Star Production Logo

I made the production logo, in the production logo I used a film strip going down diagonally from top left to bottom right, this connotes the production of a film production. I also used the style 'Poplar Std' font, I used the colour yellow to connote the name the of 'star' as stars are yellow. I added the effect of a shadow behind the lettering to make it 3D and give the lettering an effect. In the film strip I put stars into the bottom and top squares of the film strip, I faded the stars to a gradient that was effective to still be seen but not to bright it takes the colour and effect from the title. I put it on a white background so the focus was just the logo and not the background, while editing the logo, I did add backgrounds on, but when editing I decided it looked better without a background therefore the logo is the focus point.

Our Story Boards

These are our story boards for our filming, each shot was planned on what we wanted within our title scene and opening scene.

Love Triangle Presentation

This was the presentation we produced to simply outline and get all of our ideas together for our film. The main plot influenced the title of 'Love Triangle' as Blake likes Yasmin, Yasmin likes Blake, Charlotte likes Blake and Yasmin hates Charlotte, this creates a triangle.Our presentation told the audience of our unique spelling point of teenage angst and producing social groups we did this as we thought it would be most successful as it'll attract the teenage audience as they can relate to the audience. Next, we spoke about our production company logo, our production company was called Star Productions,this connotes star as rating which will relate the audience to a good rating which will attract the audience to watching the film. The film strip goes diagonally across the logo, which connotes to the audience that it is a film company, the writing we used I set out to be on top of the film strip but fitting into it, so they combined together to make a logo. There was also stars put in the top and bottom part of the film strip to emphasis the star rating and the production name. We spoke about the plot and how Charlotte likes Blake, but Blake is with Yasmin who hates Charlotte. Charlotte is two years younger than Yasmin and Blake and this shows social groups as well as having Yasmin part of the popular girl group and Blake as part of the popular and sporty groups, these represent social groups within teenage angst. Afterwards, we talk individually about each character and what we expected to look like, also talking about the characters also helps link the plot together. Next we spoke about settings and locations we will use and also the music styles we want to use. After that, we spoke about the target audience of our film, as our film is about bullying within school, we set the target audience of 14-19 year olds, as they'll go to the same place every day and will be able to relate it, the story of our film also sends a message across. Our film opening conventions will be Charlotte walking into school with the credits edited into the scene, a voice over will begin of Charlotte speaking of her life along with music to build up layers. Lastly we spoke about Generic Conventions which was of a young girl dreaming being with someone older who already has a girlfriend and within the schooling environment will link to all teenagers. 

Teenage Angst Mood Board

 

This Teenage Angst mood board represents the genre of teenage angst within well-known films. Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging presents the teenage characters and the fact they go to school. Wildchild present teenagers as like to dress up and go out and party. Twilight, Dear John and High School Musical represent the teenage love that teenagers face when growing up. This mood board also suggests the clothing and jewellery teenagers like to wear. With all the teenagers dressed up, girls wearing make up represent teenagers as caring about their appearance.

Popular teen angst film title sequences/opening scenes.

For our genre of film Teenage Angst, we researched a number of different films with the genre to get ideas for our own films. While researching these, we pointed out the sterotypical conventions so that we were able to include them in our own films. We researches Clueless, Easy A, Footloose and East to East. 

Clueless 

Clueless includes:

- Teenage american 'girly girl' characters where their life is being explained - Upbeat non-diegetic music which suggests fun and carefree as the music is 'We're the kids in America' which is a well known pop song

- Cars which show a popular and rich character

- Hobbies for teenagers, such as; shopping

- Voice over which introduces the characters which is bitchy and sarcastic and suggests the power over her friends and dad

- Fashion and how teenagers worry about how they look

- Big and posh house

- Money orientated

- Focuses on the popular girl who has the most power within the school and over her friends

- Parties

 - Titles are in bright colours and in the style of cartoon which suggests a target audience of teenagers 

- Involves layered sounds; cars, laughing and music 

- High-key lighting to show positivity and fun 

- Title sequence isn't chronolgoical which suggests teenagers have busy lives

Easy A 

Easy A includes;

- voice over talking about herself 

- intoduces the favourite teacher which gages his personality through his speech with the students

- The language used represents the target audience of teenagers 

- Using high-key lighting which siggests its a comedy as well as a teenage angst

- Uses low-key lighting in the flash backs of best friend and parents which suggests the difference between age groups (High-key for teenagers and Low-key for adults) 

- The setting is within a choas high school which the camera tracks around the high school which suggests the film about teenagers

- Located in California -as well as the high school, it has the settings of the shopping mall and her bedroom 

- The titles are placed on the floor, in trees, on signs for shops, lockers, on windows and on the walls with the titles placed naturally into the film with them lasting around 3-4 seconds so they are readable (around 15 titles) 

