In this lesson, we were given the task to recreate the opening sequence for the film 'Juno'. We were put into groups and given camera equipment such as a camera and tripod. We included the key props in the sequence such as the red hoodie and milk carton filled with orange juice which the main character carries and used an effect on the film to make it seem more surreal. This helped in making our film closer to the original which we were attempting to recreate.
Here is our version of the film opening.
Recreating this film sequence was hard at times as we needed to get the timings right and when editing some parts, I had to speed up or slow down the clip. Also, finding the right locations to film it to make it as accurate as possible was quite challenging as there are many different shots.
I believe that our storyboard was accurate to our filming and we got all of the footage that we needed. I learned that when filming I have to use a variety of different shots such as pan to effectively recreate the sequence.
Here is the story board that myself and my group made in the first lesson.
How do cinemas make most of their money?
Cinemas only receive up to 20-15% of the money customers pay for the ticket, therefore the cinemas make most of their profit from confectionery goods such as popcorn and drinks. That is why the prices are so high.
How do you get a film into the cinema?
There are 2 ways that a cinema can release a film: bidding or percentage. Bidding means that the cinema pays a fixed amount for the film, so the cinema could either make a profit or a loss from the film. Percentage is a more popular method now.
What is a distributor?
An entity that buys noncompeting products or product lines, warehouses them, and then resells them to retailers or direct to the end users or customers.
To analyse the film opening of 'Boyz in the hood' approprately, I will be looking at the: camera, mise en scene, sound and information in written scenes.
Camera
- Black screen at first with only audio available. Makes the audience concentrate more on their voices.
- A sudden start to the film when a shot of a stop sign is presented with the sound of a gunshot, this is sending a message to the audience to stop the violence.
- A pan shot is used when following the children down the street. This is because it also shows their surroundings clearly.
Mise en Scene
- The children live in a dirty neighborhood
- Wild hungry dogs with no owners are seen eating out of public bins and litter on the streets.
- A 'Stop' sign is shown along with a gun shot.
- A large hole in the wall in the street.
- Blood on the pavement and bullet holes in a poster of the president.
- White female teacher with all black students.
- The children are used to the rough neighborhood where they live. Everything they see is normal to them.
- Drawings of guns and violence in the classroom show how the children are exposed to violence and destruction.
Sound
- A lot of swearing among the children
- Gunshots
- Screams
- A crying boy
- Helicopter
- Police siren
- Dogs barking
- Telephone call while other scene is happening. Information in the written scenes
- Children are chanting 'fight' and are not afraid of violence. Juxtaposes their age when they are expected to be innocent and pure.
- Dogs are starving and are malnourished.
- Dirty neighborhood filled with litter.
There are 4 theories applied to the narrative of every film. These theories were created by:
Barthe
Toteroff
Propp
Levi Strauss
Barthes theory is that there were 3 codes in each film : Action, Symbolic and Enigma. These theories can be applied to every film and today I am going to asses the opening scene for the Pixar film 'Up' and see if Barthe's theories can be applied.
The main actions within this scene where it shows time passing, is how Ellie and Carl are gradually shown getting older, when the balloon flies away from the stand, when they smash open their savings jar, when the tree crashes into the house and when it shows that Ellie has miscarried. The narrative is moved forward by showing the two main characters getting older an how their dreams and ambitions are both fulfilled and unfulfilled.
Enigma plays a big part in how the narrative is moved forward and how their lives progress together as a young and old couple. Many questions are being asked amongst the audience such as: is Ellie pregnant? Do they still want to go to South America? Has Ellie lost her baby? Why has Ellie become ill?
The only characters presented in this sequence are Ellie and Carl who are childhood sweethearts that grow very old together, learn together and love eachother very much.
The key themes within the video above are: love, happiness, death and time passing/growing old. The audience observe how the characters learn and grow together and develop an attachment to the characters, especially when Ellie passes away.
Here is a list of each shot in order:
1. Carl carrying Ellie into their new house, post wedding.
2. Ellie and Carl constructing the house still in their wedding attire.
3. Both moving their chairs together by the window.
4. Painting their names on the post box. Disruption of the equilibrium when Carl accidentally makes a hand print of paint on the box, then Ellie does it too, on purpose.
