Or maybe we just stopped trying?

So the purpose for this post is, i'm gonna try an go through all the stuff we've covered in the year so far. Which would class as revision wouldn't it? As i'm rehearsing what i've already learnt so it's going into my long term memory.
So yeah REVISION GUIDE and other help if i aint ever got my folder with me or i just wana jam at the computer screen and look over things instead of having to decipher my handwriting. So here we go, a brief summary of what we've done so far:

But anyways: back to september~
First of all we were handed an introduction booklet for an introduction to A/S film studies, which goes through all the stuff we'd be learning nd stuff. Like analysis of film language and it's subsequent meaning and messages it puts forth to audience members.

Which can be put into either:
Micro - Small
Macro - Big

And you can furthermore refer to film language as text (film, it's techniques and genre etc)- Or context, which is institutions and stuff, things that the film went through to be where they are now and what they stand for.

The we looked into analysing film sequences and how different shots, dominant colors, music and characterization etc shape meaning. First looking at Moulin Rouge.

And how we should include things like representation, ideaology, arguments, social commentaries in essays and when thinking about film to a deeper level.

We also looked at what film is? and all the different things it stands for:
business, companies making money, marketing, commercialism, hobbies, an area of study, entertainment, film's aimed at a wide demographic, and also has cross-cultural links with tv shows, books, tv series and games etc.

Film can be:

Controversial - explores issues which we wouldn't expect to be seen on screen, or provide a commentary on controversial social issues at the present point in time.

Educational - It can open the audiences mind to reality, or allow them to learn abut certain taboo subjects.

Escapism - It allows the audience to escape into a world that they long for, etc etc.

and we were told to list out top ten films, mine of which are.

1 - Princess Mononoke
2 - The Matrix Reloaded
2 - Spirited Away
4 - Mona Lisa Smile
5 - Get Real
6 - Death Note
7 - American Pie (LOL)
8 - Battle Royale
9 - Sex And The City
10 - Sympaty For Lady Vengeance

Next we looked at components of a film, like narrative, editing, sound, mise-en-scene, lighting, performance, and the camera and cinematography
Then we compared viewing a movie at home to seeing one in a cinema.
And we went through a sequence from Silence Of The Lambs in class and looked at its film language and blah blah blah. We were then given a film Language booklet which explained things in more depth. Alot of things i won't re-write thougth coz i know them and itd be silly because after writing a few essays all the stuff we need to look for in film is already in my head, easy peasy.

At some point we also watched Run Lola Run in class and looked at how films can be non-linear and outside the basket in terms of normality, and stuff we don't expect or see in all films.

Next we looked at story boarding >.<
And were asked to storyboard a poem for homework (which i didn't do because storyboarding is hard and i dislike my drawing skills)
But it kind of showed how hard it is to put words into pictures unless you have a secure idea of what you what kind of message you wana put across to the people watching.

Also we looked at the Psycho shower sequence and looked at why it worked so well and why it's such an iconic sequence.

The, we were told to scrutinize a 3-5 minute film sequence of our choice and deliver it to the class in form of a presentation. Big scare.

But when it came down to it it wasn't so bad, after alot of "arse-farting" about i chose the dinner scene from American Beauty.



And in the presentation i looked at how the viewer is put in the place of the empty seat on the table, and how the camera goes from side to side during the argument like your head would do if you sat there. And how the word "irresponsible" comes up alot during the song played in the background. I can't remember much about it but then i played the DVD commentary. Everyone did pretty goood ont he presentation thing seeing as it was the first one we ever had to do.

Then then then, we looked at the bladerunner upening in class. Made notes on it and how things are put forth, and were told to write a micro essay on it. Which was harddd because the sequence is so vague and short. But i did good in the essay so meh.

But yeah, at this point it was around the start of November i think? From here we were focusing upon our practical task with mr Fairnie and having lost a few of my note sheets we may have gone over more in class than what i've wrote, but oh well things are going good so far. We were told to come up with ideas for a short film/sequence and to think of: style, production values, storyline, a storyboard, context and the target audience. Also we were told to research and watch Short Films!

And in Ms Moore's class at this time we started to look at Hollywoood*
and how we all looked at our own connotations and perceptions of the place, some were:
exaggerated, wealth, success, superficiality, beautiful people, stars, walk of fame, american dream.

We also listed major studios in Hollywood
- Fox
- MGM
- Pixar
- Columbia Tri-star
- Dreamworks
- Sony
- Time Warner
- Touch Stone
- Disney

and also films go through the vertically intergrated system of production - distribution - exhibition.

