RESEARCH: THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO WRITE UP

There are many images that are dark and disturbing in the opening scene of the film: 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. This creates an immediate mood to the film, that suggests horror and violence - perhaps giving the audience an insight into whats to expect throughout the rest of the film.

During the opening scene we see a bottomless see of dark water which promotes the fear of drowning. There are lots of images of the human form and in the first instance we see a prone body. The body has a metal collar with spikes on it which is almost like a restraining collar that perhaps a dog would wear. Another body is seen with oil or water being poured on the body - juxtaposed with this there is a computer keyboard which signals the genre and the plot.

This comes across clearly as a nightmare sequence and the continuous use of dark colours allow the opening to remain frightening. In one sequence a black liquid that looks very much like oil, gushes out of the mouth of a female figure as if she was vomiting and it is frightening and revolting to watch.

Many of the images are of knotted and twisted forms - tangled together in a confusing web which is a metaphor as to how the movie is going to develop - this is a visual code for movie content. This is accompanied by aggressive music to help add to the mood of the opening. The song being played in the background is called 'Immigrant Song' by Led Zeppelin. Click here to listen to the track played in the background to this opening scene.

New images are shown that are frightening and involves setting someone alight - we see a match dropped on oil producing large yellow and orange flames, two new colours never seen before in the opening scene. There is a clear image of a human skeleton, covered in fire until the charred remains are left which is quite horrific and gruesome to see.

We see a creature escaping from the flames and this is a depiction of a man and a woman showing a very violent relationship, possibly sexualised because neither are wearing any clothes. We start to see flowers un-budding and unfolding suggesting love and intimacy. The flowers morph into two pairs of hands, all of which suggest there is going to be a love story, with most likely, the inclusion of violence.

A woman is shown to be gagged, furthering the interpretation that the relationship/love story involved in the film, is going to be extremely aggressive. Images of blowflies are also shown - suggesting death and disgust. Sharp objects are also seen such as knives and this furthers the mood of the opening scene, which is violent and dark. A figure is further shown to be blind folded.

The continued figures are shown to be struggling and there are very rapid cuts suggesting restless quality of sleep which you would most likely experience during a nightmare.

The visual images (graphics) dominate throughout the film opening. The climax sees a head explode and mouths of each figure in the scene are open in anguish. 

PLANNING: POSSIBLE SOUNDTRACKS FROM YOOKAMUSIC

Track list - all sourced from YookaMusic.com

Below is a list of three tracks that I listened to via the website YookaMusic where you can discover new genres of music, that are unknown, but appropriate for what your looking for due to the simplicity of being able to search tracks purely by their genre, with hundreds of pages of results. You can listen to a preview of the song, but to download the preview you must sign up to the website. If you want to download the full track, you must pay a small price and this is dependent on the composer of the track as the majority of the tracks are all user submitted. 

- Alone in the Park (2:17)

- One Note Hell (1:30) 

- Crawling in Fog (1:10)

PLANNING: SOUNDTRACKS

I researched music for the soundtrack of our film opening. It was difficult trying to find an appropriate soundtrack because we hadn't filmed anything yet, and therefore, I couldn't grasp an idea as to what soundtrack would suit the film opening. Also, it was advised that we shouldn't use anything too well known and therefore, me and Bryn set out to find an appropriate 'low key' soundtrack for our film opening: click here to see the website found showing soundtracks that are primarily for suspense and thriller scenery

PLANNING: CAMERA WORK

Summary: Bryn is pushed over, whilst skating along a road on his skateboard. He is pushed over because he is bullied and also is listening to indie music.

We plan our camerawork - camera angles, camera movement and shot types -in advance of filming. It is an integral part of our storyboard.
We watch again the rich texture of camerawork in Les Bleus de Ramville on The Art of the Title 
We also watch other student film openings that successfully create the key thriller codes of enigma, suspense and jeopardy such as The Mask.

Low angle shot - focusing on the wheels of the skateboard - to express freedom.
Close up shot of Bryn wearing headphones to express the type of music Bryn is listening too and also shows the contrast of music and the atmosphere, when he witnesses a murder.
Over the shoulder shot - so that we can see the bully and then Bryn skating along.
Worm shot - Bryn looking up at bully to show his helplessness.
High angle shot - Bully looking down on Bryn to show his authority. 

RESEARCH: FILM DISTRIBUTORS ASSOCIATION

Today I looked into how our film could be distributed. We looked at the FDA website http://launchingfilms.info/furtherdiscussions/ which explained how to distribute your film successfully and how to do it on a number of platforms. 

David Willing (CEO, Miracle Media Group) said that people are 'bombarded' with different advertisements all over the place, wherever you may be, and therefore it becomes challenging to target an audience, just for 2 or 3 seconds to let them know that a specific motion picture is coming, due to the massive variety of things around these days. 

The trailer, according to David Willing, is still the most important part of advertising a film. The in cinema trailer is what the public will see first, and will judge the film from this, and therefore it is extremely important that the trailer shows the unique and interesting clips from the film, in order for a 'hype' or 'buzz' to be created, and to build an audience ready for the films actual release whenever that may be. There are 3 different types of trailer: the teaser, the TV Spot trailer and the official. 

Public relations and print elements are also emphasised by David Willing as he states that without synergy between the two, they won't work together, and this is vital in advertising an upcoming film. He stresses that there must be a uniqueness about the film, a specific look, such as creating a new font, like Spiderman or Batman has done, in order for the public to associate that font directly to the film title. 

Robin Behling (FEREF) talking about the poster, stresses how the importance of these posters is to signal the film genre and sell the concept which is of 'paramount important'. The posters can appear anywhere logical, most likely, billboards, on the internet and in newspapers. These posters are the first look at a film and are there to 'tease' the public into making you want to go and see that film, and also reflect what genre the film is, to target the audience it wants. 

Multimedia is spoken of being an extremely important aspect of advertising a film, with the Internet being the main contributor to this. There will always be a central website to a new released film and this is an important and very effective way to allow an audience to delve deep within the film before its general release and is also where they will find other multimedia to play with associating with the film such as: artwork, games, different trailers and competitions. Viral marketing is explained to be an extremely important aspect of advertising as well. The word 'viral' means that something is spread and in this case viewed by a large audience which creates a 'buzz' or 'hype'. For something to become 'viral' it is a necessity for it to be interesting and has to make people want to view whatever it is and of course has to relate to the nature of what its advertising. 

I plan to include several elements written above to attract an audience to my film. Many of these elements will be expressed professionally on my official film's website. 

RESEARCH: THRILLER CODES AND CONVENTIONS

Thriller is a genre in which a sense of suspense and enigma is created.

Click here to get to my Scoop.it!

RESEARCH: AUDIENCE PROFILE

Age group: 18-29

Clothes: Nike, Adidas, Umbro, Reebok, Dunlop and Slazenger

Restaurants: Nandos, McDonalds, Burger King, Subway, Kfc and Pizza Hut

Gender: 80% male 20% female.

Related Tv shows and films: Top Boy, Shifty, Ill Mannors, Harry Brown, Attack The Block, Anuva Hood, Kidult hood and Adulthood 

Media: Bbm and Nokia bricks

Magazines: Fhm, Loaded, Nuts and Zoo

RESEARCH / PLANNING: ENIGMA, SUSPENSE & JEOPARDY

I watched crime drama and identified certain camera shots and movements, visual and sound codes. I explain why I have picked each still in the caption below it. 

This screenshot is from The Wire and shows a close up, low down shot, of a man picking up some evidence from the scene of a crime, and placing it in a small plastic bag. This would be good for my crime/drama film opening as it looks very professional and allows the viewers to become much more intrigued what has happened and how everything is being taken into fine detail. 

This screenshot is from CSI, and shows a special effect camera effect, portraying the aim of a sniper rifle on the head of the main character or CSI. This is an extremely exciting screenshot and similar effects would be great in my crime/drama film opening considering there is a murder early on in our planned opening to the film.

This screenshot is from Morse which is a very popular crime drama on TV. This screenshot shows an image of an injured hand most likely in a attack and is very relevant to my crime/drama short film opening because there is a crime in the opening and unique images like this could be used in my film opening to make it seem more realistic and interesting.

This screenshot is from Endeavour. I like this screenshot as I like the particular way the camera is focused on both people in the shot, however, you can still see both men even though one is dead on the floor whilst the other is examining him. This is extremely relevant to our crime/drama opening because in my opening there is a murder very early on and images like this give me great ideas to potentially use in the film. 

RESEARCH: SCOOP IT

I created a Scoop.it account to show the crime drama I am going to investigate. I created a page called Crime and Drama Film and Television and posted a Scoop.it with a website listing the most popular crime and drama TV and Film's. Scoop.it also allows me to see other suggestions that the website and other users have scooped or recommended.

Click here to view my Scoop.it!

RESEARCH: GENRE RESEARCH

I have made a list of crime drama that I intend to research in order to identify key codes in film and TV drama openings, starting with mainstream British and European, then American:

- Inspector Montalbano BBC TV

- Young Montalbano 
- Inspector Morse
- Lewis (sequel)
- Endeavor
- Murder She Wrote
- CSI
- Inspector Poirot 
- The Wire HBO


In order to research genre conventions for the type of film opening that I am planning, I looked at clips from similar productions. I identified visual and sound codes that I would like to use myself.

Last lesson, I planned the outline treatment for a crime drama involving a realistic British scenario with a young college student who works part-time on the fish counter of a high street supermarket and who witnesses a stabbing as he leaves work.

I need to familiarize myself with the crime genre as I do not watch much of it; my first port of call was the internet to see what other people watched, as boxed sets are very popular. I found that this is a huge genre ranging from genteel investigators like Poirot and Miss Marple to hard-hitting productions like The Wire and Taggart.

PLANNING: TREATMENT

Uni drop out working behind fish counter (murderer). Cutting up fish to start with to create cold atmosphere. The witness goes to the fish counter, (the witness is a Uni student.) Brief exchange of chat whilst at the fish counter. Witness leaves and roller-blades off only to witness a murder. Recognizes Uni drop out as murder. Witness gets scared, roller blades away rapidly, only for a wheel to break. He takes the roller blade off and leaves it behind as it is now useless and wants to get away as soon as possible due to shock. Police at scene murder discover the roller-blade and call for all witnesses and the person who the roller blade belongs too. 

RESEARCH: THE ART OF THE TITLE

Today I started to research film openings using the website THE ART OF THE TITLE www.artofthetitle.com
 


Delicatessen - directed by Juan-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, 1991
For my first piece of detailed analysis, I used my observations, class discussions and the websites commentary including that of Karin Fong, creative director and designer at Imaginary Forces. 

The title design is unique and goes along with the genre of black comedy. The title design is intriguing as each credit in somehow linked and placed onto items associating with the story. For example: we can see the director of photography's name engraved on a very old and rusty looking camera, therefore, representing a particular time period. Even the costume designer has his name, stitched into one of the clothes label the camera drifts over. The camera movement is very fluid, and is easily followable for the audience viewing.

 

RESEARCH: A BRIEF HISTORY OF TITLE DESIGN

• During today's lesson we watched a short video on 'A Brief History of Title Design'. This video showed repeatedly the starting titles to different films over the years, with the older ones starting first and then gradually more modern film titles appeared.

• We watched this three times so that we could remember most of the details about the title types and changes that occurred over the years. You can see a big difference in the titles of older films compared to the newer films, with the newer film titles looking more crisp and in high definition, and much more in detail - therefore tending to be a lot more exciting, fun and colourful to watch. 

• The reason why there is such a change is because of CGI, which stands for Computer Generated Imagery, which can make the titles of films and films in general a lot more exciting to watch due to the special effects we can now create using CGI. A good title design links between the graphics and the film genre, and CGI makes this possible. 

• Although we discussed the use of CGI in detail, there are also other types of approaches used in film titles such as live actions and some film titles even mix CGI and Live Action together which makes it very exciting indeed. Below I picked five different film titles and print screened them in order to decode the iconography. 

I really like this film title in the screening and it used simple but effective graphics to show the title but also relate it to the film itself. The words 'Anatomy of a Murder' are plastered on top of a simple black figure laying down lifeless to symbolise the murder. The black background represents the mood of the film.

I chose this title on the screening because it showed the more modern type of titles screenings as it was high definition text and a plain but exuberant picture as the backing giving a mysterious feel to the film and making you want to watch more. The A and E are presented as abstract versions of the original letters to link with the title of the film 'Alien'.

I chose this title from the screening because it uses the text and font to express what the film 'The Social Network' is about - Facebook and how it was founded. It also immediately shows you a wide shot of where the film is based and I liked that aspect of it. 

I really liked this film title as well, as it uses colour to relate to film title itself and also uses CGI to produce a cartoon panther. 

This film title also caught my eye during the screening as it was a simple close up shot of an eye. Vertigo is when you have a fear of heights and therefore, the title linked with the shot itself links with the film, as you have to look through your eyes to see a height and be fearful of it.

PRELIMINARY EXERCISE

Continuity task: our prelim exercise was to film and edit a character opening a door, crossing a room, sitting down in a chair opposite another character with whom she/he exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue. This task should demonstrate match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180% rule.

RESEARCH: MY MEDIA WORLD

• I use my iPhone 4S for making short phone calls, text messaging, web browsing and apps, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

  

  Best feature: social networking apps.

  • I use my MacBook Pro to serf the web and to also stream TV shows and movies from Netflix. 
  • I use my Xbox to play video games such as GTA 5 and FIFA 14. I also use the Xbox to watch Netflix on a bigger screen (TV) and also for Sky Player which allows me to watch live television via the internet.
  • I use Instagram to take pictures and also record short videos as the app allows me to share the pictures/video's immediately with followers and friends.
  • I use Twitter to update my fans about what I'm doing on a daily basis, and to also find out world news and celebrity gossip.
  • I use Facebook to update my friends on daily occurrences, and to also use the very simply but effective chat option, to keep in contact with peers.
  • I use my iPad mostly when moving around the house, or even outside the house, whilst traveling because it is easy to transport and quick to use.
  • I use Netflix to catch up on TV shows and movies, whether new or old. Examples of things I have watched on Netflix include: Breaking Bad and Orange is the New Black. 
  • I use Blogger for my Media Studies AS and A2 course to update my teacher and the future examiner on what I have been doing. My homework is also recorded on blogger for AS and A2 media. 
  • I use Spotify to listen to all of my music. I am a subscribed member to Spotify and pay £4.99 a month for unlimited music that I can stream offline.  
  • I use the Canon 550D to take pictures and record video. 
  • I go to the Cinema occasionally to see the latest Blockbuster hits and to contribute to the film industry by paying for films legally in order for them to continue to make films.