Your films should be completed and uploaded to your blogs via you tube now.
On our return in January there will be no more lesson time on these. You will be preparing for your mock exams in February. Some of this exam will be analysing aspects of the film you have made (so, another reason to get it done).
You will be focusing on We Media with Miss Midwinter and Critical Perspectives with me.
After the mocks you will start work on the evaluation for the practical and this needs to be completed by February half term.
Thursday 15 December 2011
Wednesday 16 November 2011
Clarification on music that can be used in documentary from OCR
For any option other than the music video candidates can only use 'found' material in a limited way. So if it is snippets that will only be used in a limited fashion in their piece then that is okay but if the found material is making up the majority of their soundtrack then that is really against the spirit of the specification.
The move away from 'found' material is to stop students just finding their favourite music track and putting over their video without any thought, editing or remixing to make it appropriate for their piece of work.
Kind Regards
Lisa
Media Support Team
Friday 11 November 2011
Wednesday 9 November 2011
Points to consider
1. Screen shot of how imovie looks at the moment
Comment on:
2. What has gone well, what have you been pleased with?
3. Have you discovered any useful tools? Screen shot them.
4. What has caused you problems? Techniques that have been tricky? How have you got round this?
5. ANy useful plug ins or sites that you've used?
6. WHat do you need to do by next lesson? Any more footage? Any more research?
7. How is your narrative/character/representation developing?
Comment on:
2. What has gone well, what have you been pleased with?
3. Have you discovered any useful tools? Screen shot them.
4. What has caused you problems? Techniques that have been tricky? How have you got round this?
5. ANy useful plug ins or sites that you've used?
6. WHat do you need to do by next lesson? Any more footage? Any more research?
7. How is your narrative/character/representation developing?
work in progress
Editing is going nicely for most of you. Don't forget to keep doing screen shots of where you are at in the editing process to add to your blog. You should be adding a diary type entry a few times a week about how your editing is going. What technology you are using and how the narrative is taking shape. It's likely that some of your ideas will be changing as you work and its a good idea to track these developments in terms of language, genre, character, narrative and representation as you will have to write about these elements in your critical perspectives exam.
Those of you who haven't filmed yet, the situation is getting very serious. If you haven't got any footage by next week then measures will be taken!!
Those of you who haven't filmed yet, the situation is getting very serious. If you haven't got any footage by next week then measures will be taken!!
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Wednesday 19th October
You need to be uploading an update after every lesson, not all of you are.
You must must must get your footage filmed over half term, see Ben if you need to borrow any equipment.
Use the handouts I gave you to ensure that you have enough research material, you should be coming towards the end of those activities now and when we return after half term you need to be editing your footage and thinking about your auxiliary products (poster, review etc).
You must must must get your footage filmed over half term, see Ben if you need to borrow any equipment.
Use the handouts I gave you to ensure that you have enough research material, you should be coming towards the end of those activities now and when we return after half term you need to be editing your footage and thinking about your auxiliary products (poster, review etc).
Thursday 13 October 2011
Here are extracts from the mark scheme. How are you going to ensure that you have covered most of these point?
Film/Television/Video
Level 3 24-31 marks
The candidate is expected to demonstrate proficiency in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
holding a shot steady, where appropriate;
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
using a variety of shot distances as appropriate;
shooting material appropriate to the task set;
selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting;
editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer;
using varied shot transitions, captions and other effects selectively and appropriately for the task set;
using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set.
Where a candidate has worked in a group, a proficient contribution to construction is evident.
Level 4 32-40 marks
The candidate is expected to demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
holding a shot steady, where appropriate;
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
using a variety of shot distances as appropriate;
shooting material appropriate to the task set;
selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting;
editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer;
using varied shot transitions, captions and other effects selectively and appropriately;
using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task
Print
Level 3 24-31 marks 7-8 for subsid
The candidate is expected to demonstrate proficiency in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
use IT appropriately for the task set;
show understanding of conventions of layout and page design;
show awareness of the need for variety in fonts and text size;
accurate use of language and register;
appropriately integrating illustration and text;
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
using a variety of shot distances as appropriate;
shooting material appropriate to the task set;
selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting;
manipulating photographs as appropriate to the context for presentation, including within text, within particular IT programmes, cropping and resizing.
