Farewell

Analysis of the poster - "Casino Royal" and "Indiana Jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull"

For this particular activity i had to make brief notes for my home learning on a poster called "Casino Royalty". In order for me to do this, I firstly constructed the poster and focused on lighting and the way the actor was standing. The main character's face is facing towards the left side where there is allot of light on his face, this indicates that something is happening on the left side to the audience as his facial expression are very serious. Moreover, anaylsing the poster in my perspective helped me to see the purpose of the way it is presented. For example, the way the character stands is very straight this signifies that he is very powerful. Having done that for my home learning, in school we had to present our notes in front of a camera in pairs. I found analysing "Casino Royal" rather difficult because i did not construct the poster properly and i missed out details such as the colour that was used.

Therefore, in order to improve my vocabulary and develop my understanding of posters I decided to analyse another poster and construct it according to the mise en scene. This would enable me to identify the significant and importance of each feature. The poster I analysed was called "Indiana Jones - kingdom of the crystal skull". The mise en scene is made up of a range of factors such as lighting, facial expressions, prompts, and colours. In my video i talk about a range of stuff part of the mise en scene for example i talk about the colours. The colors that are used are mainly red, orange, yellow, for the skull and brown for the cave. This hints out to the audience that genre of the movie is very adventurous as the primary colours gives a fire effect.

In conclusion, I found that having done this task helped me understand a lot about posters for example, the purpose of why posters use particular colours. I learnt that the main characters body position and prompts that are used can hint out the genre of the movie for example, in "Indiana Jones" the character has a rope in his hand and is standing up, this hints to the audience that the poster is adventurous and due to the character standing up, it implies he is the main character, and is very powerful as he is looking directly down at the camera to the audience. On the other hand, I believe that although i constructed the poster, i missed out on a lot of information for example, in my video "casino Royal" I talk about the background but i do not mention why they have used it in that specific way. Also, i did not compare the posters amongst one another, therefore, if i had another opportunity to do this task again i would take two posters of the same genre and construct it using the mise en scene and see what similaraties they have, differences and why. I believe this will enable me to gain a deeper understanding of the importance in a poster.

Embed

Having edited and sorting out the music composition of my horror movie one of the ways i uploaded it to my blog was with the use of embed. The picture below demonstrates how i did this.

Horror movie - Practise

For our home learning we had to write up an a story board of an accident. For this exercise in a group of three, using our story board of the accident, we had to take differant types of camera angles, for example, long shot, and short shot to represent the accident. This task was done in the school, I then interpreted the video's and put them together making sure each video flowed effectively and smoothly, using the program Final cut Express. However, in order for me to do this is was very significant that i edited and cut some videos. The reason for this was because it helped my video flow and prevented each video to overlap and jump. This made the robby's horrow flow even better.  Moreover, I decided to explore differant types of music on youtube. The reason for this was because it would give the audience a much more scarier vibe and help build suspence. I decided to use a few differant types of horror music to give it a better vibe and connect to the audience for example, the beginning of the movie starts of with a low sound but as "Robby" starts  sees the "monster" the music changes to a higher pitch which creates more suspence for the audeince, making them pychologically know that something is going to happen as the "monster" is approaching.

One thing that I believe worked effectively that I felt very clever about is how i explored and found that using blank spaces can set the mood of the atmosphere. I had some shots that did not flow together therefore, I decided to have a blank space. This worked towards my strength because it gave a scarier effect for example at one moment you can see the "monster" then it goes black, as the music builds up, you see her again. Instead of the camera jumping unsmoothly from one shot to another I found that keeping blank shots gave a better atmosphere.


In conclusion, even though the soundtrack blended in smoothly with the track i believe that there is allot that i need to work on for this video. For example, at the beginning of the video, the actor is talking to long to walk, this can prevent gaining the audience attention as it is too long. Furthermore, there is no text for example, the audience are unaware of who the actors are. I believe if i made the video black and white at some shot it would create a more scarier effect, also, i believe the character in the image should have worm a red top which indicates blood rather then blue.

Sound

For today's activity we specifically focused on sound and the importance of it. The teacher made me realise that sound is the main key of making the audience feel emotion.

