Script Draft #2

INT. BEDROOM – DAY

RUBY browses through dressing room draws. Hunts through bundles of clothes.


                            RUBY (GROANING)
                         How can it not be here?


RUBY slams draw shut. Scavenges through next draw down fishing the purple scarf from on top and throws across the room. Scarf floats through the air. RUBY races across the room to a closet. The door creaks on its hinges. RUBY grabs random clothing and holds it up against her body in the long mirror.

                          RUBY (SIGHING)
                        That will have to do.

The digital clock on the bedside table then ticks on 20 minutes. RUBY is sat a dressing table applying perfume, body lotion and make-up. RUBY proceeds to pick out a nail varnish, choosing a deep purple.





EXT. STREET – DAY



RUBY saunters down the street. 

                          RUBY (VO)
It takes a lot of effort to look good. Sometimes too much effort, but it has to be done. I know guys notice me; I mean why else would they be staring? My make-up is never smudged, I mean never! That is just a no. I like to describe myself as fabulously contemporary. If I don’t keep up with trend then no one can. Not to be rude to others but I believe that I create the ‘In-Styles’ I always wear the latest fashions first.



RUBY suddenly freezes as she unexpectedly notices a familiar face. One that she has not seen in years, also a face she did not want to see. The mystery male stares at her filling the space between them with undying tension.

Script Drafting #1

This is my first draft of a script -



INT. BEDROOM – DAY

RUBY browses through dressing room draws. Hunts through bundles of clothes.


                         RUBY (GROANING)
                          Where is it?!
                     How can it not be here?

RUBY slams draw shut. Scavenges through next draw down fishing the purple scarf from on top and throws across the room. Scarf floats only one-quarter of the way. RUBY races across the room to a closet. The door creaks on its hinges. RUBY grabs random clothing and holds it up against her body in the long mirror.

                         RUBY (SIGHING)
                      That will have to do.

The digital clock on the bedside table then ticks on 20 minutes. RUBY is sat a dressing table applying perfume, body lotion and make-up. RUBY proceeds to pick out a nail varnish, choosing a deep purple.





EXT. STREET – DAY



RUBY saunters down the street pretending to be oblivious of passersby’s . 

                   RUBY (VO)
It takes a lot of effort to look good. In fact sometimes it’s too much effort, but it has to be done. I know guys notice me; I mean what else would they be staring for? My make-up is never smudged, I mean never! That is just a no. I like to describe myself as fabulously contemporary. If I don’t keep up with trend then no one can. Not to be rude to others but I believe that I create the ‘In-Styles’ I always wear the latest fashions first.



RUBY suddenly freezes as she unexpectedly notices a familiar face. One that she has not seen in years, also a face she did not want to see. The mystery male stares at her filling the space between them with undying tension.



During a run through of the script I was able to hear if my script work and how I could improve it. After I was given feedback to what everyone thought was good and was asked any questions.
The comment was made that Ruby's first line "Where is it?!" is not necessarily need, to which I agree because actions by actor demonstrate this, so within my next edit it will be removed.

The significance of the colour purple was also questioned. Purple symbolises Royalty, Power, Luxury and Ambition. A light purple evokes romantic and nostalgic feelings, whereas a dark purple evokes gloom and can cause frustration. I chose purple because it will symbolise Ruby's vulnerability. Though she seems to be very selfish and carefree she is just masking her true feelings because she is actually unstable in thoughts, so she wants to take pride in something.

Script Writing

Recently, we have been looking at how scripts are formatted and how they are written. We leant that scripts have to have a specific size, font and positioning on a page. The font must be 'Courier' and size 12. Slug Lines are used to tell us whether the scene is inside or outside and whether it is night or day. It can also give extra infomation about the location; for example: a city street.
Character cue is the name of the speaking character and it always centred and capitalised above their speech

-> Example of how to format a script

This was a quick draft that I made during a quick task we were given. It is not my final drafting because it still needs editing to fit in with my pitch ideas.

Pitch for Film Opening

Part 1-

Part 2-

These videos are my pitch for the main idea for my opening of a film. The genre is Rom/Com - Chickflick and it is set in a house (presumably because we only see at bedroom at the beginning) and in a city street.
-> Ident talked about in video http://heathermmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/cityscape-productions-ident.html

CityScape Productions Ident

This is my final edit of my ident. I wanted to use the idea of city and the change from night to day as this often resembles a new start.
I chose for the title to rise above the buildings to mirror the movement of the sun, however the title once at the top of the shot it then splits and travels to a low shot and in-front of the building. This creates an attraction for the viewer, especially as the text becomes more outlined and prominent.

