Failed attempt

Yesterday was the day we agreed to go down to the fire station and film my film, but, when we got there no one knew that we were coming or that we needed to use the vapour disperser. I explained about my film and said I had spoken to this man whom I had arranged it with, and they suddenly realized what had happened.
The man I had spoken to is apparently prone to organizing things and not telling anyone about it, and he has gone on holiday. So, no-one even knew we were planning on coming.
I spoke to a man called Jason and he looked as if he was quite important there, and he apologized and said we could arrange to do it another day. So, I gave him my mobile number and he told me he would ring me back the following day to arrange when we could it.
He rang me the following morning, thankfully, to say we could do it whenever it suited us. Two of my dancers, Emma Huelin and Laura Wainwright, are in another show and had rehearsals on the Thursday and Friday after so they could not do it then. I told Jason this and he said that was fine and we agreed to do it at 4pm on Monday 15th December.
This has worked out well as it gives us a little more time to organize things as we were a bit rushed making up the dance etc.

This is the poster i have made on Photoshop Elements for my film. I feel that this appeals directly to my target audience and it eye catching. I have chosen a font that I think is appropriate for my film title, and the background picture is a picture of me my friend took with the sun coming through my legs. I think this is good as the lighting is interesting and catches the eye. I used the lens flare on Photoshop Elements to brighten up the picture and add a more interesting effect. I also feel as though this is a appropriate photo as I am posing in a ballet move so the audience will know what type of film this film will be, without looking into it; a dancing one.

I am going to produce a poster for my film, advertising it. I have been looking around at other professional film posters and noticing what they all tend to do and what I like about them.

I like the colour's in this Step Up poster, they are vibrant and eye catching. The background is a street suggesting they are street dancers as they are not in a dance studio. But, looking closely, the dance school they attend in the film, is in the background. This adds suspicion to the audience wanting to find out what happens. The two main characters are the main focus in this poster and because of the way they are pictured; close together, the man holding the woman's hips as if to lift her up, or to bring her close to him, and their lips almost touching - this suggests they are romantically connected as well as dance partners. This will also attract audiences who like romantics. Every film has a catch phrase, a slogan. This is like a little taster, to get the audience intrigued about the film, to get them to want to watch it, for it to be on their minds until they do.

This poster for Step Up 2 is similar to the poster of Step Up in the way that the audience can straight away tell they are street dancers because of what they are wearing and the background. Again, there is a woman and a man in the main focus suggesting there is a romantic twist to the story. There is a spray of water coming up onto the dancers in the picture and they are wet suggesting the dance they do or whatever happens within the film, they are in the rain. This creates intrigue as the audience want to know why they are in the rain and the effect of it looks good. Also down the bottom of the poster there is a big crowd of dancers standing around the two main dancers and characters in the film, watching them, cheering them on, and dancing themselves. This suggests there is some kind of dance off held within the film, maybe a competition? The audience like the thought of this and make them more interested than they were to begin with. Again the colours are vibrant catching the eye and the slogan is at the top of the poster, just like Step Up, making it one of the first things the eye sees when it looks at it.

This is the poster for Stomp the Yard. Straight away, the audience know exactly what type of film it will be and exactly what type of dancing it will consist of. They know this because of the main focus in the poster, the dancer, who is pictured doing a street dance move. We know that there is some kind of competition or show going on because of the crowd standing around the main dancer cheering and dancing. At the top of the poster there is what looks like graffiti, suggesting that this show/competition is illegal and is done in some remote warehouse that the police do not know about.  Again, there is a slogan and it is placed right at the top of the poster.  It is in bright red whereas the rest of the poster are different shades of blues. This will have been to make sure the audience see the slogan as one of the very first things the eye sees. Having a catchy slogan will intrigue the audience to watch the film. The font of the title of the film 'Stomp the Yard' is in big and bold writing. Giving the impression it is what it is; no messing around; giving an impression of this is what the film is like.