-Shoes are tied up in the tree which represents bullies at schools which is streotypical for teenagers 

- Papers fall out of books which suggests education

- Prop of a cup of coffee is used which is typical for early in the morning

- Bags are used as they are at high school which is sterotypical for a teenager to be carrying a bag

- Different fonts are used 

Footloose

Footloose includes: 

 - Long shots are used of the teenagers dancing

 - Close up shots are used of different feet dancing which suggests it is a dancing and performing film 

- Teenage characters

- Setting of a party which is significant to teenagers

- Tracking is used of the girls dancing 

- Empty red cups all over the floor which suggests the iconography is that they are old enough drink and that they don't tidy up after themselves

- All enjoying themselves and having fun

- The setting is as if the world has been created for the teenagers 

- Partying which is sterotypical for teenagers as dancing, drinking, singing and have fun suggest teenagers are care free and happy

- Represents a social group of young adults of both genders

- The social groups are mixed race which suggest a cultural representation

- No disabilities

- No children 

- No older age group 

- Titles are Serif in neon lights which are joined up in the style of hand writing

- Connotation of the opening and title scene connotes shows, partying, dancing and singing 

 - The setting is also a stage as on the close up of the feet, the floor is moving when they are dancing

- Also the setting is outside

- The music is loud and upbeat which connotes partying and dancing 

- Diegetic sound is used of them singing along 

- Diegetic sound when the car crash happens

- The sound is layered, non-diegetic sound of the music, diegetic sound of them singing along, feet dancing on the stage, teengers talking in the car and the sound effects of the car crash 

- Titles/Credits are in the same style, colour and size The Opening scene starts when the teenagers get into the car and the music starts. However the opening scene could also start when the teenagers have a car crash. 

East to East 

East to East includes;

- Up beat, loud non-diegetic music

- The colour white is used for the titles/credits

- The setting focuses on a relgious parade

- Teenagers are sneaking about and causing trouble which is stereotypical of teenagers

- Setting of a community celebration which suggests the community are close 

- British 

 - Family orientated which suggests the families are close not only as a family but with other families too 

 - The film also suggests social realism therefore connotes real people who are working class and ordinary 

- Children 

- Different generations, children, teenagers, adults and the older generation

- Located in Manchester

Similarities of the four Teenage Angst film I have researched

While researching Teenage Angst films and after looking at, Easy A, Footlose, Clueless and East to East, I recognised a few Similarities.

- There is always a central character which is normally a teenage girl.
Regina George is the centred and 'popular' teenager within the film 'Mean Girls'.
















 - The theme of the film is related to growing up Georgia and Ellen from 'Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging' are applying make up which connotes growing up. 










- The setting/Location is either their homes or their high school/college. The image is a PE class in the film 'Mean Girls' this connotes teenage angst genre is centered around a high school/college.

- In films the lighting is mostly set as High-key - Props used are always related to the setting Olive from 'Easy A' at in a classroom with papers in front of her, this connotes that she is in education. However, she also has her phone in her hand, this connotes the obbession teenagers have with their phones.

- Voiceovers are common which are used to introduce the central character and other characters.


 - Colours and the style of fonts within the titles/credits are bright colours which connote funny to the audience. This is the title of the film 'Clueless' the title uses colours and stereotypically bubble writing which connotes to teenagers
















- Some can be animated

Conventions of a Teenage Angst Film

While researching Teeange Angst films, although I found similarities between the different films I was able to make a list of the conventions of a Teenage Angst film.

- Teenage characters

- Always an aspect of 'fun' - Drinking, dancing and singing

- Parties

- Up beat and loud diegetic music

- Films also connote a bad representation of teenagers

- Focuses on social groups mainly in high school/college

- High-key lighting used

- Values; friendships and relationships (Hedionism)

Title Sequence of ParaNorman

This picture shows the titles used within the title sequence of the film ParaNorman

Company Logos

Dream works connotes a high budget productions. The lighting used lights up the edge of the clouds which emphasises the little boy fishing from the moon. The little boy fishing from the moon connotes, the film production is made for everyone as he could catch anyone from fishing. The little boy also connotes the film audience of children. With the image being high in the sky above the clouds, connotes the high status of the production company.  Dream works production has clouds and stars which emphasises a fantasy genre.

Film 4 connotes with the number 4 being emphasises it shows a variety of different films. This represents the genre as being world wide along side with the audience as different genres attract different audiences. The colour white used on top of the red background connotes the importance of the word 'film'. This indicates the production produces films. The red background stands out and is eye catching to the audience as its a bright colour. However, with the simple being simple and bold, plain writing connotes the films shown through this production are plain and simple. The number 4 suggests seasons of the year which connotes the production being produced all year round which attracts a world wide audience.

