Task 2: analysing the movie 'No country for old men'

This movie is called no country for old men which won four Oscars, directed by Ethan and Joel Coen. starring Tommy lee Jones, Javier Bardem, Josh Brolin and Woody Harrelson. The movie takes place in rural part of Texas, deserted from the loud noises of the urban land.



The scene starts with a male character talking (voiceover) over cinematic images of deserted land with no  life, the male character sounds like he is around 60 years old and has a country accent which links in with the location of the movie a it is american rural town, he says he was a county sheriff from when he was 25 years he then says 'hard too believe' like he may be a sheriff for a long time so he would be quiet old if he was a sheriff for a long there is no music over the voiceover.
He talks about a man who killed a 14 year old girl and he also says that man would 'if they would turn him down he do it again' she sounds like that man is a bit crazy which may signify that there maybe some one like that, a crazy person who will not care about killing someone.

There is a sun rise which is showing how a new day is coming and something new may happen to a calm and peaceful town, it maybe something good or bad.
A sunrise is signifying something new but as you do not actually see the sun just the sunrise the new thing may not be a good thing as connotations of light are good, warm and peaceful so if you are not seeing the whole sun it's like something is covering the good in this town.
the last quote from the voiceover is 'OK, I'll be apart of this world' as he is talking about all this negative things he maybe saying that because of the whole negative things that happen in this world he will be apart of this world therefore he will no matter what happens he will try to protect the world from all this negative things which are causing the world to be a bad place.

The picture on he left  is showing a police officer and a criminal sitting in the back sit, you can clearly see the officer as the light is showing him his face glasses and his police badge while the man sitting in the back seat is not shown as that part is darkened. this may imply as he is in the back seat he has done something bad and also because of the lighting which makes it that you cannot see the criminal therefore there is something bad about him from the lighting. The officer in the police station is quiet young around mid twenties therefore he will not have that kind of experience with dealing with very powerful and smart criminals which means that the criminal is more powerful than him and as that scene progresses you see the criminal in the background jumping over his feet to have his hands in front of him rather than  behind him and then he smothers him to death after he finishes talking to the county sheriff. this shows that as he is young he will not be able to stop someone like that.

TASK 10: EVALUATION

1. Our opening film sequence of new fiction film use horror forms/ genres/conventions are atmospheric ambient sound which creates tension and makes the atmosphere quit scary and it creates suspense. We got this idea from the movie ‘Halloween’ (1978) for its eerie non diegetic sound when he is about to find and kill his first victim to scare and keep in suspense the audience.

We are using two cameras and one of them will be in the movie for 1st person action using the idea of ‘paranormal activity’ (2007) and ‘Halloween’ (1978) and this is not a traditional convention which the protagonist is shot in the first person and it is not shot in the older movies but in the modern movies. We semi challenged it by having the protagonist to have the first person camera rather than the antagonist in the movie ‘Halloween’ (1978).
 

The subjective point of view will show the protagonist from his point of view and will make it more like you are in the movie and you are the character rather than you are by them so it makes it more frightening as you are the victims not by the victims. But we are using a 3rd person camera for all round viewing of the characters and the surroundings so this gives two different perspectives.

Our opening sequence of a new fiction film develops or challenge form/genre/conventions by having a different flashback as we are not using more of visual footage of a victim or a scene but more of an audio flashback which challenges the conventions of horror movies as it does not give you are not seeing action but you are listening to the footage. This part is from the movie ‘Friday the 13th’ (2009) as it shows how and why the antagonist kills and leaves his victims so this leaves not clues why he does this.

2.  Within our media product we have represented couple different social groups which we used two characters one of them is the alpha male and the other one is the younger, weaker nerdy kid. This can be seen how the two characters interact with each other in the opening scene.

