HALF TERM CHECKLIST

Complete your Distribution collage with an account of what distribution is, how films are marketed and what you found out in your case study. This research will help you when you come to tackle CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION 2: How would you distribute your film opening? Here is a good example.

1. Catch up on missing posts and any corrections that are needed.
2. Does your blog read clearly? Added images to posts? Have you picked out key terms in colour? Adjusted the side bar width? Ensured that your blog archive (right hand side) looks like mine so that it is easy for me to check? Are your images big / grouped? Does your cross column have your PAGES?
3. Have you finished editing your Tabletop and your Continuity Exercise, then added the video to your posts?
4. TITLE SEQUENCES post - see below

IN CLASS TODAY

Complete your Frank Ash comic presentation and post it.

Aim to pitch your film opening idea to me today.

OVER HALF TERM 

Complete this post:

Pick 2 title sequences from the Art of the Title site. Screenshot the image. Below the image, list the credits that appear. Title of your post: RESEARCH: TITLE SEQUENCES Here is an example and here is a second.

Complete this post:

Last year, media students planned their productions based on films that they believed their target audience would enjoy. They collated them in Scoop.it like this and this.

This is what their posts looked like: here

STORYTELLING: FRANK ASH

We watch the FutureLearn presentation by Frank Ash, creative consultant with the BBC, on digital storytelling. You then learn to use ComicLife to present what you have learned in comic format. Post it on your blog like this one.

Later, when you have decided on your own film treatment, you can add below your comic these two points:

• your TOPLINE
• your BIG QUESTION

YOUR FOUNDATION PRODUCTION

Your Foundation Production 

Your brief: Film opening task

• Please decide your Production Team groups (up to 4 people). These can be different next year. 
• Decide your Production Team name as you will make an ident for it.
• Brainstorm outline ideas
• Pitch them to me. You won't start work until I give you the green light.
• On an A3 sheet, we sketch out the scenes in order.
• When these ideas are settled, you make a storyboard
• We will try to follow CIE guidance (below)
• then a shot list

TV DRAMA: EXTRAS

PREP Analyse the opening scene of Ricky Gervais' Extras episode featuring Orlando Bloom. (Season 2, Episode 1 Orlando Bloom, 14 Sep. 2006). 

Tackle your analysis in the order of the scenes, starting where we stopped analysing in class and working your way forwards. 

You don't have to analyse the whole episode! The aim is to practise your skills. Aim to write between 1 and 2 sides.

Please email the prep to me by Wednesday 14th October.

Answer the question below, with detailed reference to specific examples from the extract only.

1   Discuss the ways in which the extract constructs representations using the following:

  • Camera shots, angles, movement and composition

  • Editing

  • Sound 

  • Mise-en-scene [50 marks] 

To answer the examination question, you will do well if you use the structure T, E, EAA (terminology, example, explain / analyse / argue). For example:
T "A two-person mid shot of Orlando Bloom and Maggie shows Orlando leaning on the jury box rail." (This names two technical codes, in this case, camerawork)
E "Mid shots let the audience see the expressions on the actors' faces; here, we see Orlando Bloom looking very smug and self-satisfied, whereas Maggie looks unimpressed as she is not smiling and trying to please, unlike the crowd of adoring autograph hunters of the previous frame who clustered around the superstar Orlando Bloom. The two-person composition draws attention to the contrasting body language of Bloom and Maggie; he is assertive and confident, intruding into her personal space, whereas she has slumped shoulders and is not trying to impress him."
E, A, A "The effect is to create comedy as Maggie does not conform to the stereotype of the female fan whilst Bloom vainly tries to impress her. She seems annoyed by his vanity and the way that the other women fawn over him. Bloom is constructed as a typical film superstar who is arrogant and over-confident, used to having the world at his feet."

CHECKLIST

What should be on your blog by now:

LOOK AT YOUR BLOG LAYOUT

• ensure that your template is black font on a white background! Pick a font that is really clear & unfussy like Arial
• the main page should be wide to allow great images and showcase your platforms
• the RH sidebar should be just wide enough to read the text
• RH sidebar: search engine, class blog, friends' blogs
• if you have your friends' blogs linked, uncheck the box that allows updates (avoids clutter)
• layout: collage your photos / make them big
• justify text to the left (usually) not the centre
• over half term, add your candidate number; make your blog look like a media blog
• edit your posts so that they look sharp: highlight key terms in a strong colour

PAGES across the top for: 

SPECIFICATION

PRELIMINARY EXERCISES

1 CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

2 CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

3 CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

4 CREATIVE CRITICAL REFLECTION

 

You can also add the class blog on the RH sidebar

PRELIMINARY EXERCISES Complete the preliminary exercises and post on your blog under the 'page' Preliminary Exercises' at the top. Use the media studio (empty Wednesday afternoons and many lunch breaks) or edit on your laptop. You can often film on your phone with good results. the aim is to show that you have practised.

ART OF THE TITLE (three minimum)

FILM OPENING CODES & CONVENTIONS PowerPoint uploaded as SlideShare

CONTINUITY EDITING Finished video uploaded + blog post account + photos

ON THE SET simple blog post + ideally an image or two

TABLETOP blog post account + photos (second part of filming to be completed soon). Remember to include the background research that you did - with me in class - that consisted of watching other similar work. The post should be more than just a description of your own work. 

After session 2 filming, you can edit in any live action + film title + credits + sound effects.... it should look like a real film opening by this stage.

What you have done for exam preparation:

Written TV drama analysis Coming Down The Mountain + many group lessons orally

Questions on Film Distribution in class

Questions on Film Industry: Exhibition 

What's coming next:

RESEARCH: DISTRIBUTION COLLAGE / PIKTOCHART You present the distribution strategy for one film of your choice like this one, this one  and this one.

RESEARCH: STORYTELLING - WHAT AUDIENCES WANT  You present this using ComicLife like this and this one or this one 

FILM FESTIVALS: what they are for and how they help independent film makers; Bait (dir. Mark Jenkin, 2019)

FILM INDUSTRY: EXHIBITION

PRODUCTION PRACTICE: MONTAGE / TABLE TOP SEQUENCE

 https://movingimageeducation.org/create-films/found-footage

"A WHOLE WORLD IN A TABLE TOP"

Your brief is to create a title sequence using only a table top and props with a small part of live action at the end of it , using a given soundtrack. In previous years, I have given the soundtrack of Emily Barker's Nostalgia (the Wallander theme tune), Banana Pancakes and Christina and the Queens Five Dollars.

Research: Watch in class the title sequence of Delicatessen (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1991) 

To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan,  1962)

The President (Heidi Berg, Felix Soletic, 2019)

Session 1: You set the tabletop with background cloth, arrange the chosen objects to tell a story that fits with your soundtrack, and with a steady hand, glide the camera above the table top from the start point to the end point.

Take photos as you go of your group at work, so that you can illustrate your blog.

Upload your footage to iMovie. Edit as required, with the soundtrack.

Next, add in titles / credits.

Make a blog post entitled PRODUCTION PRACTICE: MONTAGE / TABLE TOP SEQUENCE

Session 2: Live action shoot

This completes the opening sequence and launches the narrative. Keep it simple.

Suggest what will happen next by creating the enigma, the conflict...

Upload your footage to iMovie. Edit in the film title.

Finn H