BLK feedback

Excellent analysis and reflections on your horror shot - super work Nick!

Looking forward to your choice of sequences for analysis.

Can you add my foundation portfolio blog to your list of links?

FDA notes

Release of a film

• What the movie is
• Marketability : who it is going to appeal to
• Develop a campaign that appeals to the audience
• How much money spent making it?
• What can the movie take in the UK box office?
• Working with 3rd party promotions
• Publicity
• Talent of the film, will they travel to UK for interviews?
• Will their be a premier?
• What type of media, TV, posters, newspapers etc?

Positioning & Audiences

• Define your audience
• Does film have a specific genre?
• Speak to a certain age group?
• Who directed the film?
• Actors in the film, do they have fans?

Target Audience

• Identify target audience for smaller films
• Past comparisons
• Research data
• How frequent, sex, where do they watch the film, etc?
• Pinpoint target audience
• Audience will view advertising in a certain place
• Place adverts where your target audience will see them, e.g TV
• Different age groups targeted differently

Competition

• Film distribution is about competition
• Stand above others to make your film noticed
• Holidays, weather, audience patterns
• E.g. Not as much TV in July/August because of weather so advertise with posters

P&A budget

• Costs of film prints
• Technical elements
• Shipping
• Advertising costs
• Designing posters, press ads, TV spots, trailers etc
• How best to use money

Word of mouth

• Depends on the movie
• If famous film people will spread word about it
• Work with media partners to spread the news about film
• Advance screening programs

Marketing Plan

• Place adverts throughout all types of media
• Free forms of advertising, through press
• Get support from directors and actors

Film Trailers

• Trailer is key to selling film
• Public's first exposure of the film
• Trailer has right impact and message
• Sound, graphics, concept of film

Link Between

• Convince exhibitors to take the film
• Difficult films, got to sell the film to the cinema's

Digital Marketing

• Viral marketing
• Creating something that because of it's nature it is sent on like a chain
• Most effective is word of mouth
• Telling other people that the film is good will convince them more than adverts

Test Screenings

• Research important and comes in to play at different times
• Can be done well in advance of actual production
• Visuals, trailers, meeting people's expectations
• Test screen films with a target audience, get questionnaires filled in
• Focus groups

Opening Weekend

• Very frustratingly important
• Way the cinema industry works
• Box office takings work on first 3 days
• Film has to have been successful in the weekend or will be pulled from the cinema

Piracy

• Piracy in UK has escalated over the past 5 years
• Piracy counts for 20% of all DVD sales in the UK
• British consumer believe they're getting a bargain
• Money from piracy funds other criminal elements
  

THR feedback

Loving the blog - great interactivity and use of gadgets already plus I'm impressed you can edit the html - well done! The work's great - focusing on what you can see but also its effect. Good work and a great start.

Sin City Shot Sequence Analysis

Shot 1

This shot is a close up but also a high angle shot. It shows a man clutching his ear and aiming a gun past the camera. He is looking up past the camera so we can safely presume there is someone out of our vision behind the camera. He is on a wooden floor which looks damp so suggests either a cellar or a dock. However, due to the lighting it is more likely a dock as it is a high key lighting shot. The fact that he is clutching his ear and looks in pain suggests that he may have been hit in the side of the head by something or even shot. From this shot the director has not given us much insight to what is going on but instead there is an element of mystery and tension as we do not know precisely what is going on.

Shot 2

This shot is a long shot at a high angle with mostly high key lighting but a few natural shadows left. We now see for certain that they are on a dock and see the man who is on the ground is also being aimed at by a character above him. The long coat suggests a typical detective or private police officer so we presume the man standing up is the good guy. We see blood on the floor next to the man which is coming from his arm which suggests it has been shot. The man's body language and facial expression adds to this as he looks in excruciating pain. From this shot we can fill in quite a bit of storyline in our head as an audience as it looks as though the man on the floor could be a criminal that the police man/detective has been sent to bring in but there has been a fight. The director has thought carefully about this as we have multiple ideas of what is going on.

Shot 3

This is a long shot at a normal angle. We see the same scene as before but from a different angle. We can see slightly more of the surroundings and it seems like they are in an old town which isn't very modernised. The whole area looks quite run down. We see a young girl up against a post in the corner. She is put there so that our attention is not immediately drawn to her but it adds to the mystery as we do not know whether the man standing up is an ally of hers or an enemy. Was she being defended or has he come to take her away. This is very clever from the director as the story has many different routes it can take depending on what happens next.

