BBFC Film certification

'The British Board of Film Classification is an independent, non-governmental body which has classified cinema films since it was set up in 1912 and videos/ DVDs since the Video Recordings Act was passed in 1984.'

click here for the BBFC website
Every film show in the cinema must have a certification from the BBFC.
In films they look for sex and nudity, taste and decency, bad language, and violence.
There are several certifications:
U- universal, suitable for all
PG- parental guidance
12 A- cinema release suitable for 12 years or older
12-video release suitable for 12 years or older
15-suitable only for 15 years or older
18- suitable only for adults

Examples: taste and decency
Borat- 15
Reason: not an 18 because even though it is offensive to Jews, Sascha Baron Cohen is a Jew himself and they thought that people would understand the irony.

We viewed the trailer of Wild Bill and rated it ourselves judging it by how much of each of the things the BBFC look for are in it. I rated the trailer as 12 but it was actually 12A.

Minutes of the meeting

In today's meeting we discussed lighting. I own the gold version of the lamp in the picture. It is a very bright halogen light that we are going use in combination with a blue gel that will make the light bright enough for the camera but will come out looking like it is night time. Joel arranged getting a couple of different shades of blue so that we could see which one looks best or possibly use more than one to create dimension. The blue should help with the overall end product looking naturally more like night.

Storyboarding our main task

Here is our final story board for our main task. We have already made changes to it in order to maintain continuity and also to make it more specific so when it comes to filming, we know exactly how each shot should look.

Production Pitch

This is the production pitch me and my group created and presented to the class.

Production Pitch Media

It contains the information needed to pitch our idea to the class without giving too much away.

Minutes of the meeting

In today's minutes of the meeting we discussed the name for our piece. The first thing we did was brainstorm some ideas. We came up with some names such as Dream Snatcher, Night Thief and Nightmare. None of them seemed to fit the sequence so we ruled them out. After a while we decided to search some words in Latin and we settled on the name Somnium which is Latin for 'dream'. We decided not to focus on the title until we were sure of what we were doing because it wasn't as important as getting the basic ideas finished. This worked in our advantage because it gave us something to put the name to.

Brief and pre-production stage

In the most recent lessons we have been talking about pre-production. We were given our brief on our project so that we can begin planning what we want to do.

The Brief was to make an opening sequence, including titles and soundtrack, for a fictional film. 

We were told we should research different opening sequences to get an idea for what we might do and to see the conventions for each genre.

If you have seen my previous posts you will know that I have linked a great website called  Art of The Title which is perfect for looking at opening sequences and analysing them. For our first production meeting, Me, Joel and Zoe looked at some title sequences and analysed them. The opening
Sequence we analysed was from a film called Coraline which is directed by Henry Selick and is based on the novel by Neil Gaiman. 

Minutes of the meeting

In our Production meeting Me, Zoe and Joel sat down together to discuss our first steps since the production pitch.
The first thing we did was watch some opening sequences that were of a similar genre to our opening sequence in order to learn the norms for this type of opening sequence.
 We used the site Art of the Title to look at opening sequences and we looked at one in particular called The Conjuring. Please watch The Conjuring video and then come back to my blog to read about what I did.

The opening sequence for The conjuring is very eerie and is and is themed on the supernatural which is similar to ours. We made a timeline of the titles to see what titles appear and when so that we could get a rough idea of what titles we should include and when.

Opening sequences

In an opening sequence it should give us an idea of:

• Genre
• Atmosphere
• Narrative (enigma)
• Setting
• Character

I watched three opening sequences to get a feel for the different conventions for each genre
The first one was Cape Fear and I focused on character. We get a sense of who might be a main character at 1:55 when a man's reflection is shown on rippling bloody water. The bloody water suggests that he is the bad guy or that he gets killed off. Towards the end of the sequence there is a short monologue by a woman she looks twenties early thirties in age. The short monologue suggests that it is her story being told.

The second opening sequence I looked at was Hell Boy 2: The Golden Army and we focused on genre.
I think that the genre is action adventure, this is because the music sounds like war music, there were giant pieces of swinging metal and fire which gave it an element danger.

