Sound

 We had to watch few films in order to be able to identify what non diegetic sound would fit in with our  movie genre the best. The sound that we used was a free copyright sound, as we are just couple of student's which couldn't afford to buy a copyright for a well known song that we wanted. This soundtrack we found was very suitable, as it reflects Ozzy's lifestyle, as he is listening to the music in his earphones. We got influenced by the film which is called: "Get rich or die trying". The soundtracks for the film are very similar to the one that we used for our non diegetic sound. And the film involves crime as well, which we found relevant.


  For our diegetic sound, we used a lot of atmosphere tracks, which we recorded in different places, but used for our shots. The original sound of our footage in some places didn't work or wasn't clear enough in order to be heard properly, this is why we used the atmosphere tracks in order for it to sound better and more clear, as well as more full in places, where as in some cases we needed the atmosphere track to be more quite than our original sound. Also if we used non-diegetic sound for our movie that isn't relevant, it might set the wrong atmosphere and confuse the viewers.
  We used the original sound for our dialogue, as we found the voiceover just a little over the top. I don't know, it just did not work out, as our group agreed to leave the original sound for our dialogue. We only used a voice over at the moment when the character of Simona screams out "Ozzy!". Weirdly enough the rest of the sound was either non diegetic or the atmosphere track was used in order to set the atmosphere and make the narrative more clear and understandable.


By: Simona Larka 9575

This is England - Research Analysis

This is England



By Amira Duale

CHARACTER RESEARCH 


The main chacracter in our film opening is a teenager from London. He is middle to lower class and comes from a poor family. Goes to college but is not academically successful. His personality is; aggressive, impatient, disobedient to authority, proud, responsible, independent, argumentative, reasonably popular but has many feuds too but nether the less a goody.
The main character is an artist and wants to pursue his an art career however due to his situation he turns to selling drugs and gets involved with violence. When he finally decides to go legit and sets his plans for his future he is arrested. 

Existing Characters that Relate



Trife from Kidulthood
-Ready to settle down and have a child with his girlfriend, he gets murdered.







Karim from Bradford Riots
-Was going to go to University but ends up arrested after he gets caught up in the riots.



Ricky from Boys In The Hood
- Always wanted to pursue his football career but gets shot in the end.





-Was ready to fix his life up but gets caught up in one last crime and then arrested.


All these characters are good guys but caught up in bad situations which is similar to the main character of our film. 


By Ash Khan

 Who is our Target Audience?

Our PRIMARY target audience will be TEENAGERS. The film will be rated a 15+

Why?

The characters in the film represent London teenagers. Teenagers will be interested to see how they are portrayed and will be able to relate to the characters. Films like Kidulthood were aimed at teenagers and was extremely popular amongst teenagers in London. 

...Anyone Else?

Yes, from young adults to the very old. Everyone can relate to the film since it shows the youths of London. It will be an education for the older generation. 

By Ash Khan

INTERVIEW WITH MENHAJ HUDA (director of Kidulthood)

Kidulthood Director Interview

As Huda says, living in the place where the script is set allowed him to fully understand what the writer wanted. Like Huda, I too am living in the area where the script is set. This is going to allow me to really understand the script. This is a huge advantage and i hope to use this to project the ideal message and feeling through my film.


Also, Menhaj mentioned how important the use of music was in Kidulthood. He used artists that the target audience would probably listen too. We can not use famous artists music due to copyright laws however we can  use music that is copyright free. Using this, we will select music that suits the genre. We will be looking for edgy, gritty beats that may be used to rap over since our audience will most likely listen to rap. 


 By Ash Khan

Roll Deep- Badman Music VIdeo Analysis

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    "Badman" music video analysis
This music video tells a short story and is produced like a film. It starts of with an ordinary family having breakfast. A teen age boy enters the kitchen and there is some brotherly light hearted arguments between him and his little brother. all in all the atmosphere is happy.

It then cuts into the next scene where there teenager is walking with his friend around an estate recreational area. Simultaneously the music starts. the two boys walk through the play area and meet their friends. They are now a group of people with a dog. from what each character is wearing we gather that they are trendy adolescents. If you focus on stereotypes then the audience can gather from their race, apparel and age that they are quite a rebellious bunch of teenagers who are more likely to be involved in crime. the character we see are also the primary audinance of the actual song.

Next we see the same charcter in the back of a car. The vocals of the song starts as someone inserts a CD into the CD player. There then comes a shot of the car but the camera is outside the car. During this shot the music volume is lessened and the clarity drops too as if to show that we are further away from the source of the music. This is a technique to make the viewer feel like he is in the scene more. the music then gets louder during the shots inside the car. I think this makes the viewer feel like they are with them in the car.

There are many shaky shots that pan to follow action in the scene. This makes the audience feel like he is in the scene watching what is being shown. the shots are short and snappy and there are many of them. This adds to the the tension because it builds up a fast moving scene and we are not fully clear of what is happening. The short shots strung together are a very effective way of gripping the viewer too. Although the music is loud and being played externally from the scene we hear sounds from the scene including parts of the argument between the teens and school children watching them. This further gives the impression that we are at the scene. It also gives us further understanding of the scene. As the confrontation grows the camera becomes even more unstable to show that there is pushing and shoving involved in the quarrel. The teens fight over a gun and the gun fires and shoots a passer-by school girl. We here the bullet fire and the music stops and we hear school girls screaming. the shooter is guided back into the car by his friend and the music starts again when it shows a profile shot with little lighting of the shooter.