Right from the start of the movie you get that feeling that Connor is the dominant male as he bosses him around and tells him what to do. Stereo typically nerds are very smart, like technology and are very good with technology so Connor tells him to deal with the camera and he does.
The costume of the nerdy character is that he wears glasses and this is stereotypical as nerds normally wear glasses. The dominant character pushes the nerdy character down to show his dominance and also shows that the nerdy character is weaker than the other character. the character has a drawing book as a prop as well to add to his character.

3.  One of media institutions which might distribute our media product is 'Lionsgate' as they are well known for making big budget horror films which suits our film as we would need to be a big budget horror film. we chose them because they produced/distributed many big budget horror films like the 'Saw' series and 'Daybreakers' which are quiet fames big budget horror films and we think that are movie would be in the region that those films are as  low budget film. So we need the money from 'Lionsgate' to make it a big budget movie as we do need to use CGI and other things to make the 'Slenderman' better and more frightening for the audience

Another studio which could distribute our product is a well-known British studio which was founded in 1934 is 'Hammer films productions' which is a very popular film production for making horror film which they are the ones which distributed the famous 'Dracula' film in '1958'. 'Dracula' is defiantly the most famous vampire as every generation has heard of him as he has been shown in cinemas since 1931. Hammer productions has been making films since 1930s until 1970s and they had a break for couple of years until they came back producing films. they came back with the remake of the good Swedish movie 'let the right one in' which they called it 'let me in' and also the success of the film 'women in black' made the production to start producing more films. We need a film studio which only produces horror films and as it is a British studio it would help make the movie here and not have to move the production.

4.  The audience for our media product would be 16-18 who enjoy watching horror films as they like to be scared. Also, people who follow the ‘Slenderman’ myth since the begging and want to watch the film to see if it is accurate enough. And there might be people who are new to the myth and want to see the film and learn about it.  Lastly, as the actors/characters are quiet young this film would appeal to younger generation a bit more as the audience and the characters are in a similar age.  There are some scenes which will not appeal to young children as it will not be appropriate for them to watch it as there will be scenes of blood and gore so they will not want to watch it. in our film we did not take into account the ethnic or location based groups within our media product.

5.  We attracted the audience through the characters that were similar age to the audience so the audience can relate to as we used younger character. Also, for the characters we used the social hierarchy of modern school which links the two friends’ one being at the top, the dominant character, which is more social than the Aidan’s character the weaker one out of them. Connor is expected to be more social than Aidan as Aidan is more of the smarter nerdy character and those characters are normally in the lower social hierarchy.

Connor has more of a dominant cocky and arrogant personality while Aidan has a timid personality which is trying to look up to Connor’s higher social status. We have attracted the audience through the storyline by having a familiar antagonist which over the past year the myth has become very popular and people are unsure if the story is fake or real, just like in our product as they are trying to find out whether it is real or fake. The myth has been popular in many different countries as people have said that they have claimed that the strange figure which looks like the Slenderman has taken their family and friends from them by the strange figure. This attracts our audience as the audience have heard of the myth and makes it more real and they may become more scared over this and they can imagine themselves in the characters shoes. The titles address the audience which are using sharp shapes and dark colours to let the audience know that this is a horror. Also, the title of the movie is one word which attracts the audience as popular horror film were just one word like ‘Saw’ and ‘Halloween’ which only have one word and have attracted audience very well. Also, the titles used glitches as they link with as they link with a bit of our products’ storyline as we are using cameras inside the our product and the main characters want to prove a myth with a camera.

The music attracts the audience as we used loud, ambient and eerie sound which may make the audience jump by it as quiet at one point and it comes very quickly and loud which may scare the audience. In the beginning the sound is very eerie and dark which will let the audience know that this is a horror film.