The last opening sequence I looked at was Forest Gump and we focused on narrative. The music was whimsical but had an element of sadness to it. Throughout the sequence we follow a feather drifting in the wind as though searching for something and this foreshadows a long journey of searching. We meet the main character when the feather lands at his feet and he appears to care for it. The camera stops at his feet and slowly travels up his body to his face. The first thing we see is him wearing a muddy and worn pair of trainers which says that those shoes are important to him. He opens his case to put the feather in and we see the children's book Curious George this might suggest that the story has a happy ending but also that the main character is childlike.

I watched these sequences at: http://www.artofthetitle.com

Preliminary task

For our Preliminary task we had to find a location, storyboard our shots and then film it.
We decided to try storyboarding a different way by taking pictures with a camera phone instead. For our location we chose the sixth form conservatory because there was a door and chairs and we could use it when we needed to.
We then went to our location and took pictures for the storyboard and they are below the video of our preliminary task.

 We encountered a problem during filming and when we were editing we realised that we needed to re-do a shot. This was quite a problem because Zoe, the female in the storyboard, was not there for us to re-do it and Joel, the male in the storyboard, was wearing different clothing to when we filmed it and realised this would be a big continuity error. We realised we would have to re-do the whole thing with just the two us which proved difficult in the shots we were both in. We managed to finish the task within the deadline even though we were set back through determination.

How to make a video

At the beginning of the lesson we were told we need to keep a record of our group meetings we need to keep a form of diary that includes:

• date
• attendance (who was there)
• focus of the meeting
• duration of the meeting
• action points or accomplished tasks

We watched a DVD about how to make a video. It gave a brief explanation of the major roles and what they do.
brief concept:

• purpose
• intent
• target audience
• limitations (budget and time frame)

Pre production includes:

• scripting
• scene breakdown
• storyboard
• shot list casting
• locations
• equipment
• catering
• transport
• informing people

Shot list/shooting schedule:

• where
• time needed
• different camera angles
• when 
• how long

Production:
Use time well and consider safety issues.

• shooting the project
• time management crucial
• quality control (image, sound, performance)
• potential conflict between producer's limitations (time, budget)
• directors creativity
• requires cool heads to cope with pressure and ability to compromise

Post production:

• all elements are combined in editing
• off-line (rough cut)
• on-line (final edit)
• sound mix
• sound mix of final edit

Transferring footage from camera to computer

In our most recent lesson we were shown how to transfer footage from our cameras to our computers in order to edit them. 

There are two processes: one for a camera that records onto a tape and one for digital camera. For a camera that uses a tape we first made sure that our tapes were wound right to the beginning before plugging it in to the computer, this is so that it doesn't transfer only parts of the footage. We then plugged it into the computer and had to record from the camera. when transferring from a tape, the footage comes out as one long clip whereas a digital camera separates every shot into separate clips to make it easier to find what you are looking for. when uploading from a digital camera all you do is turn the camera on, plug it in and copy the slips across. We used a software called Serif to edit our footage so that we only had the bits that we wanted and could then put them into order using the timeline. 

The use of sound and why it is important

In today's lesson we were learning about sound and how it affects the viewers experience of what they are seeing. It is 80 percent of our experience when watching a film or clip.
Sound is used for different reason like a soundtrack to help the viewer interpret the mood of what they are watching.

There are two types of sound:
- Diegetic sound is within the text and can be things such as dialogue or sounds from something such as the buzzing of an alarm clock.
- Non-diegtic sound is added afterwards and is something that is not from within the text, such as a soundtrack. the characters within the text cannot hear non-diegetic sound.

Storyboard of Pixar's short film 'Geri's Game'

This short film is called 'Geri's Game' from Pixar Animation studios.