Throughout the video we hear various comments and sounds from the scene even though it is a music video. In a few places the music completely stops and that is all we hear is from the actual scene. It is unusual for a music video to have so much sound from the scene but i believe the director chose to make the scenery sound more audible, and to make the connection between the viewer greater. I believe this music video is very successful in gripping the audience with a combination of cleverly edited sounds from the scene, fast sequences of shots when there was action and camera angles that sit the viewer in the scene.

Although this is a music video, it still helps me with the making of our film opening. This is because the characters in both this video and my film are of the same social type. This video helped see how other sources have portrayed the characters. Furthermore, our film opening will have music over it. The opening will be similar to a music video. After seeing this video I have been inspired to dip the music volume of my film in appropriate places so the audience can hear dialogue and scenery sounds like they do in this video.


By Ash Khan

Friday, Opening Analysis

Friday, Opening Analysis

The film starts of with a character speaking. The odd thing is that he starts speaking during the first seconds of the film when the company "New Line Cinema" is being advertised. I personally have never seen a films dialogue start so soon and this immediately achieved my attention. Also the character says a slightly humourers dialogue which sums up the film and tells the audience that this film is a comedy. After the dialogue, a soulful song cues while the first scene is shot. Throughout the opening the cast names are being presenting in a playful white font at the bottom of the screen. The first image we see is a pair of beat down trainers hanging from the power lines on a cloudless, bright day.The camera pans down and we see a road. It looks like suburban America. Three teenagers cycle through the road and into the distance. We then enter a house, which we can only assume is in the neighbourhood we previously saw. The camera moves through the house, showing photographs of the family. It seems like a cosy, happy environment. We then enter a bedroom and the camera pans into a medium shot of an elderly man snoring in bed and his partner being disturbed by him. In the shot, we see the elderly man clutching a monkey teddy bear which is an intended joke added by the creators for entertainment purposes. After being hit by his partner on the head the man stops snoring and proceeds to talk in his sleep about what foods he would like to order. Another joke to make the audience feel happy. The opening includes alot of moving shots, to show the environment. Also by moving the camera instead of stoppin the shot, the audience feels like they are the camera walking around the house. i also noticed that the camera was placed at about head height to further add to the illusion that we are present in the house. this effect grabs the audience more because the audience feels more connected to the environment and gets a better feel of the scenery.

Although this is not a social realistic film i still decided to analyse it. This is because I found the concept really interesting. What they did was really break down the setting. Starting from the streets to a personal tour around the whole house. This is a really effective way of allowing the audience to immediately understand the scene. I will take this style into consideration when making the opening to my film.  


By Ash Khan

CITY OF GOD OPENING ANALYSIS

CITY OF GOD OPENING ANALYSIS

The film starts of with a huge knife being sharpened. This immediately creates enigma because a knife being sharpened indicates murder. Shortly after, the music cued which is a traditional samba. The next several shots consists of live chickens, chickens being slaughtered and carrots being cut along with various other very short shots of various activities to set the scene. As a viewer we understand that we are in a less economically developed area but this is a happy environment. We see shots of people dancing and it's obvious some sort of dish is being prepare.

the attention is drawn to one chicken in particular. we realise that he is tied up and is about to be slaughtered.the chicken finds that he has wriggled out of the knot and he is free. The children become aware of this and proceed to chase the chicken. during this chase scene the chicken is almost portrayed as a human. the camera shot follows the chicken and it looks like we as the viewer are almost chasing the chicken too. we see the kids chasing the chicken through the favela and even taking shots at it. This could represent the life in the favela which is, you have to do what you can to survive.

Although this is not a British Social Realistic film it does portray the social reality of Brazil. Also the characters in the film are the social equivalent to the characters in our film. 

By Ash Khan

BULLET BOY OPENING ANALYSIS

BULLET BOY OPENING ANALYSIS

The film starts with cast names in a simple white font upon a black background ascending and descending around the screen in a random looking sequence while soft music is playing. It then shows a young boy confined in a very dark and small space. He has a tourch in his hand which he shines. the camera is very bumpy and we hear sounds of speeding cars passing by therefore the audience immediately believes he is in the trunk of a moving car. The shot gradually goes into a bright white screen and the film title "BULLET BOY" appears in a simple, black font in capital letters.

