starting from 0.15 to accompany the action exaggeratedly satirical feel of ZombieLand comes the slow motion throwing of prison sniper from his roof by a jail inmate. The title is then ran through as if it's a finish line by man thrown off the tower to give an exciting interactive feel.
This imploding and gradually scattering of select letters of titles is a film throughout the opening scene title sequence as the next title (0.24) shows us. As the zombies throws up blood it intrudes the fixation of the title sequence again giving an interactive feel.
at 0.29 the title is in the background on the wall and to the left, however still in main sight. This is done as this mention is not a main contributor to the movie and thus doesn't need the validation of the previous companies, therefore placed on the sideline. Again the theme of letters breaking away is present.
at 0.34 Woody Harrelson's name is present in the middle underneath the hobo's ironic sign. This is of course as Woody Harrelson plays a main character in the movie and is a veteran actor, thus taking the middle screen spot for his title. The theme of the letters being touched by something and breaking off is still present, as well as slow motion.
at 0.39 Jesse Eisenberg's title is present to the left however still the front of the screen so the viewer can tell he's a main character, in this instance the actual main character. This title is only fixated at the left as if it was in the middle it would intrude action and give an unnatural feel, potentially veering the viewer's point of interest away from the action. Again following all the previous themes.
0.44 Emma Stone's title follows in the same sequence on the right to show just like Jesse she is a main character. Her title is on the right to the opposite of Jesse's, foreshadowing the story as they become lovers at the end. Her title too follows the same theme principles.
0.49 The other main character gets her title at the bottom right of the picture as she is the least prominent of the characters and also not to distract the viewer from the action. The theme does not change for her either.
0.57 After one more scene without titles the main title appearing in the middle boldly to of course remind the viewer of the movie name. This is put in the middle for emphasis and is so big as it's the most important title of them all. It again follows the theme of slowly breaking away and being interactive as it is hit with a crow bar through glass.
Overall, the titles are regular with a five second showing for them. They all follow the theme of being interactive and in slow motion as the actual sequence is too. All titles are the same font and size except the actual name of the film as that's the most important title.
Starting off with a black screen to prepare the audience for the high key lighting about to come in. First seen is the mother, this is known by the pain on her face, hinting at child birth. This is accompanied by an out of focus shot to show a feeling of distortion to emphasise the mother's pain. This is all filmed in a close up to get all the facial expressions in.
Shortly following it cuts to a silver heart looking thing. This instantly gives away the genre of sci-fi. After a short two shot of the mother and i'm guessing father (by using initiative and the fact this same hand appeared gracing hers with a grip earlier) it then cuts to a more scenery filled shot with the transformation of a weird silver heart beat to a baby on a monitor, furthermore indicating the genre of the movie.
The father's face is now introduced in a two shot with the mother, this is shown incorporating mise-en-scene where the father is wearing a silver jacket and the mother brandishing tribal looking robes, again using mise-en-scene to indicate genre. -- 0.00-0.29
0.53 - There is now a long-shot of the baby(seeing that it does involve all body parts), as the title is Superman: Man Of Steel, it is made obvious to the viewer that this is indeed the birth of Superman.
There is now a two shot of the baby and father, the father being the made object of the shot despite not being in the middle of the shot. The father has the lighting focused on him so the viewer can see the expression on his face, furthermore prognosticating the decision yet to come by the bond from the son and father, seen through lighting being focused on his facial expressions.
1.04 - To put all our minds at ease and finally reveal the movie is going to be a sci-fi flick, there is a shot of the scenery of the supposed planet they are on. Featuring an unknown animal to us in the center of the shot. Zooming out to the sunrise to show the birth a new born king.