This is the poster for the film 'Take the Lead'. It is showing a completely different style of dancing as pose the two dancers in the poster are pictured in is more of a ballroom hold than a street dance move, like the other posters. This suggests the film is more about ballroom dancing rather than street dancing; attracting a entirely different audience. The colour's in the poster are vibrant and eye catching making it easy to spot. This is an easy and effective way of gaining viewers as the eye will become attracted to it and want to see what it is about. The slogan on this poster is different to the other posters i have looked at. The others have all had their slogan at the top of their poster and in a different colour so the eye catches it. But instead, this poster has their slogan underneath the title. So the eye will read the title before the slogan. The slogan is in the same font as the title but smaller. Suggesting the producers want their audience to read the title before the slogan. Also in the same font as the title and slogan, but this time above the title, is the name of an actor who is in the film. Looking at where it is placed. above the title, suggests the producers want the audience to see who is in it before reading the title, this often means because the actor is a well-known one and popular with the audience the film is trying to attract.

I have been thinking about how i want my dancers to be dressed. I think whilst filming the scenes in the dance studio I might have them wearing more formal style of dancing clothes; i.e. tights and leotard or leotard and trousers.  This will make the audience think they are trained in dance and maybe even ballerinas. To enhance this thought I might even put the dancers in pointe shoes for small parts of the scenes in the dance studio. I will not have them in pointe shoes in the scenes outside, instead, i will have them in more loose clothes such as tracksuits and trainers. This make make the audience intrigued as to why the film has suddenly cut from prim and proper in the dance studio to hip hop dancing in the streets; this will hopefully make the audience want to carry on watching. 

I took a picture of three of my dancers in their point shoes:

Step Up 2 - The Final Dance (My inspiration...)

This is the dance in the film Step Up 2 where i got my inspiration from. My film won't be quite like this, as i wont have the crowd in the background and will only have 4 dancers. But this is the effect with the rain I will hopefully get.

One of my dancers; Laura Sheriffs, fell off her motorbike yesterday and in result has fractured her foot. This means she may not be able to dance in my film. She will be fine for the performance but might not make the rehearsals. I will have to think about someone else to fill in for her just in case she can't do it. 

Kat De Luna - Run the Show

This is the Song I will use:

The Dance, The song

Over the last few weeks I have been contacting the Fire station and organizing dates when my dancers and me will be heading down there to film my film. We have agreed on Sunday December 14th. I have chosen the song I will use, it's called Run the Show by Kat De Luna. I chose this as it is an upbeat song and could be easy to choreograph to also. 

I am going to have narrative titles fading in and out during my introduction instead of speech. I felt like speech would have been more difficult to include in with the dance. But if i use narrative titles I can easily fade them in and out whilst showing the dance in the water, but also set the scene and give the audience an insight to what the film is about. These are the titles I have come up with:

December 12th, 1991, one star was born...

There was only one thing she lived to do...

... Dance...

One girl...One dream...One chance...

Now she has to... Run the Show.

I felt as though including the title in with the narrative titles at the very beginning of the film would be quite effective as its the last thing written so will be the words the audience are most likely to remember, and the words 'Run the Show' are included in the song lyrics. Also 'Run the Show' will be the title of my film, i felt this worked as the reasons listed above and also it gives a story line to the film. So i felt this would be doubly as effective.

In between the narrative titles I will show tiny slips of the dance, just flashing up as the title fades away. I think this will be effective as the audience will get a tiny insight to what is to come in the film and it will hopefully be eye catching also.

The fire station i will be using:

Dancers

Here is a list and photographs of my dancers I will use in my film:
Laura Wainwright
Emma Huelin
Emma Reid



Laura Wainwright


Emma Huelin


Emma Reid

This the 'vapour dispersal' that the Fire Station have and are letting me use to get my effect of rain.

Success!

