Completed Ident

This is my completed ident:


My initial idea for the ident was to have to have cupcakes exploding to spell out 'Cupkate Productions', however when I tried to do this, it proved very difficult to do in the time period I had. Therefore, I changed my idea to something more simple, which was easy to create using LiveType.

Ident Idea

My ident will be called 'Cupkate Productions'. The main colour theme will be pink, and the font sans-serif.

The concept:

Possible cupcake designs.

There is a single cupcake, which explodes. The icing hits the screen and spells out the words 'Cupkate Productions'.

(Image from http://ericaliveloverandom.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/cupcake-sunday_22.html)

Slasher Film Conventions

Conventions and things you expect to see in a slasher film opening sequence:

• Opening credits with serif font
• Non-diegitic music, often guitar or string based
• Sometimes there is use of an audio bridge
• Dutch angle
• Intertextuality
• Anchorage/Expositon
• Polysemy
• Narrative Engima
• False scare
• Scream queen/king
• Chase
• Post-modernism
• Slice and Dice
• Stalk and Slash
• Fast paced editing
• Short takes
• Final girl?

Final Girl Concept

The final girl concept was devised by the feminist author, Carole Clover in her book Men, Women, Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. It is used in thriller and horror films, particularly slashers, that specifically refers to the last girl alive to confront the killer. The final girl is typically sexually unavailable or virginal  and sometimes has a unisex name. During her confrontation with the killer, Clover argues she becomes masculinised through 'phallic appropriation' by picking up a weapon and standing up to the killer. Because the horror/thriller/slasher genre film's are generally a male-oriented genre, have a young female character can be associated with sadistic voyeurism and feminism. According to Clover, it is necessary for the surviving character to be female in order for a film to be successful, because she needs to be able to experience abject terror, and this would not be able to happen with a male character.

Final girl and scream queen in Halloween

How Laurie Strode defines the final girl archetype in Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978):
The first signifier links a good academic level, and the fact she is carrying books signifies she is intelligent. Later on in the film, she forgets a chemistry text book and her friends laugh at her, which is a use of binary opposition, as her friends are the scream queens. The clothes she is wearing are also a signifier that she is the final girl. She is covered up, and the clothes are quite old fashioned, dull and un-sexy. Her hair is also brunette, which is a common feature of the final girl to have. As well as this, Laurie does not have a boyfriend and is a virgin, whereas as her scream queen friends all have sex, and end up being killed. When she is hanging out with her friends, they're smoking but she is not, which signifies responsibility.

How Sidney Prescott defines the final girl archetype in Scream (Wes Craven, 1996):
As with Laurie Strode, she has long brunette hair, and her dress sense is old fashioned and fairly childish. The first time we see Sidney her night gown is what we, in modern day, might typically associate with elderly people. She is also doing her homework, which signifies academia. Her bedroom is also quite childish. Because she is a teen, we would expect to see posters of shirtless boys/men, however there are framed pictures with floral decor which is unusual for a teenagers bedroom.

ASFF Film Festival

ASFF promotion image

On the 9th of November, the class went on a trip to the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York. We attended two masterclasses, the first was a talk from the head of productions Barry Ryan from Warp Films, and the second was a talk from Danny Cohen the successful Hollywood cinematographer. 

Warp Films - Barry Ryan:
Warp Films have had 18 feature films, 5 TV series and have won 6 awards for their work. They have also gained a world record for the most zombies in one place at a time. This year, Warp Films are celebrating their 10th anniversary, so Barry was explaining how this year has been very busy for them! He commented on the upcoming productions Warp Films are creating in the next year:

Warp Films logo

• Stone Rose Documentary
• Southcliffe (Channel 4)
• 71 (Thriller film)

He then went on to explain about the economics of film making.

• If a film earns £1m at the box office
• The exhibitors take 50%
• The distributors then take their earnings for promoting the film
• The distributor splits what's left in half
• The film company then has to pay back all equity finance
• The producers get  only 50% of the total profit remaining.

This taught us about why it is important to watch films at the cinema and to keep the cinema's 'alive'. People who download films illegally off the internet and watch on the TV for home cinema can seriously affect all film makers, however it especially affects low budget indie film companies such as Warp Films. 

Barry Ryan explained how Warp Films are always proud of their work, whether the films were successes or not. They learn what goes wrong in the bad films and can understand why popular films worked. He told us to not let any film go to waste and to improve your own techniques or to pick out the good techniques. This is a useful lesson for our own work.

