Todorov.

Tzvetan Tororov is a man that had many theories of the way that narratives work in films. He looked at all the different stages of a film and made a theory about them. He said that regardless of the genre, a film can be broken into 5 different parts for analysis.

Equilibrium - The setting is established, key characters are introduced and the story line is set up.
Disruption - Oppositional characters appear and the story takes a particular direction.
Recognition of disruption - The lives of the characters and events are interwoven. Tension builds up throughout this section, which is often the longest.
Attempt to repair disruption - The highest point of tension after which there is a change in dynamic.
Reinstatement of Equilibrium - Matters are sorted out, problems are solved and questions are answered.

Example:

        Emily was sick of waiting around for a wimpy prince to come and ask her for her hand in marriage, so she decided to find one for herself. She soon came upon a dragon who was singeing the top of a freckle-faced boy's head.
        Being a resourceful princess, Emily set a trap for the dragon and then tricked him into following her.
        "You're just a silly girl, and even though it's hardly worth it, I'm going to toast you to a crisp and have you for pudding!" boomed the dragon. Just then the branched he was standing on gave way, and he fell down a very deep well, his fire put out once and for all.
        Emily returned to the boy. "What's your name?" She asked.
        "Prince Matthew," said the boy.
        "That'll do nicely," said Emily. "Where do you live?"
        "In Happy-Ever-After," he replied.
        "That'll do nicely too," said Emily. And with that, she and Matther tode off together to Happy-Ever-After.

Planning for production.

My group: Me and Damian Daviu-Hall.

Film name: The Watcher.

Me and Damian have decided that we want to do a trailer. We want to do this because we feel we can make it more effective than a short film. This is because we can just make the best bits and put it together in the form of a trailer. This would be good because we wouldn't have to add all of the boring bits in it.

Our Genre: Horror.

For our trailer we want to make it look like someone is following the main character. We will do this in a number of scenes. All of them will make it seem as though he knows something is happening but he is not sure what it is.

Scenes:
The door rings as he is with his girlfriend. He answers the door and no one is there. We then have a POV shot of the stalker watching him from the bushes.
The phone rings, but when he answers it all he can hear is heavy breathing.
We are going to do a shot in Sutton Park from the top of a hill. There is a hill that looks over a pathway, the main character will be walking down the path with his girlfriend. We will then have a point of view shot from the top of the hill looking down on him.
The final scene we will show is of the boy walking throught the field and he is looking round because he has the feeling he is being followed. He will then notice a dark figure in the distance. This is the stalker. The scene ends here as it a massive amount of fear and mystery to the scene.


Also at the end when the credits come up and everyone thinks it is the end of the film, we are going to show one last shot of the stalkers face in the dark and flash up a light so you can see him.

Editing:
We are going to use credits throughout that flash up a number of mysterious and scary slogans like, "Always watch your back."
We will also flash up the name of the film, we are not sure what text or image we are going to use.

Studying short films.

In the last few weeks we have been looking at short films and trailers. We have been asked to do our own studies towards this and begin to plan for our own short film/trailer. We have studied the codes and conventions, Todorov, analysed short films/trailers and Vladmir Propp.

Todorov has a theory about how films work. He said there was 3 parts to a film. He claims that all is normal, which he called the equilibrium. Then there is a disruption in the equilibrium and there should be a resolve to the problem, which leads to restore in equilibrium. This theory is flawed though. If you look at subverted films like, "Sin City", where the film actually starts at the end. We can see in films like this that the story is not always resolved and that there doesn't have to be a set order to the structure of a film.

In Miss Murphy's lessons we looked at different short films and analysed them. We analysed 3 films, "Dipper," "Gravity," and "Sold." It was good that we did this because it gave us a better impression of the way that short films are made and the ways they work up. Because they are a lot shorter than full length films, they have to get to the main part of the film a lot faster. This is important in short films because if you don't get there fast, the film will end up being a lot longer than it is meant to be.

Vladmir Propp is a theorist for short films. His theory was that there is 8 different types of character, they are:

1. The villain. (struggles against the hero)
2. The donor. (prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object)
3. The (magical) helper. (helps the hero in the quest)
4. The princess. (person the hero marries, often sought for during the narrative)
5. Her father.
6. The dispatcher. (character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off)
7. The hero or victim/seeker hero, reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
8. False hero that tries to marry the girl, but fails.

Codes and Conventions of trailers.

Codes and Conventions of film trailers.

In our media lesson we looked at the codes and conventions of trailers. We did this in preparation for our final piece. I identified the typical codes and conventions to be:

·         Diagetic sound.

·         Non-diagetic sound.

·         Key signifier.

·         Mise en scene.

·         Voice over.

·         Green Classification page.

·         Captions.

·         Date of release.

·         Credits.

·         Production Company’s name.

The trailers we looked at were: The Shining, The Omen, and Dinner for Shmucks.

When we looked at the trailer for The Shining, it was a good insight to how simple making a trailer can be. In the trailer, they simply used on shot of a hallway with some lift doors at the end. There are then some credits that run up the screen indicating the main people in the film and the title. The lift door then begins to open in slow motion and blood begins to pour down the hallway towards the camera that is in a low position. Blood splashes up the camera and covers that lens, making the room look red. We then see that the current of the blood has taken some of the chairs and tables in the room, with it. The blood is used as the key signifier. This is so simple but yet so effective. There is only one camera shot in this trailer and no cuts.

We also looks at a spoof of the shining that made the trailer look like it was a comedy. This was very good because all they did was change the backing music and pick out certain parts of the trailer that weren’t all gory and horrible. This is hard to do because they haven’t actually manipulated any of the scenes.

The advert for The Omen was another interesting one that we looked at because it was all done in one shot, but unlike the advert for The Shining, the camera actually moves. It starts on a picture of a dog, in a low angle shot. This shot made the dog look really big and menacing, which was effective because it automatically adds the sense of fear. Then it begins to track around this children’s play area, which some how they have made to look sinister and scary. They have done this by used low light and the sound. The sound was a swing creaking, which indicates that the camera is making its way towards the swing and it also adds a sense of enigma. It then moves across and we can actually see the back of the swing with a young boy on it. It slowly tracks across to the front of him. It uses close ups of the boys face, which is useful because it makes you wonder what he is doing. It then has a shot from the side of him, and he turns his head and stares at the camera. This is very effective because it is quite scary and mysterious. The boy is wearing an extremely enhanced red cloak; this is also a key signifier. It is commonly known as a colour for danger and fear. This works well because it adds a sense of unease and discomfort.