Evaluation of film- Polaroid

Audience profiling

Age: 12-25 (12+)
Background: Middle class
Occupation: Student
Gender: Both
Likes: psychological Horror + Thriller Films.
Dislikes: None
Musical Prefrences: High tension music (mainly instrumental)
Heros/Rolemodels: None (Able to see stalker presented in bad light)
Media Habbits: Watching Horror/Thriller Films, TV Dramas.

Ident inspriation

This is an advertisment for sky horror. we like the idea of having a tv flickering on with the 'fuzzy' screen. we will do it this way having a television flickering on and the title of our production: 'helm pruductions' flickering on teh screen. This creates an eerie feelings and gives the impression that our films may be scary or mysterious.

Location For Film

This is the house we have decided to film at, it is old fashioned and traditional therefore it creates a good setting for our pyschopath stalker to live in as the house is far away and secluded.





This is where we intend the stalker to cut his photographs and keep his picture of teh school girl that hes stalking. this antique style desk/table keeps in with the old fashioned and dark theme of the setting to relfect the personality of the stalker.




This is the cellar where our stalker hides his many photos of the girl hes stalking and where his red room is for editing the photos and pinning them on the wall. The cellar is dark with no windows and is discreet and almost hidden in the house.











These are the two possible rooms for the school girl thats being stalked.i prefer to use the bed with the brighter bed cover as she would contrast wit the stalkers dark personaility with bright colours.

Final thumbnails

These are our thumbnails for our film





These are our other storyboards and thumbnails that we created whilst first establishing the plot of our film.

Polaroid draft

Mock up

The making of the soloist

The soloist

http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/michaelwalford/entry/working_title_history/

A few movies that were early Oscar contenders may be dropping out of the race.

Paramount Pictures, facing a crunch in its advertising budget, has decided to move "The Soloist" - a drama starring Jamie Foxx as a homeless musician and Robert Downey Jr. as the journalist who befriends him - to next March. Paramount has also pulled "The Soloist" from its opening-night spot at the AFI Film Festival, slated to start Oct. 30.

"The Soloist" may have represented Downey's best shot at an Oscar nomination, since it's unlikely that he would get a nod either for "Iron Man" or his supporting role in "Tropic Thunder."

Paramount is also moving "Defiance," a Holocaust drama starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber, to 2009 - though it will get a platform release in December to qualify for the Oscars.

Rumors are swirling, according to Entertainment Weekly's Dave Karger, that the Weinstein Company will move "The Road," the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer-winning and Oprah-endorsed novel about a man (Viggo Mortensen) and a boy in post-apocalyptic America, to a 2009 release. UPDATE: Weinstein has confirmed it is moving "The Road" to 2009.

And, according to Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere, Weinstein is also pushing "Hurricane Season" - an inspirational drama about a Louisiana basketball team (coached by Forest Whitaker) that played without a home court after Katrina - back to March '09.
This text is from: http://blogs.sltrib.com/movies/2008/10/oscar-watch-09-thinning-herd.htm

The soloist

Actors- Jamie Fox, Robert downey junior
Website Budget- £60 million
Licensing- 12A, categoryE-American film with small british input.
Director- Joe wright (Atonement)
Software- Shots in 35mm film (expensive)
Box Office- £31 million
Audience Appeal- Basedoon a true story and real people.
DSN?
Exhibition(where?) - 25th Sept 2009 in the USA, Origanal date was May 2009 because advert budget was cut, therefore it wasn't nominated.
Distribution- Universal, dreamworks- working title film. (conglomerate) This allows vertical intergration.

Annotation of editing

How does the editing in your choosen video construct the meaning of teh relationship between chracters?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOg_IHwXWsk

Editing used: There are many jump cuts from taio cruz being on a boat with lots of women to him being on a speed boat with one woman, this makes that one woman stand out as possible the one he'd like to be or is in a relationship with.
Cross cutting is used to in twine different scenes, one of taio being followed by a woman and another of him on the boat.


camera angles: over the shoulder,two shot,short fast pace shots to suit the pace of the beat, close up to show intimacy between singer and woman.

Annotation of Editing

This music video uses editing shots such as: juxaposition,montage editing,and cross cutting to tell the story of robbie riding across the desert in order to reach a woman who he drives away with at the end. The short shots and camera angles of zoom,close up,low angle and over the shoulder shot make all see only robbie.

