SR: Rough Cut 4 - Without Music

This is the 4th rough cut without any non-diegetic music. In this rough cut, you will be able to see how I have changed the length of some of the shots and the use of some special effects to create a bit more tension to our film opening. Ofcourse it is a horror genre movie and so it is usually hard to create tension, without the use of non-diegetic music.
However, the audience that we got audience feedback from, a year 13 class from our school, told us that they thought it had quite a lot of tension, despite the fact that there was no music yet.
This was already a very good sign that we had a good setting and shot variety.



Although, we did not get a lot of negative criticisms from our primary audience on what we could change, I decided to convert and modify some things before adding music to it.

Firstly, I added a special effect called "Bad TV" in Final Cut Pro. This made it look more creepy within the basement scene by signifying that it was all recorded on tape.

There were also shots during that video recording, of Casey Crane tied up to a chair, connoting that the killer probably films all of his victims and films how he kills them. 

I thought that this entire special effect would work well with the genre. Later on in my evaluation question, you will be able to read on how I was inspired for this special effect from the film "Poltergeist", which I analysed back in the beginning of the year to look into the conventions of the stereotypical horror genre.



Furthermore, Bronwen re-edited the bathroom scene, such as for example the shot of her (Casey) closing the door again after taking the nail polish. This was done, since our audience feedback from our own class had told us that there was a lack of continuity. Bronwen also decided to use other shots, with a better shot quality. In it's entirety, Bronwen managed to transform the bathroom scene into a scene with more continuity and flow. There is a post on Bronwen's blog, where she describes what she changed and why she changed it.

We did not change the church scene, after Jonathan had edited it the first time. We thought the shots were good and we were especially given praise for our close-ups of the matches.

During the final scene, which I edited, I was given a lot of feedback on how the shots should be shorter, but the scene should be longer to build up even more tension. I managed this, by creating a better shot variety, such as using shots that were taken behind the church of Bronwen walking. Moreover, I made the shots shorter of when the woman is walking up behind her so that the false scare would come more accross to the audience.

What I also did to create more tension, was to cross cut between the shaky footage point-of-view shot to the shot of the killer. Shot, reverse shot. At each reverse shot, I zoomed in a little bit on the footage and was able to get a close-up of the killer everytime using Final Cut Pro. This was useful since it denoted that he was moving closer and closer to his target. I was inspired to do this, after having seen and analysed the film "Friday the 13th", where there was shaky footage of the killer's point-of-view when he walked up the stairs. I thought it created a lot of tension. You will be able to see how I created all of this later on in a post that I am going to do on the final cut pro X tools and effects I used.

The next post, called Rough Cut 5 will explain exactly how I worked with sound and why I have chosen to put on the non-diegetic soundtrack that I did.

Applying Uses And Gratifications Theory To Bridget Jones's Baby

 

I am going to look at the teaser trailer for the upcoming Working Title production, Bridget Jones's Baby and apply Dennis McQuail's Uses And Gratifications theory to it.  

 

Diversion/Escapism:

I think that in this teaser trailer, one scene that offers a way of escape for the audience is that of the music festival. You can see that Bridget is having a good time and enjoying herself, denoted by facial expression/body language, (she's smiling, throwing her arms up and is being carried by the crowd) Also, the costume and colours of costume plays a large part. Bridget's outfit is very casual and loose, which again represents the fact that she is enjoying herself, and as she is the central protagonist, allows the viewer to feel the same. The colours of hers and the rest of the crowd's outfits are bright which connote fun and enjoyment.

Seeing her having fun, surrounded by a large crowd and music creates the feeling that the audience member is there with her, and they are able to forget about personal life/issues.

The trailer is also quite comedic (scene where she falls in the mud) therefore the audience is able to relax and laugh along to the film, allowing escapism.      

  

Personal Relationship:

This film, and the teaser trailer, offers a talking point. For example, one way that people could discuss this film or the trailer is through social media platforms, people could share images of the trailer or poster, opening a discussion in the comments. Also, the demographic of the audience who have seen the first two films in the series would be able to discuss the first two films and talk about this one in terms of how it will compare to the others.  

This teaser trailer opens up a lot of discussion around the film, which viewers could discuss with friends or family (e.g. what is the plot of the film? how will it end?) But also, it offers quite a large amount of change in Bridget's character (she seems more sophisticated at the beginning) but also in the actress. The franchising is also very important, as it is all though an old friend is back (for those who have seen the first two films) and this creates a lot of excitement especially as a lot of the audience have known this character for quite a considerate amount of time, and this would create a talking point among them.

 

In the first shot in which we see Bridget, she looks very different, she looks elegant and sophisticated and she looks changed. This is something that the audience would want to be informed about as it has been quite a long time since the first couple of films have come out and they would like to see if her character has changed.

