Screen Grabs from sequence

Pete's struggle final cut

Marking criteria for production

During filming, we have done steady shots where appropriate, using the tripod. We did steady shots during the computer scene and Pete slamming into the wall and falling down. It was a mix of a medium shot showing Amanda's body language and expressions. Then we did stop motion, when Pete was on the computer then moving towards the wall and down to the desk.

Framing a shot including or excluding elements where appropriate; we cropped out in some photos my hands during the shots of Pete being smacked into the wall, otherwise we didn't need to crop anything.

We used a variety of shots, these are; an extreme close up of the stranger's hand knocking on the door, creating mystery. A long shot of Amanda and Matt finding Pete outside their door, seeing the body language more than facial expressions. A close up of Pete sitting on the chair, to see his facial expressions. A medium shot of Amanda with Pete in the computer scene, to see facial expressions and body language.

Transitions that we have used so far are, a cut after the title 'Pete's Struggle' with stop motion. Another cut with the scene were the stranger knocking on the door to doing a close up of baby Pete in the blanket on the floor outside. We have a fade to black after Amanda and Matt have found Pete.
We haven't used sound yet. Matt is working on the soundtracks. We all agreed that we liked the soundtracks he has found for when Pete is sad, happy and even for when he is found at the beginning. We will put these in hopefully on Monday.

We have included the titles. One with stop motion, 'Pete's Struggles'. The title '5 years
later',  we were thinking of doing it with stop motion. We decided we didn't have
enough time to use stop motion, so instead we are just using text.

How I contributed

I contributed by playing Amanda, the wife of Matt and mother of Sarah. I had to just walk around so it looked like I was ignoring Pete, whilst he is sitting on the chair.
When it came to the computer scene, I had to say some dialouge and helped with the stop motion.
I had to hold Pete whilst he was attached to some fishing wire, and try to get him to stay as still as possible and move him after the shots of him were taken. I took the photos of Pete was walking up to Sarah.

My contribution

•        helped decide on sequence content as part of a group discussion
•        helped create the plasticine model
•        Played a big part in filming, i did most of the camera work.
•        Also played a big part in the editing

Megamind- title sequence analysis

The opening sequence of megamind starts at the end of the film with a situation which means certain death for the main character. The main character acts as the narrator talking trough whats happening. He decides to explain the story from the begging, starting from when he was a baby narrating the outline of his childhood explaining how he ended up who he is. This is a style i particularly like as it gives you an opportunity to fully understand the main character and his way of thinking and many of the other characters.

After talking through his childhood we are given a quick sum up of the rest of his life through a series of newspaper article clippings hung up around a room. As the camera moves away the paper clippings lined up to crate the main title ‘megamind’. I thought this was particularly clever as it shows how the actions of the character have an effect on everyone by using the newspaper clippings.

The title uses a bold clear font that’s easy for the younger members of the audience to read.  It is also blue which resembles the colour of the characters skin.

For our sequence we want to use a title that ties in with the main theme. Since we are using a plasticene model for our main character we decided to create the title from plasticene and use stop motion animation to animate it. 

Target Audience

Target Audience

The target audience for Pete’s Struggle is 4 years old and above, it is aimed at younger children but some of the themes may be understood by older children / adults. Children may like it because of the use of slapstick violence. Our target market is families with young children; this is because the children can relate to Pete when being ignored, when they are being ignored by their parents. The adults can relate to Pete as an annoying child that doesn’t go away, this makes them either feel sympathy for Pete or makes them feel better about themselves because they are not the only parents that neglect their children. We are aiming this at both genders, even though Pete is a male character.

As for my individual work, I:

·        Provided props – a blanket to wrap Pete up in when he is a baby.

·        Acted – in the scene where the Mother and Father find Pete at the door.

·        Came up with part of the original idea – an intertextual reference with Back to the Future right at the start where there is a panning shot from left to right of the clocks. We are using a panning shot of family photos.

·        Thought of some shots and camera techniques to use in the film  

·        Posted relevant articles to the blog.

