Jess Emmingham-AS

Being the examiner by Jess Emmingham

Below is the next step in pre-production of our thriller opening after our pitch we've produced a screenplay for 'Raven Call's'. Hopefully once the end product has been made it will resemble this screenplay, enjoy. INT. THERAPIST OFFICE - DAYTIME The therapist office consists of little by way of furniture apart from a desk with a chair on either side. The lighting in the room is pretty dark (could be filmed in black and white). Two characters appear in the scene. The therapist (Amy Hall) and her patient (Beth Newton) THE CAMERA SHOWS A VIEW OF THE DESK, SHOWS AMY'S HANDS ON HER LAPTOP. SHE CLOSES THE LID. MEDIUM CLOSE UP: AMY LEANS FORWARD ON HER HANDS TO LOOK AT A PATIENT OPPOSITE HER. THERE IS A SHOT REVERSE SHOT BETWEEN THEM AS THEY START THEIR DIALOGUE Amy: (calmly) why don't we start at the beginning? Beth: (avoids eye contact and brings the sleeves of her jumper over hands to show nerves) It was only supposed t...

As we start pre-production of our open thriller the first thing we need to do to begin is to produce a one page pitch. A one page pitch is when we put the beginning ideas of our thriller one to one page and we then have a meeting to explain our pitch and how we are planning our thriller to turn out. After the one page pitch, there is a video, this video is the meeting between me, Amy, Beth (our group) with Mr Welch discussing our pitch and seeing if our film could be or would be a success. One Page Pitch Working Title -  Raven Calls Film Genre -     psychological/horror/thriller  Length -   120 minutes  Target Audience – 15+, the film contains issues of psychological issues and death which viewers under the age of 15 may find upsetting or disturbing. By giving the film this age range it broadens the range of people we can get to watch the film.  Tag line -    ‘It’s more than just a game’  ...

I have been looking at issues around the way in which disability is represented in TV Dramas. Representation of social groups in our thriller opening is something we need to take some informed decisions about. If we are going to, for example, depict somebody with a condition attached to mental health or a personality disorder then we will need to research this to avoid clichéd or offensive stereotyping. After watching a past exam clip of 'A touch of frost' we was asked to analyse the clip and explain how TV has represented disability in this show, I wrote my paragraph and afterwards someone in my class read through it to see if anything needed improving or added, the following is my paragraph and the green in the extra added by someone else... In the interrogation scene, the use of a shot, reverse shot is used to show each character while they’re having a conversation; within these shots at the beginning Billy (the young boy with Down syndrome) is shown using a mid-sho...

A screenplay includes camera angles, dialogue, information on characters, directions, etc. typically one page of a screenplay will be the same as a minute of screen time. When pre-production begins the screenplay is the first thing that is created once the writers, producers extra have come up with a pitch (this will be explained in another blog as its vital to our thriller opening), they need a screenplay because before beginning production they must get the money to be able to make their production. However, to get the money they need to get the "green light" which means they have been approved to continue making their film. Tips of writing a screenplay: Include location, setting and time of day Introduce the key characters and include a short description of who they are/ what  they look like Include key dialogue between main characters, and details of their actions and  expressions/emotions Include details of where the camera should be in each scene  A s...

Within the media world of genres there aren't just thrillers, there are types of thrillers, as a thriller you might have a stereotype idea of a thriller when it comes to mind, it could be dark and gloomy or a slasher with lots of blood and guts. However, behind these different stereotypes are the different types of thrillers, the different thriller type can change the feel of the film such as the pace, the suspense, the plot in general, etc.  Different types of thrillers: Spy thrillers - e.g. James Bond series Political thrillers - e.g. Argo Military thrillers - e.g. Saving Private Ryan Conspiracy thrillers - e.g. The insider Medical thrillers - e.g. Coma Forensic thrillers - e.g. The Bone Collector Psychological thrillers - e.g. Gone Girl Supernatural thriller - e.g. The others Some thrillers can also be more than just thrillers as in media there are movies or tv-shows that are hybrid genres which is when a movie is a mixed of genres which is why they're ca...

In preparation for our thriller opening, my group and I have done some practicing in lighting as we've just learnt a couple of different lighting techniques used in all types of productions: these are... 3-point fill lighting- this technique provides natural lighting across an entire object, e.g. a person, this is the exact opposite of chiaroscuro lighting. Picture example Chiaroscuro lighting- This is a technique using harsh and little lighting, it makes the frame fade and can be done rather commonly done with black and white or dampened colour. This technique is typically used in horrors. High key lighting- This uses bright light, usually white, which reduces contrast and gives the scene/picture a white wash over it and gives no shadow in the frame. Backlighting- This technique is in its name, the source of light (which is generally natural light) to create a silhouette, this can be used romantically- in front of a sunset- or horror- to hide the identity ...

Below is a Prezi, which I've used to present my textual analysis of 'Se7en' which start Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman. For our exam we will need to do a textual analysis of a clip we are shown then and there so this is a practice one I have done and its also my first time using Prezi to present my work on blogger.  