Also at the notion of film being an Art. Versus the notion of it being mainly for commercialism and making mone. Which led us to watch two documentaries on Hollywood which provided us with alot of information >=]

Next in Fairnies we were told to remember three memorable scenes from films. I chose:

- Sympathy for lady vengeance - hands of a killer
- American Beauty - dinner scene
- American pie - where he fucks the pie LOL

And from this we were told to think up of more ideas for our short film we'd produce and were told to come to next lesson with concrete ideas for our potential film

Next in Ms Moor'es we looked at her cast study of Quantum of Solace on the board. And were set the task of producing our own case study into the marketing, distribution, exhibition and studio research of a Hollywood film,

She told us to look at:
www.impawards.com
www.moviemarketingmadness.com
www.imdb.com
and Mark Kermode

And were told that it had to be in at somethig in December! lots of time, and what i've done so far is in my case study post.

And since then we've all come into groups and shot the footage for our short films, all we need to do now is edit. was a good experience shooting our film :D
considering it was kind of spur of the moment and completely different to our original idea but we got it done and improvised and shot some good scenes of Tara. Alot more fun that i originally anticipated!

We looked at "The magic of movie editing" in class and it's on the blog so i watched it on there, which further informed our knowledge on the history and importance of editing. And we looked at the American Beauty opening sequence with Mr fairnie and were given a good essay example looking at certain aspects of the scene.

Then came the genre lesson in which we had 45 mins to come up with a film, and all we were given was the genre. Pretty hard lol we were given "Musical." Was okay i suppose given we only had 40 minutes. Also we looked at the importance of Genre and how and why it's used. Minimizing economic risk for producers and studios, it allows advertisers to produce a certain style for the advertising campaign as it can link in with the genre and themses of the potential movie. Also it works through audience members prior knowledge and previous experiences they've had with films of a specific genre. And we drew some diagram about how genre is cyclic, etc. It works through repitition and difference and cashing in on typical characters, settings and music (etc) of a specific genre.

But all-in-all, so far fim studies has been fun but i just wanna see our finished edited film which i hope we can finish before christmas, then thats out of the way!

Personal understanding of "The matrix" trilogy

Ever since i saw the first Matrix film i've always been somewhat confused as to what-the-actual-fuck was supposed to be going on in the movie?

Having seen all three of them numerous times and always thinking i kind of got a grip of the storyline and the different worlds and stuff, today i found out i was kind of wrong, and that nothing in the film happened by chance and the Oracle was the one who manipulated and "played" more-or-less all of the characters involved.

After waking up at nine and having no lessons on Friday's i decided to spend all day watching the matrix trilogy; i decided to try and get my head around all of the different plots and freaky details which lead to the end of the war between humans and machines.

I spent alot of time after watching all three movies tryna research about online and grasp the whole concept of what everythings significance was and what the hell some bits of the films were even about?

http://www.thematrix101.com

Helped me out alot, its a "guide to understanding the matrix".

and believe it or not i just started trying to type out everything which explains the untangling of the story but i stopped coz it would take ages and why read that when you can check out that website up there!

but yeah, if you came away from any of the matrix movies feeling you didnt understand them then thats a link you should look at :D

like i never knew that the oracle was all about "know thyself" and instead of telling people what they wanted to hear or what she could have told them. she merely just gave them advice and pushed them in the right direction. like in the first matrix, she used morpheus' life and the notion that he could be killed to release his protective instinct which consequently led to him dodging a bullet at high speed. One of the first glimpses that Neo IS the one.

She played neo, morpheus, trinity, and the architect overall. The architect is the person who created the first matrix (which failed) and all of its subsequent ones, and the 6th one in which Neo now occupies. The architect sees everything as an equation, and balances all equations in the matrix; whereas the oracle exists to unbalance these equations. The oracle gives Neo just enough information about what he needs to do and who the true enemy is. Not the machines, agent smith is the one to be eradicated.

Everything that has a beginning has an end.

She then sacrifices herself to smith and lets him absorb her and turn her into a copy of himself. (I never knew this next part until today!) The reason he laughs so menacingly after this is because he's now gained the Oracles foresight, and he laughs because he see's neo lying on the ground defeated in the future. The oracle knew that if Smith gained her vision, then his over-confidence would lead to his downfall. This is also why during the big fight scene in Revolutions only one smith fights Neo, and the others don't join in. But when that time comes in the battle which Smith foresaw, he's confused as to why Neo continues to fight. And the reason is the nature of choice. Nobody in the matrix can understand the nature of human choice, and why Neo chooses to continue to fight, and here the oracle speaks through Smith saying "Everything that has a beginning has an end, Neo." And because Smith has always called him Mr Anderson, Neo knows it's from the oracle. He knows what he has to do, so he unbalances the equation. He sacrifices himself to Smith; becoming a copy of him. But this allows the machines who have jacked Neo in to access Smith, and consequently destroy all traces of him from the matrix, leaving behind all the people who he had once taken over.

