Connote And Denote

Connote is a verb used to suggest or imply an additional meaning.

Denote is a verb used to refer to an actual, primary, and specific meaning.

http://www.towson.edu/ows/connote.htm

A few weeks ago my group decided on our story line. We decided that we were going to have a strong female character who will kill a male victim.
The film will start with the flash of a camera and you would find yourself in the 'red room', where the female antagonist will be publishing photos and hanging them up on the wall. To establish that the people in other pictures are dead, we will put a red cross through them so that it is easy to tell. We will then use a zoom to go through the picture to establish that the picture she just put up is of her new victim. Going through the picture will then put the audience in the room with tied up male. The male will look like he has just come from a night out, in a smart shirt and a tie. He will have tape over his mouth and will be tied up.
He will start to struggle, and then hear footsteps and the door open. He will freeze whilst the audience are put in the position where they can see the females feet walk into the room and stand in front of the male.
She will untie her hair, which would have been tied up before, and then walk towards him then bend down to be face to face with him. After this, she will go to grab his face as if to kiss him and he will move away, causing her to slap him. She will then whisper something into his ear and walk around him.
We are trying to regenerate some flashes into this, where she is doing something bad. This is something such as Picking up knifes, carving around his face with the knife, And the impossible task of stabbing him.
She will then brush his hair, and put his head back into place, then walk down the stairs and push open the door.
We are trying to think of something to do with his tie, but at the moment we are still unsure. Hopefully this will go to plan and we will be able to have this exactly how we need it to be.

The importance of Storyboards

On Thursday, we discussed with Mr Ford what we needed to do in order for our planning to go well.
We found that as we were drawing our story board, certain things we wanted to be in it we had missed out and we therefore found we had to add them in.
We also found that we needed to think about how long we wanted each shot to be on the screen for, and how long we wanted to put our titles over the scene for.
Also, we needed to think about where we placed our titles to make them the most effective, and also to make sure that they were the same time amount apart so we could ease the audience into the film little by little.
I learnt that we couldn't just make things randomly and the thought process that goes into making each little part of the film is important. I learnt that films have a set time sequence for each shot because the director wants the audience to be eased into the film little by little, and this is what we need to do in our opening sequence.

Storyboard and Planning.

Storyboards and planning are an important part of creating a film because they allow you to visualize your film,which helps when it comes to cutting and editing. You can also know what you want to achieve on an overall time limit. Less time used means that its less time consuming and planning helps you to set out what you want to do, which shows that films made during post production would be more time consuming because your more likely to have to re-film and re-shoot, and it also wouldn't be as easy to cut. 


I feel that once we have our storyboard done, that will be most of our planning done. This means we will be able to continue with filming and get things done during the lesson times. 


The planning definitely helped me in all my decisions because I was able to find out new information and also know what my group and I needed to think about before we made any big decisions. 

We will need to cut up our storyboard and change it round in order for our film to come in the way we want it to. We have decided to have flashing sequences, and also have the end in a bright light, followed by titles. This is still being edited, and we therefore haven't been able to take pictures yet.

Our Male Character

Ben Kerridge is our male character. Our male character is going to look like he has come back from a night out. We want him to look older, and we will make sure that he's wearing something that will be easy to change.

• Suit, shirt, blazer, tie, trousers, belt
• Handkerchief
• Wallet - ID - Picture

 

Our Female Character

Alice, Avey and I were thinking up what we wanted our female character to be like whilst Rhiannon was finishing our story board. We decided we wanted to make our female character dominant and we wanted to make sure that she looked 'seductive'.
we decided on:

• Red dress
• red nail varnish 
• lipstick - red
• black heels
• pearls/choker necklace / dangly earings

We think that these will give a sexy, seductive looks to the character.

Locations

We decided to shoot in rooms that were empty in order to give a good effect of our film. Most of our film is in school, and therefore it will be easy to film throughout the days and we can stay after school.

Printing room: Small room in media1 room.

We chose this as its quite small and we can play around with the lighting. Also, it has a weird sound inside it and this will sound good with the horror thriller film.

Torture room: Art emergency exit room.

