Research - Genre

There are many types of genre. Genre is the profile of what the film is. Meaning that a film has a title of what is happening in it and the narrative. Some examples of genres are western, horror, romance and drama. The genre is very important to the audience, because then they can decide if they want to go and watch the film in the first place or not. As well at that it is important for the institutions to know what genre to film to so that they can construct their budget and script.

In different genres there are protagonists, antagonists, stock characters, narrative and stock situations. The protagonists are the recognizable lead characters that are the positive characters that want to win the day or be seen as the saviour. However the antagonists are the baddies of the film. For example in a romance film there is traditionally either a parent or jealous lover that gets between the couple. The stock characters however are still recognizable yet they don’t have such a main role in the film, basically meaning that they’re minor characters. The narrative and stock situations have to be relevant to the genre otherwise the audience will be going to a film which they thought was a specific genre, however it’s another. 

  

Research - Film opening 2- Stephen King's IT analysis

Stephen King’s it was a 1990s horror film. The series takes place over two different time periods, the first when the Losers first discover Pennywise as children, and the second when they're called back as adults to defeat Pennywise, who has resurfaced.

The film starts off with Stephen King’s idents, however none others. This may be because it is a relatively old film and in old film and they didn't use idents.

After the ident has played the titles begin the titles begin. With the camera starting of focused and zoomed in on a part of an image, then it zooms out revealing a few images and the title is then showing for a few seconds. The text that is used is a Times New Roman style of font which is white and shown on top of the camera shot. When one title has shown, then the pictures change and the camera then zooms into the picture. This happens for a couple of minutes. Then the film starts.

After two minutes of titles the film starts with a little girl on a tricycle cycling along a pavement. She then turns into hr house. The weather shows us that there is tension building. This is because there are clouds building and there is the distant sound of thunder. The director has decided to use the weather as a tension builder as it sets the scene really well. It puts the viewer on edge, wondering what is going to happen. The location is obviously a normal village with children riding round on their bikes and this again grows tension for the viewer because they are thinking that it is a normal area where nothing suspicious would happen. Whereas something does happen.

The costume and props use in this extract are very important as they are typical of what you would find in someone’s back garden. There is as washing line that is hiding the clown, who is laughing and the little girl is fascinated by where this clown is and is looking at the washing line, where the sound is coming from. The costume and make up are very natural on the little girl. She needs to portray the look of a normal and the typical little girl. Whereas the clown has deep make up with a clean white over all. This again is the typical way you would find a clown, with deep red lips and a white face and lack eyes. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CklJnpbGul8 Beginning to 2:51

Reasurch - Film opening 1 - Opening of Dear John analysis

Dear John is one of the most famous romantic comedies out there. It has some amazing critical acclaim, winning ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards 2011 in their Top Box Office Films category.as well as making £1,995,301 (UK) (16 April 2010) box office. The director was Lasse Hallström, who is famous for other films such as Chocolat (2000).

This film starts off with idents of the makers and producers of the film. These include ‘Screen Gems, a Sony pictures entertainment company’ and ‘Relativity Media.’ The narrative really starts after this with two men who appear to be soldiers; one is trying to help the other as it is wounded. As well as this is happening there is a fade in of a boy looking at pennies being made and they’re falling down the screen.  After this the camera then returns to the two men with an eye line shot of one of the men shaking the other, then a point of view shot of the man being shaken. This shows us that this was a flash back for the man who is wounded. This flash backing then goes on for another minute or so until 2:13. After that then the camera visits a totally different scene of the beach at sunrise and then onto a man surfing through clear waters. After this we follow the character out of the water and onto the pier. With a variety of different shots we establish that there are a group of young adults (around the same age as John) of which there is a couple and another male and female. The female from the group of four then drops her bag. The other man in the group then says he will go and get it; however John jumps in and gets the bag before the other male has even touched the water.

We gather from this basic narrative that the main male character (John) has been taken away from a military role and is now living near a beach. He then finds this girl within this group who he quite likes and eventually falls in love with. The director has given us a very typical view on this social group. They are traditional young people hanging round a beach, with loose light coloured clothing and beachwear. The girls have bikinis on with loose flowing tops on over the top. As well as that their makeup is very low key and natural. Their air also has that look with most of it down and some of it tied up. The two locations at the beginning of the film have very different dynamics. One is a place of war, whereas the other is a quiet and peaceful beach. The director really wanted to show the diversity of these two locations, because he wanted the viewer to be really impacted by the two lives theism man has to live in. one is one of the worst places on earth, whereas the other is like paradise. The sound also shows the diversity in there two different locations. In the place of war there is an eary sense of silence with the distant sound of guns, as well as the non-diegetic dialogue of John over the top. However when we get to the place which is a haven, there is non-diegetic incidental music which has been put in place to lift the scene from the one before. As well as that there are sound effects of the waves crashing which is seen as a soothing and calming sound.

The titles are extremely important to the beginning of a film, the titles in this film start just after the idents. They start off by taking all of the attention of the viewer by being in the centre middle of the screen. As well as that the text is in a Times New Roman style of writing which is white on a black background. The titles only show for a matter of a couple of seconds. They fade on and off for four of the titles. The size of the font of these titles is very interesting, because if they are more than one line long then the text which is either on the bottom (if it is two lines long) or the middle line (if three lines long) is slightly bigger than the other text. This may be because the director wants the viewer to focus on the bigger line as it is the one that has the more sellable information on it. The titles then stop showing for a bit. This is because the director wants us (the viewers) to focus on the scene. After the flash back scene is over then the titles start again. With them being on top of the film and being in line with an item in the scene – such as the horizon when it’s dawn.  

Let me introduce you...

Hey I'm Megan Fulham, I'm currently studying AS levels in Media, Applied ICT, Photography and Sociology. In this blog I will be posting all of my coursework that I will be completing over the next few months. Over the period of making this film trailer I hope to achieve some skills in being able to make and produce a good quality trailer. As well as that I know I will some aspects challenging, however i will overcome these challenges and improve over all.