Preliminary Task

So back to the proper working task...Samana and I distributed the work among ourselves ...she did the shot list and I did the storyboard...the script and story was decided among us and the chat was uploaded in one of my previous posts...

Script:-

Its the story of a little girl with a normal life style but a disturbed mind...e.g in a scene, her mother offers her the morning breakfast and she just sits there staring at it, lost in her thoughts...in short this little girl is mentally disturbed by the society and the people around her at school and outside her house...this little girl is badly beaten up one day and is mentally disturbed to such an extent that she is unable to solve a simple question on the classroom board...in the end...the girl is shown standing in front of the mirror with tears in her eyes...

Shotlist:- (by Samana Rizvi)

Storyboard:- (by me of course)

Genre?

What is genre?

Genre is any form or type of communication in any mode with socially-agreed upon conventions developed over time. Genre is most popularly known as a category of literature, music, or other forms of art or entertainment, whether written or spoken, audio or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria, yet genres can be aesthetic, rhetorical, communicative, or functional. Genres form by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones is discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, but genres are amalgams of these texts based on agreed upon or socially inferred conventions. Some genres may be rigid with strictly adhered to guidelines while others may be very flexible.

How are narrative structure and genre related:-

Film trailers are also an engaging means to teaching fiction genres and narrative structure.  It is important that genre is established in a trailer as it grabs the attention of audiences that studios know will want to see the film.  If it’s a fantasy then fans of that genre will want to see your films more than the very different audience demographic who will be more interested in then latest romantic comedy.  The trailer’s voiceover or text on screen will sometimes quite overtly compare a new film to a previous, successful film that the studio released in the same genre (e.g. "From the people who bought you…").   Of course, when choosing moments from the film the film studio will often choose a range of sequences (action, romance, comedy) to show that their film has ‘something for everyone’.

Typical narrative structure is often broken down in this way:

Opening: establishes setting and introduces character

Build up: Relationships established. Development of characters and their world

Problem: a dilemma or series of complications.  Characters are faced with an obstacle to overcome a mystery to solve, or often more than one

Events: a series of events/action as characters try to overcome obstacle, solve problem, discover truth and so on.  Further complications may arise in the process

Resolution: the protagonists are victorious, problems are solved, truth revealed

Ending: characters reflect on events, reinstate relationships and look forward.

The narrative structure of a film trailer could be simply shortened to this:-

Opening

Build Up

Problem

Events

Occasionally people complain that film trailers give far too much away.  An effective trailer avoids any suggestion of resolution and ending, perhaps just a hint that the protagonist is going to learn an important lesson.  The intention is to leave audiences wanting more, not feeling they have seen all the ‘best bits’ already.  The key events are often put in non-chronological order so the actual film will not be too predictable.

How does genre affect our lives?

Ok...for example if we take the example of music:-

Music affects our emotions. When we listen to sad songs, we tend to feel a decline in mood. When we listen to happy songs, we feel happier. ... About 22.2 percent of people said that they listen to music between one to two hours everyday, where another 22.2 percent said they listen at least five hours a day. Same is the case with movies, drama, tv serials....if their genres are horror, we'll get the eerie feeling of being scared...

I can organise different types of genres and how the affect our feelings and moods:-

Crime

Crime fiction is the literary genre that fictionalises crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives.

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. 

Romance

The romance novel or "romantic novel" primarily focuses on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending."

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction dealing with imaginative concepts such as futuristic science and technology, space travel, time travel, faster than light travel, parallel universes and extraterrestrial life. 

Western

Western fiction is defined primarily by being set in the American West in the second half of the 19th century and, secondarily, by featuring heroes who are rugged, individualistic horsemen (cowboys).

Inspirational

Inspirational fiction is fictional works with faith-based themes.

Horror

Horror fiction aims to frighten or disgust its readers.

The genre that we chose:- (Drama)

For our preliminary task...we decided to make a film opening based on the genre drama...

As our main target was bullying so this genre is quite helpful for us to emphasize our ideas...and we can easily show the society around and how it affects our lives in a positive or negative way...

