Feedback - Miss Spencer

You have written two reasonable evaluations David. Throughout you have noticed some of the conventions and discussed them. You have embedded the film and taken screen shots ot illustrate your points. However I would like a lot more detail as well as a lot more comment on why certain shots/angles/props etc were used. For example on the Sin City analysis you pick out establishing shots and over the shoulder shots, but you do not say what effect or why these were chosen.At the moment your work is still in a level 2 and I would like to see this improve. In order to do this I suggest you:

• Add more detail to the analysis, commenting on the effect and why ecah element was used.
• Although sometimes you have discussed conventions, and how this film fits into them, there are other times that you have mentioned an element and not highlighted it as a convention. I would like to make sure you spot all of them so that you can use this information when planning your own film.
• At the start of the Descent analysis you could comment on why they chose not to follow conventions for the opening - what effect were they looking for on the audience?  
• You should have at least four pieces of analysis by now, if you are struggling to get the work done in time I would appreciate it if you could talk to me about it.

(Task - 2.1) Movie Analysis Opening Sequence - Sin City

Sin City

Sin City is a Neo Noir style thriller and the story is from a graphic novel also called Sin City. The film is in black and white but there is some key colours. In the opening scene the key colour is red and the woman in the scene is wearing a red dress. This may symbolise death because red is associated with death and destruction but also with love and this could mean as well that the woman is the love interest in the film. The film is in black and white and this is convention of the Neo Noir style thriller and also this film is based on a graphic novel and the graphic novel is in black and white and this shows that they are also following the convention of the graphic novel as well. In the Opening scene there also is a voice over monologue, this is a typical convention of a Neo Noir style film. This voice over is diegetic because it has been place over the top of the normal noise and the actors are not supposed to hear it. In the film they use the typical 1950's american language, this is picked up from the line 'Care for a smoke' meaning do you want a cigarette.

Editing

The editing in this clip is slow because it is a just a conversation at the start and even towards the end of the scene when the guy shoots to woman the editing is slow. This shows that she wasn't a very good person because leading up to her death the editing was slow and usually when it is a good person being killed the editing speeds up to build tension.

Camera Angles

The opening shot is an establishing shots of a woman walking up to the edge of a balcony. Establishing and long shots are used throughout this scene, this is used to show where they are and what they are doing. This creates a good effect because it provides context for the scene and it shows a lot more of their surroundings meaning that you know where they are and what they are doing. There is also a lot of over the shoulder shots in this scene as well because most of the scene is a conversation between 2 people. this creates the effect that the 2 people are having a conversation. Also in this scene there is a match on action when the guys offers her a cigarette. This is to show the action clearly because most of the screen is take up by the back of the guy  because the shot before is an over the shoulder shot.

Narrative

At the start of the clip there is a woman stood on a balcony wearing a red dress. her dress is the only part of colour in the scene. This shows that she is at a party because of the post dress and the balcony of the building she is on. A guys starts waking up behind her and she turns are starts talking to him. they then have a conversation and he then offers her a cigarette and they smoking and carrying on with their conversation. Both of them in the scene look sophisticated because of the clothes that they are wearing. They then start kissing and hugging and the guys shoots her in the stomach. This shows that her red dress did symbolise death and then he holds her until she dies.

(Task - 2.1) Movie Analysis Opening Sequence - The Descent

The Descent

In the opening to The Descent, it’s not like a typical horror film in that it starts off with some people having fun and white water rafting the colours is bright and it is don’t in the day time. this creates the effect that they are having fun and this doesn't follow the normal conventions of a horror film. This is sometimes called the calm before the storm and is used to create tension on the audience because you now it is a horror film and you are waiting for the horror part to start. They appear to be having fun and the non-diegetic music in the background reflects this. The music is calming and it doesn't fall in line with the typical horror film genre conventions.

Colours

The opening credits are fits the conventions of a typical horror film because it is black and white. This is the colour codes for a horror film and also around the text there is smoke and lens flares. These are all typical thing you would see in a horror film. This doesn't follow the normal conventions of the horror genre because horrors normally have dark colours and are set at night time. The effect this has on the audience is that it builds up tension because you now it is a horror film and you are just waiting for the horror part of the film to start.

Editing

The editing in the opening scene is quite slow past. This follows the conventions of the horror film genre because there is always slow edits that get faster and faster throughout the film until it gets to something scary and that is when the edits are the fastest. This happens in the opening scene because the edits are slow until they get into the car and then the edits start getting faster until the end of the scene with they have a car crash and the driver is impaled. There is a fade from back at the start of the scene and a fade to black at the end of the scene.

Narrative

At the start of the scene there are 3 people that are white water rafting when they have finished, they tie up the boat and they say to each other that they will meet back at the hotel. One of them gets unto her car with her husband and child and they are driving down the road. The woman is talking to her child that is sat in the back of the car. The car begins to drift into the other lane and there is a van coming the other way.
 
They crash into the van and the van has some copper piping on the roof and that slides of and goes through the front window and impales the driver through the head and chest. you can tell that this is going to happen before it actually happens.  Then it fades to black.

                 

Camera shots and camera movements

At the start of the scene there is an establishing shot to show where the scene is set. Then there is a big tracking shot of the people white water rafting down the river. This involves some medium shots, long shots and close ups. There is some over the shoulder shots in this scene and there is also some match on actions as well. There is a close at the end of the guy with the pole through his head and this is used to show that he is dead and to show the the gore.   

Feedback - Miss Spencer

A good prelim task and evaluation David. You have noticed what went well and mentioned elements like the 180 degree rule and why it is used. I would like more detail about what didn't go quite so well so that you can learn from this.
Thanks
Miss Spencer

Preliminary Task Evaluation

The 180 degree rule is where there is an imaginary line between 2 actors and you as the camera person can not cross that line. If you do cross the line it doesn't make sense to the audience that are watching the film. I made sure in my film that I didn't do this and that it made sense when we was filming it. A match on action is a series of shots that show an action, the first shot is a long/medium shot of the start of the action. The second shot is a close up of the action happening and the last shot is a long/medium shot of after the action has happened. I did this in my film because I had someone passing a phone to someone else and there was a close up when the phone was actually being passed. The eye line rule is where there are 2 people that are talking to each other but they are not necessarily next to each other. This is normally used in a phone call between two different actors, this has to follow the 180 degree rule or it doesn't make sense. I did this in my film by having two actors talk to each other on the phone. In my film we didn't do it as well as I wanted because one of the actors was on a phone and the other one wasn't, this means that it didn't look as good as I intended.

In the filming process of my film it was easy to film the shots that I wanted off my storyboard and it was easy to use the location that I wanted as well. In the filming I managed to use the 180 degree rule, a match on action and the eye line rule. I also used a range of camera angles and movements in my film. To make my film as smooth as possible I used a Tripod, this meant that i could get a better range of shots and when i liked the position of a camera angle i could leave the camera there and sort other things out.

I edited my film in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5, This is a good software to use for editing because it has a large range of features that can be used to make your film look even better. In the editing process i learned how to use the green screen functionality in the software and I used it in my film to make an exposition at the end.