M.LANG IN OTHER MEADOWS OPENINGS

Media Language in Twenty Four Seven

Twenty Four Seven (Shane Meadows, 1997) 



Budget: £1.5m

Gross: £175k

4 minutes or 16 minutes.

The idents shown at the beginning of the film are BBC films and Scala. The directors name is presented as 'A Shane Meadows Film'. This is reflecting the auteur theory. There is only one star in the film named. The first thing you notice from the opening shot is that it is in black and white. The film starts with an establishing shot. It is bleak and obvious from this very long first shot that it is going to be a serious drama. This first shot lasts for 30 seconds. More names start to appear after this first shot. The names stand out well against the bleak background as they are all in upper case and bold. The next shot is of the older man. This is a close up and shows the emotion and the condition that he is in better than it would from any other shot. It also helps the audience to sympathise more and feel the same emotions. 

There is then a voice over. Up to this point there had been very minimal dialogue so there was some narrative enigma as it was hard to hear if the characters had an accents may be indicating where the film is meant to be set. 

Depending on where you interpret the opening sequence ends it ends at either

A Room for Romeo Brass (Shane Meadows, 1999)

Budget: unknown
Gross: $18k
The length of the opening: 5 minutes 39 seconds.Failed to get a UK cinema release. But a very brief US release and only made $18000. The first take of the opening sequence is 1 minute and 10 seconds. This shows that it is more of a drama that an action filled film as they tend to use very short shots. Appears to be a rural setting. There is an initial establishing shot also an extreme long shot. Again this lack of editing implies it will be a drama. Only one company ident. As with Dead Man's shoes the directors name is presented as 'A Shane Meadows Film' this is reflecting the auteur theory. BBC films and The arts council also helped fund this film, as they do with other very low budget films. 
In the second take the mis-en-scene is a very poor area with metal shutters. This is not very glamorous and the complete opposite to hollywood style films. This is one of the features that indicates it is a social realist film. The non-diegetic music makes the film seem a lot more light-hearted and doesn't make the atmosphere seem serious. This upbeat is played over the whole opening sequence and is called an audio bridge.

VODCAST ON CONVENTIONS

Films:
Violent Enemy (Don Sharp, 1967)


Outlaw Josey Wales (Clint Eastwood, 1976)


Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright, 2007)
Nacho Libre (Jerad Hess, 2006)

Bullet Boy (Saul Dibb, 2004)


Wild at Heart (David Lynch, 1990)


In this vodcast we related different conventions to different films all ranging in genre and time of production, and in some cases comparing the old films to the more modern ones and seeing the similarities and differences in them and why these are.

COMPARING 2 PAST AS FILM OPENINGS

Here are the past 2 film openings i assessed:

Red Run:                                                 Tiny Terror:

These are both the idents that appear first on screen for both AS films, and they both have non diegetic slow piano music playing.

These are then the idents that follow however they're are done using real footage that the students filmed themselves which adds to the creativity of the film openings.

Both film openings start with 3 idents which is common in short films. 

The similarity between these two is that they both reveal the title at roughly 30 seconds in which makes it seem like the common thing to do when presenting a short film opening, also they're both revealing the genre as the audience with a preferred reading will understand that the red on black will act as a signifier to symbolise blood and death, which also links to the slasher genre.
Straight away in the first shot we notice the difference between the two films as Red Run uses great narrative enigma with a variety of quick shots and continuity and doesn't reveal the character until about a minute in, whereas with Tiny Terror the character is revealed straight away in the first shot with not much variety of shots either. However in them both they use this audio bridge of music which builds up tension as if something bad is about to happen and this works well.

Both films use the false scare idea to a great effect by making the audiences think something bad is about to happening when it doesn't this also builds up to what actually happens when the killer is the scare later on.

POV shot



POV shot



 Both of these shots are point of view shot of who'm the audience will think is the killer. However the point of view shot in Tiny Terror is a high angled point of view shot and makes the two characters look vulnerable to the supposebly killer, they both also have a shaky effect which makes it more realistic that it's a point of view shot so it seem like it from the person walking.These both also use great narrative enigma and reveal the character slowly.