Movie planning

My and Samana's chat on the discussion of what topic should be chosen for the film opening scene we had to shoot.

Ideologies

Dude....does it look like i care...who said i do? :p...

We were asked to make a presentation on ideologies so that the teacher comes to know, how much concept were we able to grasp...

Guess what....i copied some of the stuff and plagiarised it....so had to make some amendments before thrashing the stuff onto my blog...LOL!!! 

Ideology Presentation by Foster Doll on Scribd

Film analysis Avatar (sound+editing)

Editing:-

Avatar wasn’t just a theatrical release in 2009, it was a full blown force of nature. The biggest box office hit of all time, Avatar also revolutionized motion capture and 3D in Hollywood and picked up several Oscar nods and wins, including a nomination for best Picture. Avatar is nearly seventy percent computer generated, in some respects practically an animated film, and Fiore had only been behind the camera for less than a third of the movie’s running time. Avatar bears the marks of a Mauro Fiore-shot film, and despite its abundance of digital effects, is a superbly photographed movie worthy of its award.
The film’s digital and live action elements are inseparable, however, and it’s impossible to talk about the look of Avatar without understanding its technical foundation. Director James Cameron famously spent fifteen years developing the technology and the world of Avatar, waiting until it was physically possible to bring his vision of a distant alien world to life. Much of the film was shot with the Fusion Camera System, a digital 3D apparatus co-developed by Cameron and since used with several other films. The Fusion allowed Cameron, Furio and the crew to shoot in 3D with a revolutionary quieter, smaller setup. It used stereoscopic lenses—two separate lenses on the same horizontal plane—to mimic the vision of two human eyes. By capturing two images slightly adjacent to one another, it created the same three-dimensional depth people see with their eyes. By adjusting the intraocular distance between the two lenses, the filmmakers had control over how much depth was in a given shot.
The Fusion was able to reduce the distance between lenses to an incredibly small amount while also incorporating ten other types of motion that gave the filmmakers an unprecedented amount of control to compose a three-dimensional image. It could do all this and still be stripped down to even perform handheld and Steadicam work, which was crucial to Cameron’s intense direction. The Fusion also allowed for several types of cameras to work with it. In Avatar, Fiore shot with three different HD Sony models. Cameron, a famously hands-on filmmaker, would often operate the camera himself while Fiore blocked the scene.
Fiore, obviously new to this system, took several weeks to get acquainted with the equipment before he felt confident enough to shoot with it. This included getting familiar with how the Fusion would handle light, something any DP needs as much control over as possible. During this testing period, Fiore found the Fusion created a ghosting effect that would blur images with especially bright and especially dark objects within the same frame. Fiore was able to block his set to account for this, keeping certain objects apart, lighting them appropriately, and even using smoke to temper the effects of the contrast and ghosting.
Another technical innovation Avatar introduced to Hollywood was its virtual cinematography. For shooting in the animated world of Pandora, Cameron and his team could use a handheld controller similar to the one used in video games. Using a monitor that would show the motion-capture actors in their pre-rendered animated states, the team had full control over the scale and motion of the virtual camera. By switching the scale, the camera could tower over the digital figures as if atop a 100 foot crane. The controller could also operate the camera as if it were on dolly tracks, or a Steadicam rig, or even handheld. In effect, it was total cinematic control over the digital image.
Light was also Fiore’s key to seamlessly merging Avatar’s digital effects with its live action. Had the filmmakers fail to blend the two into a coherent movie, Avatar might have been remembered as a optically-jarring flop as opposed to the visual masterpiece its now known as. Fiore realized early on in the production that he could use reflective paint and reflective material on certain objects that would react to UV light in a way that differentiated them in post-production, allowing the green screen around them to feel invisible.
Many exterior scenes were also shot indoors with green screen, Fiore also had to block with light sources that weren’t physically there. In each shot he had to be aware of where the sun would be digitally added and theoretically light the scene. For one major sequence involving an army of soldiers, Cameron actually chose to shoot outside, night-for-day. At first, Fiore thought faking night for day was ludicrous but eventually saw Cameron’s reasoning. By lighting with their own equipment as opposed to the actual sun, they had total control over illumination and shadows. And if there was one thing Cameron cherished on his set, it was total control, even over the heavens.

