

Hey guys,

We've just had a lesson, and learnt about the theorist Levi Straus who believed that the world was split into a series of 'binary opposites'. This means, essentially, one thing can only be defined in relation to something it is not.

Simple Examples:

- black & white.
- fat & thin.
- pretty & ugly.
- rich & poor.
- hero & villian.
- wrong & right.

When looking at how this could be used in our media piece, there are certain aspects that will always need a binary opposite. For example, as we want to represent homelessness in our short film we are relying on our audience knowing how a homeless person is usually reflected (this comes under cultural code too) and knowing that to have homelessness there is also wealth. We want to demonstrate these to two classes by usind different conventions such as mise en scene, costume, voice & camera angles.

Binary opposites are used in every film without you even knowing, an example from a film would be; In 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest' the binary opposite would be sanity & insanity, as the character played by Jack Nicholson represents sanity compared to his intutionalised friends.

Over & Out, Caity x

Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes is a french litery theorist, philosopher, critic and semiotician. He came up with narrative codes within films that help to tell the story of the film, or add crucial details that are key to the storyline. Here are the codes...
Action code - this applies to any action within a film.
e.g a character reaching for a gun will tell the audience there is an action scene coming up.

Enigma Code - An element in a film that is not explained, and raises a problem within the storyline.
e.g something within a film that makes the audience think.

Semantic Code - This is how the audience interpret something,
e.g the suggested meaning.

The Cultural Code - Elements relating to the audience based on their knowledge.
e.g a film where a character is dressed as santa clause, we know that he is santa clause without anyone having to say.

The Symbolic Code - This is the middle meaning, and it is linked very closely with Binary opposites.

J x

American Beauty Update

I liked the way that it was styliseed especially the bits where he 'spaces' although i cant help but think this isnt possible on an amatuer level. but the but that stuck in my mind was the quote.


(contains strong language)
'i'm just and ordinary guy with nothing to lose'

Maybe we could try to use this in our media film, or poster. I also liked the anchorage from the soundtrack. this kept a sense of rhythm and uniformity throughout the film. and also acted as a action code for when something was going to happen or was happening, another idea we could transfer to our media film.

Cheerio , Theodore x

American Beauty

I'm about to start watching american beauty thanks to caitlin, see if i get any inspiration, thought it was worth mentioning group, i'll update the blog later

Cheerio, Theodore x

Audience

We want an audience of a younger / youthful demographic, 15+. but we don't just want a teenage audience try not to use to much slang e.t.c, to make the film look proffesional and less like for media students have bodged it together!

I know that the technician in the library when i was doing my AS film talked about getting two cameras out to create better camera angles and easier smooth transition and continuity. Thought that was a good idea if we can get away with it, do we have media on friday, need to get some ideas going!!

can't wait to get started!

Cheerio, Theodore x

Film Posters

Sorry to be posting again guys but i was just looking at film posters so i thought i'd show you afew that i liked. i think it's good if its minimilistic and simple maybe with some form of the enigma code in there!

i also liked this new technology (photobucket), easy to use and it looks effective as a part of a blog. also group i set up the account as lcmedia and the usual password. click on each image for a short comment on each.
Cheerio , Theodore x

Things we need to decide.

Just a few ideas but also what we need to define e.g Target Audience, Narrative and Mise en Scene.



i used www.wordle.net to do this chart (click to enlarge), found that this new technology was helpful for mindmapping and recording thoughts.

Cheerio , Theodore x

Ideas , hmmmmm

i know we talked of a lot of ideas as a group and had alot of ideas bouncing around. We wanted it to a film that ment something , without being a lecture or cliche. We need to have a bit of a mindmap or something next lesson.

Cheerio , Theodore x

Stop Motion Animation

Hi, guys i know we talked about stop motion in class today so i thought i'd try abit of my own so we can get an idea i did it because I have done small stop motion animation videos before (basic lego one above) ,we could possibly use it as the title and the credits here are some prototypes that i have tried and made myself and uploaded to youtube.com

and

Stop Motion was on the rise last year and became more popular on viral videos such as youtube uploads e.t.c on youtube there is a user called "PESfilm" who creates extravagant animation made up of complex objects and shots. this obviously takes a long long time but the end result is spectacular, if we could get the title to look professional and a smooth animation i would be happy, my above attempts are very crude but gives an idea how much time and how many shots it takes the 4 second video above took 48 seperate pictures, this give some idea of scale although the shots could be longer allowing it to be longer for less amounts of shots. However the more amounts of shots, the higher the quality so it just depends how good we want the quality!