  Also both films use a 'normal' house as a setting which uses the whole idea that this could happen to anyone , including the audience watching , which is what most slasher films use so it could also be classed as intertextuality. Furthermore they both use this intertextuality with the slasher being a doll from the film Child's Play (Tom Holland, 1988)
In conclusion i think Red Run worked better with the continuity of variety of shots which was what Tiny Terror was lacking. However both stories worked well.

ASSESSING A PAST AS FILM OPENING

Tiny Terror Film Opening:





Ident 1

 The opening sequences starts with non-deigetic music playing from a piano, it's slow music and makes the audience feel uneasy so it gives this sense of horror genre. This non-diegetic music plays over the idents being revealed with a fade in fade out transition, and the idents are in block capitals which symbolises the seriousness of this film.



Ident 2

This is the next ident to be revealed and it's revealed after the first ident with the transition of fade out form black.

Ident 3

This is the third ident and every ident has had it's own non-diegetic music to but have all been in block capitals.

Title

The title of the film is then finally revealed with creepy non-diegetic sounds which is giving away the genre , and also the font is patchy with cuts and blood drips which makes it seem like a slasher genre and the colour of the font is red on a black background which makes it seem like a horror.

Point of view shot

This point of view shot makes it seem like it's the view from the killer, but using narritive enigma by not revealing who it is giving this sense of mystery. Also using non-diegetic sounds to give again the sense of horror.

Low angle , 2-shot

This scene shows the girl's bedroom and we get the impression from her with the mise-en-sene of how her bedroom is decorated, etc. It's also a two shot showing the relationship with the two characters.

OpeningEG1: Outlaw Josey Wales

Outlaw Josey Wales

( Clint Eastwood, 1976 )
PRODUCED BY: Warner Bros. Pictures

DISTRIBUTED BY: Warner Bros. Pictures
BUDGET: $3.7m

BOX OFFICE: $31.8m

IMDb RATING: 7.9







Company idents :

WB Warner Brothers Pictures, Malpaso Company.





Less important stars

Main star revealed on own

Clint Eastwood is mentioned in the credits before the title of the film is revealed and after , however Clint Eastwood directs the film and plays a main role so he'll credit himself highly, and all the stars are credited in capitals. The opening sequence starts with the transition fade in from black from the titles to the start of the opening scene, and then reveals the main character, Josey Swales, and his family, he has a son and in the two shots we see the relationship between the father and son, this is called exposition where we're revealed information about the characters, and in this opening sequence there's a tragic incident where a mob of cowboys burn down Josey's home with his son and with still inside which sets the storyline for the rest of the film. There's some extreme long shots that have been used to establish the area and time period for the film, and this low angle over the shoulder shot shows the vulnerablility of Josey because he's lost everything and these men have power over him at this particular time.

  




Close-up

   This close up is used to show the character's emotion and so the audience watching can get the sense of how he's feeling.
  

 

Then after Josey joins these men there's an ellipsis through scenes as it shows the cowboys growing over time in these scenes non-digetic music is being played and it audio bridges from scene to scene over time until this sequence comes to and end where it fades out from the blue filter into the normal camera.



Over the shoulder shot




 

High angle two shot

These two shot types are both showing the power these two characters have over Josey and the vulnerability of Josey, it also shows the relationship between the two characters. Also in the scene the 180 degree rule is used when the characters are cummunicating, and it's a long scene but instead of doing a long take and bore the audience lots of small takes are used using a variety of camera shot type to keep the audience interested.

OpeningEG5: The Violent Enemy

The Violent Enemy

(Don Sharp , 1967)

PRODUCED BY: Group W ,  Trio Film

DISTRIBUTED BY: Monarch Film Corporation (II) (1968) (theatrical), Odeon Entertainment (2006) (DVD)

IMDb RATING: 6






Ident 2 •Monarch Film Corporation Cinema distributor

Takes:



Ident 1 distributer •Odeon Entertainment DVD distributor



Longer takes are used in this as it's an older film and longer scenes are more common in old film whereas in today's world they'll be much more shots taken and variety in each scene .

