Opening Analysis - Children of Men

Representation

Location: In a minimart located in town

Character: There were many people standing inside the minimart, watching the news. There was a strange atmosphere that suggests that something is not mainstream. Than the man came in and ordered a coffee which he doesn't seem to care about the new at all. The camera follows the man everywhere, from when he walked in up until when he walked out. This indicates that he is the protagonist. 

Narrative

Enigmas established: When the man walks away from the minimart and started pouring ingredients into his coffee, there was a bomb at that particular minimart. There was not a single suggestion at the beginning that there will or there might be a bomb. The news on the TV is about the death of a child so this kinda creates a negative mood, however, there are possibilities that the news is linked to the bomb. At the end of the video, a women came running out of the mart, crying, and holding something in her hand. I think her arm might got ripped of by the bomb. This therefore shows that something really bad and dark has started to occur. 

          

Dexter Credits

What Dexter is : It is an American television crime drama mystery series. The series centers on Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter pattern analyst for the fictional Miami Metro Police Department who also leads a secret life as a vigilante serial killer, hunting down murderers who have slipped through the cracks of the justice system. The show's first season was derived from the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter (2004), the first of the Dexter series novels by Jeff Lindsay. It was adapted for television by screenwriter James Manos, Jr., who wrote the first episode. 

Micro element used to create connotations : Dexter credits mainly focuses on filming everything in a close-up way. By viewing thing closely, It gives the connotation of feeling more towards what we see on the screen. At the beginning, there was one scene that the man is using a razor to shave his beard and it films closely when the razor touches is neck. We all know that the mise-en-scene, in this case the razor, is sharp. After the razor touches his skin, blood drips along his neck and drips into the sink. The blood is being filmed in an extremely close up camera angle. This suggests a connotation of thriller. The editing is kind of a jump cut from razor touching to blood on the skin and then to blood dripping down the sink.

Relevance of the use of shapes : By filming everything real close, The shapes of each object can be seen very clearly. It is then a bit hard to determine what that object really is. For example, one scene that he was about to cook and he cut out a pack of meat. The camera was so close that we think he was cutting open someone's flesh. It was misunderstood because we did not see the whole shape of it. 

Understanding Thriller Sub-Genre

We showed our understanding of Psychological Thriller conventions in this short film.

Credit Structure 

"Panic room"  

     Timeline:

      After written by is : Director 

 Thrillers - What are the conventions expected. 

What we came up with,

Task to do (solve a situation)
Setting : Dark time, Night 
Happy and the very beginning then sad
Chasing and running away 
Horror: Threat is supernatural
Blood 


Thriller convention consists of the following 

The protagonist will be seen is peril.
Themes of identity are common- mistaken identity, doppelgänger amnesia
The protagonist is fallible- has an a head/ weakness that is exploited.
The narrative centres upon crime (theft,murder).
The antagonist ensures the protagonist in an increasingly complex web, leaving the helpers and isolated.
The audience is placed in the ambitious position of vogeur.
A series of enigmas are established and resolved at the end.
Themes of seeing, reflection and mirroring.
Micro-elements combine in a build up suspense.
Extra-ordinary events in ordinary situations.

Rear Window suspense and meaning:
Dead Dog

Question: What do we learn about the world of Rear Window from this clip?

The man that broke his leg was sitting by the window, staring out as usual. Then, he heard a women scream. By staring out of the window for all the time, he saw  that all his neighbours stopped what  they were doing and started to wonder what was going on, just like him. The women screamed because her dog fell down from a high height and died. Everyone else in the neighbours are doing different activities. They all stopped and started to walk out of their houses to see the dog.

The world of rear window from this clip is that the man sitting still in the same post for all day long could monitor everything from his window.

Downton Abbey Analysis


The four micro-elements are sound, editing, mise-en-scene and camerawork.
There was a scene that a man who seems to be powerful in the movie appears. This can be seen by the micro-elements because in the scene before he appears, people in the kitchen, both men and women all looks like they are rushing and preparing something for someone vert special. After this scene, the man then appears, showing that scene before is really related to him. The scene that the powerful man appears show that he is about to walk down the stairs to the dining room. The sound effect used in the scene are very strong and powerful which it gives a feeling that he is something that everyone in the house might be afraid of. The editing when this man walked down the stairs is a cut-shot and there are various mis-en-scenes that are a good indicator of this man's powerful image. First of all is the kind of outfit he wears. The outfit looks very neat and smart and expensive. Second is the dog that walks along with him. The dog also looks very clean so this shows that the dog is being well-raised by an owner who must have quite a lot of money to look after an animal, which is the man. The stairs of the house and the design are also big and modern. The camerawork used is the way that the camera always follow the man's movement so this suggests that he must be someone very important. When he got to the dining room and sat down, he also sat at the end of the table so ha must also be the head of the family.

There are three women on the dining table with him. One looks older so that might be his wife. The other two looks younger so that might be his daughter. The way the three of them dress is relatively the same style so they all must be part of that rich family. The camerawork does not really focus on the three of them so they might not be as important as the man. The rise-en-scene is the butler next to them. They all sat on the table with the butler standing and acting very patient.

One minute film evaluation: Unfriended

1. Upload any preparation you created for this task:

-This is the script for the people acting in the film (talking to each other via Skype)

-This is the trailer that inspires this one minute film and it is where we got main ideas from.

2. Embed your final film from youtube and briefly explain the challenge set:

-The challenge set is to create a 1 minute film by choosing one theme (there are 4 themes) and we chose to do a horror film. 

3. Creative process:

working in a group:

-coming up with and deciding on an idea

 At first, we were planning to do a prank film (e.g. a prank on Mean Girls) but then we thought that if it's not funny enough, it's going to fail really badly so Pearl came up with the idea of doing Unfriended and then we all agreed to do it. 

-working together when filming 

The three other people in my group are: Pearl, Ten, Kento. Pearl does all the filming while me, Ten and Kento took part in the film. Ten and Kento are the ones who created the Becky G. account on Skype and they type those scary messages in the film. I starred as the ghost coming behind Teekay's back and killed her. 

4. Technical process

How did you find working with:

-camera

For me, it was really challenging because I've never use a camera like this before. I even get confused when we needed to set up the camera with all those tools given so in the end, I'm not the one recording the film. 

-editing software

It was the first time that I've been introduced to Premiere. I didn't have it on my computer yet so all the work is done on Pearl's and Kento's computer.

-Audio equipment

The audio equipment that we've been given is also new to me but I think it is the easiest equipment to use. We used it to record people's voices and we realise that it can be done so much on that microphone-like recorder. 

5. Final Product:

3 pleased:

- The plot of the film 

-The script 

-The scene where the lights go out and the sound effect at that time.

3 could be improved:

-The sound of people speaking 

-No delay screens on Skype

-The position of the ghost 

6. What to do differently:

If I were to work in groups again I would definitely participate more in editing the film and helping my friends do more work. This is the first project and I don't even have the program on my computer yet so next time, I would try and play around with it until I clearly understand of how to do whatever in editing the film (Sound effects, Effects, etc. ). And I would also make the sound(of everything) in the film be equally loud.