Research & Planning.

Goodwin's music video Analysis

1.) Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics (e.g. stage performance in rock video, dance routine for boy/girl pop band)

I think this supports Goodwin's theory as Nsync was a popular boy band in their time era, therefore could gain and retain the attention of their target audience. You can see that this video was filmed in the 90s era by the way their dressed and styled. Their all wearing tight tops, jeans and bomber jackets which coordinate to represent that their in a boy band. The structured routines in this video also follow Goodwin's theory of the dance routines.

2.) There is a relationship between lyrics and visuals (either illustrative, amplifying, contradicting)

This video 'Cheers' is mostly made up of performance-based footage from different clips of Rihanna's tour, which have been combined to show her generally having a good time, partying with fellow celebrities and seeing her fans. The lyrics in the song 'Don't let the bastards get you down, turn it around with another round' reflects her free spirit persona which is shown throughout the video. She is clearly promoting positive vibes in this music video and sending the overall message not to take life too seriously.

3.) There is a relationship between music and visuals

This video 'Stacy's Mom' is a narrative based video. The story behind the video is the main boy in the video, falling for his girlfriend's mom, although she thinks it's her that he likes. The video includes fast paced shots which co-ordinate with the music which gives an upbeat feel to the video. There are also some scenes with animations which make the video more comic to watch. The music in the video also takes the audience through the story as the lyrics tend to match the clip being shown.

4.) There is frequently reference to notion of looking (screens within screens, telescopes, etc.) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body

In the video 'Video phone' by Beyonce and Lady Gaga, they are represented as very fierce, sexy women. Many of the shots throughout this video are focused on them dancing sexually, or making sexual gestures, with the camera zooming in on their bodies to ensure the audience focuses on this.

5.) The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work (a visual style)

Lady Gaga is famously known for outdoing the norm and going against what society perceives as normal. Along with her dressing style, her videos follow in the footsteps of being unique and making her audience think outside of the box. They usually follow a narrative story or have a message behind the video which she reveals at the end of each video. She also usually includes a crazy dance routine in her videos which reflects her wacky personality.

 6.) There is often intertextual refrence (to films, tv programmes, other music videos etc.) 

Intertextual reference means that artists include in their lyrics about other celebrities, films or songs that are well known in that era. This music video 'Stupid Girls' by Pink, is one of her most memorable videos as the whole video is clearly about her views and opinions on the new generation of music. The video reflects the lyrics in which it portrays female celebrities of today in a negative light and as bad role models, whilst sending the message to young female teenagers to be themselves and not fall into the pressure of wanting to be what society perceives as 'perfect'.

Auteur Theory

A view of film making in which the director is considered the primary creative force in a motion picture 

It can perhaps be best explained by US film critic and leading proponent of the theory, Andrew Sarris:

'The strong director imposes his own personality on a film; the weak director allows the personalities of others to run rampant.'

To be considered an auteur, a film-maker must have a body of work which can be analysed for ongoing themes and considerations, whether they occur intentionally or unintentionally. One example would be the theme of the distant father in Steven Spielberg's work. In addition to this, an auteur must have a differentiating style, almost instantly recognisable.

One example of a director that could be considered an auteur, Tim Burton's films have a very distinct style, and he often deals with similar themes in his work. In general, the lead character is separated from the norm of society in some way - a misfit. In the character of Edward Scissorhands, this idea is taken to the very extreme: the main character cannot even touch another person. Other examples of this character type include Batman, Beetlejuice, and to a certain extent, Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton's movies also have a distinct style, generally sporting a very Gothic feel. In addition, Burton is known for using stop-motion animation in his films, the prime examples being The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride. He is also known for reusing actors and actresses, in particular Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

 

Evaluation of Film Opening.

In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products? (I.e. of film openings)

- The title of our film is ‘Trapped’ as we thought it suited the meaning of our film opening well. We chose various locations to film our opening in, such as; the bedroom - the first scene in which one of the main characters is drinking and absorbing drugs.), the dining room which is meant to be seen as a café, the bathroom in which she reflects on herself in the mirror after being beaten up which is meant to be her main turning point in life.

- For the second main character, we decided to film the scene in her front room, as this is where most of the pictures were, which reflect her boring lifestyle of being trapped as a housewife.
- The costume we chose for the first character was of a more sexual Proxy-Connection: keep-alive
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ture to represent her role as a prostitute; the colour red is usually associated with lust and has a sensual nature to it, which is why we chose to have her dressed in a red leotard throughout, until the last scene in which she meets the housewife and changes her lifestyle.
- For the second main character, we decided to have her dressed in a simple checked blue shirt, and all black as black is usually associated with depression that we thought suited her role perfectly.

The font style, which we chose, was called ‘typewriter’ which we downloaded from an online site, and then imported it onto ‘final cut express’. We thought this best suited our film as the two main characters meet on an online chat room, so the typewriter font was linked to this throughout the opening.