I got an e-mail back from Jersey Fire Station today saying that it would be fine for me film at the fire station. They told me they have a piece of equipment  called a 'vapour dispersal' which would be perfect for what I have asked for. They have asked, in return, for me to help contribute to community safety and help provoke the use of fire alarms.

This is perfect as now I have a place to film and 'rain' I can now begin choreographing the dance.

Here is a copy of my e-mail that I sent the fire station and the e-mail I got back from them:

Hi, my name is Amy O'Brien, and I am a A-level student at JCG.
For part of my media project I need to produce the introduction to a
film I have made up.
I am a dancer and therefore thought about doing a dancing film. I liked
the idea of having my dancers dancing in water and thought about the La
Frigate fountains. However, the water board tell me they are waiting for
a part to arrive to enable them to turn the fountains back on.
This forced me to re-think where I will film the 4-5 minute intro to my
AS film.
I wondered if there was any chance I, plus my dancers, would be able to,
in any way, use part of the fire station to film the introduction. I
have the idea of my dancers dancing in rain, but would have to wait for
a big down pour to happen before I could do this, so, i was thinking a
hose? and point it upwards so the water would fall down onto the
dancers, giving the effect of rain, with a fire truck in the background
or part of the fire station to give bonus effect.
We would not be there for long as we would just need to shoot the dance
a few times from different angles. I understand I am asking a lot! But I
thought I would ask just in case. If this is in any way possible it
would be perfect!
Amy.

Hi Amy,

We would love to help out with your project.

We have an item of equipment called a 'vapour dispersal' monitor which
puts up a rather impressive vertical and horizontal 'fan' of water which
would seem to fit your needs.

However if we were to do this I'd expect a favour in return :-)
something that would contribute to community safety, in particular
encouraging people to fit smoke alarms.

If you come back to me with some preferred dates (at least 30 days in
advance if possible) and ideas of how many dancers, how long and amount
of space required, we will organise something.

Regards

Clive Russell
07797728613
445915
Smoke Alarms Save Life

Todorov’s Theory

Tzvetan Todorov simplified the idea of narrative theory while also allowing a more complex interpretation of film texts with his theory of Equilibrium and Disequilibrium.

The theory is simply this:

The fictional enviroment begins with a state of equilibrium (everything it as it should be in a state of equal balance between powers of any kind, where equality of importance or effect exists among the various parts of any complex unity).

It then suffers some disruption (disequilibrium).

New equilibrium is produced at the end of the narrative.

There are five stages the narrative can progress through:

1) A state of equilibrium (All as it should be)

2) A disruption of that order by an event.

3) A recognition that the disorder has occurred.

4) An attempt to repair the damage of the disruption.

5) A return or restoration of a NEW equilibrium.

I these stages, narrative is not seen as a linear structure but a circular one. The narrative is driven by attempts to restore the equilibrium. However, the equilibrium attained at the end of the story is not identical to the initial equilibrium. 

Today I got an e-mail back from Jersey Water Board, They told me they do not know when the part they are waiting for will come down, therefore I need to start thinking of other destinations where I could film.
I thought about the fire station, using a hose, pointing upwards with the water coming down onto my dancers giving the effect of rain. I liked the idea of shooting my film at the fire station as I could make it look really effective with a fire truck in the background and the water coming down onto my dancers.
So, I e-mailed the Jersey fire station to ask them if this would be in any way possible. Knowing that this is a long-shot, I am expecting the answer to come back as a 'no' but it's worth a try and if the answer is 'yes' this would be perfect.

This is my first attempt at filming a conversation between two people. I had to bear in mind the 180º rule and also I had to think about including all the important camera angles such as; over the shoulder shot, shot reverse shot, close ups, and a shot which shows the both of my characters. I filmed this conversation many times from all different angles to make sure i had a good range of camera shots to include in my film when i come to edit it.

Once i had filmed my short film i downloaded it onto the eMac and edited it on iMovie. This is to get some more practice on using iMovie and become familiar with it. My film is a bit shaky, this is because i did not have a tripod to use so i just placed the camera on my shoulder which obviously was not as steady as a tripod. If i was to do this again or when i come to shoot my actual film i will definitely be using a tripod.

