Feedback - Miss Spencer

You have made an excellent start to your portfolio Katie, You have written about the connotations, the conventions of the genre and clearly shown understanding of the openings of films. Ensure you use this research when planning your own film opening!
At the moment I would say your work is a level 3 border, and in order to improve you should:

• Embed the film opening that you are analysing in each post
• Discuss how this film may or may not influence your own work
• think about why certain elements are used a little more.

Horror movie Analysis - An American Haunting

An American Haunting- Movie Analysis

I've analysed the opening of An American Haunting. A horror film about a possession, a convention of some types of horror movies. 

The first thing we see is some text written in red. This connotes the idea of blood and death. It is a popular convention used in most horror films and is easily recognized by the audience to show to them this film is a horror. The music played during these opening credits is almost silent but then goes very high pitch and screechy, which would scare people as it is a gradual increase of the tempo of the music causes peoples heart to increase with fright. 

A denotation of a wooded area covered in snow and with an old grand house in the background is the first image we see after the opening titles. This setting looks very innocent however the idea of winter (snow) can connote to symbolize death as during winter, living trees and flowers all die. This sets the idea that this movie is about death. 

Suddenly a girl is seen looking panicked and running through the trees, also she is running away from something. This connotes to the idea of the damsel in distress type character. She is scared and running away from an unknown entity and this is shown through her fast movements and heavy breathing. Long shots and P.O.V (Point of view) shots are used to show how distressed she is and how much she is panicking. The audience is not shown what she is running away from which adds to the idea of fearing the unknown.

Close ups are used on the door handles when the girl tries to open the door and when the unknown thing tries to enter her bedroom. This connotes to show the tension in the air and adds to the scary atmosphere being created by not knowing what she is running from. P.O.V is used as to show what the girl is seeing, it is used especially as she runs to give a shaky effect to the scene. The girl finds a letter knife which is another convention of the horror genre as knives are usually associated with death and murder. Finally the audience gets to see what the girl was scared of- a dead girl which is shown for less then 3 seconds. The dead girl has black hair and is deathly pale which adds to her creepy nature and horrific look. 

Another iconography of horror films are children's dolls. In this movie  a creepy doll with a large crack in its face is used. This connotes to show how distort life is and in this movie has an even greater significance as the doll represents innocent but due to reasons explained in the movie this innocent is broken just like the dolls face. Another denotation shown is the mother character drinking vodka and looking at a photograph of her daughter and ex-husband. This suggests that she is unstable and much like the doll she is tore apart by her divorce in this case.  

The mother finds and reads some old letters written in the 1800's warning whoever is reading about an dangerous entity and that reading these letters could save your life. The letters are read by a male voice over which sets the scene for rest of the movie.  

This movie would be a good influence for my movie because it has lots of conventions of horror films which I could make my movie ( if i decide to make a horror film opening). It includes lots of different camera shots and movements such as P.O.V and high angle shots that I could also use in my movie to make a fast paced scene more dramatic. This movie however wouldn't be a good influence though because it seems too "corny"- the story line seems very 'been there done that'.

Movie Opening Analysis- Mission Impossible 2

             
Mission Impossible 2 Analysis

I studied the opening of  Mission Impossible 2 for my analysis. The opening starts with an establishing shot which sets the scene of a Grand Canyon type area. This connotes to show the idea of loneliness and struggle as the area is isolated and has rocks that are extremely high with dangerous rock faces. The next scene is a medium shot of the main character (Ethan) rock climbing. The connotation for this is that Ethan is a daredevil and likes a challenge such as climbing a rock face. What I was also able to denote from this was that he uses no safety equipment which shows that this person has no fear and that nothing scares him; he has no fear of possible death if he falls.  

Another denotation is the bird screeches that are heard throughout the opening scenes. The connotation for this is that it shows the height of the rocks and the type of bird is most likely an eagle. That then again connotes to the idea of the main characters personality as eagles represent freedom in America but also the eagle is a predator and is at the top of the food chain and shows that the main character should be feared by others.

Another scene shows Ethan jumping from one rock to another. The shot has been slowed down to show that he is in a life and death situation. He misses the landing and rolls down the rock face. This connotes again to the idea of panic and struggle .

Another denotation is when Ethan makes a crucifix position after managing to  hold onto the edge of the rock face that he just nearly fell off. This connotes the idea that he is a saviour like Jesus was said to be and therefore reflects to the audience the type of person this character is- a good person. A close up of Ethan's face shows his struggle when faced with a huge task of climbing a rock to the top. It also connotes how determined this man is because he is faced with a situation where he has to carry on as he has no choice in the matter. 




A crane shot denotes the part when Ethan finally reaches the top of the rock. This shows the audience just how far he has travelled and his achievement of climbing the rocks therefore it also shows how the character is able to go to great lengths to get what he wants. In this case what he wants is to climb the rocks. Another denotation is a close up of the iconic sunglasses first shown in the first Mission Impossible movie. This connotes that for audience members who might not have known what film they were being shown but they then recognize the sunglasses and realize they were watching a Mission Impossible film. A pan of Ethan wearing the sunglasses which displays his mission. This connotes that the film is very high tech and focuses on the fact that Ethan is the most important character in the movie. The final shot is when Ethan throws the sunglasses "towards the audience" and they explode. This connotes that the movie is an action and is very fast paced. 

Feedback - Miss Spencer

An excellent prelim task Katie, you have included many of the elements I was looking for, and have added lots of your own ideas and style to the film.

The evaluation is fairly detailed, you have discussed the elements like 180 degree rule and match on action and even mentioned when you used them.

In order to improve this work I would suggest that you:
Commented on what happens if you break the 180 degree rule
What went wrong that you can learn from in your main task.
How this project will help in your main task.

Preliminary Task evaluation

Preliminary Task Evaluation

The 180 degree rule  is used when an imaginary line on the floor is between two actors who are having a conversation and the camera person is not allowed to cross this line when filming an over the shoulder shot. If this line is crossed then the scenes would not make sense to the audience watching.



A match on action is a series of shots with the first shot being either a medium or long shot and the second shot being a close up. For example, in my movie there was a long shot of the main actor on his own then the actress came into shot and handed the phone to him. A close up of the passing of the phone was shown and then back to a long shot of the actress walking away and the actor using the phone. 

An eye line match is when two actors are in different locations but are facing each other as if they were in the same room talking to each other face to face. So their eyes are looking at each other but in different locations. In my movie, I did an eye line match when the villain actor picks up the phone and talks to the main actor ,via the phone,but is facing the right. The main actor then speaks but is facing the left. This shot could have been improved upon by having the actors face more to the left and right so that they look as if they are genuinely talking to each other face to face.

The filming process of my movie was fairly simple. The types of shots I used included close ups, medium shots, long shots and an establishing shot which showed the college where I filmed my movie. The location we used was very suitable as I was able to get lots of filming locations within the grounds of the college itself. One problem I faced was the amount of background noise in some of the shots but this was easily solved by deleting the audio to the shot. I used a tripod so that all the shots were stable therefore this gives a professional look to my movie. The tripod was also helpful in doing tilts and pans which were both used in my movie. A tilt was used when the villain actor picked up the phone and brought it to his ear and a pan was used when the main actor was running towards the building. 

I edited my movie in Adobe Premiere Pro which was very helpful as it offers a large range of editing tools. I learnt how to include a green screen explosion which features at the end of my movie. I used a cutting tool to shorten shots down so that they were suitable to use in my movie. I also added an audio to the background of my movie to give it more tension and to show it is an action film.