Film questions

1. The action: identify the event your idea is based around; what actually happens (discovery of a body, an illicit meeting, a witness seeing a crime being committed, a criminal act taking place, a telephone call, a chase, a short journey etc)?
A teacher that becomes obsessed with a student. The teacher has been taking pictures of her. Then shrine of them all in his cellar at home.
2. The theme(s): what should it make the audience think about or feel, what ‘issues’ will it raise (revenge, sexuality, voyeurism, stalking, obsession, greed etc)?
The film makes you think how easily how somebody can come across as a normal person with a normal job but could be a psychopath. This explains the psychological drama.
3. The narrative: how is it structured - classic narrative pattern or break with convention, real time or different time zones, flashbacks/forwards, dreams etc. Will there be dialogue? What about diegetic/ non-diegetic sound?
There will be diegetic music to help the story line and create an atmosphere. The change of music/tone will show a change in story line. There will be no dialog in the opening of the film. This is so that it doesn’t look unprofessional. This is because we don’t know any really good actors.
4. The character(s): who are they, identify their roles, what are their characteristics, including gender, appearance etc?
Our stalker will be an attractive,tall,’hairy’ man who receives many admirerers making his psychological issues very unsuspecting. Our student who is being stalked by the teacher is a pretty, blonde haired blue eye girl who the teacher finds attractive.
5. The setting and choice of location: where is it set?
The setting of our film is in a dark cellar type room belonging to the stalker. The house that he lives in is set in the secluded country side. The teacher’s bedroom is constantly dark and filled with photographs of the girl he’s obsessed with. The dark and ‘bricked’ cellar provides a great setting for creating an atmosphere of drama/thriller.

6. The mise-en-scene: identify colours, lighting, dress codes, the overall visual look
The house our film is set is very dark, old fashioned with antique furniture and plain colour walls. There will be very little lighting in the teachers room only glimpses of natural light from the sun rising.

7. The camera work: the style you are aiming for
In the opening scene we plan to use fast, quick paced camera shots of the teacher getting ready for work. every few shots we’ll have a camera flash and the camera noise to show the constant use of the Polaroid camera by the teacher. Our camera angles will mostly consist of of mid shots that only show parts of the teachers face, hands, clothes, feet to restrict how much the character know about the characters appearance.

8. The editing: edited as a continuous sequence, use of cross cutting, use of montage, or combination?

WE are in a way creating a montage of the character getting ready fro work with quick clips of him dressing.

Our Actors

Lauren Findley will play the girl that is getting stalked. She is 16, blonde hair, blue eyes and pretty. We decided to get her to play as this part because she fits what we had in mind and also we wanted someone pretty so that we understand why the pscho is stalking her.

Danny Jenno will play the stalker, but we will never see his face in theb opening scene. He has brown hair and brown eyes and is 17. We wanted an adult to play this part because of hand feature looking more mature etc. But we couldn't find anyone suitable therefore that is why were using Danny because he looks old for his age and i think we can get away with him looking like an adult seem as though we won't see his face.

Student feedback

Positive comments:
.Good idea for the credits
.original idea
.well thought out- blending in credits with camera angles and picture.
.They like the idea of a psycho stalker
.seems well planned
.They like the idea of using a polariod
.Good research-films related to pyschological thrillers
.good creation of suspence not revealing the stalkers identity.

Potential problems;

.Could be like the film, one hour photo, try to make it different.
.could struggle to find an adult to play the teachers.
.Needs more of an enigma.
.relate music and camera shots to theme
.hiding of identity of the psycho
.realism
.tough storyline, may be hard to put across
.need to maintain interest, seem scary?

Advice:

.Get older people to starr in it
.show a scene of paranoia fro the girl.
.more planning for the storyline.
.Get hold of a polarioid
.useful and relevant sound affects.
.experiment with editing
.produce test shots and put them onto the blog.
dont fall into the usual filming conventions, be experimental with the shots and music.

Film pitch

Polaroid Paparazzi

View more presentations from guestb8750357.

