film opening example evaluations homework

used two film opening clips. one from artofthetitle.com, the other from youtube. they are the changeling, and urban legend.

Urban Legend
Camera shots, angles, and setup

• names of actors and film are shown in midrange shot
• do panning shot to car driving and almost being hit
• long shot on abandoned gas station
• closeup of person behind girl in car with axe= see outline of person and axe which creates fear

closeup of broken window of car causes anxiety because we can't see what happens to girl.

Editing

• observe girl actions through eyes of someone offscreen or to her side
• continuity editing used to make change of location from car driving through countryside to university seem natural
• fade out and size change used on actors name

Mise en Scene

• people dressed casually
• gas attendant dressed in grungy clothing and seems threatening
• setting= abandoned gas station= typical horror setting
• university= typical american horror setting

Sound

• starts off with stereotypical quiet horror movie music which seems part of the rain
• becomes radio in murder victims car
• stammer of gas station attendant makes warning girl impossible and makes inocuous gas station seem creepy
• girls scream is loudest noise in opening ten minutes
• music gets louder when murder is being done

Representation

• gender
• age
• disability

Narrative

• restricted= only sees from one group of peoples ideas

The Changeling

Camera shots, angles, composition

• opens with closeup on names of cast
• establishing shot of snow and background mountains used to tell where you are as well as character dialogue
• mid- range shot used of family pushing car along road
• closeup of father making phonecall
• midshot of carcrash and mother and daughter diving out of the way
• moving shot of man walking from work in city
• closeup of gates to apartment/house
• establishing long shot used when man arrives at mansion in woods

Editing

• continuity editing used to make changes between locations seem smooth
• fade out used on names of actors and movie names

Mise en Scene

• people dressed formally= gives impression of maturity
• props= antiques in manor house
• setting= goes from rural to urban and back to rural again

Sound

• starts with voices talking/arguing quietly and gets louder
• loudest sounds are car crash and fathers piano playing

characters use american accents

continuity exercise

Hey it's eve again. recently in the project we started planning our continuity exercises in our groups. these continuity exercises have to have the 180 degree rule used in them, as well as shot/reverse shot, and continuity editing. My group came up with three ideas. the first being to have two people onscreen sitting next to each other finishing each others sentences possibly using a poem for this. this idea was mine and we decided not to do it. the second idea proposed which we did do some discussion into doing was a police interrogation with me playing the police woman and oscar playing the accused villain but we got offtrack with this idea and came up with another. the third idea was to one of us playing a mental psychologist and the other an asylum patient but we changed that first role to another mental patient when we started coming up with dialogue. i would show you the notes and diagrams i did but i have no idea how to do scanning from home. i'll talk to Miss about doing it at school. cross your fingers for me on doing this part of the project well won't you?

greetings

Greetings to those who are looking at this my blog. As this project gets underway I will show you different things that have influenced my group's film opening e.g. clips, pictures, tables. A couple of lessons back the groups for the project were decided and I am in a group with Oscar, Chelsea, and Sophie. We have not decided exactly what genre we are doing but hopefully it will be something involving horror, or mysteries because currently I think that is what will interest me most. More later when I have more information for you.