Ident - Planning

Recently we were given the task of producing our own ident that would be used on our own work. Over the past couple of weeks we have had help learning how to use Adobe After Effects so that we were able to use the programme to produce our own creative ideas.

This is my early sketch of what I wanted my ident to look like. I wanted a city silhouette landscape. 

I did further annotations to describe how I wanted my ident title to match in with my city scene.

I decided on the title 'CityScape Productions' and wanted it to rise over the buildings like the sun with a yellow blurry glow. I also wanted the background to change for night to sunrise to symbolise dawn.

Film Production Idents

Blue Sky Studios

This studio is responsible for family favoruite animation films such as the Ice Age saga, Robots and Rio.

The ident is simple with little movement except for the inner lining of the circle that changes with a hypnotising frequencey. This could be the idea that the ident is a cloud in the sky.

 The video above is the ident used from Ice Age 2:The Meltdown. The film itself is about the melting of the ice within the habitat of the pre-historic animals. Throughout the film the sky blue colour is used, so the wide use of this colour foreshadows the melted ice and flooding that is encountered in the film. Also the effect of the lining foreshadows the rippling water.

Freemantle Media

Freemantle media is company that was founded in 2001and holds many British, American and Australian production companies; for example TalkBack Thames, responsible for programmes such as 'X Factor'.

It is accountable for productions:

• America's Got Talent, Britains Got Talent
• Hole in the Wall
• Neighbours
• The Bill
• American Idol
• Merlin
• Price is Right

TalkBack Thames was before 2012 two separate companies, TalkBack and Thames. Now they are responsible for the productions:

• The Apprentice
• Celebrity Juice
• Family Fortunes
• How Clean is Your House?

New Line Cinema

New Line Cinema productions is an American based company that was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne. In 2008 it was partner-shipped with Warner Bros. Studios.

It has made the following films:

• Lord of the Rings Trilogy
• Final Destination
• Se7en
• A Nightmare on Elm Street
• Hairspray
• Elf
• Horrible Bosses
• Austin Powers 



Anatomy of a Murder

This video is my re-creation of the title sequence by Saul Bass for Anatomy of a Murder.
I have created this over several lessons using Adobe After Effects.
I drew the body parts individually, allowing the separate movements and timing details to made effectively. I worked on the timing of each piece, so that it would look like the creation of a murder scene. This was done by the individual pieces having set times of entering the scene it puts everything together of a murder scene.

This is the original title sequence by Saul Bass (1959)

Genre Research - RomCom/Chickflick

The typical Chickflick film is cliched, melodramatic, weepy and soap-opera-ish. They are mostly formulated romatic comedies containing mis-matched lovers or friendship.

Common actresses in Chickflicks are Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Anniston, Rachael McAdams and Katherine Heigl, plus many others.

This sub-genre has been popular since the mid-80's. Film critic Molly Haskwell has previously said

"chick flick," chirrupy and upbeat, sings a different tune, more defiant and ironic, postmodern and post-feminist, like the growling braggadocio of "grrrl power." Where "grrrl power" says "I can be cute and assertive too," "chick flick" says: "I'm emancipated but it's OK to long for romance, to get hung up on a guy, to obsess about mothers or children.".

Some of the Most Memberable Chickflicks - from Filmsite.org

• Gone With the Wind (1939) - Victor Fleming
• Casablanca (1942) - Michael Curtiz
• Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) - Blake Edwards
• Grease (1978) - Randal Kleiser
• Dirty Dancing (1987) - Emile Ardolino
• When Harry Met Sally (1989) - Rob Reiner
• Thelma & Louise (1991) - Ridley Scott

More Recent:

• Love Actually (2003) - Richard Curtis
• Mean Girls (2004) -Mark Waters
• The Notebook (2004) - Nick Cassavetes
• 27 Dresses (2008) - Anne Fletcher

                   

Re-creation of Teletubbies opening title sequence

This is my re-creation of the title opening title sequence for the Teletubbies. I used Adobe After Effects and imported images and added text.

Over the past weeks I have learnt how to put images on to a scene and how to move them. I have also learnt how to rotate the images to make them animated.
I have learnt how to add text to the scene and animate it. I have used effects such as fading, glow and bluriness.

