Progress Review 1

I have done a self assessment, where I've identified my current strengths and weaknesses, what level I think I am currently working at and what level I think I will end up with at the end of my research and planning. I have said that I think I will finish on a level 4 because I am ensuring that the work I do meets the criteria of what a level 4 requires. My teacher has also gone in to this document and given her input as to how she thinks I am doing. Mrs. Fisher has agreed with me that my final research and planning grade will be a level 4, which has made me feel more comfortable and confident with what I am doing.

I have looked in to the improvements Mrs. Fisher has given me and I will look over exam board examples, mark schemes and checklists to ensure that my work is the best that it can possibly be.

Camera Movements and Techniques

I have done this research in to different camera movements and techniques because I will then be able to have an understanding of when and how to use them in my own coursework piece.

Reference:
https://www.videomaker.com/article/c10/14221-camera-movement-techniques-tilt-pan-zoom-pedestal-dolly-and-truck

Camera Movements from rhysward21

Spectre Opening Analysis

There are no typography elements within the opening scene of Spectre. Directors may have chosen to do this because titling, or any other text, is just not necessary due to the extremely high brand awareness associated with the James Bond films. The marketing/promotion of the film and the commonly known James Bond ident, along with other things, will allow the audience to identify the film when they come to watch it. This famous ident and the other James Bond related information is a cultural code when you look at the Barthes semiotics theory, because the audience will have to have this external knowledge prior to watching the film in order to be able to identify it as Spectre. Due to the audience do have this knowledge, it represents the Spectre and James Bond brand as being well known and in turn successful.

Throughout the opening scene the lighting is kept light, besides when the building collapses and dust/debris causes for it to slightly darken. The frequently seen bright light gives positive connotations to the audience, which when linked with the James Bond brand may represent an exciting and action-packed narrative. Alternatively, the audience may have an oppositional view of this choice of bright lighting and they might interpret it to be foreshadowing that the good will defeat the evil in the end. The darker parts of the scene highlight the destruction that has been caused and for the audience this is rather thrilling because it shows that destruction and action will be a major part within the narrative.

When the camera is filming outside there appears to be a dull, yellow coloured tint over the scene. This dull yellow colour is known to represent caution and decay. Caution is relevant because James Bond is about to put himself in to a dangerous and life threatening situation, and decay could be used to connote that the buildings and the location of where this scene is taking place is quite old and is being to look worn down.

James Bond's clothing is kept darkly coloured and dull. First we see him wearing a primarily black skeleton costume and then he switches to a smarter, dark grey suit. The dark colours look smarter, making James Bond look more official and responsible, however dark colours are a semantic code for darker and more evil concepts. The character, portrayed as an antagonist, is seen wearing a cream and bright suit, which contrasts with this idea of him being one of the bad characters within the film. These two contrasting costume colours clearly differentiate the two characters from each other and cause the audience to make the protagonist and antagonist connections, linking to the binary opposites theory by Levi Strauss. Looking back to the start of the opening scene when all the characters are wearing skeleton costumes, this is confusing for the audience because we have no background information, such as why is James Bond there and what the event is actually about. This event therefore becomes a hermeneutic code as it crafts mystery for the audience. This code is a great way to engage the audience as they will want to discover the answers to the questions they're raising.

The gun that James Bond uses to kill some of his targets and to blow up one of the buildings is one of the first props we see, after the skeleton masks. Guns and other weapons are conventional to the action film genre because they are iconic to violence, destruction and crime. With this being said, using the gun in the opening scene and so early on in the film will engage the audience further because action is being implemented and this probably foreshadows more to come. The antagonist does not have a weapon at all, whereas James Bond has the gun. For an audience that has never seen a James Bond film before this could possibly cause them to think that James Bond is the antagonist. It represents his character as being violent and dangerous. Another prop used in the opening scene is an earpiece. Bond inserts an earpiece in to his ear as he is approaching his targets and he is then able to listen in to the conversation happening in that building. Earpieces are associated with police and security, making it very easy for the audience to link Bond to some sort of security agency through the use of this prop. A more major prop is the helicopter that comes in to rescue the antagonist character. By using a helicopter, equipped with two pilots and another member, emphasises on wealth and power. That person, or the organisation he is working for, must have a lot of money and power in order to be able to afford a helicopter and to operate a rescue mission during a highly populated event.