 

We are using this room because it is white and empty. Also there are stairs in it which means that it will be easy to get a range of different shots, and this will be good for our film. We can also play around with lighting in here to get the effect that we need, as this will be effective in creating our horror thriller.

Props

We wanted to use a range of props in our title sequences. We needed a range of different things in order to do what we needed and create the effect that we wanted.
This is a list of the props which we think we may need:

• Lights/Lamps
• Shiny red transparent paper, to stick over the lamps to create a red light, which will create an ambiance of our photo-developing room. 
• Polaroid Camera
• Weapon device - Knife / Knives.
• Bag/Towel for knife
• Chair
• Gaffa Tape 
• String for the line of pictures 
• Rope - to tie the man/ male character which is the victim.
• lipstick
• jewellery

We think we need all of these in our film in order to create the right ambiance. 

Diegetic & Non-Diegetic Sounds.

Diegetic Sound
Sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film: 

• voices of characters 
• sounds made by objects in the story 
• music represented as coming from instruments in the story space ( = source music)

Diegetic sound is any sound presented as originated from source within the film's world 
Digetic sound can be either on screen or off screen depending on whatever its source is within the frame or outside the frame. 
Another term for diegetic sound is actual sound.

Non-Diegetic Sound

Sound whose source is neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action: 

• narrator's commentary
• sound effects which is added for the dramatic effect
• mood music

Non-diegetic sound is represented as coming from the a source outside story space. 
The distinction between diegetic or non-diegetic sound depends on our understanding of the conventions of film viewing and listening.  We know of that certain sounds are represented as coming from the story world, while others are  represented as coming from outside the space of the story events.  A play with diegetic and non-diegetic conventions can be used to create ambiguity (horror), or to surprise the audience (comedy). 
Another term for non-diegetic sound is commentary sound. 

(http://filmsound.org/terminology/diegetic.htm)

This research will help me when I'm writing my essay as each time I want to use these words I'm unsure about the actual context of the words. Therefore, by looking up these words I am able to use them in the correct way, helping my essay writing.

My Presentation on Splice.

On the 22nd of November I presented to the class a power point on 'Splice'. I gave out a sheet so that everyone could be a part of the presentation and keep alert at all times, and also so that I knew people were listening. I think that my presentation went well and also gave people ideas for their opening title sequences.

Splice

View more presentations from 06taylorl.

This is the sheet I produced and gave to everyone whilst presenting my presentation. 

Doing this presentation helped me to understand on a new level about this film and its title sequences, and also helped me to become a little more confident when I do individual class work.

The Grammar of TV and Film.

Basic Terms

Auteur: The author/Director who stamped a film with his or her own personality.

Diegesis: includes objects, events, spaces and the characters that inhabit them, including things, actions and attitudes not explicitly presented in the film but inferred by the audience.

Editing: The joining together of clips of film into a single film strip.

Flashback Flash Forward: A jump backwards or forwards in diegetic time

Focus: Refers to the degree to which light rays coming from any particular part of an object pass through the lens and re converse at the same point on a frame of the film negative, creating sharp outlines and distinct textures that match the original object.

Genres: Types of film recognized by audiences and/or producers, sometimes retrospectively.

Mise-En-Scene: All the things that are 'put in the scene': the setting, the decor, the lighting, the costumes, the performance.

Story/Plot: Refers to all the audience, infers about the events that occur in the diegesis on the basis of what they are shown by the plot.

Scene/Sequence: A segment of a narrative film that usually takes place in a single time, with the same characters.

Shot: A single stream of images, uninterrupted by editing.

Mise-En-Scene

Decor: the objects contained in and around the setting of a scene

Lighting

Three-point lighting

High key lighting

Low-key lighting

Space

Deep Space

Frontality

Matte Shot

Off Screen Space


Shallow space

Costumes: refers to the clothes the actors wear.

Acting

Typage


This research will help me when it comes to evaluating and creating my blog posts as I can use the proper terminology for everything.

Types of Shots.

