Continuity Task

This is our continuity task, that we filmed and edited so we gained practice for when it came to doing our proper opening title sequence. It is no where near perfect because it was a first draft, however our continuity skills were good. For example, everything about Dani was the same in every scene, like she wasn't wearing different clothes. This is an example of bad continuity, from Spiderman 3 where the windows are smashed in one scene but then fixed in the next scene. The idea of this continuity task was to inspire us when it comes to filming our real piece, to give us help with editing footage and take use of any feedback that needs to be improved.

Progress from the weekend

On Sunday, we filmed the final pieces of our film, these included; a refilm of some walking shots using a tripod and the new piece where the femme fatale shoots her first victim. It took us a while to film a correct meeting hug, because the we couldn't make the man and woman hug as if they have never met before, and the woman to give off a mysterious effect.

Today, we uploaded all of our footage and edited it, our film i sjust about finished, and we are now just getting final feedback of classmates. We don't need to film again, we just need to concentrate on editing it to perfecccctionnn.

Feedback

One of our teachers and a few of our classmates, gave us some feedback about our film so far. We are going to take this advice into account, and refilm in a few days and then edit it.

The pros of our film were:
- They liked the close-ups; they built tension and looked sexy.
.. this is what we wanted the close-ups to do, because the tension has to build throughout the piece and our femme fatale is meant to be sexy.
- Liked jazz music with foreboding sound over the top.
.. the foreboding sound was supposed to have an effect on the jazz music so that our femme fatale comes across as threatening.
- The opening title sequence draws you in, you want to know whether the femme fatale is a protagonist or antagonist, and this creates enigma.
.. we want our opening title sequence to have an effect on whether the audience think the femme fatale is good or bad, and they have to watch the film to find out.
- Liked the colours
.. we don't want our opening title sequence to be black and white, because we want the reds to come out nicely.
- They liked the light at the top of the stairs shining down on the femme fatale because it looked angelic.
.. we wanted the lighting effects in our opening title sequence to be interesting so they had a good effect on the audience.
- The lampposts and the house front lights, all created good effects.
.. again we wanted our lighting to be interesting.

The cons of our film were:
- The titles were too repetitive.
.. to prevent this, we have changed the titles, so they don't look too repetitive,
- Titles need to be made more professional looking.
.. to do this we have made our titles, produced by.. edited by.. directed by.. insteaeed of filmed and edited by..
- Font looked to masculine, needed to look more feminine.
.. we changed the font to a more girly looking font, than a simple one.
- See torches in background.
.. Me and Danielle were in the background of one of the shots holding up a torch, we didn't realise we were in the shot until we uploaded it, so that is something we are going to film again.
- Didn't use a tripod, some bits were wobbly.
.. we are going to refilm bits that came out to wobbly using a tripod.
- The text needs a reaction, who was it to/from?
.. when we add in our vioceover the text is going to be explained.
- It would be good if we saw the man and there was some sort of violence, like a knife in a pocket or a gun.
.. we are going film another bit to our opening title sequence, with viloence, and you will have to wait and see this after we have filmed it to hear about how successful it was.

Double Indemnity Analysis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI73zPyYq1o

I have annotated this clip of the film and compared it to any techniques we have decided to use for aspiration.
The titles are white, bold and simple. Our titles are red, bold but not simple, this is because we want our title font to look more feminine rather than a masculine font, so the audience see that the film is mainly based along the lines of a femme fatale, rather than gangster men, for example. The lighting at the beginning is used by the lamp posts and headlights of cars, for example, it is dark but you can see the lights glowing. These create alot of shadows and shadows are used alot throughout the whole clip, across the face and on the ground. These are created differently depending on where you put the camera. We have used lamp posts in our opening title sequence to help with lighting effects. Music is used to create tension and changes to suit the mood and what is happening, it tends to usually be slow jazz. Our opening title sequence has a piece of slow jazz and has a foreboding sound over it, to make it sound threatening. The men are in suits and top hats, they all look upper class, but one man who is obviously lower class, is treated alot differently by the upper class men, so this shows that class mattered when this film was set. Camera angles involve a lot of tracking, this is used in our opening title sequence, because we follow the femme fatale walking down the street. We soon learn that the film is about murder and violence, violence is a typical convention of film noir and we have decided to use a bit of violence in our opening title sequence. There is a voiceover used in this film, and we are putting a voiceover in ours because it narrates and helps the audience concentrate on what is going on, and allows the audience to hear about someone's point of view. The femme fatale has curly hair, dark lipstick, sexy voice, high heels, smart clothing, puts on lipstick whilst on camera, plays with nails. We have tried to use all these conventions in our opening title sequence, because after research these are the typical conventions of femme fatales. Men look important and powerful, however the women still play them and try to control them.