Shot 4

This shot is a long shot but also in its own sense a very long shot. It is at the same angle as shot 3 but has zoomed out a bit. The man on the floor is clearly still alive due to his body posture and language but now the man who was standing up looks in pain and is falling over. There is a new character behind him holding a gun. From this we can assume that the middle character has been shot by the man in the black cloak yet we don't know whether he is on the side of the man on the floor or not. The girl is now in the centre of the frame almost which suggest she has been thrown in the middle of this whole situation. This shot suggests another plot as the man in black could be there to protect her while the other two were fighting over her, or the man in the middle could be saving her while being ganged up on, or thirdly the man on the floor and the man in black could together be saving the girl from the man in the middle. This is a cleverly thought out sequence as each frame adds a new character creating more and more mystery for the audience as we do not know the back story behind the shots.

Shot 5

This shot is a close up. The lighting has still remained high key throughout so that all details are clear. This is the first time we see the girl's face and we see that she is crying and looking downwards at the floor. Behind her we can see that there is rope on the post suggesting that she may have been tied to it. The fact that she is looking down in relation to the sequence tells us that she could be crying over the man in the long coat who was just shot, or over the man who was originally on the floor, or out of horror at all that is happening around her. Yet again the director has used the fact that we do not know the situation and character's well to help us come up with many answers in our head leaving us to decide for ourselves whether or not they are right.

Shot 6

This shot is a long shot at a normal angle but with a vanishing point (meaning that everything is angling towards a certain point so that certain things are more in the foreground than others). The shot uses the rule of thirds well to draw our attention to the centre. We see that the middle man has now walked to the edge of the dock. He still looks in pain and is holding his chest suggesting either a pain in his heart or that he has been shot (which we presume from shot 4). The man on the ground still is lying there having not done much in the sequence. The little girl is now looking up at the man in black either out of fear or because he has saved her. It seems that the man in black is talking to the man holding his chest as he is looking towards him. In the sequence the director would probably start to reveal everyone's roles in the scene at this point as the action seems to have come to a halt and dialogue has replaced it.

Conclusion

This sequence works very well as the first four frames are used to introduce the character's in the scene and let us decide what we believe to be going on and the final two shots are used to try and clue us in more to the actual plot line. The sequence also starts close up and slowly zooms out as it is revealing more. The whole shot is at night time but is very well lit so we have an element of secrecy but at the same time can see what is going on and have a clear analysis of the set and characters.

Damsel In Distress

This shot shows a victim up against a wall screaming in terror as a dark shadow looms over them. This shot can be seen to be representing horror as it follows many of the generic conventions of the genre. We see a dark room lacking in colour which brings an element of mystery into the picture. The victim is in terror as you can see from the body language and facial expression which shows that something bad is happening or in other words gives a sense of impending doom. The shadow of the hand is very large so gives the effect of a huge creature and as the victim is looking upwards we feel as if it is very large in comparison. The shadow is quite distorted as well to look unnatural. The lighting is also low key which makes it very strange as it is only really coming from underneath so we can just make out the victims face but most of the shot is cast in shadow. There is a feeling of tension as we have no idea what will happen next but are lead to believe that the victim will probably face their end! The shot itself is at a canted angle which also makes the shot feel unnatural.

To achieve this shot we found a wall and some steps and got the victim (myself) to lie on the steps looking in fear. We then shone one light from underneath onto the victim's face and one from far off where someone else created the shadow of the hand at an odd angle to make it seem distorted and big. We then took the picture at a canted angle.

Our shot is successful in the fact that it gives a feeling of horror and terror. The layout is good and because of the general set up it feels very claustrophobic, which makes us feel there is no way out. The lighting is well thought out and so is the angle as both are big contributing factors to the horror feel of the shot.

In hindsight I would have gotten some more powerful lights to make the whole picture a lot clearer and less fuzzy. I would have also tried to get an even more distorted angle as this would add to oddness of the shot. Had we had the time and resources I would have liked to use some make up to make the character look bloody and bruised and also to have ripped clothes so when somebody looks at the shot they can picture their own scenario in what led up to this moment, and even predict what will happen next. I would have also liked to have decorated the set a bit more to make it look more sinister and mysterious, maybe in a cellar or have strange markings on the wall.

BLK feedback

baby come back - how mad/hilarious was that!! it was a lol hit for me, nice one nick

great blogging btw

Yea 'lo

Loving the look Nick,

Mrs T

Hello

I just managed to sort out my blog even if the general creating of, uploading and coding of a background and text boxes took me about an hour an a half!

I thought I would just do a tester post to see if it's all working fine and dandy and so that you lovely Latymer folk that don't know me very well can have a laugh at my GCSE Media final piece.

I'm one of the pesky Russians. Hope you enjoy it even more than my dramatic horror shots and more than Simon's which is now my PC desktop!