But but why did the machines wanna get rid of Smith?
Because he would have destroyed everyone in the matrix entirely. All the pod-born people who the machines created would be useless as power suppliers to the machine world as they would be dead, this is why the machines fear agent Smith. Leading to Neo bargaining for peace with them if he defeats Smith.

Ahhh just everything on this page helped me understand things that i didn't even think about in the movie before, all of this thought that had gone into the storyline just amazes me :

http://www.thematrix101.com/revolutions/meaning.php

WOW.

I know i rambled on abit here and it was rather unnecessary but OH WELLZ, it was fun to learn about a film, and just made me wonder if this whole thing could be true.

Case study as a whole

So this is gonna be first the post in which i scrutinize the making/production of a hollywood movie... theres nothing really "big" or recent what i really enjoyed so i've been stuck on what to do it on - but i've chosen "Sex and the city" the movie.


Lead 4 Roles:
Sarah Jessica Parker - Carrie Bradshaw
Cynthia Nixon - Miranda Hobbs
Kristin Davis - Charlotte York Goldenblatt
Kim Catrall - Samantha Jones

"And we were dressed from head to toe in love... the only label that never goes out of style."

Websites used:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_and_the_City_(film)
http://www.hollywood.com/movie/Sex_and_the_City/4230151
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1000774/
http://www.google.com
www.moviemarketingmadness.com

So let's start with the basics:

Theatrical Release: 30/5/2008

Director: Michael Patrick King

Studio: New Line Cinema

Production companies: HBO productions + Darren Star Productions

Genre: Comedy/Drama/Romance/Adaptation

Length: 145 minutes

Rating in UK : 15

Reported Budget: $65 million

Writers :
Candace Bushnell - Source material
Michael Patrick King - Screenplay
Darren Star - Characters as source material

Primary filming location:
Mainly in Manhattan, but some beach shots were filmed in California aswell as some hotel shots.

Sountrack production:
Released on May 27 2008 by New Line Records, it debuted at #2 in Americas Billboard top 200, the highest debut for a multi-artist theatrical film soundtrack since 2005's Get Rich or Die Tryin', and debuting at #6 on the UK Albums Chart, selling to date more than 55,000 copies.

Box Office Performance:
"The film has experienced commercial success. Opening in 3,285 theaters, the film made $26.93 million in the US and Canada on its first day. The three-day opening weekend total was $57,038,404, aggregating $17,363 per theater. The film recorded the biggest opening ever for an R-rated comedy and for a romantic comedy, and also for a film starring a woman. As of October, 2008, the film has grossed $152,619,616 at the US and Canadian box office, and $256,274,667 in other markets, bringing the worldwide total gross revenue to $408,921,925." (probably alot higher now!)

Advertisement:
Overall i couldn't find much online which spoke of the amount of money or effort put into the marketing of this movie. I believe that this is because after the series of Sex and the city, fans were left somewhat wanting more from the four characters that they've spent the past 6 series watching. After initian plans to make a follow up movie straight away were scrapped, there was nothing but speculation as to whether a sex and the city movie would ever be made. But now, four years after the end of the series it was made. The amount of people who had been waiting for years for this moment couldn't believe it was actually here, leading to people going to see the movie because they were fans of the series, just to see whether it reached their expectations, and alot of male audience members were probably dragged along by their partners or female friends. Also the introduction of a black person filling a dominant role in the movie gave the wider and certainly different demographic of a black audience, a chance to identify solely to a main character in which; was a pre-dominant white casted show during the series.

Later on I found an article online which tells of New Line Cinemas partnerships with other companis which led to certain products being used and promoted in the movie; all ultimately which would appeal to a female demographic. Heres the article:

http://www.christonium.com/fashion/ItemID=12057909163163

(RANDOM FACTS)

Based on the autobiographical newspaper columns written by Candace Bushnell, the TV series Sex and the City debuted on HBO on June 6, 1998. The series’ six season run ended with the final episode airing in 2004. The film picks up four years after the end of the series.

