Roles and Responsibilities

Final Film

Editing - Kieran Pritchard
Director - Lewis Smith
Acting - Lewis Smith, Kieran Pritchard
Camera - Lewis Smith, Kieran Pritchard

Pre Production

Shot list - Lewis
Storyboard - Kieran
Risk assessment - Lewis
Location recce - Lewis
Props and equipment - Kieran
Character Development - Kieran

Storyboard

Answer to evaluation question 4

Opening title sequence Final Cut

Here is the final cut for our opening title sequence, there have been a few improvements made from the first cut. For example, we have tried to made the transition between scenes smoother by adding fades and other transitional effects.

Opening Title sequence First cut

Here is the first cut for our Opening title sequence, there are a few changes we need to make in order for it to be finished properly.

Answer to evaluation question 7

 

Answer to evaluation question 6

Answer to evaluation question 5

Answer to evaluation question 3

Here is a Slide Share with some of the answer to the third evaluation question in

Media evaluation question 3 from KieranPritchard

If a media institution was to distribute my product it would probably be one of the new up and coming companies that were looking for a big hit to put them on the map, an example of this happening was with the film "The Blair Witch Project" which was produced and distributed by Haxan Films

Answer to evaluation question 2

How Does Your Media Product Represent Particular Social Groups

Answer to evaluation question 1

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Synergy from KieranPritchard

Comprehending time

Very few screen based products take place in real time, the majority of films take place over years of a story. Therefore, naturally there are many conventions that connote a change in time or date.

Firstly and the most obvious way in which this is done in some films is through a pop up on the screen that informs the viewer of the time or date. This takes place a lot in the programme "24"

A cut in the scene can also connote a change in time

Media Institutions

Media Institution

Most media institutions are owned by a handful of companies or people, for example in America there are only 5 companies that control all of the visual media such as television and films

 

• Disney
• Warner Bros
• Paramount
• Universal
• DreamWorks

An example of a man having a massive media empire is Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch owns a huge amount of companies including FOX and The Times and The Sunday Times

Time in Narrative

In Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, Gérard Genette lays out a schema for understanding how time functions within a narrative through examining how various phenomena within a narrative relate to one another. For Genette, story (signified) is that which tells of an event or events, narrating is the production of narrative action, and narrative (signifier) is “the narrative text itself,” or that which we use to think about the relationships between the content of the narrative and how it is told (Genette 27). He writes, “Story and narrating thus exist for me only by means of the intermediary of the narrative” (29). This seems to indicate that story and narrating, then, either do not exist without the narrative or that they cannot exist in any meaningful way, as their meaning can only be approached through the narrative text itself.  Is it even possible to have story and narrating without a narrative text? For although Genette’s study focuses on Proust’s work, I do not get the sense that he is discounting oral storytelling wherein the narrative text would not exist in written form. Given, then, the impossibility of having story and narrating without narrative, what happens when we insert non-narrative (movement) into the mix? An instance of this type of movement could arguably still be interpreted along the lines of order, duration, frequency, mood and possibly voice, but how does this change, if at all, the relationship between the non-narrative text, or the non-narrative instance within the narrative text, and story/narrating? Such moments could certainly have their own temporality, but can we situate this temporality within the larger narrative? How could we account for a temporal moments? Are these possible? (I am thinking in particular about when photographs or other static images pop up in a narrative text.)

 

 

I found Genette’s analysis of repetition within a narrative to be particularly fascinating. Repetition is usually taken to indicate the (re)production of more of the same, of identical copies that, according to Benjamin, are without history or authority. Genette, however, redefines repetition. After listing the same statement three times, he argues that "none of the [repeated] occurrences is completely identical to the others, solely by virtue of the co-presence and their succession, which diversify these three statements into a first, a next, and a last” (114). With this, Genette employs temporal markers of appearance in the text (which is a use of order different from that described in the first section) to differentiate between three sentences that, on the page, are identical and that, temporally, happened once at the same moment, as it is the same event being described. What is at stake in the impossibility of identical repetition? What happens when we put Genette in conversation with Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”?

Narrative theory

What is Narrative Theory?

Narrative theory is currently enjoying a major burgeoning of interest in North America and throughout the world, with especially strong activity in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Scandinavia, Israel, and China. Narrative theory starts from the assumption that narrative is a basic human strategy for coming to terms with fundamental elements of our experience, such as time, process, and change, and it proceeds from this assumption to study the distinctive nature of narrative and its various structures, elements, uses, and effects.

More specifically, narrative theorists study what is distinctive about narrative (how it is different from other kinds of discourse, such as lyric poems, arguments, lists, descriptions, statistical analyses, and so on), and how accounts of what happened to particular people in particular circumstances with particular consequences can be at once so common and so powerful. Thus a key concern is whether narrative as a way of thinking about or explaining human experience contrasts with scientific modes of explanation that characterize phenomena as instances of general covering laws. Narrative theorists, in short, study how stories help people make sense of the world, while also studying how people make sense of stories.

 

To this end, narrative theorists draw not only on literary studies but also on ideas from such fields as rhetoric, (socio)linguistics, philosophical ethics, cognitive science (including cognitive and social psychology), folklore, and gender theory to explore how narratives work both as kinds of texts and as strategies for navigating experience. Narratives of all kinds are relevant to the field: literary fictions and nonfictions, film narratives, comics and graphic novels, hypertexts and other computer-mediated narratives, oral narratives occurring during the give and take of everyday conversation, as well as narratives told in courtrooms, doctors' offices, business conference rooms—indeed, anywhere. Because of the pervasiveness of narrative in our culture and the diversity of the texts, media, and communicative situations narrative theory examines, narrative theory constitutes an exciting new frontier of English Studies, one that promises to bring English Department faculty and students into closer contact with their counterparts in a variety of social-scientific, humanistic, and other disciplines.