Where a candidate has worked in a group, a proficient contribution to construction is evident.
Level 4 32-40 marks 9-10 for subsid
The candidate is expected to demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
using IT appropriately for the task set;
showing understanding of conventions of layout and page design;
showing awareness of the need for variety in fonts and text size;
accurate use of language and register;
appropriately integrating illustration and text;
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
Level 3 24-31 marks
The candidate is expected to demonstrate proficiency in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
holding a shot steady, where appropriate;
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
using a variety of shot distances as appropriate;
shooting material appropriate to the task set;
selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting;
editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer;
using varied shot transitions, captions and other effects selectively and appropriately for the task set;
using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task set.
Where a candidate has worked in a group, a proficient contribution to construction is evident.
Level 4 32-40 marks
The candidate is expected to demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
holding a shot steady, where appropriate;
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
using a variety of shot distances as appropriate;
shooting material appropriate to the task set;
selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting;
editing so that meaning is apparent to the viewer;
using varied shot transitions, captions and other effects selectively and appropriately;
using sound with images and editing appropriately for the task
Level 3 24-31 marks 7-8 for subsid
The candidate is expected to demonstrate proficiency in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
use IT appropriately for the task set;
show understanding of conventions of layout and page design;
show awareness of the need for variety in fonts and text size;
accurate use of language and register;
appropriately integrating illustration and text;
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
using a variety of shot distances as appropriate;
shooting material appropriate to the task set;
selecting mise-en-scène including colour, figure, lighting, objects and setting;
manipulating photographs as appropriate to the context for presentation, including within text, within particular IT programmes, cropping and resizing.
Where a candidate has worked in a group, a proficient contribution to construction is evident.
Level 4 32-40 marks 9-10 for subsid
The candidate is expected to demonstrate excellence in the creative use of most of the following technical skills:
using IT appropriately for the task set;
showing understanding of conventions of layout and page design;
showing awareness of the need for variety in fonts and text size;
accurate use of language and register;
appropriately integrating illustration and text;
framing a shot, including and excluding elements as appropriate;
Friday 7 October 2011
Where are you going with this?
Remember that not only are you creating this project for your coursework but you will also have to write about it in your exam.
Here are some example questionsAnalyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.
Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre
Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.
You will notice that each of these questions is quite short and fits a common formula.
You can be assured that the same thing will apply this summer. You will be asked to apply ONE concept to one of your productions. This is a quite different task from question 1a, where you write about all of your work and your skills, as this one involves some reference to theory and only the one piece of work, as well as asking you to step back from it and think about it almost as if someone else had made it- what is known as ‘critical distance’.
There are five possible concepts which can come up
Representation
Genre
Narrative
Audience
Media Language
If you look through those questions above, you will see that the first three have all already come up, but don’t be fooled into thinking that means that it must be one of the other two this time- exams don’t always work that predictably! It would be far too risky just to bank on that happening and not prepare for the others! In any case, preparing for them all will help you understand things better and there are areas of overlap which you can use across the concepts.
So, how do you get started preparing and revising this stuff? First of all, you need to decide which project you would be most confident analysing in the exam. I believe that any of the five can be applied to moving image work, so if you did a film opening at AS, a music video, short film or trailer at A2, that would be the safest choice. Print work is more tricky to write about in relation to narrative, but the other four areas would all work well for it, so it is up to you, but to be honest, I’d prepare in advance of the exam as you don’t want to be deciding what to use during your precious half hour! What you certainly need is a copy of the project itself to look at as part of your revision, to remind yourself in detail of how it works.
Representation
If you take a video you have made for your coursework, you will almost certainly have people in it. If the topic is representation, then your task is to look at how those representations work in your video. You could apply some of the ideas used in the AS TV Drama exam here- how does your video construct a representation of gender, ethnicity or age for example? You need also to refer to some critics who have written about representation or theories of media representation and attempt to apply those (or argue with them). So who could you use? Interesting writers on representation and identity include Richard Dyer, Angela McRobbie and David Gauntlett. See what they say...