The next thing we see is a man lying down in a room. the camera is from the outside of the room and looking in through the glass on the door. we hear keys jingle and a lock open. the man gets up quickly and the person that opened the door says "come on sleepy head time to go home". as the camera moves about we begin to see more of the room. Combining all that we have heard and seen within the past few seconds it is safe to say that he is in a cell block. he leaves the cell and enters the reception. the prison looks fairly small and low security. He approaches another officer who is behind the desk and leans on the desk. the officers tells him to get off the desk in an authoritive manner and the man cooperates. this immediately tells us the relationship between the charcters and the statuses that they hold. the prisoner does not look very exited to be free so maybe his life outside the prison is not so happy. The prison officer asks the prisoner for his details and he replys quickly and you get the sense that he is use to being asked his details and has accustomed to his life in prison. Through out the scene the camera is very shakey and has slight panning shots. the camera is definitely being hand-held. i believe the director did this in order to engage the audience into the scene more. A shaky camera gives the impression that we are in the scene and the panning works as though we are rotating our neck.

After analysing the opening i took in the conventions and things they did. I think analysing Bullet Boy was very important because it is very similar to our film on several levels. Firstly, because they're both social realist films in London. Also, they are aimed at the same sort of audience and involve the same type of characters; Teenagers, to young adolescents to older adults. Finally Bullet boy is such a good film to analyse is because it is fairly low budget and obviously our film is too. Although the Bullet Boy editing is far more sophisticated than ours will be it is still in the lower end of the budget scale. This shows us ideas that we may be able to use.

By Ash Khan

Social Realism- Our Genre

The genre of our film is Social Realism. Our film shows the life of ordinary characters in London. Films that are in the same genre are;

This is England
Bullet Boy
Kidulthood
Adulthood
East is East
Fish Tank
Bradford Riots
Greenstreet

The British film industry have an impressive reputation for delivering excellent social realist films. It's a chance to show people the dramas that are in every day life. Something people can actually relate to.

By Ash Khan

Marketing

 Research is one of the most important steps that need to be looked at before making the actual project, which in our case was a movie opening.  Research involves collecting important information that is relevant to everything there is to do with the genre of our movie opening. We researched on one of the movies that we found quite similar to the one we were making, which was named’ Kidulthood’. We researched on all the type of shots that they had used, by watching the movie. I found this very helpful for us, as it gave us some extra ideas on how the camera was used in that particular type of genre. We also researched on their website. I analysed it in order to be able to see how their movie was marketed, which also was very important for us to get an idea of, as marketing takes a very big part in the process of movie making. To make the movie successful, it needs to be marketed correctly and well.

Kidulthood website analysis 

Analysis of Kidult hood website:

http://www.kidulthood.co.uk/

  Layout of the page is a commercial of special edition DVD that they offer for their audience and fans. The information on it also is on the webpage. This is a very good way of marketing, as the fans will be able to find all the extra information on the website, and as nowadays the internet is very popular way of researching and finding out useful information. 

  The website is designed for people to find out more about the film. The website contains all the information that people would be looking for. This website includes

the synopsis of the film, cast biography which is important to find out if you wish to know what the characters are going to be before just going off and seeing the film, as sometimes well known actors will interest people in seeing the film and just because the actor will be playing a role in it. 

   In the making gallery is made to just briefly show the people that are interested, what is going to be in the movie, few shots of behind the scenes or while filming. This has a very similar purpose, as trailer, which is trying to inform the audience more about the film, as if they would go and watch it, and if they would be disappointed, they would spread bad word of mouth around, which could even make the film to do very bad and to get less profit. 

These things are included to show the audience behind scenes basically and what is in the movie.

   The website also includes the trailer for people to see. If people are interested in watching the film, there are as well cinema listing on the website just to make it easier for people to find out where and in which cinemas the film is being screened at. 

   Basically it is important to have this on website if you are trying to market your film, because this is all the information that you find important for the audience to see in order to let them know all about your film and give them brief information on the film in order to get the audience ready before seeing the film.

Also I and my group mate Ash have researched on the Kidulthood poster, which all includes the researched on marketing, representing the film and also passing messages across to the audience and fans through marketing.


By Simona Larka 9575

Kidulthood poster analysis

(We chose to analyse this particular poster because it relates to our theme and is similar type of movie we are trying to create.)

This is the Kindulthood poster. I think that this poster is very affective, firstly because the title stands out from the dark background. The lettering is large, bold and white, which looks very dramatic. It say's "Before kidulthood comes adulthood" which suggests that the film is about teenagers.

The main image is a wide shot of all the characters. They look menacing and serious. Their facial expression as well as body language projects the stereotypical view of teenagers in London.

The background is of a dull and gloomy sky. In the dark sky there is an opening in the clouds where light is shining through. The light is shining above the characters heads and in hindsight of watching this film. i believe this suggest the death of the characters hence the bright light in the sky.
From the poster we can already recognise different character relationships. the girl and boy on the left look like they are in a relationship as do the central boy and girl.

We see a big teenager holding a bat on the right. This characters lightning is extremely low. This shows that this character could possibly be the bad guy in the film. I noticed how only two of the characters are standing up. This implies that these are the two main characters.

Furthermore, the review quote is very interesting. "Kicks the door of its hinges" tells the audience that there is an element of action. It is a very clever quote to use because unlike big machine guns and bombs, kicking is a more suitable form of abuse from teenagers.

In conclusion this poster is extremely informative once you start to look deeper into it. You can almost tell the full story. 


By Simona Larka 9575 and Ash Khan