 

Personal Identity:

One way in which some of the audience could largely relate to Bridget's character is through her displays of clumsiness. This is something that probably a lot of the audience could relate to, especially if they are clumsy themselves or have had similar experiences. However, this is also a national stereotype of the English being slightly clumsy, and bumbling, which the English demographic might not particularly link to as its not such a positive image. However, this is something that the non-English audience would relate to and probably be amused by.

Another way in which the audience could relate to the film/ trailer, which would make them want to go see it, is through the setting. The location is very clearly London, this is made recognizable through an establishing shot. The British part of the audience, especially those living in London would relate to the setting.

Another point would be that as there has been a large time gap between this film and the others, the audience would have grown up with her and perhaps are now experiencing similar situations to her.

There is actually an issue in relating to a younger female audience however, as Bridget is now in her 40s, which means that they would not easily identify with her character as they haven't had the experiences that she's going through.

 

Surveillance

By watching this text, you will partially be more informed as to what Bridget's character is like now, also the scene where she is wearing the blue dress, allows the audience to be more informed in what is fashionable.

 An explanation of the Theory:

SR: Rough Cut 3 - Final Scene

Sophie was in charge of editing the final scene:

After getting feedback on my 2nd Rough Cut, i re-edited the scene, by changing a lot of the sound, lighting and adding the small clip before where Bronwen is coming out of the church. I changed the ambient sound by taking the ambient sound that wasn't too loud from one of the clips and putting it on the re-loop.
Furthermore, I added the blue tint, when editing so that all the shots would look more dark and scary and that they would look the same way as the one in rough cut 2, where there is a natural blue lighting in the shot.



I made some of the clips shorter as well, so that I would be able to add more tension to it as well once I get the non-diegetic soundtrack on, which I will be working on together with one of my friends, who is a working as a DJ. The 4th rough cut, will be up, once I have completed the music soundtrack.

Another thing I did was to zoom in on the shot of the killer and keep changing the shots so that it would cut from the point-of-view shot with the killer to the shot where the audience sees him entirely. I did this in order to create more tension and show the audience that he keeps coming closer and closer to kidnapping her.

SR: Genre

There are 2 main different kinds of genres. There is the hybrid genre and the sub-genre. A hybrid genre, also known as cross-genre is a genre that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres. An example of a hybrid genre would be a ROM-COM, so a romantic comedy film. Working Title are globally associated with the ROM-COM genre. Why? Because they have produced several successful ROM-COM hits, such as Bridget Jones Diary, About Time, Love Actually and many more.

When analysing About Time, which came out in 2013 and was a $12 million budget film. It made over $15 million in the American market alone and achieved a total of over $87 million worldwide. Due to this, it is a good example of a ROM-COM hit from Working Title.


Using our coursework as an example, we know that the main genre is horror. There are 4 main types of horror genres known as Psychological, Killer, Monster and Paranormal. Our coursework would be an example of the Killer one. These 4 main types can then be even more in depth and have what is called sub-genres.

A sub-genre or sub-genres are categories thar are subdivisions to a larger genre. As an example, when looking at the table above, slasher genre is a sub-genre of the killer horror genre. So our coursework is also a slasher genre. In the small boxes, you can also see examples of movies that are in the slasher genre. In that box, there are examples of the two movies "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween". Our coursework is inspired from Halloween by John Carpenter from 1978 and therefore we can say that it fits perfectly with this table.

As another example, Kristian's final cut, is a movie about a zombie apocalypse. This would on the other hand not be an example of the killer horror genre but the monster horror genre. 

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason: A Typical Working Title Production?

This film is a sequel to Bridget Jones's Diary.

The film had an estimated budget of $40m and grossed $262m worldwide (box office). (UK $68m)

In the UK, this film was distributed by UIP, which is a joint between Paramount Pictures and Universal Studio

In the US it was distributed by Universal pictures.

It was distributed in 60 countries, including the US. Below are some of those countries:

The film poster show clear connotations of the Rom-Com genre, through the pink and purple colours (pink signifies love but they are also both very girly colours, therefore probably targeted towards the female demographic).There is also the handwritten font and arrows above the actors, which signifies the comedy genre. The fact that Renee Zellweger is in the central position on the poster (keeping to rule of thirds) not only shows that she is the central protagonist but also, she is very well-known in America and so she is being used to advertise the film and sell it to the American audience.

It could be said that this production is very typical of Working Title, firstly because it is a Rom-Com/ romance a genre which WT have produced many films in (e.g.. Love Actually, Notting Hill etc.) and also because it is very stereotypically British; set in London, southern English accents, higher class, which adds to the American image of Britain. This stereotypical view of England is portrayed in many other working title films (eg.The first shot of the trailer for The Theory of Everything, rural, typical English/British countryside, old building.)