5. The picture of the house that they drew when they were children becomes real.
6. Both climbing up the hill, Carl gets tired and Ellie is laughing at him while she is standing at the top of the hill.
7. Cloud watching while they're having their picnic and see clouds in the shape of animals.
8. Working at the zoo together, Carl's balloon stand almost flies away.
9. Holding hands while reading their books.
10. Looking at the clouds on a different day and seeing clouds in the shape of babies.
11. Painting the baby's room.
12. Music slows down. Ellie sitting down crying in the doctors office while Carl is comforting her. Dark room.
13. Carl watching Ellie sitting in the front garden, sad. Walks up to her and presents her with the book they created from when they were children.
14. Painting a picture of their house in Niagra Falls.
15. Music speeds up again as they put coins into a savings jar.
16. A disruption of the equalibrium when they get a flat tire, Carl breaks his leg and the roof of the house is broken. Keep smashing open the savings jar.
17. Ellie putting on Carl's tie for him until they are old.
18. Working at the zoo again, Carl is wiser and knows when the balloon stand is going to start flying away.
19. Slow dancing in the living room.
20. Cleaning the windows, shes on the other side cleaning too.
21. While cleaning the living room, Carl realises that they never moved to South America.
22. Carl booking flights.
23. Tickets hidden in picnic basket as a present.
24. Carl at the top of the hill, Ellie climbing up and getting tired, then collapses.
25. Music slow and quiet. Longest scene. Ellie is lying in a hospital bed and a little blue balloon floats towards her and Carl is standing in the corner of the room. He walks over and presents the book from their childhood to her and she touches his face. He kisses her forehead.
26. Carl left alone at her funeral holding a single blue balloon. The room is dark.
27. Carl is walking back into the house by himself.
12/10/16- Today in class, my group and i put together a story board of our short film and discussed each scene and song that will be included in the sequence. The story board helped to organise our many ideas and display them in an order that would be the most effective.
13/10/16- Today we started to film our movie sequence using Lucy's camera, a tripod and my phone for music in the background. We spent a lot of time trying to decide whether to shoot the first scene by the lockers or in the school hallway and when we did get around to filming, we realised that it could have looked better and decided to try again the next day. Our group also spent some time helping another group film theirs as they did not have enough people to play the characters they wanted.
14/10/16- In today's lesson we filmed our first scene again and it was very successful this time. We had used a variety of different shots such as close up, over the shoulder and pan so we would get a more effective and fluent end result. In this lesson we especially learnt that it takes a while just to film one scene, when you only have one camera, because of the different camera angles that have to be used. Myself and Harry lip synced to the song 'Something New' from the film High School Musical as it fitted in perfectly for the scene where the characters had just met for the first time and had fallen in love. We had to keep stopping and starting the song as we sometimes got the words wrong or we were not in the shot far enough but overall this lesson was successful.
17/10/16- Today we filmed again and recapped what we had been doing last lesson and decided to film a scene where the main character 'Roy' gets a drink at the water fountain to find the strange girl watching him. This was the scene where the girl thinks that Roy says "Hi" to her, but then the other girl walks around the corner and they both skip off to class together, leaving the other girl furious. This took around the whole lesson to film
18/10/16- Today's lesson was spent editing our work and organizing what we had done so far so we could see what else needed to be filmed in order for the end result to look good.
19/10/16- In today's lesson, we had realised that we wanted to include another song for Lucy's character to sing and so we recorded a clip of her outside singing and watching Roy from behind a tree. We also filmed in the library where Harry was sat down pretending to read a book while Lucy was behind his chair miming to the song. This was effective because it showed the weird side to Lucy's character and how she watched his every move. The song included in this scene is 'Hello, I Love You'.
20/10/16- Today, in class we finished all of the editing for the film sequence but realised that we had not included a clip of somebody opening a door to enter/exit a room. We then used one of the school cameras to quickly film harry opening the door on to the back playground and connected it to the scene where he was filling up his water bottle to make the clips flow nicely together. We then edited in the last clip and made the film title and then it was finished.
