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THE FILM INDUSTRY: '71

'71 (2014)

•  By contrast with Hollywood megafranchize movies, '71 is a low-budget national film but one that aimed at international audiences as its subject (radicalization of young men during the Troubles in Northern Ireland) was of universal interest. Plot summary here.
• Jack O'Connell had previously attracted critical acclaim for Unbroken (2014) appearing as a prisoner of war in a Japanese war camp. Directed by Angelina Jolie, this film made O'Connell known to an American audience.
• 71 won Best Director at the 2014 British Independent Film Awards, after receiving nine nominations. The National Board of Review named '71 one of the top 10 independent films of 2015.
• Budget, £8.1 million. Box office, $3.2 million.

Here is an article that I wrote some time ago that has been reproduced by Haggerston Media (without crediting me).

RESEARCH: AUDIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

We make individual audience questionnaires tailored to our own film production work.
We use Google Forms, upload to the platform of our choice then present the data both in graphical form and in words, as you have asked questions that yield both quantitative and qualitative data.

Make your blog post outlining what you have done:

• use the title RESEARCH: AUDIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE
• state that you used Google Forms and why it is so useful
• explain what was the aim of the questionnaire and where you intend to publish it
• comment on the kinds of questions that you asked, drawing attention to the fact that you wanted to research the target audience for the kind of film that you yourself and your production team were planning to make, in particular, the target age group
• how can you add an image of your form?

For Monday, please make a Scoop.it! account ready for the lesson.

Also, please complete outstanding tasks on the spreadsheet!

TV DRAMA: HOMELAND

We watch the opening of Series 1 Episode 2 and analyse film language.

Terminology to remember: match cut, parallel editing, low angle shot, motivated edit., verisimilitude, authenticity

Exam method: deal with each technical area in turn (so, all of mise-en-scene first, then camerawork, then editing then sound)

FILM INDUSTRY: SUNSET SONG

FILM INDUSTRY: SUNSET SONG

From the Producers of Sunset Song

Case study of independent, low-budget UK film: Sunset Song (director Terence Davies, 2016)

For the second half of the exam, we look at Sunset Song directed by Terence Davies and examine what made it a critical (artistic) success, its casting, the ways in which it shows a different funding model to Hollywood movies and the ways in which its themes are different from the 4S megafranchise model.

It was produced by Iris Productions, SellOut Pictures and Hurricane Films and backed by BFI, Creative Scotland, BBC Scotland and Luxembourg Film Fund.^[3]

Film review by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
BFI film review
Sunset Song was a UK/Luxembourg co-production part-financed by Creative Scotland, who awarded £450,000 towards the development of the film. 

To capture the beauty of the landscape, and showcase the Scottish locations as characters in their own right, the film-makers chose to shoot on 65mm film, a creative decision aimed at creating depth, clarity and emotional impact on the screen, on an Arri Alexa [a film-style digital camera].
The film received its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) - widely recognised as the most important film festival after Cannes - and screened in competition at the London Film Festival and the San Sebastian Film Festival.  It went on general release across the UK in early December 2015, to a string of 4 and 5 star reviews – Mark Kermode called it ‘a lyrical triumph’ – and Agyness Deyn was nominated for Most Promising Newcomer in the British Independent Film Awards 2015.

5 things about Sunset Song:

• Terence Davies as Britain's greatest living auteur: themes are often hardship and poverty of working class lives
• 'Filmic' quality: beauty and brutality: shot on 65mm using an Ari Alexa (film-style digital camera)
• Lyrical rural beauty of countryside (exteriors) contrasted with claustrophobic domestic conflict (indoors). First time Davies has focussed on outdoors: this meant expensive shoots in Scotland and New Zealand
• Literary adaptation from Lewis Grassic Gibbon's trilogy: on the eve of the Great War, a beautiful farmer's daughter endures the hardships of rural Scottish life as she comes of age
• Box office figures: it was a critical / artistic success, loved by 'prestige' audiences. Grossed approx. $160 thousand worldwide (Box Office Mojo)

AUDIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE

We will use Google Forms to create an audience questionnaire.
First, decide what questions you want answered, such as these below.
Use the BFI Exit polls on the film '71 as a base.

AUDIENCE QUESTIONNAIRE: FILM

1.    What age are you?

Under 35

Over 35

2.    What gender are you?

Male

Female

3.    Do you watch the trailer before the film?

Yes

No

4.    Which of the following influence your choice? Tick any box that applies

News articles

Talk shows

Interviews

Reviews

and so on......

Have you asked some questions that relate specifically to the type of film that you yourself are planning to make?

You may have yes / no answers

A different follow-up question depending on yes / no answers

Tick all box answers

PRELIMINARY EXERCISES: LIGHTING

Experiment with creative lighting both in still shots and video. You can create amazing effects using task lighting (like an Anglepoise), torches, candles, direct sunlight, shadows.

By deliberately experimenting with lighting at this stage, you will realise how dramatic and artistic your final piece could be.

Photography by Sarah M

Contre jour (back lit)

Smoke machine and stage lighting

Music Video lighting

RESEARCH: FILMING & EDITING IN FINAL CUT

Make a post explaining this project: the brief, the filming, the editing (any challenges involved) plus photo. Take a screen shot or two of particularly challenging / interesting moments in your edit. Express yourself in an analytical rather than descriptive way. use screenshots and photos to illustrate. Comment on challenges that you faced, For instance:

Our brief was to film and edit a short opening sequence in order to practise working on title sequences for films. 