 When filming, the director needs to make sure that they have a variety of shots suitable for the audience. This is so that the audience can see a variety of different views, instead of just one. The different shots help the audience connect with the characters and also keeps everyone interested. Different shots include:-

• Long Shot: A shot where the camera is or appears to be distant from the object to be photographed
• Extreme long shot: A wider frame value in which subjects in the frame are small; a building, cityscape.
• Panning: Where the camera stays in the same position, static, and just moves around.  
• Medium long shot: A value of framing that almost shows the full subject
• Medium Shot: A value of framing in which the subject is a bit smaller than a medium close-up; a human figure from the waist up.
• Master Shot: Usually a wide shot that covers the entire action of a scene
• P.O.V shot: A camera shot that reveals what a character is looking at sometimes following a shot showing the character’s eyes or followed by a shot showing a character’s expressive reaction (Shot Reverse Shot).
• Shot - Reverse angle - Shot: A series of shots edited together that alternate characters usually during a conversation scene.
• Close up shot: A value of framing where the size of the subject is relatively large and fills most of the frame. For instance a person’s head seen from the neck up, or an object seen in detail.

This research has helped me understand what kind of variety we need when filming our opening sequence. It shows how we are going to keep the audience interested and could also be quite a challenging task for us. This has influenced my work because I know that I will want to try them out, therefore giving us variety.

The Grudge - Unsuspecting Suicide (2004) evaluation.

Alice and I decided to watch some Horror openings whilst Avey and Rhiannon were absent today. The second film opening we decided to watch was The Grudge - Unsuspecting suicide from the year 2004. This film is different from the normal horror, as it was set in broad daylight. This also makes me think more about the setting, because instead of being filmed in a secluded area, its obviously in the middle of a busy city.

• Set in the day
• In the middle of a city - All silent except for the non-diegetic sound of cars.
• Traditional girl and boy - except boy is the one who dies
• Man commits suicide by jumping off the balcony - different because he didn't get killed but brought it upon himself
• Lots of people around - busy day - wanted attention
• blood - traditional horror prop.

Candyman Opening Scene (1992)

Alice and I decided to watch some opening scenes of Horror films today. 'Candyman' was the first one we decided to watch. 

• Told a story at the beginning
• Death of girl from saying 'Candyman'
• Set at night - spooky - dark
• Screaming - Non-diagetic sounds
• Blood (Prop) coming through ceiling to show the genre of the film - horror
• speaking over the scene - explaining the story of the candyman 
• quick cuts, not long.

This shows that the beginning of each film can go straight in to telling a story and don't need to have the title sequences straight away. This has influenced my opinions as they don't need to have sound and this will make me think more when I'm filming my opening scene.

Continuity Task

This is our Continuity task. Alice, Avey, Rhiannon and myself decided that it would be good to do a mystery sort of opening. We had a range of ideas, but went with this one as it seemed more effective and was one that we could actually film.

We brainstormed our ideas before we decided on what we actually wanted to do. Although this was effective, it didn't get all our ideas down and seemed messy at points. We used a Sony camera to film our opening sequence. The first shot we decided to film was a panning shot from the locker outwards, with Averielle walking in and opening it, therefore realizing the note for the first time. We also filmed a close up of her face so that we could get her reaction. We then filmed her closing the locker, walking away and up to another door. Averielle then took hold of the camera, filming a P.O.V shot of the door handle and her opening it. After that, you see the S.R.S. between Averielle and Rhiannon with Dialog. The script was very short, as we didn't anything to be given away within the conversation.

Averielle: It's you
Rhiannon: You got my note then
Averielle: I don't know what your talking about. (Lying)
Rhiannon: I know you do, otherwise you wouldn't be here right now.
Averielle: You don't have any proof
Rhiannon: We'll see about that

Averielle then turned round to walk away, and walks out the door. We then added some sound onto this - a song - and we had a high angle, tracking shot to view where Avey was walking, and then we panned in onto the student ID, which was our proof.

We did this because we thought it was a good idea, and we also thought it would be easy to film within one day. This was also our first idea, and we thought it would be an interesting thing to create.

Our group mostly filmed within the ILP day of media, and this was effective because we had the same background noise. However, at one point we broke the 180 degrees rule, so today we went back and filmed the facial reaction in the locker, and the POV shot.

Averielle played our main character, whilst Rhiannon was also filmed as the victim. Alice and I filmed and directed, and Rhiannon also got the opportunity to film.
Rhiannon edited part of our final extract, but as she wasn't in today, Alice and I edited most of the video with Averielles part help. We filmed all of our clip in school.