The teacher played alot of differant sounds where we had to write what genre it belonged to and how it made us feel. for example, the first sound i heard was a sharp tone voice of a girl screamining. This gave me a frighting feeling, i believe the genre was horror, or thriller.

To gain a better understanding of sound we looked at a range of opening of movies of the first two minutes and wrote down the sound that i could here, how it made me feel
and the reason for that sound in the openinning also we had to include the new key terminology that we learnt and state if it uses any of the terminology, if so why. The terminologies is written below.

In conclusion, this activity helped me understand how sound has a huge impact on the audience and how it makes them feel emotion.

TERMINOLOGY:

Sundtrack:
All the sounds heard in a film including the score, song diologue sound effect
Diegesis:
The world of the story for example harry potter - magicians/broomstick
Diegetic sound:
Any sound that has a source in the world of the story, for example, diologue and footsteps
Non diegetic sound:
Sound that comes from a source outside the world of the story
Synchronous sound:
Sound that matches the image on screen
Asynchronous sound:
Sound that doesn't match the image on screen for example, voice over such as the narrator.
Score:
music related to accompany a film

Basic camera language

During this lesson we learned and explored the basic camera language. Then in groups of three we had to portray examples of some of the camera language terms we learnt using the video camera. The video below portrays examples of some media key terms we learnt. I also learnt how to use the camera to familiarize my self with the camera and learn new techniques for example, one of the key definitions i learned in class was "tracking". Tracking is when the camera is following the character, therefore, i took a video of one of my class mate walking and followed him behind to portray tracking. In order to get the right tracking footage i had to do it several times. On my first attempt i found it difficult to do so because i would video my classmate walking to close towards the edge of the camera. This gave it a negative visual as if he was hitting the frame. Moreover, once i was glad with my footage i then used a software called "Final cut Express." For this program i explored different skills for example, how to shorten my clips and add text.

In conclusion, I found this task quite exciting as it enabled me to learn new key terms and use a new software however, i also found it difficult as i had no knowledge how to use the software. If i had to re-do this task again i would focus more, also i would make the clips for example, by not making my hand shake a lot.

Home learning

For my first home learning we were asked by the teacher to take a picture and analyse it. The image below is a picture that i have chosen.

The image above clearly represents a nuclear family. The image has been taken from a high angle, this represents that the people within the image are being looked down at, indicating they are not powerful. The woman on the left is wearing a lilac sari and the child in the middle is wearing a white checked shirt. These two colours contrast against the black background, therefore, we are more focused on them two people as our eyes are suddenly drawn towards them. The reason for this may be to illustrate that the women and child are more superior in comparison to the male standing on the right hand side. Furthermore, the women facial expression gives us a negative vibe that she is worried as there is no smile portrayed on her face. This implies, due to her looking straight into the camera and giving direct eye contact she is "crying for help". Furthermore, her hands are folded, this emphasis that she is feeling lonely and is keeping to herself. A reason for this may be because she  had a fight with her husband as both, the women and males facial expression portray no sign of happiness.  The fact the light is centred on her face shows us how important she really is as our attention immediately goes towards her. Also, as mentioned before, the women is wearing a sari, this tells us that she is cultural.

The child in the middle is wearing shorts. The facts that he is wearing shorts tells us that the weather is hot. Moreover, his first and second fingers are up whereas the rest are down. This tells us that the child is trying to be "cool" because he has been influenced by gangsters. His facial expressions show us that he is very happy due to the smile. Also, considering that he is sitting closer towards his dad rather then his mum implies he has a much stronger relationship with his dad. 

The guy in the right hand side is wearing black trousers and a black top. This represents that he is not powerful as the black background blends in with what he is wearing. Furthermore, he is standing up straight, this tells us that he is trying to gain power but is unable to.

In conclusion i strongly believe the image is challenging stereo types. For example the fact that the lighting is mostly focused on the women rather then the man indicates she is more powerful. Stereotypically males are seen to be more powerful and important than females. Moreover, i think this image is representing a nuclear family and giving the message that life is not always fun. A clue that demonstrates this is the facial expression of the character.