MediaStudies: November 2010

The film starts with James driving along a quiet road as he receives a text. He has two options, pull over and read the text safely, or risk it and carry on driving. The film takes the audience in two different directions from this point, showing what the result of both decisions would be and the consequences that would coincide. The first, and happier side of the parallel story line shows James pulling over to read his text and shows the younger boy, Ben, make a safe journey home and him enjoying his newly decorated room. The second direction of the story shows what happens when James doesn’t pull over and reads his text whilst driving. The consequence of this is much darker, as he crashed the car into Ben as he crosses the road. The thunderous sound of the crash alerts neighbours and on goers, some cover Ben in covers and call the police, while others just walk on. James brakes down on the side of the road, thinking to himself; no text is worth this. The Police have the devastating job of announcing the death of 10 year old Ben to his parents.

Short story - Consequence

As James pulled out of his drive and began driving down the empty road, he received a text. In that split second, he had to decide whether he was going to risk it and read the text whilst driving, or to pull over at the side of the road and read it safely.

James didn’t even consider it for a moment; he pulled over to the side of the road and read the text he had received. As he did so, he was unaware of Ben standing at the side of the road waiting for the car to pass, quickly he noticed the indicator on James’ car and so crossed the road and set on his way home.

It wasn’t a long journey home from the park, but to Ben it seemed to take forever – he was so excited to start decorating his new room. He had already chosen the colour he wanted and picked out his new bed and wardrobe and today was the day that he and his Dad were going to spend putting all his plans into action.

As he rushed home and banged on the door, his Mum, Carol, answered and gave him a huge hug – Ben brushed her aside and ran to his Dad, dragging him up the stairs to his room.

Ben took a step back and looked at his new room, he was overjoyed, he couldn’t wait to go to sleep that night, just so he could wake up and see it all over again the next morning.

As Ben left the pavement and placed his foot down onto the side of the road, a look of horror crossed his face. Seconds before, he saw a car speeding down the quiet road in the distance but judged that he had time to cross. The rest of what happened that day was out of his hands.

At the point of impact, James was thrown forwards against the windscreen, his face parallel to Ben’s, only separated by the shattering windscreen. A neighbour, hearing the crash, rushed out of her house to see what had happened, she put her hands up to her face and screamed. More onlookers started to emerge, each shouting for one another to call an ambulance. When the ambulance and the police arrived, some of the onlookers had gone back to their business, whereas others had stayed and put blankets over Ben’s unconscious body and pillows under his bleeding head. James remained shell-shocked, in tears, at the side of the road – no text was worth this.

The police then had the dreaded job. They headed over to Ben’s house to inform his parents that their 10 year old son had been involved in a road accident, and that he had been pronounced dead at the scene. As Ben’s parents broke down in tears at the life changing information, they clutched at a photo of him, the last image of their only child. Their distraught feelings then turned into anger, they couldn’t understand why their innocent child had been taken from them as a result of someone else’s stupid, careless actions.

After the police had left, Ben’s parents sat in silence as the rest of their family and friends fussed around them, offering support and comfort – but nothing could comfort them at this time, they were victims of someone else’s split second of disastrous stupidity, just like Ben was, and their lives would never be the same.

Carol slept in Ben’s bed that night trying to stay close to him, but it wasn’t the same, not even Ben had had the chance to sleep in his new bed.

Role distribution

Role distribution

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Think! advert inspiration

Film inspiration

Film inspiration

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Planning introduction

TH!NK adverts:

The ‘Think’ television adverts in particular helped us develop our idea for our own film by emphasising the message of ‘consequence’ and relating to every day events.

‘The Black Hole’, ‘Graffiti’ and ‘Mankind is no Island’ do not include any dialogue – this is something which we thought was very effective as it makes the actions and footage seems so much more powerful. We thought this would pay off for our film idea because the actions are what lead to the consequence and this is the most important/powerful part of our film.

This also allows for the use of non-diegetic sound i.e. music – we can choose the most effective and fitting music for the tone of our film.

From the ‘Think’ adverts we noticed the effect of slow motion at various points in each advert – we decided that using slow motion at the point of impact would be effective and appropriate.

The font used in the title sequence for the ‘Think’ adverts are very relevant to the topic of the adverts and also makes it apparent to the audience about the topic – we have taken this into consideration for our title sequence.