For my research I'm going to analyse a thriller opening, for this task I have decided to analyse the film Deadpool, Deadpool is a action/ thriller/ comedy which titles have been very thoroughly thought out. The directed is Tim Miller, and the layout supervisor (who created this scene) is Franck Balson. I've seen this film before and I love it the way its made and how the film breaks the fourth wall is so unique as the majority of films don't do this, also the way in which they've used the main characters personality in the titles works really well to introduce him into the film: he's sarcastic, cocky and arrogant. Below is the opening clip...                 Through out the beginning of the opening sequence they've used an extreme close up and pans around the scene not showing you the whole imagine until the end in which it shows a car rolling. They've done this to show detail within the scene as its m...

Although I completed this as part of my study of the representation of gender for my AS exam, it is relevant to the my coursework as, in planning for this, I will need to consider how the representation of gender is constructed through the use of camera shots, mise-en-scene, editing and sound. This will hopefully enable me to represent characters in a variety of different ways in my film opening .

Below is our final cut of our preliminary task, this post is only to show the end cut, how we have come to this point during pre-production is explained in posts such as 'Location! Location! Location!' and 'The Storyboard', and how the producing and pro-production will be in the next couple posts coming. I hope you enjoy our production we are quite proud of it as it is our first time making something like this and using the software we have used. Enjoy...              

Place! Whether it be a warm humble abode or a dark eerie castle the location is what sets the mood of a scene, you wouldn't want to have murder scene happening in a field of flowers and roses (unless it had an awesome sick twist to it where the flowers may represent something) but normally you wouldn't expect something like that as it doesn't fit together. So this is why location is so important! I know its only a preliminary task and doesn't mean too much to many people but getting the right place to shoot meant a lot to our group as we wanted it to be realistic to the plot as much as we could be. This meant that everything had to be perfect so we needed a room that was small, out of the way and quite (not asking much from a school with nearly 2,000 pupils and staff),and it needed to be dark with dim lighting or barley any at all so that the scene would feel more mysterious as we kept one of our characters identities a secret. Luckily we found a room in a school th...

So in my blog before you'll know that our media task/ preliminary task is to create a short clip of someone having a conversation and using at least match of action, shot reverse shot, and 180 degree rule. In my group we have me who does the filming majority, Amy mainly directing and Katie and Lauren acting. Our production is about a school dealing taking place however it might not be as it seems...below you'll see the story board to our clip so you can understand what we are hoping it will turn out like and how we have imagined it.     This was our first step in pre-production of our scene and in my next blog I shall be showing some photos of where we are shooting our clip which is another step in pre-production finding the right place and also behind the scenes of production.

Our first proper filming task we do in media is our preliminary task in which we are to do a scene where a character is seen opening a door and then having a conversation crossing a couple lines of dialogue to one and other. In this task I am working in a group of four this includes: me, Amy, Lauren and Katie. Techniques we must use in our production: 180 rule: This is when two characters maintain the same left-right relationship so that when the audience is watching the scene and the camera cuts from one angle to another it gives a clear understanding of where the characters are to each other, without this rule the audience would get very confused because instead of looking at each other it would seem that they were looking at the same thing. Match on action: Where the editor cuts from one shot to another view that matches the first shot's action, this gives the scene a smooth glide from one shot to another. Shot/reverse shot: a film technique where one character ...

This blog is going to be all about post-production in the tv series Utopia. Using an article written by 'Wired' ( http://www.wired.co.uk/article/utopia-channel-4 ) I'm gonna explain how Utopia have used post-production to get a unique look for their tv show to give it a comic book feel about it by using colours. There are 3 steps in production: pre-production, production, and post-production. Post-production is the editing after scenes have been shot and everything just has to be put together and working smoothly to give final result. Utopia uses post-production to edit the colouring using the 'three-strip technicolour process' which is usually used when in the old films when they used cinematography and coloured in each fame by hand by constructing green's, blue's and red's. However the director of Utopia (Marc Munden) wanted to use the same process but enhance the opposite colours- yellows, cyan and magenta's to give the show its bo...

So during lesson we were told to get into groups of 3 and video a short but sweet knife fight scene (however we didn't get a knife...thankfully as I was the one getting stabbed). So my group consisted of myself, Amy Hall-the other actress- and Katie Robinson who was the mind behind the camera. After taking a number of takes for different shots and using different angles, in our brief we were told we must use a wide shot to show the enemies facing off, close up's to show the characters faces, cut a ways, a whip pan as we threw the knife and then had to preform a dramatic death. We then used  Clipper which is an app on iPhone to piece up all the takes together and to edit the video to finally end up with the final product. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed making (please ignore the dead girl blinking the scene got cut short).

During lesson we got to go out around school and work in groups of three to try out the new camera shots and angles we had been taught in the lesson previously. This included low shots, medium shots, establishing shots, extreme close ups, tilt shots, etc.  Establishing shot Above is our first shot which is an establishing shot, this is used in films and TV series to show the audience the surroundings and to set the scene.  Over the shoulder Then we have our over the shoulder shot, this can be used to build tension and suspicion, we've used this so it seems as if there's someone following another girl but it can also be used for conversations between characters or arguments in particular as it gets close to the characters and sees how close they are reacting to build tension. Also we have used this shot to show that the characters are walking towards the trees where its dark this is to foreshadow that something might go wrong....