 

Progress Report

So far the production and planning process has been great. Surprisingly, it was easy planning as everyone contributed many ideas and within a short amount of time, we had our sequence all ready for filming. Some of the problems we encountered was when filming the scene where Pete is thrown into a wall, he kept on spinning on the string that held him suspended in the air, this caused some frustration but fortunately we managed to overcome this and continue our filming. One other problem was the amount of unwanted noise in the background in the first few scenes of the sequence. When filming Pete when he is first discovered by the parents, there was music playing in the background from one other group, this generally ruined the whole scene as it did not fit. We had some technical difficulties like loosing the family pictures and the cameras screen malfunctioning but other than that, the filming went fine. After the half term, we will continue editing and hopefully put in the soundtrack that would round off the sequence, giving it a more polished feel. Our main priorities when we return from half term is to complete our editing, finish the sequence with the soundtrack  and retake the family pictures that was lost and maybe if we have time, we may film our "5 years later" title made of plasticine similar to our opening title.



For my contribution:

• Directed most of the scenes
• Wrote the dialogue
• Helped make the title, "5 Years Later"
• Took part in storyboarding
• Took the family photos and edited them
• Acted in one of the scenes

BBFC

The British board of film classification (BBFC) is an organisation in charge of rating films and deciding on the film certificate e.g. U, PG, 12. In one of our lessons we watched some short sequences from several children's films and were asked to rate them ourselves. we looked at the specifications on the BBFC website (http://www.bbfc.co.uk/classification/) and used them to help us. The first sequence we watched was from harry potter and the chamber of secrets. although it didn't contain any bad language or visible violence we rated this film as a PG. We did this due to the horror theme as we thought it might frighten younger viewers. sequence 2 was from Up. we decided to rate this film U as it didn't have anything that might be considered unsuitable for young children. the only thing that was noticeable was a small bit of slapstick violence but as this was not visible we thought it bad. Finally, sequence 3 was from watership down. this sequence shocked the whole class as there was a strong theme of violence, including blood when witnessing rabbits tear each other apart. we felt this film should have been at least a 12 but we were shocked to find it was a U.

The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is  a group of people that are responsible for certificating movies.
The are in charge of saying whether a film is a PG or a 18 and so on. One of our lessons we had to analyze several sequences from different film including Up, Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets and Watership Down. We then had to decide if they were PG or U, as they were all children films. There was only one U out of the several sequences which was Up. Up was certified a U because of the of slapstick that was fortunately censored if it was shown to a younger audience. The other sequences were certified as a PG. We know that Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets was a PG because it contained hardly any violence, cursing, discrimination or unappropriated images.  There was a sequence from "Watership Down" Everyone was shocked at how much blood and violence it had during the sequence, when it is after all a childrens film. The British Board of Film Classification rated Watership Down a  PG which is making everyone think it should really be rated "12" considering the content it contains, even though it wasn't made recently like the others were.

Making of Pete (Pre-Production)

Cat Took the Photos

 The Making of Pete

 Typing on blog

 Making Pete's face

 Structering his head

Pete mark 1.

Stuart Little inspiration

For homework, we were given the task of choosing a movie that gave us inspiration for our opening squence. It was fairly obvious which film I was going to pick as it had a very similar storyline to ours, Pete's Struggle. Pete's Struggle is about a small clay figure that was adopted as a baby by humans. So what better movie to pick for inspiration than Stuart Little? Although, Stuart Little was treated as part of the family, Pete is not however. Fortunately, he makes a friend near the end of the sequence where it all, hopefully, ends well. Stuart Little opens with the parents and their son on the day of the adoption. George (the son) says he wants to stay but unfortunately has to go to school. So the parents stay and adopt when they see Stuart. The atomosphere is very warm and welcoming and the music in the background has a very homely feel to it. In Pete's Struggle we decided to go for a more sympathetic opening to really draw the audience in. However, this can be quite tricky as we do not want to put off the viewers by making the opening too saddening.

