Idea For My Coursework

I have already thought of an idea for my media coursework however I would like for my coursework to be different from other coursework created by other candidates. In this segment of the coursework we must create the first two minutes of a new feature film.

I seem to always enjoy horror films therefore I would love to create one myself: A static shot of an old country road with one lamp post , cutting from one end of the road to the other end of the road, the audience hear the sound of a car slowly getting louder, the old white car pulls up to the pavement near to the lamp post,cut to a large shot (LS), there is a man sitting in the drivers seat, cut to close -up (CU), the man reaches to the glove box, CU glove box, cut to medium shot (MS) of the man in the car with a pair of binoculars in the man's hands, CU of the mans lap, man puts them on his lap, CU glove box, MS man in car with bottle in hand , CU man drinking brandy, the man then reaches over to the glove box one more time, a loud bang is heard by the audience. The camera cuts to an extra large shot (ELS) of the car and the lamppost, no one can be seen, end scene.

I hope that the scene I have devised will be used because I like the influence horror films have on the minds of the intended audiences. I hope to be able to film the footage when I go back to school so that I can edit it it ASAP

Camera Angels

In media texts such as film, many different camera angels are used to create different effects, for example, if i were to be creating an intense argument i would cut from person to person in a close-up.

Key :

XLS- Extra Large Shot
MCU- Medium Close Up
LS- Large Shot
CU- Close up
MLS- Medium Large Shot
BCU- Basic Close up
MS- Medium Shot
XCU- Extra Close Up

These different shots, angles and movements are extremely important because they are the basic movements that should be used in every media text with moving images, we also use these shot sizes in our own pieces as well.

This is an animatic that I have created

On monday the 12/10/09 I was given my preliminary task as I was not in the lesson last Thursday because I was at an art exhibition for Textiles. It was about continuity and rules of film making: it is only supposed to be 20-30 seconds long, I like the idea of this task because I was able to put the skills I had learnt in theory to practice. It was nice to actually film something in regards to what we have learnt.

I was in a group with my friends Katie and Mungo, they were in the clip and I was behind the camera. I liked this because I was able to see what it was like, usually I am in front of the camera. After we had filmed all the footage required we went back to the classroom and up loaded the videos we had shot onto the computer using 'Final Cut Pro.' then Craig, my teacher, showed us how to select a section of film we wanted and put it into the final 'cut' of our video. I found this difficult because I had continuaty done it before and I had to learn to do so much all at one time however I am sure I will grasp the concept soon. We haven't quite finished yet but when we have finished I will upload the video onto this blog. I haven't yet learnt how to put a video from my computer onto the blog. I have only learnt how to import an 'Embed', to this is a skill I will have to master as well.

On Friday 02/10/2009 we got the idea of how to use a film camera. We got into groups of two or three and filmed some shots, we had to use many different zooms, our camera also had a manual focus mode so we used that aswel. After we filmed out shots we then uploaded them onto the computer using a program called 'Final Cut Pro.' It was fun and I really enjoyed working with others.

On Monday 05/10/2009 we got our brief for the preliminary exercise for the coursework, we are doing video production so we learnt about Continuity and how films are shot so that the video does not look disjointed and broken up. Relating to this we learnt about match-on-action, this is whereby you simply match the shot with the action, For example if you were to film somebody walking into a room, you wouldn't film them walking into the room and then cut to a shot of the person sitting down because the shot does not match the action.

These are examples of poor editing:





Secondly we learnt about different rules when creating a film, we learnt about the 180 degree rule, this is an imaginary line on a set that you do not film on the other side of otherwise the audience would be confused as to where the characters are standing, For example when filming a football match you are only supposed to film on one length of the pitch, if not the audience could become confused as to where each team is supposed to be shooting. In order to understand this fully we created a storyboard and showed the shots that we would like to be taken.

This my story board:


Thirdly we learnt about a shot, reverse shot this is the shots that would be filmed if you were showing a conversion, it is two shots edited together to give a conversational feeling.

Moreover we also learnt about the 30 degree rule this is when you cut to another shot, if the camera has been moved less than 30 degrees it will just look like jumpy editing, so you must always move the camera more than 30 degrees in order to make it clear that it was not a jump cut.

On Friday 02/10/2009 we got the idea of how to use a film camera. We got into groups of two or three and filmed some shots, we had to use many different zooms, our camera also had a manual focus mode so we used that aswel. After we filmed out shots we then uploaded them onto the computer using a program called 'Final Cut Pro.' It was fun and i really enjoyed working with others.