Costume Designer Patricia Field had to come up with 80 costumes for Sarah Jessica Parker for Sex and the City: The Movie, and more than 300 changes overall amongst the four main characters. Commenting on Field’s work, Sarah Jessica Parker said, “Pat Field is indispensable. We could not continue to tell the story without her, period. Her ideas, the breaking of the rules, is infectious.

Candice Bergen(the miserable old 50+ woman from the series) who reprises her role as a Vogue editor in the feature film, first met writer/director Michael Patrick King when they worked together on Bergen’s series, Murphy Brown.

According to a report in Entertainment Weekly, neither the series nor the movie ever accepted money for product placement.

Filming on the streets of New York was a bit of a logistical nightmare for the cast and crew as hundreds of fans would show up to watch the action. Assistant director Bettiann Fishman was given the job of keeping the crowds entertained and out of the way of the production.

African Americans felt that they weren't represented enough in the series, which led to Jennifer Hudson being casted as Carrie's assistant.


LOL - the director originally wanted a padel which just had "69" on it, which anyone who had watched the series would know that it would've gone well with Samanthas chracter. But as it wasnt available they had to settle with 969.

I also found this small article explaining that the majority of people that would be going to see this movie would be women: (bit obvious though)

http://gawker.com/tag/lady-business/?i=393348&t=shocking-statistics--mostly-women-plan-to-see-sex-and-the-city#cshocking-statistics--mostly-women-plan-to-see-sex-and-the-city

Posters

























Trailers/Advertisements





On youtube i found a three part "Making of Sex And The City Movie"
Here it is!

Part One:


Part Two:



Part Three:

Public Criticism/Reviews

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article3919749.ece

-This was the first published review of the Sex and the city movie.
(Two stars out of five!)

It's good to take note that the person reviewing the movie was male(Will Pavia). Will thought that the movie was "stretched", and even compares it to a luxury meal that just gets too much to handle once youve had enough. The things that he felt felt were a downside of the movie; didn't seem to bother the rest of the audience (who were pre-dominantly female) whilst watching the film.

He acknowledges the fact that the way he feels is probably because he's male, which also links in with alot of people mosconceptions about the main audience for this movie. Because primarily, Sex and the city is about and targeted at WOMEN. Womens issues and lives are explored, and whilst the protagonists partners play a big part in shaping the narrative, the focus is constantly on the women. (and incidentally what they're wearing, or who they're fucking, or who they're not fucking)

Which does kind of put forth that alot of typical male reviewers who would rather a strong acting piece of film which confronts issues to a "classy trash" piece like Sex and the city. Whereas alot of women baske in the notion of being able to escape from reality and long for the $1000 shoes that Carrie's wearing or the sexy underwear model that samantha's having sex with. A female audience is more than likely to identify with the characters even though the women on screen aren't that "real". All women would love to be able to throw money at they're problems and live a glamourous easy-going life in the city. But the reality of it is, most women who go to the cinema don't have lives like that. But all in all it comes down to your preferences; if you're interested in fashion in the slightest, or the promiscuity and harships of womens lives then you'd probably love Sex and the city!

Mark Kermode confronts the issue of "Boys not liking" the SATC movie, and even describes it as "having a handbag where its heart is". This short frank review of it puts across his reasons for describing it as "crap"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/2008/06/sex_lies_and_merchandise.html

Marketing continued

The marketing for this film was pre-dominantly towards women, almost to the fact that the over-glamorousness and focus upon fashion almost turns men away from wanting to see the film. The marketing campaign was about selling a lifestyle to the audience(communicated via the teaser and theatrical posters and their glamourous setting) , albeit it was an aspiraional lifestyle for the majority of audiences.

The online marketing was done mainly by the official website:
http://www.sexandthecitymovie.com/

Which now focuses upon the movies DVD release and encourages you to buy the dvd with a slogan saying "Get Carried Away, BUY NOW"
Playing on Carries' name.

The soundtrack button allows you to listen to only one song, which is Fergies "Labels Or Love". This was probably an incentive for buyers to actually go and buy the rest of the soundtrack to be able to access all of the songs.

Also it now features a "Win a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes" competition. Yay, you can waste your time and potentially phone bill whilst ringing up and trying to become a normal middle-classed woman so you can walk around in your valour tracksuit and "my shoes are fit" designer shoes. Oh what a glorious age we live in.

The film was also given a myspace page prior to its release, which showed trailers, teaser photos and information about the upcoming movie. But it's been deleted now as the films been out for so long so i cant provide a link.

Cross Promotion

Sex and the city's focus upon fashion and materialism all make this film a prime advocat for big budget companies who wish to advertise their merchandise and products.

