Setting In Our Film-Will Smith

We have chosen to have the location of our film in Ashtead Woods. We will film here when it starts to get dark. We have chosen to do it at this time because if it were to be too dark the camera may not be able to pick up the characters presented as there's not good enough light. We didn't do it in the light as it wouldn't give the tense effect as the darkness would give a eerie effect as you don't usually find a horror film being filmed in the light. The setting of the woods is often featured in horror films where people often get lost, attacked or murdered in the woods. Ashtead Common has dense wooded areas where tension can be created as the audience cannot see what is happening in the trees. Also there is open spaces where the characters can be seen hanging out and sitting around a campfire.      ​

The Characters Clothing In Our Film-Will Smith

This is a prototype of the villains mask. We want to use this sort of mask as it is scary for the audience. Kai Bingham will use a mask like this as the murderer in our film.

These clothes are similar to what Seth Green (Will Smith) will wear. We chose these cool casual clothes as the character is young and cool.

Sam Kennedy played by Matty Folkes will wear these clothes to show the audience it will be cold outside with the big parka coat.

These clothes will be worn by Tom Clark who is Dylan Baker in our film.

Props In Our Film-Will Smith

 Fake Blood:

• This will be used  to cover the blood soaked hoodie
• There will be a fake knife so it will need fake blood

Fake Knife:

• This will be the murder weapon it is needed 
• It will be covered in fake blood 

Camp Fire:

• The group will be sitting around a campfire

Beer:

• This is what will be being drunk at the park by the campfire 

Food:

• This will be the food we will use as it typical party food.

Romance Openings Analysed #3-Will Smith

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind begins with a high angle shot of Jim Carrey laying in bed. He looks lonely and is unshaven, his flat is dull and shabby. A medium shot is used to show him sitting up in bed, looking fed up.

His day has barely begun and as he goes outside to his car he sees it has been scratched and dented by the neighbours. Carrey's character comes across spineless and weak as he doesn't confront his neighbour about the marks on the car and only leaves a note behind saying "thank you".

He then gets a train to Montauk, New York before calling in ill for work. This shows the character has maybe become bored of his life and so seeks a change by doing something different.

Romance Openings Analysed #2-Will Smith

Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice starts with an establishing shot of the countryside. During the titles, classical music is played-a music genre which is commonly associated with romance.

The camera cuts to Keira Knightley, who is reading a book. A tracking low angle shot is used to follow her footsteps while also allowing the audience to see she is focused on the book. An over the shoulder shot is used to show that she has nearly finished the book which could imply that she is a keen reader and is possibly quite academic.

From the mise en scene you realise the movie is set in the late eighteenth century. You can tell this from the dated look of the book she is reading, the cars and house which are both shown in a wide shot.

Another tracking shot is used, this time parallel to the woman's movements. It follows her as she walks around her house. This shows she lives in a large house and must be very well-off, especially for someone living in the eighteenth century.

Characters in Our Film-Will Smith

(Will Smith)
(Matty Folkes)
(Michael Charalambous)
(Dan Parsons)
(Tom Clark)
 (Kai Bingham)


All our characters will be stereotypical teenagers wearing labels and typical teenager clothing like hoodies. They will be typically defying the rules and drinking alcohol in public. They stereotypically represent teenagers, staying out late, messing around, and being dangerous and silly. The teenagers will be naïve to danger.


stereotypes
representation
will the audience engage with the characters/recognise them
are they typical of a horror film
age, gender, costume - conventionsl - conform to stereotypes

why chose the characters

Target Audience Profile for Our Film-Will Smith

The target audience for horror films is mostly aimed at males between the ages of 15-25. Horror films attract to mostly teenagers who are looking to experience new feelings and experiment with emotions. Younger audiences aren't put off by unnatural images or gory scenes with blood unlike adults who most probably saw and experienced films like these when they were teenagers. It is proven that females do enjoy horror films as well, so we will cast both female and male characters who will be teenagers so the predominantly teenage audience can relate to them. Also we will use the recognisable setting of the woods as teenagers typically socialise in this area, so they will be scared of the dramatic events that take place here.

As shown in this horror film over half the viewers are 15-24 year olds and it is nearly an even split of gender viewers.