Snatch - Opening Scene
Starting off with speech from the 4 soon to be robbers. The location of the robbery. Nothing indicates it's a burglary yet. In fact the mise-en-scene represents the actors as orthodox jews. The high security at the start, present in the mise-en-scene letting the viewer know they are going through a security check, does in fact hint at a burglary or something suspicious, given the films genre. There is the effect of a security tape, through a monitor and in black and white. This effect in turn tells the reader it's security footage.There is an effect on the tracking of the two Jewish men in which as the characters walk the the left so does the camera and in turn switching monitor to the left. This concept edit draws in the viewer as it's unusual also fitting to show the progress of movement. This same effect is further used when they proceed to walking into the lift. Props wise in the background of the men there is a no smoking sign in a foreign language, this also is a give away to the setting. As the four Jewish men go up in the lift another concept edit is used in the metaphor of going up in a lift meaning going up on the security monitor. The scene continues on with concept edits until the characters are all on the final monitor and one character lets out an English accent. Letting the viewer know these men are frauds and due to the genre this is a heist of some sort. The effect of a wipe of screen is used as there is a continuation of sound through the screen changing effect.
In fact it is unfortunate this footage is longer as later on in the opening scene when the heist actually happens through mise-en-scene Brad Pitt is revealed prognosticating his role throughout the film as a 'pikey'. Guy Ritchie also uses edits going into dual screen showing different characters doing different things during the heist, this gives an uptempo off beat feel to the movie, also contributing to the genre of action.
Zombieland - Opening Scene
0.00: To me this is the indubitably, undisputed, undefeated best opening scene of all time. Scene starting with a sound-bridged transition from a black screen to the American flag seen to be as if it's on the presidents cavalcade. This let's the viewer instantly know the setting of the movie, USA, and in this particular part of the movie Washington DC. This is fitting seeing that the narrator is sound-bridging the scene telling the audience about the zombie apocalypse in America. The black screen with a sound-bridge also let's the audience know the movie is starting so they better pay attention.
Then the camera pans around awkwardly to give a POV effect filled with action shots to see guns, the White house and burning cars and the BOOM in your face a zombie to end all viewers question on genre. The camera jogs to give a more POV view to show both that the camera man is running to get away from the zombie, during this the camera displays the zombie in both medium and long shots showing again the natural bounce while running with a camera to create a POV shot. To make it obvious to viewers the person that is now getting eaten is the camera man there is an effect to represent the breaking of a screen and the occurrence of minor distortion to the viewing experience to show both the viewer is now in trouble and the camera is broken. - 0.39
0.55 to 1.07 - Starting with a rather plump man running in slow motion with a medium shot. Then posting a sub title of 'CARDIO' beating to emulate the pumping of a heart and give the audience an interactive feel. To show the pace difference between both the fat man and the zombie the camera then tracks the lateral movement of both in a medium two shot. Then transitioning to very quick close-up-action-two-shot to show the man has been caught. Then cutting to an extreme long shot to show the zombie devouring the man.
1.10 to - In three seconds there is an extreme-long-action shot to show the car crash, then a close up up the two cars to show the crash happening then a crane shot to see both the devastation of the crash and reaction of the sheriff. Mise-en-scene let's the audience know this happening is also in a metropolis and the costume of the man on the right lets the audience know he is a sheriff. There is then a long two shot of the zombies scurrying through the destruction. Then an action shot to the sheriff getting hit by a car and carrying on, emphasising to the audience that this man is no longer just a sheriff yet a zombie too. Then two quick cuts the second being a tracking of two people in the form of a worm's eye view shot to show the panic. Then a medium shot tracking the sheriff till the shot pans over to show the next title 'Double Tap' which is interactive like the last title considering a zombie in the background splits the title which is turned 270 degrees anti-clockwise. Proceeding to an action shot of the sheriff getting shot. Then a reaction-medium shot to woman who shot the viewer: She shot the sheriff but she did not shoot the deputy. Exceberating the dire times.
1. 12B2 Snakes & Ladders: Despite looking to me as if it was a spin off from the BBC daytime soap, Doctors, this was the best in my books. It was so corny but working so well cohesively. The two perspectives worked so well and were full of a different range of camera shots. Above all the ending was the best, it really felt like an opening sequence.
