My Evaluation
Our film is a modest one and the methods for filming didn't require the use of anything more than a handheld camera and a tripod stand. If we had a bigger budget we would hav ebeen able to peraps get better quality footage and be able to get a professional camera person which would have added to the over all finish of our peice.On the other hand we did use HD cameras and thats quite a new technology and I concider us lucky as we were able to do so. There were many other mediums of media e.g radio and text ie. magazine or a paper but I feel that a film was the best way to portray our ideaas it includes the visual and audio side of media in in perfect harmony.
The Call Back represents older teens just before the peak of adulhood, it shows them as friendly in the form of Bobbies best friend it shows the good side of teens tht they care about each other and look out for one another. It displays that they are ambitious and maybe to an extent naive as she is hoping/ thinking she can make it as a singer. Later on in the film teens are portrayed in the form of a rival as being untrustworthy and are willing to do whatever it takes to make it dispite who gets hurt.
The film also shows adults the over all view of them is a neegative one being generally pessimistic, the main chracters parents telling her she canot make it and the judge at the start having a snappy un interested attitude towards he- gives off the impression that adults just like to put kids down.
The characters in this movie are mainly ethnic minorities and the 3 main people are afro-carribean, this was not deliberate as we just happened to be in the same group but I feel it is a good thing as it is some possitive representation as young black people as having dreams and being ambitious- it I feel would be a good contribution as it opposes current sterotypes of black people.
Such Institutions as MTV Films might be interested in this as MTV are a company associated with programmes and movies suitable for teens and were responsible for Save the last Dance and I feel the plot to our movie matches it closest ou of the films that I mentioned earlier as being similar to our own, not only in the opening but also in cast and in a sense the story line aswell. Also compaies involed in the film industry are also wanting new talent, and concepts but usually go for ones with a similar take on things our movie would be an original thing and this is what makes us appealing.
When making our 2 min clip we took the audience straight into the middle of the story and made our main character seem endeering and gave the judge an edge, we kept everthing moving and tried to keep the shots very interactive e.g over the shoulder shots and two shots directly facign characters so that the audience feel involved.
Before I started this course I actually just took media for fun, because I thought it was going to be easy and a break from all the academic tuff I do i.e politics. I don't regret choosing the subject but before I was just unaware of how much actually goes into film and what it takes to pass a media AS level. Its been a journey in one sense and I've learnt a coupel things along the way like how to do a couple simple editing techniques and how to pretend I didn'y make a mistake in filming. I realised alot of hard work and time goes into making and editing -thinking about movies and representation and all the legal difficulties.
Looking back at our first task-the continuities I think that they helped me to think about what it was going to be like making the main/real thing , but we faced some of the same problems again so I guess we didn't really learn much but, well there's always next time.
Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Age Rating
Well since our movie is one about aspirations and dreams and doesn't have any sexual scenes and no seriously violent scenes , it has however got a few adult themes during as its a young girl growing up -because media is a big part of how people are socialized certain things would be thought of as inappropriate for the younger viewer and so the Age rating of The Call Back is 15+
Hoping for the best
We finally finished filming and editing our work, I thought we'd like never get to this stage and have nothing to show for our efforts. We have however produced...something, it may not be great but its all we've got. I'm proud of our continuity pieces as we did quite well for the short time we had and my change of group. The main piece however I feel we were slacking majorly in the amount of shots and sketchy editing.
Legalities
Us just being kids we don't have money to waste and so in our two minute piece we didnt use any copyrighted sounds/music however in one of our continuities we did use a Song we wern't officialy allowed to use and so we wrote to the record label of that artist asking for their permission explaining the purpose of the sound clip.
The main piece
Unfortunately our school system was playing up the day we were to be uploading our video so the main piece can only be found at http://bjbriscoe-jabby.blogspot.com/2010/05/main-movie.html [the paragraph below the video on the link was not written by me so below is my own interpretation/ analysis ]
Our main piece was originally my idea for a continuity piece but it over run slightly and the main piece we had filmed the day before was we realised invalid for use as there were dier continuity errors and we couldn't refilm the places where mistakes were made because the cast we used theen were no longer around as they were apart of a consortium and are just avilable certain days of the week.