Genre
If you’ve made a music magazine at AS level, an analysis of the magazine would need to set it in relation to the forms and conventions shown in such magazines, particularly for specific types of music. But it would not simply comprise a list of those conventions. There are a whole host of theories of genre and writers with different approaches. Some of it could be used to inform your writing about your production piece. Some you could try are: Altman, Grant and Neale- all are cited in the wikipedia page here
Narrative
A film opening or trailer will be ideal for this, as they both depend upon ideas about narrative in order to function. An opening must set up some of the issues that the rest of the film’s narrative will deal with, but must not give too much away, since it is only an opening and you would want the audience to carry on watching! Likewise a trailer must draw upon some elements of the film’s imaginary complete narrative in order to entice the viewer to watch it, again without giving too much away. If you made a short film, you will have been capturing a complete narrative, which gives you something complete to analyse. If you did a music video, the chances are that it was more performance based, maybe interspersed with some fragments of narrative. In all these cases, there is enough about narrative in the product to make it worth analysis. The chances are you have been introduced to a number of theories about narrative, but just in case, here’s a link to a PDF by Andrea Joyce, which summarises four of them, including Propp and Todorov.
Audience
Every media product has to have an audience, otherwise in both a business sense and probably an artistic sense too it would be judged a failure. In your projects, you will undoubtedly have been looking at the idea of a target audience- who you are aiming it at and why; you should also have taken feedback from a real audience in some way at the end of the project for your digital evaluation, which involves finding out how the audience really ‘read’ what you had made. You were also asked at AS to consider how your product addressed your audience- what was it about it that particularly worked to ‘speak’ to them? All this is effectively linked to audience theory which you then need to reference and apply.
Media Language
A lot of people have assumed this is going to be the most difficult concept to apply, but I don’t think it need be. If you think back to the AS TV Drama exam, when you had to look at the technical codes and how they operate, that was an exercise in applying media language analysis, so for the A2 exam if this one comes up, I’d see it as pretty similar. For moving image, the language of film and television is defined by how camera, editing, sound and mise-en-scene create meaning. Likewise an analysis of print work would involve looking at how fonts, layout, combinations of text and image as well as the actual words chosen creates meaning. Useful theory here might be Roland Barthes on semiotics- denotation and connotation and for moving image work Bordwelland Thompson
So what do you do in the exam?
You need to state which project you are using and briefly describe it
You then need to analyse it using whichever concept appears in the question, making reference to relevant theory throughout
Keep being specific in your use of examples from the project
Here is a link to a good answer to q1a and 1b from the January session.
Here are some example questionsAnalyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.
Analyse one of your coursework productions in relation to genre
Apply theories of narrative to one of your coursework productions.
You will notice that each of these questions is quite short and fits a common formula.
You can be assured that the same thing will apply this summer. You will be asked to apply ONE concept to one of your productions. This is a quite different task from question 1a, where you write about all of your work and your skills, as this one involves some reference to theory and only the one piece of work, as well as asking you to step back from it and think about it almost as if someone else had made it- what is known as ‘critical distance’.
There are five possible concepts which can come up
Representation
Genre
Narrative
Audience
Media Language
If you look through those questions above, you will see that the first three have all already come up, but don’t be fooled into thinking that means that it must be one of the other two this time- exams don’t always work that predictably! It would be far too risky just to bank on that happening and not prepare for the others! In any case, preparing for them all will help you understand things better and there are areas of overlap which you can use across the concepts.
So, how do you get started preparing and revising this stuff? First of all, you need to decide which project you would be most confident analysing in the exam. I believe that any of the five can be applied to moving image work, so if you did a film opening at AS, a music video, short film or trailer at A2, that would be the safest choice. Print work is more tricky to write about in relation to narrative, but the other four areas would all work well for it, so it is up to you, but to be honest, I’d prepare in advance of the exam as you don’t want to be deciding what to use during your precious half hour! What you certainly need is a copy of the project itself to look at as part of your revision, to remind yourself in detail of how it works.