BBFC

BBFC stands for British Board of Film Classification, a group of people that specializes in certificating movies, for example, PG, U, 12 etc. In one of our lesson, we were to analyze short sequences from different films and decided whether they were PG or U (they were all childrens film). Most of them were PG, containly hardly, if not no violence at all, cursing, discrimination or "disturbing" images. One of them was a U, which was fairly amusing as there was a hint of slapstick that was fortunately censored if it was shown to a younger audience. However, when we watched a squence from "Watership Down", I was taken by surprise from the amount of blood and violence it had in it despite being a childrens film. It was certificated a PG which is ridiculous with the amount of "12" content in it. It was made a fairly long time ago however, so certificating then mustn't have been as solid as it is now.

Back to the Future storyboarding

One of our class activities was to storyboard the movie, "Back to the Future" ourselves, remaking it on a sheet of paper with boxes on it symbolising the different types of shots that the movie had contained. Our group decided that the boxes were far too limiting when it came to directing the scenes and it gave us trouble as we couldn't find a way to fully explain how the scenes were portrayed. With this in mind, we completely went out of the boxes, with arrows, annotations and titles filling the sheet. Indicating camera movement was much more easier and more understandable as it was not shrunk down into the tiny boxes. As a member of our group pointed out, we would not be able to fit all the details in one shot into the same box, so we had to split it up into two, if not three seperate boxes showing different points of views of the scene. This was crucial and it taught us that no matter how much detail we would try and fit in, it just wouldn't be enough. What I learnt from the activity was that even though the whole page was covered in our writing, it was somewhat difficult to read. From this, I know that next time when we storyboard, we should have it a bit more simpler to understand but have enough detail.

Stuart Little 2

Stuart Little 2

There are many different types of techniques used in this opening sequence. Right at the start the titles are being shown on a background of establishing shots of New York City, this shows the audience that it will be set in New York. It shows a happy family, which hopefully children can relate to, with their parents being happy. It then shows George, who doesn’t want to get up, this relates to children in the audience, shows the audience can feel in the shoes of the character. The mouse, Stuart, is dressed in human pyjamas to make him look like a member of the family, so he gets treated the same as a normal child.

This gives us inspiration for our film, as our film is about a family with a child that isn’t human, but he isn’t as involved in family life as Stuart is.

The BBFC

The BBFC stands for the British Board of Film Classification; they are the only people in the UK that judge the certification of films, apart from local authorities. In our lesson we researched what classes a PG or a U film. (Photos of our sheets are on the blog). We need to know about PG and U films because of our children’s film project. Our film either has to be a U or a PG. We need to know the difference between each one and not to go above the limit. We also watch a couple of sequences e.g.  Chicken Run, Watership Down and we had to guess which certification each film got. It was fairly obvious, but Watership down surprised me that it was only a PG, due to the use of blood and fear.

Their website can be found here: http://www.bbfc.co.uk/

Storyboarding Back to the Future

In storyboarding ‘Back to the Future’s opening sequence I learnt that to provide a picture with animation, you need to draw outside of the box. This shows the camera’s movement and other detail. I learnt that the storyboards do not have to include every detail and the drawings don’t have to be artistic. I learnt that. I also learnt that you can use more than one picture to show movement of a camera shot, for example the 1^st shot that took 20 seconds you can use as many shots as needed to show all the details of it. In our group we used the boxes on the sheet but exploded them out with enormous detail showing fairly clearly where the camera’s movement will come from and go to.

