Music ideas

Music was important to my opening as it will act as the biggest signifier as to the genre and mood of the film. I wanted i to also create narrative enigma and keep a page to the opening. 
I wanted to create a pice of music that was dramatic and intense to fit the feel and mood to the opening. I looked at similar films that i had analysed such as heather and the music that the used in that , i found that it was similar to typical grunge and indie rock music that i listen too. so i started to find songs i already knew and thought about the features used in them that i could use to create a dramatic atmosphere in my opening.  Wolf alice were a good band to take influence from. There song " moaning Lisa smile " creates a dramatic atmosphere from the beginning with the loud drums and guitar that almost overwhelms all the other music. i used this as influence and created a piece with similar features that works well with my opening. I wanted the music to include diegetic sounds such as wind trees and birds to add relic features to the opening.

Scene four developments to final cut.

The initial ideas for this scene was to create a creepy and un settling feel to Sarah , the 'counter typical girl '. I think we achieved this quite well , this rough cut doesn't include music but when it does it will add immensely to the feel of the scene. We filmed in a grave yard that is close to our school , we choice a day that all the girl were available and we went down there straight after school had finished . We were lucky in the sense that it wasn't raining and it was a bright day and so along with working with cam,era settings , the quality of the videos and colour in the videos is good. We took a tripod for some of the stiller clips but we wanted to create and uneasy feel and so most of out footage is hand held especially when it come to Sarah. When i was editing this rough cut , i changed all of the lighting levels to create a darker feel. I played the clips of the girls over Sarah face as we wanted to give the impression that the girl in the grave a Sarah were childhood friends , i think i did this well . Although when i filmed the little girl it was dark and the quality of the videos was poor , i thin that in the end it created a dark feel to it and fits well with the theme and atmosphere we are trying to get across to the audience.

My second attempt at re-editing scene three i felt was really good and for this reason its the only re-edit i needed to do before adding it to my full rough cuts. In my second edit i added music , sound affects and over lays to add more semantic field. I used sounds such as "forest" and "children playground" to add a more realistic feel to the scene , the children playground helps the double exposure of the little girls to really stand out as a memory , and the trees and wind help create more of an atmosphere.

Story boards

Terminology

Terminology 

Anchorage - a way of ‘tying down meaning’, without anchorage meaning could be polysemic – open to various interpretations, EG. a caption anchors meaning to a photo, music anchors mood in a film

 
Audience - a key aspect of Media Studies – how audiences are identified, created and addressed and how audiences access, interpret and respond to texts

 
Auteur - a film director whose films show a personal vision or style

 
Avant garde - innovative, experimental work which breaks main stream conventions

 
Binary oppositions - the theory that you cannot understand good if you don’t understand evil, eg heroes and villains

 
Cliff hanger - an ending that creates suspense, often used in a ‘soap’ to make the audience watch the next episode

 
Climax - the point in the narrative where conflicts/enigmas are resolved

 
Closure - the completion of a narrative in a classic narrative, eg the happy ending in which the hero defeats the villain

 
Connotation - the meaning associated with a sign, eg a red rose could be associated with love

 
Denotation - he description of a sign, eg the dictionary definition

 
Convention - established ways of treating genre, codes, narrative or representations

 
Decoding - the processes by which media audiences interpret meaning in a media text

 
Dietetic sound - the sound that actually comes from the set or studio like dialogue, not added later like music to set mood

 
Non-Diegetic sound - sound that does not come from the set/location, usually added in editing , eg theme music, voice-over

 
Encoding - the process by which media producers construct meanings in a text

 
Enigma - a question posed in a text

Film noir - type of film made in the 1940s and 1950s which used low- key lighting, shadows etc to reflect the dark side of human nature

Genre - a set of conventions or common practices which guide the production, marketing, identification and interpretation of texts 

Ideologies - shared beliefs and values in any social group (see dominant and oppositional ideologies)

 
Intertextuality - links between texts, eg genre, stars, subject matter, spin- offs