Working Title - Danny Cohen:

Danny Cohen, cinematographer

Danny Cohen now works for Working Title, however he was part of the Warp Films team when they made This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2006). He explained how wide shots showing lonely landscapes can signify loneliness. In parts of the film, these shots set Shaun (main character) up for what he eventually falls in to. The equipment used in the film was stripped back beacuse of the low budget. No famous or known actors were used in the film, so using unprofessional actors was a great risk, howver the film did well for an Indie film company.
   Cohen explained how there can be complications using real life settings to shoot footage, for example one day there may be snow and the next day there might not be. This means that may film makers tend to prefer working on sets, as they can control things the way they want them to happen. Directors react to what happens and what they see when shooting but the location can have a major effecr on filming as it must fit in with the time period. At this point, he spoke about how recreating the 80's look for This Is England was a tricky task, as even the little things like street lights, have to be changed to fit in.
   After he moved on from Warp Films and into Working Title, he was a part of the TV series Dive. On this secion of the masterclass, he explained how the camera type can cause implication when filming, as a shot from the show needed a wide lense but they did not have one. They did overcome this problem however. We watched a clip of a young diver who is aspiring to perform in the Olympics. The scene was really well thought out, as we got a sense of the girls fear as we are shown how high she is diving from and how important it is for her to get the dive right. This emotion was portrayed through the clever shots. He mentioned how because the setting was so real, the actors performed really well.
   He was also involved in the making of The King's Speech (Tom Hooper, 2010). He spoke more about lighting at this point. He was telling us how the lighting must remain consistent through out the day, and because this obviously is impossbile, they re-created day light. The shot in the film where Colin Firth (King George VI) is giving his speech, the background is not blurred out. Usually in films, backgrounds are blurred out to focus on the main character of the shot, but he explained his choice to not blur the background was because it is important to not let the background disappear as it defines the star and the context. 

Microdrama: Finished Film + Reflection

This is our finished version of our microdrama. There are many things which need improving, such as the range of shots and angle types. We could have also gained coverage, getting more additional shots to be used in the editing process.

Microdrama: Editing

Although we initially had a group of 5 working on the microdrama, we split in to 2 groups - a 3 and a 2, to edit the footage. Millie and I were in a pair.

We edited the footage on Final Cut Pro, which is an easy programme to function and because we have used it before, we found it a good way to edit our footage.
  When we uploaded the footage we discovered some of the footage we shot had somehow been deleted, which caused implications, however we over came these problems. We did think about re-shooting the lost footage but we realised that the film still made sense without this footage, so as a group, we decided to leave the lost footage out entirely.

The film begins and finishes with a live news report, explaining the events. Millie and I decided to research live news reports on YouTube, so we could make the reports as realistic as possible. We added text and a banner which made the news report look more professional. We also edited the lighting to make it appear darker, seeing as we shot the footage in the day rather than the night. This effect worked well because it enhanced the terror within the film.

Microdrama: The Shoot

There were a couple of issues when filming our microdrama...

Because we were out side in a public area, there was a lot of background noise, and it was a windy day so in some sections of the footage the wind overrules the voices. We had to stop filming a few times as well to let people past, which in some cases meant we had to go and film again, which got a bit annoying.
One of the main problems of the shoot was that the HD camera ran out of battery, fairly close to the end of the filming, so we had to improvise by using Hannah's iPhone. Luckily the camera qualities were not much different, however we had filmed the footage on the HD camera in landscape and the footage on the iPhone in portrait. This created problems later on in the editing process.

Overall the shoot went well, and we managed to overcome the issues we had. We had planned well and therefore we had other options and solutions to the things that went slightly wrong. 

Microdrama: Planning

The theme of our microdrama will be horror, involving 4 characters - a news reporter, a murderer and 2 members of the public. Because there are 5 people in our group, we will assign the camera job to the 5th person without a role in the film.

The film will be set in a public area, most likely Ilkley park. The opening scene will be a live news report taking place. We will then follow the 2 members of the public, which will lead to something major happening. We plan to finish the film with another live news report, concluding the previous events.

We have made a story board including the different shot types and angles, which will benefit us when shooting the footage as we will have pre-made decisions, which will speed up the filming process.

It will be ideal for us to film in the evening when it is dark, but still light enough to see properly. This will create more of a sense of terror and mystery, and also because major horror films tend to be set at night, such as Halloween, Scream, House at the End of the Street etc. 