We did however get a main piece done & main piece started of similarly to Save The Last Dance with an audition- straight away letting the audience into the story, from the off making the main characters personality appearant her shyness and unwillingness to go in. The girl with her a supportive role makes the audience concider if she wil remain this way and want to know who she is and her relavance to the story. The judge in the scene having a very sarcastic and snappy tone hints that its foreshadowing negative news ahead adding tension compelling viewers through curiosity to want to see more of the movie as they are charmed by the singers modesty and want to know what her next step is going to be.
The very first shot is a two shot of both characters at firs appearing to just be sitting there but then the first thing heard is NEXT from another location, a voice not in the shot and its clear that they are actually sittin there in anxiety as Bobbie the main character is awaiting her turn.
The character I play at one point lliterally gives her a hand pulling her up persuading her that she can do it, this was a metaphor for being there for her and literally keeping her up , and the tracking that follows this happends in a somewhat dark way another metaphor for the journey she has been on and will be continuing, when Bobbie reaches the doors to the audition room the lighting is significantly lighter as she is a step closer to getting what she wants.
When she goes through the door the sound of it closing is exagerated to give the illusion of her fate being sealed in a way as hat happends next can change her life. There is an over the shoulder shot when the judge doubts her ability qestioning wether she can pull off the song she named.
The room apart from the pair is isolated dispite the bright clours it has a sense of negative energy as she is alone her friend no longer there and the man there seems to be against her, the long shot/ two shot when she is just about to sing emphasises the fac that he is not on her side as it shows a big gap between them. The sound of her voice when singing is noticable contrasting the sound when she was talking to her friend outside, her nerves are appearant and so is her discomfort.
The judge is snappy and barely lets her do the line, a side shot and zoom in when the handshake occurs shows more negative energy and makes it clear that dispite the seemingly friendly gesture the judge is in no way pleasant. He says the words 'm sure any aspiring singer would dread to hear 'don't call us we'll call you' at this point there is an effect used to show that his saying that and ending her auition so abruptly has affected Bobbie and in a sense shaked her world.
Our main piece was originally my idea for a continuity piece but it over run slightly and the main piece we had filmed the day before was we realised invalid for use as there were dier continuity errors and we couldn't refilm the places where mistakes were made because the cast we used theen were no longer around as they were apart of a consortium and are just avilable certain days of the week.
We did however get a main piece done & main piece started of similarly to Save The Last Dance with an audition- straight away letting the audience into the story, from the off making the main characters personality appearant her shyness and unwillingness to go in. The girl with her a supportive role makes the audience concider if she wil remain this way and want to know who she is and her relavance to the story. The judge in the scene having a very sarcastic and snappy tone hints that its foreshadowing negative news ahead adding tension compelling viewers through curiosity to want to see more of the movie as they are charmed by the singers modesty and want to know what her next step is going to be.
The very first shot is a two shot of both characters at firs appearing to just be sitting there but then the first thing heard is NEXT from another location, a voice not in the shot and its clear that they are actually sittin there in anxiety as Bobbie the main character is awaiting her turn.
The character I play at one point lliterally gives her a hand pulling her up persuading her that she can do it, this was a metaphor for being there for her and literally keeping her up , and the tracking that follows this happends in a somewhat dark way another metaphor for the journey she has been on and will be continuing, when Bobbie reaches the doors to the audition room the lighting is significantly lighter as she is a step closer to getting what she wants.
When she goes through the door the sound of it closing is exagerated to give the illusion of her fate being sealed in a way as hat happends next can change her life. There is an over the shoulder shot when the judge doubts her ability qestioning wether she can pull off the song she named.
The room apart from the pair is isolated dispite the bright clours it has a sense of negative energy as she is alone her friend no longer there and the man there seems to be against her, the long shot/ two shot when she is just about to sing emphasises the fac that he is not on her side as it shows a big gap between them. The sound of her voice when singing is noticable contrasting the sound when she was talking to her friend outside, her nerves are appearant and so is her discomfort.
