Research- The Secret Window

In class we watched the opening sequence to the thriller 'The Secret Window'.

This opening sequence was very interesting. The diegetic sounds started before the film even began. This was the sound of windscreen wipers back and forth back and forth. When the sequence than started there was a close up of a man in a car behind the steering wheel. We then heard a non diegetic voicover which at first seemed like it was coming from a person maybe in the back of the car, but we discover that it is the man thinking, and that we are hearing his thoughts. Throughout the sequence there are a variety of shots to make the it interesting. The shots that stand out the most are the close up, point of view shots and the follow shot. I also like how the colours are quite monocrome and the only hint of colour is the sign 'motel' which is in bright red writing which suggests danger or blood. Overall i liked this sequence and has halped me to get some ideas for my own opening sequence.

Planning- Logline

A game of darts with a twist! Murderer/stalker plays darts and kills which ever victim his dart lands on!

Research- Media Workshop

On Friday, we had our re-scheduled media workshop day. The day was very enjoyable aswell as being usefull. By the end of the day me and my group had completed our continuity exercise. The sequence we had to film was a person walking up to a room, opening a door, walking through a door and sitting with someone at the other side. The two people then had to have a conversation and maybe exchange something. Before we started the excercise we made sure we had completed our planning. Me and my team thought about the shots that we wanted to include and created a storyboard of these shots. We included things like camera shot, sound and the shot duration. We included a variety of shots as we thought it would make the sequence more interesting. When filming our sequence we had to film each shot for longer than we atually needed it. This was so we could choose the piece of the clip that we wanted and had room either side of the clip to cut. After we filmed all of our shots we went onto the apple macs and started to edit our work using a program called imovie. We put all of the pieces together so as it made sense. For example we put our establishing shot first followed by our medium shot and our close up. Finally we added some dissolve effects, credits and music to complete our sequence.

Cerys xoxo

Research- Storyboards

In yesterdays lesson we looked at storyboarding. A storyboard is a graphical representation of camera shots for a film sequence. It visually tells the story of an animationn panell by panell. The storyboard will outline things like characters, sound, time and camera shot. We were asked to look at two websites for homework.

These were:

longroadmedia.com and

6thformnoodle.blogspot.com

Update- Media for schools day at the Vale

I cant believe that i forgot to tell you, last friday i attended a media filming day at a charity golf event which was organised by Sony and held at the Vale! We were there with media for schools and our job was to film the golfers taking their first shots! We also filmed ourselves interviewing some famous people incluing Neil Jenkins and Nicky Piper! Throughout the day we learned how to use and set up a camera and tri-pod. We learned about different camera shots and angles and the overall day gave me a much better understanding of filming and how it is done. I really enjoyed the day and would love to do something similar again in the future.

Cerys xoxo

Update- Media Workshop cancelled

Today was a bit of a disaster! The fire alarm went off and we missed about an hour of our media workshop! Its ok as it has been moved to next week now, and i cant wait!

Cerys xoxo

Research- classwork

In our media lesson today we watched a scene from the Alfred Hitchcock film Psycho. We watched the famous shower scene. We analysed the scene and commented on the use of music, creation of suspense, camera work, and most importantly the editing. We learnt about continuity editing which is basically how lots of shots are played in a certain way and using certain camera shots to insure that it flows. If a film did not have continuity editing it would look messy and wouldn't really make sense!
We were also given a second handout. The handout outlines production tips for camera work and camera operation. Tomorrow we are spending a whole day attending a media workshop which i am really excited about! I will tell you all about it tomorrow!

Cerys xoxo