Key Narrative Theories

Todorov
Todorov is associated with the theory that every narrative can be broken down into 3 basic stages. Equilibrium, dis-equilibrium and new equilibrium. People usually refer to the 3 part model but he actually proposed 5 stages.
1. a state of equilibrium at the outset.
2. a disruption of the equilibrium by some action.
3. a recognition that there has been a disruption.
4. an attempt to repair the disruption.
5. a reinstatement of the equilibrium.

Barthes
Another basic but vital component of most narratives is the concept of narrative enigma. These are the puzzles created within the narrative . Trying to figure out these puzzles is part of the enjoyment of watching the text. This is often done by not showing someones face or key information purposefully being hidden from the audience.

Levi Strauss
When we consider the use of stereotypes it is often evident how a binary opposition is at play. For example how we describe a stereotypical poor or working class person in broadly the opposite of how we would describe a middle class or upper class person. Scenes within dramas often reflect this idea with clashing pairs. These binary opposites are what often cause conflict or tension.

Vladimir Propp
Propp argued that there are essentially 8 different character types, also known as an archetypes.
1. Villain - also known as the antagonist they are the 'bad guy' of the film and they never usually end up 'winning' or having the best outcome at the end of the film.
2. Donor - this person usually helps prepare the hero for what they have to overcome or gives them something to help them.
3. Helper - helps the hero in their quest.
4. The Princess/Prize - the hero that deserves her/it throughout the story but is unable to marry her at he beginning of the story due to whatever villain is doing to stop them.
5. The Princess and her Father- gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero. Propp noted that the father and the princess can be quite hard to distinguish between.
6. The Dispatcher - character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
7. Hero/Victim - also known as the protagonist, reacts to the donor, weds the princess. 
8. False Hero/Anti Hero/Usurper- takes credit for the hero's actions or tries to marry the princess.These roles could sometimes be distributed among various characters. Also once character could do things that mean they apply to more than one role.

Semiotics Rap

Signifier means a single detail with a symbolic meaning,
It is a denotion that makes us see emotion,
Juxtaposition is binary opposition,
These generate drama and conflict.
Lets take the commutation test,
To see how changing the signifier would affect the text,
Or how about we do some reading,
Either preferred, negotiated or oppositional to understand the meaning.
Take a red rose for example of polysemy,
This has not one meaning but many,
Anchors are the opposite of this though,
As these interpret a single meaning which stops the flow.

Semiotics: The Concept and Key Terms

Semiotics is the study of signs and how they can be interpreted, as well as a system for investigating the symbolic encoding of meaning within texts. They allow us to examine and explain how meaning has been encoded in a text, and show awareness of the choices made by the text's creators. 

Key Terms:

SIGNIFIER: detail from a text which has a symbolic meaning.

SIGNIFIED/SIGNIFIES: the symbolic meaning/interpretation which links to the reading of the text. 

DENOTE/DENOTATION: a description of what we see or hear within in a text.

CONNOTE/CONNOTATION: the symbolic meaning of these factual details.

E.G. when we can DENOTE a male having stubble and dark hair this often CONNOTES villainy.

BINARY OPPOSITION: they are a key device for generating conflict and drama and when they're placed together we can talk of binary opposites being juxtaposed meaning they're paired together to emphasise the contrast and difference.

E.G. male/female, rich/poor, rural/urban.

POLYSEMY: every media text is essentially polysemic as it has many possible meanings.

ANCHORAGE: this is when we fix an interpretation to a text, because signifiers have been embedded within the text which point the audience towards a preferred interpretation.

COMMUTATION TEST: considering how the meaning of a signifier would be influenced if it was to be changed, which tells us if a detail in a text is important or not.

READING;

- PREFERRED: how the creators hope you will respond to their media.

- NEGOTIATED: the audience mostly understand the preferred reading but don't fully follow it, meaning they reject/are                unaware of some of the signifiers in the text.

- OPPOSITIONAL: the audience constantly rejects the meaning and interpretation that is being encoded by the directors.

NARRATIVE ENIGMA: certain elements are purposely hidden from the audience, to build up a sense of mystery and drama.

INTERTEXTUALITY: creating an overall impression of a text which targets a certain audience, however the meaning is tied to another, earlier text.

E.G. to understand 'Scary Movie' you'd need to have seen 'Scream', which it spoofs.