The judge is snappy and barely lets her do the line, a side shot and zoom in when the handshake occurs shows more negative energy and makes it clear that dispite the seemingly friendly gesture the judge is in no way pleasant. He says the words 'm sure any aspiring singer would dread to hear 'don't call us we'll call you' at this point there is an effect used to show that his saying that and ending her auition so abruptly has affected Bobbie and in a sense shaked her world.
Inspiration and comparisons
Honey is a movie about an adolesent girl with a passion for dancing trying to better herself and get noticed by people in the industry and basically just to get by. The opening scene of Honey consists of a journey Jessica Alba's character takes, it has very little dialogue but covers quite a few angles e.g long shots and an establishing shot. Our movie Differs from this movie as we didn't include as much sound and we incorperated less shots than they did. This poster for Honey shows a siloutte of the city and above it is Honey showing that the city is hr oyster in a sense, she is quite clantily dressed in this poster and the genreal dea of this poster isn't in my view appropirate for our movie.
High school musical is about a group of peoepl all going through the struggles of teenage life the trilogy follows the cast in the coming of age type film based on people who are wanting and trying to be noticed and also to fit into their school environment. The opening Scene of High School Musical is focused on a karaoke competition and so the main event is the singing at which point the two main characters are identified. Again this poster isn't very relavent to our piece as it shows aslightly big group of friends happy together suggesting they work as one- our story is morre about one girls journey and the anticipation of finding out the reslt after her audition,with her only one friend to confide in- beacause f this our poster will not elemate this one.
Save the Last dance is a movie about change and a girl adjusting to new environments-but the main theme in this movie is that socializing specifically by the medium of dance can break down barriers and make peoeple closer. The opening scene of save The Last Dance shows Julia Stiles' character at an audition for Juliard school of dance, it is a very dramatic opening scne as it has jump cuts between her erformance and her mother's accident. Our film also starts off with an autition and the prelude to the audition where the main characters best friend is givign her a pep talk, ours however will be alot less dramatic than the startof save the last dance and our poster will also have just two characters, but they will be bestfriends so not displaying affection of the same persuasion:instead displaying loyalty and a sense of only having each other.The Call Back poster - simple but affective
The poster above was our first atempt at a poster, its a very simple one where in the bold font and use of colours we intended to give the impression importance. Red a colour associated with passion, love,danger and various other things is the border colour this I believe represents all that this one phonecall can do- it boarders around the silver title a colour thouht of as one to do with fame,elagance,wealth and other such possitive things related to sucess. Using both together is showing that its going to be a ride a thing to remember and that this call back has the potential to make or break this young girls singing career.
The calm after the Storm
We as I said we had loads of ideas for the main piece and at times we would disagree so as soon as we found something we agred on we decided to get a discussion about it on Video
Call Backs: Discussion -its fair to say this 'discussion' is a bit boring -and really not a discussion just bad acting trates looking directly at the camera speaking of what we were going to do it about.The recording was made after a long time had been spent disagreeing on ideas and what angles to use and basic plot etc..
Call Backs: Discussion -its fair to say this 'discussion' is a bit boring -and really not a discussion just bad acting trates looking directly at the camera speaking of what we were going to do it about.The recording was made after a long time had been spent disagreeing on ideas and what angles to use and basic plot etc..
More technicalities - continuity 2
When filming this piece there were some issues with casting, but since we never had alot of time we realised that bggers can't be choosers and used what or should I say who we had.
First the is a Long shot including the two main characters ,a transition was put in then a POV from the view of the third character -its a two shot of the first two main characters this POV althoguh seemingly insignificant it represents the closeness of the two main characters dispite their dispute and is seen by the eyes of a character who's sitting opposite them the audiencen in a sense is like this thrid character having a look into the conversation there but not quite as involved as the other two.
This contunuity was done in a room of lets say a cozy nature-very small space and it was a bit difficult for me as the camera woman to manuver the tripod around/ to get in many shots.
but I fel that when I wrote the cam movements in I did as many angles as I couuld with such a short time and limited story line.