SR: Rough Cut 2 - Final Scene

This is the 2nd rough cut of the final scene, where the killer kidnaps the final girl. This is the bit that I edited, where I am still going to put sound on and either detach the audio that is on there now to just work with sound effects and non-diegetic music for there to be created a lot of tension.

In the exam there will be 4 main technical aspects that we need to comment on. These are:

• Mise en scene
• Cinematography
• Sound
• Editing

In terms of mise-en-scene, the costume of the central protagonist such as her jacket and her tight jeans denote that her age is around 16-17. You can tell that the central protagonist is not the typical character of the usual scream queen. Had it been a scream queen, she would have had blonde hair, ripped jeans or even a skirt and maybe have a handbag or clutch with her. The choice of the central protagonist wearing a concervative high collar T-Shirt, also emphasise the fact that there was a counter-typing by using the final girl and killing her instead of the scream queen.

Also, the costume of the killer waering all black and having his hoodie up around the mask denotes the genre. The mask is very good, because it really emphasises on the horror genre. Throughout the entire film, the audience isn't able to see the mask until the last bit where the killer finally appears on screen. This creates tension, and I intend to work a lot more with non-diegetic music to be able to build up the tension. Furthermore, when looking at the 1st rough cut, which was edited by Jonathan, you can see how our final girl is getting a false scare, by a woman who only wants to return her bible.

In this clip, which I am going to edit as well, I will begin with the non-diegetic music in order for there to be continuity throughout in terms of sound.
Moreover, there is a different ambient sound in every single shot. because we hear Bronwen's shoes going over the street and then you hear a car as well in the background. Due to this, I will loop the sound from the first shot, so that there will be continuity in it and that the sound doesn't change in the different shots. 

The mise-en-scene is very good outside, and the darkness and the natural appearance of the blue tint helps to connote the genre. This location was chosen on purpose because of the very bright lighting that added this specific blue tint as a natural effect. Because it turned out this well, I will be editing the first rough cut, by adding a blue filter when our central protagonist comes out of the church as well.
Another way we could have portrayed our central protagonist as more vulnerable would be to have framed Bronwen on the left or right side in the frame.
There is also some foreshadowing because she is walking towards a less lit space, where it is very dark, which foreshadows that something is going to happen.
Two other angles, that could have been incorporated, would have been a low angle and a dutch angle to make Bronwen appear as more vulnerable.

This shot was done on purpose to foreshadow, how she is going to get kidnapped. In thsi shot, she is a dark silhouette, which connotes that she is practically already gone.

Audience Feedback 2

To get some more audience feedback, we showed our film opening to a year 10 media class. We asked them to give us some feedback, what they liked, what they didn't like, and filmed them.
We found that they did like our idea overall but there were some comments about not being able to hear the girl, and the sound wasn't creepy enough.

Semiotic Analysis of Riona & Adel's Final Cut

I performed a semiotic analysis of another student's rough cut of their film opening. This allowed me to practice semiotically analyzing film openings/clips. This is the comment that I left on the student's blog:

"In terms of mise-en-scene, there is a use of props, when creating the titles such as the pillow with the production company name on it, and the cereal layed out to present the actors name. In the bedroom scene, there is some artwork/art books on the floor, which gives an indication about her character.

The diegetic-sound of the alarm on the phone ringing is very effective in signifying that she is a teenage girl (white iPhone) and that she is waking up in order to go to school.

There are some interesting camera angles and quite a lot of variety. One very effective shot is a high-angle shot of the male character getting out of bed and pulling the covers off. The low-angle shot of the same character brushing his teeth is also very interesting and effective. The low angle shots of both character's feet on screen together is also excellent in portraying the fact that the two characters are linked or will be linked later on in the film.

The representation of the characters is presented mainly through their costume and props, but also through their way of speaking/acting.

The blond character that we have been following is represented as studious and creative, due to the art books on the floor in her bedroom, she is also portrayed as intelligent as she answers a question in class. The binary opposition of this character are the three girls, their clothes and bags are girly (pink, stylish) and they are shown as popular as they are sitting with other people in the classroom, unlike the blond character, who is sitting alone.

These three girls are also an intertextual reference to the rom-com Mean Girls, which is clearly established in the scene where they first appear and slow-motion is used.

This film opening uses a lot of very effective editing techniques, that feature very frequently in this particular genre. These editing techniques are things such as layering between scenes/characters, which is very effective at the beginning to suggest a link or connection between the two characters. The pink cloud used when the three girls appear is very effective in showing their girly characters but also their significance in the film. Slow motion (again, when the three girls appear) but also fast-forward, when the blond character is going down the spiral staircase are very characteristic of the rom-com genre, and help establish it."

SR: Editing - Final Cut Pro X

In terms of editing we used Final Cut Pro for the creation of our film opening.