 
Mise-en-scene - whatever happens in the frame, ie characters, set, props etc

 
Narrative inigma - Leaving something out to give a sense of Mystery

Preferred reading - the idea that texts contain messages which support mainstream ideology, ie how the maker wants the audience to read the text

 
Propaganda - texts which use emphasis and selection to try to persuade the audience of a particular view point

 
Resolution - the outcome of a narrative conflict

Serif font - typeface whose characters have short strokes at the ends, eg Times (used to connote tradition and to aid readability)

 

 Sans-serif font- typeface whose characters do not have strokes at the end, eg Arial (used to connote modernity)

Semantics - the study of the meanings of signs and codes (as is studied in Language)

 
Signifier - the physical form of the sign, eg BBC

 
Stereotype - representations of people, places or events in an instantly recognisable way, eg Scots with red hair wearing kilts

 

Idents

Sony Wonder -


20th century fox -


Action ident -


Horror channel ident -




Although looking at horror dents and really liking the theme and genre they were presenting i wanted to create an ident that represented the name of the company "Brightnesstudios" therefore i wanted to include some sort of light of sun glare or bulb into my ident.

This was my first attempt at an ident. Although i like it i don't feel that it has the professional and quality that i want to show in my ident.
I want to try something that rather than made using editing software i have filmed and then edited to create something more original.

Donnie darko opening scene analysis

Donnie Darko is a sifi and fantisy filme relased in 2002 , which is about a A troubled teenager plagued by visions of a large bunny rabbit that manipulates him to commit a series of crimes, after narrowly escaping a bizarre accident.

The opening scene however seems peaceful in comparison to the rest of the movie, the opening lasts 4 minutes 18 seconds and focuses primarily on him alone , although other characters are shown toward the end of the opening. 

The first shot (establishing shot) shows an extreme long shot of a road surrounded by trees and the protagonist laying in the centre of the road. The shot is very framed around him and the road acts as a lead in line directing out eyes straight to him , it is also simple and doesn't include anything that could distract us from him.

 These two shots pan toward the protagonist but up until this point we have still not seen his face , this creates narrative enigma and builds up suspense. The angles are also quite high and we slightly look down on him , this creates a sense of power for the audience and makes him seem weak and targeted. 

 The camera pans around him showing the back of his head and also his bike , we then learn how we got to where he is, this shot also put us slightly in his perspective as we can see what he is looking at. 

We are then finally shown his face through a medium long shot.

we are shown an extreme long shot of what the protagonist is looking which not only sets the scene but also helps us again understand and we what he is looking at this also buts the audience in him shoes and we see things from his perspective. 

  

After seeing the back of him against the view then see him turn towards the camera and for the second time we see his face. He smiled which is the first emotion we see from him , this may indicate that this is a place that he enjoys coming or that he likes. 

We then see the title " Donnie Darko " .

We see the protagonist cycling down a hill away rom the pace we perversely was shown. A mix of extreme close ups and long shots shown his journey down the hill.

The poster is shown as he cycles past it. This helps or the audience to denote the time of year and the setting he is surrounded by. It could show that there is a small and active community.

The two images above show the type of neighbourhood he lives in , the dress of the women jogging helps us to understand the time period and the time the film is set in , the houses in the background show that he lives in a wealthy , upper class house and family.

The camera then pans from the road onto a drive inn which Porsche is parked and a man is blowing the leave off of the grass , along with the car showing that the family have money it also shows that the family take pride the house and the grades and that they have respect for the areas they live in.

The protagonist then cycles onto the grass and dumps his bike on top of it. The contrasts between the care and attention the man was paying to the garden , it shows that the protagonist has little respect for the garden and it could also show he is in a rush for something. 

Through these three shots we see a girl which we can presume to be his little sister jumping on a trampoline , his mother sat on a sun lounger reading and then him walking past the both over to the  fridge that has a sign saying " where is Donnie" . The fact that the mother is sat on the sun lounger when donnie is clearly missing could show that there is a lack of worry and panic towards him being missing alternatively it could show that it happens regally and that they don't need to worry because we will eventually come back.