Friday 17 September 2010

3 key lighting systems

There are 3 types of light that make up the 3 key lighting system.

Key light

Is the main light, normally the brightest and has the most influence on the look of the scene. it is placed on one side of the camera so that one side is in lots of light, and the other is in some shadow.

Fill light

This is the secondary light. it is placed on the opposite side of the key light, and is used to fill the shadows thrown by the key light. it will be less bright and softer than the key, and will be placed further back.

Back light

The back light is put behind the subject and lights it from the rear. it is not used to provide direct light, but more to provide deffinition and subtle highlights around the subjects outlines. This helps the viewer distinguish the subject from the background, and give more of a 3D look.

Tuesday 14 September 2010

Mis En Scene



3. Facial expressions and body language 



  • Facial expressions provide a clear indicator of how someone is feeling. 
  • If someone is smiling broadly we assume they are happy but we may get a different feeling if this is accompanied by scary music. 
  • Body language may also indicate how a character feels towards another character or may reflect the state of their relationship 
4. Positioning of characters & objects within a frame
  • Positioning within a frame can draw our attention to an important character/object.
  • A film-maker can use positioning to indicate relationships between people. 


The break up: man and woman sitting on sofa. there is a clear separation between the two characters, there is half the sofa each, with a clear black line where the two parts of the sofa meet. also behind them there is a window behind each of their heads. she is very shut down, with crossed arms and legs, and clearly looking away. the man has his hands clasped on his lap, with his eyes looking sideways at her. 

 5. Colour & lighting

  •  Colour carries certain connotations which may add meaning to a scene (ie red = danger/passion) 
  • Can give a scene a particular look, feel or mood.
  • Can be used for dramatic effect.
  • To highlight important characters or objects within the frame
  • To make characters look mysterious by shading sections of the face & body.
  • To reflect a characters mental state/hidden emotions ( i.e bright = happy strobe affect = confused ect )  

Monday 13 September 2010

Character profile- Harry Potter

My name is Harry Potter, i live in little winging for the summer, but mainly stay at hogwarts school. i defeated the greatest wizard of all time when i was 1. when i was 11 i defeated him again when he came back, and took the philosophers stone from him too. when i was 12 i killed a basalisk and killed tom riddle (voldimort) yet again, in the form of a memory. when i was 13 i inflated my aunt and then met the prime minister. defeated about 100 dementors and then cleared my uncle's name of murder. Then found out my mates rat actually is a man and went back to voldimort. when i was 14 i competed in these games and defeated a dragon and then a huge horde of sea monsters, then met voldimort AGAIN, when he fully returned. he got all his followers around and we had a battle. I escaped with my friend cederic who was dead. when i was 15 i joined the order of the pheonix and had a few battles with voldimorts followers. then my uncle died and voldimort and dumbledor had a battle. then when i was 16 i hunted horxruxes with dumbledor. dumbledor then died when voldimorts followers came in the school. when i was 17 i killed voldimort after a big battle where lots of my mates died. i grew up and lived happily ever after. i like flying on a broom stick and gingers.

Thursday 9 September 2010

Opening 2 mins of a feature film

Character: lester burnham (American Beauty)
he is lonely, and has quite a boring life.  doesn't get on with his wife, has 1 daughter, wife is in charge,  and they are not happy with eachother. big house, neat garden, wife is a perfectionist ( matching clogs and pruning tools). lives in a large neighborhood, gay couple next door. lester is narrator and says he will be dead in under a year but he doesnt know it yet...

Character: Jerry maguire  (Jerry Maguire)
Jerry works as a sports manager. he gets the best athelites in america and makes them big shots. it costs alot of money but people still pay to make them big. he recieves 264 phone calls a day on average, and works behind the scenes. he does all the buisness deals, does all the meetings and covers their back if something goes wrong. he is a typical american, thinking that america sets the bench mark for the rest of the world. he is very smart and buisness like, and he is overall quite confident, because he has to go and make people pay to win.

Comparison 


they are both very different characters, with jerry being confident, happy, busy, and generally liking his job. however lester is very dull, boring, quite a dull lifestyle, isnt really happy at all with himself or his job. in american beauty, the opening minutes show lesters family, his house, neighbours. whereas in jerry maguire, the opening minutes show jerry working, meeting new people, just being very busy in general, and giving the audience an idea of his lifestyle.


Character: Ken (Early Doors)
Ken, is the pub landlord of 'The Grapes' pub. he is first shown filling up a bottle of fine brandy with cheap brandy. this shows that he is deffinatly out to make a profit, backed up by the fact he took all the tip money as well. He is singing a song through most of the opening minutes, while he is cleaning up the pub toilets, he sings about not loosing his dignity, and doesnt thouroghly clean the toilets, but just gives them a quick scrub. he then gets a knock on the door from one of his mates and he says that one of their mates 'snuffed it' at the age of 77.



Opening Sequences

London to Brighton:
a woman and girl (probably middle-lower class) both covered in blood run in toilets and clean the blood off. the woman leaves the girl in the toilet and goes to get some food for her, then goes to get some money by being a prostitute and then goes back to get the girl, and catch a train to get away from the danger, which is yet unknown to us.

The Graduate


Starts off with a shot of the inside of the plane coming to land. Then just follows him walking through the airport, getting his baggage, and leaving. He is dressed in a suit, but all the colours are quite bland and dull. so this gives us the idea he is quite a dull person. All you can hear is a song, but over the song all you can hear are instructions, which is probably telling us about his life too, because he has been in education all his life, and all he has been doing is being told what to do.

Napoleon Dynamite


The opening of this film is simply the opening credits, all being displayed on food, or book labels, or school stationary. this is very original and clever because they have actually done all the names on different meals. for example there was one which had 'Directed by' on a muffin, and the name on a piece of lettuce. This could show that the main character likes food. also there is a song playing in the background, which is singing about going back to school.

Tuesday 7 September 2010

Lesson

First media studies lesson today!
homework:
1. i never realised how much detail was actually used in a scene for a film
2. i learned that storms and dark cloths normally give quite a gothic theme to a scene

helloooo

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