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

TV DRAMA: DOWNTON ABBEY

 Downton Abbey extract here

Our exam question will be simpler: it will just ask about how representations are created, not mention any particular focus (like class and status).

THE BUSINESS OF FILM

Today we focus on the 'business of film' and the value chain. FutureLearn offers many useful courses, such as this one, from which I report back to you.

ON THE SET

Brief account of learning to use the cameras and tripods, what filming terminology to use on set and good practice in editing

This account is about what I learnt and what equipment we were shown when we were shown how to use the Canon cameras and Manfrotto tripods. 

Cameras and tripods. In groups we passed the camera around and each of us practised how to handle the camera, insert the battery and memory card. When you pass the cameras around you should say 'yours' and 'mine' to avoid the risk of dropping it.  We learned how to set up a tripod and to 'bubble' it using the spirit level to help make the camera balanced and in focus. We explored the camera such as how to focus.  The exposure on the camera is adjusted by moving the dial up and down. 

White balance (WB) is the process of removing unrealistic colour casts, so that objects which appear white in person are rendered white in the photo. Proper camera white balance has to take into account the "colour temperature" of a light source, which refers to the relative warmth or coolness of white light. You adjust it by selecting the ‘WB’ on the camera, it will then come up with little pictures representing difference colour tones that are used in different lights which will give a more realistic effect.

180-degree rule. We learned about the 180 degree rule.  The 180-degree rule is a cinematography guideline that states that two characters in a scene should maintain the same left/right relationship to one another. When the camera passes over the invisible axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line and the shot becomes what is called a reverse angle.

On set We then learnt the terminology used in the film industry on set. The director shouts 'Standby' before filming to ensure that everyone is ready and when they are, they reply 'Standing by.'

When the director shouts ‘rolling’, everyone on set must be quiet, then he /she shouts ‘action’ which tell the actors to start. After the shoot, the director has said the last ‘cut’, he / she will say ‘strike the kit’ which is the film crew's cue to pack away, put the batteries on charge and ensure that the footage is uploaded. 

Good practice in editing. We are using Final Cut Pro and iMovie on the iMacs in the media studio. When uploading our footage, we should create a folder to keep the shots. These folders are called bins and the unedited footage from cameras are called rushes.

CONTINUITY EXERCISE

 Aim: storyboard and film a brief conversation / confrontation between  two parties:

• draw and photograph the storyboard.
• establishing shot (= where the action takes place, to 'establish' it for the audience
• mid shot of character A already in place
• character B arrives, making a two-shot (a shot with two characters)
• a series of shot-reverse shots delivers the dialogue (over the shoulder shots that will be edited together in order)
• another two-shot
• bring the narrative to a close in any way that fits
• post the storyboard in a post entitled CONTINUITY EXERCISE
• edit and upload the shots.

Student examples - click to open:

Patient diagnosis

Antiques Road Show

The Date

The Big Shot Interview

I've Been Expecting You, Daddy

The China Town Case

Toast