Feedback - Miss Spencer

You have made great strides since your last feedback Kieran, I am pleased to see a greater array of analysis from three of the genres. The work itself is detailed in places, and you have clearly noticed many of the conventions of the genre. You have a tendency to try and describe a little to much though, but make good use of media language. At the moment the work looks a little unstructured, large blocks of writing with no images, subheadings etc to make the reading of the blog more interesting. the work is at a level 2/3 border and in order to improve I would like you to: 

• Ensure you have at least one Rom Com analysis
• Add images and embed the opening of the film in EACH analysis.
• Comment on the effect on the audience as well as discussing which elements are conventions of the genre.
• Write your Prelim Task evaluation - This should have been finished some weeks ago.

(3) Dark Knight - Thriller Analysis

Batman Dark Knight Opening 2 minutes Analysis

Kieran Standen

Media Studies AS

In the opening scene the camera shows an establishing shot/extreme wide shit to denote the environment and setting, showing that something is going to occur, that the buildings in the scene will be relative to what is going to happen next, where something is going to take place. The slow paced music at the start of the zoom shows that action is going to be taking place as it zooms into the building, creating suspense and anxiety. The Diegetic sound of the glass breaking shows that what we are seeing as the audience is real and that we are about to see why, it goes will with the non-diegetic music at equal volumes. Straight away from the breaking of the glass and the MCU (medium close up) of the person with the mask on we can tell we are looking from the perspective of the attacker or the bad guy. We know he is a bad guy already as he is hiding his identity and has just vandalized a building. We are looking from his POV and then we see another clown mask in the bottom right gibing the audience a small idea there is more than one bad person. A cut then goes to a slow focus zoom of a man standing at the road with a mask in his hand, and the camera slowly zooms into his mask for approximately 9 seconds. The posture and position of the man is a symbolize posture which is enabling people who have watched the film before to identify him as the joker in earlier versions, as the hunched posture is a trademark of the joker. At first the audience don’t realise much that he is on his own, until the next scene when when the other clowns are together in the car, this shows that he is different to the others. When we then see the others in the car it is an over the shoulder shot to show that the POV and others are in the car, showing the number of clowns involved in this scene. The close up on one of the clown’s face to possible show facial expressions of the mask before he gets killed by his friend. Note how the music is slowly getting faster and faster as the clowns progress, when the bad guys are getting to work outside we have a little idea that they are prepare g for something bad to happen. The camera follows the first clown and at that moment we see that they are going to rob a bank, we are not 100% but they have gave us all the clues because they have firearms and a huge bag for the money. The loud bang and following of distressing screaming shows that they are there to do bad things and harming people, people are afraid of them. Acting aggressively. The camera tracks them as one by one they break off to show this is planned and all have specific roles to play in this robbery. The extreme close up on the grenade being strapped to the civilian showing us on that we should know who the character is as he is one of the characters who would do that- (joker) – even though we cannot see behind the mask.

Feedback - Miss Spencer

This piece of analysis is competent and at times fairly sophisticated Kieran. You have clearly discussed the meanings within the opening through the use of sound, Mise en Scene, camera movement, angles and framing.

This work is a level 2 (but very close to a level 3) In order to improve you should:

Improve your grammar, spelling and punctuation, you are marked on this so read through your work - proper nouns have capital letters (e.g. Tom, Mission Impossible etc. ) Some words have letters missing (use spellcheck)Divide your paragraphs up - make it interesting to read in smaller chunks (it's not an essay)

Fix your title - make it simple e.g. "Research into other products - Thriller"

You should import many more screen shots, and make sure they are placed in the text at points that are relevent to your discussion (this can help divide your work

All images must be Jpeg's (it is best to do these at home as the school firewall doesn't like blogger much and can make it difficult) If you can't do this at home, then talk to me and I can log you in under my username to get images uploaded.

Also discuss editing please!

Here is some advice that will help you ensure you cover all of the areas:
 
Study the opening sequences of any film from the Thriller, Horror, and Romantic comedy genre. E.g. Seven, The Dark Knight Rises, Halloween, Notting Hill, Love Actually etc. Analyse how the sequence has been constructed through its use of: Camera angles, shots, movement, Editing, Sound, Special effects and Mise-en-scene etc.

· In terms of editing how have the separate images been put together - Think in terms of frequency of cuts, fades in/out, jump cuts, dissolves etc.

• What visual images appear on screen throughout the sequence? And what do they mean?
• · Describe what narrative (story) is being displayed in the sequence from start to finish.
• · Describe what kind of music; diegetic/non-diegetic/incidental/ambient etc. is being played over the sequence.
• · How and what titles are being displayed during the sequence and in what order.
• · What kind of characterisation is evident? - Age, gender, relationships etc. 

(2) Mission Impossible - Thriller Analysis

Mission impossible 2 opening scene textual analysis

Various camera angles, sounds, camera views and mis en scene devices are used to create the opening scene of mission impossible 2.

     The first camera view is an established shot of the setting, a large, empty setting with large rocks; this denotes loneliness, danger, and lack of help and a sense of mystery. This then zooms into a wide shot of tom cruise climbing a huge rock which seems to the reader as pretty much impossible. This ironically fits in with the title, however is it that ironic? Because climbing up such a large rock pretty much sums up the character and film in a few seconds, especially as he does it in such confidence.

    The music starts of slowly with a very very gradual increase, but low volume so that the audience can hear the heavy breathing, and how silent the setting/scene really is. This denotes tension, a sense of mission and heroism by Tom cruise.  The camera then shows a pan shot of tom cruise climbing up to denote his progress, the camera cuts straight to this scene to show that he is still climbing, representing time.