2. 12E10 The Slayer: Poor music overshadowed performance - Good setting
3. 12E8 Deception: The metaphor of waking step by step and switching to abuse worked well
4. 12B6 The Resistance: I thought it was amazing, I was dazzled by the red subtitles to tell you the target and let you know what is going on. UNTIL the opening scene turned into an interview of a slumber party in a shed, I was so confused. Then I had to deal with a seven second black out to which I threw my papers up high, folded my arms and gave up. It did not cause tension, it merely wasted seven seconds of my life. I know now that pauses do not cause tension, especially if they are a ridiculous length.
Unfortunately, Chris and I were so heavily into the opening scenes we were watching didn't get to complete them all. However from what we did watch we can rank best to worst
9. 1962: An abysmal attempt to say the least. It didn't veer away from any cliches from girls screaming in the woods and the whole horror genre. The script was ridiculous and the story line was in no way clear. However, I refuse to let it be the worst as they did in fact use the camera and certain shots to foreshadow and give information.
10. Chroniker: It felt as if the opening scene was shouting at me. Credits rolled from start to finish and blurred the whole video, my attention was on the spinning fancy credits instead of the actual opening scene at hand. There was about two moments where there weren't any unnecessary spilt screen effects. The music was a complete contradiction to the story and above all monotonous. The storyline was not clear at all.
11. Bacterium: Seeing them all together I can see why this isn't officially the worst, however to me this is. The nuclear green titles frustrated me, the tracking of him walking for what seemed so long made me want to scratch my face. I guess there were some ups, the set up of The Boss' office was good and believable.
I have learned: I must steer clear of any unnecessary editing and putting in effects that confuse the story. Try to make elements revolving around guns as less cliche as possible. Don't get too involved with the story, focus on what picks up marks. Let the action come to the Intricate details accounts for a lot, don't try to be sloppy and remember to set our filming time and editing time out so we don't have to cram at the end.
The Selfish Giant's genre is Social Commentary/Realist
The film's budget is £14Million
The Selfish Giant's Twitter:
The Selfish Giant's Facebook:
As you can see Facebook adds a promotional value as it can let those that know about the page follow promotion events held by The Selfish Giant
Some Selfish Giant photos:
I can't find the official website for The Selfish Giant ?
The first exhibition of The Selfish Giant was 16th May 2013 at the Cannes Festival
Cinema's currently hosting The Selfish Giant are:
Soho Curzon, Wimbledon Curzon, Genesis Cinema Mile End, Brixton Ritzy, Peckham Plex, Lexi Cinema, Wimbledon Film Club
Reviews:
An affectingly truthful movie that touches the heart as it holds a fabulist mirror up to reality, enriching the traditions of homegrown drama, and confirming Barnard as a major voice of modern British cinema. - Observer UK
The Selfish Giant is a stunning film, almost literally so in the sense that it leaves you dazed with its forensic and uncompromising depiction of Britain on the breadline, as well as its achingly sad ending. - Daily Mail UK
A terrific human drama about two boys about to be consigned to the scrapheap, with standout performances from its young leads. - Empire Magazine
The Selfish Giant is one of the great modern British films. - Financial Times
Film Production:
process of making a film, from an initial story, idea, or commission,
through scriptwriting, casting, shooting, editing, and screening the
finished product before an audience that may result in a theatrical
release or television program. Filmmaking takes place all over the
planet in a huge range of economic, social, and political contexts, and
using a variety of technologies and cinematic techniques. Typically, it
involves a large number of people, and takes from a few months to
several years to complete, although it may take longer if there are
production issues, examples of this are: The Thief and the Cobbler's 28 years development. More commonly known to my era would be James Cameron's Avatar.
Example Being: Concept, Hiring Actors, Filming and Editing.
Distribution:
Digital distribution: Describes the delivery of media content such as audio, video, software and video games. without the use of physical media usually over online delivery mediums, such as the internet. Online distribution bypasses conventional physical distribution methods, such as paper or dvds. With the advancement of network bandwidth capabilities, online distribution became common in the 2000s and as a new wave of technology advances came in these methods could be put into action, and maybe used as synergy.