For our advertising and marketing campaign we used parts from other big films to advertise and market to make the Slenderman back to life. Our plan to market or product is that we used notes from the video game of the Slenderman around different towns, cities and countries for people and fans to find. This idea we used from the movie ‘The dark knight rises’ as Warner brothers used this marketing idea to promote the film to the audience. They promoted it by hiding the signs of batman so that other people may find it. Also we thought about using different false videos and news feeds about the strange Slenderman to hint clues to where the notes could be and advertise the myth a bit more.   This advertising we promote the movie by making the audience guess about the origins. We used this advertising campaign from the advertising campaign of the movie ‘Cloverfield’ as they made a video and put it on the web about a creature which a ship was sunk by it and the creature had some tentacles.   This would create fear and eeriness around the film which would promote our product which would make it more effective.
 

6. What I learnt about the technology from the process of constructing this product when it comes to the Sony HD cameras as we have captured shots like; Pans, Sub POVs, Close ups, extreme close ups, master shot, over the shoulder shot, two shot and forward dolly. We tried to use a variety of shots using the camera.  

For the editing part we used adobe premiere to put together the film and create match on action in the editing part. To make the other effects we used ‘after effects’  to create effects such as  glitches, 3D title sequences, red tinting in the opening title sequence, colour correction to make the film to be darker. Also, for the parts  where we wanted it to look like it is form the cameras point of view we used the cinematic black bars, black camera frames in the corners, the red recording animation  and added more grain to this part that than to the other parts. This made those parts more real as it looks like those parts are actually recording and you can easily differentiate this part to the rest.

The thing I Have learnt about BlogSpot for the blogging part is that it enabled us to use blogger and put all our media work on it this year. Blogger enabled to keep the work safe so that we would not lose the work. Also, we used it to plan our media product through analysing existing products and the films that we analysed we took a video of that movie and we used them to make are finished product.

7. When I look back to the preliminary task and now I think I have learnt a lot of things about media production and how to make a good finished product. One of the things I have learnt is that once you have a bit of experience using the camera and once you have all the camera shots in your head you can use them to make a variety of shots for our media product. In our preliminary task we did not use some shots that we used in our finished product like dropping the camera, the sub POV and an over the shoulder shot which we used more shots rather than using just one shot and only one shot.

In our group (me, Dan and Rhys) worked well as we all had a job and we all had are little strengths to contribute to the team. Last time when we worked on the preliminary task there were more of us so we could not split the jobs well enough but this time we worked as a group to produce a good finished products. Also, we did not need 4 people as we were using actors rather than using just us.

In the preliminary task we did not talk about the characters that much and we did not think who would suit each roll of the preliminary task and this time we thought about each character in detail and what actor could be playing that character. We also, used blogger to write about each character what they are like and who they are in our product.

When we were recording we were always aware of the 180 degree rule and we obeyed by this rule and we never broke it also we would know if we would break as it would not natural and the film it did feel natural. As the character are always in the same position as they were and should be.   
Also, we used match on action just like in the preliminary task to switch the angle which we were recording.    

logo progression

                    

Lastly, we used more special effects like glitches, 3D titles, red tinting and colour correction in the title sequence as we had more experience using premiere and after effects we know more what we could do to make our product better so from the preliminary task we did not use any special effects we only edited it to put it together and add music we did not have enough time for this part. The thing I learnt is that you can do use premier and after effects to create a lot of things and make our media product look good.  

Task 2: analysis of another horror movie; Underworld.

 This film called underworld about a war between two immortal species vampires and lycans, the war has been raging for more than a thousand years. it is directed by Len Wiseman, starring Kate Beckinsale as the main beautiful vampire warriors character beside the famous actor Bill Nighty as the very powerful vampire. This is based upon the graphic novels by Kevin Grevioux which also stars in the movie as the second in command in the Lycan clan.
It starts with the production companies' logo videos and then the name of the movie is stretched out for the whole screen. The background is just a dark colour signifying that this movie is not gone be a romantic movie but it will probably be a horror movie. the music does not sound like a nice peaceful film but like kind of like a monster as vampires/werewolves are monsters.


There is a bell ring between the showing of the production companies logos which the bell signifies church, Sunday and religion which normally things of this kind would signify good things but in this movie the mood that you are getting is that the characters may be doing things against what religion says e.g. do not kill.