We did encounter a few problems whilst filming and editing. Firstly, we couldn't find out the 180 degree rule, and made sure that we tried to not break it. Secondly, some of the shots within the video do not all fit together and make it jumpy. Another problem we encountered was the fact that we didn't film it all on the same day, therefore sound was different in the background, this is clear in the video, but we decided that there was nothing we could do about it. Also, as Rhiannon had edited some of our video, when she was off ill Alice and I had to figure out how to edit again, which took us a while to pick up on. If i were to redo the video, I would make sure that I filmed everything at the same day if it were possible, and when I'm doing my final task I might consider recording the audio separately, then putting it onto the video.

Overall, I think our group worked well together and we managed to create a good Continuity task. I don't think that we broke any of the rules, and I think that our overall product turned out quite well. Doing this has influenced our final task as we now know how to film the video and how difficult it is. We will make sure to film in different ways and be creative within our shots. Also, We all know how to edit now so that won't be as much of a problem as it was for this task.

Planning.

Avey, Alice, Rhiannon and myself decided that we needed to do a brainstorm of all our ideas. This shows our ideas for the genre - which we decided is going to be 'Horror Thriller' - and looked into plot ideas. We decided on the picture plot, as it seemed like the one we could adapt into being a horror thriller. We looked into setting ideas, camera shorts, characters and clothing and props which we might need to use. Heres our first brainstorm:

                                      

After looking into a few different ideas,  we thought it would be best to make a final idea brainstorm, featuring just the Thriller Horror ideas rather than any others. We wrote down the main plot of our story, the characters we were going to use - we decided to change the characters around and instead of having the traditional male killing female, we were going to use the female targeting the male - the clothing that our characters were wearing, the props that we would need - and will continue to add too - and the settings. Here is our final idea brainstorm.

We decided to do a 15 age rating as we decided that was the main age that we had been researching. This gave us enough information to base our Thriller opening around, and we decided that we wanted to do a Thriller horror as this was different to what other people were going to do. We also decided that we aren't going to have too much dialog within our opening, as it will be easier to get across that we are doing a thriller horror and our music will be able to fill the space that is free from dialog.

Clothing in a Thriller

Codes And Conventions of a Horror Thriller.

As we are planning to do a horror thriller, we thought it would be best to look into the Codes and conventions of a traditional horror thriller. Here are some of the slides Alice found online, and also a quote by James Patterson that Mr Ford decided to show us.

Camera Angles:

• Extreme Close ups (emphasize the subject)
• Tilt (to create disorientation)
• Establishing shots (showing location, stereotypically isolated buildings e.g. mansions or forests)
• Handheld (looks realistic, making it feel more believable)
• Long Shots (help show the danger or what the lead character is surrounded by, usually isolated)
• Tracking (where the camera moves at the side, following a character)
• Dollying (where the camera follows the character from in front or behind, to make it feel as if the character is being followed/stalked)
• Point of view shot (so the audience can see what the character sees, to feel as if they are looking through their eyes)

Codes and Conventions:

• Atmosphere is usually sinister and location often appears dar and isolated.
• Montage editing and quick shots in the trailer to increase tension and suspense. Often previews best bits to engage the audience and encourage them to see the film. 
• Dark music to help increase a frightening atmosphere.
• Lead character often ends up surviving and slaying the antagonist character.
• The antagonist usually has a pattern in the way they work or kill.
• Usually good against evil.
• Plot frequently involve themes of death, the supernatural or mental issues. 

Below is a quote about thrillers by James Patterson. It shows what gives a variety of thrillers and what things are in them. It also explains what a thriller shows, or what emotions it should bring up.

Analysing 'Splice'.

The opening sequence of Splice is ambiguous and intriguing and doesn’t give you any idea of what the film is about. The camera is travelling in what it looks like underwater bubbly substance, and goes across an unknown object that seems to be of a green colour. The use of tracking makes the audience feel like they are looking on the surface of this object and are exploring it so that they can find out what it looks like themselves. Because we don’t know what it is, the audience may become fearful or wary of what the object may actually be. The green colour of the object may suggest that the object is unknown, perhaps an alien. All the shots are close up, except for the end when we start to see the object move, indicating it is alive. The use of close up helps the audience get to know the object, but may also make them fearful of what is around it. All the shots are dark, which creates a scary sort of tone, and the only source of light is when we are looking at the item. This shows that there is a sense of unknown within the object.