Labrynith

Labryith

The opening credits appear, with a couple of owls flying around. The title Labyrnith appears after the owls seem to dive in the water. David Bowie starts singing setting the mood of the film, and giving clues to what the film is about.
The opening scene fades in, an extreme long shot so that Sarah looks small and you see her running in a big space, also it was at a high angle confirming the distance. There is a cut and suddenly there is a medium long shot of Sarah, so you can see her emotions and body language more cleary. She walks up towards the camera, making it go from a medium close up to a close up shot, now seeing her facial expressions more cleary. This was an eye level shot till now you see the stormy sky, only for a split second. Then after it comes back to an eye level close up of Sarah, seeing her facial expressions cleary again and identifying with her charatcer more. Finally we have an extreme close up of Sarah's hands, so we know what she is holding. Zooming out to a medium close up, to see her hold the book trying to remember her lines, seeing more expressions on her face more openly. There is a close up over the shoulder shot view, seeing Sarah looking at her dog on the bench. This creates a sense of mystery to what Sarah is feeling because you can not see what she is feeling, and you can not see much body language as it is a close up. Goes back to a close up of Sarah so we now know what she is feeling through her facial expressions. After we see a clock tower, showing that it is seven o'clock. The significance of seven o'clock is, she is an hour late to babysit her baby step-brother Toby. A medium long shot of Sarah and her dog running towards, and on the stony bridge. After the dog runs across, the camera tilts down and zooms in at the river flowing beneath the bridge.

Scooby Doo the Movie

Scooby Doo the Movie

-        Narrative,

-        Genre: Horror

-        Characters – 5 protagonists (1 antagonist, 1 celebrity and some extras.

-        Themes: mystery, comedy

-        Mood: eerie, established by the full moon, it being at night and other pathetic fallacy terms e.g. being in an abandoned warehouse and also the ghost.

M-E-S

Mise-en-Scene is used in this sequence to create the scene and set of an eerie night in an abandoned toy factory. They make this scene by using the following parts:

Props

Props are a fundamental part of setting a scene and making it look right and in the correct time period. The props in this sequence are: a van, toys, boxes, chains, conveyer belt, skateboard and oil. These are just a few examples of props that were used in that sequence.

Lighting

Lighting was used here to create an eerie atmosphere; they used artificial moonlight to come through the window and some desk/ wall lamps

Cosmetics

Every character in this sequence had some sort of makeup on e.g. lip stick, glasses or any other essentials to make the camera pick up the details.

Costumes

Costumes are used to make the characters fit the scene, for example up to date police uniforms. Each character had their own unique uniform, which is very similar to the cartoon series.

Location

It was located in a factory somewhere in America.

Pyrotechnics

Pyrotechnics have been used here buy the antagonist, he lights a match and blows on it to cause a flamethrower.

Editing

This scene obeys all the rules of continuity editing. This sequence contains a lot of CGI as the main character is CGI. Also the antagonist is CGI in some places. The antagonist also flies around the room at times which is done by a harness and guide ropes. There is a point of match on action, where Scooby and Shaggy were riding a skateboard over a ramp and it cuts in mid air, to the shot of them in the same movement but landing. At the end there was use of shot reverse shot used in dialogue. This scene also obeys the 180 degree rule.

The police sirens and flashing lights are used to make the audience see that something has or is going to happen to make the characters in the film in danger, as red is often signified as the colour of danger.

Sound

Diegetic sound is sound you would hear if you were there. Non-Diegetic sound is sound that is added on during the editing e.g. narrating and score.

There was both diegetic and non-diegetic sound in this film sequence. For non diegetic, there was the soundtrack and sound effects, but whenever the antagonist was in shot, there was a personalized sound track, to make the mood change and to make audience think that the other characters are in danger. The diegetic sound was mainly the people talking.

Camera

There were examples of many types of shot in this sequence. The camera shots depict what the director wanted the audience to see in his film.

-        There were examples of:

-        An extreme close up: Scooby’s mouth when he’s screaming on the skateboard.

-        A close up: the ghost’s face with a lighted match in front of it.

-        A mid shot: Scooby pretending to be a ghost.

-        A long shot: when the ghost smashes through the glass.

-        A medium long shot: when Scooby jumps out of the barrel.

There were various different camera movements used in this sequence. For example:

-        Pan right: as the ghost flies through the aim.

-        Pan left: skateboard moving left.

-        Pan right: skateboard moving right.

-        Track left: van smashes through door.

-        Track right: Scooby and shaggy running in the barrel.

-        Pan down: from moon to factory.