As there is no text used or any significant codes shown we cannot identify a specific location. However we can deduce from the opening scene it is being set in a major city or town due to the major amount of money and effort that has been put in to this parade. This does not surprise me as it is an action film generic convention for films to be set in major cities. Bond walking on rooftops is tense for the audience because one false move and he will be dead, however his smooth and confident body language calms us. It also makes us feel tense because we are expecting action and this bizarre choice of getting from one point from another almost shouts out to us that this action is close. Inside the helicopter is another setting used within the opening scene and as I have previously mentioned it connotes wealth and power. In addition to these initial connotations, the crazy, hectic situation of the mid-air 3-1 fight between Bond and the antagonists puts the audience on edge as it is unlikely that Bond will win. Nevertheless he does win the fight and flies the helicopter away, showing another of James Bond's skills.

Previously in this analysis I have discussed Bond's confident and smooth body language as he walks along the rooftops. He manages to convey his confident and smooth body language throughout the opening, even when he is fighting in the middle of the sky!!! As an audience, we identify Bond as someone who knows what they're doing and are experienced in their field of work. As we watch the film we relate to it because we visualise that this happens in real life (uses and gratifications - personal relationships), and we hope that all government agents are as good as he is as then we know we will be safe.

Spectre falls in to several different genres: action, thriller, crime and adventure. As an audience we can identify these different genres because of the conventions associated with them. Despite these multiple genres, the main one is action and this is the one I will be exploring in this analysis. Action film generic conventions that apply to Spectre's opening scene are weapons, big city, good vs bad, mass destruction, killings, a chase, explosions and fights. James Bond uses a gun to kill the antagonist characters and cause an explosion, which in turn creates mass destruction. As I have already stated in this analysis I am not aware of the location of where this film is set, however I can deduce that it is quite a big city because of the money and effort that has been put in to that event. The good vs bad (binary opposites) concept is implemented as Bond is seen fighting against people, who are portrayed as antagonists. Bond chases the main antagonist character through the parade, where they eventually end up on the helicopter and fighting.

The standard of editing is very good because it comes across as smooth, continuous and sharp. The sharp part of the editing is important because it fits in more with the action genre. For example, cuts are frequently used as they are sharp, quick and easily build up tension. If a dissolve transition was to be edited in to the opening analysis then it would would dramatically reduce the tension, slowing it down and making it boring for the audience. When the audience watch the opening scene there is no clear cuts, and everything just flows - it is seamless. The editing manages to build the tension and build the action very well, which is what the directors needed to do to engage the audience's attention and maintain it.

Shot types vary throughout the opening scene of Spectre. The first shot we see (below) immediately sets the scene for the audience and lets them know that some sort of major, well populated event is taking place. This helps to build the tension because from the very start there is action and everything appears to be hectic.

This long shot of Bond walking on the rooftops also helps to build up tension and now excitement for the audience. The level of danger is very high and therefore causes for the audience to be on edge as one wrong step would result in Bond dying or becoming extremely injured. Here he can be seen putting in his earpiece and having a gun hanging over this shoulder. Both of these props aid the audience with identifying the action genre and they also convey this concept of Bond being a spy, if they did not already know from the cultural code. Having the parade also in the long shot emphasises on how high up James Bond is and reinforces this idea of a high level of danger. In addition, having Bond in the foreground, forces the audience to focus on him and what he is doing. You can also see vaguely how his body language comes across as confident and experienced.

The gun that Bond has hanging over his shoulder and uses to kill some people, cause an explosion and then create mass destruction is iconic to the theme of violence. This emphasises this experienced concept because somebody who has no clue about guns would definitely not be walking on a rooftop with a high-tech gun! The helicopter, and how it can just be called for quickly, is iconic to wealth and power. I have already discussed this iconography above. Basically, the antagonist's organisation is very wealthy and powerful.

At the start of the opening to about a quarter of the way through, there is a carnival style tune repetitively playing in the background. This diegetic sound fits in with the parade environment and gives the audience this sense of continuity. This carnival music is combined with one of the well known Bond theme tunes. This Bond theme tune is fast paced and therefore is able to increase tension levels and engage the audience. This tune is iconic to the James Bond brand as it is used regularly, in the latest films at least. It is non-diegetic because that music has been edited in to the scene - it is not natural as dialogue would be.

Furious 7 Opening Scene Analysis

Furious 7 Opening Scene Analysis from rhysward21

The Conjuring 2 Opening Scene Analysis

In this blog post I am going to analyse the opening scene of The Conjuring 2 using the list of techniques I uploaded in a mind map previously. I chose to use this film because it is fiction and therefore relates to my main task, where I have to produce the opening to a fictional film of my own.

