Sexy Beast Opening Title Sequence Analysis

26.9.2014

Sexy Beast Opening Title Sequence Analysis

Clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps2WwRjvQkY

Genre:  This movie is a crime movie, we can tell it is during this sequence by the following reasons;

•  The man lives in a very desolate are, thus suggesting that he may be hiding from something that he may have done at some point.
• He lives in a very posh house, but he himself doesn't seem like a very posh person, therefore suggesting that he has gorton a lot of money somehow, but maybe not in the right way.
• When the boulder rolls down the hill at the end he doesn't seem very phased by it which may indicate that he is used to violence or surprises, which may suggest he is in an industry that involves a lot of it
• There is also a sense of a comedic atmosphere to this sequence, I personally thought that it may have been a comedy more than anything when I watched it, before I looked what the genre actually was. Even the title of the movie registered as more of a comedic movie that anything else. 

Music:

• The music is much more upbeat that in The Shining, also why I thought that it may be more of a comedy. 
• The music is very lighthearted, although during a lot of the opening sequence the main character, Ray Winstone, is talking.

Introduction to Characters:

   

• Throughout the sequence we get introduced to 3 characters; the main guy, played by Ray Winstone, the pool boy and a woman driving in her car.
• We, the audience, presume that the first man we see in the clip is the main character because we see the most of him, and also because he is the narrating what is going on at the start. 
• We are not too sure who the woman is but because there is a clip of two hearts in the pool next to the man which then cuts to the clip of the woman indicates that she has some sort of relationship with the main guy.
• Judging by the fact that she is also driving away from us, we can make an educated guess that she is driving towards the other guy.

Production Information:

• There is a very prominent Film Four advertisement at the begging to let the audience know who produced the film.
• information presented is in a very small font, and isn't placed right in the middle of the screen.  This is because the focus on the audience should be on what the main actor in saying at the time, and if the font was too big and obnoxious people would be focusing on that instead.
• We get a lot of information at the start of the film, mainly who the actors are but also what company produced  it: Film Four.

Camera Lesson With Adam

20.09.2014

Camera Lesson With Adam

In the camera lessons with Adam we learnt about the three main types of camera angles which are almost guaranteed to appear in any film out there.  They are; the close up, the mid-shot and the long shot.

The close up

Close-ups vary from extreme close ups to the head to shoulders shots.  The main use of close-ups in to convey emotions, a  director may use to have a close-up during an individuals face during a scene to show how they are feeling, so the audience gets a sense of their emotions.  

The Mid-shot

Mid-shots usually show and individual from the waist up, helping to show the audience both the character and what is going on in the background. They are used a lot when a character is creating big gestures, so the audience can see all of their body language.  With a mid-shot you get a better idea of what is going on overall in a scene, but loose some of the intimacy that a close-up has. They also are used when more that one person is being shown in a scene, they help to convey the relationships between individual.

The Long Shot

This type of shot shows a lot of what is going on in the background of a scene, sometimes known as an establishing shot as the audience get to see where a specific scene is taking place, helping to put the whole scene into context.  There is very little intimacy in a long shot as the individuals in a frame are being seen from quite a distance so it is hard to get a sense of their emotions which is why long shots are usually followed up by close-ups.

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The Shining

The Shining Opening Sequence Analysis

In class we were asked to watch the opening title sequence for The Shining, Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film.  The point of the exercise was to show us that although it may be a horror film, very little can take place within the opening title sequence.

The whole of this sequence consists of a helicopter following a car as it drives along mountain roads in the middle of nowhere.  The beautiful landscapes shown juxtapose the sinister music that is playing in the background, which make the viewers feel uneasy to watch as the music is what creates a sense of horror to the scene.

The whole sequence goes against the typical horror film idea which would usually entail dark lighting in an eerie setting which is why watching this opening feel so much more uncomfortable because there is an inevitability that horror is going to come but the audience is just sat around waiting for it to happen.

The whole sequence is set up of establishing shots to show the audience the setting of the film, although the setting may be beautiful, the image of a lone car driving along a reseated road does add and uneasy mood to the whole sequence.

 The typography used within this sequence isn't what would be expected in a horror as it is very brightly coloured and in a very regular font that is just moving up the screen.  Without the music playing in the background, it could be mistaken for any genre of film.

At the very end of the sequence the car arrives at a seemingly abandoned hotel in the middle of a desolate location.  This is the first image within the sequence that shows the audience that this may be a thriller due to the eeriness of the hotel.

The Playground

4.11.2014

The Playground

Whilst looking through the list of different thrillers, 'The Playground' stood out to me straight away. When I first saw it I wasn't quite sure what it would be about, or how the people who created it would be able to turn a place that children go to have fun into something dark and sinister, in order to portray that the film will be a thriller. 

When began watching it, I believed that the young girl with the long hair, the central image, was just a normal girl playing at the park.  It wasn't until towards the end when the other family didn't notice her, and she kept on moving from place to place, that I began to understand the idea, I believe, that she was meant to be a ghost. Looking back I can now see that even from the point where the swing is swinging with no on one it, to then another shot of her siting upon it, that this was meant to bring about the illusion of her being a ghost.