I still have not heard from Jersey Water Board re the La Frigete fountains, so today i e-mailed them asking if they knew anything about the part they were waiting for to come down, and when they think they will next be turned on. Hopefully, i will get an e-mail back soon so i can begin either rehearsing my dancers or looking for another place to film.

I phoned Jersey Tourism to find out what times the fountains i was planning to use turned on, the woman i spoke to told me that the last information they were given on them was that they were turned on from May through to September from 10am - 6pm. She then told me that it is the Jersey Waterboard Enterprise that deal with them, and gave me their number. I phoned them and the lady i spoke to there told me they are waiting on a part, so she took down my number and told me she would give me a ring when they know more.
This has given me a problem i didn't think i would get! I now need to re-think my fountain idea. I will wait until the lady i spoke to at the Waterboard to phone me back, and depending on what she says about when they will get the part in place, i will see if i need to re-think where to film.

Yesterday, i tried dancing in the sea to see how easy/difficult it would be and to uncover any problems that could occur. I soon realized just how difficult dancing in the sea actually is! Everything takes twice the effort and everything ends up in slow motion. This, potentially, could be a problem! 

I have not tried dancing in the fountains i have in mind yet as when i was there they were not turned on. I have danced in the rain before so i know there is no problems with that. 

I now need to find out when the fountains are turned on so i can dance in them and see how easy/difficult it is. I shouldn't think there would be any problems as its pretty much just like dancing in rain.

I have now decided final desicions about my film. I will do it on dance, and i think it will be hip hop/ street dancing. Since watching Step up 2 i loved the idea they used about filming in the rain. I will have to rehearse my dancers for a while and we will work together to come up with an effective routine. Then i will either have to wait untill it pours down with rain or i will do it in the sea/fountains, i haven't decided yet. We will have to practise in both the sea and the rain and decide which one looks more effective. We may find that dancing in the sea is much harder than it looks therefore we might have to change some of the movements to work for the dancers and keeping with the music.

This is an image from the film Step Up 2, i think its a good action shot. Beacuse it is raining the actors/dancers are getting drenched which makes their clothes tight and their hair wet, which is a convention of a dance video/film. This makes it more effective and exciting, especially for females! Also the audience can tell which style of dancing the film is about through the clothes they are wearing and where abouts they are. i.e. if they were in ballet shoes and in a dance studio, we get the impression they are doing ballet.



This image is from Save the last dance. I like it because it shows the dancer in a dance studio with what looks like could be her teacher. Which implies that she is trying to either learn how to dance that style of dancing or just learn how to dance. Because they are in a dance studio it puts the contrast between the hip hop style of dancing which she is learning and the more placed style of dancing, ballet.



This image is from the film Step Up. This image is good because if you didn't know what the film was about it is quite intriguing. They are photographed in what looks like a dance studio or a stage, which suggests during the film they do a performance together. But the male dancer is wearing the type of clothing a street dancer would wear and the female dancer is wearing a dress, as if to suggest she is a more contempory dancer, which is a contrast in itself as these two type of dancers would not usually go together.

Yesterday Charlotte and Me borrowed a camera from the media department and went around the school filming each other doing something i.e. walking from all different angles.
I filmed Charlotte walking out of the lift, i filmed her walking straight towards me to begin with, then i stood diagonally to the lift and filmed from the side walking out. Inside the lift on one side the wall is a mirror, so when i filmed her from the side i could see her in the mirror also, therefore it looked like there was two of her. This looked really effective. i then stood behind her and filmed her walking out from that postion. Then, i walked out with the camera recording so the audience would be seeing what she would be seeing. When we were happy that we had a few different angled shots we came back and downloaded it onto the Apple Mac's. We used a program called 'iMovie' to edit our short film. Mr Bonny gave us a quick demonstration of how to use this program so we could play around with it and become familier with it as this was the program we will be using when we come to edit our actual film introductions we will be making. Fortunatly, last year when i was at Les Quennevais School, I produced a short film for my GCSE ICT project using iMovie, so i was already familier with the program.
We 'cut' scenes down to the only bits we wanted and put in place another scence we thought would go well there instead. We used transitions inbetween the scences to make them flow smoothly and effectivly from one to another. Once we played around with our short film amd we were happy with it, we saved it and went outside again to film another. "Practice makes perfect"!!

