The Shining: Opening sequence Analysis

The Shining
 

 

I studied the film 'The Shining' and from a first preview of the credits, you do not see any characters, just a car with a person driving it. The camera shooting this is high up in a helicopter; this gave the feeling that someone/something was following this cars movement, a sense of foreboding. There is also the fantastic eerie, horror background music which automatically tells the audience it is a horror and  that something terribly bad was going to take place. The start of the film is on a mountain side, that looks desolate and no other people are around. The car looks like its heading to somewhere where the film is set and at the end of the credits the camera gets to a sort of resort.

Sexy Beast: Opening title sequence

Sexy Beast
 

 

 

 I also studied 'Sexy Beast', which was in contrast to the shining, as it is obviously a comedy. The main character is introduced, and he comes off as a rough, retired, wealthy Gangster "Bladdy 'ell"- his first line. His appearance is ironic to the name of the film 'sexy beast' which he does not come across as. He is in his own villa, in somewhere hot (like Spain) and deserted, I wonder why? He has a young Spanish boy cleaning for him, which shows his lazy character, as he is just lounging away sunbathing. A massive boulder rolls down the hill? It leaves the audience puzzled to why this happened, who did it and why was their a shot of a women driving her car. Had she pushed the rock to try and kill him? Is he a bad character? It raises many questions which draws the audience in to want to know more. 

Account of prelim post production

FIRST PRELIM EDITING SESSION

 

In today's Lesson, it was my first experience using the software 'Final cut pro'. We were first shown how to get onto the software and to find our work. We then as a group viewed all of the video footage we filmed together and we would choose the best quality sequences; by dragging the actual image of the video itself to be placed into the rush bin.
  Out of all of the sequences we had chosen, we then had to combine them as one whole footage. To do so, we had to go into the rush bin and we had to decide whether which video would go first etc.

 

 As a group we wanted the video where there was a mysterious, spooky, horror sound effect that Lulu and Luke made with their voices; with a close-up of my face looking down and distressed to introduce our short film. It automatically showed the audience what genre the film was going to be. Once we had selected one sequence, we could cut out the part we wanted to use by pressing on the keyboard 'I' which stands for In; 'O' which stands for Out - this would enable us to cut it and then we dragged the video down to the timeline; we'd continue this process with the rest of the small clips to create a short film.
  Overall this exercise with Matt taught me the overall basic instructions on how to use Final Cut Pro, how to cut sequences by using 'in' and 'out', that a shortcut to play a sequence you can press the spacebar and lastly how to combine the sequences into one.

Account of prelim shoot

 

 In our first Preliminary Task, we were used the Sony NX5 Camera. We had to set up the camera in the classroom, as this is where we were filming. We were told to set up the classroom however we wanted to for a short film, we could also choose our own storyline and two of us had to act, what is shown in the two images to the right.
 
  I went in a group of four, of which Luke and Lulu were filming and Sarah and I were acting, I was the RED person and Sarah was the BLACK. We decided to use the idea that I was sitting down on a desk with a ring on my finger and Sarah was shouting at me to take it off but I just couldn't resist, it was too beautiful.

 Overall, I think it went really well, it took quite a long time to get started; then we progressed on well. I think as a team we worked really well and effective together as we would all have different ideas to contribute. This activity gave us a feel of how to start to make a movie, it also showed me how long it must take to create one movie by all the different shots that were taken.

Talking about different shot sizes with Adam

Today I had Media Studies and in my lesson we discussed everything about basic Shot Sizes and how to identify a shot. There are several different shots I learnt including...

• Big close-up (BCU)
• Mid shot (MS)
• Wide shot (WS)
• Point Of View (POV)
• Close-up or close-shot (CU)
• Medium close-up (MCU)
• Long shot (LS)
• Over the shoulder (O/S)
• Two shot, three shot (2/5, 3/5) etc.
• High angle
• Low angle

We studied a film called Pleasantville, and every different shot, Adam would pause it and we had to analyse the shot and write down what we thought it was; this would help us to become more familiar with each shot; so that we can use them in our own work for future reference.

First Camera Session with Matt

A few days ago I had a media studies lesson at Hurtwood House, but this time we had to go to the Filming studio. We walked into the studio and it was all dark and black inside, with a huge green screen in it. We were shown these huge cameras called Sony NX5, and we were shown how to set them up and how to work them properly in a small group. We were shown how to pan and zoom, how to focus, how to white balance, and how to use exposure. After this lesson, I went away knowing how to set up the camera on its stand safely, and making sure it's secure. We went through a long detailed process of how to set the camera up:

1. Take the stand out of the bag, and place it standing up, you can adjust the legs of the stand, by using the nobs on the side of each leg
2. Take the camera out of its bag making sure you are grasping it firmly. Our teacher told us to say "yours" when your handing over the camera and when the person waiting to hold the camera has securely got hold of it, they would say "mine".
3. The camera would slide on top by pressing a small button and pushing it on, once its clicked on you shake it to make sure its tightly in place
4. Then, you have to what we call, "bubble" the stand, which is the bubble spirit level which you have to centre, so that the camera takes good, balanced levels. 
5. Then, we had to the turn the camera and then Matt showed us how to white balance etc (as shown above).

Movie Analysis

THE IMPOSSBLE 

 In todays lesson, we had to choose a movie that we were familiar with that includes many different shots.
The movie I chose was 'The Impossible'. I chose this movie due to the fact that there was a lot going on in this scene and many camera shots to acknowledge; the filming and editing is very effective for this short clip of this film.

What is a thriller ?

 

Introduction to Media Studies

Hello my name is Claudia Beth Mewis, I am sixteen years old and I am from Birmingham. I am currently studying Media Studies, English Literature, Theatre Studies and Dance at Hurtwood House; as you can see I am very into the creative side of life at Hurtwood.

I am really passionate about Performing Arts! I have been singing and dancing for fifteen years at a stage school. I'm also a film lover, I love watching dramatic, romantic, horror, fantasies and many more. All the Harry Potter films are fantastic! And did you know that James and Oliver Phelps (Ginger Weasley twins) used to live next door to me. The quality of them is outstanding, everything from the design of the set, to the words the actors are fantastic and extremely clever. I wasn't really into action films until I watched Skyfall and Taken directed by Pierre Morel. Those two films really encouraged
  Some of my favourite romantic, drama films are The Notebook, Titanic, The Impossible, The Vow, Twilight, Les Miserables, Bridesmaids, Grease and many more. I don't really like watching horror films; as I've read many things and watched many documentaries about peoples lives that have been ruined or traumatised by watching a horror, for example The Exorcist. However, I can't wait to create my film my own thriller, by using all the technology in Media such as the Sony NX5 Camera, which I have never used before, and being able to edit on the software, Final Cut Pro.
   I have never done Media Studies before and I can't wait to get started!