We had to work with an existing musical track Banana Pancakes and we chose a variety of props. Before embarking on the filming, we watched two opening sequences that used tracking shots with some rostrum shots: Delicatessen and Immortal Beloved.

Together as a team we filmed it using the Canon 650 camera. We used an elongated tracking shot to hover over the different objects that we had laid out. For our piece we used objects that help symbolise the seaside; we laid them out across a map which was used to hint at the travelling theme. Towards the end we added some live action to hold suspense for the viewer. 

We used Final Cut Pro to edit our preliminary exercise in which we edited a film opening with sound and titles to the soundtrack of Banana Pancakes. It was a new experience for all of us which helped us to develop our editing skills and increase our knowledge of the software. We used a variety of different fonts before finalising the one that we chose to use. We clicked the 'Title and Generators' button in the top-left corner of Final Cut Pro to generate our title. We found it challenging to find the perfect font to match our happy-go-lucky theme. 

PLANNING: TREATMENT

Write a treatment for your film opening.
Title of blog post: PLANNING: TREATMENT
Once I green light the treatment, you start the storyboard, shot list and call sheets. 

HOW TO WRITE A TREATMENT

A Treatment will normally contain a:

• Title:              A dynamic one. It seems obvious but a good title is often a sign of a solid central idea.
• Logline:         A powerful one or two-sentence statement of the idea being proposed (about 25 words).
• Synopsis:       A three paragraph synopsis outlining the idea in more detail (about 300 – 500 words).
• Characters:   Short descriptive outlines for each of the main characters 

CHECKLIST

What you should be doing (or have done) by now:

Complete the preliminary exercises and post on your blog under the 'page' Preliminary Exercises' at the top. 
Use the media studio (empty Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, lunch breaks) or edit on your laptop. You can often film on your phone with good results. the aim is to show that yiu have practised.
The link that I emailed to you should prompt you to offer evidence of different kinds of filming and editing practice: 

• remember to label each (using text within the video work) so the word 'close up' for example comes before your examples of close ups
• close ups of different kinds
• continuity editing (the focus here is on editing together an establishing shot, shot reverse shot)
• the 5 Dollars or Banana Pancakes (the focus here is on editing titles and sound, as in Delicatessen or Immortal Beloved)
• some camera movement and shot types, such as tilt pans, arc pans, canted angles, perhaps a tracking shot
• focus pull
• any other photographic of video work, such as a short piece to camera, like a documentary, or other video work. One useful piece would be to film one of your characters in the the film opening that you are about to create as if you were interviewing them or 'hot seating' them.
• lighting exercises are also useful experimentation.
• Some editing techniques that involve transitions such as cross dissolve, fade or wipe.
• identify the shots in the writing that you provide below each exercise and, where possible, draw attention to how YOU might use such a shot or why you would find it useful. The examiners like to see a link between research and outcome.

What else should you be doing in November?

• post your research into 3 title sequences presented with image and url link to The Art of the Title
• summary of genre codes and conventions of film openings presented in Slideshare (or in an infographic such as Piktochart : sign up for free account)
• SUGGESTED slide titles: 

1. title page e.g. Film Opening Codes & Conventions (or similar)
2. The Art of the Title: what it is and why I used it
3. explanation of main conventions 3 or 4 points perhaps including
   names of principal actors, the director, screenplay, director of photography, title (and so on)
4. Narrative codes codes
5. Enigma (because you are all doing thriller style productions)
6. Logos for distributors, studios, production compamnies
7. Typeface  - where creativity and originality come in
8. genre - how the opening sequence establishes it
9. sound codes in an opening sequence - voiceover, soundtrack, dialogue

• sign up for a free Scoopit account to start collating articles of interest
• investigate the stories behind your film opening (such as historical or topical articles) and present them in Scoopit
• develop your film opening and pitching it to me
• when it has the green light, writing the treatment
• write a post about the top line and big question
• draw a storyboard - start with paper and PostIts
• location recces presented using a collage tool such as PicMonkey, Fuzl
• lists of props: what technology could you use to present this?
• hot seat your characters: script plus video
• more later....such as shot list and call sheets

What else is in the course? The exam:

• TV Drama
• The Film Industry

https://www.scoop.it/t/thriller-film-codes-conventions

NARRATIVE

Narrative = the plot and the characters
See Media Knowall
We look at various theoretical frameworks to discuss narrative:

• Todorov
• Propp
• Barthes
• Levi-Strauss

TV DRAMA

The Good Cop 
A disgraced former NYPD officer lives with his son, an earnest, obsessively honest NYPD detective.

Big Tony is a lovable, but not exactly honorable, former NYPD officer who never followed the rules. He lives with his son, TJ, a straight-laced NYPD detective who always follows the rules while solving Brooklyn's toughest cases. They may be an odd couple but they become unofficial partners with Tony Sr. offering his overly cautious son blunt, street-wise advice. Emmy nominee Tony Danza stars as the elder officer in his first starring role on a sitcom since the late 1990s, and Grammy nominated-singer Josh Groban portrays Tony Jr. in his first regular sitcom role.

First episode date: 21 September 2018

Production location: New York City

Network: Netflix

in point: immediately after opening title sequence

Out point: " having a Boy Scout for a partner"

S01 E01 · Who Framed the Good Cop?

21 Sep 2018