R&P Rush hour

Rush hour is classed as a comedy movie with a sub topic of action and the opening two minutes consist of:

Sound:
The movie starts with some non diagetic music which it the rush hour theme tune. As Rush hour is a series of movies, the theme tune is important because it will make people associate the theme tune with the movie and so it may help with the success of the other rush hour movies. The sound used is a type of oriental music which makes you assume that there is some sort of Chinese influence in this movie.


The Movie starts with a extreme long shot of the scene and also because of the background theme tune which compliments the shot very well, the audience gain a understanding that they are currently watching a film that starts in china.
     There are a number of fast cuts focusing on the bunkers. This tells me that there must be a lot of bunkers and also that the contents of the bunkers will play some part in the story line. 
     It is quite difficult to identify the key characters in the opening two minutes but one indication is a blonde individual whose smoking. This gives an indication that he is different to the others and so looks as if he has more prevalence  Moreover in movies, the "good guy" doesn't really ever smoke so this suggests that he is a bad character. A final reason why i believe that he is a fairly important character is because almost all shots were either extreme long shots excluding the close up shots of the bunkers whereas the guy who was smoking was seen in a medium shot again suggesting that he has more prevalence than the other individuals in  the piece of text. 
    The comedy genre (which is the main genre) is not really shown in the opening two minutes but the sub genre of action is more important. This is shown by the fast paced cuts and the gun that Jackie Chan was holding. The lighting is natural and set in the night. The night tends to denote danger and supplements the fast pace of the movie to show the action side.
    The mood seems very bleak and i believe that the lighting contributes to this as it helps suggest that something is happening that is not good. 


                                          
                        

Preliminary task evaluation

Our preliminary task had to be about two minutes long and we must have included a match on action shot when opening the door and small conversation. The aim of this was to get to grips with different camera shot types and angles.

What we done well:
I believe that we had a good understanding on what shot types we should use such as the over the shoulder shot when Matt and I were face to face. Another thing I believe we had done well was our editing where we had to take a number of shots and put them all together. I believe it looks like one straight shoot in which there were no stopping which makes me believe that our editing was done well. Moreover i think that we had a clear idea in what our idea for our preliminary task was going to be despite it taking a little bit of time. As soon as we started shooting, the idea for the video just came naturally to us. Also we gave Matt the most camera time and so he received more prevalence.

What we didn't do as well:
One thing i think we could have done better was time management as filming took quite a long time as the classroom was busy when we wanted to film it. Another thing we could have done better was to show more of a hatred between Matt and I. This is because I needed to be seen as a bad character but i could have done more such as actually spoke to him when we were face to face.
   One big error we made was going against the 180 degree rule where Mohammed looked as if he was actually sitting in two different places.

   Overall I believe we done fairly good in our preliminary task as we all worked hard on different aspects and put them together rather well. We came across quite a few problems whilst filming but we overcame them and managed to finish filming. We could have improved our time management by finishing filming earlier but as we didn't have a room, we were still being productive by editing the bits we had filmed and comparing angles as we filmed some scenes a number of times at different angles to find the most suitable  To conclude, I believe our preliminary task was a success. The biggest problem for us was when we went against the 180 degree rule and this tells me how such a small factor can make people confused.

Rocky balboa- intro analysis

                             

The film i will be analyzing is Rocky Balboa which is a an action/sports genre. The movie begins with non-diagetic sound which is the famous Rocky theme tune and as this movie has a sequel, people will react more to the theme tune because it is well known to Rocky.
    The first minute is in black and white, this shows the history of Rocky and it shows some clips of Rocky's past. Again this shows that he's old and gives us an indication that he's well past his peak.
    Then we come to a fight in which we experience our first bit of diagetic sound from the commentator. Moreover one of the boxers is gaining more prevalence through screen time and what the commentator is saying for example "he's won again!" This Indicates that he is the best in the world and so may be Rocky's next opponent. Again the fight is shown in black and white to tell the audience not to forget that Rocky is old. old. There is some gloomy non-diagetic music alongside some boos from the crowd which make you feel that the individual rocky's going to fight is a bad character and this is when we really understand the story line where bad boxer fights the fan favorite in Rocky. Throughout the fight, there are a lot of cuts which show the fast pace of the fight and help the audience really understand how good and aggressive this fighter that Rocky will fight actually is. There are a number of shots used during the fight but directly after the fight, Dixon; the bad guy got a close up and in my opinion, during the first two minutes I believe that Dixon looked like the main character. Despite this, people won't forget about Rocky because of the theme tune and the way it's viewed in black and white. The final piece of dialect in the 2 minute clip hypes up Dixon which tries to get the audience to understand how dangerous Dixon actually is and how big Rock's task actually is. The transition between black and white to coloured also tells a story of its own. As soon as Dixon wins, the picture changes and as it turns to coloured picture, you tend to forget about Rocky and the majority of attention is focused on Dixon.    

