Notes on lecture before the film sumer's town

Notes on lecture before summers town.

British films are normally very low budget, they are not normally big blockbuster, normally filmed on a lower budget than American films, and most importantly British films always try to capture the average person, they do this to try and connect the character to the audience, this is relating the audience to the film by putting the main character in situations an average person could find themselves in everyday. You will hardly see a British film that is about a out of this world heroic character, who has to save this world on his own.

Summers town was filmed by Euro star, which is the train that goes from England to France, this was probably good publicity for them because Euro star managed to put across there product a couple of times in the film. British films are normally low budget affairs compared to there American counterparts. This is probably a reason behind why British films are not well renowned for there amazing special effects when it comes to blowing things up.

Pre work for summers town

Black and white films
1. Why do you think a modern director would choose to produce a film in blackk and white rather than colour? What effects might they be hoping to achieve?

A director may have chosen to use black and white, for a number of reasons.
They could use it to take the emphasis away from what things look like and make the viewer think more about the characters and how what the characters are actually saying this would also mean that the viewer would find it easier to concentrate on the characters movement rather than colourful distracting images. Much more likely is that classic film were filmed in black and white, so filming in black and white might make a viewer link the movie to classic titles, this would increase the appeal of the movie.

2. Below is a list of modern films shot in Black & White choose three and find out their release date, genre, directors reputation and the critical reaction of the film.

The man who wasn’t there-
Director- Joel Coen (one of the Coen brothers)
Release date- 26 October 2001 (UK)
Genre- Crime/ Drama
Critical reaction- It got good critical reaction as it was nominated for film of the year
Information on director- Joel Coen is one of the Coen brothers, he directed such films as: No country for old men, the lady killers and burn after reading

Sin City-
Director- Robert Rodriguez
Release date - 3rd of June 2005
Genre- Action/crime/thriller
Critical reaction- The critical reaction was good as it was nominated for many awards and it won such awards a Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Supporting Actor from the Online Film Critics Association – 2005
Information on director- Robert Rodriguez directed all of the spy kids movies as well as sin city which is a bit of an odd combination, because spy kids is a kids movie while sin city is rated 18, this just show the range of films the director is willing to direct

Rumble fish
Director- Francis Ford Coppola
Release date – 8th October 1983
Genre- Drama
Critical reaction- It got nominated fort a golden globe and won two awards at the San Sebastián Festival.
Information on director- He directed famous films such as the legendary Godfather films as well as apocalypse now.

Once upon a time in the west

Once Upon a Time in The West.

Once upon a time in the west is a western film that comes under the genre of thriller, sub genre western, a thriller movie is a movie that’s purpose is to quite simply thrill the audience by either, frightening, exciting or catching the audience by surprise.
The film uses a key element in its build up of tension right at the beginning, the technique used is the use of digetic sound.
Digetic sound is the sound that is natural to the film. By this it means the sounds that was captured when it was being filmed; an example of this is actors voices or the.
As well as digetic sound there are non-digetic sounds: this is sounds that5 is not natural to the film. Sounds that have been edited in after the filming process; like background music which has been put in and voice over’s.
As i was saying the use of digetic sound in the beginning of once upon a time in the west is very good at building up tension. It starts with a weedy old man (that does not look like he can protect himself) chalk being used on a chalk boar, this sound at the best of times is eerie and mike my skin crawl, this start made me think the start of this film may well be quite fast paced. Also there is the sound of a lot of wind, this gives the location the impression of being quite baron and open.
Also the old styled western door creaks open very slowly, this is to build up tension and suspense to keep the audience wondering, who is on the other side of the door? We get the answer very shortly after with a very bulky intimidating looking cowboy enters the door, the malice in his eyes suggests that possible the weedy old train conductor is in for a bit of trouble. The cowboy who already looks indimidating enough, then starts to walk with big long strides, the director could of used this to show the confidence, strength of this cowboy.
The camera pans around and very slowly and it turns out that there is more than just one cowboy there are three that all look equally as intimidating, with big lumbering strides coming down on the old man from what appears to be all sides, we are lead to believe that he has no hope.
I have yet to see the rest f the film, but if the rest isa as good as this opening scence i am sure it will be worth watching.

The beginning sequence for no country for old men

The film begins with an establishing shot of a deserted view of a desert like area that does not have an abundance of vegetation; this is to show that possibly that it is a peaceful place, where they are not over used to witnesing of being invlovled in crime. While on this view you can hear a radio show about a murder, which makes the audience think this place is possible not as peaceful as it first seemed.

After this scene it cuts to a a mid shot of a car beginning pulled over by a cop car and put in custody, this guy seems very shady, while the police officer looks quite confident. Next it cuts to a shot whch is of the police officer having a phone call. This man is custody who looks like a bit of a psychopath (which leas the audience to believe that he is the villain of the movie), steps up and walks very slowly to the police officer, puts his cuffs around the police officer throat and starts to throttle him, the camera flashes to those to on the floor and shows both the factual reaction of both men while this is happening, the shots move the audience because it shows the police officer has little chance and his fight for survival is in vien. After the police officer his dead on the floor, they us a point of view shot of the psycho washing his hands to get rid of the blood.

The person then takes over the police car and pulls over another man, ask him to get out of the car and puts some sort of device, that had been introduced to us, to the mans head it then shots off some sort of surprised air puts a whole in the mans head and kills him, while the psycho goes off into the car of the man he has just killed car and drives away.

The next shot is of a a sniper scope zoomed on to a dear, the camera then suddenly cuts the face of the man who is actually aiming the gun, the sniper shot is an example of a point of view shot, because of this the audience do not yet know whether this guy is a good guy or a bad guy.
This shot is effective because it shows it shows us the concentration of him, after shooting the bullet you hear the sound of the shell hitting the floor, this is effective because it makes the audience very aware of his surrounding, because the only over things that the audience can hear is his breath and the wind this is all digetic sound and adds a sense of realism.

The target audince for our short coming opening sequence would greatly appriciate some of the camera shots in this opening sequence such as the perspective shot which i have just talked about.

That was the opening of No Country for Old Men, analysis of the rest of the movie is for another time…..

Meida
Thriller movies can characterized as fast pacing movies with frequent action, and resourceful heroes who must thwart the plans of more-powerful and better-equipped villains. Basically a Thrillers objective is to quite simply thrill the audience.

Examples of Thriller movies
No country for old men ( I have seen this movie and really enjoyed it)
Jaws
The Dark night ( I have seen this movie and really enjoyed it)
The God Father trilogy( I have seen this movie and really enjoyed it)
De Ja Vu ( I have seen this movie and really enjoyed it

What i learned from final express (mac version)

I learned that first of all Apple Mac computers are more difficult on premier than P.C, but the complexity of this program could possible mean that the Mac version has more possibilities.

One of the key things I learned was the shortcuts to do certain things I.E play the current selected clip as well has how to rewind it fast foreword.

There are defiantly a lot more things to learn on premiere but it is a work in progress and I am sure I will be a pro in no time.

On my second time on the mac version of final express, i found out more about the actual layout on of the program the most notab;e thing is that there are two windows side by side that play your clips of film, the first one (on the left) is the one that the current single clip of film you are looking at, while the window on the right shows the whole of the project (all of the clips put together).

On Firday we masterd uploading our clips of film, mostly because we were uploading our film clips from our camara for a bit over an hour.

Very First blog

This is a very exicting time for me, enjoy!
I will remember this as the day that I set up my very first blog.