Opening Title Sequence Analysis - RomCom/Chickflick

Something's Gotta Give - Nancy Meyers (2003)

This films opening sequence revolves around the sexualisation of young females. It shows young females at their peak flaunting the streets of the city and using their sex appeal to exploit men. This establishes for the film that a young female is very dominant.
Throughout the sequence Crazy Town - Butterfly is played as audio. The lyrics foreshadow this sequence and scenes throughout the film. At 0.36 on the trailer above the song states "The only thing I really know is that she got sex appeal" this would hint that women are used for visual pleasure. Later on in the title sequence  Harry Sanborn, played by Jack Nicholson, narrates about being a genius when it comes to the younger women; he comically says it is because "I've been doing it for 40 years". This then sets the audience up for scene of him dating a young women, rather than someone his own age, which is more realistic.

Confessions of a Shopaholic - P. J. Hogan

The films opening shot is a top shot of shoes and shoe boxes new from expensive shops. It's almost as if it's a dream because their a fancy, expensive shoes everywhere all wrapped in coloured tissue paper. The narration by Rebeccca Bloomwood (played by Isla Fisher) describes what her life - shopping wise - was like. "When I was a little girl, there were real prices and mom prices. Real prices got you shiny sparkly things that last you three weeks." At this point it is still a top shot of the shoes described. "And mom prices got you brown things...that lasted forever!". The shot is tracked to the end where a young child version of her is sat away from the other girls putting on the 'real price' shoes.

Case Study on David Fincher

David Fincher believes that it's as much about a good title sequences as it is the movie and that the titles should be engaging, in a character way, to help set the scene. Fincher likes to use the title sequence as a prologue. His films Se7en and The Game use this idea. The title sequence for Se7en shows a man cutting his finger tips, Fincher says this is to to get you thinking "What is this weirdness? How does it get folded into the soufflé that will be this movie?" (- quote taken  from this interview). In basic terms the title sequence is the set up for the film and helps give you an inside character to reference for film.

Fincher also says in the interview that the originally planned title sequence lack the villain, John Doe, so Kyle Cooper (designer of the title sequence) came up with the idea to show someone creating evil. The lack of the villain did not give the audience a sense of what other characters were up against.

In the interview Fincher explains that when watch a movie and its title sequence he thinks "That was a scene in the film - that was written in the script - but it was used in a different way". He suggests that the title sequence may be too negative to be a scene within the movie and the ending would be more provocative without a climax of events.

Se7en (1995)

The first scene of the title opens with a character shakily turning page of what we can presume to be an old book. We can presume this because it has yellow stained pages, crumpled edges and loose binding. The shaking of the character browsing the pages and mystery behind the age of the book connotes that evil is brewing and sets an uncomfortable tone. The music is very creepy and eerie and font is shaky revealing that the film is dark.

The following scene shows a drawing/picture of to scale hands. The hands are strangely deformed with broken fingers and prominent veins creating the idea of an evil plot.

This scene is followed by extreme close ups of tools creating. The audience is then shown another extreme close up. This shot shows shaving dead skin off his finger tips leaving the audience disturbed and uncomfortable. The extreme close ups at this point leave the audience intrigued as to who the characters is and what they are doing. The shaving of the skin could symbolise that the character is trying to destroy evidence off his hands for whatever crime he has previously encountered or preparing for. Through out the rest of the title sequence his finger tips are shown to have plasters on.

This character goes on to be cutting clippings of pictures and writing notes. In an extreme close up they are blacking out words within in a scientific article about pregnancy. In another extreme close up they black out words about sexuality, this is followed by the blacking out of the eyes of a boy, leaving the audience confused as to whether the boy is him or another boy that he has already captured or is planning to capture.The scene then flashes to the image completely blackened out confusing the audience more.

Scenes are then flashed up of the character making a scrap book and sewing together the pages of the book, which is obviously full of important information for the character, however the audience is still left oblivious. The scenes are captured in an extreme close up format leaving you on the edge of your seat hoping for information to be revealed. At this point the music has sped up and reveals that the sequence is coming to it's climax.

The opening titles suggest that the film is a thriller about the hunt for a psychotic killer.

Title Sequences by Saul Bass

Ocean’s Eleven (1960) — Art of the Title


This title sequence introduces us to Las Vegas in an animated form. The shape and colours form bright lights of the Vegas Strip. They are goudy and vibrant celebrating the false lifestyle of partying.

The sequence begins with a count up to 11, from 3 we get the key actors of the film in scoreboard style, representative of the boards set up upon hotels and sites. From there on the lights are shaped freely, almost advertising the freedom that comes with being in Las Vegas, plus the lights and engergetic music of the era creates the image of fun.

From half way the style is changed and empahsises the casino and slot machines which make Vegas famous. Creates a false idea of gaining money because you lose more money than you gain.
The slot machine shows the winning, but when two of the slots hint at two characters in a love affair, the hiding of action gives us an idea of the sleazy ways of the city.