The first scene is very dark and there is a storm with lighting and raining making the whole atmosphere very dark, gruesome and scary to fit it with the genre that it is while the camera is tilting down. A female character is talking (voiceover) while this is going on talking about a war in a formal accent, ans she is using words like "halt" and "Horde" which are words that are not used in the modern world which may signify that she is older than what she looks like.
The female is wearing a dark (black) cat suit with a black coated cape, she has dark and looks in her mid twenties. Once the camera stops tilting, you see the female character and then it starts forward tracking to get closer to the female character, the wind is creepy because of the wind is blowing the cape towards the camera. By the words that the female is talking she is a vampire so she will be older than what she looks like so she will be quiet powerful. She does not seem like she is scared of the night and the high altitude by looking at her body language as she is leaning towards the edge of the tower and how she is in those dark clothes which match the mood and the atmosphere of the whole scene. She calls her self a 'deathdealer' she has negative connotations, the word 'death' means basically dead while 'dealer' means that someone buys or sells something and if you would add them up it may say that she is someone who sold her life away. from the things that she says you can make out that she likes her life and she likes being at war with  the werewolves and killing them as she says 'we've become obsolete, petite because I lived for it' this may mean that  that without this war she has nothing to live for.

The location is quiet high and creepy because of tall towers which look like the towers of a church or something quiet old linking this again with religion as they may not follow religious views but they will be breaking them and also vampires and werewolf are not associated with the good side but the bad (hell) which the scary church like location links with it.

The female then jumps of the tower, the music changes as soon as she jumps of it and the music gets louder and more like a sound of a weird noise who is someone making while she is falling until she hits the ground the music fully changes into more powerful and brutal which is showing that something may happen later in the scene.

Task 6: Storyboard

Task 9:Filming

Production schedule

When (Dates)	How	Where	Who	Equipment Needed	What	Health And Safety Implications
12/3/13	(Cinematics) Pan’s Tracking shots Establishing shot	Wooded areas	No Characters Needed Cameraperson, Director	Camera, Tripod	Scenes: 1-3	Don’t Climb Trees
15/3/13	Tracking shots SPOV Over-the-shoulder shots MS/CS	Dan’s House	All Actors needed, Director, Cameraperson	Camera, Tripod Drawing Books, Handbag	Scene: 6-12	Make sure all equipment is safe and secure so not to hurt or break anything.
16/3/13	Pan’s, SPOV, Over-the-shoulder shots, MLS, MS, CS, ECU, Low angles, Zoom’s, Two Shots	Freddy’s Forest	All Actors needed Director, Cameraperson	2x Camera’s Tripod, Drawing Book, Handbag	Scenes: 13-24	Don’t Climb Trees, Don’t Film in the Rain
17/3/13	SPOV, MLS, Zoom’s	Freddy’s Forest	All Actors needed, Director, Cameraperson	2x Camera’s, Tripod, Drawing Book, Handbag	Scenes: 25-31	Don’t Climb Trees, Don’t Film in the Rain

Task 8: Casting

 Casting 

Actor: Connor Johnson

Character: Connor

Role: Protagonist

Prop: Camera

Costume: Casual clothes ( look like an average teenage boy)

Actor: Aidan Mitchell

Character: Aidan

Role: Major character

Prop: Drawing pad

Costume: Casual clothes, Glasses ( to show his intellectual side)

Actor: Owen Bibbey

Character: Slender man

Role: Antagonist

Prop: N/A

Costume: suit, slender mask, Business shoes  

Task 7: Role allocation

                                            Task 7

Director: Rhys Mitchell

Co-Directors: Lukas Szalbot, Dan Neuenhaus

Writer: Lukas Szalbot,

Co-writer: Dan Neuenhaus

Producer: Lukas Szalbot

Cameraperson: Rhys Mitchell

Editing: Dan Neuenhaus  

This is just the roles that we took but we all adapted to each other’s roles as we did not want one person to do one part.