At the end of the clip, you see the first bit of typography where a brief description is scrolled up the screen and then where the title is displayed. The brief description has been put there to give the audience a little inside knowledge so that they can understand the rest of the film without having to know the backstory before watching the film. Linking this to the cultural code from Barthes's semiotics theory, the audience have this external knowledge given to them so that they can now continue to watch the film and relate back to this information if they are required to. The font of this text is similar to that you would expect to come from a typewriter, and is coloured yellow. The typewriter effect connotes an old fashioned theme to the audience because typewriters have more or less been extinct for many years now. This old fashioned theme links to the idea of sprits and ghosts because they are widely associated with old people; death. Additionally, the colour yellow (colour of the text) is generally referenced to joy, happiness and energy because its link to sunshine. It is also said to produce a warming effect for the audience. All of these references are totally contrasted by different things: the scary opening scene shown before it, the content of the text, the link to the prequel film, the connotations produced from the different typography aspects, the non-diegetic sound playing in the background and much more. The title is also yellow, however is written in a different font. This font is extremely well known globally as The Conjuring logo and the high level of brand awareness will be recognised by the target audience as a result of their interest in the either the previous films or the horror film genre. Overall this film is foreshadowed to not have a nice, joyful and happy narrative from the use of typography in the opening scene alone.

At the very start of the opening clip you can see that the lighting is kept low in order to help make it appear darker, which gives the audience connotations of evil and sinister situations. I think that the directors and will want to have achieved this because the main narrative of the film is evil/sinister due to its relation to spirits and ghosts. A secondary interpretation of how this low lighting could be conceived by the audience is to show a clear differentiation between the lady's dream and real life after she wakes up.
Towards the end of the opening scene, the picture fades in to a colour that you would recreate using wet teabags in primary school, before fading to black. This colour gives connotations of old-fashioned times, which again relates to this idea of death and spirits. During the lady's dream the colours shown in the scene are very dull and on the darker end of the colour spectrum. The directors will have purposely done this to ensure the audience are aware of the scary and dark narrative that is awaiting. Everything that I have interpreted from the low lighting applies to this dark colour scheme. When the female character wakes up from her dream and in to real life, the colour scheme switches to a much brighter one, however dark colours still exist subtly. This could be conveyed as the lady and other characters being innocent and pure, however dark, evil spirits are still close by and ready to haunt. This bright colour scheme contrasts with the dark colour scheme shown in the first part of the opening scene, and this could portray how different the spiritual world is compared to the real world that we live in. The scene finishes with a fade to black, which reminds the audience of this dark and evil narrative that is about to start.
In the basement style environment seen in the first section of the opening scene, there are lots of props, giving off a cluttered look. This could be a code used by the directors to inform the audience that this area has not been lived in for a long time. This code engages the audience and makes them want to continue watching to see if the clutter relates to this connotation of an empty house and the possibility of ghosts and spirits. Props also appear when the dream ends and it becomes real life. These props include camera, microphones, etc. and have been included by the director to ensure the audience are aware this is a horror film; the props are a cultural code and are commonly known to be related to paranormal investigations.
The costumes and sense of fashion is definitely not modern nor current. The clothing worn by the main characters, who come across as paranormal investigators, seem to be rather old-fashioned (1970s fashion), and then the clothing worn by the four ghostly characters seem to be even older! The nun costume links to a historical time because they are less commonly seen in today's society when compared to previous eras.
As previously mentioned, the cluttered atmosphere comes across as the opening scene being set in an abandoned property. This abandoned house environment really emphasises on the scary narrative. When the lady wakes up from her dream the setting changes. The wallpaper and curtains have pattens that relate to a style from the 1970s, which act as a semantic code; the audience will be able to gain additional meaning to work out the setting of this film.
In this opening scene the body positioning of the four young looking, ghostly characters and the main female character is great because it allows for the audience to see all the characters at once and also understand how close/far away she is from them. This is shown in the first screenshot below. The next screenshot shows the female positioned next to a mirror, which is again great positioning. The body positioning of the female character in relation to the mirror shows the audience how close it is and how she is acting around it causes it to come across as scary. Her body language and the focus on the mirror makes it both a proairetic and hermeneutic code. It is a proairetic code because it builds tension for the audience due to the scary atmosphere being constructed around it, and it is a hermeneutic code the mirror is an enigma for the audience - they do not know what it is and it is being conveyed as something that will be important further along in the narrative.