Pete's Struggle

Narrative: Ordinary family life, with an interesting twist. Pete (clay figure) was adopted by the Smith's as a baby. He gets bullied at school, but is accepted at home as a family member. There are four members of the family. Pete has no friends till later on he makes a friend, and his life is turned around for the better.

Opening: Panning across pictures of Pete being a baby to growing up with his adopted family, having no friends to be with. Title of the film - Pete's Struggle in clay form. We see Pete on the doorstep. Another title - 5 years later. Pete is sitting down, whilst everyone is running around to give the effect of him feeling ignored. He climbs up onto the parents computer, trying to get attention.

Characters: Mother is called Amanda - always busy being a Social Worker. Father is called Matt - always tied up with work. Sister is called Sarah - always critical about her artwork, never has time to socialise because she is always trying to improve her artwork. Clay figure is called Pete - he is the adopted son of the Smith's, very quite at home and in school, and very clever.

Genre: Children animation

Themes: Friendship and adventure

Shot list:

1. Panning slowly of pictures (20 seconds)
props - pictures
camerawork - tracking
Actors (in photos Matt, Cat, Alyssa, clay model)
Plain background
sound - score, calm classical music (non-copyright)
editing - long shot, eye level, cut to shot title, fade to black

2. Title (depending on time)
stop motion made from clay. saying Pete's Struggle
props green screen, clay
editing - stop motion or text on screen,
duration - 5 - 10 seconds

3. Found on doorstep
camerawork - low angle shot, from clay's POV then tracking out to show Amanda and Matt's surprise
Location - door.
Actors - Cat, Matt
editing - fade to black
duration 10- 15

4. 5 Years Later (text)
editing - title on black screen, font - decided later, fading into shot 5
duration- 3 seconds


5. People running around Pete on chair looking sad
Camerawork - long shot, showing pete on chair and legs of family walking around chair, then tracks in to close up of Pete looking sad.
Editing - speed up x2
Duration (without editing 20 seconds) with editing 10 seconds)
cut to shot 6.

6. Shot of Pete on computer
Camera - Medium over shoulder shot of parent withe Pete on computer screen.
Editing - stop motion when Pete is pushed off
Duration - 10 seconds
Actor - Cat, Voice of Pete (George)

7. Shot of Pete talking (happy) Amanda in background
Camera  - from back of computer screen mid shot.
Actors - Cat, George
cut to shot 8

8. close up of Pete's sad expressions
camera - close up

9. Pete getting hit,
camera over shoulder shot of Pete.
Editing - pete getting hit with stop motion
cut to shot 10.
Duration - 5 seconds

10. Pete hits wall and slides down
Camera - Close up

11. Pete walks away
Camera - Long shot. (continues falling down)
Duration - 5 seconds

12. Bumps into sister Sarah
Camera - tracking right.
duration - 5-7 seconds
Cut

13. close up of sister writing

Up analysis

childrens film analysis

Ratatouille

Within seconds of starting the two of the main themes of the film become apparent. Firstly the music, the first thigh you hear is the French national anthem. Just seconds later a voiceover comes in talking about French food. Already the viewer has a good idea on what the film is based on. The first image you see is of a tele. As the camera zooms into it, there is a series of clips about a French restaurant and cook; this is also another main part of the film. The next shot starts up amongst some trees, looking down onto a small old cottage in surrounded by countryside and forests. It is miserable rainy weather and all you can hear is the rain falling on the leaves around the camera until, there is a gunshot from inside the house, at this point the camera starts to swoop down from the trees towards the house. As the camera gets closer you can hear more gunshots, screams and breaking glass. Still unable to see what’s going on there is a feel of mystery. The camera continues to move towards the window of the house, as it gets to the window it slows and stops just outside, still unable to see what’s going on the camera pauses for a second to build tension. Then suddenly a rat holding a book above its head comes bursting through the window. At this point the image freezes. It is stopped on a low angle, medium close-up of the rat, it is holding a cookery book above its head and is surrounded by broken glass. This already shows a recurring theme of food. Also the look of horror on the rats face gives the impression that something bad has happened.

Film Certification for a PG

Film Certification for a PG

Back to the Future Storyboard