I-movie was used to do all the editing, and there were alot of shots and takes used bu us being novist there were alot of rooky mistakes madeand this limited our end piece some what, but we in my opinion had rather good continuity in all though.
First the is a Long shot including the two main characters ,a transition was put in then a POV from the view of the third character -its a two shot of the first two main characters this POV althoguh seemingly insignificant it represents the closeness of the two main characters dispite their dispute and is seen by the eyes of a character who's sitting opposite them the audiencen in a sense is like this thrid character having a look into the conversation there but not quite as involved as the other two.
This contunuity was done in a room of lets say a cozy nature-very small space and it was a bit difficult for me as the camera woman to manuver the tripod around/ to get in many shots.
but I fel that when I wrote the cam movements in I did as many angles as I couuld with such a short time and limited story line.
I-movie was used to do all the editing, and there were alot of shots and takes used bu us being novist there were alot of rooky mistakes madeand this limited our end piece some what, but we in my opinion had rather good continuity in all though.
Semi-Technical Stuff - explanataion of Continuity 1
First there is a pan from a low angle upwards shows a builld up of acticity usually but in this case displays my build up of frustration at the un intriguing topic of conversation& then a mid shot of Charater one played by me- it was a midtwo shot including Ashley also,There is then two shot side view showing me trying to get character 3, played by Bobbie Briscoe's attention. She has her music too loud and is unable to hear-when she finally does realise that I am trying to gain her attention I am seen from a high angle speaking to her-this is to portray in a way my annoyance and get the audience the feel sorry for me as I have been ignored. Following this is an extreme close up of Bobbie, then the camera moves attention from bobbie and back to Ashley in a crab shot, takin the a POV shot showing that I had lost interest in the conversation.
The filming of this scene took place in one of our schols more quiet common rooms- quietso that other peopel do n ot distract or interupt our progress or atleast not very much. We kept the filming insidethe building as we had limited facilities and space and also it matched up with what we were trying to put across a sence of socializing and a fun type of environment with friends relaxing.The characters are all smart-smart casually dressed to give off a chilled out type of atmosphere .
In the film there wasn't any major amount of focus on sounds apart from the sound of ones peopel in the room and also th sound of Bobbies music.
The filming of this scene took place in one of our schols more quiet common rooms- quietso that other peopel do n ot distract or interupt our progress or atleast not very much. We kept the filming insidethe building as we had limited facilities and space and also it matched up with what we were trying to put across a sence of socializing and a fun type of environment with friends relaxing.The characters are all smart-smart casually dressed to give off a chilled out type of atmosphere .
In the film there wasn't any major amount of focus on sounds apart from the sound of ones peopel in the room and also th sound of Bobbies music.
What could have been
We weren't doinng to well on the filming and editing side of things from the off, but a lack of ideas was never an issue...the groups had plenty of ideas from:
Till Death do Us Part-where a gold-digger was plotting to kill he husband
Behind every Smile (unofficial title )- where a young girl under pressure, who everyone thought
was happy starts taking drugs to escape her reality
An unnamed thriller where everyone was a suspect,after one of the most popular ppils gets killed and his body is found on campus,story following te investigation of his murder and events that lead to it
My personal favourite rejection was 'Mr.Right-Now' it was one of my concepts a teenage girl ever so picky seemed to always find something wrong with everone even the smallest thing the tag line to be When your as picky as Annabel Smitdh you'll never find Mr.Right so you'll have to settle for Mr.Right now.
Till Death do Us Part-where a gold-digger was plotting to kill he husband
Behind every Smile (unofficial title )- where a young girl under pressure, who everyone thought
was happy starts taking drugs to escape her reality
An unnamed thriller where everyone was a suspect,after one of the most popular ppils gets killed and his body is found on campus,story following te investigation of his murder and events that lead to it
My personal favourite rejection was 'Mr.Right-Now' it was one of my concepts a teenage girl ever so picky seemed to always find something wrong with everone even the smallest thing the tag line to be When your as picky as Annabel Smitdh you'll never find Mr.Right so you'll have to settle for Mr.Right now.