Take two productions connotes a low budget for the production as it represents the production as doing it twice. This connotes, the first time doesn't go well or right therefore it has to be filmed twice. The two 'T's are on an angle of upwards this connotes the film as being onwards and upwards of improving.

 20th century fox connotes the production is a high budget as the lighting lights up the statue with the name of the production. This connotes the importance of the production and the bright colours attracts the audience. The lighting used are also film production lights which represents the production as being a film production. The low angle shot represents the importance as it's looking up to the production's statue which also shows its importance. The sun set in the background give the opportunity of the statue to stand out, with the dark calm colours used within the sunset allows the lighting on the statue to stand out. Also the low shot angle gives the opportunity of the statue being 3D, this shows the importance of the production. 

Paramount production connotes a high budget and high quality with the representation of using mountains. With the name 'Paramount' at the top of the mountain connotes the production is the highest production and well made. The stars placed in a circle also emphasises the high quality of the productions as it represents the rating of the production/film.The stars also connotes Disney and film production.

Warp production connotes a world wide audience with the symbol uses in the background. The shape of the logo is a circle which also emphasises on the world wide audience as it represents the world, with the name and logo inside the world. The shaping around the name 'Warp' is like lightening which connotes the high quality of the productions. This also connotes the production as having a high budget.

 The Walt Disney logo uses an image of a castle in the background, the castle are buildings which is associated with high class and powerful people. This represents Walt Disney as being high quality and high budgeted. The lighting lights up the castle with the background dark and calm colours around it which emphasises the importance of the castle as it sounds out. The colour purple is used in the sky and the water in front of the castle, this gives a calm and shine to the logo. Walt Disney is also written in silver which represents class.

The Selfish Giant

The Selfish Giant

The Selfish Giant was released on 25^th October 2013 with a star rating of 7.4 lasting 91 minutes with an age rating of 15. Clio Barnard both directed and wrote the film with the film starring Connor Chapman, Shaun Thomas and Sean Gilder. 

Making

The Selfish Giant is a tale about a 13 year old called Arbor and his best friend Swifty.  Arbor is foul-mouthed and has anger issues. They were excluded from school and were outsiders in their own neighbourhood, the two boys meet Kitten who is a local scrap dealer and the boys begin to collect scrap metal for him using a horse and cart. However, when Arbor challenges Kitten by becoming greedy and dishonest the tension starts to build. This leads to tragic event which transforms them all. It emphasises unemployment life and why there is ferocious competition in the scrap business, with the boy’s mothers struggling with rent the police and social services are continually turning up at their doors. They are unable to pay their utility bills and are reduced in to selling their own furniture to enable them to survive. This emphasises the smack head and drunkards in which violent is undertaken, Arbor represents this in the playground and most terrifyingly in Kitten’s yard. 

Barnard does look for humour and lyricism, however, the boys are an odd couple, one is small and scrawny and the other is very big but they do stick up for each other. 

The film is inspired by the Victorian fairy-tale of the same name by Oscar Wilde. The characters of The Selfish Giant are based on people Barnard met which researching The Arbor in and around Buttershaw in an estate in Bradford. The research involved Barnard meeting a 14 year old boy called Matty who had been scavenging mental to sell to scrap dealers from the age of 11. Matty had built a makeshift stable in his mum’s council house garden which is where is kept his horse who would pull his cart for the scrapping. Matty could make up to £200 a day when scrap prices are high but his business was threatened when the local council threatened his family’s tenancy is the stable wasn’t taken down. By his research Barnard combined these two contradictory genres, fairy tales and social realism to make the tale of The Selfish Giant. 

This trailer gives an insight of the semantics within The Selfish Giant. 

The Guardian referred Barnard’s film as heartfelt and passionate, fluent and supremely confident. The Telegraph connoted Barnard’s film as so skin-prickling alive so it does make the audience want to watch it. MOVIEmeter

Gravity and Self Gaint's Characters.

Gravity I found a review of an astronauts thought on the film ‘Gravity’, I thought this was effective as he would understand what being in space is like as he would have experienced it. He felt that the scene where Sandra Bullock flips out of her spacesuit in a couple of seconds very amusing, this is because he knows that to do that is impossible. He says it takes about three minutes to wriggle into the upper torso section and he says for what she is wearing underneath it is not appropriate when they do the job. He says under the spacesuit they wear long-johns, a cooling suit which is covered in narrow tubes that are filled up with water and a nappy this is because a spacewalk usually lasts about eight hours and this design is the only way to keep them well-hydrated. He says he understands why the film has been with Sandra in them clothing as if she was wearing a nappy the tickets wouldn’t sell. He also believes that her character as an engineer sent to attach some device to the Hubble telescope on a spacewalk after just six months of training is unlikely. However, astronauts do go up with that experience but much rather a space tourist not a fully-fledged astronaut. He also says the shuttle that Bullock and Clooney use to get to the ISS has actually been retired and the only vehicle they use to get there and back today is the Russian Soyuz rocket. However, he does say the film does capture what it is like to be in zero gravity, how difficult it is to move, how they have to struggle to stop themselves from just rotating endlessly. The Selfish Giant Characters; • Conner Chapman as Arbor • Shaun Thomas as Swifty • Sean Gilder as Kitten • Lorraine Ashbourne as Mary • Ian Burfield as Mick Brazil • Steve Evets as Price Drop Swift • Siobhan Finneran as Mrs. Swift • Ralph Ineson as Johnny Jones • Rebecca Manley as Michelle 'Shelly' Fenton • Rhys McCoy as Daniel • Elliott Tittensor as Martin Fenton • Kayle Stephens as chip & pin driver