Representation
If you take a video you have made for your coursework, you will almost certainly have people in it. If the topic is representation, then your task is to look at how those representations work in your video. You could apply some of the ideas used in the AS TV Drama exam here- how does your video construct a representation of gender, ethnicity or age for example? You need also to refer to some critics who have written about representation or theories of media representation and attempt to apply those (or argue with them). So who could you use? Interesting writers on representation and identity include Richard Dyer, Angela McRobbie and David Gauntlett. See what they say...
Genre
If you’ve made a music magazine at AS level, an analysis of the magazine would need to set it in relation to the forms and conventions shown in such magazines, particularly for specific types of music. But it would not simply comprise a list of those conventions. There are a whole host of theories of genre and writers with different approaches. Some of it could be used to inform your writing about your production piece. Some you could try are: Altman, Grant and Neale- all are cited in the wikipedia page here
Narrative
A film opening or trailer will be ideal for this, as they both depend upon ideas about narrative in order to function. An opening must set up some of the issues that the rest of the film’s narrative will deal with, but must not give too much away, since it is only an opening and you would want the audience to carry on watching! Likewise a trailer must draw upon some elements of the film’s imaginary complete narrative in order to entice the viewer to watch it, again without giving too much away. If you made a short film, you will have been capturing a complete narrative, which gives you something complete to analyse. If you did a music video, the chances are that it was more performance based, maybe interspersed with some fragments of narrative. In all these cases, there is enough about narrative in the product to make it worth analysis. The chances are you have been introduced to a number of theories about narrative, but just in case, here’s a link to a PDF by Andrea Joyce, which summarises four of them, including Propp and Todorov.
Audience
Every media product has to have an audience, otherwise in both a business sense and probably an artistic sense too it would be judged a failure. In your projects, you will undoubtedly have been looking at the idea of a target audience- who you are aiming it at and why; you should also have taken feedback from a real audience in some way at the end of the project for your digital evaluation, which involves finding out how the audience really ‘read’ what you had made. You were also asked at AS to consider how your product addressed your audience- what was it about it that particularly worked to ‘speak’ to them? All this is effectively linked to audience theory which you then need to reference and apply.
Media Language
A lot of people have assumed this is going to be the most difficult concept to apply, but I don’t think it need be. If you think back to the AS TV Drama exam, when you had to look at the technical codes and how they operate, that was an exercise in applying media language analysis, so for the A2 exam if this one comes up, I’d see it as pretty similar. For moving image, the language of film and television is defined by how camera, editing, sound and mise-en-scene create meaning. Likewise an analysis of print work would involve looking at how fonts, layout, combinations of text and image as well as the actual words chosen creates meaning. Useful theory here might be Roland Barthes on semiotics- denotation and connotation and for moving image work Bordwelland Thompson
So what do you do in the exam?
You need to state which project you are using and briefly describe it
You then need to analyse it using whichever concept appears in the question, making reference to relevant theory throughout
Keep being specific in your use of examples from the project
Here is a link to a good answer to q1a and 1b from the January session.
Monday 3 October 2011
Wednesday 21 September 2011
Sunday 11 September 2011
Some mini deadlines and reminders for you.
1. You must add to your blog after every lesson to keep a track of your progress and what you are aiming for. You need to be tracing your work progress use the blog not only to explain your research findings but also as a reflective diary of your creative journey.
You will receive a +, = or - assessment each week according to the quality of your work. There will be a prize for the student with the most + each half term!!
2. You need to have at least two or three really long stints of work every week to show you are researching at a steady pace.
3. Its somewhat of a tricky skill, you need to be juggling three main tasks:
generic research
audience research
planning & shooting
all at the same time. Of course, each element will inform another, so your plans may change when you have shot some footage and perhaps your focus groups may have some suggestions.
4. Work for the next couple of days....
generic: write a short review of two short films or trailer- include a link to it and comment on:
narrative & representation, technical devices, lighting, camera angles, shot types, editing. Basically use the skills you developed studying TV drama and use them in this context.
audience: decide on your focus group and take photos of them, upload these, along with a brief summary of their demographic and interests on to your blog.
planning: try and find some examples of storyboards and plan which elements you think are vital for your own production.
You will receive a +, = or - assessment each week according to the quality of your work. There will be a prize for the student with the most + each half term!!
2. You need to have at least two or three really long stints of work every week to show you are researching at a steady pace.