The only sound that can be heard is music, which is non-diegetic. This music is slow, with some fast parts where the music builds up on itself. The main source of the music is piano, which creates a spooky sort of tone but also makes the object seem unknown. The music is quite jumpy and builds up a sense that something may happen within the film to this item that the music is based around. The music doesn’t give anything away, which would make the audience question their actions and what’s going to happen. As the object starts moving, or beating, the music builds up as to make the audience think that your actually going to see something happen, but then it quietens down again and the audience realises they have to wait for something to happen.

The titles in the title sequence are a mixture of typewriter text that has been superimposed over the opening scene, and text that is built into the green object. The actor’s names have been placed into the green object, which implies that the characters have something to do with the creation of this underwater animal. The crew names, such as the director and editor, are in typewriter text superimposed over the opening scene and this shows that the crew perhaps has something to do with a report on the creature. All the texts that are in the green object are just made into 3d, and give the audience something to question.

The editing in this scene makes sure that the cuts are not jumpy and are continuous. The editing does not play a big part in this title sequence, as you don’t need to look too much into the cuts as there are none. The biggest piece of editing is the titles that are built into the green creature.

From watching the opening of ‘Splice’ I have realised that it’s okay for title sequences to be ambiguous and you don’t necessarily have to show the characters within the storyline. I also realised that although you are not seeing any characters as such, you can still follow a story line. I see that you shouldn’t put too much into the opening sequence, but also not to make it too long otherwise the audience may become bored. I have also learnt that the titles need to fit in with the sequence and cannot be a random font.

The video I used does not seem to come up when I search, as the Embedding code has been disabled.

Evaluating Past Thriller Openings

In our lesson, we decided to look at 6 different past thriller openings from 6 different groups in a certain year. We did this so that we could learn about the different ideas; see what things are going to look like once we have completed the task. It also enabled us to see the mark scheme, and gave us an opportunity to mark the videos so that we could see what we needed to do to get the highest possible marks.

We watched 6 different thriller openings and these were called:

-Final Fate

-Root Cause

-Revelation

-Domino Effect

-Room to breathe


http://youtu.be/-GbJ5Vlzk3U


-Unrequited love


http://youtu.be/GeIdkbi8q5E

Because we marked the openings ourselves, we got to see firstly what we thought they would be. Our group found that we got certain ones spot on, and others were completely wrong.

In the mark scheme, I discovered what kind of things our thriller opening would be marked upon. There are 4 mark bands, and we’re planning on achieving either a level 3 or a level 4. To achieve these, we must do the following bullet points either proficiently or with excellence.

·         hold a shot steady

·         frame a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate

·         use a variety of Shot distances

·         shooting material appropriate to the task set

·         selecting mise-en-scene including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting;

·         editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer

·         using varied shot transitions and other effects selectively and appropriately for the task set;

·         using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set;

·         Using titles appropriately.

I think my group will be able to achieve this as we can work well together and all bring different values into the film. We all can achieve something well, and this means we can feed of each other’s ideas and achieve the highest possible mark for what we want to do.

Representation

Representation

Representation has two different meanings and can each mean a different thing.

• ·The action of speaking or acting on behalf of someone or the state of being represented.
• ·The description or portrayal of someone or something in a particular way or as being of a certain nature.

Representation is how social groups, different subcultures, occupations, ages, social classes -and places are portrayed in the media and how the audiences interpret these portrayals.

There are two types of representation.

A Micro Analysis

This basically means what you think of something and whether it is a positive or negative thought.

When looking at micro analysis, you can ask yourself – what is actually trying to be shown? Or more directly, what is missing from the text?

You can also look at the normal ‘stereotypes’ and find if the characters themselves fit into a stereotype or whether they break or challenge that certain category.

We also looked at Media language – called Macro Analysis.

This brings in:-

- Your understanding of media.