The main story of our film is that two completely different woman are drawn together through an online chat room as they are both trapped within their own lifestyles. The opening of our film begins with the prostitute’s eyes being zoomed out of, and into the first scene in which she’s taking drugs and drinking alcohol, which we thought would have a good impact on our audience as they would then want to watch more to find out what happens to her destructive lifestyle, especially as our film is a drama which this reflects.

Our characters are introduced one after the other, which we separated using special effects such as transitions (fade in and out, black out), slow motion and fast motion, and blurs. Our film opens in the beginning with the first main character’s montage. The scenes within her montage include the special effects which are named above. These were included to make an impact on our audience and allow them to engage in what they were watching properly. Similar to the first main character, the second main character had special effects included in her montage, but these were more subtle as she was meant to be living a dull life therefore we thought this would be presented through dull transitions such as slow motions and simple fade outs.

How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Julia Roberts as a prostitute in ‘Pretty Woman’.

Molly Pavett in 'Trapped'

- They are both dressed in revealing attire which represents the kind of lifestyle their living
- They both have short hair which makes them look more mature
- Molly Pavett's make-up is more natural whereas you can clearly see Julia Roberts' make-up as she’s wearing bright red lipstick and heavy eye makeup.
- Julia Roberts doesn’t have many props apart from her bag, whereas in our film Molly has props such as the bottle of alcohol and the drugs on her bed.
- Molly’s facial expression is harsher as she’s pulling an expression at the bottle in her hand, in comparison to Julia Roberts’ which is caught off guard as she’s in the middle of a conversation.
- Julia is sitting on a bench with her body slightly tilted towards her companion which suggests that she may be involved with this character.
On the other hand, Molly’s is slouched onto the edge of her bed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand which is where we get the sense of disgust that she is portraying from.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?

A production company is either a small or large company responsible for the production of a particular genre of film that is usually responsible for raising the funding for that production. I thought that ‘Origin Pictures’ was a good company to choose to distribute our film as they are independent and well known for distributing drama films, which matches the genre of our film. Producer and financier Anant Singh also backs the company through Distant Horizon, the international production and Distribution Company. They have produced material such as ‘The Awakening’ and ‘The First Grader’ which have both been popular films.

'the awakening'


'the first grader'

Who would be the audience for your media product?

Amy Leigh

Gender: Female
Age: 17
Hobbies: Going out with friends, drinking, reading online magazines, Face booking.
Where do they shop: She prefers to shop in New Look or Dorothy Perkins as they offer a more diverse range of clothes to suit her style compared to Topshop/River island.
Music preference: RnB, Dubstep, Drum and Base
TV/Film Taste: Drama, Thriller, Horror.
Aspirations for the future: To be a Hair Stylist because she gets to express her inner creativity.



How did you attract/address your audience?

We tried to use iconography that would appeal to our target audiences such as alcohol and drugs, which would gain and obtain the attention of the teenage audiences. For example, we chose to include drugs and alcohol in the beginning of our film opening as we wanted this to appeal to our target audience. We wanted to make the beginning of our opening interesting and to build suspense to keep the attention of our audience, as we know that younger people would want to watch our film more if there were elements they could relate to.



In a focus group, I asked members of my target demographic what they thought of my film opening and whether they felt it addressed their needs as young audience members, some of the most important responses are as follows:

"I feel the use of 'dangerous' and perhaps 'taboo' props may entice people like me to the film and give them a sense of power. But I don't think these items reflect everyone's lifestyles"

"The costumes are rather stereotypical but I suppose this helps the audience immediately establish the contrast in characters"

"When the prostitute character is looking in the mirror and the music stops I feel the mood really represents that idea of self-realization many youngsters go through- hopefully not about prostitution though"

"The use of lipstick on the prostitute if both really fashionable now and really symbolic of the danger and passion in her lifestyle- an interesting mix."

These comments are pleasing and shows how closely an audience may analyse intricate choices filmmakers make. However, the audience also pointed out the flaws in our product, e.g.

"I can see you in the mirror of one shot- it detracts from the plot"

"Some of the shots should have been reshot to get maximum effect" I particularly agree with this point as we could only edit with the footage we had available. I would be more organised next time.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

During the filming process, using the equipment was not as challenging as we thought as most of the group had used camera's and tripods before, therefore we were familiar with what we had to do to ensure we got the shots that we wanted to include within our films.
Using final cut express helped me to develop my editing skills as during the editing process of our film, we had to use a variety of tools such as; trim, cut, fade, zooms and transitions.
We came across many problems using this programme, especially timing of our clips not matching the music we wanted to add into our film opening.
We also had to create our own soundtrack to accompany our film which we created using garage-band. This involved adding pieces of instrumentals together, and then composing our piece, ensuring that everything sounded smooth once played all together.

