Rosy and I decided to make a new ident for our film opening to fit the theme, we decided on an elegant ident. This consisted of a branch which grows on the screen and a butterfly lands and sits on it, the words ‘Original Sin’ then appear next to the branch as the butter fly stays perched on the leaves flapping its wings. The butterfly then moves off over the words making them disappear as it flies past.
We decided to make the new ident because our old one really didn’t fit with our film and wouldn’t have flowed once put with the opening.
In the half term break Rosy and I filmed our shots for out film opening Daisy Chain. Using my sister Grace as Daisy our main character, my garden as our location we set to work filming the shots on our storyboard. We came across several problems when filming here are the obstacles we overcame:
1. The camera ran out of charge after an hour of filming, stupidly I should have checked before we even started filming but it didn’t cross my mind unfortunately. But we simply charged the battery whist having lunch.
2. We needed a rather large audience for one of our shots, and we simply didn’t have that many people to hand. We still decided to film the shot just without the audience as we thought we might be able to edit them in.
3. Another problem was our location, our original plan was to use my garden for the outside filming, and the school for the stage filming. However, we came across a rather clever idea, in my house we have a little puppet stage, therefore we filmed this puppet stage close up, and then Grace’s face and if we edit it well we can make it look like she is in the stage.
Things that went right were:
1. The makeup and costume of our main character.
2. The weather for the outdoor location in the garden.
3. We managed to get all the filming done in one day.
4. We got all the shots we needed and extras, also filming each shot three times.
On Friday evening I sat and watched yet another incredible Quentin Tarantino movie. He never fails to impress and even though its quite a long film, at no point did I loose interest!
I noticed that Quentin Tarantino likes to use the same actors in his films, like christoph waltz who is Hanz in Inglorious Basterds. Samuel L Jackson who is also in Pulp Fiction. Leonardo DiCaprio also stars in this movie, ensuring it includes only the best actors.
The film Django is set in Texas in the year 1858 and follows a slave named Django who is set free by an English-speaking, German bounty hunter posing as a traveling dentist (Christoph Waltz), named Dr. Schultz. Dr. Schultz buys Django and promises him a life of freedom if he helps him find and kill three outlaws (hiding in the south, working in the slave trade). Schultz has never seen them therefore he doesn’t know what they look like, however Django has, as he has been subjected to trafficking and the outlaws have been involved in it. Dr schultz also teaches Django bounty hunting and promises to split the bounties with him if he continues to help him through the winter. Django makes one condition and it is that Schultz helps him find his long lost wife who is under cruel custody of Calvin J. Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). Schultz agrees. The film follows their travels and plans to find the outlaws and kill them, then track down Djangos wife and save her from her cruel owner.
The way Tarantino has filmed this is exceptional, he uses his usual technique of using closeups on certain objects in the room, for example when Schultz and Django are in the bar and Schultz is pouring himself a drink the camera goes in close on the beer pouring from the tap into the beer mug, then foam on the top is wisked away with the wisker. The effect of this is excellent, making it that little bit more real, the use of the camera is supposed to mirror the human eye, and these shots of the things around the characters and the things they are doing capture the scene like you are there yourself. The sound of the running beer, and the tap of the wisker on the side of the glass after its taken the foam off the top, these little details play a big part in making the scene that much more enjoyable to watch.
The gore and blood, which always is included in a Tarantino film, is to an extreme especially in the scene where Django is shooting all of Candies henchmen in Candieland. Again, it wouldn’t be a Tarantino film if it didn’t include blood.
Overall I would like to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this film and it kept me on the edge of my seat and completely absorbed into the world of the film. I had never watched any Tarantino films until this year and I must say, I have been missing out, he is a terrific Director and I think anyone who is making films can learn alot from him as his films only seem to be getting better and better!
Kick Ass is an American action superhero movie set in New York, it was released on the 25th March 2010 in the United Kingdom and on 16th April 2010 in the United States.
The film is about an ordinary teenager called Dave Lizewski who decides to become a superhero for the city, calling himself Kick Ass. He meets serious superheros Big Daddy and Hit Girl and finds himself involved in a much bigger fight to bring down the drug lord Frank D’Amico.
The whole film is like a comic, with comic strip transitions of shots etc and storyboard like animations displaying the past where Big Daddy explains why Mindy (Hit Girl) has no mother and how he was put in prison.
Here is the trailer for the Movie:
The thing I love about this film is how many twists it involves in it. So much happens along with the main story about Dave becoming Kick Ass. There is also lots of humour included which makes up for the gore. It is quite violent and the film was critiqued for having generated some controversy for its profanity and violence performed by a child, however received lots of good comments aswell as it is definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat.
Our task was to recreate the opening scene to the film Reservoir Dogs, we were put into 2 groups, one of just boys and one of us girls. Then between us we all made the decisions on what characters we were and how was were going to achieve this task.