Editing:

Also the camera will come across shaky at time as they didn't have the technology that's used today to keep the camera stable, for example film makers use tripods to keep the camera stable now and other methods which won't have been used when this film was made, and there wasn't much of an open sequence as it cut straight in to revealing the character no narrative enigma used , good exposition however to establish the time period and location, the sound and editing is very poorly done compared to films that are produced today.

FINAL CUT EXPRESS: 1ST IMPRESSIONS

I thought Final Cut Express was easy to come to adjustments with and i picked up quickly , it's a good way to make films and putting shots together because of all the many tools it has to offer and these would benefit the quality of the film to assist us to gain higher marks when it comes to our coursework.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD SWEDE

We worked in a group of 5 to make our swede, and chose to do a swede of Shaun of the Dead because it was a film we all knew well and thought it was possible to swede it and that we could get hold of the props needed and the locations around school were possible to film each scene. The scenes we chose were good as they are well known scenes from the film, however we could of chosen a larger variety of scenes to make it more interesting. also the camera shots the we chose weren't planned well so we could of improved on them and chosen more shots instead of doing long takes which we did.

Because in the long takes the audience could loose interest whereas if we did a large variety of quick take showing different camera angles then this would of kept the audience interested more.

The stability of the camera could of been improved also we could of done this by using the tripod to give a more steadier shot.

In this scene we could of thought about the mise-en-scene much more as the background doesn't look at all convincing.

Also in this scene we could of used much more variety of camera shots , for example a close up on the character's faces to see their reaction and their emotion to what they've just seen, and also a low angle shot on them to show their vulnerability and the opposite for the zombie character but with a high angle to show the power of the zombie and to make the audience feel uneasy.

I think overall we needed to of planned it much better and organised it more because the scenes didn't really come together and you couldn't follow the story.

ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

S Media Studies - G321: Foundation Portfolio in Media Marking Sheet – Video Task Candidate

RESEARCH & PLANNING	LEVEL 1 (0-7)	LEVEL 2 (8-11)	LEVEL 3 (12-15)	LEVEL 4 (16-20)
	Low                                             High	Low                                              High	Low                                                    High	Low                                                           High
Research into similar products and a potential target audience	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent
Organisation of actors, locations, costumes or props	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent
Work on shotlists, layouts, drafting, scripting, storyboarding	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent
Care in presentation of research and planning	Minimal	Basic level	Good level	Excellent level
Time management	Very poor	Not good	Good	Excellent
Contribution (where relevant)	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent
EVALUATION	LEVEL 1 (0-7)	LEVEL 2 (8-11)	LEVEL 3 (12-15)	LEVEL 4 (16-20)
	Low                                             High	Low                                              High	Low                                                    High	Low                                                           High
Understanding of issues around audience, institution, technology, representation, forms and conventions in relation to production	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent
Ability to refer to choices made and outcomes	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent
Understanding of development from preliminary to full task	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent
Ability to communicate	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent
Skill in use of digital technology/ICT in evaluation	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent
Contribution (where relevant)	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent
CONSTRUCTION	LEVEL 1 (0-23) in any	LEVEL 2 (24-35) in some	LEVEL 3 (36-47) in many	LEVEL 4 (48-60) in most
(creative use of technical skills)	Low                                              High	Low                                              High	Low                                                    High	Low                                                           High
Holding shot steady	Minimal evidence	Basic ability	Proficient	Excellent
Framing shot appropriately	Minimal evidence	Basic ability	Proficient	Excellent
Variety of shot distances	Minimal evidence	Basic ability	Proficient	Excellent
Appropriate material for task	Minimal evidence	Basic ability	Proficient	Excellent
Selecting mise-en-scène	Minimal evidence	Basic ability	Proficient	Excellent
Editing for meaning to viewer	Minimal evidence	Basic ability	Proficient	Excellent
Varied shot transitions, captions and other effects	Minimal evidence	Basic ability	Proficient	Excellent
Use of sound with images/editing	Minimal evidence	Basic ability	Proficient	Excellent
Using titles appropriately	Minimal evidence	Basic ability	Proficient	Excellent
Contribution (where relevant)	Minimal	Basic	Proficient	Excellent