Research summary

Posters

We have gathered certain inspirational aspects from these posters that we may want to use for our film poster. We have researched all film genres and have realised that some similar genres have similar styles. For example romantic films posters such as Titanic and Pearl Harbour have images of the couples embraced together to show their connection, and the images are laid out the same, with the couple at the top and the main situation such as the ship or the war plane positioned at the bottom. The horror posters have similar colours that create depressing atmospheres, such as Saw, Vacancy and Cloverfield. Chick flicks have positive, feminine colours such as pink or blue to reflect the style of the film. We are interested in the ideas of having a quote or a simple sentence that gives the audience some insight into what the film is about, such ‘Something has found us’ in Cloverfield. We have a wide variety of layouts that will help us decide which is best to portray our film in our poster.

Magazines

Looking at our magazines we have noticed that they do not have much colour, or a wide variety of colour. We would like to use suitable colours, which we think would reflect our film. We like the idea of having the same amount of text to the image, due to the fact that we noticed that less text gives a negative view of the film already. The way some of the pages are divided into sections of different film reviews have given us inspiration to divided up the page with certain scenes to go with the text.

Films

We have selected a wide variety of different genres to help us create our own film. From watching The Black Hole we have come up with some ideas that were inspired by this film. We like the simple style of the film, ad like the idea of not having any dialogue, just diegetic sounds. The Black Hole has a message which is ‘greed’ this inspires us to also have a message in our film to target a certain audience. The film Signs has a non diegetic sound running through the whole film, and we are inspired by the way it reflects the characters mood during the film. We have gathered some ideas for narrative structure from some of the films also. Apricot includes a lot of flashbacks that interrupts the present day; we think this has a interesting flow. The narrative structure of Wrong Side of the Bed has parallel worlds, we think this is challenging and different and we would like to consider this more.

Audience research - questionnaire

Age: 42

Gender: Female

What genre of film do you prefer to watch?

Romantic Comedy, Comedy

What do you expect from this genre of film?

A story about romance with some humour so I can laugh and cry!

What do you expect from the character roles of this genre?

Funny, emotional, good looking!

Do you like and / or look for any hidden messages in films?

Yes I like thinking about what I’ve just watched

What are your favourite ways consume media?

Books, Magazines, TV

What do you rely on in films for it to seem realistic? (mise en scene)

Good acting, costumes, a good location that goes with the story

What kind of narrative structure do you prefer? (linear / complex)

Not simple but not too confusing

Do you like to relate to the characters and places in films you watch?

Yes it makes the film seem more personal

Audience research - questionnaire

Age: 21

Gender: Male

What genre of film do you prefer to watch?

Action / Thriller

What do you expect from this genre of film?

Fast paced action, explosive special effects, gripping story line

Do you like and / or look for any hidden messages in films?

Yes - They make films more interesting and make you think

What do you expect from the character roles of this genre?

To be tough, macho, exciting

What are your favourite ways consume media?

Internet, television, cinema

What do you rely on in films for it to seem realistic? (mise en scene)

Good acting

What kind of narrative structure do you prefer? (linear / complex)

Not too complicating but not to simple and boring

Do you like to relate to the characters and places in films you watch?

Yes I like a lot of films that are made in the UK because I can relate to them

Audience research - questionnaire

Age: 17

Gender: Female

What genre of film do you prefer to watch?

Comedy

What do you expect from this genre of film?

Funny, interesting, realistic story

Do you like and / or look for any hidden messages in films?

Yes

What are your favourite ways consume media?

Television, magazines and internet

What do you expect from the character roles of this genre?

Funny and realistic

What do you rely on in films for it to seem realistic? (mise en scene)

A realistic storyline

What kind of narrative structure do you prefer? (linear / complex)

Simple

Do you like to relate to the characters and places in films you watch?

Yes, makes it more interesting and real

Audience research - questionnaire

Age: 29

Gender: Male

What genre of film do you prefer to watch?

Horror

What do you expect from this genre of film?

Lots of action, be very dark, scary, slashy

What do you expect from the character roles of this genre?

Be tough, scary

Do you like and / or look for any hidden messages in films?

Yes, but nothing too confusing

What are your favourite ways consume media?

Internet, TV

What do you rely on in films for it to seem realistic? (mise en scene)

Special effects, good acting

What kind of narrative structure do you prefer? (linear / complex)

Simple and straight forward

Do you like to relate to the characters and places in films you watch?

Depending on the character, yes

Audience research - audio

Audience research - Interview

Mind map

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Logorama

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Thursday 25 November 2010

The black whole - short film analysis

By Sarra Reyes-Wilson

The black whole

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Black button - short film analysis

By Sarra Reyes-Wilson

Black button

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Apricot - short film analysis

By Sarra Reyes-Wilson

Apricot

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Signs - short film analysis

By Sarra Reyes-Wilson

Signs

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Tuesday 30 November 2010

Friday 26 November 2010

Thursday 25 November 2010