The camera then goes to a long shot and the actor is using no hands climbing up this huge rock to denote to the audience that he is a skilled man and is going to be a part of this ‘mission’.  Overlapping the quiet music is the sounds of a hawk, this denoted that he is very high up, perhaps in danger as only hawks will dare go this high, and that he may share properties of a hawk, daring and top of the food chain, perhaps capable of this mission impossible. 

For 1 second the camera shows a close up of his hand edging on the rock, his fingers flitching to denote struggle, tense and a sense of edge. Then to a bird’s eye view/Ariel view to show how high up he is, all of these camera angles are showing the audience what kind of man he is, and what the theme of the film could be about. Mission, strength and a man who is superior and a hero type of character. Long shot shows a full view of his body when climbing, looking tanned and large biceps tensing as he is climbing, denoting what kind of man he us, strong and capable. This attracts the female audience to as he comes across as your typical Hollywood thriller actor with the looks and personality.

After these camera cuts it zooms out for a few seconds to show the scale of the rock and the progress since the first scene. Then a few close ups of his face to show the struggle building up to the part where he slips.

The camera shows an Ariel view of him doing nothing, perhaps hesitating or struggling creating tension. Then Tom jumps from rock to another, in slow motion to create tension giving the audience that “will he make it” question.  Once he lands and the tension is less he slips so the audience questions the safety of him. Whilst he is slipping off the edge of the rock the camera switches through various camera shots and angles. The camera points down on Tom Cruise (high angle) so he looks like he is in trouble, manipulating him so it emphasises and denotes that he is powerless. He then hangs with one arm this denotes his strength and capability.  He then grab the other rock and enters the same position as Jesus did on the cross, and looks at the landscape. As soon as he entered this position I noticed that the music increase and vocals come in to show that the way he is hanging represents the film and the type of role the plays, as the music shows that his journey starts here. A wide shot pans around him making him look god like as he hangs there in such calmness, showing the subject in his environment denoting that he is a hero like character. Then forward tracking towards his face until a close up shows him heavy breathing and the determination in his eyes, also appealing to the female audience.

Once he reaches the top of the rock a high angles panorama shows him reaching the top. The music that is playing does not suit the mood that’s being created during the visuals, this is called contrapuntal. This creates a feeling that something is soon to happen that relates to the music’s mood. In this case it does not suit the tense mood of rock climbing but does match the mood of when he reaches the top.

The fact its daytime in this opening scene with the establishing shot denotes it’s early in the day and shows he has a certain time frame to do the mission.

                      He stands at the top smiling denoting that he is proud and confident and sort of a sarcasm showing the reader he knew he could do it and it is as he expected, denoting a sense of pride. I know this because it is a high angle pan shot denoting that he is powerful and successful.

A sound of a helicopter blends in with music and becomes apparent that tom cruise may be in danger, denoting that after the struggle he may be in trouble.  It shows the helicopter coming with men in black suits, sunglasses and a firearm in his arms lowering towards tom cruise. This denotes perhaps men from the government or secret service. Suggesting he is in trouble or some form of danger.

The man in the helicopter then fires a small care package torpedo like bullet that sticks in the ground near him, once this item is sticking out the ground the helicopter majestically swoops off into the distance with an established shot of the helicopter flying away suggesting they were on toms team and that they were of high importance.

The close up on tom cruises face shows he was half expecting it as he is shaking his head sarcastically as the mission impossible film tune music comes on as he comes towards the torpedo shaped thing and it’s an over the shoulder view so the camera can show tom walking towards the object, from a low camera angle to show that tom is not afraid of what this might be which denotes safety to the audience. He opens the object and a high tech gadget releases some glasses. A high tech gadget with some high developed technology in that time is being introduced within the first two minutes of the film to suggest to the audience that there will be a lot of high tech during this film, denoting a very important mission perhaps.  He then puts the sunglasses on and it shows a point of view (POV) shot of the glasses with a high tech screen on with a HUD and a ladies voice whilst he is being briefed. This is a good way to inform the reader of what may this film is about, as the audience hears his mission. It also shows that the mission will be through his person as are hearing it through his ears; this is a type of diegetic sound.

Feedback - Miss Spencer

Prelim Task Feedback
Your film shows great promise Kieran. You have included most of the elements I asked you to. However there is no evaluation of your work. You must do this in order to gain the marks associated with this task.
Please come and talk to me if you need help with getting this done.
Thanks
Miss Spencer

(1) Preliminary Task evaluation

 
Before we filmed for our task, we had to create a storyboard with different cuts and had some certain criteria that we had to use; Dialog, shots, location and green screen. Unfortunately there are several errors both filming and editing and this makes it look awful. As you can even see in the preview above you can see a reflection error where a boy who was with us was just standing on the stairs in the cameras reflection light and we didn't think to re film it or edit it out. The acting and the camera shots were fairly good but the overall piece is very unfinished. We didn't finish editing it on time for the deadline and we didn't add music or a green screen. I had a few problems as I didn't want to use a normal explosion and I had a problem importing the green screen I wanted to and once it was working it would fit the composition setting in After Effects. Jamie and Joe were good acting and we all worked well together. Next time when I film my original film opening I will ensure that it is edited to the best standard and I stick to my schedule so I can remain organised and that everything works well. Overall I am not to satisfied with the outcome but I have learnt what went well and what did and can use that in my final film.