Content distributed online may be streamed or downloaded.
Using mass media to promote the film to a wide audience. Eg, social networking sites.
Exhibition: Showing films in cinemas, DVD or all the other kinds of devices and ways a film can be seen today. Eg, Media attention through opening nights and premiers.
Wednesday, 25 September 2013
Children of Men Essay - Chronological Order
Children of Men starts with sound and no picture. That instantly speaks to you (no pun intended), letting you know this is key information, this is the back drop of the movie, this is setting the scene, this is foreshadowing any possible outcome. The sound starts around the end of the credits to further capture the viewers attention instead of letting them look at the commonly renown boring credits. This is a good technique as it veers attention to the screen and lets the viewer know the movie has started and something is about to happen. All movie stereotypes aside, this is done for the pure purposes of capturing the viewers attention and giving them a background of the movie; where it is, what time it is, what's going on at the moment. From the beginning of the news broadcast you can instantly tell it's dire times, also due to the accents you can tell it's Britain and/or England in such turmoil. After the main bulletin a picture is now present to put emphasis on importance of that headline and show everyone's reactions. Lighting wise it's quite dimly let and follows the rather gloomy weather outside. There is no main focus of lighting present just sufficient lighting for everything in the scene to be seen. This is a a technique used to let the viewer think it's just an ordinary day, as if everything before this main headline was fine, despite obviously hearing the unusual bulletin of a country under siege. The news left everyone horrified and this is shown via their facial expressions. Everyone present is attentive to the news and shocked, they are all facing to the top right of the screen instantly letting the viewer know there is some type of monitor displaying this news. Surroundings are ironically turquoise edging more towards green, being ironic as green and turquoise is normally seen as a quite serene colour that reflects tranquillity. However the colour and words relating to food around the wall infer they are in a cafe, even before the protagonist has ordered his hot drink. Costume wise everyone is in pretty dull colours, and looks as if they are dressed very professionally, this further tells that it is in a major city in England (The iconic police uniform gives away it's London) and in a cafe (maybe before, lunch or after work). The fact that the whole colour scheme for costume in this scene is grey let's you know it's of dull times, or maybe it was supposed to be a normal day until a spanner was thrown in the works by hearing what is on the News. The fact that the movie was released in 2006, and the man that was the youngest person on the Earth before the event was born in 2009 shows the movie has an apocalyptic feel. The news specifically zoom in on that date to speak to the viewers. After the showing of the news, the attention is again directed towards the person you would think is the main character of the film, being that he is in the centre and the only 'normal' person in the scene. He grabs his coffee and walks away as if nothing happened, these actions speak to you in that you think this is a careless man who has sobered to the hard times of life in 2027. I say he is normal in that everyone is mourning a loss over a man they obviously didn't know, some are crying others are looking terrified as if something really bad happened. The fact that mourning his loss is the normal thing to do instantly lets the viewer know this is of importance and a foreshadowing possibly of death later on or this is what the whole movie shall be about. Music wise for that particular moment is really setting the rather sombre seen as the violin reflects due to a violin's connotations: Romance, patient, death, sorrow. The music is selected to give the viewer a pause to soak in this death and really understand what has just happened. The main character (who's name has not been introduced to us) walks outside the cafe with the camera following him at a steady pace as if it's a POV. This puts focus on this character and signifies an ending to that particular scene.