Film Pitch-Will Smith

Slasher horror- bunch of teenagers in the woods. It is night time, the friends are having drinks and food in the woods. They hear a noise in the woods and freeze they go up to investigate. They don't find anything and come back. Their friend goes to the toilet and doesn't come back. They look for the friend and find blood and his hoodie on the tree.

Characters

Will Smith-Seth Dawson
Matty Folkes-Sam Kennedy
Kai Bingham- The Murderer
Michael Charalambous-Connor Pearce
Dan Parsons-Jenson Black
Tom Clark-Dylan Baker

Props

Fake blood
Torch
Hoody
Food
Drink

Mise en Scene

Trees
Open Woods (Ashtead common/Meadows in Leatherhead)
Barbecue/Fire
Dimly Lit/Dark or Dusk
Torchlight

Sound

Tense/eerie music
Dialogue between the two teenagers
Rustling

Romance Openings Analysed #1-Will Smith

When Harry Met Sally

When Harry Met Sally starts off with a two-shot of an old couple. The man explains how and where they met up and how they've now been together for '50 years'. The woman holds his arm and smiles at him showing they are still happy and in love.
The film goes from present into the past and shows what we assume is a younger version of Harry and Sally kissing passionately in public, this lasts for around five seconds. This shows they are madly in love and are not embarrassed to be seen by pedestrians. We find out that it isn't Sally and Harry kissing it's Harry a different woman who he is obviously in a relationship with.
Harry is driven by Sally on a long 18 hour journey to New York, they bicker and argue about pointless things and are portrayed as the opposites. Harry's demeanor is very lazy and silly while Sally is smart and sensible. A two shot is commonly used allowing the audience to see the characters' body language and facial expressions.

Research Targets

Revisit the email you received to your student account before half-term. You need to evidence further evidence of research in order to achieve your target grade. Lots of areas of study from this term have not been addressed in your blogging.

Romance Target Audience-Will Smith

Romance films are usually aimed at 13-18 year olds. They are more suited to teenage viewers who can fantasise about falling in love with the rest of their lives ahead of them. The main characters in romance films are a female and male, this is usually the case as romance films story is usually based on the male or female going through obstacles and challenges on their way to finding love and peace with one another. It is not only teenagers who go to see romance films, there is a fairly large 20-30 year old audience who are sometimes single and are going on a date with someone.

In adult romance films with sexual and passionate love scenes the film rating does restrict the typical target audience of teenagers from seeing the film. There is four main sub-genres in romance films, romantic dramas, chick flick, romantic comedies and romantic thrillers. The most popular of these are either chick flick (e.g. Romeo + Juliet) or romantic dramas (e.g. A Walk to Remember).

Most romances are aimed at the female audiences, with 'chick flick' being a sub-genres specifically named after it's target audience of females.

Three Action Openings Analysed-Will Smith

The opening scene of Kick-Ass starts with an establishing shot making it obvious to the viewer the film is set in New York. In the next scene non-diegetic sound is added. This sound is narration by the protagonist of the film (Dave Lizewski). A pre-lap shows the juxtaposition and irony as the scene of the busy city cuts to Dave at his quiet neighbourhood at home. The ironic comment made by Dave is him saying 'a bullet travels at more than 700 miles an hour'.

Another main character, who is female, is seen with a pink backpack on. This makes the audience deduce that she must be quite girly and in touch with her femininity. She then pulls a gun out which is contradictory to what her characteristics portrayed at the beginning of the scene. She looks confident with the gun although looking young.

An establishing long shot is used to show we are in an urban city environment, presumably Gotham City. The camera zooms in on one of the skyscrapers before the tranquility of the opening seen is broken with shattering glass. All the usual outside noise of the city is cut out by the director. This is replaced with quiet music which starts getting intense and quicker as the scene goes along.

The audience start to realise that the introduction is a build up to a bank robbery. The last of the three minutes of the scene finish with the robbers entering the bank shooting bullets into the air.