Sound:-

The sound devices used in Avatar are diagetic meaning it comes from within the world of the movie, all you hear are the sounds of their feet on the leaves or during the battle scenes the calls from the warriors and the roar of the helicopter blades. The dialogue is very clear and important to getting the story across and there is even a fictional language that the Na’vi speak that needs to be captioned that is scrolled across the screen when they are speaking it. The sound effects are not overplayed and done riddiculously like some films it is realistic even to the fictional characters like the birds that they fly on, to the flapping of their wings and the roar and hissing sounds they make. There are many different moods through out the film and the music that is played helps set the mood, during the battle scene the heavy drums and quick beat gets the heart racing and you can feel the adrenaline that the characters feel.

During the love scenes the music is soft and almost romantic helping the viewers feel the connection between the two. With out the music that is played the movie would still be powerful but you might not be as drawn into the film as you are with the music. As for the sound effects if any if them were removed the world of Pandora might not feel as realistic as it does with them. In the clip “Making the bond” you hear subtle sound effects like the swinging of the vine, and the tumbling of rocks and they scatter across the ground making the scene that much more real and dramatic.

Storyboard (Film opening scene) Dead silence

We were asked to make a storyboard of a film opening scene and we had to choose the film of our own choice...I decided the movie Dead Silence

Lets start the description from left to right...

1- The first picture shows an old woman's hand burning a candle with the match stick still in the flame.

2-The second picture shows the same old woman opening an old book/diary with old pictures and a newspaper piece with the news of a girl gone missing.

3-In the third picture she opens the blank space in the book/diary and holds a pencil to write.

4-In the same album she comes across a picture of herself and her favorite handmade dummy sitting together.

5-Now here she opens the most important part of her diary where she had written the perfect ways of making a perfect hand made dummy...the picture shows the structure of a handmade dummy.

6-She starts her work by gathering her tools...she holds a carver in her right hand and a hammer in the left...the carver is set on a block of wood.

7-She has carved a dummies head and is fixing its jaw.

8-VOILA!!! The dummy is ready!

Brian storming for film opening scene

We were given a task by the media teacher to create a film opening scene and we started our searching....


I apparently came across this book...

Ghostgirl is the debut novel from author and filmmaker Tonya Hurley. It is the story of high school senior "Charlotte Usher", a misfit outsider whose desperation to be popular lives on even after her sudden death. The young adult novel was published on August 1, 2008 by Little, brown and company and hit the New york times Bestseller list, Chapter Books, on September 14, 2008.Ghostgirl has been printed in several different languages around the world, including Spanish and French. It was followed by a sequel in July 2009 called ghostgirl: Homecoming, and a third book, ghostgirl: Lovesick was released in July 2010.
The audio book releases of ghostgirl (released August 2009) and ghostgirl: Homecoming (released November 2009), from Recorded books in 2009, are read by actress Parker Posey and feature a score by Vince Clarke of Erasure fame.

My mind had been racing around the genre of this book...I guess that makes a perfect sense what genre was chosen...BINGO!!!

Importance of film opening

Film opening scenes are the first important thing of a movie...as the start of a film it gives a complete idea to the audience the what the movie will be about...The most important thing that the opening of a film must accomplish is to establish a tone so that the audience fall into the same mood as the film they are watching. It does no€t have to be a big budget explosive opening in order to grab the audience€s attention and sometimes an over the top opening like this risks up ending the structure of the film with a sense of where do we go from here? Usually the most successful film openings bring a well developed sense of intrigue that will leave you settled into your seat desperate to know more about the story and the characters that are going to occupy your time for the next one and a half to two hours. If it is particularly inventive there will be some dramatic foreshadowing that will enable to hint you at the problems that are going to occur throughout the story (In short where the films gonna lead you).

In case if we take the opening scene above as an example...we can see that how it derives you to the idea that what the movie will be about...