The main female character is represented as brave and independent from the start. Her enthusiasm as she follows the little boy around the basement shows how she is there to do something that she finds interesting, and will not allow fear to get in her way. However as the opening moves forward the plot worsens and she eventually ends up in the arms of who I presume is her husband. This final image of her with her husband totally contrasts with the independent idea; she is relying on someone else for comfort and help. For the audience this will be confusing, forcing them to engage and want to find out how the lady has any relevance with the remainder of the narrative.
The ghostly figures are represented as strange and in turn quite frightening, especially the full black character we see towards the end of the dream. As a horror film, the directors have accomplished the aim of putting the audience on the edge of their seats.
The male character, presumably the lady's husband, is represented as more laid back, however still in a shocked state of mind. He doesn't talk much as his wife is telling him of the situation she has just witnessed, which highlights his laid back mentality. On the other hand, this could be interpreted as him being shocked and terrified for what he is inevitably going to come up against. The facial expressions on the face of the male character further backs up this point, as you can see from the screenshot below it connotes elements of fear and shock.

 There are many codes and conventions specific to the horror genre. From research I have conducted, one of them that can be seen in The Conjuring 2's opening scene is where the lady is in a secluded location (the basement). As an audience, this would build tension because there is nobody around the female character to help her and there is also no seeable way out of there for her. Another convention would be that the power would go out and there would be no light, and this applies to this opening. Although there is no power cut, the light is already out. This could suggest that the lady is possibly being taken back to a time before electricity was even around! Additionally, the eerie music that is being played quietly in the background slightly builds tension for the audience as they anticipate the next scare. This is also used in this opening, from the very start.

Editing is used very well in The Conjuring 2's opening scene because there is a good sense of continuity throughout and ideas/objects the director wants to stand out does. A great example of how this applies to this opening is where the four children are lined up and are staring straight at the female character. Suddenly there heads unnaturally move to face the mirror. This, for the audience, confirms this concept of them being spiritual and ghostly because an action as sudden as that is not natural to a human being. This effect has been created from the editing, which has been done to a great standard.

Continuity editing techniques have also been used. One example is the 180º rule, which is implemented at the end. As the two characters engage in conversation, the camera moves in front of the 180º line of where the two characters are. It doesn't go over that line because it would result in a reverse angle shot, where the character's positions would be reversed. Going against this rule is not encouraged because it becomes very difficult for the audience to follow, which in turn causes them to become disinterested and stop watching the film.

When looking through the opening scene, you can see that the most commonly used shot type is the medium shot. This means that the female character's body is kept in shot from the waist upwards. The director has done well here because although we do not have a full body shot (long shot), we are still able to understand how she is reacting to what is happening. Predominantly using medium shots also allows us to not get confused. With long shots we would probably see too much and start to lose focus on what is actually important in the narrative, and with close-up shots we would see too little and not be able to see everything we would need to to understand the narrative.

I have already included elements that relates to iconography, however I have not gone in to much detail about them. Iconography is what we expect to see attached to a certain genre. In The Conjuring 2's opening scene iconography is used to emphasise on the narrative. The light and dark, but mainly dark, used is iconography because it is something that, as an audience we expect to see in horror films. I have previously spoken about the connotations, etc. of light and dark in the paragraph dedicated to mise-en-scene. There is also the old fashioned style to the property and to the characters involved, which again is conventional in horror films due to its relation to ghosts and sprits. 

I have also spoken about non-diegetic sound and how an eerie underlying sound is conventional to horror films. The dietetic sound however has not yet been discussed. These natural sounds are sudden and fast paced, for example when the cloth is pulled from over the mirror. This causes for tension to stay built up and to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and engaged. If the diegetic sounds where to be slower it wouldn't be as effective for the tension and keeping the audience engaged would be more difficult. Sound plays a big part in audience engagement and is therefore why both non-diegetic and diegetic sounds must be used effectively.

In conclusion, The Conjuring 2's opening scene has been directed well by the directors with an objective of keeping the audience engaged throughout the opening scene with the use of editing, mise-en-scene, sound, typography/titling, generic odes and conventions, shot types and representation.

Audience Positioning/Reception Theory

In class we learnt about the reception theory, which says there are three ways of which a viewer can respond to a media text. I thought that it would be good to include in my coursework because I can use it when I am doing my textual analysis of existing texts. Also I can think about how I would like the narrative of my final task film opening to be constructed and what I would like to be implied from it. I have learnt the three different ways of which a text can be responded to (preferred, oppositional and negotiated) and also what all three of them mean. Due to this I can now apply this theory to my research pieces in the future. 

Barthes 5 Codes Theory

I have embedded a powerpoint presentation about Barthes Semiotics (5 Codes) theory, where each code is explained on a separate slide. I have included this in to my research and planning because I know that I can implement at least one of the codes in to my own work in the final task. By having this in my work I know that it will be of good quality and more understandable for the audience. Currently I do not understand all of the codes, however with revision I will get there quite quickly.

Barthes 5 Codes Theory from rhysward21

Preliminary - Video

This is my video for the preliminary task: