Evaluating the preliminary task

Evaluating my preliminary task

After watching and evaluating my preliminary task, I can see that there are many improvements that can be made, including the end credits.

There can be amendments to be made to the end credits as the text scrolls up the screen and out of sight from the audience very quickly and in not enough time for the audience to read the credits in time. However, I think that the music that we added in for the end credits gave a sudden feel of excitement and leaves the audience actually wanting to know what has happened after there meeting and whether Selina persists in killing her husband and if she finally succeeds.

However, my group definately succeeded in keeping the 180 degree rule at all times, making sure the continuity was enabled for the audience. The importance of the 180 degree rule is massive and without using it, the film would not run smoothly, and would confuse the audience.

As our clip was only 0.24 seconds, I feel that we could have added more actions and clips, to make the task longer and more effective. However, we thought that with the plot of our preliminary task, it made sense to make the dialogue short and keep it snappy and effective in order to empahsise the action.

Research for the main task

Research for my main task

I have researched into different openings of movies of the same genre, romantic/thriller. This gave me a wider insight into how our main task should be filmed and what things we need to include to make it effective.

Although the youtube clip above is a movie trailer, it still gives a good insight onto what angels and shots to use as it is the same genre.

As PS I Love You is a romantic comedy, involving the death of a partner, the memory of him is still awake and alive in the widower's mind. This is similar to Maddy in our main task, who experiences loosing a partner, however, instead of experience new, happy memories about him, she experiences a new finding of a photograph, next to his grave. Ending in her feeling anger against him, unlike the protagonist in PS I Love You.

However, some of the shots are very useful in PS I Love You for establishing characters, in which we can take and improvise certain themes and ideas from the movie, relating them to love in ours. At the very beginning of our short opening, we see shots of Maddy and Stephen when he was alive, very much in love, enjoying their time together. PS I Love You also has the same thing, of when they are happy and in love. This is useful as it can help us choose what type of music to use, and which sort of shots would be acceptable for our opening.






The opening to What Lies Beneath, although a thriller, is still an effective opening for helping our media main task group study different interpretations and ideas from other films. What Lies Beneath has a lot of romantic scenes in the opening, which can be improvised when we shoot our short opening. The plot of What Lies Beneath starts with a couple, Claire Spencer and Norman Spencer, who seem very much in love. The couple experience their daughter moving away to University, and after that, Claire Spencer starts to experience hauntings in her home. Eventually, she finds out Norman was having an affair with a younger girl, who he killed and throwed into the lake outside the family home. Although the genre of our movie is not a thriller, the plot is fairly similar and there are shots in the opening, which give the sense to the audience of a close, in love couple who would never let anyhting harm their relationship. In our movie, Maddy experiences the death of her partner Stephen and whilst visiting his grave she finds a prominent photograph left by Stephen's grave, from a lover of his.


In the film What Lies Beneath, although a different genre, it is important in establishing character, setting and the narattive structure is very similar to our main task. In establishing character in our coursework, we have decided to use a flashback memory of Maddy and Stephen, and then go straight onto the grave yard scene, therefore allowing the viewers to understand who's grave Maddy is visiting, and why she is going there.

Writing the narrative

Writing the narrative in three parts

Establishing character

The main character is Maddy Lott, who lives in Oxford, England. She has lived in the quiet town all of her life, and she first met the love of her life Stephen, whilst she was studying for her A levels at The Cherwell School five years ago. Maddy and Stephen have been inseperable ever since, when unfortunately he found out that he had terminal cancer. Maddy was distraught when Stephen died and felt she had lost a part of her, however she would often visit his grave.

Thinking of mise en scene, the best way to stereotype Maddy would be a in love, young adult who is traumatised by the death of her partner. However, when things start to take a turn for the worse with the situation and Maddy finds out about someone else in Stephen's life, her image starts to change and she has a poor attitude to the world and life.

At first we will hear soft, gentle, or uplifting music that will set the scene well as the opening is very romantic as Maddy remembers her times with Stephen. However, when she looks at the photo of Stephen and another girl, the music suddenly changes as if Maddy's world and life has suddenly changed along with the music.