This time Charlotte filmed me doing a 'split leap'. We did exactly the same as what we did when i was filming Charlotte and filmed from all differnt angls. Front, behind, side and this time underneath also. Once we were happy we had filmed from every angle we came back in and downloaded it onto the Apple Mac, used iMovie and edited it the same way we did our other footage. Once we were happy with it we saved it and watched it back.

Today i have researched various dancing films looking at reviews on them, seeing what the critics liked and disliked about the film. At home i watched a few film intros on Youtube and noting down more ideas.
Mr Bonny showed us a Youtube clip on movie making and the '180° rule'.

For the last two lessons i have watched a series of film introductions and noted down what i liked and disliked about them and what caught my eye. This was to give me some ideas about the things i would like to use in my film.

Stomp the Yard
Close ups of slow motion dancing
under shot angles
crews/groups
competition
bikes
crowd - cheering
street/hip hop dancing
dance off
back flips
rivelary

Step Up
Close ups of feet - ballet shoes to trainers
contrast between the two different styles of dancing - ballet and hip hop
the ballerinas do the same steps and the hip hop dancers but each in their different style
dance studio - street
shows the two different styles and how they warm up - stretching

Step Up 2
Voice over
street dancing in the street
audience/crowd
'The Streets'
talking about when she was younger - mum dying giving audience an insight to her history
public place - train - masks - hiding identity
recording the prank
running from police - shows whatever they are doing is illegal

Sace the last dance 2
Interview with the dancer
close up of point shoes then trainers
showing hip hop and ballet together - contrast
background - her as a baby, trying to dance
in front - her presently - ballet dancing and then hip hop
keeps cutting from her younger self then older self
as if she is talking straight to us/audience
telling her story - makes it feel personal

Shall we dance?
Trains - sky scrapers - city
voice over - telling his story
suit and breifcase - businesman - not a dancer
sophisticated - suggests sophisticated dancing i.e. ballroom
birthday wish - leaves audience thinking - mystery

By doing this research it has helped me think of lots of ideas i would like to include in my film introduction.

In my third lesson i decided to change my mind about producing a music magazine. I had done something similar to this in Year 11 and didn't really enjoy the process. So i decided to do the Introduction to a Film instead. I knew this would be more work and meant i would have to do most the filming outside of school and in my own time, but i was prepared to do this.
I now have to begin my research for my film project by watching a bunch of film introductions - all genres as i haven't decided on one yet - noting down different effects i see in each film, the way the directors capture the viewers eye, the music - fast, slow, creating suspense - and weather it is a fast pace creating a sense of confusion or a slow pace creating a relaxed feeling.
I understand that i will have to lend one of the school's cameras and tripods to do my filming, this will make it more difficult as i will have to be completely organized and confident where and what i will be filming and how long it will take.

In todays lesson i will begin looking at film introductions on the internet and taking notes on each one.

For the first few lessons we have been around the 'jcgmedia' website, becoming comfortable with it and knowing where our personal blogs are.
We got the given the choice by Mr Bonny to produce a 4 page magazine spread including a local band on the cover and inside a interview with the chosen band. If we chose not to do this we had the second choice to produce a film introduction in the genre of our choice.
I chose the magazine option and began my research. In lessons i looked through a few magazines and noted down pages i liked, the design on the page, what was on the page and certain images that caught my eye. This was to give me some ideas as to what i would potentially like to involve in my final piece. I did this for the first few lessons.