Looking back at your preliminary task (the continuity editing task), what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to full product?

Looking back on our preliminary task 'Life On Mars', we have come quite far in terms of learning about different terminology, various shot types and using different equipment to complete the filming of our opening as the production of our film opening involved greater thought and detail to each stage, such as planning, filming, editing and then going on to evaluate all the work we completed.

In our preliminary task, everything we learnt was given to us in lessons which meant that it was easier to complete any task given, as we were able to ask for help if we needed it. we had to complete the task of watching the clip many times, and the writing down precise moments in time ad describing in detail what happened at that moment. This was challenging as it involved a lot of patience, but also had to be accurate as we were then asked to use these shots to create our own version of the clip. We then had to use 'i Movie' to edit our filming and also add in transitions to make our clip look as much like the original clip as we could. Looking back on this stage, using 'iMovie' to edit our filming was much easier as oppose to 'film cut express' which we found difficult to use as we weren't familiar with the programme.

Creating a shot list in preparation for our film, even proved a challenge as we had to write down what location we would film it at, what happens in that shot, the actors needed for that shot and also props needed. It was beneficial for our group in the long run as it helped us to know exactly what we needed to do so there was no time wasted.

During the filming process our group had to be very organised as we all had to plan when to meet to film our openings, which was the hardest part as we were all mostly busy all the time. This made me realize that the production of films aren't easy as there is a lot of behind-the-scenes work that goes into the making of the full product.

Costumes.

Prostitute's Costume

prostitutes costume. by dinahdavina featuring diamond earrings

House Wife's Costume

house wife by dinahdavina featuring leather strap sandals

Music for our footage.

Half Term Progress

- We were given the task of filming over half-term to complete for when we came back to school, so we could get straight on with filming.
- When we came back, we uploaded our footage straight away so we could get straight onto editing our filming.
- Once our footage had been uploaded, we deleted unnecessary scenes which we thought weren't as appropriate four our film as we had originally planned.
- Then we trimmed scenes to make sure it fitted into the time limit as our film opening has to be no longer than 2minutes. In some scenes, we increased or slowed down the speed to fit our preferences.
- Finally, we added in transitions and effects to make our scenes run smoothly.

(to be continued)

Animatronics.

'write up why you created an animatronic'

how did you create it?
- Using Final Cut express, my group were able to create a step by step animation of how we wanted our film to look like. We uploaded hand drawn pictures of our scenes, and then added effects as we went along, with titles which had transitions.

-what did you learn?
In this task, i learnt how to use final cut express as an editing software, add effects onto pictures as well as how to add transitions and use titles meaningfully.

- 'why was this a useful process'
Using final cut express was useful as it is important preparation for editing our film opening. It also helped us structure our opening as seeing it onscreen, we started to realise errors which could be fixed now; such as changing scenes around, instead of in the long-run which would pro-long our final editing procedure.

Shot list.

Shot No.	Location	What happens?	Actors Needed	Props	Shot complete
Proxy-Connection: keep-alive Cache-Control: max-age=0 Cp class="MsoNormal">1	Posh Woman’s bedroom	(Zoom) Sends her plea out	Woman	Computer/Laptop
2	-	(Zoom) Prostitute receives message on phone	Woman 2	Mobile phone
3	Tube Station (High Barnet)	Extra long Shot of tube station, time in the background	Various members of the public & Woman 1 and 2	-
4	Platform of Tube Station	Zooms into Prostitute waiting on platform, (black fade out)	Woman 2	Handbag, mobile phone
5	Bathroom in Prostitute’s flat	(Montage starts) Woman 2 Crying in mirror	Woman 2	Make-Up, Mirror, Bathroom Essentials
6	Prostitute’s Bedroom	(Long shot) Woman 2 crying, doing drugs in a dark room	Woman 2	Fake Drugs
7	Prostitute’s bedroom	(Close up) Man zips up trousers, throws money at Woman 2 who’s laying in bed	Man, Woman 2	Money

Shot No.	Location	What happens?	Actors Needed	Props	Shot Complete
8	Prostitute’s Bedroom	Man abusing woman 2 with belt	Man, Woman 2	Belt
9	-	Flash Transition Zooms into Woman1 eye	Woman 1	-
10	Posh Woman’s living room	Long shot - Woman 1 typing on computer	Woman 1	Computer/Laptop
11	Posh Woman’s House (corridor)	Woman 1 dusting house, visibly bored	Woman 1	Duster, Apron, cleaning Essentials
12	Posh Woman’s bedroom	Woman 1 praying to god	Woman 1	Bible, Cross
13	High Barnet Tube Station	Extra long shot of platform, both Woman 1 and 2 standing on opposite ends, various people in-between	Woman 1 and Woman 2, Various members of the public.	Costume Wardrobe for both women