PLANNING: INTERVIEWING OUR CHARACTERS

OPEN SOURCE HERE

We have decided to interview the younger sibling, older sibling and the mother to get a more in depth look into the characters and why they are in the positions that they're in. Pen Densham who is an Oscar nominated film maker and author of the book 'Riding The Alligator'. In one of the chapters of the book, he writes about how you should think up questions to ask your character, similar to a questionnaire in order to open up your own understanding on what your character may be like. 

Interview - younger sibling

Exchange in whatsapp messages between Emily and her friend. 

'Are you alright' Friend

'Yeah' Emily

'Hows your mum doing?'

'She is fine, why wouldn't she be?

'Well your sisters gone Emily, shes not coming back. You need to accept death sooner or later' 'always here to talk'

'I don't need to talk, i am with my sister'

'What?'

'I am sitting next to my sister now'

'You have to let it go some day'  

Interview - mother (Mrs Hodgson)

In her house on the sofa with a journalist interviewing her

'Nice to meet you Mrs Hodgson, we would just like to ask you a few questions concerning your eldest daughter, Cara.' The journalist

Mother agrees by nodding her head calmly

'Thank you, I understanding this may be hard but I want to get a deeper understanding on what happened to Cara'

The mother continues to have a blank face. 

'Is it true you had an argument with Cara the night she went out'

'I don't see why this concerns you, its none of your business'

'I understand Mrs Hodgson'

'Would do describe yourself as a liberal mother'

'I would say i was fair and i was always very generous towards Cara' 

'I have heard some rumors that Cara witnessed a crime the night she went missing'

'Yes she did witness a crime but that question is irrelevant' 'I believe Cara is gone and shes not coming back'

PLANNING: INTERVIEW WITH EMILY

Following on from what we learnt from the article 'Getting to know our characters' we decided to do our interview with Emily, who is the youngest daughter,  via whatsapp messages. The messages show her having a conversation with one of her close friends. The friend is trying to help her and get through to her, however Emily is quite resistant and in denial.

PLANNING: TOP LINE AND BIG QUESTION

Frank Ash is a creative consultant for BBC films, he teaches the importance of creative techniques with filming to film crews across and beyond the BBC. I found out that the main factor of identification is through the 'top line' and 'big question'.

TOP LINE : A young girl can't cope with the death of her older sister. The audience don't realize the older child is dead until near the end of the film opening as it is through the eyes of the younger sister. Once the audience find out that the older sister is actually dead, the younger child also comes to terms with it. However, as she leaves the room that she was imagining being in with her sister her phone rings and the audience gets a big shock.

BIG QUESTION : Will the young child ever find out the truth about their sibling? Is the eldest child dead or alive?

THE BUSINESS OF FILM

1.3

In the UK, the BFI and its predecessor the UK Film Council, have published a number of reports on the economic and cultural value of film. Studies have shown that film contributed £3.67 billion to the UK economy. This is because films have become increasingly popular with people as they are a good leisure activity and also can carry powerful messages for the audience, helping them reflect on themselves.

This chart shows how the screen industries generated over £6 billion for the UK economy.









 1.6
 Film plays a massive part in the economy.
The graph below shows the amount of money spent in the UK on the production of feature films over the last 20 years.

 The spend of domestic UK films has been fairly constant over the 20 years and the UK makes many independant films that are clearly British such as 'The Inbetweeners' and 'Pride' that have done well.
Another important factor of film production is tourism. This is when people visit a place that was featured in a film of TV programme. Film induced tourism is worth around £840 million pounds, so this is very important to the economy.
Film is regarded as very important and high profile in the creative industries.
Film is still doing extremely well in the UK even though American films take most of the money at the box office. UK independent films took only 16% of the UK box office takings in 2014. There is no large British film production or distribution company based in the UK, whereas in America there is.
Threats that could diminish the importance to the UK film industry is the use of piracy DVDs. Recent research suggests that almost 30% of the UK population has taken part of some form of piracy, either through streaming content online or buying fake DVDs. This costs the UK film industries about £500m a year.
1.8
The UK has a very supportive funding system, this means that their films tend to travel well. The BFI train up filmmakers, producers and the cast who are able to move comfortablely between independent and studio film making and also between UK and international film making. This shows us that they have a very healthy training system as a lot of the British films end up in the Oscars and BAFTAs.
1.10&1.11

 

The term 'value chain' in the film industry describes a series of steps which are used to show how the spark that brought the film maker to make his or her film right up until the end of the commercial life for the film.
This image shows the main stages of the film value chain. 





This image displays the 'film value chain'. This highlights the different stages in the creation and consumption of an independent film. The 'development' stage is getting the film idea and script before it goes to the market. The 'finance' stage is when the film is financed on its own terms and in its own way. In the world of independent film, finance is the most difficult stage.