We used Final Cut Pro X, because it offers a lot of different opportunities and varieties in terms of editing. With the use of Final Cut, we were able to adjust the lighting and the look in our film opening. Furthermore, we will be creating our title sequence with Final Cut, because it has very simple controls that allows us to generate studio quality titles. 

The timeline that you can see on the bottom, offers you a flexible way to edit. 

Clips automatically move out of the way to avoid clip collisions. Moreover, it is very clear and simple to use Final Cut Pro, meaning that you always know what is happening as you work and you can always try out new ideas with all of the different varieties of effects and transitions.

Rough Cut 1

This is the first rough cut of our new idea.

Semiotic Analysis of Torchwood TBC

I conducted an in-depth semiotic analysis of a clip from a TV drama/sci-fi called Torchwood.

Mise-en-scene:
The mise en scene denotes the sci-fi genre through cables and computers etc. there is low key lighting in some scenes which further adds to this. The fact that she has dark hair shows that perhaps she is intelligent, if she was blond, her beauty would be more focused on. Her minimal makeup again represents the fact that she is smart. If she was blond/ lots of makeup, it would stick to the stereotype of western beauty. A conscious decision has been made so that looks and glamour have been downplayed to a certain degree. She is very unlike the typical Scream Queen character which is found in the horror genre. It has become the normative to put attractive female actors on screen, in this it could be more heavily stereotyped but it still features. The secondary character's hair is messy and not styled. This is to signify her innocence. There is also the absence of heavy makeup on this character which again shows that she is young/innocent. The mise-en-scene creates verisimilitude in terms of genre through the lighting (neon, blue/green), and also the cables, wires and computers.

Editing:
Continuity editing is used in this clip, the editing is very linear, there are no jump-cuts. The audience is being positioned to empathize with the central protagonist as the shots keep returning back to her. Also, there is shot length variety, between long and short shots because this creates a lot of tension and changes the pace of the scenes when necessary.

Sound
In terms of music, it is dramatic, which builds tension in certain scenes, there are non-diegetic sounds of water dripping which further adds to the tension an again linking back to the science fiction genre. The sound also matches the editing in some places, when they are both fast-paced. Slow, soft piano notes feature in the two shot between the two characters. This has connotations of sadness, but it really anchors the relationship between the two characters as it could be read as romantic. It fits well with other signifiers that have been encoded into the text. There is also some long violin notes in the music which connotes horror and adds tension and fear. This music could also be signifying the horror of homosexuality.

Cinematography
The framing in the first shot, which  focuses on the character, but it also creates a narrative enigma (Barthes's theory) as it doesn’t give much of the location away. There is a shot-reverse-shot which returns back to the woman with dark hair, to establish her as a central protagonist (According to Propp's character theory, she would be seen as the "hero").The girl with brown hair is established as the central protagonist in these scenes and there are quite a few close ups to show her emotion, the clip starts on her and she talks on the phone to another character, presumably her partner.
The whole sequence is very tightly framed, which connotes the close relationship between the two characters. There is also a two-shot of the two characters, which again anchors their growing relationship and shows that one is weak and the other is strong, as the central protagonist is helping the other character stand up, and is supporting her.

When the two-shots end, it returns to a shot-reverse-shot sequence which anchors that the moment has ended, and they are physically but also emotionally drawn apart.

Representation:
There is a stereotype of the female victim (the girl with lighter hair) and also a counter-type with the central protagonist as she is helping the girl and this would normally be something that a male would do. It has become normative that men are strong and are always the ones who help the female.

Audience:
The welsh accent used shows that this program would be suited better to a welsh or British audience. This shows that the production would not be shown in America. Therefore not gaining a large amount of profit due to the Gant rule. It could be said that the male gaze (Mulvey) features when the man in the control room is watching the two girls on a screen. This is denoted through a cut to CCTV footage and then there is a cut to the man which is a close-up. This is a criticism of the male gaze, as the heterosexual man is attacked by the central protagonist who we have been firmly encouraged to identify with throughout the clip. The audience also links to the intertextual reference used in this clip:

Intertextuality:
In the first scene of the clip, there is a use of intertextuality, when the central protagonist is behind glass, it is similar to a scene in The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1991). The target audience perhaps people of around 15-30, would mostly not recognize this reference. This intertextuality features for the older, secondary audience as they, as viewers would gain pleasure from seeing and noting this reference.

Stuart hall stated that semiotics had many limitations as it was assumed that all the reading resided only in the text. He argued that meaning resides also in the audience and different people react differently to viewings.  if an audience follows most of what we want them to, they have had a preferred reading
If there is a sad scene and people laugh, then it is an oppositional reading.
If there is a mixture of the two, then it would be a negotiated or contested reading.

(Images: Left, The silence of the lambs, Right, Torchwood. The glass panels, especially with the holes are extremely similar)