       Iron-Man starts with an establishing extreme long shot which shows the audience that the opening scene is set in a baron, desolate environment. The camera cuts to three military jeeps driving along a dirt track with non-diegetic music added. The camera then films inside one of the jeeps where Tony Stark is joking around with the military personnel having a fun time. Unexpectedly the jeep in-front blows up. This causes a complete change in emotions as happiness turns into terror. Everyone is shot dead except Tony who staggers out the jeep with shock. Stark tries to escape the gun shots but is dazed, this is characterised by the ringing noise in Tony's head which is heard by the audience. A bomb goes off and Tony falls on to his back. A birds eye view shot is used to show he is injured and is weak.

Action Target Audience-Will Smith

Action films are usually aimed at 16-25 year olds. They are more suited to more ‘immature’ ages as young viewers with imagination can immerse themselves in a scene. The main character in action films are males, this is due to men being more stereotypically violent and thrill-seeking. Some fans of action films are commonly boys aged from six to eleven, this is because many young audiences are amazed by the battles and love imagining themselves as the protagonist or in some cases the superhero (eg.spiderman or wolverine).

Moderate violence and bad language do sometimes restrict viewers. Films like Kill Bill are 18s and are only available to adults while other action films like Spider-Man 2 is rated PG which means a wide variety of audiences can watch it. Action films are popular at cinemas or theaters where they can be watched with louder volume or even in 3D, making the film feel even more 'epic'. They are sometimes viewed by groups of friends who can talk about stunts and 'cool' fight scenes in the movie.

Action Clichés, Codes and Conventions-Will Smith

1. Audience-Aimed at a predominantly male audience.
2. Viewed mostly by male children 7-14 and by adults 18-40.
3. A typical action movie tends to have extended fight scenes, violence, frantic chases, car chases, a villain and a resourceful hero struggling against the odds.
4. Narrative: Fighting, blood, guns, hero.
5. Setting: In a war-torn environment, possibly a well known dangerous place where there are drug barons, crime and violence.
6. Camera Angles-Extreme long and medium long shots to show fight scenes and the results of battle, high angle shots to see fallen victims and extreme close ups to view anger in battle.
7. Sound-Non diegetic sound is nearly always used to set the tempo in fight scenes. Gun shots and exaggeration of bullets and bullet impact. 

Three Horror Film Openings Analysis-Will Smith

Saw 3Ds opening scene starts off with obvious panic from an audience. An Asian woman is seen bashing at the box with a suitcase trying to break the glass and free Brad and Bryan inside. The audience are shocked and are in panic. They then see the puppet which has a creepy face, this is a typical convention of horror films. The low angle shot shows the audience a girl strapped to the ceiling looking distressed. This creates an enigma code as the audience want to know why she is up there, who has done it to her and what is going to happen to her. You can then see a close up shot of her face showing her horror and fright. There is then a close up of Brad and Bryan grimacing. When the two are told about the task they have to complete to survive, a close up is used to show anger spread across Bryan and Brad's faces as they realise they'll have to try and kill each other.

When the saw starts high intensity music also starts. This is to show the panic and adrenaline going through the men. The woman tries to convince one of the men that she loves him, this is so he can try to fight to keep her alive. Both men agree to let the girl die. A low angle shot is used looking up as the saw cuts through her body. Guts and intestine splatter on the ground with non-diegetic sound used to emphasise the sound of the organs falling to the ground.

The House of Wax begins with the opening credits accompanied by creepy organ music. This sets the tone as we see a panning shot showing wax dripping from a table. This creates an enigma code making people wonder why there is all this much wax on the table and why it is currently dripping.

The panning shot continues up over the table to a close up of a saucepan boiling away. The camera is laid down on the table to show the old kitchen decor from the 1970s. A birds eye view is then used looking down at a woman pouring wax into a mould before an extreme close up of the moulds design. The woman's face is never shown in the shot which makes the viewer ask questions of why she is pouring wax in a mould and who is she, is she the antagonist in the film?

The peace is disturbed in the house as the woman's husband walks in wrestling his child and struggling to put him in the high chair. The child kicks the table knocking the wax mould off shattering it. This causes the mother to get angry as she helps strap the boy to his chair. The tempo of the music increases as the boy gets angrier and angrier before he scratches his mothers hand. The scene then ends with the mother smacking the boy in his face.

The Blair Witch Project has opening text to set the context of the story. The opening credits says that three filming students disappeared and a year later their footage was discovered. This information creates speculation as to why and how they disappeared. An extreme close up and bad quality camera is used to show the students lack of knowledge in how to use the camera. This makes it obvious it is home-footage being shown with the student working out the camera controls.