   The genre is introduces straight away in this movie as the opening scene is a fight. This shows both genres of sport and action and thus we get to identify the genre straight away.
   In the opening two minutes, Dixon is shown as a bad character through the boos of the crowd and the comments from the commentators. Moreover Dixon is a difficult character to identify because the reason he is a bad character is because he is too good at boxing.


 

Preliminary Task- Diary

3/10/2012

The aim of our preliminary task was to get to grips with the idea of filming and putting the new shot types into practice.  

What we had to include in our preliminary task was somebody opening the door via a match on action shot and then we will have to have a short conversation.

The Shot Types We Used:

During our Preliminary task, we practiced a variety of shot types and it helped me understand what shots are suitable and where. Some shots we used were:
 high angle shot- When you look down at the character.
 Low angled shot- When you look up at the character.
 We also done a 180 degree angle shot which ensured the viewers won't get confused.
 We also done an over the shoulder shot.this showed that we were staring at each other in a   hate full manner.

Where we chose to film:
      We chose to film in the in the English corridor and also used a different classroom. This then proved not to be the best decision as this room was always busy with either classes or meetings. This prolonged the filming and thus gave us less time to edit our film. We thought this room would have been a good decision because it wouldn't be noisy so the dialogue would be clear but in hindsight we found it quite difficult to film. Despite this, it helped build the scene as people would understand that the students had a free. Mo wearing his headphones gave us a subtle indication of this. 

Planning:
What we had to do first is put a script together for the short conversation at the end of the video. The part I played was right at the start of the scene when Matt and I bumped shoulders to make it clear to see we didn't like each other. Although we didn't really have a script at the time, this  scene gave us a vague idea on what our conversation will be based on. This made our writing for the conversation much easier and i believe the conversation came more natural to us instead of us needing to think about it.

Filming:
  We just completed the corridor scene in which Matt was coming from one direction and i was coming from the other. We met at the middle and clattered shoulders. This will help the audience understand that we are not friends and that was my main input in the video. 
     In this scene, we also squared up to each other which gave the perfect opportunity to deliver the over the shoulder shot in which we had to ensure that we don't cross the 180 degree line otherwise it would confuse the audience and it will seem that we were looking at each other from different directions. 
    After the shoulder clashing, Matt then went to open the door where we done the match-on-action shot in which we saw him open the door and then come through on the other side. This was a required shot in the preliminary task.
   Its been a few days since we've been filming as our classroom hasn't been free but we have finally finished filming in which we included the short conversation between Matt, Mohammed and Aaron. We used both the high and low angle shot when Matt was walking towards the others. Matt started the conversation by shouting which i thought may catch the viewers attention. 

   One other thing we focused on was shunning out the main character who was Matt. We done this by giving him the most camera time so people won't forget him and so they understand that he is the main character. 

   


Problems we faced:
We've been having a lot of trouble filming as the room was not free. This means we have to film after school in order to finish the filming. We've done some filming in which we put the 180 degree angle shot and completed filming in the corridor. We also done the action match action shot where Matt opened the door and then we saw him on the other side. This just means we have got a lot of editing to do because we were practicing with a variety of shot angles so we now have got to see which angle is the best and also use a variety of angles as well.

After school:
We have just finished filming the scene where Matt, Mo and Aaron had there conversation
        

Research and planning

There is limited evidence of research and planning.
Make sure you upload your preliminary task.

You MUST have at least 8-10 posts on here by next Tuesday, including:
- Analysis of at least 4 different genre openings (analyse how mise-en-scene, sound, plot convey genre to audience)
- Preliminary task diary
- Preliminary task evaluation
- own ideas mind map - what genre? plot? etc
- Analysis of at least 2 openings of films from your chosen genre