Analysis of opening sequence to a american psycho

American psycho begins with introducing the main character patrick bateman and we see him waking up and going through his usual daily routine. he narrates while he does this.
Mise en scene: It begins in the characters flat, its very spacious with very little furniture. Theres alot of art and paitings on the walls. We have a shot of the character walking towards his bathroom and urinating. there is an over the shoulder shot of the character looking in a painting above the toilet as he does this looking at his own reflection. He has a constant expression of anger.
It then cuts to a mid shot of the charcter opening a very modern silver fridge and getting an ice pack out of it. we then see a side view of the whole kitchen which is also styled in a modern silver metal.I can connote from this very plain and modern style of kitchen teh chracters lack of emotions and his amoutn of self displine.
The chracter narrates what hes doing as he goes through the mornign routine. It cuts to An establishing shot of him doing exercises, this highlights his self displine and commitment to staying fit and healthy.A few mid shots follow to show hsi expressions and a close of him doing his exercises.
We then have a shot of the character in the shower. Again like the very first shot the character has his back to us at first so that we can see his figure and the lay out of the bathroom which follows the theme of the kitchen being very modern and neat. The camera zooms in on the character showing a mid shot of the back of his orofile. It then cuts to a mid shot of the charcter using a variety of shower lotions and oils. He describes what each lotion is for,we can connate from this shot and previous others such as the exericises that the character is a very diciplined and is almost obsesssed with his body image and staying young.There is a low angle shot of the character appling lotions. This type of obsessive and very precise behaviour is what we would like to show in our main character in the opening sequence of our film.
The music is suits the actions of the character with a very skilled and tuneful piano playing.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-yoMEZXnbQ

Psychology Thrillers

Features of a psychology thriller are: murder,violence,abnormality,mystery,drama,horror etc. Psychology thrillers contrast with horrors that tend to concentrate on plot rather than character. A psychological thriller will focus on a character generally more than the plot. some times the main character will have a conflict within themselves dealing with issues such as usual relating to mental instability.
Themes of psychological thrillers are:The characters sense of reality, their perception of the world around them, the human mind,the character struggling to find their true identity,and the character may fear or have an obsession with death.

Characters in pyscholigcal thrillers often struggle on understanding what is right and wrong with events blurring the difference between the characters morals.

Examples of other Texts

The talented Mr ripley: 1950s manhatten. Tom Ripley meets a wealthy father of a princeton graduate, tom pretends to know the son and is offered $1000 to go to italy to convince the son to return home.tom go to extreme lengths to gain the priviledges that dickie(the son) has.

American pyscho:patrick bateman is a handsome and intelligent man who earns a fortune by day and enjoys violence and fear during the night. The character is obsessed with murder and violence and is addicted to the idea of killing people.

se7en:Based up a serial killer who selects seven victims who are examples of one of the seven deadly sins. The character has a sort of god complex, punishing the victims for their sinful behaviour and attitudes. Two policemen team up to capture the serial killer, however they soon become entangled in the killers scheme.

Each of these examples involve murder and a character that isn't in a normal mental state, we would like to portray our character as not particularly murderous however obsessive and in an unstable state of mind that may make you question what he's capable of.

Analysis of opening sequence of donnie darko

mise en scene:
The name of the producer and director appear
first against a black background, followed by
a dull and dark opening scene which i can connate
is the morning time becuase of the sound of birds and the sun rising.There is very little sound other then a build up of slow music to suit the slow pace of the surroundings.


we can see a very natural setting with trees and fields.
Camera constantly in one anlge of paning across the scene, firstly creating an establishing shot of the surroundings and slowly moving toward one part of teh scene where the main character lays on the road.
music chimes in quite suddenly at the site of the main character, this could signify our surprise as the character appears to have fallen off of his bike and is simply attempting to get up. we see the main character from the back to begin with as the camera pans around to give an angle of his face and the scene sticking to the 360 degree rule. the camera then gives you another establishing shot of the surroundings of the countryside. I can connote from the scene that it signifies the characters feelings of seclusion and that he is very far away from society, literally and metaphorically.
The use of a dark setting,lack of music of use of slow pace creates the theme of a psychological thriller based around one person.
There is no dialogue to introduce the main character, Donnie, just music to set the eerie tone of the film. we would like to avoid dialogue in our opening sequence using the mise en scene and music to give the audience a clear idea of the persons character.