Friday 30 September 2011

Codes and Conventions of film openings



Most film openings start off by showing the audience the company logo that made the film. In the scary movie (0:01) which you will see below, this shows the audience that Dimension Films made scary movie and the sequels.
However different films are owned by different prouction companies, for example Legally Blonde is owned by the company MGM, here is a picture to show you.

 So depending on what film you want to watch, not all of the production companies will be the same.
The genre conventions for the films vary depending on what film you decide to watch, for example if you watch a horror film the audience would expect to see lots of blood/gore and a lot of murders and theres usually a serial killer. Another example is a comedy film, if you were to watch a comedy the audience would expect to see little bits of humour and maybe a bit of slapstick to make them laugh.



The images above are both movie posters from different genres of films, the first poster is of a horror called The Silent House and the second poster is of a comedy called Mr Beans Holliday. By looking at both movie posters, you can see theres a lot of differences between the two genres. In the horror poster the backgrounds black with a red title, also the image is of a girl with blood on her shirt looking scared while holding a latern, this shows that the actual film could be quite scary and broody with bits of blood/gore and violence in it. Unlike the second poster which shows Mr bean stepping out of a train about to go on holiday, in the second poster the background is of a beach with yellow sand and a blue sky and the character Mr Bean looks happy, this shows the audience thats there's going to be a lot of laughter in the film whic is what you would expect when watching a comedy film.

Im most films, whether it's an action, comedy or horror you will see that they seem to have the same actors/actresses playing different characters, for example Carmen Electra has been in different films playing different characters. The 2 images above show her in two different films, in the first image she is in the horror/comedy Scary Movie where she plays a young woman who is about to be killed. In the second image she is in the comedy film Meet The Spartans where she plays the wife of a warrior who is about to go on an adventure to battle.

The camera conventions are the different camera shots used when the film is shown.


The establishing shots for films can be different, for example in the image which is from the film Fred The Movie, the camera shot used is a "birds eye view" because the camera is looking down on the houses so people feel like they are looking down from the sky. However in the image on the right wihch is from the film Scary Movie the camera shot used is a long shot. It is a long shot because the audeince is able to see everything in the shot, the house, the swing and the surroundings.


2000-Scary Movie-Keenan Ivory Wayans.
2008-Meet The Spartans-Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer
2010-Fred The Movie-Clay Weiner
2007-Mr Beans Holiday-Steve Bendelack
2010-The Silent House-Gustavo Hernández

Monday 26 September 2011

Film Opening #no.3


This is is the opening scene to the film 'Prom Night', the genre of this film is a slasher. It is a slasher film because these type of films usually consist of a weapon, and in this film the weapon is a knife. The film opens with a young girl arriving home from the cinemas. When she steps out of the car it is dark outside which is how slasher films usually begin, then the background music starts, it starts off as quite slow but its also scary. This builds up tension as the audience do not know what is going to happen but as the music gets deeper the audience will start to guess that something bad is about to happen. When the audience start to see the dead bodies in the house this builds up even more tension because now they know for
certain that something horrible is going to happen, as the girls mom is running away from the man, the music starts to get faster and which builds up to a climax then when she gets killed the music goes slow again.

During the opening scene, you will see lots of different camera angles, but the most common one you will see is a medium shot. In a medium shot you cannot see the whole background so this will make the audience question what is happening or what is going to happen. The only thing that will give you clues as to how the person is feeling or thinking is their facial expressions.


For example in this particular camera shot you can only see the girls upper body and background, this provides a lot of questions for the audience because they know nothing about the girl, they don't know who she is or anything about her background. By looking at her facial expressions I can tell she is quite unsure or puzzled because herself and the audience know that something isn't quite right. Her body language tells me that she could be scared because she seems quite timid and her body is all closed up.

I believe the target audience for this particular film is teenagers and any age above.This is because of the language being used which isn't suitable for children, also there are scenes of violence and other scenes that 
a sexual nature which again would not be suitable for young children.

The codes and conventions of this film are dark lighting to show that it is a scary film, bright lighting to show that there are some happy but good moments in the film e.g the prom, the background music to build up the climax. The symbolic codes of this film are the weapon which shows there's going to be a lot of blood/gore and violence, the title of the film and the caption underneath.


The caption underneath the poster says "a night to die for" this is quite an ironic thing to put on the poster because when the prom starts, the characters begin to die one by one until there is only one person out of the whole group still alive, the young girl.

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Film Opening #no.2


This is part of the opening scene for the film Fast and Furious (fast and furious 4). The genre of this film is action. I can tell that's it's an action film because when you watch the opening scene, you will see fast cars at high speed, gun violence and a young woman coming close to death. All of these are conventions of an action packed film because when people watch the film, or the opening scene this is the sort of thing that people would expect to see, lots of car speed, explosions,girls and violence/killings. If these conventions was not in a an action film, it wouldn't really be an action film because the audience wouldn't be the least bit interested and they wouldn't be as excited to watch the film.