3. Its somewhat of a tricky skill, you need to be juggling three main tasks:
generic research
audience research
planning & shooting
all at the same time. Of course, each element will inform another, so your plans may change when you have shot some footage and perhaps your focus groups may have some suggestions.
4. Work for the next couple of days....
generic: write a short review of two short films or trailer- include a link to it and comment on:
narrative & representation, technical devices, lighting, camera angles, shot types, editing. Basically use the skills you developed studying TV drama and use them in this context.
audience: decide on your focus group and take photos of them, upload these, along with a brief summary of their demographic and interests on to your blog.
planning: try and find some examples of storyboards and plan which elements you think are vital for your own production.
Friday 22 July 2011
Task
Deadline
Research into short film or film promotion.
Generic research into at least 4 short films.
Liar chart of aux products. Theory of film genre.
Storyboards, animatic, photoshoots, sketches, drafts, screen shots, skills development from Foundation
On going- keep adding to blog
Aims and context
1. The situation: opens the story and may be disrupted.
2. Whose situation is it?- identifies the protagonist.
3. Central quest or conflict? What has the protagonist to resolve?
4. Who stands in the way of success? The antagonist.
5. How does the quest end?
Show, don't tell!
If its a genre specific film then define those conventions you will use.
Consider, sound
Scripting: 1st draft
Mood board about film
Drawn storyboard & location stills
Upload to blog as an animatic
Shooting schedule prepared for shooting over summer hols
Summer hols:
1. Shoot footage for short film or trailer
2. Continue with research on blog
Upload footage, edit & produce first rushes by
Presentation of 1st edit to audience.
Prepare questions you want target audience to answer in feedback session.
Begin research for aux products.
Catch up on any outstanding work
½ term
Research, plan and shoot for auxiliary artefacts.
Poster, radio trailer or film review for Short film.
Homepage, poster or magazine cover for Film Promo
Individual deadlines for these, plan your time !
Re-focus on editing, re shoot parts that need it.
Final presentation with aux products
Record focus group feedback
Friday 3rd December
Analyse your work in terms of Media Language, Genre, Narrative, Representation, Audience.
Write a script incorporating this as a ‘Directors commentary’ to be recorded over your film. This is instead of a formal written evaluation so it must be good!
Friday 10th December
Edit above footage.
Ensure blog is complete, all research etc in place.
Submit
Friday 17th December
Deadline
Research into short film or film promotion.
Generic research into at least 4 short films.
Liar chart of aux products. Theory of film genre.
Storyboards, animatic, photoshoots, sketches, drafts, screen shots, skills development from Foundation
On going- keep adding to blog
Aims and context
1. The situation: opens the story and may be disrupted.
2. Whose situation is it?- identifies the protagonist.
3. Central quest or conflict? What has the protagonist to resolve?
4. Who stands in the way of success? The antagonist.
5. How does the quest end?
Show, don't tell!
If its a genre specific film then define those conventions you will use.
Consider, sound
Scripting: 1st draft
Mood board about film
Drawn storyboard & location stills
Upload to blog as an animatic
Shooting schedule prepared for shooting over summer hols
Summer hols:
1. Shoot footage for short film or trailer
2. Continue with research on blog
Upload footage, edit & produce first rushes by
Presentation of 1st edit to audience.
Prepare questions you want target audience to answer in feedback session.
Begin research for aux products.
Catch up on any outstanding work
½ term
Research, plan and shoot for auxiliary artefacts.
Poster, radio trailer or film review for Short film.
Homepage, poster or magazine cover for Film Promo
Individual deadlines for these, plan your time !
Re-focus on editing, re shoot parts that need it.
Final presentation with aux products
Record focus group feedback
Friday 3rd December
Analyse your work in terms of Media Language, Genre, Narrative, Representation, Audience.
Write a script incorporating this as a ‘Directors commentary’ to be recorded over your film. This is instead of a formal written evaluation so it must be good!
Friday 10th December
Edit above footage.
Ensure blog is complete, all research etc in place.
Submit
Friday 17th December
Monday 18 July 2011
The Great Train Robbery 1903
These films show film makers attempts at creating a 'narrative'. This one in particular shows how important editing and using different shot types is.