Carmen Jones (1954) — Art of the Title


Though this title sequence does not feature as much animation as most of Saul Bass's title sequences, it is just as effective.

The single rose and deep red flame are simple, symbolic effects that describe the characters without even knowing any information about them. Red can represent many emotions, mainly strong emotions. In this case the red represents -

• Love
• Lust
• Greed
• Betrayal
• Rage

The rose also symbolises Love, especially when red.

Fire is added to represent Carmen's wild nature and passion that another character feels for her.

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) - Art of the Title

 

This title sequence is full of childlike illustrations and slapstick comedy. The title sequence did not have a link to the film, but the tone of the film through colour and character.

Globe used through out is very simplistically drawn. When the globe is changed, actions made to demonstrate the change are very childlike and over dramatic. At 3:34 the globe is cut into a human streamers, just like young children do. The child-like theme was influenced by the take over from Disney hyper-realism to more modern stylised productions.

Preliminary Task

For our preliminary task we had to film a character walking through a door and having a conversation with another with another character. It had to include shot reverse shot and a master shot.
We film each character from a number of angles e.g close up. I edited the short piece with Adobe Premiere Pro and was able to add dissolves to break up the scenes instead of using straight cuts. The dissolves also spread out of time between the shots.

Hot Fuzz Analysis

Hot Fuzz (2007) is a British comedy directed and co-written by Edgar Wright. It stars Simon Pegg as PC/Sgt./Insp. Nicholas Angel and Nick Frost as PC/Sgt. Danny Butterman.

Trailer -

 

The fast paced editing creates a dramatic effect and comedic effect. When Angel is placing the over the top, mass murdering equipment it hightens the seriousness that Angel has, however this also hightens the funny side because this equipment is not for use of the police. Scenes that are longer usually contain dialogue or set up the next shot. They usually are humoruous because they introduce the feelings and tension for the next shots.

My Foley Work

This is my edit on a piece of foley work. I replaced some of the sounds because they were not picked up properly by the microphone on the camera. I recreated them by using audio clips similar to the sounds and placed them over the top.

Foley Artist Work

This piece of work was to demonstrate out understanding of sound and how sound is edited into scenes asthetically by foley artists recreating the sounds using other materials; for example the audio of fire is normally made by the crackling of paper bags. This sound is taped and placed over the scene. Occasionally dialogue has the same techniques, especially if the scene is filmed in bad conditions, an example of this would be strong gale winds. The dialogue would be unable to be picked up by the microphone, so the characters record the dialogue in a recording studio.
Animation films are different because diaglogue is normally recorded before the creation of the film, so that the words are shown correctly. Foley artists in animation films are given a blank scence and have to create and add the sounds to the scenes.

An example video from Youtube:

 

 

This video shows foley artists recreating sounds that the everyday person would think were actually in the scene, however this is not the case because most of the sounds would be quiet or the movements to make the sounds were to far away for the microphone to pick up.

The Homecoming

 

 

This is a short clip of a film called 'The Homecoming', in which we filmed and edited by ourselves with the brief of a short film with genre of a Thriller.

The first scene of the actress walkinhg only showed her feet and followed her movements. The camera picked up shadows which emphaised the seriousness the character had and hinted that she was on her way to do a job and that she was not messing around - she meant business.

I wanted to show the actor feeling suspicious and confused at the infomation he had been given, so I used a close up to see all the detail.

I also used a Point of View shot to show what the actor was seeing because this would make the audience have a connection with the what he is seeing.

 

 

 

 

 

 



Shot Reverse Shot Edit

 

 

I used a master shot at the beginning to establish the setting and the behaviour of the characters. When one character is speaking I chose to film a Point of View shot from the other character, I then used straight cuts as soon as one character stopped peaking and took it as a Point of View shot from the last speaking characters perspective to show the reaction of the character and so that the character shown on screen can reply either through dialogue or body language.

This continuty of editing helps the sequence flow easily and makes easy watching, plus it gives structure, so the audience is not confused as to who is speaking and gives infomation on the atmosphere the characters give off.



Welcome to my Media Studies blog

On this blog I will showcase all of my work whether it is visual media or written assesments.

3 Things I have Learnt Over The Past Three Weeks:

1. I have learnt how to use editing software accuratly and efficiently
2. I have learnt about key terminoly for the still shots; for example Extreme Close Up, Extreme Long Shot and Reaction Shots
3. I have studied specific scenes from the film Hot Fuzz and looked at why certain edits are used.