Another convention of this opening scene is the background music. Although there isn't really any background music, when you watch the opening scene you can hear the sound of speeding cars, cars swerving around on the road and gun shots. This tells the audience that there's going to be a lot of dangerous things happening, which could get the audience excited, also there's a part in the opening where a young woman nearly falls off the truck and she is hanging on with her one arm trying to get back up, then she leaps from the truck onto the car bonnet. This also tells the audience that not only are dangerous things happening, but also peoples lives are going to be at high risk. This could keep the audience watching because they might want to know what happens next.

The target audience for this film are teenagers and adults because there is quite a lot of explosions,car chases,violent murders and there are one or two sex scenes throughout the film. This film wouldn't be suitable for children under the age of 15/16 because the film itself could be a bad influence on its audience. For example if a child watches this film, they might think that what is going on in the film is okay to do in real life and they could end up in serious trouble.

The symbolic codes of this film are the fast cars to signify that the film is going to be an action genre, the girls  signify the sexual nature which is part of the film and the gun shots which signify violence.

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Film Opening

This is the opening scene of the film Scary Movie, the genre of this opening is a comedy horror.
When people watch this opening scene they will expect to see a horror film, that has elements of comedy in it.
 One of the symbolic codes of this particular opening scene is the part when the young girl is running out of the house and she stops to find two signs, one"safety" and one "death" but she runs away from the safety sign. this suggests that that she has chosen the death sign which means she is going to die because she did not choose safety. Another symbolic code is when the killer is in the house and she has a range of different weapons, but instead of going for the gun or knife, she chooses a banana. This might suggest to the audience that she panicked therefore she just picked up anything she could to try and  fend of the killer.

At the beginning of the film, there is no background music, but as the killer and the girl start talking on the phone and she gets scared by him watching her from outside, the background music starts to play building up tension which gets the audience excited because it's all reaching a certain level of climax until eventually something happens.

When i watched the opening scene i expected it to be quite funny but i also wanted it to make me jump, and it did especially when the killer suprised the young girl by apprearing from the curtain when she turned around.
Throughout the film you will a range of different camera angles, but the most common one you will see is medium shots however other shots you will see are close ups.

This is a close-up taken from the opening scene. In most close ups you can only see the persons face and some of  there surroundings, as you can see the woman is on the phone and this creates a tense atomsphere for the audience because they don't know her name or who she is talking to on the phone.
Her surroundings indicate that she is in a house which might tell the audience that the young woman is safe, but by looking at her facial expressions it tells me different because she looks scared and unsure of what her next movement will be. Also it seems that she is looking elsewhere, maybe outside? this again creates tension because the unknown person who is on the other end of the phone could be watching her.

Wednesday 14 September 2011

A movie poster for my groups film genre

This is the film scary movie, the genre of this film is a comedy horror. The reason it is a comedy horror is because it is aimed to make the people who watch it laugh, but to also scare them a little bit. Dim lighting is used for the scary scenes of the film, and high key lighting is used for the funny scenes.

By look at the poster, people might be able to tell the film is a mixture of comedy and horror because of the killers facial expressions. when people look at the killers face, normally they might feel quite scared or intimated, but when people look at this particular killer and how he's smiling, people might laugh and find it funny because you wouldn't expect a masked serial killer to smile.

The poster is there to advertise the film, persuading people to watch it and it is there to show people that it is a funny, but scary kind of film which will or will not get people to watch the film.

When the audience look at the poster, they wont just be looking at the characters, they will be looking at the background. The background is very important because in this particular poster because it sets the scene for the film. for example the film is called "scary movie" and as you can see the poster background is set so the different characters are in the cinema with there popcorn and there about tho watch a "scary movie" just like in this image below.



The three conventions of this film are dim lighting, to create a scary effect on the audience when they watch the movie, dark clothing to show who the villain really is, and finally the scary characters to remind people that the film is a mix between comedy and horror.

Tuesday 13 September 2011

First Decision

Our first decision was deciding who was in our group, when making the opening to our film. In our group we have myself, Chelsea Jay,Rhys Birch and Scott Cook.

We then decided what our genre was going to be, which is a horror/comedy.

Analysing Movie Poster

This is a movie poster of the film Legally Blonde, the genre of this film is a comedy. The three codes and conventions of the film are, strong lighting because the movie poster is very bright and colorful, which shows that by looking at it that its a very funny and laughable which is what people would expect when they watch a comedy film.
 The camera angle for this particular movie poster is a long shot.  It's a long shot because you can see the whole of the poster including the woman, her dog and the people behind her. The reason you can see the whole of the woman is because the film is based around her looks, her personality and the fact that the woman is blonde is really what the whole film is about.
The audience for this comedy is aimed at females. It is mostly aimed at females because the film is associated with the colour pink, which is quite a girly colour. The woman's dog is also in this poster which is very important because it signifies the fact that the woman is very feminine due to the fact that she dressed her dog in pink to match her outfit.
As you can see everyone in the back ground in this poster are wearing dull colours which could show that there quite boring, but the woman is wearing a bright pink dress with sunglasses to match. This shows that the woman is not afraid to stand out from the crowd. The woman is also carrying books like everybody else, this shows the audience that not only is she blonde,but she has brains to match as well as beauty.