Here is the clip from the film Reservoir Dogs which we were copying:
To achieve this piece of filming to a high standard we had to assign roles to each other in the group. There was a director which was Jess Marshall, Jemma was organizer and made sure that everyone had a role and we all knew what we were doing. Grace looked at the clothing and wrote down what each character from the scene wore so that we could copy it. Lucy was the cameraman and filmed the whole thing. Lauren looked at location and where we could film each scene where it would look closest to the film as possible. Me and Rosy did the story boards, most of which was Rosy’s handy work as she took the story boards home and worked on them. Robyn and Kate helped with costumes and props, as when we watched the clip we wrote down as many props as we could notice which we would include in our version.
We had 3 lessons to plan our filming, which meant we had to focus and keep motivated to the task. In each hour of lesson we talked about what we needed to do when filming, practiced our walks and watched the clip endlessly to get down every piece of detail we could. We examined the positions and order of the characters, their clothes, hair, wrinkles, what was on the table in the diner etc.
Each character in the film had a specific ‘look’, my character for example was Joe who is a big old guy, He wore a brown top and grey trousers and he had quite big bags under his eyes. From this we all decided as a group that we would go for pencil skirts instead of trousers because we are an all girl group so we thought we should enhance it. I borrowed Graces grey pencil skirt and my mums turtle neck brown top. For the wrinkles, Robyn used an eyebrow pencil and drew bags under my eyes, lines near my mouth and between my eyebrows and lines at the corners of my eyes. I also stuffed a couple of hoodies up my top as my character is fat.
We are marked on our skills on how close to the film we can get it so we need to pay particular attention to what each character does and how they do it. We wanted it to be obvious which characters we were.
‘This is England’ is a British drama film set in 1983 and based around the life of 13 year-old schoolboy Shaun. The genre of this film is British Social realism, reflecting the real life and society we live in. Shaun gets bullied at school by an older lad called Harvey after he made an offensive joke about Shauns father who died in the Falklands War. They fight in the school grounds and get extremely told off and get the cane. As Shaun is walking home from school after the awful day he comes across a group of skinheads led by a guy called Woody who feels sympathy for Shaun and invites him to join the group. Firstly one of the lads in the group dislikes Shaun as he feels he has taken his place in the group, Shaun gets punched by him yet they make up afterwards and iron out their differences. Shaun soon becomes a little skin head himself as one of the girls from the group of friends called LOL, shaves Shauns head. Shauns mum is appalled and tells off LOL. LOL and the other girls sport interesting shaved head hairstyles themselves, reflecting the 80s trends and style. One girl in particular called Smell quickly becomes the interest of Shaun and even though he is 13 and she is 16 they still seem to become boyfriend and girlfriend. This group of people Shaun has been hanging out with quickly force their habits onto him, drinking, smoking and vandalizing, even their fashion sense rubs off on him.
The camera work used in this film makes it very believable as the camera is mostly hand held so you as the audience feel as though you are there yourself. The montage at the very beginning of the film invited the audience in as its almost like home movies being played, creating a homely and English sense. The lighting and colour looks as though no special effects have been put on it, no bright lights or slick edits. This helps the film become more realistic in the audiences mind. A montage is used at the very beginning of the film to set the scene and this informs the audience the time the film is set and lays down the facts of social happenings going on at that moment in time. Another montage is used near the end when showing the Falklands War, this also helps evoke the time and place the film was set.
This film includes LOTS of swear words and foul language but it helps set the scene of young inner city skinheads causing trouble.
As the scene begins an establishing shot is used to inform the audience of whats happening and the surroundings in the room. It is totally silent after the man leaves the room and this builds tension in the air like something doesn’t feel right. The camera then films from under the table which is a mid shot, displaying the character from looking up at her. The shot then turns to over the shoulder, showing the audience what the character is looking at. At this point the sink doors are creaking open, this uses diegetic sound which comes from the world of the film. A reaction shot of the girl is then shown, displaying her uneasy feeling and curiosity. The camera follows the girl as she edges to the sink to investigate. At this point the sound of her breathing is very loud and noticeable, showing diegetic sounds as its from the girl. An establishing shot is then used to show the sink with the door open, the girl walks into the scene. Her breathing is still very prominent showing how scared she is. An establishing shot is then used to show the floor with nothing there, the girl then bends down as the camera is filming from under the sink, and she is used to reveal a dead girl sitting in a chair behind her. There is then a reaction shot of the character to show how petrified she is, and the sound of the breathing again, another sound is played over the top which is non diegetic as its been added over the top by the film makers. The sounds is laughing by the dead girl and the character in the scene can hear it, making her reaction shot look particularly horrified. A rumbling, thunderous sound is also added over the top to enhance the tension in the room, it builds louder and faster eventually finishing with an establishing shot of the table and chairs empty and complete silence accept for the breathing from the relief of the character. A clip then appears on the floor, showing an establishing shot. The character moves her hand to pick it up, the camera follows, showing how the camera could be hand held, focusing the audiences attention on the characters hand and movement. When the hand comes out from under the sink there is a quick sound which is sharp and short, making the audience jump. The girl screams which is diegetic and an establishing shot is used to show how shes backed away but become facing the dead girl. Finally a reaction shot is used to capture her shocked and petrified face.
Jessica Morris's AS Blog 