A turning point

The turning that Maddy faces in the novel is when she finds a photo of Stephen and a mysterious girl attached to flowers beside Stephen's grave. Maddy knows there's a whole new set of questions she needs answered after she sets eyes on the photograph and will not stop at anything to find out who this girl really is.

 

How does the protagonist overcome the antagonistic force?

Maddy ends up finding a series of letters from Stephen, hidden in different places in familiar settings that were special to Maddy and Stephen when they were together. These unravel all the answers and questions Maddy's ever thought off.

Brainstorm for main task

Brainstorm for main task

Who is the protagonist?

The protagonist is a girl named Maddy, who was deeply in love with her boyfriend Stephen, when unfortunately, he developed cancer and died.

What is their aim?

One day when Maddy visits Stephen's grave, she finds a photo of him and another girl. It is now obvouis to Maddy that Stephen was not the man she thought he was and she sets off to find the girl and kill her.

How do they have to achieve their aim?

Maddy has to achieve her aim by finding out who this mysterious girl is and where she comes from. As the whole thing has turned her slightly insane, she's determined and willfull to find whoever it is that stole her boyfriend.

What's the antagonistic force?

The antagonistic force is a variety of things. These include Stephen's family, as they wish to only love and move on from the tragic death of their beloved son, where as Maddy is determined to cause even more chaos and will not let things drop. So the antagonisitic force is actually Maddy being able to find out from anyone who this girl is and there are alot of obstacles in her way.

How do they end up overcoming the antagonistic force?

Stephen realised before he died that Maddy would eventually find out about his affair, so, choosing to leave it until after his death, he has placed letters at certain familiar places around England, explaining his wrong doing and saying sorry. However, he leaves it till the last letter to tell Maddy the name of the girl, as he wants to have Maddy back to sanity by the time she reads the last letter, and he hoped by then she will have realised his mistakes and his love for her. She will then not have to go in search of the girl, instead she can live with the love she new he had for her.

Useful youtube video showing how to upload youtube videos to your blog

The video shown above is very useful as it slowly explains how to upload a youtube video to a blog.

Useful site for uploading a powerpoint presentation to your blog

Site which I found useful for uploading a powerpoint presentation to a blog

http://www.scribd.com/doc/3876331/How-to-Embed-Your-PowerPoint-Into-Blogger

The link above shows a site I found very useful in knowing how to upload a powerpoint presentation on to a post in a blogger. For other tasks in the future, this website will be very useful when it comes to uploading a powerpoint image storyboard.

Synopsis of Preliminary Task

Synopsis of Preliminary Task

My group's preliminary task was based on an action/thriller genre movie. We thought that by making and filming a thriller or action movie, it would be most affective given the amount of time and the basic rules for the preliminary task.

Our movie is based on a evil, goldigger women (Selina) who has hired an unwilling citizen (Max) to kill her old husband. Knowing that her husband is on the verge of death, Selina takes full advantage as she is that one step closer to recieving her billionaire lover's fortune.

However, Selina's clever, and knowing that the police are already suspicious due to previous circumstances, she decides that killing her husband is not a job for her. Max who is resistant at first, cowardly and unwilling, eventually gives in due to the wad of cash offered to him if he completes this task, offers to kill Selina's husband.

Although, when Max arrives back at Selina's the next day, she asks him very forcefully ,'Did you do it?' There is no reply so she asks again, the next time screaming and again there is no reply. She gets up out of her seat and fires him in the head with her shotgun. Did Max really know what he was getting himself into? Never trust a pretty face.

    

The Preliminary task

Research for preliminary task

Research for preliminary task

For our preliminary task, we researched films in which the genre is action, however, the main villian is likely to be a women, for example, Demi Moore in Charlie's Angels Full Throttle. She shows an evil villianous character with her wicked laugh and the gun she holds. The way she is presented also shows her to be of high authority and superior to the other characters.





Another action movie that our group found as influencial is 'Kill Bill Volume 1'

Photographic storyboard for preliminary task

Photographic storyboard for preliminary task

My prelim task focused on two individuals in a room, with one coming through a door. I've based my task on an action movie, involving a woman and a hitman. The woman is determined that the hitman has killed her husband, however, the hitman finds out that as he as not completed the job, his life ends.


We created a photographic storyboard in order to plan our task, using different shots and using the 180 degree rule at all times.