Title Research

Today we gathered together and looked at some film noir titles, and took note of what themes came up. We then went onto a Theasaurus website, and picked out our favourite words for each theme. These were;
- Women - vixen
- Violence - vehemence, tumult, fervor, ferocity, compulsion
- Suspense - potboiler, indecisive, cloak and dagger
- Sex - magnetism, coitus
- Trap - subterfuge, deception, inveigle, machination.
We then looked at these words, and some more film titles, and we liked the sound of 'Touch Of..' so we decided to see what it sounded like with different words, and our favourite was 'Touch Of Vehemence.' Therefore this is what we have decided to call our film.

Preparation of our new scene

Before filming out bit with the gunshot/knife, we took photos to practice what we were going to film and what angles we were going to use. The photos of this is on Dani's blog, the hyperlink should take you straight to the post. When it came to filming, we realised that using a knife, would be too dangerous and we could get in trouble for having it. As stupid as it does sound, we ended up using a toy gun because it was much safer. Therefore we couldn't follow the exact structure of the photos, so we changed them slightly.

Femme Fatale

A femme fatale is an alluring and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetypal character of literature and art. Her ability to entrance and hypnotize her male victim was in the earliest stories seen as being literally supernatural, hence the most prosaic femme fatale today is still described as having a power akin to an enchantress, vampire, female monster or demon. The ideas involved are closely tied to fears of the female witch and misogyny. To some, the femme fatale "remains an example of female independence and a threat to traditional female gender roles."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Femme_fatale

We have decided to use a femme fatale in our opening title sequence. She has red lips and dark curly hair, we made her look sophisticated and to try not to smile too much. This is because femme fatale's don't smile much, and are after people for money. We are planning on making our film about a femme fatale trying to steal a man's money and lead them on, but obviously we are only doing the opening title sequence, so this will be when she first meets the man and we will first meet the femme fatale.

For more about our femme fatale, visit Daisy's blog.
There is also a section about our femme fatale on the post about Film Classifications.

Bigger Picture Research

This post is similar to what I posted about the film viewing times in Liverpool. I find this post interesting because it shows the viewing figures from 2009 films, I gain many inspirations from this blog page and recommend anyone studying Media Studies to have a look at it.

http://www.biggerpictureresearch.net/2010/01/2009-box-office-and-admissions-round-up-australia-denmark-hungary-romania.html

Today's Progress

Today, we met and carried on editing our opening title sequence. We have edited clips, to do with the colouring and lighting, this is because when we did film, the lighting looked right to us, but when it was uploaded it didn't look like we wanted. Therefore we edited the colours to give off the effect that we wanted.

We also listened to some slow jazz sound, and managed to decide on a piece, that will be playing whilst the femme fatale is getting ready, but when she walks to meet him, we plan to make the piece be a bit quieter, and more in the background. Over the top of this piece of slow jazz, we have added a 'Supsense' sound, that creates tension, and makes the music sound more threatening. This is because we want our femme fatale to come across as threatening, and this sound suits it well.

Next time we meet, we plan to do a voiceover and try and add some credits and titles.

Liverpool Viewing Times - ODEON

This link below shows what films are on in the ODEON cinema in Liverpool. As a task, the whole class had their own city, and we are going to compare what cinemas are showing different films.

http://www.odeon.co.uk/fanatic/film_times/s171/Liverpool_ONE