One of the cross promotional deals was with car giant "Mercedes". In the film two of their cars were shown the GLK-class SUV and its S-class sedan. Also the fashion week which takes place in the movie is shown to be sponsered by Mercedes-benz.

This video shows an american commercial which links in SEx and the city with a Mercedes car:



I also found out on www.moviemarketingmadness.com that Swarovski provided the decor for the New-york premier, which covered the carpet and decor for the after party in swarovski crystals.

Three drinks companies also jumped on the sex and the city bandwagon, these were:
- Skyy vodka
- Vitamin water
- Bacardi

Vitamin water created a micro site which advertised the movie in favour for some references in the movie. Skyy vodka launched an advertising campaign for the movie, doing online ads, print based ads and created various recipes for its drinks based upon the characters of the movie. And bacardi used the movies launch to help highlight the relase of their silver mango mojito drink, which linked in themes of the movie in with its advertisements.

The movie highlighted the american company "Bag borrow or steal" which works as a somewhat kind of "blockbuster" or rent-outlet for fashion acessories such as handbags and purses. Carries assistant (Jennifer Hudson) says in the movie that she used the company to gain temporary access to a Louis Vuitton bag. Once the company had realised that they were mentioned in the movie, they decided to re-vamp their online layout which featured fashions from the movie for people to potentially lend. All-in-all, sex and the city led "Bag borrow or steal" to gain much publicity!

Short post

Last lesson was abit of a challenge. Just being handed footage and being told to create a 30-second narrative piece was alot more difficult than i had originally anticipated; especially because i'd never edited stuff before i was abit clueless >=]

The documentary posted on the blog was interesting, didn't realise that editing went back so far and how crucial it is for alot of movies. Especially after watching the matrix reloaded yesterday i was just thinking...edit cut speed sound o.0 wow.

but it's my birthday today and i've had a swell day. I'm looking forward to overseeing our editing process tomorrow because i have no idea what im doing, i'll leave Callum and the others to it and add in my input everynow and then. Much thanks Mrs Moore for the blogger of the week badge.

:)

Potential music for our Short Film

We haven't really discussed a particular song or music to place over our short film as of yet. So I'm gonna try my best to find some stuff that i think woud suit our films style and subject and discuss with everyone tomorrow, or if they see this before then i'll talk to the group :)

Well i started by typing in "hard work music" into youtube and this was one of the first that came up:



Which is an 80's music video entitled "work hard" and the song's all cheesy and silly. I'm guessing that everyone would disagree on this as a suitable song, but i thought it could work well and make our films seem more silly. But now i think about it the kind of shots we've done wouldn't suit this song, and would probably suit something less upbeat and cheesy.

FEIST - 1234 Remix:



Possibly? Maybe?

Yeah im aware that all my music suggestions are pretty lame so far but its something.

And so i proceed~

Bjork - Sun in my mouth.


I think this could possibly work well, creating a light hearted atmosphere possibly? which would juxtapose with the images we see on screen of Tara's frustration at constant pencil breaking and making tape pulls etc.

Bjork - Violently happy



"Violently happy, cause i love you" - just like how Tara's a violent workaholic in our film because of her love for her sketchbook ;-)

Bjork - Cocoon



Hmmm, it's a weird song and would probably create a weird moody atmosphere. Something about it i really like though...

FF8 - Maybe im a lion



im gonna try and find some music now with no lyrics what could just possibly set different atmospheres for our short movie, and like if we also add a different tinge of color into our film in post-production it could work with some of this music?

The extreme:



THis could be used to create a weird melancholoy atmosphere and seem asif we're almost telling a story of tara's compulsions? Maybe maybe maybe.


FF8 - Lunatic Pandora



Creepy high pitchy techno like music that i find quite nice.

I know that probably none of these songs will be used but at least im exploring different possibilites ^_^

But ultimately, after editing our piece together we may decide not to have a main song running through our piece at all. We could rely upon a small piece of background music which would stop or louden when we cut to a splitscreen sequence. All shall be discussed and worked upon in time. As we discuss and look at possible tracks to include in our piece as a group i'll add them onto here, this was just a potential starting point because we haven't looked in depth into potential music yet.

Editing

Callum's the person who'll be editing mainly in our group, it's what he'll evaluate his skills on when it comes to writing our evaluations. As my roll was primarily directing that will be mine and i think Taras is producer and so on and so forth.

So so so so as none of us has used final cut pro before i kinda thought id youtube about abit and found this:



Which will hopefully help as we want a split screen in our short film.

Bloggers block o_o i don't know what to write or blog about, i want something to write about.

Film and english tomorrow; i loveee tuesdays.