 

 

 

Hybrid Genres

The hybrid genre in the film industry refers to the aspect of blending several movie genres into one film such as comedy and horror. There are many movies that fall under this category such us the fight club? starring Brad Pitt.

Sometimes a film is made so that it fits into two different genres, this is called a "Hybrid Genre". Hybrids are good for film makers because it means they can make their film seem more attractive to viewers that enjoy films from both of the chosen genres, for example "Love Actually" is a Romantic Comedy and this means that people that enjoy funny films and people that enjoy films about romance may like the themes conveyed by this title.

Another example of a film that attracts two different audiences is Twilight. This could be seen as as a good film to watch if the person is into fantasy films and also if the person is into romantic films.

Films that are considered as being hybrid genres and also often seen as having complicated storylines

Genre

Conventions and Paradigms- Genres function to a set of rules and conventions, which govern their capacity and range. Conventions are the breakdown of everything to do with genre. Action and Adventure films for example include big set piece, guns, fight scenes

• Paradigm- The overall pattern created by a film that helps us categorize it. If you were to talk about a paradigm you'd be talking about the look and feel of the genre. 
• Conventions- The individual elements which help specify which genre a film belongs to.
• Iconography- I.e the main signs and symbols that you see/hear
• Theme- The issues and ideas the programme deals with.

Why do we categorize film?

Films are put into categories so that it is easier for the potential viewer to decide if the film they are looking at in a shop is the right one for them or not. It is also helpful for film makers to be able to see what type of films the majority of people are wanting to watch at that moment in time.

People watching a horror

People watching a comedy

Genre in Media

The word genre is originally derived from the Latin language literally translated it mean "kind" or "group". Although the word originally comes from Latin it was actually the French that took the word and developed it into the word we can define today. The French used the word as a way to categorize their different types of entertainment such as; Books, Plays and Music. The genre something is in is determined by certain criteria That makes them a specific type of whatever type of entertainment you are viewing/listening to/reading. In film these are usually based on themes that are displayed in the media product. Sometimes Media institutions can fir more than one genre in a media product, these create Hybrid Genres, the most popular hybrid genre is RomCom which is a combination of the genres Romantic and Comedy.

An example of a genre is "Thriller". Thrillers heavily stimulate the viewer's moods, giving them a high level of anticipation, ultra-heightened expectation, uncertainty, surprise, anxiety and terror. Films of this genre tend to be adrenaline-rushing, gritty, rousing and fast-paced. 

An example of a thriller film is "Inception", released in 2010 and directed by Christopher Nolan. This movie falls into the thriller genre because it includes a few characteristics that a thriller movie must have, for example the film inception includes themes such as a lone protagonist (Leonardo  DiCaprio) and a controversial ending with which there could be a lot of debating on what actually happened.

Another genre that is often targeted in Hollywood is the "Comedy" genre, this includes films like "The Mask", "Bruce Almighty" and "Kevin and Perry Go Large". There are many different type of comedy, one type of comedy is called slapstick humour, Slapstick is the recurse to humour involving exaggerated physical activity which exceeds the boundaries of common sense. This is included in the film The Mask. Here is a scene from that film which I would put in the category slapstick humour

Comedy films also achieve their goal of being funny through subversive depictions of characters.


The genre Horror is a genre that's main aim is to be seen as scary to the viewer. An example of a horror film is the film "SAW" this film achieves its target of being scary through blood, gore and extreme violence 

Risk Assessment

There are many risks involved in the filming of our opening title sequence, here is a list of certain things that could go wrong.

As we will be high up for one of the shots there is a risk of falling, we also need to ensure that we get permission to film in that certain place or we may run the risk of being thrown off of the premises.

 It is also important that we do not use and copyrighted music on our opening title sequence or get any copyrighted logos in there accidently, this could cause problems for us later down the line and worst case scenario is that we could get sued.

Character Profile

Main Character

Andy Long

Outfit - Suit

Hobbies - Fishing, Krav Maga

History - Born in 1991 in the east end of London, went to St Patrick's school for troubled teens, he left school aged 16 in 2007 and got a number of dead end jobs then the start of the film takes place on his 18th Birthday.

treatment
storyboard
shot list
location recce
 risk assessment
character profile - outfit
                            - Background/ history profile



treatment

Log Line into treatment

A boy gets given a package and is told to deliver it to a certain location but complications arise when the package gets stolen when the boy goes into a busy section of his town. The boy has to get the package back or his life is in danger.

Editing Horror - Michael Harrowes

Editing Horror - Michael Harrowes

It has been organised that on Monday 27th January there will be  a Skype conference with a BAFTA award nominated editor Michael Harrowes.

Michael Harrowes is currently editing a horror series that will be aired on British TV.

Here are some of the questions we will ask him.

How did you get into the film industry/editing?

What is the most famous programme/film that you've edited?

Log lines Ideas

Log lines ideas for my opening sequence

1.  A boy runs away from home and takes shelter with a homeless man who takes him under his wing but is he as friendly as he seems?

2.  An elderly man with Alzheimer's is accused of murdering 3 men in cold blood, he goes on the run but cannot remember if he committed the crime or not.

3. A man has to deliver a secret package to anonymous clients, his life is suddenly on the line when the delivery gains unwanted attention from the wrong people