Classwork 31/10/2011

In class today, we had James come in, he was showing us the basics of how to use after effects. He showed us a short animation, called 'Anatomy of a Murder' which was a basic clip, which we had to recreate in our own way.

Firstly James set us the 'simple' task of creating the title, If you wanted to change the size of the writting, its not like any other document where you have a drop down with font sizes on you can click on, it's on a percentage scale, and you have to click on the percentage and drag it right or left depeding on the size you wanted. I soon figured it was more playing around with the controls, as opposed to listening carefully, to grasp the skill of after effects.

Secondly we had to create or draw body parts, in a simple 'paper cut' or 'stick man' form which in the original animation were scattered. It seemed easy enough when james did it, but took the whole class over an hour! I drew two legs an arm and some fingers!

Finally we had to animate the clip, we did this by clicking on the 'twisler' where the programme logged what you'd done, by clicking on the item you;d want to animate in, then click on another drop down called tranformations, then positions, where you could then decide what time and when, and how long that body part would take to come in!

Editing The Hangover

In Class we started editing the footage we had shot, Firstly we looked through every shot deciding on the best take and renaming it so it was easy to find and hopefully saving time in the long run.

After deciding on the clips we wanted, we downloaded them all in to Adobe premiere pro where we had to cut the scenes at appropriate times. We learnt easy ways to do this using just the keyboard...you could press the space bar to stop, start and pause the clip, and 'i' to cut the film in at the point you wanted and 'o' to cut the film out.

This took quite a long time as we were quite particular about trying to get the timing as closely matched as we could to the original, which had up on another computer. It was also quite tricky in the fact that we had to try and cut some scene mid way through speech, and with obviously speech generally being very flowing, it was very hard not to get the beggining of another word or sound in, also we had to try and not cut off half of the last word we needed.

After our shooting we had watched the opening sequence a ridiculous amount of times we were so familiar with the sequences and the timings, and it became apparent that the song 'it's now or never' which was at first greatly liked turned out to be a very much hated song, we could also pretty much say the lines word for word!

21/10/2011
The last day of term! We had a double lesson today, one where we were able to finish editing the final bits and the second lesson where we had to show the class our finished piece, as pending a long time on after effects, bluring out the background and keeping phil (alex) in focus seemed like a good idea to start with and gave us a chance to develop our skills on this programme, however after adding it to the video strip, the sound somehow became all echoy and distort. which was quite annoying after spending agesss on it! Alice, Caitlin, Bea and I then had to clear all of the scenes containg phil, and re-cut and add in the ones which weren't blurred out. Secondly we had to add subtitles to the film and make transitions with in the first few opening shots, to make it smooth, which Bea knew how to do. Finally we had to export the video, to the main computer ready to show the whole class after lunch!

The Hangover Filming part 2

Sunday 16th October

 Today was the day of our filming at park farm, where we had planned to do most of the shoots. For this shoot we also had our whole group, plus, vikki (Megans friend), who kindly agreed to play Tracey, Dave, Caitlins Dad who played the fathers bride and Lesley also Caitlins mum who played the brides mother! a very good effort from all, thankyou! 

We had to re arrange the room in the hotel, to replicate the set of the hangover as closely as we could, we had all the props needed, including a brides dress and three identical bridesmaid dresses!

The first scene we shot was the van scene, this because Bea('s) (the new member to our group) dad had a white van which he kindly said we could use and to save him waiting in the car park for too long! This scene was very quick and ran smoothly, We also took advantage of the people at the loaction at the time, we chose one of the many scenes  where you can see two ladies walking past the van who were attending a christening at park farm that day!

The second filming needed the use of the wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses, this again was a simple zooming in shot, however we did have problems with the lighting which we were unable to attend to and amend. We thought we could slightly edit this when it came to actually editing the film as i think we underestimated the fact of how much equpiment is actually needed in the production of a film. We, obviously, did not have this equipment being on a budget of £00.00.

The following scenes however, were more complaicated after this, using almost everyone! Being the only adults around, understandably is hard to be confident amongst a young group of people, never the less after many takes Dave and Lesley did a very good job, and were very brave to agree to participate in the first place!