- Your understanding of the camera

     -Angle

     -Distance

    -Position

    -Movement

    -Mise-en-Scene

-Editing

-Sounds

-Semiotics – whether it’s symbolic, iconic, and what it connotes and denotes.

This has helped me understand what I need to look for when I’m studying an opening title sequence or what I need to think about before I start to film with my group. It will help me understand more on what I need to look out for and write about when I go into the exam, as before I was unsure what kind of things an examiner would be looking for and now that I’ve done this lesson I know the basics on the exam paper. 

Donnie Darko Film Analysis

In order to help us with our research, We watched Donnie Darko in class. These are the notes I took down from watching it. This has influenced my opinions as there is no dialog, which shows that the opening scenes don't always need to have dialog on them. 

Camera:


- Panning / Tracking Shot - This is used to help show the action without having jumpy cuts. The panning/tracking helps to follow the story line and action, and if they are moving it helps to follow the action. 
- Extreme long shot - establish location and showing the different characters.(a man and bike)
- Far away to close (not cuts)
- Panning mid-shot
- Pan of landscape


Sound:


- Thunder - off screen (not seen) (Non-diegetic)
- Birds (Non-diegetic)
- Ominous Music - Deep Sound (sad music to replace thunder) - now on hillside
- Sad Music - Melancholy
- People Sing (angelic) when he stands up
- Upbeat Music at the end - shot change.
- Song is call "The Killing Moon"

Editing:


- Fade in to first scene
- Slow Opening - continuous with no cuts.
- Fade in then fade out - slow but powerful
- Faster (Cutting) - shot changes.
- Completely changes location.

Mise-en-scene:


- White titles - black background (contrast)
- Lots of negative space left
- Text hand written (old style)
- Man in mid of road
- Looks like he has fallen off of his bike
- Just wearing his PJs
- Characters looks confused - have a confused expression on face.
- Character starts to laugh (make the audience ask more questions as they don't know why hes laughing)
- Jumps Location
- Sign setting the place, time and event (Halloween - shows the genre)
- American suburbia - Wide Streets, People running, big detached houses.
- 'Where is Donnie' written on fridge - could mean mentally and physically.
- Woman reading book - 'It' by Stephen King.

Godzilla Trailer.

Camera:

The Godzilla trailer opens with an establishing shot of city skyline. This shows where they are and what time of day it is. When you first see the man in a high angle shot, you see him as he is about to walk down the pier. Because they use a high angle shot, it shows the man being smaller and suggests that he is part of the lower class. It gives a feeling to the audience that they are in charge and are above them because they know what’s going to happen. As the man continues to walk on the pier, the camera goes to a low angle shot and uses tracking. This shows the binary opposite to before because now the camera is showing the man to seem bigger than he is, as though he may know what’s going to happen.

The next shot shows the main character sitting on the edge of the pier fishing, and this is a medium shot. The shot is now showing the man at eye level. The camera then focuses on the fishing rod in his hand, perhaps identifying that something suspicious will happen that includes this object.

The camera then shows a medium/long-shot which shows the man in front of water.

After this shot, the director went into an extreme long-shot where the man is running along the pier. This indicates what’s going on in the background, but also so you can watch what is happening in the foreground. The camera then flips to a birds eye view which can show all the action happening at one point in time.

You then see the titles, and then see a person in the back of a car that includes debris flying around at the back. This is done through a point of view shot.

Editing:

During the trailer, the pace is slower because there are little cuts. This creates a calm mood. More cuts occur when the action starts, which indicates that the scene is more developed and creates a sense of time passing quicker than it is.

Sound:

The audio for the opening of the trailer has a calming background music that is smooth and has the normal conversations over the top. The audience can relate this to their lives, creating a normal sense, which will not indicate any sort of event to occur. The music then speeds up and gets louder, which shows that action is going to happen. The music becomes jumpy and includes sudden stops, instead of being smooth as before. The voices stop and you cannot here them anymore, and when the word ‘godzilla’ comes up, you hear the background noise of screaming. This makes the film seem scarier for the audience.

Mise-en-scene:

When the film starts, you see that it is set within a quiet fishing village, this is the first time you see the outside and is not somewhere where you sense that action will happen. Instead of being sunny, it is raining, which creates a darker tone and that the main character is bad. You do not see Godzilla until the ends of the clip, which then you only get to see an eye of.