The 'production' stage is in some ways the simplest part of the chain. It is a very established industrial process that is divided into the 'pre production' and 'post production'. Distribution is the process by which the film goes out to theatre chains, cinemas, broadcasters and video shops. Finally, exploration is when the consumers actually experience the film, this is mainly done through the cinema. However, films are being consumed more in different ways with the growing importance of digital technologies.

TWITTER

This is my Twitter account.

At the beginning of the term we were asked to create a Twitter account and follow people and institutions that were relevant to our media work. Some of the things I follow include 'Screen International', 'Sony' and 'Film London'. By having a Twitter account it has enabled me to keep up to date with what is going on in the world of media, moreover it helps me with my ideas and getting inspiration. According to Alan Rusbridger 'Its a highly effective way of spreading ideas, information and content'. Twitter would also be an effective place to market my film opening as it is often 'where things happen first'. There are so many users that are able to re-tweet and like posts that your work would just get spread around, all the while you would be gaining more followers who had an interested in your ideas.


CLICK HERE TO VIEW MY TWITTER

ANALYSIS: DEADPOOL

Deadpool was made in 2016 and directed by Tim Miller. It is a mainstream American superhero film, however it is clear from the beginning of the film that it is a comedy as the subtitles are being mocked. For example, the characters are named as 'a hot chick', 'a moody teen', 'a British villain' and the film being presented as 'some douchbag's film', clearly telling the audience what they already believe about the people in this film and who worked on it. This makes the film very lighthearted and also draws you in because it is different from every other film. Very early on in the opening of the film we see that the production company is Twentieth Century Fox in association with Marvel. This credit is being presented in white, bold text and in the background is a man screening with wounds to his face, this shows the audience that it is an action film as well as comedy.

The mise-en-scene of the opening of the film is either frozen in time and the camera is going round the car filming what is going on, or its as if the camera is going so fast around the scene that everything around it seems to be going incredibly slow. The camera pans around the air-borne car capturing the absolute carnage inside of itand captures all the bodies inside of it. The camera also captures a magazine with Ryan Gosling on the front cover with the caption 'sexist man alive!' who is playing the character of Deadpool in this film, making it very humorous. 

All diegetic sound is cut off in the opening sequence and is replaced by a very calm, classical song which completely contrasts with the destruction that is going on around them. This highlights the comical factor of the film and making it very entertaining.
In conclusion,


THE TITLE SEQUENCE OPENS HERE

ANALYSIS: MARC RIBOUD

This photo is called, 'The ultimate confrontation: The flower and the bayonet'. The girl in the picture is a woman named Jan Rose Kasmir, who at the time was an American high school student. Riboud was taking part with other anti-war activists while he took this picture of Kasmir. For me, this photo symbolises peace and innocence as all that the girl is holding up is a flower which is something very delicate and non violent. She has a look of forgiveness in her eyes. Kasmir is not shown to be aggressive or using force even though she is stood up to many men who are portrayed as having more power than her. The army men all have the same expression on their face, looking straight through her and all dressed in the same uniform which in a way makes them almost robot-like. Moreover, the uniform that they are in is all black which is very plain and sinister with a hard helmet on too. This contrast completely to how the woman is shown as she is unique and on her own, dressed in light cloths carrying a symbol of peace. On a denotative level, this photo only offers us a young girl holding up a flower to a group of men holding weapons. However, on a connotative level the flower shows delicacy, forgiveness and the girl symbolisis hope.

RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE 3

This is my Art of the Title on the film 'Fury'. Throughout the opening of this film, there is a red filter over the images. This highlights to the audience that it is a very dramatic and tense film which also holds a lot of seriousness. The genre is also signalled through the dull, gloomy music that hovers in the background. Towards the beginning it is a piano with what sounds like wind chimes giving it an eerie sound. It then develops into the sound of drums and people chanting which creates a lot of tension. The titles are presented in the clip as white font in bold text which contrasts very well with the red and black in the background. There are a lot of flashing images and lights, this gives the audience the idea of a war scenario which means the audience is able to have more of an idea of what the film is going to be like. The credits all appear in the centre of the screen; this draws the audience’s attention to it more. The main title of the film ‘Fury’ appears half way through the opening sequence. It is in a much bigger text and in the colour red to make it stand out from the other credits. It is a Qed International Le Grisbi Crave Films production. The mise-en-scene of the film is set in the War. This is illustrated as it has my shots of weapons, army men, trenches and tanks. This film has a wide audience range but I feel it stands out most to young adults.

THE BUSINESS OF FILM ONLINE COURSE

During the half term, I used the website Futurelearn to gain more knowledge on my understanding of the film industry. By doing this course it shows I have interest in film, as well as it being extremely useful to me as it helped me with what is needed to produce a film and all the stages it requires.  
This course has helped me gain experience in how to start my own film opening as it gives you advise on how to market the film to a particular audience and the ways of selling a film.

                                                                                                           

RESEARCH: AUDIENCES

This is my Piktochart on audiences