Gravity

Gravity was released 7^th November 2013 with a rating of 8.5 that lasts for 91 minutes rated at a 12A. The director was Alfonso Cuaron who also wrote the film alongside Jonas Cuaron. The film starred; Sandra Bullock, George Clooney and Ed Harris.

Gravity is a 3D science fiction thriller with Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts who survive the mid-orbit destruction of a Space Shuttle and they attempt to return to Earth.

Alfonso wrote the film with his son Jonas and attempted to develop the film at Universal Studios. However, after the rights to the project were sold, the film was developed with Warner Bros instead.

Making

The making of ‘Gravity’ had huge hurdles to face before it could achieve lift it. With the filming and planning stretched throughout four and a half years developed with Warner Bros. The production did take a rocky start on the first day of shooting when a special camera that was being used by the crew had broken down, the camera would capture the extreme close ups on Bullock and Clooney as it would hurtle closer to their faces just before it stopped inches away from their faces. For this to be solved the technology had to be developed.

As most of the film unfolds in cold vastness of space, which was clearly a location out of reach, Webber and his company Framestore had to devise into a scheme that would make it appear as though Bullock and Clooney were floating weightlessly hundreds of miles above the earth.

With Alfonso wanting long shots, with the film opening with a shot for 13 minutes and three shots account for 30 minutes on the screen. This was seen as a problem as there was no hiding as most films you can hide behind a cut but with ‘Gravity’ there were no cuts.

The film also aimed to be photo-realistic, ‘Gravity isn’t a fantasy, it unfolds in the present day. A soon as the audience is in a fantasy the audience is more forgiving to what they are watching, whereas if they’re judging realistic events, the accuracy of how the fun rises or what part of the earth they’re passing over at any point becomes so essential. For the technical challenges, Webber relied on a multimedia approach which involves everything from digital effects to wire work. There was also something constructed called the ‘light box’, this was a 10 foot by 10 foot space which had more than 4,000 LED light bulbs and was functioned as a giant television screen. This enabled the team to get any computer graphics image they wanted in order to get the light from the sun and the stars. The box was used to roughly film around 60% of the film.

Around 80% of the film is substantially a visual-effects creation and the other 20% contains a significant amount of effects work. As there was a number of digital enhancements required for each scene Cuaron and Lubezki had an enormous amount of pre-production work.

All the lighting and most of the shots were mapped out all before the actors ever set foot on the stage, every camera movement was programmed into a two-ton robot before the shooting even began.

Marketing

As Alfonso hadn’t made a film since 2006, Sue Kroll helped campaign ‘Gravity’. In late July the promotion of Gravity hit off with a key stop at Comic-Con, this was there fan boys were shown around six minutes of the film footage. With this, the film was emphasized on the Big Three late-summer festival where it generated a burst of strong reviews. Sue Kroll says that being promoted at a fan like Comic-Con at the three late-summer festival was very unusual and a rare combination.

The promotion led the audience to believe and feel they were outer space with Bullock and Clooney after space debris destroys their space shuttle. They also used a tag line, ‘Don’t let go’, this appeared of posters and the trailers. This tag line would bring the audience’s attention in as they will want to understand the storyline of what can’t be let go.

Warner Bros was targeting a broad audience with the trailers and spots of the film occurring on the run of football games, morning shows and TV season premieres. It is also believe that Bullock is a huge asset as the studio released ‘The Blind Side’ starring Bullock which had over 300 million worldwide views and won her the actress Oscar.

It is believed that both men and women care about Bullock as an actor and she can attract a wide audience as people care about what happens to her character. Therefore, with trailers and posters leading the audience to believe she is in danger outer space, it’ll attract an audience to ensure Bullock is safe.

There was also celebrity reference of ‘Avatar’ director James Cameron who says he is a huge fan of ‘Gravity’. Non-Spoiler marketing was used as trailers didn’t give away the best parts of the film, wherefore it’ll get the audience talking and will attract them in to view it.