After watching this opening sequence I can make a guess that the rest of the film may follow the story of the girl in the play park.  We may even find out what happened to that girl, and why she stays in the playground.  Directly after the sequence cuts out, I am left with the impression that something may happen to the little boy and his family that are also in the playground, but quite what, I'm not too sure.

The casting within this sequence I believe is very effective.  The decision of using a girl with long hair helped to create an eerie atmosphere, as her hair was always covering her face.  The long hair also made her seem a lot younger than what the actress probably was.  The use of the very young boy, innocence, gave the impression that something bad was going to happen. This built suspense because people watching it really don't want to watch something that is so innocent and having fun get hurt. With the casting I don't believe that there was anything particularly interesting about the character chosen.   the casting of the family just made them seem like a normal family, the only thing that I thought stood out, as i mentioned before, was the length of the girls hair.

There is very little dialogue used withing the scene, along with the non-diegetic music in the background, there is also diegetic sound of the family talking to one another whilst they play in the park.  The 'ghost' girl never makes any noise, thus giving her a very eerie sense.  The sound of the young boy laughing, juxaposes the connotations of the music (that something bad is to happen)  The whole thing appears to have been shot on location at a playpark, this gives it a much more realistic atmpsoshere then if they would have done it in a studio.  I believe that they were very lucky with the weather that they had that day, if it had been sunny day, it wouldn't have given quite the same atmosphere.  Considering that they were working outside and didn't have control of lighting, and couldn't desgin an exact set that they wanted to work with, you wouldnt be able to tell, as everything appears to have worked out how they wanted it to, with the right lighting and a good location on the day of shooting.  

They managed to fit in a whole lot of different camera angles and different edits into quite a short sequence. The use of POV shots, when the girl were looking at the family, were very effective as when there was a wide shot afterwards the girl had dissappered.  She could see the people but they had no idea that she was there.  I really liked the idea that they contantly changed between the family's hand held camera, filming the little boy, and the main camera filming the whole sequence.  With the main camera we could see the girl, but on the hand held she wasn't there.  We are following the story of the young boy on the hand held, and I beleive that it would have worked well, if afterwards something bad happened to the family.  i think that the video camera could then be a central point to the rest of the movie, as the scenario that unfolds afterwards could be caught on tape and used as evidence. 

The use of credits within the scene I believe is very effective as they are rather small and in the far corners of the sequence, therefore they don't stand out too much and we are still able to focus on what is going on in the rest of the scene.  The font is very simplistic, whilst editing they haven't attempted to do anything too over the top, I find that they made the right choice to do this as what they have chosen to use works very well within the scene.  As we are trying to work out what is going on within the sequence we don't want anything that is going to distract us.

Once watching the entire sequence I was left really wanting to know what was going to happen next, they ended it very vauguely, not giving too much away I suppose with the intention, as they have managed to do with me, to make people want to know how the rest of the movie will unfold.  I think that they way they have presented the film within the opening title sequence, I don't think that it would be that big of a budget film, for me I think that they were attempting to go for a more horror type genre, but it is hard to tell as the clip that i watched really doesn't give anything away really.  I personally would pay to go and watch this film in the cinema but i think that it would be with and independent company, I think it would be more likely for it to go straight to DVD as they may not have the buget to organise it to be displayed in cinemas.

Hunger Games Film Analysis

24.9.2014

Clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKPHsD-1iPE

First Camera Lesson

18.9.2014

Today we had our first lesson of working with the cameras, Adam wasn't here so Matt and Phil gave us a crash course in basic camera skills. The cameras that we used were Sony NX5 which costs around £2,500, which apparently isn't that much for a camera.

We started out by going into groups of 5, I was with Lauren, Kingsley, Ben, Jacky. We then took out all of the equipment out of their corresponding bags, starting with the tripod;

 We then had to attach the camera onto the tripod and by using the 'bubble' we had to find out whether the camera was level or not. We then learned 4 main functions of the camera which include: the focus, zoom, exposure and white balance, and where to find them on the camera. There are 3 main wheels at the front of the camera, from the lens outward the purpose of each wheel are, Focus -used to achieve sharp focus on an object they are zooming in on-, zoom-moving in and out to look closer and furthur from an object- and then Exposure-changes the lighting of the image.

Welcome To My World

11.9.2014

Hello, my name is Katie and this is my official AS Media Studies Blog.  The point of this blog is to document the progress that I make in my Media Studies course throughout this year. 

Alright now a bit about me, I was born in a small town in Wales called Dogellau, but have been moving around different countries throughout my life thus far.  I have been enrolled in over 6 schools during my life and I have recently joined Hurtwood House where I hope to spend the next two years studying my A levels.  To be honest I personally haven't had all that much experience with Media in the past and the main reason I joined Hurtwood is because my passion lies in theatre, which is what I hope to pursue after leaving Hurtwood at the end of my two years here. I decided to do Media Studies as one of my 4 AS's because I feel that if I want to be involved with movies or TV or anything along those lines in the future, having a background in Media would be a good idea. I believe that Media would tie in nicely with my drama career as it will help me to know what is going on behind the scenes.

One of the things that I have a lot of experience involving media in is that I was A LOT of movies.  I don't personally have a favourite genre but some of my favourite films include; The Hunger Games, ET, and Gladiator (to name a few).