Almost an example of how not to do it! Needs faster editing and a wider variety of shot types and camera angles.
The film used a number of innovative techniques including cross cutting, double exposure composite editing, camera movement and on location shooting. Cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique. Some prints were also hand colored in certain scenes.The film uses simple editing techniques (each scene is a single shot) and the story is mostly linear (with only a few "meanwhile" moments), but it represents a significant step in movie making, being one of the first "narrative" movies of significant length.
Almost an example of how not to do it! Needs faster editing and a wider variety of shot types and camera angles.
The film used a number of innovative techniques including cross cutting, double exposure composite editing, camera movement and on location shooting. Cross-cuts were a new, sophisticated editing technique. Some prints were also hand colored in certain scenes.The film uses simple editing techniques (each scene is a single shot) and the story is mostly linear (with only a few "meanwhile" moments), but it represents a significant step in movie making, being one of the first "narrative" movies of significant length.
Le Voyage dans la Lune 1902
A Trip to the Moon (French: Le Voyage dans la lune) is a 1902 French black and white silent science fiction film. It is loosely based on two popular novels of the time: From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne and The First Men in the Moon by H. G. Wells
The film was written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston. The film runs 14 minutes if projected at 16 frames per second, which was the standard frame rate at the time the film was produced. It was extremely popular at the time of its release and is the best-known of the hundreds of fantasy films made by Méliès. A Trip to the Moon is the first science fiction film, and utilizes innovative animation and special effects, including the iconic shot of the rocketship landing in the moon's eye
It was named one of the 100 greatest films of the 20th century
Still influential today...
see Smashing Pumpkins video for Tonight Tonight
This is a good example of post modern, intertextuality. Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can refer to an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined by poststructuralist Julia Kristeva in 1966. As critic William Irwin says, the term “has come to have almost as many meanings as users, from those faithful to Kristeva’s original vision to those who simply use it as a stylish way of talking about allusion and influence”. Kristeva's ideas have been linked amongst others to Saussure's (1913) theories of semiotics and Roland Barthes. Barthes's many monthly contributions that made up Mythologies (1957) would often interrogate pieces of cultural material to expose how bourgeois society used them to assert its values upon others. Roland Barthes's incisive criticism contributed to the development of theoretical schools such as structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, Marxism and post-structuralism. While his influence is felt in every field concerned with the representation of information and models of communication, including computers, photography, music, and literature. Barthes’ work was ever adapting and refuting notions of stability and constancy means there is no canon of thought within his theory to model one's thoughts upon, and thus no "Barthesism". His works remain valuable sources of insight and tools for the analysis of meaning in any given manmade representation
Lumieres Brothers
The first films produced were short. Film was very expensive, they didnt have batteries to power cameras etc.
The Lumiere Brothers were groundbreakers in the field. Each of these films are 17 metres long, when handcranked translates to 50 seconds. They mainly produced 'actualities', that reflected everyday life, or mini documentaries. Maybe you would like to produce an 'actualite' of your own?
They toured with their work using a Cinematograph which effectively functioned as camera, projector and printer all in one.
The Lumiere Brothers have been credited with over 1,425 different short films and had even filmed aerial shots years before the very first aiplane would take to the skies.
The Lumières pioneered not just the technical attributes of the camera but also its artistic attributes, creating a dialogue of REALISM that has always been a crux of cinema.
These early, silent films are useful to look at, not only to give you some historical context into the development of film, but also to pin point the evolution of the visual language and grammar of film that has formed the codes and conventions we take for granted today.
The Lumiere Brothers were groundbreakers in the field. Each of these films are 17 metres long, when handcranked translates to 50 seconds. They mainly produced 'actualities', that reflected everyday life, or mini documentaries. Maybe you would like to produce an 'actualite' of your own?
They toured with their work using a Cinematograph which effectively functioned as camera, projector and printer all in one.
The Lumiere Brothers have been credited with over 1,425 different short films and had even filmed aerial shots years before the very first aiplane would take to the skies.
The Lumières pioneered not just the technical attributes of the camera but also its artistic attributes, creating a dialogue of REALISM that has always been a crux of cinema.