Lizzie and I did most of the filming, whilst everyone else chipped in, on the framing side of things! Alice was very good at helping with the lines and lifting the general mood of things! After a long 2 1/2 hours of shooting we all had a well earnt slice of cake or two, biscuits and sweets! I look forward to editing all the filming we have done and attempting to out it in to a running sequence for our first media film using the skills that James (the media guy, found out his name) taught me last time!

Self Evaluation

In class today we were editing what we had filmed so far of our hangover task, being new to media I lacked knowledge in relation to the use of the camera. I was unable to use blur and focus in the same shot, which was needed in the shot with phil and the car scene.

In this photo phil is in focus and the background blurred.

With the help of the media guy that came in (can't remember his name) I was able to understand that i could edit all of this on photoshop, Something i'd never done before. He demonstated how to use it and how I could blur the whole shot, then copy a second scene and 'mask' phil (or Alex) to keep him in focus. The idea was brilliant but has not yet been finished and has taken a good hour to do what totals up to about 30 seconds of footage, this, because the person moves, and every movement you have to stop the clip and re align the mask. I now feel confident in using this part of photoshop and hopefully will be able to use it in our remake of the hangover!

The Hangover

We have been given the task of recreating the opening two minutes of Todd Phillips famous 2009 film 'The Hangover' our aim was to attempt to make it a true shot for shot remake! Our group consists of 6 people, Caitlin, Alice, Lily, Lizzie, Megan and I.

 The Hangover follows the characters of Phil, Stu and Alan, who awaken in Las Vegas after a bachelor party to find they have no memory of the previous night's events and are missing their friend Doug, whose wedding is scheduled to occur the next day. The story was partially inspired by the filmmakers' real-life misadventures.

The Hangover was filmed on a budget of $35 million and was released in North America on June 5, 2009, becoming a critical and commercial success. It became the tenth highest-grossing film of 2009, with a worldwide gross of over US$467 million. The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and received multiple other accolades.

In class, our group watched the video numerous times picking out various props, locations and characters needed. In class we were advised to have allocated roles e.g director, producer etc, we on the other hand decided against roles as such and just agreed to chip in ideas when appropriate. Obviously being As media students we have an extremely low budget, however we did our best to find locations and props which were most similar to the film it's self, which we were most pedantic about.

Props:

Wedding Dress
Bridesmaid Dresse (x3)
Mannequin
Mirror
Wedding cake
Phones
Sunglasses
Car
White robe
Flowers
Van
Clothes rail
numerous chairs
Hair brush
sofa (x2)
Newspaper
Building


Cast:
Phil
Stu
Alan
Doug
Tracey
Tracey's father
Tracey's mother
Bridesmaid 1
Bridesmaid 2

Song needed: I'ts now or never- El Vez

Filming Day 1 - 09/10/2011


Today was the day of the shoot for Phils scene. This scene was left down to Caitlin, Alice and I as other members were busy! (we decided to let megan have the day off as it was her birthday) 

In The Hangover, the location is a desert, and there is a wonderfully bright pastel sky as the sun is about to set. We had wind and rain, we considered re-scheduling but despite the weather we continued the shoot.
We had originally asked sam to play phil, but unfortunately cancelled last minute, Caitlin however had luckily planned a back-up, who considering hadn't seen the lines before the day did very well! Thank you Alex Shaw!

 We did this shoot at my Family Farm where my Uncle had an old car which we used, We had screen shot stills of the different framing needed for this short scene, Alice brought her laptop and a disk so we could watch the part we were filming. For phils 'blood/dirt' make-up caitling brought red lipstick which Alex felt uncomftable wearing, so we had to slum it with red pen, which worked well!

Caitling and I both read the lines for tracey, so phil could reply to them! Alice and Caitlin played the boys in the background sitting on the car whilst I filmed!
I feel this shoot went very well, considering i didn't know Caitlin or Alice before hand, we worked very well as a team and I'd be more than happy to work with them both again.

Next Sunday we are going to park farm to shoot a couple of other scenes, whom Alice phoned up, and they were very understanding and did not hesitate to say yes! I am looking Foreward to working with the whole group! Later on in the week Alice, Caitlin and I are going to one of Alice's Mum's friends house to film the cake scene as she is a cake designer!