Talk more on facebook , or in lesson :)

Cheerio , Theodore x

Audience

Our target audience is the younger era, from the age 15+, therefore im going to be doing a bit of research into the teen audience. Being in this category i will find this easier to research into.
After the jump will be a "wordle" image consisting of words liked to the younger audience...



J x

Mankind is no island

Hey guys,

This film is one of the first we watched whilst brain storming certain ideas for our film. When deciding we wanted to do a film, i knew instantly that i wanted to create quite an abstract film which surprisingly everyone in the group also thought. The film above uses lots of pictures at a quick pace, passing on a moral meaning. We first watched this film without sound, which meant our soar concentration was on the words we were reading, however, when watching for a second time I played it with sound and thought this kind of distracted from the meaning and intensity of my first viewing, I believe what I thought was the original silence created a build up in tension and let me just appriciate the film for its entirety and for what it was. This film gave us some initial ideas; such as using signs to create a message, and using different aspects of our enviroment. As a group we thought our choice fo setting will be pivotal as it will give us more oppurtunity for interesting shots and mise en-scene. In the clip above the use of New York and Sydney works well as it feel quite raw. I also like the rough and ready feel of this film, and that it is not too clean cut.

Over & Out, Caity x

YET ANOTHER SHORT FILM!

.

I found this video on youtube.com its called "why?" and was a Thinksync 2008 short film finalist. the poignancy of the vocal script is important in this video. but the montage where he gets up from his seat at the railway station and he going down the escalators. the basic story is that he has broken up with his girlfriend is in a state of depression. the composition is straight onto his face and he is looking directly at the camera. whether he is lying down, standing, sitting the camera is always straight on this keeps a rhythm and reduces confusion for a viewing audience.

this is a shot from the short film and i like the way that it seems that his world revolves around his waiting at the train station, or that his moment of clarity. I like the way the simple shots and clean editing lets the audience focus on the message and what the character is saying. this may be harder for us. to make it deep and have a moral with out it being patronising or us pontificating.

Cheerio, Theodore x

Short Films, Ryan

I also watched a 10 minute drama shot in monochrome colours, called "Ryan" They black and white changed the style of the peice and made it seem more arthouse and stand out from the croud. Ryan is a boy as a young teenager finds himself bored within a "satelite" town in england. the first 2 minutes sets the scene and defines the character within the text. it shows a young teenager playing around with a broken bottle and scraping names into the dirt on a railway bridge. the wayward teen then walks onto and estate. some of the montages and sets of shots before this are inspirational i like the way to symbolise him walking they didn't just follow his feet but him dragging a twig along metal rails. At the start this showed his personality ideosycrocies but possibly that he was nervous about what was to come this tension is good for a short film, to evoke emotion in the audience, which is one of my key aims. they film also raises questions between the ages clashes or differences between young and old.

I reckon that enough i am going to check out youtube for more :P!
Cheerio, Theodore x

Short Films, Everything Turns

I also watched a animated experimental film called "Everything Turns". a one minute animation about life and death, I like the idea of doing animation or a small part of animation in my film, even if it just the title or a closing or a starting shot. This film looks like a just pen and ink kind of stop motion animation. It follows the human life cycle and was Inspired by Durs Grünbein's poem Vertigo.

yet again , more to come !
Cheerio, Theodore x

Short Films, Slippin'

I watched "slippin'" a 10 minute film about a teenage boys ordinary friday night, changes into a conflict which leaves him physichally and mentally humilated. The Thing I liked about this film was the idea of normality changing through no fault of the main character. An Idea of fate, or destiny that this was always going to happen. Another good thing about this film is the situation that the character is put into ( on of conflict in the middle of no-where) is a familiar feeling for teenagers today, whether it has happened or that they fear that it may happen.

more too come in a sec!
Cheerio, Theodore x