Pixar often create storyboards of their films before making them and also use them when they are pitching their ideas for a film to their colleagues. I found this interesting because even though it is an animation it still has 'camera shots' to help tell the story and because of the nature of the story camera shot and angle is very important in showing that he is playing a game of chess against himself. In one of the scenes there is shown to be hands from both sides in the shot to try and trick the audience into thinking there are now two people there, when in fact the shot at the end once again shows the old man sitting alone at the chess table. I remember watching this as a young child and being confused by this short film which shows that Pixar has indeed succeeded in what they were trying to do. Pixar created this short for testing their ability to portray humans and clothing.

camera shots

Today we looked at film shots and angles. Different camera shots give different effects to the scene being filmed and are very important in making a convincing film. bad camera shots will break the illusion of what you are watching. Above is a video demonstrating different camera shots.

http://www.mediacollege.com/video/shots/  This website shows pictures of different shots and angles and is useful for helping recognize each shot.

Storyboarding a scene

Over the last two lessons we have been storyboarding a short clip from the film Insidious. It is the ending scene and is very dramatic and there are 14 different shots that we must try our best to recreate. When we completed the storyboard we filmed our own imitation of the scene. One thing that we learnt whilst we were storyboarding is that some templates are square which TV screens are not, so we had to draw added lines to make sure that we get the correct shot composition within the right kind of space. Below are our storyboards for the scene. We hand drew them so some of the lines are faint from being scanned but I did my best to alter the contrast and brightness to make it better.

here is our finished product

Using a camera

In last weeks lessons we were learning how to use a camera properly.

We learned how to set up the camera and tripod and how to wind the tape back to the beginning so that when we came to watch the tape the footage will be at the front and we wont have to search for it. 

After we had set up our cameras and tripods we recorded a few seconds of darkness to check that the camera and tape were working.

Once we were up and running, we went to various places in the school to get different shots and angles to try out the camera and to practice. then we brought our cameras back and got feedback on our footage. The feedback we got was that there was too much head room and that we need to use the tripod more to keep it steady. We acted on this feedback when we went out again to get some more shots by rehearsing what we were going to do before recording it.

Semiotics

Semiotics is the study of signs. Within media it is important for the audience to be able to interpret the signs that are placed within a scene so that they can understand what is happening. Semiotics is split into denotation and connotation. Denotation is what you literally see when you look at something and connotation is what you can infer from looking at it (what it means).
In this picture (left) there is a denotation and a connotation.
Denotation: A woman with brown hair in a white ball gown.
Connotation: She is getting married. We can infer this from the colour of her ball gown which is white and symbolises purity.

Identifying and Analysing shots

In today's lesson we were learning about how to Identify different shots and why they have been used.

Me and my partner analysed a shot from my favourite film Mrs Doubtfire. We counted the number of shots used in the scene and counted 14.

The first shot is a medium shot and these are used quite often through the scene because the characters are all in close proximity. The first medium shot is used instead of a shot reverse-shot because the other man that is being spoken to is not important to the scene or the film. It briefly shows the face of the man Stu is talking to and then it changes to a shot of the kids playing in the pool. this shot ensures we know who he is talking about and shows us what the other man is seeing when he looks over.

In the next shot instead of a medium shot of both of the them it focuses on Stu's face as he is talking and we can also see Mrs Doubtfire's reaction to what he is saying in the background. There is then a close up of Mrs Doubtfires face as we see her/his reaction to what Stu is saying. We then see him/her pick up a lime and throw it, the shot quickly changes to the back of Stu's head just in time to see the lime hit him.

Some great websites for getting started

Last lesson we learnt about some great sites to help us with the course and they are a good resource of information and clips.

The first site im going to talk about is YouTube. Most people are familiar with YouTube, but just incase you're not, I will explain a little bit about it. YouTube is a website where anyone can put up videos or watch other people's videos and it is very easy to use: you simply type what you you would like to watch into the search bar and it will list all related videos.YouTube is useful for looking up other Media students' opening sequences for examples and ideas.

Another useful site is Art of the Title. Because we will be making our own opening sequences, this will be really useful for looking at many different title sequences and helping to find those of a specific genre or watching and trying to determine what kind of film it is and what its about.

Lastly there is the BBFC website that you can visit and learn all about film classification, why they do it, and how they decide on what rating to give a film or trailer.There is also an education resources section which will give you all the information you need to do work on the BBFC or simply get to know it.