Typography:

Godzilla words are the first piece of text that you see. These words have a green and white glowing effect behind them and are mainly in black. ‘Size does matter’ in white, glowing letters which are big. These are the only words that are bigger than the Godzilla letters which suggests that the phrase is more important than the film title itself, and indicates that it’s the most important thing in the film and will come up again.

Survey 2

We decided we needed to follow up our survey number one with a better survey - which we simply called survey 2. We found that we asked a better range of questions that helped us find out more about our work. This is good because we found out more information about each genre, and also found we could research the genre ourselves.
We asked around 5 questions to each person, each with open endings that would make things interesting.
1. What are your top 5 favorite films?
2. Pick one of these films and explain what you enjoyed about it
3. What are your favorite types of films? select 3:
Comedy
Musical
Horror
Fantasy
Animated
Sci-fi
Mystery/Suspense
Action
Romance
4. Do you prefer a title sequence of for the titles to be superimposed over the opening scene?
5. Do you prefer a movie to go straight into the action or do you like there to be a slow build up?



This is Luke's survey. We decided to ask Luke because we thought that he might be able to give us a range of different answers to what we were normally expecting. Luke gave us descriptive answers that we found useful towards our research. These were interesting as I found a different perspective to my own, as Luke watches different things to me and we got to find out what he wanted to see.




This is Hannahs Survey. We decided to ask hannah because we thought she would be able to give us information which we perhaps didnt think off. These answers were interesting because i found out some information which i wouldnt have thought of before, and this also helped us along with our research.



This is Cameron's Survey. We decided to ask Cameron because we wanted another males opinion. We found that Cameron gave answers which helped us along with the information we wanted to find out, and because he was a male, we got different answers to what we would have thought had we not conducted this research.


This is Nina's Survey, I found that she gave typical answers which we would have thought of anyway. Even though we conducted this research, i still feel we were able to get positive answers which will help us make decisions during our planning stage.

I feel that these surveys will help with our thriller opening because it is valuable information and we can use it to the best of our abilities.

ILP Day Evaluation - Continuity Task

In our ILP day, we started our Continuity Editing Task. We were in our coursework groups so my group was Me, Avey, Rhiannon and Alice. Our task was to storyboard and script the following shot list - aiming for a completed piece around 60 - 90 seconds in length.

 The technical requirements of the task:

• You must not break the 180 degrees rule
• You must include a shot-reverse-shot
• You must include a variety of appropriate camera angles
• You must edit so that continuity is apparent and meaning is clear
• You must include more than one location
• You must include some interaction between characters
• You must include some non-diagetic sound

Firstly, we brainstormed ideas for the task, this included characters, situations, conversations and ideas for different things such as location. this is our brain storm. 

We then had to devise a Shot list. this meant we knew what we were going to do with our camera, and how we were going to shoot it. This shot list also included our character movements and conversations. 

We then had to select our actors, who were Avey as Character A and Rhiannon as Character B. We then had to create a story board of events for our camera shots and sequence of events. This helped us when we came to shoot our Continuous editing task.

We then devised a script of what we wanted the characters to say to each other. Although this was a short conversation, we didn't want to give too much away and tried to make it as brief and simple as possible. 

After finishing all the detailed work, we then started to shoot. We shot everything from every possible angle to make sure we had a variety of shots to choose from when it comes to editing it. We also made sure we shot each thing more than once in case something wasn't right when we came to editing and we could then cut and paste parts that we wanted. The actors we chose were Avey as our main character, being the person who found the note and so we made sure the story was based around her. Rhiannon was person b, and she was the victim or the other person in the room, you could also say she was targeting Avey. Rhiannon did a lot of the shooting, as well as Alice and I. I found that I ended up becoming director for most of it, and tried to get people into position and when to cut each scene. I enjoyed shooting the most as it helped us learn more about camera positions and the 180 degree rule. i found this was the most difficult thing to stick too, yet i think we managed to stick to it and we will be able to see this when we are editing. Overall I think the day was extremely worth-while and I learned a lot. It also helped me understand how hard filming is going to be when we start our actual task, but I believe our team works well together, and we can feed of each others ideas, creating the best one for us and our film.