Don Lafontaine- 'The Movie Trailer Guy'

Don Lafontaine was an American voiceover artist famous for recording more than 5,000 film trailers and hundreds of thousands of television advertisements, network promotions, and video game trailers. His nicknames included "Thunder Throat" and "The Voice of God". He became identified with the phrase "In a world…", which has been used in movie trailers so frequently that it has become a cliché. He parodied his career several times, most recently in commercials for GEICO insurance and the Mega Millions lottery game.

Reviewing Existing Coursework

We were given the task in class to go about veiwing other students As coursework. Obviously working with all the available equipment, loactions, actors and props these film openings were made as proffessionally as possible. Understanding that we have to undertake this task soon our task was to look for and underdtand what they were going for in the film. Hopefully through pointing out faults in the students films, we would avoid making the same errors, therefore allowing our film to have more impact in the opening two minuets and establish what we're trying to get across.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk6pJ986Lkw

  I think that the first thirty five to fourty five seconds of 'BROKEN' work well. In the forst few seconds of the film opening there is a depiction or silhouette of a young male sitting in darkness by a window, who seems to be sobbing over a picture of him and a loat friend or lover. In the first scene, focus is cast upon his torso, which sits a scar. A possible indication of an accident that may have occoured, resulting in a sorry outcome. There is a shot of the yung male from behind, showing his darly lit back, which is also scared or cut. The next scene is the ambitious chase scene, from which i feel the film begins to deteriorate. The 'fight' scene is carelessly edited, and the camera framing is extremely shakey. The idea the producer, i felt, tried to get across showing the characters as thuggish participants, in fight scene which failed to portray any sense of good or evil. From this scene i failed to make any connection with the characters, therefore i was unable to get into the film, to 'take sides' for either the baddy or goody. The final scene was the worst of BROKEN, which is a blacked out visual, with the names of the producers and participants in the bottom corner accompanied by a weak voice, accusing somebody of a murder, shortly followed by the sound of gunshots.

Breaking the Fourth Wall

Breaking The Fourth Wall --->

The fourth wall is the imaginary "wall" at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play. (Wikipedia definition)

"Fourth wall" is part of the suspension of disbelief between a fictional work and an audience. The audience will usually passively accept the presence of the fourth wall without giving it any direct thought, allowing them to enjoy the fiction as if they were observing real events. It is the invisible barrier between realities. The presence of a fourth wall is one of the best established conventions of a fiction and as such has led some artists to draw direct attention to it for dramatic effect. This is known as breaking the fourth wall.

Although breaking of the fourth wall is usually deliberate, the technical constraints of filmmaking, or the impracticality of refilming a complicated scene, can sometimes inadvertently break the wall by "reminding" the audience that they are watching a film: for example something splashing on the lens, such as water or mud or blood, such as the effects used in Saving Private Ryan, and more recently, Tim Burton's adaptation of Sweeney Todd.

Analysis of Atricle's on FARGO Inc. William Luhr's.

I am writting about 5 essay reviews which are written in an accessible style and incorporate significant approaches of contemporary cultural analysis. They look at the film with respect to decisions that went into it's making, it's visual, narrative, musical and performance strategies; it's commentary on American history, myth and culture; it's prduction history and relationship to other films by the Coen brothers, the imnportance of it's settings and the gender and racial issues it raises.

More speciffically, David Sterritts essay gives a production history of FARGO, describing how and why it was made, and charts it's relationship to the entire body of the Coen Brothers work.

Pamela Graces essay explores the unusual way FARGO develops it's central character as both a resourcful officer and an expectant mother. Grace shows how the films development of this character comments incisively on the history of gender relations.

Christopher Sharretts's essay illustrates ways in which the films setting and characters comment trenchantiy on dominant myths of American History and culture, particularly those of Western frontier. He demonstrates how the appeals of many of these characters to the American Dream for self-validation are little more than a hypocritical  reliance on long discarded values; a reliance that points not to cultural superiority, but rather to the nightmare world of the modern horror film.

 Mikita Brottman's essay implicity deals with the issue of how FARGO can be seen as both comic and horriffic. She develops the relationship of the films comedy to it's grotesque elements and shows how FARGO'S does not contradict but rather reinforces it's grim themes and events.

William Luhrs essay shows how FARGO both invokes and diviates from the stereotypes of genre, setting, comedy and characterisation to simultaineously engage and disorient its viewers.