These early, silent films are useful to look at, not only to give you some historical context into the development of film, but also to pin point the evolution of the visual language and grammar of film that has formed the codes and conventions we take for granted today.
Work for Wednesday
1. You must prepare a 'treatment', in the form of a powerpoint, explaining your ideas for your short film/documentary or trailer.
You should include:
1. Your mood board
2. films that have influenced you
3. synopsis of the storylinelocation shots (google earth will do)
4. your talent, any props, costumes you will require
You will get feedback from me and your classmates on your ideas.
You then need to storyboard your ideas so you can start filming over the summer holidays.
You should include:
1. Your mood board
2. films that have influenced you
3. synopsis of the storylinelocation shots (google earth will do)
4. your talent, any props, costumes you will require
You will get feedback from me and your classmates on your ideas.
You then need to storyboard your ideas so you can start filming over the summer holidays.
Sunday 10 July 2011
Work for Monday
I am on a course tomorrow so your work for Mondays lesson is as follows:
1. Read the examiners report from last years advanced portfolio and list 10 pointers that you feel will be useful to you.
2. Create an interactive mood board about your intital ideas for your project. Look here for an example.
On Mood boards: The purpose of a mood board is to set the tone & style of a design effort, without the distraction of flow and architecture. Design mood boards include color, pattern, photography style, typography and illustrative & graphic design elements to inspire and to build on the brand and establish a vision for the final site design. It is void of form & function intentionally, with a goal of circumventing issues late in the design process that may alter "skeletal elements due to a surface issue". They are solely to create an emotional impact and an environment in which to convey and relay information. In the end you have a visual toolkit or resource in which to build a foundation for a mockup in which you apply the elements to the framework created in the wireframes. Mood boards visually communicate where words fail, facilitate a faster design mockup delivery, & reinforce the client input and assist in their ultimate approval.
“A mood board is a type of poster design that may consist of images, text, photographs, sketches, clippings, fabric swatches, color samples and samples of objects in a composition of the choice of the mood board. The collage (actual or virtual) sets the mood and atmosphere of a scenario, through the use of colour, tone and texture. A mood board is a tool used by designers to help them get a good idea of what their clients are looking for.”
3. Pick a quote from the above explanation to give your mood board entry a theoretical focus.
Try one of these sites to help you:
stixy
pinterest
zoo tool
There is a flickr site with lots of examples of mood boards.
Choose the format you feel most comfortable with.
1. Read the examiners report from last years advanced portfolio and list 10 pointers that you feel will be useful to you.
2. Create an interactive mood board about your intital ideas for your project. Look here for an example.
On Mood boards: The purpose of a mood board is to set the tone & style of a design effort, without the distraction of flow and architecture. Design mood boards include color, pattern, photography style, typography and illustrative & graphic design elements to inspire and to build on the brand and establish a vision for the final site design. It is void of form & function intentionally, with a goal of circumventing issues late in the design process that may alter "skeletal elements due to a surface issue". They are solely to create an emotional impact and an environment in which to convey and relay information. In the end you have a visual toolkit or resource in which to build a foundation for a mockup in which you apply the elements to the framework created in the wireframes. Mood boards visually communicate where words fail, facilitate a faster design mockup delivery, & reinforce the client input and assist in their ultimate approval.
“A mood board is a type of poster design that may consist of images, text, photographs, sketches, clippings, fabric swatches, color samples and samples of objects in a composition of the choice of the mood board. The collage (actual or virtual) sets the mood and atmosphere of a scenario, through the use of colour, tone and texture. A mood board is a tool used by designers to help them get a good idea of what their clients are looking for.”
3. Pick a quote from the above explanation to give your mood board entry a theoretical focus.
Try one of these sites to help you:
stixy
zoo tool
There is a flickr site with lots of examples of mood boards.
Choose the format you feel most comfortable with.
Monday 4 July 2011
Today we watched and discussed your first short films 'The Phone Call'.
Then we watched the very shocking 'About a Girl'
Homework is to research the background of the making a little more and to write your own reaction to the film.
Then we watched the very shocking 'About a Girl'
Homework is to research the background of the making a little more and to write your own reaction to the film.
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