A girls allowed to change her mind...
As I mentioned earlier I was in a group at the begining of the course but we had some issues,with getting along - the concepts and also we had a few too many peoeple: originally I was in group two. The only girl there nd not realy fitting in very well I was rather happy when I got the opportunity to switch groups, despite thee fact that I would have to start all over again and drop any progress we had made.
My new group consisting of www.bjbriscoe-jabby.blogspot.com , www.ashleywcsmedia.blogspot.com, www.wcsmediaalverto.blogspot.com and myself were having much beter luck getting on but due to alot of absences and, I'll say a lack of focus at the start we were a bit behind the other groups when it comes to filming.
My new group consisting of www.bjbriscoe-jabby.blogspot.com , www.ashleywcsmedia.blogspot.com, www.wcsmediaalverto.blogspot.com and myself were having much beter luck getting on but due to alot of absences and, I'll say a lack of focus at the start we were a bit behind the other groups when it comes to filming.
Continuity 1
Our first continuity was again a conversation between friends.. we I feel suceeded to an extent with use of angles and editing at times to represent whats going oon as the transaction when friend one is trying to gain her fellow female friends attention gives the impression of quite of it of time passing. Also the fact that the sound of her music at first seems to be non diagetic just to set the scen but then when she takes out the headphones the sound stops an it becomes appearant that it was actually apart of the scene.
Call Backs: Continuity 1#links
As you saw we recieved feedback on our piece, and took some of the coments into concideration when making the secound one but some were irelevant e.g making it longer as we had a 30 secound time limit on our continuities.
Call Backs: Continuity 1#links
As you saw we recieved feedback on our piece, and took some of the coments into concideration when making the secound one but some were irelevant e.g making it longer as we had a 30 secound time limit on our continuities.
My groups secound continuity
When making our secound continuity We tried to keep in mind the shots we needed to include. It was a simple pece about a coupleof friends having a disagrement on football, where in the main speaker walks out.
Call Backs: Continuity 2#links <-- link to continuity two
Call Backs: Continuity 2#links <-- link to continuity two
Its not what you see Its the way you look at things...
Wow I never knew before chooosign this course how complicated it was to make a movie, or just a short clip all the thought that goes into every single shot:
how ever angle and edit have some sort of effect untill now
how ever angle and edit have some sort of effect untill now
Angles such as
Extreme long shot used to set / make a scene clear sort of like an establishing shot
Long Shots to give a sense of distance sometimes metaphorically e.g between characters
Mid-shots normally used for when characters are talking or to show focus on a particular thing / person
Extreme long shot used to set / make a scene clear sort of like an establishing shot
Long Shots to give a sense of distance sometimes metaphorically e.g between characters
Mid-shots normally used for when characters are talking or to show focus on a particular thing / person
Close up- are used to focus directly on a character or a specific type of mise en sen, it shows that the subject of theis shot i of some importance
There are so many more so I thought I'd just use a picture...
Lights Camera- not quite Action...
On the 3rd of march we finally recieved our group Cameras, prior to this we[the class] had a lesson on what the cameras were going to look like and how to use them. Mr Hady went into great detail on the purpose of all the buttons, most of which I understood and most important how important it was to look after our cameras.
At the time of the recieving of the cameras I was in a different group to the one in the end, but thats another post. However when we got the cameras my group played around at first not really doing much but I did try to get some shots in even though they were just simple ones of the guys basically having a normal conversation unaware of my filming.
At the time of the recieving of the cameras I was in a different group to the one in the end, but thats another post. However when we got the cameras my group played around at first not really doing much but I did try to get some shots in even though they were just simple ones of the guys basically having a normal conversation unaware of my filming.
Introduction
This blog is dedicated to my media coursework. Our main task was to creaate a two minute opening to a film, and our other tasks were two continuity pieces displaying the groups ability to encoperate differnt camera angles and filming skills.
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