After the main character walks out you get the whole futuristic technology of broadcasts onto buildings and different means of travel etc. There is a subtitle saying the date and whereabouts of the scene, for any viewers that haven't quite picked up on what's happening, or maybe for those viewers that have been hustling and bustling around seats in the cinema. Scenery wise the place is dirty and gives a pathetic fallacy feel, and the fact it's obviously the financial district if London puts emphasis on the change of time and how now London is squaller, leaving you with questions such as: maybe changes have led the UK to no longer be a leading country? Why does London look like this? What caused this? What's really going on? etc. This mere technique of scenery captivates the viewers mind in being more interested and thinking harder about what's actually about to happen in the rest of the movie. To further more hit home with the whole desperate times feel of the movie the main character pulls out a bottle of alcohol, drinking during the day instantly makes the viewer think either there is something particularly wrong with the character or maybe it's just too much to live in London during this era. After this the attention is no longer put on the main character as he is set to the side, however having him at the front of the screen letting the viewer know he is still a man of importance. The camera then rotates to see the middle of the screen, where the character has just come from. Attention is now put on a couple that have just met, due to movie stereotypes the viewer knows this is a foreshadowing for something bad as in this genre there is no way a love can end in anything good. Barely a second after a bomb goes off, given away by the explosion and the eery sound of ringing letting the viewer feel as if they are there and acting as a clue to what's just happened. This is a perfect second step to the opening scene as just after the mourning of a somewhat tragedy another happens as a bomb goes off. This strengthens and answers the questions revolving around what is normal in London at this time, being of course constant tragedy and nothing real to look forward to. The bomb epitomises this by acting as finality and foreshadowing at the same time. Shortly following screaming to put emphasis on the event taken place and letting you know there has been causalities and injures. The sound is a start and then the literal seeing of a female carrying her own arm confirms the suspicions deaths and injuries. After the opening scene ends with the Children of Men title.
This scene of Drake's Started From The Bottom consists of a bird's eye view extreme long shot of Drake walking on a billboard. The camera slightly zooms in to emphasise on what Drake is actually doing also placing main interest on the billboard, being that it is also in the middle of the shot. It's definitely an aerial shot that moves from left to right whilst slightly rotating, due to being in the sky, I highly doubt it being a pan shot. Lighting and colour-wise: The lighting is coming from the back of the billboard, this is because it's what is normal, not to particularly show anything, the lighting is just there because that's where it always is. Colour is obviously based on Drake's OVO brand colour scheme: Black and Yellow. This is printed on the billboard to follow that sam tradition, stand out to the viewer and endorse his brand. Costume-wise Drake is wearing a white puffer coat to signify his whereabouts, his hometown of Toronto, also since the video was released in February it is to tell viewers that he's so rich he doesn't have to follow through with the typical hip-hop tradition of 'hustle all winter, ball all summer'.
Obviously as a viewer of 2013 looking at a video from 1994 I can instantly see the costume and car differences. The whole polo sports half zip windbreaker, snap back to the back, Timberland 6 inch boots and all white air forces you can see the era of the video shoot. Also due to Raekwon rapping at the time being he is in the middle and there is a medium long shot. Setting wise it's in New York City, either Brooklyn or Long Island, due to where the clan is from. Placing the video signifies this, alongside having their 'friends' amongst them on the shoot, going with the whole theme of the song 'The Good Old Days of New York'.
All the following pictures are taken from the last episode of Breaking Bad, Ozymandias. In this episode there is a scene which goes back in time to around the start of their meth cooking empire to show viewers another side of Jesse and Walter White, also as a slight recap and to show the transformation from being small time criminals to America's midwest drug lords.
Below a long shot of Walter White in his first Meth Cooking gear.
Below is an Extreme Long Shot of Walt & Jesse to further let the viewer take in the surroundings and bring back some Breaking Bad nostalgia,
Below is a crane shot of Walt which mainly incorporates his surroundings however Walt is present in the shot.
Below is an Aerial shot. Walt is in the shot however he may as well not be. Walter has just lost 70% of his money and zooming out on him creates a feel of lonesome and emphasises what has just happened.
Below is a medium close up of Walter, used to show disapproval of Jesse's actions. Walter is the only one standing which proves he is the authoritative figure of the two.
Below is a close up of Walter White highlighting his rather distraught facial expression to show his reaction to what just happened
Below is a big close up of Jesse showing his feeling, that has slumped him, to Walter telling Jesse he watched his lover die
Below is an extreme close up of Walter White
Below is a looking in space shot of Jesse
Below is a camera tracking shot of Jesse
Below is an over the shoulder shot of Walt & Jesse (Well kinda...)
Below is a two shot of Walter Jr and Skyler to collectively show their expressions
