Tuesday, 23 November 2010

Narrative and Character


5 Stages of Narrative structure:
  1. Equilibrium
  2. Disruptive
  3. Complications
  4. Resolution
  5. New Equilibrium
Example of the 5 stages of narrative structure: Jaws:
  1. Equilibrium- Typical day at the beach, sunny, everyone is perparing for July 4th, everyone is happy.
  2. Disruptive- A dead body appears.
  3. Complications- Do they close the beach for July 4th? Will more people die? Is it a shark?
  4. Resolution- they keep the beach open, and go to catch shark.
  5. New Equilibrium- Shark is killed, shark hunter is killed. Everything returns to normal but there are new changes between the people.
5 Stock Characters:
  1. The Hero
  2. The Villain
  3. The Helper or sidekick
  4. The Victim
  5. The Donor
Example of of the 5 stock characters: Harry Potter:

  1. Hero- Harry Potter
  2. Villain- Voldermort
  3. Helper- Ron and Hermione
  4. Victim- Sirius Black
  5. Donor- Dumbledore
Prisoner of Azkaban poster




Denotation and Connotation of a Horror film

A shot from the movie "Scream"
The Denotations and Connotations of these film pictures 

Friday, 19 November 2010

Conventions of a Horror Movie or Horror Iconography

Here I have made a list of things and feelings that we associate with Horror Films that scare us:
Blood
Suspense
Screaming
Death
A Weapon - An Axe
A Fear - Spiders
Contrapuntal Music - Disjointed Music
Usually at night time
Secluded area
Creepy House
Pain
Bad Weather
Psycopath
Horrible noises - screaching
Small confined spaces
Bent trees - no leaves
Someones always alone
Massacre
Black cats
Protagonist
Antagonist
Black magic
Ghost's
Chase sequences
Swamps
Faulty lights
A woman always dies first ( we see this clearly in Scream, when the blond girl is murdered at the beginning)
Inept police
Scary children
Dolls
Clowns
Delapadated buildings
Cars breaking down

All of these above are signs and signifiers of a horror film genre, a film that incorporates most if not all of these is "Nightmare on Elm Street"

Moodboard. A list of things that scare me.

Here is a list of things that scare me, and that if these were incorporated in a horror film, it would cumulate to being very thrilling:

 
  1. Spiders
  2. Sharks
  3. Balloons
  4. Ghosts
  5. The deep sea
  6. Cramped spaces
  7. Rape
  8. Blood
  9. Darkness
  10. Clowns
  11. Children
  12. Psychos
  13. Dolls
  14. Terrorists
  15. Monsters
  16. Bats
  17. Paranormal
  18. The Unknown
             

            


Editing

When editing we created a log bin for our rushes so that it would be easy to access for the editing process. Our log bin was very significant as it would hold all the best takes that we had produced on the day of our preliminary task, as in doing this the takes that worked well would be easier to get to as they would all be in one folder. once we found the best takes we would then have to edit them by cutting the takes at certain points so that it would fit with the next piece of action, for example, going from a wide angle shot to an over the shoulder shot. Here we would take the wide angle shot and cut it at the point where we want it to change and then we would have the over the shoulder shot cut, using "Ctrl" "I" so that from that point we can drag it down to the time line and piece it together with the wide angle so that when you watch it back it would run smoothly from the wide angle to the over the shoulder shot. This is called "Continuity Editing"

Organising the shots we referred back to our story board to see which shots best told our story, the audience are meant to sympathise with the man holding the gun as he is being bullied in to shooting the victim, therefore he had more screen time and more close-ups as this made him look weak, but when he refused to do it, it made him look powerful, however we gave the woman who was persuading the man to shoot more over the shoulder shots and wide angles as this gave the perception that she is powerful at the beginning but then when she walks away she is given a wide angle as this shows that she has lost and makes her look weak as she walks out.

For continuity editing we had to make sure that the order of shots added up so that it wouldn't look strange for the audience, for example we would have a wide angle shot, followed by an over the shoulder shot, followed by a close-up, this would be so that it continuously flowed, as if through the eyes of the viewer and so that it wouldnt break the 180 degree rule. This controls the story as the flow of shots is very important to interpret how the audience will view it.

In the editing process to make an impact on the line of "Do It" we had a close up of the gun at the victims head, cocking the gun, then a cut to an over the shoulder shot of the man saying "I can't", the close up of the cocking of the gun was to make the impact that the victims life is at stake, this was also done to draw a lot of the focus onto the gun to show its significance in the story.


FINAL CUT.jpg
Here is a print screen of final cut pro