A female student is filmed explaining the expedition the teenagers are going to take, this is for the benefit of the viewers.

Continuity Editing-Will Smith

Shot Reverse Shot

Shot reverse shot where one character is shown looking at another character (often off-screen), and then the other character is shown looking back at the first character. Since the characters are shown facing in opposite directions, the viewer assumes that they are looking at each other.

The 180 Rule

The 180-degree rule of shooting and editing keeps the camera on one side of the action. As a matter of convention, the camera stays on one side of the axis of action throughout a scene; this keeps characters grounded compositionally on a particular side of the screen or frame, and keeps them looking at one another when only one character is seen onscreen at a time.

The 30 Degree Rule

The 30-degree rule is a basic film editing guideline that states the camera should move at least 30 degrees between shots of the same subject occurring in succession. 

Match On Action

Match on action is an editing technique for continuity editing in which one shot cuts to another shot portraying the action of the subject in the first shot.

Rule of Thirds

The theory is that if you place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally. Studies have shown that when viewing images that people’s eyes usually go to one of the intersection points most naturally rather than the center of the shot.

Horror Target Audience-Will Smith

The target audience for horror films is mostly aimed at males between the ages of 15-25. Horror films attract to mostly teenagers who are looking to experience new feelings and experiment with emotions. Horrors can excite the younger audience easier than the older more responsible audience. Younger audiences aren't put off by unnatural images or gory scenes with blood unlike adults who most probably saw and experienced films like these when they were teenagers.

Males are more likely to be fans of horror films. They are seen as brave and unlike girls are stereotyped as not being scared of irrational fears. Some females like goths and emos are also judged as liking horror films and enjoying the thrill of blood and gore.

Horror films are watched in groups of friends or couples and are not commonly watched by singletons or by people on their own. Horror genres are also popular on dates, this gives the male a chance to show his masculinity/bravery and ability to protect the female (cuddle, ensure the female she's safe etc.).

Horror Clichés, Codes and Conventions-Will Smith

1. Audience: aimed at both genders but in particular male audiences.
2. Viewed mostly by people between the ages of 15-25. Although is watched by adults 25-50. Has a wide audience range.
3. A typical horror genre plays on the audiences fears. Sometimes involves evil forces, supernatural origins or an evil doll.
4. Narrative: death, possession, demons, fright.
5. Films usually start of at night and start off with scary opening credits.
6. Setting:Normally set in a secluded, rural environment. Where help is hard to come by and the health services are far away. Setting is usually cold and is nearly always set in winter, the darkest, coldest time of year.
7. Camera Angles: High angle is frequently used look down on a victim to show weakness and vulnerability. Extreme long/long shots are used to show how large haunted mansions are or to show the surrounding scenery eg. woodland.
8. Sound:Non Diegetic sounds are always used in horror films. Terrifying music and sometimes lightning is added to add fright and terror. Diegetic sound is only usually just dialogue while creaking doors and murder is added in as non-diegetic sounds.

1. 

My Favourite Films and Director-Will Smith

Peter Jackson

My personal favourite director is Peter Jackson. The New Zealander has best known for directing The Hobbit trilogy and of course The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Both film series are extremely popular and have raked in at box office a grand combined total of over $4 billion. This sum is astronomical and shows how popular his works are.

My Favourite Films by Jackson

1. The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey-The opening film of The Hobbit Trilogy that is an thrilling adventure. Martin Freeman plays the role of Bilbo Baggins to perfection. The 'baddie' in the film, Azog, adds excitement into the film in chase scenes and battles.
2. The Lovely Bones-An eye-opener in how a family can be turned upside down with the reality of a rape/murder. An upsetting story with a bad ending for George Harvey. Popular actor Mark Wahlberg features frequently throughout the film and Stanley Tucci plays the antagonist very well.
3. District 9-Not your typical alien invasion movie. Racism and the apartheid is always a low key theme in the film which is set in South Africa. It has action and aliens which is always a good combination and the audience feels empathy towards Wikus van de Mewe who loses his family and job as a result of getting 'alien fluid' on his face.